Imbalc 2024

 

    Happy January! I am sorry I've not been writing blog posts quite as frequently. My life has temporarily spun out of control. Now I am back and there will be even bigger changes. Most of these, you will not see. Some are changes to where I've chosen to put my time and energy online. Most of this change is a desire to become much quieter online and more peaceful. I want to be less professional and allow myself to just play. I want to interact less online. This is not, because I do not love it, but now I have different needs in my life. There was a day when I had all the time in the world to post and nothing else to do in the world. Yes, I admit, no life. Now things have changed, and I am in a better place now.

    That is why, this upcoming Imbalc will be about celebrating the transition in to the abundance of Spring again, instead of focusing more on what exactly I need to do in my future, or in my past, more so than other years. There has been lots of releasing to do first. That is what this post will be about with a brief breakdown of how I plan on celebrating. I will try to keep my personal issues brief and just get to the magic of it all. While I am still working towards creating a practice with the Norse Pantheon, other Goddesses and areas of my practice have needed attention. As the season changes, I am hoping to doing most of these gestures outside. 

    I have experienced many friendship breakups during the Winter. One friend came back, but I am still feeling reluctant. I was learning to accept that it should be more about my friends and not me. I hadn't realized that until this started happening. I saw the same tendency with my bonds to spirits, deities, guides, ect. I still can't quite get used to the balance of power. I want to take this understanding in to how I plan and do my rituals. It was not just my Christian background that made me feel this way. there were lots of things I won't discuss here that made me feel less than. Even though, I healed that part of myself, I am still carrying it in my habits and in to my practice. This was going on for several months and has inspired the start of this blog. I needed to get down to the nitty-gritty and in an open honest way, re-asses myself as a witch. 

    The truth is, I do not like drawn out rituals. Perhaps this is because I am still uncomfortable with this strange understanding of the balance in relationships in general. There is a trauma I thought I got passed when making offerings to deities. I cropped up again and I had to go within and face it. I will black out all of a sudden, with no warning. Anxious feelings of that I have done something to betray the Gods will hit me. It is almost like a flash back. It could be very possible I had a past life making an unfortunate decision. I always see myself taking offerings to a religious altar. When it comes time to feast at the end or libate the offerings, I freeze up. It takes a while before I can move. As much as I hate to do this, I prepare to stop what I am doing and calm down. Sometimes I will stop the ritual and come back to it when I feel ready. this has not happened in years. My guess is that it happened again with the Norse Gods, because I was so nervous doing something completely different than what I am used to. This can make a ritual awkward and I had to take time to reprogram myself to make it ok. I've heard religious leaders say you should give all of yourself to the Gods, even your mistakes. One of them told me, "Well then. Give'em something to look at," but that still did not make it better. I had to go back to my rule of thumb. When it is not ok, make that ok. This is why I will start celebrating in small gestures. 

    After I thought about it, a ritual can be made of small gestures. I think what I need to cut out of a ritual, are the things like reading a story or a really long script that do nothing to add to the ritual. If I am reading to a God, I will, of course, include this. Long formal rituals are not my thing. Music seems to help me get in to the right state of mind. When starting out with new connections, I don't see any reason a ritual needs to be huge, unless the deity requests something big of you or you want to make a grand gesture to get their attention. Right now, this is all so new for me, so tapping in to my tiny witch's intuition, I decided to make a ritual out of small gestures to deities I want to be closer to. That is the point of it for me, to cultivate a relationship and commune with them. I rarely ask anything of them, unless I feel comfortable or there is a need. Even then, once I ask them, I generally do something physical to symbolize what I want, to do my part in the magic. I put more effort in to it than need be, because I don't want to rely on them. I often clear my mind of me asking, as though I never have. This also helps me let go of trying to control the results and opens me to hear what will happen. Many of them share likenesses, so I also put something together to celebrate them all. Most of all, my rituals will have to be for myself, right now. 

    A fellow Youtuber, Lennan Smith talked about marrying her witchcraft and that got me thinking. That's why I've felt so lost. My relationships and reason for doing the craft is different. I plan on doing her tag #whywitchcraft, pretty soon. Those questions led me to an unseen question of my unconscious mind. What I had been rolling over and over in my mind was, why am I still practicing? What am I practicing for? What am I really wanting to do? Originally, I started for my own healing and self-care. I wanted to protect others once I had the knowledge. I wanted to look after newbies and muggles. Then there was a period of feeling lost. I was doing without meaning. I was looking for the spark again. That spark wasn't in any action or ritual I was practicing. I had not considered how I wanted my religion to feel or how I wanted to feel in it. 

    I was not being honest with myself about who I was. When I was little, I always heard the phrase "You're too sensitive" and "You gotta tough'n up!" After a while I started finding my way by finding joy in things I hadn't before, but it hadn't stopped there. I thought if I just got to a certain point I wouldn't have to prove myself. It was as though I needed to see how deep the hole went or maybe how deep was too deep. It stopped at Luciferianism. After renewing my relationship with my past traumas and feeling through who Lucifer actually was, I found I could go no further. Although, I had been very outspoken about questioning what demons actually were, and had many relationships with those types of spirits, I was not ready to start working with them. There was a great need to go back to my innocence. After such a long trek, I had forgotten where I had come from. Nothing around me seemed right. So this is the plan. 

    To celebrate this new beginning and emptiness, I started taking things slowly off my Winter Altar once I was ready. I always wanted to give a gift basket to deity, or even to the Goddess withing, so as I burn Brigit's candle for one last time this year, I will also be starting my Singing, honoring Ceredwen. I know I've said this for way too long now. I stopped trying to figure out all the apps and equipment and decided to just do it. I also feel Imbalc,this transitional period, is a much better way to think of her, because she is magic and transition, rather than in April. The Spring can start sometimes earlier than Imbalc where I live, so I will also be following what the Earth tells me, with the exception of honoring Brgit, because that has been a tradition for a long time. I loke celebrating with several small ritualistic gestures over the seasonal period and doing something big on the day of or important days that make up the sabbat. It is difficult to say goodbye after a ritual, so Ilike to spend as much time with spirits, deities, land spirits, as I can before the next season arrives. 

    I will be placing all of the things I hold dear, treasures I find, or have, and some things I've made in to the basket. I am hoping to create a new wand for myself. I felt so magical trimming the roses. It is those simple things that feel the most magical to me. I was gifted a good sturdy piece. I used an emery board to files down the points and cut the tips, so the rose could still carry some of the protective qualities. I will be using the tips in another spell. I am also stepping up and planning to honor Mielikki and Ukko this year. With that said, I am still working with fictional spirits, so I'm hoping to have Drizzt around in the Spring. I took out the abundance card as a representation of the unicorns I want to work with. I just put a few crystals on my altar, including my Obsidian big cat figurine that kinda reminds of Guen, Drizzt's cat companion, and called it done. I want to have as little on the altar as possible to depict the place I am at right now. 

    Many smaller gestures will be made, but I prefer to keep those private. I am really excited to start off the new year feeling this sure and strong. Breakups and changes are always hard for me, but mostly, because I always fear what if I'm not doing the right thing. This time, I am sure. As far as my completely new connections, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Thank you so much for reading. I write these posts for myself, but it always means a lot when someone else does. 

Blessed Be 💜

I think this song is perfect for this transition. It was one of my favorites growing up, and I hope you enjoy it. It's called Jumper by Third Eye Blind.