Mysterious Monday: Demons

As many of you know, I am what I call a Christian Wiccan. I believe in God, but I also believe in the magic that can be found in the natural world. I also have this tendency to search into the weird, the unusual. What brings this subject to light recently? Well, two things actually. I’ve just started watching Supernatural on Netflix. I know, I know—seriously? O_O And also, the stay at my parent’s house.

Many years ago, as a young(er) woman, I dabbled more in spellcraft. Always positive, but definitely not Christian. I looked into past lives and astral projection, among other things. Don’t know if it was my dabbling or what, but something sparked something’s interest.

One night, as I lay sleeping in my basement bedroom, I got an odd feeling, like I was being watched, not to be cliché. I glanced up and my eyes were drawn to a dark corner. Well, the entire room was dark, as it does not have windows. This particular corner was darker than most, a small recess that gave onto the closet on the other side of the wall. The closet was one of the open kind, so no worries about monsters residing therein. 

However… in that corner, two red eyes stared at me. My heart raced. I didn’t dare run, afraid that it would chase me. Slowly, I reached for the Bible, which I always kept in the bookshelf headboard of my bed. I clutched that book to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut, before reciting the simple phrase, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you, demon, to leave this place and never return.” I repeated the phrase three times and opened my eyes. The corner was once more black, the presence gone.

For some reason, whenever we visit my parents, my boys don’t want to sleep in that room. Could have something to do with me telling them that story. But I also tell them that I haven’t seen the demon since that one night. I sleep there when we visit. Nothing. I also haven’t practiced any religion in over a decade. Well, except a couple of cleansing rituals at my house, when the kids were too freaked out over a scary movie. It harmed nothing and eased their minds.

So what about you? Have you ever experienced anything supernatural (no pun with the show intended)? Have you ever seen something evil? A devil, demon, or some other such entity? Have you ever summoned something, intentionally or not?

Wednesday Check-In, July 3rd

Weight:

Weight is up to an embarrassing 201.6 once again. Those trips to visit my dad really do me in. He buys donuts, which are my kryptonite, and every time I would offer to cook something healthy, he would say, “let’s go out to dinner.” Invariably, we would wind up at some Italian restaurant.

I don’t know what is keeping me from logging my food into MyFitnessPal again, but I am just going to have to start. Partially, I think that it’s been due to being away, and partially probably to all the activity of late. Not only is my younger son spending the summer with his grampa 1200 miles away, but my older son is going away for a total of nearly a month to two different, very intensive trainings. Add my trip to Chicago, with the return happening the first day of school, then top it off with the (exciting, but sad) news of my hubby’s promotion and transfer. The boys and I will stay in Florida for the teen’s final year of school while hubby will be living about halfway up the coast. Hubby’s promotion means that we also have to sell the house that we just bought last year, although we have to time that with me and the younger boy moving north to be with hubby. The house needs major cleaning and clearing out, ‘cause we are some serious pack-rats; but a cluttered house doesn’t show well. So, yeah, busy and stressed, and stress eating.

At any rate, I am back on the exercises. Gotta tell you, forty sit ups after two weeks of none was not easy. But I did them, and that’s what’s important. I also completed most of my usual calisthenics routine. The treadmill is back to one hour every other day. The fight to get back to what one friends calls “one-derland” is on.

Writing:

It’s nice that, sometimes when I screw up in one area, I shine in another. This is one of those times. So far this month, I have written 2592 words; since last week, I have written a total of 3905 words. All of those words have been in Quantum Kiss. One thing that’s helping is that I decided to join Camp NaNoWriMo, in which we are attempting to write a total of 50K words by July 31^st, beginning on July 1^st.

For this week, with the holiday, and the teen heading off to one training on Saturday, and hubby leaving out for a week on Monday, the writing is slow-going—I know, I know, not so slow if I’m churning out in one week what I have been doing in two weeks or a month. Our daily goal in Camp is 1613. The nice thing, and one I didn’t think I’d like, is that they assign you to a “cabin”, where you can check in with others and motivate each other. Our cabin is having a slow start, but that happens.

My goal is to finish Quantum Kiss this month and begin to really focus on Druid, my Western. A friend of mine even made me a sig and avi set, as well as a book “cover” to display on my Camp profile once I’ve finished Q.K.

Prompt: It’s 1776. You are a loyalist married to a rebel. Or vice versa. How do you feel about your mate? Are you worried for them? Hopeful that they’ll be killed?

Vocab: Loyalist: One who remained loyal to the British government during the American Revolution.

Mysterious Monday: Druids

Well, I’m back from Connecticut, and settling back into life in Florida once more, albeit with an insanely busy summer ahead. One part of my busy-ness is Camp NaNoWriMo, which starts today and carries on until July 31^st. During those thirty-one days, our goal is to write fifty thousand words, just as in the November NaNo.

One of my personal goals for the month will be to finish my WIP, Quantum Kiss. Another goal will be to get deep into my Western paranormal romance, Druid (temporary title). With that on my mind, I thought it might be fun to explore the druids in this week’s Mysterious Monday. I was right, and I was also very, very wrong. Druids are so steeped in legend and myth that you might as well research the unicorn for facts. Mind, you’ll probably find out more about the unicorn that is actual fact than you will about druids.

Druid, by Edli on DeviantArt

One thing that makes finding information on druids so difficult is that their learning was all done in secret, the wisdom passed down to students who had to memorize the knowledge—nothing was written down anywhere that we know of.

It is odd, therefore, that we have such definite ideas in our heads about what they looked like and some of their more blood-thirsty practices. Most of us, when we think of druids, think of an old man with a long, flowing white beard; actually Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies is a great example of our preconceptions. At least as far as looks go.

Another notion many of us think of when we hear the word “druid” is the wicker man, full of victims who will be burnt as offerings to the Celtic gods. While human sacrifice may indeed have been practiced, just as it was in many primitive societies, there is no proof that the druids were any more or less blood-thirsty than any other religion at that time. Sacrifices were made to the gods to try to win their favor; the more important the sacrifice, the more likely the god would listen, so it is very possible that humans were sacrificed when the stakes were high.

Druids are associated with oak and mistletoe—both of which are important in old Celtic religions. Oak is one of the strongest trees and grows for many years, while mistletoe is an herb used for healing of many ills. Druids were said to practice and teach in springs and groves, sometimes in caves.

Druids are most closely associated with the countries of Britain, Ireland, and France (at the time, named Gaul). They are purported to have lived and worshipped from around 800 B.C. until around 45 A.D.; not necessarily coincidentally, the latter date is around the time of some of the Roman invasions of Britain.

Julius Caesar wrote about the druids, and it is from him that we learn that these priests were very wise, involved in the teaching of bards and minstrels, as well as the settling of disputes. Druids were so well respected that they could actually stand between two armies and stop the fighting. They had a very civilized and forward-thinking system of law, but it did have a mystic edge to it, in that they believed so strongly in the immortality of the soul, that a debt from one life could be paid in the next one.

Personally, when I think of druids, I think of a Merlin-esque figure (from the movie Excalibur, not the recent show on BBC). I think of a man steeped in learning, in the ways of the natural world as well as the metaphysical one—yes, the Merlin of Excalibur fame fits the profile, but he was once a young man, learning the ways of the druid. What about you? What do you think of when you think of druids?