My religion not real.......hmmmm well poo poo to you.

I have been working through the elements now for the past 9 months of my bardic training and last night was a ritual that united all the individual blessings I had done in the previous months. 

The ritual took me a record breaking 20 minutes haha. I know there are people out there who are gonna say it should have taken an hour or more and those that will say that I obviously did it wrong and should have taken more time over it..............well poo poo to you. I realised during the meditation at the end that the ritual was only the beginning and that it didn't matter how long it took me to do the actual ritual. The real point of the exercise is to give me something to live, that it's not the 5 minute meditation that is important but infact the realisation that I need to take what I have learned during the ritual and apply it to more than just this 20 minutes but the rest of my life. To truly live with the elements in my body mind and spirit and remember the balance that comes from the unity of all things. 

That balance is what gives me faith and strength, when I feel balanced I really truly feel the Magick all around me, the connection to the fae and the spirits of the land. It is an empowering feeling that makes me wonder how far I could go. I feel like nothing could stand in my way. 

The ritual yesterday came after a bout of bad news and shitty happenings, for example having a car is just not as much fun as people lead you to believe hahahaha. But anyway, life has been a challenge and I found myself feeling cut off and disconnected from the truth of my own power. The elements of the world seemed a far cry from the balance I had spent the last 9 months trying to achieve. But then something happened and I made a conscious decision to change my circumstances and stop worrying about what I couldn't change. Instead I decided to resort to my faith, my belief in Magick and my connection to the spirits. 

To my great relief my connection had remained strong and with the quietest of calls the spirits answered, I  was reminded of my old habits of drawing symbols on things to cheer myself up. I remembered a sigil that I created when I was but a wee lamb hahaha. It wasn't 10 minutes before I had a pen and I was drawing the symbol on the back of my hand hahaha. It made me feel safe and strong again.

The symbol was one I had always loved to draw, a pentagram with 5 orbs that sat between each point to represent the elements. The pentagram represented me and the orbs represented my connection to the elementals and the protection they offered me. It is a symbol that always makes me feel invincible, like it could do anything. It isn't much really is it? Just a symbol. 

But what it means to me is more than just a star and a few blobs. It's my seal, my security blanket, my spiritual mark of power and my personal rune. It is something that holds me to the beliefs that I cherish and the memory of it keeps me from forgetting how I came to use it to protect myself in the past when things would go wrong. The elements are with me now and they have always and will always be with me. From now until forever and back again.

Spring is on the breeze.

It is Ostara and after reading lots of things online and looking through my books I have come up with nothing.......zilch........bump kiss hahaha. So I have decided to look at what I know in my heart, what I feel in my bones and what I taste on the breeze.

It is spring, the time of growth, birth and renewal. I am reminded of the gods and how they had disputes and growth during the first eons of creation. 

This in turn has me drawn to the story of Persephone and how she was taken by Hades to be his bride in the underworld. This act put her mother Demeter in to a despair and she no longer gave her gifts to the world. As she searched for her daughter the world became starved of fertility and began to wither away and sleep.

After three months and a plan from hades to make sure his bride returned to him, the beautiful Persephone was released from hades and returned to her mother. This act of reunion ends the very first winter and brings about the very first spring as Demeter's powers are returned to the world.

This is where I feel I am now. My spirit returned to my body as I was searching for something I felt I had lost. The love of a mother and her child is brought forth by this story and this reunion speaks of a fundamental love and care. As it is a goddess's love that is brought back in to life it spills out in to the world. Demeter the goddess of the harvest and fertility through the reunion of the one thing that makes her whole breathes life in to the wind, the warm breath takes the chill out of the air and summons the spirits of spring to begin their work. 

Cefiro is FIT!!!!! Hehehehehehe

Cefiro spirit of the spring breeze carries the goddess's breath to all the land. He spreads the message of care and love for one another. He brings the element of romance to the people so that they may again feel at one with each other and spread that love which from the goddess brings life to everything it touches. 

Demeter gives life and Cefiro transports it, may we be blessed by the breath of the goddess and the council of its courier. The power that gives fertility, growth, birth and renewal. Take it in people with your very lungs and use it wisely.