Birth and Death, Life and Joy all meet and become one.

I went to Daughters of the Moon for the third time this year.  Daughters is a festival for women and shares Goddess Spirituality principles, craft classes, yoga, swaps crafts that you make, re acquaints you with old friends and introduces you to new people.  Daughters calls down Avalon for a weekend, or lets you dance with Artemis, you can learn about Sexuality and creation from Isis, or you can Realize you are Hathor, you will learn how to be by yourself, like yourself, and respect yourself.  You will come to realize all people have body issues but in the eyes of your sisters you are not criticized but glorified and blessed.

 We all stay for three nights in the woods in various cabins that look like Lodge halls.  You decorate your room if you want (because some women just love doing this) or you can just decorate your whole Lodge hall like we Temple women did with Columns of Goddesses and the Temple Flag whipping in the wind.  Most likely you will stay within your comfort zone in your cabin and get to spend the night with your girlfriends laughing and talking all night like you were 8...but sometimes you venture out of your box and stay with complete strangers I have done both.

We do zany things like decorate discarded bras and then make them beautiful again so we wear them.  We sing "I got the Maiden Mother Crone in my bra!"  We go on journeys to far away places and meet places inside ourselves we are too busy to acknowledge most of the time.  You take part in workshops about scrying, learn how to puuja (a beautiful prayer opening ceremony led by Leela our Hindu Crone Priestess).  You walk in a labyrinth sometimes, or learn how to read tea leaves.  One year we had a discussion about organic foods, and every year we have fun with henna!  There are drums, and singing...and dancing spontaneously breaks out.  Every woman brings something for lunch, something for breakfast, some snacks...and Steak Dinner as a feast is provided on the last night.

When it is time to leave, we pack our things, sweep out our cabins, take turns cleaning out bathrooms and dining halls.  Then we gather together for closing ritual thank our ancestors, mark our faces with women symbols then take a picture so that we know that for posterity this gathering is important.  We all leave crying, hugging, laughing, and promising to call or text...but we know there will never be another time for us like this until Daughters rolls around the next year.

I am sure we all have fun in the workshops painting our nails, or giving facials.  I am positive we all like buying new blue clothing for the weekend; confidentially I can say decorating ourselves in bold and courageous ways we could never don in the corporate world makes us all glow....BUT what makes DOM special is everything all wadded together wrapped with the bodies of all our various sizes, colors and personalities, and donned with the bow of the Goddess.

IF you have a chance to ever go to a women's only retreat dude you should so go!  If you want to start something small like this in your little town...YOU should do it!  This started 13 years ago with about that many women and this year we had over 80!!!

Women need women, to share everything with good and bad....Women need encouragement and to realize that they share SO much and can learn and laugh with each other so much better than they can alone.....

Thank you ISIS for a wonderful year, and thank you Daughters of the Moon for feeding my soul for one more year.

"I would not give her a drop of water if she was in the Sahara Desert..."

Life is a funny thing.  I, like most children, think it should be painted in broad strokes beautiful like a Monet painting or Vangogh.  It seems as if it should be messy, defined but not defined, open to interpretation and beautiful no matter what.  Unfortunately, it is many of those things...but not many of those things.  People, as we grow older, obviously change you see that they have grown taller, broader, bigger, greyer, and more wrinkly.  Thus some of their changes are evident on the outside.  This should be our warning, our big wake up call to adjust but like most children we think that we continue going on in the same vein; dancing with whirlwinds when it is time to come inside and do some homework.

My parents are getting older.  In my mind they still look the same, but when I see them and do not just glance at them with the eyes of Monet I can see that they are very close to a threshold I would rather not think about.  Five years ago, I still held grudges against some of their childhood rearing styles.  Ten years ago, I was still hurt and confused about some things.  Fifteen years ago I was still holding it against them, and twenty years ago I was angry at them.  Now, I see them and I feel love.  No, I have not forgotten that my Dad was too busy to be home or that my Mom had a terrible temper she took out on her children.  It is as if none of those things matter now, because as time has passed I realize I too have made some of the same mistakes; and some of these I have not because they made them for me. 

Sometimes, in our craft you find that people seem to have "unrealistic" expectations or "biased" interpretations of what to expect in a person.  For example, I have noticed a big trend on the internet to think Highpriestesses are mean, expect you to kiss their rings, never do the work of the cleaning up and setting up and are just "witches" with a b.  I happen to wear that hat, and when I meet people have to overcome their "prejudice" or "assumption" of what I am all the time.  On the other hand, they also expect me to have "powers" beyond their wildest dreams and "know everything" and be able to "give them spells for anything they want".  These too are misconceptions about the craft that are just as addled as the first.  I have some people I keep in touch with on facebook that were once young-uns that I shared things with (not only my life) and listened to, and taught what I knew at the time as their Highpriestess.  Not all of my older students do I keep in touch with, but at Yule when I get cards "unexpected" from Canada, or the UK, or Chicago, or New Jersey, I get all teary eyed and smile because they remember me and I think they might not expect me to be perfect.

Sometimes, you find that those you had the biggest conflicts with and tangled with the most might have become the greatest human beings and pagans you worked with.  This, in itself is a surprise because you cannot seem to understand how the "witchling" you thought would be a super bad ass witch became a "republican conservative" married with two children and a mortgage and car and does not practice, yet the one you thought for sure would walk away and never pick up a wand was the student you probably should have poured more into.  Life is funny that way. With age comes wisdom so now I find I try to give each student what they seem to need, and listen more because I never know whether this path will be theirs twenty years from now...but I pray it is.

  I also have noticed, that the ones that I tangled with to make sure they got the "ethics and rules" right, constantly making them stop and think before acting have become the ones I also was "the harshest" with.  I subconsciously over compensated out of fear about what would happen when I was not there to ask them, guide them...and so they were "probably mother henned" to death. Some of them probablly think I was the "toughest" HPS they ever had, never giving them a break, always asking them tough questions, expecting impossible things from them mentally and spiritually.  However, it should be noted some of these same people just sent me pictures of themselves married with babies this yule.  This made me smile. I pray that those who never send me Yule cards, or birthday cards when they look back forgive my youth and "harshness" and realize that like my parents I was trying to do the best I could; and at the base I loved them from my heart...which was full of love for the Goddess and from the Goddess for them.


I am a much better person now, than I was then.  I am a much better Highpriestess now than I was then.  I was not a bad person then, I was the best I knew how to be.  My parents are much better grandparents than they ever were parents.  However, with age I know they were the best parents then that they could be.  They are much better parents to me now than they ever knew how to be then. 

A new class is starting up for me in a couple of weeks, new students with new expectations and I have been told they are a "bit scared" of me.  These are not newbies, they have dwelt and devoted at least two years of their life to the Temple and I was saddened but amused by this "admission" by one of my fellow Highpriestesses.  It seems one can never truly escape "stereotypes" but one can try to "correct them" by "correcting themselves".  I wonder if any of this class will send me Yule cards ten to fifteen years from now with pictures of them smiling in front of a big yard with a dog and a partner? Better yet, I wonder which one of them will be still be walking this path and which ones I should have spent more time with; and poured more love into. You see I do not know that now...do I?

Life swirls together like a Monet Painting it twinkles like "starry nights" by Vangogh; and the closer you look at it the more "swirly and gloppy" it seems to get; but when you take a step back, or look over your shoulder you start to realize that the person you thought might be something or another....is really a masterpiece that you did not get or understand but you did know belonged in an Art Museum. 
  

We are all Brothers of the Sun and Daughers of the Moon!

In my neck of the woods, in my circle of friends who are Pagan that are scattered across the United States the hottest “topic” of debate was usually the role of males in Paganism.  It would make women irritable, because they felt they were defending Goddess and had come to the religion in the first place so that they could be more “empowered”.  Me, and my girlfriends felt that in the “real” workplace/political world we were “not listened too” and treated as “less than” and that if you really wanted to insult a man you called him “a girl" (or vaginistic type words a few months ago I saw this used by advertisers on a billboard to get men to buy a sportscar).  My male friends, however, would argue that the world had changed to the point where they could hardly get jobs and that the world we described was not”real” or “had leveled out” leaving them competing against minorities for everything; they did not feel that they should have that same “bias” in their religious choices.  So there was a gridlock…since the Highpriestess is what runs covens (unless you are involved in an organization that still venerates male over female) and since Goddess books there are aplenty and God books few my male Pagan friends felt they got the short end of the stick.

For years, when I was younger I would think," If you all feel this way then why come to this religion if you resent women running it?  Go somewhere else, any other religion will let you run everything if you are male and not even let females become ministers!"  However, the wheel turned and  I started to hear with spirit filled ears, and listen with a spirit filled heart and realize that maybe just maybe they (my male friends and even my young son) had a few valid points.  So, when I returned to Memphis once again I started to listen and the same points came up.  Males saw all the women rituals that excluded them, the Goddess retreats and felt that they had nothing equivalent.  They were being asked to participate and be “better” men than most of society but were not being treated “fairly”.  When questions of rites of passage for men came up they were told they were “not important” and that “why should they need them?”.  Some leaders of the organizations went as far as to say that the “separation of the two sexes” was silly anyway, and that it promoted more problems than solutions.  Yet, everywhere I listened I heard them hurt and hungry for something more and  “just for them” they wanted to also leave behind a legacy of "new Pagan men".

As a woman I understand the need for “just for me”.  I read Virginia Wolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” while in college and firmly decided from that point on in life I would make a space and time for just me because it was important.  Goddess devotional books, and companion readers emphasize over and over again how important it is for women who give so liberally to husbands, parents, children, and their bosses to make a space and time for themselves.  So women started forming little groups, or girl nights out, or pampering sessions, by now I have not met a woman my age who does not have a “just me” hobby, activity, or time that helps her get back in touch with her inner Goddess.  This is wonderful, it is liberating, it is empowering, it was not heard of in my Mamaw’s day and time unless you were rich!

But what about men who take care of their children, wives, bosses, friends, and families?  The numbers are growing on how many men raise children alone and how are young men going to learn how to be comfortable and not defensive being a "man" (and no that is not a bad word) if they do not have role models, and mentors, and become more open minded?  What if you do not think the perfect time to spend with men is in a Budweiser commercial at the Drag races? I know this is an extreme example but here in the south it is quite common…what if you like to read poetry, and play music, and paint, or just meditate and contemplate the universe?  Where do we encourage this in our modern day society?  Why is it okay for the woman to get in touch with her inner maiden with “hello kitty” houseshoes but the man cannot get in touch with his inner “rogue” playing video games or buying star wars collectibles? 

I say this because you get a group of women together and more often than not you will hear references to men…just being more immature than women.  That men, waste money on toys and don’t seem to care about childrearing like we do.  It is like we women, force men into a role that they themselves might not want to be pushed into.  If women do not like to be “cookie cuttered” then why is it okay for us to force “traditional” roles on men?  I realize that in my marriage, I have to stop and re-acquaint myself with my gentle father- husband all the time because I have pre-conceived stereotypes that were fed to me by my parents and society that told me Brian has to be XYZ.  However, he is not those things.  To add to this, I have a compassionate soft spoken artistic twenty year old son who has expressed himself through clothing and words since he could articulate his mind.  His ambiguity when it comes to sexual roles worried me at first, only to find me expanding and realizing that sexual roles are just that ”costumes” and that one size does not fit all.

Did you know that I do not hear my baby Cayden cry in the middle of the night?  My husband does, and no he does not wake me up to take care of him he gets up cuddles and swaddles his son and rocks him back to sleep.  Did you know that he has taken Cayden to the doctor alone more than me because if he does this I have time to color my hair and do my nails?  He does that so I have ME time.  Now, you can say that means I am a “less than mom” and he is a “better than dad” but I will argue with you we are doing what works for us as people and as a family unit.  We have gotten to the point where doing what we are, is more important than what others think.  My husband really has longed for a Pagan Men’s retreat for a long time now.  Last year, he finally got a “fathering ritual” at the age of forty. He has two other children from a previous marriage, one twenty one the other twenty two and he has been a practicing pagan and a Highpriest for at least twenty years. That is took him that long to get this rite of passage I found dumbfounding and sad.

This weekend, he and my oldest son are going to a Pagan Men’s retreat called Brothers of the Sun < http://templeofthesacredgift.org/bots/info.html>  our church , Temple of the Sacred Gift-ATC is co-sponsoring it with the only Pagan’s we knew in the area that celebrated the Male aspect of Paganism as much as the Female aspect, Southern Delta Church of Wicca-ATC.  Rev. Terry Michael Riley has since 1993 been a legal ordained minister of the Pagan community with a Church.  He fought for the rights of Pagans and it was documented in the March for Ft. God video < http://www.amazon.com/March-Robin-Anderson-Cuhulain-Terry/dp/B00023DEH6/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1313519927&sr=1-2 >.  He is a pioneer and courageous in ways I can only hope to become and yet for several years now in the woods he has continued to have a small men’s mysteries retreat.

Two years ago, when I met Rev. Terry Riley he told me he had a manuscript lying around that he had not gotten published but rejected everywhere he turned, and that he was ready to give up on since no one seemed interested.  I asked him the topic, and he told me men’s mysteries and the relationship of Men to the God and the Goddess energies.  I could not believe that he had such an important book tucked away and that no one wanted to publish it!  So I asked him to look at it and edit it and I would study on how to get it published, I knew in my bones it was important and like everyone I know I love helping people.  I formed a self publishing company (Heka House), took my income tax refund and published the book named aptly BROTHERS OF THE SUN: THE PAGAN MEN”S MYSTERIES (hey it is a great book you should read it and purchase it for every male pagan you know!).  We (Terry, Brian and I) felt the book was integral to the future of Paganism and addressed a common complaint that was never addressed and always ignored.  I have never been prouder than to help assist a person publish something I feel was important.  I have never felt more amazed to realize that with helping fund a Men’s Pagan retreat in a nice facility that we are starting a rock solid tradition we can leave behind to future generations.

If we, the women, do not back our men then who will?  Is the consort not just as important as the Goddess?  You bet he is!  I pray that this Brother of the Sun retreat will help heal some of the wounds caused in this community by not treating our the male energy as "equal to" not "greater than" the female energy.  I pray that it starts a legacy that teaches and instructs our men on how to be better at being themselves.  I hope that it helps each of them find a part of themselves they forgot about, that they make new friends and come home exhausted yet refreshed.  Do I believe I finally listened to the universe?  You bet you I did!  Will I ever truly understand what the men in the Pagan community are expressing…maybe not, but I am taking a baby step in the right direction.  That is all I know how to do, and I pray my Brothers give me a break and know I wish them the best! But if you are a male Pagan, and all you do is complain about the differences and do nothing to support a local festival and movement to help your own, then do not complain...hush up.  You cannot complain about the President of the United States if you do not vote!

How do you all feel about the men learning how to be more comfortable being themselves and finding themselves?  How pivotal do you feel this is to men and future men in our Pagan communities? 

She looks madder than a wet hen, and more ashamed than a dog that messed on the rug!

It should be stated that here in the United States of America poverty is directly linked to the Bible Belt.  What is the Bible Belt exactly?  It is a part of the United States where strict fundamentalist Christianity dominates and dictates life, school educations, and social norms. The Bible belt are the “slave states” that changed into the Bible belt in the latter half of the second century.  Of course, we all know that these same states fought it out publicly on television and with the court systems refusing to give other races equal rights, and genders; even after the laws were passed it was not until 1970 that full integration of schools occurred in the South.  Because of this, hundreds of churches overnight started and founded schools so that they could keep their white children segregated from the other races.  Of course, they argued it was to teach them fundamentalism…but funny thing, I never went to school with anyone of any other race until college.  NEVER.

That being said, ashamedly so, I am going to delve into a personal issue that I have this week also shared with the Pagan friends around my age (we are all ashamed of how our parents and grandparents speak of other races and it seems we cannot control them or stop them from doing so).  Yep we are ashamed of a part of our Southern heritage, many of us wish we never ever had to see another confederate flag (because it represents to us our ancestors fighting for slavery) or ever have to see another movie about civil rights, or see another collection of “aunt jemima” dolls, or better yet the “slave boy” statues that many people here of means still place in the yards.  I wish I could tell you that people in the south do not still try to “recreate the war” but they do, and I cannot figure out why…why won’t they just dig a big hole and bury that part of our history…it is shameful to the future Southerners.  We might could forget all about it, if they would let it go and move on with their lives…and I pray to the Goddess the “south does not rise again Hank Williams, Jr!”.  Because IF the south won the war, one race would be slaves and I am against slavery.

You see, this is something no one wants to touch or talk about our parents that still say the “N” word or say “colored people” and talk about the good old days; and explain how all the problems in society (meaning the south of course) started happening the day we let “them” go to school with us…because of course they made our children more like “them”.  “They” (meaning all other races than white) have also taken our jobs, and caused all the crime, “ all the stereotypes that are negative I can think of are associated with THEM”.  Yes, you can still over hear people here saying words that make you blush, or cower in shame.  This is why many of us moved away at a young age (me and many others I know), because we were ashamed of our southern heritage, we were not proud of that hicky slang, of the civil war, of segregation, racism, and sexism…we were MORTIFIED and more shamed than a dog that messed on the rug!

I am not mortified any more; nor ashamed of my drawl.  I hated the south and my heritage so bad though I tried as hard as I could to get rid of my drawl, and went out of my way to raise my child in a different environment and never use “bigoted words” about other races.  I found to my greatest irony that out of all the places in the world I hated I could think of not place I hated more than…Memphis, Tennessee there was a reason for this but once again that is another blog.   REMEMBER the Gods have a great sense of humor.

I was angrier than a wet hen about living here, so angry that I could not stop clenching my jaw or gritting my teeth every time someone asked me  “what church I went to”* (the latter being one of the top three questions people ask you around here to supposedly get to know you better)  I was so angry about being here, that I stayed where I was renting most of the time, and re-decorated that house and yard every day working up a sweat hoping that in between the hard labor and my job I would finally get that anger out of me. I felt there was no one I wanted to meet here, no one I wanted to learn from here (pagan wise remember my Mamaw had died and my pagan buddies not living here), I cockily thought I knew what all southerners were about because I had been raised here, and that if I was angry and pouted about living here long enough the Gods would transfer me. None of this of course worked, but PRAYER eventually did. 

I was so angry about being “forced by the courts and life and I felt the Gods” to be here that I even refused to work in the industry I loved but made sure I got a job that would work me physically long and hard. It was if I thought if I were “angry enough” maybe the gods would get the hint and move me out of here, but that anger changed to maybe if I were “mean enough” to myself and did not enjoy anything in the city of Memphis the Gods would pay attention and get me out of here.  Ironically enough, the shift of anger and energy was not something I was really conscious of, but was something that naturally transitioned within my being because anger when held on to, and nurtured grows like a virus within you transforming you and making you a person you do not recognize.

I found that when the anger transitioned from clenching the jaw to just digging in a shovel and sweating it out I then was able to cry.  Cry, I did as I shoveled, and planted Irises, moved buttercups, and transplanted azalea bushes. I thought I was crying for myself because I felt sorry for myself being forced here…but what I was really crying for was to heal the wounds that I had received or imagined here from childhood that had “skewed” my vision about this area of the United States.  When the yard was done that hot, steaming summer, it was gorgeous and I was done being angry; and I was tired of talking about it and crying.  I got busy, and  I truly and earnestly asked Isis to help me not help me move. Later that day, when I was thumbing through a senseless car magazine a sticker fell out and when I read it I cried and it gave me the shivers it said BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED.  I immediately placed the sticker on my car and wrote the words out on sticky notes, and placed them all over my home.

So I asked the Gods and Isis to help me and they told me instead to “Bloom where I was planted” they weren’t going to make my ex-husband move again and transfer me out of here?  What was that all about?  But instead of being a selfish maiden and demanding my way from the Gods…I stopped, took a breath and listened.  I looked at that phrase, saw the challenge and knowing they knew how hard that would be for me took it up.  I started going out and doing things I knew I would enjoy, art museums, seeing bands, film festivals.  I went to the book stores and started hanging out in the new age section, and the next thing you know I met someone, and she introduced me to another someone, and then I realized I was enjoying myself, having fun, and was able to worship with another group of people once again.  BTW that girl’s name was Brenda Waldron and she will never have any idea, how pivotal she was to changing my life at that point on my timeline. 

We all started going to open meetups looking for more people to join our group, and then started looking for churches…telling them we were “new to the whole Pagan church thing” because we were, but I was growing, and I had friends, and I had no idea that was how easy it was…because you know I was certain that growing in Memphis, Tennessee was near to impossible.  Eventually, I got a job I loved.  Eventually I met my husband (at a meetup), eventually I met elders (on a board at a library was a index card which made me call Trudy Herring way before I knew about her church), eventually I started to slowly bloom where I was planted.

Seven years later, almost eight I am married (not buried) a co-founder of a church, own a home, have a new baby, have a pagan community just as good as or not better than the one I knew before, and the Gods and Isis was right.  If I stopped ruminating and letting anger tear me up…I would discover my secrets.  Guess what?  I am not ashamed of being southern anymore!  I don’t tell cynical sarcastic jokes about southerners (well unless I have had a few margaritas and I think I am funny which I probably am not)!  I find that the drawl that once annoyed me soothes me, especially rolling off the lips of my friends and my lover Brian.  If I can do that, anyone can…and I find now that when I am angry it does not well up in me and drive me like a fire…it fizzles out like a match that I struck and the wind blew out.  Life is good for me here, I am glad I planted roots here, and proud that finally I am blooming in more ways than one.

SPELL TO TRANSFORM NEGATIVE/ENERGY to POSITIVE energy (originally shared with me by Anne Pelloth)

• let it be noted that originally this spell was created to help you transform energy that is negative beings sent to you and make it positive but I have used it to transform my negative angry energy to positive and it worked just as well*

Items needed:  One BLACK jar candle, One BROWN jar candle, and One WHITE jar candle (Table salt or Sea salt whichever you prefer)

I burn sage for purification during this spell on charcoals in my cauldron

Draw a line pointing going from left to right and at the end of that line (this would be the right make a arrow sign >) so it should look like this ---------------à

Place the Black candle first on the left

Place the Brown candle next in the middle

Place the White candle last above the arrow or even after it

*Draw a circle

*Invoke your patron deity tell them the point of the spell and ask for their assistance

*Take the Black candle and pour all your pain and sorrow and anger into it ask your deities to make sure you do not miss a speck of it!  SEE the black particles of anger and negativity leaving your body and entering that candle when done place it back on the altar.

* Now light the Black candle and say “this is all my hate, anger, and negativity and I am asking the universe to transform this energy into positive energy…So mote it be”

*Now light the Brown candle and say “this candle transmutes and changes all my negative energy into positive energy to better assist me and the universe…So mote it be”

*Lastly, light the White candle and say “this candle is what my energy will look like once it has transformed and as this candle burns it will release all my positive energy back into the universe and to me, making me the best person my higher self, and deity want me to be…So mote it be”

Have the candles burn all the way down ( I put mine in the shower/bathtub a lot to be safe and because I have to leave and go places) after they have burned down know that everything is better, and that you have within you the power to change negative things into positive.

Lastly, if you were like me and feeling angry, frustrated, or stuck in a situation place or job…remember this one thing.  You can always find the best, You can always bloom anywhere even in sand, and Your Gods love you no matter what…but they are not going to give you what you “demand like a petulant child stomping his or her foot” that is not the point of a relationship; and you have to put in time, prove yourself and do it consistently for years until they hand you more responsibility.  Hang in there though, life can and will get better and try the spell and tell me how it works for you! I hope that like me, you too learn how to BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED.