The one in which I find myself . . .

This last week has been extremely busy. I spent the week doing mundane stuff and getting ready for a magickal weekend. The mundane stuff included a regular monthly Royal Oak Animal Shelter Committee meeting. That is good work.

Sweetpea and I went to our first knitting guild meeting. It was the Black Sheep Knitting Guild in Berkely, Michigan. It was fun and a bit intimidating. There was so much wonderful talented energy. It was a room full of what seemed like 75 knitters all chatting and knitting and enjoying each others company. I got a load of knitting finished and I'll be excited to go back.

Mostly, I spent the week getting ready for the weekend. House Shadow Veil held a rite of passage called the Warrior Ritual or the Hunt. It was about finding and 'killing' those things about yourself that you want to eliminate. It can also be about finding and regaining a part of oneself but for me, it was identifying and eliminating.

There was a load of preparation work for the 'hunters' and for the Hunt Mistress and the Community. Sweetpea and Bunny were involved in it so the week, at our house, was a little frantic. My time was spent trying to complete my preliminary tasks and figure out what I needed to focus upon during the hunt. The latter was the most difficult. I know I have issues - we all have issues. I am not so arrogant as to think I don't need the work; I just wasn't sure where to start.

It took until the actual event to understand where I needed to go and what I needed to do. So much of life and my path is about patterns. My watch words are to live by balance, context and priorities. Within these concepts are patterns that change over time. Balance amongst the various elements of life changes as well. How I fit into life and into what I must do this time around and what is important also changes. Trying to be aware of the changes, to let go of the old stuff and to acknowledge and accept the new route can be hard. That's what the weekend was about.

I returned home dead tired and amazingly renewed. I have a much better idea of how to implement my mission here. I am so grateful to those who organized the event, those who hunted with me and to those who made it possible. I am, too, grateful that I was willing to swallow my pride and understand that I needed to do this work. I am not finished, I've just started this path. This weekend was turn on the path.
Thank you.

Carry on.

The One in which I must decide

Well, I am off camping in a few days. Yepper, the city girl goes country for a bit every year. I head off into the great wild woods or vally or hills or wherever and get my nature groove on. I will spend 12 days enjoying the sounds, smells and sweet air of our Earth.

This year I am headed to the Pagan Spirit Gathering again. For years, it has been in Ohio but, this year it moves to Camp Zoe, MO. I will be enjoying the space with friends. Bunny, Sweetpea and I are camping together. It is the first year in quite a while that I've camped with others. That will sure be fun.

We've got loads of coordinating and packing to do. Who brings what for whom is a big set of questions. Mostly, we are working it out, though. My toughest decision isn't about my clothing or the books but, you guessed it, about my knitting. What projects do I bring??? Yep - projects, not project! I realize that it is a plural reference.

In years past, I haven't done much knitting. One year, I took a lovely skein of sock yarnn to knit. I even worked on the socks but I didn't get far. The yarn, you see, wasn't superwash and it was felting as I knit it in the 90 degree weather. Another year, I had the good sense to bring different yarn but it was fuzzy. Fuzzy and humidity/heat don't mix well. Sigh.

This year I have a multiple-pronged plan. I am taking a sock project. It is a simple set (I am an optimist) of socks in Tofutsies yarn. That might be good to knit. The second project is the Victoria parasol project. No wool or animal fiber to be found in that project. But, I worry it is too complex for those lazy hot days. The last project is going to be some wash cloths from Lily Sugar'n'Cream. One cannot go wrong with basic cotton. That'll be for the days when the sun or the heat addle my brain but my hands must still create.

So, here's to the great outdoors and to knitting in nature!!!