New Moon Blessings

A blank page stares at me, my fingers itching to write, my mind filled with so many thoughts that it is so very hard to formulate but one to start with, and the events of the last week or so roll around in there....the happiness, the celebration of course followed by the disappointment and finally the stages of grief, and yes I say grief, not grief from the death of a loved one but the kind of ripping pain you feel when someone that you are connected to in a most fundamental way let's you down so much. That kind of pain that is with you even when you tell yourself that you are lucky, you are rich in so many other ways, surrounded by love and those that just want to uplift you but yet your heart yearns for only that one moment of recognition from that person that withholds it, knowing you deserve all the love they should be showering on you, expecting each year to be different but age only shows that nothing changes. Maturity, understanding and love reserved for death beds and moments of reckoning with their own gods, amazing how facing their own mortality can have that affect on those kinds of frozen, concreted and bereft of feeling hearts? and although I am referring to one specific incidence in my family recently, I could be drawing attention to quite a few of extended relationships that my immediate family members deal with. It is what it is, a big saying around our home it just is what it is, it really is not personal, as odd and difficult as it may be for some to get the concept of how it could not be personal since you feel like you are personally being mistreated, seems ridiculous huh? well way I look at it is the way someone else treats you is based on their own inner workings, when you are sure in yourself of your own beliefs, who you are, your own moral compass and you feel it is directed properly, by far none of us are perfect and all we can strive for is to be good humans, good people then when you do that and someone still mistreats you it is their issue, their personal problem to deal with not yours.

Cut and dried huh? well it has taken years of us discussing these things back and forth and many blended spiritual practices and thoughts to come to this place where we can deal with the realities of our relationships and lives with each other openly, without the blow ups of the past, there are still tears and moments of anger but they are more within our control and about expressing feelings without shouting and screaming, more discussions that run late and deep into the night and bucketloads of black gold. These moments are the ones we reach for old faithful energy lifting things like our favorite movies....this weekend it was Practical Magic, it actually has been that movie quite often...no not because of the somewhat unbelievable Hollywood additions to the magical moments, for moments of magic that you would find unbelievable I have plenty of them in my own life ~ remind me someday to tell you about the year the snakes came to roost in our home ~ anyway I have always loved the movie because of the two sisters, their strength, devotion and love of each other and their family but especially each other, the love story was secondary to me.....but watching it this weekend with someone else that although they have watched it with me often they have never really watched it like they did this weekend, well even for me it was an eye opener......as one sisters life unravels and the other steps in to help suddenly they could see how the first spell was suddenly coming to life, starting to weave it's energy, this brought up the most interesting discussion that ran two days about energy, how it weaves into our lives and connects us....about how it is adverse to our lives and those of others when we try to hold on to that energy and not allow it flow, back and forth, completing its cycle. Amazing isn't it that to anyone in this world the way a light bulb works with the flow of energy ever constant never stopping is so well understood, hell we even as kids created those lights with potatoes but yet so many of us have trouble understanding that same concept in our own lives, in our communities and with our own families.

It has been a very difficult stretch in the last five to six years now, there has been so much growth, so many things clearer now to us, so many lessons explained in painstaking clarity. There was a time that everytime one lesson was done I would secretly think ok awesome this must mean the road ahead is clear now and it will be smooth sailing now.....then well you know the rest. I won't deny that those moments make it hard, even for me the eternal optimist, I get tired too....I have been asked many times how I do it, keep going, lift myself up time and time again, and I have said many times faith.....for me watching that movie this weekend partly through fresh eyes of one I love well I realized part of it is the sisterhood. I grew up as an only child, it was lonely, it was sad and there were many moments of wishing for a sister of some sort, someone to talk to, share my dreams and hopes with, but there wasn't. Aunts were great, but you could only tell them so much, cousins are wonderful but for me all were younger than me, other than male ones and well those I wasn't looking to share my dreams with much less too many words.....adolescent Portuguese males in the 80's in downtown Toronto were not necessarily all that liberating when it came to how they felt about women, of course not all of them but majority of them. What I longed for my entire life was sisterhood, community, a sense of belonging.....a place where I never doubted my role or my value to the greater whole, hell I created my own family that is blended and the lines are so blurred now that we revel in the fact that love reigns and bloodlines are irrelevant, and those that don't well I guess bloodlines are really irrelevant to them so how can I fault them for that decision? after all we all learn on our own what is truly important to them, I can't and I won't so on we go......

Facebook many times takes a ton of hits, many complain about its drama quotient, well yea its pretty bad at times I know! but in truth the internet and Facebook combined have given me the ability to find my extended family, my sisters and brothers too. In a society where so many of us feel alone at times, especially us solitary practitioners it has become a place to connect with those that are of like mind and at times we are lucky and find a part of us that was missing. For me that is what it has become. I cannot tell you how many times in the last almost 8 years on there ~ and yes I said 8 years!~ that I have held hands virtually with a sister and sent love to support her and her family....or that a brother has stopped to just chat with me when they may not have known that at that moment I needed a friend too, someone to just say hello how are you...amazing something like Facebook, a tool so many of us take for granted, has so very many times connected me with those all over the world that feel my heart when it breaks, just as I feel their spirits when they soar. Something changes in the heart of a solitary witch when she finds that community, or at least it does for this witch. It is as if the knowledge of the ancients opens before me, supported it seems so much easier to see that which was hidden in the shadows around me, and the shadow no longer holds the same fear of darkness, more of an understanding and clarity of purpose. In all things and people there is good and bad, it is our choice how we use it. I chose growth, so now I don't do the little happy dance thinking ok yea smooth sailing anymore, no, now I sit back and absorb, pondering the words and sniff at it, swirl it around in my chalice as you would fine cognac, I let the smoke from my altar billow and rise as the connections in the lesson form, as the magic shows me what I am to gather from this moment, what I am to let go of and what I am to carry forward....

Today as I lit my altar, as I have come to do everyday, I sat back and just enjoyed the constancy and flicker of the candles both different but yet the same, as the little one did his little morning ritual of sweeping the kitchen I enjoyed watching him and realizing this was his moment of connection with his one little magical tool, his own broom, it reinforced in me that I never want to not enjoy the simplest of moments with eyes closed and a heart that does not see ever again.....community, belonging, sisterhood, family best lessons ever and in my opinion you can never fully grasp its enormity in your life because love is ever changing, support is always shifting and there is always something to learn about those you love, when we stop doing that we start taking each other for granted, and that is never a good lesson.

As the US Thanksgiving approaches for the first time in our home we are going to celebrate it, we are going to sit and let each other know around our table what we are thankful for in our lives, and how very thankful we are for each other, for the food we eat, the roof over our heads and for all of you that share in our lives and in our hearts. I am extra thankful that hard times bring us closer now rather than tear us apart, for that alone I am ever grateful, this was really a wonderful New Moon for us, plans are made and bonds reaffirmed. 

Blessings all! I send out blessings and love to you all!