Green Wiccan Herbal and Taking Chances

I was on Bloor Street West and I went to my favourite Chapters Book store. This store is a little bit different because they took over an old theatre, left the flow of the building and turned it into a bookstore. For example, you have to walk onto the stage to access the magazine section. It's really a lovely design. I had been there a few months ago and found the book The Green Wiccan Herbal by Silja and didn't want to impulse buy, so thought I would pick it up later at a different store if I still wanted it. Well, it turns out, I never saw it again . . . until today. What a wonderful book for someone who is not familiar with a lot of herbal remedies and magick that involves herbs. It's not a large book but it gives the essentials of 52 different herbs and a few different things like cucumbers and lemons. It is concise it a way that is informative and you could look up more if you had to. For example, apparently you can rub lemon on vericose veins! The book is beautifully illustrated and has a few chapters that give information about turning herbs into incense or lotions. I think this will be a "go to" book for quite some time.

I'm taking some chances with my creative work. Don't want to say too much about what I do as a side job but I will tell you that it is creative. I feel that it is my job as an artist to take chances and push society forward and so I'm creating my first work based on my beliefs in Wicca. I'm a little nervous about how it will be perceived. I'm scared a closed-minded Christian might see the proposal and get freaked out. I feel that I need to take this chance and create a work that is true to myself . . . not that my previous works hadn't been . . . but I could code them in frameworks that society might accept more easily (i.e., Christianity). This time, I'm going all out. Let's see how it goes!

Empathic Travelling and Revisions

Thought I would do something different today so I bought a day pass for public transit ($10) so I could hop on and off the subway where ever I felt like it. I went to a variety of music stores to price some instruments and to two of the 'spiritual' stores here in Toronto. One is called The Occult Store which part of the
Wiccan Church of Canada. The store is quite large, has a great book selection, and the staff are very friendly. It's great that we have the church too. I've only been there once for a class . . . but it reminded me of going to Christian churches in that no one really talks to you and the regulars hang out. A few nice people will say hello but you just feel a bit awkward. Perhaps it will be different if I go back again. I'm curious about their ritural events but I'm too shy to go by myself.

I know that I'm an empath. When I first figured it out and started researching it, everything made total sense (e.g., Why I had trouble going to malls, moodiness, etc.) However, even with this knowledge, I'm still very skeptical. I always think that I'm probably just imagining it. So, here I am on the subway and I start feeling really anxious. More anxious than I've felt for a very long time . . . I'm hoping that I don't have a panic attack or something crazy like that. I figure that I must be feeling this way due to some future work issues but it doesn't really seem like that big a deal in my head. Then, all of a sudden, the cute Asian guy sitting next to me says, "canutelthataishiriswet". I say, "What?!?" about three times because he's talking too fast. On the fourth try I understand he's asking me if I can see the sweat on the back of his shirt. I use the opportunity to touch his back and say, "No, not really." He tells me that he's really nervous about a job interview that he's going to . . . and I'm like, "OHHH!!!" I spent the rest of the trip slightly annoyed that I'm feeling his anxiety and trying to push my energy outward and send him positive, soothing energy back. Not sure I helped any but I can see why I'm tired and overwhelmed all the time.

To switch topics, I was thinking more about my version of the Rosary as I'm reading this book on the history of Mary. As I research Catholicism, I understand how so much of it is mind control techniques. How do you get a group of Goddess worshipping people who understand and recognize the power, strength and healing powers of women to convert? You create a myth about a woman who dooms all of humankind by taking an apple from a talking snake after the one and only god said not to . . . oh, and the snake you saw as a symbol of wisdom is now Satan . . . oh, and p.s. Satan is evil and you don't want to listen to him for fear of eternal damnation.
That being said, I decided to develop a new version of Hail Holy Queen (Salve Regina). When I redevelop these prayers I like to keep the essence and flow of the original while eliminating and changing irrelevant Catholic dogma. Here's the original and my first attempt at a revision (which needs more revisions):

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy!
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope!
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,
to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb;
O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary.
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

Revision:
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy!
Our life, our sweetness and our hope!
To thee do we listen to abundant wisdom [to replace 'bad Eve's lack of obedience]
To thee do we send up our praise for all nature's glory.
Turn then, most gracious Goddess, thine eyes of discernment towards us and show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb [which could still be all of nature! . . . not Jesus.]
O clement, O loving, O sweet Mary.
Be with us O Holy Mother God.

Not sure what I think of that yet.

Wiccan Goddess Rosary

I've been thinking for a long time that I wanted to revise the Catholic Rosary that I grew up with to reflect my Wiccan faith. I still like the prayers to Mary although there are a few issues that I'm still ironing out with them but it was the other prayers and the Catholic Creed I had a problem with. I think the Rosary is a wonderful meditation tool and I feel connected to the Catholic Rosary as a physical object, as its part of my spiritual roots but I don't like guilt prayers asking Jesus to "save us from the fires of hell." I think if I don't ask Jesus to do this, I'll still be just fine :)

So, the first thing I did on my newer Rosary (not the family one) was to cut off poor dead Jesus. I told Jesus: I think you've done some wonderful things and you're a inspiration. I'll add you to my pantheon of Gods and Godesses but I want you off my Rosary and I'm removing the guilt prayers. I then sewed a Goddess figure that I found when I was shopping in Shanghai, China onto the end of my Rosary. She looks much more filled with life, ready to worship, meditate and pray! [picture seen to left]

I then searched around for appropriate prayers to replace the Catholic ones. I wanted to keep the general feel of the Rosary but choose more appropriate and meaningful words. To show you what I've done I'm providing three tools: 1) the prayers typed below (2) a diagram labelling which bead is for each prayer [especially helpful if you've never done this before] (3) A recording so you can hear how it flows. I had a lot of problems with this recording. I did it several times. I apologize that it skips. I was using my internal mic and it sometimes does that . . . but I do have a nice meditation drone in the background to help :)

I hope that you enjoy this! If you've never done this type of prayer, I hope you find this interesting and inspiring. If you have done the Catholic Rosary . . . I hope this is liberating! I hope to inspire others to develop their own meaningful methods of prayer, meditation and enlightenment. Blessed Be!

Great Goddess, Lady of Life
Whose Garment is the shining Heavens.
You are the white moon among the stars
And the beauty of the green earth.
You are the Oneness of all things
And the Completion of the Spirit
You are the mystery that if that which we seek
We find not within
We will never find it without
For you have been here since the beginning
And you are that which is attained at the end of desire. (Excerpt from The Charge of the Goddess)

(Optional to Sing) We All Come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flows into the ocean

Hail Mary, Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb*
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners* now,
and at the hour of death.

*I removed "Jesus" and I contemplated removing "sinners"

Blessed Be, O High and Holy Lady;
Thou who art the Cauldron of all manifest existence!

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy!
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope!
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,
to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley, of tears.
Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb;
O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary.
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

New Profile Picture

With all this bloggin about my new Rosary practice and Mary . . . I was inspired to create a new profile picture. I was using a pentacle as a quick solution but I was becoming bored of that. I chose the most simple one and it had no personality. It was only meant to be temporary since I spent so long on my banner. So, I got on Photoshop and created a new one. I love my new creation :) It was kind of inspired by the ad for St. Michael's hospital here that has a floating image of St. Michael over the city of Toronto. It was also inspired by my need to find something Pagan-inspired about Mary.

The "how-to" blog about the Rosary coming next . . .

Wiccan Rosary--Devotions to Goddess Mary

In planning a blog post about developing a new Rosary meditation, I realized that I had a lot to say. So, I'm dividing this post into two. First, many Wiccans will ask, why Mary? Why am I worshipping a Catholic Saint as a Pagan Goddess? I think this is a very important question. Here's my story of my relationship with Mary.

Having grown up as a Catholic we prayed to Mary everyday in school. Little did I know what effect this had on me and how much I actually enjoyed or appreciated it. Later in life, after I rejected the Catholic church for reasons such as not accepting me as a gay person or ordaining women, I started attending United and Anglican churches. Mary disappeared from my life almost completely . . . well, except for Christmas and Easter when she would miraculously appear to give birth and then reappear to mourn Jesus' death. It wasn't until a few years ago that I went to an Anglo-Catholic service for friend (which is way more Catholic than the Catholics!) that I was moved by the presence of a Mary in the form of a statue at the side of the church. I couldn't follow the service, which included all kinds of Gregorian and Anglican chant but I kept looking at the statue and I realized that I missed my conversations to Mary in prayer.

A year or so later I was walking in downtown Toronto when I had a calling to visit St. Michael's Roman Catholic Cathedral, the largest and oldest Catholic church in Toronto. It was strange experience and I was surprised but I went. When I got there and sat down people started to recite the Rosary in a group. I had never heard this cycle of prayers. What kind of Catholic grade school did I go to that I never learned the Rosary!?! I was moved by this and I asked my mother who explained it and sent me a family Rosary. I went everyday that summer and prayed and meditated with it. Around this same time I was attending a Zen Buddhist temple and taking a meditation class. I thought the Rosary was a wonderful meditation tool that connected me to my religious roots. After having engaged in this form of prayer for a while, which I combined with lighting a candle at the Mary altar (how very pagan!), I was guided to create a large creative project that involved my new connection to the Rosary. I don't want to say what that project was but I will tell you that I had great success with it. The day I finished that project a group of nuns, who I had never seen before met me outside the church and gave me a medal with Mary on it. I asked them if I should pay them for it. They said no, they just wanted to remind me to pray the Rosary. I told them that I had been everyday and they were surprised. For me, this was confirmation that the Mary was listening . . . and strangely, I never did see that group of nuns again.

So, where does that bring me to today? After many years of contemplation, research, prayer and meditation . . . I realized that I'm trying to cram all my beliefs into religious boxes that didn't accept my ideas . . . or me for that matter! They had wise ideas that I could incorporate but I wasn't completely comfortable worshiping in that space. My strong belief in the Feminine Divine, the God/Goddess in all nature, Paranormal events, my intuitive understanding of people and the universe was not Christian or Buddhist . . . or even a combination. I was Wiccan!

This did not mean that I had to give up previous beliefs. It was Mary who guided me here in the first place! In fact, it was one Catholic principal that had been drilled into my head in grade school that made the most sense, "God is omnipotent!" If that is true, then God . . . or the Goddess can manifest Herself into any form . . . and I'm quite sure that our tiny human brains can't begin to conceive how She works in our lives. She is part of everything and Her energy flows through us all. I know this best when I sit in quiet meditation and feel Her energy flow through me. I always thought it was appropriate that the Catholics called Mary, "Mother of God" . . . because She is God and She gives all life. I love that in many pictures she has healing light flowing from her hands.

I also think of those early Pagans who were converted to Christianity. How did they find new ways to worship the Goddess in a Catholic context so that they were not burned at the stake or violently tortured? Am I rescuing old Pagan rituals that were disguised as Catholic? Did Catholics refurbish Pagan rituals to make their religion more appealing to the people they wanted to covert? As a friend points out, the layout of most churches does resemble a womb, complete with fallopian tubes! How did Mary become the centre of much Catholic worship? We know for a fact that the missionaries used Mary in many Latin-American countries to covert people who had been worshipping Goddesses. Perhaps I am just reviving old traditions and seeing Her in Her original form. [I'm going to read the book to the right very soon.]

So now to refine my rosary to make it more meaningful for me and hopefully I can inspire others. I needed to take it and redefine it in a way that erased Catholic guilt, years of brainwashing and control and make it something to celebrate the beauty of the Goddess. I will share with you in my next post how I did this.
Thank you for reading. Blessed Be!

Batlle of Beliefs

Saw this on another blog and I had to share it too! A man in the town of Marion wants to erect a statue of the 10 Commandments. An atheist wants to sue them but a Wiccan wants the Wiccan Rede erected in the town centre as well! Normally I support the separation of church and state but this is too much fun. I'm trying to picture a list of commandments on a tablet with "Do What Ye Will" written beside it.

See an article about this situation: http://www.thesouthern.com/news/local/article_77c03eac-aa83-11df-8104-001cc4c03286.html

I'm sure this will go nowhere but I'm glad someone pushed the town for equal treatment.

Pre-Birthday Wiccan Surprise

My husband is going to be away for my birthday which is still a while away so he decided to take me out early. He was so sweet to surprise me with a gift. I wasn't expecting anything. The best part is that he went to a spirituality store that has Wiccan items and books and picked out a gift himself. Now, what you need to know about my husband is that he's very supportive but he thinks some of my Wiccan practices are a little odd. He's from mainland China and did not grow up in any religious traditions . . . and, for that matter, he thinks all religious traditions are a bit odd. He has been to a few church services and always says, "What are they saying and why do they keeping singing 'Alleluia?'" Which he pronounces wrong and imitates them singing it over and over in his funny mocking voice with a Chinese accent.

Anyways, he went into the store and pronounced to the store clerk that I was a Wiccan and that he needed a present. He turned down books and CDs because I have "too many" and told the woman that I have trouble picking up negative energy from other people . . . which is true. So, he bought a black candle which smells amazing because it has cloves and frankincense in it. I used it this evening in meditation and spell casting.

Then he decided that he was going to buy me a piece of jewelery. He looked at the pendants and said that he didn't want to buy one of "those stars" because I already had too many of those. So he decided on a moon with a sun because he remembered that we carved that into a pumpkin at Halloween. I asked him if he knows what they symbolize and he said no. Poor guy :)

He's so sweet and I love him to pieces! :) It's so wonderful that he stretched himself to do something so thoughtful for me!