Next Steps With Hekate

Last week, I decided I finally needed to make some things happen with Hekate. We’ve had a rough time sometimes because of our complicated history, but it feels like we’ve worked through things okay. As it stand now, I consider Her an ally and even a friend and Someone I think I’d like to keep knowing even after this current agreement is done.

It’s been hanging over my head, though,  that I promised her way back at Mystic South to make Her a dedicated pendulum.

(This is what I do; after experiences of pendulum hijacking years ago, I am now a very strong believer in dedicated pendulums that accumulate the energy of Whomever you’re talking to with it. That doesn’t make it immune but highly resistant and in my experience always throws off warnings if there’s interference long before it gets to actual hijacking. And it also serves as a nice talisman/simple portable altar for connecting with People I don’t keep regular altar space for and just set up something temporary with now and then.)

It’s been like five months now and I still hadn’t made it, because I couldn’t see it. Usually when Someone wants something, I lay out some supplies and think/talk through some ideas, showing Them my mental images of it, and They agree or change things. Sometimes They already know exactly what They want and just show me an image of the stones, charms, pattern of beads and I go buy supplies and make it happen. But this time I didn’t feel like I was getting clear answers and Her feedback to all my suggestions felt like a meh, sort of but not quite.

Last Friday I pulled out my stuff and spread it out. She’d already been super adamant that She wanted this amethyst point I was given at Mystic South and the antique key I got from Mystic South, and this purple charoite she had me buy for Her years ago—I think back when She first appeared to me, myself, in that glorious short time before I realized it wasn’t the first time I’d met Her since I was a kid and it turned things complicated—and so I started laying those out. I also had a sense of black obsidian and maybe something red and added choices for those. And then I invited Hekate and said: we’re doing this today, we’re getting it right today, I’m making it today, and I’m dedicating it before the end of the weekend.

Maybe that was the kind of certainty She was waiting for from me. Or maybe we’ve talked out enough things in these last few weeks to have arrived a good place for creative stuff, one better than where we were before where we connected better. I don’t know, but it worked out.

I did my dedication Sunday afternoon. The pendulum turned out super cool and feels so Her to me. And She asked me also to dedicate these stones I was given at Mystic South, and this set of witch runes from there as well. They were always to be Hers, but I hadn’t done a ritual for them yet, so they were folded into this one.

It makes me feel hopeful for the future of the relationship that it ended up so much about ways of communicating, because I think that’s often where we’ve struggled before. But I think maybe we’re starting to do better, though, beginning to really understand each other now.

Another Spring Beginning

Hope everyone had a happy Imbolc, etc. if you celebrate! My White Spring rituals went well and I made a bit of a weekend out of it. Last week, I was definitely feeling the stirring of springtime vibes already, and so I’m in agreement with a lot of the predictions around that it’ll be an early spring this year. And when I traveled for my astral rituals, it didn’t seem as cold and wintery still Out There as if does during the holiday sometimes.

It was a lovely, nice ritual with my spirits. The energy seemed a little more chill and lighthearted than some years, like the spring vibes were already rising and the magick was maybe a bit more celebratory of that than focused of helping it wake up. It’s been very frosty or even snowy more years Out There than here this side (since I live in the South), but this year even in astral it was only crisp and clear, but not icy.

The only little thing that was really unique this year was that I used cedar for the evergreen in my wreath of greenery and candles. This is the eighth White Spring I’ve celebrated with the Free Court—which is wild, the first one still feels like yesterday—and for all the other seven, I’ve used Leyland cypress branches because the cedar trees here already had pollen starting to come out by the beginning of February…but those trees I’ve always used before have gotten so large now that the bottom branches within reach have become very thin and died back since ones higher up get all the sunlight. And I’d noticed last year not all the cedar trees in the yard pollinate, at least not now. I’m not sure if it’s one plant vs another (like we have several redbud trees but only half produce seeds) or if it’s different types of cedar, since I know by shapes and growth patterns there’s at least two and I think three growing here.

This tree I have a standing relationship with and have harvested from before for other reasons (to make infused oils, etc.), but it’s only become big enough that I was comfortable asking it for cuttings since a few years ago and especially for as many and as large branches as needed for a White Spring wreath crown. But it’s certainly become large enough now.

So I asked my spirits this year if it would be alright to switch and they answered of course; after all, it was originally cedar they had asked for and any evergreen is fine. And the tree was willing to oblige me as well and I agreed to only clip from the side toward the driveway where a few of the branches have gotten long enough to get smacked by side mirrors while backing out and so were probably going to end up trimmed a little anyway.

It was a small thing, a tiny change, but what I didn’t realize was how much stronger scent cedar has than Leyland cypress. And cedar is a scent I particularly associate with my spirits…for years, sometimes when they turn up there’s this very distinctive lovely scent and cedar isn’t all of it, but it’s the most recognizable part. Like a tree just appeared in the room at the same time they did. So it felt like that helped pull me in and get the mentality right for the ritual this year in a special sort of way.

I also blessed my garden for the coming year, since White Spring is the opening of the garden and garden planning season for me. I have some plants I’ve (hopefully successfully) brought through the winter and things I’m planning to start from seedlings or bulbs or small plants can be begun anytime for about at the next six weeks, but the holiday is always when I start seeds. There’s only one thing I want from seeds this year and that is catnip. It’s been in my garden every year since I began in 2016 in honor of the Court—it was the only thing that survived from the first couple years, but my plants died in December, 2022 when it dropped into single digits here and so even protected and brought in…it was a workspace insulated and attached to the house but with minimal direct control and everything froze anyway. And last year I tried, but all the seedlings failed.

This year, I’m trying to take no chances. This is the thing I want to come up most in my garden. I went and bought seeds the day after the holiday while the energy was still up. I bought three times the seeds I did last year and I’ve looked up conditions and have a plan to try to replicate that first couple years more than I did last year. I’m watching the weather—less for the seeds, but because my empty pots of soil were outside and it just rained so I’m waiting for an ideal moisture level now to actually do the planting. It should happen this week, I think, so *fingers crossed* for that. And then I’ll be watching them very carefully because it’s something I grow both to honor certain spirits and for me to do all kinds of things with and I really missed having any to harvest last year.

(And this was the song of the day…not sure how Greensleeves ended up as the tune of White Spring for me, but it’s been like this for years. I have a ton of different versions, some solemn, some fun and playful, everywhere in between, on different instruments—and every year at least one speaks to me and ends up on repeat while I made the wreath or turned down low where I travel for the ritual. This was this year’s version.

For whatever reason, I always weirdly hear it now as a love song from the winter to the spring or the warmer months, that they’re not enemies and winter isn’t something to be cast off, and maybe those first late winter blooms are a delight to winter personified just as much as spring personified because winter is just another part of the cycle.)

Rising Spring

Hope everyone had nice Imbolc, etc. celebrations! I had a lovely holiday (and then Full Moon on its tail, since they fell rather close together this year) with my spirits to welcome the first hints of thawing of spring.

Actually, though, it’s been feeling like spring here since about the second week of January. At the end of December, it was quite cold (it was down to 8 degrees F one couple of nights, and I can’t remember it ever being in single digits during my lifetime), so the joke’s been we used up our allotment of winter in that week and so had no choice but to move on to spring early. And energy-wise, that hasn’t felt too far off the truth.

The sun’s been back out after such a gray and dark November and December and while there’s been some cold days, it’s March sort of cold and not January and February cold. And since there have been so many clear days, it’s been obvious already how the days are getting longer again.

The daffodils are blooming, and I’ve come to really associate them with this early spring holiday that I celebrate because it’s all about the first thaw, the first green, the first sprouts and here—that’s the daffodils. Always. They bud about the last week of January, bloom at the beginning of February just when I’m working the ritual and then stay lovely and blinding yellow for at least a couple of weeks. And it really doesn’t seem to matter what the weather’s doing, they bloom at exactly the same time every year, regardless of whether it’s in the 50s and 60s like this year or I literally have seen them bloom anyway through several inches of snow, as well. It’s brilliant.

I did my ritual (and once again, did not set my hair on fire, so yay me!) and it was sort of quiet this year, but went well—and in the odd tradition of so many of my rituals, felt like things just worked out. It was supposed to be pouring rain the whole week, which isn’t wonderfully suited for going out the day-of and trimming evergreen for my wreath of candles, but then it just…was cloudy and misting, but not raining. They dried out perfectly set near a heat vent.

And I was actually a bit proud of myself: this is the first year it’s rained at all here on the day of the ritual since I started doing it in 2016, so I had to make sure I trimmed enough evergreen by eye. If I ran out putting it on my wreath, then there wouldn’t be time to dry more, but since it’s something I ask the trees for each year, it would feel disrespectful to cut more than needed or waste any of what I was given. But I cut exactly the right amount with no extra layering on and no thin places. So, yay!

Lastly, I lit my own candle from the ritual afterward and let it burn down. This is the one that I bury under my garden to dedicate it and bless it for the new growing year and now I can start making up my plans.

Happy early spring, everyone!

Lunar Eclipse

What a lovely full eclipse it was last night! I didn’t think I was going to get to see it most of the day because it was so cloudy, but in the last hour or two beforehand the sky cleared after all.

There’s such an interesting energy to me around lunar eclipses. I’ve always thought they were incredible and fascinating, but I remember years ago, growing up, feeling for some reason quite unsettled by them as well. I didn’t have the language yet to articulate the energy/magick thing I was experiencing around them, but that’s what it was. Any attempts I made back then to search mythology and history for a reason why I felt such strange power from it led me only to dismal explanations. There’s actually very little positive lore about eclipses. Mostly it’s a bad omen, a triumph even temporarily of darkness or evil, the moon being attacked or devoured—by a wolf, by a dragon, by a jaguar, what have you—or else being covered veiled or deliberately hidden or covered in blood…and then only just escaping again afterward.

Earlier on in my spiritual journey (around late 2015-early 2017) when I was finding my way with spirits in the Free Court, learning my ritual roles there, and from the start it was so much moon symbolism that felt quite intimidating. I mean…it isn’t always there, isn’t always whole, is only visible in the dark, and periodically gets “devoured” as a terrible omen and barely makes it out. What kind of ritual roles and magick was I getting myself into here? Maybe it was a bad omen for me, also.

My spirits have quite a different take, though: consistently with them, rituals and signs and magicks and omens aren’t all good or all bad, but both entwined, and this is no different. A lunar eclipse is a sign of darkness and struggle but equally or more also an omen of hope and resilience. I have a shape and framework to put everything I feel—both lovely and unsettling—into now and I can’t pinpoint when it happened but their beliefs stopped being their beliefs and became our beliefs instead.

So it was a wonderful small ritual with them last night, sort of…peaceful and comforting even. It’s a relief now that the part of me that looks up and sees and feels only something beautiful and inspiring and the part that sees and feels darkness and danger and something strange in it are now both whole and one in the same. This is definitely not the first eclipse I’ve experienced in this way but with each one I feel more certain and this was the brightest, most total one yet.

Signs From A Goddess

Well, it’s been an interesting little while for me—but in a good way, mostly.

Over about the last week of January, I had not one but two of the bracelets I wear all the time suddenly break. The first one, I wrote off as one of those things until it happened again with the second one. Neither was particularly special, or a significant talisman. I asked spirits and Allies Out There: mostly things breaking is just things breaking and I wear things without taking them off so tend to be kind of rough on jewelry; but sometimes, it’s a sign—of something changing, an ending, or a first sign of something wrong.

I was assured it was nothing bad…I just didn’t need them anymore and could repurpose the parts but something else would come along. I looked on Etsy and checked recommended things and keywords for different parts of my path to see if something jumped out. Nothing, at first, but I was nudged to keep looking and eventually, given specific keywords in specific order to use.

This was one of the first things and leapt out like I was waiting for so, after some deliberation, I bought it. That was the beginning of anxiety, though, because in the deliberation I spoke to Isis through divinations to be sure and She admitted She’d broken the other two bracelets to make way. Yikes. Even assuming the book and my recent project were earlier signs from Her I didn’t recognize for what they were at the time, that’s a little startling. I managed to ignore my stress until I got the message the package had cleared customs (coming from France) last week.

It became dread, which has been a hallmark of my relationship with Isis—though unfairly. She’s one of the best Beings I’ve ever met, has shown me nothing but compassion, gone above and beyond in matters of consent, is one of the People I wouldn’t be here without…and has never demanded anything from me in return. When I’m with Her, everything seems brighter; but Isis is badass and brilliant and She asks badass and brilliant things of me in Her name and under Her auspices. Even when She doesn’t ask, just Her presence feels like it demands the best of me and being near Her makes me want to be better…but I’m afraid I’m not enough and can’t and that I will fail Her.

End of last week, Isis showed up and we had a long conversation about everything. She assured me in dedicating and wearing the bracelet, I was agreeing to nothing new, just the next phase of the four years I already committed. And not to be afraid of such significant signs—is that not what I’d begged for the last two years? It’s true: I’d wondered if She *did* decide I wasn’t right after all and was running out the clock because I haven’t felt much guidance how to keep that four-year promise. But if this was “the next step” I was left wondering if things and lessons learned the last two years were, in fact, fulfillment and I didn’t know. She reminded me of a lot  I’d forgotten She asked me to do along the way and also that back in February, 2020, She said there would be other teachers—so if I was learning on my own or from Someone Else what She planned to teach me anyway, She didn’t interfere but just watched over. That’s still unsettling, because of the directions of my lessons both here and Out There in that time—but no surprise.

Isis could have left it there, with signs galore, but didn’t. I made some joke about buying the bracelet and She ought to send me money, a winning lotto ticket fluttering in my car window or something. It’s a joke I’ve made for years, but then I was looking for something in a keepsake box and found an envelope I didn’t remember; inside, was exactly the amount of money it cost before taxes, and I felt “there you go” in my thoughts. That’s all a little too serendipitous to be just a lot of serendipity.

I did my dedication ritual Saturday afternoon and it was wonderful. It felt so intense but also very personal. Sitting there, before the tiny altar I set up just for this, I felt welcomed into Her presence and…it felt like old times, like that hope I mentioned before clung to my early projects but I didn’t experience anymore. Afterward, She asked me to just sit quietly in that moment for a while, like I used to for at least a few minutes every day after my daily morning rituals in 2015. And then, She had me keep the candles burning and the music playing and the bracelet on the altar afterward…it ended up being about an hour in which She was adding energy and magick to it before I was told I could put it on.

I had a sense there was something more, so asked and Isis said that She had no new studies or rituals or anything now…but She’d like to speak more about the future before the weekend was over in a conversation via Her oracle deck. And She asked that as She was no longer operating from the back burner only, I take steps to listen more actively for “Her voice” in coming days.

Sunday night, before I went to sleep, I sat down at the foot of my bed and asked Her how many cards and it was indicated three. I shuffled, and drew, and…holy crap, what a perfectly relevant reading! I always get very clear readings from this deck since it’s designed for Isis and I’ve never used it for anyone else, but wow.

—-

Initiation – She’s asking me further, and confirms She still believes in me. That’s what this past weekend was all about, accepting that and beginning the next step with those beliefs.

Temple of Black Obsidian – That’s naming the anxiety of last week, and the all Shadow Work I was pulled into by it. I think I have all the pieces to work through that from these last couple years and…it’s time.

Lady of the Stars – A difficult card that amplifies all the others and also offers an assurance that I am enough and capable. It indicates my soul is ready for this.

—-

I’m not sure what all of that means, but I’m trying to stay open and aware and go with it. And so far, that seems to be working, because one of the reasons it’s taken almost all week to write about this is because it doesn’t feel like it’s ended and on some level, signs and conversations are ongoing.

Spring Beginnings

Hope everyone had a nice Imbolc, etc. I’ve been busy lately, but mine went well. It seemed to confirm energies I was picking up these last couple of months that whatever the weirdness has been going on the last year+ in my Between rituals has ended and shifted back to normal—finally, yay!

Preps started a bit early this year because my garden needed a lot of work. It’s dedicated to my spirits and I started it as a learning/devotional aspect of my practice with them, so it has a place in my rituals and a lot of the cycles I follow are from rhythms of growing they keep in their own growing out in the Otherworlds. And the Free Court is nomadic, so there’s bending room for my climate; even though it’s a similar cycle of rituals we follow to the Wheel of the Year and vague traditions of old European agriculture, it seems to work out anywhere in the northern hemisphere north of the tropics (which I don’t know enough about to say anything). I live in the southeastern US but I’ve seen documentaries of people gardening in England, Alaska, and Arizona where details are all different, but I still see shades of my ritual rhythms in what they’re doing. It’s a comfort for me, as someone who will likely live other places and within a couple more years hopefully have finished restoration and travel projects to be mostly nomadic myself, to feel like the magick is still going to work and be relevant and that the success or failure is not in changing everything but in the space between the rituals and reading the weather and seasons in the area to find a balance somewhere in there.

This year was a big rebuild of the garden wagon. I started it in 2016 with an expanded metal garden cart I bought and cedar planks…but the cedar was waterlogged and the burlap and woodchips I used beneath the soil had rotted away over the years where I’d lost about two-thirds of my soil depth by last year’s planting. I cleaned it completely out and was lucky the wood, once dried out, was not as damaged as I thought and could be reused. And instead of burlap and stuff, this time I lined it with aluminum screen. It should still let the water out so it doesn’t flood, but let very little soil out and hopefully also protect the couple places where the expanded metal was showing some damage. Then I made a custom garden blend of soil by buying several types that matched up to what I wanted to plant.

It was really important to get it done before the beginning of February, because in White Spring (our version…ish of Imbolc), after the big candle ritual there’s one for each of us lit from the fire and a tradition of then doing your own magick and projects while it’s lit to add your energy to it as well. Afterward, when it’s just I tiny stub of wax, each of us buries that under the soil of our garden wagon to dedicate and bless it for the coming year with energy and safety and bounty. So, it had to be done before that so I’d have a place.

As usual, I had my main Otherworlds ritual—also known as Don’t Set My Head On Fire Day with my ritual crown of candles. This is the first year I’ve felt like I really had figured out perfectly my technique for cutting and trying the evergreen on perfectly, finally. It was the same as always and I never say much more about it than that, but there was a sense of growing and relief and that everything was going to be okay happening in it this year after pushing through for the last couple, which was nice and uplifting.

My project this-side while my candle was burning was planting some seeds. I’ve not had great success from seeds before, but I’m trying again and this time starting indoors earlier until they germinate. *fingers crossed* And this year I decided to branch out. I have limited space and so have previously stuck just with herbs, but I really wanted to try some veggies…so several kinds of peppers (I love spicy) and some small cucumbers, short okra, tiny salad tomatoes, and some bunching onions. I made some tiny mini-greenhouse-ish boxes for them and repurposed a tiny spray bottle for watering. I’m also considering trying to add some potatoes and maybe buying a strawberry plant but still researching to decide on those additions in the next couple of weeks.

Lastly, I think I mentioned a plan but never doing it last year, but I transplanted my surviving plants out of the garden wagon before it got cold in the late fall. I have two big pots of catnip and one of rosemary, a small one of flat parsley, and another small one of either lemon balm or sweet mint (but I kept mixing their leaves up last year and telling by smell and I don’t want to take one of its few winter leaves to sniff and tell…either is good and I’ll know in a few weeks when it starts spring growth anyway. They’ve been living in my half-restored camper (ignore my disassembled taillights in the background, lol) because it’s up from the ground and insulated and then I bring them back out on sunny days so they don’t wilt away as possible, but that’s worked better than I really expected it to over this winter.

Anyway: welcome to the impending imminent coming of spring! Yay!

Bright Winter Solstice

I hope everyone had a lovely Solstice! I had a wonderful day. I was expecting it to be more of the same: quiet, low-key, and that strange feeling of being off that I’ve been experiencing all year…but then it wasn’t.

It was still a bit small I guess, since it fell mid-week this year and so I didn’t have a lot of space to have rituals and celebrate, and I didn’t get into projects or cooking or like I do some years. But I had my candle-lighting and music and astral travel and jar of Solstice sun energy from back in the summer to release, and otherwise I’m just participating and getting to enjoy being a part of all the magick and energy that’s happening.

What made it feel big and significant was just the intensity of everything. I was so swept away, a lot more than I expected after the other rituals this year. It was almost as if everything that’s been weird or wrong or off suddenly snapped back into place—and it’s too soon to be sure if that’s true or perhaps only intentions, if it’s widespread and really going to “take” after all, but I’m getting a sense of expectation that things are indeed shifting and realigning after the crap of the last couple years. I really hope so.

Honestly, it took me most of yesterday to recover and feel truly grounded and centered again. And even assuming I’m out of practice since the rest of this year’s rituals felt strangely distant, it affected me enough that it had to be more and that seems like a good sign for something to have actually changed Out There for the better. *fingers crossed*

Autumn Leaves And Flames

Hope everyone had a lovely Halloween/Samhain/etc yesterday. For me, the Burning Night continued this year’s trend of weird holiday vibes but still went well.

October is my favorite month and I wasn’t really feeling it, so a couple of weeks ago I bought some more silk autumn leaves and decided to remake and update my autumn leaf wreath crowns. Originally, they were supposed to be a hair wreath and an actual wreath and honestly, I think I made them the first time under similar circumstances—feeling ungrounded and maybe a bit depressed a couple of years ago and it was my project to raise energy and reconnect.

I turned my wreath back into a wreath, added some more leaves and little gold detailing and put a hanger on it. (Maybe by next year I’ll have enough camper restoration done to have a place to actually hang it.)

And I remade my leafy crowns. They don’t look so different but I made copper frames simplified from my springtime candle one so they have better weight and actually fit now—plus copper is one of the things I use in magick tools a lot so they hold energy better now. It also gave me the chance to add the little bead and fringe and ribbon details, which I really like. Some holidays it’s tradition for me to work on crafts while the energies are high, and while this isn’t usually one of them, I’m glad I did this year.

Once evening came and darkness fell, I did my usual ritual fire and traveling and then lit up the symbolic “dark days of the year” ritual light on my altar afterward.
I’m really looking forward to this year and its weird, off ritual days vibes being over. I did finally have some very strange conversations about that, putting it in context with all the other pieces and patterns over this year. So, while this is ordinarily one of my quieter holidays where there aren’t specific rituals or magicks I do on the 31st, I did do a working of my own related to what I learned there and my liminal Work—and I was told afterward in confirmation that it was good and worked Out There and went well. Cool.

Lastly…lest I forget…it was also the anniversary of my second oath to Anubis. I think I’ve written about that before, but of the big three: the first one was faith, the third one was the beginning of forever and every agreement between us since has been built on its foundations, but it was the second one that was hardest and when I feel I really made my choice. Knowing what I was getting into but not certain just how it would turn out or what it would become, yet. I’m glad I chose the path anyway.

Stormy Solstice

Hope everyone had a lovely Summer Solstice! Mine was very chill…this Solstice always is in my practice, but it was especially so this year.

I do that thing of celebrating for three days while the sun stands still but mostly it was dark and stormy and raining all weekend and the sun didn’t really come out. I made a few small offerings and recharged a bit and drew in some of the energy (there whether I can see the sun or not) for projects I’m working on finishing right now.

Usually I play with sparklers and have a cauldron fire and dance with the Court and all that, but the weather didn’t allow it this time. And it was a light year on astral traveling as well. I almost felt like I didn’t do anything, but in a peaceful sort of way rather than stressful or disappointed. And it continued the trend this year of holidays in particular feeling off and weird and outside time of something—because energetically this year seems so tied to last year. I’m kind of glad 2021 is half over now because I’m ready for that sensation to hopefully end and next year feel right and new again.

The last few years I’ve also had a little tradition of “capturing” the (energy of) last rays of sun on the longest day and releasing them again on the shortest day come winter. Sort of symbolic and sort of magick, it’s a way of interacting with the energy and the turn of the year *here* also and not only in the Otherworlds and tying it all together.

This was the first year since I started that practice it’s been a rainy Solstice here. Years past, I’ve done the ritual when the last visible rays disappeared over the trees to the west but cloudy this time…there weren’t any visible rays. So instead, I looked up official sunset and decided to do it then. A couple hours before, it stopped raining and the clouds started breaking up—enough for some vague light of the sun and momentary patches of blue sky—but it was still dark and gray mostly. Until I actually walked out to do the ritual.

It was weird: in that last couple of minutes, the sky mostly cleared. The sun was already down behind the trees, but suddenly everything took on a warm glow and the clouds lit up pink (the photo doesn’t do justice) as I was starting. And as I was doing the energy part, a lovely breeze came up exactly from the direction where the sun was setting and it smelled like summer and that warm sunshine scent.

I was about to end and close the jar when I was urged to go a little longer, draw in not just the perfect, bright last rays but the dimming ones that last hold back the night as well, because in the winter the world might need that. I don’t know what that means, but followed the advice and did it, and when I opened my eyes everything had gone gray again like it never happened and I closed the jar and *just like that* the breeze was gone too and didn’t come back. It was really cool…and almost more so because I wasn’t expecting it.

Fire And Flowers

Hope everyone had a lovely Walpurgisnacht, Beltane, May Day, etc. over the weekend. I began my celebrations with some quiet time with Anubis on the 30^th—it was six years since I took my first oath to Him and we began our relationship in this way, something recognizable as the start of what we have now. It’s funny, most of the time I don’t think about how long it’s been or how far we’ve come until something like this reminds me and there’s always a jolt to remember how differently I thought of Him back then…and of myself, and the relationship, and our places in it and where it was going. It was a small moment this year, but it didn’t feel like it had to be any bigger since it wasn’t a milestone and He’s been around so much this year thus far.

And then I had celebrations with my spirits in the Free Court. I finally got my ribbons right after our discussions around the Equinox: I left those multicolored ones up in the tree by my garden all this time and then added more this holiday and to keep it straight for myself I hung different ones, different width, in bunches of red and white to match the crown of ribbons and flowers I made a few years ago for this holiday.

I wrapped my ribbon for my hopes over the rest of the year and it was the first time in ages I’ve gotten to do it full-scale outside instead of on my altar tree.

Once it was dark, I made a fire in my larger fire cauldron and had some music and celebrated in that way. Like most of my holidays, I traveled back and forth to the astral encampment of the Court and spent some time bi-located as well, but then after the fires burned low I did a deeper sort of experience for the main magick ritual part.

It went pretty well, but it followed in this strange pattern I’ve noticed in ritual holidays this year that they all feel slightly…different? I’d say “off” but that’s too negative? Skewed, maybe? Each one has felt strange and I’ve had an unusual sense of connection with last year, odd since that came up in divinations at the beginning of the year: that 2020 and 2021 were interrelated and there wouldn’t be the clean break I was hoping for but a changing, evolving continuation. (Idk if that’s just us and so a circumstance only of the Court or something about the year itself but my spirits confirmed it is why I’ve been getting strange, not bad, just weird vibes in the rituals this year.)

At the end of everything, I used all the extra energies from celebrating to pour into my garden. After such a promising start, it’s not been doing well since another unexpected cold night and a lot of fluctuating weather, so it needs all the help it can get. Nice temps and a wonderful steady rain blew in last night though—maybe my garden magick is working and it’ll help!