Winter Solstice

Hope you all have a wonderful winter solstice and if you do Christmas. Hope the new year is bright and beautiful for you all and I will see you all in the new year. :)

What I've created: herbal heat packs

Finally found the camera that had these photos on to which I can show you what I made a few months ago. My mum helped me a lot with these as I am rubbish at sewing and could not understand how to get the sewing machine to work, there is too many things you need to thread through to get the thread to actually work and when I did mange to get the thread through all the right areas it still didn't work as I didn't put it through the right area or something like that..Very confusing but I will get the hang of it.

I wanted to make these for my two mum -in-laws and tired to find the scent and material that suited them the best. That bit I find the worst right now, choosing the scent for other people, matching it to their personality and such but I think I did a pretty good job this time. My favourite has to be the lavender and mint..I would never have thought that these two scents would work so well and they do, they just seem to balance each other and yet they have that twist to them.

I hope to make more of these in the near future, when I have found out how to actually use the sewing machine! :)

Cailleach

Disgusting old hag, ugly as the word sin,
One look from her could make you spin,
But her eye, oh her beautiful eye,
Such wisdom, beauty, secrets of the world,
No one could ever sing of,
She is feared, she is greeted,
But Cailleach is never far.

As I am searching more into my spiritual path I am finding things out which I over looked before. Such as the deities, I always saw the same Cailleach but I never really bothered to actually take the time to research this Goddess and truly find who she is. Until now, and I feel that there is a reason why I have found my way to her.
There isn't that great of information written about her, or known about her, only first hand texts. But I don't wish to read upon them as I want to experience that for myself (sometimes if I read someone else's experience before I have my own when its about the same subject, I feel that I may be encouraged to have the same experience as them). But from what I can understand about Cailleach is that she is connected to the earth in such a way that she has some of the earth attached/growing on her body, some will even say that she is Mother Earth. The time that she comes out is after Samhain towards Winter time, where she spreads the icy, snow weather when she travels.

From what I have read up about her, I do fear Cailleach. She has all this power at her feet, who wouldn't fear this woman, this Goddess? We are all connected to the earth and as she is Mother Earth she can do what she likes to us, that's if we carry on being selfish human beings. - Well just look at what is happening to world today, all these fires, snow storms, floods etc. Who is to say that this is not her screaming at us?
But at the same time of fearing her, I honour her, I will always greet her and welcome her. Not because I am scared of what she might do, but because there is so much history to her. So many lessons, stories and so much wisdom that she can teach us. That is if she will tell us and we have the patients to listen.

This is all I have learnt at the moment about her, I hope I can write back soon with so much more experiences to tell about my journey with her. But maybe she is just testing me to see if I am ready to listen to what she has to say.

Ogham

Most of this year I have been trying to learn about Ogham. I thought it was going to be easy and something similar to the elder futhark runes..Oh how wrong I was about that and I feel it will be just the same when it comes to learning about the runes.

Although I could learn the basics about Ogham and then start using it for divination purpose, I feel that I would be cheating with myself. I want to dive right in and find all about it, well read up on all the information there is about this Alphabet and then use it for many other uses, such as for ritual purpose or to inscribe something on my staff etc. I don't just want to use it for divination as I feel it has so many more uses than that.

I am also hoping to create my own Ogham sticks, and when I do I will be posting many photos.

There is something about Ogham that has really pulled me close to it and I hope later on I will be able to tell you all more about this fantastically mysterious form of divination and alphabet.