To Listen

This past Sunday, I noticed something about myself that I have been acknowledging more and more. My ability to listen. 

There was a time, not so long ago, when my ability to listen was hampered by trauma and neglect. It really could feel like someone was sounding like Charlie Brown's mother. Even today, I can be focused on my knitting, crocheting, or even a TV show and one of my children will stand in front of me asking me something and it takes a few tries to get my attention. 

This isn't intentional, and perhaps feeds into my ADHD tendencies, but when my attention is focused, it can be like a laser.

Sunday, during Lammas, I was lucky enough to meet a druid gentleman who had come to do a blessing during our community gathering. I had a few questions I wanted to ask him, but another of my community took over the conversation and instead of feeling excluded, as I might have in my 20's or even early 30's, I sat back and listened.

It's kind of an amazing thing, the ability to listen. 

It's more than just hearing what others are saying, it's seeing how they say it and how others around them react to what they are saying. Words can create energy in a space.

So can listening.

When I do tarot card readings, I don't just listen to recipients reactions or questions, I watch their energy and listen to the unheard, or the spiritual messages that come through me like lightning that I once did not take such heed of. 

This is listening. Creating a space of safety, a space of compassion. 

And I realized, as if it was a message from the goddess herself, that my gift was to create those spaces. By listening with compassion, I can change the way someone is speaking to be calmer because of my expression, the way I hold my body and how highly vibrating my energy is. I am accepting.

This does not mean that I do not get frustrated when I have something to say and do not want to interrupt others in order to say it. I can feel ignored and interrupted. But instead of looking at it negatively, I can take a step back and see it as an opportunity to listen. Truly listen.

To observe.

This provided the opportunity for me to see this kind druid's friend who had come with him, and the kindness in his face. To notice that another friend also wanted to speak but felt left out. No one was left out purposely, but I feel like I am learning how to be inclusive in conversations by honing my listening skills.

How well do you think you listen? Do you interrupt others? Do you read their energy? Do you read their body language?

May the goddess hold you
Deep in her arms
May she comfort you
When you feel alone
May she provide sustenance
When you feel hunger
May she speak
And you hear her.

So mote it be.

Blessed Be!
Talia Ravenspath

Depression and Energy

Happy Monday! (or not) ☺

What a doozy this weekend was for me, how was it for you? Celebrating Lammas/Lughnasadh on Sunday was heavenly, if hot (and we had a few bees attacking people, unfortunately). But it was so nice to be around people that are so positive, kind and open.

But what I wanted to talk about today, in particular, was the fact of depression. 

There are so many of us that carry it around and battle it. I know that I have since I was around 8 years old, and I pray that my daughters do not feel that depression at that age and wish they were dead. Horrible feelings. 

But as I've gotten older, I've come to realize a few things. 
1) We can survive almost anything.
2) We are stronger when we realize we can survive anything.
3) It is possible to not be ruled by depression.

I'm not saying it's easy, and it can take a LOT of work. But you can go from days when you can barely get out of bed and everything sets you off to either tears or anxiety laced anger (basis is often in depression though for me), to feeling that depression rising but realizing that your energy vibration is too high for it to overcome.

Let me tell you how that works.

First of all, gemstones are your friends. Charge them during the full moon, place the intention to either drain your depression away, or to raise your energy so that you can rise above it. Because depression is kind of like quicksand, this isn't about struggling with it or fighting it. It's about accepting it as part of who you are and the scars that we have on our souls from this life and past lives. It is about feeling compassion for yourself and learning ways to keep moving, even when you feel like your feet have turned to led. And sometimes it is letting yourself sleep for a day or two and taking that time to hug that echo of the person inside that is hurting and needs that love he/she didn't get. 

I know, it sounds like a lot, but it is doable. This is something you can work on with your therapist and, in particular, it is something you can work on your own day after day.

1) Mindfulness.
This is a great tool because it keeps you from dwelling. Have you ever heard the story about how we each have two wolves inside us, one is bad and the other is good. The one that is strongest is the one we feed. So if we focus on the bad thoughts and give energy to those bad ideas, we are feeding the bad wolf. If we focus on compassion and love for that wounded part of ourselves, we feed the good wolf and break the cycle of depressive thoughts. Mindfulness does this by helping you focus on one thing. 

Breath.

A footstep at a time.

Tapping.

Simple things to draw you into the present with kindness and compassion. Literally fueling a feeling of kindness and compassion while you do this.

2) Energy-work. 
This is another great tool that allows us to learn to manipulate the energy in our body. We can learn to do reiki self healing sessions and the positive regard we continue to have for ourselves is something that is nothing but good when it comes to depression. A simple way of doing a quick Reiki session is as follows:

Breathing slow and deep, make sure your feet are flat on the floor and your hands are on either knee/leg and relaxed. 

Starting from the top of your head, you are going to visualize (with the intent to heal yourself and be kind to yourself) a white light coming down and washing over the top of your head. Slowly it comes down, inch by inch. This is the light of the universe that is a healing light. It is simply going to go down each of your chakras and provide loving healing to wherever it needs to go. So keep visualizing this white light as it comes down over your third eye, between your eyes just above your eyebrows. Perhaps it turns purple when it reaches this point.

As it continues to go down, remember to be kind and love any emotions that come up. Don't worry about thoughts, just lovingly let them go, no matter how often they come up. 

The light will continue to come down over your face and down your throat where it may turn blue. Allow it to continue, loving yourself, hugging yourself as it goes over your heart chakra and turns green, than your solar plexus just above your navel it will turn yellow. Than orange below your naval and finally red at the base of your spine and lower. 

This is something you can do every day. You don't have to visualize these colors, and if you just feel connected to the light going down that is perfect as well. 

The training that you do with these two exercises can break the hold that depression has on you. Perhaps you will never be cured, I know that I am not, especially around my moon days. But you can learn to love yourself unconditionally, and when you do that you can learn to love others unconditionally as well.

You don't have to do them every day, I don't always manage too, though I do try. But just every other day can make such a big difference. 

You are not alone in your depression. 
May your brón (sadness) be lifted 
And your soul's energy be raised
For we are not meant to suffer
But to evolve and to love.

Blessed Be
So Mote It Be.

Be Well!
Talia Ravenspath

Merry Lughnasadh!

Blessed Lughnasadh to you! The harvest time has begun and what a harvest it will be. Lugh is the god of the harvest, but he holds a wonderful place in my heart as the god of crafts. And his consort Rosmerta, the goddess of healing and prosperity calls out to me. 

Do you hear her? Her voice echos with Lugh's in support of our endeavours and our ideas. No wonder I wanted to do more than make bread, but to make homemade butter as well!

Lugh calls to me constantly in my crafting, as I always have either a crochet hook or knitting needles in my hand. I am grateful to him for his continued patronage, and I acknowledge his prescence in my life over the past 25 years with gratefulness as the crafts have given me peace.

He has also inspired me of late to make necklaces with hagstones. Hagstones are amazing stones that naturally have a hole in them due to water flow/dripping. I also added dragons blood jasper, lapis lazuli and hematite. The hagstones were charged with full moon energy and the intent of healing and protection set the morning after.

I cannot stop wearing mine, seriously! I can feel the higher vibration in them!

Suggestions I have for this holiday? 

Craft something! 

Even if you are just drawing something (doodle), do it and enjoy it.

Write a bit of poetry! 

Bake some whole wheat bread, make some butter (let me know how yours comes out ☺).

Between now and the Fall Equinox is a good time to work on bringing in some plans and some feelers, let them come to fruition. All that hard work that you have been doing has completely paid off, it really has. But right now, the harvest also means hard work, and sweaty work with cursing and wiping sweat off your brow. 

To wrap up this post is my tarot reading for this holiday. My three card pull is about the three things I need to focus on.

The nine of Pentacles is about enjoying the harvest and the prosperity that I have earned. Spend it with family and really be present in the world so you can enjoy your family.

The four of Chalices is a card of waiting, perhaps the stability that I have been wanting to have is here but cannot come without help from another, either friends or family. I need to rely on someone from outside myself to help me keep my stability and to not turn my back on that person or people.

The Ace of Wands has to do with spiritual enlightenment and being at one with my intuition. This is something that is a strong part of my life now, I am not perfect, but I am better able to listen to my intuition and my spiritual life is finally at one with my inner life. There is a flourishing that is happening there, and I am grateful for it.

Enjoy this Sabbat and keep your chin up through this Mercury Retrograde. Remember that it is all about communication, so if you keep the lines of communication open, you will be fine.

Blessed Be!
Talia Ravenspath

My Friday Ceremony And Children

Friday was the full moon and I wanted to call the four corners of the earth, raise my circle, put intention into the air.. And my children wanted to be in the circle too haha.

My daughters are 6 and 10 and when I finished getting all set up I told them "In or out of the circle, but once I set the circle you are staying put if you're in." And they both were happy as clams to stay in my little circle I made. 

I called the guardians and made the circle, and they giggled throughout it. Part of it was because they have never been there with me when I did a circle and besides blessing my new hagstones, necklaces and recharging everything on my altar from a hagstone to my selenite globe, I didn't have a huge ceremony planned. And I usually don't.

The first thing I noticed is that they were distracting, because they were giggling. I stuttered a little on calling the corners and they giggled. Instead of getting mad, I let the joyful energy they were filled with rise into the circle I was creating and become a part of the ceremony. I smiled and laughed too. 

That is one of the things about life. You can get mad at what is happening, because it isn't exactly what you expected, or you can accept it as it is and just go with it. This kind of go with the flow (that can take practice, BELIEVE ME) is one of those things that can prevent flair ups of anxiety. Seriously. :)

Blessed Be and have a wonderful week!
Talia Ravenspath

Full Moon, Lunar Eclipse and Mercury Retrograde! Oh My!

Oh Mercury, you trickster.

So many people are worried about the mercury retrograde that is starting TODAY. But relax, it's okay! Don't stress about it and create a situation where you are going to self-sabotage yourself with anxiety over it. 

With the full moon tomorrow night and the mercury retrograde, all I have to say is to just work on your meditation and mindfulness. It is so easy to mess up communication, which is one of the main things that mercury stands for. So work on mindfully being truthful and openly communicative without being brash or harsh (Leo hanging out right now). 

Things to do?

Charge those crystals! Especially get out those gemstones that are helpful in aiding communication, like Amazonite, Lapis Lazuli, Sodalite (my favorite), or Turquoise and after charging them sit with them Saturday morning and program them to specifically help you get through this time period.

The full moon with the lunar eclipse makes it a particularly charged full moon, a super moon. So the charge will be wonderful. Just stay positive!

Meditate. Make sure you are being mindful of your breath. Your steps, your level of compassion for yourself and others. Because creating a level of kind regard for yourself helps you fight the demons of depression and anxiety.

How?

Because depression is worrying or dwelling on the past and anxiety is worrying and stressing about the future. Neither of which you control. Meditation brings you to the present. To the breath, to the life inside you.

So if you are worrying about the Mercury Retrograde, and I now a lot of you are, please don't! Just relax and use the gifts the universe is handing you. Something is always going to be throwing off your vibe, but the mercury retrograde is all about perception, it's not really going backward, we just see it as going backwards. 

Be like the Hanging Man (or the Oak King in my deck), let go of old perceptions and habits.

Today's three card reading was on the three things I need to focus on during the Mercury Retrograde. The first card is The Wild Hunt, or the Tower. As a major arcane card I believe that some things that I believed were true will collapse under pressure (and I believe this may be a continuing thing). This card is not scary because sometimes we build our beliefs of something on false facts or poor communication and they will inevitably collapse.

The second card is the Three of Chalices, which stands for creativity and strength in community and friendship. I need to make sure I stay focused on the friendships and community to keep my head on straight.

The third card is the Seven of Chalices, which is a card of choices and a pause in contemplation. With the mercury in retrograde, this is a good card to remind me to meditate and be thoughtful in my choices and actions.

Stop stressing about the Mercury Retrograde!!

Be well and keep your chin up.
Talia Ravenspath

All the Witch Crafties

When this blog says, the "Craft of", I meant it haha. I make lotion, make shampoo bars, knit, crochet, dye yarn and you will see some of it on here, especially things that are witchy related. And almost anything you see is available for either special order (if you want a special color) or straight purchase from the link on the side of this blog that will take you straight to my etsy shop.

Some things in life take you a round about way, and I started crocheting at 13 and knitting at 23. Than I started to dye yarn a few years ago and make lotion and shampoo bars this year. Growth is good and Danu and Lugh definitely enjoy poking at my crafty side to keep learning more.

Pagan Inconsistencies For The Win

Do you know what had driven me a little batty during my early years of study? I have been practicing and studying for 25 years and the one thing that all pagans can seem to agree on, is that we can't always agree on things HAHA. 

For Example:

From one tradition to another, the elemental correspondence to the directions change, the point labeling of the pentagram (besides Spirit being up at the top) changes. This is just an example of the fact that if you follow just an eclectic view of paganism or wicca (not that I'm knocking that at all), it can be very confusing, especially at first.

Go google directions and their pagan correspondences and see what images come up. I'll wait (haha). Here are a few that I found:

Than go google pentacle meanings and see what images come up:

Are you confused yet?

Is this a problem long-term? Depends on how malleable your mind is and how willing you are to think outside the box. If you are the type A kind of person that needs the answer, perhaps eclectic Wiccanism isn't for you and you should stick to a specific tradition.

  But perhaps what matters more than having the direction or point correct, is having your intent and mindset correct.

  When you call the guardians of the watchtowers of Fire, no matter which direction makes sense to you, do you feel the warmth of the fire barely contained? 

When you call the guardians of the watchtowers of the Earth, do you feel it's slowness and energy that it transforms as quickly as you ground with gratefulness? 

There are always going to be these little inconsistencies because we are all human and this type of thing just makes sense to us. One website even made up a little a suggestion of turning the elements and directions towards poetry: (LINK)

Air	The cold wind blows
Water	The warm nurturing waters flow
Fire	The warm light of the fire rises
Earth	The Great Mother Earth rises

I love this! And that is why, for me, the sun is Fire, so will always rise in the East; the ocean lies South of me, so there is Water; Earth is as far as the eye can see, as well as mountains and forests, is in the West; and the Air blows cold down from the North.

Ground it in your reality so A) you can remember it and B) it makes sense to you and your world.

But most of all, don't sweat the small stuff.

Blessed Be and have a wonderful day!

Talia Ravenspath