Well the bug that Princess Nature shook off for the most part after a day home from school resting has apparently taken up a nice cozy residence in my lungs. I was only able to make i through 5 hours at work as my voice gave out and all the talking for my telemarketing job kept triggering my cough.
In that spirit, this week’s Pagan Video Tuesday is a collection of videos that relate to making herbal remedies for colds and flu.
For this week’s Pagan Video Tuesday I share a collection of videos that touch on the subject of why a person would leave the religion they were raised in and turn instead to a Pagan path.
I personally have not yet had time to view them myself, but I hope you find them enjoyable.
Blessings
Mama Kelly
“Michael Gorman, “The Druid” tells the story of his spiritual journey from Catholic to Fundamentalist to Druid.”
SybilSilverPhoenix “details (her) reasons for coming to the Path of Wicca and some the ups and downs (she’s) had along the way” view part 2
Paganperspective “share(s) … why it is (he) call(s) myself what (he) do(es)”
I have been a bit remiss in my blog posting as well as my blog reading. My laptop is sick and wont be repaired for a couple of weeks. Right now we are waiting for the girls’ computer to get out of the shop and I’ll wait a couple of weeks before putting mine in to save us the sticker shock.
My time on the one remaining computer in the house is limited as I am sharing it with 3 other people and I am generally not able to get on it in the evenings very much and can’t get on it at all in the morning. I do plan to work my way back to your regularly scheduled programming soon though – one way or another.
For this week’s Pagan Video Tuesday I share a piece I found on Hecate’s blog a couple of days ago. While I watched it my heart swelled and my eyes filled with tears. Yes because it was beautiful and moving and touching in so many ways but also because I long so much to be part of a Pagan community again.
I miss having a group of people to grapevine about the circle with.
I miss having people to sit and toast the Gods and Goddesses with.
I miss having no excuses when it came to honoring the Esbats and Sabbats.
I miss not being a Witch alone.
I spent a few moments on Samhain evening listening to the wind rushing through the dying leaves and whispered my wishes to my ancestors. I asked them to pull some strings for me. Desires that revolve around hearth and finances and a home of our own, one day, in the country.
I forgot to ask for this one thing for myself and so I whisper it here in cyberspace and pray that my ancestors don’t mind pulling another string or two that will bring some likeminded folk my way.
I have family.
I have friends.
But, frankly, I’m still feeling a bit lonely.
In any case – may the dance spiral on – may the circle never be broken – may we each find renewal and healing and hope.
OK so this week’s Pagan Video Tuesday post is not only late but not all that Pagan in flavor. But, let me explain. My oldest Miss Artistic starts high school tomorrow. As a result I keep finding myself flashing on that time period in my own life. Who my friends were and what I was “into” and what music I was in love with at the time.
This is particularly nostalgic as she is attending the school (one of a total of three high schools I wound up attending) I graduated from. So as of tomorrow she will be walking halls that I once walked. Now granted, 20+ years later, the school is larger than it once was and I doubt I’ll remember much of the “landmarks” of it when its time for back-to-school night in a couple of weeks, but still I can’t help but feel more deeply connected to this moment in her life than I might otherwise.
Anyway … I thought for this week I’d share some of the top 100 hits if 1983, the year that found me entering my own high school career (albeit at a different school in a different state). And while I never settled on one particular genre of music (and frankly never have) these are the ones off the list that I can most vividly remember singing along to (at that age it would’ve been in home in Staten Island, in the basement, at the top of my lungs).
At her age I was a voracious reader and had already read a number of titles that I can only describe as New Age – thanks to the wonders of Scholastic Books (who are not nearly as progressive I guess as they once were) and had “played around” with seances and the whole “light as a feather” thing more times than I could count. By the end of my 2nd year of high school I was already reading tarot cards and had met the boy who would grow up into the man I would one day marry.
As a woman who remembers that time of her life I know that these next years are the formation of the woman she will become. I know that these next years are where she discovers her own identity, her goals, her dreams, her deepest desires. I am happy for her, more than I can say. While not all of high school was easy for me … while I never really found a clique to belong to (larger than an intimate circle of friends) until my Senior year when I fell into the whole choir/band/drama mix … it sure beat the heck of of Junior High and, especially with the ability to reconnect to friend from that period through Facebook I find I remember it fondly overall.
But, as a parent (especially with all wehave been through) all I can do is look at her and see that my little girl is gone forever, replaced by a beautiful young woman who’s had a really rough time in Junior High, and hope and pray (and plead and beg) that the next 4 years are easier for her than the last 3 were.
I found this video thanks to Hecate. Watch it and really listen to its message.
Decide what you and yours can do to make a change. Because, despite what the song says, we cant afford to waste time waiting on the world to change, one way or another we have to help change it.
And while I believe that hope and prayer and magic all have a role to play in bringing that change into reality. It takes effort and action – tangible real world effort to effect a change of this magnitude.
So ….
write letters to anyone you can in power
reduce reuse repurpose recycle and stop and rethink before you buy that new thing-a-ma-jig
bless the water that goes down your drain, ask it to help heal the planet
plant seeds and make things grow, each with a blessing for the planet
whisper to fish and fur and fowl, let them know you’re on their side
enlist the aid of your guides, your gods, your angels, and your faeries
read blogs like Fake Plastic Fish and think about what changes you are willing to make in your life
talk about it on your blog on facebook on twitter and get other people involved
I had a different video picked for this week’s Pagan Video Tuesday feature. But I stumbled on this preview of a new show set to air on ABC this fall here in the States and wanted to be able to highlight this in a timely fashion. And while I enjoyed the movie upon which it is based, Eastwick looks like it may follow the theme of Witches being associated with Satan.
“In the seaside village of Eastwick, three very different women are about to discover some bewitching talents they never knew they had. And once they get together– watch out. Something wicked is coming their way.”
All I can hope is that they hold true to the spirit of the movie that I enjoyed, that the power these women had came from within themselves, from the union of friendship they shared, and not only allowed them to banish evil from their lives but stayed with them after it had departed.
It will be airing Wednesday, September 23 at 10:00 PM. I plan to tune in, how can I not? Anyone else planning on joining me?
According to Urban Dictionary, the above video is a Saturday Night Live skit written by Robert Smigel which was intended to be a parody of the educational cartoon series “School House Rock.” The stimulus for the video, according to a few sources I read, may have been the firing of Norm McDonald by SNL management.
Its message is focused on the impact of media-opolies going on in the US, the fact that companies such as GE, Westinghouse, Disney have become our country’s media giants. It was aired just once on 3/14/1998 on NBC, cut out of all the reruns, and never aired again. The fact that NBC is owned by GE may or may not be a coincidence.
While I am not, for the most part, a conspiracy theorist, it is certainly food for thought.
While we do have the guaranteed right of freedom of the press here in the US, that only guarantees the right to be free from interference from the government – it does not free our reporters from having to answer to their bosses, and their bosses to “corporate.” Other people choose what news we are allowed to see, that is a plain and simple fact. How much of what we are allowed to see is propaganda as opposed to actual news is up for debate.
Not necessarily Pagan in theme this week, but when you think about how modern Paganism is handled by the media it is certainly, if nothing else, as timely now as it was more than a decade ago.
SPIRT OF WOMONGATHERING 2010, Festival of Womyn's Spirituality, Dates: June 3-6, Location same camp on NY/PA border - Element Spirit; Direction Center; Theme: Mysteries of the Triple Goddess.
I'm going, are you? If you'd like to coordinate meeting up at the event leave a comment or send an email. Bright blessings, Lady Rose
, gives thanks for the Harvest
, one way or another we have to help change it.
, 
