This is week two of my goddess devotions. This week is dedicated to the Maori fire goddess Mahuika. She’s good to work with if you are dealing with angry people, if you are being bullied or in an abusive situation, if someone is trying to manipulate you, or if you want to increase your confidence. I’ve always felt that her energies work very well with Scathach’s so I generally do their devotions back to back. The only year I didn’t was in 2009, the very first year I did this. Also, tomorrow with be the spring equinox, so watch for a special post for the Pagan Blog Project, which will include the first of my sabbat videos! This week’s Herbal Wednesday will feature spearmint, if you have any piece of knowledge or folklore you feel is essential to working with this herb (or at least really cool) feel free to share!
0 Comments
Monday (3/19)
Tuesday (3/20)
Saturday (3/24) Sunday (3/25)
This post is really late, but I think it’s fitting that I waited for St. Patrick’s Day to post it. In the U.S., March as a whole is dedicated to Irish History and Heritage, but no day resembles that more than today. My mother is almost ¾ Irish and my father a little less than a quarter, making me roughly half Irish. The rest of my heritage is primarily English and Scottish with a good dose of Cherokee, Welsh, and French added to taste. But with that much Irish running through my veins I think it’s only natural that me and my family at times get very homesick for the lands of our ancestors. I have yet to visit, but I want to more than anything. When I was much younger I used to randomly cry for want of it, and I highly considered going to university there. To be honest I think half the connection is through ancestral memories and memories of prior lives. But someday I'll make a visit to those lands and there’s a very good chance I won’t return. Despite the fact that my path honors deities across three different pantheons, I can’t help but feel a sense of kinship with the Irish deities. A few of them have made it very known to me that they want my worship and offerings, The Morrighan and Brighid among them. Flidais is another who made it known to me and I highly considered writing one of my F posts for her! I also have a fairly easy time connecting to Irish folklore, myths, and faerie beliefs. In all honesty, whenever I think of faeries, I almost always think of Ireland and the Tuatha De Dannan. Those subjects are inseparable for me. Eire has a thousand other associations in my mind and my heart, but this is what Eire is to me: (all photos are from google images)
St. Patrick's Day Myth's Debunked »This is one of my favorite articles about St. Patrick's Day.
I've often read about how many pagans had a very particular view of the natural world as children, very close to animism, only to lose it somewhere in adolescents or early adulthood. I think part of the reason I can't remember ever really not having pagan beliefs (I've believed in the Greek gods since I was very small, like 2 or 3 years of age) is partly do to the fact that I never lost that view of the natural world. I still talk to trees and flowers, knowing that they can hear and understand me and that if I'm open to it I'll get their response. I've hugged trees for extended lengths of time trying to feel their heart beat. The first time I actually managed to feel it I was 12, and as odd as this will sound, was developing a crush on the nature spirit that lives inside the giant maple tree in the very center of our property. I once wrote an essay about him for a high school writing class and my teacher told me it was the most magickal and heart warming thing she'd ever read. I've been able to communicate with nature spirits as far back as I can remember. I suppose that's a huge part of why I've never lost that animistic view of nature. It's hard to believe or think something's not alive when you can speak to it directly.
So if you've somehow managed to miss the fact that tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, you're either living under a rock, or very far out of the United States or British Isles. And you're definitely not in Ireland! I live in the US, and incase you haven't heard me mention it before, I'm Irish. Irish to the point that every St. Patty's day I end up sitting at my Nana's for dinner to have corned beef and cabbage, I also have at least 3 cousins named Shaun (my Da came home from work tonight sharing this bit of trivia: Shaun is the top boys name in Ireland), my cousins like to convince people that we're really leprechauns and that we bleed green, etc, etc. Another odd this is no matter how hard I try (unless I'm quoting Harry Potter), whenever I try to do an actual British accent, it falls apart and all the sudden I have a thick Irish accent. No idea why that happens but it does, and it's a wee bit embarrassing. (High five if you just read that in an Irish accent). The other strange Irish thing about my Mom's family is that my great-grandparents, after being born and raised Catholic, decided along with their siblings, that before moving to Michigan they were all going to become die-hard Southern Baptist. Go figure. Half of my family went back to the church, but my grandparents decided not to. I had to go that route on my own. All the Irish on my Da's side is fully Catholic though. Also, when my family found out I was pagan in the slightest, they said it was fine as long as I was Celtic. Yeah, I killed that didn't I? I would actually love to be completely Irish Pagan, but the other gods get in my business a bit to much to actually allow me to do so.
But in the end, my heritage, my crazy family, and my odd Catholic and Irish Pagan leanings come together and have caused a love of St. Patrick's Day that could probably rival my love of Halloween. And don't get me started about all the St. Patty's Day merchandise at stores right now. My friends and family don't allow me to be around it with money, because I'll buy it all. I have 3 St. Patty's Day shirts, pajamas, Hats, necklaces, a tiara, etc. And to be honest I have Shamrock cookies for tomorrow. Tomorrow I will look like a Gothic leprechaun. Black St. Patty's Day faerie shirt, shimmery emerald green button up used as a jacket (provided I need it, it's supposed to be 78 degrees) my "Irish Princess" tiara, St. Patty's necklaces, green makeup, and my nails are already painted sparkly shamrock green. I even have St. Patrick's Day temporary tattoos. Yes I am that happily tacky. I will also probably be rocking green lipstick. And I will be happy and speaking with an Irish accent all day, more than likely screaming random things in Gaelic. It's okay to laugh at me. But tomorrow night, after I was all the green gunk off and turn off the leprechaun-ness, I have a little ceremony I've been doing for years and some of you might be interested in it as well. St. Patrick's Day Ceremony Altar set up: colors- green and white. Incense of any kind. Green candle. Communion supplies (if you do this). Representations of a snake, leprechaun, shamrock or three leaf clover, and pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Celtic music in the background is optional. Procedure:
I've never really thought of my own personal ethics before. I mean, I use them day to day, but I've never really seen them outlined in a book, or any individual religion present a code of ethics I fully identify with. But to be honest, I haven't exactly looked that hard. I went through the normal period where I was fascinated by different pagan ethics and "laws. I actually went and hand wrote all million or however many of the Craft Laws presented in the Gardnerian BOS, later going over them with my coven and taking out those that were outdated or didn't fit our tradition, while adding in a few that better represented us. For awhile I really liked a document called "The Celtic Commandments" that I got from a group I no longer remember. It was a fantastic thing, but it's very Wiccan and no longer really describes my own personal ethics nor my spiritual path (though I truly wish I never had to leave that path. I was blissfully ignorant at that point and that path was easy to follow). When I first discovered Hellenic Paganism, I began following the Seven Pillars of Hellenismos and the Delphic Maxims. The Maxims are:
I guess I should explain why I'm currently so preoccupied with ethics. As many of you know, I'm participating in the 2012 Pagan Reading Challenge. So far I've read two books and I'm working on the third, which is an anthology titled Pagan Visions for a Sustainable Future. The first article, "The Ethics of Paganism: The Value and Power of Sacred Relationship" by Emma Restall Orr, really got me thinking about the fact that I'd never really taken the time to define my own ethics. The second article, "Magickal Ecology: Future Visions from Ancient Egypt" by Akkadia Ford, got me thinking even more, but she did something the prior article hadn't: She presented me with a list of ethics and morals followed by the Egyptians that applies today as much as it ever did, The Negative Confession. She actually went and elaborated and showed how no longer following those ethics has actually caused many major problems like mad cow disease and the infertility of the Nile River flood plains. I've previously read the 77 commandments of the Egyptians and found it rather lacking and no longer applicable in many instances. But the entire Negative Confession as she presented was beautiful and perfect. It may not be perfect, and it many not be everything I want to include, but as a follower of Sekhmet and Ma'at, I feel this is right. I think I've found my ethics. :) I didn't notice until now, but I'm already 6 people past my second follower goal! I want to say thank you for all of the new follows, each one of you means the world. I've had my personal blog for a year now while Practical Magick was only created in January. They both currently hold the same number of followers.
I have several new things I will be posting later this evening, a few of which I'm very excited for. As always I'm here to answer any questions you have as well as simply chat. Have a fantastic rest of your day, Ella |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2015
Categories
All
|