And So She Prays

Ebb & Flow~ My mood changes could give you whiplash. I feel alot better today is what I am trying to say. I talked to the DH and idk it made me feel better. He is trying.

I am a witch. It is sometimes easy to forget that. Forget my spirituality. Forget what I believe and where I am coming from, what I am connected to.

The Other day was Halloween. It is a major holiday in my religion. I did nothing. It is like not celebrating Christmas seems weird. I gave myself excuses that I am not in the right frame of mind to do anything...lies. Honestly i didn't wish to face that part of myself right now. I am scared and it is really easy to just be upset instead.

Halloween is a combination of many different traditions coming together. You have the celtic Samhain that last harvest festival of the year. In a time where they would slaughter the last of the animals to stock up for the cold and barren winter to come. Nowadays we can run to the grocery store all year long so I think it is hard to imagine. Then combined with All Saints Day & The Day of the Dead to honor and celebrate those who have passed. A moment to think of death, remember those who are not here and to be thankful that we still are. It is the day when the veil between worlds is one of the thinnest.

It reminds me of the Death card in tarot. It doesn't really mean death as in you are dead, soul is gone, breathless and empty. But more it is transition. Change. Like how some people think death is not the end but just a transition between this world and the next.

In my tradition we view the wheel of the year, the cycle of changing seasons, as a story/myth of the Goddesses life. She is born on the Winter Solstice grows up through out the year. On the Autumn Equinox she is Persephone beginning her descent into the underworld and on Halloween she is at the doorway into the darkness. Ready to let go of ego and everything that has held her back and step through-(the transition and release of death) changed ready to be reborn once more like the phoenix.

Samhain comes and it belongs to the Goddess Hekate, the Crone. It is being alone in the darkness with just your thoughts and inner reflections. To turn to look withing and face all that lies there. It seems like a scary time of year but isn't the darkness always a bit scary? To face that which we can't see? To learn to trust ourselves and let go of all we hold on to? What is more scary then our own inner demons?

It is known as the Witches New Year. I love that how the end is also the beginning all in one. I think it can be hard to wrap your head around the idea of that. Like shouldn't now be the end and then the Winter Solstice where She is born be the beginning? But I think it is kindof like stepping through a doorway. The moment you are putting your foot through and making that choice to move forward you are already leaving the past behind and starting something new. Time keeps moving. Each second is gone just like that leading to the next one.

It is kindof like a really great time for all of this and I could gain some wisdom and insight here.

I found this amazing article thattalks about Samhain and learning to release:
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usor&c=holidays&id=12853

Learning to ride with the flow of energy around us is truly internalizing the old axiom that ‘everything happens for a reason’. Often, we litter our brains with ideas of what could have been or what we should have done differently. Although it is important to self evaluate how we affect our surrounding with our behavior, it is equally important to remember that everything that happened was supposed to happen and nothing else could have happened. With each action we take, we learn and grow, so even one hour after we made a decision, we are a changed person.

We cannot impose our new learning onto our old selves and expect us to have behaved any differently. When we try to, we create havoc in our psyche and lock up our magick powers trying to move them backward. This is an important lesson of the Devil tarot card that comes out at Samhain: we need to learn to let those anxieties die away before we can fully move into the gifts of the coming year.

Anxiety is an internal reaction that occurs when things do not happen or do not respond in the way that we expect them to. When we are anxious, we dampen our ability to receive energy and guidance because we are focusing on the perceived consequences of what is going to occur. Anxiety and fear hinder our abilities to be a part of the energies around us. As egotistical little beings, it is hard to give up our anxieties over what we don’t want to happen. But, perpetually we experience times where the Divine steps in and we do not get exactly what our ego wants because it against the goals of our higher selves.

Witchcraft is just as much about accepting change as it is about creating change. In accepting change, we let our anxiety die away and experience the beautiful energy of the world. In creating change, we knowingly interact and push around those exact same energies.

Samhain, the celebration of Death, is also about accepting and celebrating the beauty of the natural energies of the Universe and ourselves. This is the time where we ritually let the anxieties, the expectations, the desires for change, and the thoughts of how things “should be” die away so that we can see and appreciate the way things are.

With our ego released, we embark upon a period of self-discovery, acceptance, and listening that will prepare us for the full appreciation of the mystery of rebirth at Yule.

The entire article is great but I loved that piece.

I think I will do alot of praying but planning a big ritual this thursday it is the full moon. A good healing ritual. Maybe I will also do a ritual with my DH. We have never done one together before, infact he has never even seen me do a ritual lol. I am fairly private about it all but it might be nice. I am not sure if he would be interested- well not so much in all the religious stuff of it but he might.

Also on another note I got a tarot book that should arrive here soon. BTW stay away from Barnes & Noble their online site is a pain and I had to go through a huge mess with their CS ugh. Anyways I am going to do a whole big tarot study thing and get a new tarot journal. I am kindof tied up because I want a cute little journal with my own thoughts on each card to carry with me but my hand writing is bleh so I partly would rather type it all. But idk how that would work either