Wicked Review

On the 6th, Nick and I went to see the touring performance of Wicked. The show was amazing. I have never seen a performance as magnificent as that before, it was truly wonderful. The actors were great (the woman who played Elphaba joined the touring cast straight from broadway), the costumes were amazing, and the story was beautiful.

As far as stories about witches go, this one was pretty good. The main theme of it was whether people are born wicked, or become wicked. Witchcraft itself was never portrayed negatively. Elphaba's spells turned out different from what she intended sometimes, and she sometimes could not control her powers. The former is particularly true when it comes to real witchcraft. It's so important to really think a spell through, as I'm sure most of you know, or things could turn out differently from what you wanted.

Overall, I will give this play an extremely positive review. It was truly amazing. I would strongly recommend it to witches, musical theatre lovers, and anyone else, really.

Blessed Be,
Eirwen

Shameless Promotion.

I just wanted to take a moment to plug my other blog here, I don't think I have before. My other blog is called Bonbon de Sucre, it's a Gothic Lolita and historical fashion blog. I don't know if you know what Gothic Lolita is, but to briefly describe it; Gothic Lolita is a style of fashion that originated in japan. The idea is to dress sort of doll-like, a younger, innocent sort of look. It is heavily influenced by Rococo and Victorian fashion (which I also love). Think Alice in Wonderland meets Marie Antoinette meets Fairy tales. Here are a couple of pics:

 

These are some examples of Sweet, Gothic, and Classic Lolita, three of the main styles. Although Gothic Lolita shares a name with Vladimir Nabikov's novel, Lolita, they are not related. They way I understand it, the name Lolita was adopted by the Japanese when gothic Lolita first started, refering to a precocious young girl. It is not fetish, or meant to attract older men. It is simply a fashion style, for girls (and sometimes guys) who love the romantic, fairy tale look. 

I also talk about historical fashion on my blog, as well as costuming (I'm going to post about the costumes from Wicked next), as well as crafts. I do lots of craft projects, and I usually post them there. The latest one I did was Victorian Silhouttes. 

Check it out if you are interested in interesting fashions, or old-fashioned crafts. Thanks for bearing with me and my shameless promotion!

-Eirwen

Wicked!

I'm going to see the musical Wicked this weekend, with my wonderful boyfriend, Nick. I am really looking forward to it. I got the tickets for Christmas from Nick's parents. My parents even pitched in to the evening by getting us a fancy hotel room!

I'm going to post a review after I get back. I'm always interested in how witches are portrayed in pop culture and the media, so this will be fun.

I'm not one of those people who gets all up in arms about movies like The Craft (which is actually one of my favorite movies), or shows like Charmed (a guilty pleasure of mine). I don't get easily offended by that type of thing. I do get offended if something talks about "evil wiccans" or portrays real life witches in a negative light, e.g. on the Mentalist. There was an episode of that show where a "wiccan" priestess performed a so called "killing spell" on the victim. Wiccans were portrayed as flaky weirdos who were practicing witchcraft for attention or to rebel against something. That I did not like.

So, my review of Wicked is coming soon!

Blessed Be,
Eirwen

Blessed Imbolg/Camdlemas/Brigid's Day!!!

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a very blessed Imbolg. I just wanted to drop a line to wish everyone well, and share some Imbolg info.

Imbolg or Candlemas is also called Brigid's Day by many people, in honor of the Celtic Goddess/ Catholic Saint. She is the matron of fire, smith-craft, healing, and poetry. She is also associated with childbirth. She is called Bride by some, and rules engagements, marriages, and handfastings.
You can honor her with prayer, offerings of white flowers, or making Brigid's crosses. You can make one by taking two equal length twigs, pieces of wood, or even Popsicle sticks, and forming an equal armed cross. Glue them together, and tie silver and white ribbons all around the middle.
The Domestic Witch has some interesting info about Imbolg on her blog. Her post cheered me up when I read something she said about weather:

"An old British rhyme tells us that “if Candlemas Day be bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year”. Actually, all of the cross-quarter days can be used as inverse weather predictors, whereas the quarter days are used as direct weather predictors."

It's grey and rainy today, with snow still all over the ground from this weekend. Snow is beautiful of course, and I honor, respect, and love all of the seasons, but I don't always *like* winter. I'll tell you, I'm a spring and summer gal, and I am looking forward to warm weather, hiking, drinking sweet tea, making my own sundresses, and blossoming plants. Ah, it sounds so good already...

But I digress. So check out The Domestic Witch. It's a really great blog, she has some great ideas.

Also, if you are interested, check out my other blog, Bonbon de Sucre. It is my blog for fashion and crafting. I am into Gothic and Lolita fashion, historical fashion, haute couture, Hime Gyaru fashion, Mori/Natural-kei, Fairy-kei, and whatever other fashion stuff I like(my tastes are obviously very ecclectic). I stopped Bonbon for a while, and have recently started it back up, with a sort of new mission.
I don't know if any of you will be interested in this, but I am also going to talk about crafting, as well as posting tutorials, for things like sewing, embroidery, crocheting, jewelry making, and Victorian/other historical crafts. So for all of you crafty witches, you might want to check it out.

Well I'm off for now. I'm going to go light one candle for each thing I want to manifest in the coming year, and meditate on it for a while.

I hope you have a very Happy Imbolg, and Blessed Be!
-Eirwen