My redgum altar, stained with a very nice Pinot Noir and rubbed with raw linseed oil.

Because I promised Brandon I would post it and I finally got my camera working again :)

The entry finally brings me up to date.

Winter Solstice here, moving from the darker days to the light.. I lit a candle to burn through the night. It was still alight  as I came to hold a dawn ritual to move from the dark , into the light.

I wanted to include the rest of my family, so I planned a meal that included everyone's favourite foods and I bought everyone a small gift.

For my children I brought something which either lit up or was a light.
I bought Carlia my oldest a new clock radio.
I bought Hailley a new torch, Menolly a new cigarette lighter and Crystal a lamp for her room.
I bought my lovely a nice bottle of liquer and some chocolate.
I then asked him to help me finish putting together my new fire pit.

As I cooked for everyone, I lit the new fire.
The kids wanted to roast marshmallows and were pleasantly suprised at their gifts.

Was a beautiful day and I felt much better after being so depressed lately.
Can perhaps see a way ahead.

I sanded back my altar and stained it with red wine.

It looked lovely and I I wanted to do something special.

I used the ritual for creating a nemeton from Skip's book and then it moved nicely to my daily devotional from the gatekeeper point.
I then went through as usual.

I felt that I had really began to incorporate the Kindreds into my life.

Funnily enough, it has been quite wet since then and I started doing ritual inside again.
I began to wonder if I had done something wrong or unpleasing?

So I sat down to write and plan for winter solstice.

I wanted to something special for Mother's Day, so I adapted the Samhain ritual to honour Boann and consider the drought here at the same time.
Was lovely and since then there has seemed to be a lot more rain.
I took the opportunity to rearrange my altar and plant some flowers on each side. They have white flowers with little bits of red, reminds me of so many things.
I now have my well on the left and the tree on the right, with my altar in the middle.
I can now meditate with my finger tips in the well, my hand of the tree and focus on the flame.

I also took the chance to rearrange my inside altar.



Lovely.

I enjoyed this ritual very much.
I felt I had prepared well for the High Day and felt that I had performed the ritual well. I really feel  am getting better at this.
I do love the language that goes with ritual and am enjoying the writing more and more.
This was the first time I didn't include Ogmha and Bridget, but it just seemed to come out right.

This is the ritual I am still using most mornings.
I wrote this so I had something new for Lughnassa, although I ended up using the longer one from Confest.

I have made a lovely spot in my back yard where I face west for the Ancestors. Prior to this I was at a space I had made for myself inside which I still maintain.

My well started it's life as part of a fountain. It has 3 jugs on it and I love it.
There is a terracotta candle holder that protects the flame from the wind. I actually got it from the same place as the well.
My tree is a crab apple tree. It's still just a baby, but it's getting there.

The altar itself is a large piece of Redgum that I brought home from Mt Franklin, so very significant for me as this was the first place I ever attended a public ritual.
That's my vegetable and herb garden you can see behind it.
You can probably see the solar lights surrounding it.
What you can't see are some of the other trees and plants which include hazelnut trees, some hawthorn and evergreen Alder and a Rowan tree.

This was the very first ritual I felt I had written myself. I wrote this while I was away camping over the summer. I had just found out  I had cancer and was not feeling very well, or happy for that matter.
The camping was at Confest, where I go twice a year with my lovely sister Ang. My lovely friend Danny was there, with his beautiful Egyptian temple. I spent some time there studying and meditating and this is what I got.
Again much is from ADF templates and Skip's book and I had just started to get my mouth around the Gaelic, but I really feel like there is a lot of me in this one.

I sat myself in front of  my traveling altar inside my tent. at dawn. It was incredibily uplifting.
The omen I recall suggested I had the strength to go on with it.
The omens are generally right.

The very first ritual I really adapted for use for myself. I took this from Skip's book, the solitary druid, which sees quite a lot of use as I adapt ADF ritual to what I find sits well with me. I first started using this in December 06.

Prior to this, my rituals mostly consisted of  some meditation, simple offering to west  for the ancestors that had significance to the season for me.

( Read more... )

Samhain here in the Southern hemisphere really does seem to be a good place to start my dedicant journal. Thanks to Brandon in Japan for giving me this idea.
My challenge now is to get all my bits and pieces in one place and onto here.

It's one thing to be solitary, it's quite another to have no say in the matter due to distance and geographical isolation.

I have been solitary for such a long time as I just could not find any one near me who came close to the path I have been following.

Study has helped me to see that those paths that originally seemed quite different to me are not so different after all.
Considering it was that digging back through history and looking at the parts of christianity that were comfortable and appealing to me that brought me to this point. Well, that and Lovelock.

 So once again, I publish the original essay where I collected my thoughts and feelings.

Hard to believe that it is nearly 4 years since I first wrote it.

Even harder to grasp in hindsight that I really haven’t really changed my ideas that much although I feel I have a much better understanding through study of what the ancient Druids believed. I have also gone from quite simple rituals honouring the Gods and observing the turning of the seasons to what for me are very complicated rituals much to my friend Raven’s mirth. I find a level of comfort, if that is the right word, designing new rituals for the occasion at hand and refining the devotional I use for every day.

Eureka! That shall be my next post :)