Friday, December 30, 2011

Ecstatic Witchcraft Workshop in Pittsburgh


Ecstatic Witchcraft: Why Bother?

Interested in witchcraft? Curious about the difference between Ecstatic traditions (Feri, Reclaiming) and British Traditional Witchcraft? We will be hosting a six class workshop that will include:

- introduction to the class, and a brief history of witchcraft/paganism
- a discussion on the myths surrounding paganism
- an overview of major pagan religions (a quick and dirty run-through)
- an overview and discussion of British Traditional Witchcraft and Wicca
- an overview and discussion of Ecstatic Witchcraft (Feri and the Reclaiming Tradition)
- a Reclaiming-style ecstatic ritual

Who should attend: This will be the first of several workshops offered in the Reclaiming Tradition so anyone interested in getting a better understanding of Reclaiming-style witchcraft is encouraged to attend. Those that are curious about paganism are also welcome.

About the instructors:

Lora:  A Reclaiming-identified Witch for over 13 years (and a Pittsburgher for 6!) 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, trance techniques, and ritual arts to the teaching table.

Pamela:  A non-trad identified Witch since … um, I should know this, huh ... 2000/2001? Focus on the Reclaiming/Feri path since 2009. Practitioner of American Folk Witchcraft encompassing herbs, oils, candles, and whatnots. Co-leader of a local CUUPs group for almost 8 years, co-leader of a monthly Pagan Spirituality class for same. Worked to plan, solicit vendors/advertisers, organize, and track financials of local Spirit Fair for 3 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.

When: 
Sundays, January 22nd, 29th, February 5th, 19th, 26th, and March 4th

Time: 2-5pm

Where: private residence, South Hills area

Fee per class: $10 per class, or $50 if paid in one up-front installment

***Deadline for registration: Wednesday, January 18th***

Things to Bring to Class:
- Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions by River and Joyce Higginbotham
- 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 paragraph on three things that brought you to your current tradition/spiritual path
- a short paragraph on two things that keep you in your current tradition/spiritual path
- a short statement on what interests you about the class or paganism in general

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Codependency: My Constant Companion

Every time I have the desire to reach out to mend the fence, I remember that you've never been good at meeting me half way. Every time I want to make the another effort, I have to remind myself, stop myself, protect myself and my energy.

Bridges are effective when they're built from both sides.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Monday, November 21, 2011

Where have I been?

I've been writing a poem a day, that's where I've been. I'll resurface with a post after November is over, sweetings!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Stop-Doing List

I love the idea of a Stop-Doing List. I am the sort of person that can get pulled in many different directions, losing focus and energy. My plan is to observe my life, noticing over time what to add to this list, hopefully having something comprehensive by the end of the year. Thus far, I have the following items/topics on my Stop Doing List:

1. Checking my email and Facebook accounts multiple times a day

This is pretty much a no-brainer, but if I'm not paying close enough attention, I can spend an extraordinary amount of time checking my email and Facebook accounts during the day. I especially notice that this is a time-sink in the morning before work.

2. Maintaining/investing in relationships that are not reciprocal

It's been an interesting year, one that has included a lot of changes in my behaviors and habits surrounding my relationships to others. With those shifts, relationships that were less than healthy, less than reciprocal, less than fulfilling have fallen to the wayside, and that seems natural and right and still, a little sad. It's been an eye-opener to realize that some relationships don't thrive, that my effort alone cannot/should not sustain unhealthy behavior patterns, and that a two-way street is really my most comfortable route when it comes to choosing companions, friends, and acquaintances. It's time to really put my money where my mouth is and only put my focus on positive, sustaining relationships that make me feel nourished and positive about life.

3. Eating foods that make me sick

I've been struggling with a lot of allergies lately, and I'm starting to suspect that a food allergy might be the culprit. Over the next few months, I'm going to attempt to weed out two main allergens that I suspect are contributing to my physical misery, dairy and wheat. I use the word "attempt" because we are in the High Holy Season of Butter and Baked Goods from now until January 1st. I'm not going to make myself miserable attempting some sort of full-on dietary conversion before the first of 2012, but I am going to take steps toward eating foods that I know will help me to feel energized and won't exacerbate my asthma and eczema.

I'm sure I'll add more items to the list, but this seems like a good start. Have you ever thought of making a Stop-Doing List? Can you name off a few things that would be on that list? If so, share your list in the comments!

NoPoeMo

It's officially NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month...but I'm not participating, as I have no desire to write a novel this year.

Instead, I'm going rogue and doing my own thang with my poetry club. We call it NoPoeMo, or November Poetry Month. We've accepted the challenge to write one poem a day, each day during the month of November. The poems don't have to be good, and we're not allowed to edit them during the month of November. At the end of the month, I should have 30 rough drafts of poems, which sounds pretty flippin' sweet to me.

What creative pursuits have you been pursuing lately? Tell me in the comments!



Thursday, October 27, 2011

Morning Thought

You need no
permission
to love and
be loved.
You are breathing.
It is enough.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I Has An Epiphany

I'm feeling epiphanated. Yes, that's a made up word - it means "a caffeinated epiphany" - but portmanteau creation is not the point of this post.

I stopped obsessing about romantic relationships in the summer of 2008. I took a year-and-a-day off of being focused on finding the Other, and instead, found myself. I went to therapy, broke many unhealthy relationship patterns, and learned that I loved being single. Now, four years later, I am in a healthy relationship that is headed toward marriage.

Many things changed in that sphere of my life, but all those changes can be boiled down to this: I let go of obsession and control.

Now that I'm working in a 12-Step Program for codependency, I realize I embraced the first three steps in that area of my life. I definitely admitted that my life had become unmanageable, I came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, and I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the Gods. I didn't know it at the time, but for that year, I let those steps work on me.

So, back to epiphany: what if...what if I applied that same formula to other areas of my life that are unmanageable? What if I let go of obsession and control about employment/profession/following my bliss, or with physical health/weight gain? What if I decided to give up obsessing and trying to control in these areas?

I can say this: obsessing and trying to control in these areas of my life hasn't gotten me very far, and still, it's scary as fuck to say ok to letting go and letting life work on me. I stopped looking for a romantic relationship, not on a whim, but as a very specific challenge given to me by my spiritual mentor. Deciding to do this on my own, without "permission" from anyone else, would be a big step toward owning my own true power and releasing my death grip on life*.

I'm right on the edge of this, about to jump. It's just about time for another deep change.




*(more on why I have a death grip in a forthcoming post, "The Fourth Step and How It Socked My Nose Though I Was Intellectually Unconvinced of its Efficacy")






Thursday, October 6, 2011

The Journey into Autumn


AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by Grigor Hristov

Consider the trees which allow the birds to perch and fly away without either inviting them to stay or desiring them never to depart. If your heart can be like this, you will be near to the way.
--Zen Saying--


Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Dweam Within a Dweam



Big news: J and I are engaged!!! He asked me on our one year anniversary, September 17th.

I am over the moon.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A Small Pebble of Poetry

AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by see what you want to see

Yield
by L.M. Dziemiela
                                                                           
No longer 
cultivating annuals.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

The Key Ingredient


AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by tonymz
I've started the work of recovery, and it has opened a door I didn't know existed.

You may expect that skeletons were behind this door; but no, those skeletons dance out in the open, disguised as a normal life. What I did find was more like a map, or a key that turned the tumblers and opened my perspective. I tasted a familiar dish and found it different, changed.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Life Update!

AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved by gbus22
It has been a while since I've updated the blog...have you been wondering what I've been up to in my absence?  I have been:

- Crocheting like a fiend (ALH taught me how to make granny squares! Yay!)
- Reading and absorbing the Codependents' Guide to the Twelve Steps; giving myself enough time to let the material really sink in and take hold.
- Recovering from outpatient surgery (whoop whoop!) which was really just me sleeping for three days straight.
- Thinking and pondering and writing, oh my!
- Exercising my butt off at Urban Active (and waking up at 5am to do it...ooph.)

It's nice to have a lot of stuff filling up my days. Life is complex and meaty and good.

What has been keeping you off the internets?

Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Road to Life

John William Waterhouse: The Danaïdes - 1903
‎"Is there another destiny for you? Do you choose a road that will take you to a place foreign to your own becoming? This question is sincere, it is not meant to deceive. No matter which road you take, you will become; but all roads do not lead to your becoming. If you think they do, it is you, not I, who is given to deception. All of your roads will end in death. Not all roads lead to life." ~ Cynthea Jones

Lots of personal work coming down the pipe lately, specifically relating to codependency in behavior and thought. The work is both gentler and deeper than what I have experienced in years past, heck, even in the recent past. It is more like a river wearing away rock than lighting taking out a tower, and I am thankful for that.

I've known I've had codependency issues for a long time. Early home life (which included living with a dry drunk and a codependent, a topic that will probably get its own blog post in the future) set a secure foundation for this pattern, but I've built the grand landscape I've been living in, and it's high time I made some architectural changes for better living conditions. It became abundantly clear to me that this is necessary and timely work a few weeks ago, and the Universe has conspired to get me moving through a variety of synchronistic events.

And so: I started reading "Codependents' Guide to the Twelve Steps" by Melody Beattie. The work is deep and appropriate and just challenging enough.

I am sure I will be able to write about this process with more depth and specifics at a future date. Today, however, it is enough to write that I am actively working on recovery.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Seeing the Bottom

AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by StarbuckGuy
I'm always working on something, it seems. Lately, helpful stuff has been coming to me month by month from an interesting and insightful little book entitled "The Art of Extreme Self Care:  Transform Your Life One Month at a Time" by Cheryl Richardson. Each month, a different aspect of self-care is brought forth to be contemplated and worked with, from self love to creating spaces at home that are nurturing to making pleasure a priority to learning how to say no properly.

I will admit, when I first started working with this book, I thought it was going to be a frothy and saccharine little jaunt. I was wrong. This book has given me some serious things to think about, and I keep going back to it when issues crop up in my life. 

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Necessary Space

Dawna Markova says you can't grab God; instead, you have to become empty and make some space for God to enter.


After a beautiful, relaxing vacation full of rest and reading and long walks and time to just sit and be still, I can say with certainty that Ms. Markova is right. 

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Full of Life

AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by Roger Lynn
The seed that is to grow
must lose itself as seed;
And they that creep
may graduate through 
chrysalis to wings.

Wilt thou then, O mortal,
cling to husks which
falsely seem to you
the self?
~Wu Ming Fu, Twelfth Century


It's not so much about being prepared for death as it is being full of life. I want to be so well practiced in crossing thresholds that dying is merely another step in the dance. i want to be so comfortable with stillness and silence that I can root in them. ~ Dawna Markova, "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life"

Admittedly, I can be a turd. I am not always Suzy Sunshine and I am definitely not the person who always looks on the positive side of things. I generally think of myself as a Refreshingly Honest Person, but sometimes I overshoot and I end up being an Oversharing Bummer of a Person.

I have come to find that all I need to turn my attitude around is a little health scare.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Dream a Little Dream with Me

AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Temari 09
"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." - Carl G. Jung


"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." - Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory


I've been thinking about how we make our own reality...how our expectations and beliefs are mirrored back to us in the world around us. We see what exists...and what exists is a combination of our thoughts and fears, hopes and expectations and everyone else's thoughts/fears/hopes/expectations/beliefs/etc. We are the kings and queens of our own little kingdoms, ruling with wisdom and ignorance, dancing up against other kings and queens, constantly jostled about.

Haiku

AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by xsphotos

cashmere morning mist
dusted bronze haystack bathed in
white light, liquid sky



AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Fungman

white willow, woodsmoke
bittersweet winter oak sighs
gray earth, gray morning

Thursday, June 9, 2011

A Post About How I've Not Posted In A While

Attribution Some rights reserved by andrewr
Yes, my lovelies, I have been doing other things. What other things, you ask? Well, aside from fretting about getting my car inspected and paying out the wazoo to get that accomplished, I've been doing the usual stuff...with one little additional thing.

I've been trying to reclaim my life from the clutches of the internets.

I am sure I really don't have to explain this- it's pretty easy for the modern individual to get caught up in Facebook updates and constant email checking and blog reading etc. etc. etc. I've been fighting the good fight and trying to do something other than plop down in front of my computer and clickety clack my life away at a keyboard. So I've been taking walks...and reading...and cooking...and stuff like that.

Still, I do miss blogging about things that are of interest/importance to me, and I can feel Pretty Darn Good about blogging because it is a Way to Foster a Writing Habit. So, I will be coming back to the blog and hopefully writing more consistently. My overall goal is to reduce my Facebook consumption and increase my blogging output.

Would you like to help me, readers?  I'm sure you would!

If you are reading, and enjoy what you read here, comment on this post to just say hi.  I am curious to see who is out there, reading this blog and coming back to it (because if my statistics are to be believed, there's a small group of lovelies out there that stop here once in a while).

Thanks in advance, honeybadgers!

Oh How I LOLed

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

My Own Little Magic Circle, or, Becoming Real

The Magic Circle, 1886 - John William Waterhouse
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" 

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

~The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams



The Awakening
by Anne Hill

If I touch you I will know you
Though my veil be drawn, you're glowing
In my mind and soul and body


I feel compelled to hide details and information about myself that I feel others wouldn't like, wouldn't care to know, couldn't accept or wouldn't understand. I generally err on the side of squishing myself in a little box of Acceptable Things You Can Know About Me...generally choose to make myself smaller, silent, bland and uncomfortable rather than risk making others upset, or unhappy, or uncomfortable.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Rooted

AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by BlueRidgeKitties

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”
~Anonymous~

noun, often attributive: an underlying support
the essential core : heart

adjective: of, relating to, or proceeding from a root
noun: a root part
a basic principle: foundation

Learning to be in right relationship with myself has been (and continues to be) a very interesting process. Holding my relationship to self in the center of my life can be downright uncomfortable.

It takes more work than I expected to not abandon myself to whim and desire.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Basketweaving

AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Colleen Curnutte
It's time to be more conscious of my energy, to put less of myself into some baskets in order to fill other baskets.

This is really important, as I want to add some new baskets, too. I have a list, in my head, of the things I want to manifest in the next ten years.