A while ago, a friend of mine and I had embarked on a business venture. Unfortunately, I was much more interested in said venture and it never really took off. I had purchased a domain name, paid for hosting, designed beautiful pages, complete with photos of our wares, and never sold a single item because she didn’t want to give out the business cards or help in any way with the site and it’s promotion. However, it was her idea for us to have the site in the first place.

Our site was mostly candles, bath salts, sachets, and glycerine soaps. I wanted to list the properties of the scents we used, but my “partner” stated that adding those descriptions would be certain to drive our non-magical and non-herbal loving customers away. I didn’t think so but she acted like she knew so much about it and was so insistent that I just gave up. It was supposed to be “our” site, but anything that didn’t meet up with her approval couldn’t go on the site. It didn’t matter what I thought or what I wanted.

Now the site will be back - hopefully in time for a Samhain opening. Right now, it will be a showcase and selling platform for crocheted and knitted items - perhaps I will see if my best friend and her mom would like to sell anything on the site or not. If they do, we’ll have to work out a few of the logistics, such as how they get their money, etc. However, I’m sure that stuff can be easily worked out and everything will end up just fine.

And to top it all off - my PayPal account is still under the name “The Candlelight Boutique!” I never changed it and I don’t plan on changing it. It’s my business and I plan on resurrecting it. Watch here for further news such as when the store’s grand opening will be.

A friend of mine, Jenn and her family are going through what can only be called a tragic travesty of injustice. The story is hers and her mother’s to tell, and so I am not going to tell it here. However, you can be assured that there is much wrong with the situation on so many levels, and I can tell you for a fact that this type of thing does not just happen where they are, it happens all over. You might even know someone who was a victim of this type of thing - I know that I happen to know at least two people who have been in this situation. And sadly, the situation did not go in their favor. Please visit Save My Boys to learn more about this and to learn what you can do to help them bring this injustice to light and hopefully get this resolved.

One of the things I usually stay as far away from as possible is politics. I despise politicians. I think they’re all nothing more than a bunch of liars and when we vote, we vote for the best liar. The upcoming presidential election is no different. The American people decide who to vote for based more on mudslinging campaigns and who manages to come out looking better after the mud fight is over, than on the real issues and what the candidates are going to do about them.

That being said, I’ve heard some very bad things about both candidates. But what I’ve been hearing about McCain’s running partner, Sarah Palin, is just too crazy for words. The woman was actually blessed by a pastor who is a “witch hunter.” The man has actually blessed her and she believes that his blessing her and praying for her is how she got her spot as Governor of Alaska. Sorry Sarah, the VOTERS put you there, not that pastor’s prayer! YOU and the VOTERS had to do the work. The only thing Deity did was watch over you, and perhaps give you a bit of guidance as to what you should do next. But YOU had to do the work to convince the voters to vote for you. The VOTERS had to believe what you said and feel you were the best candidate for the job. Deity didn’t just give you that spot.

I can’t help but get the eerie feeling that giving Sarah Palin a place in our US Federal Government, especially one of such high responsibility as the Vice President, is a bad idea. Who is to say that she won’t convince McCain to get rid of programs such as Planned Parenthood - whose mission is not only to prevent unplanned pregnancies, but to provide much needed women’s health care to women who can’t afford it - or convince McCain to start pushing laws through Congress that will make it illegal to practice any faith other than Christianity?

Already I am hearing Christians in my area talking about how they don’t want anti-hate crime laws passed because they’re afraid that if their pastor is preaching, someone in the congregation might take offense or think the pastor was singling them out and have the pastor arrested for a hate crime. Yet not passing those laws would mean that those “good Christians” would be allowed to do anything they wanted to Wiccans, Pagans, Gays, Lesbians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc. They could commit acts of hatred against us and we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on legally. But do the people crying out against those anti-hate crime laws think of that? No. Because they only care that THEIR “rights” are being trampled on. We have no rights apparently.

How much do you want to bet that Sarah Palin could have a great hand in keeping those anti-hate crime laws from being passed? I’m betting she could have a great hand in it. She might not have the power to veto the laws, but McCain would, and she’d have to have some sway with him, or else why would he pick her as a running mate?

I’m not particularly scared of what might happen if McCain/Palin get into office, but I am annoyed by the backwards attitudes they represent. Their getting into office is going to set us back years, decades, or even centuries as far as civil rights and freedom of religion are concerned. I guess we’ll all have to watch and see what happens. I’m not particularly for Obama, but I’m thinking I’ll be voting for him, as I don’t want Palin or McCain near the White House.

I am a person who has always struggled with religion, faith, spirituality, etc. I can be so interested in it, I can love all the tenets of a faith or religion or spiritual path, but then loose all interest in the subject just as quickly. I have been interested in and following Wicca for the past 5 years now. However, I go in spiritual spurts. Meaning I have a tendency to go long periods of time without doing anything spiritual and then all of a sudden realizing that I’m falling into a rut again where I have no faith.

For me, a lot of the problem was the fact that for the first year and a half of my studying Wicca, I lived with my terminally ill mother. She was Mormon and as good as the Church was to her, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her or any of the members of the Church who came to see her that I wasn’t interested and that I didn’t believe in it. So I hid it from her and from them.

Then she passed from this life into the next and I moved in with a roommate who liked to claim she was Wiccan but was so terrified of what her parents would say that she made me hide everything from them when they came over. So that didn’t help me any. I was being forced to hide from everyone else who and what I was.

I was so happy when I could tell my friends that I was Wiccan and not have to worry about being treated any differently. Then I moved back to Iowa from Texas with a friend of mine and all of a sudden, her father and the bishop of the Mormon church ward she belonged to fed her a bunch of lies saying that she couldn’t be re-baptized (long story) into the Church because Christ wouldn’t enter her home because of me. I knew that to be a bunch of crap, because frankly, MY beliefs have nothing to do with HER deities and how they treat her. At first they were happy with me putting away all my Wicca and magick books and not practicing. I even let this blog go at that time - the domain name sat dormant with nothing on it because it was Wicca related and I couldn’t use it.

Then all of a sudden it was being said that I needed to find a different place to live - because of my faith. So I had to move into a crappy apartment that 2 years later, I still can’t afford to move out of. When I’m home, I’m fine, but if I’m at my best friend’s house, I’m stuck going to church with them every Sunday. So I’m being bombarded with things I don’t believe in and being stifled by faith that is not my own.

Of course, if I’m at home I have no internet access and I need internet access as I do some work from home on my blogs. So now I’m working towards the goal of simply getting my bills paid off and getting my life back on track to the point that I can get my internet access back at home so I can start being me again.

But one thing I have to say, is I know I let myself do these things. I allow myself to be pushed into things I don’t want to do concerning faith and religion. I allow myself to be dragged off to church each Sunday even if I don’t believe in it and I don’t listen to anything they say. I allow myself to be stifled by others. Now - I know this, I admit it. I just have to change it. And unfortunately, changing it is the hardest part of the whole thing.