Samhain 2009

It’s all change for TGW! New home, and a new happiness. I have all but moved out of The Little House and have taken up residence at Three Chimneys, the home of my wonderful partner M. Perhaps most wonderfully of all, he sussed my paganism from the start – in fact from our first date – acknowledges its importance but crucially isn’t the least bit interested in hearing about it. There’s none of the prurience, pretend understanding, cliche-ridded heavy-handed ‘humour’ or other badinage or railery that I’ve become so weary of over the years. Stepping out of the broom closet to important others in your life is a trial sometimes; thankfully this time it wasn’t.

This Samhain I have so much to give thanks for, so much to feel blessed about, so much to cherish and so much to remember. It truly seems to be the most fruitful Autumn I can remember.

Where to begin? I could tell you about the wonderful walks we’ve been on, gathering conkers by the river with R as the leaves fall in shimmering files and drifts; I could tell you about watching the swan family on the river as they serenely brought up 7 chicks to near-adulthood. Or how about the baking of cakes and pies and bread that fill the kitchen at Three Chimneys with fragrance and comfort every weekend? Or the aromatic, piney fires we build and bask in front of on windy, rainy nights? So much to tell.

Casseroles, wine, fellow-hail, comfort, safety and warmth. Mellow light on old stone. Burnished copper reflecting candles, reflecting golden flames seen through the clear glasses in the front of the log-burner. Deep rugs, soft chairs and warm throws to cuddle your feet into. Hot tea on tap. Whiskey and ice, to round out the evenings together. Books, everywhere books. Combined possessions of two people with similar interests, tastes and pursuits. Love, care, understanding. A welcome without and a welcome within. At last, a safe mooring and a home for me and for R.

The house is a work in progress, and it is progressing apace; only this week we’ve finished restoring the panelling in the drawing room, commissioned three more radiators, replastered the landing and the master bedroom, cleared out a skip-load of junk preparatory to my furniture arriving and mended the floorboards in the hall. I’ve planted the urns outside the front door; we’re planning a large Yuletide party to warm the threshold and everyone’s really excited, not least us!

There are carved pumpkins in all the windows, made by R and myself; one happy, one sad and one ‘grumpy’  which came out slightly wrong and actually looks like the poor fruit has indigestion. We’re due at the local Fire Festival on Saturday night – procession of giants, wicker man, fireworks, huge bonfire and all the hot-dogs R can stuff down his maw during the evening. Mulled wine, boeuf carbonnade and mashed potatoes before we go out, to ensure centrally heated bodies as we process through the darkness to the festival site, to the transformative magic of fire, lights and brilliance in the sky, cheer, wassail and the beginning of the New Year for me and for mine.

The moon will be waxing full tomorrow night, the best of all times for me to wish ahead and work for the future.

Blessed Samhain, to all my dearest friends.

Divergence and Laziness

There’s a very great deal to be said about the power of the urge to do nothing. It’s closely allied to the conviction that there’s no time to do x, whatever x happens to be. In some people, this could be characterised as a conscious decision. In me, I’ve seen it as simply laziness and inattention.

I was looking round my rooms the other day, and saw all the books lining the walls for the first time in a long time. In many respects, books, moveable press, are a form of interior decoration to me. Not, as I saw once, a way to add colour to a room – when I asked the owner of the house if she’d read any of the books in question she gave me an extremely funny look and said no, of course not; she’d bought two tonnes of green-spined books from a wholesaler and was using them as decoration. No, my definition of decorative goes more toward Rennie Mackintosh – both beautiful and useful.

I’ve got books in every room and some of them are unread, the bindings uncracked. Most of the books in this category are regarding pagan studies. I realised concurrently with my musing over the number of books unread that I haven’t done a really meaty book review (read: hatchet job) on anyone’s work for a good long while. And as I am going to be absent from the Ludlow Symposium this year, and therefore unable to provide a digest of the day, I should get reading and noting.

One of the downsides that we all acknowlege about practising solitary witchcraft (if we do; you might not!) is that sometimes, and sometimes for extended periods of time, life supervenes or you lose your way or your thread or your enthusiasm, even, and everything stops. I’ve had six months or more of this, feeling like there’s no energy or will in the pot for anything other than dragging myself out of bed, getting Rowan ready for nursery, keeping the house straight and trying (and mainly failing) to keep up with my friendship commitments.

One of the things I always do in this situation is believe that the false dawn of returning energy is the end of the problem. I forget every single time that it’s just a burst, a sprint for the tape, a momentary second wind. I become part of the problem, by forcing myself back into the fray. This tendency has an unfortunate side-effect – it seems to make other people doubt me when I say I’m fine (or maybe it’s the edge of hysteria on my voice. ‘I’m fine. No, I’m fine. FINE!’

I don’t think I’m fooling anyone, though; least of all me. I’m getting too old to be constantly hauling myself up right and soldiering on if I’m down. And I am down; why do women like me never give themselves credit? I’ve left and divorced my husband in less than a year, moved house, become a single parent, dealt with crises at home and at work, held down a full-time job, done a good job as a parent and haven’t actually gone insane or become emotionally incontinent in the process. That’s quite good going.

So to get irritated at myself for not continuing my observances, work, writings, visits, pilgrimages and dedications seems specious to me. None of these things are dispensible in my life, but neither is my son, earning a living or having peace of mind and heart. So, not indispensible; but slightly more dispensible than the things I kept up with.

I’m here, Goddess, I still hear You. I worship You. I think the life you’ve given me should be lived well; and so I dedicate all my efforts to You. By doing my best I give my best to You.

Noisy, Sacred, Profane and Cheerful

To Seshat’s house last night – or should I say Seshat’s ex-house! – to assist her in packing up her valuables and moving them across to 55. Her old place seems less and less like the right place for her to be, and in so many ways. She strikes me as a butterfly, breaking loose from her chrysalis, emerging to the air and sunshine and spreading her wings to dry.

Once she’s out of that confining, womb-like and dark space, there can be no going back. Happily, there is no wish to go back, not even the smallest one. I have watched Seshat grow into a new, strong, loving, able, capable and beautiful woman in the time that I have been privileged to know her. She has met her gods, she has advanced and refined her magic, she has chosen her path and laid her hand to the staff of her life. Her planets revolve around her now, not the other way about. She walks tall and free.

When we are together, we spend a large amount of the time laughing. We did so last night. That laughing was too big for the flat, echoing and rebounding from the walls as if it would try to push the walls back and away. It only sounded right when we were hyaena-ing our way up the street, trying to balance boxes on our wheelbarrow and drawing looks – and beeps! – from passing cars. Nothing dented our bonhomie, though. It’s times like these that allow the spirit to fully fill the frame; we know we can say whatever we like, discuss whatever we like, laugh, sing, dance…. and we will have a partner.

Choosing to Choose what I Bloody Well Choose!

My divorce is now on the map – the paperwork was submitted to the court and approved, yesterday; I should have my decree nisi by mid-July and my absolute by August. I know categorically that I won’t feel any different when I have that piece of paper than I do now – a free woman, who is once again able to make decisions based on what I want out of my life; to choose the people I want to spend my intimate time with. I have the gift of choice. I can have any damn thing I want, within reason.

I’m older, though, and I have the benefit of a huge amount of extra experience, knocks and bumps; things that worked, things that failed catastrophically. Stuff I chose to do and reaped the whirlwind for; risks I took which had unexpected benefits.

The fact of the matter is; whoever I choose, however it ends up, whatever happens, it’s been my choice. We take the consequences for the things we choose to do; it’s the first step to knowing oneself; responsibility for action.

Witchcraft gives one a certain amount of prescience; but we’re not goddesses or gods, just plain old word made flesh; human, fallible, subject to all the usual humdrum lusts and desires that cloud our judgement and make us act irrationally. Everyone is like this. No-one’s experience is so like another’s that there’s an automatic read-across. So why the big urge to drop in the four penn’orth of  ‘useful advice’?

There are those whose guidance I seek and listen to, because I respect them and understand their motivation. There are others who give their opinion whether I want it or not, and whose view I discount if it doesn’t suit my purposes at the time.

I know I’m going to fuck it up at some point. Who doesn’t? But the crucial thing is; don’t tell me I’m going to fuck it up ahead of time. What do you think that says about how you feel about me? Think about that.

Airing the Wound, Healing the Hurt

When I was young, the best cure I was offered for cuts and abrasions was to wash the wound, let it dry and expose it to the air and sunshine. In our climate, this method works wonders. It allows the cut to dry, to cut itself off from the lifeblood and to cover itself in armour, ready to grow new skin and protection underneath the congealed blood.

This weekend, I’ve been offered the chance of the equivalent, writ large; my sister and I are starting again in our relationship and our friendship, and it feels good.

We met for the first time 10 years ago. At the time we liked each other, I think. Various untoward happenings meant that we didn’t and couldn’t remain friends. Not to say we’ve ever been at loggerheads openly – we just haven’t ever kept up with each other. Her children have grown up as strangers to me. I’ve missed her talents and her humour and her strength. I think she may have missed mine equally. This weekend, we offered each other the chance to build the bridge anew.

The wound has healed – best of all, it seems we’ve forgotten why we were not friends, or if not, it has ceased to matter. We hugged and kissed each other and were perfectly at ease all weekend, and our children adored each other at first sight and became fast friends.

More room to manoeuvre, more opportunity for compromise, more space for friendship, more depth for love and respect. Good. This is what I want in my life – making, not breaking.

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Do visit my sister’s site, Mackface. She’s an incredibly talented artist and bodypainter, and is available for festivals, and commissions are taken – in fact, she’s doing one for me at the moment!!

Garbled Thinking

An interesting short conversation with a Christian in my family today highlighted to me the some of the facts regarding worship in Britain today. I quote:

Her: You’ll have to start going to church again if you want to get R into that school!

Me: I wouldn’t do that; it’s hypocritical and unneccessary. And anyway, I’m not sacrificing my beliefs to tick a box to gain an education for my child.

Her: Well, you don’t have to do you? You worship God, after all!

Me: Well, yes. In a way. But the Christian church worships Jesus. The clue’s in the question. I don’t believe in Jesus as a saviour or as the son of God.

Her: But all Gods are the same in the end!

Me: (thinks) Have you thought about that before you said it? It implies your One True Saviour… isn’t.

The idea that I would voluntarily retard my spiritual life and actively renege on everything I’ve worked for and earned in order to get my son into a particular school seems ludicrous to me, and will, I suspect, to many of my readers. But what is even more alarming to me is the thought that you can have any sort of moral excellence within such a system. One of the strictest proponents of Christianity I know, actively encouraging me to be mendacious and underhanded in order to achieve something worldly. Interesting.

It seems easy for Christians to be clear about what they believe and what they worship – they’ve got a book, a plan and a couple of thousand years of well-documented history. This all seems to go out of the window in situations like the above. Either you have a One True God or you don’t….

One of the things I get continually from those who ask me about my path is an accusation that I can’t be fully candid and straightforward about the doctrine I follow. The fact that I don’t have one with which to form a path seems to escape my interlocutor, nine times out of ten. We don’t get a book, a road, a threat of hell and a promise of heaven like the world’s heaviest-handed carrot-and-stick  approach. We don’t proselytise; we don’t advocate the worship of any particular goddess or god – we wouldn’t presume to intervene between the gods and the people they choose as their followers.

We get a braided channel, a map with no names on it, our wits and the clothes we stand up in. Who wouldn’t learn more this way?

Warriors or Wimps?

Some interesting developments in a friend’s situation have had me thinking today about the despatch with which we run our lives as witches. How much are we required to turn the other cheek? Before I start sounding needlessly Christian about this, let’s look at the theory behind the platitude. In all these clichés there’s a smidgen of truth.

Wisdom is sometimes made manifest by the ability to know and to keep silent. We understand this as witches and as mature women and men who have, sometimes, railed out loud against our fates and the fates of those we love, giving tongue to the impotent feeling of unfairness that sometimes accompanies happenstance. In any event, this ranting makes no difference. I would say it can even dissipate the power we might otherwise use to do something practical about the problem. A profligate waste of energy in meaningless movement and noise.

But where do we get the superhuman patience required for not being angry, not being jealous, not being sure life is dealing us a scunner for no reason? We don’t deserve this, it’s not fairrrr….

Turning the other cheek can have many forms; passive acceptance, numb submission, masochistic pleasure in being dumped on again; or actually a refusal to either acknowledge or accept the wrong done to us. I like the last. To accept service of and to give weight to a damaging blow lends it power; power it shouldn’t be allowed to have.

Turning the other cheek can have interesting implications for direction, also. We turn away from the path we have followed and look to a new point of the compass, feel a new wind on our cheek, a new light in our eyes. A new perspective. So being turned forcibly away from our previous path by the unkind action of another can benefit us while it hurts us. We can choose to see the positive and to embrace it.

So is it wimpy not to immediately retaliate, to give like for like, to seek proportionate revenge? No. Of course not. Revenge itself can be cowardly, and worse; it can bring you down to the level of the aggressor. It is only natural to want to see the other hurting as much as we are, but it takes a special strength to refuse to play the game. So to my Warrior, I tell the truth – you’re the strong one. You are in charge. And you’re winning.

Like a Cat

I’m sitting here feeling the strangest sensation, the equivalent of a cat unsheathing its claws, that rubbery, delicious stretching and flexing of a rusty muscle working again after a long furlough.

My mind is waking up. Outside all the clamour and jabber and jangling the last three months have roused in me, I’ve had flashes of intuition, ghosts of ideas, brief flashes of inspiration, and just never got up the impetus to write effectively. Like Andy at Somerset Pagan I have felt as though I should write; but chose not to, partly from inertia and partly from cussed bloody-mindedness. And despite all this, visitors to my blog have not deserted me, despite seeing I didn’t have anything to say; we hit 19,000 this morning and I thank the Goddess, plus I’m totally amazed. Where did all these people come from?!

Yule looms and I am reminded that Seshat and I began our journey together at this time last year. We are working together this Yule too – and will be celebrating our difference, our strength, our togetherness once again. The year always begins and ends here for me.

Now the Sparkly Season is upon us and things have loosened off; there’s room to breathe and to look around. I’m organised; I know what I’ve got to do and by when. Work is in hand, family are in hand; my home is three quarters organised and a paragon of whimsical efficiency and comfort. I am looking forward to Yule and to receiving guests and friends for wassail and cheer. I am going to give myself a break and enjoy the next few weeks without let or hindrance. This is my reward for dangers faced and a breathing space to prepare for whatever is to come.

All Shall Be Made New

Here I am again, myself and yet not myself; grown different and stronger and freer all at once!

Some background seems sensible, or I’ll be talking gibberish; the upheaval and changes in my personal life, while traumatic, have been enormously fruitful and continue to be so. I feel reborn. It isn’t so much a shucking off of old associations and ties but a reassessment of what it is that I want out of my life, the only one I have.

When you bump along without demanding control of your life and you allow the winds and tides to drive you, you are relinquishing the better part of the thing that makes you human; the ability to determine your path and form it in the image you create. This is a form of alchemy, small ‘a’; you imagine the result and then, eyes closed, you mould the method and release it to do its work. We do this every day, all day; managing and planning and making things happen.

I’ve been silent, recently, because I’ve been listening; listening as though my life depended upon it, which I sincerely believe it might actually do. The life I want, at any rate. I’ve been learning the tune and committing the words to memory. I do not want to simply live; I want to live forever. Ambitious, no? I’m not talking about immortality, in the spiritual sense; I’m talking about the superlative life, the life filled with sparkle and dash and vivid memory, not one moment wasted henceforth. And the beauty of it is that the raw materials are free and all that is required from me is will and a sound plan.

Between me listening to me, I’ve been listening to others; particuarly my lovely Seshat and her new joint venture, The Adversarial Path. Seshat has found a new and compelling direction for her life, and again she and I echo each other in this; what I’m enjoying is the difference between our processes and the diversity of the results. She has made herself new, as have I. She has a new path, full of danger and wonders; I have reaffirmed my commitment to the old path, with a will to go back to first principles once again and work hard on my spiritual and religious life. In this we support each other, reveling in our difference, discussing, disputing but always respecting. I’ll be visiting her and Alexander there at the AP, to read and learn and understand, the better to discuss and question and grow. 

For me this is the essence of the Pagan way; joy in difference, in understanding, in growth despite pain. I often find that turmoil in my life causes me to think afresh and with renewed clarity about my spirituality and my beliefs. It makes you meet your gods again, as if for the first time. It reminds you of the first time you met them. 

Yule is upon us; the start of the celebrations of the year in my particular calendar. It is also the anniversary of Seshat and I beginning our year and a day… and look at where we’ve come to.

Food Magic

Inspired by my dear African Alchemy, with her amazing and transformative descriptions of the healing meals she cooks for herself and friends, I thought I’d share what I’m cooking for Seshat this evening.

This will be the first time I’ve seen my darling girl and magical partner for well over a week – it seems a great deal longer than that. Seshat as you know has been on something of a personal odyssey; I can already tell she has come back galvanised and changed immeasurably by the experience. She also needs some GreenWitch TLC; I can tell she’s feeling very alone right now. I want the food I make her to celebrate her, and us; and to be a healer – chicken soup for the soul, if you will. So here goes:

Tiger prawn and avocado salad with rocket and spinach, lemon balsamic dressing

Chicken, pak choi and mange tout stirfry with ginger, coriander, garlic and lime on infused basmati rice

This is soothing, calming, cool food, green and flecked with herbs, soft and ameliorating to the stomach. Good food, kind food, healing food.

… and it’ll provide a worthy backdrop to the glasses of wine and gossip and laughter that are bound to accompany it! Roll on dinner time!