Altar Update

With it now being October, I've updated my altar for Samhain. It was in need of a change, as I hadn't done much to it since the Eclipse.

I've made a sort of ancestor altar toward the front, with the rest of my ritual tools in the back. It's hard to see in this photo, but in front of the cauldron is a black skull candle I bought at Earthbound.

Also from Earthbound is this beautiful display shelf, which I am using to showcase some of my crystals. It has the moon phases at the bottom. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it!

September 25th, 2016

I just got back from camping out after SIPA's Mabon ritual - it was a very nice evening!

The site for this ritual was over at Devil's Kitchen Lake, on a little peninsula. It was sunny, and very hot - almost 90⁰!

Near the tip of the peninsula was a little shelter with picnic tables, where we eventually set up food for our potluck.

There was also a big stone fire pit, so some of the guys got wood together to build up a ritual fire later in the evening.

This is more of the lake - it was a very pretty view!

Somebody brought bubble wands, so a couple of us stood around for a while blowing bubbles.

I was borrowing the group leader's tent after she kindly agreed to lend it to me, and I ended up pitching it to the side of the trail with a nice view of the water.

There ended up being quite a good amount of food for the potluck, between cakes and mashed potatoes and pasta and fruit. I brought peanuts in the shells, because they're fun to crack open and also make good offerings.

One couple brought this large cow's skull to rest among some of the harvest offerings people brought.

There were also two little dogs, who quickly became good friends!

Starting the fire...

Sunset...

Some toads, who all things considered were pretty good-natured about being handled.

The ritual Circle, outlined with tiki torches and with the fire pit in the center.

The focus of the ritual was balance, recognizing the things which we meant to accomplish this past year and did not, and releasing that energy. It was simple and to the point, which worked well for the intended goal in my opinion. I volunteered to do Quarter calls for West; it was my first time taking on a role like that for a public ritual, so I was a little nervous, but I think it went well.

The stars last night were beautiful - there were so many, and it was such a clear night that there was really good visibility.

And then this image is from this morning, standing on the fishing pier and looking out over the lake.

View from the pier back towards the campsite.

The Samhain ritual will be held at this same spot, so I'm looking forward to that.

October 2nd, 2015

I wanted to post this yesterday, but I ended up doing a bunch of homework instead, so here it is today. Happy October! I am excitedly getting ready for Samhain. I had to do a change of living quarters yesterday, but I'm all settled in my new space now, and I really like it. Here's some pictures of how my roommate and I have decorated it:

Some spooky cards for the door.

Tinsel, my calendar, my candelabra, and a few other things that got cropped out.

Trick or treat! 

Some little ghosts fleeing Sam and Dean Winchester.

A pumpkin and tea light to spookify my roommate's dresser.

More pumpkins.

My Samhain altar, which I'll talk more about some other time.

I love October!

September 20th, 2015

I went out for a walk after lunch today to collect some leaves for my Mabon ritual, and I actually ended up finding all kinds of neat things.

I saw a bunch of birds, including two large hawks or vultures, I'm not sure which, and a hawk at the top of this tree. I also went down by the creek again and spotted more frogs. 

Here's my altar after I added my findings to it. My basket of leaves is in the back. On the left is a big piece of shelf fungus, and next to my little wreath is a collection of seed pods and acorns. I also found a piece of sycamore bark, which I'm now using as a stand on my desk to hold some offerings. 

This was the other thing I discovered: a tiny bird skull. It was lying in a pile of cicada exoskeletons, and I felt drawn to keep it, so I added it to my basket. It's now in a Ziploc bag where it will stay for a week or two, to be sure there aren't any organisms living on it. 

September 29th, 2012

As we approach Samhain, one of my favorite sabbats, I do about a zillion crafts, doing everything from altar decoration to the more secular "spookifying" the house and front yard. I ran across a post by a fellow Pagan blogger the other day, and her Pagan version of a Mexican Dio de los Muertos skull inspired me to make my own. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and thought I'd share:

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Dio de los Muertos, or the "Day of the Dead" is one of many celebrations similar to the Celtic Samhain. Like All Saint's Day, Day of the Dead's origins have been traced back to Samhain, as well as to an ancient Aztec festival honoring the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The Aztecs, however, celebrated the entire month rather than a single day. Dio de los Muertos is a time of remembering family that has passed, and is celebrated with festivals, parades, and prayers at the graves of loved ones. Ancestor shrines are constructed, and gifts of food and drink are left at grave sites as gifts to the deceased. Flowers may also be offered, especially a Mexican variety of marigold, as well as toys for deceased children, and pillows and blankets, so that the spirits have a place to rest. Skulls are a popular symbol of the day, with candy sugar skulls being made and intricately decorated up to a year in advance. The decorative skull I made is a non-edible version of one of these.
To make your own decorative skull, you will require the supplies highlighted in yellow. The craft itself can take anywhere from an hour to several hours, depending on how intricately you wish to decorate, but be aware that the skull may have to dry overnight before it can be decorated.

• Begin with a piece of aluminum foil that is at least two feet long (the more you use, the bigger your skull). 
• Crumple the foil into a general skull shape - a lot of detail is not required here, but try and create a defined nose and indentations for eye sockets. Everything else can be very loosely defined at this point.
• Tear paper into thin strips. You can use newsprint, computer paper, etc., but I found that paper towel works well for this application.
• Dip the paper towel into a mixture of water and liquid glue. You may want to do this in a disposable bowl, to ease cleanup.
• Wrap the wet paper towel around the foil skull. Continue adding strips until the entire foil shape is covered by two or three layers, at least. At this point, really shape the eyes and the back of the head. You can add a lot of detail to the mouth if you wish, though I kept it simply defined and just added detail with paint.
• Allow the skull to dry completely. Depending on how much paper towel  and watery glue you used, this could take as long as eight or nine hours.
• Paint the skull a base of white. It will look something like this:

• Once the white is dry, use paint to add meaningful symbols. Flowers are a traditional way to decorate the skulls, so if a certain flower holds meaning for you, you may wish to add it. Other possibilities include a pentacle, an Egyptian eye, ankh, patronus animals, etc. Any symbol can be used, provided it has meaning to you. However, if you don't find that an image resonates with you, don't feel obligated to use it.
• For the eyes, glue on paper or silk flowers. If desired, use black paint to define eyes in the flowers' center.

Mine came out like this:

The purple circle in the middle of the ankh is also representative of the O in the )O( symbol.

Here you can see one of the ) in the )O( symbol, as well as a gold spiral for the God, and an owl and fish for air and water, respectively.

On the back of the skull I painted a pentacle with a lotus flower beneath it.

And on the final side, I painted a silver spiral for the Goddess, a bison for earth, and a phoenix for fire (the phoenix was the idea of my friend, Steph). You can also see the final ( to complete the lunar trinity.

May 25th, 2012

What an exciting couple of days it has been! Yesterday, my chemistry class tie-dyed our clothing articles (most people had shirts, but some used pants, and one boy did his socks). I had a tank-top, which I colored in a green and blue spiral pattern. It's in the wash as I type this, and it looks like it came out great! Also, because the weather was so fantastic yesterday, I went and sat out in the yard. We have a trellis with wisteria growing over it, and the plant has gotten so huge it casts a wealth of shade around said trellis. Therefore, I sat in the shade, enjoying the wind (which was strong), when I happened to look up. And there, lo and behold, in the crook of a lily and a leg of the trellis, was a little skull. Yes, a skull. It was just over a centimeter long, fully intact, although without the lower jaw, and clearly that of some rodent - it had large buckteeth. I called Nick, the resident animal expert, over, and he was able to confirm my suspicion, telling me that the skull was definitely that of a rodent, and that judging by the large eye sockets, the creature was nocturnal. His best guess, therefore, was that it belonged to a rather unfortunate rat. On some level, I wanted to keep the skull, and yet, as fascinating as it was, I decided that not only was keeping it a bit unhygienic, but the skull also belonged outside, where I found it. I put it back, and left it to guard the property. Today, I went back out to try and get some pictures, but the skull had disappeared! (I suspect Nick may have had a hand in this) However, I still went and poked around a bit, and, to my surprise, I found not the skull, but half of the missing jaw, and another piece of anatomy I couldn't identify. There was also some fur buried under the wood chips which may have belonged to the creature. Most mysterious...

October 23rd, 2011

I spent some time with Hazelnut again today. It felt like it had been forever, even though it had really only been, what, a week? Together, we painted watercolor pictures. I did one of the Goddess (it wasn't perfect, but hey, it's hard to paint with watercolors), and she did a lovely one of autumn trees. We also used some clay to sculpt skull candle holders for our Samhain altars. They're only big enough to hold birthday candles, but I think we're out of taper candles anyway, other than the ones I'm already using. Mine just got out of the oven, in fact, and the cooking process gave the white clay something of a marbled effect. I actually really like it, so I plan to leave it as-is, as opposed to painting it. I also took Hazelnut to the field outside a near-by middle school with my brothers and flew kites. The wind wasn't too strong, but there was a pretty steady breeze, so we had a good bit of fun playing with one of the less tangible elements.