Tonight is the full moon. Esbat time! This month, I was actually part of a fantastic impromptu esbat ritual last night. This time of the month is all about intention setting, bringing in new, cleansing energies that help us reach our goals. So last night, I made a huge list of the things I want to bring into my life this month. Well, really, in the next couple of months, but starting now. I can already feel the magick working. I'm 100% confident that all of my intentions will come true in a timely manner with a little bit of elbow grease, patience, and belief. I am a goddess; I am a witch; I am a woman. And all of those make me powerful. All of those make you, my reader(s), powerful. Whether you are male or female, Pagan, Judeo-Christian, Athiest, or something in between, you also have the power of your will and belief, of the moon and the sun and the Earth behind you. We are all divine; I believe that will all of my heart. It's only what we decide to do with that spark of divinity inside of us that matters. Do we manifest love and light and acceptance? Or do we spread hatred and upheaval? Personally, I vote for the former.

So, I hope you'll join me, whoever happens to be reading this, in setting the intention of peace and love for this next month. With the full moon, I invite into our lives love, balance, serenity and the remembrance of the power that we hold within ourselves. I invite any and all of my readers to invite the same into their own lives and into the world at large. Perhaps if enough of us set the intention for peace, and work at it, it will eventually come to pass.

So mote it be.

Impromtu Prayer

Funny how the smallest things can be some of the most spiritual. Sitting around a campfire in the company of friends for a few hours, watching the moon and the stars and partaking of good conversation can be the most grounding experience in the world, and perhaps one of the most fulfilling. Yes, full-blown intricate ritual is important. But so is sitting back and marveling at the natural magick that occurs all around us without our even noticing it.

So next time you're feeling stressed or afraid or overwhelmed, take a moment and remember the last time you sat with friends and family and roasted marshmallows, or went swimming in a stream, or even just walked around the park. Remember how marvelous it feels to know that you're loved. For you are loved. If no one else tells you that, know that I love you, as I love every one of the God and Goddess' creations. But recall that feeling of calm and love and let it fill you, let it wash away all the stress and the fear, and let it fill you with a sustaining light that will carry you through whatever troubles you are facing. Times will be tough; they're never easy. But if we can recall those moments of pure simplicity, pure love and beauty and magick, I feel that we can get through them unscathed and better people.

Blessed be,
Emer

Reminders for Life

Whoops, a whole week without posting. It's been an interesting week, to say the least: psychic vampires and stupid drama, work woes and craziness. But I'm still alive! Huzzah! Partially prompted from stress about my job (social media coordinator for my father's company) and partially from The Pantheon's urgings, I have a created a list of simple reminders to myself. Some of them are work-specific, most of them are applicable to all of life; some of them only make sense to my brain or those who know the reference, but most of them should be useful for everyone. Feel free to use or ignore as you see fit. I just thought it might be nice to share my insights of the day.

Do

• Believe in yourself
• Make strange connections
• Go beyond the obvious
• Be yourself
• Be funny, if you can
• Find the interesting angle
• Be prepared
• Be humble, but confident
• Explore all aspects of a situation
• Be creative
• Break things into bite-sized pieces
• Make things personable and interesting
• Focus on one thing at a time
• Remember you can do this; you can do anything
• Think outside the box
• Ask weird questions
• Recapture your inner child
• Take things one step at a time
• Take a break if you need it
• Be okay with not knowing where something’s going
• Borrow techniques from others, where appropriate
• Remember that no one’s done this before; you’re a trail blazer
• Brainstorm before acting
• Follow your intuition when you’re feeling lost; it will not lead you astray
• Set smaller goals
• Treat your contacts like royalty; they are your livelihood
• Keep a positive outlook and remember the law of returns
• Integrate your life, especially bringing spirit into your work and not vice versa
• Make to-do lists
• Be a Kaoru, not a Kyouya
• Love yourself and love your work
• Remember that your attitude affects your work
• Be passionate and energetic

Don’t

• Be afraid to make mistakes
• Sit on your butt doing nothing
• Stick with something that doesn’t work
• Be shy
• Be afraid to ASK FOR HELP when needed
• Let yourself get overwhelmed
• Multi-task (too much)
• Lose the fun in the job
• Lose sight of the goal
• Forget that you signed up for this
• Let little things get in the way
• Get distracted too often
• Take things too seriously
• Be afraid to talk to people
• Be afraid to suggest ideas, even if you think they’re silly
• Tear yourself down; you’re a goddess/god
• Forget to stretch now and then
• Think of yourself as an expert
• Compare yourself to others in the same field
• Be afraid to pretend or role play for confidence
• Spread yourself too thin
• Ignore your gut
• Try to take on the entire project at one time
• Think it’s all about the money
• Get hung up on nitpicky details until the overall is in decent shape
• Be impatient; but don’t be too patient, either
• Be too spontaneous/disorganized
• Forget that everyone is human
• Be only work, or a workaholic
• Set your standards/goals too an unobtainable high (or too low)
• Let a bad mood hold you back
• Be afraid to go with the flow
• Be afraid of change

Blessed Lughnasadh!

Today is the first of the harvest Sabbats, Lughnasadh. A day when we look to all that we have sown and begin to reap our harvests, be it positive or negative, fruitful or barren. Today we celebrate Lugh of the Long Arm, Celtic god of light and the harvest, who killed Balor the Baneful (interestingly enough, in a story similar to the Biblical David and Goliath). Today we celebrate Summer, in all its warmth and sunlight, and are aware of the ending of this season drawing ever closer.

And today I am aware of how very much I'm sounding like a Haggadah. "Why is this night different from all other nights?" Because I say it is, dang it! Why, yes, I did grow up celebrating Passover, why do you ask?

The point of this post, though, is harvesting what we plant. The law of returns. Call it what you will. What we put out into the universe, our energy and thoughts and words, will eventually return to us. If we put out positivity, love and light, as much kindness as we can manage, we will get positive results in return. It could be an unexpected word of support, finding exactly what you need for the price you can afford, or even just nebulous positive energy floating around you. If you put out negativity, hatred and prejudice, that will come back to you, too, in the form of not getting something you need, psychic, emotional, or physical illness, and people just plain not liking you. You tell me, which one sounds nicer? Personally, I'm going to go with the positive one.

So, remember during this time of the harvest festivals, that what you plant, sow, or put out is what you'll be harvesting, reaping or receiving somewhere down the line. It won't necessarily be immediate--plenty of nasty people get seemingly good things all the time and vice versa--but it will happen, either in this life or a future one. Keep your eyes open.

Tricksters and Me

Today I realized one of the reasons Loki probably picked me: I have a similar "let's shake things up" energy, apparently. I finally put some pieces together today for various reasons, but throughout my life, there have been several groups--all with different purposes, and some simply just groups of friends, on occasion a relationship or two--that have suddenly encountered a ton of silly drama for one reason or another. I now believe it could very well be because there's something about me, even if it's only Loki standing over my shoulder and grinning that goofy grin of his, that eats away at deception and exposes the things that aren't working. Now that I think about it, this has happened to me over and over again, so I don't feel like it's just a coincidence. Just another thing to think about as I move along, I suppose. Perhaps there's more to my affinity for trickster characters, after all. Only time will tell.

Secrecy and Confidence

It's days like this that remind me why it's hard to blog every day: so much has happened in the last twenty-four hours that I don't know where to start. A lot of it, I'm not actually allowed to talk about here, though, which I suppose definitely narrows it down. That's one of the things that bothers me about the Wiccan community, really. The secrecy. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasoning behind it and will do everything in my power to uphold it, but it makes things so dang difficult! When my parents ask who I'm talking to, for example, I'm forced to say something as vague as "my friend," which only makes them prod more. On occasion, I've had to downright lie to to them to keep from giving away someone's identity as a Witch, and that really bothers me. Especially since one of the things I've been working on is not telling little white lies! But here I am doing that to keep a friend's privacy. Rather a conundrum, don't you think?

Ah, well. Moving on. I'm really starting to sense things again; huzzah! (The Pantheon: phew! Finally!) And I want to share one of the things that I think really helped. It's an affirmation/chant/meditation/spell/whatever you want to call it that I found in The Wicca Cookbook by Jamie Wood and Tara Seefeldt. I think it works for self-confidence, trusting yourself, and, probably, depression (though I haven't tried it for the last).

Look in the mirror, focusing on your right eye. Say:

I love you (your name).
I forgive you for ever thinking you were bad, unworthy, or incapable.
You are innocent.
You are a beautiful child of the universe.
All things are possible.
Success is your divine right.

Say it until you believe it.

I'm Back!

Whoo! After that last post (geeze, over a month ago! Bad Emer, bad!), I bet you thought I'd turned into some slobbering drunk on a street corner somewhere, right? Well, surprise! I'm still here! It's been rather a crazy month, in all honesty. Getting my sea legs in an office job (well, a bloggy job), arguing with Loki over the fact that I want to work with his wives/mistressess/whatever title you want to give to Angrboda and Sigyn, meeting a new spirit guide (if anyone's got information on an Omwa, please shoot me an email), helping to create an Indigo youth group (keep an eye out for a blog for that!), failing miserably at celebrating Esbats, trying to convince my boss (read: my father) time off for Lughnasadh without being overt about it, very slowly picking at my novel, going to the Colorado Renaissance Festival and not letting myself buy anything, reading as many Craft books as I can get my hands on, and helping my sister prepare for college. Oh, yes, and going through a crazy period of doubt that's been driving me crazy and closing up all my sensing chakras, especially my heart chakra, which is the one I always use to sense energies. But I think I'm finally starting to recover from that. Especially given that I just did a mostly accurate empathic reading for my friend, and I'm pretty sure I see a bored trickster god sitting on my desk and rolling his eyes at me.

Ah, well. Enough about the past! Let's talk about the future. I'm hoping to get this monster going again, with daily posts, like I was doing before my rather sudden and accidental hiatus. This will most likely prove interesting, as I'm also starting a blogging job for my father's company that will likely take a lot of time (point in case, it took me almost three hours to finish a single post today). I'm also hoping to start a blog up for the youth group I mentioned, and am meeting with another company on Saturday about the possibility of doing social media for them. Yikes! Which god do I appeal to for more time in the day again?