meridian_rose

Challenge #4 IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself.
To begin, I'm going to borrow tellshannon815's idea of posting the image made for a lands_of_magic challenge on the same theme:


Me with my nephews, pub lunch (that particular one is fish with red wine :D), and lots of photos of animals some past and current pets and animals I like. A pile of books because I used to read a lot and still dabble in books, ebooks, and read fanfic, and a sunflower because it is one of my fave flowers.
That challenge was to describe yourself in on-fannish terms but I'll add to that here. I'm multifannish and mostly involved in TV fandoms but sometimes I surprise myself by getting into a movie fandom and when that happens it hits pretty hard. I read, write, make icons and sometimes famixes and less often currently fanvids. Writer is a key part of who I feel I am.

( more personal stuff under the cut )

On the first day of Lent I saw a twitter poll that asked "Do you think your mental health would improve if you gave up Twitter for Lent?" Answers Yes/No/Maybe. I picked maybe and thought, ok, let's give it a go.
This is part of the reason I'm around DW more.
Also more Youtube. I am Alfred in the Lego Batman: Family Matters, who watches a video on selling the company and then one about getting jars open and so on, even one on how to claim for tire theft on home insurance. There is a video for everything, as the villain also watches one on how to set up dummy corporations.

I'm not even using the loophole of Sundays because I'd fall back into the habit of checking Twitter too easily. I did not know until very recently that Lent is 40 days but the Lent period 47 but Sundays don't count.
I was also amazed when watching The Exorcist (TV) for first time when Marcus asked when the Mother Superior's daily hour off from her vow of silence was. There are loopholes which surprises me and makes me think better of faith when it acknowledges our essential flawed humanity.
On the other hand Evil (TV), "S is for Silence" had a monastery with a strict vow of silence lest any spoken word free the demon the monastery exists to contain, an interesting but not unique take on silence in horror fiction.

Twitter is the only place I've found people willing to question government narratives, who early on spoke against the Left becoming authoritarian and hypocritical about bodily autonomy, but it has always been rather hard-Left middle-class and does not reflect the majority of people's lived realties, experiences, and values. While it can be useful or entertaining, it can be an easy to use distraction.
Too easy, too time consuming. As such it's probably good to take some time away. Write more. Read more. Dabble at Dreamwidth more. And yes, watch videos of recipes and crafts I'll probably never make (though my crafting exploits continue, fodder for a post in the future perhaps).

And...I was going to put a poll up for who is doing Lent in some form but polls are paid only now? Okay.

~Magickal Graphics~


Celebrated at the 21st or 22nd of December Yule marks the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemipshere while Litha is celebrated as the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. It is of course close to Christmas Day while that is also the feast day of Frau Holle, a Scandinavian spirit who is honoured as the embodiment of nature and the woods. There's an article at About.Com on the History Of Yule and the various global celebrations held on or near the solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the time of the Summer Solstice, Litha.

This year the solstice occurs on Thursday December 21st.

( Holly Kings, Yule Goats, and more winter customs below the cut )

Magickal Graphics

Litha is also known as the Summer Solstice, Midsummer, Midsummer Night, Midsummer Night's Eve, Gathering Day, Sun Blessing, Gathering Day, Feill-Sheathain, St. John's Day. In England, The Day of Cerridwen and Her Cauldron, in Ireland, dedicated to the faery goddess Aine of Knockaine; Day of the Green Man in Northern Europe.
Usually celebrated around June 21, the Summer Solstice marks the time when the sun is at the highest point before beginning its slide into darkness.
This year for the first time in decades, it coincides with the full moon. (3)
( Read more... )

I've never walked a true labyrinth - remember, a laybrinth is not a maze. It has one entrance that is also the exit. It has only one path that you follow into the centre and back again. It's not about solving a puzzle, it is about a meditation on what is. It can be deeply spiritual, though it is non-religious. It is reminiscent of some Celtic patterns and their symbolism of the interconnectedness and eternal nature of all things.

An article I read together talks about a labyrinth and what the author learnt from walking it. She describes the slow, frustrating journey inwards; the joy of reaching the centre; the temptation some see in leaving via a shortcut instead of slowly wending their way back through the winding lanes.

She sums up her experience thus:

Walking the labyrinth was a potent reminder to me that we often feel like we’re walking in circles, getting nowhere. We feel like we’re doubling back, returning to where we were long ago, feeling like we’re wasting our time, failing to progress, getting lost.

But even if you get there, the journey keeps going. The goal is not the end of the journey, but the beginning. So why not embrace the journey and release attachment to the destination?

This seems like something I need to learn. When I said things were falling apart, when I say that I feel I'm losing ground instead of making progress, when I can't see a way forward, perhaps I need to think on this. The spiral nature of things is a vital part of my belief system. It's one I need to remember when I'm on the downward turns.

Recommendation for two free on-line spiritual/thankful/meditative sites that I find useful.

The first is nshrine. Their faq describes their purpose thus: 'nshrine.com provides a free home for shrines, memorials, prayer lists and playspace for any legal, non-commercial purpose. Though most shrines are created for spiritual and grieving purposes, trivial and absurd play are also welcome. nshrine.com operates without affiliation to any religious organization or creed.'

The entire site is free. You don't have to log-in to leave a candle at a shrine. Candles come in different colours for varying purposes; reverence is the default, but there are candles for desire, success, joy, memory and peace. You can log-in using your Open-ID and leave candles linked or your name, or anonymously. You can also leave candles via Twitter. You can just light a candle, or you can write a few words about the purpose behind it. Candles 'burn' for fourteen days. There is no limit on the number of candles you light.

While logged in, you can create shrines - up to five hundred shrines! - for free. So if there isn't a shrine that meets your needs, create one. You can make it public or private, too. It's very easy to create a shrine, and you can simply add a few words about the shrine's purpose, or get creative with images and altering the colour scheme.

The second site is gratefulness.org. Again, this is totally free. It walks you through the process of choosing and lighting a virtual candle that will burn for forty eight hours, including suggesting taking a moment to clear your thoughts and reflect on the purpose of lighting the candle, making it great for meditation or centring purposes.

You can, if you choose, initial your candle to revisit it - and make/add to a collection if you're participating in something like a ritual or a prayer circle. Very serene and welcoming.