Ancestors Altar

I have to admit having had two nights with very little sleep I have not achieved very much today at all.

However I have set up my Ancestors Altar.   It has come around to that time of the year, I can smell it in the air, I can feel it in my bones - tis the Season of the Witch and that means Samhain, the thinning of the veil between the worlds and a time to honour those that have passed before us.

I am lucky enough to have copies of photographs of both sets of grandparents from their wedding, a few odd family photos of my grandparents when they were much younger and photographs of my maternal great grandparents.  These are all now sitting on an altar that I covered with a black cloth.

I have added a brooch that was my grandmothers and an RAF badge from my great uncle.  I am also going to add some jewellery from my paternal grandmother and a watch from my paternal grandfather along with a certificate from the war for my maternal grandfather (borrowing them from my mum).

I also added some crystals to help connect with the spirit world.

I love looking at the old photos - my grandfather when he got married looks about 45 with the suit and brylcreem hair, but I bet he was half that age LOL.  My great grandmother is wearing the most amazing hat in her photo and my great grandfather has a wonderful handlebar moustache.


Tansy
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Lovely weather, lovely people, chewy apple slices ;-)

The Kitchen Witch Coven hosted our first off line ritual on Saturday and it could not have been any better.

The setting was beautiful - Queen Elizabeth Country Park in a field on the edge of a forest, the weather was amazing - too warm for a cloak and so many lovely people turned up :-)

We were nervous that it might just be the three of us there, but we need not have given it a second thought, people came, people joined in and people were lovely.

Oh and we had cake, courtesy of Sgt Bun the Bakers which were yummy.

I always feel a bit sorry for the Autumn Equinox, we celebrate the Summer Solstice and Lughnassadh with great gusto but then we seem to jump straight to planning for Samhain, but we did the Autumn Equinox proud on Saturday.

Note to self for next time:  When giving out dried apple slices - mention from the start that they are symbolic and to be kept on an altar or shelf, otherwise people eat them LOL

Huge thank you to everyone that joined us on Saturday, we  ♥ you all.

Tansy
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Endorsements and another book...

It has been a good week on the book front...

Pagan Portals Kitchen Witchcraft now has several endorsements from wonderful authors:

Melusine Draco, Mark Carter, Janet Farrar & Gavin Bone, Tylluan Penry and Siusaidh Ceanadach and publishing is progressing with a publish date estimated of Jan/Feb 2013.

And then this morning I signed a contract with Moon Books for my second book...yep I am going to bore you all to tears with lots more blogs about another book too LOL.

The second book has the working title of 'A Kitchen Witch's Notebook':

This book is essentially my life and how I live and work as a kitchen witch. It is my Book of Shadows, my Kitchen Witch’s Grimoire. It covers what it means to be a kitchen witch, how we work, what we do and how we celebrate the turning of the seasons. It is packed full of information about all sorts of subjects from a breakdown of rituals to reading auras, along with meditations, recipes for oils, incenses and spells and a huge amount of crafts to make for each Sabbat.

For those new to witchcraft it will lead the reader step by step through all aspects of the craft but also for the more experienced as it can be used as a reference manual and also as a 'go to' book for meditations, correspondences, crafts and magical recipes.

Tansy
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mixed bags, rituals and cake of course

Well this past weekend has been a bit of a mixed bag.

Friday saw me being hit by my old arch enemy Ulcerative Colitis, having been in remission for a good couple of years now and having not had a bad attack for much, much longer than that - it got me good 'n proper.

However Saturday was a lovely day spent with the Dorset Grove not only being a part of the Mabon ceremony at Knowlton Henge but also being part of a hand fasting for a lovely, lovely couple and the sun shone down on us the whole time...oh yes and there was cake, much cake.

I was also gifted some magical items at the weekend, one of which was an altar table which after much furniture re-arranging (and sighs of despair from my extremely patient husband of "not another altar?") I now have a new altar in the living room and I am extremely pleased with it.

Today has been spent tidying up after the weekend and working on what I need to do to get the UC into check - this afternoon will see me doing a chakra assessment (shortly followed by a chakra balance) and I have already meditated today on the issues surrounding it - lack of spiritual work on myself being one of the key issues.  I spend so much time writing and reading about spiritual work I forget sometimes that I actually need to DO IT too.

So I am off to swing my pendulum and be horrified at how out of whack my chakras are and to re-balance them before my sister Kitchen Witches tell me off...;-)

Sending you all blessings of Mabon ♥

Tansy
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Authorship Comradery

I have made some lovely new friends and I have to say it is wonderful.

How did I make them?

Doing something that I was a bit nervous about.

See... I got three lines into the blog before I mentioned my new book ;-)

I made new friends because I have been asked by the Publisher to seek out some authors to give endorsements on the new book.  My publisher sent me a list of suggested authors to contact and it turns out that I have all but one of them on my facebook friends list (thank you facebook).

So this morning was spent sending out begging messages, well OK not begging as such but the type of message that goes along the lines of "you have never heard of me, but can you do me a favour".

I had an immediate response from the incredibly lovely and talented Cat Treadwell, what a wonderful lady :-)  in fact if you want to read up on druidry her blog is The Catbox and her book A Druid's Tale is now on my wish list.

I also realised that I have had facebook 'chat's with two other Moon Books authors as well - and both of them were wonderfully friendly and supportive.  Harmonia Saille is fabulous, check out her website witchdom.com for details of her books and Mark Carter has a new book out you might want to check out Stalking the Goddess

I have to say I am loving this 'authorship comradery' not sure if that is a phrase but I like it.   These authors are way out of my league but have taken the time to chat and be extremely pleasant and encouraging to a newbie and for that I am extremely grateful.  I hope I can repay their kindness at some point.

Why do I need endorsements?  Well endorsements from talented authors means the book is good and that will help to increase sales and if it sells then there is a good chance of getting a contract for a follow up book...

Tansy
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Selling myself...

WARNING - this blog post is about book writing...again!

So my book - Pagan Portals Kitchen Witchcraft is in the hands of the designer at the moment having the cover made so what do I do whilst that is all going on in the background?  Well, I have to assist in 'selling myself'.  Not literally, I am not sure I would get many takers with the advert:

Female

Wrong side of forty

Slightly saggy from having had two children

Expensive to keep

High maintenance

Not only a Witch but a Scorpio too

;-)

What I specifically have to do is sell myself as a 'brand'.   Now many moons ago I did a lot of training in sales and marketing but it was many moons ago.  However it did give me the basics.  What I don't have are the contacts, so it has to start with building up a contact base, thankfully with the advent of the internet that isn't too much of a challenge.  That is followed by actually contacting these people and saying "hey, you have never heard of me, but I am totally awesome and you will really want to review the book I have just written".  Bizarrely I have actually had some positive replies!

I have also discovered that 'knowing people' is also a bonus, huge thanks to Tylluan Penry for not only reading my manuscript but also writing an endorsement for it and also for offering to interview me on her radio programme closer to publication time.   Thank you also to Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone whom I contacted in the vague hope that they remembered me taking their Progressive Magick course (thankfully they did) who are also going to read it and hopefully write a nice endorsement too.

I think it probably also helps to have 'contacts' within the industry which is something that I don't have ... yet. I am hoping that it will all start to connect within the web of the witchy world.

So today will be spent continuing to 'pimp' myself...which is also extremely good for pushing me right outside of my comfort zone...

Tansy

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Routines, World domination and streamlining

Youngest went back to school today, eldest goes back tomorrow.

I have loved the school holidays (and the lie ins...) but it is also nice to get back into my routine and I also think the children like and need the routine back too.

The school run this morning was extremely pleasant, we walk and it only takes about 5 minutes to get to school.  The sun was shining it was warm and although I am in the city there are trees lining the pavements on the way, but it was the air that was so lovely - it was fresh and crisp and felt clean and energising.

Today feels like a good day for planning, plotting and scheming...

I shall draw up lists and jot down ideas for projects to keep me busy over the Autumn months, perhaps not quite World domination but you never know.

My diary is out ready to update (I have one that starts from September) so I can synchronise and schedule all the rituals, moots and events I have been invited to and make sure I have time for everything.

September also sees the roll out of the new Forest of Mystery lessons for more experienced witches at the Kitchen Witch School as well as our first Kitchen Witch Coven open offline ritual at the QE Country Park.

I have also spent the last few weeks clearing out cupboards and de-cluttering the house, re-organising and hopefully making the house more efficient so it is now time to de-clutter my head and streamline my ideas...

Tansy
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