Magic Missile!

D&D amuses me.  I adore the game and have so much fun playing it, especially with laid back people and a mixed beverage.  Great laughs, great times, and great creativity.  I play a sorceress and I'm enjoying her.  I did originally want to play a Druid but I stepped aside to allow my friend, who has never played before, to have a character she really wanted for her first experience.  I would like to play a Druid next time, that's for sure. This campaign is the third time I've played with a Druid on the team.  Between D&D and WoW, it's interesting to think about the pop culture Druid compared to the "real thing."  The hyperboles in their character seem really outlandish until you consider the symbolism behind it all.  Then it's really not so bad.  They are healers, warriors, and magicians - all very apt.

If I get the chance to play a Druid, I want to take the tree-hugger appeal to the extremes and go absolutely nuts when anyone does anything contrary to what is "natural."  I don't just want to get annoyed - I want to lose it.  I envision a psychopathic Druid who values Mother Earth to the point where she has separated humanity and technology from her, as if there was no connection.  She would be a complete and utter luddite.  I'm thinking true chaotic bordering on chaotic evil depending on the species in question.  Her goal would be to avenge Mother Nature.  She would be especially spiteful of humans and dwarves for their industriousness.  Really, her subconscious is seeking personal validation because she feels herself as a burden to the Great Mother.  In the end, it would be nice for her to develop into a more psychologically and spiritually balanced character.  Or not.  Who knows.

Perhaps she is my shadow self?


*I'm saying this with the various traditions and historical accounts in mind.  Yes I know there is some variability.

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

The Future?

Reading predictions about the future scares me.  Anything about peak oil, the collapse of society as we know it, and/or the dystopian reality we're supposedly headed to depresses me.  It also fascinates me and inspires me to continue to develop my gardening and other DIY skills.  Signs point to their necessity in the future.

But even if the proverbial shit hits the fan, I still won't feel ready.  Perhaps that's why a lot of people tune out environmentalism.  There's so much doom and gloom.  People don't want to think about changing their routines, perspectives, and diets because it's hard.  People don't like hard.

Not all of us let the difficulty stop us from attempting to change.  We care about the health of our Earth Mother and brother and sister Nature Spirits.  We accept the responsibility.  We stop eating so much garbage and start eating more local/organic/veggie.  We start to make our own cosmetics and cleaning products out of more natural and less harmful materials.  We slowly phase out our use of plastic bags and  paper towels in favor of cloth bags and rags.  We refuse to buy new furniture from Walmart and Target in favor of antiques.  We try to drive less/walk more/bike more/purchase more fuel efficient vehicles.

And yet despite all of those very important baby steps, many of us sometimes feel like we're floundering.

I once got into an argument with a complete stranger.  She argued that the government isn't responsible for changing the way people behave.  Individuals need to make better and more informed choices and the smallest changes are the most important.  I agreed with her that making small changes is, indeed, a very important part of moving our society towards sustainability, but I disagreed vehemently about the place of government.  The government's arguably miniscule changes in environmental policy this past decade are what gets me so depressed.  I can make all the little changes I can stand but, in the end, the government needs to make big changes.

My biggest pet peeve in Northern NY is the lack of mass transit.  There are buses but they are the least convenient things in the world.  Our ability to utilize them is severely limited, rendering them practically useless.  As I wrote yesterday, I want to walk to work more.  We finally have a local farmers' market but they are still very small.  We were able to go once and walked there, which was wonderful.  We can walk or bike to the post office or the library.  Otherwise, we cannot walk to our local organic/local markets, to the hospital, to the vet, the pharmacy, art supply shops...  We are left dependent on cars.  While I'm very excited about my new car, I lament my continued financial support of the status quo.  I sometimes feel stuck, even while taking control of so many other changes in my life.  My desire for a higher education meant I needed loans which now need paying off.  The economic environment meant I had to move away from a more pedestrian-friendly environment to a rural area because that's the best I could do.  Stuck stuck stuck.

At least I live in an agricultural wonderland full of many local, organic farmers.  At least I get to breath in fresh country air.  At least my house is powered by the local river.  There.  I'm being optimistic.  :)

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

Various Random Things From This Weekend - Probably Quite Boring *

I've had an enjoyable weekend so far.  I was able to visit some of my family which is always wonderful.  My husband was able to spend a lot of time with his best buddy and our future brother-in-law (I'll call him Hunter).  Now that I'm older, I get along better with my sister (I'll call her Georgia).  It's fun to to be with her and her fiance.  It's always a very relaxed time, and Weretoad and I can be ourselves.  They always have a new drink for us to try that further inhibits us.

We took advantage of the visit to finally unveil our new car to the immediate tribe.  It's a lovely green hatchback with spectacular headlights which I like to think of as dragon eyes.  In fact, I fancy the whole car a dragon (symbolically, of course).  I've referred to it as a green dragon, but my husband cringes due to the drug reference.  It's been very difficult living in the North Country with only one car - and an old one at that.  We've already had some situations that made me feel uncomfortable and even helpless.  The public transportation system around here is practically non-existent.  There are buses that come to our area, but the hours are so limited that they don't fit into my husband's work schedule at all.  I need to adjust my sleep habits so I have time to walk to work in the morning.  I would really like to develop that habit as reducing my impact on Mama Earth is very important to me. We would have liked to find a hybrid, but they are out of our price range.  We did a lot of research and went for something that achieves decent miles per gallon and can assist us in transporting the kayaks we're getting for Solstice.

Now that we have a new car, I'm thinking about creating a protection charm to hang in it.  It will probably have something to do with Lugh.  The Romans equated him with Mercury, a patron of merchants and therefore travelers.  This opens up the possibility that the Celts (or at least the Gauls) saw him in this way too.  In the Irish myths, Lugh has to travel to the Tuatha de Dannan before he is accepted by them (perhaps a stretch...).  I have been praying to Lugh for protection on the road for years now and I feel that he has heard and helped me.

I spent some time this weekend working on my Samhain costume.  I'm planning to be a forest fairy.  I've got the pieces of the vest cut out and ready to be stitched together.  I found ear tips this weekend but will have to paint them.

Finally, my husband found a Victorian card with a green fairy on it while we were browsing in an antique store.  I absolutely had to have it.  She's Victorian, but not as silly looking as most fairies represented in that era.  I can't wait to display her on my wall.

* At least I'm writing a substantial post!  I haven't done that in a week it seems!


( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

Witches and Deer

I found a folktale from New York State about a malevolent witch who could turn into a white deer.  It's very interesting...  

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

I have pumpkins. Samhain is officially on its way.  Life is good.  :)

Now...  I just need to make plans to find my ancestor's grave.  Soon.  

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

Druidic Tools: Knives

A recent conversation inspired this post.  I was talking with a group of (mostly) Wiccans and eclectic Pagans.  They all have varying amounts of experience and knowledge.  Many of them adhere to the belief that a magic practitioner should possess two knives - the athame, the ritual knife, and the boleen, the "practical" or "mundane" knife which is used for cutting herbs, wood, etc...    If you know me well, you know that I hate those words when juxtaposed to magic as if magic couldn't be practical or mundane, or as if your everyday actions couldn't be magical and therefore meaningful.  If you believe that such a distinction is an important practice, by all means continue!  You must remember that I'm a Druid and our practices are, sometimes, different from those of Wicca*.

When I first started to study Paganism, I went to the usual suspects - the Llewellyn 101 books.  They were very nearly clones and I tired of them.  They came with the usual chapters on ritual tools - a shopping list of sorts.  Every book said the same thing - one knife for energy work, and one knife for practical work.  Some of them attempted to explain this because of some tradition they couldn't easily explain - as if every magician that ever was did exactly that.  So much for being a real witch and thinking for yourself!  Some of the books explained that to cut an object with your ritual knife would somehow tarnish the athame.  Really?  Now I could, perhaps, understand if you were more interested in transcending earthly bonds, but a majority of Pagans I know are adamant about being an Earth-based religion.  How can you claim to celebrate the beauty and magic of the world around you while somehow declaring contact with earthly things like herbs or stone to be profane?  That makes no sense to me.  If you are offended, I do not mean to be harsh, but plenty of Pagans point out the inconsistencies in Christianity.  If we're going to be critical of other religious practices, we must first be critical of our own or else we will never grow.

I have a knife.  I use it for ritual purposes and I consider the gathering of herbs and the carving of tools and charms to be a ritual.  I do use kitchen knives and I suppose, in that sense, I do own more than one ritual knife.  Like kitchen witches, I believe that working in the kitchen on even a lowly bowl of gruel is magic.  Preparing the food is magic.  Peeling the veggies is magic.  Chopping them is magic.  Removing the inedible bits is magic.  I believe that the world is magic - the whole world - not just the ritual circle.  Are some things more magical?  Sure, but everything has magic and putting one in contact with the other will not somehow tarnish it.  Trust me.  It may change the energy or transform it (I don't advice touching lava with your ritual knife!), but it won't make the knife profane unless you yourself ritualize such an action and declare it so.  If you are comfortable doing that, by all means continue (I can understand how keeping one knife strictly for ritual space would work as a mental key), but in my belief and practice, magic is spiritual and physical.  My knife follows me outside of my sacred space into the larger, shared sacred space of the world.  Do I sometimes work with one aspect instead of another?  Sure.  Trance is one way where I move more on the spiritual plane than the physical - but I am still seeing the spirit world as I would the physical world.  Our perception is based on the physical and it seems incredibly hard to escape.  I don't believe the two can easily be separated - if that's even possible.  To me, they are interconnected.  They are like inhaling and exhaling - each part of the same life processes.  If I use different knives, it's because I don't want the potentially poisonous juices of an herb to mix with my food.  That is all.  Primarily, I use one knife in my ritual - the knife I use to carve sigils into candles; the knife I use to harvest herbs; the knife I use to cut twine in the garden; the knife I use to carve ogham; the knife I carry on my nature walks in case I need to defend myself.  I use that knife for so much and I believe that it is infused with a lot of energy.  It has the green energy of the garden, the fiery energy of hearthside crafts, the metallic energy of protection, and the wild energy from beyond the hedge.  Through such frequent use, it is one of my most important tools.  It is as multi-talented as Lugh or Brighid.  My practice is very influenced by ancient Irish belief and multitalented spirits were and are highly valued!

And let us be sensible.  Imagine yourself generations back.  If not a wealthy ceremonial magician with ties to masons and aristocratic patrons, you were probably a wise man or woman of some sort.  You were poor like most people.  You were lucky if you could afford one knife, let alone two.  Your magic was practical.  If you want a knife dedicated to a very specific goal, and only want it to be filled with energy relating to that one practice or occasion*** - go for it!  I'm certain that your knife will be filled with power through such consecration and use, and that it will be exceptionally helpful to you in that goal.  Me?  I like my kitchen witch, multi-talented approach.  :)

In the end, all one can say is, "To each his or her own!"


* You also must remember that not all Druids practice or believe the same.  I'm highly influenced by ADF, CR, and, most recently, traditional witchcraft.
**The above photo is from The Witch of Forest Grove. It's an athame she carved.  Beautiful work, don't you think?
*** I know of knives or sickles only used for initiation or the harvesting of one type of plant, for example.

( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )

On Eating the American Mandrake

I'm very much a novice at herbalism, foraging, and wildcrafting.     I take my time learning and experimenting because I understand that it can be dangerous if you don't do your homework.  But even if you do a lot of research, you still have to be careful.  You never know what you'll be allergic to, for example.  You have to try a small sample first.  That way, if you are allergic or if your resources left out an important detail - you're more likely to be okay.  Hopefully.

One of my favorite blogs to read is 66 Square Feet.  The author,  Marie Viljoen, is passionate about food and plants.  She decided to experiment with the May Apple - aka American Mandrake (pictured at left - photo by Ms. Viljoen).

I love her most recent entry.  What an adventure!  It's very unfortunate that the authors of the books she was consulting didn't include the detail about the seeds being toxic!  I'm glad she's okay and lived to tell us the tale!



( For My LJ Friends: http://adfcatprints.blogspot.com/ )