nature

I’ve Been Praying All Along

As my kids have gotten older, it’s gotten more difficult to have a regularly scheduled personal practice. I used to have a very solid devotion/prayer schedule: daily devotion (often at dawn), twice weekly trance work, weekly solitary rite, full moon rite, new moon rite, Druid moon rite, and high day rite. These days I’m lucky if I manage a devotion once a week, trance work really only happens about once a month, and I’m down to just the grove Druid moons and high days. I’ll admit: I was feeling pretty guilty and inferior about it.

Continue reading “I’ve Been Praying All Along” →

Harvesting the Garden

Today I weeded, watered, and harvested my mini-garden.  It’s getting close to time that I’m going to need to start repotting some of my plants and either taking them with me or finding them new homes.  My basil had bolted, so I had a lot of flowers to cut off of it in order to encourage more leaf growth.  Basil certainly likes to flower.  If I leave it alone for a few days it’s gets far too excitable to start reproducing :).  The mint in the far corner also started flowering like mad.  It’s strange: there were flies perched all over the flowers.  I cut the flowers off, so hopefully that will take care of that problem.  I also trimmed some of my chives and used them to make tasty pasta for dinner.  Yummy!  The final discovery for today was that my fennel had finally seeded.  I’d let my fennel flower and go to seed and today I noticed that the seeds are finally ready to take off the plant.  Yay!  So now I have seeds for cooking, gifting, and planting next year :).

The Vila

Felt a draw to the Vila.  I don’t often feel a connection to any gods out of the Hellenic pantheon.  Some quick info on her:

Samovila:

Slavic Goddess of the woods who is the fierce protector of all animals. She has the ability to shapeshift into a falcon, horse, snake, swan or a whirlwind and would not hesitate to cause harm to anyone who threatens her creatures. She lives deep in the woods and has great knowledge of plant medicine.

Eastern European Goddess who lived deep in the woods and was a great protector of animals. If anyone harmed any of her creatures, they could be lured into a magical circle and danced to death, or perhaps caught in a landslide or drowned in a river. As a shape shifter, she could be a falcon, swan, snake, horse or whirlwind. She might agree to teach a human her skills if the proper ceremony were performed in the woods on a full moon Sunday before sunrise.

[Vila+-+Shape+Shifting.jpg]

The Vila:

I dance from form to form

I shift from shape to shape

ever changing

ever expanding

ever becoming

I am flexibility

for by changing my form

I freely flow with all that comes my way

I am consciousness

for by shifting my shape

I gain an expanded awareness of what it is to BE

I waltz a whirlwind

tango a tree

salsa a swan

or just plain fox-trot

My dance is an affinity with All

for I am able to become All in order to know All

Becoming All dissolves form

Knowing All creates Oneness

The illusion is that you have a separate shape

Vila (pronounced vee’lah) is the eastern European name for the Goddess energy moving through the earth as nature. Vily (plural) are very protective of their terrain and use their arrows of death on those who trespass. They are consummate shape-shifters, able to change into animals such as snakes, swans, falcons, and horses. They love to play and dance. If contacted in the forest on a moonlit night, they might grant health, wealth, abundant crops or they might, if shown disrespect, dance the offender to death.