Mystical Mundane

Life has a way of working out the way it wants to. Regardless of how we think it should go. The past 16 years of my son's almost 17 years of life have been filled with challenges. First off, he was born to a 22 year old mother who already had two small children. This mother, (me) was suffering from anxiety, depression and other issues. In fact, most of my life I have had a very difficult time controlling my emotions. Hyper-sensitive to criticism, and to the unknown. I never enjoyed trying new things, or meeting new people. Painfully shy and prone to rage and horrendous crying fits from a very young age, I always felt very out of place. A lot of that is normal. Kids are weird, let's face it. But I think I was a bit more than just your average 'weird'. Of course, this was in the 70's and we didn't have a big bucket of Labels to choose from with children. I think that added to this was the fact that my mother was only fifteen when she had me. I lived with my mat...

Why start a new path? Why form a new 'religion'? Although this is touched on in the specific Divinaturist sites, I thought I would mention it here. Divinaturism is Earth-Based and Spirit Centered. Some might say it falls under a category of Paganism. Or Monotheism. Or Panentheism. It had enough variations for it to be considered on it's own. Though we consider ourselves a Sister path with many others. (more can be read about this at  divinaturism.com  or the  Divinaturist Fellowship  ) Basically, the way it works is that the Divinaturist Fellowship is a Society dedicated to promoting awareness of this religion, and to promoting well-being and peace within oneself and others by practicing the shared beliefs that are given  here . The Society also helps to establish Member Temples, such as Circle of the Eternal Sun. Each Member Temple will be similarily constructed and have the same basic concepts and attributes. Why was this done? Well, it seems that there i...

Meeting with my son today. Things havent been going well. He can't live here anymore and I'm pretty broken hearted about the situation. Guilt, sadness, guilt, frustration, guilt, anxiety and guilt. The trees make for good companions. They just listen.

Recovering our True Self: The Journey Out of Our Negative States Author: Ted Nottingham Down through the centuries, spiritual teachers of all traditions have differentiated between our mundane, invented personality so filled with stress, and our true identity characterized by serenity, constancy, and wisdom.  They urge us to discover our inner depths and that vaster Self which enables right action in the world. Everyone of us is meant to live with joy and compassionate outreach to the people around us. We are designed to be masters of our selves, capable of overcoming all the difficulties of life. This is our birthright, but in order to experience it, we must recognize how far we are from living in this manner, why this is so, and what efforts we must make to live in such a way. This new awareness and these efforts are the process that leads us out of our negative emotional habits in order to enter into the depths of our spiritual nature. To recover from our ingrained habits ...

Today two items I had been looking forward to receiving arrived in the mail. A Chalice and Paten, from  Pottery Rowe  . I can't recall the name of the design.. twilight perhaps? The Chalice is much larger than I had imagined and will fit a nice big helping of mead or wine. Though pottery may not be traditional, I always sort of feel, in Divinaturism, that the Chalice and Paten, are of Natura Mater.... She holds the Divine within her... so to have these sacred dishes made of Earth, that they may hold the spiritually charged libations, just made sense. When I came across these some time ago, they not only 'called' to me, but mentally bonked me on the head and said 'WE want to be on your altar!' ;)

It has been a few years since I had last seen a certain group of people whom I used to see quite regularly. There were about 40 of us this weekend, celebrating a slightly belated Beltaine. The festivities were held at a location most secret... between the realms of time and the lands of the eternal.  Although the rain fell for a good portion of it, the main ritual was almost completely done before we felt the first drops. Even at that, the rain was gentle for the day and did not keep us from the focus of the event.... choosing a May Queen and new Stag King.  After the Women's and Men's Mysteries were done, our communities new representatives of the Goddess and Horned God were chosen and united. It isn't an easy union however.. it is proceeded with one of the most bare-bones raw aspect of the pagan tradition of Beltaine. Without giving away the secrets of the event, I can say that for a period of time, one truly feels the embrace of something ancient, not in the rites ...

Alright, so on Day 2, April 30th, we dumped all the flowers and water in which they were soaking, into a big pot and started boiling it. We added about 2.5 cups of sugar and about 1 cup of Wildflower honey from Chilliwack River Honey. I added zest and juice of 4 oranges and a lemon, as well as about 2oz of fresh Bee Pollen, and 1/4 of  REALLY strong black tea. After about an hour, I dumped it all back into the 5 gallon bucket and waited for it to cool. It got stirred aLOT. At a temperature of app. 127 F, the hydrometer read at about 1.160 or 20%.  Once the temp got down to a respectable 100F, the pre-prepared L-1118 yeast was added and all was vigorously stirred and sloshed again. This stodd , covered with a peice of cotton and tied round to keep out fruit flies, for three days.  Today, after a few stumbling blocks (unable to locate an auto-siphon, but found one, a PERFECT size, a mini auto-siphon from La Brewhouse that will fit not only into the 5 gallon c...