icourtland!

i just wanted to share that i had the most amazing night last night. we of the CAYA Coven had our Yule/Winter Solstice celebration ritual last night, and i think i am still buzzing a little bit from such an amazing time.

something i have not blogged about before is that i have started an initiation path with the folks of CAYA, on my way along with several others to become one of the community of priest/preistesses for the coven. although our first initiation starts in February of the coming year (and then goes on for a year-and-a-day) we “pledges” were asked to be the ones to plan this years Yule celebration and ritual. so many wonderful ideas were brought to the table, and so much inspiration came in to help us adapt and figure out how to make as much of the ideas work. well i don’t think that it could have worked out any better than it did.

all of us new folks had our nervous jitters and apprehensions, but we made it through – and with flying colors! we were all expecting about 20 to 25 people, and we had over 40 to 45 arrive! a great deal of new faces were there, and some friends that were so very nice to see again. even with the added crowd, we just clumped in closer together, re-focused ourselves and put on a wonderful and magick-filled event.

one thing that has me all a-glow today is what happened after during the social/cakes and ale afterwards. our founder and high-priestess, Rabbit, stopped the celebration for a moment to make an announcement that pretty much too me by surprise. she wanted to tell everyone about the brand new CAYA website that i put together in iWeb (with some incredible writing on her part) and had just made fully live the day before. that was so nice, but she did not stop there. she then talked about how involved in the ritual i had been that night and all through the planning, all of the little bits and pieces (some i did not know she even knew about!) that i had done to get things ready – and then led a round of applause – FOR ME!! and guess what, i did not freak out or sink into the floor or feel a need to run out the door. pretty amazing, eh? i have not felt this good or smiled this much in a very long time.

it is hard to write about how being involved with this group has been like for me. such an outpouring of love and acceptance, opportunities for growth and change and a real sense of community that i really feel like i belong to. funny that at this moment i flash back to some of the old days at the Alabama Theatre in Houston and my days doing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. those days were magickal in their own right, but this is so much better. it is really like coming home. i really have made the right decision to be a part of this group.

so to anyone/everyone out there – the long winter darkness is coming to an end, the Sun really is coming back to the world. i can really attest to that right now.