Ostara 2013

Amidst yet another long and heavy snowfall came the Spring Equinox to Montreal. I wasn't the least bit surprised.

Now that the most recent snow piles have begun to melt under the strong sunlight of the longer days, things feel a bit lighter than they were during the winter months. Energies are rising and harkening life back to earth, and people are starting to put away their sweaters in favour of t-shirts. Flip-flop season is coming, my friends, and I can't wait. As a hater of boots and shoes in general, I can't wait to get my feet out in the sunshine and oxygen of the outdoors again. Better yet, I can't wait to be out on a beach somewhere with the soft grains of sand between my toes....but soon summer too will be upon us here in the northern hemisphere.

I'm working in more topics for my YouTube channel, and on actually donating the clothes, objects, and goods that I have which no longer serve me. It's something I've been meaning to do for some time, but as always, things get in the way and make it easier for me to forget. A few boxes of donations would free up a lot of space both in my personal space and in my mind, because then I wouldn't have to worry about the clutter anymore. Spring is really a great time to simplify life and I intend to do just that for the next few months until preparations for the summer begin.
I'm off to fill a few more boxes now, wish me luck!

Happy Ostara everyone!

Patrick's Prayer

I've always liked certain catholic prayers, and this one is begins with one if my favorite verses. Despite being Christian in origin, this is a very powerful prayer that can be easily adapted to a more pagan flavour. I've done that myself on many occasions, but I wanted to put the original here in honor of Saint Patrick's day today.

Emerald blessings everyone, and I wish you all the luck in Ireland, be you Irish or not.

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The Prayer of St. Patrick

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.

Christ shield me today
Against wounding
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through the mighty strength
Of the Lord of creation.

Fierce Creatures

Lately I've been thinking about men. Not in the obvious way (okay, maybe that way too) but mostly about how the reality of the male mind can really contradict the traditional image our North American society bestows upon the male contingency. I knew this partly to be true, but sometimes it takes experience to really believe these things. Now I've always thought very highly of men in general. They have a lot to bear emotionally, just as women have, but they display their emotions so differently than women do. It's not wrong to me, just very different, and of course I respect that. I've always believed in equality, so I've always been respectfully intrigued by men's responses to certain things, emotional situations being the most intriguing of all.
Even in some (most?) branches of Paganism, the male is seen as an impervious pillar of strength, sexuality, and wise know-all of manhood. The hunter/father/king complexity of characteristics all put together so as to personify male-dom. But sometimes in life you get close to a man and see the more hidden side, and most men I've known seem to prefer it that way. At times they do 'sweat the small stuff' as it were, despite their amazing resilience.
It's difficult to see men you admire for their unstoppable imperviousness get things under their skin while you watch helplessly in the background. As a woman, I want to talk things out and improve things through my gift of extended speech, but guys mostly just want to retreat into the impenetrable fortress of their minds and go into lockdown mode. To me this is both alarming and confusing as hell, but what is a female to do in these situations? Not much really. I'm finding out that the less you say, the faster man-wounds heal. I wish I had learned this sooner in life, but alas, we can only learn once we make mistakes I suppose.
To all those men out there I say to you- don't lose patience with women that need words to figure things out. If anything, your silence is just making us freak out more. We can't help it. I'm a culprit of this myself, and thankfully I now know better. Life lesson learned. Perhaps I need to learn more about men than I considered?

Mad As A March Hare ( And Other Rabbits)

I feel like the current mercury retrograde has caused me to lapse into a bout of laziness since the beginning of March, but that's not exactly a solid excuse for not posting for so long despite wanting to. I should probably blame the crazy schedule I've been on, and an 11 day bout of bronchitis that drove me nuts, but I won't. In fact, I'm not blaming anyone but my self for being lazy right now. Yes, I'm blaming myself, people, it's not the first time. But today I broke the cycle, so I feel good about that.
This month of March has been full of up and downs- crazy things just seem to appear out if nowhere once the winter thaw sets in. People start getting stir-crazy and hungry for action. I'm not going to go into more detail, but I'm feeling quite cabin-feverish myself right now. Planting some herbs and working on tarot should help my rut, though I think self-love and acceptance is the order of the week. We'll see.

Astrology Failings (Full Moon in Virgo)

I'm really not 100% percent on the ball with my Astrology, which is why I've been gradually challenging myself to learn more on the subject, but I do know that right now we have entered the sign of Pisces, the cosmic fish as some call it, and have just moved past the full moon phase as of February 25th. Therefore, I reasonably thought that we had just finished a full moon in Pisces. Apparently that was wrong. Thankfully I did some online research before I posted this and made a fool of myself- pulling a Fox, I'm going to call it. Instead of pulling a Fox, I took some time out and looked up which sign the full moon was actually in. Show's how much I know. The moon was actually in Virgo. Yes, I did a metaphysical face-plant on that one. Ouch.

In light of all this, however, I am seeing a pattern where I can now actually take the time to redeem myself for lacking in Astrological knowledge. It seems like now is a good time to actually use the Farmer's Almanac I bought for 2013 to look for some interesting reading in learning more about Astrology. I had an 'Everything' series book on Astrology, but I was never able to connect to it very well. It was a very well-written book complete with mini-exercises, and I liked reading it, but I just never read it through well enough to understand all the lessons. Bad Stephanie, and entirely my fault. Sometimes I try but I just can't get into it enough to connect on a deeper level. One of my major flaws, sadly. Oh well.

My faults aside, how does my experience right now relate to having the past Full Moon in Virgo surrounded by Piscean energies? Well I did some more research and partially answered this question. My research led me to understand that, first of all, a full moon's sign does not necessarily correlate to the sun-centered astrological signs that occur on a monthly basis. Rather the moon's sign changes on a near-daily basis as per the fluctuations of the daily signs that occur on each day during the year. More clearly, the monthly signs are one part of the astrological cycle for the year with 12 signs for each approximate month. The daily signs also follow a similar cycle with a time period for each sign (about a day and half) with a smaller time period known to astrologers as 'void-of-course', which means there is no sign during that time. According to traditional astrological belief, planning to do activities during void-of-course periods is not advisable, even counter-productive or unlucky. Perhaps a good reason to invest in a moon calendar, for those of us that have a tendency to be superstitious at times.
Another topic of interest I discovered was that right now we are within a Mercury retrograde period- as if my skills and methods of communication were not lacking enough right now. I've read about Mercury retrograde issues before when I first began to read horoscopes more frequently. I knew I wouldn't be a fan of these time periods when I heard about them. Who would? I'm guessing this is why I haven't felt the urge to make a Tarot video in the last few weeks. Again, bad Stephanie. This may also be a contributing factor to why someone I know decided to move out of their apartment unexpectedly, completely forgetting to mention it to their landlord and forfeiting their damage deposit. I told them so. That Mercury retrograde gets you every time.
All that aside, the moon in Virgo during a Pisces month is pretty interesting. The signs themselves are contradictory; Virgo being a stable and practical earth sign, and Pisces an ever-changing and emotional water sign. In that respect, this full moon was a bit all over the place. And I did feel a bit out of sorts during the days of the full moon. I felt emotional, hormonal, a tired, and mostly stuck in a bad situation- like I had no way out of my muddled mess of a mind. It was a losing battle at bedtime as well. Vivid dreams with lots of men and weird situations on a houseboat. Thank goodness that one didn't last long.

Anyhow, I should try and learn more about Astrology. It is key knowledge in working well with witchcraft and understanding the cycles of time within nature and the universe. If Nostradamus could do it, so can I, I guess.

Grey Areas In Dating

Normally I wouldn't post about this kind of thing, as I'm more private when it comes to my love-life, but I've been so lost in thought lately on this subject I felt a good purge was in order today.
Perhaps others out there have been in this situation, but lately I feel as if I alone carry this sort of 'burden'. I guess you could call it that, maybe. Anyways, the crux of it is that I've been in a relationship with the same man for 8 years. I love him to death and we both know that we will end up together eventually. At this point in our lives we don't know exactly when, but we know it will be sometime in the future. That being said, despite knowing we will be together forever, we are not in a position to be engaged to one another. We are living in different countries at the moment, have very different family issues going on (this is more my side than his), and we are busy putting out lives together so that we can eventually move in with one another, somewhere in the world, at some point. So yes, there is a lot of physical disconnect despite the fact that we are very connected mentally and emotionally to each other. Now, my question has been for a long time- what does one do when they are not ready to be engaged, but are not single and not "on the market", so to speak? Is there anything, any cultural significance to this intermediary stage between dating and marriage? I know for sure that I'm in a committed relationship, just not ready to be engaged for marriage. How do I advertise this to other people? Is there a way? I have a feeling there isn't, but that's not a reason to forget about it. My solution right now is to wear a ring on my left hand. I've been doing it for years, since before I even met my boyfriend, as jewelry is one of my favourite things in the world. I've even been known to wear, goddess help me, engagement-style rings on my left hand despite not being engaged. Perhaps this is wrong of me, but I love him and I don't want to advertise that I might be single. Thus an interesting solution presented itself. I could wear an engagement like ring out in public, have people think I was engaged, but I wouldn't actually be engaged. And yes, my logic is just spectacular at these moments, I'm sure you're thinking that right now.
I suppose I should just come out and say that my reasons for sending this information out into the universe is a bit two-sided; yes, I want to get this off my chest, but on the other hand I also want validation to my actions. I'm just not sure what to do with my feelings. Right now I deeply feel that I am undeniably connected to my boyfriend, so much so that I feel I am engaged to him. There is that deep connection on so many levels that makes our relationship beyond the 'committed but still just dating' dynamic. But we're not in a position to be married yet. I have no idea what to do about these feelings, but hopefully I can somehow figure out how to deal with them one day. Maybe when I actually get engaged.
Yeah, I'm a silly girl sometimes. Whatever.

Major Arcana: The Magician

One of my favourite cards in the Tarot trumps is certainly the Magician. To me, this card is one I have always taken as signifying that one is in control of their destiny. They know exactly how they can attain their goals, using the tools the universe provided to them in this life. That sounds like a big job, yes, but you'd be very surprised how little external tools it takes to be successful compared with the gifts and talents you have right within yourself.
As much as I like and appreciate this card being called 'The Magician' amongst the English Tarot decks, when I actually think about the significance of this card as an archetype I tend to go more with the French title, 'Le Bateleur'. Translated literally, this gives the card the more mundane name of 'The Street Performer', as opposed to the more grandiose and macabre 'Magician'. Over the years of using and learning to read the tarot, I have often supposed the true intent of the card's archetypal name would be something like 'The Street Magician'- incorporating the image of an ordinary person doing extraordinary things, which to me, makes much more sense in the grand scheme of things. Don't we all wish we could be extraordinary? Have we not watched someone performing so-called "magic-tricks" and felt both awed and perhaps slightly envious of their talent? Maybe so, or maybe not. Regardless, a street performer of 'magic' is, as we know, not performing magic at all. At least magic in the metaphysical sense (I could elaborate on that statement quite lengthily, but that really is another post entirely of its own). The street performers 'magic' is in his tools, yes; they are specially made for that purpose. But give the spectators the same tools and see if they can work the same routines- the same 'magic'. It will never work. This is the essence of the Magician. A Magician is his tools of trade and his internal knowledge and talents. As you can see, it's more David Copperfield than Merlin. Each and every one of us could perhaps learn to be David Copperfield; not all of us can be Merlin. That's not to say that a Copperfield could never become a Merlin. The difference to me is the ability to use and control the material tools you possess versus the ability to control the cosmic elements and the ether around you. One is of external control and the other a more internal control. Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is true talent; using your own personal energy to manifest positive forces in your life is true magic.
To sum it all up- we all need to learn and teach ourselves how to be the best we can be in life with what we have been given as people, as unique and powerful human beings. The first step in the mastery of life is learning to be the street performer, but the ultimate test of life is learning how to be the magician.