My Altar Again

I have had various altars in various locations since I came into the power. Not being a very ceremonial witch, I'm not a great one for ceremonial altars and they more serve a purpose of focus for me.

Currently my altar is on top of a heater behind the door in my bedroom. I don't tend to use the heater, partly because of its odd placement and partly because I like my bedroom cool. Plus I like altars in corners!

The picture of the goddess is decorated with lucky heather given to me by a friend. I realised he was fairly unboundaried and despite claiming to be gay and in a civil partnership he has several children by different women, but I was surprised to find him snared on a paedophile hunters website for chatting with a 14 year old boy. The heather is partly there for cleansing, protection and judgement.

The book is my book of shadows and the little pouch contains a tarot deck given to me by my goddess mother. Blood makes you kindred but loyalty makes you family and I do think a reminder of the red thread is necessary on an altar.

The little round picture is actually the back of a mirror decorated with my spirit animal Divine. You can't see it but it says Eat shit, which is exactly the way to respond to much of what happens in our world.

My Lent Book

 

...is the one illustrated. Counting the omer is a kabalistic practice which I had never heard of until I chanced across this book. Of course being me I'm not following the practice exactly but am already finding the book illuminating about the Tree of Life.

You can read an excerpt and get more details here.

St Valentine Again

A repost of one I did several years ago about St Valentine's bodies and heads. I have a lovely picture in mind of how he looked!

To mark Valentine's Day (a scrummy romp to all you lovers out there), one of my occasional weird shit postings, this time on the subject of the relics of the Saint himself. Those in the stalls will already know that the relics Roman Catholics have are authenticated by the Church, to prove they're the real thing. You would think they'd keep a not of what they've agreed to so that the situation that's arisen with St Valentine doesn't keep occurring. There are at least three full bodies of St Valentine venerated by the - somewhat credulous - faithful.
In keeping with the Hedge theme of this blog there's one right here in Birmingham:

Cardinal Newman who brought the body of St Valentine back from Rome where he found it in a catacombe but had difficulties with customs. At Verona they wanted to open the box containing the relics and at the Custom House it was recorded as a "mummy". It appears they wanted to charge duty on it. It is now found in a shrine at the Birmingham Oratory. At least it is genuine.There are it seems two other "bodies" claiming the name of Valentine enshrined. One is in the Carmelite Church in Dublin sent as a gift from Pope Gregory 16th in 1835 while a trip to Glasgow and a visit to the Church of Blessed Duns Scotus you will discover Valentine No 3 this time the gift of a French family in 1868.
(Source)

 The picture is of his altar in the Birmingham Oratory. This also accounts for the body in Glasgow. It can come as no surprise that families could give his bodies away, & surely customs officials must be used to him being carted through by priests. There is a contradictory story about the relics in Dublin, which is what makes me think more than one body has been authenticated, since it resembles the Newman story in having the ring of simple truth: 

Saint Valentine was a priest in ancient Rome, executed in the third century for performing Christian marriages, and buried there. But in 1835 an Irish Carmelite priest, John Spratt, so impressed and charmed Pope Gregory XVI that he was allowed to take Saint Valentine's remains home as a gift for his home parish.
(Source)

He seems to have a body in Athens as well:

After the martyrdom some Christians salvaged the body of the Saint and put a bit of his blood in a vile. The body of the martyr was moved and buried in the Catacombs of St. Priscilla, a burial place of most of the martyrs. Over the years somehow he was "forgotten" since almost every day there were buried in these catacombs new martyrs for several decades. The memory of Valentine's martyrdom however remained robust, particularly in the local Church of Rome. Officially the memory of St. Valentine was established in 496 by Pope St. Gelasius. Fifteen centuries pass and we arrive at 1815, at which time the divine intention was to "disturb" the eternal repose of the Saint. Then the relics were donated by the Pope to a gentle Italian priest (according to the custom of the time). After this the relics are "lost" again until 1907 where we find them in Mytilene in the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady. It seems that after the death of the priest that a descendant of his had inherited the relics who had migrated to Mytilene, which was then a thriving community of West-European Catholic Christians. There they remained until 1990 when they were moved to Athens in the Church of Saints Francis and Clara's Italian community, where they are today.
(Source)

He also has a skull in Madrid. Despite all this one of his heads appears never to have left Rome since the picture of a skull is his head in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmodin. On the other hand he seems to have been everywhere & been careless enough to leave parts of his skull in Chelmno in Poland.
The long & the short of this? It's got nothing to do with religion, it's a racket pandering to people's worries & loneliness.