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I’m on my way out the door to work in just a few minutes. I wish I wasn’t as the new moon is coming tonight after 1am. Oh the moon will still be there, no matter where I might find myself, but tonight I felt the need to just sit and commune with her a bit. The moon clearly is such a part of me, something I have affirmed the last few days. The calm and clarity that comes to me during this time is pretty amazing. I never noticed it in years gone by. I think it pays to really pay attention to the earth and all that is in it and also ourselves and what affects us from day to day.
My son was sharing a story about a classmate at school. It was a rather sad story though the whole picture is something we cannot know looking in from the outside. Still, I want to stay home and just keep my child close to me tonight, letting him know I would never abandon him. Surely there are days I’ve felt like it, haven’t we all, but I never would.
There are a lot of stressful things going on in my life right now, but that’s ok. I know eventually it will all work itself out. That’s what this moon does for me. It gives me clarity to know I can keep going and that I’m not alone. Tonight I was watching the tail end of a movie while munching my snack. As I saw the character standing on the edge of a rocky ledge wondering what to do, the scene looked down over a beautiful forest of trees and I thought “who could leave that?”
There are tough times in this life, something we all experience. Then something happens and you take a deep breath and realize the world has so much there. It calls us to be a part of it. It’s an unmistakable voice and so I’ve heard it once again.
Last night was one of those nights where I had planned to do some sort of small thing in remembrance of the day. The space was set up and I struggled trying to decide what it was I should do. I glanced through some old things I had on hand, none of them feeling quite right and then went online to see if I could find something inspiring.
As I paged through different sites, I somehow found myself back on a familiar site, one of someone I knew when I first started out, cracking my first books on Wicca, thinking I’d found the answers to everything. As I read through the site, old posts from before, it all came rushing back and I was reminded why I had put those books away and continued my journey as I do now, still unsure of where it is I belong. It talked about many things this site, many of those things labeling what I feel and think as wrong. Yes I refuse to follow one strict path. I don’t call what I feel a religion and I will not be told how to feel, what to feel and what I must do to be worthy of those feelings. Does that make me undisciplined, maybe. Does it make me too lazy to devote myself to a faith, perhaps. I knew as I continued to read, that this was not directed specifically at me, but it upset me just the same. How each of us finds our peace in this world and how we embrace the feelings within, is a very individual thing.
After a bit, I closed the site and walked away, sorry I had found myself there. I knew with a certainly I’d made the right turn as this particular path had never been a good fit. I continued on with my quest to get some small celebration off the ground even though I found myself exhausted from the previous events of the evening. Things were ready and I waited for my son who had wanted to join me. While in the bath, my dog somehow managed to reach the small plate of food I was to use and ate most of it. My son who was equally tired, sat down as I lit the candles, using my snuffer to make clanging noises on the hurricane covers that enclose my large candles.
At this point, I looked around the room, wondering why I was there, knowing nothing good could come from the energy I felt. The candles were extinguished and the only journey was to my bedroom. I sat it my bed, confusion washing over me, feeling lost on my journey. I ate the apple, the one thing the dog didn’t get and watched Poltergeist. Perhaps, I thought, I would get up in the night and try again, but it was not to be.
This morning I came downstairs to check the email and found two of my pillar candles still going though I had snuffed the flames last night. As I looked at those candles still almost as I had left them hours before, I realised everything I needed had been with me last night despite another celebration gone wrong.
It has been a week of visits, my mothers presence strongly noted, powerful connections with the one who holds my heart, and last night a strong sense of my father filling the room. The flames of those candles burned last night, fueled I think, by those who walk with me, lighting the way for a journey that has just begun.
The coming of Halloween on Wednesday is already at work. This morning as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt myself move into a different space, one those of you who meditate are probably familiar with. I had vivid impressions of my mother and I am certain she was here. I talked to her for a short time, though I was very tired and then things faded away and I was back in my usual time to sleep state. I had turbulent dreams all day and I’m still tired even though I slept until mid afternoon. It’s my last night of work for the week, and I’m looking forward to my days off.
We have another beautiful day here with blue skies and its sweater weather at worst. The crows have been calling again from the trees by the house. They seem to gather here when the energy around me is high or when I am in need. It was something I first noticed last year when they followed me as I walked the trail to the lake. I know how “Hitchcock” that must sound but it wasn’t. They sat in the trees above me as I sat by my lake struggling with doubts that day. They don’t always come around but when they do they are a noisy bunch. Right now it’s as if they sense the energy that is in the air.
My energy has not been so high and I’ve had a terrible time getting back to my walks and workouts. I don’t know why this has become such a task and it frustrates me. I know I’ve been too long away from nature and I need to find a way to get back to it for the sake of both my body and soul. I’ve been blessed with beautiful days to start these efforts. Perhaps the crows are calling me like winged guardians, telling me to come out and play once again. Now I just need to answer.
One of the biggest struggles for me over the past year, has been finding a place where I fit. Since discovering this side of myself, be it pagan or whatever, I’ve gone on to search for others who feel as I do, who experience those things I experience. I’ve found things and abandoned them and continue to work on defining just who it is I am. I suppose you could say I believe in all things and I believe in nothing. I see the world through many eyes, and I refuse to follow just one path.
When I first started down this road last fall, I joined many groups and forums in an effort to discover like minded souls. What I ended up finding, for the greater part, were many who made me doubt myself and who perceived the pagan world from their point of view only, one that did not tolerate any variance. The pagan world speaks much about intolerance but does not see that some of the worst intolerance lies within their own circles. There were nice people out there, ones searching, as I was, for a guide to help them as they were going through a discovery and transformation. There were few guides there, but those whose arrogance drove many like myself to solitary discoveries or in the case of some, away from the path entirely. During that time, I was given misinformation and made to feel that without years and years of mentoring and experience I would never be able to embrace the divine. Occasionally there were those who would lend a hand to me, in my confusion, and I will always hold them in my heart.
Since I’ve separated myself from these groups, I’ve found more people like myself, people out there who walk a path that has no name but one that embraces the world and the divine within. No one can find that for you nor can they take it from you. They cannot hold it captive because you do not believe as they do, and they cannot award it because you have done those things they feel you should to earn it. The divine is there walking with us from the time we are created. You may look to find it, or perhaps one day, as it was with me, it will find you, calling in a voice that is unmistakable.
As I sat looking over my entry from yesterday, I wondered to myself if I should post things like that at all. Perhaps such experiences should be kept on the pages of a private journal, never shared. It did tend to look like some made up tale from a sleep over filled with giggly young girls. It’s difficult to discuss happenings from the mystical side of life even though there may be a deep desire to share, as I felt yesterday.
There is a side to me that craves answers for all things. In this mystical side of the world, there are no answers but the ones that come to you from deep within. I have had to learn to hear them, balancing those messages with a past that has filled me with uncertainty. It is easy for me to doubt, to dismiss the very things I see before me. Sometimes those messages come to me with strength to push their way through those doubts and uncertainties, helping me learn to trust in myself and in others. So it was with the message yesterday. The working was filled with intense energy and this energy continued working long after I left the site where I worked my craft. When I returned home this morning there were more things that defied explanation.
There can be no doubt in the message, not this time. The love that was sent was returned and the beauty of it still fills this very room where I sit. Tell me how not to share that with others.
It’s been a night of very strong energy this new moon. I slept very little last night, the energy surrounding me, making words fall from me with ease at a time when I wanted only to sleep. Still the energy was beautiful and I could do nothing but lie awake in it’s presence, feeling the love speak with me and through me. I suppose that all sounds very dramatic indeed.
This energy has followed me today and I finally put it to use in a working, something I had intended to do during the wee hours. I wrote a letter and sent it a bit unconventionally, trying something new. I plan to post one as well as I’m a fairly practical person. As I worked with the energy sending the emotions and words of the letter, I felt a tremendous strength fill me. Tired but peaceful after my efforts I extinguished my candles and went off to make my dinner. Upon returning to my place of crafting, I found the candle used for the subject burning. When I had left it was completely burned down and had gone out on it’s own. I lit the candle representing me, because I felt like I should and I then set about to light the others. I relented leaving things with just the two candles, and set about doing other things. When I returned the red candle representing the love I had poured into the working, was now burning, and it burned until there was nothing left at the bottom of the candle holder. The subject candle still bears a flame, a mystery to me as it should have gone out ages ago.
Perhaps this sounds like a made up tale of magic. Trust me when I say I don’t make up such things. I have no time for made up nonsense and as my son would tell you, I’m a skeptic who questions all things. As I sit now watching the flames of our two candles, I know that sometimes things just line up in this universe and there is nothing that can diminish the magic of such moments.
This morning I’m sitting here staring at the screen trying to decide what to write. I don’t know why this is such an issue as there are many thoughts spinning around in my head. There are so many things I want to write about, maybe that is the problem, not being able to sort them out.
Here we are the new moon again, time moving past quickly. The energy of this time is joining with the energy of the season. As Halloween or Samhain approaches, those things that sometimes wander into my world are likely to become ever more present. Last year at this time, all of this was very new to me. I had no idea what was happening to me, nor did I expect any “visitors.” Channeling started with someone far away, someone I knew only in a way I can’t explain, and with whom I felt an immediate bond as if we’d known one another before. That bond has grown stronger and that channeling more intense. Energy became a concept outside of a book, one I could not grasp until it grasped me, and one I have had to work hard to control. Early on I learned what negative energy felt like, long before I had the resources to deal with it. I started to feel the presence of others with me on occasion, most times the one mentioned earlier. Sometimes it was an unidentified presence, last Halloween the presence of a departed relative. That was a moving visit, one where I again did not see, but felt a strong sorrow fill the room. It was not my sorrow but his, and to this day I wonder why he chose me and what he was trying to say. Most importantly, what I looked for in books and the answers I sought from others, I found deep within. I’m still looking for some of them. Now when I ask for guidance I ask for the divine from within to grow stronger.
One year has come and gone and I find myself no surer of where my path will lead than I was then. What I am sure of is what is real and what has come to me. I feel there must be a reason for all this, destiny if you will. It’s not something I can bring up over a coffee to be sure and so I guard it carefully in my personal life. This is not always an easy path as I discover who I am, perhaps who I’ve always been. It’s a bit like chipping away at a large rock trying to get to what is waiting inside. I’m getting closer as I see first of that jewel sparkling in the moonlight.
![autumn_leaves[1]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3104/2814725227_6e8a05f8c4_t.jpg "autumn_leaves[1]")
