They have taken my Silence.
They have taken my peace.

The stags no longer come to feast upon the lilies.
The dragonflies no longer come to hold their court.
The trees no longer glow in the evening sun.

The glory of morning is replaced by pounding racket.
The forest is silent and angry.

The walls of men grow tall.

From within the depths, The Guardian growls.
His eyes flash with fury - awakened, disturbed, risen.

Too long has he waited.
Too long has he slept.

He gathers the darkness.
He gathers the light.

Up through the pressure,
Up through the rock,
Up through the roots and hare dens

He takes with him all that he loves,
To retreat into the wild,
Where the walls of man cannot stand,
Where their noise cannot enter.

A new haven he must find.

Down through the roots and hare dens,
Down through the rock,
Down through the pressure

To the soft Mother's embrace he returns.

In this space of beauty and silence,
Gathered there they shall be.

Mímisbrunnr

Far beneath, in the unseen world, lay the roots of Yggdrasil. Here, beneath one of the roots, where the great yawning void once existed, lies Mímisbrunnr - the well of wisdom. Ever it shines forth from the darkness, from which all things came. The master of this well is called Mimir, and he drinks from the well of wisdom every day. It is said that Odin once requested a single drink from Mimir's well; But Mimir refuses, unless Odin is willing to sacrifice his eye. Odin agrees to Mimir's terms, and Mimir grants him the single drink. The mead within Mimisbrunnr is capable of granting wisdom and intellect of immeasurable proportions. But Odin's thirst for knowledge and wisdom was not one of personal gain. He sought this knowledge in an attempt to prevent the destruction of the world he helped shape. As he drank from the well, he saw the coming sorrows of men and gods alike. And though he had come in hopes of finding a way of stopping the destruction of all things, he instead saw why all things must fall. He saw how these things would be dealt with in a noble manner. He saw a promise that should the gods and men meet their end with bravery and honor, that one day in the distant future, men and gods would once again meet the darkness....but this time, they would prevail.

Wisdom and power rarely give us the answers we originally thought we would receive. But with the right amount of unwavering will and willingness to give of oneself, wisdom will always lead us through destruction and into grace. Do I believe in the ending of the world? In many ways, the world ends and begins again each day and night. It ends just before the Winter Solstice, and begins again on the day of the celestial event. One moment, we are standing in the Sun's light. The next moment, we are plunged into darkness. The point being that night follows day, and day follows night...and we tend to think nothing of it. We meet these processes without fear. As such, should the end of all things come one day, we should meet it the same way we greet the black skies of night - with honor and wonder. For one day, all things will be new again, and light will fill the world once more.

If I don't write here again before the solstice, Happy Yule everyone! The days will soon grow longer! Stay warm and safe!

Three Years

Chris,

Three years ago, we made a decision that would change both of our lives forever. I remember being so reluctant to allow myself to love you. All of the pain from previous relationships can really tarnish a person's ability to just let down their guard, and to open up their heart. Fear and doubt take hold. But I realized that if I shut you out, I could have given up a chance at love. What a foolish thing to do! So, I reached down into myself, pulled out my dark and broken heart, and held it out in front of me for you to see. Without questioning me, without a second glance, you lifted it up and gave it new life.

Since then, I have lived more fully than I could have ever dreamed of living in all the years before. Three years...within them, a lifetime, an ocean of memories lives and breathes. To step back and look at all we've accomplished together brings me to new heights, and assures me that the decision to open my heart to you is at the top of my "Best Decisions I Ever Made" list.

Thank you for your gentle strength, and your perfect comedic timing and whit. Thank you for helping me see my dreams and stay true to them. And most of all, thank you for being so kind, loving, and understanding of my mending heart.

May we continue to be such excellent medicine to each other, and may we live to see our love grow until this world can no longer contain it! Happy Anniversary, Tut!

I Love You!

Ben

Leaping and Not Leaping

It's been a while since I posted. Sometimes, what I need to write has to steep in silence for a while before it finally bubbles up from the depths of my mind.

What follows is an e-mail I recently wrote to a friend of mine. It just poured out, and I feel the need to pour it out here as well:

I want to take a step in a new direction, but I guess I'm still afraid to take that required leap. It's like trying to force the trees to bud out after a long Winter. Despite my impatience, the trees just keep hitting snooze. But then one day, a green haze washes over the forest. I'm waiting for my green haze...impatiently. I can see the future me, and how fantastically free I will be. Technically, I'm already the future me;but that's another discussion entirely. It's the waiting...the process that's dull and painful. But painful processes are great teachers and character builders. They're what makes us who we are. I guess what I'm saying is that I need to be more friendly to my life's processes. 

I've been trying to get myself in the habit of maintaining a mental state of allowance - allowing life to happen, rather than trying to shape it too much. Interestingly enough, this is a concept I've been lead to through my practice of magic.When you hear people say "the world changes at the individual level," there is something deeper they're saying (often without realizing it). There is an inward landscape within each of us that must be allowed to unfold. When we can finally clearly see the inward shapes of our dreams and desires, we must then learn to accept them and shape what we do outwardly in accordance with the shape of what's within us. It's basically aligning yourself with what's already there. Through this alignment, manifestation is possible. Hope I'm making sense here. Discovering your TRUE will is no easy task. Accepting it and aligning your actions with it is even more difficult. The outside world seeks to suppress this within us, to the point where such a task seems completely impossible. And so, we stop dreaming. We stop looking at our inward landscape, and finally, we end up resisting it entirely. This resistance is what creates all the sorrow we feel. 

You have a great teacher sitting in your living room floor, playing with his Legos. At his age, your son acts from a place of his inner landscape. His dreams easily manifest, because he has not yet been fully suppressed by society. If there is a dragon in his inner landscape, he manifests this dragon in this world through the tools available to him. He does this without a second thought to other's opinions. He does this without fear. The mind of a child is the mind of pure human-beingness (not a word, I know). They represent all of which we are capable of doing and being. Pure potential and emotion, unscathed by societal pressures and structural "normality." They understand so much more than we do, because they have not yet been taught to forget how to understand. The understanding we knew as children was gradually carved away via our corrupt education systems, and societal and cultural pressures. Thus, our capacity for magic and realizing our true potential is systematically destroyed. The majority of people mourn the loss of these abilities their entire lives. But there are ways to recapture them, and this is my main goal: To recapture my capacity for magic and ABSOLUTE freedom of pursuing my true will. But my goal isn't selfish. I don't just want this for myself. Through this pursuit, through this change at the individual level, the outward landscape of this world will be changed as well.

Connectedness

You didn't come into this world.  You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.  You are not a stranger here. Alan Watts

In the whirlwind of greed and struggle for domination, we have become indoctrinated and enslaved. We have lost our sense of who we really are in relation to everything around us. We are brought up to believe that we are individual and separate from everything else. We are educated to become indentured servants to our own debt.

It's time that we finally open our eyes, and see that the system is broken. We are not merely lone lumps of particles randomly bumping up against other lone lumps. We are inextricably connected to the universe. If the  all the grass on the Earth dies tomorrow, we will all die soon after.

Th time has come to begin progressing toward a new way of life - a new system - a new structure. In order to survive, we must find balance. We must fully understand the all-encompassing co-dependence  of all things.

We are one organism. We are nature, and nature  is us. We must begin finding ways to live without being in constant conflict with nature, and thus without being in constant conflict with ourselves.

Lemon Balm Soap: Part III

Here it is! This first picture is of the entire five pound loaf of soap when I first took it out of the mold.

And here is what it looked like when I cut it into bars!

Sadly, the scent of the Lemon Balm didn't make it through the saponification process. But the soap smells like warm honey and herbal tea. So I'm still really happy with it. Plus, though it may not smell like my herbal ally, I know she's in there - and so do you.

I've also worked on a few other little projects since finishing this soap: All natural lip balm with peppermint and grapefruit essential oils, a salt scrub with peppermint, patchouli, vetiver, and ylang ylang essential oils, and a brand spankin' new pink grapefruit soap. Oh, and I'm also gearing up to make some all natural incense. Hopefully, I have some of that ready to post to my Etsy shop by the end of next week!

Lemon Balm Soap: Part II

For a splash of color, I'm adding some powdered parsley. Parsley has very high Chlorophyll content, and is known for keeping it's bright, grass green color, even after undergoing saponification. Lots of folks who make all natural soap struggle with color, since many natural color additives quickly lose their luster once the lye is added.

Just below, I've dissolved the organic acacia honey in some warm distilled water. 

Next, I weigh out the lye. Lye is absolutely necessary for making true soap. There's no way around it. The goal here is to calculate the lye/oil ratio perfectly, so that the lye completely expends itself as it transforms the oils into soap. If properly measured and mixed, you end up with pure saponified oils (soap) that is gentle and cleansing. 

Below, I've strained the olive oil, and it's reflecting my kitchen cabinets nicely. :P

Remember the herbal infusion I made in Part I? The I've strained it out and it's ready for the lye to be added.

Next, I add the lye to the herbal infusion carefully. You can't see it in this next picture, but I've got big purple rubber gloves on to protect my dainty hands from lye burns. This next picture shows the lye/herbal infusion in an ice bath on the left, and the Lemon Balm infused olive oil on the right.

 Next, I've added the lye/herbal infusion solution to the olive oil. Commence the stirring! Stir, stir, stir, and stir some more. This part takes a while. It's important that the lye solution and oil are mixed very well to prevent pockets of burning pain in your bars of soap. No one like pockets of burning pain.

The image below shows the mixture at a stage when it's ready to be poured. Notice the difference between the picture above? It's all creamy looking now. Mmmm. Creamy...

Here's a picture of the mold I'm using. It's a 5 pound wooden soap mold, lined with freezer paper.

Inside the mold, I've added a little parsley powder and chamomile buds.

This next picture shows the soap mixture after I've added some parsley powder.  Green is good!

And here we have the mixture after it's been poured into the mold, all nice and swirly!

I always make a little more than 5 pounds of soap. The next picture shows my smaller 2 pound mold, filled with the remaining green soap mixture.

And finally, I offer a "Thank You" to my ally, Lemon Balm. She gave much, and is due some gratitude.

Stay tuned for Part III of Lemon Balm Soap, where I remove the soap from the mold, and cut it into bars.