On behalf of Miss Drusilla Pelham...

I've begun working on a new creative endeavor with my partner...here's a teaser.

More to come...

Stay on Path: Morning Existential Crisis Reminder

Some Rights Reserved by greg groovy

It seems that it is now de rigueur to have an existential crisis each and every morning:

"What am I doing?"

"What has meaning?"

"What is my real work?"

"Is this my real life?"

"Why do I drink so many lattes?"

I listen to Pema Chödrön audiobooks on the bus to work; she tells me that these thoughts/feelings are signposts, that my ego is experiencing the fundamental ambiguity of life. She tells me that sitting with these thoughts and feelings is the experience of Buddha nature.

...and it comforts me, a little, to think of Buddha, counting his lattes, gently weeping while collating papers and making bookkeeping adjustments in QuickBooks.

Today, it comforts me just enough.

Call for Guest Bloggers

Hey, y'all!

I am looking for some awesome guest bloggers to write about spirituality and passion and how they manifest/intersect in their lives. I'm interested in hearing from people of all spiritual backgrounds.

If you're interested in guest blogging, please email me at song.of.embers@gmail.com.

Staring Into The Abyss, Choosing Not To Ride The Ride: Loving The Sanity Of The 12 Steps

Some Rights Reserved by What What

I'm not sure where this post is going to go, but I do know that I need to write something about how I am feeling today, how grateful I am for the 12 Steps in dealing with my codependency, how grateful I am that recovery is possible, and how aware I am of the fragility of my codependent sobriety. This work has helped me notice when I'm staring into the abyss, and given me the tools to choose a different path.

Benefit By Doing

Today, I am home sick. More accurately, I am working from home...while sick. Head colds are awful, and I think I picked this one up while riding the bus, as I am new to public transportation, and thus my immune system is like that of a baby at the first week of daycare.

I digress.

A sizable piece of my job is dealing with the company's social media. I spend a good portion of my time posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. This reminded me that it has been a while since my last post here, on my own bibbity-bobbity-bloggy.

A big theme in my life as of late has been actively working toward manifesting the reality that I would like to live, day to day. So, today, I spent a period of time working on my own social media campaigns- specifically, I did some work getting the Facebook page for my tarot business closer to publication. (Soon, very soon, it will be ready.) I also did a bit of advertising for the Elements of Magic weekend intensive I'll be teaching this October with the lovely Pamela. (If you know of anyone that might be interested in attending, please pass the information along to them!)

Today, my job reminded me to do my Work. I guess this is an example of elegant manifesting, yes? I do like it when the areas of my life cross the streams, so to speak.

And now, I shall go and lie down and rest, so I can feel better tomorrow. Toodles!

Time to Get Up!

Whew! This summer is busting my butt! Still, there's not a lot of fodder for complaint. I started a new job this week, though, and I'm working my way through the sludge of "I don't know what I'm doing"s and "I'm totally overwhelmed"s, which doesn't leave a lot of time for my typical navel gazing.

I am present, though...very present to most moments. This week has been an eternity, mostly in good ways. Most everything was (and still is) new this week. I started taking the bus to work every day, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm working downtown, and I'm still getting used to that aspect of my day. I'm in a new office with a brand new office culture, and I'm working to stay in the moment and honor my personal boundaries while working toward excellence. My routine with J has shifted, too - he also changed places of employment, and is working all sorts of different hours during the week.

Life is unpredictable right now, and it feels good. Even the bumps and skinned knees that come with learning a new course feel appropriate and necessary. I feel awake.

Elements of Magic Class, October 2012

Elements of Magic Class:  October 20-21, Pittsburgh, PA

With the art of magic, we deepen our vision and focus our will, empowering ourselves to act in the world. In this class we begin the practice of Magic, Witchcraft, and Goddess spirituality by working with the Elements of Magic: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit.

Techniques include: visualization, sensing and projecting energy, chanting, trance, creating magical space, spellcraft, and structuring rituals. Group experience follows feminist consensus process. We hope to provide a fair and nurturing environment for all participants.

The intensive is structured as a ritual, and includes practical ritual and magical skills. Elements of Magic allows us to explore these skills in a supportive group setting. This class is a great way to connect with other people exploring Reclaiming-tradition magic and witchcraft.

We welcome both beginning students, and advanced students who want to deepen their experience of the sacred elements.

Prerequisite: Reading of the first six chapters of The Spiral Dance by Starhawk. We ask that applicants be committed to attending both days of the intensive.

(description of the class courtesy of Reclaiming.org: http://www.reclaiming.org/classevents/core.html#Elements)

About the instructors:

Lora: As a Feri/Reclaiming Witch Lora’s passions are community building, divination, ecstatic ritual, poetry, and whatever good book has currently captured her attention. Committed to teaching in the Pittsburgh pagan community, Lora brings her experiences in leadership training, small group facilitation, tarot, trance techniques, and ritual arts to the teaching table.

Pamela: A non-trad identified Witch until I met Kin in 2009 and began to focus on the Reclaiming/Feri path. Leadership Team member of a local CUUPs group and of a monthly Pagan Spirituality class for almost 8 years. Transitional magic surrounding life/death/rebirth and transformational magic particularly working with shadow energy are my areas of grace. I believe laughter is one of our most effective magical tools.

Date:  Saturday, October 20, and Sunday, October 21, 2012

Time: Saturday, October 20th, 10am-5pm; Sunday, October 21st, 10am-5pm. Breaks and a lunch hour will be worked into the intensive.

Location: Private Residence, Friendship/Pittsburgh area

Cost: $75-$150, sliding scale

***Deadline for registration: Saturday, October 6th***

Things to Bring to Class:

- Spiral Dance by Starhawk

- water bottle

- notebook and pen

- a curious attitude and an open mind

Workshop participants are expected to attend all classes. Space is limited, first come, first served!

Interested? Email witches2brew@gmail.com with the following:

- preferred name and contact information

- a short statement describing what interests you about the class/why you would like to attend

Feri Initiation

I had my Feri Initiation this past weekend. Good stuff :)

Today's Tarot Card: Eight of Pentacles

Hello, y'all! Long time no blog!

I've been doing a lot of breezy, summertime things, but it appears it is time to get back to work, as my card for today is the Eight of Pentacles. This card reminds me to put my nose to the grindstone and to pay attention to the fine details of the task at hand. This card always says "excellence through hard work and repetition" to me. What I often notice:  I become excellent through the process of perfecting my skills and honing my craft.

What have you been working on? What has been working on you? What requires your full attention, your best self, your focused will?

Today's Tarot Card: The Fool

Ahh, The Fool. You have many lessons that I find difficult to learn.

You ask that I trust that life is inherently good, that I give the unknown the benefit of the doubt. You ask that I trust myself and my gut. These are things I'm getting better at, but I'm nowhere near excellence in these areas. However, I am going to choose, for today, to trust your energy, to walk out on the limb, to jump the large expanse, to let my pulse be my guide as I step off the cliff.

(We can choose to say "Whee!" instead of "Whoa!" It is possible.)

Today's Tarot Card: Four of Cups

This morning, I remembered to pull a tarot card for the day (it seems I have a hard time remembering this tiny little task). Today, I drew the Four of Cups. I'm so glad that I remembered to pull a card, as the Four of Cups reminded me to be more present to my immediate surroundings and to see the gifts that were being offered to me throughout the day.

On days like to day, when the majority of my time is spent taking care of mundane tasks (laundry, cooking, dishes, work, etc.) I need all the reminders I can get to look and see and feel the fabric of my everyday existence. I'm happy that I was nudged out of complacency, apathy and self interest, as it helped me tackle a pretty commonplace day with a sense of humor and an open heart.

Today's Tarot Card: The Chariot

I'm working with a new tarot student, and the homework for this week is to pull a card every day and talk about it.This morning, right before walking out the door to work, I pulled The Chariot. I'm curious to see what kind of day I will have, with all this Chariot energy flowing around me.

The Chariot isn't an easy favorite for me. While I find it easy to be disciplined and I am known as being firm and direct (all qualities/energies associated with The Chariot) I can easily burn out and get frazzled and unhappy if I am always in a "Go! Go! Go!" mindset. I am often reminded by my body that I need to be kind to myself, that taking a break isn't a failure, and that stopping to think about where I am going is important for guiding this Chariot through my day. It isn't just about holding the reins and getting the cart to move- it's also about having a well-balanced plan and a map for sound guidance.

The Tarot of the New Vision deck gives an interesting shift in perspective on the usual Rider-Waite scenes, turning them around to show you the backs of images, what the traditional characters are looking at off in the distance, etc. Pretty neat idea, right? When I pulled this card today, I immediately thought of this deck, as I resonate with their image of The Chariot, which depicts bound slaves being pulled by the charioteer. This reminds me that we can be slaves to ego and ambition if we are not careful. It also reminds me to look at what I am pulling through my day (or my life) that might be unhealthy- if I am moving fast and with great purpose, I might miss that I am pulling dead weight behind me.

As you go through your day, what are you focused on? What drives you and the vehicle that is your life? Where are you going and how are you going to get there?  These are the questions The Chariot is asking of me today.

Here's to asking the questions and looking for answers. Happy Friday, y'all!

New Blog URL: sirenafire.blogspot.com

My URL will be switching over today to:  sirenafire.blogspot.com

I hope you continue to read and keep up with my ramblings!

Ch-ch-changes!

This blog is going to be going through some changes. I was reading this and thought, you know, she's right! It's not too late to step more into truth.

Get ready! A new blog name and a new URL are coming...I'll keep you posted!

What Boat Do You Need to Burn?

 Some rights reserved by eimaj photos

The amazing Danielle LaPorte has offered up this intriguing question as part of her Burning Question Series: 

What boat do you need to burn?

Danielle writes:

There’s a story my friend Pasha told me about about a mythic band of magic-loving Irish folk. Feeling the call for newness, they would forge out to settle on a new island. Necessarily, they would make the journey by ship. When they arrived to their next land they would unpack — and then promptly burn their boats.

No desire to go back. Focused forward. New journey, new way of getting there, new results.

Bodies and Beings

Some rights reserved by Tibei Chingiz

Lots of thoughts jumbling around in my head these past few weeks, and, of course, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to write.

It's interesting how certain discussion clouds will float around me...sometimes, people are talking about politics a lot, and I notice...and sometimes they're talking about ethics a lot, and I notice...or fashion, or pop culture, or whatever.

Lately, people have been talking about bodies, and about aging, and about self worth, and I'm noticing. I have a ton to say on this topic and not a lot of time to write...and that's maddening.

In short, I'm feeling a multitude of things:

1. We are the physical and the spiritual, so the aging process is happening to the whole of our being. It's not like the aging process is that of a young being trapped inside an old shoe or something. The totality of our nature changes over time.

2. At the same time, I recognize that it can be scary to know that it will never be the way it was before, whatever your "it" happens to be. In the case of aging, the "it" is a body; in the case of a being, "it" is self perception.

3. I really resonate with this post from the awesome blog Eat the Damn Cake. I was especially moved by this paragraph:  

"I keep getting the impression that getting older successfully means looking like you’re not getting much older. Which usually means fighting a desperate, constant, losing battle against biology. From a distance, it looks a lot like having a terminal illness. And in a way, I guess it is. You fight every day, putting yourself through painful procedures and grueling exercise regimens, and then, eventually, the things you’ve been staving off overwhelm your body. And that is that."

Kate says, after this paragraph, that she doesn't want to "waste her time". I also don't want to waste my time on this sort of stuff...and yet, there must be a happy medium, a place where maintenance of my being (in it's totality) is healthy and not obsession.

So yes, my thoughts, in bits, without a coherent thesis.

Friday Five

Hello my lovelies! I hope Friday has been treating you well!

Things that have been going on:

1. I am glad that the work day is over- it appears my lovely fiance gave me an upper respiratory infection, and I'll definitely be glad to get into bed at the end of the day. I am all kinds of achy and full of sniffles.

2. I'm mulling over the following Al Anon slogan:  "What other people think of me is none of my business." This is a radical shift. It says to me that I then have to focus on what I think of me, and what I think of others...which makes me think of shifting the meaning of the word "self-centered" away from the concept of selfishness, moving toward being centered in self.

3. I think I'm going to go to the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History this weekend for some food for my soul.

4. This made me laugh today. A Softer World, you had me at hello. The mouseover on this one is great, too, and it makes me hug my little ball of fur just that much tighter.

5. Here's your horoscope from Free Will Astrology. For the Lovely Leos out there, Rob writes:
I'd love for you to be able to always give the best gifts you have to give without worrying about whether they will be received in the spirit with which you offer them. But that's just not realistic. I would also be ecstatic if you never had to tone down your big, beautiful self out of fear that others would be jealous or intimidated. And yet that's not a rational possibility, either. Having said that, though, I do want to note that now and then both of those pleasurable scenarios can prevail for extended lengths of time. And I believe you're now in one of those grace periods.

Personal Responsibility: Making it Sacred

Some rights reserved by Tracy Holland

“The  wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time. When we fail to do this, we repeat the same old story over and over again.” ~ Jean Houston

I was all set to sit down and write a post about personal responsibility tonight...but I've just gotten home from witnessing a friend's reading of her memoir at Duquesne University, and I want to write about that experience. Maybe I'll really end up writing about personal responsibility after all...I guess we'll see by the end of the post, right?

To Light the Fire, To Tend the Well

Semele by John Duncan (1921)

Imbolc is one of my favorite holidays. I have always been drawn to Brighid, and she was the first Goddess I pledged myself to in service. This holiday also marks the anniversary of my Reclaiming Initiation (January 30th marked two years), the anniversary of my decision to show myself that I mean business.

"Meaning business" has meant so many things over the past two years. It has shown up in decisions to unravel old patterns and leave old associations behind. It has show up in my courting joy and my desire to define my life outside of victimhood. It has show up in my writing and my loving and my return to slow, calm breathing when the going gets tough.

The past year has been especially challenging. I've been weaving the pleasant with the unpleasant and learning to live within both. I'm finding that, in accepting all of life (even the shittier, scarier parts) I'm actually living. In giving up trying to be better than, above it, perfect, I'm finding out who I really am, and that person is simultaneously surprising and generally a good egg. In letting the reins go I've found that the horse is better behaved than I could have ever dreamed and knows her way home.

So this year, I'm pledging to Brighid that I will be real, even when that is messy...that I will be myself, even when it's humbling. This year, the focus in "I mean business" has shifted from the "business" to the "I". Real people light the fires, real people tend the wells.

Be Brave

Driving home from the gym this morning, looking at the beautiful full moon hanging in the sky, I'm reminded of this quote:

"It takes courage to anticipate joy." ~Wendy Froud

I'm feeling pretty brave today. I hope you are too.

Wendy Gets Wise

Not in the business of

sewing on shadows

gonna tend my own garden

gonna pluck my own rose.