1) Pick a candle of a color that brings to mind thoughts of happiness, hope, joy, etc. A small chime candle or taper candle works best, but really any candle not in a container works. For me, I will choose a bright yellow chime candle.
2) Use a nail or other sharp tool to carve the name of the thing you wish to call to you. I will write 'Happiness' on my candle.
3) Place the candle in a holder and put it at the center of a plate or other fire/wax safe surface. Surround the candle with other objects that call forth the same element you are inviting in. For Happiness, I have chosen white daisies, yellow mums, and orange marigolds interspersed with mint leaves and basil.
4) Hold a key shaped charm or an actual key in your hand and move it in a circle clockwise around the candle nine time while saying out loud that you open your heart, mind, and home to the element you are inviting (Happiness in my case).
5) Repeat the invocation each day for five days. If using fresh herbs, flowers, ect. replace those when they begin to wilt.
A Jar Ritual for Recognizing and Sending Love and Blessings
Materials
A red or pink candle
A jar or other glass container with lid (preferably with a wide mouth to make it easy to place items within)
Small pieces of paper (one per name)
Scraps of ribbon/string/twine (optional)
A pen (pink or red preferably)
Pink Salt (enough to create a thin layer on the bottom of your container)*
Ground Cinnamon and/or Ground Cayenne (enough to create a thin layer on the bottom of your container)
Dried rose petals**
*Please remember salt can harm growing plants. When disposing of jar contents, if you'd like to make it plant safe, use Epsom salt instead of regular salt.
**If roses aren't your thing or you do not have any, substitute any dried flower that represent love in your mind.
Instructions
1. Follow your normal procedure for prepping a magical space to perform your ritual.
2. Light your candle(s) and think about the people who bring love and happiness into your life. Why do they come to mind when you meditate on love? How do they enliven your life? What emotions and thoughts come to you as you think of them. Think about the blessings and love you'd like to see returned to them this week. Maybe it's a new job for a friend or a few hours of sleep for a new parent or much needed calm and peace for a loved one having a particular trying time right now. Maybe it's renewed love of life or passion in the bedroom. Love comes in many forms. Don't feel constricted to a single definition. you are wanting to send love and blessings to and why.
3. Write the name of each person you thought about on the pieces of paper you prepared. Roll them into tiny scrolls and tie them with a scrap of ribbon/string/twine. (Optionally you can just roll or fold the pieces of paper as-is. If you want to get really fancy with it, you can fold them into origami hearts. Sometimes the folding is part of the meditative act. Do whatever feels right to you.)
4. Add a layer of salt to the bottom of your contain. Draw a heart shape with the cinnamon and/or cayenne on top of the layer of salt. If you aren't feeling artistic or the opening of the jar is too small to draw a design, you can just layer the spices on the top of the salt. Add your pieces of paper interspersing your flower petals in-between and around the paper. 5. Hold the jar in your hand and picture in your mind again the love you'd like to see going to your named loves ones. See the light of your love flowing from you to them. See it surrounding their bodies in a soft, unbroken glow. See the love you send lifting their spirits and raising their joy. 6. Keep the jar somewhere safe where you will see it daily and be reminded of the love that you are sending out to each person. Touch it and renew the request in your mind each day.
7. At the end of the week, you can renew the spell for another week by meditating on it again and choosing the blessings you'd like to send, or if you feel it has done its job, you can burn the contents in a fire safe vessel (or compost if using plant safe materials). 8. If not renewing, cleanse the jar so that it can be used again in future rituals/spells.
Inspired by a ritual found within Em, Mandi. Happy Witch: Activities, Spells, and Rituals to Calm the Chaos and Find Your Joy (pp. 180-182). Adams Media. Kindle Edition.
What does happiness mean to you? What is the operational definition?
Happiness is not being in pain or distress; physical, mental, or emotional. Happiness is not being so afraid that it holds me back from doing or being what makes me happiest.
Up until now, have you believed it was obtainable? Why or why not?
I think moments of happiness have caught me by surprise from time to time. They come out of nowhere, and when they're happening it's a whirlwind of beauty. It's only after when they are gone that I realize just how wonderful those individual moments were. I wish I had paid more attention to them when they were happening, cherished them in the moment, held on tighter to the feelings. Maybe they are so special and memorable because they are so rare. I don't know.
Think of a specific time when you were happy. What did that happiness look like? How did it feel?
I wasn't worrying about anything. I wasn't thinking about something I had to do later. I wasn't worried about the way I looked in that moment. I wasn't in any physical pain. I wasn't trying too hard to be or do or say anything. I could just be. Laughter. There's always laughter, and everything is bright in my memory even in the dark.
What does the happiest version of you look like? How do they respond to triggers? What do they believe to be true?
The happiest version of me is happy to be me, just as I am. Imperfectly perfect. The happiest version of me is able to accept love and not question its cost or motive. The happiest version of me can offer love without fear of it being misused or used to hurt me later. The happiest version of me smiles more and feels the smiles. The happiest version of me is every shade of green.
I release Yesterday and start fresh with Today. This year, I am letting go of ...
I will focus my attention both inward and outward to identify and let go of the things in my life that are holding me back from happiness and personal success. I am working very hard to reconcile old anger and hurt that I have been holding onto for too long. It isn't helping me to keep it tight to my heart. The people who planted the seeds are gone. I do not want to be the one that tends that garden in their absence. I would rather resew it with feelings and experiences and people who bring and foster positivity in my life.
I am ready to create a Life I Love. This year I am calling in ...
This year I am calling in joy for joy's sake, spontaneity, and love. If I want birthday cake in June and my birthday is February, I am going to have cake. I am going to dig my toes into the ground and absorb the sunshine more often. Smell the fresh cut scent of grass and the chilly crispness of a new snow. Just slow down and appreciate and enjoy the things around me more.
I live with Purpose and Passion. These are the gifts I plan to share with the world ...
I am going to say and show 'I love you' to the people in my life I love more often. There is no too much to loving someone. I have such amazing people in my life. They deserve to know and feel that I love them. I want to explore my thoughts, beliefs, and practices to share my most authentic self with the world. I want to explore and share my creativity more often, whether it is on a work project or an improvement project at home, or a creative arts project that I plan to gift or sell. I want to create more this year. Grief has really taken a toll on my creative well, and I want to fill that back up this year.
Choose a recipe (cookies are good for their small size, portability, and ease of sharing), then break the ingredients down into their magical meanings. What kind of spell would this recipe work best for? Healing, love, workplace harmony?
I chose Lemon Lavender Tea Cakes. You will find the recipe at the bottom.
I've never really stopped to do a full analysis of one of the recipes I cook from a magical perspective. I cook what feels good and right when I want to provide comfort, warmth, a refreshment of energy, ect. It should be interesting to take a closer look. In the list of ingredients below, the first paragraph is my associations with the ingredient and what I feel and think when I experience them followed by a bulleted item or list of their published magical properties.
BUTTER
Butter can be either a solid or a liquid. It can flow through and around the other ingredients, or it can grease the wheel so to speak to ease the way for other items not to stick and burn. I use it when I cook comfort foods that bring to mind warmth and happiness like fresh biscuits, cookies, and pastries.
Smoothes and soothes energies and relationships
Increases tenacity
Makes change easier
Increases spirituality and connection to Deity on the physical plane
Adds a nurturing, smooth quality to spells
Can be an easy kitchen witch go-to spell: Simply roll butter in herbs and empower it for your spell. Serve with bread!
EGGS
Eggs are the glue that help hold things together in my cooking. To me they also represent life, fertility, hope for the future.
An egg is a complete neat package of life and is very symbolic of fertility, new life, new beginnings and creation itself. Within they also symbolize long life and immortality.
The egg is a complete set of elements in one handy pack: The shell represents Earth, the inner membrane represents Air, the yolk is Fire and the white is Water.
FLOUR
I associate flour with bread, and bread equals warmth and comfort. Humble beginnings for flour to start out as a tiny grain and then become a dry powder and then to be transformed again into all sorts of lovely breads, pies, pastries, and sauces. It has so much malleability and versatility. When I think of flour and the wheat it comes from, I also think of the Biblical story of Joseph and his interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams. In the years of plenty there were beautiful sheaths of grain, full and rich and hearty. It would feed all of the people so that they would not suffer hunger during the lean years.
Magickal properties - abundance, fertility, money, rebirth, truth, strength and energy
BAKING SODA
Baking soda and baking powder have always been a bit magical in my mind when it comes to baking. They are the science and magic of why the breads can rise without yeast. I guess if I were going to apply a magical property to them, I would use them with the intent to assist someone to rise up to meet and overcome adversity, to give a helping hand to meet a goal or work through something challenging in their lives.
Magickal uses - ritual fire safety, cleansing altar tools
SALT
Salt has always represented protection to me. When paired with something sweet, it also adds an element of balance. A tea cake is traditionally round, so it could incorporate the same protection that a circle of salt represents for the receiver.
Sugar is sweetness and first loves. Perhaps a little bad for you, but so enjoyable in small doses. A guilty pleasure.
Magickal properties - attraction, love, used to amplify any attraction spell
VANILLA
In my mind vanilla will always be associated with holiday baking. Days filled with warmth, laughter, the smells of sweet treats, and occasionally a tummy ache after eating too many of said treats. The smell evokes sugary goodness and the deep brown color makes me think of roasting chestnuts. I would use it to invoke a sense of comfort and belonging.
In my world lemon is refreshing and represents something clean and new. Sometimes it's surprising and unexpected. It livens things up. I can almost feel the warmth of the sunshine and taste the tart of the lemon on my tongue from my grandmother's lemonade when I smell the zest.
I have a love-hate relationship with lavender flowers. It's beautiful and fragrant and delicate when used sparingly, but it can turn astringent and medicinal very quickly if used with a heavy hand. It's a nice balance to the acidity of the lemon and richness of butter. Like the salt, I have always associated lavender with purification and protection. It has become such a common place ingredient in stress-relief and sleep teas, lotions, body washes, that I also immediately think relaxation as well.
Attract men: Wear lavender perfume or add lavender essential oil to your beauty and love spells to bring your next lover to you.
Banishing harmful spirits: Sprinkle the flowers along the floor of your home or business to ward away evil spirits.
Happiness: Bake lavender into cookies or flavor your lemonade with the flower to bring happiness.
Increase intelligence: Drink the tea, make a sachet, or eat food crafted from lavender to increase your brainpower.
Long Life: Use lavender in your beauty routine or carry the flower on you to promote longevity.
Purification: Burn lavender or use the fresh sprigs to sprinkle blessed water in your home to remove harmful energies.
Sleep: Make a tea, fill an eye pillow, or place a few drops of lavender essential oil into your full pillow; its scent and energy will help relax your mind and bring on sleep.
All of that in a cookie prepared and shared with love. Who knew? And if you've made it this far, below is the recipe.
Lemon Lavender Tea Cakes
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 medium lemon
1/2 Tbs dried lavender flowers
1) Combine flour, soda, and salt and sift together. Set Aside.
2) In separate bowl beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add vanilla extract, dried lavender flowers, 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, and the zest of one lemon beating until blended.
3) Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Beat at low speed until blended together.
4) Divide dough in half; wrap each portion in plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour.
5) Roll half of dough to 1/4-inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut out cookies with a 2 1/2-inch round cutter, and place 1 inch apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
My 35th birthday is coming up very soon, and my ovaries feel every tick of the clock. I'm approaching that invisible wall where once you're past it the risks involved in starting a family multiply and keep on multiplying every year. Gestational diabetes, multiple births, infertility, birth defects, chromosomal abnormalities, low birth weight/early births, high blood pressure issues ... the list goes on and on. I'm already facing infertility issues and a family history of premature births and early menopause. I so desperately wanted to have kids before I was 30 and beat the multiple clocks that are ticking away. Now that I'm fast approaching 35, the pressure is on, but there isn't really anything I can do about it.
The doctors have told me that I'm unlikely to get pregnant without help via either IU or IVF procedures, and my insurance only covers a small fraction of IU and nothing on IVF. The doctors also told me that even if one of these procedures works so that I do become pregnant, the chance of a full-term, live birth is very slim. Hearing that, logically and emotionally, I have to ask myself is it worth it? My mother miscarried two daughters, and my older brother only lived for 6 hours after he was born. I was her miracle baby who survived, but she still grieves for those three who didn't make it.
With the chances being so small, should I put myself and Steffie through that grueling and expensive process? I just don't know. I don't know. I know I would survive the disappointments and potential losses, but would we as a couple survive the emotional roller coaster? I would like to say absolutely yes, but I've seen so many couples torn apart by these sorts of things. My wife is the love of my life, and I won't sacrifice her and our relationship for the slimmest possibility of a biological child.
The thought that I may never be able to carry a child, to give birth to him or her when I've wanted it for so long fucking hurts. And if I'm being completely honest with myself, it doesn't raise my self esteem any either. I know intellectually and logically that it isn't my fault. I didn't do anything to cause these medical problems. I've been very careful about my reproductive health. I've never missed a yearly check-up. I was always particular about having safe sex to avoid disease, infections, etc. My weight could be better in order to potentially improve some hormone levels and general mobility, but otherwise I am in very good health. Still the thoughts creeps in from time to time that if I had started trying to have children earlier before my thyroid problems developed that maybe this could have been avoided, that starting birth control so early and trying that horrible depo shot maybe have permanently screwed up my hormone production/levels, that if I weren't broken, Steffie could have children of her own. Not having kids makes family functions awkward as hell, and my mother resents me not giving her grandchildren yet. Logically I know there is nothing that I could have done that would change what is happening or isn't happening now. I know that it isn't my fault. But ... sometimes it's so very hard to remember that.
I've thought about surrogacy as an option. I've even had more than one friend make the offer to be our surrogate. I have mixed emotions about it. If my eggs were viable (the doctor says there is a good chance they aren't), then I would consider it further. If we were able to use biological material from both of us, I would definitely want to go with a surrogate that we don't know rather than a friend. As much as our friends tell us it wouldn't matter, that the child would be completely ours, I would worry that at some point it would turn into, why are you raising the child I carried this way or that way, etc. I don't want to lose a good friend over that, and I won't have someone else tell me how to care for my child. Sticky situations abound. Excluding the possibility of using my own eggs, I don't think I would do it. It would bother me if our child was biologically Steffie's but not mine. What if something were to happen down the road where we split? Then there is the argument that the child is more hers than mine, and child custody just gets ugly so quick without that extra layer of ownership. Maybe that is selfish of me, but it is how I feel.
I would rather at that point look at an adoption instead. And then comes a whole other set of potential problems. We are a lesbian couple who have pretty eclectic social and religious views. In a world that likes to make the adoption process doubly hard for anyone who doesn't fit into the one size fits all box of white, heterosexual, practicing Christian wholesomeness, I know adoption will not be an easy process for us. We both work full time, and we do not have a huge amount of money in savings after buying a new home this past year. I don't know what the requirements are now, but I know at one point adoption required one parent to be able to be off work for 6 months to a year to bond with and acclimate the child to his/her new family. I don't know if this is still the case, but if it is, neither of us can afford to be out of work that long.
And then there are the completely selfish lifestyle changes to consider when asking myself if I want to make the changes necessary to start a family. We are very socially involved with our friends and hobbies. We are part of multiple alternative lifestyle groups, we have very active gaming hobbies, and we keep strange hours. We hate being fully clothed at home. We have sex toys and latex clothing and adult oriented literature scattered liberally throughout our house. We have a dungeon and fetish closet. We host parties. We spend hours or days at a time playing tabletop games at three or four day conventions. We like to pick up and go whenever time and work allows. Neither of our families live close enough to us that we could look to them for an occasional babysitter so that we could still participate in those activities on a limited basis. Finding a babysitter for even something as small as a night out would be an interesting feat. It would be honestly a very big change that would have to happen if we choose to have children. Thinking about those parts of my life being greatly reduced or going away completely brings a whole other bag of mixed emotions.
So ... child or no child in my future? I don't know. Am I happy without a human child? Yes. I have my wife who loves me and who I love enormously. I have a puppy who is decidedly spoiled because of the very fact that we do not have humie babies. My life is full of social activities, friends, and family. I have a job that I really enjoy and a new house that we are working very hard to make into the welcoming home that we want it to be. My life isn't broken without children. I can be and am happy without kids. Maybe it is just time to decide that they aren't going to be part of my complete. That's just the way it is. Time will tell better than any hypothesizing I can do on my own now.
When it comes to our relationships with our parents, do we ever really get to grow up?
I’m adult woman. I've spent almost as much of my life on my own as I did in my parents' home. Why does the
thought of being in the house with my mother for six days create such a
violently negative reaction? Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother. I would do
anything for her. But … we rarely see eye-to-eye on anything.
Our relationship has been comparable to a destructive force of
nature since I was old enough to refuse to wear the endless supply of frilly
dresses she bought me. I was six years old. Things have only gone downhill
since then. We didn't agree on what I wore, what toys I played with, or what
activities I wanted to participate in. As I grew older she agreed even less
with what I wore, she detested the people I chose as friends, and let’s not
even start on how she felt about the few people I dated who were brave enough
to come over to my house for a visit. Now … it’s pretty much the same, but she
has more to dislike. Now she can add not linking where I live, what I do for a
living, and the fact that I do not visit often enough.
I only visit my parents once a year for Christmas, and I’m a
ball of nerves leading up to every visit. I should have ulcers for the hours of
worry that goes into each holiday “vacation.” I purposefully limit our trips to
three days plus travel just to reduce the time for conflict. You see I say
reduce time and not reduce the chance of conflict. I know it’s going to happen
at some point during the visit, but with only three days, it doesn't happen as
frequently.
I think a lot of our continued conflict boils down to the
fact that I've changed and she hasn't.
I spent the first twenty something years of my life being
peacekeeper in our household. I took the verbal abuse that was dished out, and
I held my tongue. My mother is like a hurricane. Once she gets going, there’s
no stopping her until she’s done. Growing up, I dealt with that by making
myself as unnoticeable as possible with the theory that if she doesn't notice
me, she won’t start yelling at me for something. If she wasn't able to pick the
fight then she didn't have the opportunity to push my buttons and engage me.
Engaging in those fights only left me frustrated and hurt and crying.
I grew up, I moved a little farther away with each relocation, and in so doing slowly distanced myself
from the chaos. At this point in my life, I’m just not willing to take the
abuse and stay quiet. I don’t sit by meekly. I give as good as I get, but I
like to be sneaky about it. I know if she starts an argument and I take the
bait, it’s only going to end badly for me. She always wins in those situations.
But if I never engage, I take that away from her. Nothing makes her angrier
than someone walking away from her attempt at starting a fight. I hang up the
phone, and I don’t answer the return calls. I delete the emails and Facebook
posts. I disengage before anything can start.
I’m her only child, and I've decided if she wants to keep me
in the loop she has to respect my right to make my own decisions even if she
doesn't agree with them. I've made good choices and bad choices, but
ultimately, I’m the one that has to live with the consequences. I refuse to be
controlled and manipulated. I've made calculated decisions in my life to try to alleviate that constant strain, and I've been pretty successful at it overall.
And, yet, here I am feeling my stomach tighten into knots at
the thought of being in the house with her for six days. No wife with me to put
my mother on good behavior. No car of my own to use as a quick escape route. No
support network to act as a buffer between what I know to be true and what I’m
sure I will hear her say at some point during my stay. No alcohol or sex to take
my mind off of things.
It’s not a situation I want to put myself in, but I need
to be there for more important reasons. It’s something I have to do. I'm not a teenager any longer pushing boundaries and establishing independence. That battle has already been fought. I grew up. An adult child and her mother at some point have to be able to set it all aside and be the friends they couldn't be during the growing period, right? And so I have to tell myself the lie that everything will be different this time. To quote one of my favorite movies and pieces of literature, "I like the pretty lies."
