Celtic Moon pagan community

So I have mentioned Celtic Moon a few times on my blog now and I thought I would expand on my own experience with this very special group I am a part of.

I joined Celtic moon of July 2010 after meeting the priestess Breaca at one of the festivals I had a art stall at in Canterbury. It was the same time I had set up my own group on the Ning social network called 'Faerie Seekers'. I was looking for more like minded folk to interact with as I felt I had been on my solitary path for too long. Ning decided to stop it's free content so I had to close 'Faerie Seekers' and put all my focus into Celtic Moon and I am so glad I did.

By joining Celtic Moon I have not only made some wonderful friends but I now truly feel pagan where before I didn't know where I was headed (this was also the same time I found my patron Goddess Elen.)

On the Celtic Moon website you can have a page where people can contact you just like on Facebook, post blogs, join groups and discussions on lots of different topics, from spirit guides, crystal healing and magick to name a few.

Through Celtic Moon I began my journey as a Bard in training and the Druid group has been very important in my studies.

The Celtic Moon big days out are a great way to get together and have fun with people who won't look at you oddly for wearing toadstool earrings or comment on why you have a Star of David necklace on (been there, got the t-shirt.)

In May of this year I attended the Celtic Moon Pagan pilgrimage which has to be one of the highlights of this year for me by far. You can read about the pilgrimage here :

http://therockabillypagan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/celtic-moon-pagan-pilgrimage-part-1.html

http://therockabillypagan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/celtic-moon-pagan-pilgrimage-part-two.html

And it was during this holiday that I was invited to join the Celtic Moon Circle as a member which means I now attend physical moot meetings with the other members and join in with sabbat celebrations and rituals.

Celtic Moon at present does not have any room in it's circle for new members, however there is plenty of room over on the website for members to join.

A few weeks ago we made a introduction video for new members to get to know who the circle members are, if you see any of us in the chat room don't be scared to say hello. We don't bite and I look forward to welcoming you to the community.

www.celticmoon.ning.com

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!