The most recent Witches Weekly is on Daily Devotions. I don't actually have any.... I mean to meditate daily but I rarely remember to get around to it. I'm on here every day and I live my religion, but daily devotions are things that tend to slip my mind.

I'm also trying to get closer to my gods, so I'm on the lookout for some devotionals. I was googling it and I found a playing with energy devotion, like an energy exercise. I rarely flex my energy muscles, so I gave it a try. The idea is to hold your hands in front of your face several inches apart and pull some energy from the air around you into your body. You direct it to your palms, then out into the space between them. Now, I admit to being terribly rusty at using energy that's not from within me. So, I did what I usually do with energy, because that's easier: form it into a basic ball shape and set it spinning. Things like to form balls and spin: just look at the universe. 

Part of the devotion involves staring at the space between your hands and seeing whether you can see the energy. Now, in things like this my Doubt tends to set in. I don't really think I can see energy, do I? It could all just be random nerve endings flaring that makes me feel the energy. Blah blah... you know the drill. I've never been very good at seeing things. (Sometimes it feels like everyone can see ghosts but me, know what I mean?) But, to my surprise, I did see something. I saw very faint white specks, spinning gently in the direction I had set the energy ball spinning. 

Now, stopping it was a little more difficult. At least I hadn't opened my hands' energy centres... If I give them an inch, they take a mile. I generally shut off sending energy by closing my hand into a fist, which worked fine for my sending hand, but of course I couldn't just leave the ball sitting there, so I had to suck it back into my receiving hand. It would have been much easier had my receiving hand not been stuck in "send" mode. It took a little jimmying to reverse the flow and I don't think I got it all.

I just waved a hand in the space I had sent the energy and it positively buzzed, so I tried to channel it through my receiving hand, through my body and out my sending hand to my pendant, where I store any excess energy I have. I would have just kept it in my body but it was congregating at my hand, which wasn't really ideal. But, sending it across, the moment I visualised it coming from my sending hands and into my pendant, it warmed slightly. Very cool. 

It makes me feel marvellously content. I'd probably be all excited and jumpy if I weren't so tired. But I am, so I'm happily content that not only have I not lost my touch with non-mine energy, that I'm not imagining it all (at least I figure I'm not!) and I could actually see something. Glee. I tend to forget that I actually improve with witchcraft and the like. I think perhaps it's because of that story-stuff you glean as you grow... people give you the impression, in pop-culture, that you're born with certain abilities. The idea of gaining them, and improving them, through practice and so on is closer to the truth of witchcraft, and of course that's a fact I acknowledge, but it still has yet to filter down into parts of my brain. It's like when I first started getting accurate readings with the cards... I hadn't expected them to be quite so accurate. 

I guess I need to start believing in myself more. It's not just about what you know. 

Lately, my emotions had been muted. Seriously muted. It was like I had several layers of insulation between myself and anything else. Music didn't touch my soul like it used to, I didn't feel sadness or love like I used to. And it took me a while to realise quite what was going on. I had a blunt affect. I don't know why, but I did. Now, those of you who have suffered depression may be saying "you lucky bitch", and I don't blame you, but as a writer and a poet I need to be able to feel, even if the only thing I am feeling is pain. I need that.

I realised the extent to which I was unemotional the other night. And with no real idea of what to do, I journeyed to the Underworld to ask my guide for help. (The following is a very basic overview of what was a particularly personal experience... I want to share it, but not the details.) I assumed that Wolf would give me some advice, or just talk to me awhile, as he tends to do. Instead, Wolf and his pack ate me. And then they regurgitated me.

For a few moments, I didn't feel any different. I expressed my frustration. My inner mind was saying "it didn't work, it didn't work, did you really expect it to work?". And then, suddenly, I started to cry. It came upon me unexpectedly, and over the course of the journey I felt more and more.

It did work. And it really amazed me how completely it worked. I am, in many ways, reborn. I see things slightly differently. I am more astute than I was (although, since this is me and I am ever the dreamer, I am still not particularly astute ;)). This rebirth is, apparently, one of many that I will undergo over the course of my life (and beyond, one would imagine). Like the snake, I have shed my skin - and, like the snake, this was one of many skins that I must shed. No doubt in time this one too will become too small or too constrictive.

Was this a spiritual thing that came upon me? An emotional one? Both? (Can the two ever truly be separated?) As one who has suffered through depression, I know that even when things are good, one can still suffer and every step can be an effort. Brain chemistry, etc. Exactly what this was I don't know, but that insulation is now gone. I can feel again. (And I keep poking at the core of myself, just to make sure I can still touch it. It's like having a new toy.)

Quite why I feel the need to share this experience I don't know... perhaps someone else is feeling dull and lifeless, or without emotion.  Perhaps someone else has once been devoured... if you have, please share.

Windwalker

The wheel is a-turnin' once again, and the weather is getting more mild. There are a couple of cold snaps still to come, no doubt, but winter is losing its grip. The days grow longer, and one's soul sings to see the Lord's sun staying longer and rising higher in the sky. The Crone passes on her scepter of governance to the Maiden. Daffodils are raising their yellow heads skyward, and those trees that have lost their leaves are beginning to bud. While winter's chill still remains, spring is in the air, and the world is preparing to burst back into life after a winter of hibernation.

Here in the sub-tropics, the seasons are less pronounced. In the south, the changing of the seasons is more obvious, and I'm pleased that I'll be in Dunedin later this month for graduation, when the daffodils will be out in full bloom and the flowering trees will cover the gorgeous 19th century campus with pink and purple petals. The wind will still be cold and biting, and there's the possibility for a late snow, which would be wonderful for me, though not quite as pleasant for the plants. Still, it should still be frosting, which I will enjoy. Early spring is a wonderful time for a graduation, and something I hadn't really thought about until now. I am now looking forward to it more than before.

Tonight, unable to perform a ritual yet again, I feel spiritually discontent. I chafe. I might go and dance in my temple-in-the-sky, before bed, in order to feel a bit better and spend time with the Lord and Lady. Tomorrow morning I shall sit in the sun and breathe deeply of the spring air, and feel the Lord's light upon my face (if, gods willing, it's not pouring with rain). Soon the feeling of spring will come upon me in earnest, and I will throw open the windows and clean my room. In winter I tend to build myself a nest, of sorts, but in spring I must clean everything away, and for a short time, at least, my floor is free of clutter. My clean clothes get all put away properly, rather than being shoved onto my chair or on top of a drawer for sorting out later. Any clothes I have no further need for get given to an op-shop or donated to the needy. More walks are taken, with greater pleasure. Auckland isn't cold, but it's wet and winter can thus be unpleasant, so walks lose their thrill. But I do need more exercise, and now that the "hibernation" period of winter is coming to an end, I feel more like being active.

Blessed Imbolc, Pagans all, and blessed Lughnasadh to those in the Northern hemisphere.

I've been thinking lately about rosaries (prayer beads, mantra beads, call them what you will) and I've been looking around on the internet and beads for sale, as well as a few (intensely complicated) prayers to use with them.

I have no real history with rosaries. I was raised... actually I wasn't raised anything really. Religion was never an issue. So I have no experience with Catholic rosaries or anything.

But I've always thought them rather charming! When I was in France a few years back, we were billetting with these French families who sent their kids to this Catholic school, so we went to the school a few times. And there was this monk there! Now, I live in New Zealand. We don't have awesome centuries-old monasteries. The only monks I've seen are Buddhist. So I was delighted to see a Real Live Monk, with the brown habit and rope belt and strategically-shaved head and everything. Best of all, he had a wooden rosary with a plain crucifix hanging from his belt. Totally rare experience for me, folks, so I was delighted. (I wanted to take a photo of him but I thought that might be a bit rude.) That was the first real rosary-related thing that pops into my mind. But you know, you see them on movies and stuff, and... I love them, what can I say? I'm one of those dreadfully romantic gothic ladies who becomes infatuated with the occasional aesthetic or romanticises little things like that.

Aaaanyway. So, I was thinking about incorporating a rosary into my religious practices (which are very informal at present, to say the least). I'm going through a slight crisis of faith at the moment, so I don't know which god or goddess I would dedicate the rosary to, or what it would say. The sensible part of my brain questions the need for it at all, but from some accounts I've read on the internet, they become like a portable altar, and they help you connect a bit more with the divine when you need to.

I might have a few rosaries - for a few different deities, and one for the Lord and Lady (or maybe one each. Or all three!). I could have one for connecting with the elements. I could have a non-religious one: one based on a mantra or meditation.

I'm pretty set on making my own, but I don't really know how rosaries work. They seem.... complicated. It doesn't help that I don't think I'll know how many of which beads I'll need until I've worked out the prayer or mantra, and that I won't know what I want to say in the prayer until I've got the beads and design figured out.

Help! If you've had any experience with rosaries of your own, or you have some advice, leave me a comment or a message and I'll love you forever <3