[Pagan Blog Project] H is for Home Cleansing

Since we just moved into a new house (I need to change the picture on this blog), I thought sharing the house cleansing I plan to do would be appropriate.  It’s a fairly simple process, and it should have been done before we moved in here, but after will work, too. 

Start by cleaning EVERYTHING (floors, walls, counters, windows, etc.) with some form of lavender in order to purify and to attract positive energies.  It can be simple lavender water, it can be powdered lavender, whatever you prefer will work.  Move widdershins as you do this, and perform this chant:

Negative energy be gone from here

Only positive and good come near.

Now that you have cleaned the house, the next step is to sweep negative energy away.  Weather permitting, open all your doors and windows.  After you do so, take your besom, thoroughly “sweep” out every room, even the closets, even the garage!  Again, move widdershins.  While you do so, continue to repeat the chant. 

Close the doors and windows.  Light a sage bundle (VERY lightly, you don’t want problems with smoke inhalation!).  Once again, moving widdershins and repeating the chant, walk through the house, stopping at every door, every window, and in every room to describe a pentagram with your sage.  Repeat the above chant if you feel it is necessary.  This last step will finish the cleansing and protect against the return of negative energy.

After you have finished, do whatever you can to keep negative energy away and encourage positive energy to fill the space.  Burn rosemary incense, laugh a lot, perform a House Blessing—anything you feel will keep the balance in the positive.

The house should now feel light and airy.

[Pagan Blog Project] G is for God

(I missed the first week of ‘G’ because I was right in the middle of moving last Friday.  Quite literally, all my material possessions were being carried from the house to the truck that day.  I decided I would not miss this week, late or not, no matter what kind of chaos the move was causing in the new house.  J  )

Oddly enough, I’m going to start this Pagan post with a discussion of the Christian God.  No, I haven’t entirely missed the point.  It’s just that growing up as a female in the Catholic Church, I developed an antagonistic view of male gods in general.  Once I discovered Wicca and was free of that, of Him, it kind of backlashed and allowed me to really, truly hate Him, and in turn have difficulty with all other male deities.

And yet, I felt the need for balance.  I just couldn’t see myself on a Dianistic path.  For one thing, I wanted to follow a path my DH and I could walk together.  For another, I couldn’t see dismissing my DH, and every other male in my life, because I had problems with a god that just happened to be the same sex.  Not that the Dianistic tradition does that, as far as I know.  But it’s what I felt I would need to do if I chose to go that or a similar way.

So I had to find a way to come to terms with a penis on some of my deities.  It was hard (pardon the pun).  And I’m still not all the way there.  But it’s gotten better.  It took a lot of reading and study and meditation, but I can now love and admire and respect the Goddess’ consort almost as much as I do Her.  I can appreciate His value and yes, even His maleness.  I can praise Him and speak to Him in ritual and seek His help and guidance.  In turn, I find I don’t resent male gods in other pantheons, either.

As to my relationship with the Christian God, I don’t know.  Christians and their attitudes keep getting in the way.  Intellectually, I recognize He is just another aspect of THE God, but I still find it hard to keep resentment and anger out of my emotions when I think of Him.

Luckily, I don’t have to think of Him very often at all, anymore.

Bittersweet, Part 3

(This is the third in a series of three moments during which I realized that leaving here is not completely without poignant sentiment.)

The third time came Tuesday, as the kitchen was being packed around me.  I was sitting at the kitchen table while half a dozen or so movers (packers?) were moving all over the house, packing and organizing and labeling.  The house is no longer ours, for all intents and purposes.  I typed this on Tuesday, and it doesn’t actually change hands until Friday, but the terms and conditions were met long ago, and with all our belongings slowly disappearing into clouds of paper and mounds of cardboard, we’re all but gone from here.

We plan to sleep here until they actually load our belongings on Thursday, and we won’t be moving into the new place until Friday.  As of today, we can no longer cook here and will be forced to rely on either the microwave or restaurants for our meals until we’re actually unloaded in the new place next Monday.  Because of all this, there is soon to be very little of “us” here.  Once again, there’s that bittersweet feeling.

As I realized this, I decided I needed to make note of these emotions while I was feeling them.  I had planned to write in my BOS about this move, but it was nowhere near me.  Neither was this computer, so I wrote it in our “Moving Notebook,” an inexpensive spiral notebook in which we made notes when we were leaving Vancouver.  We used it on the trip from BC to California, and again when on the move from California to Ontario. 

It probably fits better there than anywhere else.

[Update:  The movers did not finish on Thursday, as was planned.  They need an extra day.  But that's alright, because the buyers ran into a glitch with their paperwork, so they won't actually be taking possession until Monday.  I write this update in an exhausted condition in a hotel.  We still plan to be out tomorrow, move cats to their new home, pick up the boys for a weekend visit in said new home, and collapse in exhaustion.

Wish us luck.]