A Few Weeks in the Life of an Appalachian Witch leading up to 21 December 2014

Blessed Be. I haven’t been inspired to write much of late, and once again have fallen maybe 50 behind in reading your posts. Maybe the cold rainy weather coming will paste me to this sofa and pc more to do so. So here is my first rambling post in a while, and thank you all for the reblogs that have kept this site alive the last few weeks. Physically I am still working hard on the cabin which i now call “The Lodge” since that’s what it was originally, a hunting lodge, and i am using it as my “man cave” having moved all the politically and spiritually incorrect stuff over there so it won’t offend any visitors, not that i have many. About my only visitors of late are the occasional unpredictable repair men who i cannot afford right now anyway, so i am trying to do stuff like electrical and gas stove work by teaching myself and watching YT videos.

I did have one helping angel in the form of a young man (William) to whom i sold a Fender guitar and amp to in exchange for some money and the rest in manual labor and he came over Saturday and hauled all the stones over from this side of the run to the other to Snakehenge to fill in the gaps, something i wished to have done by All Hallows, then Yule, but now maybe spring, we shall see.He is also going to help me set up the gazebo i mention below and the old oak shelving unit in the cellar, jobs that just take four sets of hand instead of two. Having buggered up my knee of late he also did some other work i could normally do but not with this knee and not on a ladder LOL. He’s a nice young man who plans on going to ministerial school so i knew i could trust him, and towards the end we actually talked some religion.

I was driving through a small alley in town perusing for objects people may be throwing out and spotted a large canvas covered wooden umbrella that will fit over the umbrella top missing its canvas to an 8×8 free metal gazebo someone gave me i plan on putting up, with Williams help, over my outside swing. Well the guy who owned it Tony, another nice “yes sir no sir” maybe mid twenties guy, whose sister BTW is a Witch, had a garage full of stuff to pick and i finally found a pair of good work boots that fit and he sold me at rock bottom prices things like an old iron kettle with lid, old iron table, etc, all rusted up buy i restored them already. He is presently unemployed and was in the fix-it business, though his wife is employed so the kids fed (yes i asked if they had enough food). So, after Christmas he will hopefully come over to hang my ceiling light and fan to push down the heated air in the cathedral ceiling at the Lodge and to help hook up the gas stove and fix the water heater. I figured out it will be cheaper to live back there than here, less square footage to heat etc. We shall see….

Speaking of old shoes, now replaced, due to those and my dystonia and sheer exhaustion of making scores of trips carrying stuff back and forth from this house to the Lodge i have fallen twice in the last two weeks. One time 2am coming back carrying too much stuff i put too much weight on the bridge railing and took a fall four feet from the bridge into the stream, luckily weather heavy padded clothing and landing flat on my back. Luckily the water was low as i was stunned for a minute or so and dragged my heavy wet clothes and myself out of the stream, all limbs seeming to be working. But the next day and even now i feel like i rolled out of a moving train. I also tipped one night and went down on my hands and knees and was so exhausted i had to crawl back to the bridge that way. And then the twisted knee from trying to carry a heavy propane tank to the Lodge. So now i am forced to slow down, carry less since i am using a cane, and take the longer flatter route back over my kind neighbor’s bridge. There are spiritual lessons in this i will delve into a little below. Now at least i have decent work boots, and found out my android’s water proof care really Is waterproof LOL.

In the middle of the month was mu mum’s 86th birthday and her life long girlfriend came up my Maryland and my sis from Indiana and we all went out for dinner. Then i dragged out some boxes of old photos from my late Dad’s bedroom and we laughed over those. I did find one good pic, probably the last group shot, of my mum and her three sisters, one of which has passed, the other is 91 and doing ok in a long term care place, and the other has bad Alzheimer’s. We surprised my 91 years old Aunt with a visit, my mum not being down for a year and me for 3 years, and had a great time. Blood is thicker than water, one finds out as one ages. Friends come and friends go but one is stuck with one’s relatives and eventually the relationships soften and previous disagreements forgotten…

I have been delving into Christo-Paganism as they call it nowadays. Don’t worry, not converting, just relating to Jesus and Mary as deities within my huge Pantheon in a Gnostic manner. I’ve written previously about going to the old German Lutheran church in the burg and my great relationship with the pastor there who has been here a couple times, talking theologies and just walking in the woods. He even sent me this great Blog post by Frater Peregrine that makes sense to me. I plan on attending their Christmas eve candlelight service where there is a great old foot bellow organ, so great singers and cantors, then lots of candles. Sounds pagan enough to me.

Yule was just me and the spirits here. I built a large balefire and since it was not only the darkest night of the year but also new moon worked to burn out the negativity of the previous year working with Hekate, Rahula and Mahakala Shiva. I will attempt to embed a cell phone video here.

Sorry about the sideways video, once again, gotta work on that on the phone and video processing, will try to do so later today.

Well its cold and i need to check the pipes at the Lodge and do some outside work before the rains come then settle into this house tackling scores of projects laying everywhere including getting my cellar workshop back in organization since it is too cold to work outside much anymore on the tables and sawhorses.

May we all, of whatever Faith

Be Blessed with Health, Wealth, Happiness

and a Deep Spirituality

to carry us though the coming cold hard Winter !

Shawnus