High Day Blessings!

Happy Hallowe’en/Samhain/Beltane/NaNoEve, for those celebrating. It’s been a quiet day, but a good day. I did most of my ritual yesterday, to be honest. There was a live broadcast of an ADF Samhain rite I followed along with in the morning, then did some Hekate devotions, and then followed it up with the Deipnon in the evening. And because of Female Things, today is my Scheduled Day Off, so I have done nothing really. Except buy chocolate for non-existent trick or treaters who decided to pass by our house (which I now get to eat mwahaha), went to the library and took out all their witchy books, painted my nails black, and … that was really about it.

I wanted to get more NaNo prep done today, but other things beckoned. I would start writing at midnight, but I have work tomorrow, and midnight is bed time, so, it will have to wait til I get home. I will probably begin handwriting if I get bored, though, just so I have somewhere to start with and not have to think off the top of my head. But the parents will be out at choir tomorrow night, so I’ll have the evening to write in peace, which will be lovely.

Also, I blame Hekate for how much this month has felt like Samhain, and not Beltane, and also possibly because I just don’t connect with Beltaine. But, seriously, I have not felt the Samhain-y-ness to this extent before, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t mind participating in a Samhain rite yesterday, and making offerings to our queer ancestors, and to my blood ancestors. It was a powerful rite for me, even though I was watching it and following it online.

Anyway. It’s late, and I have a million other things to do before bed so I will leave this here. Many blessings of the High Day to you, and peace to the blessed dead, and to you. ❤

Always with the crossroads

I feel like I should be used to predicting this by now, that whenever Hekate takes over my life (like She has at the moment), I end up at a crossroads period. Which is fine. I always like a chance to stop and figure my shit out, so that’s nice. I just always feel a bit restless when I get there, because all my habits grind to a halt until it’s over, which doesn’t help to keep my ritual habits going, ngl.

Everything’s become a bit complicated at the moment. Apart from my CoH Hekate devotional work, my Kemetic practice has come to a bit of a halt. Also, Hekate is all, study witchcraft for me, and so I’m actually reading books about Wicca in a way I haven’t since I first started out in 2000; I suspect it’s one of those ‘know the rules before you break them’ things, but I’m still not really sure at the moment. I suppose I could’ve done without Sobek suggesting I might open a statue for Him in the middle of all this, leading me to change my shrine around, and my daily rites, again. Also, Isis-Renenutet-Mary-Hekate-Selene can you stop being confusing I am totally done with this.

Also, Ganesh is back on my altar because Reasons??????? *throws hands up* /idek anymore

OH. NOVELS. HERMES. WRITING OIGUBSDUGlfsjygfksygks. Yes. That is another thing I need to talk about idek.

Anyway, have a ramble below the cut about weird religious things, if the tl;dr above isn’t enough for you.

Happy Solstice!

I had a lovely ritual tonight with Hekate Kourotrophos to mark the winter solstice. I’m beginning to understand why the blade is important to me, but it’s just niggling thoughts at the moment. Hekate Kourotrophos is very … blunt. But I like Her. And I do volunteer for Save the Children here in Australia, which is right up Her alley. So donations in Her name were suggested, which makes sense to me. I’ll write up the ritual on my DP blog later, but for now, have a little dodgy phone camera video of my shrine from tonight’s ritual.

I wish you a blessed and peaceful Solstice. May the gods be with you. ❤

A blessed High Day to you all!

In which I am terrible at taking photos. /not my natural talent. /lookit that blurrrrr. 

Whether you’re gearing up for Beltaine or Samhain, or for no festival at all, I hope May brings you good tidings and blessings and not!terrible things. I admit I did rather pull this High Day ritual out of my arse in terms of preparations, but it turned out well enough, I think. I did a simple one in honour of Hekate and the ancestors, and that seemed to work well. I wanted to get the rite done before May began because that’s when the Mysteries of Wesir begins for me, and I didn’t want them crashing into each other.

I offered grains, water, and honey rum. I mean, ‘grains’ is something of a misnomer, because it’s a mixture of garlic granules, sea salt crystals, barley, sesame seeds, and rosemary, but hey, grains! It’s easier to say idk.

Also, you might notice two boxes on the main shrine between the statues/behind the taper candles. They’re painted up cigar boxes. The one on the left is for tools, and contains my knife, bells, prayer beads, oils, and salt. The one on the right contains the incense I use for my daily rites: sandalwood (Heru), lotus (Isis), daphne (Sobek),  and a white sandalwood, ginkgo, and agarwood blend (Wesir). It’s internally divided with cardboard, and the glyphs are bodged together from dictionaries and drawn with not a great amount of skill. But there you go.

Anyway. I wanted to post here about the High Day tonight, and I’ll post the proper write-up over at the DP blog later. Not sure how much Mysteries of Wesir I’ll post over here, but we’ll see. I hope your festivals go well, if you are having any. Otherwise, have a great weekend.

Mysteries of Wesir preparations

This year’s Mysteries of Wesir shrine. It’s very pared back and simple, but I think it gives it a strong focus. How much of the stuff I removed will go back afterwards, I don’t know, but we’ll see.

The full moon is coming up, and I have some tools to consecrate. So it seems like the time to set up properly for the Mysteries of Wesir. I also redid the druid shrine for the coming High Day, which I still haven’t settled on yet, but it’ll be about Hekate if nothing else, so. I’ll probably do it a day or two before May 1, just so there’s space for both. I think the only thing I’ve needed to get is some more black taper candles, which I just ordered on ebay, because this is Australia in April, and black candles are hard to find at the best of times, so.

It’s been a strange week, in many ways. My daily devotions have been ad-libbed, and the gods I mention almost all the time are Ra and Wesir as I light the candles. It’s strange to do that after having such deity-focused devotions for so long, but I find it refreshing. A lot of my words have been about purifying myself; I find I’m censing myself, and purifying myself with the water offerings, and drinking in the light from the flames and letting them wash over me. It feels like it’s been a week-long ritual purification, but I’m okay with that.

There was a bit of meditation with Sobek this morning in my half-asleep state, so I’m tempted to feel like this is when things are slowly coming back to normal. The full moon ritual tomorrow, when we consecrate the heka knife, the heka snake wand, and Hekate’s knife, will probably be the start of the preparations proper for the Mysteries and the coming High Day.

I won’t be able to do the full 6 hour night vigil, though. I’ve got some paid work to do the day after, so staying up all night is not an option. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do; it’ll either be a day vigil instead so there are still 6 hours done, or it’ll be a shorter vigil in the evening, perhaps 8pm til 11pm. I’m tempted to do it during the day, because I haven’t done a full six hour vigil for a long time, and even though it won’t be quite the same during the day, it’s better than cutting it short again. But we’ll do some divination and see what the gods want.

Anyway, I have rituals to prepare and write, so I’ll leave this here. I’ll post photos of the tools later once they’ve been consecrated so you can get a better look at them and what I did with them to decorate and consecrate them.

Sometimes, inspiration fails you

I swear, I’ve been trying all week to write something up here, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve had thoughts about all sorts of things, but they’ve come to nothing. It’s not a huge issue, it’s not like I have a set posting schedule, but I am trying to keep the posting as regular as I can, just to keep things ticking over.

But things have happened. I have spent the past month working on a short story about Hekate for one of the Covenant of Hekate’s creative projects, and there was the option once it was done to submit it to Askei Kataskei, which I did. And apparently it is good, so there’s that. I’ll let you know more on that later when I have a firm idea of what’s happening with that.

I’ve caught up on my DP High Day stuff. I had fallen behind on my essays and such, and at least I now have all my High Day essays and ritual notes done. Check out my DP blog if you’re interested in following along. I will, at some point, sit down and redraft them into proper essays, and not just collections of notes, but that’s for later. The liturgies I used have also been posted, as well as the essay notes for the May High Day, because if I do it now, then I don’t have to worry about it when the Mysteries of Wesir are taking over my life. All I will have to do is write up the ritual, and then it’s done, and I can worry about Wesir.

Easter Memories and the Mysteries of Wesir

The Holy Family, and Wesir shrouded. I may switch all the (not-black) candles out for black ones closer to May.

I realise decorating for the Mysteries so soon after the Equinox is probably a bit fast for some, but for me, it’s an important marker for the beginning of the dark time of the year, and the descent into winter. It’s a reminder of what’s to come, and that Wesir’s gone from us. I’ve shrouded my other seated Wesir statue, and hidden the small 3in one away. It’s part of the ritual preparation for this time of year, to hide Wesir’s images away, and know what’s coming. The shrine feels slightly more precarious now, and while there will be things added closer to the beginning of the Mysteries, for now, Wesir is gone.

Arguably, it’s probably just a coincidence that I have felt the need to do this on Maundy Thursday, in the lead-up to Easter. But it does feel like eerie timing. It is the season of dying gods, at least down here in the southern hemisphere. It isn’t quite the season of the land dying back, though; summer is the season of dying, and drying, and cutting back. Autumn is almost a breath of relief, that things are cooling down, and that what has survived the heat will keep going.

The full moon rite for Isis last night was also good, and deserves its own write-up, though I do feel like I need to make a specific full moon rite for Her, rather than keep using the general libation rite like I am now. It works okay, but it doesn’t have the right feel, like it’s about the full moon. So I’ll take some time to think about that. Meditations were good. We had a long chat about things, like heka, and bodies, and shapeshifting, though that makes it sound far more interesting than it really was. Which, it was interesting, but long chats about magic with gods are quite different than you might imagine. But I might make a post on all that later, if I remember, because that’s not what this post is about.

Final preparations and offerings

Dodgy phone camera photo is dodgy, but I hope it suffices.

Everything has been cleaned and incensed to within an inch of its life. Old things have been discarded to make room for the new. A simple Kemetic High Day rite was done, just because I felt I needed to do something more significant than my evening rite. Water was offered. Incense is still burning. Everything is ready for the new year.

I did take an omen, with the Wildwood Tarot. I pulled the Four of Arrows – Rest; the Ace of Stones – The Foundation of Life; the Seven of Arrows – Insecurity; and 16 – The Blasted Oak. There’s a few familiar themes here, and I think I’ll leave it to sit for a while, and contemplate it further. That, and it’s late, and I have work tomorrow, and I have no time right now to spend pondering tarot cards at any great depth.

Have a blessed High Day, if you’re celebrating. I’m off to have supper before bed. And sit here, feeling at peace with the world as the minutes count down to midnight, and the beginning of the new year. Di Wep Ronpet Nofret! 😀

Wep Ronpet 2016

So today is the last of the epagomenal days, Nebethet’s birthday. Once I’m done with this entry, I’ll clean the shrine again in preparation for Wep Ronpet. I’m actually starting a new paid job tomorrow, so I won’t have the chance to do it then, so doing it now gives me a chance to prepare and take enough time to make sure things are properly cleaned.

Because of work, and because of my DP High Day rituals, Wep Ronpet is going to be simple. I’m not going to do much bar a libation or two during morning devotions, because I have my High Day ritual in the evening. I’ll be doing this purification ritual for Hekate, in what is a break in the streak of ADF COoR High Day rites. But it feels right, and She wants me to do it, so that’s what’s happening. I printed out the liturgy and stuck it in my ritual book today in preparation.

Shedety Scriptorium Update

Well, I’ve varnished, and photographed, and written words, and while I still have a few photos I need to retake because I am great at blurry!, I’m just about ready to begin throwing new listings up over at Etsy. I did a sneak peek over at the shop blog, if anyone’s interested, and I’ll be posting each item there as it goes up on Etsy. So keep an eye on that blog if you want to know what’s available, and what’s coming up. I have, like, 22 separate things that need to go up, though some things, I think, could be combined into one listing. But anyway. I’ll get them listed over the next few weeks, just so it’s not a flood, but more of a gentle increase.

I’ve been making a lot of little shrine kits of late, because that’s apparently the best thing to do with little tiny boxes. But I’ve also just picked up some red vinyl as well, and I want to play around with that and maybe try to make some hard-cover books with it. We’ll see. I think Hekate and Set would be interested in those if I managed to make something not shit. That, and it’s been too long since I actually made any books, so I want to make sure I can still do it. I’ve been practicing long-stitching books with leather pieces, so some of those might go up as well, once I get the hang of making sure the holes are even and in the right place. You’d be surprised at how hard that actually is. I need more practice. And perhaps more leather idk.

Anyway. It’s nearly Wep Ronpet. I might have a bit of paid work coming up, so that’s good. I still need to make new linens for the gods. And write rituals. And figure out what I’m doing for the High Day, because this’ll be my fourth DP High Day, and I can’t just skip it now. If anyone has any ideas for Hellenic New Year-ish festivals I could take inspiration from, I’m all ears. I’m so used to seasonal calendars that the non-seasonal nature of most Hellenic festivals and calendars is something I find very disconcerting. But I’ll get used to it, I think, once I have a set I’m happy with. Anyway. Imma go watch Zoolander and chill and think of more things to make.