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I call upon the Goddess
She who weaves the whole.
I call upon the elements
Air, Fire, Water, and Earth.
I call upon my ancestors
the legacy of their years.
I call upon the creative pulse within
this fire of inspiration
I am privileged to carry and birth.
I call these together now to support,
recognize, honor, and witness
the completion of this year
and my work therein.

This week, I anointed my head, throat, heart and wrists with oil and settled down with representations of our work from 2018 for my annual ritual honoring the completion of the year. I burned incense, helped Tanner (4) waft palo santo around to all the stale corners of the house, and worked on the biz review section of the Shining Year workbook. I sang my new song of the year, celebrated myself for a year well spent, and thanked these creations for coming through me. After I acknowledged the work, I took a cleansing shower with a special salts mix from Sugar Muses and offered myself a body blessing of appreciation and gratitude. The words of blessing poured from me spontaneously in the shower and I wish I’d written it down for better recall, but perhaps it was meant as solely a personal experience. Today, I will walk the labyrinth as the final step in sealing the year. 

And sometimes there’s nothing quite like the familiarity of a ritual you’ve attended every year, for half a dozen years, knowing that you’ll be attending the very same ritual half a dozen more.

A Prayer Whispered into the Threshold

We're approaching Samhain here in the northern hemisphere, so my thoughts naturally turn toward the Ancestors. The Minoans didn't celebrate Samhain - it's a Celtic festival from a time many centuries after the fall of Minoan civilization and a place a great distance away from Crete. But the Minoans did honor the Ancestors and the spirits of the dead. In fact, as far as we can tell, that's something all ancient cultures did in one way or another.

The Minoans appear to have performed dining rites, something along the lines of a Dumb Supper, a meal where the spirits of the dead are invited as honored guests. The image at the top of this blog post is a fascinating terracotta model from the Minoan tholos tomb at Kamilari. It depicts four people in a dining shrine, seated with little tables in front of them. Two of the tables hold what appear to be loaves of bread. In front of the tables, two human-like figures are rising up out of the floor: the spirits of the dead.

For me, prospering financially, emotionally, and spiritually requires fully engaging in life, not backing off from whatever’s occurring. Being human, I readily forsake the moment, but if I move into the now on a somewhat consistent basis, abundance comes, accompanied by serenity. One of my blocks to being in the moment is finding glory in self-pity. I try to avoid it, even when things are at their worst, because self-pity makes my defeat more likely. For example, when we thought I had only months to live, trying to avoid self-pity and instead committing to the moment and being of service to it allowed triumph; now I have another 20 years in me.

I want to feel my life is of epic proportion. However, I don’t want to create that feeling by constantly dwelling on my problems, making them grow in my mind, so that I view myself to be an abandoned, struggling hero. 

Traditional lore can inform, gently point to mysteries, and outright open gateways. But, nowadays, in the Pagan community, rigid interpretation of lore often becomes a stranglehold on magical and spiritual practices.

I’ve spent years learning lore, meditating on it so it can inform shamanic lessons I give, and creating ritual based in lore. So I’d be the first to insist that, sometimes, lore provides definitive, irrefutable facts. However, common sense is needed.  

My mother taught me to think for myself. It was one of the greatest gifts a parent can give.