Wolf Day

I took this photograph yesterday as the sun flooded these abandoned fields, which are reverting to natural grasses and flowers. Today was the first walk this season in which I felt the need of a jacket. Hustled right along in order to get those bare arms back someplace with a congenial temperature, so took no photographs. 

Was amazed because I did not see a single wild creature, not a rabbit, quail, raven, or coyote. Perhaps that's due to the Mexican Wolf that my husband encountered on his bike ride an hour or two later. It has been many years since we've had one of those passing through the neighborhood. It seems a general alarm had gone out already.

Now I recall the very fresh outsize scat found smack in the middle of a dirt road out in the field. Wondered who in town had a dog that size that would walk it that far from town so very early in the morning.  Then it occurred to me that I often find coyote and bobcat scat right in the middle of the trail when I walk further into the hills (unlike my own dog who always dodges to the side before letting loose) so now I wonder if the wolf had not been prowling there just before first light (as I was walking about 30 minutes before the sun actually crested the mountains). As the light came up, he would have retreated to the mountain valley where my husband saw him bound across the path. 
  
So it's a Wolf Day. A rare day.

I've been preoccupied with sorting things out in my mind. I have not taken any vows or sought any blessings yet, though I still consider myself a dedicant and am fired up to study and learn. 

Am not interested in traditional Wicca which has always seemed the adolescent version of metaphysics, with the circle, the tools of art, the spellcasting, the love potions, the Book of Shadows. 

For me it must ramp up to something more integrated. I want to see the ordinary as infused with power. My dinner plate is the pentacle that nourishes me with the products of the earth; my wine glass the chalice of holy water: Every time I drink from it, every time I fill it I see blessings accumulate and incorporate; and when I use a knife to cut my food I also cut negative thoughts, unsupportive cords and outworn concepts. When I burn incense and hear wind chimes, I remember that we live in an airy clime where dragonflies and hummingbirds are frequent visitors, and we have a tendency to overthink.

A week ago I was still empty, recuperating from two trips in 4 weeks. Now I'm feeling the fires of desire again, the creative energy that wants to express in acts of power. Am revisiting my Intentions for 2012, loosely formulating some new directions, and looking carefully at the reason why I cannot seem to grow much of a garden, or complete a novel, or develop my considerable natural artistic skills, which never have seemed to interest me much.

Sol Invictus

Before the Sun, life rustles. Coyotes sing joyfully in the overgrown rows of an abandoned farm. Ravens flutter, dive, caw. A low wind skips along the ground. Then the Sun: Regal, godlike, amazing, a ball of fire rising above the mountains.

My year and a day starts. Yesterday's fog birthed today's clarity. If I am not able to take this craft within me and use it in the trenches of life - at work, amid pressure, disrespect, the stultifying rules of overwhelming bureaucracy - and at home, with a difficult mate - then it will have no more value than any of the others.

In the interests of full clarity I'll give my provenance. A childhood interest in ritual magic fell to one side as I entered the working world. At 30 I fell into astrology and studied charts for 20 years. I also completed the Builders of the Adytum mail order classes in Kabbalah, Tarot, Astrology and Alchemy. Then I sank into matter for a decade: I partnered, became a homeowner for the first time, started working for a local government agency.

Now I am looking at my transition to the far shores. This is not happening any time soon, but it has hove up onto my horizon for the first time. I can sight it in my glass. I will reach the Isle, and now there is a terminus for my future planning.

For this stage of my journey I will need a practice. Mindfulness and meditation are elements of a practice,  not stand-alones for me. So I've selected some form of Old Religion as the accompaniment for my solitary crone years. I will dedicate myself to this, to uncovering the reality of this path, over the next twelve months and a day. I've got 5 books on the topic to read and review (The Witches Almanac, Issue 31, by Theitic;  Dedicant: A Wtiches Circle of Fire by Thuri Calafia, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak, and 2 by T. Thorn Coyle, Evolutionary Witchcraft and Kissing the Limitless). In a box somewhere in my studio are some useful ritual accoutrements collected in my rambles.So it begins.

End of Summer

Woke to fog - still, silent and thick. Left for my 2-mile walk shortly before 6, all hopes to observe the sun rise dashed in this pale grey obscurity. 

The mists make me think of what is yet unformed, what is still in concealment. Yesterday at work, my computer malfunctioned and the usually prompt repair service did not come to my rescue. I don't know if I'll have a computer today either. This brings up fear that it will be noticed I don't need to be there, that the job could be done without my contribution. I had drawn the Hanged Man as my card of the day, so this reversal was in character.  

But the obscurity extends much further than work. My dream last night, of a darkened street with perfectly manicured Craftsman homes that ended with an overgrown tangle behind which was my own lovely Craftsman home - which you could not see for the overgrowth. And the overgrowth was also threatening; I was afraid to walk past the ginormous hedges for fear some bogey would jump out at me. 

Think immediately of my lack of clarity on the path, my voluminous and unwieldy pile of reading, the study hours I never seem to attend. Can I focus at all any longer? 

Found two perfect, glossy, gorgeous ring-necked dove feathers laid before me as if an offering. 

Today's card is 9 of Cups.