Daily Practices: 4/21 – 4/27

Snow, snow and more snow.  Beltaine/May Day is coming up and I am not feeling it.  We’ve been getting between 1-4 inches of snow a day lately.  We should be melting not adding snow.  The only other upside (other than the extra moisture needed to fill reservoirs) is that at least the snow tends to melt off the sidewalks and streets fairly quickly.

4/21:  Honored Helios

4/22:  Honored Mama Gaia with the prayer found here.  Spent the doing seamstress repair work.  Finished patching an old, poorly made, commercially bought quilt.  It is one that I bought not long after we got married because I loved the colors.  Also fixed one of my small grocery bags.

4/23:  Aresday:  honored Ares.  Middle of doing the Two Powers I found myself in a temple instead of in my usual mental location.  I continued with my typical daily devotional.  When it came time to recenter myself, I returned to that temple.  It was a temple for Ares.  I was dressed in a white chiton(?) trimmed with red and standing in front of a very large, humongously large statue of Ares seated upon a throne.  His helmet hanging on one side of the seat back, shield and sword laying to either side of the throne.  I had the impression the statue was looking down at me.   Studying me.  I went to my knees because honestly while I adore Ares, he scares me too and I’m aware I’m not up to his physical standards.  I have never seen his bloodier side and hope to never do so but I am aware it is there.  I’m not a soldier.  I’m not even particularly in shape.  I’m a slightly over weight housewife who hates to exercise but am trying to get my physical form into better shape (the only thing that keeps me going is that I offer my efforts to Ares).  I’m studying the floor of the temple in a bit of a tizzy.  A hand reaches out and raises me to my feet.  The god that the statue is modeled after stands before me.  He is also dressed in white and red cloth with armor (dress armor?  Chest plate, grieves and forearm pieces, with a Roman-esque kilt on his lower half) .  He is not as physically imposing as I would have expected.  6′ or so, muscular and fit but not muscle bound and brawny.  Handsome, with dark hair closely trimmed.  No beard or maybe a 5 o’clock shadow.  His energy rolls with a dark glee which feels capricious (can be with you or against you without warning).  He studies me.  Walks around me.  Slaps me on the back, saying “Keep up the effort” and walks off.

It occurs to me that I ought to blog my efforts on Ares’ behalf. Well no workout today despite the encouragement.  Lack of sleep left me unmotivated but will do something tomorrow no matter what.

4/24:  Finally sat down and read the cards from Zeusday last week.  I had drawn 2 sets of cards:  one for me and one for Community.  The results of the Community reading can be seen here.  My reading seemed mostly to be encouragment in sharing the Community reading, dealing with being peri-menopausal (read lots of insomnia issues) and reminder to create whenever feeling depressed.

Workout for a little over 2o minutes.  I was going for over 30 but started to feel woozy so I stopped.  Yeah not much sleep again last night.  A little bit of exercise is better than none.

Hermesday:  devotional with Hermes prayer. Sunny but not very warm.  30 degrees.  A little bit of melting.

4/25:  Zeusday…lit some incense before bed.  Also lit incense for Selene and my lady.  Not only am I having sleeping issues but also the blues (yeah I know they are probably inter-related along with womanly issues but you know what…that doesn’t fix it).  I completely flipped out when Hubby mentioned that a friend of his was moving in town and wanted him to join the weekly poker games.  Feeling friendless and having him say that felt like my nose was being rubbed in it…

Did my 2 mile youtube workout.  Also walked down to my son’s school to pick him up and he led us on a long route to get home.  Breezy, mid-40s.  Love seeing the water from the snow melting.

4/26:  Not feeling any cheerier today.  Aphroditeday.  Daily devotional and a prayer for self healing and friendship.  Read a number of prayers about Zeus and read to him some more from his devotional book.  Heading to Denver for the weekend tonight.  Barre exercises, walk down to get my son from school.

Saw 4 different herds of deer on the way down the “hill”.

4/27:  Loving the warm weather down here, 70s.  Attended the staff meeting for a local Pagan festival and ran errands.