A Spa Adventure

So, the other day I went to the spa for the first time. Ever. By some strange stroke of luck, I had won a gift package for a three hour session of pampering. Needless to say, I was sort of excited.

When I arrived I changed into a nice fluffy robe and slippers (after asking the nice man who showed me to the changing area exactly how naked I was supposed to get. Turns out? Totally.) and someone brewed me a pot of tea. I sat and sipped my tea in the little zen garden area, with its calming spa music and water feature fixating on the fact that I was completely naked under the nice fluffy robe. Naked, sipping tea? Ridiculous, unless I was in some sort of Edwardian romance novel; which I wasn't.

Luckily, I wasn't left to dwell on my tea drinking nudity for long before a wonderful lady whisked me away to get an hour long massage. Great gods above, have you ever laid in a bed with a built in warmer... naked? I want one of those things in my house. I'd never get out of bed again. Anyway, this being my first massage and my first time naked with a stranger who was not a physician even the heated bed couldn't totally relax me. But as soon as the massage therapist started rubbing whatever magical scented oil she had on my shoulders, my brain just shut off. And it was awesome. I didn't think about a damn thing the whole time. On top of that, not only could I feel each and every one of my muscles loosen and lose tension as she worked, I actually felt my spine straighten out. You see, as well as my eye and uterine ailments I also have scoliosis due to a difference in length in the bones of my legs, so I constantly feel - for lack of a better word - crooked. I was seeing a chiropractor for a while (despite several of them saying my back was sort of a lost cause unless I wanted surgery to even out my legs... uh, no.) to crack and adjust me to help with that feeling of being twisted. Well, I didn't enjoy the cracking so I quit going, but this massage thing? Glorious. And, when I mentioned to her that I thought I felt my spine shifting she explained that it was and why it was doing so.

Sadly, an hour is not nearly a long enough period of time for this sort of thing and before I knew it, I was done. I changed into my normal clothes and found myself back in the zen garden with a glass of wine waiting to be taken to my next destination on my spa adventure. But lo, before I could continue on my quest for relaxation I came across a woman who was not clad in nothing but a fluffy robe, sipping wine across from me. Like some hopped up housewife from those abysmal television shows she eyeballed me and asked "come here often?" I replied that this, in fact, was my first time. She gave me the once over, bright blue eyeshadow clashing with her dark rooted hair, and said "Oh. Get a gift card? Luckily for her and to my surprise... massages make this Jersey girl relatively docile. So rather than shoving her wine glass up her nose sideways I merely replied, "Why yes. My husband works for a multi million dollar international company who gave it to me for Christmas." (This is true to a point, I won it at last year's Holiday Party. Yes, it took me a year to use it.) As she fumbled for a response, another woman came out to lead me away to another room for my pedicure/manicure.

As my feet soaked and my hands were encased in wax, she and I had a good laugh about the bitch in the other room. Apparently, she's got a holier than thou attitude with any 'spa newbie' and is a lousy tipper. But, she buys a lot of shit so they let her keep coming back. Either way, here's the part that has flabbergasted everyone I've told. So, my feet were soaked and some delicious smelling mask was brushed onto them before they were wrapped in hot towels. While they were baking, she plucked, clipped and polished my toenails. She also took the wax off of my hands and plucked, clipped and polished my fingernails. And you know what? Manicures and pedicures are totally over-hyped. For two hours this woman worked on my hands and feet and I felt no more relaxed, pampered or different than I had beforehand.

Maybe it's just my super low maintenance personality? I mean, I hate shoes. I dislike shopping and if an outfit requires more thought than 'clean jeans and a tshirt' I probably won't like that either. But, I would never, ever pay to have a manicure or pedicure.

Now massages? Get me naked and give me that fluffy robe any day of the damn week. Mark that down, my birthday's in February. ;)

Gaining a Rhythm

Now that the funk of the past few months has seemingly lifted its head for good and I'm beginning to settle into my new, currently crazy, work schedule I'm grasping for a rhythm of sorts. My mind is just a swirl of wants and needs, of the physical, spiritual and artful varieties, but for a while there I was having a hard time catering to any desire aside from sleeping and eating.

While I'm not typically one for routine, I feel that right now I need something like that to get me back to the way I was before I was walloped by apathy for several months. And so, I'm working it out and working on getting myself back into shape mentally and physically.

Each morning that I go into work a bit later, I exercise then brew myself a cup of coffee and pull a card from my Heart of Faerie Oracle Deck. I pay attention to any jumpers and if I feel the need to pull more than one card, I go with it. Through this exercise the Green Woman has been calling to me, showing up nearly every day for the past two weeks and always accompanied by an electric tingle of sorts as I view her. She, the Lady of the Greenwood, the wild feminine nature beckons to me and I will listen; for she is one that I have long wished to run with.

I make time to read each day as well, for pleasure, knowledge or growth. Frequently I find myself reading two or three books at a time and I've stopped trying to get out of the habit. Just a short while before the Green Woman began to show up in the cards I began to read The Women Who Run With the Wolves. I'm absorbing it slowly, reading one chapter at a time and taking the time to meditate on and digest it. Not even halfway through the first chapter it had grasped my heart and began to tug at it and tell if that it's come a long way in healing and it can reclaim itself fully; don't give up. In addition to that, I've been reading A Feast for Crows and am planning to begin Paul Huson's Mastering Witchcraft.

I've also been attempting to take the time to sketch each day, or at least work on something crafty at home. There's a recycled cereal box Yule village in the works that I hope to finish and display right after Thanksgiving, as well as some new spoon wands and pendants that I'll be listing in the shop shortly.

And that's my daily rhythm for now. Weekends and days off are a bit more free form; everyone needs to let loose and play sometimes, right?

Afternoon Sketches

As I mentioned previously my work schedule has been chaotic and demanding as of late, leaving me very little motivation or time for making art. Which makes my heart sad. In order to remedy that and give myself some space to stretch my doodling fingers, I've been bringing my wee sketchbook, a mechanical pencil, a kneaded eraser and a micron pen to work each day to sketch on my lunch break if I feel so inclined. Some days, I sit and hold my pencil and nothing happens, so I end up reading for a bit instead.

But other times, wee critters and creatures just ask to come out and I feel obligated to help them out. There are just two of my sketches, the first being very quick and the second being done over a two break period and involving many erasures.

click to see him bigger on the flickr page.

This wee gnome, scooting about on his trusty steed, was sketched out in about 15 minutes. I'd like to give him some subtle color with pencils, but for now this is him in his sketchy glory.

This saucy fellow, on the other hand, took me 45 minutes or so over the course of two days. I couldn't quite remember how one held a pan flute and needed to reference photos and Pan kept nudging me in the ribs complaining that he wasn't sexy enough or this, that or the other thing wasn't quite right. It was this nudging that caused him to have goat pupils and acorns in his hair and is the reason he is looking pretty damn seductive. ;-) This one I'd like to watercolor, but since he's drawn on plain old fairly thin drawing paper, I'll need to print his sketch very lightly on watercolor paper and go to town. Once I get some ink.

The Witch's Circle: Spellwork

This post is in response to a post of the continuing 'The Witch's Circle' discussions over at Aine's blog, The Deepest Well. To view her and the commenter's thoughts on spells, click here. To read about The Witch's Circle and add your ideas for discussion, click the dancing witches image below.

Wingardium Leviosa! A spell from the Harry Potter stories and honestly one of the ones I wish I could use in real life. The only one I wish for more? Riddickulous! Who doesn't want to turn their biggest fear into something inane and, well, ridiculous?

Spell work is a very real part of my path and I by no means intend to make a mockery of this practice with my references to Harry Potter. Quite the contrary. I loved the approach to spell work in the books and movies because they demonstrate the very basis of what I believe spell work to be: Intention. You have to want and believe in the outcome of your work or all of the wand waving, chanting and herbal concoctions will be useless. More spells are killed off before they've even begun by witches who don't have the confidence or belief needed to bring them to fruition.

If all one needed to do to work with the energies of the spirits, elements and universe was point a wand and say 'I want x,y or z!' and it came to fruition everyone and their dog would be wearing a pointy hat, carrying sticks and the world would go mad. Luckily, for all of our sanity, it's not that simple. That being said however, it is not a terribly difficult feat either for one who truly wishes to learn and to practice.

A spell, in its simplest form, is a petition to whatever energies you work with. I think of prayer, in its way, as a form of spell work. A spell can be as simple as lighting a candle or setting up an offering, inviting the spirits to sit and hear you out and speaking plainly, all the while keeping your intent strong and true. It can be as elaborate as setting and casting a full circle on a specific day of the week, during a particular planetary time and having specific herbs, incenses and candles to burn while reciting a chant or poem. The important thing is to follow your intuition. If you plan an elaborate spell (or a simple one) and you feel an overwhelming desire to change plans? Go with your gut. Again, it's not always in the how, but in the why. Of course, if you are disrespectful to the spirits or using magic for solely selfish purposes the amount of faith or conviction you have in the spell work may not make a difference and it will die off.

Are there other rules that govern spell work? I believe that depends on each Witch's individual path and tradition. I'm sure we've all heard of and know the Three-fold law and The Wiccan Rede, "And ye harm none, do what ye will." I am not a wiccan and do not follow the rede. To me binding , banishing or blocking something or someone on the magical plain is no different than getting a security system, a retraining order or other means of protection here on the physical one. And while typically I try to live a life in which I don't needlessly harm others if a time comes when someone or something threatens myself or my loved ones I will not hesitate to do what is necessary to protect us. The reality is that sometimes life gets dirty and ugly and one needs to fight back by whatever means they have; in my case I will not hesitate to turn to spell work.

Does this make me or others who feel similarly 'evil'? I don't believe so. No more evil than a mother bear protecting her young. I do not act recklessly or without forethought, I have never performed spells in a blind rage - although I have been sorely tempted. It all comes back to that one word, intent. For intent does not just apply to what you wish to do, but also to your state of mind when you act.

Prepping for Winter

Sounds a bit silly, saying we're preparing the yard for winter what with this still being just a smidge of our back garden:

Don't mind the crazy colors, it's just me and my old point and shoot for a bit. My DSLR continues to be too expensive to fix.

But it's true. This month, my only days off from work will be Sundays and Thanksgiving and since I get home at dark-o-clock each night, I plan to spend those days off outside. We began yesterday by pulling all the weeds that had crept up and nestled along the foundation of the house and trimming back the hedges closest to the walls to make some space. We checked for any mouse holes (found one!), cracks in the mortar, soft spots, etc.

While I was deep into the plants and shrubs, I kept an eye out for ripe rose hips. I found, literally a hand full. The majority of them are either still in bloom or green, despite us having a few frosts. This is the first time I've ever harvested them fresh and I could use some advice on drying them and using them for tea. *wink wink*

Then we wanted to take care of our trees. We went around to all of the trees, checking their roots for any damage and pulling any suckers that had landed and begun to sprout from their bases. We pruned any extraneous growth and dead branches to help our trees focus their energy on strong healthy branches. There are several trees in our yard that are a hot mess, and I feel terribly for them. Our largest bradford pear has big beautiful branches that end in harsh square stumps and oddly shaped offshoots where the previous owners cut branches up. I can only assume the tree had gotten too wide and rather than take the branch at the base, they chopped it off in the middle. Luckily, it's a forgiving tree and didn't drop any large branches on my head while I attempted to prune back the dead stuff.

I wish I could say the same for our huge birch tree. It seemed to take great pride in letting large branches that were trapped in its canopy fall on us. Normally, it's a pleasant tree it just didn't seem to take to well to sharp objects.

The fruit trees gifted me with some sturdy branches for me to turn into things, the apple gave two and the pear gave one. Our pear trees are also a bit mangled from poor attention, having grown two or three large vertical leaders, which fused with each other and several horizontal branches in such a manner that I'd actually be terrified to try to remove any of them. I can just hope that with someone keeping up with their pruning from here on out, that they will grow healthier and reward me with juicy pears.

We called it a day after that, as our backs were hurting and it was getting dark fast. I went to bed and woke up sore, but it's the sort of sore I'm happy to bear; the sort that comes from a good day's work. We've got a few more things to do around the yard before winter comes and I plan to enjoy every single bit of it. Tending my patch of earth, getting down in the dirt and taking care of its inhabitants is not only something that ties into my spiritual beliefs, but brings me great joy. To bond with our trees, to leave offerings by their roots for the spirits, fae and local squirrels, to cultivate our own patch of green space to produce food; these things are simple magic to me.

Speaking of simple magic, after work on Saturday the dude took me to a salvage lot where a man and his family take all manner of lovely old things from homes that are going to be destroyed and keeps them on his farm to sell to folks who can use and love them. Joe was there a few weeks ago and wanted to go back to get some old 2"x10" boards to use for our bar counter tops. He also just wanted me to see it, because I love old stuff. He got his boards but I won the old stuff lottery. Not only did he gift me with all the old iron nails from the boards (who but a witch gets excited about these things?) but I found two old antique six pane windows with no glass that I plan to hang on the walls, for $4 each! I'm not sure if I will put photos into either one, but I know for sure one of them is going to get draped in ivy and touched by moss and mushrooms and hung in our bedroom. As if that wasn't enough, I also found these:

Two small iron keyhole covers. I'll be using one on my grimoire in the future and the other? I'm not sure yet. But I just had to have them.

How was your weekend, lovelies?

P.S. New things are coming to the shop this week! So, feel free to stop in periodically and take a peek. :)

Dia De Los Muertos

On this Dia De Los Muertos, do not mourn for those that have passed beyond the veil, for they would not want you to weep. Instead, honor the lives they lived and the legacies they left behind. Call them to you, to share in your supper or to enjoy a favorite song. They say the joy is in the living; today, remember to do so.

Give those who have passed your thoughts today and give time to those still here; for all of us will join those gone one day. Dia de los Muertos is not a time for sadness, it is a time to remember. So share the stories of those whose graves you may visit, or whose memories you may keep with those who bring you joy. Give your lover a whirl, your family kisses, your best friend or arch enemy a call.

For today is not only for the dead. It is for those of us who are still here. A reminder in bright flowers and painted skulls to take joy and appreciate our time here on this lively green planet.

Today I honor my grandparents who passed on before I had the chance to know them. Bill and Kathy, a friend's parents who so many of us thought of as nearly our own. Friends who were gained and lost throughout the years, who passed suddenly and too young. Joe's grandparents whom he loved fiercely, but I was never able to meet (though he says I would have loved them!). I honor those even further back, the great and great-great and beyond grandparents and ancestors whose names I've never known.

Today, I honor all of you. The family that makes me laugh, cry, scream and love; my parents, brothers, sister, aunts and grandmother. The husband who picked me, the broken and lost, of all the women in the world to love; who has helped me heal and become not only the woman I was meant to be, but the child I lost somewhere in those terrible teenage years. The friends who have been by me from the very start; the ones who stood by me that first day of school 23 years ago despite my mismatched socks and still love that they never match. And you, the witchy women and sisters who have taught me, supported me, befriended me and loved me over these past few years. My tribe. If ever we were to meet, mountains would move for us. I just know it.

Feliz Dia de los Muertos, loves.