PBP :: F is for Familiar

There's a great quote I've long associated with Willow Rosenberg in Buffy the Vampire Slayer that deals with the idea of not being a true, self-respecting Witch without her familiar.

If memory serves correctly, because I no longer have the quote, it was something about a proper Witch's familiar being a frog.  At the time, the quote struck me as amusing because I owned a Pacman Frog, so I incorporated it into a signature file for an old yahoo email address I was using at the time.

The quote became a source of amusement for Mama Bear and me, and eventually it just faded into cobwebbed memory.  But it also has made me really think about the role of familiars in my spiritual practices.

PBP :: E is for Earth-Friendly

All my life, there's been a part of me that has intrinsically known the importance of stewardship to the earth.  And yes, I realize just how pompous and pretentious that sentence may sound, how disingenuine.  And yet, it's the truth as my memories have provided for me.  I've always had a connection to the land, the water, the animals around me.  I would love to say that it's because it was my destiny, but that smacks of disingenuity and pretension even more.  But at this point, that discussion is neither here nor there.  Whether or not I've had a history of this particular attitude is only important because of how it led to the way I feel and act now.

For me, the whole Earth-Friendly movement is really important.  Even before I was officially on my spiritual path, I always felt that we should be more cognizant of the earth as a living entity that deserves respect.  I've been recycling for as long as I've known about the concept.  My family would recycle the various beverage containers ever since my teen years.  The rest of the recycling, including paper, would come later.  But I've always used up the paper scraps as much as possible, considering all of the little notes and lists I've always left for myself.

PBP :: E is for Eclectic

When I was starting out on my pagan path, I relied pretty heavily on the Wiccan system.  It was relatively simple and straightforward, something that I found inviting, particularly as a solitary trying to wade through the sea of information before her.  To this day, I still find it a bit amusing that I follow a primarily Wiccan path with Greek gods as my primary deities.

Over the first several years that I was officially out as a Witch, I tried out the specifics of several different Wiccan traditions, trying to find the right fit for me.  The one I wanted to try the most was the one that I couldn't attempt because of the deities that had chosen me.  I was, and in some ways still am, very drawn to the Dianic tradition because of the female empowerment and Goddess worship, but Poseidon's [among others over the years] hold on me is too strong to turn my back on Him.

PBP :: D is for Dedication

When I first looked into the pagan paths back in the early 1980s, I was sharply pointed toward the Wiccan paths.  This was primarily because, at the time, it seemed like the only option for me, as I didn't have a family tradition to fall back on.  There was also the issue of not quite understanding the whole concept of Stregheria at the time, which was the other major branch of paganism that I was steered toward, and I had gotten the impression that Druidism was only for men.

So, while I read everything I could get my hands on within the pagan spectrum, I focused my research on the Wiccan paths.  This became increasingly easier as time went on.  And by 1994, I had amassed quite a little library of books, as well as quite a bit of research.

After about twelve years of research, study, and contemplation, I finally decided to take that first official step onto the Wiccan path.

PBP :: D is for Divination

I love working with the various forms of divination that I've had a chance to sample in the past.  Divination's always held a special allure for me, all the way back to childhood when I'd find images in the flames and the clouds.

I've dabbled in tarot, runes, and multiple forms of scrying: pendulums, fire/flames, water, clouds.  I've got a bit of a talent for psychometry, but it's quite erratic and fleeting.  And I like doing animal divination.  Usually this means that I keep track of the animals I see when I'm on a trip of any kind and work to figure out what message they're trying to send me by letting me see them.  This is also a bit rusty, as I've only really started to work more regularly and diligently on this in the last year or so.

PBP :: C is for Coven

aka Why I'm a solitary...

When I started studying and researching Wicca, witchcraft, and paganism back in the early to mid 80s, I didn't have a lot of direction on what was good or bad in what I was finding and soaking up like a sponge [I exhausted my junior high school's paranormal section in just a few months, but reread everything several times over the course of those three years].  Looking back with those 20/20 hindsight glasses, I cringe at some of the things I took as set in stone back then.

Covens were one of the biggest things that got hammered home in the books I read.  It was vital that a Witch have a Coven to belong to.  I had all these fanciful notions of being accepted into these covens with traditions that traced back centuries, of eventually becoming the High Priestess.  Oh, I had such dreams back then!  The follies of youth and all…

PBP :: C is for Cartomancy

I've been dabbling in cartomancy to some degree or another ever since 1989 when I bought my first tarot deck.  It was just a standard Rider-Waite deck.  I was a freshman in college and still very new to putting my years of research into Wicca and paganism into practice.  I didn't know any better about getting a different deck.  Not that I had a lot of options at the bookstore where I bought my deck, of course.

And I certainly didn't know that it's something of an unspoken rule to be given your decks, rather than buying them yourself.  Even to this day, I don't follow that unspoken rule most of the time.  If a deck speaks to me, touches me, and I know I have the money and the energy to bring it home, it comes home with me.  End of story.  Now that doesn't mean that I turn down decks given to me.  Good heavens, no!  I cherish those decks for the gifts they are.

Just a little FYI...

In case you may not have noticed, I'm getting back into the swing of doing my Pagan Blog Project posts again.  I have mapped out a schedule to get me back on track with the actual weekly posting for said project by 1 June 2012, but it will require me to basically post every weekday until then to be caught up.  I know that seems like a huge influx of pagan-related content, especially if you're not expecting that here.

Rest assured, there will be other content posted here as well during this time frame, as well as after the fact.  I have some pieces of short fiction that I'll be posting up over the next few weeks, snippets in universes I'm testing out.  I'm also working out some ideas for the 100 Blog Post Challenge.  And, of course, looking into some ideas for posts about writing itself.

A lot of changes are happening here, and I'm finally getting back on track for things I'm supposed to have been doing all along.  I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause my readers.

-- Sadie

PBP :: B is for Blood

Blood plays such a very interesting role in magic, whether real or imagined by others.  I've heard some fantastic stories of what witches, wiccans, and pagans do with blood in their rituals.  Things that range from drinking it to using it as a lubricant for sex rites, and everything in between.

Blood has always held a fascination for me, particularly my own blood.  I don't faint at the sight of blood, nor do I necessarily find the smell nauseating unless it's a large amount that's been left to rot and get heated up by the sun.  But that's a rare situation for me, which I'm quite thankful for.

PBP :: B is for Beltane

Let me preface this post by saying that BD, my other half, celebrates all the sabbats and lunar phases with me when we remember to, but we're not a coven, nor are we romantically involved. When you consider that Beltane is known, at least partially, as a sabbat dealing with sex and love, it's one of the harder sabbats for me to celebrate as a solitary. But I still manage to celebrate every year.

Today, I'd like to share how we celebrated Beltane this year.