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
