I'm never on time for the holidays. I try to make them fit, I celebrate with the calendar or the moon cycle or at the time of the season change or eclipse, but invariably the magic lags behind a few days to a week. Either it doesn't sink in right away or I'm just a little out of sync, but if I wait long enough the magic comes. The magic always comes and this Lughnasadh was no exception.

Yesterday I woke up a bit later than normal, but it felt early with J still sleeping and the entire town quiet as a mouse. Normally I get up and let the cat, Fuzzy, in but he was already inside and came running to me to let him out. I walked outside with him and saw blue sky but the sun wasn't up yet over the mountain yet, even at the late hour (8) this steep valley blocks the direct sunlight for a while ... but I thought I heard distance rumbles of thunder. Listened again and yes, thunder. It didn't seem to fit with the beautiful blue sky and calm air so it was unexpected and exciting! I love thunder, however Fuzz hates thunder, so he desperately wanted to be outside but also didn't want to be outside alone so we sat together. That really worked for both of us!

One of the greatest things I've learned from Fuzz is that when the wind blows, sit up tall and sniff the air. I'm sure he's getting more out of it than I am but a fresh breeze fills you up and stirs up your energy and even this human gets something out of it. So we did our cat thing, we sat, we watched, we observed, we listened, we drew in deep breathes ... and we waited to see if that distant storm was coming at us or going around.

He knew before I did. He started making his way to the shed that he hides under in case of fireworks or thunder so I knew the storm was coming. I went inside for my camera to find that I didn't charge the battery. Doh! But storms bring out the nesting in me so I closed windows and puttered around like I needed to batten down the hatches ... even though storms raged all night the night before and nothing was different from then.

I went back outside and saw a little hummingbird flying all around the pine trees and smiled that he/she was doing like I was, feeling the buzz of the coming storm and finishing things up. But wait, finishing things up? Where did that thought come from? I remembered some little spell packets I had made up and wanted to burn. What better energy to do that in than a thunder storm?

I was remembering my dreams and I dreamt again about tornadoes and floods and raging storms. I'm never afraid of them in my dreams, just fascinated and energized .... maybe enraptured is a strong enough word for it. I have many dream journals filled with these dream storms and I never could quite figure out what that all meant, all I do know is that any dream dictionary definition didn't feel even remotely correct to me.

So I was thinking about this coming storm, the way I always want, with every fiber of my being, to do magic during storms, and how wild the energy of it all is. I've been hung up on the idea of Wild Magic since I read the Celtic Commandments line "Give thou thine heart to the Wild Magic" about a year ago. Wild Magic seems to mean something different to so many different people. I spent a very long time trying to decide what it meant to me. Since I am strongest in Earth magic, wild magic instantly meant nature to me ... wild, raw, untamed nature. A place where the mundane human world just doesn't spend much time ... wilderness, away from the mundane, away from things that are safe and predictable. That's the place that I find the fuel to make wild magic.

Could storms be part of wild magic? What else in my life says 'wild' to me other than this love for extreme weather? There are few things in me that are tame ... and I don't mean I'm wild as in party, party, party wild. Quite frankly I'm one of the most boring people I know ... but untamed as in unscripted, unplanned, unorganized, chaotic, free.

My life is like that. I don't manicure my yard. In fact I would just let it grow up with wildflowers and just have paths if it was my choice (and removing the sticker bushes.) I rarely plant anything on purpose and am always amazed and grateful for the things that decide to grow on their own around me. This year I even was gifted a six foot tall thistle (my favorite plant), honeysuckle and an elderberry bush. I have no skill or real desire to garden. I can see myself keeping sheep or free range chickens but not organized rows or beds of plants. Even the way I live with my cat. He was living outside, he chose to come live with me, I offered, he accepted, and he comes and goes as he pleases, we have an open relationship :) It kills me to not let him out when it's subzero outside so we've made him a safe place so he can go out even in brutal conditions. He begs, he lives to be outside, I can't say no. I would rather die than live in a cage or under someone's control ... I can't do that to him.

I had an epiphany ... it's all tied together. It occurred to me that that's how I see magic in my life ... THAT is my idea of wild magic ... free, untamed, fly by the seat of my pants, unruly, chaotic, just like a giant thunderstorm! I don't seek balance. Balance is the Sun and Earth without the moon, a planet without life. Mars is balanced and it's practically a desolate rock. It wasn't until the Earth created the Moon that the planet stabilized and life really sprouted. The Moon is the chaos factor and chaos brings life. Balance to me is boring and mundane and lifeless and cookie cutter ... I want to experience all of life ... the highs and lows, the deep and shallow, the rush and calm ... the whole wild ride.

So I've got a thunderstorm bearing down on me, the air is tingling with energy, I've spent a good half hour breathing it all in deeply as my 'wild' cat has taught me, and I have spell work that I've been wanting to do. PERFECT! This is the wild magic I've been dying to find (and I've been doing it all along!) And since I have it all together in my traveling witch kit, I'm ready! In a flash I have my stuff out, a fire going, the energy flowing and I'm getting my witch on! I was just about done when the big rain drops started falling. It was perfect! I had wind, water, fire, all pounding my ashes into the soil. I had all the elements working together and it was wild, untamed, instinctive magic.

I say all the time that I love the line that Elizabeth Swan says in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie "Hang the rules, you're pirates." Well I say 'hang the rules, we're pagan.' Who's rules are they really? I respect anyone that uses tools and casts a circle and calls this and that ... I have an elaborate set up I do at Samhain for a ritual celebration, but I don't have a set up for magic. I've been warned about ripping a hole in the space time continuum or breaking one of the seven circles that seal hell. Ok, I'm being over dramatic and silly but I do believe in my inner strength and power and my ability to protect myself. I'm not afraid of whatever it is that I'm supposed to be afraid of by casting without a circle. I think the rule of three (or seven as I recently heard) is an arbitrary number and too neat and tidy for nature. Life isn't fair and I'm not convinced there is an accounting system that works in threes or sevens. I believe that as a kid I wished and blew out birthday candles or wished on a star or went to my knees with our hands clutched together and begged the universe for my parents to make it home safe. I did magic then and I've yet to see any negative effects from doing it without a circle. Where did the idea of casting a circle even come from? Instinctively as a kid I pictured a bubble around me when I was scared. I go by my instincts and my instincts never lead me to call quarters or draw a circle or any of that. I have never found any hint of proof that my ancestors cast a circle (ie built a circular sacred space) for anything more than rituals/holidays. In my mind ritual and celebration is different from magic. I can't imagine a kitchen witch or healer cast a circle when they picked or planted herbs, baked bread, or carried their medicines to help a sick neighbor. Everything comes from inside me for that. And it's just my opinion.

Naive? Maybe. And I appreciate the concern that people show when I tell them I don't cast circles ... but I am willing to take all the consequences of my actions. It's all on my shoulders and my I believe my instinctive personal protections and the way I work are enough. So thank you if you are concerned. Feel free to warn me if you want to, I respect that.

But anyway, back to my storm ... I felt wild, I enjoyed the storm, I felt the energy, I cast with the lightening cracking and the thunder rumbling, I was joined by the elements, I was lead to it and trained in part by my cat, I was washed clean by the rain and my wishes were swept away in the wind. I felt new and clean when I came back inside. The rain really picked up as soon as I got in the door too. Then like flipping a switch the sun came out brightly while it was still raining. Every leaf on the apple tree outside my window was turned into a little rainbow ... a whole tree with thousands of little shimmering rainbows!!! It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. When the rain stopped and a breeze blew up, every leaf shone like a diamond and I was given another indescribably beautiful gift. And it being an apple tree, with me following a Celtic path, it couldn't have been more perfect.

I drew a card from my Druid Animal Oracle deck ... Fox, again. From the book "Whereas the sheep is a symbol or domestication and civilization, the fox represents wildness and wilderness." Also the fox I've been blogging about barking at me, is a red fox, he come down through the yard, and he barks at me every night now. I never remember a time in my life when things have felt more right.