Equinox

The Equinox is a special time. Balance. The balance between major shifts in season. The earth in balance, pausing in its swinging motion; every living thing responds.

The Solstices are days of change, beginnings, endings. The Equinoxes are days of balance, harmony, peace.

The Goddess Ostara, accompanied by the pastel colors of spring, the hare and the egg is honored during spring equinox.

Earlier, at Imbolc, Brigid carved the beginning of spring out of the cold of winter with her wisdom and her sword.
Ostara walks a gentler path, accompanied by the hare rather than the sword and brings the balance of this moment with her.

My altar this year is a simple green candle, a small statue of a hare and some spring flowers. Dragon's Blood incense for cleansing.

March New Moon Ritual

This is the New Moon Ritual that I posted a couple of times last year. I love this ritual and wanted to share it again.

You will need:

One candle to honor the Goddess in her new moon, blue or white is nice, any color is fine. I have a large pale blue/green candle that I use for all moon rituals.

Incense or sage for cleansing the area.

A small unused notebook and a pen.

Four items to honor the elements.
I sometimes use:
a small bottle of sand for the element of earth
a feather for the element of air
a red candle for the element of fire
a small cup of water for the element of water

When I am in a candle mood I use candles for the elements:
brown or green for earth
yellow or pink for air
red or orange for fire
blue or white for water


Cleanse the area with incense or sage. I create sacred space by simply grounding and centering and visualizing an area around myself filled with energy, closed to random or chaotic spirits and open only to those I invite.

Call the Elements.
I start with Earth. If you are using candles, light them as you call each Element.
Calling them can be as simple as 'I call the Element of Earth to attend and add energy to this sacred space' or as elaborate as you wish.

After calling the Elements, take a moment to honor Goddess, ask her to look favorably on this ritual that you offer up to her and light the candle for her.

Take a few minutes to sit quietly. Reach out to the Elements for additional energy and power. Fill the space around you with their power and energy and reflect on the new moon as an opportunity for new beginnings. An opportunity that we are offered over and over again.

Take your notebook and write something along the lines of:
I will manifest these things that I desire and need in my life and I will do so without harm to anyone else.

Then begin to write down what you need to create in your life. It can be a few things or many. Large or small, tangible or not.

Concentrate on manifesting these things in your life without harming anyone else.

Release the energy that you have created with this work and send it out into the universe to do your bidding.

Thank the Goddess for her presence in your life and put out her candle.

Thank the Elements for loaning you their energy and ask them to return to their own realms, putting out their candles (if any).

Bring yourself back to normal time/space, ground the energy creating your sacred space.
_____________________________

On the full moon take your notebook and cross off any items that have manifested in your life since the new moon. On the next new moon create a new list, leaving off the things that have already arrived. Do not just cross off and add to the old list, each new moon write down the new list.

On her blog Liz has a cleansing ritual bath that would be a wonderful way to prepare for this ritual. Check it out at Lizzie's Logic.

March New Moon is Monday March 15th at 5:01 EDT.

Mundane and magickal

I was reading Lizzie's Logic Blog where she is talking about the separation between our mundane lives and our magickal lives. I started to respond to it and my response got so long I felt it didn't belong in her comments, so I wanted to respond here.
Please go and read her blog too.

I have seen this discussed before, probably brought it up myself at least once, but I think this is a very important topic for pagans to think about.

We live in a society where many people go to church on Sunday, maybe go to a weekly social gathering of some kind that is church related on another day, pray when a disaster happens or they are scared out of their wits over something and that is called religion. Many of us were raised that way. There is very little crossover between daily life and religion... religion is Over There and daily life is here in the trenches.

This comes out of dogmatic, hierarchical religions where SOMEBODY ELSE tells you how to relate to deity. Where a book tells you what deity wants from you and on Sunday somebody stands up in front of you and tells you how to be a better person (or get what you want or stop sinning.... depending on the brand).
Well, SOMEBODY ELSE isn't with you all the time and even in this ultra Christian, puritanical society people look at you funny if you are carrying the book around all the time and constantly thumbing through it for guidance for the next 10 minutes.

And here is where pagans need to THINK about what they are doing and not just replace the god of Abraham with the god of whatever mythology you like.
Paganism is DIFFERENT. Not just in names and dates. IT IS DIFFERENT.
Paganism is about learning about deity for yourself, making decisions for yourself, taking responsibility for yourself, TALKING TO THE DIVINE in whatever form you perceive...FOR...YOUR...SELF.
All of the classes and books and podcasts and ALL of that is supposed to help you think for yourself, not do your thinking for you. If you are listening to a great pagan podcast in exactly the same way as you would listen to a minister deliver a Sunday sermon.....then YOU DON'T GET IT.

You are supposed to THINK about connecting with deity and then you are supposed to DO IT yourself...not let someone else lead you around by the nose or tell you in graphic detail how to do it.
If you are not connected to deity by yourself, if your paganism is restricted to circle or podcasts or classes being taught by a witch who did the hard work and figured out what works for him/her..... Then PLEASE go back to being Methodist or whatever, because you are just practicing Christianity under a different name.

[Lizzie is about now, VERY thankful that I didn't put this entire rant in her blog.]

Here are some very simple ways that I try to make sure that my pagan beliefs affect my everyday life. Tiny rituals all day long connect me to spirit, ground me and serve to remind me about what is important and what is not. I am not some goody goody, I just die laughing at the thought, but neither am I a go-to-church-on-Sunday-Christian.

I am a daughter of the Goddess, I am part of this living planet and I try to remind myself of this all day long, as many times as I can remember to.

I drive to work early, around sunrise, so it is easy for me to think of the Elements and make a little ritual out of driving to work. It gets interrupted sometimes while I rant about the driver that ran a red light in front of me, but it serves to bring me back to spirit and to remember to ask the Elements to watch out for me as I drive to work, just as I ask them to look out for me when I cast a circle and call on them to protect it. Same Elements.

Today I am working on the computer, listening to blogtalk radio, doing laundry and playing with the dogs. I am also burning a candle and incense in honor of Bast and thinking about her influence in my life. I am planning for Ostara, and as I watch the fog lift and the sun come out, thanking Goddess for a beautiful world and her beautiful energy, which I want to tap into more often.

No Sunday sermons, no dividing line between magickal practice and mundane practice. Try it, it's easy once you start making it a habit. It can change your life.

And that is the end of my rant.

Ariel on BlogTalk Radio

I know that many of us listen to Ariel's podcast from the DCW or read his blogs and take part in his forum. So I wanted to give you a heads up. Ariel will be on BlogTalk Radio this evening, on Zaracon's show. It runs at 8pm EST and is a live show. You can also download it from iTunes later on.
This is the player that came directly from BlogTalk Radio, so it should work.