Keeping it Witchy

It is ten minutes to noon and the altar candles have yet to be lit for the morning, my grandparents haven't heard my voice in days unless of course they are listening in on me while I fuss at the children, and Superman asked me to recharge his hag stone weeks ago. The only way I am slipping in some blog time is that I have to sit at the kitchen table, facing the girls door in order to stay on top of things and enforce naptime.

The baby is fully mobile now and getting a tooth...

My hands are full.

With time being a premium at our house, I have to be smart to keep my sanity and maintain spiritual growth.  Sometimes, that means taking advantage of random moments that pop up through out the day and other times it means making time.  Here is how I'm coping.  

• Set the Altar Up Where it is Easily Accessable. I use to have my altar in the bedroom to keep it away from little hands, it was effective, but it was out of the way for me too.  Moving it to the kitchen counter is nearly as effective for keeping kids out and it is much more accessable for me.  
• If You Only Have a Few Minutes, Use Them.  Study or write while kids are drifting off to sleep.  Dust the altar durring the three minutes they decide to play with Legos without assaulting each other.  Let them start eating while you take a food offering to the ancestors.    
• Let Them Help When Possable.  This one might be the hardest of them all.  Little helpers are often more hinderance than help, but making a mess and driving us crazy is how they learn.
• Keep it Simple.  Instead of creating elaborate rituals and planning highly complicated spells, plan to keep things low key until you have more time.  The supplies for my Full Moon Ritual are so few that they fit in the pockets of my over robe and most of my spells are based on sigil magick.  If something is feasibly do-able, I am less likely to put it off altogether.  
• Forgive Yourself.  Life happens.  Often our best intentions get swept to the wayside and we don't do all that we want or should.  If the baby wakes up vomiting and the toddler runs around the house tearing up paper while the preschool screams, chances are you might not spend time honoring your deities or talking with your ancestors today.  Days like that happen. It doesn't make you less of a witch.  
• Maintain an Atmosphere.  Sometimes little things really effect the way you feel about life.  Burn an herby candle, wear something that makes you feel particularly magickal, or daub essential oil on your wrists.  For a quick energy boost, listen to witchy/pagan/heathen music. 

Witching and Moming are both full time activities.  We do the best we can with all our hearts and just enjoy the ride.  

Wild Woman Hair: Six Month Dread Update

Sometimes, it's hard to believe how long I've already been on this road.  It's been six months since I set my baby dreads and they have been such an up and down experience.  It seems like they can go from looking like a horrendous mess one day to tightening up over night and suddenly looking pretty fantastic the next day.  Since I washed and dried yesterday afternoon and separated this morning, I felt it was a good time to do a few selfies and update.  Let's just over look the blurry eyes.  It's been a hectic week. 

With my hair is still growing faster than my dreads are shrinking, I have far more open end than dread right now.  Also, it is a bit of a motley crew of dread styles.  Like I said before, I started out with twist and rip dreads in February, but now have a few back combed dreads in stubborn areas that didn't want to hold a dread and several free form dreads in the back where dreads fell out and I just didn't get around to putting them back in.  I am kind of partial to those extra messy little guys, too. I am still washing only with Dr. Bronners and a combination of baking soda, peroxide, and vinegar.  With one exception.  I have learned to put a few drops of essential oil into my soap every few weeks when the frizzies start building up. At this point, I still want my hair to be dry to help form the locs, but there really is such a thing as too dry.    

 

 

Here I am!  All put together for the day, wearing my favorite cardigan and scarf.  The cardigan is vintage Liz Claiborne circa 1980's.  I picked it up at a church thrift shop for fifty cents.  Whoot! Whoot!  I am really happy with my look.  I find that there is almost a spell like quality to my dreads that gives me a great boost of confidence in who I am.  The funny thing is, Superman's new co-workers are picking me out of a crowd in an instant.  They know I'm a witch from talking with him and I guess I just look witchy these days.  To sum it up.  I feel completely me and I feel like a BOSS!