In a land long forgotten by time, but most assuredly far away, there lived a little girl. She was always sent to the river to fetch water by her family, and she always took a very long time to do it.
Eventually, she was not a little girl anymore, but a young woman, and she had many more chores to do. It was thought that she should know better than to dawdle when there was so much work to be done. Her family was finally tired of waiting for her, and one day her brothers were sent to watch and see what she was doing.
They followed her down to the river and watched her sing a song they had never heard before. While she sang, the river sparkled and swirled and rose up in front of her in the form of a young man and then there was a fish! A large fish. She and the fish talked for a long time, while her brothers watched.
When her brothers returned home and told their mother and father it was decided that they would kill the fish as they were a poor family and it would feed them for days, and that it also must have their sister under a spell.
They went to the river the next day and sang the song she had sung. The sister did not know where they had gone. When the big fish appeared, they killed it.
The mother smoked it, and they had some for dinner. The sister went to take a bite and a voice whispered, "Do you know what you are eating?" She replied that she did not, and the voice told her that it was the body of the fish, her love, that she was about to eat. She was horrified, but the voice told her that it would be ok, she just needed to trust him and do as he said.
He told her to eat the fish, as it was only a vessel to communicate with her, and then to head to the barn where the heart of the fish had been thrown to the pigs. She was to get it, wrap it in a kerchief, and bring it down to the river.
She ran out to the barn taking her kerchief off as she went, wrapped the heart in it, and ran all the way to the river. Her brothers were stunned, and of course they followed her. They found her in the river, dipping the heart in the river while singing the song. As the water rose up into the form of a man, the heart disappeared and there, standing in the river in front of their sister, was a Mer-folk. He put his arm gently around their sister, and told her that he was going to take her to the sea to live with him in peace. He then turned to the brothers and told them that he would turn them into fish because they had not care for their sister's happiness.
This is the story of how Mer-folk came to be.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Dreaming and creating
Everything has been so hectic and crazy lately...I know what I need to do...I know how I need to do it. I'm just having trouble finding the time to do it.
The Witch's kiddos have been helping. We go for walks and find sticks and stones and feathers and flowers. They want to draw and paint and create, and that gives me some time to draw and pain and create.
There is an Ogham book in the making...I'm not sure if I'm going to send it to be published as a whole, or if I'm going to keep it for myself, but I DO know that there will be Ogham bags and how-to books on the market soon...hand made by the Witch herself with the book being bound be her as well. Things just don't have the right "feel" to them if they're done by others. It's much nicer to buy something that has purpose and intention put into it.
Another thing in the works are Goddess images. One was drawn onto glass just yesterday, and I'm pretty proud of it if I do say so myself. Don't worry...pictures will come as the projects finish. I have a stack of wands that need to be decorated and annointed and cleansed, too.
Bright blessings to you all...
The Witch's kiddos have been helping. We go for walks and find sticks and stones and feathers and flowers. They want to draw and paint and create, and that gives me some time to draw and pain and create.
There is an Ogham book in the making...I'm not sure if I'm going to send it to be published as a whole, or if I'm going to keep it for myself, but I DO know that there will be Ogham bags and how-to books on the market soon...hand made by the Witch herself with the book being bound be her as well. Things just don't have the right "feel" to them if they're done by others. It's much nicer to buy something that has purpose and intention put into it.
Another thing in the works are Goddess images. One was drawn onto glass just yesterday, and I'm pretty proud of it if I do say so myself. Don't worry...pictures will come as the projects finish. I have a stack of wands that need to be decorated and annointed and cleansed, too.
Bright blessings to you all...
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Getting back to it...
I realized today that I have been disconnected from everything spiritual in my life for some time now. I'm not sure what happened, or when, but there was a tiny ordinary event that said, "HEY!!!! You've missed us!!!!" and it sparked me to wonder what it was that actually happened and how to fix it.
I guess that, looking back, I can see where I started to lose "it." What is it? It is the connection to the "stuff" of spirituality, whether you find it through ritual, or dance, or song, or poetry, or whatever it is that you do, it's that feeling you get...a connectedness? At any rate, I think I lost it when I started to only look forward to the next day's first cup of coffee. Everything else seemed like drudgery. Yes, I still enjoyed my children. I laughed with them. I did things with them. But I wasn't feeling it as much as I usually did, and I was thinking it was just because it was a bad day.
Then, bad days seemed to run into bad days. It was still okay, I thought, because we're all just under a little stress. Or the kids haven't been able to go out because of rain. Or we're just financially strapped right now. Whatever my excuse was seemed to fit for the day. I never actually thought that I was feeling like crap because I had become disconnected from my beliefs.
So today was a crappy day. The kids were cranky and were at each others' throats. I decided to take a walk with them to get them out of the house. 45 minutes later we're finally heading out the door, minus one kiddo that wanted to stay home. Fine...we'll go without you and we'll have fun!
We get going, and it starts to feel nice to be outside in the fresh air, baby in her sling on me, Isaac beside me poking along, Matty asking lots of questions. I was just going to walk down the road a little bit then turn around, but Isaac asked so nice to go down the side road to see the water, and I *saw* him today. Like, actually SAW my baby...his face was so excited to go see the water, and he asked "Please, Mama? Go see waler?" So we went.
I showed them the different kinds of trees we were passing, we picked up some leaves, looked at some rocks, and then there was this stick. It was huge. It was like Gandalf's staff on steroids. I had to have it. So I picked it up and mused about how to carve it and decorate it. As I'm doing this, Matty sees a frog. I told the boys what frogs mean, and told them about how they're amphibians. I pointed out the hole in the ground where the frog hid, and right beside it was a perfectly dried beautifully shaped stick and my immediate thought was, "Wand!"
Now...here I am, with a baby on my hip, a giant staff in my hand, bent over by a stream picking up a wand, and it hits me: I'm telling my boys about divinatory meanings of frogs, telling them about wands, and I haven't even been doing any of this stuff myself! I felt lost and confused and blissed out mad and sad all at the same time. I still want to show my kids my beliefs, but I had lost so many chances because I had lost myself. I don't remember the last time I have read Runes, or Ogham, or divined in a bowl of water with a candle. I don't even remember the last time I lit a candle, let alone did any ritual work. Here I am, in the middle of the woods, in awe of my own stupidity.
I have always wanted to impress upon my kiddos to live their beliefs. To a point, I still have been doing it. I try to be good, to be a good person and do good and kind things. I try to help people that need help. I try to not hold anger in, and to forgive people and move on. The main principles of my belief I have been keeping to, but the other stuff...the stuff that gives my belief its flavor, I have been neglecting.
It has been so long since I sat in quiet meditation. So long since I danced. So long since I crafted anything for any reason, arcane or mundane. Now that I know this, I need to change it. I feel so much better after today, and I realize that I have lost myself more times that I would like to admit, but each time I do, I delve back into it deeper and with more love and passion. I hope that this time, I can discover more, create more, and love more than I have before. I also hope that when the next time comes that I lose myself, for whatever reason, I am quicker to forgive myself for doing so.
I guess that, looking back, I can see where I started to lose "it." What is it? It is the connection to the "stuff" of spirituality, whether you find it through ritual, or dance, or song, or poetry, or whatever it is that you do, it's that feeling you get...a connectedness? At any rate, I think I lost it when I started to only look forward to the next day's first cup of coffee. Everything else seemed like drudgery. Yes, I still enjoyed my children. I laughed with them. I did things with them. But I wasn't feeling it as much as I usually did, and I was thinking it was just because it was a bad day.
Then, bad days seemed to run into bad days. It was still okay, I thought, because we're all just under a little stress. Or the kids haven't been able to go out because of rain. Or we're just financially strapped right now. Whatever my excuse was seemed to fit for the day. I never actually thought that I was feeling like crap because I had become disconnected from my beliefs.
So today was a crappy day. The kids were cranky and were at each others' throats. I decided to take a walk with them to get them out of the house. 45 minutes later we're finally heading out the door, minus one kiddo that wanted to stay home. Fine...we'll go without you and we'll have fun!
We get going, and it starts to feel nice to be outside in the fresh air, baby in her sling on me, Isaac beside me poking along, Matty asking lots of questions. I was just going to walk down the road a little bit then turn around, but Isaac asked so nice to go down the side road to see the water, and I *saw* him today. Like, actually SAW my baby...his face was so excited to go see the water, and he asked "Please, Mama? Go see waler?" So we went.
I showed them the different kinds of trees we were passing, we picked up some leaves, looked at some rocks, and then there was this stick. It was huge. It was like Gandalf's staff on steroids. I had to have it. So I picked it up and mused about how to carve it and decorate it. As I'm doing this, Matty sees a frog. I told the boys what frogs mean, and told them about how they're amphibians. I pointed out the hole in the ground where the frog hid, and right beside it was a perfectly dried beautifully shaped stick and my immediate thought was, "Wand!"
Now...here I am, with a baby on my hip, a giant staff in my hand, bent over by a stream picking up a wand, and it hits me: I'm telling my boys about divinatory meanings of frogs, telling them about wands, and I haven't even been doing any of this stuff myself! I felt lost and confused and blissed out mad and sad all at the same time. I still want to show my kids my beliefs, but I had lost so many chances because I had lost myself. I don't remember the last time I have read Runes, or Ogham, or divined in a bowl of water with a candle. I don't even remember the last time I lit a candle, let alone did any ritual work. Here I am, in the middle of the woods, in awe of my own stupidity.
I have always wanted to impress upon my kiddos to live their beliefs. To a point, I still have been doing it. I try to be good, to be a good person and do good and kind things. I try to help people that need help. I try to not hold anger in, and to forgive people and move on. The main principles of my belief I have been keeping to, but the other stuff...the stuff that gives my belief its flavor, I have been neglecting.
It has been so long since I sat in quiet meditation. So long since I danced. So long since I crafted anything for any reason, arcane or mundane. Now that I know this, I need to change it. I feel so much better after today, and I realize that I have lost myself more times that I would like to admit, but each time I do, I delve back into it deeper and with more love and passion. I hope that this time, I can discover more, create more, and love more than I have before. I also hope that when the next time comes that I lose myself, for whatever reason, I am quicker to forgive myself for doing so.
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