I am not a big spellcaster. I'm really not. I know that some people cast a lot of spells for all kinds of stuff but not me. I think life happens around me for specific reasons and since spells are designed to inflict your will on the universe (and in turn on someone else) I just don't do it a lot.
However having been unemployed for a period of time, I knew that it was time that I do a spell for employment. While some people will adamantly tell you that you must write the spell yourself, I would not be one of them. I have no problem looking for a spell that someone has previously used and tweaking it to mean something for me. So that is what I did.
The hardest part of any spell is creating a clear intention of what it is you are looking for. Sometimes that clear intention is a necessity and at other times, its really not. Let me explain. For my job spell I had a very specific set of criteria that I wanted to me. It had to pay well, have good people, be financially stable, allow me freedom to do my job in the way that I saw fit and offer promotions and professional development opportunities and was in the field of occupational safety or human resources. Had I asked for a job that just paid money, I would have had one within a week of being unemployed since I got all kinds of emails form insurance companies looking for me to sell insurance. Your intent defines how the spell will manifest itself in the universe and guide opportunities towards you. Think of your intent as a filter to screen out those unwanted or undesirable consequences of your spell.
The second hardest part of any spell is letting it go. Spells must be sent out in to the universe with positive energy in order for you to get your results. And I will tell you this, if you think that spells work overnight, I am here to tell you that they do not. The universe cannot work against itself in order to manifest your desires. The universe will eventually conform to your request but it will not inflict pain or misery on others just to ensure that your desires are met. I firmly believe that when you send a spell out in to the universe, you are really just asking the universe to make certain adjustments to peoples life event time lines in such a way that causes no harm to anyone. Things moved pretty quickly for me once I applied for this current position since the position had been vacant for almost a year. But had it not, it would have take a moment or two for he universe to move the person out of that position to a better or more favorable position (and in this case the person moved closer to family in another division of the corporation...a win for them) to free up this position for me. It takes time to do this stuff. Remember the universe doesn't use the concept of time like we do. Things happen when they should happen and nothing is going to change that.
But in all spellwork once it is cast, you cannot continually call it back to check on it. Every time you do that, you are starting the energy all over again and wasting time. Having confidence in the spell working as you have designed it to do is paramount to ensuring that you get optimum results from the spell.
They do work but sometimes you just gotta leave them alone and let them get on with the business you have given them to do!
Friday, October 11, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Diversity in the Craft
Diversity in the Craft can mean many things. It could mean that we have a diverse ethnic culture of practitioners in the craft. It could mean that we have a diverse offering of Craft "styles". It could mean that we have a diverse culture of sexual preferences too.
I would like to give you a few thoughts on each of these because I feel that diversity in the Craft is the one thing that keeps us together.
Within the practice of Wicca/Witchcraft or any other earth based tradition, you can see a tremendous amount of variations within Craft practices. Beyond the typical variations of pantheons, you find a wide array of differences within each and every pantheon out there. Not only are you a Celtic practitioner, but perhaps you follow a patrilineal path or a matrilineal path. Perhaps you are Celtic but your deities of choice come from northern France rather than the British isles. You get the idea.
It is the same with Craft "styles" too. Perhaps you are part of a coven based tradition with a strong Priest/High Priestess. Maybe you prefer to be part of a smaller group or not even join a group at all and you prefer to practice and learn as a solitaire. Again, there is no right way or wrong way. The Craft is strong enough and flexible enough to accommodate all styles.
One very positive thing about the Craft is that practitioners not only practice different sexual lifestyles but it is highly unusual for any sexual lifestyle to be seen as "unusual" or "unnatural" within the Earth based community. One of the items that one must investigate as they are looking for a community to participate in is to determine if their policies and practices are in line with what their personal values are. Sexual practices within the Craft community is still one of those things, in some groups, that are not fully discussed within their respective groups. Open and honest discussions of Pagan sexuality is an integral part of ones personal practice and in some instances, addressing shadow aspects of themselves. This is also an area that is open to predatory practices by those who only use the Craft to carve notches on their bedpost. Having said all that, there is little doubt that you can find a group that would accept you for who you are and not who you choose to sleep with or have sexual relations with.
One of the things that I enjoy most is the diversity of people within the Pagan community. Not only are we all shapes and sizes but we are truly representative of the communities within which we live and practice. The diversity of our groups encourages us to learn about other people other cultures and practices while at the same time letting us know that even though someone may be Native American, that they are still Bob, the guy who repairs our computers when they break. Having the richness of diversity while still seeing the trees within that forest make us better human beings.
I would like to give you a few thoughts on each of these because I feel that diversity in the Craft is the one thing that keeps us together.
Within the practice of Wicca/Witchcraft or any other earth based tradition, you can see a tremendous amount of variations within Craft practices. Beyond the typical variations of pantheons, you find a wide array of differences within each and every pantheon out there. Not only are you a Celtic practitioner, but perhaps you follow a patrilineal path or a matrilineal path. Perhaps you are Celtic but your deities of choice come from northern France rather than the British isles. You get the idea.
It is the same with Craft "styles" too. Perhaps you are part of a coven based tradition with a strong Priest/High Priestess. Maybe you prefer to be part of a smaller group or not even join a group at all and you prefer to practice and learn as a solitaire. Again, there is no right way or wrong way. The Craft is strong enough and flexible enough to accommodate all styles.
One very positive thing about the Craft is that practitioners not only practice different sexual lifestyles but it is highly unusual for any sexual lifestyle to be seen as "unusual" or "unnatural" within the Earth based community. One of the items that one must investigate as they are looking for a community to participate in is to determine if their policies and practices are in line with what their personal values are. Sexual practices within the Craft community is still one of those things, in some groups, that are not fully discussed within their respective groups. Open and honest discussions of Pagan sexuality is an integral part of ones personal practice and in some instances, addressing shadow aspects of themselves. This is also an area that is open to predatory practices by those who only use the Craft to carve notches on their bedpost. Having said all that, there is little doubt that you can find a group that would accept you for who you are and not who you choose to sleep with or have sexual relations with.
One of the things that I enjoy most is the diversity of people within the Pagan community. Not only are we all shapes and sizes but we are truly representative of the communities within which we live and practice. The diversity of our groups encourages us to learn about other people other cultures and practices while at the same time letting us know that even though someone may be Native American, that they are still Bob, the guy who repairs our computers when they break. Having the richness of diversity while still seeing the trees within that forest make us better human beings.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Herbal Remedies
For centuries, the history of the Craft has been tied to the healers in their respective communities. Their generational knowledge of herbs (medical and magickal) have kept people healthy and balanced. As people become educated in the Craft, as expected, they tend to move towards a healthier lifestyle. Some people remove meat and dairy from their diets, some choose only organic meats and vegetables or start gardens where they have an even greater control over their food sources.
The same thing is happening with regard towards medical care as well. If there is a flower, plant or tree that can be used to removed disease from our bodies or to complement traditional western medicine, we try and use it. We understand that our body reacts much better to herbal medicines than to western medicine and, when used under the skilled hands of a trained practitioner, the results are just as good with less damage to our bodies on the cellular level.
The key to using any type of herbal remedy is to ensure that you are using it under the care of a trained herbalist, naturopath, Chinese, Ayurvedic or other such trained practitioners. People who practice herbal healing arts have been trained in how to carefully gather the necessary herbs and prepare them for use within the human body. They are also trained in how to determine which herbs may work best for any western medication that you may be on. They can also work with your current physician and create complementary treatments to treat any damage done by the western medicine.
Many people in the Craft like to work with herbs of any kind and create their own personal herbal remedies for a wide variety or reasons. I'm a big fan of honey (having a couple of friends who are beekeepers helps!) and use raw honey for minor wound care and I enjoy a hand lotion that contains propolis, an anti-bacterial, anti-viral substance bees make to seal their honeycombs and cracks within the hive . The anti-viral part thrills me to no end since I can use a hand cream to soften my hands and during cold an flu season when you are touching phones and doorknobs, the anti-viral part keeps the nasties at bay. I use several types of herbal teas and I use an herb to help stabilize my mood as I suffer from mild but chronic depression. Lastly, I use a tea tree oil rinse for my scalp because it has a tendency to get very dry and itchy. Tea tree oil is a great multi-purpose oil to keep on hand for all kinds of minor medical emergencies like cuts and scratches.
Having said all that...it is the wise herbal remedy enthusiast that only practices on themselves and declines to offer herbal remedy advice to others. I'm sure some of you are saying "Boooo! quit spoiling our fun with herbs!" I promise I have a good reason for doing so. Herbal remedies in most states are considered "medicines" and treating the aches and pains of friends and families may be considered practicing medicine under the laws of the state you live in. Remember two paragraphs ago when I said that the key to using herbal remedies is using them under the guidance of a trained practitioner? That is the reason why. Trained practitioners are skilled and knowledgeable (and licensed within your state) about your body systems and can make accurate diagnoses about what exactly is ailing you. Intestinal upset could be the result of something you ate that didn't agree with you or it could be a loss of beneficial flora within your intestinal tract or something worse yet. Only a trained person can make that call, not your witchy friend (unless they too, happen to be a trained practitioner) You have the right to choose (or decline) your own medical care but unless you are properly licensed, you don't have the right to practice on others.
More and more medical insurance companies are offering to pay alternative medicine caregivers if they are used in conjunction with traditional care. Alternative medicine practitioners have shown great value in not only lowering medical costs for the patient but their ability to work with traditional medicine can get the patient back on their feet in a shorter time span while enhancing the bodies own ability to fight off diseases.
The Wise Woman or the Cunning Man have used herbal remedies for centuries to help keep the people around them healthy and balanced. Today's practitioners of the herbal healing arts are no less valuable than those who practiced them centuries ago. We also have the added luxury of knowing exactly what certain herbs accomplish in our bodies due to massive amounts of testing conducted on a wide variety of plant life. Used wisely, herbs can have a tremendous impact on your health. Used in ignorance, can harm or even cease life.
The same thing is happening with regard towards medical care as well. If there is a flower, plant or tree that can be used to removed disease from our bodies or to complement traditional western medicine, we try and use it. We understand that our body reacts much better to herbal medicines than to western medicine and, when used under the skilled hands of a trained practitioner, the results are just as good with less damage to our bodies on the cellular level.
The key to using any type of herbal remedy is to ensure that you are using it under the care of a trained herbalist, naturopath, Chinese, Ayurvedic or other such trained practitioners. People who practice herbal healing arts have been trained in how to carefully gather the necessary herbs and prepare them for use within the human body. They are also trained in how to determine which herbs may work best for any western medication that you may be on. They can also work with your current physician and create complementary treatments to treat any damage done by the western medicine.
Many people in the Craft like to work with herbs of any kind and create their own personal herbal remedies for a wide variety or reasons. I'm a big fan of honey (having a couple of friends who are beekeepers helps!) and use raw honey for minor wound care and I enjoy a hand lotion that contains propolis, an anti-bacterial, anti-viral substance bees make to seal their honeycombs and cracks within the hive . The anti-viral part thrills me to no end since I can use a hand cream to soften my hands and during cold an flu season when you are touching phones and doorknobs, the anti-viral part keeps the nasties at bay. I use several types of herbal teas and I use an herb to help stabilize my mood as I suffer from mild but chronic depression. Lastly, I use a tea tree oil rinse for my scalp because it has a tendency to get very dry and itchy. Tea tree oil is a great multi-purpose oil to keep on hand for all kinds of minor medical emergencies like cuts and scratches.
Having said all that...it is the wise herbal remedy enthusiast that only practices on themselves and declines to offer herbal remedy advice to others. I'm sure some of you are saying "Boooo! quit spoiling our fun with herbs!" I promise I have a good reason for doing so. Herbal remedies in most states are considered "medicines" and treating the aches and pains of friends and families may be considered practicing medicine under the laws of the state you live in. Remember two paragraphs ago when I said that the key to using herbal remedies is using them under the guidance of a trained practitioner? That is the reason why. Trained practitioners are skilled and knowledgeable (and licensed within your state) about your body systems and can make accurate diagnoses about what exactly is ailing you. Intestinal upset could be the result of something you ate that didn't agree with you or it could be a loss of beneficial flora within your intestinal tract or something worse yet. Only a trained person can make that call, not your witchy friend (unless they too, happen to be a trained practitioner) You have the right to choose (or decline) your own medical care but unless you are properly licensed, you don't have the right to practice on others.
More and more medical insurance companies are offering to pay alternative medicine caregivers if they are used in conjunction with traditional care. Alternative medicine practitioners have shown great value in not only lowering medical costs for the patient but their ability to work with traditional medicine can get the patient back on their feet in a shorter time span while enhancing the bodies own ability to fight off diseases.
The Wise Woman or the Cunning Man have used herbal remedies for centuries to help keep the people around them healthy and balanced. Today's practitioners of the herbal healing arts are no less valuable than those who practiced them centuries ago. We also have the added luxury of knowing exactly what certain herbs accomplish in our bodies due to massive amounts of testing conducted on a wide variety of plant life. Used wisely, herbs can have a tremendous impact on your health. Used in ignorance, can harm or even cease life.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
When the student is ready, the teacher will come...Part 3
Well we've discussed the role of the teacher, the role of the student and now I would like to delve in to the role of the student-teacher relationship.
As long as there have been cunning men, wise women, witches, etc., there have been people who taught them their skills. This relationship was usually oral by tradition and the reason why was made very clear during the Burning Times.
Many of the student-teacher relationships were usually one of voluntary servitude (If you want to learn this stuff, you come live with me and do EXACTLY as I tell you) and once one started down this path, there was no getting off. This was not unlike many of the apprenticeships that children went in to at a young age.
But today that dynamic isn't really functional and in many cases, can be traumatizing for the student. Today the dynamic is (or should be) one of mutual respect for the skills that the teacher brings to the table and respect for the individuality that the student brings to the table. Gone are the days where the teacher had absolute control over the student and now we see relationships that are mutually beneficial to the teacher and the student.
Now, that is not to say that the student gets a pass on not doing the work. Doing the work that the teacher gives to the student is vital in the development of the students spiritual character. It has been my experience that many students, when they first start on this path, are arrogant and self absorbed. They have read a few books, done a few spells, cast a couple of circles and viola! they are smarter than everyone. It behooves a teacher to teach some humility to students like this. The student does not realize that all their arrogance is a huge impediment to their learning true spirituality. Trust me when I say this, the teacher gets no joy out of watching you stumble around like a person with their eyes closed. However, they will let you do that (all the while bumping into walls and getting some bruises) because they know that at some point your eyes will open and you will understand that you don't know everything and that humility will cause you to stand in front of your teacher and say "I don't know everything" and THAT is when your training will begin.
For the teacher's part, it is our job to teach you what we know. Not only from a technical standpoint (the craft part of the Craft) but also from an emotional and psychological perspective as well. A good teacher will be involved in their students life to a degree. They will know what is going on in most aspects of your life and the relationship should be one that is similar to that of a priest/penitent. It should be open, honest and there is very little that a teacher shouldn't know about their student. This is not because teachers enjoy drama in their life (we really don't) but unless we know the details of past experiences, we are not able to give you wise counsel. Let me give you an example of why this is critical. Part of every path is a segment called Shadow Work. As Pagans we understand that dark balances light. We know that we must embrace the darkness within ourselves in order to remain in balance in our lives. There are many dark things in the Shadow self and if the teacher doesn't know about them, they are unable to properly address them with you. You may even have such traumatic things in your Shadow self that the teacher may not be qualified to address. It's dangerous to the student to withhold critical information.
The student-teacher relationship really is a sacred trust on both parts. A trust that both the student and teacher will give 100% of themselves in teaching and learning the Craft. I am always humbled when a person consents to be my student. I understand how great an impact my words and actions will have on them for the rest of their lives.
When the time comes for students and teachers to part it should be done respectfully, no matter the reason for the parting. Either the student or the teacher can decide that neither is the right fit for the other. This is not a bad thing. Take what you have learned from that teacher and add it to your personal wisdom. When teachers feel that their time is ending with a student, it too should be done respectfully. After all, at some point you saw something in that person that compelled you to take them on as a student. Never end a relationship on a negative note. You want the student to continue their studies, even if it's not with you. In the end, it is about doing what is best for the student, not your ego.
As long as there have been cunning men, wise women, witches, etc., there have been people who taught them their skills. This relationship was usually oral by tradition and the reason why was made very clear during the Burning Times.
Many of the student-teacher relationships were usually one of voluntary servitude (If you want to learn this stuff, you come live with me and do EXACTLY as I tell you) and once one started down this path, there was no getting off. This was not unlike many of the apprenticeships that children went in to at a young age.
But today that dynamic isn't really functional and in many cases, can be traumatizing for the student. Today the dynamic is (or should be) one of mutual respect for the skills that the teacher brings to the table and respect for the individuality that the student brings to the table. Gone are the days where the teacher had absolute control over the student and now we see relationships that are mutually beneficial to the teacher and the student.
Now, that is not to say that the student gets a pass on not doing the work. Doing the work that the teacher gives to the student is vital in the development of the students spiritual character. It has been my experience that many students, when they first start on this path, are arrogant and self absorbed. They have read a few books, done a few spells, cast a couple of circles and viola! they are smarter than everyone. It behooves a teacher to teach some humility to students like this. The student does not realize that all their arrogance is a huge impediment to their learning true spirituality. Trust me when I say this, the teacher gets no joy out of watching you stumble around like a person with their eyes closed. However, they will let you do that (all the while bumping into walls and getting some bruises) because they know that at some point your eyes will open and you will understand that you don't know everything and that humility will cause you to stand in front of your teacher and say "I don't know everything" and THAT is when your training will begin.
For the teacher's part, it is our job to teach you what we know. Not only from a technical standpoint (the craft part of the Craft) but also from an emotional and psychological perspective as well. A good teacher will be involved in their students life to a degree. They will know what is going on in most aspects of your life and the relationship should be one that is similar to that of a priest/penitent. It should be open, honest and there is very little that a teacher shouldn't know about their student. This is not because teachers enjoy drama in their life (we really don't) but unless we know the details of past experiences, we are not able to give you wise counsel. Let me give you an example of why this is critical. Part of every path is a segment called Shadow Work. As Pagans we understand that dark balances light. We know that we must embrace the darkness within ourselves in order to remain in balance in our lives. There are many dark things in the Shadow self and if the teacher doesn't know about them, they are unable to properly address them with you. You may even have such traumatic things in your Shadow self that the teacher may not be qualified to address. It's dangerous to the student to withhold critical information.
The student-teacher relationship really is a sacred trust on both parts. A trust that both the student and teacher will give 100% of themselves in teaching and learning the Craft. I am always humbled when a person consents to be my student. I understand how great an impact my words and actions will have on them for the rest of their lives.
When the time comes for students and teachers to part it should be done respectfully, no matter the reason for the parting. Either the student or the teacher can decide that neither is the right fit for the other. This is not a bad thing. Take what you have learned from that teacher and add it to your personal wisdom. When teachers feel that their time is ending with a student, it too should be done respectfully. After all, at some point you saw something in that person that compelled you to take them on as a student. Never end a relationship on a negative note. You want the student to continue their studies, even if it's not with you. In the end, it is about doing what is best for the student, not your ego.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
When the student is ready, the teacher will come...Part 2
In Part 1 we discussed what typical expectations were on a teacher who chose to teach the Craft. In this part, I'd like to touch on the role of the student in this equation.
"When the student is ready,..." There is quite a mystical, magickal match-up system that is undergone in the Universe when a student is matched with a teacher. It really is all based upon the readiness of the student too. Most people, when they start on this path, become voracious readers. They will read everything and anything that is related to their path with little thought to the quality of the content that they are ingesting. There are a few things that you the student can do in order to prepare yourself for the teacher to come and come to you quicker!
Read whatever you can get your hands on is a good start but this should contain a caveat...not everything you read is good information. In any given year approximately 230,000 books are published. Llewellyn, a major pagan publisher, will publish thousands of these books around subject matter that is of interest to earth based practitioners. With the rise of self-publishing, add a couple thousand more to that list. One good way to spend your money wisely is to talk to the people around you. Chances are you didn't come to this path without running in to some Pagan folks, perhaps at a bookstore, metaphysical store or some other place. Ask them what books they would recommend for a beginner in this field of study. If you are lucky, they will steer you towards books that have exercises for you to do while you are reading the book. If you get a book like that, DO THE EXERCISES! And don't do them just once either, do them over and over again until you get the desired results. It is seldom that a new student will get the desired result right off the bat so its important that you continue practicing.
Meditate everyday and start keeping a meditation journal. Meditation isn't all that hard to do but it is something that must be done every day. Even a 15 minute meditation is going to benefit you. If you want to meet totem animals or spirit guides, it is during your meditations that they will make an appearance. So why the big deal about meditation? Well first and foremost, it quiets your mind so that you can hear the messages from the Divine. People are VERY anxious to talk but they don't like to be quiet and listen. Secondly, there are very real physical reactions that take place within your body when you meditate. Blood pressure drops, stress and anxiety level off and best of all, you get a chance to hear the divine speak.. Lastly, you are developing places in your mind that you can retreat to when the going gets rough in your life...your "Happy place" as it were.
Determine how you like to learn (do you like handouts and lectures? do you prefer hands on experiences?) How you like to learn will help you determine the type of teacher that will help you along this path in the way that is best for you. Trust me when I say that there are a TON of bad teachers out there and it will sometimes feel like they all live in your town but they don't. The axiom holds true and stands the test of time which is why you hear it repeated so often.
Just a couple of really important things left to address and we will be through! First, there are unscrupulous teachers out there that are nothing more than predators. Predators prey on people who are vulnerable because they are easy targets. Many people come to the Craft because they are broken in some way. If you come upon an instructor that requires money or sex in exchange for teaching you, run the other way as fast as you can. No legitimate teacher of the Craft will require either one of these things. Having said that, you will find covens that practice sacred sexuality (The Great Rite) but I have only seen it done by committed couples (married, handfasted, etc.) within the group and always in their private space, never in view of the public. Sexuality is an important aspect of the Craft but it is something that is always consensual, respectful and private. With regard to money, some traditions teach that no money shall cross the palm of the instructor less the power of the magick be lost. More and more you are seeing teachers request small donations to help cover the cost of the materials they are using to teach you. $5 to $10 a month for these expenses are not unreasonable and if you can't afford that, consider bartering something with your teacher. They may want their lawn mowed once a month or may need help putting up herbs they have dried.
After having done all these things, now you must sit and wait for your perfect teacher to show up. Don't worry...they will appear. When they do make sure that you ask yourself if they are the right teacher for you. If you don't feel that they are the right one, it's ok to say "thank you for your time but I don't think you are the right one for me". A good teacher will not take it personally and a great teacher will even help you find someone who works with your learning style.
"When the student is ready,..." There is quite a mystical, magickal match-up system that is undergone in the Universe when a student is matched with a teacher. It really is all based upon the readiness of the student too. Most people, when they start on this path, become voracious readers. They will read everything and anything that is related to their path with little thought to the quality of the content that they are ingesting. There are a few things that you the student can do in order to prepare yourself for the teacher to come and come to you quicker!
Read whatever you can get your hands on is a good start but this should contain a caveat...not everything you read is good information. In any given year approximately 230,000 books are published. Llewellyn, a major pagan publisher, will publish thousands of these books around subject matter that is of interest to earth based practitioners. With the rise of self-publishing, add a couple thousand more to that list. One good way to spend your money wisely is to talk to the people around you. Chances are you didn't come to this path without running in to some Pagan folks, perhaps at a bookstore, metaphysical store or some other place. Ask them what books they would recommend for a beginner in this field of study. If you are lucky, they will steer you towards books that have exercises for you to do while you are reading the book. If you get a book like that, DO THE EXERCISES! And don't do them just once either, do them over and over again until you get the desired results. It is seldom that a new student will get the desired result right off the bat so its important that you continue practicing.
Meditate everyday and start keeping a meditation journal. Meditation isn't all that hard to do but it is something that must be done every day. Even a 15 minute meditation is going to benefit you. If you want to meet totem animals or spirit guides, it is during your meditations that they will make an appearance. So why the big deal about meditation? Well first and foremost, it quiets your mind so that you can hear the messages from the Divine. People are VERY anxious to talk but they don't like to be quiet and listen. Secondly, there are very real physical reactions that take place within your body when you meditate. Blood pressure drops, stress and anxiety level off and best of all, you get a chance to hear the divine speak.. Lastly, you are developing places in your mind that you can retreat to when the going gets rough in your life...your "Happy place" as it were.
Determine how you like to learn (do you like handouts and lectures? do you prefer hands on experiences?) How you like to learn will help you determine the type of teacher that will help you along this path in the way that is best for you. Trust me when I say that there are a TON of bad teachers out there and it will sometimes feel like they all live in your town but they don't. The axiom holds true and stands the test of time which is why you hear it repeated so often.
Just a couple of really important things left to address and we will be through! First, there are unscrupulous teachers out there that are nothing more than predators. Predators prey on people who are vulnerable because they are easy targets. Many people come to the Craft because they are broken in some way. If you come upon an instructor that requires money or sex in exchange for teaching you, run the other way as fast as you can. No legitimate teacher of the Craft will require either one of these things. Having said that, you will find covens that practice sacred sexuality (The Great Rite) but I have only seen it done by committed couples (married, handfasted, etc.) within the group and always in their private space, never in view of the public. Sexuality is an important aspect of the Craft but it is something that is always consensual, respectful and private. With regard to money, some traditions teach that no money shall cross the palm of the instructor less the power of the magick be lost. More and more you are seeing teachers request small donations to help cover the cost of the materials they are using to teach you. $5 to $10 a month for these expenses are not unreasonable and if you can't afford that, consider bartering something with your teacher. They may want their lawn mowed once a month or may need help putting up herbs they have dried.
After having done all these things, now you must sit and wait for your perfect teacher to show up. Don't worry...they will appear. When they do make sure that you ask yourself if they are the right teacher for you. If you don't feel that they are the right one, it's ok to say "thank you for your time but I don't think you are the right one for me". A good teacher will not take it personally and a great teacher will even help you find someone who works with your learning style.
Monday, August 19, 2013
When the student is ready, the teacher will come...(Part 1)
There is much to be said about the student-teacher relationships that are built within the Pagan community. The title of this blog is an axiom that has been around forever, (I think that it is a Buddhist precept) and widely known in the Pagan community.
Being a teacher within the Craft community is not unlike teaching anywhere else. It's a pretty thankless job at times where you feel more like a babysitter than a teacher who is instilling religious values in someone. Just as there is really no paid Pagan clergy, there are no paid Pagan teachers. Trust me when I say that there is a wide variety of teachers out there, good and bad, who are willing to teach. But just because they are willing to teach doesn't mean that they should be teaching. Some don't have the aptitude for it, some lack the patience for it and some should never be allowed to set foot in a teaching environment. Just because you know a subject matter six ways to Sunday, (or at its most basic level, transferring information to another) doesn't mean that you are capable of teaching it . It is my professional opinion that before ANY tradition allows someone to teach, they should go through classes that teach them not only how to TEACH, (developing goals, objectives, lesson plans, etc) but to teach them how adults LEARN (andragogy) as well. Two days of classes, eight hours each, should be more than enough to cover these subjects. When the tradition does this, they get a consistent end result all the time, i.e. high functioning students who represent their tradition well to the public.
I am different than most Craft teachers in that I actually have a masters degree in adult education and I structure my Craft curriculum just like a school teacher would. By doing so I am able to answer critical questions the adult learner may have like "What's in it for me?" or "How is this relevant to my life? job?" or to give students problems to work through so that they can make those connections to their life, their job and in the case of being a Craft teacher, the Divine as well. Accountability is another hallmark of the adult learner. Adults need to be held accountable just like their younger student counterparts. The desire for feedback is just as strong (if not stronger since they understand the larger picture of the connections they are making) in an adult learner as it is for a child.
Probably one of the best books I have read for teaching the Pagan path is called "A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagan" by Thea Sabin. It goes into detail about how to set up group, how to find students and once you find them, how do they learn and also gives great advice on how to design and implement your curriculum. If you have no teaching experience then this book is a must read for you!
As teachers in this community, we owe it to our students to give them the best possible experience while under our tutelage. As teachers of the Craft we are unique in that not only are we teaching religious values but in everything we do, we must show the Divine to the student so that the student can make that crucial connection as well. Doing so will help them develop their own relationship not only with the Divine within them but the external Divine as well.
Being a teacher within the Craft community is not unlike teaching anywhere else. It's a pretty thankless job at times where you feel more like a babysitter than a teacher who is instilling religious values in someone. Just as there is really no paid Pagan clergy, there are no paid Pagan teachers. Trust me when I say that there is a wide variety of teachers out there, good and bad, who are willing to teach. But just because they are willing to teach doesn't mean that they should be teaching. Some don't have the aptitude for it, some lack the patience for it and some should never be allowed to set foot in a teaching environment. Just because you know a subject matter six ways to Sunday, (or at its most basic level, transferring information to another) doesn't mean that you are capable of teaching it . It is my professional opinion that before ANY tradition allows someone to teach, they should go through classes that teach them not only how to TEACH, (developing goals, objectives, lesson plans, etc) but to teach them how adults LEARN (andragogy) as well. Two days of classes, eight hours each, should be more than enough to cover these subjects. When the tradition does this, they get a consistent end result all the time, i.e. high functioning students who represent their tradition well to the public.
I am different than most Craft teachers in that I actually have a masters degree in adult education and I structure my Craft curriculum just like a school teacher would. By doing so I am able to answer critical questions the adult learner may have like "What's in it for me?" or "How is this relevant to my life? job?" or to give students problems to work through so that they can make those connections to their life, their job and in the case of being a Craft teacher, the Divine as well. Accountability is another hallmark of the adult learner. Adults need to be held accountable just like their younger student counterparts. The desire for feedback is just as strong (if not stronger since they understand the larger picture of the connections they are making) in an adult learner as it is for a child.
Probably one of the best books I have read for teaching the Pagan path is called "A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagan" by Thea Sabin. It goes into detail about how to set up group, how to find students and once you find them, how do they learn and also gives great advice on how to design and implement your curriculum. If you have no teaching experience then this book is a must read for you!
As teachers in this community, we owe it to our students to give them the best possible experience while under our tutelage. As teachers of the Craft we are unique in that not only are we teaching religious values but in everything we do, we must show the Divine to the student so that the student can make that crucial connection as well. Doing so will help them develop their own relationship not only with the Divine within them but the external Divine as well.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Joseph Campbell and the monomyth
Early on in my metaphysical path I stumbled across a set of DVDs at the library I worked at called "The Power of Myth". It was done by the highly respected journalist and minister Bill Moyers. It was a series of six-1 hour sessions with a man named Joseph Campbell. Having always loved myths of just about any kind, these DVDs became a weekly gift for myself. And what a gift too!
I think everyone struggles with having a sense of belonging in the world. When you start the study of Paganism, you are told about the interconnectedness of yourself to the world. Admittedly it is a pretty abstract concept, how could I possibly be connected to someone who lives in India or Japan? Or even someone who lived so long ago? or to someone in the distant future.
Enter Joseph Campbell. If you want a brief biography of him you can see one here. The biggest impact he had on my philosophical was through that video series and two of his books; The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Hero's Journey.
Joseph Campbell connects the dots for us. Through his work we discover why so many stories sound familiar and in turn, why they are familiar to us. They are familiar to us because they are OUR stories too. Especially on this pagan path, who else can understand the calling to this path that befalls us, the teachers that come to us, the changes that overcome us as we walk this path. Most importantly, we understand that we are a part of the monomyth, a part of the consciousness of the Universe and that we play a role in it.
Being on this path means that we are walking our own "Hero's Journey" and it will provide guidelines to us along that path to show us all the twists and turns that we can take. Some we will take, some we won't take. Learning which choices to make is part of the journey too. But its' greatest strength is in showing us that people are the same no matter where they are. Thousands of miles can separate two men yet they will go through and endure similar processes and feelings. That is the magick in all this...realizing that we are all connected if not physically, then psychically.
Don't you feel a little less alone now?
I think everyone struggles with having a sense of belonging in the world. When you start the study of Paganism, you are told about the interconnectedness of yourself to the world. Admittedly it is a pretty abstract concept, how could I possibly be connected to someone who lives in India or Japan? Or even someone who lived so long ago? or to someone in the distant future.
Enter Joseph Campbell. If you want a brief biography of him you can see one here. The biggest impact he had on my philosophical was through that video series and two of his books; The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Hero's Journey.
Joseph Campbell's monomyth, or the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions share fundamental structures and stages, which he summarized in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Campbell and other scholars, such as Erich Neumann, describe narratives of Gautama Buddha, Moses, and Christ in terms of the monomyth and Campbell argues that classic myths from many cultures follow this basic pattern. (Resource)
Of course, Joseph Campbell probably wasn't the first person to ask the question "Why does that sound familiar?" but he was probably the first person to actively explore and postulate on the reasons why myths from around the world sounded so familiar. One of the reasons that I enjoy reading his work is that it is extremely easy to read. His videos with Bill Moyers are easy to sit and listen to and really get lost in the information. His style of teaching is very casual and he sounds more like a storyteller than a professor.
Joseph Campbell connects the dots for us. Through his work we discover why so many stories sound familiar and in turn, why they are familiar to us. They are familiar to us because they are OUR stories too. Especially on this pagan path, who else can understand the calling to this path that befalls us, the teachers that come to us, the changes that overcome us as we walk this path. Most importantly, we understand that we are a part of the monomyth, a part of the consciousness of the Universe and that we play a role in it.
Being on this path means that we are walking our own "Hero's Journey" and it will provide guidelines to us along that path to show us all the twists and turns that we can take. Some we will take, some we won't take. Learning which choices to make is part of the journey too. But its' greatest strength is in showing us that people are the same no matter where they are. Thousands of miles can separate two men yet they will go through and endure similar processes and feelings. That is the magick in all this...realizing that we are all connected if not physically, then psychically.
Don't you feel a little less alone now?
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
It's not just about the bread: Hospitality and the Sabbats
It's been a long time since I made a loaf of bread, but for some reason this Lammas I was feeling the need to do so. So I did. It wasn't anything special, a simple loaf of white bread that I practiced long rusty bread braiding skills on. You can see a pic of it below.
As I said, nothing special to look at, it had a pretty good taste but Tim and I both felt that it could be a bit sweeter and I wonder if that doesn't come from our years of eating processed bread, which is sweeter to the taste. I think that I will sweeten it up the next time around but just a tad bit.
But I digress...while I worked out the mechanics of making a loaf of bread again I discovered just how relaxing it was to have to take a moment and actually bake something of substance. I love to bake and it was something that my grandmother encouraged because, as she said, when she was gone, someone needed to be able to bake a decent apple pie for the holidays. Mission accomplished gram!
Whenever those special times of year come around you know that food always plays a HUGE part of it. Each and every sabbat Pagans celebrate have a food component to it, either formally or informally. For example, the current sabbat, Lammas, celebrates the first harvest. If we were still an agrarian society, we would start bringing in our bounty from the fields, slaughtering the first bunch of animals to get us through the soon to be, fall and winter and some of the spring. We are entering the dark of the year and we have to make sure that there were sufficient stores to get us through. If we didn't have enough put up in stores, we starved...never a good thing.
More importantly is the sense of community and home one gets from these particular tasks. If you have ever been in a house where someone has baked a loaf of bread or fresh cookies you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. How can you be pissed off when you walk in to a house that has those scents lingering in the air? you can't! You walk in and BAM! those scents hit you and bring a smile to your face...instantly. Scents also trigger memory centers in our brain as well. I can't make an apple pie without thinking of my grandmother and all the wonderful times I spent helping her bake stuff for a family event.
Harvest festivals create a sense of community as well. It was hard work bringing in the harvest and communities banded together in order to get the grains from the field to the barn as quickly as possible since the slightest delay could ruin an entire crop or leave it exposed to the elements, ruining it and leaving a family to starve. It was also no easy thing to gather the animals and bring them from their summer forage areas and make ready for slaughtering and preserving them. In case you didn't know...cows are HUGE! and given that our ancestors wasted no part of an animal either. To do so dishonored the spirit of the animal who had just given its life so that you could continue yours.
Each and every sabbat in the wheel of the year has a food component to it but its more important to see that each sabbat has a hospitality component to it as well. The sabbats were not only meant to be celebrated but they were meant to be celebrated as a family and as a community. It was some of the few times that the opening of the household stores were to be done with a sense of graciousness and unselfishness towards your neighbors. Everyone brought something, in accordance with their ability to do so and if they couldn't, it didn't matter because there was always enough to go around.
It would do us well to remember that the holidays we celebrate aren't just about what we can put on the altar as offerings but what we can offer our families and neighbors in terms of gracious hospitality and unselfish giving to those in need.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Daily Meditations and Journeys
These are probably some of the hardest disciplines for people new to the Craft to get started on. I believe that a lot of that is because many of us have very inaccurate beliefs about what meditation and journeying are, how to do it and how it can help us in our magickal practices.
Meditation, as most pagans practice it, is not the complete stillness of the body, mind or spirit that one sees in many of the Eastern religious traditions. For pagans, meditation can, and usually is, something totally different. It can be simply staring at a sunrise or sunset and marveling at the universe and your role in it. It could be working in a garden and becoming part of the earth and truly grasping the cycle of life, death and re-birth. It could be ecstatic dancing where your feet feel like they have a mind of their own and you dance to the music playing in your head.
The idea of a daily meditation practice is to move your mind from the mundane world to magickal world; To be able to think magickal thoughts and bring them back into your mundane world and implement the magick in to the mundane. Meditation requires you to slow your mind down so that you can process and analyze any given situation and determine your next steps.
There is a huge difference between the meditation and journeying although you will see those terms used interchangeably by the uninformed. Let's see if this analogy works out to describe the difference. Let's say that I am feeling compelled of late to learn more about rocks, crystals, etc. It's a feeling you have in the back of your mind that "hey this would be cool to learn more about that" During a daily meditation, I would run through my mind all the thoughts that wanted to run through it and only keep the ones that were pertinent to the subject I was considering, working with crystals. (The thought that tells me I have laundry to do or the one that wants to create a grocery list, all go through my mind. Kind of like going in one ear and out the other.) I may envision the reasons I want to do it, I may think about the challenges I would face in doing it, I would consider all kinds of things related to just this issue. The meditation is designed to give one clarity regarding a situation and hopefully after you have run through the questions and given yourself the answers, you will come to a decision about what you want or need to do.
Journeys are very different. When one takes journeys, they have a specific goal in mind. For example, if one wants to meet a particular deity or meet a totem or power animal. Let's say, like in the above example, you have decided to take up the study of crystals. In order to understand a particular crystal, it's energy and how it works, you would take a journey with that specific crystal and interact with it. As we learned in the energy working segment of this blog, we know that everything has a specific energy signature and being able to work with an object successfully is totally dependent upon how we understand the energy of that object to function. To learn that, we journey with it. We interact with the object/deity in a deeply personal way and get to know it so much better. In short, journeys are a more complex form of meditation that give you deeper insight into a specific thing as opposed to an overall situation.
Both have a purpose in the life of a Witch. Daily meditations can help us slow things down, sort things out and determine a path of action. Journeying can give us deeper meaning and insight to a specific thing or issue. If you say that you can't meditate or journey, then you are doing something that is blocking your from being successful. I find the below tips help immensely:
1. Make it a habit. Doesn't matter when you do it...just do it and do it regularly.
2. Start with your breath. Focusing on your breathing will slow down your heart rate and allow your body time to relax fully.
3. Understand that meditation is an active thing, not passive. Determine ahead of time what you want to think about and let all other thoughts fall away. Acknowledge them and shoo them away for another time. Don't dwell on the fact that your mind is throwing these random thoughts at you...embrace them and tuck them away for later.
4. Try using guided meditations to start with. Being forced to focus on someone speaking will help your mind develop the ability to focus on a specific purpose.
5. Don't let yourself be disturbed. Even in today's busy lives we need down time to decompress and get away. Ensure that everyone in the house knows you are not to be disturbed and that phones and other electronic devices are turned off. If you still have a noisy house, invest in a good pair of earbuds to shut out the excess noise.
People only get good at meditation and journeying if they do them on a regular basis. This isn't a one shot and done thing...its the development of a key lifetime practice for you and your walk in this path.
Meditation, as most pagans practice it, is not the complete stillness of the body, mind or spirit that one sees in many of the Eastern religious traditions. For pagans, meditation can, and usually is, something totally different. It can be simply staring at a sunrise or sunset and marveling at the universe and your role in it. It could be working in a garden and becoming part of the earth and truly grasping the cycle of life, death and re-birth. It could be ecstatic dancing where your feet feel like they have a mind of their own and you dance to the music playing in your head.
The idea of a daily meditation practice is to move your mind from the mundane world to magickal world; To be able to think magickal thoughts and bring them back into your mundane world and implement the magick in to the mundane. Meditation requires you to slow your mind down so that you can process and analyze any given situation and determine your next steps.
There is a huge difference between the meditation and journeying although you will see those terms used interchangeably by the uninformed. Let's see if this analogy works out to describe the difference. Let's say that I am feeling compelled of late to learn more about rocks, crystals, etc. It's a feeling you have in the back of your mind that "hey this would be cool to learn more about that" During a daily meditation, I would run through my mind all the thoughts that wanted to run through it and only keep the ones that were pertinent to the subject I was considering, working with crystals. (The thought that tells me I have laundry to do or the one that wants to create a grocery list, all go through my mind. Kind of like going in one ear and out the other.) I may envision the reasons I want to do it, I may think about the challenges I would face in doing it, I would consider all kinds of things related to just this issue. The meditation is designed to give one clarity regarding a situation and hopefully after you have run through the questions and given yourself the answers, you will come to a decision about what you want or need to do.
Journeys are very different. When one takes journeys, they have a specific goal in mind. For example, if one wants to meet a particular deity or meet a totem or power animal. Let's say, like in the above example, you have decided to take up the study of crystals. In order to understand a particular crystal, it's energy and how it works, you would take a journey with that specific crystal and interact with it. As we learned in the energy working segment of this blog, we know that everything has a specific energy signature and being able to work with an object successfully is totally dependent upon how we understand the energy of that object to function. To learn that, we journey with it. We interact with the object/deity in a deeply personal way and get to know it so much better. In short, journeys are a more complex form of meditation that give you deeper insight into a specific thing as opposed to an overall situation.
Both have a purpose in the life of a Witch. Daily meditations can help us slow things down, sort things out and determine a path of action. Journeying can give us deeper meaning and insight to a specific thing or issue. If you say that you can't meditate or journey, then you are doing something that is blocking your from being successful. I find the below tips help immensely:
1. Make it a habit. Doesn't matter when you do it...just do it and do it regularly.
2. Start with your breath. Focusing on your breathing will slow down your heart rate and allow your body time to relax fully.
3. Understand that meditation is an active thing, not passive. Determine ahead of time what you want to think about and let all other thoughts fall away. Acknowledge them and shoo them away for another time. Don't dwell on the fact that your mind is throwing these random thoughts at you...embrace them and tuck them away for later.
4. Try using guided meditations to start with. Being forced to focus on someone speaking will help your mind develop the ability to focus on a specific purpose.
5. Don't let yourself be disturbed. Even in today's busy lives we need down time to decompress and get away. Ensure that everyone in the house knows you are not to be disturbed and that phones and other electronic devices are turned off. If you still have a noisy house, invest in a good pair of earbuds to shut out the excess noise.
People only get good at meditation and journeying if they do them on a regular basis. This isn't a one shot and done thing...its the development of a key lifetime practice for you and your walk in this path.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Getting to know you...getting to know all about you: Working with a Deity Part II
One of the great things about this path is that we can have very real and fulfilling relationships with the deities of our choice. But as we discussed in the first segment, we need to have a developed and functional relationship with them in order for us to work with them during rituals or spellwork.
Each and every time that you work with a deity, you are connecting with their energy. Each and every deity has a specific energy vibration about them. For example, if we worked with the god Ares, he tends to give off an energy signature that is extremely masculine, very aggressive and may give you the feeling of "punch first, ask questions later". We can expect these types of energy vibrations because we have read all of his myths and see him time and time again demonstrating these exact personality aspects. If we worked with the goddess Hestia, we would find an energy vibration that feels very old, very wise and quietly confident in herself. She knows who she is and she does not deviate from that.
Now you may be asking why does it matter if I am getting a certain energy feeling from a particular deity? It matters because if you are getting something other than what would be described as "typical" for them, most likely you are not in contact with the deity that you THINK you are in contact with. In the words of one of my teachers, "the wrong dog has come barking home". Also, if you are getting nothing, then you know that at the moment, the deity has nothing to say to you or there may be something about the way that you approached them that has caused them to ignore you. Remember what I said in part 1, the gods have human characteristics and can be quite fickle.
Now this is not to say that the deity that you are currently feeling is not the one that you NEED at the moment, but it may not be the one that you are looking for and you should exercise caution and be abundantly respectful when dealing with them. If you cannot determine who it is you are talking to, it is not improper to ask them what they would like from you or if they have a message for you. It is however, not a good idea, to ask them who they are. If they feel the need to identify themselves, they will do so although it may be at a later time, maybe while you are meditating on the working you just did or even in a dream.
The energy that you feel when yo work with a certain deity helps you identify just who they are and will also allow you to gain confidence in your relationship with you. If you always feel a certain way when you work with a deity, then you know that any response you get is truly from them and can generally be trusted.
If you cannot identify or lock in on a deity's energy vibrations, you leave yourself open to a lot of deception, poor spellwork and rituals that bomb on a regular basis.
Keep in mind that these relationships do not develop overnight. They take time and your commitment to the deity to continually seek them out and learn about them and work with them on a regular basis. Then and only then will you gain the results you desire.
Each and every time that you work with a deity, you are connecting with their energy. Each and every deity has a specific energy vibration about them. For example, if we worked with the god Ares, he tends to give off an energy signature that is extremely masculine, very aggressive and may give you the feeling of "punch first, ask questions later". We can expect these types of energy vibrations because we have read all of his myths and see him time and time again demonstrating these exact personality aspects. If we worked with the goddess Hestia, we would find an energy vibration that feels very old, very wise and quietly confident in herself. She knows who she is and she does not deviate from that.
Now you may be asking why does it matter if I am getting a certain energy feeling from a particular deity? It matters because if you are getting something other than what would be described as "typical" for them, most likely you are not in contact with the deity that you THINK you are in contact with. In the words of one of my teachers, "the wrong dog has come barking home". Also, if you are getting nothing, then you know that at the moment, the deity has nothing to say to you or there may be something about the way that you approached them that has caused them to ignore you. Remember what I said in part 1, the gods have human characteristics and can be quite fickle.
Now this is not to say that the deity that you are currently feeling is not the one that you NEED at the moment, but it may not be the one that you are looking for and you should exercise caution and be abundantly respectful when dealing with them. If you cannot determine who it is you are talking to, it is not improper to ask them what they would like from you or if they have a message for you. It is however, not a good idea, to ask them who they are. If they feel the need to identify themselves, they will do so although it may be at a later time, maybe while you are meditating on the working you just did or even in a dream.
The energy that you feel when yo work with a certain deity helps you identify just who they are and will also allow you to gain confidence in your relationship with you. If you always feel a certain way when you work with a deity, then you know that any response you get is truly from them and can generally be trusted.
If you cannot identify or lock in on a deity's energy vibrations, you leave yourself open to a lot of deception, poor spellwork and rituals that bomb on a regular basis.
Keep in mind that these relationships do not develop overnight. They take time and your commitment to the deity to continually seek them out and learn about them and work with them on a regular basis. Then and only then will you gain the results you desire.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Getting to know you...getting to know all about you: Working with a Deity
When we start out on this path, very few of us know just what or who we will encounter in our walk down the primrose path. However, most of us want to feel a connection to a divine energy in the form of a god or goddess. Many of us have an idea of which deity we want to associate with because we may have a pull towards a certain pantheon and maybe we can relate to the stories that we read about them.
When you are just starting out on this path, it is a good idea to investigate all the pantheons that you have an interest in. By far, the most common ones tend to be Celtic, Greco-Roman, and Nordic. Many people pick a pantheon that is in their ancestry and go from there.
Some people will investigate deities based upon what they think the deities aspect are based upon an interest they have. For example, if you are interested in shapeshifting, you may work with deities that are known for this like Ceridwen, Zeus, Odin, Loki and others too numerous to mention. If you are interested in working with herbs for their medicinal properties then you would look towards Bridget, Apollo or Vejovis.
So how does one begin to work with a deity? It's very simple really...you read their stories. There are at least a dozen or so books on any given pantheon on the bookshelves at any time. Reading their stories gives us great insight in to their personalities. Here is a bit of advice for you, the gods are written about by humans which means that they have very human characteristics about them. Some of them are petty and juvenile at times and at other times they will sacrifice themselves for the greater good or perform some other great character feat.
Once you have absorbed as much of their stories that you are able to, the next step is to meditate on their stories. Run the stories through your mind and then put yourself in their shoes. When you are in those situations, how would YOU react? do you get a sense of who they are? Can you understand their reasons for the particular course of action they took? why? why not? When you meditate about them do you find yourself connecting with their energy? (We will discuss more in Part II about why this is important)
To help you understand how this all fits together here is a little scenario for you to think about. Let's say you were invited to a dinner party. You are VERY excited about this because your favorite author is going to be there. Since you are besties with the host, you are hoping that since your host knows you are a HUGE fan of the author, they will sit you next to the guest of honor (your favorite author). To prepare for this great event and so that you don't sound insulting or ignorant, you go back and re-read all the books you have in your collection, you think of questions to ask about characters and plot lines. In short, you are ready to have a deep and meaningful conversation with this author. When you arrive you are indeed seated next to your favorite author! As is customary at these types of dinners, conversation starts out kind of stilted and awkward (I mean this is YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!) but then the conversation starts to shift and you are able to ask some of the questions you thought of. The author turns to you and responds and surprises you by complimenting you on your choice of question and the conversation continues in this vein. You are connected now...you are having a wonderful back and forth dialogue offering merits and discussing points of views never before thought about.
As the dinner party winds down, you are excited that you had such a wonderful chance to discuss so many things with your favorite author. You learned so much about the back story of the characters in your favorite novels and you now understand, just a little bit, about how this authors mind works. As you are gathering your things and getting ready to leave, your favorite author pulls you aside and invites to you tea next week at their house. Of course you accept and with further great conversations, you find yourself, 20 years later, still learning about your favorite author and being blessed with a deeply rewarding friendship.
Learning to work with a deity is very much like that. It's not a one time thing but a development of a rewarding friendship that will last you a life time. We get to know them and they get to know us. So what happens when we don't take the time to get to know them ourselves but rely on others to feed us information or what if we just can't take the time or make the effort to get to know them? Well let's go back to our dinner party scenario. It's still your favorite author but you can't be bothered to dig a little deeper to be an interesting guest. You attend the dinner party and you are able to ask a couple of questions of note but for the most part conversation stays on the weather or the antics of some Hollywood entertainer. There is no connection at all. The next day you are asked to provide a person of note for a college roundtable discussion, the committee, having heard of your dinner party with this bestselling author asks you to try and get them to participate. You say...no problem, put them on the flyer, they will definitely be there. You reach out to their agents to secure their attendance and while they are initially non-committal, you assume they will show up because, well, you did sit next to them at the dinner party and you did talk to them. The day arrives and the agent calls you and send regrets, the author, due to a heavy schedule is unable to make it. Needless to say, people are unhappy and you are left wondering what happened...you thought you had a connection with them. Did you? You sat next to them, you read a few things about them, you asked a couple of questions but it wasn't enough to create a connection where one feels a sense of obligation to assist when asked.
Do you see the difference between the two people? One took time to learn all about their "deity" so that they could ask probing questions and anticipate how they would respond to certain questions. They were rewarded with further contact in order to deepen and strengthen the friendship. No doubt many favors were granted to the person who took the time to learn about them and talk to them.
The other person googled their 'deity", read their Wikipedia entry and felt that was enough. But it's not. In the end there was no connection and consequently the "deity" failed to show when requested.
No one likes to feel unimportant, not even the gods. When you do not put any time or effort in to creating a relationship with them, they will return the favor with heaps of silence and their non-presence in your life and in your rituals. By getting to know a deity...reading their stories, meditating with them, and eventually invoking them, you will be rewarded with a divine presence not only in your rituals but in your life as well.
When you are just starting out on this path, it is a good idea to investigate all the pantheons that you have an interest in. By far, the most common ones tend to be Celtic, Greco-Roman, and Nordic. Many people pick a pantheon that is in their ancestry and go from there.
Some people will investigate deities based upon what they think the deities aspect are based upon an interest they have. For example, if you are interested in shapeshifting, you may work with deities that are known for this like Ceridwen, Zeus, Odin, Loki and others too numerous to mention. If you are interested in working with herbs for their medicinal properties then you would look towards Bridget, Apollo or Vejovis.
So how does one begin to work with a deity? It's very simple really...you read their stories. There are at least a dozen or so books on any given pantheon on the bookshelves at any time. Reading their stories gives us great insight in to their personalities. Here is a bit of advice for you, the gods are written about by humans which means that they have very human characteristics about them. Some of them are petty and juvenile at times and at other times they will sacrifice themselves for the greater good or perform some other great character feat.
Once you have absorbed as much of their stories that you are able to, the next step is to meditate on their stories. Run the stories through your mind and then put yourself in their shoes. When you are in those situations, how would YOU react? do you get a sense of who they are? Can you understand their reasons for the particular course of action they took? why? why not? When you meditate about them do you find yourself connecting with their energy? (We will discuss more in Part II about why this is important)
To help you understand how this all fits together here is a little scenario for you to think about. Let's say you were invited to a dinner party. You are VERY excited about this because your favorite author is going to be there. Since you are besties with the host, you are hoping that since your host knows you are a HUGE fan of the author, they will sit you next to the guest of honor (your favorite author). To prepare for this great event and so that you don't sound insulting or ignorant, you go back and re-read all the books you have in your collection, you think of questions to ask about characters and plot lines. In short, you are ready to have a deep and meaningful conversation with this author. When you arrive you are indeed seated next to your favorite author! As is customary at these types of dinners, conversation starts out kind of stilted and awkward (I mean this is YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!) but then the conversation starts to shift and you are able to ask some of the questions you thought of. The author turns to you and responds and surprises you by complimenting you on your choice of question and the conversation continues in this vein. You are connected now...you are having a wonderful back and forth dialogue offering merits and discussing points of views never before thought about.
As the dinner party winds down, you are excited that you had such a wonderful chance to discuss so many things with your favorite author. You learned so much about the back story of the characters in your favorite novels and you now understand, just a little bit, about how this authors mind works. As you are gathering your things and getting ready to leave, your favorite author pulls you aside and invites to you tea next week at their house. Of course you accept and with further great conversations, you find yourself, 20 years later, still learning about your favorite author and being blessed with a deeply rewarding friendship.
Learning to work with a deity is very much like that. It's not a one time thing but a development of a rewarding friendship that will last you a life time. We get to know them and they get to know us. So what happens when we don't take the time to get to know them ourselves but rely on others to feed us information or what if we just can't take the time or make the effort to get to know them? Well let's go back to our dinner party scenario. It's still your favorite author but you can't be bothered to dig a little deeper to be an interesting guest. You attend the dinner party and you are able to ask a couple of questions of note but for the most part conversation stays on the weather or the antics of some Hollywood entertainer. There is no connection at all. The next day you are asked to provide a person of note for a college roundtable discussion, the committee, having heard of your dinner party with this bestselling author asks you to try and get them to participate. You say...no problem, put them on the flyer, they will definitely be there. You reach out to their agents to secure their attendance and while they are initially non-committal, you assume they will show up because, well, you did sit next to them at the dinner party and you did talk to them. The day arrives and the agent calls you and send regrets, the author, due to a heavy schedule is unable to make it. Needless to say, people are unhappy and you are left wondering what happened...you thought you had a connection with them. Did you? You sat next to them, you read a few things about them, you asked a couple of questions but it wasn't enough to create a connection where one feels a sense of obligation to assist when asked.
Do you see the difference between the two people? One took time to learn all about their "deity" so that they could ask probing questions and anticipate how they would respond to certain questions. They were rewarded with further contact in order to deepen and strengthen the friendship. No doubt many favors were granted to the person who took the time to learn about them and talk to them.
The other person googled their 'deity", read their Wikipedia entry and felt that was enough. But it's not. In the end there was no connection and consequently the "deity" failed to show when requested.
No one likes to feel unimportant, not even the gods. When you do not put any time or effort in to creating a relationship with them, they will return the favor with heaps of silence and their non-presence in your life and in your rituals. By getting to know a deity...reading their stories, meditating with them, and eventually invoking them, you will be rewarded with a divine presence not only in your rituals but in your life as well.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Belief in Magick
We all have it to a certain degree. If you were raised in a house that had 2nd or 3rd generation family members, you always had someone saying "you spilled the salt, throw some over your left shoulder for good luck" or "oops...broke a mirror, seven years of back luck for you!" (how come they never told you how to counteract that??)
Many of these "superstitions" have their start in your family's native folks magic. If you come from a multi-cultural family like I do, (1/2 German, the other 1/2 is Irish, Native American, French-Canadian) you can get a whole lot of different superstitions thrown at you from a very young age.
As children we are told these things and we believe them. Sure, most of that is because we are children and haven't yet developed those critical thinking skills that allow us to talk ourselves out of those beliefs. But in many cases, we know these are true since they speak to that deep part of us. We know in our heart of hearts that it is true.
So what happens when we become adults? We lose all that and our ability to believe in magick goes right out the window. We have such a hard time believing that we can make magick but we have NOOOOO problems believing that we can be the recipients of (usually nefarious) magickal actions. Here is a great example...I've got about 40 Facebook friends (I bet you didn't think I had that many right?) and about half of them are involved in the Pagan community on some level. I hate chain emails, you know the kind that says you must re-post this or you will have X amount of years of bad luck or that your wish for money will not come true. But invariably people will post them on their timelines and of course, they show up in my news feed. I always check to see who it is that is posting these things and invariably they are the same Pagan folks who don't believe that they too, are capable of creating their own magickal destiny!! They are more than happy to let others have control over them, but don't believe enough in their own power enough to take control of it and use it for themselves.
I promise you that if you get an email and decide not to forward it, nothing will happen...unless you believe that it will. If you believe that a simple email can change your destiny, why is it such a great leap for you to believe that you too, can change your destiny using magick? why do you choose to believe its possible for a totally unknown external force to affect your life but deny the fact that you too have that same power and can choose to effect yours in a similar manner?
Belief in magick is critical to our lives. If we don't believe in magick, how can we exist? Even more dangerous is the concept that there are people out there who, without our knowledge and consent, can change our destiny using magick but we are powerless to have the same impact on our own lives.
Believe or don't believe...but don't call yourself a Witch. Witches believe in the magick...we work magick and we know that ultimately, we are in control of our own destiny.
Many of these "superstitions" have their start in your family's native folks magic. If you come from a multi-cultural family like I do, (1/2 German, the other 1/2 is Irish, Native American, French-Canadian) you can get a whole lot of different superstitions thrown at you from a very young age.
As children we are told these things and we believe them. Sure, most of that is because we are children and haven't yet developed those critical thinking skills that allow us to talk ourselves out of those beliefs. But in many cases, we know these are true since they speak to that deep part of us. We know in our heart of hearts that it is true.
So what happens when we become adults? We lose all that and our ability to believe in magick goes right out the window. We have such a hard time believing that we can make magick but we have NOOOOO problems believing that we can be the recipients of (usually nefarious) magickal actions. Here is a great example...I've got about 40 Facebook friends (I bet you didn't think I had that many right?) and about half of them are involved in the Pagan community on some level. I hate chain emails, you know the kind that says you must re-post this or you will have X amount of years of bad luck or that your wish for money will not come true. But invariably people will post them on their timelines and of course, they show up in my news feed. I always check to see who it is that is posting these things and invariably they are the same Pagan folks who don't believe that they too, are capable of creating their own magickal destiny!! They are more than happy to let others have control over them, but don't believe enough in their own power enough to take control of it and use it for themselves.
I promise you that if you get an email and decide not to forward it, nothing will happen...unless you believe that it will. If you believe that a simple email can change your destiny, why is it such a great leap for you to believe that you too, can change your destiny using magick? why do you choose to believe its possible for a totally unknown external force to affect your life but deny the fact that you too have that same power and can choose to effect yours in a similar manner?
Belief in magick is critical to our lives. If we don't believe in magick, how can we exist? Even more dangerous is the concept that there are people out there who, without our knowledge and consent, can change our destiny using magick but we are powerless to have the same impact on our own lives.
Believe or don't believe...but don't call yourself a Witch. Witches believe in the magick...we work magick and we know that ultimately, we are in control of our own destiny.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Wiccan Living
Probably because so many people come from mainstream religions, it is very difficult for them to incorporate the Wiccan lifestyle in to their current lives. So often religion gets pigeonholed in to a specific day of the week and then after that, it tends to be passively forgotten or deliberately not used at all.
Wicca/Witchcraft has no written rules. There are several versions of what most people call The Wiccan Rede, a written list of suggestions for being a good witch. However, most pagans do subscribe to the final line, usually "an' it harm none."
But even this line is not without controversy. Many people take this to mean that anything they do should not harm anyone but exclude themselves from the list...some people include themselves in that "harm none" adage. However there are some who ignore that adage all together and do what they think is best in keeping with a quip from Aleister Crowley..."do what thou will shall be the whole of the law". Crowley felt that people should live in tune with their True Will and doing what they felt they should do in accordance with that True Will would mean that their actions would be justified.
The reality is, there is no right or wrong way to live a Wiccan life. Everyone is called upon to determine what is best for their conscience and take actions in accordance with that conscience. Living a Witchy lifestyle means that you and you alone are responsible for your actions. If you hurt someone, there is no other being that can forgive you for the hurt you have inflicted on someone other than the person you have hurt.
Living the Wiccan life also means that you must move Wiccan precepts in to all areas of your life. Some examples of these precepts are a love of nature and honoring the spirits of all living things. To this end, do you recycle everything you can? do you try to minimize your impact on the environment by using reusable items like grocery bags and plastic water bottles? What type of eater are you? omnivore? herbivore? vegan? in any style, do you pay attention to how those items are harvested? are they done using sustainable processes? do you pay attention to the food you are eating? is it healthy or full of artificial products or is it a GMO?
We love our Mother Earth and we should do all we can to respect everything on the face of this planet. If we take from her, then we must ensure that we are doing it in a way that is healthy. Mother Earth is very much ok with us taking nourishment form her...that is her role in our life. But the relationship must be symbiotic not parasitic.
By living in harmony with our environment around us, people and the earth, can we live a life that is richly rewarding to us, our fellow creatures on the planet and the planet itself.
Wicca/Witchcraft has no written rules. There are several versions of what most people call The Wiccan Rede, a written list of suggestions for being a good witch. However, most pagans do subscribe to the final line, usually "an' it harm none."
But even this line is not without controversy. Many people take this to mean that anything they do should not harm anyone but exclude themselves from the list...some people include themselves in that "harm none" adage. However there are some who ignore that adage all together and do what they think is best in keeping with a quip from Aleister Crowley..."do what thou will shall be the whole of the law". Crowley felt that people should live in tune with their True Will and doing what they felt they should do in accordance with that True Will would mean that their actions would be justified.
The reality is, there is no right or wrong way to live a Wiccan life. Everyone is called upon to determine what is best for their conscience and take actions in accordance with that conscience. Living a Witchy lifestyle means that you and you alone are responsible for your actions. If you hurt someone, there is no other being that can forgive you for the hurt you have inflicted on someone other than the person you have hurt.
Living the Wiccan life also means that you must move Wiccan precepts in to all areas of your life. Some examples of these precepts are a love of nature and honoring the spirits of all living things. To this end, do you recycle everything you can? do you try to minimize your impact on the environment by using reusable items like grocery bags and plastic water bottles? What type of eater are you? omnivore? herbivore? vegan? in any style, do you pay attention to how those items are harvested? are they done using sustainable processes? do you pay attention to the food you are eating? is it healthy or full of artificial products or is it a GMO?
We love our Mother Earth and we should do all we can to respect everything on the face of this planet. If we take from her, then we must ensure that we are doing it in a way that is healthy. Mother Earth is very much ok with us taking nourishment form her...that is her role in our life. But the relationship must be symbiotic not parasitic.
By living in harmony with our environment around us, people and the earth, can we live a life that is richly rewarding to us, our fellow creatures on the planet and the planet itself.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Raising Energy
As I was explaining to a friend yesterday, I never know what I will be writing on either of my blogs. That which compels me is that of which I write.
Today I was doing some introspective soul searching on an issue and it felt right that I should write about raising energy. Only because I will be doing something this afternoon that will be along the lines of minor nuclear holocaust to break through some blockages...but I digress.
As long as there have been people on this planet, they have used music (loosely defined as using something to make a noise be it rock, tree, hands, etc.) to move them along. Whether it be a hard drumbeat to move a shaman from one state of consciousness to another, a flute to softly lull a child to sleep or clapping hands in time to words being spoken or sung.
Pagans use a variety of ways to enhance the energy of a group or individual working. Most common, you will find are percussion instruments (drums, hands, tambourines) or chanting (is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds) These tend to be the most common because they are the simplest to use, easily portable and something everyone can do. However, anything that makes noise will do; rattles, hands banging on your lap, a nearby log and a couple of sticks.
We raise energy for a variety of purposes. When we cast spells, we need a medium for which the spell to enter the cosmos for its action to take root. We use the energy we have raised, attach the spell to it and send it out into the cosmos for action. From there, the spell starts to work and is moved forward with the energy already within the universe. From a scientific perspective, we know that music, in any form has the ability to change peoples moods so its not surprising that we use music in some form to raise energy. (Check out this study done in Sweden http://www.academia.edu/1561576/Emotion_Induction_Through_Music_A_Review_of_the_Musical_Mood_Induction_Procedure )
In many Wiccan circles, we may refer to this raising of energy as a "cone of power". If one was standing in the middle of a circle, and looked straight up through the center, a cone of energy might look something like this...
Some people can actually see the energy (I can't but I can feel it move up my body) and many of them describe it looking like this. However, if you "see" it differently, that's OK too!
After then energy is raised, the person in charge, (usually the HP or HPS) will wait until they feel that the energy can't be contained anymore and allow it to move from the circle to the universe and speed it on its way to it's designated purpose.
So what do we do after we have raised and released the energy? Invariably some of that energy clings to us. We know that it does because many times people will feel "edgy" "jumpy" or like they just drank a pot of coffee at 9PM at night. They report trouble sleeping, and sometimes even unusual dream patterns when they finally do fall asleep.
Excess energy must be grounded back to the earth from which is was pulled from. This can be done in a variety of ways. Putting your hands on earth or standing on some dirt tends to be very effective for many people. Eating something is another good way, hence the reason so many groups have potlucks after rituals that involve energy work of some kind. For others, showers or long hot baths in lavender scented water works well too. If you haven't found the best way for you, experiment with all the ones I have listed and if they don't work reach out to others in the Pagan community for more ideas. In the end, it only has to work for you and if its' a non-traditional technique, who cares!
Raising energy is a critical part of working in the Craft. Learning how to manipulate it, mold it, raise it and give it purpose are skills that you will be using throughout your entire time in the Craft. Learn it, learn it well and understand that it is all around us.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Spellcasting
Many people I meet who are just learning about Wicca/Witchcraft are always enchanted with the spellwork part of this religion. When you scrape a little deeper you will find that they weren't much in to praying when they practiced their previous Abrahamic religion but for some reason spellwork calls out to them.
Newbies to the craft have really bought into the spellwork part of the Craft because for some strange reason they feel that they have a greater amount of control over their lives when they are able to cast a spell. Of course, that's Hollywood talking. Cast a spell for a job and get one that pays a zillion dollars a year with great medical benefits and a free car. Cast a spell for that handsome spouse and wind up with a guy /girl fresh from the cover of a romance novel and of course he will either own an IT company that is booming or is a wildly successful rancher with a couple thousand acres and an oil well. '
Just to be clear for the new folks, spells are forms of prayers. While we can use them to try and change the circumstances in our life, the Gods are free to ignore/grant them just as the God of Abraham was. No spell will ever be guaranteed to work just as no spell is ever guaranteed to fail either.
There are several things that one must consider when they are casting spells for things or people.
You must consider the ethical implications of the spell you want to cast. You must not only think of the implications on your life but you must broaden your point of view to include others that could be affected by your spell as well. Are you approaching the spell with the proper mental frame of mind? are you casting a spell out of desperation? fear? anger? Is the intent of the spell to make you happy while making someone else unhappy? Or...are you casting a spell from a place of peace and contentment? can you accept the outcome of the spell as it is disclosed to you from the universe? Can you accept the decision of the gods to not grant you your boon the way you thought it should be?
Many people think that when they cast a spell that it will come to fruition. They don't always and that may be because of several factors. The gods have decided that your request is not what you need at this time. They may have decided that your path should turn a different way. You may have screwed up the spell either in its casting, its creation or wording or in its execution. (I'm not such a big fan of this reason since the Gods should know your intent behind the spell and leaving out a word or herb shouldn't make a big difference.)
As it is energy that powers a spell, its critical that a witch know as much as they can about the energy they are working with. They should know about their own energy and how it feels to them. They should understand and be moderately proficient in their ability to raise, manipulate and expel energy into the universe. Spells can be done with nothing more than a thought...after all spells, in their simplest forms, are just energy.
As a witch becomes more experienced they may wish to add "stuff" to their spells. When I mean stuff I mean that items that make it easier for the witch to focus or channel energy into a specific object or out to the universe. Items that would fall in to this category are candle spells where one uses candles, sometimes of a specific color, help focus or store the energy. Charms, talismans, amulets, will also fall in to this category as well. We may wish to enchant our tools to connect them with our energy to make them more accurate (divinitory tools) or ritual tools like athames or wands to bind their energy with ours.
Potions and tinctures also fall into this category because we are using the specific energy (magickal and mundae) uses of the herbs to complement the action we are trying to take.
But it always comes back to the witch. As a witch, we are the power generating station as it were. We give purpose to the spell, we give energy for the spell to complete its purpose and we act as receptacles for the results we are requesting.
As a witch, I do not cast a lot of spells. I think sometimes spellcasting can be a bit presumptuous. It's arrogant to think that we can knock on the door of the heavens and make great changes to our destiny. How much wiser is it to ask for assistance in working with what we have been dealt than to ask the Gods to lift us out of a situation where we may not learn the lessons that we need to learn.
Think long and hard before casting a spell. While they are prayers to the Gods, they should not be take lightly nor done with a flippant manner. The Gods know what you are doing...and they reward accordingly.
Newbies to the craft have really bought into the spellwork part of the Craft because for some strange reason they feel that they have a greater amount of control over their lives when they are able to cast a spell. Of course, that's Hollywood talking. Cast a spell for a job and get one that pays a zillion dollars a year with great medical benefits and a free car. Cast a spell for that handsome spouse and wind up with a guy /girl fresh from the cover of a romance novel and of course he will either own an IT company that is booming or is a wildly successful rancher with a couple thousand acres and an oil well. '
Just to be clear for the new folks, spells are forms of prayers. While we can use them to try and change the circumstances in our life, the Gods are free to ignore/grant them just as the God of Abraham was. No spell will ever be guaranteed to work just as no spell is ever guaranteed to fail either.
There are several things that one must consider when they are casting spells for things or people.
You must consider the ethical implications of the spell you want to cast. You must not only think of the implications on your life but you must broaden your point of view to include others that could be affected by your spell as well. Are you approaching the spell with the proper mental frame of mind? are you casting a spell out of desperation? fear? anger? Is the intent of the spell to make you happy while making someone else unhappy? Or...are you casting a spell from a place of peace and contentment? can you accept the outcome of the spell as it is disclosed to you from the universe? Can you accept the decision of the gods to not grant you your boon the way you thought it should be?
Many people think that when they cast a spell that it will come to fruition. They don't always and that may be because of several factors. The gods have decided that your request is not what you need at this time. They may have decided that your path should turn a different way. You may have screwed up the spell either in its casting, its creation or wording or in its execution. (I'm not such a big fan of this reason since the Gods should know your intent behind the spell and leaving out a word or herb shouldn't make a big difference.)
As it is energy that powers a spell, its critical that a witch know as much as they can about the energy they are working with. They should know about their own energy and how it feels to them. They should understand and be moderately proficient in their ability to raise, manipulate and expel energy into the universe. Spells can be done with nothing more than a thought...after all spells, in their simplest forms, are just energy.
As a witch becomes more experienced they may wish to add "stuff" to their spells. When I mean stuff I mean that items that make it easier for the witch to focus or channel energy into a specific object or out to the universe. Items that would fall in to this category are candle spells where one uses candles, sometimes of a specific color, help focus or store the energy. Charms, talismans, amulets, will also fall in to this category as well. We may wish to enchant our tools to connect them with our energy to make them more accurate (divinitory tools) or ritual tools like athames or wands to bind their energy with ours.
Potions and tinctures also fall into this category because we are using the specific energy (magickal and mundae) uses of the herbs to complement the action we are trying to take.
But it always comes back to the witch. As a witch, we are the power generating station as it were. We give purpose to the spell, we give energy for the spell to complete its purpose and we act as receptacles for the results we are requesting.
As a witch, I do not cast a lot of spells. I think sometimes spellcasting can be a bit presumptuous. It's arrogant to think that we can knock on the door of the heavens and make great changes to our destiny. How much wiser is it to ask for assistance in working with what we have been dealt than to ask the Gods to lift us out of a situation where we may not learn the lessons that we need to learn.
Think long and hard before casting a spell. While they are prayers to the Gods, they should not be take lightly nor done with a flippant manner. The Gods know what you are doing...and they reward accordingly.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The Wheel of the Year
Ok, so it's not a very interesting subject but it is an important one to Pagans of all kinds.
Pagans have a belief that life is cyclical. This belief came about as a result of very unscientific observations that our ancestors did. Throughout the course of a year they saw all of nature around them cycle through this mystery of birth, death and re-birth. Because our ancestors were agrarian (farmers/hunter/gatherers) in their life, they learned to recognize and follow these cyclical changes because for them, it meant being able to survive.
The Wheel of the Year also includes astrologically significant events as well. Solstices and Equinoxes marked very specific times of the year that triggered specific events for our ancestors. Some of them might have been a "call to action" of sorts as well. For example, we know that the Spring Equinox signals to all our animal friends that, from a reproductive standpoint, it is time to "get busy" making more of themselves. (Hence the reason that one of the symbols of this equinox is the hare or rabbit. Both are recognized in many cultures as symbols of fertility.) The humans start preparing the ground to receive that years food supply. We want to turn the ground to ensure that it will provide enough nutrients to the food that we plant.
Solstices come in between the equinoxes. From an astrological perspective, these are solar festivals. We know that at the Summer solstice, the days start to shorten and it becomes a reminder to us that the first harvest will be quick to arrive. At the Winter solstice, we are at the height of darkness in the world. It is during this time that we have reached the maximum amount of darkness in a day and after the Winter solstice we can see our days lengthening. It is a signal to our bodies that it's time for them to wake up and its possible that the occasional animal will come out of its slumber soon looking for a mid-winter snack.
In between these equinoxes and solstices, our Pagan ancestors inserted mid-way points. When we knew that they had been reached, we knew that we were on the downside to the next equinox or solstice.
In between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox we have a holiday called Imbolc. Imbolc is a holiday that is celebrated by the Celts and other cultures may not have used this particular name or even celebrated this mid point at all. I mbolg means "in the belly" which has to do with the fact that around the beginning of February animals would enter their first reproductive cycle of the year which usually resulted in ewes getting pregnant.
In between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice we have a holiday referred to as Beltane. This day occurs around the first of May and is sometimes called May Day. It marked the midpoint between spring and summer. All the animals were taken to their summer pastures for fattening up and were traditionally driven between 2 large bonfires to purify them from illness and evil. Households, who usually kept embers burning all the time to make relighting fires easier, doused their old embers and re-lit their new household fires from these large bonfires. Beltane was also a time of sexual desires and many would take to the countryside to engage in sexual relations. If the woman became pregnant as a result, they would enter into the traditional "year and a day" handfasting, usually held during the Summer Solstice.
In between the Summer Solstice and the Fall Equinox we have Lammas or Lughnasadh. This was the first harvest of the year. Our ancestors would take some of this new harvest and bake it into a loaf. The loaf of bread would be broken in to 4 pieces, with a piece being placed in the 4 corners of a house or barn for good luck. If this was a good first harvest, it was a safe bet that there would be sufficient grain for the upcoming winter months.
Lastly, in between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice we have Samhein. Cattle were brought down from the summer pastures and slaughtered in preparation for the long winter. Field harvests were complete and the earth itself was telling people that they would soon be entering a time of rest. Traditionally this was the time that the door to the Otherworld was open and that one could communicate with the departed. Altars were made to honor them and food and gifts were given to the ancestors to honor them.
So there you have it, a Wheel of the Year. Keep in mind that other cultures would use their own names for these times or would not have used them at all, choosing only to go by the equinoxes and solstices. This one that I have outlined here was commonly used by the Celts in Europe.
The Wheel of the Year serves as a reminder to us of our roots. It tells us where we have come from and provides a rich history of what we had to do to survive the year round. It was a rough, hardscrabble life and these milestones meant that you survived another cycle.
Pagans have a belief that life is cyclical. This belief came about as a result of very unscientific observations that our ancestors did. Throughout the course of a year they saw all of nature around them cycle through this mystery of birth, death and re-birth. Because our ancestors were agrarian (farmers/hunter/gatherers) in their life, they learned to recognize and follow these cyclical changes because for them, it meant being able to survive.
The Wheel of the Year also includes astrologically significant events as well. Solstices and Equinoxes marked very specific times of the year that triggered specific events for our ancestors. Some of them might have been a "call to action" of sorts as well. For example, we know that the Spring Equinox signals to all our animal friends that, from a reproductive standpoint, it is time to "get busy" making more of themselves. (Hence the reason that one of the symbols of this equinox is the hare or rabbit. Both are recognized in many cultures as symbols of fertility.) The humans start preparing the ground to receive that years food supply. We want to turn the ground to ensure that it will provide enough nutrients to the food that we plant.
Solstices come in between the equinoxes. From an astrological perspective, these are solar festivals. We know that at the Summer solstice, the days start to shorten and it becomes a reminder to us that the first harvest will be quick to arrive. At the Winter solstice, we are at the height of darkness in the world. It is during this time that we have reached the maximum amount of darkness in a day and after the Winter solstice we can see our days lengthening. It is a signal to our bodies that it's time for them to wake up and its possible that the occasional animal will come out of its slumber soon looking for a mid-winter snack.
In between these equinoxes and solstices, our Pagan ancestors inserted mid-way points. When we knew that they had been reached, we knew that we were on the downside to the next equinox or solstice.
In between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox we have a holiday called Imbolc. Imbolc is a holiday that is celebrated by the Celts and other cultures may not have used this particular name or even celebrated this mid point at all. I mbolg means "in the belly" which has to do with the fact that around the beginning of February animals would enter their first reproductive cycle of the year which usually resulted in ewes getting pregnant.
In between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice we have a holiday referred to as Beltane. This day occurs around the first of May and is sometimes called May Day. It marked the midpoint between spring and summer. All the animals were taken to their summer pastures for fattening up and were traditionally driven between 2 large bonfires to purify them from illness and evil. Households, who usually kept embers burning all the time to make relighting fires easier, doused their old embers and re-lit their new household fires from these large bonfires. Beltane was also a time of sexual desires and many would take to the countryside to engage in sexual relations. If the woman became pregnant as a result, they would enter into the traditional "year and a day" handfasting, usually held during the Summer Solstice.
In between the Summer Solstice and the Fall Equinox we have Lammas or Lughnasadh. This was the first harvest of the year. Our ancestors would take some of this new harvest and bake it into a loaf. The loaf of bread would be broken in to 4 pieces, with a piece being placed in the 4 corners of a house or barn for good luck. If this was a good first harvest, it was a safe bet that there would be sufficient grain for the upcoming winter months.
Lastly, in between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice we have Samhein. Cattle were brought down from the summer pastures and slaughtered in preparation for the long winter. Field harvests were complete and the earth itself was telling people that they would soon be entering a time of rest. Traditionally this was the time that the door to the Otherworld was open and that one could communicate with the departed. Altars were made to honor them and food and gifts were given to the ancestors to honor them.
So there you have it, a Wheel of the Year. Keep in mind that other cultures would use their own names for these times or would not have used them at all, choosing only to go by the equinoxes and solstices. This one that I have outlined here was commonly used by the Celts in Europe.
The Wheel of the Year serves as a reminder to us of our roots. It tells us where we have come from and provides a rich history of what we had to do to survive the year round. It was a rough, hardscrabble life and these milestones meant that you survived another cycle.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Being a newbie
Isn't easy in the craft. Most people when they are new to the Craft become giddy with excitement and can't learn enough. They read constantly, purchase all their tools to have a ritual and do their first spell all within the first 5 minutes of deciding that this is their path.
If I could talk to each and every one of you for 5 minutes this is the advice I'd give you:
1. Find a mentor or group to work with. It doesn't have to be a coven just yet. It could be a trusted friend who is already walking this path, or it could be a study group of people with similar interests. Outside influences can give you perspective and force you out of that "I'm new to all this" bubble that insulates new folks from the realities of the Craft. Working with someone else also develops discipline and focus within yourself.
2. Don't buy anything just yet, especially your ritual tools. Yeah I know...the athames on the website are simply gorgeous and you MUST have it now!! Your ritual tools are extensions of you and your energy. If you have no energetic connection with your tool, you may as well not be using one. The best way to get your tools is to wait, learn to work with your personal energy and the absolute perfect tool will come to you.
3. Craft people are avid readers but they are not avid Doers. Part of learning in the Craft is mostly doing stuff. I can promise that you will screw things up but I also promise that the likelihood of you starting the Apocalypse is slim and none. So practice making energy balls, turning them colors; work with herbs even if its trying a new recipe for a Sabbat or Esbat. Read it, Do it, Share it.
4. Understand that the Craft is about balance. If you think that the Craft is all rainbows and unicorns, please reconsider if this is the path for you. Where there is light, there is darkness. Where there is the Walker of Light, there is the Walker of the Shadows. One cannot exist separate of the other and both must be integrated into your path.
5. The Craft isn't Hollywood. It is a serious and valid religious path for millions. The stuff you see on TV is designed to create an image in your head...an unrealistic image of the power that is involved when working your faith. You won't be able to pin people against the wall with a thought, you won't be able to send the Lord of Darkness back to Hell with a few candles and Latin-esque words...you can however, improve your corner of the world by sending out positive energy, being kind to people and tending to the physical earth around you in some way.
I'm sure that there are more but these are my top 5 things that I would share with the new folks. Slow and Steady win the race!!
If I could talk to each and every one of you for 5 minutes this is the advice I'd give you:
1. Find a mentor or group to work with. It doesn't have to be a coven just yet. It could be a trusted friend who is already walking this path, or it could be a study group of people with similar interests. Outside influences can give you perspective and force you out of that "I'm new to all this" bubble that insulates new folks from the realities of the Craft. Working with someone else also develops discipline and focus within yourself.
2. Don't buy anything just yet, especially your ritual tools. Yeah I know...the athames on the website are simply gorgeous and you MUST have it now!! Your ritual tools are extensions of you and your energy. If you have no energetic connection with your tool, you may as well not be using one. The best way to get your tools is to wait, learn to work with your personal energy and the absolute perfect tool will come to you.
3. Craft people are avid readers but they are not avid Doers. Part of learning in the Craft is mostly doing stuff. I can promise that you will screw things up but I also promise that the likelihood of you starting the Apocalypse is slim and none. So practice making energy balls, turning them colors; work with herbs even if its trying a new recipe for a Sabbat or Esbat. Read it, Do it, Share it.
4. Understand that the Craft is about balance. If you think that the Craft is all rainbows and unicorns, please reconsider if this is the path for you. Where there is light, there is darkness. Where there is the Walker of Light, there is the Walker of the Shadows. One cannot exist separate of the other and both must be integrated into your path.
5. The Craft isn't Hollywood. It is a serious and valid religious path for millions. The stuff you see on TV is designed to create an image in your head...an unrealistic image of the power that is involved when working your faith. You won't be able to pin people against the wall with a thought, you won't be able to send the Lord of Darkness back to Hell with a few candles and Latin-esque words...you can however, improve your corner of the world by sending out positive energy, being kind to people and tending to the physical earth around you in some way.
I'm sure that there are more but these are my top 5 things that I would share with the new folks. Slow and Steady win the race!!
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Welcome to the Craft
People blog about everything these days so I figured why not a blog about what it's like living a Witchy lifestyle. This blog will be mainly aimed at people who are new to the Craft. One thing that you will find is that there is a never ending assortment of Craft 101 books but there are very few quality books on what it all truly means to be a Witch.
Just as Kermit the frog knew that it wasn't easy to be green, it's not easy being a witch either. There is still a lot of negative stereotypes surrounding those who practice earth based religions. While I am sure that at times this blog will be a bit of a rant or come across as being a bit preachy, in the end, it's really just a record of me doing my thing. You will certainly see that sometimes things work out just fine and other times they don't. That's life folks!
So...how did I get here? well that is a bit of a story so grab a cup of your favorite beverage and have a seat.
I have a friend...one of the very few that I have and she's a witch. But I think that she always knew that there was something special about her. I did too, I just had no idea what it was. But she loved the earth, enjoyed hiking and picking up rocks and having them tell her stories. She enjoys working with herbs and learning about all their healing properties as well. Her stories intrigued me and I started reading about earth based religions, Wicca, Witchcraft, etc. On Samhein 1998 I self dedicated to the Craft and began to absorb everything I could about what was to be my new religious path.
In 2000 my friend and I had the opportunity to learn with a coven in Reno. The High Priestess was the owner of a metaphysical store that we used to frequent. It was an odd group and what started out with about a dozen and a half people dwindled to three of us by the third year. I believe that we were the last three to be taught by this High Priestess and were the last three to be allowed to carry on that tradition, Rainbow Under the Moon.
By 2004 we had completed our training, had been given the heave ho and brightest blessing from our High Priestess and went out into the world. The town I lived in at the time had a local prison and my HPS had asked me to work with the inmates out there. I agreed, my now ex husband who was a correctional officer out there, blew a gasket about that. He just knew I was going to be raped or killed because I was living with a correctional officer. However, he was the one who placed me in harms way. We had different last names and no one knew that I was married to him...until he approached one of the Wiccan inmates and told him nothing had better happen to me since I was his wife. Dumbass. So off I went into the field of prison ministry (more on that at a later time) and did that for 4 years until I left Nevada and an abusive marriage. That ministry is still going on today although I truly miss going inside with the inmates.
In 2005 my one witchy friend and I started Sacred Circle Clan. We wanted a group that was as far from a traditional coven as we could get. We came up with this Clan template because of bad experiences within a coven setting and the inability to find a coven that suited our personalities. We both do our own thing, as it were, and like it that way. Sacred Circle Clan was designed to foster learning about any earth based path within a minimalist structure with adherence to the values/ethics that YOU hold dear while offering leadership to those folks who did not like a traditional coven based structure. My friend has done far more with this than I have...you will find me mentioned as "co-founder, Cerwydden..."and that is the way that I like it.
2008 finds me living in Pennsylvania with my brother. I love my brother...he's such a wonderful guy and I'm blessed with him being my bro. 2010 finds me moving to Allentown to be closer to my new job (which recently shut down...again, another story for another time) and truly being on my own for the first time in over 20 years. In 2012, I recognize the need to be with other witches. I stroll through the Meetup.com website and find a new group that is starting, a study group called Moonlit Chalice. I attend many of their early meetings (the summer ones were hard due to work issues) but the energy of the group was amazing and most of the attendees were pleasant and fun to be around. The group organizers were intelligent, genuine, warmhearted and were doing exactly what they had been called to do. I tried very hard to put my best foot forward but they didn't like me. I'm pretty abrasive at times and I most certainly speak my mind when I am compelled to do so. I'm pleased to say that I've grown on them...they "get me" as it were and now we have a solid working relationship. Moonlit Chalice moved from the Starbucks where we first met to a UU Church in Bethlehem. In January of 2013, after some very strange people showing up to the open classes, the decision was made by the group to close the group off and become a permanent coven. Sadly, some of those who were regular members opted not to join us. However the group that hung around has turned into an amazing group of witches. I assist the co-founders in teaching the group but I kind of think that my role in that group is to be the "keepin' it real" person. Not that the co-founders of the group don't keep it real...I'm just not as nice about it as they are.
So that brings me to now...I assist the co-founders of Moonlit Chalice in their teaching of this group of newbies to the Craft. I also have a personal student who will grow to be an extremely powerful and gifted shaman someday. It's great being a teacher. To pass on sacred knowledge and watch their eyes light up when something clicks or to hear them talk about their missteps along the way (oddly enough, the same ones WE made as newbies!) There are aspects of my life that suck right now but this part isn't one of them.
Hopefully, it never will.
Just as Kermit the frog knew that it wasn't easy to be green, it's not easy being a witch either. There is still a lot of negative stereotypes surrounding those who practice earth based religions. While I am sure that at times this blog will be a bit of a rant or come across as being a bit preachy, in the end, it's really just a record of me doing my thing. You will certainly see that sometimes things work out just fine and other times they don't. That's life folks!
So...how did I get here? well that is a bit of a story so grab a cup of your favorite beverage and have a seat.
I have a friend...one of the very few that I have and she's a witch. But I think that she always knew that there was something special about her. I did too, I just had no idea what it was. But she loved the earth, enjoyed hiking and picking up rocks and having them tell her stories. She enjoys working with herbs and learning about all their healing properties as well. Her stories intrigued me and I started reading about earth based religions, Wicca, Witchcraft, etc. On Samhein 1998 I self dedicated to the Craft and began to absorb everything I could about what was to be my new religious path.
In 2000 my friend and I had the opportunity to learn with a coven in Reno. The High Priestess was the owner of a metaphysical store that we used to frequent. It was an odd group and what started out with about a dozen and a half people dwindled to three of us by the third year. I believe that we were the last three to be taught by this High Priestess and were the last three to be allowed to carry on that tradition, Rainbow Under the Moon.
By 2004 we had completed our training, had been given the heave ho and brightest blessing from our High Priestess and went out into the world. The town I lived in at the time had a local prison and my HPS had asked me to work with the inmates out there. I agreed, my now ex husband who was a correctional officer out there, blew a gasket about that. He just knew I was going to be raped or killed because I was living with a correctional officer. However, he was the one who placed me in harms way. We had different last names and no one knew that I was married to him...until he approached one of the Wiccan inmates and told him nothing had better happen to me since I was his wife. Dumbass. So off I went into the field of prison ministry (more on that at a later time) and did that for 4 years until I left Nevada and an abusive marriage. That ministry is still going on today although I truly miss going inside with the inmates.
In 2005 my one witchy friend and I started Sacred Circle Clan. We wanted a group that was as far from a traditional coven as we could get. We came up with this Clan template because of bad experiences within a coven setting and the inability to find a coven that suited our personalities. We both do our own thing, as it were, and like it that way. Sacred Circle Clan was designed to foster learning about any earth based path within a minimalist structure with adherence to the values/ethics that YOU hold dear while offering leadership to those folks who did not like a traditional coven based structure. My friend has done far more with this than I have...you will find me mentioned as "co-founder, Cerwydden..."and that is the way that I like it.
2008 finds me living in Pennsylvania with my brother. I love my brother...he's such a wonderful guy and I'm blessed with him being my bro. 2010 finds me moving to Allentown to be closer to my new job (which recently shut down...again, another story for another time) and truly being on my own for the first time in over 20 years. In 2012, I recognize the need to be with other witches. I stroll through the Meetup.com website and find a new group that is starting, a study group called Moonlit Chalice. I attend many of their early meetings (the summer ones were hard due to work issues) but the energy of the group was amazing and most of the attendees were pleasant and fun to be around. The group organizers were intelligent, genuine, warmhearted and were doing exactly what they had been called to do. I tried very hard to put my best foot forward but they didn't like me. I'm pretty abrasive at times and I most certainly speak my mind when I am compelled to do so. I'm pleased to say that I've grown on them...they "get me" as it were and now we have a solid working relationship. Moonlit Chalice moved from the Starbucks where we first met to a UU Church in Bethlehem. In January of 2013, after some very strange people showing up to the open classes, the decision was made by the group to close the group off and become a permanent coven. Sadly, some of those who were regular members opted not to join us. However the group that hung around has turned into an amazing group of witches. I assist the co-founders in teaching the group but I kind of think that my role in that group is to be the "keepin' it real" person. Not that the co-founders of the group don't keep it real...I'm just not as nice about it as they are.
So that brings me to now...I assist the co-founders of Moonlit Chalice in their teaching of this group of newbies to the Craft. I also have a personal student who will grow to be an extremely powerful and gifted shaman someday. It's great being a teacher. To pass on sacred knowledge and watch their eyes light up when something clicks or to hear them talk about their missteps along the way (oddly enough, the same ones WE made as newbies!) There are aspects of my life that suck right now but this part isn't one of them.
Hopefully, it never will.
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