It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been, granted, pretty busy - working, mostly, extra shifts, extra hours… And on my days off, I’ve been busy, too. You see, we [meaning, my parents, really] have a buyer for our farm on the line, and he’s very interested. But he wants my house, too - and of course, if that’s what it takes to sell the farm, by god, we’re selling my house with it. The farm’s been on the market for 4 years and hasn’t sold yet. Now it’s very nearly a completed deal.

But. (There’s always a catch, isn’t there?) The deal hinges upon an appraisal meeting the value of the offer. This guy who wants it? He’s kind of… odd. Richer than sin, 65, wanted to farm all his life, already purchased a farm neighboring ours, just sold a 1.2 million dollar house… And he says if the appraisal doesn’t meet his offer, he’s walking away. No renegotiating, no lowering his offer. He’s just walking away.

Hello pins, hello needles, let’s sit down for a while.

My future rests largely on this sale - if we sell the farm, we can probably buy a place in Billings for me to live, and I may not have to take up begging for alms on the street corners and making friends with the local soup kitchens, you know? Because rent for a single person is expensive. And I’m looking at a thin budget. Too thin, with the price of food, gas, and energy these days. Much too thin. Having a rent-free place would do a lot for me - even with the super expensive utility bills a good sized house would bring, it still won’t cost as much as renting an apartment and paying utility bills. Besides, rentals have one other problem - my cats. I now have three of them, through no fault of my own (I’ll fess up, though, and admit that if I hadn’t inherited my Persian, I may well have picked up another cat somewhere anyway.), and you just can’t find rentals that allow three cats. I’m having trouble finding more than 2 or 3 places that allow ANY pets. And I’m of the belief that you don’t just discard your animals when it’s inconvenient - there are responsibilities that come with owning pets, and looking after them for life is one of them.

The chickens are another matter - they’re not pets, they’re not attached, hell, I’d like to eat some of them. Well, probably not. The ones I’d like to “eat” are the small ones that wouldn’t make for good eating, so nevermind. But livestock is different. Though I’d like to take a few chickens with me, too. Or at least continue to raise chickens. But that is likely not gonna be possible. Still, they might go with the farm, so that problem is taken care of, too! Evidently, the potential buyer’s wife likes chickens! At least, she likes them enough to have a chicken-themed kitchen. Who knows if she’d actually like the real monsters?

So. Anyway. The point of all this rambling is that I am Stressed Out. And if there was ever a time to need a little magic, to need a good energy push for things to end up in the right direction, now is it. I got the basics of the ritual from a book called Grimoire for the Green Witch by Ann Moura, which is one of my favorite references. It’s not Wiccan, exactly, but it’s Wiccan inspired - but I still like it. I like her style. I don’t remember which ritual inspired me, but it was one of the money spells. And of course, it involved a green candle.

Let me just say that I love candle magic. There is nothing more magical to me than candles, except perhaps a waterfall, or an ocean, or the moon. Okay, well, nature itself. But fire. Fire is magic to me. I chose a green candle - a slender chime candle, not a big green one like I pictured. I don’t have a big green one, even a green votive right now, or I would’ve used that. I anointed it in the Blue Moon Water I created last October. It’s the most powerful holy water I have, and I needed a good boost of power. I carved runes in it for prosperity and success. I mixed herbs together, herbs with the same properties - prosperity, success. I burned patchouli incense [as an aside, I didn’t know how much I liked that until I burned it!] for prosperity as well, and set my green candle in a small cauldron.

I lit the candles - my working altar candle, bit and white and fat and symbolizing the divine, and a couple small tea lights for illumination. I laid out a couple oracle cards indicating my intent - security and prosperity and business success. And I visualized what I wanted - the sale of the farm, the deal going through, the purchase of the properties we wanted to buy. When I could see exactly what I wanted, I lit the green candle, and watched it burn. I sprinkled the herbs into the cauldron with it, over the flame. A little reckless, but I liked seeing the sparks. [I didn’t like accidentally melting an herb to my thumb, which was sort of painful, and will be remembered in the future as something Not To Do.]

Then… I walked away. That’s the beauty of candle magic - once that image and intent and power is fused in the candle, your work is done. The candle does the rest. With chime candles, I just let it burn down to a stub. It took an hour, about, perhaps a little more or less. I went on with my morning (it was dawn by then), listened to good celtic music and danced off all the excess energy, and greeted the day. When the candle was just a stub, I blew it out - god forbid I catch all the herbs on fire, haha, wouldn’t that make for an exciting morning? - and let the remaining wax cool. To finish up, I took the wax and herbs and the remains of my incense outside and buried it in my garden.

It was a good ritual.

But I still had an emotional breakdown two days later, and tonight, if I can manage it, I’m going to do another ritual - one to let go of all these doubts and fears of mine so I can move on when the time comes. I’m not normally so terrified of change, but this is a big step, like selling off a piece of my childhood, a symbol of home and security. Who wouldn’t need a little grounding, a little healing, after that?

[As a side note: I got my blocking wires from KnitPicks, so I can block my Loopy Ewe swap partner’s gift at LAST and get pictures soon! And I finished R’s socks. And I’m making a dishcloth for a coworker! Yay, knitting!]

All things evolve - landscapes, plants, animals, human emotions, and spiritualities. In the last four years, I’ve undergone tremendous changes across the board. From city to rural, from Christian to pagan, from doubt and depression to contentment and confidence, and from debt to comfort.

Four years ago, at the beginning of summer 2004, I sat alone in an expensive, soon-to-be-stifling-hot apartment, and searched endlessly for a job in an economy that had just flushed the toilet. I was miserable - hungry, depressed, alone, broke, and struggling with the faith I’d lost several years before. I had no support - my family was out of sight and out of mine, my best friend had moved away months before and refused to so much as drop a postcard with her phone number on it in the mail, my other closest friend was caught up deep in drama with new roommates, and though I lived in a decent sized city, I was too damned shy, miserable, and out of gas to meet anyone new.

My faith in the Christian God had long since abandoned me - or perhaps I had abandoned it. Truthfully, I could no longer reconcile the ‘truths’ of the Bible with either science or my own conscience. It had been a long dark path - five years or more - and it was long past time for God to shine some light on my struggles, to aid me, to guide me, but that light never came.

Four years ago, I was bitter at the world, and the people in it. Everything had changed in the years before. I had changed. My eyes had been opened to worlds and faiths and ideas and ideologies far removed from the safe, comfortable, conservative Christian upbringing I’d been raised in. I had attended one of the most liberal, hippie colleges in the United States - and what an education. My entire world was changed as I met person upon person who didn’t follow the ‘traditional’ path through life.

I met a lovely lesbian Wiccan who worshipped Hera - oh, the shock! Did she really worship some ancient Greek goddess? - and an atheist who “loved Christians” because they were generous at their campus meetings with ice cream and pot lucks. I met women who didn’t shave their legs - or their pits! - and men who wore dresses. I met vegans and vegetarians and people who thought McDonalds was Seriously Evil. I met protesters and Bush-Haters and gay rights activists and feminazis who thought men were Serious Evil. I met artists and writers and singers and poets.

My worldview was forever changed. My world was forever changed just for being there. I never graduated, and I wasn’t the best student by far - but the education I got about life was worth every penny I paid (and every penny I’m still paying).

But four years ago, I was still in the midst of all this change - I was still reeling from it, still fitting the pieces I’d gathered together, still struggling to decide who I was, and what I wanted to become, and what it all meant. What was life about? What was the point of it all? What did I believe, and who the hell should I vote for come November, anyway?

Four years ago, I started proceedings for a divorce. Not a marital divorce, but a spiritual one. Slowly, I was cutting myself away from the trappings of my old beliefs and habits and anxieties, shedding my old skin to make room for new. It started with intolerance, and the accepting of a new code of ethics that begins with: If it harms none, do what you will. This is, granted, a rather Wiccan statement, but it’s a central truth, the core of my beliefs. If it hurts no one, it’s okay. As for the rest - things that may cause harm, things that could hurt - there are other rules, other shades of circumstance and morality to weigh before you make decisions about them. But if it hurts no one, why get worked up? If it hurts no one, it should be free and unrestricted.

With that new code in place, and other personal ethics becoming clearer every day the more I read and thought and interacted with people, the closer I came to understanding myself. And the closer I came to understanding who I was, the more I understood where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do, and what my life - what life in general - was about. And the more I understood that, the more comfortable I became. Depression and angst began to fall away. Self-reliance and confidence rose. I began to live and let live. I stopped trying to change the people around me - and started to just live life… for me. Not for them. Not because of them. But for and because of me.

In four years, I’ve learned to take just about everything with a sprinkling or more of salt. I’ve learned to be a skeptic, to be critical, to be choosy about the things I let into my life. I’ve matured and learned so much… and yet, I’m still a babe in the cradle in this ancient universe. I’ve changed in almost every way, and I still have a long way to go.

In four years, I’ll be 30 years old. In four years, I’ll have evolved all over again - maybe into just an older and wiser version of the woman I am today, my ideas refined, my beliefs strengthened, my path in life clearer… or maybe I’ll have evolved into someone I wouldn’t recognize if I passed her on the street today. Who knows?

But it’ll be a fascinating journey, nonetheless.

Here’s my effort to do some introspective tarot every dark (new) moon. Though I do an entire dark moon spread, the entire thing is a bit personal, and so I’m only going to post the center card each moon, the card I need to focus on and the lessons I need to learn each cycle.

Time of reading: December 10th, 6ish a.m.

Moon Cycle: New (as of December 9th)

Weather: Snow, 23 degrees.

9 of Wands
(click for larger picture)

This cards is from Revelations Tarot, which in use is my favorite deck, simply because it’s so easy to read. It’s meant to be read with some variation of reversed cards. Each card has two images - one right side up, the other upside down, which will be read when the card is reversed.

The 9 of Wands is a card indicating the need of strength, focus, and perseverance. In relation to this month’s troubles and stresses, the focusing and persevering aspects are particularly dead-on. And considering my patience with various situations has run thin, I could use a little strength as well. You know, so I don’t go all homicide on someone’s ass, as has been tempting.

Now to put this card somewhere I won’t miss it for the next 28 days…

So, I never did get around to blogging about Samhain. Bad! *swat* But, I did do a little something for the evening. Not much, granted, like I told A. I lit candles. About a half million of them or so. I spared a thought for those passed on - my grandfathers, but mostly Ed, and little Salem, of course. I put out milk and bread for the land spirits. And I laid out some tarot cards.

I wasn’t really in the mood, to be honest. It crept up on me, the 31st of October, with me decorating like, three days before, and cursing time for moving so bloody fast, and then whoosh. Gone. The wheel turns fast, children, and if you blink, you’ll miss something. Like, entire holidays, perhaps, like the autumn equinox, or that silly one on the first of August (Lammas) that means about as much to me as any other day in August, or even a night like Halloween.

Blink.

We’re five days into November, and it feels like it should still be September 1st or something, except for the chill and the first dusting of snow we had tonight. Time just seems to be sweeping along at a breakneck pace, kind of like Nascar, if you ask me - a circular race to nowhere, just go go go, as fast as you can.

I need to slow down. If there’s anything this year has taught me, it’s that I need to spend more time living in the real world, appreciating the little things in life. No, not just the little things - the real things. Things outside of my own head, outside of my own thoughts. I need to step into this world, the real one, and take a breather from the worlds in my head, and the time I spend on them.

Fresh air. Sunrise. Sunset. A cup of tea. The chickens running around the yard. Yarn and bread dough in my hands. The scent of warming cider and muffins and fresh laundry. Spending time with people - real people, in the flesh. And spending time alone - really alone, not hovering around online chatting with faraway friends.

Tarot did me little good that night - my mind was on other things. But that’s okay - I didn’t need the cards to tell me what I needed to know. I just needed Father Time to come kick my ass into November, to wake me up and say: “Hey, pay attention, girl. Life’s passing you by. Come enjoy it while you can.”

Thirteen Things About Witches

Last year, I posted a TT on Samhain. Read it here. That done, here’s some information on witches!

1. I am a witch. Or so I like to think. Some days, I’m more of a bitch than a witch, but I like to think of that as just ‘part of the package’.
2. Though some beg to differ, not all witches are Wiccans, and not all Wiccans are witches, though most Wiccans are witches, and quite q few witches are Wiccans. How’s that for a mixup? Here’s how it works: Wicca is a religion. Wiccans are followers of that religion. Witchcraft is a practice, like, for example, prayer. Christians pray - but not all who pray are Christian. Some are Jewish, some are Islam, and some are Wiccan. Likewise, Wiccans often practice witchcraft, but not all who practice witchcraft are Wiccan. (For those who want to know, there are even Christian Witches.)
3. Witchcraft generally involves magic. Any type of magic, really, but practitioners of specialized magic (chaos magic, ceremonial magic) may or may not call themselves witches - they often refer to themselves as magicians, and their craft as magic.
4. Witches cannot fly around on brooms, but most of us would love to learn.
5. Witches generally do not distinguish between ‘white magic’ and ‘black magic’ the way movies and certain pathetic books exclaim. Witches are not automatically beings full of light and love, and witches can - and sometimes do - practice darker flavors of magic. Most - but not all - witches view witchcraft and magic as simply a tool that can be used for either positive or negative purposes.
6. Many - but certainly not all - witches do take a moral view of trying to do the least harm in every situation. Hence, most witches don’t lightly cast spells to harm another.
7. Not all witches believe in karma, or the Threefold Law or any of that. But almost all agree that there are consequences - seen or unseen - to every action we take.
8. Both men and women prefer the term witch. Warlock is generally not in use. Originally, this term meant ‘oathbreaker’, and most male witches cite this as the reason not to use the term. Considering the general population “knows” that ‘warlock’ means ‘male witch’ and this supposed taboo has to be explained to everyone, I’ve come to the personal conclusion that they just find the term hollywood-style-silly. And in this, I agree. Nonetheless, if you meet a man who considers himself a warlock, assume he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about until proven otherwise.
9. Witches don’t have to wear black. Honest. It’s not a rule.
10. There are different types of witchcraft - some of the most commonly heard being “elemental”, “kitchen”, and “green”. Elemental witches typically focus on the elements (air, fire, water, earth, and possibly spirit) and tend to be somewhat more Wiccan in nature. Kitchen witches tend to focus on simplistic home magic - literally infusing everything from food to mopwater with magic and blessings, and often tend to be much less formal in their spells and rituals than others. Green witches are often more focused on nature and herbs and the like.
11. Witches generally love Halloween, and most don’t have any problems with the evil witch stereotype that goes along with it. Despite a couple schools evidently banning Halloween activities as a ploy to be politically correct toward witches, most have no problems with the traditional green-faced wart-nosed hag. Some, however, take offense, and to those people I say ‘go sit on your thumb and spin a while’.
12. Witches often have a large supply of herbs and resins and such. Usually, they have names like: sage and basil and mugwort and frankincense and sandalwood and holly. Not ‘lizard tongue’ and ‘eye of newt’ and ‘bat wings’.
13. To set the record straight, ten million [or whatever number seems to be popular at the moment] witches did NOT die during The Burning Times. Not /all/ that many people died during the Inquisition, and most of those poor saps were just lonely old women who had the misfortune of being an outcast - and there may not have been a single actual witch in the bunch. This isn’t to say that witches haven’t been persecuted, then /or/ now. We are still persecuted today to a degree even in the States [yes, people have had children taken away for being pagan, have lost jobs, etc.] but there’s really no need to inflate the big ol’ persecution complex here.