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Medicine Hat and Back

This weekend Shanny and I travelled to Medicine Hat, which is like a hours drive from Brooks. Neither of us drive and so Shanny’s mum was wonderful enough to drive us. We ate Chinese food and looked around the various shops and stuff, keeping an eye out for bookstores. I spotted one second hand bookstore and found a pristine paperback copy of The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (The significance of religious myth, symbolism, and ritual within life and culture) by Mircea Eliade, for $3. You can read about Mircea Eliade’s Definition of Myth, I posted awhile back.

The name “Medicine Hat” is the English translation of ‘Saamis’ (SA-MUS)- the Blackfoot word for the eagle tail feather headdress worn by medicine men - or ‘Medicine Hat’. Several legends are associated with the name from a mythical merman river serpent named Soy-yee-daa-bee, the creator, who appeared to a hunter and instructed him to sacrifice his wife in order to obtain mystical powers which were manifest in a special hat. Another legend tells of a battle long ago between the Blackfeet and the Cree in which a retreating “Medicine Man” lost his headdress in the South Saskatchewan River.
Wikipedia Entry: Medicine Hat

Windmill Garden Centre at Medicine Hat

We also purchased a couple of books on Wicca: Progressive Witchcraft: Spirituality, Mysteries and Training In Modern Wicca by Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, and Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham.

On the way back to Brooks we stopped off here & took a few pics

What I was really after was a deck of Tarot cards, and ended up finding a beautifully illustrated pack called the Sharman-Caselli Tarot, complete with a Beginner’s Guide to Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke. I also picked up Fortune-telling with Tarot Cards by Stuart R. Kaplan, for $1. There’s also an online course for learning the Tarot, that I intend on following, thanks to a recommendation by the Pagan Podcast The Dark Side of Fay.

Shanny

Shanny found some wonderful black candlesticks for her new altar and a black Native American representation of, I guess, either Raven or Thunderbird.

Shanny’s Altar

Thunderbird or Raven

Shan has an amazing connection with birds, and quite a gift for communicating with animals. She also recently told me that she can feel energy from flowers. She also has a deep connection and awareness of the passing seasons. Something I want to develop myself.

Mahud

On the return journey we passed loads of deer…

Deer

More Deer

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