Tides

There's nothing quite like the Samhain tide to open your emotions.

It is said that twice a year, at Samhain and Beltane, the veil between the worlds becomes tenuous and crossings from one to the other are more common. But in my case, I reckon it's just that at these times I'm more aware of the existence of the veil, and other worlds, than at more mundane times.

And so I am dreaming, and nightmaring, enough to keep me for the rest of the year, it seems.

My loved ones and ancestors are featuring quite heavily in my dreams - sometimes unrecognisable by their appearance yet completely known for who they are and were to me - old fears are playing themselves out and connections are being rebooted.

Head tipped back into the (finally) winter-blue sky this morning, I watch a fairy crossing above me.

No...not a fairy...a locust, with its rainbow wings whirring. I remember that I am quite averse to locusts on the ground and step out of its flight path quickly.

Music is getting stuck in my mind, so I switch my electronic collection on to shuffle and listen to Joe Walsh, Corvus Corax and Tim Hardin. Ah, the poor heroin-addicted boy who never managed to claw his way out of the poppy's grip before it killed him.

Emotions are raw yet surprisingly manageable in this season of other-worldly connection.

I view a house a friend (and teenage sweetheart) used to live in as a boy - 4 doors down on Arthur Road, long since sold up as the matriarch's health failed.

I reconnect with the Covenant of Hekate, thinking to honour Her Fires again this year, when the Moon is right.

I miss the Gautrain Bus, the drivers of which have been on strike for almost a week now, and don't fancy the stress of driving in a car through Sandton traffic this afternoon - never mind what stress it must be giving Warren to do the actual driving.

I remember my Mom, who, when last seen in the dreamworld was wearing a different face, whose last-incarnation-birthday it is today.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I miss you still.

I'm thinking the tide will be gentler this year, as I get older and possibly more able to handle it. The retrograde motions of both Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn seem to be helping this softer view along. We introspected our immediate daily souls last month with the Mercury backtrack, and now a slightly higher portion of our collective Self will be pondering the tracks and ruts of time and space.

Hopefully. As past the veil we slide together, holding hands, some of us shrieking, some of us crying, some of us looking about in wonder and awe.Tides.

Styx

Beneath the ground, a river runs.

In the darkness of the mass unconscious, a river flows.

Some of us it flows right through and others of us it flows around, and under - and we get to dip a toe in  it now and again.

Some of us were born with the river within, and some have opened their veins to admit it.

But all of us were born of the river.

It is the source and constant flow of all of Life. Endless, eternal, never ceasing.

To merge with its waters is the sublime experience of death, for from the river's flow arises all that is.

Five rivers do encircle Hades but this river is just the One. Which flows. Underground.


Image: eronzki999

"In The End There Is One Dance You'll Do Alone"

Shakti Dance

For a little under two years now I have marked the signs and symptoms of the stirring of the Serpent within me.

Now, a short time before the conjunction of Samhain and the annual Rites of Hecate's Sacred Fires on 5th May, I have had the experience of kundalini rising. That is, the experience of the start of the physical/astral process.
I'm still a bit too raw to comment on it in any depth, but I'll just say here that the recent 3-day process involved very unusual letting of blood and an intense period of about half an hour when I was unsure exactly what was happening to me.

So - Winter's certainly moving in for the kill, here in Joburg, but the grass is still unusually green and the temperatures, after falling to quite chilly lows, have moved back into the mid-20s, giving us all one last backward glance at a Summer which may remain characterised in many peoples' minds as one of protest and civil anger.

The stalling of the eToll process due to that anger - and the people of South Africa uncharacteristically getting together to do something about it - has allowed a little hope for our country to creep into my mind. I have never seen Seffricans stand together against the Approaching Evil of runaway, kid-in-a-candy-store, grasping materialist government as I have over the last few months. All of us - well, a good 90% of us - from every walk of life stood firm, refused to give in and finally we have seen the venal tolling process halted - temporarily it's true - through a direct court order. Well done, all of Us.

It seems to me that awakenings are occurring faster and faster among humans, and I wonder somewhat glibly if this has anything to do with Terence McKenna's Time Wave theory. Or is it, perhaps, the expression of humanity's own Shakti Dance?

And now my mind returns to the Bliss of Being once more. My lungs expanding and drawing breath in a sustained, increased manner, my body falling spontaneously into subtly different postures while my hands move almost of themselves into mudras I didn't know that I knew.

But of course this is nothing really new - rather it is the clarification of the recalling process I took up as my Work a few years ago, and which has progressed sometimes haltingly, sometimes swiftly.

The Work of this Deity, which amidst the rising serpent and the shortening days is just this:
Remembering Who I Am.

Mighty Lady of My Heart

I should really be getting to bed.
But the crescent moon has been calling and I've been making my obeisance, in earnest and with a full heart of  Love, to Hecate's bright symbol for the first time in a couple of years.

Today we went to Pretoria, taking two of our witnesses with us, to the High Court.
It was fun.
We have four expert witnesses, three "ordinary" witnesses, and a financier who is not herself a plaintiff, on paper.

The other side is nearly wetting itself. They moved to have an amendment made at the very last minute-they want to change their plea to "self defense", thereby throwing their employee to the wolves and leaving him adrift in the tides of the law. Needless to say, back at the House of Ethics (that's me!) we are taking a very dim and somewhat sneering view of this show of rank cowardice, venality and lack of responsibility.
It all means that we have to take another court date -probably in 6 months to a year - and come back and do it again.
I almost laughed aloud when I heard the change of defense plea. This was one stupid move on their part. And what, you are asking, was their original defense? Hah - they didn't have one.
That's right, they didn't have one.

I can't go into detail, but I can say that this defence is easy enough to knock over with a bloody feather.

So, we're weary, emotionally exhausted, and winding down. I think it may all end much sooner than the return court date, and so do many of the participants. Charybdys, Chippy and Bart - you have indeed won, my beloved friends. And I thank you all - all over the world - for your support, good wishes and messages of encouragement. You really have made a difference.

And now, I feel the Wheel turning so strongly; turning my soul and my Being back to a place it once stood in, not so long ago. For by means only a mystic would not laugh at, my Matron Goddess and strong protector has called me back into Her service. Today, I am once more a Priestess of Hecate.

May Her name call forth Resonance on high and from the depths,mighty Lady of my heart.

Photo: by Wade Clark