The Ramblings and Wanderings

Posts Tagged ‘Hedge Links’

Yes! I am alive and back online. A million thanks to my well wishers!!!

In other news: The Interview Dizzy did was posted on Witchvox yay!  Which means we have many NEW MEMBERS and READERS to the Hedge this week (hullo all!) which is one reason why I post stuff on Witchvox and such.

Since I haven’t been around and will be doing a lot of catching up, its time for me to post some links to other people’s articles, stuff that I have been reading. (This is what I usually do when I’m busy)

Practice Practice Practice

“… So often we get these people appearing on witchcraft sites announcing to all and sundry that they are a font of natural talent. The less egotistical of these folks will at least admit that theirs is untrained, untapped or newly bourgeoning…but they can just tell already that they are on the verge of being the next big deal.Well guess what —- you can’t be considered a witch if you don’t actually practice witchcraft. Same way you can’t be expected to be a piano virtuoso at Carnegie Hall if you only ever bothered to learn to play “Chopsticks”….and that was 30 years ago! …”

Who are the Elders?

“… My proposition for the pagan movement is that we should use the word Elder to signify people who work to benefit the pagans of their immediate area, in whatever way appears good to the people who are so benefited. It obviously includes what we have hitherto meant by ‘teacher’, ‘organiser’, and even ‘leader’, but I have in mind something a little wider. It can mean someone who organizes or helps to organize a local pride day, or pub moot, or public pagan temple, or camping festival, or the like. It can signify those who lead open teaching circles, in any tradition, or who regularly perform public or semi-public pagan rituals, be they seasonal, like the Sabbats, or who do rites of passage like handfastings, wiccanings, or first blood ceremonies. It can include people who possess significant cultural and traditional knowledge, whether practical, as in the case of blacksmiths and carpenters, or spiritual, as in the case of teachers, counselors, and perhaps even seers and prophets. It can include musicians, artists, painters, storytellers, and artistic performers of just about any kind. It can also signify those who work for the whole tribe of pagans everywhere, on a national or international scale, for instance by writing well respected books, or managing organisations with hundreds of members, or regularly publishing a journal or magazine, or some online electronic equivalent. But most importantly, they have been doing it well, and they’ve been doing it their entire adult lives…”

Pagan values: immanence

“The immanence of deity means that there is no “out there”; there is only “right here.” The Divine is present on earth and in us. She is present in mountains, springs, trees, compost piles, cities and slums, my pit bull, you, and me. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote that “earth’s crammed with heaven.” More prosaically, I think of the world’s being infused with divinity.”

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And a little piece of something I’m working on (one of many things as always):

I lay snuggled in bed, tucked under light cotton covers. The window abouve the bed is open; open to the forest, to the wind and rain, the thundering of a distant summer storm, the rushing of the forest. The sighing of wind weaving its way through the forest soothes me, a welcome guest, like the gentle snores of a new lover. I listen to the breath of the land; feel its trace and blow gently against my face. I drift off to sleep contentedly knowing I am safe, I sprawl and take up the whole bed, glad to be alone with my bed, my dog and the land.

The dead of winter; I huddle beneath many covers and curl close to my dog for warmth; with out her I would truly be alone. The window is closed to keep the drafts out. The land sleeps but I cannot. There is no rustle of leaves, no gentle rushing of the wind through trees, no tinkle from the now frozen stream bed. No birds sing, no animal pass by. Even the coyotes are tucked away somewhere, hiding from the cold. The silence of snow falling on a northern landscape is deafening. The cold and the silence make my solitude that much more acute. The knowledge that with the snow comes the isolation of being snowed in, and thus not able to travel come morning makes the night even bitterer. I curl up into a tight ball and wish for another human being to share my bed.

Cheers!

“Guts are important. Your guts are what digest things. But it is your brains that tell you which things to swallow and which not to swallow.”
~ Austin Dacey