If you'd like to have your own blog here, start yourself a thread. Use your member name somewhere in the title so people will know who you are. The blogs here should be mostly about your spiritual path and beliefs.
I don't think I've used this color yet.
I'm a little sad. Early morning is when I have time to myself and things are peaceful. I'm not saying things are chaotic around here all the time, but I'm one of those people that needs to spend time alone to recharge and to feel better.
I didn't get alone time this morning. I slept in too late. A whole two hours. 10 AM ain't that great if you don't proceed it with 8 AM peace.
But that's just me.
Goddess time has been kind of hit and miss this week. It's only Thursday, so I've got a couple more days to try again.
I'm going to cheat. I've only done this one other time. If you don't want to know yet, stop now and hang on until tomorrow. And grab yourself a cup of tea, it'll help pass the time. Brought to you by this newcolor. A preview of week 33
A whole day early this time.
I haven't been feeling well this week, and I haven't done much for Goddess time. My weekly blog is going to be short tomorrow. The good news is that I already have my goals for next week figured out. Which means I won't be sitting in front of the computer scratching my head trying to come up with goals. I have the hard part already done. :woot: Ostara is this coming Thursday. I'll be blogging about that next week too. In the mean time, I'll be looking for my misplaced driver's licence. rolleyes
I did things for Goddess time this week, but none of it was on my list of goals. First, I took all of the spells and rituals that were in the random notebook, took them out and placed most of them in my Book of Shadows. Actually, they're all in there, but some of them are sitting in either the front pocket or the back one for one reason or another. There's a couple spells that are incomplete, so I need to finish writing them before I put them with the rest.
This lead me to a bit of a problem. I'm starting to run out of room in the 3 ring binder that is my BOS. I do have another bigger 3 ring binder, but I'm a tad reluctant to use it. Its previous purpose was holding together the instructions for various craft projects. The pages were all inside of page protectors and for some reason the pages were kind of difficult to turn. Several of my BOS pages are in page protectors, so I'm worried that they'll be just as difficult. I'm also reluctant to use the super big binder for my main Book of Shadows because I had come up with a good use for it right before I realized that my current BOS is running out of room. You see, I thought it would be a nice place to keep all of my magickal note books together. I've got 4 of them and I thought that perhaps keeping them together in one spot would be awesome.
I also did a bit of reading this week in an effort to have more Goddess time. I felt that I didn't do enough this week, so I read a couple pages of “An ABC of Witchcraft.”
I did make a couple things this week. Imagine that, it's March and I'm still sticking to my New Year's resolution.
This week, I have an assortment of goals. I'm three quarters of the way finished with my astrological correspondence list, so I'd really like to get that done soon. Ostara is Thursday, so I need to prepare for that. I need to some up with something seasonal to eat... Oh, wait. Brain just gave me an interesting idea for that. Ok then, now Brain and I need to work on what to put on my altar. Brain and I haven't toyed with that idea in the last few days. At some point, maybe not this week, but in the near future, I'd like to get out my other 3 ring binders and try to come up with a different system of organization between the extras and the one that houses that majority of my Book of Shadows.
I'm too tired to be helpful today. I logged on to mostly read. I did do some interesting things this week. Hopefully I'll write a good blog Sunday. Nitey night everyone. <3
The Goddess spoke to me last night. Very clearly I heard Her say "You didn't have to wait." My response: "Oh."
People write beautiful flowing invocations to Her, but when She gives me the time of day, I look around sheepishly and reply "Oh." Not very eloquent, Echo.
For about 2 weeks now, we've toyed with the idea of moving. I thought that maybe I'd call up a bit of magick to help get us a nice, new place. I told myself that I'd wait until Ostara to perform a spell since it would give me something to do for the sabbat. Not only that, but Spring usually represents new beginnings, so I thought Ostara would be a great time to perform a spell for a new home. "You didn't have to wait." I guess She knows what's been going on in my head and my heart. One of the places we considered is the place I lived right before I moved here. I know that it's a nice place, but I've got a lot of bad memories of being there. Especially since that's where much of the mistreatment in my last relationship took place. I was abused there, why would I go back? I don't care if it does have a dishwasher! I actually slept like crap Tuesday night worrying that we'd move there and that I wouldn't be able to handle it psychologically.
I was curious as to why it was only the Goddess speaking to me. The God did appear with her (I've yet to see one without the other), but He didn't speak. I think They're both willing to support me in the moving endeavor. How do I know? They hadblue hair. WHAT?! The last time I saw Them, They had pink hair because I was going to dye my hair that color. I'll be dying my hair blue next week, so They showed up with blue hair. I wonder why They weren't blondes, since that's what my hair is at the moment. Maybe I'll ask Them tonight.
I just couldn't help myself and I looked at my 3 ring binders before I planned to. Not a pretty sight. The extra one that I thought had extra space is just about as full as my main Book of Shadows. It's kind of hard to believe that I've collected that much stuff in my near decade of being a witch. That's quite a feat when you realize that most of what I've collected is hand written.
It hasn't always been that way. For a few years I did have another BOS that was about the size of my main BOS and it was full of spells and rituals that my former High Priestess had printed from her computer for me. Long story short, I no longer have that 3 ring binder, but I do still have a few of it's pages. I did a big reorganization once before. I had the coven copied BOS, my first personal grimoire, a folder full of pagan recipes (think “Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft”), a binder with references and correspondences, and a binder with some of the stuff I copied myself and pages from the coven BOS that I had extra copies of. I no longer have a physical copy of my former coven's Book of Shadows (I do have a copy of it on CD still), the recipe folder or my first grimoire. I miss the grimoire the most though because it had some of the first spells that I had written.
I digress. I guess my point is that I have a lot of stuff and not much of an idea as to what to do with it all.
I finally got around so doing some prosperity magick. I didn't go shopping for what I've been meaning to get, but my wallet got some exercise and I was able to stop its entire contents from disappearing. Now that's magick. I didn't do any spells or rituals, I simply prayed and asked the Lord and Lady to help me find things on sale and to keep from going over board. (If you're a crafter that's been in a craft store, you know my dilemma.) I think I did rather well. I only bought one thing at Michaels that wasn't something I needed. You can't really argue against a cute skein of yarn that was only $2.99. I did get a little crazy with the Easter candy at Walgreens, but most of what I grabbed was on sale. It's easier for me to say no to drugs than it is to deny myself chocolate. I'm pretty sure that I did have the Lord's and Lady's blessing in my shopping endeavor because I found the hair dye that I've been searching for for months and it was on sale. Awesome!
One thing that I bought that I didn't need and wasn't on sale was a little something magickal. I found an owl Ty Beanie Boo named “Spells.” If it were possible to die of cuteness poisoning, I would have died right there in Walgreens. HE'S ADORABLE! He sat on my altar for Ostara. He didn't really fit in with my theme but as a follower of Athena, he still had a place.
Mom found something that I almost bought for my altar. She didn't know that's what I would have used it for, but she knew it was something I would have liked. She picked out a purple hydra. I found it to be cute, but the price tag was ugly. I've always thought it would be cute to have a mythical beast figurine for my altar. Dragons are quite popular for this purpose. I tried to look for a smaller hydra or even a cheap purple dragon, but I didn't. Maybe some other time.
This weeks goal is to finish my correspondence list. I can hear a little voice in a dark corner of my brain yelling “Good luck with that! Reaper of Souls comes out this week and you know it!” I'm a video game addict. Since I didn't do what I intended for Ostara, I'd like to make up for it. I need to finish my new avatar. I have half of it done. If it turns out to be too big kilobyte wise, I do have a back up plan for a different one.
My new little buddy. <3
spells.JPG (8.9 KiB) Viewed 2016 times
Echo's Ostara
My plan was to do a tarot reading and a spell to help us find a new home.
That didn't happen. Instead I spent time sitting before my altar and enjoying the relative peace. I say relative because it was quite in my room, but I could hear the TV blaring in the living room. I ended up not doing what I intended because I was too tired. I did, however come up with a lovely altar setup at the last minute. My altar setup wasn't what I had planned either. I had a few stones sitting in random spots on my altar, They were chosen because they are pastel colored and pastels are usually associated with Spring. I had one stone that wasn't there because of its color. I placed what I believe is a piece of hematite on the northern side of my altar. I had picked it up as I was going through my stones and it felt kind of heavy. In fact, it felt like it was heavier than the other 8 stones on my altar altogether. Its heaviness made me think of stability, so that's why I put it on my altar.
My altar was a mix of spring and duality. I had three pairs of things that I considered to be representations of the God and Goddess. The first was my black and white feathers. Then there was a pair of small sea shells grouped with my stone arrow head. Lastly, there was a piece of stone from the ocean (I have no idea what exactly it is) and a pine cone. I also had my pentacle disc that I made myself, a couple candles and my plush owl Spells and my altar. There was also a mixture of things that normally reside on my altar and things that have been sitting unused in my magick box for years.
I didn't have a sabbat meal. I ate some pumpkin seeds and Easter M&Ms. I plan to put a few of each outside for libation, but I keep forgetting to do so.
::hug:: Hello Friends. Good Tuesday morning to you.
*SUPER GOOD MOOD*<3
I found a couple lovely second hand items yesterday that I know will fit well with my magickal collection. The first is a beautiful candle holder. The shape looks to me like a combination of Yin and Yang with a Yoni.The second item is a framed mirror with a little removable shelf beneath it. As soon as I saw it, I thought: "that's my mini altar!"
It looks as though it could sit on a flat surface as well as hang from a wall. I plan to hang it so that I won't have to worry about anything being taken off of it. Both my cat and my ferret are kleptomaniacs. I've been dreaming of how to decorate it, but I don't want to actually do that until we've moved. I'm hoping we'll get to move soon. We've looked at 3 different places so far, and we're all quite taken with the place we saw yesterday. Wish me luck!
We're moving into the place we looked at on Monday! :woot:
We don't have much of a move in date yet, but when I'm sure that things are official, I'll let everyone know.
I sat my mini altar on the floor for Dust Bunny to examine. I figured "Why not?" since she seemed to fancy the lamp we also got the same day. Bunny had the usual cat reaction of "Hey! Who's that?!" when she saw her reflection. I thought maybe she would've pawed at the mirror, but instead she reached under the couch and started feeling around for the mystery cat.
My astrological correspondence list got finished this week. I finished writing the new spell that I came up with a couple weeks ago. I also made a new avatar this week. It isn't what I had originally started with though. What I wanted was an avatar that flashed each of the 24 runes. Unfortunately, it was way too big kilobyte wise. It had 400 or so kilobytes vs the less than 200 kilobytes that my avatars usually are. I did look at the backup picture that I planned to use, but it just didn't captivate me. I thought that a mushroom theme would be cute since my location says that I'm in Mushroom Valley.
Mushroom Valley is a joke. I came up with it because my nickname is Mushroom. It's because my head casts a mushroom shaped shadow. I've had a love of all things mushroom since a few years before I got the nickname. I did have a collage of mushrooms and mushroom shapes that I made, but it was one of many things lost due to moving. I have since made a new one that has a home inside my Book of Shadows.
I finally started writing down the instructions for my house blessing ritual. I hope to have it finished within the next day or two, especially since I should be moving by the end of this week. If the lack of time doesn't motivate me, I'm sure nothing else will.
I also took the time this week to dust off my mini altar. I was sad to find that the mirror had some spots of undetermined origin that won't come off. I'm not too concerned though because I don't plan to use the mirror for checking out the blue nest that sits on my head. Seriously, that's what my hair looked like this morning. If we set up our room the way I'm hoping to, my mini altar will be on the wall near my bed and directly across the room from the door. That's where the mirror comes in, it'll help keep bad things out of the room. I read somewhere that having a mirror facing your door will keep away evil influences. I don't remember where that concept comes from. I thought it was something from my former coven's BOS, but I can't find the material. I think I've also read it in a book too.
My only goal for this week is to read. Since I'm about ready to move, I don't want to start any new projects or get any supplies out of their box, just to have to pack them up again right away.
PS. I think everyone should have a little bit of Corey Taylor in their day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAAvNmoqDq0
Hi there! I've got a very long post today, but it's all of the weekly blog posts that I wrote while I took time off. Grab a cup of tea friends, this might take a while.
Week 36 (4-6-14)
I did manage to make room for Goddess time this week. I read a few more pages of “An ABC of Witchcraft.” I added a few more details to my pseudo altar picture. I'd like to add a couple representations of the God and Goddess before I'm going to consider it done. I made a new animation. It's not perfect looking but the concept is good enough that I overlook the not so round crystal ball. What I didn't do this week was finish writing down my house blessing ritual. That's fine with me though. The new house still got blessed, it was just done differently.
Despite my inability to bless the new house the way I wanted to, I did come up with an interesting way to make incense. I have plans to write down the instructions and share them soon.
I have found time amid the chaos of my week to pray. Each day when I've been on my way to the new place, or even just after arriving, I ask the Lord and Lady to be with me there. It is just a bit creepy to be in an unfamiliar place all alone. Don't ask me how I feel about being there alone after dark.
My room is going to be arranged a bit differently than we originally planned, but my mini altar will still be in the same spot and my main altar will be right there with it. I'm happy with that idea because I've been wanting my altar to be in a corner for some time now. My boyfriend had suggested that we put my altar in the closet, but my response was a dirty look. Any dirtier and he would've needed a bath.
I don't really have a goal for this week. I know that I'm going to be super busy, so I'll take whatever I can as Goddess time. I still have to clean the kitchen and bathroom at the new house, so the Lord and Lady will probably be hearing me grouch about it.
Week 37 (4-13-14)
Boy am I glad that I kept asking the Lord and Lady to be with me. After I spent a couple days cleaning the new place, we were told that there was a gas leak. I had walked through the entire house with lit incense before the leak was fixed. It's kind of scary to think that I could have potentially died.
Enough about scary stuff.
I saw my first butterfly of spring. It was black with wings edged in yellow. It had come up out of the grass as I approached the woods behind our new house for the first time. I took it as a positive sign.
I've made an avatar for Beltane already. I know it's kind of early but Brain wouldn't leave me alone about it.
I came out of the broom closet to a couple friends this week. I figure that it couldn't hurt since they know other current and former coven members. Another member left the group and now the high priestess is the only founding member left. I was a very bad girl, I gloated. I couldn't help myself. So much for their little exclusive family. I'm not good enough for you? Aw, that's too bad. Nine years later, where are you? When there's a priestess with a power trip, no one stays to play. I've been at odds with me intuition lately. I'm suspicious of something. The logical side of me says that it's just my imagination running wild. My intuitive side says “Remember what happened the last time you suspected that about someone.” I didn't listen to my intuition last time. Sure enough, my suspicion was right. If I'm right this time, I'll just say “Thanks but no thanks,” then go hide somewhere and try to keep the “I freakin' knew it!” party in my head from being too loud.
Week 38 (4-20-14)
I've got my altar and mini altar in place! They're not in the corner that I intended, but they're in a corner none the less. I can't wait to test things out. Set up will certainly be easier now that the only things that will be under my altar are my primary magick box and hopefully my Book of Shadows. I say hopefully because even though it looks like it will fit, my BOS just keeps growing... and growing... and.... I'm sorry, where were we?
I made a Beltane picture for my BOS on here. Yes. Yes. I know. I keep making Beltane stuff early, but it's actually a good thing in this case because I usually forget to make something for my BOS until the very last minute. It's kind of like those sad fellows you see on Valentine's day with the half dead bouquet of flowers about to score front row seats in the dog house.
This week, I'm pretty sure that the Lord and Lady got a good chuckle watching my exploits. The other night I got followed home by a helicopter. Crazy stuff man. When you live in the murder capitol you get to be annoyed by a helicopter's presence almost every night. Somebody must have been bored because they put the spotlight on my boyfriend and I and followed us the whole 4 or 5 houses down to our new place. Meanwhile, I'm sure someone on the other side of town got swallowed by a pot hole and could have used a little extra light. Just saying.
My goal for the week is to drink tea.
….that's it?
Yep.
What???
Totally.
I'm feeling a bit under the weather. My goal is to drink tea and plenty of other fluids so I can get better. I also plan to do a bit of reading, but it'll be one of my PDF witchcraft books since “An ABC of Witchcraft” is in the bottom of my closet and just about everything else I own is on top of it.
Thursday night rolled around and I had forgotten what I did for Goddess time this week. I started to panic and tried to come up with something to do. Lucky me, I remembered that I've been having Goddess time all along.
I finally finished the house blessing ritual. Sure, it's been typed up added to my online BOS, but the physical copy is still missing a couple of the steps. I cheated just a bit. Also, I wrote, typed and submitted a new spell. I'm surprised that I remembered all of it because Brain had started giving me directions while I was cooking dinner.
Yesterday I changed my avatar for a Beltane picture and I made a new one to use after the sabbat.
What I didn't do this week was drink tea or read any sort of material on Witchcraft. I did drink plenty of liquids though. I did do some reading, but it wasn't a PDF nor specifically something pertaining to Witchcraft. I'm just learning some things that I would like to implement for Witchcraft some day. It's a little dream I've had for a few years and now that I've gotten a bit more wisdom to back it up, I might get lucky this time around. If not, that's cool too.
My goal for the week is to find my Book of Shadows. The irony here is that it was one of the first things I wanted moved to the new place so that I wouldn't misplace it in the mess that naturally occurs with moving. Now I have no clue where it is. I wonder how long its missing status would have gone unnoticed if I hadn't needed the scissors? Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know where the accompanying notebook of correspondences is either. Dear Athena, it seems I've dropped the wisdom ball.
But wait! That's not all!
Beltane is this week. I need to plan a ritual and pick my altar decorations. Since I'll be going through my tools any way, I might as well grab the stuff I plan to put on my mini altar.
The Lord and Lady were most kind to me last night. I asked Them to help me find good deals at the store. I asked because initially I was looking for new shoes. I didn't get shoes, but I did get good stuff. First was a beautiful skein of yarn for 90% off. I paid $0.70 for puffy, bright watermelon hued yarn. I couldn't say no.
I knew They truly loved me when I found the book. For months now, I've been dying to get "Styxx" by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I told myself that it would be my birthday present to myself. Come December, I couldn't find it. Every time I went to a store with books since then, I'd always look for it. Last night as I rounded the corner, there it sat, in a glorious, much cheaper paperback version. I screamed. (I'm a very expressive girl. ) Back down the other aisle I go, clutching the book exclaiming, "Oh my god, I found it! Honey Look!"
Last night as I was laying in bed, I thought to myself "I should find a way to thank the Lady for Her help, but what should I give Her?" I haven't figured that out yet, but I know She'll be in my thoughts when I'm in the shower. I bought owl treads for the tub. Who gives a hoot? This girl!
I found my Book of Shadows. It was in one of magick supply totes. I didn't see it before because I didn't look hard enough. My correspondence notebook was right there with it. I also found my scissors. I had taken my scissors out of my BOS about a month ago, so finding my BOS two weeks ago would've been pointless.
I received a lovely gift this week. A friend of mine gave me two large slabs of marble. The round brown and cream colored slab was put on an end table in the living room. It looks beautiful, like it was meant to be in our living room. The other slab is a light colored octagon and I put it on my altar. It's a little funny looking because my altar is a hexagon. The marble does cover about 99% of the design that's carved into the top of my altar. That will make clean up so much easier!
I'm quite glad that the Lord and Lady were with me Wednesday night, not just for the savings. On one hand, I hate grocery shopping. It makes me grouchy. We also had an unexpected guest with us. My friend that took us to the store brought her friend, the girl I don't like, little miss trouble maker. Goddess knows how tired I've become of trying to play nice with people I can't stand. I avoided her as best I could. I made it through our little excursion without much more grouch than a typical trip to the grocery store. :woot:
This week's goal is to find the information I need to write something that I've been wanting to write for the last month. I wanted to do it last week, but I needed my missing notebook of correspondences.
Echo's Beltane
This sabbat was definitely celebrated differently. For me, Beltane was Friday night. I spent my time personalizing my room a bit by decorating my ritual corner. The first thing I did was look through my magick supply box that I don't go through very often. I was looking for my Mardi Gras beads to hang from my mini altar. I have a set of seven different colors to use for each day of the week. The beads were given to me by my former high priestess near the time I joined the coven. She had a set herself on her bedroom wall, and at the time, I wanted to emulate her, so I've had the beads up for decoration as often as I could. Though I no longer think so highly of her, I do still feel that the beads make a lovely decoration.
Going through that particular tote, I got to see how many unusable candles I have. I've got quite a few. I guess some of the next magickal supplies I need to invest in are some wicks and wax.
I got out stuff to put in the basket of my mini altar. I originally wanted just a few of my stones that I got from the Smithsonian museum when I was in Washington DC. I only used one of those stones, a pretty pale gray and light pink stone. Accompanying it are a smooth, white almost square stone and a jagged piece of amethyst both given to me by my boyfriend six years ago. I also added a white rose shaped candle with petals that have iridescent glitter on their tips. I think the subtle colors go rather nicely with bright metallic colors of the Mardi Gras beads.
I tacked a couple puzzles to the wall in front of and to the left of my altar. They were already assembled and glued together when I got them. The one on the wall in front of my altar depicts a white tiger. The one on the wall left of my altar is a nighttime beach scene.
The space beneath my altar is more organized now. Before, I had games, movies and a few other random things shoved in there with my primary magick box. Now the box resides with my Book of Shadows, tarot deck, notebook of correspondences, candles, lighter, jars of herbs and sea salt, my copy of “An ABC of Witchcraft,” and my salt dough runes.
Brought to you by this new
First, I took all of the spells and rituals that were in the random notebook, took them out and placed most of them in my Book of Shadows. Actually, they're all in there, but some of them are sitting in either the front pocket or the back one for one reason or another. There's a couple spells that are incomplete, so I need to finish writing them before I put them with the rest.
I do have another bigger 3 ring binder, but I'm a tad reluctant to use it. Its previous purpose was holding together the instructions for various craft projects. The pages were all inside of page protectors and for some reason the pages were kind of difficult to turn. Several of my BOS pages are in page protectors, so I'm worried that they'll be just as difficult. I'm also reluctant to use the super big binder for my main Book of Shadows because I had come up with a good use for it right before I realized that my current BOS is running out of room. You see, I thought it would be a nice place to keep all of my magickal note books together. I've got 4 of them and I thought that perhaps keeping them together in one spot would be awesome.
I don't care if it does have a dishwasher! 
I actually slept like crap Tuesday night worrying that we'd move there and that I wouldn't be able to handle it psychologically. 
Maybe I'll ask Them tonight. 
I did get a little crazy with the Easter candy at Walgreens, but most of what I grabbed was on sale. It's easier for me to say no to drugs than it is to deny myself chocolate. 
I'm pretty sure that I did have the Lord's and Lady's blessing in my shopping endeavor because I found the hair dye that I've been searching for for months and it was on sale. Awesome! 
He sat on my altar for Ostara. He didn't really fit in with my theme but as a follower of Athena, he still had a place.
I did look at the backup picture that I planned to use, but it just didn't captivate me. I thought that a mushroom theme would be cute since my location says that I'm in Mushroom Valley. 
Every time I went to a store with books since then, I'd always look for it. Last night as I rounded the corner, there it sat, in a glorious, much cheaper paperback version. I screamed. (I'm a very expressive girl. 
) Back down the other aisle I go, clutching the book exclaiming, "Oh my god, I found it! Honey Look!"