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Halo Quin

~ Author, storyteller, witch

Tag Archives: moment

Limitations of Flesh

27 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by Haloquin in Dancing, Magic

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

challenge, choice, Commitment, dance, Determination, disability, gratitude, growth, hope, Imperfection, injury, Journey, learning, life, Living Life, Magic, moment, musings, paganism, process, spirits, Strangeness of Life

My knees are burning. My back is cramping. Tears stream down my cheeks in frustration. All I want to do is dance again. To move. To feel alive.

Wall of blank.

Exhaustion rises up, fog descends.

My mantra: I am lucky. This is temporary. This too shall pass.

I don’t believe it.

My body tells me that all there is is Now. Now is all. It might be correct.

I curl up on the floor. Empty.

I catch my breath. Numb.

Noticing, with strange detachment, that the world has become distant. That I’ve been a quiet automaton for hours, days… perhaps longer.

I breathe myself back into my body. Back into my feet. Back into the burning, aching flesh.

At least I feel alive.

I notice. Even restrained, even with the limits of movement, even with the fog and frustration, Here and Now, if I can keep my self in my belly, in my feet, in my hands, in my flesh… I can breathe and expand. The deeper into the flesh I go, the deeper into the magic. The deeper into the world I sink, the more I can expand, the more I am aware of. Oh it hurts, yes, but with each breath is life. With each prickly of goosebumps the wild spirits brush my skin with fingertips, tentacles, lips dripping in nectar.

The more present I am, the more present I am with Them. The gods stand behind me, the ancestors whisper in my ear, the spirits draw near. I can feel my edges, raise my shields, let down my hair, call out the cry of a Witch in the night.

The deeper into my body I can stay, when all my instincts are to flee, to float into painless disconnection, the closer the magic is.

Her and Now. Here and Now at the crossroads of every moment. Here and Now is where the web of Wyrd is woven, where the Power lies.

 

I am lucky, this too shall pass, this too shall return to the Fertile Darkness from whence it came, I am lucky, there are lessons here, if I can just stop running, just be Here and Now.

And in the stillness, I dance.

Snowy Solstice

21 Tuesday Dec 2010

Posted by Haloquin in Magic

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Beginnings, Completion, Festival, gratitude, Growing, Honesty, Intent, Journalling, life, light, Magic, moment, Moon, musings, process, Solstice, Sun

Standing in the snow in my pyjamas as the clouds lining the sky lightened with dawn, I breathed in the beauty of the Solstice morn.

I gazed at the orange sky above, lit by streetlamps, and smiled at the branches, dark under the snow. I used to climb this tree with a book, just to spend time in its branches.

The sun is beginning its yearly return today, and though its cold and dark now, I know that each night will be shorter, each day longer… much as I love the night, I appreciate being able to walk home from work in daylight!

I’m thinking about goals, desires, choices.

I’m thinking about the movement from the dark into the light…

I understand now how thoughts slowly germinate in the dark, projects and understandings mull over in the depths of my mind until they rise into the light and a decision is made…

Its a slow process, knowing deep down what must be done, and waiting for that deep knowing to become strong enough to grow into choice and action.

It took five years of knowing that I would become vegetarian to actually doing it, because that knowing had to seep into my bones, had to become right on every level, had to become so ingrained in me that my conscious mind accepted it. There are ways to speed this process up, magic, spellworking, NLP, the ‘One Command’… and there is also space for this process to slowly unfold within me. Sometimes, this is the right way.

I am often impatient, and I am finally coming to know, in my bones, that its ok for things to take time, to become strong before they are exposed to the light. If that choice to become vegetarian hadn’t rooted in my bones, I’d have crumbled in the first week when I had to face family and travel and a funeral. If I don’t nurture that hope, that I express but cannot yet state, until it is so strong I cannot deny it, then it will fade in the harsh light of day.

Sometimes things can be acted on right away. Sometimes they need to germinate. And sometimes they germinate for too long and never grow.

Its a fine balance.

I hope I get it right.

How do you do it?

Coursework

16 Thursday Apr 2009

Posted by Haloquin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

freedom, moment, muse, souls, spirit, story, time

Brain whirs, click clicking like clockwork turned crazy.

Fingers find passages in the words whirling round and round and round, crafting thoughts into things that make sense, albeit only to the head that tipped them out, they fear.

Restless, the body breathes deeply. It feels like this is forever, for always and eternity. The body always only knows Now.

Meanwhile the Mind wrestles with itself, like untamed horse and whispering-rider both, the Mind both knows what must be done and longs to wander free.

The art of essay writing involves every part of the Self, even the distant dove, immanent and divine, watches patiently, singing; this too will pass… and the mind and body calm, lulled by the song of spirit, this is now, and there will be another now, and another. Lets live this now, craft this piece, and pass on, beyond, from moment to delicious moment, each a foundation for the next.

Do this now, the mind promises, and we shall be free later.

No, says Spirit softly from the stars, we are free now.

A Moment

14 Wednesday Nov 2007

Posted by Haloquin in Uncategorized

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Tags

home, moment, water

Strongly moved,
a shower of red patterns
the river.

Lights dimmed,
a blanket lies softly over
the world.

Before,
I moved in, under, through
the waves.

Today,
My feet touch the ground as I move
slowly home.

A new sheet

13 Tuesday Feb 2007

Posted by Haloquin in Stories

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Tags

moment, story

Bottles of colour in hand, running down the stairs into the cold, cold snow, white like a clean sheet, a blank slate, a tabula rasa. What will these colours give rise to, give life to?

Confronted with the freshness, momentarilly stunned. Possibilities endless. Total freedom.

Clunk.

The first bottle loses its lid, and with it drops the hesitation…

Swoosh!

Swish!

Shooosh!

Colours fly through the air like liquid joy, staining the snow.

Arcs of rainbow inks pattern my world.

Later I watch from the window as snowballers scoop pink snow to throw, balling it up tight and puzzling over the green and blue and orange.

The snow melts slowly, dissolving deeper in the footprints.

As night falls the rain follows and washes my colours away.

And with the dawn a new sheet of snow sleets down to shower with rainbows again.

An Angel Wept

05 Thursday Oct 2006

Posted by Haloquin in Stories

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Tags

moment, story

On a crystalline world not far from here an angel wept. Perched atop a small hill as tears flowed freely into her palms, sobs wrenched from her heart in great gasps that steamed in the crisp autumn air.

I watched my little girl from the window of our stable, she was the youngest of our children and the light of my older years. Now she seemed so far from my reach. I knew this would be a hard time for all of us, and dashed away the tears that fell from my own eyes and blurred the world into a quartz-like muddle.

At dinner we were strangely superficial. Topics bore no relevance to the pain lying in the next room. We avoided mention of the blossoming blood that would not go away no matter how many bandages were applied. We tried not to think of life once the nurses had finished their job, once there was no more reason for them to be here. The boys talked of their day at work, Angelica barely touched her food. And for once no-one complained.

I was with her at the end. I closed her eyes.

The world was becoming colder. Winter came closer and the house was quiet. My little angel, withdrawn from the day, refused to go to school. And I hadn’t the heart to make her. Mathew and Peter spoke to me about it once or twice, as I recall, but I didn’t really pay attention. After that, they took her each day, and I sat, waiting for her to come home safe, never quite believing that she wasn’t also gone for always, and never quite believing her mother wouldn’t bring her home anymore.

My whole being was empty, or perhaps filled with the waters of the Styx, dark and dreary and full of sorrow. Every day was an effort to rise and food, food no longer had any taste. I ate out of rote, but nothing more. Mathew, the eldest, eventually went back to his wife, I’m not sure when. And the house became quieter.

Angelica took to spending much of her time wandering on the hills, by the lake.

One stormy evening dusk fell and she hadn’t returned. This was the first moment I felt anything other than empty sorrow. Peter and I spent half the night searching for her, on the hills, through the forest. We combed the caves nearby, we swept the fields, now bereft of corn, and found no sign of her. As the moon rode high, the storm cleared and the stars turned in the sky, I circled the lake, and there, curled beneath a willow tree wrapped in her coat, my angel slept safely.

I carried her home.

The winter was hard for me. But it was harder on my little ones. I tried to fight for them, to stay, but the cold and damp had gotten into my lungs, my blood, and eventually the water and the winter claimed me.

And out on the frosty, crystalline hill, an angel wept.

The Truth

11 Monday Sep 2006

Posted by Haloquin in Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

moment, story

Can you use logic to reveal the Truth?

We have a history of analytical thinking over half the world.
Are we any closer to The Truth?

We have many things that could logically be called true.
Does that make them Truth?

And, would finding The Truth really help us?
Would it make us happy? Would it guide us in how to live good lives?

How could it do that?

Why should it do that?

Would it matter if we found The Truth and it didn’t help us?

What would be the point in finding The Truth if it doesn’t help us practically?

Are all acts of logics simply solving logic puzzles… no more than games?

What is The Truth anyway?

Music written just for Me

11 Monday Sep 2006

Posted by Haloquin in Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

moment, story

Music… Why is it we hear some music and it feels like it was written just for us? Like it speaks to us in a special way…
How can this songwriter from hundreds of miles away, that we’ve never met, capture our thoughts and feelings so perfectly?
It feels as though no-one else should feel this way, like a personal interchange between two like minds…
And slowly we remember that we have felt this way before… How is it that they can reach into our heart of hearts so often?
And the realisation dawns… Because these feelings aren’t new to us, they are felt by many people many times, and that’s how music touches us, it reminds us of what we all share, that we aren’t, as it feels, alone in our feelings…
Isn’t it nice to know we’re not unique in our unending attempts at emotional experiences.

What is Philosophy; a Theory.

11 Monday Sep 2006

Posted by Haloquin in Stories

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

moment, story

The point of philosophy is not to find out what happens in the world, but what it means to us, what affect the events that occur have on us. Philosophy is looking for the truth, not the truth of what is, but the truth of what “what is” means. Leave science to look for what is, we shall look at what is behind the veneer of reality.

A Kiss of Spring

24 Thursday Aug 2006

Posted by Haloquin in Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

moment, story

Deep in the grey of the winter city, a ray of sunshine falls.
Gently it caresses the stones of buildings long-weathered.
Light brightens the faces of the people who turn, momentarily, to see if they can catch sight of an arc of colour dancing in a shower of rain.
The clouds part and the rain clears and the warmth of a spring like moment graces the streets, kissing the stones with colours hidden by the shadows.
A smile secretly twitches at the corner of each mouth as children giggle, splashing through the puddles.
We are warmed by the sun, and the flowers grow through the cracks in the stones.

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Meet Halo

Halo - pale femme face grinning directly at camera with dark hair and glasses, with peacock tail pattern behind.
Welcome to my world!

Halo Quin is an author, a storyteller, and a practicing witch with a lifelong relationship with the spirit realm who aims to share magic through experience. Halo lives in wild West Wales, right by the roiling sea, and loves to sing, dance, and otherwise enchant through performance. She also runs the Crimson Coven Collective, and ultimately encourages self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-healing, and self-enchantment through everything she does... leading to:

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