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.

Vegetarian Visiting Halifax

I went on vacation again! Had some time on my hands and wanted to get away, so I went to Halifax, Nova Scotia. What a wonderful city!! The people are friendly, there's a lot to see, and if you love history like I do . . . it's fascinating. Halifax plays a very important role in the history of Canada.

One of the most interesting things for me to see was Little Mysteries Bookstore. This bright spiritual store had a wondeful energy and sold a variety of Wiccan books in addition to wonderful jewellery, shirts, decorations, and so much more. They even have a variety of tarot readers that are there most days of the weeks. In general the city seems to be quite open to Pagan peoples (I saw people wearing pentagrams!) and paranormal ideas. I went on a Ghost Walk Tour and people were open to talking about their haunting experiences.

Now this probably won't interest my regualr readers but I wanted to give some advice to people who might Google "vegetarian, Halifax, and visit" . . . but don't be freaked out by the Wiccan blog . . . lol! It is a little difficult to find vegetarian food in Halifax. You are in one of the seafood capitals of Canada! If you keep walking around all the mainstream restaurants, you might get tired of eating vegetarian pizza, as I was! So here's a few suggestions.

The downtown is small, so it is so easy to get around. One of the most overlooked restaurants in Halifax that I only found by accident is Talay Thai Restaurant. The food there was amazing and I think I'm quite picky when it comes to Thai. There are only two restaurants that I enjoy in Toronto and this was comparable. The have quite a few vegetarian dishes on the menu . . . and even the appetizers.

One restaurants that all the locals like is called The Wooden Monkey. While they do specialize in organic, locally grown and macrobiotic food, I personally find that they don't have a huge selection of vegetarian food. I'm so glad that there's a restaurant being socially conscious but people will tell you that it is vegetarian but there not a lot of options. Someone did tell me that they are happy to change ingredients if people have food allergies . . . so maybe you can ask them to change up some of their options. The ambience of the place is wonderful :)

There is one fully vegetarian restaurant in Halifax, Satisfaction Feast but I don't drive and its a bit farther so I didn't go there. If you were up to a far walk it would probably be about an hour. I walked to Seaview Memorial Park on the other side of Halifax and that took me an hour and this restaurant doesn't seem as far.

The last suggestion is not a vegetarian restaurant but a seafood restaurant. In fact, they only seem to have one vegetarian meal on the dinner menu but it is well worth visiting!!! The Five Fisherman Restaurant used to be Anna Leonowens' art school (you know, the woman who inpired the musical 'The King and I'), and during the Halifax Explosion it turned into a morgue. So, it turns out that this place is VERY HAUNTED! I went during a non-busy part of the day and my wonderful server took the time to show me upstairs and told me that everyone who worked there has seen something paranormal. There's a girl ghost who shows up in the women's bathroom and a man in the dining room. The silerware and the glasses will move and fly off the tables. Every morning they have to reorganize the tables because everything is on the floor. Neat Place! Oh, and the vegetarian dish they serve is a vegetable gnocchi :)

Bon Appetite Halifax visitors!

I'm back from China! It was amazing and I'm going to save it for a series of posts in the future. Let's just say that I enjoyed it so much that I'm considering moving there for a short period of time . . . but one thing at a time.

So, Eat, Pray, Love is going to become a movie. Usually when a book gets as much hype as this one has, I ignore it. I generally assume that the general public does not have the same taste as I do. This book would not leave me alone though. The title kept getting tossed around by friends and then the movie commercials came out and I thought, "fine, I give in."

I loved every minute of this book! Having gone through a divorce myself, I completely understood Elizabeth Gilbert's feelings and having burned out of my career several years ago, I understood the restlessness. Did I go off traveling around the world having spiritual insights? No, I played it safe and went back to school to start a career that I had quite a lot of success with at first and then quit and went back to my first career. Should I have traveled around the world finding myself? Probably. What makes this book so enjoyable is not so much the places she goes in the physical world but her adventures and insights into her mind. She doesn't hold much back in what she's thinking. She even discusses "taboo" subjects like masturbation when she needs to make a point and she paints the true and often raw expression of her soul.

As a Wiccan, the part that struck home with me most was her insight into ritual. Having gone through a messy divorce Gilbert says that it is so difficult to find closure because she was longing for that conversation with her ex-husband where they set everything straight and move on. Because it was so messy, that wasn't going to happen. She had to rectify her emotions and spirit through ritual. I won't tell you how exactly because that would give away too much of the book but she does say:

We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you're craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet. If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will prove the grace. And that is why we need God.

Developing ritual through Wicca is one of the most empowering part of the craft! I spend a great deal of time finding and writing what I find meaningful, rather than using or copying other people's leads because that is what I'm "supposed to do." I'm going to share some of those ideas in the future posts.

Will the movie do the book justice? Julia Roberts is a good start . . . but we'll see!

Vacation

I'm so excited to be taking a vacation now. I'll be gone for 2 weeks and I won't be able to write. Bet you can't guess where I'm going!! Merry Part :)

Toronto Chaos

I've been slow to update because this has been an emotional week with large high and deep lows . . . not to mention what is happening with Toronto. My emotions can get the best of me to the point where they are almost debilitating. I have some problems with depression which I try to work through in many ways . . . but I don't like to bitch about that, even though I know its a reality that I have to work through. As an artist, I also tend to overreact quickly. I also have to remind myself to step back from the situation, take time, and then re-approach it more logically. Its a hard lesson to learn and it takes a long time to figure out how to do it. Sometimes I just want to start screaming and yelling and I know that it won't help the situation at all. As a witch with a meditation practice this is where it should kick in to help . . . but that's the last time I want to do. Usually I just sit and stew! I'm not sure how to get over this.

The energy in Toronto is horrible right now. I'm sure that no matter where you are in the world, you're seeing our city due to the G20. Violence to this extent is very unheard of in Canada!! I'm embarrassed for our city and our country. I'm watching our local news station and I feel like I'm watching sensationalist CNN!! I was worried about how the rest of the world is perceiving us as we're usually seen as a very peaceful country. However, some of the world media (e.g., France, Britain, USA) is saying that they are used to much more violence, so this is really nothing to them. I'm still not happy with that. You can really feel the oppressive energy of they city. It's already hard to be a Wiccan in the city . . . this makes it worse. Maybe I should sit and try to focus some positive energy back into the city.

As I live downtown, I decided to step out for a bit when some of the violence was done and I got some of these pictures. It's really sad! To be really honest, I don't see either side of this. How can the G20 really get any work done in 2 days? What message are the protesters, whether they are peaceful or violent, expecting to get across? Can they really get a message out? Why can't the leaders make some deal with Microsoft where they get a super-secure video conference line where they can really discuss issues . . . or at the very least . . . why not a meeting in Antarctica? The penguins probably won't protest . . . i think :)

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!

Magickal Karma Fix

If you read my previous post, you'll know that I had a recent run in with a music store over an owner's failure to train her employees properly around the costing of items. After she accused me of trying to trick her employees, I became enraged and refused to pay any more for a transaction that was completed in the store. The whole situation has left a bad taste in my mouth and I've decided that I'm going to rectify this with magick and ritual. I need to transform the negative interaction based on money into something positive. So, I'm donating the money that she says I owe her to charity. If I financially benefited from someone's mistake, then I figure that I'll send that energy (and financial benefit) back into the universe.

I've been researching different charities and trying to figure out where to send it. My partner thinks I should send it to a charity that deals with music. I know there are some inner-city initiatives that give students free music lessons which I think is wonderful, so I will consider that. However, with the recent oil spill I feel that I should do something to help that. Mother Earth is crying out for healing! I found a wonderful American Charity Matter of Trust that is collecting human hair because it can easily absorb oil. There are Canadian hair salons that are helping and I figure that this American charity must need money to help transport all these materials. The only down side of sending to an American charity is that I don't think I can get a Canadian tax receipt for that . . . but I don't think that should matter when I'm doing it for my karma.

Please feel free to suggest what you think I should do or suggest any other charity. Here is a video that shows how effective human hair is separating oil from water.