I kiss you
And every incarnation of you,
As hound and beast,
And bone white death.
I kiss the soil of corpses,
And the soft moon flowers.
And in each kiss your
Breath
Softly curls around my heart and soul
Claiming me as yours
Poem Copyright 2013 of Nightshade author of The Purple Broom
I have been nominated for the Versatile Blogger award by Jessika from A Witch’s Healing. Thank you very much!
7 things about me:
1. I am currently working as a Casual Shop Assistant for a Shoe Store. One of the things I have learnt about myself as a Retail assistant, is that I enjoy making people happy. Seeing a smile on happy customer’s face is truly a wonderful thing. Of course sometimes when we have to sell! sell! SELL! we lose our integrity and that is very hard for this witch to reconcile with her values.
2. I have bought tickets to the Rihanna concert for mine and my boyfriend’s 8 year Anniversary! Wooohooo! At this concert I’m definitely gonna drink!
3. I am currently reading “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman, what an awesome read! I am reading this slowly as I have so many obligations now, I barely have time to read before dozing off at night. This book has helped me to solidify my thoughts on a particular matter within neo-wicca and paganism. I have often seen people comment about how the gods do not understand our modern ways, that we must do everything like they did back then, except of course for the truly heinous things, because the gods don’t change or grow. Now that may be the case if our gods were only archetypes, but they are not. The Gods are not some static “out-there” beyond us idea, but are complex beings that grow as we grow, change as we change.
The gods back in the day had regional variations, just as they do now, and today they have taken up different epithets and reflect us as we are now. The more globalised we become, the more global our gods become, this is why Steampunk Anubis and modern-day Hekate with her Dobermans and gothic cane are truly resonant with me. I worship my gods in a particular way, my morning devotions are not formal affairs, they are tea time chats with good friends. I have my formal ceremony, because don’t we all like a glitzy dinner party/ball once in a while? But the relationship is never static. I’ve changed in my 24 years on this Earth, my core remains the same but aspects of myself have grown, been discarded or changed, what makes people think our gods who are far older, bigger and more complex than us have not.
4. I have practically run screaming back into the broom closet. I have to keep my religious beliefs tightly under lock and bitten tongue at work, as I work with people who have proven to not understand a path like mine. In many ways this is not a negative thing. No one needs to know my spiritual path in order to validate it, for it to be worthy, important, beautiful and fulfilling. It is hard, however, to not speak up about my spirituality when my colleagues refer to me and themselves as lost souls because we are not abstaining from various “hedonistic” behaviours that are verboten by their holy texts.
5. My personal Facebook account has become a space of ranty outbursts and pretty pictures. Of course all my keyboard activism doesn’t accomplish much when my profile is as private as a lady’s underwear draw. I have become scared to voice my opinion more publicly on my Purple Broom Facebook page and I feel so incredibly guilty and shitty about it. Maybe it is my current need to feel liked and in doing so I’m only being complacent. This of course will have to change. Perhaps I need a bit of dutch courage.
6. I have lost so much respect for the pagan community in the last few weeks particularly within South Africa, where adults who are meant to be Pagan Leaders and Role-models act like bratty adolescents on Facebook, and people corner each other, taking sides and dividing us up for their own personal agendas. The cock-swinging “My pagan community is bigger, better and more loyal than yours” thing is utterly ridiculous. I also often wonder why I even bother calling myself pagan anymore, pagans cause the most damage to their own community. I am a Witch I am here to serve my gods, and the spirits. I have gone back to my secluded anti-social ways discussed before in a previous post about pagan community, as I realise how impossible it is for me to ever fit in anywhere, other than among the trees, animals, gods and spirits.
7. Every day is a daily struggle against hating myself, my face, my body, my personality. I struggle against the propaganda that women are supposed to look like media images, that we’re supposed to have big bouncy gravity defying boobs and tiny toned tummies. I struggle against the idea that I’m supposed to be perky and happy all the time and enjoy the sexist statements and behaviour of friends, colleagues and random strangers. I struggle with myself because I now work in an industry that relies on the low self-esteem of women and the pick-me-up that consumerism offers but which ultimately only succeeds to re-enforce.
15 nominations:
5. PixiePagan
6. Ramblings of a Hearth Witch
11. Cos Wicca Mom
12. Lily Wight
13. The life and Times of a Forever Witch
14. EarthMother195
There are no words; there is only my love, my devotion, my tears, my faith and the rhythm of the dance in my bones.
There is this thing that happens when I have been out of my creative cycle for a while, where I have all these images in my head, but no way in which to execute them. It is as if the cords of creation from my mind to my hand have been tied up so tightly into a messy knot that everything I draw is scrumpled up and thrown away.
My time is then spent forcing out the knot, by sketching… useless things, things that make no sense, angles that are incorrect, disproportionate, erased marks which leave the paper thin and worn, over and over until the knot is finally released.
Today I am picking at these knots.
I am having the worst writer’s block possible. It is a wall, like the wall of china. The only way to get over this wall, however, is to go through it, that means tearing out my nails, and leaving bloody prints on the wall as I climb up, or I can go the bull dozing route and force my way through. I still haven’t decided which way I am going with, but I’ve decided that I need to start somewhere… and this little crack in the wall, that is my day off is the place to start.
*
I am carving myself out of tears and faith.
*
The seasons have changed and we are now looking down the barrel of winter. Winter is a really hard season for me, last year I spoke a bit about my Seasonal Affective Disorder and last night my panic attack and half-remembered dreams of Hekate signal the work I have to do during these cold and dark months.
*
Black dogs are darting in and out of my pathway. It doesn’t matter that the pathway isn’t always in this realm, they are howling at the moon, calling me to dance with them, lose myself, surrender and let go…again.
*
There is a bottle of wine in the fridge, and it is tempting to down the whole thing, just so I do not have to think of tomorrow for a change.
*
There are these thick, red tendrils slithering down my back; bloody ropes. They are winding themselves around my limbs, melding into my flesh, it is painful and beautiful, a sweet ecstasy of love and eternity.
*
This is the season of Ravens, their screech piercing through the cold air. There is nothing to keep them from beating their wings and changing the rhythm of the universe, but they sit and they stare, and they croak and they cry; the universe beats on.
I must apologise for my absence of late, but it has been for a very good reason…
I have acquired a job as a casual worker and I have been super busy! I haven’t had much time to myself, and I haven’t really been able to get myself to write a blog due to an awful case of writers block.
But ’tis Samhain and it is time for those of us who walk on the wilder side, to dance with the dead and feast in celebration of the cycle of life.
I am working over the next two days so I won’t be able to have as big a feast and dance as I’d like but I will be feasting and dancing and working with my Ouija board.
The veil has thinned and the spirits of those who have left this physical plane can commune more easily with us. It is also Harvest time, a time to feast upon the fruits of the Earth. For me this is one of the most sacred festivals, as it is a “crossroads” of sorts in and of itself. Samhain is known as the Witches New Year after all, and it comes with its own sense of letting go and moving on.
I light each candle on my Ancestral altar, remembering those who I have lost, family, friends, pets, all those who have become guardians, guides, companions on the other side. This time is often said to be solemn, but for me it is a time to Dance.
And tonight I shall dance and feast, make love and be merry, the masks I wear every day will fall off, and I will be wild and free while the spirits dance alongside me, howling and thumping and singing as the wheel turns once more…
My Samhain altar
Here is a sketch I did over the weekend. This is just an initial sketch and I’d like to do more with it 
Pencil and Pen Sketch on Paper A3 Copyright Nightshade 2013
