Shape-shifter

Creating my own pagan path where a large part is based on meditation, magic, and shapeshifting. Journaling as I work my way down the rabbit hole. Note: A lot of shape shifting mythology is Native American and I will reference this but adere to a more European Pagan way of applying their methods.

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January 27, 2013

Before my meditation today, I blessed everything on my new altar.  I just bought a new table for it complete with a small bookshelf and a drawer.  I love it.  I blessed it outloud and saged it along with everything on my altar.

I meditated today for about 30 mins.  In that time, got very deep into it.  This time, unlike others, I talked myself into everything I was doing.  As if I was doing a guided meditation for others.

I breathed out all the black smoke/negativity in me until my head was clear and then I allowed myself to suck up the earth's energy through my imagined roots.  

Once I felt the power radiating through me, I chose to make it a calm and healing power (I've been suffering with anxiety for some time).  With this energy in mind, I created a ball before putting that ball into an amber ring my mother gave me for Christmas.  (I've been using the ring to hold healing/anti-anxiety energy for the past couple days and it seems to be helping).

After that, I drew a tarot card.  Shuffled three times and felt one out with my left hand.  I drew the Fool.  For me, I think it is referring to my current relationship with my boyfriend.  Although we are madly, madly in love, I am terrified that I will do something in the future to hurt our relationship and make us break up.  The Fool reminds me that I can't look at my past records and I can't fear the future.  I can only enjoy the present new adventure.

After that, I grounded myself and released all my excess energy that I didn't need, letting it drip back down the roots I had imagined.  I thanked the Earth, I asked the jewelry I had put onto the altar to be blessed, and I also talked about having a successful Shamanic Journey this week.  I am going to do one soon and I really want to find a proper guide to help me along my path.

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Beginning this again.

It's a project I really believe in.  Gonna try to do some meditation work at my new altar.  I love it a lot.

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Dream Journal: October 14, 2012

Decided to start having dream entries here only because I am too lazy to sit down and hand write my dreams into my dream journal and I really want to remember some of these ones.  Though I will keep them under Read More's because they aren't anything to do with my faith really.

Last night, I was feeling particularly lonely because back at home, students were going to the homecoming dance and at my house, my roommate was leaving me because the guy see was priorly seeing is making her very depressed.  She usually leaves for hours.  This time was no different and she was no where to be seen from 12am-5:30am.  I am thinking she went to the park because that is what she does sometimes.  I myself didn't 

I think me being lonely and quite depressed deeply effected my dream.  I was at a movie theater (no particular one, though very fantastical on the inside) and we were all waiting because Tom Hiddleston was signing autographs for his new movie.  He was making his rounds and when he got to me, I offered my inner left arm to sign.  He seemed uneasy to and I think it is because it lacked permanence.  I thought quickly and then pulled one of my clear checkered vans from under me and he seemed please to sign this.  He was very kind and moved on down the line.  

The biggest part of this dream was who I was with.  It was a mixture of a lot of different people in my life.  It was Gee.  It was Ben Venter.  But mostly, it was someone who was quiet and strong.  Someone I loved very very much.  I just remember people filtering out of the area and he stayed with me.  He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight and I returned the gesture.  We stayed like this.  In my head, I knew that I could stay like this forever and be completely happy.  That this was all I needed.

The irony is that in a freewrite I did last night while sad, I spoke of thinking that one day I will be in a relationship with a person and realize that they don't meet my expectation and have to leave. I voiced that I thought I would never find the one person that would fill me with every emotion and security I needed.

In my dream though, I had found that person.  

Shortly after, I woke up.

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September 30, 2012

Happy Harvest Moon!

Today I officially began my new path.  I worked today to just try and better my mediation skills.  As a pagan, I know that the basis of all energy work is mediation and the ability to refine those skills are a central part of becoming a successful witch.  Meditation can help you any part of your spirituality   I even know a couple Christians who swear by it to have conversations with their god.

I keep an altar in my room which I use for meditation.  Though I have been using it for a while, it is small and I intend on getting a bigger table for all my things in the next few weeks.  On it I keep a bowl of salt and a piece of branch in the North, a feather and some incense in the East,  a candle in the South, and a bowl of water in the West.  I have a white Goddess candle and a red God candle which I keep respectively on the left and right.  In the center, I have a wooden carved bear which is my spirit animal and a collection of crystal jewelry that I charge and wear frequently.  Not on my altar(usually below it), I have a metal pot that I keep white sage in.  I try to sage everything on my altar about once a month to refresh it and cleanse it of anything that may have clung in the past weeks.

To meditate today, I sat on a blanket on the floor infront of my altar (it is only about a foot and a half high).  I put on headphones and a David Arkenstone CD.  Music really helps me get into a trance and Arkenstone CD's are great.  Have a very fantasy sound to most of them that is very calming.  

I meditated in whole for about forty minutes, although I was zoning in and out.  I invited the four elements in and the Goddess and God.  (Although I am technically a pantheist and a henotheist, I do use the Goddess and God as archtypes for something higher and more abstract.)  

I did not do the best job staying under though.  I think it was just because I am out of practice and because I am more used to guided mediations that I found difficulty.  But I am not let down.  I know that practice makes perfect and I intend on practicing until I can go under easily and stay there.  Only then do I want to attempt astral projection and shape shifting.

I think that's as exciting as it got today.  I'll be checking in whenever I have something to talk about.  

Merry Meet!    

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An Introduction.

Before I go into things, I'd like to give you a bit of a background on me.  I am a college student in the US who has been exploring paganism for quite sometime now.  Though I consider myself to be eclectic, I do wish to concentrate my spirituality on things that speak to me.

Since I was very young, I have had a fascination with animals, monsters, and all things in between.  Growing up I would rather play werewolf or vampire than with dolls.  Easy on my parent's wallets, but still a little strange for their little girl to howling at the moon.

As I grew I strayed away from this.  My upbringing was Christian but I never felt a sense of understanding in the church and it wasn't until I moved away for school that I realized that there were other things out there that spoke to me.

Paganism has become a huge part of my life ever since and I have explored many different paths such as Wicca, Druidism, Buddism, and many others.  Consistently, I see that I do best when I can take the methods I like most and ball them together into my own eclectic path.

A couple months ago, I stumbled upon my first shape shifter online.  She practiced Wicca but stressed her path was not only magic but also a good deal of meditation with the intent to learn how to astral project and mentally shape shift into other living creatures.

This was an idea that has been stuck in my brain ever since.  I stray away from it and find myself stumbling back every time.  So I've decided to run with it.

This blog will be mostly composed of journal entries, article/book recommendations, and answering questions about this as a path.  I am working through it to try and find what the potential is for this type of spirtuality.

The most common influence people usually site for a shape-shifter concentrated pagan path is Native American culture.  Though I do agree that the culture as a whole has done the most work in this field, I can not adhere too much to Native American ways.  I have always been more European inspired in my path and their methods have always proved to be the easiest for me.  In short, I tend to use the inspiration of Native American culture but apply it in European ways like magic, element centered ritual and meditations, and also more day to day practices as a hedge witch might use.  

If you stumble upon this blog and it speaks to you, I suggest you follow for you stumbled upon it for a good reason.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in my ask box.