And Changes Come With The New Year...

Well, October 31st has come and gone. The Pagan new year has taken place and it is a new cycle. For the past couple of weeks I was hoping to get rid of a whole bunch of stuff in my life and get organized and cleaned up to bring in positive energy for this new year...You know that whole adage, be careful of what you wish for? Well, I really should have been more careful. With the close of the previous year, things started to fall into place for one major upheaval and cleansing to take place in my life. I just wish that the "cleansing" that took place was initiated by me instead of outside parties.

But to be honest I do believe deep down that these ties needed to be cut. It was an extremely toxic relationship with someone I considered a friend and a sister. After years of support, years of fighting for them and their family, years of keeping secrets from their loved ones, only to be accused of betraying them by expressing my concern and outrage pertaining to some of their actions that involved me and my loved ones, as well as expressing concern about their constant repeating of the same mistakes over and over again in their personal life and expecting to get different results...I just got tired of trying to defend myself, and explain the actions of others. So, I cut the ropes that bound us as friends, and the delicate threads that woven together formed the tapestry of experiences that bound us as sisters.

Even with feeling like an enormous weight was lifted from me, I feel a bit of regret and hurt because I feel like I lost a part of my family. Much like I lost my grandmother, and my cousin...I feel like parts of me have died, and I will never get them back. But, everything happens for a reason. And while I don't want to believe that this happened needlessly, I have to take it for what it is...a new chapter in my life. So therefore instead of looking back in regret, I look forward with hope in my heart, and my eyes toward the rising sun on the horizon.

Blessed Be.

Witch Craft...More Than Just Wing Of Bat And Eye Of Newt.

As I sit here knitting a hat to go onto my Etsy store, I am contemplating some crafty little things I can do with my kids this weekend to help them learn more about my religious beliefs. and while doing that the word Witchcraft came to my mind.

The word itself has gained so many negative connotations to it over the centuries, that even I have a hard time using the word in my everyday life. But then I start thinking about the word as two separate words...Witch Craft. You have people who everyday put magick into the things they make. And by that, I mean that they put their love, and energy into their creations and imbue them with an energy all their own that when others either purchase, or are given their wares they feel a sense of happiness, or are kept warm, or made to feel loved. Kitchen witches do their magick mainly in the kitchen. The foods and other consumable or even wearable items that they concoct from natural items that are grown in the earth are not only imbued with earth energy, but they are also imbued with the energy of the witch preparing them.

I think about the ide bracelet I made for my son when he was being bothered with bad dreams and could not sleep at night. The love and the prayers I said while making the bracelet created an energy that when my son wore the bracelet he had a sense of peace that he had not had in months, and he was able to sleep only when he was wearing that bracelet. Even now, as I knit these hats and scarves,  sweaters, and spin my yarn, I put all of my love and energy into each item, because I want the people who will be buying my items to have a sense of how I cared about them enough (even though I don't know them) to give each item my all.

Another thing I was thinking about was what type of witch am I? I'm not a kitchen witch. Nor am I a green witch.  Then it hit me. I'm a Spinning Witch! I spin my own yarn, I do knitting, crocheting, and weaving. I do stuff that spiders do when they create their own webs. I am tapping into the energy of earth & fire (fire is also seen as being a creative energy...the fire of life) and spinning my magick into each piece I create.

So yes, I practice Witch Craft...but what is comforting is that every crafty person out there who truly loves what they do, is practicing it to.

Love & Light!

Are You Kidding Me?!!!

What happened tonight when I went to pick my kids up from the daycare tells me how godless and secular this nation has become as a whole. I promised the daycare director that I would bring a bag of extra craft supplies I had sitting around in my storage area when I came by in the afternoon to get the rug rats. So in the bag of goodies, I had several skeins of pink pompom yarn, striped pink yarn, a button making machine with button making supplies, red construction paper, and a kit I had just bought the day before to be used in my daughter's pre-school class to make Halloween masks.

So I get there, put the bags in the director's chair, and then take out the mask making kit to give to my daughter's teacher. So she is seriously scrutinizing them and she then says to me, "I have to make sure these don't have 'Halloween' anywhere on them." I was like WHOOOOAAA...then I proceeded to ask her why that would be a problem. The next series of words that came out of her mouth aggitated me to the point that I had to reign myself in, and remember that this was a corporate run education center. What does that mean? She may not have control on what happens. She begins to tell me that they can't have anything that says "Halloween, Merry Christmas, etc." It can only be Happy Fall/Autum, or Happy Holidays. About the only thing they can say is Happy Valentine's Day.

I was floored. Completely and utterly floored. Then a deep embedded knowledge almost came spilling across my lips. This is why we as a nation are going to hell in a handbasket with gasoline boxers on. There are so many people out there who have no faith in ANYTHING, and they expect the rest of us who actually do believe in something to think like them. They are so determined to make have a separation of church and state, that they are fighting to not be "subjected" to any form of religion. This separation is doing nothing but causing nation wide chaos. Kids worshiping the almighty dollar, and emulating the pure ignorance of shows like Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, Basketball Wives, and The Real Housewives of (insert city here). Parents listening to hacks like Dr. Phil, are not disciplining their children as our parents, and their parents, and their parents did before. What has this led to? Brats throwing fits in stores, cursing their parents out, and physically attacking them, while their parents tell them that if they don't stop they will be put in time out...And these are just the preschoolers. Or, parents being so disconnected from their kids that they don't even realize they are buying fire arms to shoot up their schools, or building bombs in their basements. They are so focused on removing religious influence from their lives, that they can't even see that religion contains some very fundamental values that help us to live in a positive and productive manner. As well as helping us to deal with everyday problems.

Letting all of this swirl through my head I started to feel sick and angry all at the same time. I escorted my kids to the car got in, and just drove in silence back to my apartment. There wasn't anything to say...There wasn't anything I could say. My kids chattering in the backseat just became background noise like the sound of various car engines zooming past me. All I could see was the road in front of me, as my mind's eye looked forward in time to when my kids are teenagers, and I see them coming to me to ask why religion was so important. I almost hit a car that was stopped in front of me. Slamming on my breaks, I cleared my head, and waited until the green signaled me to travel the last half a block home.

Now that I am home and my children are in bed, I sit here determined to not let them grow up without believing in...SOMETHING. Cause having a belief in something is better than NOT having belief in anything at all.

The Past...The Present...The Future

It is early October, and my hubby and I just got through cleaning the patio and putting up some of the Halloween decorations. I think the kids were more excited than us. Why was I so down about it? Well, being here in TX...in this heat...I have felt like there has not been a true change of seasons. Nothing to notify me that the old year is getting ready to go out, and new one is beginning. Not to mention the fact that this being such a conservative state, I don't feel as welcome to celebrate this holiday as I normally would (even Georgia was more welcoming to pagans than this place is).

Case in point, after putting up the decorations, and dealing with the kids buggin' me about going to the playground, I decided to pull out my favorite pentacle, polish it up, and put it on one of my best silver chains and go down to the playground and knit while my children ran around like wildmen, until they tuckered themselves out. I sat down on a bench next to a Muslim woman in full garb (face uncovered though) who was talking on her cell phone. And on another bench there was another woman who I had seen before on the playground, with her infant granddaughter. After about 5 minutes of sitting and quietly knitting while keeping a watchful eye on my kids, I noticed the woman next to me do a double take , and quickly get up and leave. Then the mother of the infant crosses the playground, goes to her mother who is holding the baby on the other bench. She looks at me and scowls, says something to her in her native tongue, then they pick up their stuff and leave. I had no idea what just happened, and didn't much care at that moment because my daughter had just slipped going up the wrong way on one of the slides and busted her top lip. So up stairs we go. It isn't until I get into my appartment and bend down to pick up something on the floor, that I see my pentacle had been free from under my jacket the entire time.

I found it extremely ironic & dishartening that I was being discrimated against because of my religious choice, and especially by someone who I am quite sure has suffered discrimination because of her religious beliefs. Even this day and age, Paganism/Goddess based religions are still at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to gaining respect as a valid, positive, and healing religious institution.

After I realized why they had left and what caused it, I got pissed, then I got sad, then finally I came to the conclusion that I can't change the minds of those around me, if they don't want to change. Still didn't stop me from sulking though for a good portion of the early evening...That is until I saw my children in their wide eyed wonderment enjoying ice pops, and giggling in anticipation of the approaching holiday while enjoying the deocrations and asking about more being put up.

Halloween has long since changed for me. In the beginning, it was the holiday that I would rush to my neighbors houses to get as much candy to stuff my face with as possible. And now it has become something holy to me. It is a time to learn from the past, honor those who have gone before me, and to take the next step to move forward to a bright shiny new future. With that said, I FINALLY made the decision to start teaching my children about my personal beliefs and practices. The great thing about this is that my husband is very supportive. He was born and raised Missionary Baptist like I was, but he is still a (practicing) Christian. Even with all of that, he knows that the teachings in my beliefs are the same as his at their very core. He also feels this will help me to bond with my children on a level that most people wish they could bond with their kids. Not only that, but teaching them now will help squash any negative ideals about other spiritual practices that are not exactly mainstream in the eyes of the masses, so that they can have an intelligent and well versed view of the world and the people around them.

To represent this new start for all of us, I have placed a black handled glittered broom in one corner of our patio as a constant reminder, as well as a protective emblem against the old negativity that has surrounded us whether it be in our personal/social lives, and mine & my husband's professional lives. The purple glitterly cat standing with it's back arched represents the constant guidance and magickal engery that has gotten us this far, and will continue to help keep our feet on the path that they need to be on. A balsam board skeleton hangs on the wall adjacent to these two items, that I have spray painted with a special glow in the dark paint. This represents our ancestors, and all of those who have gone before us to remind us to not make the same mistakes as the past but to learn from them and create a better present and future.

While my outside environment has taken away the joy of the holiday for me this year, it has not destroyed the core ideals and lessons that have now become a mainstay in mine and my family's life. And I guess, for now...that is all that matters.


Love & Light everyone!

Body Image/Goddess Image

Every morning after I get out of the shower and I have applied my various lotions and potions to my skin to keep me looking as young as possible, I look at myself...I mean really look at myself. And I never like what I see. Stretchmarks across my belly and thighs, and butt all testament to the combined 70lbs I gained from my two SUCCESSFUL pregnancies. My expanded waist line, expanded hips and out of control thighs, that make it damn near impossible for me to fit into my designer jeans without doing gymnastics just to get into them. My no longer perky posterior that always used to tickle my funny bone because when I wore short skirts or, yoga pants, it sat up high and round like a perfect little bubble, but looked like I had nothing there when wearing most of my other clothes. And last but definitely not least, my rounded pooch of a belly that screams I had children.

I stand in the mirror and I see this, and want to cry because I want to go back to how I was before I had kids. Back to my Maiden stage. But I can't unless I do yet another surgery (for those of you who know me, I got breast augmentation done back in January of 2010 to fill out and perk up my then "wrecked" breasts after breast feeding my two children). I have an appointment scheduled in September to have a consultation for a tummy tuck done months before my wedding next year. I want my body to be perfect. But when I sit down and see images of women who have "imperfect" bodies and loving the way they look, I start to wonder if my thinking has been flawed by modern day media and today's standards of beauty.



In ancient times, and even 60 to 70 years ago, women with soft curvy figures were seen as being attractive. Desirable. Now, it is stick thin women, but with round posteriors, and ample (not huge) breasts. Every day I find something new to hate about myself, and then I feel guilty because the Goddess created me, just like she has created every woman on this planet. Am I so bold as to say that the Goddess herself is flawed because of how of she looks in several of her many forms from the beginning of time to now.

Needless to say, this has brought a lot of thought to the definition of beauty. And I may never get a true definition, but I know that if the Goddess in her many, many, many forms can be beautiful to various women around the world, then I guess that in my current form as Mother, I am beautiful to.

Blessed Be!

The Magick Mirror

I was dreaming last night...Well I have been dreaming for the past couple of nights, but last night it was different. This dream I knew it was more than a dream. It was my inner self showing me that I was being betrayed/played yet again. I was forced awake from the dream by my daughter knocking on the door stating that she wanted to get showered. The images fading into a bleary eyed fog as I moped to the door.

After everyone had finally left the house, and I was heading back to go fix my daily cup of coffee, and wait for maintenance to come and fix the fan in our master bath, I had a chance to sit and think about what I saw, heard, and said...and what was said to me. And I knew at that point that I really couldn't trust that person. On any level. But, being human, and being someone who always tries to see the good points in those that they care about, I tried to ignore this telling of what I knew deep down was going on. It was bothering me so much, that I finally pulled out my tarot cards and did a reading. Something I haven't done in months. And I knew my skill at reading the cards was just as dusty from non-use, as the cards themselves. But I did it anyway. And what I saw told me that as much as I may try to ignore the situation, what I saw in my dream was true. I was betrayed...again. Oddly enough, in the dream, I told the person I wasn't mad at them. I wasn't going to judge them on what they did because it was not my place. That I was slightly hurt, but that was about it. They looked at me in tears. I think more so that I had caught them and was now decided on walking away, than anything else.

So sitting here now. I am feeling...nothing. The mild hurt that was there has passed. And I am feeling peaceful. Thankful even. Knowing what I know...I am just glad that I was given a chance to get my guard back up and protect myself before something happened that would have broken me. It has taken a long time for me to heal after all of these years of abuse from those I kept close to me. And like bones that break and mend, I am stronger for it, and I feel it. I thank the Goddess for my many blessings, and my many gifts. And more importantly for her guidance in my life because I feel that if I didn't have it, I would be just as miserable now, as I was all those years ago.


Blessed Be.

Bloody Wicked!

Just putting up a quick post about a giveaway a friend of mine is doing on her blog, Pagan Culture. It is the Witches In Fiction Party celebrating the second year anniversary of her blog. Go to the link below, and follow the directions she has listed to enter. And, good luck! Click Here To Enter.

THINGS TO CHECK OUT!

Everyday I see new sites, blogs, and items that I think you witchy boys and girls should check out. Sooooo, this page will be dedicated to those things. As I find more stuff, I will add them here. Check back frequently, cause I will be adding stuff weekly.




Pagan Culture

Handcrafted BOS by Witches Moon

Voodoo Tarot - I love this set. I use it ALL the time. Beautiful artwork, deeper meanings than standard Tarot cards.

Tarot Witch of the Black Rose - Best comic ever! Bout time someone showed witches in a positive light. Artwork is amazing in this thing.

School Bites - Created by Holly GoLightly, Mistress of Color for Tarot Witch of The Black Rose, and better half of Jim Balent, creator of Tarot.

The Ties That Bind

I have always been one of those people that found the institution of marriage to be something that was completely unnatural to human nature. You see so many people meet, fall in love, get married, and then a few years into their marriage, get tired of each other, or cannot work past their issues then part ways and move on to the next. So, it completely threw me for a loop when I married my college sweet heart. I was quite happy with him. I liked our relationship the way it was, but because of the "moral values" instilled in me and most of Western society, I felt I needed to marry him in order for our relationship to be validated by everyone else around us. So, we planned to have a handfasting, but because of both of our religious upbringings, we knew that was not going to fly with our families. Then, because of unfair pressure from my mother, we ended up eloping to get her off of our backs. Let's just say we have both agreed that THAT was the biggest mistake of our lives. One because we didn't have the ceremony/celebration that we wanted, and for me personally because we were legally tied to each other, and I felt like the cell doors had been closed on me and the key thrown away. Why couldn't we have had the courage, the back bone of Goldie Haan and Kirk Douglas to say "Fuck the world," and be with each other in a way that made US truly happy, and not everyone else happy?

In the beginning, when I was researching handfasting I saw that the people who originally used this ceremony for binding a couple together gave them a way to part ways if things were no longer loving between them. And that was a hand-parting. Now, we have legal separations, or outright divorces (let me just insert a note here, that the State of Texas does not have legal separation, they only have divorce). With all of the issues that me and my husband have had over the years, we have on more than one occasion wanted to find a way to separate from each other without having to go through the legal turmoil of a divorce, but with few options offered to us living in this ultra conservative state, we were only left with hundreds of dollars in counseling, and trying to work past our issues to get to the point where we are now.

The present day condition of our society makes it more obvious to me that we need to take some pointers from those who lived before us. Because they lived in a more balanced state with nature, and the cycles of nature, they understood that not everything lasts forever, and that sometimes, you just need to shed those things that have gone bad or died, and move forward. But because we are so set on how things should be, to fulfill our own warped sense of what the Divine wants for us, we are forcing our bodies, spirits, and hearts to be in a constant state of stagnation that in the long run is not healthy at all.

Now, almost 10 years since we said our "I do's," we are renewing our vows, and planning the wedding we never had. While I am excited about the big event, I am also acutely aware of the fact that this will bind us together even further. And while this has me screaming on the inside, I see this as a new start. We are having our handfasting this time around, and I know that if things really start to decline again between us, we will be able to part ways knowing that we loved each other enough to start over, and to give our relationship the due respect and chance to blossom the way it should have, naturally and in its own time...and the parting of ways between us won't be one made in anger and hatred towards each other, but in love and mutual respect.


Blessed Be.

Mainstream Society Meet Main Stream Witchcraft

While I was living in Atlanta (which seems like ages ago), My hubby and I would frequent a comic book store called Oxford Books. They had everything from the comics we grew up with, figurines, anime, role playing
games, trading card games, and "adult themed" comics. One night we were bored and being adventurous, and wandered into the adult section of the store. While browsing the very interesting titles and artwork, I came across this one comic with a tall, large breasted, flame haired witch on the cover. Not being able to take my eyes off the cover, I noticed that the title said, " Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose." I immediately picked up the issue, and followed my husband with his arm full of Marvel comics to the register.

It was almost 10:00 at night, pitch black outside except for the street lights, and I was sitting in the car completely enthralled by the story line, the myriad of colors, the creatures, and even further, that this comic was showing witches in a positive light. It discussed aspects of the craft that I was practicing, it was talking about the issues that witches face on a daily basis, and it made me feel more...normal.

That following week, I went back to Oxford and bought 5 issues, got them home immediately and read each issues from cover to cover non-stop. When the SU (Spousal Unit) got home, I quickly told him everything I read, how it made me feel. How the creators of this marvelous comic brought the real witchcraft to light to the public and showed how it is a valid spiritual practice, how we have rights just any anyone else does in the major world religions, and how they discuss and completely destroy the stereotypes that are out there about me and others like me. The only thing he could do was chuckle, kiss the top of my head, and say he is glad I found something I liked.

From that day forward each month, I made sure to get a new issue to not only get a much needed bit of entertainment, but also to learn more about myself and my spiritual path, but also how the world around me copes with things that they fear because they don't understand.

Long story short, the creators Jim Balent and his wife/mistress of color, Holly GoLightly are now my favorite comic book artists, favorite witches, and my FB friends. Check out their stuff at Jim Balent Studios.

Also, check out Holly's comic School Bites. It's about a girl turned vamp against her will, but now learning how to live and love as a hot vamp chick in this world and in hers.

Blessed Be, Everyone!

The Goddess Really Does Listen

Ok. So as most of you know, I am planning my big wedding for next year, and the expense of that will be nothing to sneeze at. But, what is little known (except to those in my inner circle) is that I am trying to buy a new car. Because my children are growing, and we just need a larger car, we have been trying to start allocating money to be able to get a car by this fall.

Now, with that said, I have been virtually biting my nails to the nub working and reworking financial calculations in my head to see the best way to accomplish both of these goals without causing us to have to skimp on one or the other. And the closer it gets to June, when we need to start finalizing which venue we will be using, the more stressed I have been getting. So, last week sometime I was stressing as usual, and I believe I prayed for a way financially for at least a part of this to work out. What happened next had me wide eyed, and on my knees last night at my altar, candles lit, and sending a prayer of thanks with a heart full of gratitude and love.

Yesterday, we went to go visit my in-laws and to let them have a chance to visit with their grand-kids. We sat around for a good bit, not much said, ended up leaving because my 20-something, immature sister in-law, who just had a baby pissed my husband off to the n-th degree. As we were walking out, his dad asked us if we would consider taking over the payments on his 2010 Honda CR-V that he bought just last year because he was close to retirement, on a fixed income, and getting ready to start his own business and need that money to put towards it. Now, even though I wasn't showing it, I was jumping up and down and doing my version of the Snoopy dance. We basically just got offered to take his car. No contracts no nothing. Just make the payments, and the car would be switched over into our name. Did I mention that this particular car was the model I was looking at for the past year? This solved ALL of our issues with these two major expenses. I now have a new car to start using before my little man starts kindergarten this year, and we didn't have to cut our wedding budget to get this much needed item to do it.

Last night as I sat on bended knee, I was almost on the verge of tears from happiness. Even though I did not have the offerings I would have like to have left to the Goddess in her form as Yemoja, I felt my meager gift of fresh cool water over the shells given to me by a friend from a beach in Jamaica was well appreciated, and accepted. And I prayed that she kept guiding me so that more things like this would happen for me and my family.


Blessed Be.

Learning to Trust in These Troubling Times

I was awakened this morning by my husband shaking the shit out of me as he was telling me to watch the news report. As I turned over, bleary eyed and trying not to taste the nastiness of a serious case of morning mouth I had going on, I was shocked fully awake to see a wall of water/mud, cars, houses, debris washing over a foreign land. I hear the news reporter say that an 8.9 earthquake hit the island nation of Japan, and that a massive tsunami was washing away coastal areas and moving further inland.

I sat there silent, in shock, then asking my husband to pass me my phone so I could call my mom. After leaving a message for her and sitting dumbfounded by all I was watching and hearing, the spousal unit (to be referred from now on as "the SU") decides to tell me that our son woke about 10 to 15 minutes before the earthquake hit, came into our room, and curled up on the floor at the end of our bed to go back to sleep. He then asks me, "I wonder is L- was sensing the earthquake about to happen, because he has not done that for the past couple of years now." That one statement woke me completely up. And as I sat there fearing that my son's abilities were being shocked into overdrive by this huge disaster, I also wondered why I had not had a premonition about this myself. I had one about the the tsunami in Indonesia, but not with this. That bit troubled me, and I won't lie...it troubled me a lot.

About 10 minutes after the SU left for work, my son comes into our room again in tears asking for his dad. I told him that daddy had already left for work, and then asked him what was wrong. He goes on to tell me that he had a bad dream. Fear gripped me because I know that when I have extremely vivid dreams 9 times out of ten, they aren't dreams. They are visions. So, I told him to crawl into bed with me, and then I asked him what his dream was about. He said he saw ghosts. It was then I realized that this was just too much of a coincidence between his coming in our room a few hours earlier, and this dream to not to have had some type of connection to the disaster in Japan.

My son's young age and inability to deal with what he is experiencing had me concerned all morning. Me, his mother the one person who should be able to help him (especially since I went through what he is going through at his age, and just about all of my life)...I just don't know how to help him since I still haven't really learned how to deal with or truly cope with my experiences as well. I did the best I could do to comfort him by telling him that ghosts are nothing more than people. When our bodies die, we still live on in a spirit form. And that is what he was seeing. "Ghosts" can't hurt you, they can annoy the shit out of you, scare you, but they can't hurt you. He seemed to accept that bit of info and curled up next to me in bed while pulling his DSi out from under my pillow (don't ask me how it got there, but it wasn't there before he came into the room.

Anyway, when I dropped the kiddies off at daycare, I stopped by the Director's office to socialize for a bit, and for some weird reason I felt like I needed to tell them what happened to L-. Mind you, I don't normally go divulging mine or my family's paranormal experiences to people just because I get tired of being called crazy, or being told how me and mine will go to hell for it. But I trusted these two women. And I started with his experiences, then I went into mine, and then that of my maternal family members. They understood. They didn't look at me like I was crazy, or weird, they were shocked on a bunch of stuff, but they understood. The Asst. Director even said that her brother had "the gift" as well. It was at that moment that I really opened up and let everything come out. It felt good being able to trust someone enough to be able to talk about this stuff with them. Keeping it all inside was making me feel isolated and alone. But now I feel good knowing that I have someone who understands not only what I am going through, but what my young son is going through as well. Having someone there who will help him when he is emotionally and mentally worn during the day because of his special gifts, and will know that he is not just tired or frustrated with his peers or school work, makes me feel better that I got past my own hang ups and reached out trusting that they would accept me and my child and not condemn us.

With everything that is going on in the world today, all of this tragedy...We as people need to get past our prejudices, and preconceptions and reach out to those around us and learn to trust each other to help us get through these perilous times.


Love & Light Everyone!