It's a Small World After All

Oh, WHAT an intense weekend it's been, and how I love to discover forgotten things about myself so that I can work on them and become a more full and useful person. What a damn treat.

I'll discuss that more, later, when I figure out how to say it; for now, I want to say that magic really is the art of changing consciousness at will. And it can work.

At the 3Rivers Reclaiming Brigid ritual, there was some discussion beforehand about the wisdom of using "It's a Small World After All" as the goodbye song.

Now, understand me here: if there had been no discussion, I would never had mentioned my deep hatred of that song. I would have just let the energy flow through me without screwing it up for everybody else. But since there WAS a discussion, I chimed in and added my piece. Which, I believe, included some sarcasm. I don't remember this specifically, but I've met me, and I've heard myself discuss the song "It's a Small World After All," so I'd be willing to bet that there was sarcasm involved.

One of the other participants said that he'd had a really bad experience at Disneyland, whilst on that ride at the age of 5 or so, and that the doll automatons terrified him and the song now causes him grief. And I said I'd had that experience, too, only I was 28.

Anyway. We discussed this a while, and the young woman who had suggested the song spoke quite eloquently in favor of it, talking about its lightheartedness and the way in which it speaks of our connection to the big world we're in, giving us juice so that we can act politically, and I thought, you know, it's a song. I am not at Disneyland. There are no terrifying idiot dolls. I could sing the damn song.

So I changed my mind and spoke in favor of the song, and what with one thing and another we did indeed sing the song, and since I didn't know the verses, I just sang the chorus, which I did carefully and with compassion rather than with attitude, and it was a LOVELY song, and very meaningful.

Here it is, in case you yourself should wish to use it in your next ritual:

It's a world of laughter, a world or tears
Its a world of hopes, its a world of fear
There's so much that we share
That its time we're aware
Its a small world after all

CHORUS: Its a small world after all
Its a small world after all
Its a small world after all
Its a small, small world

There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone.
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small small world.

There you go. Consciousness, messed around with willfully.

Saturn Square Saturn

One of the things going on lately (see earlier posts concerning Dark Moon Drama and Full Moon Drama and oh, probably Middle of the Week for No Reason Drama; I can't remember the details at the moment) concerns my little personal transit through a Saturn square Saturn time (Saturn originally in Scorpio).

I'm due for my second Saturn return in just a few years, and my first Saturn return involved Getting Sober. I'm glad about it, I'm grateful every day for it, it's the most useful thing that ever happened to me, BUT I wouldn't characterize it as A Treat.

No, it was hard.

And in general, I experience Saturn energy as pretty damn intense.

So my thinking these days is maybe, instead of getting horribly surprised by my inner reality in a few years, I can siphon off some of that energy now by working through as much stuff as I possibly can. This makes sense, doesn't it? I wasn't entirely bonkers when I thought this up. Nah.

Hence the year of dark moon work; hence the glitter bombs and new adoration of Freyja; hence daily and constant spiritual practices involving cleaning up my stuff and getting clear.

So it is, of course, with a bit of trepidation that I approach the weekend, which includes a Brigid ritual on Saturday (and I'm pledged to her) and the dark moon on Sunday.

O, frabjous day! Caloo! Calay!

Tomorrow morning on the way to work I think I'll go buy some Godiva chocolate, and some flowers, all for me. In honor of Freyja.

And because chocolate seems like a pretty damn good idea.

Back From the Full Moon

As could be expected, it wasn't a RESTFUL full moon, nah, not really.

I suppose all that glitter has something to do with it. I gave one of the glitter bars I use to a friend last summer, and it sort of flipped her out; there was glitter! everywhere! it was out of control!

Well, yes....that was the point, really....

But I can see if one favored Kind and Gentle change one might not want to use a Lush glitter massage bar in the bath. The glitter is around the house for days. Weeks, really.

I like it, though. Very explosive. Gets a lot done quickly.

This month I teamed the glitter bar (or glitter bomb, as my friend calls it) with glitter bath foam (given to me by the same friend, now that I think of it) and glitter lotion. And there was some other actual magic, to boot.

All of which put me in an altered state for three days -- good timing, that, the long weekend -- and then I had a Down Day bouncing back.

I'm fine now. And I'm happy with the work. I hit some deep information and I got some deep work done.

And the glitter's slowly disappearing. On to the dark moon!

New Stone Circle! Be Prepared!

Witchvox points to an article out of Coventry concerning a new stone circle planned near Rugby. It's going to not only be "celestial," the article says -- though exactly in what way I can't tell -- it's going to have lights. Lots of lights. Little reflectors, for one thing, and laser displays, for another. Also, carving all over the stones, concerning local events and inhabitants and what not.

Now, if you're anything like me, your first thought is, "tacky. Just plain old tacky."

But wait! Before you compare the proposed Rugby Circle mentally with the ponderous and magnificent Stonehenge (though the effect is slightly spoiled these days by all that plastic footpath hoohah and the guide ropes), or the charming and domestic Avebury, and discover that the newly proposed circle is going to be lacking in subtlety, remember that all those icy white Greek statues and temples, and even the much later icy and grey Gothic cathedrals, were originally Really Colorful. Really. Extremely.

And then you can revise, in your mind, Stonehenge, so that it's not only intact, but also covered in little reflective mirrors and highly painted. Ha ha!

Tacky beyond measure. If the ancients had been able to construct laser light shows, believe me, they'd have been using them.

I may have to stop off in Rugby the next time I'm trying to get from Northampton to Lincoln -- there's some bizarre train change now required; you can't get there from here, anywhere in England, nowadays -- just to see the damn thing.

Or not.

Things You'll Never Hear Me Say

Thanks to Owls' Court for the link to Things You'll Never Hear a Pagan Say, organized by path, including my favorites:

"Y'know, I think I've got too many Tarot decks."

and

"Everybody here on time? Yes? Good."

and to which I must now add

"Freyja is not my ideal woman."

Beware the Goddesses of Light!

Nothing blew up during or after my dark moon power work, I'm happy to report, but I didn't get off easy, no, no.

During my dark moon year I've been working with Hecate (hence the honey cakes at the crossroads) -- well, that makes sense, no surprises there. I'm enriching my view of her, true -- the older versions, the Maiden versions, have been interesting and useful. But in order to work with the source of my power, I find to my -- well, surprise, I guess -- that she sends me elsewhere.

Well.

Pleasure? Joy? What the hell.

What I say is, there's nobody so dark as the goddesses of light. It's one of the mysteries.