Solstice Blessings!

Hello. Yes, I am still alive. So, summer solstice on Wednesday here in Perth was 42C/107F, which was just the best day (not) and why I hate summer this heat is appalling. So I didn’t do any ritual because who has the energy to do ritual when it’s that fkn hot? Not me. But I did ritual yesterday morning, with a bunch of other ADF solitaries, watching a livestream of a winter solstice ritual, so that scratched my ritual itch for now.

I’m still in that stage of figuring stuff out, but I’m closer to done than I was before, and I’ve done morning ritual to Sobek-Heru today for the first time in a long time. I also built a shrine for Isis, and it sits on the southern wall. I’ll do full shrine postings and photos at a later date, probably in January once the dust has settled. Maybe I’ll even do a full room tour, though I’ll have to do some cleaning first, I have stuff everywhere right now, and that won’t change once Christmas and my birthday hits. But that’s a job for later.

The road ahead

So, a lot has changed. The shrines have switched places. This is, arguably, more of a practical move mor than anything else. The physical space I need for my devotional rites for Sobek and Heru is nowhere near as much space as I need for my fledgling witchcraft practice. I think this is actually the first time in sixteen years of pagan practice that I’ve had a permanent witchcraft altar. So there’s that.

I’ve put up a couple of quick videos of each shrine on youtube, for those who want more detail: the Shedety shrine, and the Hekate/Sobek witchcraft altar. There’s a bunch of other shrine videos on there as well, but it’s easier than uploading them anywhere else, since I take them on my phone.

At some point I will stop making new wordpress sites, but I have thrown up another one for my witchcraft blogging stuff because what the hell, and also there’s no room for it here, so. Feel free to follow it if you like: A Sobekatean Grimoire. (There is a lot of punnage in that title, ngl.)

And now that the pimping is out of the way, the tl;dr version is under the cut. Enjoy.

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.

We need Pagan thrift shops

So this post is a bit rare for me. I don’t normally do stuff like this, but all afternoon, I’ve felt strongly that this is something I need to write, and write now, and post it, because I can’t keep it to myself. This needs to be shared. Whether anyone agrees, I don’t know, but I’m putting this out here anyway, even if only I end up caring about it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about stuff. Our paganisms, and our polytheisms, are religions of stuff. Pick any book about how to do a paganism and it will invariably have a chapter on all the stuff you need. Tools, statuary, robes, books, whatever. You can also search for witchy room tours on youtube to see just how much stuch we like to hoard away. And there is nothing wrong with stuff! Many of us find them useful for our practice, and I don’t think we should abandon our stuff if it helps us do our religions well.

Of course, getting said tools isn’t always cheap, and sometimes, you can’t just get any tool, you need to have the right one. Some of these things, like libation bowls or dishes or candles or other stuff, can be found in ordinary thrift shops, or bought cheap elsewhere, but some things, like statuary, are harder to substitute, particularly if you don’t have the money for them. Australian pagans might understand how hard it is to not spend a lot of money on deity statues; if I can find one for under AU$100 with shipping, I consider it a bargain.

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.

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.

State of the Shrines 2016

Well, I’m back from my trip to Tasmania, I think I’ve lost my Sennheiser headphones, and I start back at the op shop on Tuesday. So things are, well. They’re going. How are you all doing? I hope your holiday and new year break was good, if you had one. I spent New Years Eve dozing off a stomach bug, then I spent the evening outside in the yard with my tiny niece and nephew and my family, playing with sparklers. Amaze.

Anyway. I wanted to start the new year with a post showing off all my current shrines, because a lot’s changed over the past year, and it seems like a good time to do this. I feel like it’s always a good way to see how my practices have changed and developed over time, and who’s getting more of my attention than others.

There won’t be many images, only about 7 or so, but they are a bit big, so just a warning for anyone on slow connections. There will also be lots of text, because I am terrible at being concise about these things.

A Forced Hiatus

There’s nothing like being sick to disrupt your rituals. I don’t get sick very often, nor do I get sick enough to take me away from shrine for nearly two weeks, but there you go. That has been my life for the past fortnight or so. My dad caught something, and passed it on to my mum and me, and I’m only just getting over it now.

And so my shrine has been closed and quiet.

Happy Solstice!

This year’s hearth shrine for our midwinter feast. Greenman/Wild Hunt theme. This is the best photo I managed to take, so sorry it’s a bit blurry. My phone will only do so much.

I hope everyone has had a blessed Solstice. We had our midwinter feast last night, and it was a lovely evening. I’m really enjoying being able to share the Solstice with friends, even if they’re not Pagan. Pictured above is my decorated hearth for this year’s feast. I get to decorate the hearth, and it’s always a lot of fun. I went with a Greenman/Wild Hunt sort of theme. Also, you can’t really see it too well, but there is some ivy tucked up there behind it all, because I can’t not have any greenery at all.

At least we had some good wintery weather. It rained all day, and the wind was fierce. There was even some thunder in the evening. Really set the mood, and made us want to settle in for a good roast and pudding. Dad even made some mulled wine, though it still wasn’t enough to make me like wine. Mum wasn’t so keen on it, either, but eh. Everyone else seemed to like it, which is fine by me. Mum made some little figgy puddings in muffin tins, and there’s still a bunch left over. We had some of the pork for lunch today. Our fridge is filled with leftovers. It is glorious. And the sun has been out for most of the day today, so obvs our feasting worked, and the sun decided to come back wooooo. ❤

I’ll be doing a simple ritual this evening to mark the Solstice for myself. I’m working tomorrow, so I don’t want to do a full ritual, but I’ll do something small, and offer some water anyway. I think I might also do my First Oath ritual, since I had pencilled it in for Solstice, and I think I’m almost happy with the wording I picked. But we’ll see. I’ll decide this afternoon how I want to do that, and how I want to incorporate those things.

While I’m thinking of DP things, I did make a DP blog, even if it is mostly empty. There was some other stuff I wanted to put there, but haven’t got around to it for various reasons. I’ve actually written more in my paper journal than the blog suggests, and there are some things I want to put up on the blog for posterity/ponderings. Anyway. If you want to follow it, go ahead. Don’t expect consistent regular updates. I’m doing this at my own pace, in between everything else, and giving myself time to really think about everything. I don’t want to rush it.

Hello internet

I’ve been on a bit of a sabbatical, because RL family drama I’m not willing to go into publicly, and I just did not have the brain or spoons to update here. But most of that seems to have calmed down, and I’m able to think a little clearer now. I am behind on TPE posts, and other posts I wanted to make, and they may or may not turn up at some point, we’ll see.

What I sort of hate about The Pagan Experience topics is that they are very Thinky, and I can’t write anything decent about them when I can’t sit and think about those topics for very long. Kudos for that, but it does make it hard to just thrash out a response in an hour on a whim. I need to write all the drafts before I’m able to settle on something I like that isn’t totally shite and just me rambling for a thousand words. (I am also a bit tired of the ‘…and what does $word ~mean~ to you?’ phrasing of the suggested topics, and that might be grating on my desire to sit and thrash out drafts because I cbf ~defining my terms~ before I begin, because this isn’t a fucking university essay, but whatever. I mean, some words just don’t have that sort of broad flexibility in definition, y’know? :/)(This is where my logical grammar pedant is winning out over my Arts graduate’s feelpiniony inclinations.)

Still, at least I am thinking about them when I open my file every so often, and look at the topics, and ponder wtf I am going to say, and then close the file several hours later, having written not very much. I might actually go back and reword some of them, or perhaps find other topics to write about, just so I can make some progress, and get them written. I don’t like leaving this blog sitting idle with no content, and the more I write when I have the time, the more I can plan ahead when I’m feeling shite, so.