Winter Blahs

I am so done with winter.

Usually February comes around and I'm excited. It's a short month, March is right around the corner, and sure we always get snow in March but we always get melting too and after that it's all downhill from there.

I don't know what it is about this February, but I am done. I feel not-good. Not sick, but not thriving. I've had a mild headache all week. I'm freezing all the time, and if I'm not cold I'm tired. Often, I'm both. I don't feel like eating. I mean, I never really feel like eating, but it's worse than normal. I don't know if it's because this is the first winter in awhile I've been stuck taking public transit, if it's winter cabin fever (even though it's brighter longer, I find myself craving sunlight), if it's my regular eating/energy issues piled with a side of an arse of a boss who's been worse than usual lately, or a combination of all of those things but I am blaming winter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting on my ass about this. I need to feel better in my body. The meal plan this coming week is for some dinners and work lunches that I actually enjoy rather than just eat, I want to try a new method of cooking salmon (which I used to love, but which has been downgraded to simply 'enjoy' of late), and I'm going to do my damndest to move my body this weekend.

But while I had a wonderful Imbolc with wonderful women who I am excited to be working and practicing with this year... I'm ready for it to be Ostara already.

Popping In

Just a quick post tonight! Thankfully my house has survived the cold snap and I have survived the commute. I am very glad that we are almost out of January though.

I didn't have time to write up an entry earlier in the week, but I have finally managed to procure what I need for my new prayer beads and what better time to string them up than a full moon? I should have a post later on next week with the beads and how I'm working with them.

For now, since I'm on the subject of devotionals, I will point you over to Dver for That Thing I Need to be Reminded Of (often.......)

In Endless Search of Prayer Beads

I have loved prayer beads for years. I love their beauty, the feel of them beneath my fingers, the comfort and power they accumulate through repeated use. Despite this, I have yet to create a set that has 'stuck'.

It's no secret that my practice has been in flux for some time. For years I struggled to find a balance in my solitary practice between diving into my tradition's pathworking and what my practice had been before.

It was my teacher who first introduced me to prayer beads. I created a lovely set as one of my first tasks as a dedicant. To this day they sit in the right pocket of my winter coat and I rub my thumb over them as I wait for the bus in the cold. But the gods they are dedicated to are not gods I work with any longer (or ever really did in my solitary work).

I've experimented a few different times since then. I made a set dedicated to Brighid for an e-course I was doing that had different beads for Her flame, Her well, Her forge, and a single large one for Her mantle. But while I have great affection for Brighid, she does not have a consistent place in my practice and attempting to add the prayer beads actually served to disrupt the flow of the devotions I was already performing for her.

I was also inspired by someone somewhere in the depths of the internet to create a set with one bead to each deity that I honour in my path. I eagerly started to collect them. Black for Hekate, wood for Demeter, blue glass for Poseidon, a key for Persephone, a shell for Aphrodite, a bear for my power animal, a quartz for the sibyls, bone for the ancestors, etc. But I realized before I even finished the set (let alone strung them) that it didn't feel like me.

And now I am in search again. An article on Witches' Voice turned me on to the idea of prayer beads as a reflection of ritual. A bead for purifying and grounding, one for each element, one for the God, one for the Goddess, etc. Through all my searching for a consistent spiritual home practice, my love of ritual has always held true. So today I think I will pull out my unfinished collection, see what beads can be repurposed for this new idea, and make a list of what I'm missing.

We'll see how it goes!

(The article that inspired this new attempt, by the way, can be found here. I'm not big on the whole ritual 'cheat sheet' thing, but the idea of prayer bead devotions as a microcosm of ritual is something I can get on board with.)

Laying Out a Life

I pray to Artemis when I go to the gym.

I don't generally like going to the gym. I like it once I'm there, but the gym I signed up for is a twenty minute drive away and going to a class takes most of my evening. I hurt for days after a work out. (Less after a kickboxing class.) I despise burpees and the trainers love them. But I go because I do not enjoy feeling weak in my skin. And I go to that gym -- even though it's more expensive, even though it's farther away -- because their philosophy is in line with my own and if I don't have someone to kick my ass I'll sit on the couch and be lazy.

I only manage to go once a week (sometimes twice if I'm doing a yoga class as well). Before each class starts I go to the washroom, touch water to my hands, heart, and third eye, ground, align, and pray. I pray for strength, for endurance, for joy, for power, for determination, for whatever I feel I'm lacking in that moment that will help me get through the next hour. It's my devotional to Her.

I pray to Demeter when I cook dinner. It's a simple food blessing, but it sanctifies the meal and the act of making and eating it:

Goddess bless this food

Bless those who cook it and eat it

Bless those who gave their lives and livelihoods for it

Bless the great green Earth from which it came

I recently had a consultation with a naturopath who suggests a variety of ways to adjust my diet with the aim of improving my overall energy. I know that this deeper relationship with food and energy will also involve a deeper relationship with the Grain Mother.

This is how I honour my gods. It is not just carving out a space and time that is distinct in its spiritual purpose. It is inviting them into my life. It is laying my life out before them and saying "Bless this, enter this, make this better, help it to fuel my purpose." The Sacred is everywhere. We only realize this, and the immense possibility of such a statement, when we start to treat it as such.

What Will You Birth?

What will you birth this year? As the Goddess (re)births the Sun Child take a moment for reflection. What light will you offer to the world? What will you manifest in this turn of the Wheel? What will you create? What will you bring into being? What choice can you make now that will grow your own sacred purpose?

A New Moon, a Bright Moon

Two years ago I moved from a cramped, one bedroom apartment into the house that I share with my fiancé. I finally have my own piece of earth and realized that I have no idea what to do with it. In truth, it goes beyond the land my house sits on. I’ve come to realize that there is little seasonal flow to my life. And as two working under-thirties, my non-pagan partner and I have few traditions that we have built for ourselves. While those will come with time, it’s the lack of spiritual traditions for my solitary practice that leaves me dissatisfied. I have wonderful people that I share circle with every couple of weeks and I do small rituals and devotionals on my own but they don’t feel intrinsic. They don’t feel connected to the greater forces, to where I want my work to bring me.

This is something that I am aiming to change. Seasonal flow, that awareness of the turning of the Earth and how it impacts my life and what I do. That is what I am focusing on this year. I know that it will take work, and patience, and spectacular failures. But I finally know what I want my life to look like in a few years time and I have a plan for getting there in other aspects of my life. My spirituality is too important to me to allow it to lag behind while I plan a wedding and take online courses to prepare for a new career.

I have always thought of Samhain as the end of the old year and the marking of a liminal time of reflection that ends with the return of the light at the Winter Solstice. So it didn’t surprise me when the idea for this blog took hold last month and refused to let go. I fully admit that it is a way to keep track and keep accountable of my efforts towards building a home spiritual practice that I can call mine. New years bring new chances, with the benefit of more experience. Each year we know ourselves a bit better, and each year we are better equipped to work for what we want our lives to be.

Those efforts begin tonight. It is the New Moon before Yule, and so I am building a bridge between the lunar and solar calendars. Each night of this lunar cycle I will light a special pillar candle as part of my devotional practice to call back the light, to call back the parts of myself that I will need to embark on this journey, to begin the work of this turn of the Wheel.

So welcome to my new project! May your homes be filled with love and laughter and may the imminent return of the light bring with it the promise of exciting new opportunities for the year to come.