Love in a Bottle

So, it’s official. Classes will begin tomorrow at my university and I’ve been moved in and gone to countless events already to kickstart the year, including convocation. Needless to say, I’m super excited for classes to start. Oddly enough, my move-in day started on the new moon and classes will start during the waxing of the moon. Coincidence? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Last week I talked about finding a space to do ritual. I think I’ve found one that’s secluded enough, but not an unsafe place. I’m very excited to try this space out. Also, I found a space for my altar in my room above my bed like last year. My living arrangements are wonderful, as always, and made even better by these few things. I’m looking forward to a great year.

At first though, I have to admit I was anxious. I was enjoying summer and enjoying seeing my friends from highschool. I was really nervous about leaving, but I knew that a lot of them were going to university too, some for the first time. Now that I’m here, I realize why I like university, and that, as always, it isn’t the end of the world to move. I’ll see my friends again, and our reunion will be awesome.

There is one person I really didn’t want to leave behind however. This person is very dear to me, and I still miss her. So, before I left, I decided to give her something. I wanted to make her something she could remember me by. I decided to give her some of my love contained inside a bottle.

I thought of all the things that made me think of love and went on a hunt to find them. I put in dried white rose petals, dried carnations that she gave me in the past (including the blue ribbon tied to them), a little bit of my Taurus oil (not only my zodiac sign, but also ruled by Venus), some rose perfume, lavender, a metal heart charm, wheat thresh (it makes me think of home and of a comfortable love), two marbles (one blue like water, one green like earth), rose quartz, a blue butterfly that makes me think of her, a piece of parchment with quotes from Shakespeare, and words I whispered into the bottle before I closed it.

When I gave it to her, I told her she could open it and read the note when she missed me the most. I know it might not be the same as having me there, but I wanted to give her something to remember me by and remember how much I care for her.

This bottle creation led me to think of other things I could bottle as well, and how I could use my bottle collection for my magick. Now, a friend of mine has been making magick bottles herself for a while now, and they are charms one would wear as jewelry. I have one from her, in fact, and I have to give her some credit for putting the idea in the back of my mind. In truth, glass bottles are appealing to me, hence why I collect them, and I’m realizing now that I can use them beyond the basic witch’s bottle for protection.

I’ve already bottled some of the beach from the Gulf coast. Now, I think I will work on bottling other things. On my list currently are theses:

Autumn Air

Ocean Air

Field Air

Fire

Earth

Inspiration

Home

Freedom (a little ironic, I know)

These are just a few, and my list grows longer each time I think about it. I’m very excited to give these a try, though bottling ocean air when I’m landlocked will take some planning.

I hope I’ve inspired you to look around your house at your collections and see how to make them into a magickal endeavour, a spiritual endeavour, or just a fun craft. Also, one  last note, now that I am at University, I may not be writing in this blog every week. I will try to go for every other week, since my studies should come first. Happy new school year!

Blessed Be  

Back to School

Oh my goodness... where did my summer vacation go? Okay, move-in day for university is creeping up on me, so I thought for this week I’d discuss being at college and keeping up with my spiritual studies as well as my academic ones.

Last year, I struggled with feeling connected to my faith. I kept it a secret most of the time, and didn’t practice a lot of magick. Second semester was a little better than the first, since I joined the pagan group on campus and got to know a few people who share my faith. I learned many things and shared some of my knowledge. My personal development struggled a little bit though. This year, I want things to be different.

So, for this year, I plan to find a space that is secluded, but safe enough to practice ritual. This ritual space hunt might be difficult. I went around campus looking for spaces last semester with my club and couldn’t really find the perfect spot that felt safe enough. But, I will look again this year in hopes to find a spot.

Secondly, I will need to find a good space for my altar. Since I share a space with three other women in my room, it will have to be somewhere special and I will have to make sure my altar doesn’t draw unwanted attention. Last year, the room I was in had a shelf above the bed. This was perfect for my altar and my magickal supplies, since I was on the top bunk and it was a space that was really my own. I’m in a new room this year though, so I’m not sure if there will be a shelf in that spot. I hope so, but if not, I may put my altar in a drawer and pull out the drawer when I want to use my altar.

Thirdly, I will continue to meet at the pagan club meetings so I can continue my studies and keep learning. My club also meets for holidays too, so I will probably be doing some ritual in that way.

I don’t have many ideas beyond these for now, but I will continue to think on them. I want this year to be different. A book was recommended to me by a friend of mine. I’ve seen this book before, but have never picked it up to read it cover to cover. It’s called Rocking the Goddess by Anthony Paige. It’s a book that focuses on wicca for the university student and seems to be a good read for those going to university. This book has now made it to my priority list and I hope to learn from it. I hope it is helpful to others too.

If you have any suggestions for a witch going to college, feel free to leave comments below. I know I’m not the only one, and I’m certain we could all learn from each other.

Blessed Be

Elements

Learning about different cultures, I have found, always makes me question my own. My most recent question: Why is North earth, East air, South fire, and West water? Each of these four elements has a direction associated with it, but who came up with these? Has the creator of this phenomenon been gone for so long we don’t remember why these elements are important to their respective directions?

This question hit me as I was studying a book on Feng Shui. The book is an excellent book and I am learning much about the ideas of Feng Shui and some of the ideas of eastern society. In the ideas of Feng Shui, there are five elements. They are fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. Not only is air not an element, spirit not mentioned as one, and metal added to the list, Feng Shui also focuses on eight directions, the four cardinal directions and the four directions between the cardinal directions. South is represented by fire, Southwest by earth, West by metal, Northwest by metal, North by water, Northeast by earth, East by wood, and Southeast by wood.

Interestingly enough, I found this so strange that I wondered why Feng Shui has these elements in these directions. Then I paused, and wondered why I had not asked the same for wicca? I had accepted that North was earth, that East was air, that South was fire, that West was water, and that the center was spirit. I never questioned such a thing before.

I found myself questioning now though. So, I decided to look online to see if anyone had an answer. Many didn’t seem to talk about why the elements were placed as they are. I then came across a website that talked about the elements and directions in relation to where you live. They insisted that this was what mattered, along with how one felt about where each element should be placed. If it felt wrong to put water to the West, then put it where it felt right. For people who live in the Northern hemisphere, the weather becomes warmer as we travel towards the equator, and this may be why the element of fire was put in the South. But, for people who live in the Southern hemisphere, the opposite is true. When you travel North, the weather warms.

Now, I have no qualms with the elemental placements. In fact, the traditional placements feel very natural to me. But what surprises me is that I did not question this before. I accepted, and thinking about it now, if I were to align myself with the land around me, the oceans are to the East and West of me, the land rises to the East (since in Kansas, the land goes down in elevation when you travel West) but the fertile farm land is in the West, air flows in all directions because I live in the Midwest, and the warmth comes from the South and the bright sun that moves East to West. The elements are all around me and they more surround me than are placed in only one quarter. This feeling of being enveloped and surrounded brings me comfort.

Now, does this mean I won’t cast my circle with the traditional elemental directions? No, but it does mean that I feel I have a deeper understanding of what it means to be connected to all the elements and to have them in all places. This also means that if someone were to put an element in a different location, I probably wouldn’t blink twice. What I love about my faith is that it is my own, and what I love about faith is that everyone else has their own too. It’s okay to believe something different, to think for yourself, and to have the grace to understand that others have the same right. Our differences make us unique, and they bring us together in new ways of understanding one another, not in ways that separate or break us apart.

So, wherever your elements are, whatever they may be, they are special to you, and that’s all that matters.

Blessed Be