The Rockabilly Pagan blog is One today!

A year ago today I set up my new blog.

My aim for this blog was to be somewhere I could share things that are important to me  and that I found interesting, hoping that others would find it interesting too. Well it turns out that you do!

On my many travels to events people have come up and said how they follow my blog and on twitter and facebook and enjoy my blog post! 

So I say thank you to all my readers, new and old and here is to another year of blogging!

Wylde Embers

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts of late. Had a lot of personal issues to sort out over the last couple of weeks.

I have also been keeping busy doing my pyrography. I have now created a Facebook page for my wood burning which I have called Wylde Embers.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wylde-Embers-Pyrography/502518209783842

I have created several boxes including a Elen of the ways box and a Avalon tarot box for Zee.

Elen of the ways box featuring a doe. 

Zee asked for a box to keep her Avalon oracle cards safe and asked that it included images associated with Avalon.

I got busy sketching out some ideas on paper which I then drew on to the box. As I worked more ideas for images came to mind and the box turned out to be one of the easiest designs I had made. I look forward to next weekends moot when I can give it to her.

This was based on a image her husband took of her greeting the sunrise.

Have also been creating totem key rings and I made a key ring for one of my work colleagues of his pet dog Diesel.

I have been a digital artist for over ten years, I love creating art in this medium but I had a hard time explaining to others how the images are created. With pyrography nothing needs to be explained. You can easily tell that all the markings have been created using a hot tool.

Everyone seems to really like my new art medium and I am loving my new craft. You can find me busy burning designs almost every day and I am getting commissions.

One such commission was for a key ring featuring a antlered goddess form and a copy of a box I had already made but had sold before.

Also I have been busy studying for my Celtic Moon pagan project. The purpose of the project is to dedicate time to explore our spirituality and perhaps look at other paths that perhaps have always intrigued us but never been more than a passing interest.

For me I have chosen to look at shamanism in it's many disguises but mostly the use of drums in shamanism. I will explain this further in a future blog post.

Until next time!

Moots, friendship, drumming and pyrography!

The weekend just gone was very busy for me.

One of our Celtic Moon sisters, Fawn, was back in the UK after being away since the Pagan Pilgrimage last year!

After work on Saturday I went to pick up Fawn from the train station and then we were off to Dartford to see the rest of the Celtic Moon clan for a social get together.

Also when I arrived at Breaca's home she told me she had a surprise for me which turned out to be a beautiful sculpture of my patron Goddess Elen playing a drum. I absolutely adore it!

Photo by Breaca.

Afterward the meet up I drove back home and Fawn stayed the night with me as she needed to go back to Canterbury and I was headed there the next day because of work. Plus she got to meet Keijo!

With the lovely Fawn

The Celtic moon circle all together 

The next day I dropped Fawn off in Canterbury although I couldn't say goodbye very well so I will say it here.

It was lovely to see you again Fawn. Good luck for the next stage of your journey and see you again later in the year. Xx

On Sunday night it was a trip over the Dartford bridge for the Celtic Moon Grove moot at Esther and Martin's abode. A lovely relaxing evening followed with chat, yummy soup and discussion about the future. Rather than drive home that night I decided to stay and enjoy E and M's company a little bit longer.

On Monday we went into town to trawl the charity shops and picked up some amazing bargains, including this little guy, who I just fell in love with and couldn't leave behind!

He is hand carved out of Meadswood from New Zealand and at a pound he was a steal! 

Then Esther took me to the QD store and to the aisle which contained lots and lots of plain wooden boxes, perfect for pyrography. I almost brought their whole stock!

That afternoon I showed Violetstar the joys of pyrography and being a talented artist she took to it straight away.

That evening I went along to the Southend Dolmen grove moot and Imbolc ritual.

This was a lovely gathering of souls which also included a talk on natural dentistry and a raffle. I didn't win anything from the raffle but I did put in one of my pyrography key rings as a prize which someone won and said they really liked it. 

At the end of the night we gathered in a circle to do some drumming which I really enjoyed and once the beat picked up and I felt it I began chanting. I wasn't expecting to do so but because I have been attending the Shamanic drumming circles over on the Isle of Sheppey where shamanic drumming includes chanting I just couldn't help it. 

When the drums quietened and came to a stop I was surprised that people actually thanked me for doing the chanting!

As it was quite late one I was invited stay over another night with the lovely Esther and Martin.

The next day saw us going back to QD's to get more wooden boxes and doing more pyrography.

A lesson in pyrography. Photo by Esther.

Day like these don't come around often but I love it when they do!

More fun with pyrography

Blessings of Imbolc to you all. Finally we are seeing the light lasting that little bit longer each day and the first stirrings of green shoots can been seen in the brown earth.

The past week has been quite hard for me as one of the members of my family is quite ill in hospital and we are unsure at the moment for their future.

I have been keeping myself busy of late with my pyrography. Since I last posted about it I have been bust practising the craft on paper, wood and leather.

here is a selection of what I have burnt so far:

Lady of Avalon and Badger keyring

keijo our dog

Dia De Los Muertos 

  

 Mountain Lion and cub with a work in progress showing sketch, outline, shading, shadows and finish.

Thor's hammer

Taking photos of pyrography is turning out to be quite difficult and they look better in the flesh.

I am loving this new craft and have many requests for designs which I look forward to starting on. I am currently waiting for some small plain wooden chests to arrive that I plan to decorate.

Bakelite, Lucite or fakelite. I don't care I loveite!

Oh dear, what is this? A pagan, loving plastic? Ah but this is not any plastic my friends, this is vintage plastic!

Bakelite was an accidental creation in the 1900s by Dr. Baekeland and was one of the earliest plastics widely used, from telephones, radios and light switches. Another use for the plastic was jewellery and it could come in a variety of playful colours and different designs including bangles, necklaces and brooches.

Some of the more rarer colours and highly detailed carved bracelets sell for a lot of money but if you know where to look bargains can still be found.

I have a few bangles, some that I have tested and are Bakelite and others I think might be Lucite, another early plastic or maybe 'Fakelite', the term used for knock-offs, I hope they are not but it doesn't really matter to me as I only paid a couple of quid for them and not hundreds like some pieces fetch!

Some Bakelite jewellery have nature as a theme like this beautiful acorn and leaf necklace.

Or this cherry one.

The colour of Bakelite make it look good enough to eat! Yum!

Fellow blogger, Tempermental broad posted a great blog post all about Bakelite including how to test it what type of plastic you have.

http://temperamentalbroad.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/bakelite-bakelite-bakelite.html?m=0

The best places to buy Bakelite from are etsy and eBay and although some of the prices are extortionate if you know what you are looking for then you can find pieces that have been listed incorrectly and as such won't attract a lot of bidders.

So far my collection consists of at least 3 true Bakelite bangles, however I have seem to mislaid my mah-jong tile bracelet at time of writing and I hope it turns up soon and I have not lost it!

The bottom two bangles in this photo have tested as Bakelite but I am still unsure about the top two but I love them all.

J D Mcpherson, Brighton and Wassail! Oh my!

The last couple of days have pretty much summed up what being a Rockabilly Pagan is all about.

Firstly it was Leon's birthday (21 again) and I got him tickets to see J D McPherson in Brighton. On Friday it began to snow and it was touch and go whether we would go or not but thankfully we did.

J.D played an amazing set to a very busy and enthusiastic sell out crowd. The band with him were also fantastic as well as the supporting act Sean Rowe.

I remember first hearing the song 'North side gal' and immediately brought the album July last year and when J.D played the song live I felt that same rush of excitement like hearing it for the first time again.

The turn out at the venue was great, considering it was so cold and had been snowing all day it hadn't deterred the bandana wearing chicks and the slick haired greasers. I realised that this was my first event where I had been surrounded by other rockabillies and I loved it!

After the gig we drove to our lodgings for the night in Newhaven and yes it was still snowing!

The next day the snow had eased off and we went back to Brighton to do some shopping. I love visiting the laines and the flea markets. I didn't find any vintage bargains but I did get a lovely green fleece jacket by Gekko Camden and a t-shirt from cyber dog.

In the afternoon we left for Eastbourne for the Pentacle Drummers first annual Wassail.

Don't know what a wassail is? Check out :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassailing

We meet up with fellow Celtic Mooners; Moonstream, Breaca and Vandrake and a fun night of dancing and drinking was had.

The Pentacle Drummers opened the event with a stirring drumming set, followed by Belly dancing and other music. The festivities moved outside for fire poi and then we gathered for a fire lit parade to the bonfire site.

A touching ritual then took place as the quarters were called and the apple tree was planted and blessed as the bonfire burned brightly.

The congregation then went back up to the marquee for a very well stocked raffle and more belly dancing and drumming.

The evening rounded off with music from a fantastic band called Wojtek Godzisz which we all enjoyed dancing to and it warmed us up immensely.

It's events like this that make me proud to be part of the pagan community and I will be going to next years Wassail for sure! 

Photos courtesy of Vandrake and Breaca.

Fashion and style changes- what does a rockabilly pagan wear?

Last night I went down memory lane and looked at all the photos I had been tagged in on Facebook and how different my style is now from when I was in my early twenties.

When I was at younger I was at art college and I dressed more Gothic than anything else. Black and red was my watch words and I loved the style. I even brought a PVC dress for my 21st birthday! 

This picture use to get me a lot of 'likes' on vampirefreaks!

Everything I wore was pretty much red and black!

As time went by and I got more involved with the faerie and fantasy art community I found my style became a bit more hippie with other colours like purple and brown creeping in, my ears even grew longer and pointy!

At chalice well gardens 2009

For a little while my fashion sense went out the window, no longer feeling I could carry off being gothic as I got older and was no longer a student.

Then this happened!

I won a beautiful dress on eBay from Hell Bunny and I decided to learn how do do my hair in a vintage style to go with it, well I had never received so many compliments from friends and complete strangers  and it made me feel good!

Now I don't dress like this everyday so now my fashion style is a fusion of rockabilly, 40s/50s style along with a more ethic/ pagan clothing. So I have evolved a rockabilly pagan fashion style!

But of course there is always the excuse to get dressed up as a faerie!

 A dread pirate!

or a Steampunk!

My clothing choice has changed over the years I think I feel at my most confident now with my style and really that is all that matters.