Fear

Around 2 in the morning I had the urge to do a reading for myself.
I have often talked about how I normally feel lost or stuck within my path, I was having that same feeling but this time it was confusion of how I could move forward with my path when these headaches I have had for so many years have put a halt on what I can do.

So with having the feeling of needing to do a reading I thought it would be a good time to see what I should be doing among all of this.
Basically the cards told me I needed to face up to my fears, to learn not to let my fear control me and remember that there are people around me who I can trust and ask for support.
The cards also mentioned my ancestors, that there was something that I hadn't done that was connected to them.
Two of my grandparents died when I was either not born or when I was too little to actually know what was going on.
I was around 8 when my other grandparents died and I understood that I would never see them again (in the physical form) but I am not sure if I actually grieved for them, and I feel that is why I am so upset about not being able to have that connection with spirit lately.

Before the headaches started to happen I remember that I read something about fear in the book The Celtic Shaman, John Matthews he had also added a meditation which helped you to face your fears, after I had read this a couple of times I was pretty sure I knew what I was doing and went in a meditation state to do just that. I remember that I had came out of the meditation pretty quick and thought I had faced some fear. A few days after the headaches started, at first they didn't really bother me but whenever I would start and do some sort of meditation, spirit work or any other practise they would get worse. Appear around the side of my temples and then move to the front of my forehead (or the third eye area), no pain killer, herbal medicine or any type of healing could help them to stop and they could last for days on end.

I was looking back at the notes of that meditation just to see if I could find what may have gone wrong with it, and I remembered that I didn't really protect myself when in the meditation in case anything tried to harm me while in there.
There is a part of me which doesn't want to face my fears, because they are somewhat a comfort to me and I am used to them being there. I am sometimes not good with changes, I often do get panic attacks due to an appointment being changed or if something happens in my daily routine so I wouldn't know how I will be with this change.
But my fears have become my crutches and I need to learn and remember how to walk without them.
I have mentioned before about this headache in the post Spirit Work, I still believe that there may be a spirit who is around me who may be influencing the headaches as well so I still need to work on that as well.

Facing your fears can be a challenge and difficult, it can take time to deal with them, if you feel that you can not deal with them on your own you can always go and talk with someone about them to help you through it.
Fear is a natural and normal feeling we have and it is ok to admit that we do have fears.

Reflection Summary

Hope you all had a lovely holiday and do have a positive, fulfilled 2012.

When I went into hibernation back in September I didn't really stay down for long, in fact that part of the year I hardly did any reflection due to wanting to make sure the holidays were just right. As me and my partner had moved into our new place, I wanted to make sure nothing was going to go wrong and that everything was going to go smoothly for our first time in the house. And it did.
I just wish I had taken the same amount of time and effort to reflect on myself, there must be a good enough reason coming my way for me to not be as focused on that as I normally am.

As I haven't really got an actual plan on what I should be focusing more on this year I thought I would take the opportunity to try and do a new/old craft each month. I have been itching to do more of my crafts but with the move it made things a little bit challenging, but now we are settled I am hoping to take more time to do some crafting. One of them is to actually make some soap! Each and every time I have tried to make soap it has failed so this time I am hoping to do actually have some success in that area.

I just wonder how long this will last before I get distracted..

Inner Reflection

I have found that whenever I feel like I am beginning to get that disconnected feeling with my spiritual path I want to just hide away from everything. This is probably the main reason why I haven't been posting much.
I am not really sure why I get this feeling, I just feel that there is something I am supposed to be doing/learning but I haven't found what it is but it is staring right in front of me, that is what I don't like the most about feeling that way.
Plus it is starting to come to that time of year. I find that when Autumn and Winter are arriving I start to hibernate with my inner self. I start to look back at the first half of the year and see what I have managed to achieve, what I haven't managed to do and start to take notes from all that and see what I need to do for the next part of the year, until this time again.
I have been doing this only a couple of years but I do feel that it does help me in some way.

My path

Every time I come to talk about what my spiritual path is whether it be in a blog or through video I just seem to clam up and not be able to talk about it. Its not that I don't know what my path is, its just for a very long time I have struggled with finding the practises that make my path.

Whenever I read a book, website or through video that has some information on hedge witchery, I used to feel as if I was doing it wrong because I wasn't doing their way. But I am starting to realise that that is who they are and I need to focus more on what I can do that is around me.
I felt like there was this huge gap inside of me which couldn't seem to be filled up, I was trying so hard to find what practises I could do in my path which ended me with having huge headaches as I was always coming to a dead end. Then I started to think about what do I believe in, what is inspiring me the most and drawing me towards it.

I feel more strongly towards the Celtic Gods and Goddesses and I do feel that I am inspired and are more drawn to that culture. Although it can be difficult at times when doing research of the Celts spirituality (pre-Christianity) as there is very little information about them. This is probably where I started to struggle again and begin to get that huge headache from endless searching but no where closer to what I was looking for.

The witch of the forest grove   and walking the hedge had mentioned something to do with looking into the folktales of the certain culture to see about how you could bring that into your practises, as sometimes within poetry and stories lies the practises and such of that culture. So I am at the moment searching through Celtic folktales to see what I can find and even seperating them by going through the Scottish, Irish, Welsh etc. Also I have decided it is about time I take a more closer look at the history of the Celts, to honour them and learn more of there lifestyle.
I would love to learn some of there language to be a bit more closer to them, but I am having trouble to choose so that will be another challenge for me to come to.
I also found that the Celts did like to honour their ancestors and travels of them. And ever since I was little my family would always talk about when they were little and how their grandparents would go on and how they went on when they were little and still today we do that, and it made me realise that I am honouring them and it is a practise that I do. I have photos of them lying about, talk to them as much as I can (although I should talk to them more often).
I also enjoy walking around my local area, seeing everything around me and what is changing, giving thanks to nature for what she is giving to us and sometimes I try to stand still and hear their songs and stories that they tell, or even messages that they are trying to give to me. As they are my teachers and they give me my lessons to learn.
I never realised it until now (when I was researching up on kitchen witchery) that what I make, i.e - bath bombs, lip balms, bath milk, shower gel etc. Is part of kitchen witchery along with your usual baking and such. So that is a practise that I do pretty much all the time.

All these little things I have been doing make up my path and I never understood that. All the time I was trying to fill a gap and do so much searching that it ended up hurting me when all this time it was right there infront of me.
I know now that this is a test that the Gods, my ancestors, the land was giving me to see if I could pull and work through such a task like this.


It may not sound like a typical hegdewitch or for some they feel annoyed that I call myself a hedgewitch because it isnt the way that they go. I dont care, but I do at the same time, this is my path and I am finding my ground to where I can plant my roots and grow and set my surroundings. Maybe in time I will add more practises but at this moment this is basically what I do and know well how to do.

There is something I would love to be able to do and that is cross the hedge, for me that is an important part of hedgewitchery, and even though I cant do it just yet I know in time I will, just right now I am building myself a stable ground. :)

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.

Through my mind right now

How do I get to know myself?
How do I connect with the person inside of me?
How do I find what I am all about?

These questions and more are running through my head, I dont even know where to start. I have tried to do this before but I never get far, but now I really want to do this as I feel myself sinking deeper into the ocean..
Maybe I need to meditate more but there has to be something else to help me right?
I feel so out of focus right now..Maybe it is because I havent gotten my altar set up? But that wouldnt make me feel like this, right?
Or is there something else that is holding me back?

Argh I need to get this all sorted out soon, it has gone on for too long now..almost 5 years, I need to sort myself out.