{"id":6277,"date":"2012-01-01T01:10:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T06:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=6456"},"modified":"2011-12-29T13:45:01","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T18:45:01","slug":"hearth-and-home-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2012\/01\/01\/hearth-and-home-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearth and Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blessed Be The \u2013 What?
\n<\/strong>
\nI am a pagan woman living in the 21st<\/sup> century, doing 21st<\/sup> century stuff.\u00a0 Living in a modern-ish\u00a0 house, I wear jeans and sneakers; watch tv, drive a car and my BOS is not beautifully hand written on handmade paper in an ancient old book ( a little is) but the most it is on my computer, on printed pieces of paper \u2013 it is modern. There is a little part of me, ok so there is a big part of me who would love to turn back the clock and go back to live in an old cottage on a few acres of land \u2013 doing a little of that old hedge witch stuff, like I did once before.. However this old cottage living is not always what it is cracked up to be nor as romantic as it sounds.\u00a0 Let me tell you a wee story, something I remembered while looking at online real estate, yes for old cottages in the woods.<\/p>\n

We once lived in a 70 year old cottage. \u00a0There is historically, graceful well-loved old and there is, just old. <\/em>We fell into the latter. Once upon a time it used to be an old shop with the living quarters at the back, with bits added here and there.\u00a0 The shop front became a large storage unit and it was very cluttered with the house owners things. \u00a0Very hard at times to keep the energy nice with that clutter attached to your living area however. I digress though. This wee cottage is small, wee small, very small tiny even. Two bedrooms, with the lounge and kitchen area all in one room, the kitchen is closed off by a half wall, so when your creating in the kitchen you can still be part of the family in the other area whether you want to or not. \u00a0It was definitely unique; the roof space had another family in it! I never went up there to look but my goodness, come bedtime they would do bog laps in the crawl space, and the mice and I often had a battle of wills, they often won by share numbers. We took it sight unseen as we had no desire to live on the Navy Base, and we were and are very Blessed to have been offered it and to spite all the houses little quirks, it was filled with lots of love and laughter.
\nHowever, due to it’s smallness finding an area to set up my sacred space and working altar was a bit of a challenge, our bedroom was not practical, the little room we use as a computer room wasn’t either, so with a little rearranging, I commandeered a very small area behind the main door and beside the hearth, it felt perfect.. I could sit before my altar feeling the warmth of the fire, and look out the window and watch the clouds; I could see the wind running her fingers through the leaves of the huge gum trees and watch the birds.\u00a0Myvanwy\u00a0(my beautiful\u00a0ceramic\u00a0witch) and my dragon sat perfectly under the window and my besom sat snugly between altar and hearth.. Visitors knew it is not somewhere you put your coffee mug, you don’t mess with the broom, or fiddle with anything least you get \u201cthe look\u201d , it is a respected place .. \u00a0This is all set up about 4ft feet from “our” chairs and the tiny lounge – so now the scene is set.
\nNow, has there ever been a time in your life when you have watched a scenario unfold in what seems to be slow motion? Well, I have had a few and this night was one of those times.\u00a0 It had been a busy sort of day, we had gone to a huge hardware place and bought my daughter a cute little outdoor table and\u00a0chairs\u00a0for her balcony, I had potted up some house plants for her to take home. During the week I\u00a0pre\u00a0packed and frooze a few meals for her to take home ‘Mums Red Cross parcels’ she calls them, so they needed to be put in a cooler bag for the trip, so once this was all done we packed up the car and drove her back to the city, it is about a 3 hour round trip depending on traffic, and after the\u00a0AFL (football) \u00a0final on Saturday afternoon, most of the fans where driving home on the Sunday afternoon. My man was getting a little frazzled on the journey home and it rubbed off, so when we got home, I decided to have a glass of wine and him a beer. We wanted to just sit for awhile and unwind so after about 30 minutes I went off to the kitchen to my pots and pans.
\nNow mind, I did say a glass – one,\u00a0uno, singular. 4.5% alcohol. Not much! So what transpired next was certainly not expected. I watched dumb struck, as my well read, articulate, smart, intelligent, handsome, loving and\u00a0usually\u00a0co coordinated man tripped over his shadow and half toppled the 4 feet from his chair into my sacred space. He tried to stop\u00a0himself\u00a0falling completely, putting out his arm which got tangled up in my Besoms bristles, at this point I wanted to close my eyes as I envisioned\u00a0him getting swept out the closed window on the broom.
\nThere was a crash and tinkling as my chalice hit\u00a0Myvanwy\u00a0on the head and broke, burnt charcoal and incense dust rising up in a small cloud – next thing there is my beloved sitting in the middle of my altar looking very sheepish!
\nI was speechless, I scrapped by jaw up of the kitchen floor and went over to him, once having\u00a0ascertained\u00a0he was in fact alright, the first thing out of my mouth was ” what on earth are you doing” at this point one would find it hard to believe I was\u00a0in fact\u00a0an\u00a0empath. \u00a0I picked up my broken, un-fixable chalice and put it on the\u00a0kitchen\u00a0bench, and not one more word was said by me. I was speechless and\u00a0couldn\u2019t absorb the\u00a0pantomime\u00a0that had just unfolded.
\nMy\u00a0dear husband\u00a0had\u00a0apologised\u00a0a hundred times and said he felt a little stupid. In the middle of dinner, a wave of mirth bubbled up as I played the\u00a0scenario\u00a0through my head again; I looked at him across the table, stifling a giggle I said… \u201cYou know it is a myth that witches\u00a0sacrifice\u00a0men on their altars” I laughed till tears where streaming down my face as I recalled the look on his face as he sat there, and then he smiled that smile that always melts my heart and said.. \u201cI know, but Blessed Be the Butt”<\/p>\n

What did I learn?\u00a0 That even in ritual or in a sacred place, humorous things happen and it is not something to fuss over.. I really to think our God and Goddess have a wee sense of humour themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blessed Be The \u2013 What? I am a pagan woman living in the 21st century, doing 21st century stuff.\u00a0 Living in a modern-ish\u00a0 house, I wear jeans and sneakers; watch tv, drive a car and my BOS is not beautifully hand written on handmade paper in an ancient old book ( a little is) but the most it is on my computer, on printed pieces of paper \u2013 it is modern. There is a little part of me, ok so there is a big part of me who would love to turn back the clock and go back to live in an old cottage on a few acres of land \u2013 doing a little of that old hedge witch stuff, like I did once before.. However this old cottage living is not always what it is cracked up to be nor as romantic as it sounds.\u00a0 Let me tell you a wee story, something I remembered while looking at online real estate, yes for old cottages in the woods. We once lived in a 70 year old cottage. \u00a0There is historically, graceful well-loved old and there is, just old. We fell into the latter. Once upon a time it used to be an old shop with the living quarters at the back, with bits added here and there.\u00a0 The shop front became a large storage unit and it was very cluttered with the house owners things. \u00a0Very hard at times to keep the energy nice with that clutter attached to your living area however. I digress though. This wee cottage is small, wee small, very small tiny even. Two bedrooms, with the lounge and kitchen area all in one room, the kitchen is closed off by a half wall, so when your creating in the kitchen you can still be part of the family in the other area whether you want to or not. \u00a0It was definitely unique; the roof space had another family in it! I never went up there to look but my goodness, come bedtime they would do bog laps in the crawl space, and the mice and I often had a battle of wills, they often won by share numbers. We took it sight unseen as we had no desire to live on the Navy Base, and we were and are very Blessed to have been offered it and to spite all the houses little quirks, it was filled with lots of love and laughter. However, due to it’s smallness finding an area to set up my sacred space and working altar was a bit of a challenge, our bedroom was not practical, the little room we use as a computer room wasn’t either, so with a little rearranging, I commandeered a very small area behind the main door and beside the hearth, it felt perfect.. I could sit before my altar feeling the warmth of the fire, and look out the window and watch the clouds; I could see the wind running her fingers through the leaves of the huge gum trees and watch the birds.\u00a0Myvanwy\u00a0(my beautiful\u00a0ceramic\u00a0witch) and my dragon sat perfectly under the window and my besom sat snugly between altar and hearth.. Visitors knew it is not somewhere you put your coffee mug, you don’t mess with the broom, or fiddle with anything least you get \u201cthe look\u201d , it is a respected place .. \u00a0This is all set up about 4ft feet from “our” chairs and the tiny lounge – so now the scene is set. Now, has there ever been a time in your life when you have watched a scenario unfold in what seems to be slow motion? Well, I have had a few and this night was one of those times.\u00a0 It had been a busy sort of day, we had gone to a huge hardware place and bought my daughter a cute little outdoor table and\u00a0chairs\u00a0for her balcony, I had potted up some house plants for her to take home. During the week I\u00a0pre\u00a0packed and frooze a few meals for her to take home ‘Mums Red Cross parcels’ she calls them, so they needed to be put in a cooler bag for the trip, so once this was all done we packed up the car and drove her back to the city, it is about a 3 hour round trip depending on traffic, and after the\u00a0AFL (football) \u00a0final on Saturday afternoon, most of the fans where driving home on the Sunday afternoon. My man was getting a little frazzled on the journey home and it rubbed off, so when we got home, I decided to have a glass of wine and him a beer. We wanted to just sit for awhile and unwind so after about 30 minutes I went off to the kitchen to my pots and pans. Now mind, I did say a glass – one,\u00a0uno, singular. 4.5% alcohol. Not much! So what transpired next was certainly not expected. I watched dumb struck, as my well read, articulate, smart, intelligent, handsome, loving and\u00a0usually\u00a0co coordinated man tripped over his shadow and half toppled the 4 feet from his chair into my sacred space. He tried to stop\u00a0himself\u00a0falling completely, putting out his arm which got tangled up in my Besoms bristles, at this point I wanted to close my eyes as I envisioned\u00a0him getting swept out the closed window on the broom. There was a crash and tinkling as my chalice hit\u00a0Myvanwy\u00a0on the head and broke, burnt charcoal and incense dust rising up in a small cloud – next thing there is my beloved sitting in the middle of my altar looking very sheepish! I was speechless, I scrapped by jaw up of the kitchen floor and went over to him, once having\u00a0ascertained\u00a0he was in fact alright, the first thing out of my mouth was ” what on earth are you doing” at this point one would find it hard to believe I was\u00a0in fact\u00a0an\u00a0empath. \u00a0I picked up my broken, un-fixable chalice and put it on the\u00a0kitchen\u00a0bench, and not one more word was said by me. I was speechless and\u00a0couldn\u2019t absorb the\u00a0pantomime\u00a0that had just unfolded. My\u00a0dear husband\u00a0had\u00a0apologised\u00a0a hundred times and said he felt a little stupid. In the middle of dinner, a wave of mirth bubbled up as I played the\u00a0scenario\u00a0through my head again; I looked at him across the table, stifling a giggle I said… \u201cYou know it is a myth that witches\u00a0sacrifice\u00a0men on their altars” I laughed till tears where streaming down my face as I recalled the look on his face as he sat there, and then he smiled that smile that always melts my heart and said.. \u201cI know, but Blessed Be the Butt” What did I learn?\u00a0 That even in ritual or in a sacred place, humorous things happen and it is not something to fuss over.. I really to think our God and Goddess have a wee sense of humour themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}