Ask Your Mama - Clean Sweep by Mama Donna Henes

Are you cyclically confused? In a ceremonial quandary? Completely clueless? Wonder no more.

                                *Ask Your Mama™                         

The What, When, Where, Why, How, and Who of

Ceremony & Spirituality

by

©Mama Donna Henes, Urban Shaman

A Question of a New Year Clean Sweep

Dear Mama Donna,

This has been the year from hell. I feel used, abused, and grimy. My entire life has gotten out of control. In my depression I have even let my normally orderly house go. My family is disgusted. What symbolic act can I do at New Year that would help to make me feel like I can make a clean start?

—A Mess in Michigan

Dear Ms. Mess,        

As we near the New Year, our thoughts turn to new beginnings, new possibilities, new hope. This fragile interval which separates one year from the next is pregnant with potential. We find ourselves taking time out of time to evaluate our past experiences and actions and to prepare ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually for our future. Our reflections and resolutions at this transition period of the great turning of the annual wheel are critical, for they create the ambient atmosphere and attitude for the entire year to come.

A new year represents another chance, a fresh start, a clean slate, and so we embark upon the shift as on a dangerous journey, freshly bathed and outfitted, full of purpose, fingers crossed in blessing. People enjoy elaborate toilettes; bodies washed, dressed, groomed, combed until they are thoroughly cleansed — often internally as well through fasting. On New Year in Bengal, pilgrims bathe in the River Ganges. The Cherokee spend the eve of the New Year in vigil on the banks of a river. At dawn they immerse themselves seven times, emerging purified and new like the year.

In addition to purifying our person, special care has always been taken to clean and maintain the temples, churches, synagogues, cemeteries, groves, and shrines, in which prayers for the propitious New Year are made. In Myanmar, the former Burma, the New Year festival of Thingyan drenches the entire country, every building and dwelling, and all of its inhabitants in cleansing water. All images of the Buddha, indoors and out, are scrubbed clean as a crucial display of blessing.

By obvious extension, this New Year’s urge to purge includes our home environments, where the most intimate and ordinary prayers of daily life are uttered. If a man's home is his castle, surely it is a woman's shrine. Cleaning house to make ready for a new year is a universal task, symbolic and reverent as it is practical. Out with the old and in with the new! Death to dirt! Removing the dust and detritus accumulated during the previous year ensures the ridding of a dwelling and its occupants of the shortcomings and disappointments delivered during that time as well. Domestic renovation signifies spiritual and social renewal.

All over the world, houses are scrubbed spic and span from top to bottom and yards and walkways are swept spotlessly clean. In old England, New Year's Day was the annual sweeping of all chimneys. The expression "to make a clean sweep" comes from this New Year’s custom. In Hong Kong, ten days before the New Year, women observe a Day for Sweeping Floors. At this time, an intensive house cleaning is begun in readiness for the New Year. Nothing, no corner, is left untouched. On New Year’s Day Moroccans pour water over themselves, their animals, the floors and walls of their homes. In Wales, children go door to door to beg water from their neighbors which they then scatter all over the houses of their community in order to bless them.

Some peoples, like the Incas, like the Creeks, discarded everything, EVERYTHING, used in the past year. In a grand operatic gesture, Italians throw all the household belongings, which they no longer want out of their windows on New Year's Eve. Everything from used bars of soap to broken sofas is dispatched in this abandon; and every year there are many injuries to hapless revelers on the streets below. In a more tame tradition, symbolic of the same spirit, the Mayans replace all of their domestic articles of everyday use.

In many Native American cultures, in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, hearth fires are extinguished annually and ritually rekindled in a New Year ritual of new fire. In this way, sins and devils are purged in purification ceremonies symbolizing spiritual renewal. Zuni women throw out their live embers, and then sprinkle their entire homes with corn meal in a rite called House Cleansing in order to ensure good fortune in child birth in the coming year. During the Iranian New Year celebration of Narooz, wild rue is burned in households because it is believed to drive away all evil and usher in a happy and propitious new year.

Santería, which combines elements of the West African Yoruban religion with those of the Catholic Church and the traditions of the indigenous tribes of the Caribbean, has many methods of spiritual house cleaning. Ordinarily one cleans one's own home, altar, and aura with a wide variety of special washes, herbs, and candles. But in serious cases of impurity, a padrina/padrino will make a house call to perform a special purification ceremony. S/he most often will spit rum in a fine spray around the room, or roll a burning coconut along the floor while praying, to rid the place of bad energy.

So, darling, get out the brooms and the buckets, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Scrub the grime out of your environment and your mentality. The act of cleaning will help you to feel like you are back in control of your life, and an orderly, cheerful house will definitely improve your mood. Light some incense and some candles and invite in some fresh, new energy.

Happy New Year to you.

xxMama Donna

                        "If the doors of perception were cleansed

               everything would appear as it is, infinite."

- William Blake

*Are you cyclically confused? In a ceremonial quandary? Completely clueless? Wonder no more. Send your questions about seasons, cycles, and celebrations to Mama Donna at cityshaman@aol.com.

Call of the Witches - Book Review by Dawn "Belladonna" Thomas

Call of the Witches by Laura Stamps

ISBN: 978-0-9797413-5-4

Book Review by Dawn “Belladonna” Thomas

I was excited when I went to the mailbox and saw a package from Laura Stamps. I was not disappointed. I turned to the first page and that was it. I could not put the book down. In this book Ms. Stamps brings back the “Witches of Dixie” characters from her first two books. The main character is Maylene. When we first met Maylene she felt as if she was disappearing. She returned at the end of the second book and rents a house on the same street as Savannah and Noelle.

We see a peak of Mirabella and Ravena from the first two books which is a nice way to round out the series.

The emotions in this book run deeper than the two previous books. The word that best described it is erotic.

Ms Stamps writes in a very comfortable way that makes me feel as if I know the characters. And it makes me sad when I get to the last line because I know that I will miss reading about their lives.

Found Goddess: The Computer Goddesses - Part 7 by Barbara Ardinger, PhD.

Note. The term Found Goddess was created by Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope for their wonderful book, Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera (New Victoria Publishers, 1980). I started Finding goddesses—Nerdix, Compuquia, Hostilia, and Whizziwig—when I was working on a Y2K project for a major corporation. I Found the other goddesses described here when I was writing a book on the subject, Finding New Goddesses (ECW Press, 2003). The newest goddesses are Fubar-Ma and Linker Bell, who have just now appeared. Well, maybe they’ve been standing around and/or hovering; I just got them down on paper.

Blandonia

(bland-ON-ya)

Goddess of Political Correctness

            Blandonia is the only Goddess I know Who can take advantage of the Beings With Disabilities Act. First, Her vision is profoundly skewed. She can see only in black and white. She sees no shades of gray, no colors at all, and probably has tunnel vision. Second, although Her heart is often in the right place, it is sometimes a bleeding heart. And, third, Her funny bone (humerus) is broken. There is nothing humorous about Her. Her sense of humor totally atrophied. This is a Highly Serious Goddess.

            We cannot fault Her for trying, however. She’s got the right idea, that we should not insult or defame other people. She just doesn’t know what to call anyone, and so She hyphenates everybody: African-American, Chinese-American, English-American, German-American, Native-American. . . .[1]  And although men are forever boys, women are never girls. Short people are vertically-challenged, thin people are calorically-challenged, fat people are sveltely-challenged. People who can’t dance are Astairily-challenged, people who think they can’t drum are Richly-challenged, people who don’t like to read are bookwormily-challenged, people who don’t like vegetables are broccoli-challenged. Blandonia even corrects our job titles. Bus drivers are Large-Transportation-Multi-Passenger-Vehicle Motorpeople. Fairy Goodmothers are Ethereal-Material-Wish-Fulfillment-Manifestory Agents. Writers are Conceptual-Semantical-Syntactical-Manipulatative Scribalists.

            How did poor Blandonia become so vilely afflicted? One story has it that when She was young and innocent She was attacked by a liberal parasite. If true, this might account for Her occasional knee-jerk and the bleeding heart.

I believe, however, that She suffered a schoolyard injury. After a hard day’s study of the Saga of Dick and Jane, She and Her little friends were preparing to walk home when they were stopped at the gate by a militant Political Theological Animosity (PTA) Ogre. This villainous Being laid a serious curse on poor Blandonia, the result of which was that ever since She has refused to eat anything but Spam sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise, canned string beans, and generic vanilla ice cream. Receiving no nourishment, Her humorous atrophied. The dishumor soon spread throughout Her body, and She was never seen to have any fun again.

To this day, in fact, She has never tasted parody or irony. She tried nibbling at a pun once, but spat it out immediately, and the only limerick She ever tried made Her sick to her stomach. The one time She was persuaded to suck upon a fresh, sweet double-entendre, the taste left Her dyspeptic for forty days and forty nights. Poor Blandonia has never been able to digest any kind of Comic Relief.

            I am, alas, unable to provide an invocation to Blandonia. She just wouldn’t get it.

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.

From the Mysts of Time by Claire Hamilton - Review by Dawn "Belladonna" Thomas

I received this CD in the mail and immediately popped it in my computer. The music is haunting and beautiful. When Ms. Hamilton plays the harp you are drawn into the music and everything else stands still. The music makes me feel as if I am in a different time and the stories are so interesting. I look forward to listening to more of Ms. Hamilton’s music.

Goddess Healing CD Set by Mary Marzo: Review by Dawn "Belladonna" Thomas

Goddess Healing CD Set (3 CD Set) by Mary Marzo

Review by Dawn “Belladonna” Thomas

I have had the Goddess Relaxation and Meditation CD for a many years. Recently my local women’s group wanted to do a group meditation to connect to the Goddess. I suggested this CD and noticed on the back of the CD a website. When I visited the website I was happily surprised to see that Mary Marzo had additional CDs available. If you haven’t listened to any of these CDs you really should. Mary has the most soothing and relaxing voice.

This boxed set has three CDs: Goddess Relaxation and Meditation, Goddess Blessings, and Goddess and Child.

The Goddess Relaxation and Meditation was my first step in the world of meditation many years ago. I first purchased this as a cassette tape and actually wore it out from listening to it so often. There is quite a bit of breathing work on this CD. There are three tracks on this CD. The first is guided meditation for deep relaxation and healing. The second track is a grounding meditation. This is one of the best grounding meditations I have ever done. I really felt grounded once this meditation was over. The third track guides you to your inner sanctuary and helps you to connect to your “Wise Woman.”

There are two CDs in the Goddess Blessings CD. The first meditation on is an inner teacher meditation. This is followed by the chakra and golden light meditation. This one has become my favorite and I have listened to it almost every day. Following the chakra meditation are a few shorter (but not less important) meditations: Light of Protection, Gratitude, Intentions, Affirmations. The last two tracks include The Charge of the Goddess and Her Amazing Grace. Both of these are very powerful. I recently had surgery and spent that morning listening to the Goddess Blessings CD. By listening to this CD I was in a very relaxed state and not nervous about the surgery.

The second disc in the Goddess Blessing CD has Goddess mantra chants. They are truly beautiful and the listener can chant along or use as background music. At a local women’s gathering we used the Sri Yantra chant. It was so lovely and we became in tune with each other.

The Goddess and Child CD has three guided meditations. The first one is Healing the Inner Child. This is a great guided meditation. The second is MA Chant and it is very relaxing. I felt connected with others just listening to it. The last is Coming Home – Creating a Safe Place. In this meditation you are creating a sacred place that is safe and healing. You are joined by your spirit guide or any other protectors that are special to you.

For more information on Mary Marzo and her CDs, please visit her website: www.goddesshealing.com

I Missed the Sun by Sue Westwind

          Back before age forty became the new thirty, I hovered at its edge hoping to have a child. Often I’d meet a first-time, 40-year-old mother who assured me her pregnancy was a piece o’ cake. We were not crones yet; we were “queens.” Not to worry: procreate on.

          Why was I so sure my first would be a boy? Why did I even want a boy? I’d been a feminist since the Second Wave began: I should affirm girls by intentions to birth a girl. And I would—after the boy was about three. I had this all figured out.

Yet during the “trying” stage, this thing about the son became an obsession. Was it precognition?  Did I desire to see my husband reflected back to us, a bit too taken with my responsibility to provide immortality?  Was some buried, patriarchal nonsense about the higher value of males flooding my psyche? Or did I secretly believe I could raise an enlightened male? Mostly I pushed the tiresome questions aside and longed for he whose middle name would be Mabon: the One Who Will Come.

          I often wonder if an answer would have materialized had I not lost four fetuses in a row. Miscarriage. Yes, I missed carrying. And the first time happened shortly after winter solstice, two weeks into the New Year.  As each day squeezed in a few more minutes of light, my darkness grew deeper. There were no new beginnings in this house.

Spring was a joke, as I kept losing babies--and friends. Few could sustain contact with such repeated grief. Or was it me, isolating myself? A person didn’t (read: shouldn’t) talk about miscarriage. When they did, the reassurances were glowing. Everyone knew someone who’d lost a pregnancy, begun the adoption procedure and then, happily, re-conceived and carried to term. But through each subsequent death, I quickly gave up thoughts of a son, let alone felt the sun. A hope tinged with desperation battled an ever-sharper dread, carving up the days of waiting, waiting. Just give me a baby, Goddess!

The body mystic

          Now sixteen years after that first loss, I’m struck by the multiples of four. Four miscarriages; age forty-four when I finally became a mother, four of us in the family now. Four: the number of stability, foundation. Maybe I really do have a strong enough base now to look back—and move on.

After navigating the adoption maze, once serendipitously through friends, the other time arduously in a foreign country, I held first one infant then another in my arms. Both were mine and my husband’s to raise. Girls! Quickly it faded that I’d ever focused on the son.

Our road to parenting is fast eclipsed by the immediacy of a child’s development. Gratefully forgotten is the fight for what others appear so easily to pop out of their uteruses. You forget that these engaging, imported little people aren’t your “own blood.”  My wish was to grow through immersing in the maternal experience, not to extend my family line. And I still hold to all that.

          There’s just one thing.

          When the girls were small I read about an adoptive mother who was overcome, a decade after the fact, by the deep grief of missing out on a biological child. Ha! I scorned. That will never be me. My girls are the Two Who Were Destined to Come. I knew that as much as I knew my own name. The girls and my destiny were linked. So what if they couldn’t make it into a body that looked like me?

          Trouble is, the girls are growing into a body I recognize, having once been there. As ‘tweeners, they are sprouting the Mother’s signs of puberty.

So this is why the delayed grief appears!

          It wasn’t mourning the son. It was aching regret to have missed the exploding super-nova of Now, an initiation into the body mystic: giving birth. Plus the many sunny days of breastfeeding in the light of bonding and health. For a woman who’s not been there and was so willing to go—and for a Goddess woman--the uneasy sense of missing one of the major women’s mysteries has cropped up in me as my girls develop bodies that could someday do what I could not.

Again, I am plagued by questions.

A priestess under par?

          And I hesitate to spill them here, not wanting to offend another “infertile,” adoptive mother. We are so often overlooked, pitied, marginalized for not having had the birth experience. Our children too reap sadness for being “torn” from their “natural” mother’s womb and put up for adoption, for not getting to eat first and fully from the generous nipple. A part of me feels like a traitor for what I’m about to say. But I’m willing to wager its common, if suffered in silence, ground.

          Even in my women’s spirituality group I’ve rarely spoken of this. The silence that follows is hard on us all. I know these sisters care about me. But what can they reply? Instead I wear an observer’s smile during their passionate discussions about Lamaze and midwifery—supportive, but on that cellular level where they share a bond, clueless.

          Yet here is the central question that remains, after twenty-plus years as a participant and priestess of the Earth. How can I represent the Divine Mother if I’ve missed out on this essential blood-mystery, the act of giving birth?

Of course the question is not rational! Furthermore, it’s hardly fair.

          Because I would never call into question the qualifications of a priestess who chose not to bear children. I would never refuse sacred rites or counsel, let alone maternal energy, from anyone, male or female, who chose to incarnate the Mother. So I go deeper, trying to translate what this seemingly “hard on myself” message is really about.

Luckily, this murky work unfolds without affecting how I feel about my daughters. They are my daughters. They were the spirits who would have come through had this womb been working, period. We are family, and I have no regrets about that.

Gifts from outside the gate

          I knocked at the door of the Mother’s temple, prepared myself to enter her most secret and divine passage, and was turned away. While I rationally acknowledge the (still unknown) medical reason I couldn’t hold onto a pregnancy while other 40-somethings come through with flying colors, the disappointment stuns like any great loss.

Sadly, the fallout is to feel left out of a key sisterhood. I wasn’t welcomed into a circle of mothers the way baby showers prepare the way for most. Support groups served those with primary infertility problems, not miscarriage, or stillbirth experiences far more heart-breaking than what I’d been through. Even now, there is a look that steals over people’s faces when they find out my kids are adopted. So this is it—purely culturally induced? Nothing more than a sense of being locked out of the clubhouse?

Perhaps. Because although the Mother didn’t share Her most integral, body-spirit mystery, I still feel Her embrace. Did She really exclude me, or point out another path? Steer me here to transform my loss of the sun into deeper appreciation of my world? To be a more mindful guide for my girls’ next stage of female life? Maybe I had to revisit all this so that they can forge ahead without mom’s unspoken, unnamed reticence and dread.

At the core, the obstacle is shame: whether from my culture or from my body failing me, it matters not. This shame is as ancient as the word “barren,” carrying so much baggage beyond a contemporary construct meant to keep women barefoot and pregnant. But I’m calling shame for what it is: useless. And what a fitting season for some full-scale banishing work.

The Hag knows best

The winter solstice is my new year. I love dreaming to the depths in this dark time preceding the birth of the sun. In the pause between Samhain and Yule we can learn from the shadow the Hag shows best, knowing the holy infant sun grows ready to turn back the night.

Just so, parenting pre-teens in my mid-fifties, already post-menopausal, plenty of gray hair and bones that need tending…a woman who waits as long as I did for children will live this combo of Mother and Crone. Today as November freezes its She, the Winter Hag, who midwives insight I hope to nurture into wisdom’s rays. Its She who spurs release of that pointless shame, She who assures that daughters will do just fine raised by one who blends both crone and queen. One whose womb never got to hold them, but whose heart embraced them on the day we met.

So this new year will represent an overdue welcome into the circle of mothers: fully present at the sacred changes of her daughters’ body-selves, an honorary initiate of the nine-month journey, one who’s stopped looking over her shoulder for someone to yell, “Fraud!”  After the solstice, how fitting:  I turn to preparations for my daughters’ birthdays, both celebrated in early winter. Maybe as the light gains in January, reminding me of how I once missed the sun’s son, I’ll finally release four souls carried in mind all these years. I can see them now: wraiths spinning among the leafless oaks, free at last.

Sue Westwind lives and writes in rural northeast Kansas. Read her blog at www.thenutrientpath.wordpress.com

Let Go, Let Spirit by Angie Skelhorn

We have all envisioned what our lives would be like. For some of us things didn't exactly work out. The child in us faded while the duties of life took over.

You never snagged your dream job or met that person who would love and understand you.

Today you find yourself under more pressure than ever in an edgy and unpredictable world. Meddling family at home and co-workers make your workplace difficult. We expose ourselves to bias, unfairness and injustice every second of every day we are alive. Removal, change and upsets can't be avoided. Unhappiness, mood swings and self doubt have been allowed to go on far too long. Life sucks and you don't know what to do to change this.

Instead of living in the past, try looking forward and seek a solution to problems. What's done is done. Looking back with regret, remorse and feelings of dissatisfaction about the way your life turned out will solve nothing. We can't erase our actions. Wishing won't change the 'what if's' and 'only I had'. We have all had our share of hurts. We are all fools on this planet. We advance, fall down, advance, fall again, advance, but each time we stopped, picked up the pieces to start again the experience made us a stronger person within ourselves.

I, like most people, did not like the direction my life had taken. I needed to get myself back on track. I decided for myself that my life had become unmanageable, that I could do more as a person than create chaos toward myself and those who care for me. I discovered the path of Let Go, Let Spirit.

The belief is centered on the communication with Spirit to achieve a desired effect: An intervention to transform the extreme to do the right thing.

Letting Go on the human level is to accept and release that which cannot be changed.

Acceptance is achieved when one sees people and situations for the way they truly are and not the way we wish them to be.

One accepts that they can't change anyone but themselves. You and you alone, are accountable for mistakes made and only you can make them right. Blaming others for the way your life is turning out is futile. Not until you care, not until you want to live your life, will you respect your life.

Present reality must match with personal plans. Take responsibility for what you want and need from your life. If not, you will only return to the familiar and find solace in what is firm and secure strife and destructive patterns.

To attract good and balance the negative, fashion your life around love, loyalty, trust, integrity and truth. We all want to be loved and appreciated. Pick and choose who you want to be and who will be in your personal space. Keep your wants simple and your needs basic.

On the spiritual level, Let Spirit means surrender to change while requesting and accepting support. When you talk to Spirit you are open to a new state of awareness to arrive at an answer. You will recognize immediately happening that catch your attention, strange coincidences that occur to point you in a positive direction. The synchronicities allow you to become aware of the answers that may appear in many forms.

Every day I confide in and seek tolerance from Spirit, so I can express myself in a positive manner which will manifest through right and proper action despite external pressures that oppose. I invite my ancestors in spirit form, a few words to express the desire to connect with unseen energies to be part of my every day duties as I do my best to do the right thing.

To live Let Go, Live Spirit, one foot will be in reality, the other in the spiritual. You will find that you will become determined to make things right in your life.

Talk to Spirit. Live Spirit, watch and listen. What is needed will be given. One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself is, instead of searching for personal gratification, be more invested on the good of all. Contribute to the well-being of the whole.

Not easily done! When learning life's lessons things don't always go smoothly, but if you try there is an opportunity to learn the lesson your soul must experience to shine.

If you come to the point where life is an all-consuming struggle, focus on the good. Your old values will slowly fade away. I know so much stands in your way with no money and few supporting friends. When you Let Go, Let Spirit, you will begin to make better decisions and risks for a better, secure future. The people who will matter you will recognize by their positive words and deeds. They will clearly mirror yours.

With much personal effort your hopes can be realized after initial setbacks and uncertainties. You can't expect complete recovery right away, but you can take satisfaction in knowing that if you try then you have taken your very first baby step of many more to come toward a content life, unique, like you.

Mama Donna's Spirit Shop

Meditation For Guidance By Angie Skelhorn

The High Priestess represents having faith in the power of one's own intuition and inner-knowledge to gain wisdom. Mediate, listen to the High Priestess to aid in beneficial change. Invoke her to guide you on your path to remove resistance to your destiny. The High Priestess has a lot of hidden knowledge in the scroll she holds in her right hand. The information is not for all to see, it is information found within an individual's heart to further growth.

I laid on my back and closed my eyes. I listened to the rain fall outside and cleared my mind from the endless chatter. I attempted to control my lower self and close my material thoughts of wants and desires to listen to the voice within. To hear the sound of my true self. I laid on my back with eyes closed, arms and legs shoulder-width apart.

The image of the High Priestess, a woman who wore a long elegant, light blue robe, sitting on a stone slab appeared. She held in her right hand a scroll. I concentrated on the High Priestess who had formulated. I felt the air come into my lungs with each inhale and leave with every exhale. I began to tingle from my shoulders, down both arms and into each hand, and filled my fingertips.

The sensation went through my body. The energy filled my stomach and traveled down each leg, right to the end of my toes. I was in a state of relaxation. I continued to breathe comfortably and listened. I became transfixed by the High Priestess' eyes, then I heard a voice speak. I heard a voice say, "Know yourself well enough to understand your own short comings. Honestly assess weakness. Explore. Moral bravado-generous, ego gratification -deception. Knowledge is an important part of wisdom. Real wisdom is the knowledge of a higher power, to know personal strengths and weaknesses, a partnership of wills. There's nothing that can't be endured. Something greater than self is always at work. Bless it to the whole on this planet. Exercise love, charity and forbearance toward all. Do not use knowledge for selfish advantage. Be of service to all mankind."

The image of the High Priestess gently faded from my mind. My body returned to normal.

The bright light from the sun broke through the dark clouds. The golden light filtered down from the heavens as the rain stopped. I rushed to the window. Nothing smells better than the end of a summer shower. The feeling is like the Goddess and God had cleansed the earth and brought forth freshness. I was delighted to spot a rainbow. I knew I was blessed with love.

Moon Schedule from Yule to Imbolc By Dawn “Belladonna” Thomas

(Times are Eastern Time)

New Moon – December 27^th 7:22 a.m.

2^nd Quarter – January 4^th 6:56 a.m.

Full Moon – January 10^th 10:27 p.m.

4^th Quarter – January 17^th 9:46 p.m.

New Moon – January 26^th 2:55 a.m.

2^nd Quarter – February 6:13 p.m.

Moon Void of Course Schedule

                            Date                                                  Starts                                             Ends

Planting Days

January 10^th, 11^th, 18^th, 19^th, 20^th, 23^rd, 24^th, 25^th, 28^th, 29^th

Harvesting Days

December 24^th, 25^th, 26^th

January 12^th, 13^th, 21^st, 22^nd, 26^th

The Law of Return By Angie Skelhorn

I am a witch. Recently I was asked what does a witch practitioner do? There is no single approach to witchcraft. I can't speak for anyone but myself.

The Law of Return is my main guide in my practice. This means whatever mental, physical, emotional or spiritual energy I send outward will return threefold.

The universe has unique energies which are sensitive to frequencies or vibrations of every other energies. Energy consists of different density of very fine matter that twirls, changes, expands, and contracts outward at different speeds. Energies radiate in a sequence that vibrate frequencies.

Earth is held together by the invisible web of energy. Human energies are connected to all other energies. As a witch I embrace the theory that one energy affects every energy and every energy affects one energy because everything is connected to every thing else.

The planets all have an important role in our lives. Their energies can be consulted for predictions, guidance, and purpose. The planets can be calculated at the exact date, place, and time of birth, which will reveal what type of person one is; their temperament, inner characteristics, skills, aptitudes, and interest. The planet's energies hold the secret to youthful talents which, if cultivated, could lead one to purpose and contentment. I bought a day-by-day astrological guide written by Sydney Omarr. The book was a basic guide to Astrology. I taught myself from the facts and figures how to erect my birth chart. From there I mapped successful birth charts for others.

The moon energies help me achieve short term goals:

The new moon, time to begin something new;

Crescent moon, action must be taken, a building time.

First quarter, an impulsive time.

Full moon, tensions erupt or are released.

Disseminating moon, communicate ideas.

Last quarter, new moon goal almost completed.

Balsamic moon, new moon goal is completed - a time to relax.

The circle of the four seasons proves that everything has no beginning or end, and that everything comes back to the start and keeps going. Life continually brings one back to where one began, only changed a little.

Nature is a manifestation of energy that is a continuous phenomenon; a circle flow of endings, re-birth, cause, effect, transformation, giving, receiving, becoming, ceasing and re-becoming.

The foundation of magic is formed from the four elements, earth, the physical-solid energy; air, the mind-gaseous energy; fire, the spirit-electrical energy, and water, emotions-liquid energy. Earth, air, fire, and water elements are connected to sustain life. The elements, earth, the pentacle; air, the sword; fire, the wand and water, the cup, can be linked together to build up energy.

Magic is the process of change to occur by directing energy to a desired need or goal, not by manipulating the natural flow of elements, earth, air, fire and water, but by grouping compatible energies to aid in the request.

I am a manifestation of the four elements. My physical body houses earth, air, fire and water. Without them I would not be a total expression of my body, mind, spirit, and emotions.

By combining the element tools, all the energies are given to achieve personal equilibrium.

I personally apply Tarot and ordinary playing cards to focus my attention to tap into Spirit information more quickly. I found Spirit Guide will grant a great amount of strength, support, and guidance, if asked.

Over the past ten years I have gained knowledge to manage my life through the energies of the planets, the rhythm of the moon, the changing seasons, the positive and negative energies of the four elements: everything has an impact on everything while guided by Spirit.

As a witch, I know that I possess the magical energies of the vast universe. I have the power to create, enchant, protect, initiate, nurture, teach, and heal in a positive manner.

My intent must be for the good of all, for my energy, positive or negative, affects others, which in turn, affects all.

The Spirit of the Season by Sapphire

A thread that runs through most celebrations this time of year is that of the giving of gifts.  Sometimes this causes stress to us and we are hard placed to pinpoint the reason.  We spend hours crafting or searching for the perfect gift.  We visit friends and relatives and (sometimes) leave feeling drained even if the visit was a happy one.  Holiday crowds make some panicky and the rush towards the “Big Perfect Family Celebration” leads normally sane and sensible people into a paroxysm of competition.

This becomes much clearer if you consider that time and money are representations of our own personal energy.  The time that you spend making that present or shopping for someone is time that you are giving to them.  The money that you spend is money that you earned through your work (your energy).  Every act of giving takes a little drink from your well of energy.   Too many drinks, and you are left thirsty!

There is a Norse rune, Gebo, which is the shape of an X.  When you give of your energy, you are forming one cross of that X.  In order to complete the cycle and to keep yourself healthy physically and mentally, you must allow the other cross to be drawn.  You must learn to accept energy when it is offered.   If you give, you must receive. Gebo symbolizes the contract of giving and receiving.  Not surprisingly, it is the rune used in treaties, contracts, and marriages!   If you do not allow this reciprocity, you will feel off-balance.  Giving more than you receive puts others in debt to you from an energy standpoint.  It may not be reflected right away, but it can lead to feelings of being taken advantage of; of exhaustion; or even anger with those you have directed your energy towards.  The flip side is receiving more than you give.  People don’t tend to do this purposely.  (Though some do and those types are a discussion all their own!)  If people repeatedly upset the balance in your favor, you may feel resentful.  You may also feel nervous and excitable because you have had so much of that metaphorical water poured over you that you have had more than you can possibly drink!  (Think children on Christmas morning and you’ve got a pretty good illustration of that.) 

You need not receive from the same person you gave energy to.  If you have family, friends, volunteer work, or a religious group that you celebrate with, it can all pour the energy back into your soul and allow you to feel revitalized.  If you find yourself feeling that you are out of balance, decide what side of the scale needs a little more and place a little emphasis there.  Need to give?  Consider volunteer work that puts you in physical contact with others, such as reading to the elderly at a nursing home or taking children on a walk through the woods.  Need to receive?  Guess what.  The answer is the same.  If you give of yourself, the energy is returned to the point where your heart, and your well, is full once again.

A pledge to allow yourself to be loved as much as you love is the true underlying spirit of this season.  That you will allow others to replenish your well.  That you will accept the energy and invigoration of love when it is offered.  That you will return that love in full measure.  As the Light is reborn, it is a time for new birth and a time for your self to be reborn in the light of love. 

Sapphire

(aka Karen Thoms)

High Priestess, The Order of Avalon

Co-chair and Co-director of HLC Witches and

The Great Lakes Regional Open Circle

sapphire49221@gmail.com

Touchable Love: Book Review by Dawn "Belladonna" Thomas

by Becky Due

ISBN: 978-0-9746212-2-7

Book Review by Dawn “Belladonna” Thomas

This was the first book by Ms. Due that I have read. I must say that once I started it I couldn’t put it down. There are several different love stories that take place in this book.  But I believe the most important message in this book is self-esteem.  The main character Christy has self esteem issues and has never known love. She meets two men that will change her life forever. I highly recommend this book to all women. The stories of love and self worth are important and should be shared. I look forward to reading Ms. Due’s other books. This book is available at http://www.becky-due.com/Becky-Dues-Books.html.

I was surprised to read that the author had a similar path in life as the main character in the book. I applaud Ms. Due for her work in improving her life and the lives of others. On a personal note, Ms. Due started the first national women’s telephone group called “Women Going Forward.”

Trinity by Maha Vajra

Winter Solstice Thoughts

For most this is the time of year when the weather turns cold and the thought of starting a fire in the fireplace brings thoughts of warmth and comfort. But for me in Florida it is anything but cold. As I sit here today the temperature is flirting with 80 degrees.

This is the time of year when I find myself turning within. I don't know if it has to be that my birthday falls in December or it if is related to the growing darkness in the year. I find that it is a good time to evaluate what I have accomplished during the year and what I would have liked to finish. I spend time reviewing all that I am grateful for having in my life. Even the things which have been hard has made me grow stronger. I continue to ask the Goddess for guidance.

May the Goddess walk beside you as we watch the wheel of the year make another turn.

Blessings of the season,

Dawn "Belladonna"