Monday, December 28, 2009

Basic Meditation



Meditation is the art of sitting in silence, turning off the world around you, and entering a state of consciousness that allows you to reach into the astral for power, knowledge, aid, and guidance. (But I would also like to note that it is also quite possible to meditate while, say, working, or writing, or drawing, etc. because meditation is simple shifting into another level of consciousness) Sometimes, when it’s deep enough, it can trigger an astral journey.
Visualization is an important part of meditation. The longer you practice meditation and the better you get at visualization, the more detailed your meditations will be.
You don’t need much for meditation. All you need is a comfortable chair or mat to sit on, and a place and time where you won’t be disturbed. Some people like to have a candle or two and some incense. However, if you pick incense, make sure the incense isn't so heavy that it makes breathing difficult.
When you sit down for meditation, first relax your muscles and get centered. Then visualize a brilliant white light around yourself. Next, see a deep well in front of you. Drop all negativity in your life into the well and walk away, and then carry on with your meditation.
There are several reasons to learn to meditate:
1) It’s relaxing and calming
2) You’ll strengthen your ability to visualize and your contact with spirit guides
3) Deep meditation aids in astral travel
4) It can create and/or strengthen psychic abilities
5) It can sharpen and focus your awareness
6) It allows you to “set” dreams.
One thing to remember is to not meditate more than three times a week. Some people can lose themselves in too much meditation and become somewhat detached from reality.
You’ll go through specific emotional stages while meditating. When first starting out, you’ll experience relaxation and pleasure. This will continue for some time. However, a not very pleasant period will come. It won’t be the fault of the meditation, but is actually the fault of a conflict between your conscious and subconscious minds. Some symptoms are dissatisfaction, poor connections with the astral, skepticism about what you see in a meditation, or a general lassitude of spirit, almost a depression. Don’t give up at this point. This stage will pass shortly. After it, you’ll find that your meditations take on new meaning and depth. Everything in the universe runs in cycles, and meditation is no exception.
A popular, and rather easy, form of meditation is guided meditation, also called pathworking. Basically, it’s a flexible story that you can record and play while you’re meditating. You visualize everything the recording is saying. When recording, say everything in a slow, even voice, leaving blank spaces at the appropriate spots so you can have time to explore and experience things. When you meditate using a tape, don’t try to think about what comes next. Just relax and follow along. If a meditation starts to take you some place other than what the recording is saying, just flow with it.
To write your own pathworking, follow this framework:
1) The entrance. It can be a door, an archway, the head of a path, etc. I like to use a huge tree at the head of a path.
2) The path. What you’ll encounter, what you’ll feel, etc.
3) The destination. What you find, who you meet, what you discover/use/etc.
4) The journey back. Return the way you came.


I provide here a basic meditation technique that you could either record and play, or memorize. This will help you to get used to shifting into another consciousness. After this, every so often I will post a new guided meditation that you can try.

Basic Meditation Technique
Make sure your environment is conducive to meditation. Turn off and block out all distractions, such as the ringer on the phone. Dim the lights, or turn off all the light and light a few candles. Incense may help. Turn on relaxed, ambient music.
Sit in a physically comfortable position. Relax your body, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Go through each section of your body and mentally give yourself permission to relax. Feel waves of relaxation moving through your muscles, as you become more and more relaxed.
(Pause)
Imagine a screen in your mind’s eye. This is your window to the psychic world. You control everything on it. Draw or visualize the number twelve on the screen. Hold it for a moment, and then let it fade or erase it like a blackboard. Then draw and visualize the number eleven. Continue this pattern until you reach one.
(Pause)
Release the screen of your mind, and silently count from thirteen to one in a slow, even pace, as you slide into a deeper meditative state.
(Pause)
You are now at alpha level. Sit for a moment, feeling the difference between this trance state and your normal waking state. At this point you would continue on to any meditative workings to expand your awareness. For now, continue on to learn how to develop better skills of focus and concentration. When you are ready, call for the screen of your mind again and visualize a candle burning before you. Take notice of the candle. What color is it? What shape? How brightly does the flame burn? Can you feel the heat it gives off? Notice all the details of the candle. Focus all of your attention on it.
(Pause)
When you are done, erase the candle from the screen in your mind. Wipe it away until the screen is blank. Now count up from one to thirteen without visualizing the numbers. Then count up from one to twelve. You are now back to a state of normal waking consciousness. Ground.
The previous image is not owned by me.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Long Time, No Post

Hey everybody. I know it's been super long since I posted, so I suppose I have a lot of updating to do.
For one, I am now in Junior year of high school, I am still working at the Day Care, my witchy friend Lelouch is down in Idaho now, and I've been busy busy busy with school and personal projects. For instance, I finally finished my snazzy big Book of Shadows! It took me friggin' forever to finish, too. (with no insult to the goddess Frigg, who has had her reputation pretty blackened by twisted myths and the popular insult "friggin"...we believers love you, Frigg!) You can check out my big BoS on my new youtube, MsDreamingDragonflies www.youtube.com/user/MsDreamingDragonfly
Secondly, I no longer consider myself a Wiccan, or even with Wicca-flavoured beliefs. After a lot of research and interviewing, I have concluded that you cannot be Wiccan unless you have been initiated into a Gardnerian/British Traditional coven. (this, of course, does not render others paths invalid. All spiritual paths are valid. This fact only states that many are putting a false name on their path.) And so I now consider myself an Eclectic Neo-Pagan Witch.
Thirdly, unfortunately, I am no longer with my boyfriend Zack (I don't know if I've mentioned him before...). The boy turned out to be a jerk and dumped me a couple months ago for a middle schooler. But oh well. There are better guys out there. I can think of one right now....;)

Now that I have all that aside, I'll get to the good part. Since I haven't been posting much lately, but don't know what to post anyone since I'm not exactly the greatest blogger compared to a lot of other people...I've decided to make this less of a diary-like blog and more of a teaching/opinion blog. Every Monday I'll post a teaching or a recipe or a spell or an exercise or a meditation, etc, etc. Every Friday I'll post an opinion/rant. So I hope you guys will have a fun time reading my blog, if anyone takes the time to read this thing anyway, haha.

ALSO! I highly recommend, starting January 1st, you read my friend Brittany's 365 Recipe Blog on Piczo.com! Her goal, inspired by the movie Julie & Julia, is to blog every recipe she does for the next year, finishing 1 cookbook each month. Her goal for now is 200 recipes, but she will probably exceed that! So I highly recommend you visit her blog, once she starts posting. She thinks no one will be looking at the site, so I'm encouraging people =) She also has a spot on there for other people to post their recipes. Sooooo....her site is http://200recipes-365days.piczo.com/

I hope you all had fantastic holidays, and I wish you all a great week!

Brightest Blessings,

Your Alaskan Witchy Celeste

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Full Moon fun~

I had soooooo much fun on the Full Moon :3 I drank some caffeinated tea and stayed up uberly late doing my witchy stuffs, haha. During my ritual I did blessing and consecrating of my new stuff~ my smoky quartz, my selenite crystals, and my little faerie statue. Then afterwards I hung (uh, more like taped haha) the selenite crystals in all four corners of my room to gaurd against negative energy/entities. Then I painted a box black for my new oracle deck called Ancient Feminine Wisdom of Goddesses and Heroines. It was one in the morning and I still wasn't tired, but I forced myself to go to sleep anyway =P after I fell asleep, just like always my body decided to be an asshole (excuse my french) and wake me up at 9:30 again. Seems like it never lets me sleep past that time, and it really is quite irritating.
But yay~ Full Moon~ I'm still buzzing from last night :3 haha

Bright Blessings to one and all!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

An Epiphany

{I wrote this during last school year just after I got home one day}

As I was riding the bus home this afternoon,
Some incandescent fluttering settled upon my mind.
I began to feel as if my life was just the pages of a book,
And I was reading them in an indifferent manner.
The words coming out of my mouth sounded foreign to me,
And I felt as if they were being spoken by another person.
I was out of my body, flying high above in the clouds,
But at the same time I was strangely grounded.
I felt a beautiful stillness settle about me,
A benediction that pierced my shivering heart.
Beauty has no love, and love has no beauty.
Beauty is a silent whisper that lays its head upon a place
And smiles cleverly and happily at your confused face.
Beauty has no face, or a body, or a heart,
For beauty is not a solid object.
Beauty is beyond the formation of thought, and so
Beauty has no opposite.
Beauty has no label, for beauty can not be put in to a physical thing.
Beauty is in the air around you,
Which pulses with quivering excitement and expectation.
It is silent, whilst love is loud.
And silence gives no sound, nor thought, nor feeling.
I sat atop my own head, feeling disconnected from myself.
An out-of-body-experience is a quiet thing to behold.
It is much like dying, for dying is not painful.
The process is painful, but dying is a true Beauty.
I can see the world from new eyes.
I can see my life from a different angle.
And strangely, now everything feels just right.
Beauty has penetrated my life subtly,
Leaving a small mark on my heart and mind.
The epiphany of a dream,
In which I have just now woken.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Lughnassadh Fun~

My Lughnassadh was totally~ fun =) in the morning I did my usual devotions, and then I went over to my buddy Lelouch's house to celebrate. We did nature walks, went to the Farmer's Market, visited the local metaphysical store...we also went to the animal shelter and I found the best cat! Haha she had SUCH personality! She glared at me every time I looked in to her cage XD she gave me the funniest looks, and I wanted so much to take her home with me. But unfortunatly, I couldn't =( I already have two cats, and my parents would totally kill me if I brought another one home.
But anyway~ I got a couple great new things for my altar, including a new smoky quartz (single terminated), a little statue thing with a faery sleeping on a leaf, and some selenite crystals to hang in my room. The selenite will protect my room from negative energy and electromagnetic rays :3
Later on, Lelouch and I did a ritual on the beach, and then afterwards ate cookies and watched The Sky Crawlers =) It was a great Lughnassadh. And with the Full Moon following on its heels this Wednesday (pus the actual astrological date of Lugnassadh, which is August 7), it's certainly a magickal week.
Bright Blessings~!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psAnixrubr8
(me showing my stuff off haha)

Friday, July 31, 2009

My snazzy little BoS idea

So. I have 6 Book of Shadows', including my current one. It's hard to find everything I need when they're scatter in those 6 notebooks, which are written in chronological order. And so, I've decided to combine it all in one big Book of Shadows, using a binder =P I'm typing up all the information, organizing it, printing it out, and putting it in a binder. A little too late, I also discovered another method: A "Box of Shadows" (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1sjQNoP8Oo), which is basically an index card box. You put the stuff on index cards. Why didn't I think of that???? Haha but anyway, be it box or binder, I'm combining all my Books, and I'm going to share with you how I'm going to organize it, in case any of you want to know a good way to organize a giant BoS ;)

1) Book Blessing/Protection
2) Table of Contents
3) Glossary of Terms
4) The Sections
a. References
i. History
ii. Ethics (Rede and Threefold Law)
iii. Deity
iv. Holy Days (Sabbats, Esbats, Days of the Week)
v. Elements
vi. Reincarnation
vii. Tools
viii. Sacred Places/Power Sinks
ix. Symbols and Signs
x. Circle Casting and Closing
xi. Traditions
b. Correspondences
i. Gods and Goddesses
ii. Ascended Masters
iii. Angels
iv. Chakras
v. Colors
vi. Numbers
vii. Dreams
viii. Planets
ix.
c. Lore
i. Crystals
ii. Herbs
iii. Faeries and Nature Spirits
iv. Dragons
v. Animals
vi. Totems
vii.
d. Magick
i. What it is
ii. How it is used
iii. Energy-raising methods
iv. Grounding
v. Centering
vi. Shielding
vii. Creative Visualization
viii. Affirmations
ix.
e. Magickal Symbols/Alphabets
i. Runes
ii. Ogham
iii. misc
f. Meditation
i. What it is
ii. How it is used
iii. Meditation methods
iv. Guided Meditations
v.
g. Divination
i. What it is
ii. How it is used
iii. Tarot
iv. Palmistry
v. Pendulum
vi. Scrying (water, stone, clouds, fire, mirror, shadows, etc)
vii. Bibliomancy
viii. Kabbalah
ix. I Ching
x.
h. Healing
i. Sound Healing
ii. Color Healing
iii. Crystal Healing
iv. Massage
v. Aromatherapy
vi. Aura Reading
vii. Hypnotherapy
viii. Guided Imagery
ix. Acupressure
x. Reflexology
xi. Reiki
xii. Chakra Balancing
xiii.
i. Astrology
i.
j. Numerology
i.
k. Magickal Words
i. Chants
ii. Prayers
iii. Poems
iv. Songs
v. Invocations
vi. Wisdom
vii.
l. Recipes
i. Sabbats
ii. Esbats
iii. Drinks/Brews
iv. Foods
v. Incense
vi. Powder
vii. Oils
viii. Tincture
ix. Potions
x. Balms
xi. Misc.
m. Rituals
i. Sabbats
ii. Esbats
iii. Deosil
iv. Widdershins
v. Misc.
n. Spells
i. Deosil
ii. Widdershins
iii. Misc.
o. Miscellaneous

Monday, July 27, 2009

Cloudy Days in Alaska

We were having such nice, super hot weather a couple weeks ago. The heat lasted for a few weeks, but the bad thing about having lots of heat here in Southern Alaska is that wild fires start really easily, since it's so dry in the area I live in. The smoke in the air got so bad it was deemed unhealthy, and I think all of us were relieved when we first got a bunch of rain. At first it was so nice to hear the pitter-patter of rain on the windows and the ground. The rain soaked the plants and renewed the vibrant green of the forests (I can't think of any place that has more shades of green than Alaska!). It was so uplifting to open my window and watch the rain hitting the plants. I loved it so much I took a video of it and put in on Youtube. (if you want to watch that video, it's titled {-the rain-} )
But now, after a couple weeks of rain, it's gotten to be a little much. Now there is flood warnings. It cleared up a bit yesterday and gave us a beautiful relief from the rain, and I was really hoping the heat would last a couple days. But alas, I woke up this morning to a completely gray skies and a grumpy mother. I love the rain; really, I do. The very sound and smell of it is enough to heal any sickness, in my opinion. But here in Alaska, too much rain is just as bad as too much sun. And I kind of feel like it's my fault. Why? Because I did a little weather magick to try to get rid of the wild fires. Watch this video for more information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkzFLohaR_w
Essentially, I just feel bad about it, even though I also feel it was the right thing to do. Because now people are complaining and complaining about the weather, and I feel like I ruined everyone's summer. I suppose I learned my lesson =_= *sigh*

Friday, July 24, 2009

Hallo~

For those of you who haven't read my profile, I am Celeste-Noein Airdancer~ =P I am an Eclectic Pagan with Wicca-flavoured beliefs, and I live in a small hippie/bible-thumping town in Alaska. I love a great many things, among the top being my spiritual path, writing, reading, and my amateur photography. Um....I guess on this blog I'll just write about random stuffs, post some of my poems, maybe some spells and rituals and other metaphysical/spiritual stuffs.
Also, if you wish to add me on myspace, my URL is www.myspace.com/rebeccatheawesome (lol) aaaaand I can't remember what my Facebook URL is, but my name on there is Celeste Puterbaugh (I likes using fake names everywhere haha, it makes my identity unknown O_o haha).
Also, my Youtube channel is EdwardandBella4ever. Don't be fooled by the name. I created it last year when I was in my Twilight phase, and I put two Twilight videos on there, but I now hate Twilight incredibly and all the videos on there (besides the very first two) are Pagan-based. I am also doing an "Understandable Wicca Lessons" video series on there, but before you watch them keep in mind that the stuff I talk about is just my beliefs, and plus it's just the tip of the iceberg about Wicca. It's the most basic of the basic, and it's more Wicca-based Paganism than actual Wicca.

Sooooooo....I look forward to blogging on here and sharing my thoughts with you all =)

Blessed Be!
)O(<3