The Garden

This year I have discovered that I have a much deeper respect for my ancestors!

For the past couple of years I have been dying to have a garden!  When we lived in the city a garden was limited to the little stretch of dirt directly in front of the house with the front porch cutting it in half. I tried to talk my landlord into letting us take a small patch pf the backyard and create a raised garden bed. He refused and so I had to try and learn to be creative. I tried my hand at container garden, with mixed results. Sometimes container gardening can be a bit more fussy than open air gardening. You don't have insects churning the soil for you, you have to give it lots of water, ensure it gets plant food etc. Some plants I had grew fairly well, but others I just did not have enough container space for them.

When we were looking to move we stumbled upon the home we have now and the first thing my husband told me was the size of the garden. He had already seen many features of the house and really wanted to convince me to come and look at the property so he knew the word Garden would catch my interest.  I have to confess that at the sight of the 30x30 garden plot and two mature apple trees I was sold! We moved in February and so I had to wait!

Week after week I watched the weather forecast, waiting with baited breath for spring to arrive. I remember one day we had a terrific snow storm in March. All around me people were grumbling about having to shovel their walks, drive in the wretched conditions and disparaging the cold. I could not stop grumbling about how long it was taking for my garden to thaw out! Weekly I cruised by the hardware store and picked up packages of seeds! Slowly our Canadian winter melted into spring!

With the snow melted we could see that it had been a few years since somebody had tended the garden. It was over run with weeds and I had to hack a bunch of dead weed stalks in order just to see the dirt. We did not have a tiller so we attacked the soil with shovels and a weed weasel. The sun was already gathering its force and was making it warm enough that I was uncomfortably sticky, and that was only 15 minutes into it! My husband was a trooper and was turning the soil at the back of the garden where things were packed in rather tight. After an hour of slugging away at it we took a rest break in the shade when a neighbour came by and offered us the use of a tiller.

Our neighbour and my husband then took the tiller and after another half an hour they were able to get the garden tilled. We were all exhausted and filthy. I only smoothed over the soil on the top and called it a night. We barbecued and I sorted my seeds., the next week we had rain non stop. I was sick for the next week and then had more rain. By the time I was able to get to planting I was well behind the rest of the province. Not wanting to waste time I planted all my seeds in one day. Take my advice... don`t do that! My back was killing me for days after that!

After the planting came the tending! What a tedious task that is! Pulling the weeds, watching the weather for appropriate rain levels, keeping harmful insects away, weeding, watching the weather again, and weeding again! I also had to make sure that I was making sure that I wasn`t pulling out the new shoots of my plants. I  had to put some mesh fencing up to help the beans grow upwards and am going to have to put more up for the peas soon. I am in the garden several times a week working away at it when time and weather allows.

The work has been far more than I can even begin to adequatly express in words. Sometimes when I come in after pulling weeds my hands are raw (mainly because I don`t wear gloves as much as I should). My back aches and I sometimes feel a touch of sunstroke after a while in the sun. Or I am soaking wet from fighting our hose to get the garden watered in a heat wave. My arms are often tense and sore after dragging a hoe through all the weeds and around the plants. And the harvesting has been no picnic either, bending and stooping, checking the plants for readiness. All of this work and pain for a hobby!!! However I do enjoy eating the fresh food and sharing it with my family and friends.

So how does this make me appreciate my ancestors you may ask? Well I was picking some raspberries and munching on them and I dropped one. I was a little bummed out because it looked rather juicy and delicious but figured "ah well, that's what a supermarket is for". My own ignorance and arrogance came back and kicked me square in the assets! Here I was holding a gift from the very land that holds my home on it, that has nourished the seeds that I had placed into the ground, that kept the trees I was planning on making apple pies with growing strong. Land that embraced me as I sat upon it to watch the sunsets and had offered healthy nourishment.

This ignorance and arrogance made me realise just how disconnected that I had become from the land. Me, a pagan, a follower of an Earth Religion, who considers the earth to be divine, who follows the seasons and makes a point of learning about the plants in my area. Who watches the migrations of birds and the way a tree shifts in the seasons. Who tries to meditate and get in touch with the earth! It seems almost ludicrous, but it is true, and very embarassing. It made me think.

I thought about all the produce in a supermarket, how many times I let something rot in the fridge because I didn't want to bother cooking. I thought of the person who took the time to watch the weather, plant his seeds with care. The time and work he put into keeping the earth healthy, the plants healthy and strong. And then all the work he put into gathering the ripe vegitables and fruits and getting them ready to be packaged and sent to market.

I then thought about the beef I had cooked the night before. I am surrounded by cows, we live smack dab in the middle of cow country! I can count at least three herds during the 20 minute drive to town, and if I go any direction from my house I will see cows! But for the first time I really thought about it. In the early spring, early February for that matter, ranchers are out int heir fields, calving in the cold night. Ensuring that the cows deliver their calves well, keeping the coyotes away from the herds and taking care of the new calves. After that they ensure that the calves are healthy, staying up with the sick ones to see if they can recover, calling the Vet to keep the heard safe from disease. They are their with the calves from birth until they send them to market.

Countless hours, money and hard backbreaking work is done by farmers to ensure that there is always produce and meat in our supermarkets. Although I do not live near the sea I have seen some television programs about living on fishing boats, the dangers and wor that goes into the catching and preparing of the food that graces my plate. Even with my 30x30 garden plot I could not feed my husband and I for a full year off of the food I will grow.

My ancestors lived in Ireland, they were farmers and ranchers. They worked day and night to feed their clans, to ensure that they were healthy and had enough left over to barter for household goods they could not produce. Later in the years they moved to the cities and opened shops. But for centuries, mileniums even they were farmers. They had no supermarkets, no refridgeration. They had to rely on the earth every second of the day to keep themselves alive. The toils and tasks that are my hobby, were once the difference between life and death.

Yours Humbly

The Readneck Pagan

Coming Full Circle

The only thing life I have learned with certainty, if the fact that there is still so much for me to learn!

(I am sure that’s a quote from somewhere but I have no idea from where. So if somebody knows where on earth that one came from please give that person credit in the comments section. )

And so this brings me to my next topic to rant about: going back to the basics. I personally started peeking into the beautiful world of Paganism and Witchcraft about nine years ago. As most people, I had been raised in a “conventional household”, Mom, Dad, Brother, Dog and Bird. My grandparents on my father’s side are very devout Catholics. I can find no fault in them for their faith. They are wonderful people! My Grandmother is part of a group of Married Nuns (I cannot remember what they call themselves), she is at the Church daily, cooking meals for seniors, knitting hats and mitts for less fortunate children, singing in the choir, and helping everybody who crosses her path. My Grandfather helped with repairs around the Church and his neighbor’s homes, went to senior living facilities and hospitals to give comfort, pray and deliver the Communion the priest had blessed. They do not quote bible passages endlessly; I have never been forced to go to church with them, the most they did was when I was over for Easter my Grandfather prayed aloud before the meal.

My parents were less religious than my grandparents were and so religion was not a huge part of my life. On Christmas Eve my father read from the family bible the story of Jesus birth (a tradition in his family) and then went right into “T’was the Night Before Christmas”.  We had a manger beside the tree, but I played with them just like they were dolls and my mother never objected. When I was in Grade 5 my parents found a nice little school that was completely French (they had put me in French Immersion when I was four) so I transferred over to the Catholic School System. I still never went to church and did well enough in the religion classes to pass. In High School I went back into the public system. Graduated and still had never been forced into a religion.

I do not blame my parents at all for this. My Dad took me to several churches whenever I asked him to, answered my questions as I asked them, and told me it was important for me to decide things for myself. As such in high school I started reading up on different religions, I started with Buddhism, read a bit into Judaism, read on some different branches of Christianity, Fell in love with Aboriginal Spirituality (although I never practiced it as I did not want to usurp the culture of another) I even studied Hinduism, Sikh faith and read a little into Islam. I never did stay long on one topic, I learned enough to satisfy curiosity, and then moved on. I never practiced their rites and rituals, so I just kept hop scotching along. I finished High School, got a Job, got another job, got fired from one job (topic for another blog post), got another job the day after I got fired and was grateful for that since the day before I got fired I had been accepted into College for full time studies (even though I had only applied as part time).

My first few weeks of College would be the catalyst for launching me into Paganism. I met two young ladies who were themselves Witches. They lent me books, taught me the lingo, and let me follow them like a lost puppy into New Age stores and the Occult section of the local Library. I was hooked! I read every book I could get my hands on, collected crystals at an alarming rate (I’m still guilty of this one), jumped into online forums and Facebook Groups. Over time I learned a great deal and integrated much of what I had learned into my life. I cast spells, drummed to the moon, chanted to the Gods, read on the mythologies of our ancestors, collected all the cool “Witchy tools” I could get my hands on (and afford).

Slowly I grew into the world of Witchcraft. I slowed down enough to start thinking about what I was reading and being told. I questioned the “experts” I met online, my friends who had introduced me to Witchcraft and I had long discussions (and as we moved away after College we exchanged letters). I met and fell in love with my husband (a solitary Druid) and we bought our home together. It has now been almost Nine years since I had first set my eyes upon this world. Nine years (3X3, a rather sacred and magical number, especially for a Celt like myself) I have been learning, thinking, sharing and working on making magic. Nine years, and I realize I have come full circle. (And in writing this out I have discovered I am long winded...)

Don’t get me wrong. I love being Pagan, and being a Witch! I would have jumped over to something new by now if I didn’t. And many of my spiritual needs are being met through this path. Bu I am beginning to realize how little I actually know. I’m not talking about the memorization hoey that is regurgitated time and time again (such as Green is the colour of fertility, prosperity and earth), I mean I have read probably over a hundred books, but rarely stopped to really read them. I would do one or two exercises and then go to the next. I skimmed over the material without properly allowing myself the time and effort to go deeper.

With that little epiphany in mind I do believe it is time for me to go back to the basics! I have already gone through the first stage of development (in my opinion), we all get overly excited, rushing to see what is next, thirsting for what is new, hungering for something else to sink our teeth into. Whether it is the newest and greatest meditation, book, spell, magical item or chant. I believe I am not the only one guilty of this phase. Let’s face it, Paganism is exciting! Its eye opening and introduces us to world of magic and beauty beyond belief. There is so much to see and learn one cannot blame us for running topic to topic, devouring whatever we can lay our hands on. The problem is that we all, and I am guilty of this, get greedy for that rush. We get addicted to that superficial high that this brings us, we think of ourselves as being learned, intelligent witches, with great open minds along our piles and piles of books, with notes scribbled in our little notebooks. We clutter our lives with these magical tools, and clutter our minds with all this jargon, spells, chants and books.

But at some point in time we must grow past that phase. We need to stop, and ask ourselves “What the hell am I doing? What is it I am really looking for?” Once we have answered these questions satisfactorily (and by that I mean being brutally honest. My answers were “Looking for the next spiritual high” and “To free my soul, find deeper meanings in life and connect to the Gods. And then to take this knowledge and use it to help others.” Notice that what I was doing and what I wanted were totally different things?)  Then we can begin to really move forwards and go deeper. And in essence, this is taking us back to the beginning. I am finding myself digging out those 101 books that have been collecting dust, and have started re-reading them. My next goal is to start doing the exercises, and really documenting my results. Not just the half fast skimming I did before, but really seeking the experiences and knowledge. How successful I will be, I don’t yet know. We shall find out how much determination, discipline and dedication I have.  And I hope that more people stop and receive the epiphany I have, so that they to, may dive deeper as I am about to attempt to.

I’ll keep you posted from time to time during my mental wanderings.

Humbly yours

The Redneck Pagan

Are you my Familiar?

Well, I seem to be on a roll, three posts in two days! Mind you it is the weekend. I have a full time job in the city where I am on the computer for 8 hours a day, so I suspect weekdays will be rather slow for posts and the weekend I will yammer your ears off. Anyways, onto my next brilliant flash of inspiration (I say this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek). I have discovered that the idea of a familiar is a rather popular topic of conversation in the Pagan realm, and so this morning while making breakfast and drinking the magical elixir that allows me to function like a normal human being (aka Coffee) I mulled it over.

I currently live with four animals, yes my house is a zoo and no I am not counting my husband amongst them. I have three dogs and a cat. The two older dogs are small breeds, one is 13 the other is 12. The other dog is still a puppy, she is 10 months old and is a larger breed dog. She still has a ton of the rambunctious puppy energy that causes her to get into everything and drive me completely crazy at least once a day. The other two are much more sedate, preferring the comfort of the couch or the foot of the bed to madcap laps around the house. They are still rather active, but are considerable less so than the puppy. I got the two small ones as a teenager when they were puppies and we just got the puppy this year (I know, if she`s only 10 months old DUH!). The cat is the newest addition to our family and proof that my husband loves me, he is not a cat person whatsoever and has already had to rescue her from trees and cupboards when she gets stuck. Did I mention my husband is a saint, I really should. Anyway, she is a rescue, we think she is about two years old.

Now I have four animals and as a witch one must be my familiar, right? I mean it is the pinnacle of witchyness to have a familiar? Every witch I have read about has one. Well let us examine these pets one by one, starting with the puppy. She loves to be wherever I am, curled up at my side, she loves coming outside with me while I garden and she eats grass until she makes herself sick (a habit I wish she would stop). So does that make her my familiar? Probably not, that makes her a puppy! Her breed is a very family oriented one (Border Collie, Golden Retriever and Irish Setter), they like to stick close to their pack and after we brought her home I took over the "mom role" for her.

So onto the second one, lets look at the 13 year old. I got her when I was sixteen, she was just a ball of white fluff when I got her and I slept beside her box in a sleeping bag for the first few days, and always woke up to find the box tipped over and the puppy in my sleeping bag. So I brought the puppy downstairs to my bedroom and left her box beside my bed. And yet in the am, there she was, curled up on my pillow next to me. Even after 13 years she is still always curled up next to me. She too likes to know where I am at all times, although she does not always have to be right next to me. She has also taken a shine to my husband, she will follow him everywhere, behave beautifully for him and will sit at the door every time he leaves and wait for him to come back. Hmmm, again seems like a loyal and good dog to me, but not a familiar, she will be around me when I cast spells, create an altar etc, but that is more because she has always done so.

Ok third dog then, my little suck. He is the smallest of the three dogs and is actually the son of my 12 year old dog. When she had a litter of puppies he was the runt of the litter, kept getting pushed out of the basket by the bigger and stronger puppies. I was so scared he was going to die that I bought a bottle of puppy formula and fed him three times a day myself, just to make sure he would grow. I played with him and cuddled him non stop and when the time came to sell the puppies we ended up keeping him because I was so attached (actually I can thank my brother because he got to choose which two puppies we kept and my boy was one of the ones chosen). He is still a total Mommy's boy, he has to sleep curled up next to me, follows me wherever I go (more than the puppy does) and I can flip him onto his back and rub his belly with no warning. Actually the stuff that dog lets me get away with is astounding. Again is he a familiar? I don't think so. He is very intuitive, knows my moods exceptionally well and when I am upset he won't leave my side (or when I am sick). He is a very faithful companion, but I don't think that makes him a familiar. So none of the dogs are familiars, and yet they are still and integral part of my life. I would be poorer for not having their companionship and love.

So the last one, the Cat. Well she is a good choice for familiar, the connection between Witches and Cats go back through the centuries. And she is a beautiful long haired black cat! Well that is a promising start isn't it! This cat has to know where everybody is in the house at all times, if she cannot find you she meows non stop until you identify where you are. In our house we have quite a few rooms, one of which has been set aside as my pagan room. This is one of the cat's favorite places to go. Whenever the door is open she is in there like a dirty shirt, sniffing everything, she jumps onto the altar, paws at the books, and has to be there whenever I am doing a working.

Aha! You say, she is totally your familiar, the interest n the the altar and magical workings proves it! Well maybe it does, or maybe it does not. First of all the room I speak of is normally a closed door room, pets are not allowed to wander through it. Anybody who owns a cat can tell you that a closed door is a severe annoyance to any cat. The second that any closed door is opened my cat, who normally has the speed of molasses poured from the carton, suddenly develops the magical abilities of "The Flash" and will actually materialize in the room before you have stepped in the door. So its not just the pagan room, the same thing happens irregardless of what closed door it is. Second, she is a rescue cat. She was found in a house with 70 other cats, with her litter of kittens. She was only 4 pounds when they found her and were unable to save her litter. She was adopted and then abandoned two weeks afterwards in -40 weather. She then spent another month in the shelter, waiting for a home. When we got her she was very clingy, and especially after two weeks, which to be honest I cannot blame her.

So what conclusions can we come to about this:
1) It would appear that I do not have a familiar, there are some indicators that I might have one, but equally enough indicators that I do not.
2) It can be incredibly easy to jump to conclusions that would lead you to the answer you want. Had I desperately wanted a familiar, any of the examples above could lead me to delude myself into believing that one of my pets is a familiar.

It is easy to convince oneself of anything when you want it badly enough, even if that is not necessarily the truth. To be brutally honest, I don't know if any of my pets are my familiars, perhaps one is, perhaps not, at the end of the day does it really matter? I honour my pets and their contribution to my life daily. I feed and water them, give them shelter from the elements. I give them love and attention, and spoil them rotten with toys. I make sure their medical needs are taken care of. In return I get tons of slobbery kisses, lots of purrs and mountains of cuddles! So what if they are not my familiars, it does not make me any less of a witch, nor does it diminish the impact they have in my life.

Yours humbly

The Redneck Pagan

The Meteor Shower

So tonight is the night of the Perseid Meteor shower. My husband and I spent over an hour on our deck watching them streak across the sky. Its the first real astronomical event we have watched since we moved out here. I remember last year we were sitting in the backyard of the place we were renting. We had a little fire bowl (the poor thing only held two split logs at a time). We had spent an hour explaining to three separate neighbours what we were doing outside at that hour (it was only 11pm), then we got to breath some second hand smoke from bad cigarettes as three of our neighbours lit up on their deck. A siren from a police car shattered the tranquility of the night. We could hear the people four doors down having a party. But the worst part of all, was that there were so many streetlights that we only got to see the brightest of meteors. We got rather disheartened and went inside and instead looked up meteor shower photographs on the internet.

This year it was a totally different experience! We went out at about the same time this year, 11pm (2300hrs) and sat out on the deck to enjoy the show. There was not a sound to be heard. No cars, no sirens, no parties. Quiet, the only interruption to the silence was the occasional tap of claws on the deck as our dogs wandered around, wondering why on earth we are not curled up in the nice comfy bed. I could hear my husbands light breathing beside me. The second thing I noticed was how dark it was, we have an industrial plant near the town, but its soft lights only lit up a section of the sky south of us. In the North, East and West the sky was filled with thousands of stars! Far more than I had ever seen in the city. I breathed deeply and commented about the difference to my husband, who agreed with me on how different things were out there. We relished the quiet and the amazing view our new home offered us.

We sat out there, watching as red and white and green meteors shot across the sky, leaving the trail of light behind them before vanishing into the darkness again. While we looked he pointed out several stars to me. In his earlier days he had been an avid star watcher and has a significant knowledge base. He showed me above a set a bright stars a light that seemed to move slightly, it was a moon! We watched the light from the international space station slip through the sky, along with several satellites. Around Cassiopeia he showed me where you could just make out some binary stars. When he mentioned that they were two stars devouring each other I asked him if they were still there (seeing as the lights we see in the sky are millions of years old). He said they were not.

Its amazing to think that the light that shines upon us tonight is no longer in existence, that one day the stars we know, have named and make up our various constellations are only a memory of what once was. Its incredibly difficult for me to wrap my head around how immense the universe is! I can understand how my ancestors saw the stars as Gods, and dwelling places of great heroes! And even in this modern age, where science and technology has helped to explain what the stars are, what creates meteor showers, I find them no less magical than our distant relatives did thousands of years ago.

Yours humbly

The Redneck Pagan.

Welcome to The Redneck Pagan

So I suppose the best way to start is a brief introduction to this blog and me. I live in a small community in central Alberta. In my town there are often more cows around the outskirts then there are people. The people are out here are friendly, they will introduce themselves to you on the street when you are new, wave at you across the road and offer to lend you a hand when they see you struggling. They will keep their nose out of your business and let you live your life your way, provided you don't bother them living their life their way. We recently moved out here and I have found the slower pace has been very agreeable for my husband to be and myself. In the bigger city we came from we were living in a fishbowl, everybody stared at you, compared their material goods to their neighbour, and were full of flash and short on substance. We live with a few dogs and a cat, who all provide enough entertainment to last a lifetime!

This blog is going to be about the stuff that interests me, pisses me off, makes me laugh or stuff that I just find weired. It might have some PG language, possible some PG examples. I'm not very good at being diplomatic or politically correct. That often gets in the way of what you are trying to say, so I tend to "tell it as it is". Hence you are probably going to find something in these pages, at some point in time, that is going to royally piss you off. My answer to that is: good! I only hope that before you get angry that you really think about what in the post has made you angry! Was it my idea, opinion, something I said, or did you just get mad because of a social programming or prejudice? For the most part I will try to stick to Pagan related topics (since they are what got me started on this), or talk about things from a Pagan perspective.

Well I suppose that's enough blabbering about the basics. Thank you for reading!

Yours humbly

The Redneck Pagan