Mandala Meditation

On the blog, Sunshine Breeze, the theme this month is mandalas. I’ve been loving these entries. Coloring mandalas has been a meditative activity that I have practiced off an on for the past six years. In fact, there was a time in 2007 when all of my friends were gifted with mandalas by me.

Once I filled up the original coloring book, I searched for a new one. Last year, I finally found it.

I began to color mandalas again last year when I had downtime, like when I was out doing my laundry. It gave me a way to focus and the pass the time in a way that made the ordinary more magical. During one of my laundromat coloring sessions a woman was intrigued and delighted by the mandalas. I offered her the chance to rip a few out of the book, but she declined.

Last week I colored a new mandala, my first in our new home.

This is the dharma wheel. As part of my eclectic spiritual past and present I have practiced Buddhist meditation and continue to do so.

Connecting to a New Place

In my previous post I talked about the effects of moving after making an energetic connection to a previous home. Now, let me discuss what I’ve been doing to gradually make a connection to this new place. Since I live in an urban area currently, my approach is different.

First, I have decided to seek out the cultural energy of this new city. To that end, I have attended an art opening, festivals at a comic book shop, and went out to see some live metal. The main attraction to a large urban center is the people and the subcultures that are created.

Secondly, I have sought to slowly transform my new apartment into a sanctuary for my husband and myself. His new job is very stressful, and we both need a center away from the very busy world around us.

I bought a locally grown, organic mint plant to become replacing the plants that died in our move. In addition, I planted some oat grass seeds for my cats to enjoy.

So far this approach is working. I love living in the city, but I definitely see that it is changing my spiritual practices.

Moving and Losing Connections

When my husband and I moved I was happy to finally be going back to a large, urban environment, but I felt immediately blank inside at our new apartment. Gone were the familiar trees outside our window, no longer could I drive a few minutes and go hiking, or explore the lake. Now that we were over a hundred miles away from the environment that I had worked so hard to connect to, things felt off. The feeling crept in, and got worse in the background of my mind.

My nature based spiritual practice had a profound impact on dealing with PTSD and chronic illness. Hiking, communing with trees, and watching wild nature was the only thing to get me through the tortures going on inside of me. In fact, I even brought nature inside, growing herbs and a small tree. During our move all of the plants died. The shock of being out in the cold and the interior environment of our new apartment worked together to kill the vibrant green life that had meant so much to me.

As harsh, and sorrowful as all of this sounds, I made it through the transition to this new apartment. Despite losing my connections, the foundation of strength that my previous practices gave me held up. While I did grieve the loss of seeing friends and hiking, I turned to other things to see me through. As I acclimated to our new setting, I played video games, read comic books, and kept myself distracted until I could adjust. In addition, I found a group to continue Buddhist meditation with, and that helped tremendously.

Now, a few months later I am back on track with my spiritual progress and discovering how I can integrate with the natural world available here. I will write more about that soon.

 

What a Whirlwind!

I have to apologize for my long absence; let me tell you what happened. My husband completed his degree in mid-December and we moved several hundred miles for him to start a new job, although starting the job took some time because they changed his start date several times!

• December: We prepared to move and moved by ourselves. My husband and I did almost everything. We did have two friends who were able to get away for two hours and help. Our move took up most of December, as we slowly moved things in our car hundreds of miles.
• January: During the last half of December and all of January we had no income, which meant no internet. We set up our new apartment.
• February: This was a month of struggle recovering financially from the move (which we have yet to do). We finally got internet, but my laptop’s graphic card burned out. That meant we had to get out our old computer for my job. (I work from  home in education).
• March: My chronic illness flared up and I spent much of March out of commission.
• April: I had the opportunity to work extra at my job and spent most of my time doing that.

Whew! Well, I can finally say that I’m in the head space for blogging and have this computer set up the way that I want. It’s been an unlucky and lucky few months. I’ll be sharing some events with you and getting back to this blog. Hurrah!

Yuletide Greetings!

Thank you so much to everyone who is participating in the Yule Blogging Festival!

I’m deep into a move that’s taking me several hundred miles away after my husband finishes school this Friday! He’s graduating with a B.S. Meanwhile, my teaching jobs geared up into overtime right after Thanksgiving.

Whew!

So far, my Yule plans are kind of sad! However, we’ll see what happens…

This my tiny Yule altar.

I’ve also been busy making magic to try to help my husband get a job and stop nightmares. The nightmare work helped them stop, and I’ll post more on that later.

 

Yuletide Blog Festival

It’s up  and ready! Posts start December 5th or 6th, depending on which track you choose.

http://wyrdanglosaxonpriestess.wordpress.com/yuletide-blog-festival/

Pagan Yule Project

Inspired by a post at the Pagan Blog Project, I have decided to create a winter blogging celebration for Pagans, Heathens, Druids and others on  similar paths. This will take place throughout December.

Stay tuned for more! I’ll be working on this tonight and hope to have some more information up soon!

Yay!!

Good Health Candle

These past few weeks have been incredibly busy. I’ve still been posting since I love blogging and I’ve still been visiting other blogs, but I haven’t had the time or energy to comment. I teach at a special-education high school part-time and I teach online in the evening, so I’m exhausted!

Just in time to ward off any winter ills, I hope, came this candle that I purchased through the Facebook page of the store Candle and Cauldron.

I learned about the store from A Heathen’s Path. While I live quite far from the store’s location, I like to buy things from “real people” whenever I can. Earlier this year my local magical shop closed its doors, and I was sad to see it go. So, since then I’ve purchased more things online. In some cases, I can visit my natural grocery story for bulk herbs and natural candles, but there isn’t anything like the above candle available nearby.

So, let’s talk about this candle! It has an amazing scent and a lovely blue shade. Normally, I work with black and white candles, and I have a very darkly decorated home, so this really stands out!

I chose the Good Health candle because I realized that as much as I’ve worked on my health through very necessary surgeries to veganism to growing medicinal herbs, I have yet to do any type of candle burning for my health. This is a Reiki candle, which I also find interesting. I have several friends that practice Reiki and have felt its affects on myself. So, when this arrived I did a small, spontaneous ritual of prayer and then lit this little lovely up.

Thank you Candle and Cauldron for adding a little magic to my life!

Candle and Cauldron Links:

Main Page: http://www.facebook.com/CandleandCauldron

Info Page: http://www.facebook.com/CandleandCauldron/info

Willow Witch Child

This week the Pagan Blog Project focuses on the letter W.

So, let’s talk about Willows, my favorite tree. Throughout my childhood we moved quite a bit. There were a couple of years, however, when we lived in one house with a large Willow tree in the backyard. I was six when we first moved in and instantly felt drawn to that tree. I spent most of my time outside and a lot of it under that tree pretending I was a witch.

Now, I’m not sure where this desire to be a witch came from because in the early 1980′s the only witches I had heard of were evil. My concept of a witch was a woman who gathered plants and herbs and had a favorite tree. Where did I learn this? I wish I knew, but it must have come from somewhere.

It was while playing under this Willow tree that I got the idea to scoop up leaves and twigs and place them in the huge metal mailbox that hung on the side of our rental house. This mailbox was off to the side of our front door and to reach it you had to lean over from the front stoop. So, under the mailbox was a good four foot drop off.  My little brother and one of his friends were playing with me. I ran out from the long curtain of gentle Willow leaves and charged toward the front of the house. Jumping up on the stoop, I opened the mailbox and stretched up to the throw the leaves and twigs inside. This was quite a reach for my small body and tragically I slipped with my hand still over the sharp metal edge of the mailbox. I held on for a moment, in searing pain and then fell into the yew bushes beneath me. My hand was shredded. Today, my palm and the underside of my fingers still bear the white scar marks from that experience. One of the scars is shaped like a tiny horned bull skull, white and mysterious.

Did this deter me from the Willow and my love of playing Witch? No. It didn’t. When we moved I continued to search for Willow trees, only feeling at home when I could find one nearby. Over the years I had a habit of always photographing a Willow tree when I had a camera.

Willows offer me a point of connection. I feel a kinship to them that I cannot explain. It’s a recognition. I recognized that tree in the backyard. I knew it.

Now, where I currently live there are very few Willow trees. However, over the last two weeks I’ve had the pleasure of walking under a Willow at one of my jobs.

This tree is off to the side of a short path that connects the two parts of campus I have to walk in between. One each side of the path is a garden arbor with vines growing through it that I have to pass under. It feels like being ushered into a magical realm, where this Willow waits for you. Through the second arbor, which you can see on the right side of the picture, you pass under some of the leaves from the tree. So, I felt the gentle touch of the tree, several times a day.

An Indoor Grove?

Central to my beliefs is the relationship of humans and trees. Really, this is an important strand that you can find in religious systems across pre-Christian Europe and even in Jewish and Christian beliefs.

Currently, I live in an apartment. While, I would love to live in a house someday and plant my own grove or tend one already present, I believe in seizing the moment. It’s wonderful to have dreams, and I want to figure out practical ways to make parts of my dreams manifest in whatever situation I find myself in life.

To that end, I purchased a small tree!

This magical plant altar area is the focal point of my home. It brings me a lot of comfort and companionship while I work online in the evenings.

My living room is very small and aside from this space seen  here, I only have room for a small bookshelf, a chair and a small couch. Thanks to a thrift find, I got a stand for my tree. The tree itself was purchased from a Lowe’s last week and was only $12.50! It’s a Monterrey Cypress.

The Cypress is historically a symbol used in death imagery and often planted in graveyards. Monterrey Cypresses are very long-lived, there are trees from this species that are thousands of years old.

So, for now this will be my indoor “grove”. I need to come up with some kind of Druidic blessing and dedication for my tree. My OBOD materials contain something like that for a grove, but since this is one, small indoor tree I want to come up with something of my own.