Friday, February 15, 2013

Pantheacon Day 1

We made it.  Only got to one class today but it was awesome, T Thorn Coyle's "Love your Demons"  I was inspired enough during her first words that I wrote this poem

Who is that I see
sitting there across from me
a face I fear that I may know
if I only allowed it to be so
for as we look into the glass
reflected is the present and past
but if we can take the time to spend
learning to make our demons our friends
than what we see in that reflective glass
will come to reflect the whole of us at last

Copyright Julie Grucza, 2012-2013

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for...



  1. Getting to go to Pantheacon tomorrow!
  2. Warm Day, the suns rays and clear nights.
  3. The wonderful friends that I have in my life from all over the world.
  4. My brain - for some reason it always surprises me what I'm capable of.
  5. The internet and electronic resources - without which I would not be able to do my thesis.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Witchy Wishlist

Witchy Wishlist

I think I have decided to set myself a goal for the year - it is a 2 part goal.

Firstly, I'm going to go through all my witchy books and see if there are any that I can cull out of my pile.  It sounds horrible as a book lover but there are books that I just don't use anymore.  They served a purpose for me when I got them but I like the idea of passing them on to someone else who can learn and explore their pages. I'm also going to go through and pull out those books that I have purchased and not finished reading yet.  My goal for the year is to get through them - now I realize that I probably won't make much headway on this goal until after I'm done with my thesis but I think this is all part of the reevaluation of my spiritual path that I'm currently going through.

The second part of this goal is to get my hands on some new information that will hopefully help me explore my path further.  While I'll admit I'm as susceptible to shiny book syndrome as anyone I want to explore on a deeper level so with that in mind I'm going to choose 5 books that I want to purchase and read in the coming year to develop my path more.

1. Etheric Anatomy: The Three Selves and Astral Travel

2. The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman
3. Witch Crafting: A Spiritual  Guide to Making Magic
4. Sweat Your Prayers

5. Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Offerings

(Source: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/2397268)

Offerings


I've been thinking a lot recently about offerings - maybe it has been spurred by my research on curses and binding spells in the Greco-Roman world (for my thesis) and it got me wondering about my own opinions on offerings.  These are my thoughts as they pop into my head so I apologize for any disjointedness and grammatical errors.

In my studies I've been looking a lot at the difference in opinion between religious offerings to the gods and what was viewed as magic working demanding something in return and I thought about how we view offerings today and whether we even do give offerings and how we rationalize them in our minds.

Firstly, I don't think I know a single person who gives forth offerings for the soul purpose of binding that entity to do something for them - it isn't a contractual arrangement.  That is not to say that I don't believe their are people out there who do this, I just don't know them.  And to be honest I have to wonder at how different this really is from those who offer up prayers only at times of need asking that if only deity will do A they will do B.  But that is for my discussion on prayer later.

So that leaves offerings for the purpose of honor and acknowledgement.  I have never had an issue with the idea of leaving an offering to nature should you choose to take a tree limb or something similar, or offerings to the spirits of ones ancestors, heck, I even leave bowls of shiny crystals around my house for the faeries and pixies to play with so they leave my keys alone.  I have, however, stumbled a little around the idea of making offerings to the gods/deities.  The stumbling isn't so much with the act of giving an offering but rather how and what people offer and whether what they do truly reflects what they believe.

I've read a lot about offerings in modern pagan practices that draws heavily on ancient traditions and beliefs regarding what to offer to which deities etc, and that is great, for those who truly believe that their deity exists.  However, I find also that many people participate in practices because they read/are told that is the way it is without really thinking if said practice actually reflects their own belief system.  If you are like myself and don't believe that the deities many refer to actually exist, but rather that they are aspects of the greater whole whom we use to allow our minds to fully comprehend, than who are you really making offerings to and how does that affect what you do?

I guess the answer to that comes down to how you're working when you make those offerings.  If you are working with a particular aspect that you wish to draw from than perhaps you will make offerings appropriate to those representations as a reflection of your desire to strengthen/accept what they represent  into your life, but do you have to?  If the offering is in the end all to the same spirit what difference does it make what you offer?  If the spirit is in all, and all deities are one are you going to offend by offering flowers to Ares?

Is this where intention comes in to your offerings?  I don't really have an answer here, I guess I just want to prompt people to think about why they do what they do and if it reflects their beliefs or what they're told.  For me an offering made with intention and love is the correct offering.  All my offerings are something natural or that will not cause harm to the environment, I don't go out in search of the perfect offering for such and such, I take something I have on hand that I can use and I work with it - to me it is the intent and the effort that goes into making the offering that is more important than weather I have chosen to give flowers to a warrior aspect or rocks to a sky deity.

Anyway, those are my ramblings for the day.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Musing Monday



People often wonder how it is that peace can be found with the most horrific events that have occurred in ones life and I have to say that there were definitely times in my own life where I wondered how I could possibly be okay with the things that have happened.  And then it comes to you, whether it is a gradual understanding or a metaphorical 2x4 to the head, you would not be the person you are today without those events in your life.  These events are part of your journey, they are what will help you obtain a level of understanding and wisdom that you could not obtain without them.  The trick I believe is not to dwell on the negative but to look at situations to find the positive in them.  Now this can be hard, especially when one is still caught up in the event, I'm by no means suggesting that people should just be able to cast aside all else and embrace the learning experience - I know for some this will never occur and from experience the actual ability to do so can take many, many years.  But I think that if we can get to that point where we begin to focus less on the event itself, its horrors and pain and more on how it has made us stronger, wiser, more compassionate (whatever the effect is) then we have discovered something invaluable in the experience, something that can help us rather than tear us down.