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The dragon woke up! Having a high standard is lovely. … Being a perfectionist isn’t lovely. 

A few years ago, I had to cut back a wild rosebush because it was threatening the wiring on a utility pole. I seasoned some of the wood, for talismans.

The other day, I looked at a crooked stick of wood from that culling and saw a dragon. 

We're modern people, not Bronze Age Minoans. But in Modern Minoan Paganism, we do some things that ancient people would have found familiar. Among those is the presentation of offerings to the gods. We do this quietly on our home altars or a bit more loudly sometimes, in group ritual.

A while back, I wrote about the kinds of offerings we make to the various gods and goddesses - what they like and what they don't. But the way we make offerings, or more specifically, the kinds of containers we use for them, take their inspiration from the Minoans.

Check out this early 5th-century gilded silver pendant from West Gotland in Sweden.

If Stockholm University's Anders Andrén is right, this is an image of the ancestral universe.

According to Andrén, what at first looks like an abstract design—known to art historians as a pelta (“shield”) or mushroom-shaped design—is actually the World Tree (Andrén 140).

(Andrén does not say why it is that, if so, the World Tree's branching volutes should end in animal [=serpent?] heads, although the design has parallels in other contemporary art from Gotland [Andrén 141]. My own eisigesis [=”reading in”] would be that here we see the Tree of Life resolving into animal life.)

At the top, we see the long-rayed zenith Sun, flanked by the short-rayed Suns of Sunrise and Sunset.

Mama Moon enters the analytical rebel’s sign of Aquarius on Dec. 10 at 3:39 pm pst until Dec. 13 at 2:39 am.

Emotionally this is a fairly feel-good Moon-Time although you may find yourself feeling overly protective of loved ones so try not to over-indulge your ego by forcing them to follow your truth with a capital “T”. You are not god/dess. Your loved one may need to take responsibility for their own self care and healing for it to actually work.

          According to Wikepedia, were it not for Alexander the Great, we might not have Christmas cookies. Not really, but in 327 BC he discovered and spread sugar cane that is the source for their basis, first throughout Persia and eventually Europe. The early little cakes or cookies would probably taste strange to us today. They were spiced with whatever was on hand, including cumin, and either shaped by hand or rolled and pressed on wooden boards carved with cut out shapes. The invention of cookie cutters helped form their myriad shapes.

I know that many will agree with me when I say that 2018 has been rough.  As this year draws to its conclusion, I’ve been looking through old journals and have taken note of previous entries.  2016 was confusing and filled with alarm.  2017 was a fighting and frightening year.  And 2018… Well.  We’re just tired now.

“As candles burn and bells jingle,
Remember the dark and the quiet.
They are the reason for the season,
And should be held as dear.”

—Kay Holt

I've continued to go semi-regularly to a yin yoga class in a nearby town. Even though I practice yoga by myself every morning and have for eighteen years, it is really nice self-care treat to go to this class.