Full Moon Manicures & Multiple Rituals

Merry Meet, all!
Tonight is December’s full moon, the last one of the year 2011. So, as I’ve posted previously, I’ve decided to do two full moon rituals; one for the kids and one for myself. Last night we did the ritual for the girls, and tonight I will do my own ritual, once I finish this post! I must admit, yesterday was amazing, by doing two separate rituals I was able to enjoy the family coven one a great deal more… but I’m skipping ahead of myself. So let’s rewind and start at the beginning, shall we?!

I guess the best place to start would be the full moon manicures! For some reason, when my girls got home from school yesterday they decided they all wanted to paint their nails, all of their nails. I’ve been putting this off for some time (much to Kiya’s disgust, I might add) and decided ‘what the hey, let’s go for it!’. We spread newspaper across the entire library floor, and pulled out about 10 bottles of nail polish and we painted our fingers and toes. It was lovely fun! And not as messy as I thought it might be. We are all sparkly and colourful now, fingers and toes. As I set up our alter and space, I was struck by inspiration, why stop at the nails, lets be festive. So we each put on a pretty summer dress too (our wood stove is in our library, and it heats the whole house, it gets HOT down there!). We added ritual jewellery, our head pieces and our cloaks. As you can see, we got dolled up to the nines! It’s kind of a crappy picture as it was taken with the webcam, but you get the idea.(Me, Kiya, Lily, and Topaz)

Magick Lily Rose had the honour of casting our circle for us last night. And next month will be Kiya’s turn, which will make her very happy. Three months of waiting is a long time when you are 4! I should mention that I took the picture of us all dressed up because I have decided that I will make a scrapbook BOS (Book of Shadows) for the family coven. I’m going to put in photos and wishes, and bits and pieces from rituals and celebrations, and anything else we can thing of and glue in there. It’ll be so much more meaningful for them then a bunch of words in a book. Here’s to hoping I can keep up with it! I should also mention we did have an incident in the circle last night. My older two got into a fight during ritual; they were right into each others faces, over something so trivial I can’t remember what it was. I made them stop, to apologize to each other, and then to put their hands on the floor and ground all the negative energy they had back into the earth. We then had a quick talk about creating negative energy in the circle, and explaining why we put up a circle to begin with. It was a great opportunity for me to teach them, and I took full advantage of it! After that we had a great ritual. I can not stress how much better the ritual was for me, when I could just sit back and guide the girls and just enjoy the experience. I fell like they got more out of it too. We still had a case of the wigglies, but what are you gonna do, they are children after all!

Well, it’s getting late. So I think I will wish you all a blessed full moon, and head down to find my own spiritual fulfilment (by.my.self!). May the light of the Mother Goddess shine brightly on your path, lighting your way tonight. And may your celebrations fill you with joy and light!
Blessed Be!

PS. I know it was an eclipse today but it was too early in the morning, and I was not prepared to do anything special. Cross my fingers that when the next one rolls around I wont be so new to this family coven thing, and I’ll have something awesome ready!

Paganism, Ritual, and Other People’s Children

Meer Meet!
I recently had a new, and slightly uncomfortable, experience: Topaz asked if a friend of hers could spend the night. Ordinarily, not a problem on a non-school night. It turned out that this night was a Full moon and we had a ritual planned. While her friend knows that we are pagan, and has attended a couple of our sabbat festivals, she’s never been involved in a ritual. I do not believe you should be doing rituals with other peoples children with out parental permission, just like you shouldn’t take other people’s kids to church with out their parents knowing. I explained this to my child, saying that her friend could not attend the ritual with out her parents permission. My daughter said I could just call and talk to her friends parents. Now, while I do have a moderately friendly acquaintance with Topaz’s friends parents, who I am sure are aware of the fact we are, at the very least, not christian (their daughter has been to a summer solstice, lughnahsadh, and fall equinox celebrations here), I am pretty sure asking them if their daughter can participate in a full moon ritual with us over the phone might not end well. I’d much rather ask, and be able to explain, in person. So while I will not be doing so this time, it is looking like I will have to go talk to Topaz’z friend’s parents about out faith, and to find out if they will be comfortable with their daughter joining us in our form of worship.

This of course has me thinking about two things:
1) How much are we sharing about our chosen path with those around us? Is it too much? Not enough? When should we be sharing?
2) As well, as this serves as a reminder to me, of why we celebrate the way we do (esbats are small, intimate, and family orientated; while we celebrate sabbats hugely, inviting friends and family).

In response to my first point, I want to mention that my older 2 children attend pubic school and my youngest goes to the college daycare. We are open about our spiritual path, in that Topaz and Lily wear pentacle necklaces to school, and we talk to their teachers and the daycare staff about our major sabbat celebrations: Winter Solstice, Ostara, Summer Solstice, Samhain (thought everybody knows this one as halloween and celebrates in much the same manner we do!) and some times Beltaine. We are very open and tell people we are pagan and when they ask, we explain that it is a nature based religion and we celebrate the traditional season changes. We’re not as open about full moon and new moon celebrations, and keep spell work to ourselves of course. For the most part we are pretty good at judging who will be open to hearing about our spiritual path and who wont be. We haven’t had any really nasty experiences (for which I am very grateful) but have had a few negative reactions, here and there. And of course the “don’t tell my parents, you freak them out enough as it is”. I really loved that one! It’s not like I’m scary or weird looking (haven’t died my hair strange colours in over 2 years!) or that I act that much differently than any other ‘normal’ person, for the most part. I just walk my talk, and live what I believe. Some people just have a hard time when they meet others that are different. I could give you the sociological reasoning behind this, but that would be off on a tangent! So I’ll just say, you, as a parent, have to raise your children to be open minded and understanding, to put forth into this world the changes we would like to see, and to help them to know when to be open and when to be careful and walk away. It’s a difficult path that we journey on, but take heart in the fact that others walk before you, and belive that some day this world will be an amazing place!

When you feel alone, remember I’m some where just up ahead of you, sending back down the path love and strength and courage. And the Goddess is alway there to hold your hand when things get tough, just reach out your hand…
Blessed Be!

Some Thing About Good Intentions…

Merry meet!
I know there is a phrase out there about good intentions going awry. This always does seem to happen to me. I always mean to keep up my blogging and do so on a regular basis, but can never seem to manage to stick to it. Life gets busy and I get forgetful. Oh well, maybe it’s time to set an alarm on my phone so I can at least remember to try!

So we have had a full moon, a new moon, and a Sabbat since my first post. Whew we’ve been busy here! I’ll start with the October Full moon. We did ritual as a family, my daughters and I. And had a very good time. We didn’t manage to make cookies like we had planned (the recipe is included on the recipe page), but we did make home made apple juice from the apples off the tree in our yard. It was yummy! We all made our goddess wishes and drew our divination cards for the next month. I am still working on finding a deck or other medium that suits our whole family. And I’m starting to think it might be time to consider designing my own family coven deck. If I do, it wont be till winter break starts, so perhaps there will be a post on this in the future. We also read a modified Charge of the Goddess, that I wrote for the kids about 6 months ago. I will try to remember to include it on a new page, incase anyone would like to use it. The girls did well at staying focused and in control of their bodies and behaviour inside the circle, and their books of shadow are coming along. I cast the circle this month, I think next month will be Topaz’s turn. All in all, it was a very successful, and enjoyable, ritual. I hope we can continue to celebrate the full moons together every month.

New moon was a bit more crazy, last month. It was on a Wednesday, which is one of my long days at school. We have named our October new moon pumpkin moon (I will post on this another time!), so we had planned to carve our pumpkins that day. Well that didn’t work out, as I forgot to buy pumpkins and my youngest went to her dads place for her sleepover. We didn’t end up getting to it till Saturday. I should mention that we celebrate our new moons in a very child like fashion, as we are honouring the young goddess. The children and I discuss and come up with activities to do that tie into that months moon name. One new moon we went outside and played hula-hoop in the rain! I used to do a whole serious ritual when I practiced on my own, and with my previous adult coven; now, as a family child-centred coven, new moons are low key and fun at our house.

Samhain! That was a mixed bag for us this year. We dress up in costumes and trick or treat, a well as decorat our house and hand out candy. We don’t do ritual, as we are usually out pretty late (2 hours this year, and quite frozen by the end!), unless Samhain happens to fall on a weekend, which it did not this year. We had a great time, and I tried to talk to the kids about our ancestors and those that have crossed over the veil; I’ll try harder next year! We also have a graveyard close to our place, so next year I’d like to do something in there, if I can manage it. Unfortunately, we also had a child come down with croup. Its ok, she’s doing fine. And was going to go out trick or treating, so we got her all dressed up, and about 5 minutes before we left she coughed so hard she threw up all over her costume. Needless to say she stayed home! Poor thing.

Here is our family, plus a friend who came out with us (who is hiding behind me!). Topaz Primrose went as a witch (I know, I know! But she looked good!) Lily MagickRose was a bat, Kiya Jelly Belly was Tinkerbell(esk!) And I went as a bear. I was tempted to dress up the dogs but thought that might be a bit much. But will probably do it next year anyway! We had lovely weather. No rain, tiny breeze, so it wasn’t wet and cold. Yay! And we got lots of treats, and played no tricks! (That reminds me of a time when I was really young and a lady told us we had to sing a song if we wanted our treats!)

Hope your moons and halloween were fun, and that I’ve given you a few more ideas. Always welcome to comments and questions!
May you always embrace your inner child and celebrate life in joyful abandon.
Blessed Be!

Hello Fellow Moon Children

Merry meet!
My name is Irridessa Rowan Moonlight, and I am a eclectic practicing pagan mom. I have three little witchlings: Topaz Primrose (10), Lily Magickrose (7), Kiya Jellybelly (4). My older two have transitioned from their given baby magickal names to the ones above that they have chosen above. My youngest is eagerly awaiting her own renaming ceremony. I have been practicing since my oldest was 11 months, so just over 9 years now. Had some breaks here and there, but have never had to experience any self doubt in terms of my spiritual and life path; for which I am very thankful. I love my God and Goddess. My children for the most part have been raised in a pagan spirituality. And because of them I have decided to start my own pagan parenting blog. Every time I go to look up more information on Family Covens, there is very little useful (and notice I use the word useful!) information out there. We have practiced as both a family, and as a coven with another family that we know, that for a short time chose the pagan path as well. Unfortunately that did not work out, and we miss them very much. It can be very lonely out here by ourselves. We live in a fairly large city, but as of yet have been unable to find others who share our path. So we have decided we want to share our journey of learning with other like minded and curious individuals and families out there in cyber space. We whole heartedly welcome your comments , questions, and challenges! May the light of the Goddess always shine on your path!
Blessed Be.