Beltane Blues

Beltane is upon us my friends....literally days away. Normally, I would be all excited over this holiday, as it's one of my favorites. I love the energy of Beltane....it's so....awesome. However, this year seems to be a bit....lacking. I seem to be in a bit of a metaphysical slump lately. The last full moon I was just "Meh" about. Beltane and this coming Tuesday's New Moon....Meh. Honestly....I could really care less if it comes and goes. And that's just not like me. I would say that I'm in a period of transition...but that doesn't feel right. It's more like I'm waiting for something....like I'm in a holding pattern. But not really. Honestly, I have no idea how to describe it...so I'm not going to try.

What I do know is....Beltane is almost here and with that in mind....I leave you with some Beltane correspondences. What is everyone going to do to celebrate? I will be spending my day at our local Arts Festival...camera in hand. If anything.....I might cook something Beltane related....just to observe in some way. We've all gotta eat right? LOL

Beltane Correspondences:

Other Names: May Day, Walpurgis Eve, Celtic Summer, The Great Rite, Floralia

Symbols: Flowers, Chalice, May Pole, May Baskets, Crossroads

Colors: Red, Green, White, Dark Yellow

Activities: Gathering Flowers, Wrapping the May Pole, The Great Rite

Taboos: Giving away fire or food

Animals: Goats, Rabbits, Honey Bees

Stones: Sapphire, Bloodstone (two of my personal favorites)

Foods: Dairy Foods, Oats, Honey

Plants: Hawthorn, Rose, Rosemary, Lilac, Birch

Attunement Teas: Burdock, Damiana, Hibiscus, Rose Hips

Ritual Oils: Passion Flower, Rose, Vanilla

Mythical Creatures: Faeries, Satyrs, Pegasus, Giants

Key Action: Take Action (ie...Get up and Do Something!)

Goddesses: Aphrodite, Artemis, Blodewedd, Diana, Flora, Cybele, Freya, Rhiannon, Venus

Gods: Cernunnons, Cupid/Eros, Frey, Puck, Baal, Odin, Pan

**This is by no means a complete list. All information was gathered from Sabbats: A Witch's Approach to Living the Old Ways by Edain McCoy**

An Experiment

Wordless Wednesday: Art Festivals

Tea Time Tuesday: A Poem

When both host and guest

have exchanged their minds,

only then does the water truly boil.

Since the garden path is a way

beyond this transient world,

why not shake off the dust

that soils the mind?

What is Tea? Simply boiling water,

making tea, and drinking it.

Know that this is fundamental.

The garden path, the hut,

the hosts and the guests...

All are whipped together

in the Tea,

and are without distractions.

~Sen no Rikiyu (1521-91)

Meditation Monday: Awake Forever

Sutra: All things arise and pass away. But the awakened awake forever. ~The Dhammapada of Gautama the Buddha, CA 500BC~

Become aware, awake. Then you will see that everything comes and goes, all things come and pass. Life is a flux. Your consciousness is the only thing that is immovable, that is eternal.

To attain it is freedom.

To attain it is the goal of life. If you miss it you have missed your life and you have missed a tremendously great gift, a great opportunity.

Happy Earth Day!

Take care of the Earth and She will take care of you. ~Author Unknown~

Please remember that every day is Earth Day. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Pick up that plastic bottle that you walk by on the street. Dispose of it properly. We only get one planet to live on....let's do a better job of taking care of it.

Wordless Wednesday: Only A Little Late Edition

This picture is representative of a "Comfortable Silence" to me. It was taken in Feb. of this year after a wicked snow/ice storm. Location: My apartment complex parking lot in Oklahoma.

Tea Time Tuesday: Uber-Late Edition

I think I've posted about Rosemary Tea before.....I'm not even sure to tell you the truth. But since this is a catch up post and well....I have been uber-forgetful lately, I figured this would be appropriate. Read all about the benefits of this versatile herb made tea here. Enjoy a cup today!

Meditation Monday: Uber-Late Edition

Sutra: All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. ~The Dhammapada of Gautama the Buddha, CA. ~500BC~

We need a totally different world, a different upbringing, where hate is not taught. This is a very strange world that we have created! Up to now what we have done to humanity is really unbelievable: on the one hand we teach people to hate, and on the other hand we go on talking about peace. On the one hand we poison them, and on the other hand we tell them, "You are all brothers." We talk about brotherhood and we prepare for war; we talk about world peace and we prepare for war. This is sheer neurosis; this is not sanity! Man hitherto has remained insane, and the reason is upbringing. We have not listened to the buddhas yet. Now it is time.

Delay

All of this weeks posts will be delayed until about Thursday. Hang in there campers....fun stuff is coming up :)

Blessed Full Moon

I've been feeling a bit off lately. Not all here and all that....as is evident by my lack of blogging lately. But I'm hoping that a good dose of meditation under the light of tonite's moon was just the ticket to get my creativity unblocked so that I can get back into what I like/love to do.

I hope that you all had a magickal Full Moon weekend. I will be back tomorrow to post the Meditation Monday, Tea Time Tuesday and to fulfill a blog for Dark Mother who so kindly tagged me in one of her blogs....I've taken days to think about it and I think I'm done with my list :)

So...till tomorrow. Sweet dreams my bloggity friends.

Link love and stuff

Not much going on in my corner of the universe this week. I know that I missed this week's posts on Mon, Tues and Wed (oh wait...that's today isn't it?) See...I don't even know what freakin day of the week it is. *sigh* I'm uber-tired ya'll that's all. Taxes were done....it, of course, involved getting the "husband" (I have got to find a new name for him...any suggestions?) over here to the apartment. It didn't go too badly overall. I didn't kill him....not even a little bit. He cracked a few jokes, I cracked a few jokes....well...I made more than several snarky remarks that I found hilarious but got me one of his typical "really? you're kidding?" looks instead. He took his computer with him when he left...which is cool...now my den looks strange and a whole lot emptier. Of course this is a good thing if that ends up having to be used as a bedroom for a while. And over the past few days, I have found a few links from Elephant Journal that I want to share with you. Read them....let me know which is your favorite from either one (or both) of the links. Article 1: Permission Granted! and Article 2: 10 Ways to Deal with.... Read and Enjoy. I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and having Friday off. And then I work on Saturday and I have Sunday off!!!! That will be the day I do nothing. Friday will be for laundry, getting my bank account started, more organizing and packing of his crap. Sunday will be for sleep, reading and playing on the interwebz. *sigh*

Necessary Venting/Purging

The past few days have been emotionally "touch and go" with me. I've been more quiet and withdrawn lately without really knowing why. Then it hit me the other day that I am alone. And not alone in the sense that I don't have anyone standing by me....I've got that in spades and am deeply appreciative for my friends and family. I am alone in the sense that I no longer have a "partner" to plan things with. I don't have someone to dream of my future with anymore....nobody to tease about growing old together and give random kisses to as we pass each other in our busy days. It's damn depressing. And then the stress of having to find another vehicle (after mine was repossessed), a new place to live in order to accomodate an 11 year old little girl, and trying to find another (better paying) job so that we can survive....my head was ready to explode last night. After spending about 45 minutes on a local selling site last night looking for said vehicle...and not finding anything that had a running motor, good transmission, something that actually ran....I wanted to curl up and cry myself into oblivion. I knew that wouldn't do me (or anyone else) any good though, so I cleaned. I cleaned my bathroom, my dresser, nightstand and my altar. I rearranged the dresser and altar so that everything flows better. And bagged up a ridiculous amount of trash. I feel a lot better now....so good in fact that I'm going to continue this trend through the rest of the house (as much as possible). I need to finish packing up the ex's stuff so that I can get that out of my house quickly. I feel like I'm at a crossroads in my life....and feeling it is totally different from knowing. I've known I've been a crossroads for some time now. I'm just now getting around to actually feeling it. One part of me is terrified of it and the other part is mildly curious as to what we'll do next. Wish me luck....I think I might need it.

Wordless Wednesday: Cupcakes

Tea Time Tuesday: Lavender Tea

You'll notice that the Meditation Monday post was actually posted just shortly before I put today's Tea Time Tuesday together. That's because Meditation Monday became Migraine Monday for me. I woke up insanely early yesterday and prepared to go to work and was, instead, blindsided by one of the most viscious migraines I have experienced....ever. This one made me actually ill.....and I fell twice due to the insane amount of diziness I was thrown. I was one unhappy witch. So in light of that fact.....I decided to post about the benefits of lavender tea today. Lavender is one of the herbs that people refer to most for stress relief. It's actually come up quite a bit in my personal conversations lately so I'm going with it. Lavender tea may help with the following issues: May help ease insomnia. May help calm nervousness and ease anxiety May help alleviate stress May help soothe an upset stomach May help treat colic May help to ease depressive and migraine headaches May help to ease symptoms of respitory issues such as: asthma, colds, coughs, bronchitis, etc. (When applied topically) May help to reduce fevers (induced sweating) Also useful as a mouthwash to help with halitosis **All information was found here. You can read the full article as well as find several other articles on teas**

Meditation Monday: Burn and Be Swift

Sutra: Like a noble horse, Smart under the whip, Burn and be swift. ~The Dhammapada of Gautama the Buddha C.A. 500BC~ Awareness is fire; it burns all that is wrong in you. It burns your ego. It burns your greed, it burns your possissiveness, it burns your jealousy -- it burns all that is wrong and negative, and it enhances all that is beautiful, graceful, and divine. And when the gross and the ugly are burned, a great sharpness happens in your being, a great swiftness comes to your life, a great intensity and passion, a great totality and wholeness.

Whoops

I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking when I posted the Meditation Monday this week and then turned around and forgot the Tea Time Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday. How can I ever make it up to you? Ummmm.....I know!! I'll post another awesome picture. However, I can only do that after I make note of the fact that this is post #100 on this blog :) How freakin cool is that??? I'm pretty jazzed about that just so you know. I don't believe I have ever stuck with a journal/blog type thing this long. It's fantastic :) Oh yes....I'm guessing you guys want that picture now ;) Here you are....enjoy. I'll be back on Sunday. Have an awesome weekend.

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Oh the anticipation is awful isn't it??? LOL

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