Oh, sh**, I'm an addict!!

No fear, readers, I'm talking about cigarettes.

Yes, it seems I'm a late bloomer in the smoking department.  Over the last few years if I did smoke, I'd either get a handrolled from Xsjana or roll my own from a round Tupperware box that still smells like vanilla. Recently, though, it's been Stuyvesant Menthol (which clears the sinuses like a bitch!) or Winston Blue (sorry, love, that was your doing).  But ja, it went from only smoking with Xsjana to smoking at braais and long visits, and now I even buy my own boxes.  Ugh.  I'm soi\ going back to the menthols - J and I bought a box of Princeton Reds between us, and more than one in a four-hour period really makes the throat feel whacky.  So, if I do decide to get again, I'm making sure I have the dosh for Stuyvs.  The cheap kak is really... well, kak.

Everyone who knows my family and I knows we like REALLY powerful voices, or voice effects, in the singers we listen to.  I like Florence Welsh's voice, Annie Lennox, Turkish singer Sertab Erener, even Katy Perry (it helps her stuff's catchy, too) and Alanis Morissette.  Take as an example Anni9e Lennox's version of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen".  Not only does she do an truly amazing choral version of it (that's how it sounds to me, though:  as if there are three of her singing all at once).  It also helps that she actually has a real-life hurdy-gurdy in the musical array - OMG, who even knows what the heck a hurdy-gurdy is anymore!?  And then the pennywhistle and the clapping come in...  Wow.  Total audio bliss, as fas as I'm concerned.  This specific song has been popping into my head quite a bit over the last few days and I'm lucky enough to have it on my phone, so, on the bus, if I suddenly have this urge to have my skin run goosebumps, on goes "Rest Ye Merry".

I'm not a fan of long nails.  The fact of the matter is, having long nails makes me scratch myself open - I have a horrible habit of picking and scratching at my skin and having nails means I always walk away from those encounters with little holes breaking the surface of my skin.  HOWEVER:  I'm trying to grow my nails for a bit.  People around me have been cutting their hair, but I've been told by a number of people, including at LEAST one hairstylist, that I should keep my hair as it is.  Cool.  I shall then do just that.

So, in lieu of cutting my hair, I shall be growing and then cutting my nails.  My friends have been doing it as a sort of "letting go" - but I like my hair way too much, though :P

But damn, it's a bitch!  I'm constantly afraid of breaking or bending a nail, especially since I've been doing quite a bit of art and building up of my projects for class.  I actually hope to be able to cut at least two of them down to size over the next two weeks.  My point is, I get it.  I can now finally, and fully, appreciate the effort that goes into growing a set of nails.

This last piece of the post goes out to the lady whose service we attended on Friday, Mariaan Waagenaar.  (Dia Frampton's "Don't Kick the Chair" is playing in the other tab as I type here right now).  For those new to the blogs or any mention of Oma Waagenaar, she was my cousin's grandmother and battled cancer for twenty-odd years - certainly longer than I actively remember knowing her.  In varying degrees she's either played a major or a minor role in my life.  The fact is, she's always been there.  Even after my aunt divorced Bart, Oma was there.  My father and Bart were friends at school, and it's through my dad that my aunt met him in the first place, and thus Oma and Opa Waagenaar (side note:  I'm not forgetting the "u" in "ouma" - this is how it's written in Dutch and German).  Long story short, Oma's always played some kind of a role in my life.

Her life, and her immense battle with that plague on humanity, cancer, ended last Sunday morning, on the 14 of April.  It's strange, but for someone who was always there, I didn't feel anything about her passing.  Sunday I even forgot to tell J, and I feel like a right git for it, but hey, there you have it.  Throughout the whole week I only felt a sort of nothingness that she was gone.  No good feelings, no bad feelings, no feelings at all.  Even when I was asked to be a pall bearer (it was a REALLY lovely coffin - woven completely out of wicker, a literal basket coffin), I didn't bat an eyelash; I just said, "Oh, all right."

Friday morning I help clean the house.  I vacuum, first my room, then the passage and the braai room, lounge, foyer, dining-room-to-be, etc.  I get out my shirt fix my formal shoes (with a GLUE GUN and HOT GLUE, please note), make sure my things are packed to be dropped off at J's afterwards and off we go.  Get there and I'm smiling and laughing along with the rest of them.  the undertaker-dude opens his hearse (a very modern family van) and we take out what's left of Oma's latest incarnation.  the basket was heavier than it looked; even with six of us carrying it, I really felt the weight of it.  Throughout the whole thing up until this point I kept going over the Klingon acceptance ritual:  "It is an empty shell.  Do with it what you like."  And I was fine.  Until I saw uncle Martin and Dean's faces.  We carried Oma's basket to the memorial photo and put it on the trolley.  This is where I finally felt everything I should have felt over the week.  I didn't quite break down, but it felt like I was very close to it.  I saw what my aunt and the family were going through - I could deal with myself.  I did just that.

The service itself was in Dutch, so except for Dean's poem, "My Ouma's Blue Eyes", I didn't follow it too well.  And just like that it was over.  Oma Waagenaar was officially no more.

We had tea and cake afterwards and you know what?  It was so pleasant.  It truly was.

I call to the Spirits of the East, of the Element of Air;
Fly her to Spirit and guide her true.
I call to the Spirits of the North, of the Element of Fire;
Let her talents and passions not be lost, but granted to their next bearer.
I call to the Spirits of the West, of the Element of Water.
Let the pain of her passing be eased, and out hearts filled only with the joy of having had her in our lives.
I call to the Spirits of the South, of the Element of Earth;
Let the ashes that were once her body once more become a part of the Cycle of Life to remind us that even Death is a part of our Journey.
I call to Deity, that spark of Divinity that fills and connects all Life;
May her next incarnation be joyous and blessed and free from the ills that plagued her in this one, and may she touch the lives of others and share her joys the same way as she did in this one.

So mote it be.

Not being able to blog off my phone is incredibly annoying.

That said, not being able to blog on the run has its advantages, such as being able to properly plan my blogs and then figure out the best way to present them to you.

Now, on with the blog (^_^)

A short poem:

Pelicans in the twilight;
A peach coloured sky.
Let the dark of the night descend.

[Applause]

Thank you, thank you!

As a class we've reached a rather interesting point in our studies:  Magick and the application thereof.  Well, the basics of it, I should actually say.  I won't go into details ( just in case you were wondering ), but I will say that magick isn't for everyone.  The precision that goes into it can't be learned overnight, and once you have that down, you have to learn to be able to construct a spell properly.  Then there are the Laws of Magick ( yes, Harry Potter ran into a few of them, too ) and the ethics, as well as the different grades and views on what Grey, Black and White magick are and involve.  Hectic, I tell you!

But all worth it.  If I think about all the times I really wanted to use a spell or a ritual for something, I want to blush for wanting to rush headlong into things - and this is "before" I was even Pagan!  I'm glad I always found a way to make things right without the use of magick, but what if I had encountered a situation I couldn't fix in theusual manner?  I'm thinking I would have made such a blunder of it as to get myself into trouble.  Thank you, Lord Zedd, for your help and patience.

Over the last few days I've been doing a lot of reading about the Titans and I feel I found the original subject of "woman scorned":  the Titan Gaia.  For those who don't know, the Titan Gaia was one of the two original Titans, the other being her husband Uranus.  At some point in their marriage this twit went and buried three of her sons underground so that they wouldn't know the light.  In her anger she created a great stone sickle and called together her sons to exact her revenge.  However, of all of them, only the Titan Cronus (Kronos) was willing to carry out her revenge.  So Gaia hid Cronus in ambush and when Uranus came to see his wife, Cronus jumped out and sliced off his dad's nuts.  Yes, that's right:  he deknackered hid daddy.

As a side note, this is why images of Cronus show him with a sickle, and why the sickle was his emblem.

How's that for not fucking with a mother, eh?

Righto, here's me leaving now.  Love you all!

*D*

NOW I REMEMBER!!

I remember why I don't usually read self-help, biographical or "documentary" type books:  they're dead frikking boring!

Although, I will admit, I'm enjoying "Pagan Paths" ( boring-ness and all! ) and I rather enjoyed "Under anAfrican Moon".

To be honest, if I hadn't needed to hand in book-reports, I wouldn't be reading these at all.

A second Sunday Post

These photos were ,meant to be posted WEEKS ago.  I know not everyone has me on Facebook, so here are some piccies in the meantime just to browse through.

There will be a more serious effort on my part to post more pics.  I take some just for the blog and simply never get to put them up x_x

Love to you all!!

"Confessions of a Pagan Nun"

It's been a long while since I've reviewed anything on this blog and today, finishing a short book report/review for class, I felt I had to share this.

Confessions of a Pagan Nun, written by Kate Horsley, gives us a first-person account of the "death" of Paganism in 6th Century Ireland.

The foreword of the book explains, via "Translator's Note", that a box made of clay and iron was found in a well holding human remains.  In the box was a codex bound in leather and dated to around 500 A.D.

The story is told by the "nun" Gwynneve, who tells us of her birth and early years (up until her mother's death) in the clan village of Tarbhflaith.  Gwynneve leaves home to study with the druid Giannon, a person neither warm nor friendly, and from whom Gwynneve learns about the magic of reading and writing and is introduced to the immortality offered by little black marks scratched into paper and the way the little marks share knowledge.

In between the pieces describing her past, Gwynneve keeps us up-to-date with happenings at the monastery at which she lives, the shrine of Saint Brigit, where she and the other nuns maintain the ever-burning flame of the saint.  The arrival of the new abbot sparks different fears among both the nuns and the community.  When a baby's grave is desecrated night after night, the youngest nun, Sister Ailenn, inadvertantly points the finger at Gwynneve when she points out that Gwynneve still visits the forest to collect herbs and natural remedies.

All in all, this story is worth the read, even if it is a bit slow.  As it is written in the style of a memoir, don't go looking for accounts of magick and swordplay.  Instead, look for the lessons Gwynneve tries to leave in her writings, and as a final piece of advice, take her three opinions to heart - they mean so much to me personally.