The Pagan Blog Project: Bats

Friday, January 27th, 2012

I’ve been drawn to & have loved bats for almost as long as I can remember. When I was 7 or so, we moved to
Colorado, and that was the first place I became really familiar with them, to the point of waiting every Spring & Summer evening to watch them start to come out. I was never afraid of them, but knew they would be afraid of me & kept a respectful distance.

I have fought the idea of the bat being one of my totems for quite a long time, never thinking for a minute that these animals I have loved since childhood could have any meaning in my life. I kept with the “totems” a former friend told me were the ones for me, even though they never really felt right to me. I have gradually accepted almost all of the others, but kept on resisting the bat.

Maybe intuitively, I knew I wasn’t ready for the sacrifices that the bat asks of you when you take him as your totem. It’s a little scary when you consider what they are: dying to your ego, loving our enemies as ourselves, touching our own inner demons, exploring the underworlds of reality, and renewing our thoughts & beliefs on a moment-to-moment basis.

I’ve known for sure that he was meant for me this past fall, when I took the picture in this post. That little guy was sleeping in a corner near a women’s bathroom enclosure when we went camping. It was 100 degrees, bright daylight and he stayed there until we had taken his picture & lightly stroked his fur. The next time we checked, he had gone.

I still wasn’t ready to commit to his demands, but with some things that have come up in the past few weeks, with our son being home & me starting a program that pretty much demands the same things the bat does, I know that I am, at long last, ready to accept him. I only hope that I can pass his tests, because this is a pretty scary place to be right now.

Caffeinate Me!

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Writers’ Block

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

I ought to be writing my second “B” post for the Pagan Blog Project, so it can be posted in the morning, and I know what I want to write about, but it’s coming hard for me. A lot of that could be that I have a bunch of other things on my mind right now, like making out my menu & grocery list for the next two weeks and the UTI that I finally, this morning, have antibiotics & pain reliever for.

There are other things; private things that are on my mind. These have to do with dealing with the addiction in my family & moving past those things in my own life.

At least I’m not where I was a year ago, when I was living in a delusion that our daughter was okay, worrying constantly about our son dying out there somewhere & regretting our decision o look only at cheap refrigerators, that were really too small for us. I’ve accepted our daughter’s diseases (she has a few), our son is home & sober & we have a larger (and yes, more expensive) refrigerator.

Life is looking up. I feel like my husband’s diabetes is FINALLY (after 13 1/2 years) under control & that he’s as healthy as he can be. I don’t feel like I have to worry about him all the time, because I know we’re doing all of the right things. I’m becoming more serious about my spiritual path & much more comfortable in that path & leading others along it, too. I never believed I would get there.

Now, if I could only figure out what I want to tell you about one of my totem animals, I’d be all set!

Caffeinate Me!

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Outdoor Ritual Space

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

I know what I want for ritual space, but since we don’t own this house, my wishes are a little unreasonable. I wouldn’t ask my husband to spent that kind of money on a structure we’d have to leave here when we end up moving, somewhere down the line. So, I’m thinking that if we can’t get the metal gazebo fixed that the wind broke last summer, that I may start looking at plans for wooden gazebos and see how much that will end up costing us.

If that, too, is too much to consider, I guess I’ll have to just come up with something else, like a draped cloth pup tent type of thing, only larger, which I’m sure we can figure out & afford, just based on the amount fabrics & such that I already have.

One day, I’ll have the perfect situation for holding ritual, until then, I’ll have to punt, but I’m getting pretty good at that, too.

Caffeinate Me!

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Quickening

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

I’m getting everything ready for Imbolc; a new altar cloth has been made, I want to make a new, smaller white one to go on top of that, too. The altar items are ready to go, other than deciding what I want to use on the Blessing Tree to represent Imbolc. Probably little pink leaves or something. I intend to sit down in the next few days & draw out a diagram of how I want the altar to look. I’m trying to be much more serious about what each altar represents and the face that I give it for each Sabbat.

I’ll also be making smaller cloths for each of the quarters, since I have the fabric for that already. I’ve been doing a little research on each element & want to start incorporating some of that information into each quarter for rituals. I just have to find the money and time to go looking around at the thrift stores to try to find the perfect items. I’m excited about the future of our little Circle & thrilled to be a part on it!

Caffeinate Me!

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Winter is Baaaaack!

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

I think. The wind is howling and it’s rainy, with the sun shining and partly blue skies. It might think it’s Spring, for all I know. It’s definitely chilly out there today, though, no need to worry if your coolant pump is working, for sure.

Today, I plan to actually sew my Imbolc altar cloths & get my kitchen besom hung up, at the very least. I may also drag my afghan out & crochet a bit, if I can remember how to make the granny square I was working on for it. That’s what happens when you put something away & forget to get it back out again later on.

We had a nice dinner last night, both of the kids were here & liked what I cooked, which is always a bonus. Tomorrow night our friends will be here for pizza & ice cream cake, to celebrate my birthday & a friend’s whose was earlier in the month. I can’t believe that January is almost gone & it’s nearly Imbolc. I’m not complaining, halfway through Winter is halfway through Winter, no matter how you look at it & I’ll be thrilled to have Spring here!

Caffeinate Me!

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The Pagan Blog Project: Brewing

Friday, January 20th, 2012

This week (and next week) we’re doing posts that start with the letter “B.” I thought I’d talk about one of my favorites hobbies this week and why, to me, it’s very Pagan.

I’m going to talk about brewing, but not like brewing beer (even though I gave that a try, too), more like making mead, hard cider & wine. When we first started being involved in an actual, organized group of Pagans, we met every Saturday, without fail, no matter what was going on. If there was a Sabbat that week or a Full Moon, we celebrated that, otherwise, we had a quick Circle, took care of business, toasted whatever with mead & went on with drumming & singing and so on. We always did the toasting with a bottle or more of Chaucer’s mead, which, around here is about $11 a bottle. That gets expensive pretty fast.

My husband & I looked into maybe starting to make our own mead, having no idea, at all, how long the first batch would take or how hard or expensive it would be to make. We found a very simple recipe on a mead making forum, called “Joe’s Ancient Orange” that looked pretty easy & inexpensive to make & a gallon would make about 4 bottles. We gathered our supplies, including about 4 one gallon glass jugs, rubber stoppers and some airlocks. When we had all of that together, we each made our own first batch.

About 10 weeks later, it looked like it was ready to bottle, so we did & I tried each batch. They were both very strong & sweet, but tasted better than Chaucer’s by a long shot. We knew they’d need to mellow out in the bottles for awhile, but took one with us to the yurt that night & shared it around. We made the mistake of drinking the homemade stuff first, so that when we passed the Chaucer’s around, it really tasted like crap to all of us, but the more important thing was that a lot of other people became very interested in making their own, too.

3 types of mead I made last year.

If you’re interested at all, you can find the recipe here, where I posted it word for word from the original. I can’t find the forum it was located on anymore, so I’ll just give the original recipe, with all of it’s credits.

I got a little more creative on my second batch, and used lime instead of orange, and threw some craisins in there instead of raisins, so we could have a cranberry lime mead for Yule. I switched the spices around a bit, leaving out the clove & using a little more ginger and some cinnamon. My husband got really sick & almost died at around the time I should have been bottling that batch, and in the process, ending up sitting for a long time before I got a chance to bottle it. When I did, it was amazing. You could taste the limes and the cranberry, but neither was overwhelming. It was sweet and mellow & pretty high in the alcohol content, too.

Over time, I rarely make the same type twice, I switch out the fruit, sometimes I used a juice with the water and they all turn out wonderfully. Just make sure you use raisins or a fruit with tannins in it in there somwhere. I just made a pear, plum raspberry this past fall that was a little too strong when I bottled it, so I’ll try it again soon, so that I can see if it’s mellow enough to use in the Circle yet.

This past year, I read an article at Chickens in the Road where she was making her own wine. Well, I figured if I was able to make mead, wine couldn’t possibly be any harder. I already had the gallon jugs, stoppers & airlocks, after all, so all I needed were the actual recipe ingredients. I told my husband what I had in mind & we went & bought what I needed. I made my first batch & immeditely bottled it 3 weeks later, not stopping to think it might take a little while longer. It tasted good, but was still a bit fizzy (a good sign it isn’t done fermenting yet). I took the bottles over to Dawn’s house because I couldn’t keep them here without them being stolen by our daughter. Several of the corks blew in her closet, which was hilarious & encouraged me to wait longer to bottle my second batch. I made my second batch with white grape peach juice concentrate and it was fantastic. It has been my favorite so far, but I do have a batch of raspberry/apple/grape needing to be bottled, too, so we’ll see.

White grape peach wine

My last adventure, ot latest I should probably say, is hard cider. I always thought that you probably just tossed some yeast in it, threw an airlock on it & it did it’s thing. I’m sure you could do it that way, it might not be as sweet though. We have a local apple festival here, where you can buy the best cider I’ve ever had in my life. I bought some last October with the intent to learn to make hard cider, so when we got home, I hit google & found an easy recipe for it. I found Tor’s Hard Cider recipe, got the other ingredients & got started. I used about 4 cups of brown sugar to two cups of white & obviously didn’t use a rubber glove, I used a stopped & an airlock. This was my first experience with “racking” a wine, so I was a little hesitant, but I learned to use our siphon & got the job done. When it was finished it was some of the best hard cider I’ve ever had.

So, it’s plain to see that I really enjoy my own brewing results, but it’s more than that. When I make mead, wine or hard cider, I’m putting myself into it, I’m throwing goodwill, love, peace & positive energy into everything I make, because I know that when it’s used, it will be opened for my Circle, used in the cakes & ale portion of the rite & I need it to be special. I need to know what was used in it & how it was made, I also need it to be affordable, because none of us have a lot of spare money lying about. It’s easy, it’s fairly cheap, you can control every part of the process, from the type of yeast you use to the fruits & juices, so if you need or want a particular flavor for a certain rite. It’s pretty much hit & miss when you go out planning to buy something that specific.

Caffeinate Me!

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Wistful

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

I used to co-own a business (I actually owned it & shared it with my partner, but I was responsible for filing the taxes and all of that). We sold Pagan items at our local renaissance faire & for awhile, we both enjoyed it and had a great time. After a few years, we got frustrated and bored, we weren’t selling enough to justify keeping it open & weren’t having enough fun to even want to try.

People often encouraged me to open a regular, brick mortar store, but there were a lot of reasons I wasn’t comfortable with that. First, I live in a fairly small, Mormon community. I can’t see them lying down & just letting me open something like that here. Second, I’m not wealthy & do you know how hard it is to get business loans with bad credit? We have two bankruptcies in our history, a loan isn’t going to happen. Those are just the top two, there are a few more, but really, who needs more when those are the stumbling blocks?

I miss it at times, but not enough to really want to try again. I have no inventory left & don’t want to invest in more, it’s just too much hassle, honestly.

Caffeinate Me!

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Another Year Older & Yes, Deeper in Debt

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

I’ve been able to say we weren’t really deeper in debt for a little while, but this past year we bought a travel trailer & a new fridge, so we are a bit deeper in debt, but for once, it isn’t something we can’t handle.

I am, however, a year older today. I have no plans other than to take my daughter to her PO appointment, get my laundry folded & put away, shower & get dressed, maybe start sewing my Imbolc altar cloth & my husband is taking me out for dinner when he gets home. I have always set my goals for the coming year on my birthday & I’ll list them today, along with any progress on them, because I actually did that at Yule this time.

1. Continue to work on accepting myself the way I am, which includes loving my body the way it is.
Progress: I really am getting a lot better at this & there is a lot less negative talk going on in my head & coming out of my mouth.
2. Get & stay active in whatever way I can, depending on the season.
Progress: I haven’t made any, as of yet.
3. Work on being a stronger, better parent to my adult offspring. I’m determined to prove to my daughter that the only way I can help her now is to not be so quick to help her.
Progress: When I set this goal, I only really had our daughter to worry about, but since then our son has come back home & is working on his sobriety & his life. I think I’m doing very well with this. Being a positive influence & a supportive, behind-the-scenes type parent.
4. Get the house organized the way we want it done, with the new office & expanded storage areas for kitchen & bathroom.
Progress: We have a plan, but since our son is sleeping in the room that will become the office, we haven’t done a lot.
5. Dress myself in beautiful things that I love.
Progress: I’ve bought several items that I love & think are beautiful, most of them for my joint birthday party in Las Vegas, but that’s a step forward, anyway.
6. Grow my hair out & have it styled in a way that I love.
Progress: Still growing & taking care of it. It’s almost long enough for a tiny pony tail.
7. Be more creative.
Progress: I’m being very creative with my plans for our Imbolc altar & finally have the fabric for most of our new altar cloths, too.

So 6 out of 7 with a bit of progress being made, I’d say that isn’t too bad for having set these goals less than a month ago. I’m pleased with my progress and happy to continue working on me as the months pass.

Caffeinate Me!

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Whew!

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

I think this blog is fully follow-able now, thanks to help from Jacquelyn and others in the Pagan Blog Project group on Facebook. It’s just one of those things you know you need to do when you’re getting your blog set up, then you figure you’ll do it later & never do. I’ve had this blog up for a long, long time & never got around to it, then I was too frustrated to figure it out. I can find whatever I’m looking for online, from toshiba coupons to who played a minor character in one appearance on a TV show, but when it’s a technical thing like that , I lose patience very quickly. I’m just happy that there are people out there who are willing to send me in the right direction, so thank you again Jacquelyn!

I’m really enjoying the Pagan Blog Project, it’s inspiring me to be a better & more spiritually serious writer, even if my subjects might not seem so on the surface. My topics are always going to be more about my own personal spiritual journey. That’s the one I’m familiar with, I can’t speak from anyone else’s viewpoint, only my own. People will either read them & enjoy them, or they won’t. All I can control is how I write & the subject matter.

Caffeinate Me!

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A Little Frustrated

Monday, January 16th, 2012

I’ve been asked to find a way to enable my blog’s RSS feed, and sadly, I have no idea how to do that. I know there’s a widget I can put in the sidebar for that, but I don’t know what my RSS feed’s link should be. So, if you’re trying to “follow” my blog for The Pagan Blog Project, I’m sorry, I don’t have any intention of moving my posts to my Blogger blog and I don’t know what else to do. I am listed on the “Who’s Blogging” section over at the Project. I’m in the process of adding the Networked Blogs widget to my template, as well, so hopefully, that will solve the major problems.

Caffeinate Me!

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