Beginning Nature Awareness

With the seasonal changes of my life comes a renewed interest in my Dedicant Path… and the start of my nature awareness. I debated for a while about the spot I’d choose for regular nature meditations – after all, we do have a very nice park less than a mile away from my new home. In the end, though, I decided to keep it (perhaps a bit too) simple. I’ll be doing my nature studies in a corner of my new backyard. After all, it’s close enough to be less of a challenge to reach on my non-motivated days, and also close enough to keep near warmth when winter comes and challenges my lungs to a deathmatch (I don’t breathe well in cold.) It was also left abandoned for a few years, so it’s honestly a bit more wild than the average backyard. I spent an evening hour outside – and did I learn a lot!

Running Late, and a Belated Samhain Write-Up (Week Four Homework)

As always, as ever, I fall behind. I gained a full-time job on November 4th, and I have been struggling to adjust to the difference in my available time. If that wasn’t enough, I also attempted (and did not complete, sadly) to try NaNoWriMo for the first time in the same month. Then, I’m a bit of a Christmas nut, so December went by in a flurry of paper and real snowflakes, the home cookie factory, and carols. I’ll be doing quite a bit of DP catch-up in the near future, suffice to say.

For tonight, a much belated-essay for Week Four follows.

Dedicant Path: “Week Two” Homework

So, it took me doing things a bit out of order, but I did finally make my First Oath. I’m typing this just after finishing, smoke still lingering in the air etcetera etcetera, and I still feel the good rush from good ritual. I need to thank Victoria from The Druid’s Cosmos for encouraging me, and for pointing me in the direction of the excellent ritual for this oath that is written in the Wheel of the Year supplemental text. I also need to thank Kaitlyn from An Inward Spiral for being my human witness. Finally, I need to thank lots of people on the ADF-dedicant email list for talking with me about altar setup ideas- I found yet another flat surface rather adjacent to my main working space, set up a tiny cosmos, and started ritual.