A FIGURE FOR INFLUENCES OVER ANOTHER

A FIGURE FOR INFLUENCES OVER ANOTHER

If with fetters, you would tame,
The angry foe, Or bind with shame,
The faithless friend,
Draw this figure In red ink.
In the corners That remain,
Mark four letters Of his name;
Burn the paper; Say this charm:
Circle him round, Cross him within,
Turn him about, and cast him out.

Special Kitty of the Day for Sept. 17th

Frosty, the Cat of the Day
Name: Frosty
Age: Five years old
Gender: Female
Kind: Tuxedo
Home: Raytown, Missouri, USA
Hello! My name is Frosty (formal name is Miss Frosty). My mommy gave me my name because of my white tummy – she says it looked like I walked through frost. She chose me because I’m so very cute. I had a brother, Mittens – we were born in the same litter. We don’t look alike, but he is my brother.When I came to live at my ‘fur’ever home, I met the cat who is my new big brother, Frisky (he’s a gray long haired cat). I love to play as you can see by the toy I’m holding in this picture. I also like to run and play chase with Frisky. Sometimes my mommy calls me a police car. You see, since I’m ‘black and white’ and run really, really fast, she thought that was a cute name for me. When I get tired, I like to curl up in my mommy’s lap. I’m pretty sure she likes it when I do that – I let her pet me and I purr really loud for her. Life is great at our house – there’s lots of love for me and Frisky. I’m so happy my mommy brought me home when I was just a little baby kitty!

Elder’s Meditation of the Day – August 17

Elder’s Meditation of the Day – August 17

“If a child hasn’t been given spiritual values within the family setting, they have no familiarity with the values that are necessary for the just and peaceful functioning in society.”

Eunice Baumann-Nelson, Ph.D., PENOBSCOT

When we are born, we start with a beautiful empty mind ready to be given our beliefs, attitudes, habits and expectations. Most of our true learning comes from watching the actions of others. As we watch our family or relatives, whatever their actions and values are, so will be the children’s values and acts. If we see our families living a just and peaceful way of life, so then will the children. If we see our family shouting, arguing and hateful, so will it be for the children. The cycle of life – baby, youth, adult and Elder is all connected. If the older ones have good values, it will be connected to the children.

Oh my Creator, if there are values I have missed, it is not too late. I can get them from You. Teach me today Your spiritual values. Respect, trust, giving, honesty, wisdom teach me these.

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It’s August Already? Really? Oh, by the way, Happy Monday, dear Readers!

Oh man, can you believe it is August already? Where on earth has this summer went? I was just remembering the start of Spring. Easy for me to remember, I use to be a Spring Equinox baby till they moved the date in March. I know I ain’t crazy either. I remember the weatherman giving two dates as the start of Spring. I thought “good for you, Mr. Weatherman!” People tend to forget the older things in life. Excuse me, I am not saying I am old now. That’s the one of the lovely problems with being a Hereditary, you hear everything at least four to five times from all sorts of different witches. The funny thing, when they tell you it is like they know you have never heard this before. I believe when I was about ten, they finally decided one person telling me something was enough, lol! Some of them I actually knew, others knew me as a baby and passed their knowledge on to me when I was very young. I can imagine them whispering in my ear. But I seriously doubt if it was a magick spell or anything, more like an old lullaby or a similar soothing chant. When I came along I was the first baby in years and years. Yes, I had a sister but she was 23 years older than me, yeah. I grew up like an only child. I was spoiled rotten and daddy’s girl. This made my sister mad and my father told me, she was even mad when she found out my mother was pregnant with me. My sister and my mother were both pregnant at the same time. My sister had her baby first, then I was borne the next year. My nephew, myself and then my niece were all the same age. There was only a year apart in our ages.  So you can imagine what life was like around our house. No wonder, poor daddy stayed on the river so much (he was a river boat captain, gone 30 days, home 30 days). I believe if I had been grown and had good sense, I might have left too, lol! But I remember my sister bringing her kids over to the house on the weekends for momma to babysit. Everywhere we went it seems like those kids was with us. The party stopped when my mother developed cancer and we found out she only had perhaps a few years to live. That was the hardest thing a 11-year-old child can hear. Your mother, who had been your whole life, is getting ready to die.  I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it. I remember the surgery, momma had. The grown-ups kept trying to push me back. Well I stayed back, right behind daddy’s back.  I heard everything. This doctor only gave her a few months to live. I went to the bathroom and slid down the wall. I cried and cried. I even cry now when I think about it. My father never told my mother the truth about what the doctor said and now I don’t think that was right at all.  My mother lived for two years, most in severe pain and in and out of hospitals. I think now if she could have lived a little longer perhaps they could have cured her. It is horrible to loss someone who you love that much. I can still feel the empty hole in my heart ache and hurt. It is a hollow place that no matter what, it can never be filled. Every now and then, I relive this horrible experience like I am doing today. I can’t forget it. I loved my mother more than life and her death has made me who I am. I remember when I got married, I prayed that I would live long enough to see my children grown. I wanted to live long enough to see them grown, able to take care of theirselves and never have to ask no one for anything.  Both of them are now grown and I have been granted a beautiful life thanks to my Goddess.  I got in one of these blue moods as I called them because I didn’t have a mother like everyone else. Then it hit me, STUPID! You are the luckiest person in the world. You have 3 mothers. The Goddess, My Deity and My Mother, three of the greatest women I have ever knew.  I don’t know if you have heard the old saying, “out of every dark cloud is a ray of sunshine.” When I was little, I could comprehend this. But now as I am older, I understand it completely. I still miss and love my mother but I realize I have picked up two wonderful Ladies to dry my tears and comfort me. I never had that before till I asked my Goddess and My Deity to be my mothers. My head clears and there is a sudden warmth that fills my body, it’s the Goddess telling me it will be all right. There is no way you can make anything good out of death but you can eventually come to terms with it. You can find great peace and comfort in our Mother, the Goddess and perhaps even your Deity. Whenever you need Her, she is there and will never desert you. Those of us who know the Goddess and Her teachings are some of the luckiest people on the face of this planets.

Go gives those you love a hug and a kiss one for you and one for me. Don’t let another day pass without you telling them how much you love and care for them.  Life is short, too short.

Luv & Hugs,
Lady A

Chicken Soup for the Soul: On Becoming a Grandmother

Chicken Soup for the Soul: On Becoming a Grandmother

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grandmothers

BY: Terrie Todd

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.
~Welsh Proverb

I thought I was prepared. I was a mother, after all. I already knew what it meant to love someone so much it hurt. I understood the old adage that to be a parent is to walk around forever with your heart outside your body. I had written in my journal, revealing all the emotions I’d discovered tag-teaming in my heart: happiness, melancholy, anxiety, joy, anticipation, worry. I had seen the ultrasound pictures. I’d crocheted a soft, fuzzy blue blanket, patiently undoing all my bungled stitches and doing them over so it would be a perfect square. I had memorized the verses in Psalm 139 that tell how God wonderfully forms us in our mother’s womb. I had prayed for this child and for his parents daily since I learned of his existence. I had written letters to his mom and dad, assuring them how proud I was of them both, how I’d be as supportive as I knew how to be, how they would be excellent parents.

I’d prayed for myself, too. I’d wrestled with the idea that I was going to be a grandmother. Shouldn’t I be wiser first? Or sweeter? Or at the very least, a better cook? How exactly did one cram for this event? I had even admitted to myself that I would soon be sleeping with someone’s grandfather. That idea took a little getting used to, let me tell you! 

I had bragged to my friends. I had celebrated with my mother. I had gifted my daughter-in-law with maternity clothes and bought the most irresistible little stuffed puppy for the baby.

I had done all of that. I thought I was prepared.

The day he was born, I rode along with his other grandparents to the hospital to meet our mutual little descendant for the first time. We were told to wait in the hallway while the nurses finished up whatever they were doing with him and his mother in the room. While I waited, I studied the instructional posters on the walls, filled with advice for new parents. I remembered how challenging those first few days could be. Given the hospital rules, I fully expected that my first sight of my little grandson would be in his plastic baby bed and I was prepared. But when I turned around, I instantly knew that no amount of groundwork could have prepared me for that moment. Instead of the expected baby bed, I was beholding my own firstborn carrying his firstborn in his arms.

I came unglued. Part of me was carried back twenty-six years to the day I first laid eyes on my son. But those twenty-six years had passed in an instant, and here I was looking at the next generation, with the same dark skin and the same head full of thick, dark hair. He was beautiful and I was smitten. I didn’t even try to check the tears running down my cheeks as I held him in my arms and hugged his dad as tight as I could with the baby between us. What a cherished moment!

This little boy is about to turn three years old and now has a baby brother. Every day brings new adventures, new things to learn, new memories to make, and new opportunities to wonder at the marvelous work of our Creator. These little guys have taught me that sometimes stopping to watch ducks is more important than getting in out of the rain. They’ve uncovered my own impatient ways, the ones I thought I had overcome. They’ve reminded me that time spent cuddling a sleeping baby in a rocking chair trumps pretty much anything.

Most of all, I’ve come to realize that no matter how hard I tried, I could not have prepared to love someone so profusely, or to learn so much from someone so small.