Michael and Jaspenelle

Damian’s Baby Blessing Ceremony

I wanted to share this ritual that I wrote because baby blessings for Pagans are very hard to find online (or in reference books for that matter.)

Date: August 16th, 2008
Moon: Full in Aquarius
Ritual Type: Family

We call upon the Elemental Spirits of Air, Fire, Water and Earth, to welcome our child on this eve. From breeze to storm, from spark to flame, from stream to ocean, from field to mountain, you bring power to our circle.

We call upon our Beloved Ancestors, blood of our blood, to welcome our child on this eve. A sacred cord connects us back to before time was time, we are honored by your presence.

We call upon the Eternal Spirit of Woman, the Great Mother, and ask that you bless our child on this eve. Sacred nurturer, may your power flows through us in this rite.

We call upon the Eternal Spirit of Man, the Great Father, and ask that you bless our child on this eve. Sacred protector, may your power flows through us in this rite.

Eternal Spirits, we bring before you this being of light, our son, for whom we have chosen the name of Damian Michael Stewart. We give thee thanks for sending Damian into our lives, he is our greatest joy and has grown our hearts a hundredfold. May we always be aware of his origins in your world, as ours are, so that we may reflect back to him the knowledge of the Great Mystery.

Damian, we light this candle [the rose one on the right side of the altar] as a reflection of the light that shines within you. Though its flame may be extinguished, know that your spirit within our lives never will. May your life be a divine work of art upon which all the blessings of the Universe are bestowed. Damian, you are our beloved. We swear to live our life to the highest virtues we know because it is upon this foundation that you will grow and flourish.

Eternal Spirits, we ask that you send Damian a guardian spirit to guide and protect him as he grows his light, until such a time when he can call upon his own guides. May this guardian guide him on the path that is most true for his soul and may the power of the elements ease his travels.

Spirits of Air we ask that you guide Damian as he soars through the skies of imagination.
Spirits of Fire we ask that you guide Damian as he faces all the challenges that await him.
Spirits of Water we ask that you guide Damian as he swims in the ocean of intuition.
Spirits of Earth we ask that you guide Damian as he climbs the tree of knowledge.

So mote it be.

Elemental Spirits, you are the breath, the inspiration, the soul and the body of our world. We thank you for your presence on this eve.

Beloved Ancestors, blood of our blood, your wisdom shines upon us. We thank you for your presence on this eve.

Eternal Spirits of Man and Woman, sacred beings of love and balance, we thank you for your blessings and your power on this eve.

Our circle is open but never broken.

So mote it be.

Baby Blessing by Jaspenelle Stewart is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Temple Free Spirit Solstice Gathering

(These are some of the people who came to our gathering. Including children, we had about 25 people attend, which was a really fantastic turnout, especially with all the snow we had yesterday!)

Temple Free Spirit hosted its first every gathering last night. We celebrate the Winter Solstice! The gathering was held at Shannon and Robb’s home on Spokane’s South Hill and a total success! We held a small ritual, had a potluck and had lots of fun! As with all Temple events, we also had a food drive and received several large bags of food for Second Harvest.

(You can go to the the Temple gallery to see a few more photos.)

The Winter Solstice Gathering was a wonderful chance to get together, build community spirit and celebrate the Earth. Thank you to everyone who helped with preparations and attended.

Community

Michael and I have Chiefs tickets for tonight, against Tri Cities! Let the mayhem begin.

“Free Spirits - Open Minds” so far as gotten great reviews. I was a little nervous about it at first but Michael did a really professional job laying it out and Temple Free Spirit members submitted wonderful articles! I am already looking forward to our Imbolc issue.

My current nervousness lies in next Saturday when we will be having the first Temple Free Spirit event, a Winter Solstice gathering. It will be in one of our member’s home. Shannon has a large empty full basement with a kitchen and bathroom which will work perfectly. Right now almost everything is planned down to the T, except some last minute work on the ritual. My friend Dee gathered lots of information on various Solstice traditions, and we met up this week to review them. Today I am working on knitting our favorite ideas together.

Community is so important, I can never seem to stress this enough. I could not having planned the gathering to this extent on my own. All the brainstorming and planning and little details have come together wonderfully thanks to all of us working together. The people in my community are all blessings.

Anyhow, I better get back to work. I can hardly call it work though since it is so enjoyable!

Samhain Gathering

Within a glen, around a simple stone altar we gathered, inviting the powers that be into the sacred space through song, Winds Four Quarters. The matron of the property and circle, Linda, guided some in gathering feast food and offering it to those who have passed this year. We felt the ancestors strongly, truly the veil did part.

Leaving the glen’s east gate we gathered around a roaring bonfire and shared a spectacular feast. (I want a certain baked bean recipe now…) Some bread was accidentally set on fire, not sure how that happened, but it hardly colored the night, except with laughter. A horn toast was passed around at one point, I recognized my new friends, Michael welcomed our upcoming child, Dottie sent love to her recently departed mother, and there were many upon many other toasts, from the serious to the amusing were shared. I would not trade such life affirming experiences for anything.

It was a beautiful night, spent in the company of wonderful new friends, what more can you ask for?

Healing Ritual

(For more information about the healing ritual please visit The Temple Cauldron.)

Just as the soft rains fill the streams,
pour into the rivers and join together in the oceans,
so may the power of every moment of our goodness
flow forth to awaken and heal all beings,
Those here now, those gone before, those yet to come.

By the power of every moment of our goodness
May our hearts’ wishes be soon fulfilled
as completely shining as the bright full moon,
as magically as by a wish-fulfilling gem.

By the power of every moment of our goodness
May all dangers be averted and all disease be gone.
May no obstacle come across your way.
May we enjoy fulfillment and long life.

For all in whose heart dwells respect,
who follow the wisdom and compassion of the Way,
May our lives prosper in the four blessings
of old age, beauty, happiness and strength.

~ Traditional Buddhist Healing Chant ~

Danse avec moi…

I know it is awhile off to think about Samhain, we have to get through Mabon first! But I have heard the theme of this year may be a Masquerade Ball. I really hope it is, any excuse to get down and crafty.

I had a dream the night before last that I was at a masquerade ball with all the witches, shamans and Pagans I have ever known (big party, very Victorian-esque…) I woke up with the feeling of poetry in my soul and wrote something for it. I would like to share but the problem is that it is meant to be a spoken poem. I do not think all the punctuation in the world could make is right - do any other poets have that problem?

When Michael gets home I am going to see if he can help me record my voice on the computer so I can post the poem. Fingers crossed!

Have you ever wanted to own a big empty warehouse to use for everything from indoor ritual to parties? I could use one of those right now…

Now off to the post office for me, got some candle orders to send off!

Lughnasadh Recap

The Lughnasadh open circle went wonderfully today. I met a few new people and reconnected with old friends. The potluck was delicious; a couple people brought the bounties of their home gardens to share too. I have lots of fresh organic produce in my kitchen now! Spaghetti squash, zucchini, radishes, onions and beets. Yum! It is definitely going to make zucchini relish this week.

The ritual went well but it was also a learning experience for me too. This is one of the larger groups I have worked with and organized (it really is like herding cats!) Group chanting works well with smaller groups but it seems to get disorganized too quickly in larger ones, I felt they broke the ritual up too much. I think the guided meditation I did went very well though. I could have slowed it down a bit though, I rushed a little because I was a bit nervous. I feel I will be more at ease doing it next time. Fleur sang a wonderful song which brought me a lot of peace before the meditation otherwise I might have really ran through it. We blessed the food that was brought and raised some healing energy for some too.

I realized how much I deeply care about one person who I asked for some healing energy for in the circle. She has late stage ovarian cancer. Not only is she the mother of one of my best friends, but she is also my friend. I didn’t realize how much her pain affected me until I was on the verge of breaking down into tears talking about her. Cancer is so devastating and she is such a strong woman, I really admire her.

It was really nice seeing the community coming together and celebrating. I am definitely going to be organizing something for Autumn Equinox now too!

Click here for more photos. I forgot to get any of the altar, I shall have to remember that next time. I also forgot sunscreen since I rarely burn - Murphy’s Law though, my face is toasty!

Sage

Sitting here drinking some mint tea, I am thinking I possibly should put something deep and insightful for my first spiritually oriented post in this blog, but I just want to talk about sage, the herb sage, and my recent trip to collect wild sage brush. So here we go…

The Sage Daytrip
This past Saturday (the 25th) Michael and I set out to Grande Coulee, WA. Giving our friend Eala a ride we followed Lily, Mikcos, and Nathan’s car up there.

The 2 hour trip there gave Michael and I the chance to get to know Eala better. She is a solitary witch when it comes to her practice, though she hasn’t always been so. I am glad she was able to come along, I feel the each such trip bonds our group more. She gifted me with a small quartz crystal which I recently put into the tip of Michael’s wand. In case I have never mentioned it, Michael and I met Lily, Mikcos, and Nathan at the Pagan campout last June. Nathan is Lily’s 10-year old son and Mikcos is Lily’s second husband.

When we got to Grande Coulee the energy of the area was really amazing. The area is very much like a desert and there was sagebrush everywhere (I have some pictures from the daytrip here.) The area is a look-out over the Grande Coulee dam (we were also the only ones there at that time) and near the edge there is a pavillion where we did a little ritual.

Lily has been sage picking up there before and she gave an offered the last of the sage she had previously picked. She also cleansed each of us with the smoke, wafting it with a bird wing. I never use to put much credence into personal cleansing like that, but I have found I always feel much better after I am saged or I sage the apartment. I also find when I use frankincense I feel much the same effects.

After the small ritual we went where we were called, Lily, Mikcos and Nathan down a pathway towards the dam and Michael, Eala and myself down a slop in the other direction. I was very clearly able to tell which plant had parts to offer which was nice. Eala went her own way after a minute. Michael and I collected some sage on our way to a spot we were both drawn with two sagebrush plants side by side. One had a recently broken off branch which we took and the other had a lot of new growth. After we collected enough, we return to the pavillion. I didn’t have a problem keeping to my promise with Gaia not to take more then 1/3 of a plant since the sagebrush was so widespread and the individual plants were very nearly trees. While waiting for the others to return, by this time there was a school bus of Japanese exchange students in the area learning about the dam. I just spent my time soaking up the energy of the area, the weather was beautiful too.

Eventually Mikcos, Eala, and then Lily and Nathan returned and we bid farewell to the area. From my vantage point near a cliff edge, I saw a flock of crows circling far below which unnerved me a little but the crows had been watching us for most of the way. I see crows as one of my family’s guardian spirits and they show up in numbers to let me know when to be careful (almost always associated with a car trip.) We then left the area. As we were driving up the road a coyote ran across the road in front of the car (we didn’t hit it) it was such a beautiful animal. We went to a nearby park and ate some lunch, the trip home was rather uneventful but I definitly feel I go the energy I have needed for awhile from the area.

Sage (Salvia officinalis)
Sage is, in the New Age sense, used for purification of the self, ritual objects and a space (like your home.) This is done through smudging, which is wafting the smoke of the burning herb around a person/place/object. Sage smudging has been done by the Native Americans for a long time for cleansing and sending prayers to the heavens. It was sometimes mixed with Cedar, Sweetgrass, Lavender and Copal; something I wish to try when I aquire all those herbs.

Medicinally, sage has several uses, as an anti-hydrotic (something that reduced prespiration), a anti-spasmodic, an astringent, an anti-depressant, to decrease lacation and relief menstral cramps.

To make a useful tea out of sage, steep 1 tsp of leaves in 1/2 cup of water for 30 minutes, then drink it 1 tablespoon at a time. The tea can be used to treat prespiration, depression and to decrease lactation (if you have stopped breast feeding.) It can be garged to relieve a sore throat.

A tincture or infused oil can be made out of it to treat mentral cramps and 15 to 30 drops can be taken at a time as needed though no more then 4 times a day.

CAUTION: Extended or excessive use of sage can cause symptoms of poisoning and should be avoided completely during pregnacy. Over use of pure sage oil can cause convulsions. It is a potent and useful herb but deserves upmost respect.

Sage leaves are most potent when picked before the plant flowers. The sage we picked is actually Sagebrush, which is not related to Common Sage (Salvia officinalis) but has many similar uses (like for smudging and it can be consumed. Sagebrush’s scientific name is Artemisia tridentata.