Random Acts Of Kindness

Angela has a good idea:

Here’s the deal:

1) You have to have a blog to participate in this.

2) The first three people who sign up in the comments will receive some sort of kindness from me.

3) Those three people then blog about it at their place and offer the same to the first three people who sign up, who blog about it at their place, and offer kindnesses to the next three, &c., &c., &c., until the Kindness Revolution is unstoppable due to Newton’s Second Law, where f=ma.

4) The act of kindness can be whatever you like; it can be a little gift you mail to someone, or it can be something more intangible; whatever fits your circumstances, budget, or personality. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, certainly; just something to put a smile on a stranger’s face.

5) Link back to this post in your

My act of kindness: a one card tarot reading for the first three people to post.


Picture found here.

And By The Cold, Grey Novembers Of Life, We Transit From Autumnals, Etc.

Wind and rain announcing Autumn! A cat curled up on my lap. Fuzzy socks on my feet and ankles. Knitted mittens for G/Son, almost finished. Mittens for new great-nephew, planned from the scraps. Tea. Opera pouring from the iPod. Samhein with my circle of amazing women, within sight; the table already set, the firepit stacked with beech wood, the Innana candle standing ready.

May it be so for you.

PS: I stole this picture off the internets tubes, but I don't remember where. Whoever knit them, they are lovely!

Nov. 4, 2008. Don't Fuck This Up, America. Really. I Mean It.

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

~ Sheenagh Pugh


Picture found here.

What I Know For Sure

The purpose of ritual is to change the mind of the human being. It's a sacred drama in which you are the audience as well as the participant, and the purpose of it is to activate parts of the mind that are not activated by everyday activity. We are talking about the parts of the mind that produce psychokinetic, telekinetic power, whatever you want to call it -- the connection between the eternal power and yourself. As for why ritual, I think that human beings have a need for art and [that] art is ritual [and ritual is art]. . . . It has seemed to me that much of the modern Craft and the Neo-Pagan movement lacks real music and real dance, in comparison to indigeneous Pagan religious movements. . . . I attribute this [lack of authentic experience] to our loss of skill in the use of music, rhythm, dance, and psychogenetic drugs. In the Irish tradition, music was essential to the success of the rites. . . . Another thing that was essential to the rites in ancient times was ritual drunkenness and sex. And I find this also lacking. We have to create those ecstatic states again. We have to offer people an energy source and a theological alternative, and we can only do this by offering real experience. We have to introduce real sacraments. . . . Much of Neo-Paganism lacks the same content [that] I've described before. The raising of power is an accidental occurrence among most of us at the present time. I find that difficult for my own self-esteem. It makes it difficult to work with people. I don't like going through empty ritual with anybody, especially my closest friends. [A]nyone who calls themselves a Witch should have the capability to deal with different ecstatic states.

Sharon Devlin, as quoted in~Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler

Art found here.

This Is Going To Turn Into A Landslide

GoBama

Go Thou And Do Likewise

V creative friend K waited half an hour today to absentee vote in NoVa.

It's starting to look as if it will be a L-A-N-D-S-L-I-D-E.

Go vote.

Soul Work

Just a few days until Samhein.

For me, this time of year is about introspection. Samhein is the beginning of a new year for witches, and the days leading up to Samhein are a time to pause and consider what I've accomplished over the past year and what I failed to accomplish. And the "why" behind the things that I wanted to accomplish and, yet, didn't accomplish is an important question for me.

It seems to me that when I want to do something but "just can't" quite "get around to it," a Shadow is often involved. (Assuming, of course that I really do want to achieve that goal and didn't just adopt it because I thought that I "should" or because others wanted it for me.) And my Shadows will, if approached gently, respectfully, in a light trance, talk to me. Those are important conversations for me, not easy or fun, but important to the process of becoming who I want to become, to the process of stripping off the layers and revealing/becoming my Better Self. I sometimes ask a Shadow for its name, ask if we can do a joint Tarot reading, ask what I can do to help the Shadow feel safe enough to let me make desired changes.

The Shadow that I worked with this weekend showed me her picture: the Two of Pentacles. How do you read that card?


Art found here.

Duirweigh

Stickley

The Loss Of Everyday Divinity

Prayer for Peace

Let's gather round the
lake now
hold hands
and sing from
our luminous throats
our proud bellies
Let's charge up the
water molecules
with our Love
and send out a
current of healing
to the sleepy houses
all filled with TV static and
the loss of
everyday
divinity.

Let's.

~Shae Savoy

Photo found here.

If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution

Dancing as Liberation

There are countries where it is a punishable crime to dance.

Women must cover their heads,
never riase their voice in song and
never ever display such immoral conduct s dancing.

Those who forbid the dance forbid life.

If they tied me in ropes
Held a gun to my head
And forbid me to dance
I would dance in my head.

If I woke up tomorrow
Without limbs that would move
I would dance in my soul.

If dance were taken from me
I would snatch it back.
I wold dance with my eyes.
I would dance with my breathing.
I would dance completely still.
I would dance with the atoms moving inside me.

I would dance in the mingling of voices around me
Layering transcendence swooping into each other.
I would dance n the red-blushed sky that caresses the tree line.
I would dance on the call of the geese
that cut through the sky above me,
my winged partners in the dance.

If dance was taken from me
I would snatch it back.

I would dance passion.
I would dance pain.
I would dance magick.
I would dance at my labor and dance at my rest.
I would dance my power.
I would dance my palpable joy of existence.

n some countries it is illegal to dance.
It is illegal to display such immoral conduct.

Dancing is an act of liberation.
It is for those who must dance in st

Phtot found here.