First Snowfall of the Year:

I just collected a bottle of snow for future ritual use.

Yes, I know it will eventually melt and turn into "water", but winter is sacred to me. I don't typically observe the Winter Solstice, because I worshiped the whole of Winter long before I had ever heard of it. From the ending of the Autumn months, until the first days of Spring, I am both enchanted and enthralled with Winter, and as such, snow holds a particularly special meaning to both me and my spiritual path. Every snowfall, made even more precious to me given that they occur so seldom here, I save and freeze a single snowball, which I later offer up as a sacrifice.

Water made from snow is as important to me as Holy Water would be to a Catholic. I use it for anointing, and will even drink small sips of it for purification rituals. 

 

This is something I have always done, consuming snow in some way or another for either empowerment or purification. It's just another one of those things I've always believed. And like a good portion of the parts of my practice which are based around instinct, or my own personal belief, it has always seemed to do the trick.

But then, that could simply be due to the fact that I believe it.

I also, in the rare event that enough snow can be found, make snow Poppets, for either beneficial or malefic reasons.

Snowmen make for some awesome mediums when it comes to blessings and/or hexing.

Belief & Doubts:

One thing that anti-Theists seem obsessed with is that Theists are ignorant, superstitious fools who blindly follow an unproven faith based off the works of people who died thousands of years ago.

For one thing, my religion is based off what I have seen within my own mind. There are no books to follow, only glimpses and visions, which I'm quite sure would be dismissed as nothing more than delusions by those who do not believe in such things.....Hell, even other Theists tend to think my beliefs are nuts.

As for blind acceptance.....I have refused to do things which were requested of me. I serve the Primordial Darkness, and while there is much beauty to be found within my faith and within the Darkness itself, there is also a great deal of things which are not quite so pleasant.

My Lady also rules over Flesh and all things which lay in-between. She is the Darkness, but is a sorta Proto-Goddess over the other two. One of many.

The path of the Flesh views all acts of the flesh as sacred. It was during my years when I was a novice traveling this path when I had a type of spiritual break-down.

There were some truths revealed to me which I could not accept or handle at the time. I was beyond horrified, I was in despair. For a time I turned my back on my faith.


That was about 8 years ago. Shortly after my crisis of faith, some events happened in my life which made me realize that while I might turn my back on my Lady, she is still there, and gave me comfort when I needed it the most.

Oh, she is amused by my pain, whether it is physical or mental, but she also loves me for it and that is something I am able to take comfort in.

I have never really been able to accept what turned me away in the first place, but I understand it, and that is all which is required of me. 

So no, Theists don't always close their minds to everything unpleasent in their faith, nor do we always blindly follow it. We question, and doubt, and fear just like anyone else.

The only difference is that in the end, we are able to live with those questions and still trust in the belief of higher powers.

That doesn't make us stupid, or inferior.

We are simply believers in something far greater than our own mortal shells.

Trespassers:

Someone with a familiar energy signature came to visit me within The Dreaming last night.

They kept asking for my name. Not the name my parents gave to me upon my birth, but my true name, and I could not give it to them because I could not remember what it was. 

Within the Twilight of The Dreaming, this me, any part of me which is human, does not exist. There are flashes of it, and memories, but this body and mind are nothing more than a chrysalis. Within The Dreaming, I have moved beyond that.

I do not fear trespassers. If you wish to venture inside of my head, then please, you are more than welcome.

Just don't come crying to me afterwards. If you wish to commune with the abyss, then be prepared for the consequences.

Sticks & Stones:

Whenever I scry with runes, I rarely use stones.....I have some nice rune stones, but mostly they gather dust on my altar.

Instead I prefer to scry through sticks. I have 31 bamboo sticks (when I began using them, I didn't know jack about the meanings behind different trees, I just picked them because our yard at the time was overrun with the shit and I liked the way they looked). The sticks are about 4-5 inches long and about as thick as a pinky finger bone. I keep them in a basket and toss them on the ground whenever I wish to use this particular medium.Then I just lose myself in the patterns the sticks make, until a shape jumps out at me, which I compare to whatever rune symbol the configuration brings to mind.

I also do this with trees during the winter months. I'll stare at their branches, meditation on the various patterns until I see the shape of a rune. It's kinda like looking into one of those magic eye pictures and trying to find whatever shape is hidden within them. It's not nearly as efficient as grabbing a few stones or bones out of a bag, but it's what works for me. 

Dream - Nov. 10th 2013

My Dream began within a house, that shared similarities to a single-wide trailer that my Maternal Grandmother once lived in.

A lot is blurred, but at the time the Dream was extremely vivid. At no point during the Dream did I realize that I was within the Dreaming.

I arrived during the afternoon. It was still day light outside. There were several people within the house, and I knew them, but they are nobody I know in the real world.

Night came and the house became ominous. Again, I'm not able to remember much. I should have recorded it immediately, but there was too much to do after I woke up and I forgot all about it until just now.

There was a room which had an antique style vaulted ceiling with open, exposed beams. There were toys in the room which appeared antique as well. Dolls and a jack-in-the-box. All of them were smiling, the paint of their faces faded and cracked. Their eyes followed me as I moved through the house, watching.

I stepped outside and there was a large, cement park, with a twisting, spiral drive. I had seen the park before, and I suddenly knew what was coming. I also knew that if I followed the roadway to the bottom, that I would find water. I had been there before and ran that way once. At the time, I had also known that water was lurking there, but what I ran from was far worse than the abyss beneath.
 

On the other side of the park was a prison. Troubled teens are kept there, locked within. I haven't been there in a long while, but I used to find myself locked in with the others when I was a teenager. I would spend the entire dream trying to escape.

A few of the people from the house had followed me outside and one by one they began to change. It was if they were possessed by something.

I returned to inside of the house, even though I knew that it would offer no protection against whatever was outside.

I went to the room with the toys and climbed up on top of the ceiling. I sat on the rafters while everyone within the house became possessed by the same entity. They shambled around like a cross between a zombie and one of the Deadites from the Evil Dead movies.
 

I sat up in that room, and did my best not to make a sound. The toys came to life and looked up at me. Their eyes were full of malevolence. Then the roof began to disappear, caving in at some parts and just vanishing at others.

The commotion caused by the roof attracted the attention of the possessed and they began to climb up to me.

That is when I woke up.

NO ENERGY FOR YOU!!!

Being ridiculed for practicing the Occult doesn't offend me......I mean, let's face it, if I weren't who I am then I'd think I was either crazy or full of shit too.

However, it does irk me whenever I happen to stumble upon a baby Witchling who immediately asks me to send them some positive energy because of some bullshit or another going on in either their lives or the lives of someone they know....

I am not an energy vending machine.

Yes, I often cast off my own energy into others, but that's only because it has a tendency to turn toxic if it's allowed to stagnate for too long and it's far more amusing to infect others with it than simply ground it......also, storing my "waste" energy into other people is a good way to filter and recharge it. It's one of the ways in which I feed from others, as consciously feeding from non-infected targets screws with my shifting. Hence the reason why I always keeps a few Thralls around. And even thought I technically don't need to feed that way anymore, I still like to keep my options open.

Watching their lives turn to complete shit due to having to carrying around my calamitous ju-ju is just a bonus.

Anywho, back to my origional rant-topic....

Why do people do this? Seriously? They don't know me. I could have serial killer energy festering up inside of me. I could be a walking time-bomb of creepy-crawlies and destruction!

....oh, wait.....I am.

Just....do yourselves a huge favor and don't go around pestering complete strangers for positive mojo, or healing vibes, or anything of that nature because depending on who you ask, you might just end up with a helluva lot more than you bargained for.