Waiting for Yule: a poem

His body lying in a field dead
Lifeblood seeped into the ground
Resting with the seeds of life to come
Above is a carpet of her red, yellow and brown tears
That dark feels that it has won
Forgetting that the summer light felt the same
The leaves decay and caress the blood
But, the sun is reborn
She sees his eyes again
She whispers life
And the seeds cry, life

First Post in a While

I have not posted here for a long time, the last time was in August 2016, but I feel that I would like to write about: Witchcraft, Wicca, Tarot, Magick and Astrology again. I have started with a little poem about Astrology, my astrology. If you have not looked into your own astrology, this modest tarot reader would highly recommend you find a good astrologer. I have been a tarot reader from the early 1980s', compared to my knowledge of tarot, my understanding of astrology is superficial. But I know the basics fairly well and I believe it is good for a tarot reader to study astrology. For an astrologer, it is also good to know about the tarot, they are complimentary arts.

This is a very short post, but I will be writing more very soon.

Bright Blessings

Satisfaction

As a solitary Wiccan it can be hard to keep motivated and stay satisfied with your path. In May I moved to my new home and I am very happy here. But since the move both my photography and Wiccan practise have taken a back seat to my teaching and language study.  I began to feel dissatisfied with this situation, but was not sure what to do. But then I remembered a little magick embedded in the word satisfaction, that is the word action. It does not have to be a big action, but if you do something to improve your satisfaction with something, this will lead to other positive changes. So I believe this small ritualistic action of photographing Ebisu and Benzaiten, then writing this post is enough to get my practise back into gear again. If there is something in your life that is unsatisfactory for you, do not wait for someone else to do something, be pro-active and do something positive to make the situation better. It will work like magick.    

Imagining creation

I believe anything that someone creates is a kind of magick. First you have to be able to imagine it and imagine that you can create it. Without that positive imagination, creation is impossible.  I strongly believe anything that we can visualise and believe in, we can bring into reality. An interesting thing in the Japanese language is the word (or I should say words) souzou, which has two meanings, imagine and create. The pronunciation is the same, but the kanji (Japanese characters) are different. I think this is a beautiful connection.

Moving Beltane

Beltane always seems a time of starting something new for me. Last year I started writing a blog about the Wiccan festivals in Japanese. This year I moved home. I lived in my wonderful flat by the river for two and a half happy years and it was sad to say goodbye. But now I am living in a fantastic flat up in the Kyoto sky. I have been too busy to do a ritual, but moving itself is a kind of ritual, saying goodbye to the old and hello to the new. I did find some time to take some pictures of the lush new greenery in Kyoto.  Bright Beltane Blessings to you all.

http://wiccakyoto.blogspot.jp/2015/05/a-poem-for-beltane.html
http://wiccakyoto.blogspot.jp/2014/04/yellow-beltane-flowers-and-jack-in-green.html
http://wiccanwheeloftheyear.blogspot.jp/2015/05/beltane.html

Don't be chained to another person's spiritual beliefs

 

 

Today I found the above two statues chained together outside a 

Buddhist shop in Kyoto. It was the final piece in a jigsaw of 

events that inspired this post. At the moment I a trying to create

 a Pagan Moot in Kyoto.I believe there are pagans in Kyoto, 

but hiding in the shadows somewhere. I know that slowly and 

surely the moot will grow, but as I expected, I was the only

 person at the first one. The big advantage about being 

the only person at a moot is nobody disagreed with me.  

But strangely the worse thing was that nobody disagreed

 with me. The great thing about paganism is that everyone is 

following their own path, so there is agreement and disagreement,

 but many chances to learn from other peoples paths. 

 

Recently one of my most spiritually aware friends had 

her spiritual beliefs attacked by a fundamental christian.

 He went as far a saying her beliefs were evil. She is 

Japanese so has had little contact with fundamental christians. 

This bullying made me angry, but the worst thing for 

her was his unwillingness to try to understand her path. If I 

speak honestly, I have no time for any of the monotheist

 religions, I believe they are fundamentally bad.  

But because of my friends openness to everything, 

she asked me to teach her about Christianity. At first I did not

 want to, but after thinking about it, I would rather be 

open as she is, than closed as her bully was. 

Also I have some good Christian and Islamic friends who

 have strong beliefs about Jesus; so I decided to write 

about Jesus for her and in respect for them. When I was

 young I attended a Church of England school, so 

I knew a lot, but I also researched in the Catholic and 

King james (not so witch friendly) bibles. 

 

I learnt a lot and one thing that surprised me 

was except for the Resurrection there is only one 

miracle that is in all four gospels. It is the feeding of the

 five thousand, which as always struck me as 

being a metaphor for sharing and if society 

shares there would be no poverty. So I read

 it in the gospel of John and tried to translate

 it into Japanese. These events have

 made it very clear to me that we can learn from 

all spiritual paths. But without the freedom

 to walk our own path we can become slaves to another

 persons path, that may or may not be spiritual.

 

 

 

 

 

Ostara Photo Shoot： Some pictures of nature taken on the Spring Equinox.