Pagan

[Bit]

It's that transitioning time of year again. The fruits and vegetables are changing; squash comes into season, melons go out of season, apples and pears replace berries, sweet potatoes replace tomatoes. The leaves have started turning on the Virginia creeper along my back fence and my neighbors' trees are starting to show soft yellows and oranges. Music comes up from the depths of my soul, channeled through childhood memories and recent discoveries alike. The Gardener in me simmers down, and the Baker wakes up: tis Autumn time.

In my yard, the barren heat of the Summer drought has ended. The dandelions and plantains are green and growing, leaves tender, succulent. The violets which barely survived the summer are strengthening. Ragweed is blooming enthusiastically. Who knew it was such a mimic? The sassafrass-mimicking giant ragweed is gone now... but the "pigweed" has just shown itself to also be a ragweed and must come out as well. The beggars' ticks have gone to seed, all sticky with tiny hairs, long seeds barbed like harpoons. I pull them whenever I find them and the yard is free of them for the winter, but they'll be back again come spring, just like the poison ivy. The grass is frantically blooming and setting seed. Vines and trees all over the neighborhood have blazed forth with red berries. The Autumn Leaf Show has not truly begun yet, but it's coming... it is coming. The world beneath the surface growth is slowing down, taking a breath; tree roots are preparing for the long sleep. Earth is awake and content, just a little drowsy around the edges as sleep time comes closer.

Samhain is just around the corner. It seems to be coming unusually fast this year, but I know tis only because Summer held on through what should have been the first month of Autumn. Only two weeks now, and we will be in the U.S. Holiday Season: Samhain/Halloween, Thanksgiving, Solstice/Yule/Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day. Tis the inner Baker's dream season, time to set butter-and-flour magic into motion, time to create breads and cakes, muffins and cookies, brownies and gingerbreads. Tis time to stock the larder; grocery store sales on the staples of a Baker's kitchen are just around the corner. Time to slow roast squashes and root vegetables, time to create stews and roasts, time to cook to my heart's content.

I find myself feeling connected to generation upon generation of cooks and bakers. An image persists in my heart's eye, a cook in a huge stone kitchen, feeding a small army's worth of children and adults all through the winter, secure in the knowledge her larder is full. How many hundreds of years does this image go back, its cauldrons and kettles and bake ovens steaming? It lives in me like an archetype and I am happy to be inspired through the long Autumn and Winter months by the Cook's happiness, by her need to feed the multitude of those she cares for, by her great satisfaction in practicing the arts of Kitchen Alchemy.

The Gardener, though, has not entirely let go. Autumn is a slow time but still a growing time, and this year the Gardener in me is determined to save some of these plants and bring them inside. It means finding a way to keep cats and dogs out of the containers, finding space for them all, obtaining lights to keep them growing and happy. The bell and banana peppers, the mint, the geraniums will all winter over nicely if protected from freezing. Tis time to think about starting herbs for wintering over, as well, and choosing a place within the house for a garden area, which leads to thoughts of preparing the house for the coming Winter, sealing the windows and doors against drafts, checking the furnace over, moving the furniture to take best advantage of heat vents--and back to plants we come, for those which must go dormant will need to be in a room which has no heat vent, and those which will continue growing will need to be in warm rooms.

The Singer in my soul has taken note of the direction of my thoughts, these changes, preparations, anticipations, transitions: chants and carols come bubbling to the surface, invoking the falling Autumn leaves, the Soul Cake traditions, the remains of Pagan music hidden in holiday songs. "A Soalin'" winds through my heart and soul like a thread weaving the traditions together, half-remembered childhood folk music favorites bound into recreated Medieval custom, "God Rest Ye Merry" trailing through "Soul Cake" on bright ribbons of brass and love. Red leaves fall through the newer "Autumn Time" chant, and the Beloved Dead speak through the Souling Song. The Singer does not care if the message fits her tradition or not, for the old music is Pagan to its bones and the spirit of Autumn reaches even through others' words. She sings, and cries for the magnifence of the gift resurrecting itself down through all the generations, and sings again--and the Horned God, the Green Man hear: the songs are once again Pagan in her mouth.

Life is full and overflowing in this most beautiful and magical season of change. Bright Blessings for the deep roots of Love to us all,
Cath

Soul cake recipes:
http://www99.epinions.com/content_4439384196 Montrose Family Tradition, 5th generation, gingerbread
http://www.food.com/recipe/soul-cakes-143070 cookies (source not specified), spicy but not gingerbread

Autumn music:
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnbD3QLU5o4&feature=related"]YouTube - Peter Paul and Mary, A Soalin[/nomedia] Peter Paul and Mary, A Soalin
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI637NIdP88&feature=related"]YouTube - NEAL WOODALL A Soulin'[/nomedia] Neal Woodall, A Soulin' (A Soalin)
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL4zpBjSTt0"]YouTube - A-Soalin' - Loraine Washburn a Peter Paul and Mary Cover song[/nomedia] Lorraine Washburn, A Soalin
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH2AjW1_h1s&feature=related"]YouTube - A 'Soalin'[/nomedia] (BYU?) Choral Christmas Version, A Soalin--just beautiful, medley with A Wassailing and God Rest Ye Merry
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07tu3e-otkU&feature=fvsr"]YouTube - Sting, Soul Cake.[/nomedia] Sting, Soul Cake--photos from Gotland, Sweden--utterly gorgeous and IMPOSSIBLE to sit through without dancing
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoJvo3_xm9s"]YouTube - Libana- Autumn Time[/nomedia] Libana, Autumn Time
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j35dvmdse9k"]YouTube - Halloween Music - "Souling Song - Samhain Version" - Kristen Lawrence[/nomedia] Kristen Lawrence, Souling Song, Samhain version
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=21280497&b logId=516025050 Kristen's lyrics

[aldebaran]

Originally Posted by Bit

It's that transitioning time of year again. The fruits and vegetables are changing; squash comes into season, melons go out of season, apples and pears replace berries, sweet potatoes replace tomatoes. The leaves have started turning on the Virginia creeper along my back fence and my neighbors' trees are starting to show soft yellows and oranges. Music comes up from the depths of my soul, channeled through childhood memories and recent discoveries alike. The Gardener in me simmers down, and the Baker wakes up: tis Autumn time.

In my yard, the barren heat of the Summer drought has ended. The dandelions and plantains are green and growing, leaves tender, succulent. The violets which barely survived the summer are strengthening. Ragweed is blooming enthusiastically. Who knew it was such a mimic? The sassafrass-mimicking giant ragweed is gone now... but the "pigweed" has just shown itself to also be a ragweed and must come out as well. The beggars' ticks have gone to seed, all sticky with tiny hairs, long seeds barbed like harpoons. I pull them whenever I find them and the yard is free of them for the winter, but they'll be back again come spring, just like the poison ivy. The grass is frantically blooming and setting seed. Vines and trees all over the neighborhood have blazed forth with red berries. The Autumn Leaf Show has not truly begun yet, but it's coming... it is coming. The world beneath the surface growth is slowing down, taking a breath; tree roots are preparing for the long sleep. Earth is awake and content, just a little drowsy around the edges as sleep time comes closer.

Samhain is just around the corner. It seems to be coming unusually fast this year, but I know tis only because Summer held on through what should have been the first month of Autumn. Only two weeks now, and we will be in the U.S. Holiday Season: Samhain/Halloween, Thanksgiving, Solstice/Yule/Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day. Tis the inner Baker's dream season, time to set butter-and-flour magic into motion, time to create breads and cakes, muffins and cookies, brownies and gingerbreads. Tis time to stock the larder; grocery store sales on the staples of a Baker's kitchen are just around the corner. Time to slow roast squashes and root vegetables, time to create stews and roasts, time to cook to my heart's content.

I find myself feeling connected to generation upon generation of cooks and bakers. An image persists in my heart's eye, a cook in a huge stone kitchen, feeding a small army's worth of children and adults all through the winter, secure in the knowledge her larder is full. How many hundreds of years does this image go back, its cauldrons and kettles and bake ovens steaming? It lives in me like an archetype and I am happy to be inspired through the long Autumn and Winter months by the Cook's happiness, by her need to feed the multitude of those she cares for, by her great satisfaction in practicing the arts of Kitchen Alchemy.

The Gardener, though, has not entirely let go. Autumn is a slow time but still a growing time, and this year the Gardener in me is determined to save some of these plants and bring them inside. It means finding a way to keep cats and dogs out of the containers, finding space for them all, obtaining lights to keep them growing and happy. The bell and banana peppers, the mint, the geraniums will all winter over nicely if protected from freezing. Tis time to think about starting herbs for wintering over, as well, and choosing a place within the house for a garden area, which leads to thoughts of preparing the house for the coming Winter, sealing the windows and doors against drafts, checking the furnace over, moving the furniture to take best advantage of heat vents--and back to plants we come, for those which must go dormant will need to be in a room which has no heat vent, and those which will continue growing will need to be in warm rooms.

The Singer in my soul has taken note of the direction of my thoughts, these changes, preparations, anticipations, transitions: chants and carols come bubbling to the surface, invoking the falling Autumn leaves, the Soul Cake traditions, the remains of Pagan music hidden in holiday songs. "A Soalin'" winds through my heart and soul like a thread weaving the traditions together, half-remembered childhood folk music favorites bound into recreated Medieval custom, "God Rest Ye Merry" trailing through "Soul Cake" on bright ribbons of brass and love. Red leaves fall through the newer "Autumn Time" chant, and the Beloved Dead speak through the Souling Song. The Singer does not care if the message fits her tradition or not, for the old music is Pagan to its bones and the spirit of Autumn reaches even through others' words. She sings, and cries for the magnifence of the gift resurrecting itself down through all the generations, and sings again--and the Horned God, the Green Man hear: the songs are once again Pagan in her mouth.

Life is full and overflowing in this most beautiful and magical season of change. Bright Blessings for the deep roots of Love to us all,
Cath

Soul cake recipes:
http://www99.epinions.com/content_4439384196 Montrose Family Tradition, 5th generation, gingerbread
http://www.food.com/recipe/soul-cakes-143070 cookies (source not specified), spicy but not gingerbread

Autumn music:
YouTube - Peter Paul and Mary, A Soalin Peter Paul and Mary, A Soalin
YouTube - NEAL WOODALL A Soulin' Neal Woodall, A Soulin' (A Soalin)
YouTube - A-Soalin' - Loraine Washburn a Peter Paul and Mary Cover song Lorraine Washburn, A Soalin
YouTube - A 'Soalin' (BYU?) Choral Christmas Version, A Soalin--just beautiful, medley with A Wassailing and God Rest Ye Merry
YouTube - Sting, Soul Cake. Sting, Soul Cake--photos from Gotland, Sweden--utterly gorgeous and IMPOSSIBLE to sit through without dancing
YouTube - Libana- Autumn Time Libana, Autumn Time
YouTube - Halloween Music - "Souling Song - Samhain Version" - Kristen Lawrence Kristen Lawrence, Souling Song, Samhain version
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=21280497&b logId=516025050 Kristen's lyrics

Bit,,, thank you for the beautiful, soulful welcoming of the season and Samhain.
I am new to BFP but feel so welcome especially reading all of your posts on this thread.

[Bit]

Hello aldebaran, it's nice to meet you! Welcome to the Planet and to Pagan!

[IrishGrrl]

I'm looking forward to attending next weekends Samhain fest. Hopefully I will be able to go up on thursday for the sweat lodge. I will also be working on my alter this week.

For the last couple of years I got so busy with life in general, that I havent taken the time to nurture my spirit. I havent taken the time to process in the way that is healing for me. For at least the last year, things have gotten to a very stressful, unhealthy point spiritually. When I get stressed it's much easier for other energy to influence my own , and I dont like that, it's very uncomfortable. Time to redirect and meditate. Back to my journey..the one I have neglected for far too long.

Irish

[Bit]

{{{{{{{{{{{{Irish}}}}}}}}}}}} I think we all have times when we realize we have to put spirituality back into the center of our lives.... it seems to slip away unnoticed during times of deep stress.

[oblivia]

[Soft*Silver]

well I for one am eating some soup tonight if I can get any trick or treaters to come to my door.......

[Nat]

Winter solstice tonight - full lunar eclipse starting in about two hours y'all. Happy Yule!

The last time winter solstice and a full lunar eclipse happened was during the first year of bloody mary's reign. Princess Elizabeth was locked up in the tower of London at the time, and Protestants were being burned at the stake in England by early the next year.

[Turtle]

Ahhhh, it's amazing out tonight. It is crisp and clear and the moon is beautiful Enjoy y'all....

[Mitmo01]

a beauttiful event and now im watching the sunrise and glad to be alive....feelin it in my bones today

I have had some bad insomnia the last couple of nights and my kitties have also been restless and i think this is why so its interesting to actually understand why....

hope everyone is safe and well

[foxyshaman]

Hello everyone...

I just wanted to pop in to say hello!!

Hellllooooo...

I just wanted to post an excerpt of a handout I wrote for a workshop I did recently called "Curse Unravelling". I have been reworking it and adding to it but for now... I know many people do not believe in curses, and I certainly did not... well until I kept running into them in my healing work. Then I started to do some investigations and then I set about learning how to unravel one, or many as in some cases.

So... if anyone objects to irregular postings on odd things I am working on please feel free to say so. I won't even curse you


There is a nature to curses, a pattern or life of their very own. Tonite we are learning how to safely unravel the energetic pattern of a curse. We will be exploring through journey work, in partners how to recognize a curse, chart its course and resolve it without harm to the curse originator, the curse creator, the object of the curse, or the person unraveling the curse.

How to recognize a curse, the energy around it and learning how to energetically unravel it, is important information for the Shaman. In our diagnosis and treatment our partners, we need to assess the nature of our visions and what treatment to use. Shamans must contextualize the origin of the patient's disease within his or her own family and cultural history, as well as within the context of the patient's past lives. Essentially, it is necessary to understand the kind of negativity that has taken over the patient's life (a curse, an invasion, an attack, and so forth), its origin, and its history.

Soul Retrievals are never boring and certainly no two are ever similar. Negotiation is a primary component to soul retrieval work. If & when you are performing a soul retrieval or an extraction you must have an understanding of how the deeds of the present generation will affect the next seven generations. There has been some work with ancestral wounds that requires going back to the point of the original misdeed to affect a healing. I use this approach to uncover the ancestral fear and shame that can be a cause to illness, disease or general spiritual malaise. I have experienced the effect of deeds and misdeeds on a person, indeed an entire family. The Elders tell you the energetic trace stays in the field of the family for at least seven generations.

Adam Crabtree author of “Multiple Man” has written about this phenomenon in terms of a family or “group” mind. He describes how Shamus, the spirit of one member of a Celtic family, carried the family misdeed from generation to generation. As his host died, he would join another family member (much like the Spirit of Addiction) until his or her death, and so on. The family did not remember the misdeed, but it was commonly known that the family had been cursed for centuries. When Shamus was brought out of the spirit world (family field or group mind), he told the story of the misdeed. Once told, Shamus mourned the pain and suffering caused by the misdeed, at which point the curse was lifted and the family healing began. I am reminded of the name it to claim it part of our healing work.

I believe that many families suffer from some type of ancestral malady, as do many countries. I believe that we have ultimately five levels of soul, personal, familial, community, city, country; at some level, the atrocities committed by this country in trying to exterminate the native peoples are trapped in a large spirit wound, or, if you prefer, the collective unconscious. Within this collective unconscious or national spirit wound, are hundreds, possibly thousands, of families who have been plagued with this wound as part of the family field. Assuming this to be true, it seems that finding this wound and releasing it would initiate a new way of being in the world for these families. Furthermore, instead of committing ecological suicide as a nation, we might become conscious of the consequences of our actions and reverse the deleterious direction we have set for ourselves.

When we work with curses and unraveling curses the act of calling out the spirit of these wounds could lead to a tremendous healing.

Curses… I curse the very day you were born…. or some such curse… In North America we don’t place a great deal of energy or even thought to curses or hexes. Our Ancestors did, our great grandparents probably did. What we have forgotten is that words spoken create an energetic pattern that manifests into reality… whether that reality is apparent to you or not, does not make any less valid. In other countries a curse is still very powerful, the effects of the curse is still very palpable. Why… because words are power, which in turn create a manifestation. I can’t really explain it in practical terms, but I have seen enough curses and bad wishes on each person I have worked with to come to realize that there is some validity to this.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by foxyshaman

I just wanted to post an excerpt of a handout I wrote for a workshop I did recently called "Curse Unravelling".

Ah, Foxy, I love your latest post!! Thank you for sharing this with us!

I myself never believed in curses until I got spiritually self-confident enough to take another look at all the things which have been belittled as "superstition" and pay attention to what I was really seeing--without that skeptical voice chiding me in the background about people thinking I'm crazy.

That ghost story is scarily familiar--I know someone who had the same sort of thing (not exactly the same; more malicious and directed outwards, rather than at family), and I became a victim of the malice. The situation lasted for months and the effects spilled over onto everyone in my family and onto our house, as well. Once that sort of thing happens to you, it's really hard to endure plain old bad luck after that without freaking out a little and wondering if you're being attacked again, yanno?

It's popular in some circles of thought to say that there is no such thing as a curse, that a curse cannot hurt you if you don't believe in it, that people draw their own bad luck to them by expecting bad things, that if you talk about it you have created it yourself. None of that kind of thought allows for the fact that just as people naturally have varying abilities at sports or art or finances, so they also have varying psychic abilities... and just as some people are willing to use, say, their financial abilities to hurt others, some people are willing to use their psychic abilities to hurt others.

Curses, like prayers, do not depend on the belief of the receiver, but on the belief (and skill) of the sender.

I will never take curses or hexes lightly again, never write them off as "too outlandish to be true" again, never dismiss them as "a figment of (whoever's) imagination" again... I have learned to look and see what might be going on before I rush to judgment on these things.