~samhain blessings my lovlies~

So today is a time to visit with the ancestors, a time when the veil between the worlds is thin.

 

I took an early walk in the woods behind my tiny cottage to spend time with the ancestors of the land. I think the schools are no longer on half term but I didn't fancy hearing the distant shieking of children through the woods today. Instead I met wih a few locals, two walking their dogs and one man asking me if I had passed his pigs. Yes 'normal for the New Forest' as we are in pannage season, where the pigs are let out to enjoy the fall of acorns. This year the glut of acprns are so good pannage has been extended. I had met four pigs in the woods only a couple of minutes from the back of my cottage and so keen to film then doubled back to watch them and film them before they hurried off.

Later I have to go have my diabtetic eye screening but then I shall come back, light my wood burner, burn some Samhain incense from Star Child and spend some quite time alone. I still live alone-I am still with my North Star but still live alone by choice. My cottage is not large enough to house two people comforatbly and after six years together we know that we work best with time apart. We are people who need time alone and have our own routines, our own way of doing things and NS knows that I could never willinging give up my little cottage.

More than that I have found my true self over the past few years. When I found the courage to end my longterm relationship I thought I had found myself, but I hadn't and I realised a few years down the line that I was running the risk of putting myself into a similar situation if I wasn't very careful and asserted myself. I realised I had to put myself first and put down some clear boundaries because I found that I was turning into what I can only descibe as a 'Stepford Wife' and alarm bells were ringing, quite loudly. I felt as if I was just being used as a book, bottle washer, clothes washer, domestic and spent my time picking dirthy clothes up off the floor. My limit had been reached when I came home from camp in May and NS had looked after Cookie for the weekend-I came home to an unmade bed, dirthy clothes, dirty dishes and a line of dirty cat food bowls...that were my own bowls. I know, right?! I was beyond fuming but instead of an apology I had anger directed at me because I dared to be angry. 

Men huh?

Anyway, after a few difficult months our relationship is much stronger and we are much happier,  NS now understands that I am not here to be his Stepford Wife and I have learnt not to trampled all over but to stand up for myself more. I am a much stronger more assertive person now than I ever have been.

It feels right that I have found this balance right before Samhain and at the start of, for me and for many pagans, the cusp of the new year.

Hello Mel and Laura and thank you for your comments~ its lovely to come here and find familiar faces still here reading my words xx

~samhain~

my samhain, my real samhain, was a quiet one.

i lit candles in the home and in the garden, little lanterns shedding their small light into the ever growing bare patches that have been left by the plants returning to the earth.

a lantern burned on my garden altar, the light glancing off the antlers that are sprouting from a slowing disintegrating skull

i broke up some thick dry sticks, stacking some beside me and lit a fire in my cauldron, lit a charcoal disc and sat watching as the flames slowly caught and engulfed the sticks.

the charcoal turned grey and i sprinkled on some samhain incense blend from star child~the herb infused smoke mixed with the wood smoke, spiralling into the dark, damp air.

so i sat in the damp garden soaking in the heat from my fire, adding more sticks to the cauldron, more incense to the hot disc

i thought of my ancestors, 

of the huge ancestral tree i have been adding to and working on

new found family whose blood flows within me, whose eyes saw life as it was in the 1500's in villages near to and within this ancient forest i call home.

i also planted my seed intentions for the dark days and weeks ahead

i am feeling so much better after our trip to glastonbury~the energy there is indescribable, i can feel it for miles around almost as a shimmering energy that gets more intense the closer you get.

it feels as if that energy has charged me up and i feel full of possibilities and hope.

~there & back again~

i have been such a lax blogger, dreadful.

i have had a period of 'blahhhh-ness', my mojo had packed its bags and went on some rambling walkabout.

all i have really been doing is reading, a lot of reading, some family tree work and crochet.

i have had no motivation for anything and days would go by without even turning on my laptop.

last weekend we packed up, hooked lilith onto the back of pretty pagan and took to the road...

not far outside of salisbury we stopped for a quick stopover to stretch our legs, flynts included. usually we stop for a nice mug of tea at this bus but this time we were running late and had no time for tea.

can you see where we are heading?

my spiritual home beckons...

but the low clouds kept hiding avalon from sight

samhain can mean only one thing...meeting up with friends for the weekend and the fairy ball and witches market.

we set up camp at the avalon campsite only minutes from the centre of glastonbury and as it was getting dark we settled down with mugs of tea and our books.

for the next two days we spent our time at the shops and witches market, drinking hot chocolate in the blue note and soaking in the atmosphere.

we stopped at the chalice well and collected water from the white spring.

the white spring temple was closed to my great disappointment and i clung to the iron bars gazing in at the cold darkness, hearing the healing waters flowing feeling like a prisoner in reverse.

all to soon it was time to pack up and come back to this ancient forest

but glastonbury has worked its magic and i have come home full of inspiration and my samhain reading of my shamans oracle cards has only emphasised this feeling

~samhain~

 

samhain blessings my friends

 

i hope you all had good celebrations

 

my plan for a fire was foiled by heavy rain but i managed to light all of the lanterns in the garden and had lanterns and candles in my home.

my altar was decorated with photos of my ancestors.

 

so we are now at the time to turn inwards, a time of the ancestors, for divination, for dreaming and vision work~inner journeys to seek the wisdom you hold within yourself.

 

we have the dark days ahead to renew our souls~we can achieve this renewal through rest, sleep, meditation while our seed intentions incubate.

 

it is the cycle of change and renewal~we must accept the death of the old, the darkness in order to reach the new start in the spring.

 

***

 

i have been unwell this week, a combination of migraine and bruxism, which always makes me miserable. i suffer with ocular migraines, suffering loss of vision in one eye at the start of a migraine. usually this lasts 20-30 minutes leaving me with the classic migraine headache but this episode of lost vision lasted for about 16 hours...which isn't normal...now its over its easy to forget it and not consider going to see my doctor. i know i should but i think i will just monitor and see how many more i have over the next month.

 

its a dark, grey day today and i have done little except sit with my heated neck pillow around my neck, inhaling the lovely aroma of lavender.

 

on wednesday i popped to my yarn shop~honoras~in Christchurch while we were out shopping and bought myself two balls of rowan felted tweed in bilberry and avocado to make myself a lovely prayer shawl.

 goddess knows how long it will take me to make but i know it will be beautiful when finished...i shall post some pictures next time!

 

 

 



~blessings~

 

 

 

 

 

 

*blessings for samhain & the Celtic new year*

 

to all

 

my

 

readers

 

 

what will you be incubating over these dark months ahead?

 

 

 

 



~peace~

full moon blessings to all my friends here in the blogosphere

 

 

 

i think the full moon has drained my energies-for the three days leading up to this harvest moon i have not been sleeping properly-waking in the night with a head full of ideas, one night laying listening to music until way past 5am.

 

last night i finally slept not waking until 10am which is astonishingly late for me

 

i think too the week of de-clutter has worn me down, used the few 'spoons' i have.

 

but it is appropriate that in this time between the equinox and the harvest moon that i have been this busy...the harvest moon represents clearing the clutter internally and externally so it feels like the end of the time of de-clutter.

 

now its time to really withdraw and spend the dark days and nights that lead us to samhain.

 

~*~*~*~

 

my new room-the half a room that has been turned into the new grrl-cave is almost finished-i have a few things sitting on the floor that will go back into the shed...sorry the man-cave...later today, a few things that need to be returned to their originators, two shelves and a picture to go up.

once that is done i will be making some 'curtains' for a couple of the shelve fronts, just so i don't have all the shelves open.

evangeline sits nicely behind the door and so does not take up any room at all.

 

so its all nearly ready...my own space within a space where i can sit and actually create the ideas that have been filling my head.

 

oh and what ideas, things i have wanted to try for ages but never thought i should

 

incense

sacred items to wear about the person

 

all kinds of things...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~a peaceful day~

i had a peaceful day yesterday but struggled with a headache and neck ache which somewhat took the shine off the day.

it was a grey, chill and damp day for our morning walk...this was the view from the track we follow to our favourite place near our home...

as we parked, looking through the tangle of holly i could see three ponies, already wearing their shaggy winter coats~they were alert, looking ahead at something, although one turned to look at me and i wondered if it was us disturbing them.
suddenly they turned and run through the woods, their hooves thudding on the soft forest floor~then they wheeled and came back, still looking ahead.

as we walked off they turned and run again, crashing through the woods and coming out in front of us calling to the ponies who were on the open heath~they too started to run.

then the reason for this excitement made itself clear...



three pigs, the same ones we saw last week, came trotting out of the woods from the direction the ponies had been looking and proceeded to trot along the track, making their way to the entrance of a campsite tucked away in the tree's...



you can see some of the ponies running off to join some others~safety in numbers








the gorse is still flowering on some of the bushes...





i love the shape of the holly tree...

a stream flows through the woods and is running high after heavy rains...

i have always loved this little cottage~it sits at the end of the single street that makes up the centre of the village, a ford~or what we locals have always called the 'watersplash'~separating the cottage from the main village...

~*~*~*~

back home it was dark so i lit the fire and candles and my lamp which casts a red glow and star shapes on the wall and wrapping my prudence around me sat with a mug of lemon tea and a pile of books, my ogham cards and journal~that was my day.

i read, wrote in my journal, sorted my ogham cards, read some more...

candles were lit around the room to welcome the spirit and on my alter in honour of my ancestors and those in the summerlands...

in the evening i raised a glass a mead to my ancestors and the spirits...

*i hope you all had a peaceful day*

~samhain blessings~

~sending the brightest of samhain blessings to all my readers~

so here we are again, it seems like only yesterday the end of the Celtic year was upon us.

***

i am feeling a great sense of serenity today as i bid farewell to the light.

i am planning a day of peace a further step in my soul journey~a walk in the woods, quiet time with my oracle cards, time in the garden to let the old drift away in the chill breeze allowing space for the seeds of the new to take hold, journaling~just being me, in peace with the day and the spirits around me

***

the ancestors are crowding close at this time of the thinning of the boundaries and the wild hunt.

the dark half of the year is upon us so we can turn our thoughts inwards, to think of new beginnings, of rebirth coming from the seeds in the dark earth, to reach inwards and embrace the energy that this time brings with meditation, inner exploration and making connections with the spirits.

it is a time to adjust in the way nature around us has~death has taken the old in order that the new be reborn with the coming of the light.

its a time to nurture our ideas and dreams~what will you nurture at this time?

i woke to steady rain this morning and instead of my usual joy at rain i felt a little irked.

i have an ultrasound at our local hospital today, for my ever worrisome moontime, which means i have to drink two pints of water before i go in. pippin is out of commission with his engine in pieces and we were going to take our bicycles on the lymington flyer, cycle to the hospital (it is right on the outskirts of lymington itself so unless you drive yourself or get the bus its not easy to get to), then cycle back to the train station and walk up to the bank.

words that come to mind is 'rain stopped play'

the new state of play is that we are going to leave the bicycles at home, take our huge umbrella and catch the 10am train, hike slowly to the hospital and then hike slowly to the bank-which means i shall be good for nothing by the time i get home and not want to face any revision. so i am taking my anthology of primary sources with me to read in the waiting room while i drink my water.

however once i am home i shall enjoy the rain. the weather has taken a real shift towards autumn and i adore the falling leaves, chilly nights and mornings and the prospect of samhain coming ever closer.

i don't know about you but my celebrations do not cover what i call the prescribed days given us by the world we live in today~i am the same with the moon. it is not in my heart to consult a calender to find the exact day/hour that is given us by exact science.
i think on how our ancestors would have followed the changing seasons and the moon and of course they would have followed what their eyes saw, what their souls felt as the wheel turned.
and so that's how my path is, i feel the turning deep within me and my celebrations cover days, if not several weeks, following the gradual change that is happening around me.and so the gradual turn to samhain has taken hold and the weather today has assured me that autumn is here to stay for a while.
the birds are still singing their songs, my neighbours big oak is slowly dropping its leaves and acorns, my rowan seems to think its still summer, while the silver birches around the corner are already bare branches. our garden is looking barer by the day and it is finally time to release the green man from his black eyed susan. somethings will still give us some green over the coming months and i shall spend the coming months working on my outside alter.

we will also spend the months planning our new camper~it is with sad news i announce that our beloved pippin has been sold~a very enthusiastic 2cv lover from kent has bought him and so we know he will be going to a very good home in two weeks time. its so sad for we have had such adventures, but i have to think of poor swampy and his back.
but we have many plans for our new camper~in fact we think we have found the perfect successor to pippin. a volkswagon that is the right size and right price with some of the important bits already in (venting for gas bottle!)swampy is phoning the chap tonight to have a chat.
so of course we shall work away through the autumn and winter getting 'pretty pagan' ready for the spring. we have even discussed how we would cope with something so 'normal' and have some great ideas for making it (i cannot decide if its male or female so its and 'it' for now)very much our own~so watch this space!

~*well i have a train to catch in less than an hour so i hope you all have a wonderful day/night*~
xoxoox

~Blessings~

the autumn equinox

Alban Elfed~the light of the water

we face the end of the harvest and the balance of light and darkness where we give thanks for the harvest and the goodness of the goddess.

we face west and reflect on the things we have achieved.

a time to reflect on the coming darkness with the knowledge that the light will return to us.

a time of peaceful reflection and accepance~of what we have as well as that we lack.


the great wheel of the year has nearly completed it turn~the cycle continues as we face the coming of samhain

~its here~

walking across the forest with cody yesterday i could feel it

summer had finally gone and the great wheel has turned even further and the equinox is on our doorstep.

i could see it in the sky and the trees~leaves are changing color and falling from their branches, the many hawthorns, oaks and hazel were laden with their fruits, the haws bright red providing a splash of color among the greens and browns.

i could feel it in the air around me, almost taste it in the air~it was warm for the sky was a clear blue above me, with the waning moon ahead of me high in the sky, but at the same time i could feel the first, faint hint of a chill. the warm was not the warm of a summer morning but the first chill of the dying year.



i could feel it buzzing through me in a welcoming way, i have always seen autumn and winter as my time of the year and look forwards to the coming months.
there is something so special about the coming months where the wheel slowly turns from the autumn equinox when the darkness starts to take over from the light, through samhain when the vail between the worlds is thin and we are close to our ancestors~to the winter solstice the longest night when darkness is honoured~to imbolc, Brighids day when we feel the earth energy stirring around us and the days of darkness ends with the spring equinox when the days become longer.

*what joy to have this connection to the land*

~its still there...~

*a walk last autumn*


...the inkling of autumn that is~the weeks that find us saying goodbye to summer & preparing ourselves for the autumn equinox

this morning i opened the back door that leads into my sacred garden (well developing sacred garden~its taking longer than i thought getting it right) & wandered out in my pyjamas, loving the sound and smell.
we have no noise of passing traffic or people, just the occasional whistle of a steam train as it thunders its way west to destination unknown.

the birds were a veritable chorus-even when i walk out they stay in the tree's, in the bushes, on the fence and watch me as i do the rounds~checking the wild tangle of color & scent, enjoying the damp grass, look up at the sky framing our friends truly enormous oak tree.

i look at my fledgling garden shrine~i am not happy with it really, probably because i have in my minds eye what it will be like-hopefully by samhain-and like many things in life it wont feel 'right' until it is the shrine of my imagining...

then i imagine my celebrations as i follow the wheel from festival to festival-will they be better? in what way? i hope so-i finally have a very secluded garden so will have freedom. not for anything elaborate, but all the same...privacy for my solitary, peaceful path.

~now here i sit, in what has become known as 'my room'~a study come library, with piles of books hidden behind blue gingham curtains~sitting at a big, round, solid wood table;there sit my books waiting to be opened, there is my indoor shrine (again, not over enamoured with it right now) & to my left the open window with a fine breeze blowing in on me~the sky is bright blue with puffs of pinky-white clouds passing high up.

so what will the day hold for this pagan in the new forest?

some study~a walk into the village for bread & dog food~possibly a trip out to hurn airport near bournemouth to watch the red arrows & war time planes take off & land~mundane things, everyday things...

...but all the time my mind is full of 'other'~of pagan imaginings...

Ancestors are with me this Samhain

merry meet

Remember my post about my Great Grandad?

Oh he is with me so strongly today.

weeks ago i had sent an e-mail to his old regiment, explaining that memories my Nan has of him are extremely poor, she is 90-something bless her and the family had wiped him from memory when he died in WW1.
i gave them the small amount of information i had from the War Graves Commission and totally forgot about it.

yesterday as i was sitting here checking e-mail from my sister a new e-mail came through... from the curator at the regiments museum...with information about him.

it seems that all my Nan had been told by her own mum was incorrect...here is what i now know...
he was born in Swansea, volunteered in Portsmouth in 1915, a time when i understand they had a big call up, he was wounded in 1916, returned to the fighting and then was killed in september of 1918, less than two months before the end of fighting.
yesterday i spent hours tracking his regiment through the war and i have discovered that they were in the thick of the fighting at Passchendaele and Flanders. The Battle of Drocourt-Queant occurred shortly before his death.

discovering this has made me feel so sad because we have been brought up with our history, with the knowledge of these events and the conditions. sad not just for my great grandad but for every man and boy who fought and died, fought and survived those years.

today however he is with me, i can feel his presence so strongly, just behind and to the right of me (thats how strongly i feel it ~ i can place him exactly!) and its such a good feeling. i have been feeling tearful as well and i know that is both his and my own feelings joining.

its such a good thing to be feeling at Samhain!

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Willim Blake


merry meet

after some glorious moon gazing last night i have been feeling progressively introspective as the day has passed.

i am slowing down more and more as we approach Samhain, seed fall, the begining of the old Celtic new year; my energy, like our earth's, is withdrawing and i have a need for peace and within this peace to begin a time of reflection and renewal of purpose. we are coming to a time where our land reflects ourselves...buring all that is dead...culminating with yule, the time of greatest darkness when we light candles to the return of the light.
there are things/times/places that i will leave behind forever at this time. what has happened in the past is not important and goes against my feelings of change and renewal...how can i do this when i am being held back...it is time to bury and renew.

Our great symbol for the Goddess is the moon...

merry meet )o(
i was doing some re-reading earlier and there was a section on the Malleus Maleficarum, so i decided to read further and came across the Cornell University Library Witchcraft Collection and i admit it made me feel quite ill. i have read what is published of it before so maybe its just my present mood making me feel a bit more sensitive than is usual.

it makes me feel glad that we live in more tolerant (sometimes!) times, where paganism is concerned. imagine if we now had to hide our practices and pretend to belong to a religion we had no belief in (nazi germany comes to mind here and that is not really so long ago). however even now, some folk, when paganism or witchcraft is mentioned, will look, depending on their belief...not scared...but as if something has been mentioned that is just a story, something that does not exist, not even in history. or of course they immediately think of all the negative images that exist, satanism and black magic and are perpetuated by the notion of 'halloween' and all those hollywood based productions that link paganism with the devil.

i once had someone tell me that seth (during one of my pre or post seth concerts!) was another name for satan and for the first time in my life i spoke the words 'i dont believe in satan' and they actually looked a bit shocked.
i never actually talk about what i am or what i believe, except on here and via e~mail with someone i have contact with through a pagan website,and i do not 'advertise' what i am but people who come to know me well pick up on a few things and of course it will just become known as a matter of course.
but i am honest if asked, and if people are genuine in their interest i will discuss it properly. This year i have that happen to me twice; the first was a lovely couple from scotland we have known for a little over a year and they asked if i minded talking about what i believe, which i thought was really nice. the second was not long after where i answered honestly but got the reaction along the lines of 'oh no watch out she is going to put a spell on you' needless to say the conversation went no further...'sigh' i know the person quite well so i should have known i would receive that kind of reaction, maybe i was feeling quite benevolent and giving her the benefit of the doubt, to react in a slightly more sensible (?) manner. but there you go.

one of our camping groups is having its usual halloween fancy dress camp, although it actually falls before samhain.
but i feel quite torn, i love to go and meet up with friends again and of course being away camping, but the whole halloween thing i just cant make myself be a part of~its just so far removed from what this time of year means to me that i cant make myself dress up and be jolly. i seem to have come so far down the line in my personal belief that i just cant do it...heck what a party pooper i have become! i know i should go and just treat it as a party...but i cant, it feels wrong to me.

' The world is round so that friendship may encircle it'

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

merry meet on a gloriously blue dorset day.in fact its been such a day i cannot even begin to describe it, but the most noticeable thing is the slight chill in the air, when i was out in the back yard looking at my black eyed susans...still hanging on! i could feel the chill settling down. the sun has now set behind the wytch elm and the views across to the top road are bathed pink and the air coming in the window next to me is slightly more chill than earlier.
i am feeling more than ever, in fact its getting stronger as the month progresses,the dieing back of our pagan year as we approach samhain. but at the same time the celebration of the complete turning of our wheel and the celebration of a new year~the excitement of yule to follow and then the returning light.

Breathless, we flung us on a windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

merry meet )o(
over the last few days i have been feeling so strongly the waning of the year and when i woke early this morning to chilly air, pale blue skies and dew caught in the cobwebs on the grass and hedge i felt it even more strongly.
i feel as if i am enveloped in the feeling and can feel everything settling down as we draw closer to the equinox and samhain.
there is a stillness here today that is deep inside me