Salem at Nite

Well, we didn't find a ghost tour so we made our own by walking around and shooting our cameras for orbs around the points where we thought it might do the most good. It's always neat to go around a town after dark and see how its character changes. Here tonite was very peaceful. Okay, I guess it's creepy and peaceful, but I like it.

In this post I'll just put the cool shots of Salem after dark and then I'll do a seperate post for orb shots...one of which is right in our new hotel room above my bed!

Cool New Development at the Hawthorne!

Well, not long after I blogged last time I went out to get some supplies and then to use an ATM. the first THREE of them were out of service! So I learned from the concierge where there was an actual bank and walked down there while mom rested.

When I came back she was all excited. The front desk called and offered to upgrade us to a fancier room because it was my birthday! At first I was totally mystified but then they told me it was because I posted on the Hawthorne blog that I was there for my b-day.

So now we are in a really big room with a view right out over the front door onto Essex St. (versus a wall and some AC vents which were our view in the other room). Not only do we have two queen size bed but two BATHROOMS with TUBS in them! We had a tiny potty and shower in the other one. now we can do tandem baths and race each other! Freaky! It is soooo cool and obviously I love the Hawthorne more than ever! Oh yeah and don't worry, there's still an iHome and an even bigger TV! ;0)

trolley tour

Salem2: Witch You Were Here!

phew! here we are at about two PM on our full day in Salem and back at the hotel for a rest. the DaVinci Code is on the TV so that's fun.

you already heard all about our breakfast so I'll start after that: we went and go tickets to the historical trolley tour that takes us all over the points of interest and also functions as a shuttle. It was just ready to go when we showed up so we took the whole tour first, and you'll see a ton of pics I took from that. you can tell which ones because you can usually see some part of the trolley and/or the driver reflected in the pics but it's close enuff for me to serve as a souvenir. :0)

after we had taken the whole tour we rode the trolley down to Pickering Wharf and did all the shops down there. I got a coupla shiny witchy birthday things and had fun. then we had lunch and stopped at the "Olde Pepper Companie" chocolate store for ...umm...dessert plus about forty dollars worth of take away. they make their own chocolates. nuff said.

after a rest we are gonna do a bit more, culminating in a walking ghost tour tonite, hopefully. and home to see the kitties tomorrow! they're gonna be mad but at least I got them a bag of nip at Artemisia Botanicals. :0)

Oh, and when we were at Laurie Cabot's shop we noticed it's her birthday today! Cool.

Laurie Cabot Mural

This mural is out behind Laurie Cabot's Essex Street shop and it is so sprawling it took several different pics. :0)

The Witch Trial Memorial

Salem Common

The brick building with no labels is a sideview of our hotel. :0)

pics of the room

the three most exciting features are the TV, the iHome, and the roomservice! Yay!

My birthday in Salem

Hi there! Well, here I am in Salem MA for my 37th birthday! M getting up there but still able to get around :0p

We drove here yesterday and got in about three PM so we had a coupla hours of daylight to crawl around. Today is our full day here so who knows what we'll get up to!

We are in the historic Hawthorne Hotel on the Common. We stay here every time mom is with me cause she loves their roomservice breakfast. We got the smallest cheapest room we could and are basically staying here just for the roomservice! But once we got used to our tiny and slightly electrically quirky room we found that it was a good little place. The outlets are hanging out of the wall and I temporarily killed the TV trying to plug my computer in but after that was fixed I was happy. we have a flat screen tv which for all their hype I'm not that excited about...it makes the people look spread out and wider than they are and the colors are a little funny. But the clock is an i Home and my i Pod actually fits on it, unlike my own i Home which I have to plug the pod into with a usb! go figure.

So here are some pics of our room, the common, and the cool mural out behind Laurie Cabot's Essex Street shop. I'll let u know what we get up to today. So far an after dark ghost walk is on the agenda but the guy said it would depend on how many people show up so we'll see.....   :0) ljl

Imbolc February 2

The Pagan holiday of Imbolc or Imbolg, secularized as Groundhog Day, is the anniversary of my own committment as a priestess. In 1997 I used material from Shekinah Mountainwater's ecclectic pagan book "Ariadne's Thread" to perform my own ritual in which I dedicated myself to the Pagan path as I found and understood it. Mountainwater suggested that Imbolc is a good holiday to do this initiatory work since the germination energy of very early Spring is similar to the energy of a new initiate who is just beginning the Pagan path. My own initiation let me know right away what my path would be like since I took a bunch of trouble to try and be all formal and promptly dumped a seedling pot all over my ritual garb. I figued the universe was telling me to "chill out" and it's a good thing since I usually don't overly formalize (or plan) my ritual work. But whatever your path may be the Sabbats are a great time to tap into some mass-consciousness energy and grow your own craft.


Here are some ideas for Imbolc:
making and/or blessing candles
soing some pre-emptive "spring cleaning" of home and/or ritual space
planning the garden
planning other projects for Spring

Some websites with basic info on Imbolc:
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/imbolcfebruary2/p/Imbolc_History.htm
http://www.wicca.com/celtic/akasha/imbolclore.htm

Stardom

I haven't been able to blog about it yet but a month ago we lost our Starr to bone cancer. We only hope her great personality and beauty have and my continue to increase greyhound adoption. If you want to do anything in memory of her, please consider donating to the Maine Greyhound Placement Service: http://www.greyhoundplacement.com/

We love you, Starr.