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The Power of our Mind

Being sick sucks. About two or three weeks ago I came down with a cold virus. It was rather nasty, I must say. My head was plugged up, as was my chest. It’s been about three weeks now and my chest still has some lingering congestion. That’s not what prompted me to write this post though…two days ago while I was at work I came down with some kind of stomach bug. If there is any kind of illness I dislike the most, it’s the stomach flu. I was totally knocked down, and I’m still recovering.

This prompted me to question, why do we get sick? Is it simply our immune system being caught off guard? Is it improper hygiene? Or is it another reason entirely, like Karma…or, is illness just all in our head? Is it possible to fight off illness with thought alone? I find this intriguing.

I have to admit to being a sceptic. I usually need to see solid evidence of something before I believe it. Take psychics for example. I used to think that all psychics were just making stuff up based on your body language and popular or common ‘phenomena’ (you’ll get married to a man with dark hair and have two children kind of thing). All of this changed when I had an experience with someone who totally and completely changed my mind on the subject. Now I believe there actually are people out there who have the ability to communicate with ‘higher’ beings and can sense the subtle energies around you.

It’s been said that you can change the properties of water just by thinking about it. If you project happiness and kindness onto water, it will actually change to embody these qualities. There have even been studies done on this subject, with the most notable person (to me) being Dr. Masaru Emoto (feel free to google him if you wish). Despite the all of the research that has been done, I still find myself doubting this. How can thought have such a big effect on our daily lives? I mean, I can see it in some ways…but when it comes to influencing physical things I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. I know the placebo effect would fall under this category, and that has been proven many times. I just don’t know that I could have stopped myself from being physically sick when I had the stomach flu just by thinking that I was healthy and felt wonderful. I have a hard time thinking those things when I’m kneeling in front of the toilet (sorry for the mental picture), or even when my nose is completely plugged up and my voice is gone. I would like to believe that if I thought positively (I am healthy, I am feeling wonderful) I would get better, or that I wouldn’t even be sick in the first place, but I find myself questioning it. If part of me believes this, why can’t the other part let go and also believe it? Maybe I need some kind of solid proof that it works, or will work, I don’t know. I’d just really like to stop questioning things for once. Sure it’s good to do that sometimes, but not all the time. I think I need to work on this….

~Amy

The Importance of Being Thrifty

Coming from humble beginnings, I always thought that finding things to use in personal practice wherever you could was the most important. No deity would ever care if it wasn’t from the top online pagan retailer. You can find the most amazing things in regular stores if you think creatively, and are open to interpretation.

Even now, although I work at a fantastic pagan shop that enables my book addiction, I sometimes crave something used. Something with a history. I am a notorious bargain shopper – I hate paying full price for anything in a department store. I do most of my shopping at small antiques stores and a large used store chain called Value Village. I always check the housewares and the knick knacks to see if anything of interest pops up.

Here are a few of the more recent items I have picked up:

Aphrodite statue for Andrew – $3.99

Matching set of metal candleholders – $2.99

No idea what it originally was, but it is now an incense/offering bowl – $3.99

Brass Cauldron! – $4.99

For a total cost of $18.95. All this for under $20!

In the past I have found shelves, books, chalices, candle holders, offering bowls, statuary, altar decor…. you just have to be patient and willing to dig.

Plus, with the money I save, I can buy more books and incense and goodies from my store!

Everything old is new again

I grew up in a United Church christian household; not overtly christian mind you… there was not generally grace said before meals or pictures on the walls of saints and christ – we were United after all, not Catholic or Orthodox – but christian none the less.
“Paganism” to me was unknown for much of my life, I knew of witches as being something of fiction and fantasy, let alone to get started into all the other paths currently practiced.
When I found out that a friend of mine at the time was going camping for a weekend at AEPG (Avalon East Pagan Gathering), I was confused… the what what?
“Oh yeah, he’s a Practicing Druid, didn’t y’know? ”
That can be pretty much be nailed down as the moment that this new world and life started for me, the very FIRST moment I saw all this new stuff to experience, looking back now it wasn’t even that much!

Sometimes I wish I could go back to the moments when everything was new to me, but then I think about all I’ve experienced and learned, and know that I just need to work at not letting what I have go stale and mundane.

D.

Hello, Bonjour, and Bienvenido!

My apologies as I appear to be bringing up the rear in terms of introductions, but better late than never I suppose.

Anyway, I’m Amy and I have been a practicing pagan for about ten years now. I work with Renee at Little Mysteries, and I’m one of the other founding members of the NSPA (Nova Scotia Pagan Alliance). I am very eclectic in my spiritual beliefs, incorporating little bits of everything from Wicca to Hinduism into my religious practice. It took me a while to get to where I am, but now that I’m here, I couldn’t be happier. Sure I can be lazy at times, and a bit unmotivated sometimes, but I’m only human.

Born and bred in Halifax (Nova Scotia), I grew up in a household that was very relaxed in every sense of the word. Nothing was pushed upon me, and I was encouraged to make my own decisions about things. Religion was something that was never really discussed, but it was always there. I went through elementary school thinking that Christianity was the only religion…I knew nothing about Islam, and I didn’t know much about Judaism either. I wasn’t even aware there were other religions outside of that, which I am a bit embarrassed to admit now. In Junior High that ignorance bubble got burst when a friend of mine introduced me to Wicca. I spent countless hours on the internet scouring through websites trying to soak up all the information I could through the computer screen. When I read the definition of Wicca from one of the first sites I found I couldn’t believe it. What I believed in was actually a religion? I was floored, but at the same time I knew that I had just stumbled upon something big. I was only 12 at the time.

Fast forward several years later and here I am.

I love living on the East Coast of Canada and I wouldn’t trade it in for a second. While I enjoy spending time in Manhattan and other cities around the world (I say world, yet the farthest I’ve been is London, England), if I were to move away I doubt I’d last any longer than 5 years. There is something about this place that draws me back. It could be the close proximity to the ocean, or it could be this weird and wacky climate that I have grown to love, but there is just something about Nova Scotia that is ‘home’ to me.

At the risk of writing a book and boring everyone to death with more information than you probably want to hear, I’m going to wrap this up now. If anyone has questions or comments, or wants to know a bit more about my background feel free to leave me a comment or send me a message…I’m always happy to hear from people!

~Amy

Have we lost the mystery?

I recently started following another new blog

http://broomclosetwitch.wordpress.com/

which emphasizes the merits of being in the broom closet.  This got me thinking back to the days before having my own apartment, pagan friends and one very understanding but very non pagan boyfriend (his only request was that he never find chicken bones under the bed – no idea what that whole neurosis is about but anyway….).  Those days were filled with secret purchases, secret readings, secret tools and secret rituals.  They were frustrating, irritating and tiresome but damn they were exciting!

How much of the attraction of Paganism, and Witchcraft in particular, has come from that feeling of cloak and dagger secrecy?  How many of us dream of clandestine meetings in silent groves surrounded by hooded figures chanting softly in the moonlight?  Or working spells in the dead of night, candlelight flickering along our skin and incense carrying our desires to the wind?

There was a time when all of this was necessary and I know that we have come a long way in the last couple of decades, for the better.  Most of us can openly practice and discuss our faith, wear clothing or jewelery as a personal expression and perform rituals wherever and whenever we like.  We are no longer feared, avoided or accosted (well for the most part – I wouldn’t recommend wearing a dinner plate sized pentacle anywhere near where I come from).  But I still long for that secrecy that first brought me here, the mystery and wonder that makes me feel like there is more to this world than what we see under the harsh fluorescent lights.

I know it is like asking the world to take a giant leap backwards but sometimes I think I would prefer to live the life of a gnarled old spinster witch.  Living in a tiny cabin, receiving visitors who glance furtively about to ensure that no one sees them then asks timidly for a charm to cure a child or gain a lover.  Or perhaps I did live this life and am simply longing for something that I can’t get back again.  Either way, I can’t shake the desire for excitement, secrecy and mystery.  Am I alone in this?

PhoenixWitch

Introduction

I always find introductions to be very difficult.  How does one sum up their entire existence into a few sentences?  Unfailingly, I fall back into defining myself based on where I grew up.  Hello, my name is Elizabeth and I am from a small town in Newfoundland

My hometown is only about 800 people strong, and that is including the large percentage of men who spend copious amounts of time in Fort Mac.  It is mainly a fishing village and I am a fisherman’s daughter (twice over – my mom fishes too – equal opportunity WOO!).  As a teenager I found small town life to be incredibly stifling.  And, as such, I searched for any way I could to escape.  This led me to the wonderful world of literature.  I read and re-read (and re-read again) everything of interest in our very tiny school library and dreamed of shopping at Chapters on those rare trips to “Town” (Town being St. John’s which was a 4 hour drive away).  As many pagans, I was first drawn to this path because of fiction.  I read everything I could with the words “witch” or “magic” in the title.  I watched movies like The Craft and started to get a glimpse into a world that was much more interesting than the boring Catholic one in which I had been raised.  Again like many pagans, my first foray into “real” pagan books was through Ravenwolf (Jeezy Creezy, we have got to change that and get some teen friendly books out there with a little more substance).

It wasn’t until I got out of my parents house that I could freely practice my faith and even then I found it incredibly lonely.  There were no Pagan stores in St. John’s, there were no pagan groups at that time.  I found a few great websites and forums and read as much as I could (Goddess Bless Chapters website for supplementing the crappy New Age section in the local store).

Moving to Halifax has allowed me to grow in ways I never imagined possible.  I have the freedom to display my books and tools (though I find I am hiding less and less as time goes on) and I have real friends to not only discuss this path with but to actually work with – remind me to blog later about the awesome Samhain ritual we did in a graveyard last year!  I only hope I can continue to learn and grow and that maybe, through this blog or my contributions to other sites, I might be able to help that kid who right now is growing up in a small town and searching for something that finally feels “right”.

PhoenixWitch

The first (but not last!)

Well, intro post, we meet at last.

I’ve never been one for writing on a regular basis (in any format), so I’m really going to make an effort to not bore the crap out of people on this blog, fingers crossed!

Now I will lay this out there; I do not consider myself to be much of a storehouse of knowledge on paganism, but I’ll pass along what knowledge I can and update with lots of opinions about living on the east coast and being a dirt worshiping heathen.

D.

The intro post.

I guess it’s time I introduce myself (and I’ll let Andrew introduce himself, in his own words).

I’m Renée. I have lived on the east coast of Canada my entire life. I love it, and I find it hard to think of myself living anywhere else,though I suppose it could be a possibility. I grew up on Prince Edward Island, the smallest of Canada’s provinces.

From a young age, I was fascinated with nature. I grew up in a tiny village where I spent my youngest years playing in the forest, riding dirt bikes recklessly across stony, loamy paths. My house was in the middle of 3 cow fields. When I walked to the general store (we had one of those), it literally was uphill both ways. The grass was my first crash pad, the forest ferns my first ‘pretend’ bed. I liked to play with mud, to get dirty, and to climb trees to watch the cows graze.

Unfortunately, I moved a lot. It grew increasingly hard, especially in my later adolescence, to connect with nature on a deep level. However, at 18, in a crazy happenstance, I found my religious calling.

I grew up Catholic (like fully half of PEI did), but the religion never clicked with me, and I refused to be confirmed. My grandmother, bless her, simply told me I was going to Hell. My mother was non-religious and cared not for my disobedience. I spent a lot of high school deeply agnostic. I had no idea that Wicca, witchcraft, or Paganism existed. The pagans in my school (and, I found out later, there were a few) were very hush hush, it seemed. Really, I wanted to find something that fit me like a handmade sweater, something that made me feel proper and warm. After moving out of my house, I came across a tarot deck in my local comic shop. I purchased it.

I spent a lot of time trying to find books, but almost all books were about this ‘Wicca’ stuff. Finally, a friend passed me a copy of Silver Ravenwolf’s To Ride a Silver Broomstick, because apparently it had a great tarot section. I read the whole book, and, dissatisfied, I craved more. I checked out every book in the PEI Library system. I purchased my first book (a Gerina Dunwich book, I believe) a few months later. I did the whole ‘ouija board’ thing, and worked some spells with a friend and co-worker. Soon, though, I wanted a deeper relationship – the same healthy reverence and fear I had of nature as a child. I ended up in a coven with a few other girls my age. Like many other first groups, it unfortunately fizzled.

In the past 9 years, I have been in many groups. I have read hundreds of books, been to countless rituals, and worked with many people. And I finally feel like I have found my place – something that continuously challenges me, feeds my soul, and leaves me in awe.

My current life? I am working on a year of faith and I blog about it here. I work with two other folks and run the Nova Scotia Pagan Alliance. I work at the Halifax bookshop Little Mysteries. I am a trained photographer, and working on merging it with spirituality.

And I spent every day thanking this world.