January 14th, 2016

I've been doing some tarot work the last few days. After seeing some ideas floating around on the web, I decided to do a spread to look at each month of 2016. It was... a bit of a trip, I'll just say that. There's a video up on my YouTube page talking about my results a bit more if anyone's interested, but in the meantime, I'll just put down a few suggestions in case anyone else would like to give it a go.

For starters, I recommend you have a journal. If you already have a tarot journal, or a grimoire/BoS you write in regularly, that would work. Otherwise, I suggest either getting one, or if nothing else, writing down your results somewhere you won't lose them so you can refer back later. I plan to reference mine throughout this year.

Feel free to set up your reading however you would normally. I personally like to put out a reading cloth and a crystal, and then cast a Circle, but that's just me. You could burn incense, play some music, meditate first, or whatever else speaks to you.

I went with a pretty simple spread. I just asked, "What do I need to keep in mind for the month of ___ in 2016?", shuffled, and drew a card. I repeated this for each month, reshuffling every time, but you could also just shuffle once and put down 12 cards simultaneously.

From there, it's a pretty simple matter to interpret each card for every month, and figure out how your year is shaping up.

As an addendum, I will say that my reading threw out a lot of reversed cards. I know not everyone reads reversed meanings, but I do, and that to me was suggesting that there's still a lot of blocked energy in my field to deal with, so I did another reading today to figure out the causes.

Essentially, I drew one card to look at the overall problem, and then I drew one card for each reversed card I had in my original 2016 reading, to determine what was blocking my energy in those months.

Also, while I did this with tarot, this kind of a reading may actually be better suited to oracle cards, if those are something you use.

January 11th, 2016

I won't be home for Imbolc, but I decided yesterday that I wanted to update my altar anyway, so that the energy would be more in tune with the current season. It was still set up for Lughnasadh when I got back in December.

I put a bunch of my herb jars in the center to charge (mint, rose petals, lavender, and yarrow), and then decorated with flowers and candles. I'm also using some pillow cases on top of my altar cloth; they're mostly plain white, but my great grandmother embroidered hummingbirds with flowers along the edges. 

My usual BOS is at school, so in its place, I have a small notebook sitting out on the left side which has sabbat and esbat rituals copied in it. 

I always feel like Imbolc is hard to decorate for, but I actually rather like how this is looking. As always, I'd be happy to hear from any of my readers regarding suggestions for amendments to my 

January 9th, 2016

My friend, Destiny, made me this picture a few months back, but I never got around to posting it. She thought I could use another hummingbird in my life, and I'm inclined to agree:

January 8th, 2016

Hello, friends, and happy New Year! Or, in Japanese, あけましておめでとうございます! I can't believe it's already 2016! I know for a lot of people, 2015 was a struggle, but we made it through, and here we are.

I certainly spent the year keeping busy. I read loads of new books, many of which I reviewed on this blog, performed in a play last spring, spent Litha in the Boundary Waters, had a grand time at Fairy Fest, and began working in earnest with a few patron deities. I also acquired many new crystals, and joined SIPA, the Pagan organization in my university's locale. I've started making some new friends, which was a pleasant surprise.

Here's to 2016 being an even better year! I've ordered a bunch of new books which hopefully I should have by the end of the month (topics include dragons, moon magick, and solar goddesses), and now that we're past Yule, the days will start getting lighter, which always improves my mood. I am looking forward to sharing another cycle with my readers, and hope that all of you experience love and light.

SIPA Yule 2015

Some pictures from the ritual yesterday! It was held indoors at Gaia House, although at a balmy 65⁰, we could pretty easily have had it outside. 

Table decorations for the post-ritual potluck.

Holly leaves inscribed with some Japanese phrases denoting what I want to grow in the coming year. (Other people used runes, but Japanese felt more applicable to my practice.) They say, よろこび (joy) 愛 (love), and 平和 (peace). The one saying joy I wrote in yellow, hence the fact that it doesn't show up in the picture. 

One of the members brought her pet Tegu, named Walter! I got to hold him - he's a real snuggle bug.

Getting ready for the gift exchange.

A Yule Carol booklet, with lots of the rewritten classics.

My gift from the gift exchange - three colored glass jars!

They look so pretty on my altar!

December 12th, 2015

The semester's winding down, which is good, because I'm exhausted, but even as school is giving out, the holidays are picking up. I did some shopping for gifts last weekend, and ended up getting myself a few things as well. Earthbound always has some great stuff.

I got this pentacle ring with triquetras on the sides.

And then they also had these lovely Quartz crystal ornaments on ribbon, so I got one for my mini Yule tree.

SIPA had their Yule ritual a bit early, seeing as many people go home over the winter break, so I went to the store yesterday and picked up some drinks to take. They also were doing a gift exchange, so while I was at the store, I found this lovely box of incense. It comes with six scents, both as sticks and as cones, with a flower-shaped burner to go with. I thought it was real cute and appropriately witchy!

November 19th, 2015

I'd just been thinking this morning that I needed to post some more, but haven't really done much spiritually this month. It's been very busy with working on projects for my classes. However, then when I went for brunch, I was sitting in the dining hall and a big buck of a deer, antlers and all, went bounding through the field outside and jumped over the creek. It happened too fast for me to take a picture, but it was a good reminder from deity to take some time for reverence today.

One other thing I had been meaning to share is that my model of the Temple to Athena Nike is being displayed in the design building. My professor really needs to go back and reorganize the other projects in the window, but here's what it looks like at the moment:

November 3rd, 2015

A few, improved, photos of Saturday's ancestor altar were posted to Facebook, so I thought I would share them, since mine turned out quite blurry.

Left side; those are my contributions near the corner.

Center

Right side

November 1st, 2015

And as of today, the Samhain season is over, and we move on towards the rebirth of Yule. I was thinking a lot the past few days about why we consider Samhain to be the "Pagan New Year", and the conclusion that I've come to is that the sabbat is really the final celebration of death on the Wheel; from Lughnasadh to Mabon to Samhain, we're considering the harvest and the autumn and the gradual shutdown of nature. 

Now, in the month and a half before Yule, is a fallow period of quiet contemplation. We can determine our goals for the next year, get our things in order, and be ready to begin again like the sun on the winter solstice. If we imagine the Wheel of the Year as a tree, then this period is the acorn, lying dormant under the soil. Above the surface, nothing appears to be happening, but beneath the earth, there is so much potential ready to sprout. 

I did a bunch of cleaning today, as well as redecorating. I had a lot of Samhain decorations to take down, and a few little Thanksgiving items to replace them with. It feels far too early still to decorate for Yule, and besides, those things are all at home; I'll have to be sure to pick them up over Thanksgiving break. 

I wanted to redecorate my altar, and so I shifted everything around a bunch. I've decided to try keeping an ancestor altar up year-round, and my crystals also wanted to be switched out. Then I had some sugar maple leaves I'd pressed, so I set those around as well. 

It feels a lot calmer in here after the fact, and I opened my essential oil bottle for a bit this morning, so the whole room smells like frankincense.

This is the Quartz point I received at yesterday's ritual. Since it has such a strong tie to banishing magick, I decided to set it on my altar facing one direction, with my other, invoking Quartz point facing the opposite direction. It struck me as a good way to balance out the energies.

SIPA Samhain 2015

Wow. I cannot even begin to describe tonight's Samhain ritual. It was just so cathartic on so many different levels.

The evening started off sharing an organic pomegranate with some new friends.

The site looks so different from how it did at Mabon, with all the leaves changing colors and falling.

We hung a pair of tarps across the front of the shelter to provide some privacy from passing traffic.

There was a potluck dinner, to which someone brought these adorable zombie cupcakes. The meat cleavers were candies.

Jack-o-Lanterns

A better picture of my Harry Potter pumpkin

Sacred fire

More pumpkins

Wolf pumpkin; we actually heard a pack of coyotes barking and howling during the ritual!

Group ancestor altar

(Blurry) image of my part of the ancestor altar.

I was also gifted with an absolutely gorgeous Quartz point, which I will cherish. 

I won't get into the details too much here, because it was an extremely personal ritual, but it was something special, that's for sure.