Funny Ol' World, I'nnit?

In the words of Jack Sparrow, one of my favorite fictional characters.

Yule season is officially over, and now we get ready for Imbolc. I'm reading my Sabbats Almanac (by Llewellyn - wow, shocker) and just got slapped in the face with a reaffirmation that yes, I have indeed decided to affiliate myself with the right Goddess.

Originally, when I first decided to become a witch, I had no idea with which pantheon I wanted to become involved. I decided that since my ancestors would have worshiped the same gods that I was about to worship, I would go with their I'm not Egyptian, so I felt no connection there. Nor am I Greek or Italian, so the Greek and Roman gods were right out. The Chinese and Japanese pantheons just baffled me. (I admit, I am probably way too Western European for my own good.) The Indian pantheon has deities with really long names. I may be the whitest white girl you know and 75% German at that, but I've never felt much of a connection with the Germanic/Nordic/Scandinavian culture. So that pretty much left it to the Celts.

So far, I've only found Scots in me, although if I dig deeper, there has to be some Irish in me. NO ONE. I repeat. NO ONE loves potatoes like I do. And every time I hear Davy Spillane I cry. But they borrow a lot of each other's gods and goddesses, so I figured things were pretty much interchangeable.

I'm fiercely proud of my Scorpion status, so I looked for the Celtic goddess that was closest to my sign. And thus, I began trying to identify with The Morrighan. Y'know, the death, dying, and delicious morbidity. It was alright - I'd see crows all the time, but nothing major. I tried, though. It was rather mediocre, but for the time, I was happy.

Until I developed my domestic side and decided that I would follow the path of kitchen witchery, and then domestic witchery.

I found a blog, Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom, that helped jump start me on my new domestic witchery path. In one of Mrs. B's posts, she provided a list of kitchen deities. As I looked down through the list, I saw Brigid and Cerridwen. I remembered that a common phrase in my favorite book series (Outlander by Diana Gabaldon) is, "Blessed Bride!" and wondered if Brigid and Bride were somehow related. Oh, guess what. They are. Ties to my Scots roots. Bam. Clan Gordon represent!

So the more I read about Brigid, or Bride as I like to call her, the more I liked her. And she even has her own holiday! Imbolc! How fun is that! Which brings me to the point of this post.

As I was reading about correspondences for the holiday, two of the animal correspondences caught my eye. The firebird, or phoenix, which is one of the animal correspondences of Scorpio, and the dragon. I just so happen to be a Dragon, according to the Chinese Zodiac.

I'm grinning from ear to ear. There are days when I really love being a witch.

-:- Blessing