Ah Hope

Ah my dear Hope

We must agree to disagree

I know that you and I have had this argument for years – this idea that we are in an adversarial relationship with our gods (guides, guardians and/or higher self). That some members of my tribe see the relationship we have with them is unbalanced and that they enjoy our feeling of pain, suffering and embarrassment. Even to the point that they will set us up to fail or to look foolish. I also know that this makes you angry. In that anger, you search for proof of this belief. I see this in you and I see it in others.

It breaks my heart because my experiences are so much the opposite of yours.

Let me remind you of my truths that I always work with:

1) Separation of self from divinity (this is a myth a lie)
We are all one in the same. My guardians, guides, ancestors and/or gods. I would love to separate out the three in to neat categories but they are not separate. At some point in the vast cosmic expansion they are all linked as one. I know I approach spirituality, faith and religion with a more eastern mind set. I AM NOT SPERATE FROM MY DIVINITY OR MY GODS. If we are one why would they want me to fail why would they find humor in my mistakes. When I am soul hurt my gods weep with me. When I am ego hurt they offer comfort but with that edge and that reminder of free will sucks.

2) Trust
It’s a horrible 5 letter word that eats at the consciousness and ego us all. To trust is to embrace weakness and worst of all faith that others are there to help. Yet without trust starting with ourselves we can never find balance with gods. Without trust, there is always that struggle. Without trust, there is fear. We all know fear is the mind killer.

3) We view the world though our human existence and mask
We look at the world around us through a mask of our own perceptions, a filter built of our experiences and teachings. The foundations of this are built in out childhood by our families. Some of us grow up learning to trust the world and view all people as good in their base nature and willing to help others. Some of us grow up viewing the world as adversarial always a struggle for rare praise and resources. This creates an adversarial relationship with others from the start. The latter is where this break between or own self and being a peace with our own divinity and connections comes into play.

Imagine if you will your own body, your heart wanting our stomach to digest food quickly and efficiently leaving no fat behind to travel to our thighs. The stomach doing its best to give us the energy we need to live and move though are day piss that the heart is trying to tell it what to do. In this model, the heart is always at war with the stomach because the stomach is failing to do what the heart wants the stomach is at war with the heart because the stomach is just trying to do its job. Creating this imbalance and fight constantly. Then our brain gets involved and wants to use facts or logic to tell the heart and the stomach to stop fighting but rather than listen to the brain the heart and stomach start fighting with the brain. In this system, the body s always at war with itself. It has forgotten its true mission which is to be whole.

The reality is of course that the body is a single system that, when in balance, works harmoniously so that all of its parts benefit. We and the gods and spirits native to our universe are all part of one body. The more we understand how each part works, the more we can simply trust those parts to do their job. When we believe that a part should work differently and demand that it acts in some manner that is alien to it, it seems as if that part is defiant. The defiant part is telling us our beliefs are wrong, which can feel like an attack when our beliefs are deeply held.

4) Deities are a limited resource…
We live in a world that requires is to kill to eat so right from the start our perceptions are that life is a battle be it with a tomato worm or a tiger. We are all fighting for resources we need to live. Day to day there is struggle to get enough food, clean drinking water, enough money to pay bills, to get the medicine we need to survive. This struggle is real it is part of being human. What is not real is this idea that the attention paid to us by deity, the love given to us by deity is also limited. Worse that we need someone else to tell us what it is our gods are wishing and hoping for us. This is a myth and a HUGE one. There is no limit to the love a deity can give us, there is no limit to the attention bestowed upon us by our deities, gods, guardians and ancestors. Their desire for us to succeed is unlimited as is their affection, love and energy they bestow upon us to see us reach our highest potential. Their only desire is to see us freed from any Karmic debt and to move upward embracing all of this human experience.

My hope for you is maybe someday we can come to a balance between our understandings of how the universe works. Maybe one day convince you that you are amazing and wonderful and that the gods do love you.

Much love

Nettle

PS Coyvere sends his love as well

Cold Comfort

Today I got on Pantheos and read an article (which I should have written down the author and the title but didn’t, damn it) that said the following:

“Spirit mentors, like other mentors, lie and cajole and oversimplify to get you to do what needs to be done. They’ll tell you it’s the end of the world, that only you can save it. They’ll tell you that you’re special, and important, and necessary.

They’ll do it because it’s the only way to motivate the average person.

Remember, when a spirit tells you you’re special, it’s proof you aren’t! Spirits don’t offer money. Ideology is a human thing and they couldn’t care less. They’re not interested in compromise or negotiation. But hell do spirits ever know how to play an ego when they need someone to act!”

Okay, I admit it – I’m average. I know damn good and well that I’m not saving the bloody world. I know damn good and well that I can’t mend the rifts between planes (which don’t exist in the first place) and restore Dragonkind (if it ever needed restoring, which I don’t know).  But because Nammu stroked my ego with this farrago of nonsense she got me to do a few things that were inconsequential in my eyes (rescue a stuffed toy dragon for one).  I was a sucker. No two ways about it. And you know what bothers me the most? That she assumed that if she didn’t feed me this line of bullshit I wouldn’t do those things for her.

None of the things she asked for were or are onerous. Climbing down to another rv space to pick up a bedraggled stuffed toy didn’t cost me anything but the effort and a few minutes. Ditto the other things. None of them were things that at which the average helpful person would balk. Even writing this blog, which can sometimes be frantic because my life is so humdrum that I have nothing to write about, isn’t something onerous. Well, I don’t like having to nag my fellow bloggers to write, because unlike me they actually have lives filled with all sorts of activities. But you see my point.

I owed Nammu and I would have been happy to repay some of my debt by doing the things she sent me to do. The line of ‘you’re the only one who can do this!’ wasn’t necessary and was, frankly, insulting.  Most of my hesitation came from wanting confirmation of my feelings/impulses. Since none of our interaction was verbal, I wanted to be sure to differentiate between what I wanted to do and what she wanted me to do. Occasionally I got this, but often I didn’t.  Occasionally I got more than I wanted. But I would have done these things (albeit not without a bit of kicking and screaming about the blog)  just as readily if not more so had she just told me the truth.

‘See that purple and green thing down there? It’s a stuffed dragon that I want you to pick up and give to someone later. Please go get it.”

“I’m sending you this compulsion so that you’ll be able to recognize it later, should it happen to you.”

But because I’m average, I get lied to. Oh, underneath the stroking I had my doubts about what she said, but hey! I didn’t think she’d lie to me. There was no need. I already owed her and offered to her daily.

So if you are being told this line of bullshit from a spirit, take a step back and realize that you’re being lied to. Yes, it’s insulting. Yes, it shows that the spirit doesn’t respect you. Maybe it comes from millennia of dealing with people who had to be manipulated to do something that needed doing. I don’t know the reasons. You might want to have a talk with that spirit and gently tell it that it doesn’t need to do that.  I’m a pretty honest type of person, and I want honesty from those I deal with. I prefer to be a partner, not a puppet. I think that those of us who choose this path – or are chosen for it – prefer the same.

Oily update

Today I strained my herbal oils that I started back at Sumner Solstice, it was messy

I got oil all over my hands, the table, the chair the kitchen sink, my hair even the floor. It was a glorious mess!

The oils are fabulous looking and smelling – sweet green earthy no moldy rotten smell to them. 

from left to right we have Arnica, Plantain, Calendula and Yarrow – this is why labels are important – at least in the making of herbal oils and future salves.

 Also important is remember to check to see if you have all the ingredients you need in large enough proportions to finish your project. Now begins my search for beeswax.

Happy almost Lammas/Lughnasadh!

99.9% of us have no gods.

We live out our days without ever making a single offering. We attend – if we attend – a church or temple and listen without hearing, repeating by rote but not from the heart. We take away nothing in sustenance spiritually. A deity is invoked either as a curse or a vague invocation of doubted hope. No one pours a libation on the earth. No one does an act in the name of a god. We have no true belief in anything that we can’t see, touch, or smell. And this suits us.

It suits us because we don’t really want the gods to notice us. We feel uncomfortable with the thought that a deity might be watching us at any given moment. We fear that if a god should appear he would want something from us that we don’t want to give. We believe that everything is tit for tat, that no gifts come into our lives without an attached price tag, even if we can’t see it right then. We have no love for gods – we’re suspicious of their every action. We doubt their concern for us. We feel that there’s no place we can meet them safely.

And that makes each of us who do offer, who do invoke, very precious.

 

 

 

Conversations with Deity

Are never as easy as one would believe.  Yes, I seem to have this great cosmic connection.  I’m blessed (or cursed as it were) to “hear” or sense answers from the Universe and Deity.  It gives the impression that I can just sit down and have a cuppa with an Energy and get endless answers.  So why can’t I just sit and write a blog post whenever and wherever with these grand conversations?  Because it isn’t ever that simple.  Yes, I hear them at all times of the day and night when they have something to say, but I don’t just sit down and say “Hey Deity, how are you today?  What shall we discuss?  How’s the weather and what do you want me to share today?”  Carte blanche access like that is an opening to let them have more access and control than I am willing to give.  Or an opening for absolute silence and possible rejection that is scary and often unwelcome.

In being asked why I haven’t had a post to share in ages, it was suggested I just reach out and talk to Herne.  He is, after all, my long standing Patron and someone I trust so he won’t try to go all power hungry and take me over right?  The answer I got when I reached out was quite simply this “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Does that mean just because I can talk to Deity, I shouldn’t always?  That would be my take.  I don’t want to become dependent on their advice and insight.  I want to know that my mind is my own, and they are just occasional visitors coming in to say hi and share some insight.  They may have answers, but it doesn’t make them the right answers.

We seek, but to seek we have to have direction.  At least this is one of my guiding principles.  Unless you know for certain that you want to know the answers, don’t seek them.  Think it through before you ask for help because it isn’t always the help you need.

For a while now I have been stagnant with my own personal practice.  Yes, I celebrated Litha with a lovely Sabbat ritual online with my Online School.  But celebrations on my own?  Not so much.  Sabbats I try to join the online community I am part of to share energy and honor the energy that is surrounding us lbut beyond that…  I’ve felt a sort of disconnect.

I know, inherently, that the time to study is coming up.  That I need to get back to working on my spiritual (as well as other aspects) to find a sense of balance that I am missing.  I know that another group I am part of is going to be starting up a Chakra study again.  That I failed at miserably the first time it ran as a group effort because life got in the way.  So it is presenting itself as another lovely option for me to learn as a group and get off my spiritual ass and grow again.

Yet something holds me back.  Something makes me doubt.  There are Beings I can reach out to for help.  But are they truly going to guide me when even *I* am unsure of where I want to go and what I want to do?  The Charge of the Goddess (popularized by Doreen Valiente) tells us that the great mystery can only be solved when we look inside first.  Look within for the kernel of truth that starts it all.Deity will give us answers, will give us the answers they think we want, but how do we know they are the answers we truly need if we don’t start looking within?  How do we know they are the right answers for us if we don’t internalize and explore that which we seek?  We are ultimately the ones responsible for finding our own answers, and just because an answer is given, it doesn’t mean it is the best one.  Answers, spirituality, and conversations are really not one size

Deity will give us answers, will give us the answers they think we want, but how do we know they are the answers we truly need if we don’t start looking within?  How do we know they are the right answers for us if we don’t internalize and explore that which we seek?  We are ultimately the ones responsible for finding our own answers, and just because an answer is given, it doesn’t mean it is the best one.  Answers, spirituality, and conversations are really not one size fits all.

Perhaps, in this instance, the Conversation with Deity, is more to focus on what isn’t said.  A reminder that even no answer is still an answer.  “No right now” not just “No.”  Silence is an answer.  It is that gentle nudge that right now, they don’t have the answers you seek because you aren’t asking the right question or they aren’t the right one to give them.  Instead of relying on others to find the answers, start with self and figure out what you want asked first.  Only then can you really begin to find the answers you really need.

Summer Solstice

Summer solstice is here and I’ll be honest it’s as hot as Hades outside right now. Moving to the desert we have experienced our first 120+ heat, it’s an experience.  Good or bad, not sure yet.  I’m trying to leave out judgment for now.

So what do you do for the Solstice when it’s too hot to go outside?

Why you start some magical healing oil for salve making later on in the summer!

Then you take a nap. 😉 or go swimming in your pool, or take a nap or read a book or take a nap… I’m digging this siesta thing.

I made four oils today starting with Safflower Oil. It can be hard to find good Safflower Oil but it is worth the search. Safflower oil is great for the skin.  It soaks in nicely and does not leave a heavy greasy feeling to the skin.  The better the quality of the oil you use, the better your final product will be.

I then picked my herbs.  For this method, I prefer to use already dried plants. As much as I would love to grow my own I cheat and buy already dried from a trusted source.

I used four pint-sized canning jars and roughly an ounce of dried flowers and leaves of each plant. You fill the jar loosely (please don’t stuff the jar – you need space) with your dried herb then slowly poor the safflower oil over the top until the jar is full.  Seal the jar with a tight lid and then place in a sunny window for about a month. Label your jars so you know the date and herb in the jar. It’s almost impossible to go back and smell what’s in the jar or even try and remember. so label, label label.

I picked four herbal oils to make this year at Summer Solstice

Calendula Flowers (Calendula officinalis): uses as a gentle healing herb for skin wounds, rashes, and irritations – calming and soothing to the skin. This oil can be used on small open wounds. Please don’t use if you have an allergy to any of the other members of the Asteraceae family (such as feverfew, chamomile, or Echinacea species)

Yarrow leaves & flowers (Achillea millefolium): Yarrow is a traditional healing herb for wounds.  The Greek hero Achilles used yarrow to wash the wounds of his soldiers.  One of the best I know to apply to an open wound or sore. Yarrow is also a member of the Asteraceae family and shouldn’t be used by pregnant women.

Plantain leaf (Plantago lanceolata): Plantain leaf is an invasive species plant to North America that has naturalized meaning it’s considered a common weed. The leaves are wonderful for healing insect stings and bites, treating itching and hives. Yet like all plants someone you know might be allergic so use with caution when sharing this oil with a friend for the first time or using yourself.

Arnica flowers (Arnica montana): I’ve just discovered Arnica for sore muscles and bruising, I love this plant. It cannot or should not be taken internally nor should it be used on an open wound. It too is a member of the Asteraceae family so people with known allergies to this plant should avoid using Arnica

So here they all are sitting on the window sill to wait and steep for a month. I’ll try to remember to shake them daily. Check back in a while and I’ll share with you the next step in salve making.

Summer Solstice blessing my friends – May the sun shine bright upon you, illuminating what is hidden and harmful, letting you heal and grow.

How do you find the answer when you don’t know the question?

Yesterday I was chatting with Glory and she put up a quote from a book she’d read – it was ” There is limited godly essence among the Gods. They aren’t overly fertile as a result”. (Glory here, it wasn’t really a direct quote, more a generalized quote from the book.  It really is interesting how much different popular movies and fiction novels can tap into truths now and then.) This led to a long conversation between her, Loki, and myself.

I read it and was immediately struck with a very strong and strange feeling in my solar plexus chakra. Proud of myself here – I didn’t deny it or run away as I usually do! Then I got a jolt of energy up the spine. As I pondered that line pressure began to build around my temples. (Even now, the day after, I get a shiver of energy through me thinking about it).

But why is it so important? I disregarded the last sentence as irrelevant – this came from a supernaturalish romance and so something of the sort has to be expected. It is the first sentence that matters.

This essence, this energy, is something the gods are born with, and it can be regenerated, but at an infinitesimal rate. This explains why there are so few miracles performed.  Mortals have this essence, I’m informed, but it was once more common than it is now, and diminishing amongst us.  (Glory again, not all mortals have it.  Some do, and it has dwindled greatly, as not nearly as many Deity touched, or potentially Deity touched walk the Earth as once did.)  It explains, also, the lack of interference in mortal affairs unless necessary. A limited resource won’t be spent on anything less than a major need.

“It suggests that the ‘why’ is the important part of the question (whatever the question is). Why it seems to be so much more limited now. And diluted. ‘There are many factors. It’s not an entirely finite source, but it isn’t growing exponentially at a fast pace anymore either. Which is weird. I guess at one point it may have…” Glory said.

Perhaps, Loki, even the gods have an expiration date. Is it analogous to the human cycle, wherein we age and our ability to heal ourselves, to regenerate cells, diminishes as time goes by?  (Glory with a bit of an assist…  The Gods themselves don’t necessarily have an expiration date, but every pantheon has their myths of Deities dying.  Baldr and the mistletoe.  Cronos is killed by Zeus.  Uranus killed by Cronos.  Osiris is killed a couple of times by is brother Set.  The examples are there.  Perhaps a sense of peace has increased longevity and put a halt to the pool of god-essence available.  A general lack of interest by human in Gods and Goddesses, being more content to focus on a singular God, has caused Gods and Goddesses to stop coming down to visit and walk among the general populace.  Do they instead reside in their otherworldly abodes and plan, but don’t act?)

Or perhaps the essence has a natural ebb and flow of its own, and you aren’t aware of its cycle. It must predate you, in order for you to have it.  In which case, it will come to a point where it’s at it’s lowest ebb, and then slowly begin to grow again.

So it isn’t that you don’t want to help us, it’s that you have limited resources right now, and until those resources increase the gods will guide, teach, and interact – but not intervene.

And then again, I could be off in left field somewhere, totally mistaken. What was the question again?

Okay, my turn.  Glory, that is.  Hope asked why I wasn’t chiming in with questions to find the answers with her while she was asking her questions.  My simple answer, I was so focused on listening for the answers, my mind wasn’t able to split and ask as well as answer.  That seems to be my Achilles heal at the moment.  If I’m channeling answers, I can’t ask questions as well.  I’m a one-way radio sharing the answers as they are presented. (Lol – my RIGHT ovary, Glory!)

Afterward, however, I had my own take on what I went back and read.  I think, at the core of it all, the explosion of human population led to the dilution of those who held the deitific essence.  Also, an inability to believe in anything beyond personal pleasure and what is presented immediately in front of them has created many of the blocks so many are feeling and frustrated by.

Turning to religions that focus on a singular Deity and relying on others to tell us how we should act, think, and connect with Deity instead of relying on our own intuition has also pulled us away from Deity and the connections that once existed.  Sitting inside a brick and mortar building relying on someone to tell them what to believe takes away the need to think, to question, to seek, and to grow.  How does this help with connecting to Deity?  It really doesn’t! (But there have always been temples and priests doing that same thing. I doubt if there’s that much difference between them. Hope)  Yes, but there were temples to multiple Deities and people had choices.  Almost everyone left offerings to more than one Deity for different situations and aspects of their lives.

Of course, it doesn’t help that those of us who do and can hear Deities are often castigated by the larger part of society as a whole and turn to ignoring our gifts, self-medicating to avoid those voices that we are told make us crazy.  Or any other number of issues.  So seeking the answers, and finding those who can hear them, becomes harder and harder.  Too many people, too few who actually trust that they are hearing.  And a fear of sharing those gifts for fear of reprisal and castigation.

The answers and the correct questions are there.  It’s figuring out exactly what we should be asking that becomes the challenge.  And finding the right person and Deity to give the answers the larger challenge!

Going back to your previous paragraph about the fear of sharing their gifts, there’s a huge interest and need out there for just that thing. Look at the number of people who are willing to do things like call a psychic hotline! Look at the people who go to psychic fairs! At Ren Faires the tents with tarot readers and fortune tellers have lines of people waiting. New Age bookstores offer classes and bookings for readings. Runes are becoming more popular as more people are exposed to the Norse pantheon, and there are women who would take up seidhr if they could find a teacher. A lot of people search for teachers – people brave enough to step out of line and be known.  Not all of them are student material but the fact that they’re looking indicates a need to belong and to find their spiritual homes.

I feel we’ve become too diffuse in this post. The original starting point was godly essence. Have we uncovered the question, and found the answer? Or is there more to it than that? (Glory, I’m pretty sure there is more to it than just that.  There almost always is.)  Is there a tie-in to the number of followers to the deities’ inclination to act? A tipping point that has to be reached before they will decide to reveal themselves unmistakably once again? Is it still tied to the amount of essence available and the amount of effort versus the possible gain or loss?

Where are my answers???