On Saturday I continued my digging in the dirt (cue Peter Gabriel) to plant gladiolus bulbs in rows along the fence that edges the lawn and a sprinkling of dahlias in strategic spots (I only had eight of them - dahlias, it seems, are expensive). I got very into the whole experience; it was very zen. Dig a hole with my spade, put in a bit of plant-food-infused soil, place the bulb, say hello to the earthworm I'd disturbed, cover everybody back up with dirt, and move on to the next. It was cooler than it had been earlier in the week when I was planting pansies in window boxes and herbs in pots on the deck. A breeze was blowing and listening to sounds of the woods next to me, the birds chirping, and the occasional bee buzzing was lovely and meditative accompaniment to my work. I had folded up a towel to rest my knees on and at one point I laughed because I realized that my dirt-covered holey old towel was rather like a prayer pillow, providing cushioning for a supplicant. How appropriate, I thought, because kneeling amidst the wonders of nature as I was - surrounded by forest and wind and creatures and burgeoning signs of Spring - felt very much like praying for this witch.

Whatever meditation or ritual I usually do is at an altar in my apartment in the city, very much indoors. My experience on Saturday felt like the Pagan version of someone used to kneeling alone at bedtime, rosary beads in hand, suddenly finding herself praying in a grand cathedral with all the trappings. It really drove home how simple, and how important, getting a little Earth into my Earth-based spirituality is. And I was just planting flowers, talking to earthworms, leaving little rock altars to the faeries in hopes that they would keep the deer from eating the tender shoots when my gladiolii start to grow.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 9:26 AM | Comments (3)

While I'm finally starting to really recover from this flu, I'm not quite back to being my creative writer self. (An article on my recent experience with intuitive psychic Vera Nadine is in the works and coming soon.) I have, however, been doing a fair amount of reading. On this lovely Spring Sunday, I thought I'd share a few snippets:

Far beneath the many thick layers of indoctrination about who we are and who we should be lies an original self, a person who came into this world full of possibility and destined for joyful unveiling and manifestation. It is this person we glimpse in another when we fall in love or when we idealize a leader or romanticize an artist. This is the person who comes to life in us briefly as we get married, start a course in school, or try on a new job - before worry and cynicism have set in. Chronically trying to be someone other than this original self, persuaded that we are not adequate and should fit some norm of health or correctness, we may find a cool distance gradually separating us from that deep and eternal person, that God-given personality, and we may forget both who we were and who we might be.

from Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality by Thomas Moore

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery - that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are . . . This kind of unmasking - speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges - is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.

John Welwood, quoted by bell hooks in All About Love: New Visions

I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

100 Love Sonnets: XVII by Pablo Neruda

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 9:48 AM | Comments (1)

Thalia writes that making mandalas has become something of a daily devotional for her. I like that idea. I think about how it is possible to lose yourself in the image you choose and the process of creating a mandala from it, and how this does become a meditation on whatever that image means for you.

Although the past few days were rich with opportunities for ritual, celebration and devotion, I didn't participate in any public way and only observed the Full Moon in a small and private way. This morning it occurred to me that a bit of devotion might be a good thing.

Among all of my recent thoughts of change and life and what that all means, I've been thinking of moving. Among thoughts of leaving behind that which no longer serves us, I think about leaving my current apartment, where specters of an unhappy situation continue to haunt me. When I think of a place where I was happy, where things were simpler, where my heart yearns to go, I think of San Francisco. And I think of the beach at Crissy Field.

My devotional today is dedicated to that place, to my love for it, and to my hope for a return, if not to that place in particular, then to the simple happiness I experienced there.

Crissy Field Mandala

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:40 AM | Comments (2)

As we Pagans are celebrating the Vernal Equinox and the promise of life renewed, scientists are reporting that some forms of life on this planet may soon cease to exist - due to the effects that global warming is having on nature's harbingers of Spring.

AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein writes:

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year's authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

-----

The changes could push some species to extinction. That's because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

According to Borenstein's article (which I found at SFGate.com.), tree swallows and robins, who are now laying eggs and appearing much earlier than in years past, may starve as Spring cold snaps kill the insects upon which they depend to survive. Shifts in rainfall patterns cause butterfly larvae to die when the plants upon which they develop dry up too soon. From a shamanic point of view, it saddens me to consider the spirits who may be leaving this Earth, taking their lessons and their medicine with them.

In addition to threatening certain plants and animals with extinction, the list of effects from the early onset of Spring goes on and on. Allergy season begins earlier and stretches on painfully longer because pollen-producing plants appear earlier every year. Honey changes taste because bees are producing their peak amount of honey weeks earlier and the plants available to them are different now.

For those of us who consider Nature to be the very essence of our spirituality, the effects of global warming may not be startling news. But I, for one, who spent my Ostara morning navel-gazing, took this news item as a big wake-up call. It's all well and good to think about burgeoning Spring as a metaphor for a soul fulfilled, but we should remember to include Mother Earth in our prayers for healing and renewal, as the threat to her health is all too real.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 7:01 PM | Comments (0)

Mandalas have been described as everything from an artistic representation of the cosmos as a focus in meditation, to the depiction of a particular deity, to a diagram of one's inner mystical state and a symbol of the innate harmony and perfection of being. With some important shared basics, the many interpretations of and definitions for a mandala differ depending on who you're asking. When I turned to The Mandala Project's page on "What is a Mandala?" to provide a post on the background of mandalas, I found this definition:

Representing the universe itself, a mandala is both the microcosm and the macrocosm, and we are all part of its intricate design. The mandala is more than an image seen with our eyes; it is an actual moment in time. It can be can be used as a vehicle to explore art, science, religion and life itself. The mandala contains an encyclopedia of the finite and a road map to infinity.

Over the last few days, I've been furiously making mandalas and filling this space with some examples of my work, and I started to wonder why. Why I am I so fascinated by creating these intricate circles of color and image? Is there some deeper meaning here for me than just a way to procrastinate on a boring work project? What am I chronicling for the encyclopedia of the universe? If there is something I'm exploring here, what is it?

If my mandalas are a diagram of my own inner mystical state, then I could examine the images I chose to make them as a place to start to answer these questions.

Lately I've been reminiscing about a time in my life that is in the past; my first mandala was from a picture I had taken at some point back then. It's not difficult to see why my subconscious went there. But then I was just playing around with pictures - there was no intent behind creating that mandala as a spiritual expression of anything in particular. I wasn't intending to create an image that would represent that time for me, upon which I might meditate to sort out my feelings or that I might release to the universe as a means of letting go. Perhaps I can see it now as such, but that was not what I was trying to do when I made it.

Carl Jung said that a mandala symbolizes "a safe refuge of inner reconciliation and wholeness." It is "a synthesis of distinctive elements in a unified scheme representing the basic nature of existence." Jung used the mandala for his own personal growth and wrote about his experiences.

In fact, there is quite a lot of writing by Carl Jung and a number of other psychologists on mandalas and their place in psychotherapy and in personal explorations of the emotional and spiritual realms. If I think about my first mandala in the context of Jung's ideas, then I see a strong argument for my subconscious guiding me to make a mandala from that image from my past because I needed to in order to process the things that had been preying on my mind. Perhaps I should make other mandalas from other images that relate to that time and meditate with them to see what happens. I certainly could use some "inner reconciliation and wholeness" on that particular subject. In fact, there may be other things going on my life that I could address through combining the creative act of making a mandala with images relating to something specific and then meditating on the resulting mandala.

There also is another way to consider making mandalas.

My most recent mandalas have all been with the same image of a tree blooming in my neighborhood here in Boston that I took on a glorious Spring day last year. I'm so tired of Winter; I so desperately want it to be Spring. Again, it's fairly easy to see why I might choose an image of Spring to inspire me to create mandalas.

Ostara comes this Thursday, heralding the return of Spring, the quickening of the Earth, and the turning of the Wheel of the Year. In times past, both ancient and not so ancient, many witches and other magickal people believed that they actually were responsible for making sure that the wheel did turn, ensuring that the seasons changed. It was through their work that life continued. Maybe making a mandala for Spring is my contribution to turning the Wheel and making sure that Spring arrives. With her beautiful Spring mandalas, Thalia at Audacia Muliebris could nearly bring in Spring all by herself!

My Spring Mandala. This was my first successful nine-section mandala using Thalia's template.

So far, in making mandalas I've mostly been playing with pretty pictures and honing my skills in Photoshop and math. (Thalia's new templates for nine- and thirteen-section mandalas are tricky.) With the exception of the two that I made specifically as "gifts" to friends, none of the other mandalas I created were originally made with any particular intention behind them. But we witches are all about intent. Our magick requires it. We strive to live our lives by it. So, like creating sigils, creating mandalas could easily be the literal crafting of a spell, choosing the image and going through the steps of making the mandala with a particular intention held strongly in the mind so that the image in the end stands for the spell itself.

Choosing the mandala as the physical representation of a spell strikes me as being one of the most potentially powerful things you could do. Think about that for a moment. With the entire cosmos behind you and the energy of people all over the world and throughout literal millennia of history pouring into the shared web of existence via the creation of mandalas, that's an awful lot of power supporting your mandala spell. Such wonderful, awe-inspiring potential! If you do a mandala spell, as in all spell crafting, be careful what you wish for! My guess is you will get it.

In the case of the Paint-It Pink Mandala Project, not only do I hope this is true, but I believe that this is a cause that we witches and magickal mandala makers could contribute to in a very meaningful way.

During times of transition mandalas serve as visual guides that gently lead us to a place of wholeness and healing self-reflection. They represent a microcosm of the self, harmony and sometimes, the act of divine powers at work. As breast cancer brings powerful emotions of transformation to the surface, creating mandalas can make the journey both more meaningful and more manageable. The cultural icon of the pink ribbon and organizations such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation have worked to make pink the unifying color for all who seek a cure for the disease, one that still affects one in every seven women and many men.

Beautifully, the Paint-It Pink Mandala Project incorporates both symbols--mandalas and the color pink.  Together they represent a growing body of art supportive of healing transformation and a hopeful cure. Each year the entire, on-going collection is presented for national exhibition. All donations and proceeds from entrance to the exhibition are given directly to the Barbara T. Sabo Scholarship Foundation.

Can you think of anything more beautiful, more powerful, more giving to our sisters in the universe than creating a beautiful pink mandala charged with the intention of healing breast cancer?

The Paint-It Pink Mandala Project has a cybergallery where you can view images from the collection, and on their "web page you can download a form to submit a mandala of your own. I'm thinking of sending my pink Spring flower mandala.

Mandalas seem to me an interesting lesson to have stumbled upon - as a person, as a spiritual being, as a witch. I will continue to ponder what mandalas mean to me. I will keep making them, choosing my images with more care and intent. I may even try a mandala spell. I will certainly remember one important message from this recent experience: "Where there is no you, there is no mandala."

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 1:05 PM | Comments (3)

Most Wiccans are familiar with the idea of sacred sex, enacted in ritual symbolically as the blade is inserted into the chalice. But I've never encountered the Great Rite in its full glory and I'd wager that most Pagans I know haven't either. Yet we read so much about sex as a sacred rite, the ultimate raising of magickal energy, a powerful connection to the divine. What do we really know about these concepts, much less practice? A couple of recent blog posts got me thinking about the subject.

Susan Reimer-Torn, scholar, author and life coach, recently wrote for the Women and Spirituality blog about The Sacred Prostitute. In this post she presents a discussion of the role and historical significance of temple priestesses performing sex as sacrament vis-a-vis a conversation over dinner with a group of friends. A learned group, even they had to dust off their knowledge on the subject. But Susan tells us:

In the words of the Jungian scholar Marion Woodman, "She is spiritually receptive to the feminine power flowing through her from the Goddess and at the same time, joyously aware of the beauty and passion in her human body." Through physical delight and spiritual ecstasy, "she opens the masculine to the potency of penetrating to the divine and the feminine to the rapture of surrender."

The article goes on to describe a conversation with an acquaintance of the author who was an exotic dancer, with clients for whom she would have sex:

This refreshingly open and articulate woman explains that the Sacred Prostitute is an intermediary: it is she who soothes men brutalized by war or other combative arenas, she who absorbs their aggressive energy so they might return exorcised and balanced to domestic foyers.

While I can embrace the idea of a woman acting as a conduit for feminine divine power and through whom sex is a joyous means to find awareness of the body's beauty and passion for both partners involved, viewing sacred sex as something meant solely to benefit men is the point at which I take issue with the idea of women in the role of "sacred prostitute." I spent years in a relationship wherein I "soothed" a man brutalized by his own particular combative arenas and I wasn't so pleased when the domestic foyer to which he returned was someone else's. Intellectually I can appreciate the concept of the sacred prostitute - and even accept that as a matter of historic fact the role may have been primarily in the service of men - but I need to find a realm of sacred sexuality that doesn't involve me getting betrayed by my ex-partner in spiritual ecstasy.

Dianne Sylvan's great post Sacred Sexuality, or Something deals primarily with reclaiming sexuality after an abusive experience. Her early experiences with Wicca were "inundated with sexual imagery and language" which made it difficult for her to accept, finding her new spiritual path "terrifying and liberating" at the same time. She writes:

If a woman came into Paganism already bearing a traumatic sexual history, how much harder would it be for her to find any sense of her own sanctity if she reaches out to her newfound community only to be assaulted again by the very people, in the very place, that was supposed to represent that sanctity?

Dianne goes on to discuss her own personal journey toward finding the sacred in sex, despite her earlier experiences, both with abuse and within the Pagan community. I think the essence of what she's getting at here is how one goes about arriving at an expression of sacred sexuality that works for you. Each of us comes to the divine in different ways (pun intended).

My own personal practice of the Craft is about to take a left-hand turn as I begin training in the Feri Tradition. Feri is not Wicca, so I may soon find myself redefining who I am as a witch. One of the things that convinced me that Feri was for me was its emphasis on personal power; one of the things that intrigues me about it is its emphasis on sacred sexuality.

The Feri Tradition is a relatively secretive tradition, and while there is information available in books and online about Feri and its beliefs, there is much more information that is not available unless you are in training or an initiate. On the subject of sex, I found a discussion of Victor and Cora Anderson's views on sexual ethics at Lilith's Lantern, but actual practices are kept private. This is probably as it should be, to keep salacious detractors who would only defame Feri from sticking their noses where they have no business being. However, it's easy for anyone to learn enough about Feri to know that the philosophy is very sex-positive and the tradition encourages its followers to reclaim sex as a joyful and magickally powerful act.

One of the most widely available resources on the Feri Tradition that provides a fairly open discussion of sacred sex is T. Thorn Coyle's book Evolutionary Witchcraft. In her book, Thorn points out that sex is one of the energies that we reclaim from the dominant culture, where it has become "twisted beyond recognition." In teaching us to treat sex as sacred, she is giving us a way to reconnect with the life force and to fuel the passion that "creates our power" as witches and as spiritual, divine beings.

. . . to Witches, sex is holy. You can use your sexual energy for many things: charging tools and spells, aligning your soul, opening up to abundance, feeding Deity.

I have used sexual energy in spell work before and, yes, sexual energy is powerful. You don't have to be a witch to know that! However, that the Feri Tradition takes sacred sex beyond a means to raise magickal energy and adds an emphasis on sex as a way to find personal power and fulfillment brings me closer to the kind of liberation and empowerment that I hope to find from sacred sex.

Thinking about my past sexual experiences - at least those that could be considered in any way meaningful - I'm not sure that any of them have provided the kind of transcendental qualities that I believe take sex from the realm of really good roll in the hay to encounter of or with the divine. I believe in divine immanence, and I do include myself when I look to the world around me to find potential expressions of and vehicles for the divine. Mostly through meditation and shamanic journeying, I have had some powerful personal encounters with divine. And I do believe there is something sacred in the way that the Sun shining on my face has the power to transform me, even if it just lightens my mood. But I wonder what it will take for me to experience for myself sex as a sacred act.

Luna at Stars for Eyes has a few astute things of her own to say about how to recognize the sacred:

Something sacred brings us closer to the Divine. It doesn't drive the best part of ourselves underground or make us sick for a week. The "sacred" doesn't leave us feeling "scarred" or "scared." It will never scatter our energy to the wind. It will never betray.

About sacred sex in particular, she concludes with:

The sacred does not need to be validated by another, and yet another, and still another person's sex organs. Sacred sexuality, when we really engage it, pierces all illusions and connects us to our beloved on the absolute deepest levels of our being. People who scatter themselves across a sea of bodies will never know this. What I am talking about is transcending the self, the other, and reaching the Divine through the deepest love possible. The most profound honor one can bestow upon another is to see them as Radha, the lover of Krishna. Radha is the embodiment of total love, positively dripping with it. But, only through loving Radha can Krishna understand what it means to love himself, even though he is the God of Love. And he becomes enraptured with loving Radha because her love for him is the only thing hotter than he is in the universe.

Does love have to be present for sex to be sacred? Luna makes an extremely powerful case that it does.

Activist and social philosopher bell hooks, in her book All About Love, (which is a profound treatise on the subject and a brilliant exploration of what we, in our modern society, need to change in order to experience true love in our lives - but that is a topic for a different blog post) begins by telling us that in order to discuss love in any authentic or spiritual way we need to define what it is we're talking about. She chooses to put forward that M. Scott Peck's definition, from his famous self-help book from the late 1970's The Road Less Traveled, is the one we should be using. It is:

. . . the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

If we use bell hooks' and Scott Peck's definition of love, as opposed to a more socially conventional definition of romantic love, to answer my question about whether love needs to be present for sex to be sacred, then I would venture to say that it does. At least for me (and clearly for Luna). It's difficult for me to imagine that I could experience sacred sex from a relatively casual encounter if I could not experience sex that felt sacred to me within the context of a relationship wherein I truly was in love. But if I was in love, what was missing? Was I the only one extending myself? Does this spiritual nurturing need to be mutual? Where does this leave me?

To imagine the context wherein sacred sex is possible, perhaps it's necessary to embrace the idea that there is more than one type of relationship that is capable of providing a commitment to mutual spiritual nurturing - love as hooks and Peck define it. As I begin to consider what my life as Feri might look like, I can imagine a relationship - either with a teacher or with a fellow practitioner - within which a level of trust exists that would lead me to be able to participate in a sexual encounter that would reach the level of sacred for me. I go back to my statement about being intrigued by the Feri Tradition's beliefs about sacred sex as a way to reconnect with the life force and to fuel the passion that "creates our power" as witches and as spiritual, divine beings. It is precisely the potential that following the Feri path may bring me to the point where my personal experience of the divine is expanded and transformed that is of paramount importance to me. If this includes a newfound ability to experience the Holy O then yay me.

I'm sure you don't have to follow the Feri Tradition to benefit from some of the lessons it has to teach us about sacred sex. But maybe a more accessible way to approach the idea of sex as conduit to the divine is from a spiritual point of view without any particular religious framework. One of the healthiest attitudes about sex and the divine I have ever come across is presented by Sera Beak as she explores her "deliciously unorthodox approach to igniting your divine spark" in The Red Book.

The chapter of The Red Book that deals with sex and spirituality, entitled Open Up and Say Ahhh, begins by telling us:

As Tantrists and mystics have been declaring for centuries, sex, with the right awareness and intention, is actually an incredibly valuable and wonderful tool for spiritual growth.

. . . the ordinary act of lovemaking can be just as viable a path to higher states of consciousness, to a connection with All That Is, as meditation or prayer or any other traditional religious or spiritual ritual. How great is that?"

How great indeed. Apparently this has been true for millions of people across history and cultures. Even celibate nuns experience the same physiological effects from spiritual ecstasy as do those people who have had incredible orgasms. I kid you not. It was part of a study conducted by psychologists at the University of Montreal. And Sera draws the conclusion from this comparison that "mystico-erotic experiences" are "actually a natural part of our organic wiring." She goes on to discuss the science of sacred sex, deities linked to sex, the history of when sex became a sin (and how women became the scapegoats for this), certain truths about sex and religion across the globe, and lots and lots and lots of other good stuff. Just go read the book already; I cannot recommend it highly enough.

But what about how we actually go about getting some of this sacred sex for ourselves? You've heard the expression that the body is your temple? Well, Sera's advice is "temple yourself to find yourself." There are lots of ways to turn sex into a more positive experience, to love your body and yourself, to have some fun, get the blood flowing, and somewhere in the process even to discover the divine. She implores us to find our own unique sexual expression, "to be as conscious during sex as you would during any other part of your spiritual practice," to treat our bodies as divine, and to "be aware of the divine energy swirling around you as you have sex."

This is good advice for all of us. There are so many ways that the sex-negative messages from our culture influence us, even if we think we are so progressive and evolved and hip. Even for those of us who are more accustomed to looking for the divine in unusual places it can be difficult to take that final step of accepting that we are just as divine as the tree we just danced around or the Goddess whose likeness we just pasted into our book of shadows (or as Sera Beak would call it, our Red Book).

. . . this is the thing about divine energy: It's supposed to be everywhere. See, sexuality is less about the actual act of having pretty good sex for seventeen minutes twice a week and much more about surrounding yourself with an ever-simmering sensual energy, pulsing just underneath your daily life and infusing almost everything you do. It's like you're always just a little bit horny, just a little turned on, but the object of your gentle lust isn't just your lover, it's divine life itself.

Isn't that the whole point of magick? Isn't that what we, as witches, strive to find and make of our practice of the Craft - divine life itself infusing everything we do? If I can find something magickal about taking out my rubbish (which I just did the other day, tossing out an old love charm that I decided was doing more harm than good), then certainly I can find a way to infuse my sexual experiences with a little divine spark.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 6:40 PM | Comments (4)

Dianne Sylvan, one of my favorite Pagan writers on the web, or anywhere, issued this challenge on her blog yesterday:

All right, it's your turn.  Go forth and make a list of ten things you love about your body, inside or out.  If you love the little mole on your elbow that's shaped like Missouri, or the way your eyes crinkle, or your mastectomy scars, or your right pinkie finger, say so.  We spend too much time talking about what is wrong with our bodies, what we hate, what we wish we could change--let's talk about things we love.  Your body will thank you for it.

Okay, so here I go, in no particular order -

1 - I love my eyes. Although sometimes they're mistaken for blue, they're actually green, and I like the fact that my eyes are an unusual, elusive color that people can only appreciate if they're looking closely. My eyes have this way of lighting up - sparkles when I'm happy and flashes when I'm angry. They are the true windows to my soul and one of the reasons why I will never be a poker player. They look great in purple eyeshadow and black liquid eyeliner - although not necessarily at the same time!

2 - I love my skin. I try to take care of it as well as the next person and generally stay out of the sun, but I am just blessed with good genes. I look about ten years younger than I am, and for that I thank whatever ancestress who passed along her skin to me. When I was a girl, especially during my college years, and everyone mistook me for younger, I hated it. My mother would say, "you'll be glad for that when you're older," and I thought I would scream if I heard her say it one more time. Well, guess what? Mother was right. I am glad for it now that I'm older. And now I feel like I should eat healthier and drink more water and wear sunscreen so my lovely skin will stay this way for many more years to come.

3 - I love my legs. They are strong. They can carry me for days walking around Paris or up the North Dome trail at Yosemite. They can dance all night (although the last time I went dancing I noticed my knees were none too happy at all the twisting and winding I'd been doing). They look great in cowboy boots.

4 - I love my gut. No, not my digestive tract, but that place deep inside me where my intuition lies. Over time I've learned to trust my gut instinct; it never lets me down. About a person, about a situation, about a choice I'm about to make. Ten times out of ten when I truly trust my gut instinct, I'm right. I suppose sometimes when my gut is trying to tell me something it feels a bit like a stomach ache, so maybe there is something to that digestive thing after all.

5 - I love my feet. They are cute and small and well-shaped. I keep them pedicured with red toes, sometimes a pale pink. They are a part of my body that I always feel good about, even if I'm not quite at my personal best. They indulge my shoe habit and endure high heels and pointy toes and odd straps. They like being able to show off in a pair of sandals. An extension of my legs, they take me where I need to go, and connect me to the Earth.

6 - I love my hair. It's always been very thick with a natural wave to it. The individual strands are fine and soft. It's fun to run your fingers through it. Although I confess to going a bit grey these days I have a Goddess of a hairdresser who makes my hair look better than it ever did before I started coloring it. It gleams like a polished chestnut. When I was young I always had short hair, so a few years ago I started to grow it out. It took a long time, but long it was beautiful. And a few weeks ago I decided to have it cut - I blogged about it here. And now I love it even more. It frames my face. It's fun and flirty and way more easy to wash! I can scrunch it with my fingers and a tiny bit of hair product and it's curly and wild (it makes me feel Fey, almost feral) or I can clip it here and there and, when it dries, voila - my very own marcel wave. I can take a flat-iron to it and flip out the ends for an edgy, modern feel. With my hair this way, I just feel more me.

7 - I love my hips. They are very curvy and give me a sexy, woman's figure. I look great in pencil skirts. But these curves are best appreciated when I'm lying on my side with nothing on. I've been told my hips are my sexiest feature and even when I wasn't feeling at my personal physical best I believed this to be true.

8 - I love my strength. Even though I haven't done any proper strength training in a while, my body is generally pretty strong. I can pick up things, carry things, move things. I can do pushups the "guy" way. I can give a big hug. My body always does what I ask it to, and for that I should be more grateful. As temples go, this one feels like it's built to last, but perhaps a bit of worshipping wouldn't hurt.

9 - I love my hands. They are the things with which I physically reach out and touch others, to comfort them or give them pleasure. They are the physical vehicle through which I create - knitting, writing. They are the things that allow me to do almost everything I do that gives me pleasure - hold a book and turn its pages, pet a puppy, work on my computer, perform a ritual, clean my house. The list is endless. While I believe that our eyes are the windows to our soul, our hands are the way we express and manifest our deepest desires and our will. It is with our hands that we DO. For me, that is one of the most important things.

10 - I love my heart. At night, when I'm lying in bed, I can hear it beating. It is strong and it keeps me alive. Despite how badly it has been hurt, how badly it aches sometimes, my heart still allows me to love with every fiber of its four chambers.

Now, it's your turn.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

For the past few nights my dream life has been very active - vivid and detailed and weird. A Freudian analyst could have a field day and I'm sure with a dream dictionary I could find any number of interesting interpretations of the images playing in my mind while I sleep. In my shamanic training we were taught that dreams have tremendous magickal potential. Among other things, they can take us on specific and intentional journeys. Goddess I hope that wasn't true last night! One of my dreams involved being washed up onshore at an old-folks vacation spot!

I also believe, from a psychological perspective, that our dream life is often where we work out the puzzles and problems that our brain is too busy - or too blocked - to process during our waking life. It's interesting to me when someone I know says he doesn't dream. How can that be possible? I'm sure he must be dreaming, he simply must not have any recall of those experiences. Which is all the sadder for him. Our dreams, whether shamanic or simply cuckoo, are an invaluable source of information. The images they contain could be iconic and archetypal or intimately personal, but either way the meaning behind those images can be useful to us.

Much of the time it's very easy for me to tell where the symbolism in my dreams comes from. For example, I remember once dreaming of being some sort of detective and before I'd gone to bed that night I'd been watching a movie with a detective character in it. The night I dreamt of being a pastry chef I had visited that day a beautiful patisserie and restaurant in Wellesley. Visions of sugar plums indeed! What makes the images in our dreams significant - if in fact they are, beyond the restful mind enjoying a bit of fun - is what they mean to us and why we might have chosen those particular scenarios to act out our hopes, fears, fantasies and psychological melodramas.

Each experience we have is informed by the experiences we've had in the past and perceived in the context of our history. The material of each new experience, including our dreams, is being worked upon by our history and is recreated in the context of the symbolic systems we possess. Language is a symbolic system. Traditional canons of art historical iconography are symbolic systems. So are street signs and the periodic table of elements. Obviously, the more extensive our knowledge of various symbolic systems, the richer and more varied the information we have at our disposal, and therefore our perception of our own experiences has the potential to be more complex.

We often ask someone who speaks multiple languages what language she dreams in, the common wisdom being that we dream in whatever language is most natural to us. If we place other symbolic systems in the same category as language when analyzing dreams, then it becomes easier to understand the various images that occur to us in a dream. If we imagine that our understanding of color, mythology, spirit animals or any other set of symbols that is fairly widely accepted among magickally oriented practitioners to be akin to that of language, then we can extend this understanding to dream interpretation, giving us the ability to unlock any magickal meanings behind our dreams.

Until we've received the training necessary to direct our dreams with intention - as in lucid dreaming - most of the time the information that comes to us in dreams is unconscious. This doesn't make the information any less valuable; it only means that we have to sift through lots of information to figure out the messages our dreams contain that may be more profound than an affinity for cupcakes with pink icing or a secret desire to dress like Diana Rigg. A proven technique for improving one's ability to remember details from dreams is to keep a dream journal. Over time, your dream journal will reveal recurring themes and images that you can use to interpret the meaning of your dreams - your meaning in the context of the symbology that is relevant to you.

Keeping a dream journal was an important part of shamanic training. For a shaman, dreams are extremely important tools and skill in remembering dreams is vital. But you don't have to be a shaman to be good at remembering and interpreting your dreams, or to begin to direct them with intent. In his book Temple Of Shamanic Witchcraft, Christopher Penczak provides a wonderful overview of dream magick that ranges from techniques for guiding dream experiences to directions for creating charms and sleep pillows that can protect against nightmares. Among the many resources out there, I found Christopher's book to be especially helpful. Christopher is the person who taught me my shamanic skills, so I may not be entirely unbiased, but I do believe his book is a terrific resource if you want to learn more about dream magick.

As for my knowledge of symbolic systems, this came through a particularly interesting graduate course in the philosophy of aesthetics and my own creative combination of the ideas of American philosopher John Dewey and symbol theorist Nelson Goodman. One of the convictions that I came away from that experience with was that the greater our command of certain symbolic systems, the better equipped we are to experience life to its fullest extent. As a witch, this is even more true, because we accept that symbols are available to us from any number of worlds.

May your dreams be rich with symbols. And in them may you be washed ashore on a tropical island with nude sunbathing and cabana boys serving cold drinks!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 9:23 AM | Comments (1)

I was having a late lunch at my favorite neighborhood cafe where they always give me my favorite table in the corner by the window and let me sit as long as I want drinking coffee or whatever. I was reading The Red Book, focus on which became increasingly difficult when the table of young women next to me got louder and louder. At first I was annoyed. And then a thought struck me (thank you, Sera).

Instead of being - or staying - annoyed at the noise the exuberant young women at the next table were making, why not tap into that energy, participate in their exuberance? I may not have been a part of their conversation but why not appreciate the beauty of their laughter, let it lift my feelings of hope and happiness to the universe? Because Goddess knows - she couldn't help but hear it!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 5:32 PM | Comments (1)

Valentine's Day is an easy day to scoff at and get all cynical about and say derogative things about that make everyone laugh because not only are they thinking the same things but they feel the same way. It's truly a Hallmark holiday. And yet...

It's still a day when, unless you live in an underground bunker or cabin in the wilderness, you are surrounded by screaming commercial messages that YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN LOVE AND ISN'T IT ROMANTIC. Yes it's crass and we all love to hate it, but It takes the hardest heart and the world's most cynical cynic not to be affected by it just the teensiest bit. I mean, come on, everyone wants to be loved. Everyone likes the giddy feeling of being in love. And I refuse to believe that there is anyone out there who doesn't like to get flowers. And chocolate is yummy, damn it! Don't get me started on lingerie.

So, a minute ago, when I said that everyone was laughing because they feel the same way, what I really was getting at is that everyone wants to be all hip and cynical about Valentine's Day but deep down we're all reduced to our prepubescent selves praying that our crush of the month is going to put a cut-out cartoon card on our desk.

I don't think there is anything wrong with having a day to celebrate love, but remember, there are many kinds of love. Why limit ourselves to the narrow image of Valentine's Day as a day when boys bring flowers to girls and take them out to dinner at expensive restaurants and buy them sparkly things and give them cheesy cards printed in China? Why not make today an opportunity to tell a friend how much she means to you? Why not take some chocolates to the nice neighbor who always picks up your mail when you go away? Why not buy a bunch of yummy treats for the dog who is always happy to see you when you wake up in the morning? Why not do something nice for YOURSELF?!

In my travels around the web over the past couple of days I've run across some writing on the subject I liked, so I thought I'd share:

Gah! Pink Hearts!
Dianne Sylvan shares some insight and practical tips on how to celebrate the person whose happiness should be most important to you: you.

It's a chance to honor and adore ourselves the way no significant other can ever honor us.  It's a chance to be utterly, perfectly selfish, in the most lovely sense of the word, which is especially beneficial for women, who in our culture are supposed to be all things to all people (meaning men and children) and "have it all."  Well, you don't have it all, and you can't.  Where would you put it?  In the end, you've got you.  Gorgeous, wonderful you.  All the romance in the world is useless if you don't love yourself first.  All the generosity in the world is hollow and meaningless if it comes from a heart full of self-hate.  If you truly want to change the world, start with the person holding the mouse right now.

I really love you; want a hamburger?
Jon Carroll, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, writes of enduring love and what Valentine's Day looks like when you've been married a long time.

See, this is the thing about being married a long time: A lot of it is scripted. Every year we have the same Valentine's Day conversation, and it has the same resolution, and on Feb. 15 we still love each other, because it's not about the heart, an organ that mostly pumps blood; it's about the brain, where persistence and passion and patience reside.

We Feel Fine
Okay, so this site isn't really about Valentine's Day but about tracking human emotion around the world. Using very complicated science, the creators of this site have built a system that searches blog entries for the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling," then combines the expressions with images. Tres cool.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

Donuts and cupcakes with pink icing for everyone today!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

I stumbled upon this quote and had to share. It reiterates what I have been trying to tell myself and what I have been blogging about for the past couple of months.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, georgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are we not to be? You are the child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Marianne Williamson

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 2:57 PM | Comments (1)

This morning as I sat at my desk I heard a bird call that I'd never heard before. I have no idea what kind of bird was making it but it wasn't the cheerful chirping of the sparrows - it was a trilling song. Wonderful! And amazing. I'm constantly surprised by the birds I see perching in the trees outside my apartment, some of whom will actually venture to visit me on my deck. Birds that I would never imagine seeing in the city. Some I can identify, some I can't, but I love them all.

And today in Boston we are having very freaky weather. It's as if Nature is high on something and being silly, silly, silly. I woke this morning to sunshine. Then it started raining. More sun. Then a blizzard! And now back to sun. Bizarre! But I have to say I find it exhilarating for some reason. Even though it was snowing, it feels like just a tease and Spring is really on its way.

I like the way the ends of my short haircut flip out from beneath the edges of my cap. My cap and I are going to go out for a walk while the sun is still shining. Who knows what we're going to get next!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 2:53 PM | Comments (0)

Okay, so I know I said that I wasn't going to do any banishing spells or anything today. Focus on manifestation, I said. But it's funny how the universe leads you to do something that's good for you, maybe even that you really needed to do, even if you didn't see it.

I had some oral surgery on Monday and for the past few days I've been doing what you'd expect I might be doing - lying around, watching TV, sleeping, taking drugs, eating mushy food, trying not to talk too much (which, if you know me you will appreciate is a challenge). This morning I decided that I needed to get out of my apartment because I was going cuckoo bananas. Lucky for me, my hairdresser had an opening and I decided to change an appointment I had scheduled for Saturday to today. Get hair done = feel better.

Somewhere in the back of my mind has been lurking the thought that maybe I wanted to get a shorter haircut. I've been growing my hair out for a long time and finally had long hair admired by all. Except that it got in my way all the time and all I ever did was put it up anyway. And I've been in the mood to shake things up, change things, stir up some new energy. I polled a couple of friends. One said go for it; one said she didn't like short hair so she was a bad person to ask. I called a friendly ex of mine to get the male perspective but only got his voicemail.

I decided to consult The Faeries' Oracle using the yes/no spread from the book. This is an easy spread where you turn over three cards. If they're all upright then the answer is "very likely yes" and if they're all reversed then the answer is "very likely no." If you have two upright and one reversed, the answer is "probably yes;" likewise two reversed means "probably no." The upright cards tell you why yes and the reversed cards tell you why no. (By the way, I think this is the best yes/no spread I've ever seen and I plan to use it from now on whenever I need to answer a yes/no question, regardless of what deck I'm using.) The faeries said "very likely yes" and their reasons were powerful ones. I got the Unity card and the Ekstasis card - union, mystical experience, spiritual home; ecstasy, joy, rapture, motivation. Damn! I guess I'm getting a haircut! The other card, while upright, suggested that some people might be going against what I wanted to do and I shouldn't listen to them. Which was very interesting, given that I got a text message from my male friend a little later saying, "no, don't cut your hair, I like it long." Need I say more?

So, when I arrived at the salon I told the hairdresser that I wanted her to cut my hair - something sassy and flirty and fun. "Are you sure?" she said. "Yes!" was my reply. As I sat watching mounds of my hair grow on the floor below me, I did have moments of panic. What am I doing? And then it occurred to me what I was doing.

Imagine that, just like drugs or food or illness or pretty much any chemical thing that goes on in your body is stored in your hair, so too is the energy of whatever you have been doing, thinking, feeling, living during any given period of your life. I started to imagine all of the things that I have been working so hard to leave behind me, to move forward from, falling away from me with each piece of hair that hit the floor. Every bit of harmful energy that I've experienced over the past couple of years, lodged in my hair like molecules of some toxin, gone with each snip of my hairdresser's scissors. This happening during the Dark Moon, the best time for banishing anything, because I had a whim to change my hair appointment. It was the Universe guiding me to do something I needed to do even when just this morning I was stubbornly insisting that I didn't need to do any more banishing.

The New Moon will be here in a few hours. In celebration of my new haircut, my new freedom and all of the newness promised by this New Moon Solar Eclipse, I am going out to enjoy some time with a friend, a glass of wine, and whatever mushy food the chef can find to serve me.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 6:18 PM | Comments (1)

In her book The Art of Being a Woman: A Simple Guide to Everyday Love and Laughter, Veronique Vienne states that "statistically speaking, strong women who have a high stature keep illnesses at bay in their communities." This immediately put me in mind of the village wise women who used to be respected and revered for their ability to help the members of their communities with all manner of ills, bodily and otherwise. Witches of course.

This then led me to wonder how many successful, powerful women out there are actually witches without even realizing it, or at the very least are wielding magickal powers by virtue of the confident energy they put out into the universe every day. Could we chart the relative health of cities with female mayors, for example, against those with male counterparts? Who knows what wonderful work these unwitting witches are doing beyond just protecting their neighbors from illness.

Illustration purloined from Hecate. Original source unknown.

It would have been difficult for the next turn in my train of thought not to have gone toward Hillary Clinton, what with all of the Presidential election campaigning brewing about. With Hillary in the White House, imagine how healthy we all will be, universal health care or no!

With all of these thoughts swirling in my brain, imagine my delight when I read Hecate's post And Your Little Dog, Too and discovered this wonderful illustration. I'm sure whoever created the image intended it to be insulting and Hecate does voice her displeasure at Hillary's being called a "witch" in this Salon article (not related to the illustration). But in light of my recent meandering thought patterns I see all of this from a completely different perspective.

If, in fact, as I suggest, all of the successful and powerful women out there are witches of some sort and this statistic about their mere presence in our communities making us healthier is true, then anyone hurling the word "witch" as an intended epithet is in reality paying the highest of compliments! Instead of looking at this portrayal of Hillary Clinton as a witch and taking offense, why not see it as a celebration of having one of our very own looking out for us from the highest seat in our community, keeping illnesses (and nasty Republicans) at bay. I know I will!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 1:00 PM | Comments (1)

I posted the Alanis Morissette song because I find it hauntingly beautiful and its lyrics so evocative of the process of stepping into the frightening new, necessarily stripped of the old, but being unsure of how to proceed. (Alas, the release date of her new album has yet to be determined.)

"Not As We" means more to me than starting this new year fresh, free from the bonds of a relationship that was killing me slowly, one disappointment at a time. It also means not as we in the sense that I am breaking away from what others expect from me to find, affirm and assert my own true Self. I - not we.

Some of these ideas are coming to me as very powerful messages from Judith Duerk's Circle of Stones: Woman's Journey to Herself. She could have been writing this book as a letter to me. In the preface of her chapter In Search of Her: Self she says:

To discover who she is, a woman must descend into her own depths. She must leave the safe role of remaining a faithful daughter of the collectives around her and descend to individual feeling values. It will be her task to experience her pain . . . the pain of her own unique feeling values calling to her, pressing to emerge. To discover who she is, a woman must trust the places of darkness where she can meet her own deepest nature and give it voice . . . weaving the threads of her life into a fabric to be named and given . . . sharing it with the women around her as she comes to a true and certain sense of herself.

This sounds very much like the shadow work I did as part of my training in Shamanic Witchcraft. Over a year ago, in a journey to the Underworld to meet my shadow Self, she came to me as a small, white cat. She would only agree to rejoin me if I promised her that I would never again subjugate myself to be in relationship with another. As I read Circle of Stones I realize that there are many relationships in which we women feel compelled to do this, not just romantic ones. And as I face the beginning of this new year eager but struggling to discover my own true Self again, it seems I could use a refresher course on reclaiming my shadow.

Duerk talks too of searching for the Great Mother, we orphans of the Goddess who was transplanted by patriarchal authority. "Woman, with the help of the Great Mother, can leave the collective way to find her own individual way, for somewhere deep inside she knows she must leave to become herself."

What better Goddess to call upon to help with this work than Persephone, who must leave to spend half of her life in the Underworld only to return with the power of transcendence and overcoming? She is the power of new life in the Spring, the hidden mystery of the living spirit underground that returns to life in the new planting after the death of winter.

...Thine eyes

Again were human-godlike, and the Sun

Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray,

And robed thee in his day from head to feet -

'Mother!’ and I was folded in thine arms.

- from Demeter and Persephone, Alfred Lord Tennyson

I am beginning to realize the truth that it is only in claiming one's Self, shadow and all, that we can be free to live and love to the fullest. This "I" is far from lonely - she is a truly unique, divine spirit who can love others because she knows first how to love and honor herself. A paradox perhaps, because one of the things that is most important to me in this new year is to strengthen and cultivate friendships and community and even to be open to a real and lasting love. But this time I as I.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 3:54 PM | Comments (1)

For some reason I'm feeling very chatty today. There's a warmth in my heart that has been missing for a while and I feel like I might burst if I don't share all of the things that are delighting me today.

I can hear wind chimes in the alley behind my building.

A fat squirrel has been keeping me company as I write, feasting on the pieces of rice cakes I put on the deck for him and the birds.

And T. Thorn Coyle is entreating us to pass on the words of love and peace that she shared in her Musings today:

I did not stop in the struggle.

I did not stop marching toward life,

toward peace, toward bread for all,

but I lifted you in my arms

and I nailed you to my kisses

and I looked at you as never

again will human eyes look at you.

- an excerpt from "Oblivion" by Pablo Neruda

When the world shall have learnt to love, the world will be saved.

- Eliphas Levi, from "Paradoxes of the Highest Science"

Thank you Thorn, I needed that.

Thanks, too, to Hecate for sharing The Journey, by Mary Oliver.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 4:38 PM | Comments (1)

What does it say that last year at this time I was contemplating the same things? Simply that it is a time when we look toward the new year with hope and a desire for something better? Or does it mean, for me personally, that I haven't come very far in the past year?

Either way, there are a couple of things I posted this time last year that bear repeating.

This quote from T. Thorn Coyle:

How are you in a crisis? What are you doing to get stronger? Are you doing more yoga? Lifting more weights? Are you looking at your propensity to explode or to hide? Are you figuring out how to bolster your alternative communities into more viable networks of support? Are you learning to govern yourself? Learning to garden? Buying less? Re-using more? Are you learning not to always place the blame on other people? Are you telling your friends how much you appreciate them? Are you crying when you need to and laughing when you wish? Stopping to smell the flowers? Are you spreading beauty as far and wide as possible? Pick two from this random list, or add two of your own. But do them. Two of them. At least.

Doom only spells doom if we let it. We should throw parties in the coming year and go dancing. We should also sit longer spells in meditation and at our altars. We should make it into a wild space at least once, and support those who are defending the last of our wild spaces. We should feed strangers. We should get as physically and mentally healthy as we can.

Have what you need and need what you have. A cold wind may blow, but we can keep each other warm.

And this one from Ayn Rand:

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration of the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, and it is yours!

I'm reminded of the silly song we sang as children: This little light of mine/I'm gonna let it shine/Let it shine all the time/Way beyond the blue.

Be strong. Keep your light shining. Rejoice with those around you. Manifest the world you desire.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:37 AM | Comments (1)

There is never more proof that magick is all around us than when some entirely trivial and mundane thing triggers an AHA moment. A moment of startling clarity that reveals some kernel of knowledge or inspiration - some truth. This moment needn't be earth-shatteringly profound, but is significant nonetheless.

I have a favorite lipgloss which needs to be replaced. I looked at the tube to find the name of the color so I would know what to ask for when I went to the store because I didn't know what it was. It said: Truth. Wow. For some reason this knocked me over.

Truth as the name for something with which to adorn one's lips. As if by doing so one ensures that nothing but truth shall pass them or as if the application implies an oath of some sort.

Maybe I'm weird but this seemed important to me.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 3:29 PM | Comments (0)

I was walking home this afternoon as twilight began to fall and I looked up amazed to see the nearly-full Moon hanging heavy in the sky, gleaming perfect and bright just above the rooftops. I had nearly forgotten that tomorrow is a Full Moon and there it was huge and undeniable right in front of me.

This makes me ponder other things I've ignored of late and I wonder what else is looming right in front of me that I simply haven't looked up to see. I think of rituals I've missed and altars I've neglected to assemble and mediations I keep meaning to get around to. I thought the other day about working a spell but wondered why magick would provide for me when I have given it so little lately. What does it mean when our lives leave us without energy to attend to our spiritual practice? It's called practice for a reason. Does faith exist in the face of neglect?

Staring up at that amazing Moon I was struck by its nearness, its beauty, its magnificence. In the clear sky of today's early evening it felt as if the Moon had chosen to appear to me, calling for my attention. The Universe has its ways of getting our attention but sometimes it simply waits for us to notice. It occurs to me that whether I looked up to see it or not, the Moon has been there all along. Perhaps there are other things that have been there all along, just waiting for me too. I feel inspired to reconnect with them.

Continue reading "The Full Moon Appears In All Its Glory"

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 5:47 PM | Comments (0)

A crazy wind has blown into Boston today. A wind that blows you along as you walk down the street and bends the trees so they're bowing to the earth. A wind that whips leaves into spiral dances of ecstasy. It quickens the heartbeat and everyone is feeling it - the energy is palpable in the air.

Some Goddess has decided that she's had enough of this stay-to-the-party-too-late Summer weather and she sent in this wind to blow it all away, with Autumn coming in on its tail. Thrilling!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 6:12 PM | Comments (2)

I'm ready for a change of seasons, a change of scenery, a change in temperature and temperament.

I'm ready for a change of wardrobe. Have you seen the Fall fashions? A dizzying and delicious variety of shapes and textures, but all of them grey, black, and more grey. I've haven't been this excited about Fall clothes in a long time, and I'm always excited about Fall clothes.

I can't wait for the cool air that blows through my window at night to blow out the hot air of summer, bringing with it sweater weather and the need for a fun scarf or hat. A knitting friend of mine and I were discussing what to do with all of the random bits of yarn left over from old projects and I proposed knitting a scarf with a stripe or section made from each bit of old yarn. It would be a riot of color and texture and would look great against that Robert Rodriguez black patent leather pea coat.

I always feel energized come September - I think it goes back to school days and being so excited about the start of a new school year - but I also think it has to do with some sort of cosmic shift that occurs this time of year. I can't describe it exactly but everything just looks and feels different. I'm ready for different.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 8:32 PM | Comments (3)

When I was once in the process of losing weight, a sister witch cautioned me against getting too thin. I would, she insisted, lose too much chi should I lose too much weight. While being a size two might be the fashion ideal, what would losing enough of myself to achieve that aesthetic goal do to the integrity of my magickal self? Much like many an opera singer believed that having a massive body provided a better home for the instrument of the voice, is there something to the idea that the kind of physical body we manifest has the power to affect our magickal selves?

As a Wiccan I subscribe to the philosophy that the divine is found in everything, including ourselves. From that perspective it is important to remember that our bodies are deserving of as much respect as we would give any other divine space. It’s certainly easier for me to be mindful of what I’m eating when I think of my body this way - I want to be healthy both to feel good and also to honor my own divinity. This has not so much to do with the size of my body as with the quality of what I put into it. It's easy to extend this approach to more than healthy eating. One could argue that maintaining good physical fitness, minimizing stress, and addressing other bodily concerns are essential parts of maintaining a healthy home for the divine that lives within us. This then leads to another question. Once we've made suitable temples of our bodies, do they serve as more effective vessels for magick? Are we better witches with better bodies? And what, then, is the definition of better?

Two of my favorite bloggers have written lately about the issues of body image and the connection between our spiritual selves and our physical bodies.

Slade Roberson at Shift Your Spirits invited a guest blogger, Kara-Leah Masina, to discuss Understanding How You Manifest Your Physical Body Kara-Leah writes:

Our bodies will always seek balance - when they are too hot, they crave a cold drink. Too cold and they want a warm fire. We can understand and appreciate this on this physical level.

But our bodies are always moving through the different elements:
- earth (physical body)
- air (mental body)
- fire (energetic body)
- water (emotional body)

By knowing where you are, you know how to balance yourself.

- If you are too much in the energetic body - as can happen if kundalini is active for example - taking a bath draws the excess energy off.

- If you’re too much in the mental body and need to ground, anything that connects with the physical body is useful - eating, walking, sitting on a big rock.

- If you’re overwhelmed with emotions, you often reach for the comfort food because you need to have something solid to ground yourself. But just as effective is to ground via a walk, or to fire up some energy and turn the water into steam by running, cycling, or dancing. Using the mind is also an effective way to get out of the emotions - so many of us pour ourselves into our work rather than face our emotions.

- If you’re feeling lethargic and dull, all earthed out, then you need to fire yourself up and get the energy flowing - you don’t feel like moving, but when you do, the energy moves within you.

The key is balance, each of the elements equally represented and supporting the fifth element - ether, our soul. In this way, a balanced person can be walking with a friend, talking, and sharing emotions. The physical body is engaged, the mind, the heart and the energy ... all is present.

Witches work with the elements all the time; these concepts should have been self-evident. But for me there were serious revelations in Kara-Leah's straight-forward ideas. Even though I'm acutely aware of achieving elemental balance in my surroundings through the use of feng shui and of building elemental balance into spell work, I had never considered the importance of manifesting elemental balance in the physical body. It makes perfect sense. Not only does balancing the elements in the body help us to be physically and spiritually healthier, it provides a solid foundation for functioning more effectively as a magickal being.

Dianne Sylvan, who devoted an entire book to the subject in The Body Sacred, recently shared this poem in a post on her blog Dancing Down the Moon. I love this part:

That fat girl you're looking down on

As the two of you walk by

Is a Goddess of Earth and Fire

Calmly eating her sundae

Licking the spoon

In a way you'll never be licked.

She is laughing at you, boy,

You can feel her crawl up your spine

To breathe a silken "Fuck off" in your ear

She has better things to think about

than your views on dessert

She is softer and stronger than Tinker Toys

far more likely to break you than be broken

She has a universe inside her

You would bow down and pray to

If you were man enough

To look her in the eye.

This certainly supports my friend's belief that a small body would make a poor container for the "universe."

I now understand that the key to manifesting a magickal body is not about size, but balance. It's about achieving physical health as a channel for spiritual health. It's about creating the shape that's most powerful and effective as a vessel for your magick, and that shape will be different for every witch.

Thinking about the body this way is liberating, letting us appreciate that the best body is one that can support us in the work we need and want to do. It also changes how we define "healthy body image" because it expands the evaluation criteria beyond self confidence and acceptance to include magickal appropriateness.

My point is that I believe, as witches, it's important to think about how the physical manifestation of our bodies affects how we function magickally. For some that may mean losing weight so that Earth isn't keeping the witch from accessing the full power of other elements. For others, like the woman Dianne Sylvan describes in her poem, divine power comes from reveling in the body she has, even if others don't appreciate it. We choose what is right for us, guided as we are in so many things by striving for that which best reflects our highest Will. As above, so below. As within, so without.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 11:13 PM | Comments (4)

Hecate is one of my favorite Wiccan bloggers. She is smart and cool and keeps me on my political toes. I like it when she writes soulful things like this:

A witch takes responsibility. What is my responsibility in these times? It's not that difficult to take responsibility. It's more difficult to figure out what responsibility to take.

These days I've decided to take responsibility for hope and love and faith. I'm taking responsibility for choosing a difficult path that may ultimately lead to more happiness than the easy way ever could. With great risk comes great reward. I can live with that. Take responsibility even.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 8:20 PM | Comments (1)

A friend of mine insisted that I see The Secret. It would change my life, she suggested. Well, she was right, but not in the way she expected. I started to believe that the failure of a relationship and my inability to simply bounce back and move on was all because I had failed to think positively enough. This hurt more than it helped. Realizing this has taught me some important lessons about being a witch and what we do and do not have the power to change.

As a witch, I believe in the law of attraction. I have experienced the law of attraction at work and without a doubt I believe in its power and validity. Lately, however, I have come to understand that there is only so far that we can take this belief before we wander into the territory of self abuse. Some things are simply beyond our control. Certain life experiences are not meant to be altered, particularly those, like grief, which serve the ultimate end of healing us of pain. When we are already hurting enough, who needs to add our own abuse to the pain we are suffering? And why should we wish to impede the healing process?

A simple answer to the why is that pain is painful. No one wants to feel pain. We humans develop so many mechanisms for avoiding pain. I could offer countless examples of how people can avoid feeling grief without even having to venture into the territories of other sources of pain.

One thing about being a witch is that we take responsibility for our own shit. This can be both a blessing and a burden. Setting out to take responsibility for grief is tricky, and in this I have learned through first hand experience that it is better to be a mere human first and a witch second. How can we claim responsibility for pain inflicted by another or for the natural grief that follows a loss? We can't. And we shouldn't believe that we have to. It's also a mistake to think that we can "wave a magic wand" to make the pain go away. Grief does not work that way.

Magick hasn't failed if it doesn't accomplish the naive desire to stop the pain of grieving. There is no way to short circuit grief. It must be felt. Endured. Lived through. And no amount of magick can change that. This doesn't mean that we are bad witches for failing to accomplish it. Even magick can't accomplish the impossible. When we say that magick is for the highest will, harming none, we include ourselves. The universe knows when the ends of a spell or other work of magick would actually work against our highest will or would have a detrimental effect. Stopping grief is merely postponing the inevitable. Nothing is served by trying to circumvent a necessary part of loss.

I have worked cleansing rituals and banishing spells. The fact that I still feel grief doesn't mean that I have failed as a witch. It simply means that I am human. I hope that my magick has paved the way for an easier time managing my grief, but I was wrong to think that magick would make my pain vanish altogether. Only time can do that.

As for the law of attraction, I believe that the space I have created in my life - through the magickal work I have done and the shift in my own energy that I can only realize through the human work of coming out on the other side of grief - will someday make me ready to welcome someone new. As a good witch I know that this will happen when it serves my highest will.

Good Goddess, please make it sooner rather than later!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 8:00 PM | Comments (2)

This morning, in what has become something of a morning ritual, I checked with Cafe Astrology to see what the Stars have in store for us today and I did my Dream, Joy, Magic reading with the Fey Tarot.

The astrological lesson for today seemed to be that road blocks are the things that get us to stop and focus on something that otherwise would have gone out the door not quite right. Instead of getting frustrated when the universe places an obstacle in our path, perhaps we should see it not as a nuisance but as the universe's way of saying, "Hey, something here needs your attention."

Waite Ryder Five of Pentacles

The Magic card of my spread, which indicates the the work one needs to do to overcome personal limits, was the Five of Pentacles. We've all seen the Waite Ryder Five of Pentacles, with the couple dressed in rags walking miserably through the snow past a church window radiating warmth and light. The simple reading of the Five of Pentacles is usually poverty, but a deeper look at the Waite Ryder card suggests a certain refusal or inability to see where relief from our suffering is if we are only willing to walk through the door. (I'm starting to realize how heavily laced with Christian overtones the Waite Ryder deck really is!) A big difference between the Waite Ryder Five of Pentacles and the Fey Five of Pentacles is that the Fey are depicted inside, sleeping huddled by the warmth of a fire that is emanating from the pentacle before them, the remains of a simple repast nearby. Outside the window is a scary-looking beast. The message here is more of a choice between which side of the window we want to be on. Even those of us who don't have much are luckier than many if we are still able to find shelter, food, warmth and companionship. So the Magic in this card seems to be that we should be grateful for that which we have, even if it isn't much - to choose to be on the inside where it is warm. And who's to say that the scary beast outside isn't really a kindred soul who needs our help, but because he looks different we see him as something to fear instead of someone worthy of our compassion.

It's interesting that these issues came up for me today because they bring me back to an issue I was struggling with last week. I had done a couple of readings with Dianne Sylvan's Storyteller's Spread. One of the cards in the spread represents a Treasure that is our reward for defeating the Dragon (which for me turned out to be something in myself every time). In other words, bravely facing the "Big Bad" that we are meant to overcome to achieve the Goal set out for us at the beginning of our quest. In the first reading, my Treasure was the Three of Swords and in spread two it was Five of Cups. What's up with that? How can heartache and sorrow be a Treasure? How can these be my reward for bravely facing my demons? I was not a happy quester.

Then a wise Druid made a suggestion. He said that maybe the treasure is learning to deal with pain, loss, and struggle - learning to rise above them. "That's a treasure few people receive," he said.

I thought about this and I realized that, while I might have preferred a happier, shinier treasure, to know that one can face pain and loss and still survive is a valuable thing indeed. Fear of pain and loss is something that keeps many of us from moving on, from accepting transformative opportunities, from taking a leap of faith to jump into an unknown future that may hold more joy and happy, shiny treasure than we have ever known before.

For those of us who are walking a Wiccan path, these lessons teach us to look beyond the surface of pain and loss to find the treasures hidden within. That obstacles that slow us down as we hurtle down our path may be opportunities to fix something before it's too late. That we are only poor if we choose to see ourselves that way. That fear of the unknown is not smart or compassionate. And that knowing pain and loss is what allows us not only to know that we can feel but also that in living through the pain and loss we come out on the other side blessed with survival and the wisdom that we can do anything now that we no longer have fear to keep us from trying.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:38 AM | Comments (3)

Sometimes its good to stop thinking about serious things and engage in a bit of silly fun. Everywhere you look there is some blog quiz to take, so occasionally I indulge my silly side to find out things like What Kind of Cake Are You? (lemon), What Color is Your Lucky Underwear? (red), What Art Movement Are You? (Romanticism).

I've been feeling a bit heart-focused lately. I'm not sure why exactly, although I could venture a few guesses if I were in the mood to reveal personal data, which I'm not. Suffice it to say that I am very sensitive right now to the heart that is beating against my ribcage like a bird who wants to be let out. When I ran across a quiz to find out what color my heart is, I couldn't resist.

Your Heart Is Orange

Love equals unbridled happiness for you. You enjoy the wild ride of falling in love. And while the ride is fun for a while, you always get off once the thrill is gone. Your flirting style: Hyper Your lucky first date: Anything you need your passport for! Your dream lover: Is both daring and well grounded What you bring to relationships: Energy

What Color Heart Do You Have?

Is any of that true? Maybe. But I'm more interested in exploring the magickal possibilities in having an orange heart.

The Heart Chakra is located at the center of the chest; the midway point of the chakra system with three chakras above and three chakras below. The Heart is the point where we experience balance, equilibrium, community and love. Along with its physical connection to the heart, lungs, diaphragm, arms and hands, and respiration, the Heart Chakra is associated with growth, the ability to change and adapt, caring, sharing, relationships with others. It gives structure to our existence, routine and discipline, all aspects of personal growth and the ability to discern and travel our own personal road. When this chakra is balanced, there is a sense of calm, clear-sightedness, friendliness and tolerance of others. It is possible to understand the needs of others without feeling our own needs have to be ignored or suppressed. We know where we want to go and we can hold our own ground well. The Heart Chakra is usually considered to be green, while orange is the color of the Sacral Chakra. The Sacral Chakra is connected to the sensuality of touch and the innocent desire for pleasure; nonjudgmental, spontaneous enjoyment.

Magickally speaking, according to one of my favorite sources on Wiccan color correspondences, the color orange is associated with: Encouragement, Concentration, Attraction, Compassion, Energy, Good harvest, Warmth, Power, Adaptability, Prosperity, Fortune, Stamina, Discouraging laziness, Psychic energy, Appetite, Solar aspects, Business goals, Career goals, Selling, Studiousness, Plenty, New home, Material gain, Sealing a spell, Justice, Positive thinking, Strength, Courage, Luck, Stimulation, Success, Vitality, Encouraging fun, Enhancing mental agility, the God, Abundance, Property deals, Ambition, Legal matters, Action, Active finances, Kindness, and Creativity.

Whew. I need to sit down; that made me dizzy. We're talking about my heart here. I think there are a few we can cross off the list. Property deals and legal matters to start. Geez louise. But I think I get where this is going.

Orange is associated with the God Apollo and Goddesses Brigid, Diana, and Fortuna. In the tarot, orange is represented by The Sun and the Twos. In spell work, orange is used for encouragement, concentration, intellect, knowledge and understanding. Under the purview of the Sun, orange is active and energetic, courageous and intelligent. It helps us to achieve the goals we set for ourselves and it makes us giddy with pleasure and success. So the quiz got a few things right.

It seems to me that having an orange heart is a lucky thing, especially for one who has felt unlucky in love lately (okay, so I spilled a bit of personal data). It takes courage to love, to open one's heart even after it has been broken, to continue to believe in the possibility that true love is possible and can be a source of great happiness. In a world where there is so much evidence to the contrary, being the owner of an orange heart seems like a very good thing indeed.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 6:27 PM | Comments (1)

There's been a lot of talk in the Pagan blogosphere lately about the Law of Attraction, magickal manifestation and the relative merits of The Secret. It's clear from the varied opinions people hold on the topic that, as with many issues concerning Pagan practice and faith, there is no one right way and no consensus on how it really works or why. Jeff at The Druid Journal presents an overview of posts on the subject. Dianne Sylvan specifically addresses questions surrounding The Secret, complete with thought-provoking comment thread. And Slade at Shift Your Spirits asks whether there is a difference between magick and manifestation.

I like Slade's practical approach. As he said, most of the disagreements come down to a question of vocabulary and that, while the law of attraction does work, it is magick and it is WORK. He does a good job of reminding us that while the law of attraction is part of every witch's magickal vocabulary, it's not a quick fix and requires the same discipline and personal responsibility that govern the rest of the work that we do. For me, the part of his message that struck a chord was about consciousness programming. It's good, practical advice for "creating the experience you desire with mindfulness, care, and will, and altering your behavior over time to resonate with the change you wish to find in your environment." Not always easy considering the realities of the world we live in and the fact that we are mere humans with the inherent frailties and emotions that come along.

In another post, Slade offers some advice that I think is particularly helpful when we need a bit of help to think more positively.

Put yourself on a Whine Diet. Pessimism is a bad habit. Start retraining your conscious mind to process challenge in a new context.

A Diary or Personal Journal is a particularly fertile breeding ground for manifesting negativity. There are two prescriptions that will, over time, cure pessimism and literally change your life - Gratitude and Challenge Renovation.

You hear about “changing your vibration” to accommodate the positive things you want to manifest more of in your daily life. You can do this by keeping a Gratitude Journal. Make whining and complaining totally OFF limits. You are only allowed to list what is good.

To Renovate Challenges, try this: whenever you find yourself wanting to write down What Sucks — what problem has been thrown your way, what life has slapped you with — express it in terms of what you could do about it.

For example: “I’m broke. I don’t have enough money.” Translate this when you record it into something like “I am going to address my financial problems by…” And list the way you’re going to change it. Problems - Challenges - Life lessons always have built-in solutions.

How many times have we reached for our journals to pour out our heart about a lost love, a lost job, our fears, our failures? Think about how much power we give those things by committing them not just to words but to paper. I like Slade's advice about focusing on those things for which we are grateful instead; about focusing on solutions instead of problems.

After a recent Nor'easter that dumped more snow on Boston than we had all winter, yesterday's Vernal Equinox brought warming sun and it really felt like Spring had come. The snow was melting all around and yes, I saw crocuses, a whole bunch of them released from their snowy blanket, blooming bravely in a garden in my neighborhood. I am so grateful for those crocuses. For the promise of warmer weather to come and for the hopeful transformation they represented - at least to me.

Today, Cafe Astrology tells us:

Minutes into the day (EDT), the Moon enters Taurus, and we naturally begin to slow down in order to take in the world with our five senses. Now, we are motivated by the desire for serenity, security, peace, and comfort. The Moon is at her most sensual and constant in Taurus. Our basic impulses are to relax, resist change, and "stop to smell the roses". Life slows down a little, and we get comfortable.

As a Taurus, when the Moon is in my sign it creates a cozy, comfortable space. I'm going to choose to ignore the stubborn and materialistic side that Taurus sometimes brings and focus instead on using the energy of the day for enjoyable activities and relaxation. The Sun is shining, the crocuses are blooming, Spring is here. Life is good and I am grateful.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 9:55 AM | Comments (4)

CLOTHES are to us what fur and feathers are to beasts and birds; they not only add to our appearance, but they are our appearance. How we look to others entirely depends upon what we wear and how we wear it; manners and speech are noted afterward, and character last of all.

Emily Post

There's been much discussion in the Pagan blogsphere lately about how Pagans dress, what our choices in fashion communicate about us as a community, and whether Pagans would get more respect from others if we dressed more like the mainstream. The debate boils down to two major issues: gaining respect for the Pagan minority and whether Pagans even care to be accepted in mainstream society. There are no easy or obvious answers but some wise and well-spoken members of the Pagan community have had some interesting things to say.

Diana Vreeland

In her post Pink Is The Navy Blue of India (the title of which is a quote from Diana Vreeland, the twentieth century's greatest arbiter of style and elegance) Hecate tells us:

I know witches who wear Hermes and Jimmy Choo, witches who wear jeans and t-shirts, and witches who are Goth beauty queens. They're all serious about their religion and all of them belong to a religion that "others" don't respect. Maybe Uncle Gerald was onto something with all that skyclad business.

Well, as Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society." And in her post On Clout, or the Lack Thereof Anne Johnson makes an interesting point:

Pagans are not going to be taken seriously, no matter what they wear. In order to be taken seriously in America you need to be numerous, well-heeled, and organized.

From a political point of view I agree with Anne but the shoe-hound in me wants to return to the "well-heeled" part of her comment. I think those who argue that modern Pagans would be taken more seriously if they gave some thought to how they dress have a point. The fact that what we wear conveys a certain message is just a fact of our culture.

In my opinion, one of the best posts on this whole matter of Pagan dress is Diane Sylvan's essay On Pagan Con