A Peaceful Nights' Sleep For You and the Kids - the New Age Way

Even under the best of circumstances, getting your children to go to sleep can be a daunting task.  This is especially true if we're talking about an infant or a child who suffers from night terrors.  But, there are a couple things you can do in order to help the kids fall into a nice, deep, restful sleep which might actually enable you to get a few winks as well.

Firstly, there's lavender.  Since I've become a mother, lavender has been a life-saver on more than one occasion.  This one you can even use for the smallest among us.  Fill the nursery with fresh lavender, or get some of that Johnsons and Johnsons OR baby organics lavender baby wash - that stuff is fantastic!

If nightmares seem to be the issue (whether or not the child is old enough to tell you outright) - try cleansing the room of negative energy.  This can be accomplished in a number of ways, but the quickest, easiest, and cheapest in my experience is to do a quick sweep with a sage stick.  You can pick them up in just about any Wiccan/new age shop.  If you're in California, you can even pick some, dry it, and bundle it yourself.

Open all the windows in the room, to let the negativity escape easier.  Grab your sage stick and light it, like you would incense.  Walk around the room moving the lit, and now smoking, sage stick in a circular motion as you concentrate on cleansing the room of any and all negative energy.  "Tell" the energy that it's not welcome there, as you concentrate on replacing it with light, peaceful, positive energy.

When you're done with this walk-through, leave the windows open for a few minutes and then close them, so as not to let the negativity back in.  The room should now be clean of negative energies.

There are plenty of other methods as well.  And, if you need something stronger for the task, you could place black tourmaline, kyanite, or tourmanilated quartz in the room, particularly around window sills and the like.  There's also the use of candle and color magic(k) to clear the area.

If your child is older (at LEAST 5) and complaining of nightmares, try placing a piece of black tourmaline under their pillow.  And, of course, there's always the use of a dream catcher.  You could also try programming your child's dreams (clicky) so that they'll know how to tell the bad dream to go away and start having a good dream, even in the middle of their dream-state.

There are plenty of things you can do, even far more than I've mentioned, but definitely make use of the lavender and/or chamomile.  It's a relaxing aromatherapeutic scent that will lull your little one (or even you) into a nice, restful slumber.

History and Luck of Friday the 13th

Yesterday was Friday the 13th.  With that in mind, I decided to do some research on exactly how and why this was considered an 'unlucky' day.  I'd never put much thought into it.  To be honest, it simply never crossed my mind that the number, the day, or the combination of the two should have any reason at all to be considered as unlucky.

Well, apparently, there are actually a great number of reasons one might consider the number unlucky.  In one ancient Norse tale, Loki is the 13th (uninvited) guest at a dinner in Valhalla, which ends with him slaying Balder.  Speaking of dinner parties, Judas was also the 13th apostle and wound up betraying Jesus in the story.  And, in ancient Rome, the 13th witch at a gathering was believed to be the devil by the recently Chritianized population.

Numerology also has a hand in our subconscious association with the number 13 and bad luck.  The number '12' is considered 'complete', so 13 is considered just a bit too much, apparently making it a number of restless and uncomfortable energy.

The day of Friday is a separate connection all together.  It is synonymous with bad luck due to a biblical association with Jesus reportedly being crucified on that day, some scholars believing (I'd love to know how they figured this one out) that Adam and Eve were bad monkeys on that particular day and ate the apple, and even that Friday the 13th specifically is the day Cain allegedly killed his brother Abel.

So, a 13 falling on a Friday in particular is, in our culture, about as bad as you can get on the unlucky scale.

To be fair, there are many things that have been associated with the number 13, that wound up kind of sucking; Apollo 13, for example.  And, studies to apparently suggest that there are a higher percentage of accidents (even though fewer people are driving, due to their fear of the day), hopital admissions, etc. on Friday the 13th.

I do have to wonder, however, whether those statistics take into account the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy?  If people are set on the idea that something bad is going to happen, then in my experience they're right!  Keep looking for trouble, it will find you.  If you keep your mind, both conscious and subconscious, clear and focused on just the positive, then you'll likely not run into so much trouble.

True, the power of positive thinking only goes so far, like anything.  But, what possible positive purpose does it serve to insist that everything is going to be bad?

Either way though, it can't be denied that the number 13 is most certainly unlucky for some, even many.


For More Information:

National Geographic article

Time Magazine Article

Urban Legends About.com Site

Keeping an Altar With Kids in the House

It can be difficult to keep an altar, when you have little kids running about.  Even slightly older children (8 or 9) get curious, want to play with the things you have up there, etc.  And, animals too can get in the way and/or hurt themselves on what you have on your altar.

The first thing you can do, to help with these concerns, is put your altar up on a higher surface (fireplace mantle, etc.).  I have mine on top of a rather high dresser in my room.  Given it's height and location within the room, items are kept "out of sight, out of mind" for the most part, and it's too high to encourage the kids to play with it, or the cats to jump all the way up there when there are other surfaces, closer to the window.  ;)

Another thing you could do is to place your altar in a location not easily accessible to children.  For instance, if you have your office closed most of the time, with a child gate up so that your toddler can't play with your computer or the plugs.

You may also wish to consider the kinds of items you have on your altar, to prevent injury to any of your loved ones.  An athame is a pretty standard component of most altars, but they're not a good idea when you have children running around.  They'll be naturally curious, and you certainly don't want them playing with that!  Chalices as well might not be such a fab. idea.  Kids will want to drink out of them, or wash barbies hair with them, or...

There are other ways to represent the divine feminine and/or divine masculine energy upon your altar.  One such alternative, and I know many of you already do it, is to simply have a silver candle for the feminine and a gold candle for the masculine (left unlit, unless in ritual).

For me, that alone didn't seem personal enough.  And, I don't know if you've run into this, but gold and silver candles are really hard for me to find.  When I do find them, from new age suppliers, they are much more expensive than any other colored (or white) candle!  So, I decided to go with a representation that would be much more personal, and much more permanent (no worries about either injury OR melted wax, the kids eating the candles, etc.).

I went to a craft store and purchased two wooden, UNfinished candle stick holders.  I also purchased some non-toxic paint that would work for wood projects.  I bought silver and gold paint, along with white, yellow, and orange.  While concentrated on what these would be solely used for (i.e. concentrating on the Goddess while doing the silver candle, the God while doing the gold candle), I went home and painted the unfinished candle stick holders.

I painted one of the holders silver.  When that one dried, I used the white paint to paint a moon symbol on it.  The other holder I painted gold.  When that was dry, I painted a yellow (with orange accents) sun on the side.

Now I can use these with white candles (MUCH easier to find), or with the gold/silver when I can.

I'm a pretty creative person, but I really suck and drawing anything.  Honestly, I can mess up stick figures for cryin' out loud!  So, if I can do something like that and have it look pretty decent, anyone can.  In the end though, it doesn't matter how awesome it does or does not look.  What matters here is that it's personal to you and the divine, and that it represents what you need it to represent, while still being as safe as is humanly possible for and around your family.