Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Please remain seated and stay calm. That sound you hear is the twenty-first century, roaring full speed ahead, with misery and injustice for (almost) all!
When you feel that life is passing you by, with so much baffling new technology and such, one of the best things to do is retreat into ancient ways and do something like build a shrine in your back yard. Which I did. And it's a really wonderful shrine. I promise, the next time my daughter The Heir is home, I'll have her take some photos.
Just before The Heir went back to college, I set candles on all the levels of the shrine, and on the center stone, and lit them to the Four Quarters with the Druidic invocations. When I was finished, between the candle light and the iridescent marbles and crystals sprinkled liberally within, I had a thousand points of light. It was prettier than a bonfire and safer too. Or so I
thought.Enter my cat, Beta. (I have two cats, Alpha and Beta.) Beta was born behind the garage next door. There was no way I could ever make her an indoor cat. So she comes and goes as she pleases.
On the night I lit my shrine, she was pleased to check it out, not at an admiring distance, but up close and personal.
The candles were safely snuffed before this family could fulfill all the dire myths about pet torture that cling unjustly to Pagans everywhere.
Alas! How does one light a shrine with the proper glow if one can't shower the thing with candles?
This is the twenty-first century. For me, that's usually a pain in the neck. But where the Shrine of the Mists is concerned, it's a Goddess-send.
Some time ago, my daughter The Spare gave my daughter The Heir a little glo-in-the-dark plastic gnome with fiber optic innards. When turned on, this gnome changes color deep within, from rosy red to violet, with blue, turquoise, and green thrown in for variety. Best thing about this gnome, he isn't hot to the touch, and he can't singe cat hair.
Many things amuse the heck out of faeries. When I turned on this dime-store gnome and it started doing its glowy show on the Shrine of the Mists, the faeries burst from every nook and cranny and had a shindig of pre-Celtic proportions. They couldn't get enough of the plastic and fiber optic miracle gnome! So I let it rock on for about an hour.
The only downside to my very modern shrine light is that it requires batteries, and they're not terribly eco-friendly. But I'll do the right thing and take them to the proper disposal center. And hope they last through many a faerie party.
Modern can be marvelous sometimes.
6 comments:
I don't have a glow in the dark gnome, but maybe I can come up with something similar that's lying around the house next time I play with the faeries. :)
Could the gnome use rechargable batteries?
Gnome sweet Gnome
you need some day of the dead figurines..
There are little fake candles like tealights that are battery operated and flicker (not all of them flicker) that stay cool, for those times you want something that looks like a candle.
Many people are working on ways to improve batteries. We hope soon there will be big improvements in the technology.
My spouse is working on an invention that is a solar electric generator that, if it works as it does on paper, will produce a lot of electricity from a small amount of solar. Others are working on stuff too. Soon. Soon....
In the meantime, thank you for looking out for the earth.
I was about to suggest rechargable ones, but it seems that someone beat me to it. :)
If it's bog stanrd AA (LR6) or AAA battery, you can get a charge which plugs into the mains, with 4 batteries for around -converts pounds sterling- $5??
You get around 100-300 uses out of them before they lose their charge too fast to use anymore.
~Rose.
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