Mid-Winter Lament

And so it was she thought again
Of love and foolish things.
From her tears the lilies wept;
The birds refused to sing.
How cruel was life to her past?
What would the future bring?
But the time had come to begin anew
With the thaw of the nearing spring.

(c) Stephanie Ghanem, 2011

Candles!

Since I started my witchy practice, one of my favourite things to do, other than burn candles, is to make them!
Yes, I've been making my own candles for about 6 months now. It such a fun activity for myself and for enriching my pagan practice. I love mixing scents and colouring the wax to end up with a unique combination for my personal use in ritual, or any other use.

Up to this point I have only made tea lights and votives. They are the easiest to make, and have the fastest burn times. I use tea lights for almost everything; I even found a tea light cup with a special base to place in candlestick holders. In the future I might try making pillars, but so far I am perfectly satisfied with tea lights and votives. I've never been fond of candles that take forever to finish burning. It seems like such a waste of wax. Plus I feel safer burning a candle in a container, so tea lights are perfect for that purpose. No leftover wax in the bottom of the container to clean up after, either.

So today I made some votives; pink for love, healing, or the Goddess, and also green candles for money spells. They turned out quite nicely, and I made a dozen of each kind, so that should last me well into the summer months. I'm not quite done yet, still have to make some working candles and a few dozen plain tea lights for all-purpose uses.

On Imbolg eve, I will be making some votive candles to represent Brigid and her sacred flame. I'm not sure yet what colour they will be, but I will post some photos when they are done.

Blessed be!

Negative-Be-Gone!

The new moon will soon be upon us with the coming of Imbolg and, not to mention, the Chinese New Year. This year will be the year of the Rabbit (and I will make a post about that another day).
The Chinese new year and the Lunar new year are actually one and the same, for in China and most East Asian countries, the calendar year traditionally moved with the agricultural cycle.
In fact, if you can find a calendar in an Asian grocery store or in a predominantly Chinese area, you will notice that the days are marked with two numbers, the regular calendar day and also the lunar calendar day.

Seeing as Imbolg, Chinese New Year, and the new moon all signify a time for new beginnings and a clean slate, it is the perfect time to prepare for the coming festival and holiday by doing some mental "spring cleaning". With that in mind, I would like to share a little ritual I do a day or two before each new moon so that I can face the coming lunar month (which most of us witches go by) free from all the negative thoughts and actions that were bugging me over the course of the past 28 days.

It's a simple ritual to do, with minimal preparation and clean up...which is so nice.

The items you will need are as follows:

1 candle. Preferably a tea light, or a votive. Something that stands on its own and will drip as it melts. Any color is perfectly fine. If you use a tealight be sure to take it out of its metal or plastic container so the wax can spread as the candle burns.

1 cauldron or heat-safe bowl. There will be fire, so be cautious.

1 piece of paper and a pen. You are going to need to write a few things down.

A lighter or some matches, and a little bit of oil. Vegetable oil will do nicely.

Let's begin.

First get your cauldron or heat-safe bowl. Use your fingers and rub oil over the inside of the bowl, and make sure it a well coated. Not dripping, but slippery. This is to prevent the candle wax from sticking to the surface. Next create your sacred space in whatever way you choose. I usually do a simple spritz of my homemade smudge spray and say a blessing.

Now get your paper and pen and begin to write down all the things you can think of that annoyed, angered, upset or frustrated you this past month. You can write words, sentences, even a whole letter. Don't feel limited. The reason you are doing this is to vent and get it all out, so don't hold back. Write it down and let it out. Just don't forget to breathe. There's no need to rush, and if you feel you've forgotten something, don't worry. If you've forgotten it, it's already banished *wink*.

When you feel that you've gotten it all out of your system, rip up the entire piece of paper into small pieces so that the whole amount of paper fits in the bottom of your container nicely. You could even use scissors and cut it up into little bits. This is also a nice way to get out the last of your annoyed/angry/frustrated energy, so rip it good!

Now take all the little bits and put them in the container, and get your candle. Here comes the magick.
Take the candle and while you hold it say:

As new moon comes
The old moon goes.
So shall be my anger,
So shall be my woes.

All will be well
When the candle is done.
By the Goddess and God,
An' it harm none.

So mote it be.

Repeat this three times, or until you are satisfied.

Now place your candle in the container and light it.
Let it burn out completely.
When the candle has cooled, take it out of the container. You will notice it comes out easily because all the little bits of paper have stuck to the wax. The oil helped also.

Take the now-solidified wax and paper bits, and dispose of it as you like. The garbage is fine.

You're all done! Have a very blessed new moon and February, and don't forget to repeat this again with the next new moon!

Why Guanyin is Awesome

Guanyin is the best Bodhisattva. Ever.
Okay, so it's not very polite or Buddha-like to say that one Bodhisattva is better than another. I will be the first to admit all the Bodhisattvas have their own time and place in my practice. However, in my most honest of opinions, I think Guanyin really has it over all the others. She (or he) is just so appealing on so many levels, especially to someone that also follows an eclectic pagan path.

For those not familiar with her, Guanyin is a Chinese Buddhist deity; to be precise, a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is a person that has attained enlightenment. However, instead of going to nirvana (which is like the Buddhist version of heaven) after enlightenment, the person decides to stay in the earthly plane to help others become enlightened as well.

Guanyin is awesome because, to me, she is the embodiment of loving campassion and peaceful energy. The gentleness she radiates can calm any anger or refresh any spirit, which is why I always have a small statue of her on my altar. She just naturally belongs there.
There is a picture online that just characterizes her perfectly. Riding a dragon, she looks out to the sea of harsh waves before her. She is the calm within the storm that is our world. And that is why I love her.

Preparing for Imbolg

Imbolg 2011 will officially be a year and a day since I came back into full Pagan/Wiccan practice, so it seems fitting that my Imbolg ritual should be extra special (my Buddhist practice goes much, much farther than that, but I'll write about that some other time).

Since I first heard and learned about the "Her Sacred Fires" ritual used to honor the Greek Goddess Hekate, I wanted to do something similar for the Goddess Brigid, or Bride, as some may call her. Imbolg is a sacred day to her, so I would like to use this night to as a dedication. I have a very intense connection with Brigid, maybe because I'm astrologically a Sagittarius and fire is totally my element, or maybe because I just love celebrating the pre-spring months, knowing that freshness is soon to come with the March thaw. The connection I feel to Brigid is very strong, so strong that she may be a second patron Goddess to me. Never replacing my beloved Guanyin of course. Guanyin will always be first and foremost in my heart, Goddess-wise.
So I thought for Brigid, being a fire-connected Goddess from the Celtic pantheon, having a 'sacred fire' type of ritual done in her honor would be very fitting, and that is what I will try to accomplish with the Imbolg ritual I have set up so far.
To celebrate the Sabbat, I will be making more tealight candles and some votives that I will use as Brigid's 'sacred flame'. I'm hoping to scent and color them with a certain intent in mind, and then use those candles specifically as a kind of offertory candle to Brigid. I might keep it lit on my altar at all times during whatever craftwork I am doing or as an aid to meditation.
I would also like to make the honey cake posted by Youtuber Charmingpixieflora, because everyone loves cake and I want to use it for my 'cakes and ale' portion of the Sabbat ritual because it includes milk in the recipe. Milk, and other dairy products, are linked to the celebration of Imbolg, so milk, honey, and cake are a nice combination.
I have a good feeling that this is going to be a powerful and equally meaningful ritual for me, so I really want to prepare both myself and my space for what has to be done.
At any rate, my altar is looking good, and the Brigid's cross that I made from pipe-cleaners is very cute hanging from my window.

The Cold Moon

Last week brought the January full moon. I love looking out to the full moon each month, and this was no exception. Like most Wiccans and some Pagans, I celebrate the full moon of each month of the year with an Esbat ritual.
Of course, being January, this was my first Esbat of 2011. It was a quiet and introspective ritual, but I think that is the nature of the January moon. A beacon of bright moonlight reflecting blue across the cold, snow covered ground, still in frozen hibernation.
I have not begun to write my own Esbat rituals from scratch as of yet, though I am more confident in my ritual space these days. I am basically using a book, from the wonderful author Sandra Kynes, called "A Year of Ritual" to get me through this year until I am confident enough in my creative processes to begin writing my own (hopefully that will be part of my 2012 resolutions). This book, "A Year of Ritual", has both the Esbat and Sabbat rituals laid out for both groups and solitaries for the entire year's cycle. The Sabbats, for myself, are no-brainers at this point, but I've always had a difficult time with Esbats, so that is why this book has really been a wonderful addition to my practice. I do follow the ritual almost exactly except for the little touches I add here and there, mostly in the layout of the ritual itself. I didn't feel the need to change any wording to suit my purpose.
Aside from that, there is certainly more confidence in my rituals, and my circle casting is improving also. I tend to notice that on the ritual days where I have more stress, I tend not to do my best in casting my circle. Perhaps it's because my mind has more difficulty focusing when I have to deal with stressful or upsetting thoughts, or maybe it's because my psychic shields tend to take a beating because of all the negativity in my household. Either way, more meditation before the ritual, not during or after, may be in order. The next time I do ritual  I definetely have to try meditating before and see if it works. I'll keep everyone posted on that.
Anyhow, Imbolg is coming soon, so I have already begun preparation for that night. As a side note, it's nice to see that Imbolg will be falling on a new moon; very fitting for the Sabbat.

The Beginning Buds of Blog

So it's nearly 1 am, I'm wired on over-steeped green tea, and my mind is just a mess of ideas and thoughts I want to put into words. I have begun to blog. Crazy isn't it, how a person can go for years without feeling the need to have a journal or even write down anything other than a grocery list, and then wake up one morning and suddenly have the urge to put all their inner-most thoughts and feelings out there for everyone to see. Like I said, crazy, but in this case there is a method to the madness.
Perhaps all the years of bottling my thoughts into distant memories brought this on, but I digress. What I honestly believe is that I have been provoked into changing my non-writing habits. By what I am not exactly sure of at this time, but it certainly brought out an inner spark of creativity that was previously unable to be coaxed out of dormancy.
I think some rest is in order, because lack of sleep does not good blogging make. Or does it?
I guess that's a blog for another day.