Titus and Talion on the aviary “roof”
Sorry about the missing blog updates! My excuse is that I really am rather busy at my lovely job, because our financial year end is 31.10. And I work in Finances! So there’s lots going on and I do work the odd longer hours, but for a year end that’s just fine by me.
We’re also having a lot of fun at work. I’m on the committee which organises the Hallowe’en event this year, and we’ll have a decoration contest and a costume contest – meaning that for the first time since childhood, I couldn’t get out of actually wearing a costume! I panicked a little (ok, a lot) at first and asked my trusted Facebook page followers for advice, and they came through magnificently as usual. I’m all set now – I’m going to be Dread Pirate Sibylle, and I’m surprising myself by actually having fun with this.
I’ve also been thinking about this blog for a bit, and while I’ll always write about my life and my Coaching and all the rest, it IS a Pagan blog and that’ll be reflected a little more than recently, especially now that I’m more active again in my practice. Spirituality tends to evolve in cycles, with times that are intense and full of new insights and experiences, and other times when my religious practice just flows along as part of my life and nothing much happens.
My most intense “phase”, spiritually, was the years 2003-2005. They co-incided with me finding a wonderful online community and the first Pagan friends I’ve had in my life. Looking back over those 10, 11 years since, I’m just staggered at how much has changed since then! But really, for the longest time I felt like I was the only Pagan in the world. The internet truly is a blessing.
I also worked from home at the time, and went through some major changes and upheavals in my life –including about a year in which I didn’t do much else, other than practice my spirituality. It was a great opportunity, and I’m very very grateful for it. I celebrated every Sabbat as well as four (yes, four) Esbats per moon cycle with full rituals, and spent anywhere between 40 minutes and 3 hours outside in nature every single day. You can imagine I evolved spiritually in leaps and bounds.
After 13 moons of intense preparation, I then went to dedicate myself (you can read the very long story of my Dedication here), and I can honestly say it was the most important and beautiful occasion in my life. One part of the Dedication ritual involved pricking my finger and squeezing a drop of blood into the earth, a gesture I remembered recently because it led to an insight.
You see, I listened to a talk about Blood Magic by the wonderful Lora O’Brien at this year’s Féile Draíochta the week before last. Hearing it all laid out in a logical context, made me realise that I have formed a very strong bond with the area in Austria I used to live in, at the time of my Dedication.
When I returned to Ireland later that same year, I loved being back since this is my home (no, I don’t know why, it just is), but I’ve never really formed that strong a connection, not in the depth that I’m used to, to the very bones of the earth. I can still feel Her pulse reverberating through my body when I visit my old place in Austria, but haven’t made that same connection again here. In parallel, my practice has waned to the point that in my current place, I only do meditations because there’s no space for actual rituals! Co-incidence? I think not.
And now I get why that is. So, once I get my own place, hopefully next year, I’ll make a blood connection there. It’s very old magic, and strongly binding. It’s also excellent protection, and that won’t go amiss around a house in which a hag and her birds will live “all by her onesies”, as Jack Sparrow would put it (can you tell the pirate theme is in my head?). And I’ll be able to dance wild in my house again, and stomp and raise energy and have my usual rituals.
It’s a lot to think about.
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