Drum birthing and the Goddess

The last couple of days have been truly exceptional in term of unforgettable experiences.
On Friday 28th September I went to Caer Corhrain Shaminic Center to birth my very own shamanic drum.
It was a wonderful day and I met some lovely people. It was all carried out in ritual and we were all there to do the same thing regardless of the reason why.
Lynn, Jonathan and Bruce were excellent tutors, everything was at a perfect pace and my early nervousness soon evaporated.
         My drum is made from deer hide which I chose to represent and honour my lady Elen of the ways. My hide even carries the bullet hole from where the animal of course was shot. Some people might not like to be reminded that the hide was killed in such a manner but as I was making the drum and working with the hide I asked for the deers love and forgiveness and promised that her death was not in vain.
In the afternoon we were then blessed by a visit from a beautiful golden Eagle. When he flapped his wings in this picture....

A tiny part of feather got caught in my hair which I then placed in the beater head I was making. So deer and Eagle, two animals I have strong connection with coming together.

I can't recommend birthing your own drum enough. To have a tool that I have created with my own hands, that I have now got such a deep connection with does not beat (excuse the pun) buying a drum off the Internet.
    More about the shamanic development centre and Touch the Earth band and events http://www.touchtheearthuk.com/

The drum birthing group and our drums. Look how happy we are. Any one spot the orb?

Photos courtesy of Lisa Hill.

On Saturday 29th at the Mabon Celtic Moon moot I held a introduction talk about my patron Goddess Elen. You can read more about the Goddess in this blog post http://therockabillypagan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/elen-of-ways.html
My talk was a deeply personal account of how I became aware of Elen and how she has helped transform me as a Pagan.
I then took the members of the circle on a drum journey, deep into the forest to meet with Elen and in turn blessing my own newly birthed drum. I couldn't play my drum as It was still drying at home and I have to wait a week before I can play it and get to learn it's tone and voice.
This talk turned out to be extremely emotional for me which took me completely by surprise. Before I discovered My Lady I was very lost on my path. In fact I was very close to not calling myself Pagan!
At the end of the talk I had the other members of Celtic Moon say how much they enjoyed my talk and that made it all worth it.

Photo by fellow Celtic Moon member Esther show my little altar I set up, including her lovely portrait of Elen.

Steampunk and the Mainstream

Last night was a veritable feast of the eyes for the closing ceremony of the Paralympics. In the beginning VT I was interested that the first person on screen look slightly steampunk and then came the vehicles! Giant mechanical beasts, a ship and a clock with huge working gears. Oh my yes THIS was steampunk.
Even the graphics on screen had gears, steam and cogs. To say I was excited as the spectacle unfolded would be an understatement.
The amazing creations were from an art group known as The Mutoid waste company who started in the 80s and specialise making fantastic sculptures from old cars and influenced by the film Mad Max.

  

It is always interesting when a subculture ( yes Steampunk is a subculture) is depicted in the mainstream. We have yet to have a full blown representation of Steampunk in the mainstream. Closest we got so far is a few movies with mechanical elements such as Wild Wild West and Stardust to name a few.
The closing ceremony was so original and exciting to watch even though most of it was a Cold Play concert.

Also did anyone else notice the pagan elements? The show it's self was a festival of the flame, (fire festival) Flame throwers were used to scorch a circle with symbols on to the grass.
The spirits of the elements were called (calling of the quarters) and a huge sun mask which looked like a green man burned high above.

Well done Kim Gavin, I was presently surprised and well done to all the amazing athletes, the volunteers and everyone else who made this a summer of sport to remember.

Morris dancing, wedding and classic cars- a round up

I have been neglecting my blog but not because I don't want to! Life has changed a lot since we got the puppy and because my PC is upstairs I haven't been able to get on it while keeping an eye on him and I need to constantly keep an eye on him as he is a little scamp! He sure is getting big though.

So what has been going on? August was a busy time for events, the first one was the Broadstairs Folk week. Now I have lived in Kent all my life and I have never been to this week long event but I will be going again next year.
Folk week is a festival showcasing some amazing local bands and is a big gathering for the Morris dancers. I have friends in Morris dancing sides so we set up camp in a school field with them but because of little Keijo we couldn't spend the whole week in Broadstairs so it was a lot of driving back and forth. Hopefully next year we can spend all week there.
On the Thursday night there was a rock and roll night so I decided to get dressed in my red Hell Bunny dress and put my hair up in three victory rolls. Any excuse to get dressed up. However I did not realise how much of a stir my look would make and I had a queue of gentlemen wanting to dance with me. I had to turn them down as earlier that day I wore shoes which left me two very painful blisters on my heels which made it hard for me to walk let alone dance.
p.s I can't really dance well either. I would love to take jive lessons.

No photos of me dressed up on that night as Leon was too drunk to operate his camera. Here are some photos from the week to give you an idea of the event itself.

Next event was a wedding! My dear friends got married on the 25th August and for the happy occasion I wore my Miss Fortune atomic print wiggle dress which I brought for another wedding in April that did not go ahead.
I managed to dye by hair the brightest shade of red I have ever managed and my victory rolls were perfect!

Rolls of victory

Dress by Miss Fortune, it was a shame I didn't get a better view from the front

Reddest red my hair has ever been!

Lastly on the August bank holiday Monday it was the Folkstone classic and custom car show. Last year we entered are Smart cars in to it but this year we just went as spectators. The show was even bigger this year and because we took Keijo with us every one (I mean everyone) made a right fuss of him.

 A beautiful VW Bus. Matched my handbag!

Any one for ice cream?

 Beautiful Desoto

Me and the dawg.

And that about rounds it up. I promise to update more regularly from now on.

Lughnasadh

Today, 1st of August marks one of the Celtic/pagan cross quarter festivals known as Lughnasadh (pronounced loo-Nass-ah) or Lammas. This is a harvest festival and a time when our ancestors who lived more closely to the land would reap what had been sown in the golden corn fields.
Lughnasadh is a wonderful time to look back and review what has accumulated in the last months.
To find out more about the traditions of this havest festival take a look at the Stonewylde website; http://www.stonewylde.com/content/lammas
And http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/lammas/a/AllAboutLammas.htm

I leave you with a piece of music by Damh the Bard called Lughnasadh 

Blessings to you on this Lughnasadh.

/|\

Puppy power!

We have a new member of our household! May I introduce Keijo the Finnish Lapphund!

Keijo (pronounced Key-yoo, we think) is a 8 weeks old little bundle of fluff, fun and cuteness!
We have wanted a dog for ages and it was a long search finding the right type of dog that we would all be happy with. My partner's Mum had wanted a husky but they would never fit in the smarts!


Little Keijo is quite rare in the UK and I am sure when he gets older I will have this sentence down to a tee.
A spitz type, like a husky but smaller.

This is Keijo 's daddy!

Photo from http://www.elbereth.co.uk/

These dogs were breed as reindeer herders in their native country and have beautiful fur to keep them warm in the cold weather. They are a energetic and intelligent breed.


So far Keijo has had fun exploring the garden area and has settled in really well. We was worried he was going to miss his 6 siblings but as long as he has humans to keep him company he seems perfectly happy!

Leon taking photos of the pups.

The breeder, Toni Jackson is the author of the only book about the breed and has many championship winners. We were very lucky to get a pup from such a great breeder. I am sure little Keijo is going to be just as handsome as his papa!


He really is a little poser, which is great as we have a photographer in the family.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Lapphund- about the breed
http://www.elbereth.co.uk/- Lapphund breeder
http://www.finnishlapphund-club.co.uk/- lapphund club

Why yes, I do knit.

Recently I have started to learn to knit. At first it was to get my mother to pick up the needles again as she didn't have any hobbies and I remembered she was an avid knitter when I was younger and also because I wanted to learn a new skill.

To begin with I knitted some arm warmers and then a bag for my Druid Animal oracle cards, practising my knit, purl and blanket stitch.


My mother had made a few blankets for people in our family and I decided that a blanket would make a perfect gift for my friends Handfasting so I got set to work on knitting 30x30 squares in greens and purples. My mum helped me out with the knitting and I was able to lay the squares out to make a pattern.

Apologise for the bad quality photo. This was taken on my iPad to get a sense of how big the blanket would be and how I wanted it to look. Here I still needed to knit four light green squares.

Once I had all the squares I was able to start sewing the patches together. This was the most laborious part of making the blanket!

The finished blanket!

A close up of the blanket with silver Pentacle charm and the striped squares knitted by my mum.

I tied the finished blanket up with a cord made using a lucet tool. A two pronged fork that was used in Viking times!

This photo shows the lucet cord in Vandrake's hands.

I really enjoyed making this blanket and  the bride and groom seemed very happy to receive it!

I look forward to sharing more of my knitting endeavours with you in the future.

I am now off to go and cheer on the Olympic torch bearers as it passes through my town.

Until next time!

A Druid Handfasting

On Saturday the 14th I took part I a very important ceremony. My friends and co-founders of the Celtic Moon pagan group, Vandrake and Breaca had their Druid Handfasting.
For those not in the know, a Handfasting is a pagan wedding ceremony where traditionally the bride and groom wed for a year and a day, they have their hands binded together in a ritual cord symbolising the couple binding them selves together, in this world and the next. It is also traditional for the wedded couple to jump over a besom (broom) to complete the transition of leaving one life and starting a new one together.

The ceremony was at The Fighting Cocks pub in Horton Kirby. My other half Leon was the photographer and I was to be part of the circle invoking the quarters.
We arrived at 12 o'clock to help set up the cakes, flowers, napkins and anything else I could find to help with the organisation.
The pub soon got busy as friends and family members of the bride and groom arrived and so did the rain!
It was touch and go if the ceremony would go ahead outside as planned but the decision was made and we ventured ahead and we were lucky that the rain lessen and then stopped during the ritual.
The members of the Celtic Moon circle were all dressed in fleece cloaks with hoods up and when the guests were seated we walked in single file down the aisle to the drum beat provided by the Pentacle Drummers.

Waiting for the go ahead

The Celtic Moon march

Pentacle drummers

We fanned out to make a semi circle besides the gazebo where the altar and the celebrants stood to conduct the service.

The ritual was beautiful. The vows were heartfelt and touching and it was very difficult not to shed a tear.

After the vows and rings were exchanged the couple held hands and were tied together with a handfasting cord.

Here is me in the role of giving thanks to the south quarter. I hope I said the words correctly!

Leaping over the broom.

Celtic Moon <3

The gorgeous cake by Anna of ANe Cakes

The wonderful portrait of the couple painted by he very talented Esther Remmington

Gift giving! Mine was a hand knitted blanket, more about this in my next blog post.

After that there wasn't much else to do but party!

It was a wonderful day and one I will treasure for many years.

Congratulations to Vandrake and Breaca!

Photographs courtesy of LJS Digital photography: https://www.facebook.com/LJSDigiPhoto

Wedding cake: https://www.facebook.com/ANeCakes

Venue: http://www.fightingcockshortonkirby.co.uk/

Esther Remmington art: https://www.facebook.com/Esther.Remmington

Cloaks by https://www.facebook.com/legendarycostume

More information on Handfasting can be found here: http://handfasting.org/