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This year for the first time I have been sending out a tweet every day noting at least one thing in the world around me which has signalled the move from Summer to Autumn.  I do find in the UK that each season has a particular energy to it. The longer I have been on the magical path the more sensitive I get to that energy and I need to make a conscious shift inside myself from one season to another in order to make sure I am vibrating in tune with the season and not fighting against it.  This allows me to truly revel in the season and the weather and I can safely say that I have no favourite, I enjoy the seasons all equally. I would advocate learning to love all the seasons for two reasons.

Firstly being in tune with the energy in the weather and the seasons is incredibly helpful in my own magickal practices.  You have to work with what you have and a piece of magick that resonates best with the particular emotions and feelings captured by long hot balmy summer nights works less well in the dead of Winter covered in frost and snow.  Better attuning yourself to the energies of the season allows you to understand the best way to perform your magick in harmony with the energy available to you. It is simply another form of energy and power to utilise in your workings and one that is varied and abundant.  However it is also a fickle and changeable energy which is why it is important to attune yourself.  Whether you are Wiccan or not, the eight Sabbat festivals of the year which mark a mixture of Solstices, Equinoxes and important agricultural dates give a good basic framework for attuning yourself to the changing energy of the seasons.  They provide a great template for the big energy peaks but I want to delve a little deeper that this.  Whilst a night of celebration is great fun and can be spiritually moving, I don’t agree that one big party for a couple of hours is really the full story.  The seasons change gradually through a number of small signs, my method of working is to slowly absorb and notice those signs, gradually moving myself into a different energetic state by a small amount each day at the same pace as the season itself changes.  The festival is then a ultimate celebration – a feeling of having arrived, but importantly I have made a journey to reach that arrival.  This is a more organic way of noticing and attuning and it allows you to really luxuriate in the changes which is important for point number two…

Secondly I want to enjoy my life.  I don’t want to spend each Winter pining for the Summer, wishing my life away.  Looking for the good things in each season may sound like an annoyingly Pollyanna way of working, however when it comes to the weather (especially in the UK) the only thing you can rely on and control is your own reaction.  I do not mean to dismiss those people who suffer SAD, I think that they have an unfortunate burden to bear which no amount of positive thinking can erase.  However for the rest of us we can find the good in all the seasons and by finding what is enjoyable we can start to enjoy them.

I love the first frost and the first daffodils, I love the bare skeletons of Winter trees and the lush abundance of my Summer garden.  I love it all, no matter how wet or annoyed I may get at times.
 
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Poppet me do.
Recently I took the big step of moving my altar into our main living space (after consulting closely with the person I share the space with).  It is in the living room, where we spend much of our busy time; in fact you couldn’t get a space which is much more mundane.  This might seem like a bad place for an altar – it even shares a room with the TV! But in fact moving it here has radically improved my relationship with the altar space in ways both expected and unexpected. 

As you may remember I am on a journey to integrate and bring myself into alignment, to consciously acknowledge and embrace everything I am.  There is no stronger way of demonstrating that in my mind than moving my altar into the most public and mundane space in the house.  It is a physical commitment to living in the most authentic way that I can, both in terms of bringing spirituality into my everyday life and being very open about that spirituality. 

But there have been two other benefits to the move.  Firstly the placement of the altar has improved and expanded the quality of the energy in the room itself and secondly since moving the altar I now use it all the time.  Because I don’t have to make a special journey up two floors to get to the altar and I am seeing it constantly and thus constantly reminded of it, prompting me to use it more often.    It is now a part of the fabric of my daily life and since bringing it into my daily life the altar has itself been very active in putting a very positive energy into my living space. 

A short period after setting up the new altar it began to take on an energetic life of its own.  The first thing that happened involved my Gods and Goddesses. Very soon after I moved and re-consecrated the altar the Deities moved in. I remember standing before the altar, stilling my mind and breathing in incense and suddenly realising that the Deities I work with were all arrayed in front of me, a little way behind the altar, like a council of wise teachers. Now every time I want to touch in with my Gods and Goddesses then I will usually make a speedy trip to the altar and suddenly they are simply there.

Next I became aware of the altar in a completely different way – as a portal to the magickal world.  Most of the time the portal is closed, however it became obvious once the altar was established that there was a portal which I could open if I needed to something which simply had not been the case in its previous location.

Lastly it can change the energy in the room.  The altar exists in two states, dormant and active.  When it is dormant it is quietly and gently magickal, it is a part of the scenery of the room, just a part of the scenery which is whispering sweet things to my subconscious.  When I choose to activate the altar it becomes a hugely powerful centre of the room which can raise the energy levels of the whole room, meaning that any work I am doing in the space around the altar or even simply writing on my laptop at the dining table is then bathed in that energy.

I am a total convert to the power and usefulness of personal altars especially as a stunningly, powerful tool for deconstructing and affirming your faith and your magickal practice.  But even I didn't realise how much of a life of their own they can take on.

Next post coming 10 Steps to a Personal Altar!
 
I just returned from a fantastic holiday with 23 other people.  Many of them are close friends, in some cases friends of over 10 years standing.  As far as I know I am the only pagan amongst them.  What binds us together is very different from paganism but nevertheless powerful.

It took me a couple of days to adjust to the energy of the group - not least because I was sharing a living space with 11 other people which is not my normal state.  After those two days I adjusted completely to the energy and had the most amazing time.  Because much of the holiday was spent just being in each other's company, pottering around, chatting, connecting, cooking together or simply being in the same room quietly reading; by the end of the holiday there is a really strong and tangible sense of connection between everyone (even people who may not have know each other so well at the start).  Usually when we humans meet up with other people it is to do "something".  It is normally only family, partners and maybe flatmates with whom we do "nothing".  But doing nothing can create some of the strongest bonds there are. 

I am still in the grip of that intense connected headspace; even though I have been back at home for some time now.  I am desperately trying to switch it off because it is not the right energetic space in which I normally live my life and I am feeling bone tired and cannot concentrate on any of my usual projects - which I want to pick up and run with since I have left them fallow for a week.  I expect that when I emerge from this odd space I am currently in then I shall have been refreshed for all my other projects but for now I am trying to wind down one part of my mind and gear up another...and that is not as easy as it sounds.  At least I can at least see that this is what is happening rather than snapping at everyone around me and/or beating myself up for being lazy. 

I am sorting of hoping that by posting here I can be shifting myself back into the desired energetic space.