PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Don’t mind me,

I’m out getting lost

“No longer am I only hearing my own voice
but instead I co-exist in a world where everything speaks with  its own unique, quirky, gorgeous personality. Every berry has a little  voice, every grass stalk makes itself known. I become surrounded by a  community of living Earth, and this entire community is willing to play  with me in this changing game of life.”

—Day Schildkret (Morning Altars, @morningaltars)  

What is waiting for you to notice it?

Do you have time to play in this changing game of life?   

As we enter the flourishing of spring, I have a practice-based audio meditation to share based on Day Schildkret's book Morning Altars. It is a Place Meditation.

Pity the poor cowans.

Yes, now is the time of year when I always feel sorry for non-pagans.

Deep Winter. The great, glorious blaze of the holidays has burned itself out, and Spring is still a distant hope on the horizon. Until then, only the endless, hard slog of Winter stretches out before us, a vast, unbroken expanse of snow: long, interminably long.

Poor cowans: all this way till Spring, and nothing in between but (ugh) Valentine's.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to Imbolc.

Solstices, equinoxes, and the days that fall in between: the Wheel of the Year, we call it, a wheel of Eight Spokes. A party every 45 days or so. In the pagan world, there's always something to look forward to.

It's a hopeful way to live: a milestone to mark the way, every month and a half. Everything is always moving, nothing lasts. Nothing is permanent but the Cycle. It says a lot about pagans that we find this fact consoling.

It's a way to mark Time, to remind us that we're constantly en route. (Pagans are always in motion. Even when we're sitting still, we're moving.) “Back before Beltane....” we say.

Walking down the street, I see an awful lot of old Yule greens still up, looking pretty tired and desiccated by now. All mark cowan homes.

A friend's high priestess sent her a beautifully crafted wooden wheel for Yule. An apt gift, certainly.

(Witches are big into wheels. Life, Time, Space: for us, it's all Wheels.)

Naturally, my friend called her up to thank her.

My friend: What's the symbolism of the ten spokes?

(The Witches' Wheel usually has eight.)

High Priestess: No, it has eight spokes.

MF: No, it has ten.

HPss: (Changes subject.)

Myself, I was pretty disappointed to hear this story.

(Talk about a teachable moment. When your student asks you a question that you can't answer, what should be the first words out of your mouth? Obviously, "Well, what do you think?" As a teacher, you don't teach stuff; you teach thinking.)

First off, I was disappointed that the woman hadn't looked carefully enough at the wheel—it was a gift, after all—to realize that it had ten spokes rather than the canonical eight.

Second, I was disappointed that she didn't know the symbolism of the ten-spoked wheel.

Third, I was disappointed that she didn't try to bullshit her way out of it.

I am here to tell the tales
of eerie lights
and thinning veils,
of trickling streams
and singing trails,
of seeking hearts
and thrilling wails.
I’ve gathered sounds of
shadows deep,
of stones that weep
and trees that sleep,
where legends steep
and secrets keep.
Gather round
on bended knee,
with webs to weave
and paths to see,
the Samhain Muse
has tales for thee.