Keeping Busy While Stuck At Home – Social Distancing and Witchy Crafts

 

Social Distancing. Self-Isolation. Quarantine. Whatever you call it, most of us are stuck at home for the foreseeable future.

At the beginning of the month, my kids both had colds, and as the panic over Covid-19 was ramping up, I made an effort to not add to the problem, and decided to keep them home a couple of days until their coughs and runny noses subsided. They were better by the weekend, and I was happy to be able to send them back to school on Monday. Then, on Sunday night, the province closed all public schools. All this is a long way of saying, that in my house, we are on day 15 of social distancing isolation.

These days, most businesses are closed for the next couple of weeks, and we are in the middle of what would have been spring break, so the schools aren’t putting anything out until April to help with the kids education. And since we are doing our part to help #flattenthecurve or #plankthecurve or whatever the hashtag is now, we are finding creative ways to keep busy that involve less screen time, and thus, less fighting.

Shattered

Well, maybe not shattered, but definitely startled, and a little upset. This morning, while moving some stuff to our new house, my new hawk’s eye pendulum fell off the counter and broke. The crystal broke, and the beaded section holding the hamsa at the other end broke as well.

I had already fixed the hamsa end by the time I took the pic. Still heartbreaking, tho

For the first few moments all I could do was stare. I didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t that far down, and I couldn’t believe that the whole thing had just broken.

What now? Do I replace it? Do I try to fix it? I have only had this pendulum for about two weeks, and already it was one of my favourites. And now it was just … gone.

The break was clean, I could fix it. But the question was, should I? For most of my life, I have heard that once a crystal is broken, that’s it for that job. Then it moves on to some other purpose, either given back to the earth or utilized for some other project.

It can still be used as a pendulum in it’s current … shortened state. It will still work just as well, but at the same time, I know I could fix it because the break was so clean (I am thinking it was an existing imperfection that allowed for the break).

Another issue to consider is that with both protection symbols breaking in the same moment, I cannot ignore the possibility that the fall and the break were the protection symbols doing their job. This is a new house with no protections built in as in my old house. I haven’t even had a chance to do a new house cleansing yet.

The practical side of my brain says that I am overtired, and jittery from lugging boxes, and what I really need is to chill and meditate a little. If we go the protection route, then the stone was likely protecting me from myself.

I still don’t know what I am going to do. There is an epoxy that I can buy that will fix the pendulum like new. Or I could buy a replacement crystal point. I will definitely need to meditate on it before I do anything.

Three Years Later

It’s been a long time. When I shut this website down three years ago,   I did it because there had been some family turmoil regarding my practise/faith/whathaveyou, and I didn’t want to make it worse.

A few days ago, I turned 40.

It’s a big milestone, if you believe in that kind of thing. I have been very contemplative over the past few weeks, and something that I am starting to feel very strongly about is how little I care about things that used to bother me. I don’t care about judgments. I don’t care about pleasing anyone else. I don’t care about living my life for the pleasure of others.

I’ve lost myself in the past few years, and I want her back. I miss me. I miss having a space to vent my thoughts and feelings. I miss having a space where I can explore my practise, and where it doesn’t really matter if I start a project and then forget about it a few months down the line (we’ve discovered that that’s ADHD, btw).

I was on YouTube today marvelling at how different the Pagan Community is today from when I was active online (SO so long ago). I have to say that I do understand a bit better the middle aged witches with the ever etched smirk as all we newbies tried to impress each other with our knowledge and ‘experience’. 😂

I do have to add, one of the things that still shocks me is how little has changed in 20 years. Practitioners with a few years under their belts are still having to explain that Witchcraft/Wicca isn’t satanic? Why? That rumour is from the 80s. None of them where alive during the Satanic Panic, they shouldn’t have to still be talking about it.

But I digress. I don’t know how often I will post here in the coming year. Maybe more. Maybe less. But I have decided that I want this space to be available. I want it to be waiting for me for when I need it, and I want it to be available to anyone else who might stumble upon anything interesting.

Cheers to new beginnings. 🥂

Still Alive

And slowly getting back into the swing of things.  As usual, the spring and summer see me away from the computer more and more.  It seems that blog projects are not the pull needed to keep me at the keys.

Lots of old projects have been seeing the light of day again, and there are always the little ones running around and being kids.  I am slowly starting to work writing back into my daily routine again.  Hoping to start taking university classes in the fall.

I will probably take a few days in the coming weeks to try and get caught up with the YT Pagan Challenge.  There were a few spring topics that I did want to cover.

Anyway, I’m just checking in and saying hi.  Best get back to writing the old novel.

Hermit Mode

There are so many things spinning around in my mind lately, that it has been hard to choose one thing to focus on long enough to write about it.   I have actually been avoiding writing at all since I finished the outline of my new story.  There has been a need to purge, and knitting has been a good distraction while I work out what to say.

Ultimately, the decision on what to write about has come down to a simple question: do I want to write about dark, depressing things, or do I want to write about hopeful, happy things?  The Internet is already so saturated with violence, hurt, hate, and corruption so blatant that it has become a caricature of itself.  Do I need to add to that?

When I was on my social media hiatus, I avoided American news.  I avoided all news except for the tornado warnings that came directly to my phone (no funnel clouds where we were, thank goodness).  I spent a lot of time purposely not thinking.  I spent a lot of time doing.  A lot of time enjoying my family, my books, the weather (I am a storm nut, so rain is something I love), making things with my hands — from finishing old craft projects to making potstickers, stews, caramel all from scratch, to just ordinary dinners and a perfect cup of tea.

It really helped me to realize that what I want out of life, what I’ve always wanted, was simplicity — peace.  In the 10 days that I have been back on FB, it has been really driven home that I don’t have the stomach for the nebulous Internet anymore.  The rage, the trolls, the wilful blindness, is just too much — and at the same time, the syrupy, wishful thinking of the small enclaves of inspiration memes shoved down your throat has too much of a Stepford feeling for me.

I think that the only viable option is to step away from social media again.  What do I want to think about?  I want to think about my life — my family, my neighbourhood, my town, my plans, and that little stone cottage by the sea.

I have things set up so that my blog posts will seed out to where folks can see them, and I always try to respond to comments made here, but I have been out of balance for far too long.  I need to find a new equilibrium, and it’s going to take more than a month.

I’m not going off the grid, so those who need to get in touch with me will still be able to do so.  They say it takes three weeks to form a new habit.  Standing outside of the social media storm is my new habit.

Someday, maybe putting the laundry away after it’s folded will be a new habit (though, if I did that, my family would wander around naked trying to find their hidden clothes).  For now, I am diving down the rabbit hole of my own imagination.  Hopefully I will come back with a good story.  Wish me luck.

Bad Blogger

Bill Watterson is the Best

I know I have been neglecting you all terribly, but I have had my head stuck in a novel and … I DID IT!  I won NaNoWriMo!  Not quite finished the story, but I crossed the 50k finish line in 29 days, so that has to count for something.  I am dog tired. <- I like that phrase, tho every dog I’ve ever owned has be undeniably lazy, so I don’t know how apt it is.

I will say that writing a novel in 30 days with toddlers climbing on you is no easy task.  I swear that they have some kind of a radar that tells them when Mommy is busy, so that they can drop whatever it is that they’re doing and come running to chatter or scream at me.  But I muscled through, and now that I am physically exhausted, bring on the holidays!

Haha.  I am going to be spending December catching up on some reading in my spare time between kids, cleaning my sadly neglected house, and the holidays.  I will try to get some more pages updated here.  I will aim for writing up the Yule article for the WOTY page – I had assumed that I had that one written already.

Then my new year’s resolution will be to finish the story I started at NaNo and get it all polished up shiny.  I have also been thinking of finally getting the intro packet from the OBOD.  We’ll see how that goes.

That’s all I’ve got folks.  Talk at ya later!

Kids and Winter Holidays

Halloween has been one of my all time favourite holidays.  From the time I was about 9 or 10 right up until I had my own kids.  Before then, it was Xmas, and after … yeah, Xmas (Yuletide – all those awesome family holidays through the winter months).  I’m not sure if it is that my kids are really young still, or that Calgary’s autumn is unreliable at best, and tending to disappear without notice, but I don’t get that awesome spooky chill that I used to get as October wears down.

What I do get is a kind of nesting/planning compulsion.  Presents, decorations, lights, new coats, new mitts, where are the best sledding hills in our new neighbourhood?  What sort of desserts, casseroles and stews should I make?  My husband mentioned that Halloween is a 20-something’s holiday.  Trick or treating is going out of style, replaced with harvest parties. Decorative gourds stand in for traditional jack-o-lanterns.

The chill in the air doesn’t whisper of secrets and ghosts anymore. It bites and nips with warnings of harsh temperatures and long, deep freezes on the horizon.  And that kind of feeling makes me wish for warm fires and sparkly lights.

Snow hasn’t come for us yet.  Not to stay anyway.  I think that I will take the kids out today to hunt for acorns (if the squirrels have left us any).  Also, I am going to make a pumpkin spice bundt cake.

Life, Leaving Social Media, NaNo, and the Closing of the Year

Life decided that it needed my full attention the last little while, and I finally bit the bullet and closed my facebook account.  Leaving FB for good is a little like your New Year’s resolution shouted to the heavens as the party counts down to midnight.  After six and a half years, I know it won’t be easy to stay away.  My short term goal is to make it until January.

Even if I go back then to check in, I feel like I should have enough distance to not have it become a huge part of my life anymore.  Which is the ultimate goal. I can still be reached on Google+ and on Instagram.  They don’t have enough of a draw to become the time sink that FB was.

In the snippets of time that FB used to fill, I have begun learning French.  I have plans to participate in NaNoWriMo this year after a 4 year hiatus, and I am enrolling in the local university.  It’s a pretty awesome feeling to spend my free time doing something useful … useful, AND not laundry!

I am still knitting, and I have a draft of a custom shawl pattern in the works.  I am pretty excited about that.

It is a bit weird to go back to writing after so long away, I haven’t fully embraced my inner story teller in a long while. I have recently dug out my character creation sheets, and hope to spend some time in October fleshing out my story beyond a vague idea.

Wish me luck!  And if any of you out there are into the insanity that is NaNoWriMo, my user name is phae_talon.