Pagan Blog Project: A is for Avalon

**A late start to the project...but it looks like a lot of fun, so I'm playing catch up to join in!**

Avalon....
Is there any other word as magical as Avalon? Not in my world. I can't even say it without whispering....Avalon...*sigh*

A beautiful, mysterious island featured in Arthurian legend, Avalon is truly a magical place that naturally bears an abundance of vegetable, fruit and grain without cultivation and where people can easily live to be 100 years or more. Paradise on earth, or so the legends go, inhabited by nine sisters... including the powerful sorceress, Morgan Le Fay.

Keeping an Open Mind...

It's funny how the universe listens, isn't it? When your mind is open to any possibility, it's absolutely amazing how the universe will reward it with more information...and more possibilities. My last blog post was a reflection of how I had finally given up on trying to understand the Starseed concept supposedly behind this shift in consciousness that we are experiencing. In all honesty, I never really understood it and it all seemed far too unrealistic for me to even take seriously. So, I admitted that out loud by publishing the post and moved on in my spiritual quest.

As I was watching another great video by one of my favorite Youtubers...Miss Annika from OathBoundSecrets...a video name on the side bar caught my eye. The channel it lead me to is called Spirit Science. I've been exploring this channel for the last two days now and I am truly fascinated with it's content. It delivers this entire concept in lesson form and speaks to me with such a voice that I'm captivated by it and yearning to learn more!

Now, I'm definitely not admitting that I believe in any of it, but the links that this young man offers between history, science and spirituality are undeniably profound. He provides endless pdf files and other links to corroborate this information he renders in his videos. What I find especially impressive is that he repeatedly tells the viewer not to believe what he says as fact, but to research the truth for themselves before they come to any conclusions about the material....a similar approach to enlightenment shared by one of the philosophies I've admired since my early adult years, Buddhism. 

So, in the spirit of keeping an open mind, I will continue to learn. My quest to find the truth keeps moving me forward and strengthens my purpose in life...to spread love and understanding to help all those in my world know tolerance. Without knowledge tolerance, won't exist and only through tolerance will we ever know peace.

Shifting Into Madness

Stories are circulating all over the internet among New Age circles about how this 2012 Shift has affected people. Forums and social media users are reporting everything from drastic spiritual upheaval and sudden poverty to full out 'body buzzing' and discovering soul origins. People are changing their names and their religions completely out of the blue. I can't help but wonder, are we experiencing nothing more than some sort of mass hysteria?

We have to admit that there sure was a lot of hype and build up for so long about December 21, 2012...The Shift. I wonder how many of these people who are claiming to have had these 'shifts' are actually just pretending they did (or trying to convince themselves that they did) because they don't want to look crazy like Harold Camping, that preacher we all know and love who falsely predicted The Rapture a number of times. We'll never know how many are truly experiencing this predicted phenomena....I'm sure no one would  ever willingly admit they made it up.

I tried...I really did. I watched a couple hours worth of Youtube videos while sewing this afternoon in the attempt to grasp this whole Soul Origin concept and the Starseed awakening that apparently happened last month. I'd get 5 minutes in and have to turn it off because it just seemed so utterly ridiculous to me. Then I'd say to myself, "Rhonda, you need to approach this with an open mind if you want to understand....you don't have to agree with it" and I would finish the video with a less judgmental attitude.

An open mind has always served me well, but my perception of this entire concept just made me sad. All I see are people who are not happy with themselves...their lives...trying to make their existences special and meaningful in some small way.  Every soul is special and unique, and just by existing and carrying on with your life, you are making a meaningful impact on the evolution of our society. Being from Pleiades doesn't make you special, YOU make you special! :-)

A Spell Casting Mishap

Come to think of it, I wouldn't really call this a mishap so much as an amusing yet very helpful blunder. This could be considered a slight lesson in just how touchy the business of spell craft can be. ;D

Someone I know very well is having an extremely hard time finding a practicum in her chosen field...mainly due to her young age. She is a 23 year old female trying to secure a position in the Funeral Service industry...an industry that automatically looks at her and thinks "How would someone so young be able to maintain the sense of professionalism and integrity that our customers need to believe?" It is a common issue in this industry and it really isn't these potential employers' faults either, it is VERY rare for them to see any newcomers under the age of 35, let alone 25! 

So, anyway, I went about trying to give her that extra boost by performing a nightly spell for a given amount of time with the hope that she would be surprised with that special phone call. When I perform magick, one of my favorite methods by far is to meditate every night, for a predetermined number of nights, on a candle while reciting a specifically worded mantra for 108 times using my own handcrafted set of mala beads. 

I was very careful to make sure that the mantra was specific to her needs without missing a detail...even down to a time limit I gave the universe to provide its manifestation...of November 15. Now, what I didn't count on was my subconscious mind unknowingly worrying about how she and her daughter were going to survive while she did her 'unpaid' fall practicum, since she had been turned down for that funding back in August. 

She was quite surprised to discover a voicemail on Thursday from her student awards office. They called to say that they had made an error and overlooked some requirements she had needed, but actually had, to be approved for the full living expense funding during her 4 month practicum...and a check for almost $8000 was in the mail! It took a little while before we realized that Thursday was the 15th! 

Now...back to work...I have a practicum to conjure! ;D

My Spirit Guide, A Past Life or My Imagination?

I was enjoying the warm fall weather so much today that I decided to meditate out on my deck this afternoon in the sunshine. Now, I realize that we all have spirit guides, but I've never really had the urge to go about trying to figure out exactly who mine is/are, but today I felt compelled to try.

 There is a special place that I always go to in my mind's eye to launch my shamanic journeys from and I thought it would be a great place to start this meditation in. It is a beautiful spot in the woods beside the river just down from where I live that I visit regularly in real life, so I knew that I would have no problem visualizing it without having to use a guided meditation.

I started off by acknowledging the purpose I intended to focus on, then as I went into trance state, I visualized walking down the path to this place I love and I soon began to hear the rhythmic sound of drums beating off in the distance. As I came closer to my spot, the drumming seemed to be getting louder until I realized that it was indeed coming from this sacred area in the woods. I approached the mound of bare earth in the tiny clearing, sat down cross-legged and closed my eyes. The beat kept going and I felt so peaceful...then I could hear Native American men and women softly chanting. I somehow knew the words and began to chant along with them until I could sense a presence around me.

I opened my eyes to see a young native boy of maybe 8yrs old smiling down at me. He quietly sat next to me on the earth, not saying a word, and we closed our eyes and listened to the beautiful music together. Still without hearing an actual word spoken, I felt him say "Our mother's voice is so beautiful, isn't it?" I suddenly snapped out of this, wide awake to find myself sitting on my deck! Who is he? Is he ME...or my guide?!

Meditation and Your Innate Psychic Ability

A regular meditative practice will definitely open up your psychic ability, whether you're prepared for it or not. Meditation and witchcraft tend to go hand in hand, especially during spellwork, but from my own personal experiences, I never really needed to specifically meditate to allow my spells to come to fruition so I never practised it with my spellwork in the beginning for a long time. For some reason, I only needed to seriously 'think' about something to make it happen...mind you, I never abused that in any way by 'wanting' more than I needed. ;D

It's funny, in the early years when I started learning about all sorts of faith systems and exploring each of them, things would happen within each structure that would make me think "Aha! This one must be the truth!". In reality, a pattern was emerging for me that made me come to realize that the Truth comes from within. I distinctly remember this incident when we were about 20-21yrs old and our daughter was a young baby. My husband had just left his one job to take another to begin an electrical apprenticeship. This new company had a 'once a month' pay schedule, meaning he wouldn't get his first check for a month. We had run out of savings halfway through and we were worried about whether our groceries on hand would last the 2 weeks left until pay day or not. I was toying with Christianity at that time, so I prayed for help. Within 3 days....we received a check for a little over $300 in the mail from one of his past employers. What knocks coincidence out of this scenario for me is that this company just happened to be going through an audit and discovered a calculation error on some of their employees' vacation pay...from 3yrs earlier! 

For the next couple of years I bounced around the religion playground learning about everything from Jehovah's Witnesses to Buddhism, but it was always the craft that resonated with me and I would continually fall back to it. When I was about 23 or 24 years old and our daughter had turned 4, I began to experience flashbacks to a time when I was that age and being molested by a neighbor. My husband would come home from work to find me sitting on the kitchen floor, sobbing for no apparent reason. I always consciously knew about these incidents from my childhood, but because of the correlation to my daughter's age, specific memories were coming back more clearly. Shortly after this, I joined a Childhood Sexual Abuse group through our local FCSS to begin the healing process. It was in this group that I first learned to meditate...and I LOVED it! I meditated all the time...sometimes 3 times a day! LOL Even after I had healed with the group over a 2 year period and had moved on with my life, I continued to meditate. 

By the time I was 25 or 26, I realized that something really strange was beginning to happen. It started off as prophetic dreams and weird thoughts that would pop into my head at any random moment. After discussing a dream with a co-worker of mine...and after it ended up happening 3 weeks later...people started to wonder if I could be psychic. 

In this dream, the store that we worked in was closed because of the death and funeral of a local man in one of the pioneering families in our area. The strangest part of this dream was that this man's service was in the neighboring town, and not our own. The funeral in my dream was HUGE and had standing room only with the back doors open as well. When I told my co-worker about it, we thought it was funny because the man in my dream wasn't that special, it was actually his father and grandfather that would have been revered in our community. About 3 weeks later, I came into work and she just looked at me with such a serious, frightened look. Quietly she said "Please don't ever tell me if you dream about me or my family." I just looked at her all confused, then she said "Papere Aubin passed away last night." This was actually the father of the man in my dream, he'd died unexpectedly. What she went on to explain made ME feel need to sit down. Papere had had a long standing feud with the priest at the Catholic church in our town and that his service was being planned for the next town over...the one in my dream! On the day of his funeral, every store, including the post office, was closed in our town for the morning so that everyone could pay their respects. There were so many people there that we overflowed into the parking lot and the service had to be broadcast over a loud speaker out there. After this, I had a few more less significant dreams. I had dreamed that a friend's grandparents got into a car accident and I woke up before I could tell if they had died or not so I only mentioned it to my co-worker and not my friend. Almost a month later, they did indeed have an accident, but thankfully it was just a fender bender! :D 

At this point in time, I was starting to have more than just dreams, I was beginning to often experience nausea, heart palpitations sometimes and random thoughts and feelings would just pop into head when I was around different people. One Saturday morning I woke up feeling like I had the flu, but couldn't throw up no matter how hard I tried. I was like this all day, until 3pm when my father called to tell me that an old family friend had died and he was asked to deliver his eulogy. As he was talking, my mind wandered back to part of a dream I'd had the night before where I could see Walco smiling at me and he winked then disappeared, and my nausea disappeared with this memory of him in my dream! I also remember having coffee at a friend's house one day. She had 2 very active young boys. She knew what was happening with me and just asked me point blank "Will I ever have a girl?!" Right at that second, I saw a flash of her in my mind holding a baby wrapped in pink. Without thinking, I just said 'yeah'. LOL I had no idea she was going to purposely get pregnant! She did...and it ended being a girl...then she had her tubes tied! ;D

I started to make the connection between my meditative practice and these new found 'abilities'. Enjoying the excitement of it all, I began to do longer sessions every evening after everyone was in bed. Then in 1996, when I was 26yrs old, an incident happened that changed the way I thought about it for a long time after that. I had spent the spring that year getting ready for our wedding, which was to be on July 20th and this feeling of dread very slowly crept up on me over time that became like an illness...with almost daily nausea and headaches. Of course, there were jokes about my being pregnant again before the wedding, but every test I took always came back negative. It became sort of like a depression after a while. I remember my best friend and her mom sitting in my living room that June and saying "Rhonda, what's WRONG with you?! You're getting married for crying out loud!! You should BE HAPPY!" That's when I just blurted out that I felt like someone was going to die around me, someone special to me, someone close...like my dad, or maybe even her? They convinced me that it was all just in my head, but the feelings didn't go away. July 20th finally came and after our wedding, we left on a 14 day road trip honeymoon to Reno, Nevada. We didn't have a cell phone back then, so we just called in every 2 days or so to check in. When we got back into Canada and to my sister's place on day 12, there was a message to call her at work right away. She was in tears and said that my husband's best friend's new wife had been killed at work two days before and his brother was trying to find us to let us know. I was in complete shock, they were married two weeks before us...we were devastated. Once the grief and everything subsided after her funeral, I realized that the 'feelings' I'd been having up until our wedding were completely gone. 

This SCARED me to death...I NEVER wanted to feel that way again, so I stopped meditating altogether that year.  I also began to 'self medicate' so that I wouldn't remember my dreams when I'd wake up in the morning. I started off by smoking a little pot just at bedtime every night for a couple of years. When I got a position with Imperial Oil in 1998, I abandoned that habit fearing their drug testing policy only to replace it with cold medication and then eventually sleeping pills. In 2003, we lost my dad to cancer and I couldn't bear the thought of not being able to 'feel' him anymore. I knew what I had to do...start meditating again and toss the drugs! Now that I'm older and wiser...and more well read...I have since learned how to control the whole process. Now meditating has become a huge part of my craft once again. 

A Peek into My Backyard Paradise

Jainee and I painted a Faery House this year for our herbal bed. She sets Faery Cakes out some nights for them before she goes to bed and is delighted in the morning when she wakes up to find them gone! Who knew Faeries love pancakes with honey? ;D 

This used to be all wildflowers, but last year I decided to try various herbs. I'd been reluctant to plant herbs there all along because the deer live in our yard from spring through fall! lol It's strange...I thought the mint would have taken the bed over, but it seems to be the camomile that's spreading. 

It figures, doesn't it? The gnomes do all the work and the faeries get the cake! LOL What do gnomes like? I'll bet Jainee would leave them treats too. :D

I simply ADORE our huge Laurel Willow tree out back. We have a gorgeous Mountain Ash in our front yard that leaves me awestruck every fall when she turns bright red and orange. It's a struggle to get nice pics of her every year before the leaves fall! lol 


Our tomato plants in 5 gallon laundry soap buckets from our local Western Budget Motel....excellent way to recycle!





Isn't this the cutest little birdhouse? We picked it up at Winners in Edmonton. It's made from driftwood...I LOVE it! :D






More of our 'deck garden'. Between the deer roaming free and the overpopulated dew worms in the earth here in the river valley in Whitecourt, we had to get a little creative if we wanted fresh veggies. It's a pretty awesome set up actually...wish we'd thought of it sooner. Swiss chard, beans and...POTATOES!! On the deck!! ;D



A couple dozen cucumber plants, broccoli, eggplant and two types of peppers in our little greenhouse.





Oh how I love to sit outside here. I grab my coffee first thing in the morning and head out there for an hour...every day. I used to long for the moment that I would get home from work just to go sit out here until I was forced to make supper. Now that I work from home, I'm trying to figure out how I can sew quilts from out here, just so I can spend all summer on that damn deck!! LOL Yeah...I think 'pagan' is most definitely in my blood! ;D