Thank you all so much for your entries! I am so excited about that everyone participated!
I entered the numbers into a machine and the winner is...
WENDY!!!
From The Year of the Cats!
Congrats Wendy I will be contacting you to find out your info to send you the giveaway prizes!
Again thank you all.
Sorry for the delay things have been crazy for me!
I can't wait to show you all what I have been working on!
Hello and Happy Spring to you ALL!!
Today marks the first annual Ostara Giveaway!
In this wonderful giveaway I am sending out into the universe four lovely heartfelt items for the spring!
First we have the lovely picture of the Goddess with a poem written on it.
Then we have the lovely postcard hand drawn by a Hopi woman that I know very well. The drawing is of the butterfly maiden and this card was inspired by the butterfly dance of the Hopi people. This card means a lot as the butterfly is my spirit guide and I think the colors are very spring!
Next we have a handmade beaded necklace that my mother made! It has a pouch so that you can place small stone of totems in it.
Then last but not least is the Ostara basket. In this basket are hand picked egg like stones that have been blessed in my Ostara ritual and have been sitting on my altar for weeks now!
I am very excited about this giveaway! I hope others are as well. The event will run for one week. Help me get the word out!
ENTRIES:
For having the button you will get 2 entries
Blogging about this will get you 1 entry
Also being or becoming a follower of the blog gets your 1 entry
And for the last entry tell me what your favorite post is on my blog. This will get you 1 entry.
Please post all the comments separately and do not hesitate to tell others!
And a last but not least thank you to Wendy over at The Year of Cats who made the button for me!
WELCOMING THE GOD
As I am sitting down to write this post I discovered that I am not sure what I want to write about. Working with the God is not an easy task for me. As a “recovering” Catholic, as I call myself, I have many reservations about working with the God. I am constantly reminded that the reason I left the church is that “God” is a judgmental prick who’s followers are hypocritical and unkind. Now I do not want to rant because I do not entirely feel that way anymore. Yes I still believe many people in the church are judgmental but that doesn’t mean I should generalize.
So back to the reason I am writing for this blog party. I honestly feel like I turned my back on the God completely. I was assuming that if I worked with the God in my new spiritual path that it would be rekindling flames from the Catholic God. This is simply not true.
The beautiful thing about the pagan God is that he is ever transforming and does not show what it means to be a man by societal standards, rather he shows his masculinity in many different ways. As Starhawk says in her wonderful book The Spiral Dance
He is difficult to understand, because He does not fit into any of the expected stereotypes, neither those of the “macho” male nor the reverse-images of those who deliberately seek effeminacy. He is gentle, tender, and comforting, but He is also the Hunter. He is the dying God but His death is always in the service of the life force. He is the power of feeling, and the image of what men could be if they were liberated from the constraints of patriarchal culture. (1999)
This is what I imagine the God to be like. I do not fit the mold as to what it means to be a man in this society. However with paganism I feel I fit just fine. There is no need to try and impress anyone by being manlier because I am manly enough. The God is about finding the balance in this world. He is strong but he is loving and kind. He is the Hunter but he is also the Lover. Without him the Goddess would be lacking a partner. She could create life by herself but there needs to be the balance.
My mentor is a Dianic Witch and sometimes I worry that when I first started this path I was a God hater. I felt like there was no place for the God in my life. I expected him to be the Catholic God. I can safely say that after 3 years of being on my new spiritual path I am ready to work with the God. I started my work with him on the last summer solstice. Since then I have been open to the idea but have not fully explored it. The last activity I did with the God was during Imbolc while making a priapic wand. This wand is shaped like a penis shows the depth of the interconnectedness of the God and Goddess. 
The wand is shaped like a penis because it is supposed to welcome the spring. The phallic shape is also linked to the growth of spring plants. If the goddess is the Earth then the God must use his seed to help the growth process happen on Earth. I never made the connection between the God and spring. I always just assumed that the spring was a Goddess activity. Yes Spring has a special place for the Goddess but the God is celebrated as the light returns. The days get longer which means he is getting closer and closer. For spring he is the young green man who is courting the maiden Goddess.
Learning of the God’s cycle in Paganism was very important in my understanding of the God. 
In spring he is the green youth, in Summer he and the Goddess are married marked by Maypoles and bonfires. At Lughnasad he is mourned for he has died, but what we learn is that he has not really died, he is on his way to the Goddess’s womb where he will grow and become a young soul again and guide others at Samhain, and finally he is reborn again at Winter Solstice when the days have little light and are waiting for him to grow strong again.
This cycle is why I have come to respect the God. His life is intertwined with the Goddess. I do not believe we should have one and ignore the other. In my life balance of energies is important and this cycle proves how important balance really is. Not only do the Goddess and the God find balance with each other but they find balance within themselves. The God finds the balance of masculinity and femininity in himself. This is the take home message. To be a man in Paganism is not related to being a man in society. Exploring the masculine sides of life does not mean you have to drink beer and watch football. To me it is about finding the balance in your life. The masculine side of life has many beautiful lessons to teach us.
As I was walking on a hike this weekend I was reminded that the God’s presence is ever growing. No matter what name you call him by he is there. I think one of my missions this summer will be to find a male deity I feel comfortable working with (One might be Apollo but I need to figure that out). As new leaves spring forth from plants I cannot help but think he has something to do with it. From now till Lughnasad I will be wielding my priapic wand in my circle. I think that in order to start working more with the God and learning more I need to just dedicate myself to a practice. This will be hard but it is my challenge to myself for this upcoming summer season. What will your challenge be? Is it to even just work with the God? To acknowledge him? Whatever you decide to do in this upcoming season remember that the God is all around just like the Goddess. Call on him in time of need and learn the secrets he has to teach us. 
I will leave you all with a chant to call him near!
Repeating Chant to the God
SEED Sower GRAIN Reborn HORNED ONE COME!
BRIGHT Sun DARK Death Lord of the Winds COME
The SUN Child The Winter-Born King
IO! EVOHE IO! EVOHE
(Pronounced Yoh! Ay-VOH-hay!)
This week is my Spring Break and I have been loving it. I have the post over at Country Witch Tomorrow for Welcoming the God. Super excited for you all to read what I wrote. It has been the catalyst I needed to start my next spiritual adventure. Encountering the God. I am challenging myself with a secret. You will have to wait to see what it is.
Then on the 21st of March, I am having my FIRST GIVEAWAY!!!!!!
It is a giveaway for Ostara.
Check back for details of what comes with the giveaway on the 21st. I can tell you one of the treats will be a basket of Ostara Eggs blessed in my Ostara ceremony!
The contest opens on the 21st and will be open for one week! On my sidebar is the button so you can grab one for an extra entry to win!
Till then Blessed be!
I was not sure what I could do to help the people in Japan in a spiritual way. I know I can donate money and that is good and has its place but what can I do spiritually.
I figured I would ask Bobby if we could do a character in the ground for them.
I thought of fortune and he said that that has two characters or something like that so he came up with good luck or "fuku".
Here it is. I hope this sends some good luck over to the people in Japan. I will also be partaking in a prayer vigil for Japan. My mother-in-law said she participated in one and then the Berlin wall fell so we shall see that results.
Blessed be Japan we are all sending you healing Vibes!
This morning I was working on an essay I had to complete and turn in before I offically started my spring break! I cant wait to be able to just relax.
Any way. I was busy typing when my puppy Rafiki started to chase his tail. It was the cutest thing I had seen since I woke up. He looked like an Ouroboros so I had to takea picture.
The ancient Ouroboros is a symbol of a snake or dragon eating its own tail and is a symbol of self-reflexivity and eternal return. It is a symbol of cycles just like the Phoenix.
This symbol is also special because the NPA is working on a symbol that will represent the group and part of the symbol is the Ouroboros. The snake circles our pentagram which has many other symbols in the pentagram. I will make sure to post it once we have an offical design.
Just wanted to post these amazingly cute pics of Rafiki!
Hope you are all ready for a beautiful weekend!
Blessed be
This winter season has been wonderful for the Neo-Pagan Alliance. I feel so blessed because Mark, Liz, Becca and I all started the semester sowing seeds for the club. We met and planned out half of the semester! It was lovely. The seeds that were planted 2 months ago have taken root and are sprouting. The last NPA meeting we had 13 people there. It was a dream of mine come true. The people who have joined the club truly have made my pagan experience so far. I have started a community that I can participate in and see flourish. Many of the members have made new connections with each other and it is beautiful to see the pagan community I desired coming to fruition.
This semester is my last semester and it will be 2 years that I spent with the NPA. I have met so many beautiful people and will continue to meet more. I also am super excited because the NPA is going to be hosting a public ritual during our schools Earth Week.
It is going to be an Earth healing ritual with the main element being Water!
I cannot wait for this to happen. We are forming a subcommittee (the first in the clubs history) to form the ritual. The committee has myself and my mentor and 4 other members! I am super excited because this will be my debut (if you will allow me to indulge) as a pagan to the whole campus. I NEVER thought I would be doing that in my college career. I have a pride about my paganism and am proiud to stand up and offer a healing to Mother Earth on my campus.
The ritual will be wonderful and as soon as I have it complete I will post it up here for you all to see.
Another big event for the NPA is our Beltane camping trip. We are going to be camping from Saturday night to Sunday May 1st. I cannot wait! We have a lot of people interested and it seems like it will turn out amazingly! We are in the process of finding a spot and making lists of what we will need.
This semester is turning out to be a beautiful expereince and I feel so blessed to be able to end my college experience with this amazing club!
PS I am gearing up for Country Witch's 15 days of Welcoming the God. If you haven't checked it out you should!
Blessed be!
So I have a feeling that there will be some cold nights, but hopefully not too much more snow!
The weather has been wonderful and for the first time when I went outside to take Rafiki out I was not cold. This was at 8:30am which is normally really cold. That to me is a positive sign.
Also I have noticed that all the birds are out and about playing around! There were even some pairs looking for nest supplies in our yard!
Yesterday was a bad day for me. It was the start of a new month and for some reason there was too much bad energy out. Luckily the Goddess kept me safe when I really needed the help, but I think it has something to do with the mischievous God who is coming into the world again. 
I am participating in the 15 days of Welcoming the God over at Confessions of a Country Witch's blog .
I am really excited because I am going to do a guest post as well as host a giveaway happening on the 21st of March. Once I make a button I will post it for everyone to partake in!
Anyway,
I was really feeling some strong weird energy yesterday and I think that the God has something to do with it. I am opening myself to something new and unexplored. I have only really worked with the God once during Summer solstice last year. It was a great experience and I wanted more. Now I get the chance and we will see what happens.
Today when working in the yard my partner Bobby drew a Chinese character in the yard. The symbol is for clouds. I told him as he was creating it that we want rain clouds not snow clouds. He told me it was for the gardens and not to worry! 
Here is Rafiki under the symbol.
And here is the artist himself. Last week is was dragon this week cloud. What is next?!
