Pagan

[*Magic_and_Silk*]

{{{{BIT}}}}

Actually, I was fortunate enough to attend a small Beltane circle with some very close friends. It was kind of Beltane / Birthday celebration, which was awesome!

I am fortunate to have such friends...and that includes all of you here.

[Bit]

Oh cool! Happy birthday, Magic, and may it be the start of your best year yet! May all good things come to you and may you prosper in all things, especially financially, so mote it be!!

[*Magic_and_Silk*]

Originally Posted by Bit

Oh cool! Happy birthday, Magic, and may it be the start of your best year yet! May all good things come to you and may you prosper in all things, especially financially, so mote it be!!

Thank you so much, Bit. You have no idea how much I need to prosper financially right now.

[Bit]

Oh, I'm sure you probably need financial prosperity as much as we do or even more, Magic! It's a great mantra. If you say it every single time you find yourself worrying about money it will change you AND your money circumstances.

I said it multiple times a day at first because I was in despair about our money. The first thing that changed was me; the despair lifted and I began to see things with hopeful eyes. That allowed room for change in our lives, and meant that the forces for change didn't have to buck through as much negativity, so even small positive changes could get through. That was a rocky path though; I was still prone to despair off and on for several months.

Then money started coming in before the end of that first month, ten bucks here, twenty bucks there--slow, yanno? never anything we could actually count on--but just enough to keep me saying the mantra. I started saying it October 1st a year and a half ago and on October 31st, we were told about That House. On March 17th (after a lot of failures!) we closed on That House. I am firmly convinced it was the mantra that brought us financing, because we were turned down by every conventional source we tried. If our credit was acceptable, the house was not, and vice versa, until we finally said the heck with it and gave up... but I kept saying the mantra, and then private financing appeared.

I kept on saying that mantra every day for over a year. It made a huge difference in how well we were able to pay the bills. I still say it, but not as regularly. I wonder if it might have been a mistake to stop saying it every day, yanno? But the things which I was using as prompts to say it have changed. Maybe I should start again. After all, who doesn't need to prosper?

So, back to Beltane, we attended a local picnic in a park, complete with two Maypole dances. It was great! There was a plant swap, a May Queen crowning, lots of sparring with foam swords to choose her champion, and a ton of really great food--WITH, I kid you not, a couple of bins to scrape plates into for compost!! Of course Pagans would think of that, lol!

My favorite part is that an eleven year old girl beat ALL the champion candidates at sparring, some of them over and over. She beat most of the adults, too; it was great. Gryph was the only one who held his own with this girl.

After Gryph and I had gotten home and relaxed some from a busy day filled with sun and new friends, I said, "...wow... I feel like I finally found my people..." and yanno, it still feels that way. The picnic was VERY much like a family reunion where you find adult cousins you hadn't met before, and discover that you're all really similar in important ways: that "shared family" bond. It was just like that! I really loved it and I want to get more involved with this community.

An intriguing part of the day was that the May Queen could have been Arwen's younger twin. It was kind of odd, feeling like I knew her when I'd never met her before, lol! And I think I'm going to have to consciously remind myself a lot that she is her own self, and not our Arwen, or I'll be expecting her to do and say things that she won't.

[*Magic_and_Silk*]

[QUOTE=Bit;100496]Oh, I'm sure you probably need financial prosperity as much as we do or even more, Magic! It's a great mantra. If you say it every single time you find yourself worrying about money it will change you AND your money circumstances.

All good things shall come to me
And I shall have prosperity
As I will so must it be

[Bit]

I like that. It has a lovely rhythm and rhyme.

[*Magic_and_Silk*]

Thank you, Bit.

[Nat]

Happy belated Beltane, y'all.



Anybody here listen to podcasts? I really love druidcast and paganfm, and a few others.

BB

[Bit]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Nat}}}}}}}}}}}}} Thank you for the music, darlin!

I confess, I am a Luddite Lite... never figured out how to listen to podcasts. *sheepish look*

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Bit

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Nat}}}}}}}}}}}}} Thank you for the music, darlin!

I confess, I am a Luddite Lite... never figured out how to listen to podcasts. *sheepish look*

Okay hmm. I tried making direct links but they did not work.

For Pagan FM, you should be able to listen to the latest episode by clicking on the mp3 link down below each show description

PaganFM comes out once a week and it's a really comprehensive radio show (and the host is trans).

For Druidcast, there's a "direct download" link at the bottom of each show description. Druidcast just has really great folk-music, poetry, folktales and interviews mostly. The host is Damh the Bard (ever listened to him? He's a musician you can find on youtube). I really enjoy it. It's more focused on druidry and Celtic mythology, but because it's a bardic tradition, they produce lots of beautiful stuff. I think you'd like it.

If neither of these options work, I would highly recommend downloading itunes. Then you can find them by clicking on the "itunes store" on the left-hand side of the program and then searching for the podcasts. If you need help, please feel free to ask or pm. I think the pagan podcasting world is really strong and kinda neat - it is a bit of "oral tradition".

[2myladyblue]

Pops in to quickly say Merrymeet! *smiles & waves* Hope to come back & post very soon... ~LadyBlue

[Bit]

Hello, LadyBlue, merry meet!

Nat, thank you for the links!

So is anyone keeping track of the changes around them as the seasons progress? This is something I've been doing for a couple years, and it occurs to me that I could post it here. I was inspired by something Starhawk wrote about in one of her recent books, which is paying attention to one particular place over time in order to reconnect yourself to the Earth.

I always remember reading (many years ago now) that it's silly to make a distinction between the city and the country, between artificial and natural, as if concrete and glass were not natural materials. It's true that everything which is ON the earth is also a part of the earth--it's not like asphalt is brought in from outer space, yanno?--and so we have the potential to connect strongly with the earth no matter where we are.

It's also true that there is wild and untamed nature all around us no matter where we are. That was hard for me to understand at first; I had to start looking at weeds and bugs and city birds in the proper way to get it. The truth is that they don't depend on us and would be here whether we were, or not.

Another truth: our own yards and gardens and pets can connect us to the earth as well.

What I've noticed is that when I write about the things I see, it sparks me to consider things I wouldn't necessarily think about otherwise.

I'll post my latest musings and observations in a separate post.

[Bit]

Ahhh, Spring has settled into Wichita and shall not be dislodged. In early March, she was still dancing with Winter, and that continued through the whole month. The late-March snowstorm came the next-to-last weekend of March, and then the "weather waves" started, a pattern that includes a bright hot sunny day followed immediately by a big storm from the west which drops the temperature considerably, and is in turn followed by day after day of steadily increasing temperatures until we have a bright hot sunny day followed immediately by a big storm from the West which... well, you get the picture. *smiling*

It's just amazing to me how all our weather comes from the west, rolls in across the ocean and sweeps across the continent. Even when we get what Gryph refers to as an Alberta Clipper--the jet stream dipping south from Canada into the US--it's driven by weather from the west. I haven't yet figured out the significance of this in magical terms, but it doesn't seem to me that it was ever mentioned in any of the teachings I have read or heard about the directions and their symbolism; West=Water, yes, or even the Ocean, but never a word about weather... yet there it is, for a hugely significant part of the northern hemisphere, weather comes from the west. Rain, snow, ice, storms of all kinds; tornadoes, straightline winds, withering droughts, all born in and driven from the west as a function not of Water but of Air, of Wind, ferocious and untamed.

A strange match for the sweet gentleness of the idyllic Summerlands, yes? And yet it took me a while of musing and wondering about it before I caught that connection between the West as Source of Deadly Weather, so to speak, and the Land of the Dead. Maybe it was more obvious to seafaring peoples? Or maybe the Summerlands are just tied in my mind to Avalon, and to popular depictions which conveniently leave out everything about death and skip right to the idyllic afterlife, like some Pagan version of Heaven...

In any case, when Memorial Day comes to the US the last weekend in May, I'll be thinking about the West, and cycles of the weather.

All the trees have taken advantage of the weather waves, and have leafed out. The streets which had been open to the skies are now enclosed, sheltered by mounds of greenery. It started after the last snowstorm, wisps of palest green that suddenly opened into drifting billows, whiter than clouds. They lasted about a week, then as the blossoms dropped faded once again into palest green, opening slowly into the softness of spring greens. Now in the midst of May they've darkened, not quite to summer green but well on the way.

The earliest flowers have all come and gone, many, it must be admitted, victim to roaring lawnmowers. The ground was utterly speckled and peppered with drops of golden sunshine in mid-April. Stems and occasional fluffy seedheads still linger here and there. The dandelion leaves clearly benefitted from their early "harvest" as they're now putting great energy into new growth. The henbit and corn speedwell did not benefit in the same way; an occasional patch still catches the eye but for the most part they're done for the year. Star of Bethlehem responded to early mowings by flowering without leaves, a good month earlier than they flowered last year; whether this is because of the warmer drier spring this year or is solely due to mowing I can't tell. Violets are still growing everywhere and may give us a second flush of blossoms if the lawnmowers don't get them, but I think possibly there hasn't been enough rain for that.

Forsythia was a disapointment to me this year. It bloomed exuberantly all over the neighborhood, but the scent was actually, well, kind of nasty! I mourned the ending of winter when I smelled them.

The exquisite pinks of the redbuds made it a little better. Then the lilacs bloomed for more than a week, and perfumed the air with a heady warm sweetness that totally made up for the snow going away. Now the old-fashioned irises are doing their best to carry on with the job, purple and white alike. The roses have opened and are quickly spending their glory--no weeklong blossoms for them--and the various trees are still spreading sweetness. It started with the maples at mid-March, added early elms, segued into the oaks in early April, paused for a brief but brilliant burst of crabapple with the lilacs, and now is into more elms, the ashes and hackberries.

Half a robin's eggshell sits on Gryph's desk, a reminder that the cycle of birds has changed as well. Gone are the juncos of March, slipped away unnoticed with the crows. Hawks now rule the skies and robins rule the ground, splitting the neighborhood into territories, filling the morning with song from rooftops and treetops alike. The solar music boxes in my neighbor's yard have reverted to mere Arbor Vitae shrubs again, as the sparrows no longer come to the surface to soak up the sun. Indeed, they've moved out into the trees, built nests and laid eggs. The young birds are starting to show up foraging now, their short stubby tails, streaky brown feathers, and innocence charming me every time I see them. One flew up under my broken window screen to land on my kitchen windowsill the other day. No telling who was more amazed when I lifted the curtain and peeked out, her or me! She stayed a while, eyeing me from every angle before deciding to fly away.

Bugs are a subject I wish I could ignore. *sheepish smile* Haven't seen too many mosquitos this year yet, but then it hasn't rained as much as last year AND we started mowing the lawn earlier. Small flies are out, and the ants woke up and started foraging about a week ago. Bees have been awake on and off since the lilacs bloomed; they seemed to really love the henbit but left the lilacs completely alone. The fat brown beetles that hurl themselves at our lighted windows showed up last week, so we started leaving the porch light and living room lights off at night--no more beetles.

Lightning bugs aren't due until next month. I look forward to THEM, lol!

It occurred to me yesterday that once the season has truly changed, I settle into it and look forward to the rest of it. Now that Spring is solidly here and Summer is on her inexorable way, the gardener in me is awake and happy. I suppose this is what it is to live in a four season climate, this constant change, nothing lasting more than a few months, the Wheel always swinging about. It's so strange compared to the 9 months of heat I was used to!

I'm still looking forward to the snow again,
Cath

[foxyshaman]

Hail and Hello!!!

Cath what great posts!! I was delighted to read your thoughts and impressions of where you live. We had our latest snow storm on Thursday and it left a good 7 inches of snow. Which was really good, we are in a 10 year drought so any moisture is good. We had some rain this weekend, but we could use quite a bit more.

Beltaine was fun. We had a faire here, with lots of neat performers, people in chain mail, hoola hoop dancers, sword jousting, a drum circle (yeah us) and of course a pot luck... what would a pagan event be without a pot luck?

I have been working with angels recently, not something I thought I would ever do, but I am. I was wondering if anyone has a good reference book on angels, more from a historical perspective rather than from a more modern approach. I have taken the two encyclopedia's out of the library and they have held some interesting facts and information. I have recently been introduced to them and they help me with my depossession work. And HOLY MOLY does the room get HOT. OMG. I have never felt heat rise like that ever in healing work, it is quite something. And when they leave the room almost immediately goes back to normal.

One Angel in particular is called Raziel. The presence of Raziel is quite different from anything I have encountered.

Anyway... we are coming out of the deep freeze up here. It is +10C today and going to get warmer as the week goes on. We have some leaves out already, but they are still little. We are still waiting for Lilacs to bloom, those are my favorite. We were in Sebastapol (Santa Rosa) <taking a tantra workshop> a couple of weeks ago and what a huge difference from here... amazing what a couple thousand Kilometers will do for plants!! We are so far behind here. We just got green grass a couple of weeks ago. Saw some tulips this week... I was all like...oohhh ahhhhh.

Wishing everyone a fun and fabulous Monday!! And yes they can happen!

Foxyshaman

[Bit]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Foxy}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Thank you so much, darlin!

Yanno... it never occurred to me that Canada could have a drought? I honestly thought only places farther south could be drought-stricken. I learned something today! Glad you got the moisture but I hope you get Spring, also!

I have no resources on Angels for you but I do have a story. Once Gryph and I got together, he started sending healing and Allies to my family, mostly gryphons... but yanno, my family is all deeply Christian, so I asked him if the Allies would please appear to my family as angels, because I honestly didn't think they would be able to be effective unless they appeared as something my family members would recognize and trust.

The Alies have grumbled a lot about the "disguises", but they're pretty good at what they do and there's been some remarkable healing taking place for everyone in the family ever since they started helping.

Then Gryph started coming under attack again last week--it happens when he's stretched too thin--and so I asked my mom to put him on her prayer line. "Oh!" she said, "we've got to get some angels over there for protection!!"

When he got home, I relayed the message... *tilts head, curious* and asked if the angels had to disguise themselves as gryphons for him. He laughed pretty hard.

For me, I usually ask angels for help but I haven't ever traveled with them; when I talk to them--usually Michael or Raphael--I need them to be on a human scale.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I looked up Raziel. His name means "Secrets of God." The God in question is of course El, but hey, I'm being picky, lol... I suppose that I like knowing the angels predate the religion of the Hebrews. Anyway I mention this because what I found (in an admittedly cursory search) is that Raziel doesn't show up in the lists of angels until the Middle Ages, and he is consistently associated with magic.

The first part, "which contains little but strange conceits ascribed to the angel Raziel, and which describes the entire organization of heaven" (Zunz), was composed at the earliest in the eleventh century, as is shown by both content and language, and by the coined words and angel-names, which number several thousand (ib.).

Read more:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=142&letter=R#ixzz0nbP4WVjV

The legend is that he wrote all the secrets of God's (El's) magic into a book and gave it to Adam and Eve, to help them find their way back home after they were expelled from Paradise; the book was passed down until it reached Noah and is the source for his ark-building instructions; it eventually ended up in Solomon's Temple.

Who Raziel is, I don't know, but if he's different from the other angels you've encountered, maybe it's because he's still being formed? The rest of the archangels would be several thousand years older and would have a solid core built from millennia of expectations and interactions with humans... but the Wikipedia page for Raziel held all kinds of references to current popular literature and RPGs. If people are role-playing as Raziel, maybe that affects the ways the energy appears and expresses itself on the Astral?

This is only a guess, so please feel free to tell me if I am way out in left field, k?

Oh, and this image http://www.legacyofkain.it/Raziel%20vampiro%20(2).jpg caught my eye immediately... to me, those are Dragon wings. Maybe Raziel is more than an angel?

[foxyshaman]

Hey Sunshine!!!

Allies peeking through angel wings!! That made me ... We have to go with what we are given to get the message through sometimes! I hope Gryph has a better day today. Being stretched too thin is a true stressor. It seems like you two have been going through enough already eh?? Last year some of the farm areas around where I live were declared disaster areas because of the drought. But hey there is no global warming or anything silly like that is there?

Thank you for the information on Raziel. I too have found references to him in role playing games. His energy is completely different from the other Angels I call upon. The other three are Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. They come in the room and aid the suffering being that we are working on releasing from my patients. But Raziel merges with me. My core body temp rises and my hands feel like they are on fire. I have never felt a spirit quite like this one. I am going to call one of the Rabbi's in town and see if they have any further information. I am doing some research on funerary rights for a lecture at the University I am giving and so I think that the two questions will be rolled into one conversation for the Rabbi. I have never spoken to a Rabbi before!! But I was given the number by my Director at work <I disguised part of the reason I wanted to talk to a Rabbi>

The growth of angels and the change in their personalities over the centuries is pretty interesting.

As always this is such a learning/teaching path.
I hardly feel qualified at times to even talk about it, there is so much information and I feel like I am in kindergarten!!!

Hugs and Love to you and Gryph!

[Bit]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{Foxy}}}}}}}}}}}}} Hi darlin!! How are you this fine weekend? Busy, I'll bet!

Do your politicians do that "no such thing as global warming" stupidity also? I thought that curse was special to the US. *snort* Ohhhh yeah, let's just ignore 50 years of climate science, and when the predictions start coming true let's just say it was a coincidence... sheesh, politicians!

That's very interesting about Raziel. Oddly enough, I almost typed Azriel... Angel of Death... I speak in my mind as I type and I really did say to myself "Azriel".... caught it just before I typed it. The meaning of Azriel is "God is my help" which is a pretty interesting name for the Angel of Death, lol.... the name is more commonly spelled Azrael, and can also be translated as "whom God helps". I would presume we would say "the one whom God helps".

I did find a reference to Raziel as the Angel of Death, but only on a page about Raziel; a search on "angel of death" didn't pop his name up at all, and he didn't come up on the Azrael Wikipedia page either.

[Bit]

Wow, this is a great article on Feminist Witchcraft, well researched and well put together! You might enjoy it!

http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=nlxx&c=words&id=13973

You also might enjoy the rest of the articles on WitchVox.

http://www.witchvox.com/index_mov.html

[Daryn]

Bit - Reading your posts a bit (sorry for pun). One of the few things I miss from days in the East are fireflies. Two years ago in late June, when I was back in the area I grew up in I saw them again for the first time in many, many years. I wonder why you don't see them West of the Rockies.

[Bit]

Ha! I like the pun.

I wondered that about fireflies too. The only thing I can think its that it's the Rockies themselves; they're a divide between so many species which only exist on one side or the other. Maybe the winters are too severe through the range to allow fireflies to spread?

Aww heck, so much for that theory; Gryph tells me there were fireflies in the mountains of California when he was a kid.

Well, maybe they're really sensitive to pesticides? I know in Phoenix (all through the metro area) pesticides have been routinely and, imo, indiscriminately sprayed for decades; maybe other cities have done so, also?