Angels

Last night for the first time in some days sat up into the wee hours. I couldn’t sleep and ended up writing a bit. As I sat writing I started thinking about angels. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was the music I was listening to, perhaps the mood who knows.

I’ve been fascinated with angels since I was a little girl. They seem to walk on many paths regardless of where you may find your spirituality. Some see them as light, some as forms of energy. I’m sure are many things. For me it works to visualize them in a more classic form. It just works for me. I’m not a religious person, my spirituality coming from the earth around me, but they are a part of things for me. I would have been a terrible student of any divine path as mine is scattered with so many things. I dance to my own drummer and always have. The angels are often guardians for me called to watch over my most important mystical times. They have never failed to be there for me spreading warmth around me.

I think the angels, be they elements, spirits, or part of the energy called in a working, are all around us. Some may see them in visions, some may hear them speak in dreams, or just as a rustle on the wind. Some of them may look just like you and me walking with us through this life in subtle disguise.

I’m not sure why my mind drifted to the angels last night. Perhaps as I sat in the quiet hours of the night they were here with me.

 

Before the Snow

Sometimes in winter, when I wake up at night, there is a stillness, a quiet in the air and I know it’s snowing. I don’t really know how to explain it but I’m always right.  It’s like that around me right now,  still and quiet, like I’m waiting for something.  It’s a peaceful quiet, a respite from the busy holiday times that will soon descend upon us.

I’ve cut back a bit on my blog time as I feel a pull to be doing other things as well. There is a strong need to get back to my walks as I gain a great deal of strength from nature. There is also a part of me that wants to write something new, but I don’t yet know where go with that. I’ve thrown myself into blogging with such intensity and I think I’ve neglected myself in other ways.

The confusion that has surrounded me is clearing and I once again hear the voice that comes from within, at least for now.  I’m going to kick back and listen to that voice, and wait for the words that I know will come through me onto the page. 

 

About Last Night

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. 

Finding The Way

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.

 

 

 

Chipping Away

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.