The Ramblings and Wanderings

Posts Tagged ‘pets’

I am a farm girl; I “get” the lambing season at Imbolg as I have spent many sleepless nights in the barn, praying to Brighid as I midwife livestock. I don’t need to be reminded of where my food comes from, I have grown it!

I don’t need a lesson to tell me how to experience the elements, I have lived in them, and I have worked in them. I have been up to my knees in frozen mud and in snow, with the winter sun beating down on me as I fix the horse fencing. I have had a wind burned face, a sun burned nose and frost bitten toes.

I have lived at the edge of endless wilderness all my life. I have performed rituals in a real grove. I have done meditations under an elder tree that is older than my country. I backpack into the wild on a regular basis, I have had bears on my property in spring and summer, fishes spawning in my creeks in fall, and moose that walked by my house each morning.

I have touched a shrine to Epona on my way into the stable each day. I have poured offerings to Taranis when ever the storms loom close and threaten the seedlings newly planted. I have sung to Danu when I walk the fields. I have praised Cernnunos as my hound and I track wild rabbit.

I adore wildcrafting and learning the native plants of an area. I have dozens of field guides. I love learning about animal tracks and all of that. I love being bale to walk through a landscape and know what grows/lives where and why.

My connection with Nature is largely through animals, a result for farming and working in animal rescue, as well as the wild. Thanks to living in places where I have accesses to it as well as being raised by the kind of Dad who teaches his daughter orienteering for fun on the weekends.

Formal gardening is an area I am not a strong at. My mother and grandmother have terrific green thumbs and are amazing gardeners. Things just come naturally to them. Anywhere my Mom is, things grow bigger and greener than they “ought” to be. This didn’t happen for me, so I was put off a little when I was younger, feeling frustrated and inadequate.

I am a much better container gardener for some odd reason. Also I do very well with xeriscaping and growing native plants, that are happier to be allowed to do their own thing for the most part, rather than working with finicky rose bushes like my Mom.

As for the home I talk to house spirits and they are normal to me in a rather odd way. I have a kitchen shrine and a house altar and a sunroom shrine. Honestly I feel quite unhappy, even a little anxious not having my shrines up, they are such a part of my life now.

The gods and spirits get fed regularly, usually home made biscuits or something along those lines. The ancestors have a permanent place on the house altar, where they get acknowledged everyday.

I love to cook, though I am no expert. I love to bake more and have a little notebook I cram with hand written recipes. I love to experiment with food and make a terrible mess in the kitchen.

I always have a Birth of Venus hanging in my bathroom, a witch ladder somewhere, broom by or above the door, witch balls hung in the window etc

I love having a magickal home, living in an enchanted world. My poor man, Dr. Philosopher has to adjust to it. Just the other day he dared to put a half full tea cup on the shelf with my herbalism gear, which is below the house altar! He got a “tsk tsk” for that!

Having recently moved into the city, I have to adjust to pulling the blind down if I want to wander around naked, setting off smoke detectors with smudge sticks and having not moonlight but streetlight coming in through the window.

It’s easier to not notice the big maple tree on the corner when in the city. I find myself talking down to house plants in a way I’d never do to potted juniper on the front stoop, let alone a 100 year old elder tree!

A Simple Life

By Kat Ballew

Cows grazing on the mountain side

horses running wild along the seaside

Birds singing as they journey past

and old men telling tales that are unsurpassed

Butterflies fluttering their wings in the breeze

And the sun doing everything to appease

This is the simple life of living

This is a day of thanksgiving

The tumbleweed rolls across the desert floor

The owl sings a song and is the nights decor

The fireflies flash their lights in harmony

And the crickets they do play for all a symphony

The waters rush up to scare the shores

The milky way dips and peace from it pours

The wolf howls out but the moon is not afraid

A simple life for nothing would I trade

Okay. So my dear Bren may or may not have eaten his “Totem” for dinner last week. And I joked about it. A few people had panic attacks about this. So in my usual sweet but sarcastic way let me address this.

First of all, I am the kind of woman who has been known to start pillow fights in the middle of the afternoon in downtown Ottawa. I don’t take life all that seriously. I take my Witchcraft seriously, but not entirely seriously. If there was a rule that in order to be a Pagan and/or Witch you had to be serious all the time, about everything, and never crack a joke, I’d join the Discordians, or possibly the Pastafarians. I do love spaghetti.

So with that out of the way …

I just adore the endless debate over the proper definitions and uses of words. Especially words stolen from cultures we invaded then conquered and shoved onto reserves to eek out a life of poverty and hopelessness.

The whole Totem vs Familiar vs Power Animal vs Let’s Just Call Them Sprits debate is a personal favourite of mine.

Folks often use Totem for just about anything. From my understanding in most of the cultures that have Totem concepts, you get one of these at birth. Often it’s a tribal thing. Kind of like how as a Fergusson our ancient clan badge is the Poplar tree. There are all kinds of rules regarding Totems, depending on who you talk to. These things vary from culture to culture, tribe to tribe, website to website … got it?

Familiar also gets used for just about everything.

In my mind it is an actual animal (maybe a plant too) you work magick and ritual with. In A very real sense, not a “My cat jumped on my altar once” way. My now elderly dog Crash and I have a relationship that can only be described as uncanny. Those are other folk’s words, not mine. The fact that she allows Bren to take her half a block away from me to potty in the morning is amazing. This dog and I part a part of each other. In ritual we dance an intricate dance built upon a decade plus of working together. She guards me as I walk the Hedge and sometimes even joins me. I can go on and on but I won’t.

Then there’s Power Animals, Spirit Guides, Spirits, Ancestor Teachers … the list goes on and on and often different words are used for the same thing.

It’s enough to make your head spin.

Now while I do understand it is important to be using words in a way that makes sense to us all, so that we can communicate better, I also feel that at times we worry far too much about these things.

Once upon a time, while wandering on the otherside of the Hedge I found myself hanging out with the God Who Has Antlers on His Head. Since nothing seemed to be happening, I decided to ask a question.

I asked “Sooooo … are you one individual god, not a god at all, are all gods one god, or are you some kind of archetype … or what?”

His response:

“It doesn’t matter”

So there you go.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

Not that we have that out of the way …

Bren is not a shamanic practitioner; he’s a Druid and Philosopher. He doesn’t know what his Totem is and I don’t know what his Totem is. He has a special fondness for rabbits, that’s all.

And yes, he eats rabbit. Last week was not the first time either.

In some Traditions, it’s totally against the rules to eat your Totem. Bren knows this. He has worked with First Nations Elders off and on for many years. Not as a spiritual student, but as a guy working for the government and such learning their customs and values in order to beat the white guys in charge over the head with the proper ethics of dealing with the First Nations people. But he knows a heck of a lot about First Nations culture, customs and spirituality.

When I joked to him about eating his “Totem” the first thing he mentioned (not totally seriously) was that it’s against the rules in some Traditions to do so.

At which point I said “Yeah, but you’re white”

Bren and I are not First Nations. We are Celts and Anglo-Saxons by blood and culture at best (and Canadian of course)

The debate over whether white folks have Totems aside, there is a lot of good evidence that animals had some major sacred importance to white people once upon a time. The horse for example was associated with some heavy hitting goddesses, with the land itself, and with sovereignty.

But white folks being white folks, we’ve always done things a little differently than other cultures. We don’t treat scared horses like sacred cows in India, or Totems you can’t eat.

Here’s an interesting ancient Celtic practice:

In order to be king, you must (in front of the whole tribe) have sex with a horse, then kill it, then butcher it, then eat some of it, and then cover yourself with its blood and guts and maybe even parade around in its still oozing hide.

Yep yep

So, even if Bren’s Totem is a rabbit, I don’t feel all that bad about serving it to him for dinner.

Thanks for reading yet another nonsensical ramble.

I have an elderly dog that I cannot leave behind for hours on end, she cannot be kennelled now in her old age, but she is very experienced in ritual and with Pagan groups and events. If I want to attend Pagan events, even outdoor events, I cannot bring her, I cannot even tie her up outside the ritual area. I even have a folding pen, a portable fence where you can set up a min-yard for one or more dogs as a play area out of the way, nope sorry, thats not even good enough most of the time. (see pic at the bottom of this post)

When I ask people get offended as if I just asked something horrible, how dare I want to bring my dog? I think it wouldn’t bother me so much if people didn’t get so uppity and nasty about a simple question. A polite “Sorry, no” will do, I do not need a lecture from someone with their nose in the air.

My dog is better behaved in ritual than most people’s crying, whining, spoiled children, and has attended more rituals than most adult pagans. The few times where I have been able to take her to a ritual, that I did not organize, everyone was amazed at how well behaved she was. Not long ago I allowed by the wonderful community in Winnipeg to bring her into their temple space during a large meeting and lecture. She lay quietly under my chair the whole time and the only distraction she caused was accepting crackers from a couple of kind people.

I guess it just annoys me when people do outdoor or camping rituals and say you can’t bring your dog and then expect you to put up with their kid screaming the whole time. My problem is when people tell me I can’t have my dog because it disruptive and then they let kids cry and be disruptive, if I brought a kid who had a temper tantrum in the middle of the Circle during ritual that would be just fine.

I went to a ritual once where a toddler squatted and took a crap right in the middle of ritual, guess he was being potty trained and we all just had to smile and be nice about it. Heck my DOG wouldn’t do that but she can’t come!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m just using the dog vs kid thing as a comparison, I don’t hate kids and I think they are cute in ritual. I have even, on more than one occasion, donated my soft flannel cloak to a sleeping or chilled child during ritual. But saying that all dogs are not allowed because some are misbehaved doesn’t fly when we allow people to bring poorly behaved children, or bring their poorly behaved selves to ritual.

Especially at outdoor and camping events, wouldn’t it make sense to have the odd dog friendly rite? At least once in a while I’d like to be able to bring my dog along. One reason why I often do not attend the big Festivals and Gatherings is because I cannot bring my dogs with me. My dogs have spent a good portion of their lives going to campgrounds, RV parks and so forth and are very well behaved. My dogs have attended many rituals in my home, on my land and even larger events that I have hosted and made pet friendly.

It simply seems to me that if we have rituals that are kid friendly, why can’t we also sometimes have rituals that are dog friendly and that not be a problem? I have hosted events on my own land where I made clear dogs would be welcome, well in advance, and yet a few people who came got upset and expected us to put them away!

Why are we so unfriendly towards man’s best friend? If we are an Earth Based Religion, Nature Worshippers, why do we not allow animals in our rituals now and then? Our dogs are the part of Nature closest to us, the part of Mother Nature that sleeps in our beds ands warns us of prowlers.

Now as for people who say “I’m allergic to your dog” well I’m allergic to perfume, after-shave, sun lotion and bug spray but I don’t hose people down before rituals. If I get hives after touching your hand during spiral dance so be it. I have no problem with scents; if you wear them I suck it up and deal with it. I don’t expect people to accommodate me. I think that’s why it bugs me when people expect me to accommodate them.

Also, having worked in animal rescue, I know for a fact that hundreds of dogs get put down each month because of allergies. That’s right folks, everyday dogs are surrendered to shelters because their owner fell in love with a person with allergies, and just a few days or hours later that poor dog gets a lethal injection. Having devoted so much of my life fighting for animal rights, there are few things that piss me off more than watching a innocent 2-year-old lab die scared and abandoned at some shelter because his/her master is moving in with someone who is allergic. So while I’m terribly sorry if you don’t want to visit my home because I have dogs, or you may have to camp in an area away from me at the Pagan Festival and I’m sorry you might get a runny nose if my dog walks past you … but dogs DIE because people with allergies get runny noses and red eyes. So take a Benadryl and shut up or I’ll start WWIII on your ass.

Regarding cats, you can’t train a cat to come, sit and stay. Hell you can’t train a one year old human to do that. But my dogs can and will heel, sit, stay and behave on command in ritual. I’ve run a kennel; I have worked in rescue and rehabilitation. I am a freaking DOG TRAINER. I can assure you that my dogs are good. Maybe I could offer to train the Pagan community’s dogs to be good in ritual? Teach a class on it or something…

My dog wouldn’t walk into Circle smoking a cigarette like I’ve seen plenty of people do over the years. My dog wouldn’t answer her cell phone during ritual. My dog doesn’t gossip during ritual. My dog doesn’t laugh at you if you forget your lines while delivering the Charge, my dog doesn’t care if you momentarily forget which way is East.

So, yes once in a while I’d like to bring my dog. You’d like my dogs; they are cute, small-ish and better behaved than most human beings.

Also would you tell a blind or disabled person not to attend ritual because they want to bring their service dog?

We couldn’t save Baloo today

No matter how hard we tired

In the world of dog rescue

Sometimes, it just happens that way

Baloo the big fluffy white dog

Was condemned to death

For biting a cop

Who climbed in through a window

His old lady, Baloo had to defend

Both the cop and the dog

Were just doing their job

Baloo was saved by a rescue

And was sent to a foster Mom

But the foster Mom had issues

A big fluffy white dog

For her, was just too much

A nervous dog sent

To a nervous vet

By a nervous foster Mom

To the program she wouldn’t commit

And so again, Baloo bit

Now dear reader, understand please

There no such thing as a bad dog

We made this breed, this species

We created the dog

We are their gods

And when we treat them horribly

Neglect and abuse and don’t socialize too

That is how a dog gets ruined

Now Baloo is doing time

For humanities’ crime

And there’s nothing we can do

We thought hard and long

We worried and discussed

Tears were cried as we bowed our heads

But there was nothing to be done

By the time you read this today

Dear sweet Baloo

The big fluffy white dog

Will be dead