Making A Smudge Stick – An Alternative Method

  • For this you will need much taller herbs, about three times the length of the finished smudge stick you want to make. You will also need fewer herbs since you are folding them over to three times the original thickness. You will need very pliant herbs that will not snap. Aim for a 6 – 7 inch finished smudge stick.
  • Again work on a flat surface. You will need a large piece of newspaper, fabric or soft leather for this method. Hold the herbs tightly together and turn the top third of the herbs over the middle third, so the herbs are now double over the top part of the stick. Do this carefully so they don’t break. Secure with twine and a firm knot.
  • Now bend the bottom third up so the stick is three times its original thickness, and tie again with a knot to include all three levels. The stick should now be a third of the original height, but very chubby like a cigar.
  • With slightly smaller herbs you can bend the herbs just once.
  • Before binding the stick, roll the newspaper, fabric or soft leather around it at an angle as tightly as possible. Tie the paper very securely and leave for about 8 hours, with the top and bottom of the newspaper just open to let in air.
  • Now unbind the newspaper and tie the compressed herbs tightly with twine. Starting from the stem end, bind them in a criss-cross pattern as before, tying them again very tightly about every 1/2 inch along. Leave the herbs to dry for two or three weeks.

Making A Smudge Stick

With a little practice, making a smudge stick is remarkably easy, though you may prefer to buy them ready-made. The secret is to pack and entwine your herbs really tightly so that they will not fall apart when you light them. There are many different methods and the following is just a series of the most useful:

  • You can use sprigs of fresh herbs from your garden or garden center for taller smudge sticks or use packs from a supermarket (either ready cut or still growing in a pot) for smaller smudge sticks.
  • Before making your bundle of herbs, test the twine you intend to use by burning a little in your flat dish. Does it flare up or smell foul? Try cotton without any synthetic additions, as synthetic fibers will break. Experiment with undyed natural twines or those where vegetable coloring has been used, you will find one that works well for you. Horsetail is the best, but is not easy to obtain.
  • Use thick sprigs (about seven or eight in total) of the fresh herbs with plenty of greenery no more than 12 inches long. The ideal length for your finished smudge stick is 7 – 9 inches so use the longer herbs in order that you can trim the bottoms and tops off to give a smooth finish.
  • Use a very sturdy herb to act as anchor at the center of the smudge stick. Some people use a dry stick as a base around which to twine the stems to give the bundle substance. Taper the stick at one end so that the woody part you hold is slightly narrower. Broader smudge sticks tend to work better than narrow ones.
  • Lay the herbs flat on a surface on smooth fabric, leather or newspaper. First wrap the thread around the bottom of the herb wand four or five times.
  • Then, with the separate ends either side of the herbs, begin to criss-cross from the bottom at about 1 inch intervals. Leave the top third to a quarter unbound. You can if you wish knot every other cross. Tie very tightly, pressing and weaving the herbs together as you work.
  • Turn the stick over and from the top, repeat crossing or knotting again at about 1/2 inch intervals so the whole stick is now tied at 1/2 inch intervals
  • When you get back to the bottom, make two or three wraps, tie the ends together and cut off the excess.
  • Trim the bottom of the bunch below the tie.
  • You may also trim any straggly herbs and trim the top.
  • Trim the bottom or top off after binding.

 

A Witch’s Calling

A Witch’s Calling

Author: Moon magik

From the moment we are born into this learning experience called life, most of us have our spiritual paths chosen for us. If your parents are Catholic, you’re going to be Catholic. If your parents are Baptist, you’re definitely going to be Baptist. Children have no choice to their own beliefs, because their parents require them to follow family tradition. We then grow up doing the same thing to our own children. There are very few people that grow up and just decide after 20 or 30 years that they do not believe what they were raised to believe. There are also some that grow up with absolutely no spirituality in their lives at all.

My mother and father were divorced just 8 months after I was born. My father raised me, because my mother was young and irresponsible and he wanted me to grow up in a good environment. During the first seven years of my life, we lived with my grandparents. My grandparents were Lutheran, so naturally my father was Lutheran as well. There was a Lutheran church conveniently located just a few houses down from our home.

I knew from a very young age that I did not belong in a Lutheran Church. Most Witches’ have a calling to the old ways and earth traditions at some point in their lives. I hated bible study and had no interest in learning about Christ. I didn’t know anything about Witchcraft, or have a clue that I would one day find myself casting spells in a circle on my bedroom floor. I just simply didn’t care for church. It wasn’t until I was about 11 years old when I started having dreams that I was magical.

It began sporadically and then eventually became an every night dream. In my dream I was standing in the middle of the woods during the peak of fall season. I was spinning in circles and dancing around trees. Every time I had the dream, I notice I had a wooden stick in my hand. I now realize the wooden stick was my wand. I went to the library one morning to check out a book on Diana Ross, because I had a book report for school due on the following Monday.

When I sat down at the table in the library there was one small paperback book left behind by what I’m assuming was a lazy citizen. The book was about Witchcraft. I was extremely intrigued, so I decided to check it out and bring it home to read.

When my father saw the book, he was very unsure whether he wanted to allow me to read it or not. I used my charm and wit to persuade him, plus he was the biggest push over ever. The strange thing is, my father told me just a few days ago, that a few years before I checked out that book, I was scolded for drawing pentacles on my bedroom door. He said he couldn’t figure out where I got the idea to draw pentacles. He said he would have not been so freaked out by the action if the drawings were only stars without circles around them. He understands a bit more now that I am 27 and he knows about my spiritual practices.

As I grew older my dreams became more vivid and lucid. I started having dreams of things before they would occur. My first prophetic dream was about my mother. In my dream, the doctor called me on the telephone and told me that my mom was going to die, because she had a tumor in her stomach. About two weeks later my mother had to go to the doctors, because her premenstrual cycle would not end. The doctors ran some test and then found that she had a large mass, the size of a baseball growing in her uterus. They advised her that she needed surgery immediately to get the mass out. My mother called me on the telephone afterwards to talk to me. She was astonished how similar my dream was to her situation.

The second dream was even scarier. I was blind. The only thing I could do was listen to the sounds that were around me. I heard screaming and arguing and then a blast of gunshots so close like the gun was going off next to my ear. The next morning I went to work and received a phone call from my mother in the middle of the day, which was very uncommon. When I answered, she was frantically crying. She proceeded to tell me that one of my closest friends was shot in the head in the middle of the night.

She explained to me that he was still alive, but he was in a coma and the doctors said we should come in and say our goodbyes, because they did not expect him to live through the day. We all gathered at the hospital for which turned out to be a week while he struggled to survive on life support. Finally, he woke up from the coma.

He could not speak, because he had a trachea tube in his throat, so none of us knew if he could hear us or not. A bandage covered his eyes, so we did not know if he could see us. The bullet in his head traveled back down the path in which it entered and actually fell out into the bandage that was wrapped around his head. The doctors did not have to perform any surgery because of that. Unfortunately once the bandage was removed we found out that he was blind.

I have accepted the fact that I am not a psychic. I cannot read tarot cards. I cannot read runes or tea leaves or make use of any other divining tool. The only thing that I have is my dreams. Therefore, I call myself a dream witch. I love witchcraft. I love the freedom of being solitary eclectic and choosing beliefs that make me feel comfortable.

I love the art and beauty of casting a circle and uniting myself with the Lord and the Lady to mold the energies of the universe for my intentions. I love herb magick and candle magick. I love every aspect of earth traditions and wish that more people would discover the beauty and mysticism that surrounds it.

I wish more people would give their children the knowledge and independence to explore different beliefs to decide what or whom they want to worship. Children continue to be lead into their predecessor’s political, social and religious views. I am not saying that I want everyone to follow the path of the ancient traditions; I am just concerned with the limited freedom we give in a country founded on freedom.

The Proper Use of Magical Intent

The Proper Use of Magical Intent

Author: Michael ‘Blackthorn’ Furie

Magical intent is one of the most important facets of working magic. For the magic to be ideal in its success the intent must not only be properly focused and projected but also, it must fit the actual goal of the spell. For example, if you cast a protection spell designed only for spiritual or psychic protection, you may still be vulnerable to physical attack. If the intent of a spell is not complete or proper in its scope, the effects of the spell will be diminished or diverted. To demonstrate, I will give some examples and some corrective measures for the main goals of most magical practitioners. Let’s start with love magic.

Love – Before performing a love spell you should be able to define, as precisely as possible, the type of person you wish to attract. You should also evaluate whether or not you are ready for a long-term relationship or if your true goal is merely sexual fulfillment. In the case of sexual fulfillment, I would suggest that you modify whatever love spell you are using to only include positive sexual attraction and take out any references to lasting partnerships or lifetime commitments. You should also be wary of using magic to fall in love if you only want to be in love ‘just to be in love.’ Any magic done that will involve the lives and free wills of other people should only be done with a proper level of maturity.

In addition, it is highly inadvisable to ever cast a love spell on a specific person. This is an outright attempt at overpowering the free will of an innocent human being and would result in ‘unsavory’ consequences. In order to cast a spell on another living being, they either have to subconsciously allow it to affect them or you have to channel enough energy to overpower their subconscious shielding (which every being has) and force them into compliance. A spell of that magnitude is harder to cast than you might think when using positive energy and the more energy you send out the greater the eventual return.

If you send out an enormous amount of energy essentially designed to break the free will of another, when that energy returns to you, well…don’t expect the relationship (or anything else) to go according to your wishes for a long time. You will then become someone whose will gets continually overpowered. Also, ‘relationships’ created in such a compulsory manner usually don’t last long since the target’s subconscious mind is aware of what you did and so, resentment and conflict will eventually bubble to the surface and destroy the relationship.

The proper intent for a love spell would be to focus on the type of partner that you wish to attract into your life with the desire that it be for your mutual good and with free will. This type of love spell if properly cast, is guaranteed to be free of harsh side effects.

Money – Money is an interesting thing. It is in fact, artificial. The concept of money is one of agreed upon value; everyone agrees that a certain coin or piece of paper is worth a given amount and…poof! It is. Truly understanding that money is more of a perception or concept as opposed to being the most powerful factor in existence is the key in using magic to bring money. Don’t get me wrong, having money is important! But not for its inherent value, for it has none. Money is important only because of the security that it can bring and the only reason it has this power is because we agree that it does.

Now, I’m not saying that if we personally stop believing that money has value in our lives our need for it will stop. I’m not even suggesting that. I’m also not saying that money is a bad concept; merely that it is in fact, a concept. Prior to the use of money, the barter system was used to trade goods and services. This system is of course, quite cumbersome and would be totally unworkable in today’s society.

I realize that we basically have no choice whether or not to agree on the value of money. Society decided that ages ago but, it’s not really money that we crave; we crave safety, health, comfort and security. This is why there are money spells in magic. We must work within the modern system in order to achieve the life security that nowadays, only money can provide.

When working with spiritual forces to acquire a mundane, physical thing (which is a large chunk of what magic is used to do) , it is important to focus on what the exact desired goal is rather than thinking in general terms. Specifically, when using magic to bring money, focus on why you need this money; what it will be used for, instead of just trying to ‘draw in money energy’ or something like that. We must focus on the truth behind things and not just a thin veneer or a means to an end. Focusing on the money itself is akin to over-analyzing the process of how magic will manifest a goal, which, as previously stated, then hinders that process. The true worth of money is what should be focused on and that can only be done by focusing on what it will be used to obtain.

So, if you need money to purchase a new car, focus on the need for the car. You may also focus on the specific amount of money needed to purchase the car, if desired. Do not however, only focus on the money! That cannot be overstated. Money magic is about growth, security, and abundance and not money for money’s sake.

Magic, in general works best if there is genuine need (as opposed to selfish want) . If you need money for something, cast the spell for that something. If you merely want $100, 000 dollars for the fun of it well, you can try for it but trust me, it will be a LOT harder to achieve.

Healing – When working healing magic for one’s self or others, it is necessary to visualize the person in a relaxed, healthy state as opposed to seeing them ‘becoming healed’ or ‘growing in strength’ or something along those lines. Surround them with healing energy and state that the injury or illness shall no longer exist. In your mind’ eye, ‘see’ the person healthy and with no illness. Visualize only the outcome; not even one speck of the process of healing. Otherwise, there will be delays, or mixed results due to confusing signals being projected by you. Any healing magic must be done with a true sense of compassion and love infused with it. This maximizes its effectiveness since magic done without proper feeling is only marginally successful at best.

Protection – As noted earlier, the type of protection magic worked is an integral of its success. If you feel that someone is trying to work negative magic against you (however, that is a rare occurrence) or that a dark spiritual entity has become attached to you in some way (an even rarer occurrence) , or that you spend time around an energy vampire (a surprisingly frequent occurrence) , then you should work magic for psychic protection.

If on the other hand, if you are worried about physical danger, then work magic for physical protection. Now, if you are under immediate physical threat or danger, then you should first take all necessary mundane precautions like locking doors, calling police, going to a safe public place etc. Most people work protective magic as a precautionary measure to avoid any such threats and I would recommend doing so. I personally feel that it is a good idea when using protection magic to aim for a combination of both types of protection; both psychic and physical, to make sure you are truly secure. A good dual protective measure is the witch bottle.

When working protection magic, you should be filled with a sense of safety and serenity (no fear!) and infuse this serenity into the spell. If you are filled with fear, you will only infuse that fear into the spell and it will offer no protection; it will only increase the fear. You must project how you want to feel with the end result for effective protection.

Binding – This is in an area known as gray magic. Binding can be used for positive ends but does involve the overpowering of the free will. Because of this, unless skillfully done (and even then) , there could be serious repercussions to the spellcaster. Many modern practitioners never use this type of magic and prefer to not even discuss such things but, given the fact that we live in an unpredictable, sometimes harsh world, I feel that it is best to be fully armed and knowledgeable with the use of defensive magic. The key here is defensive. Bindings should not be done merely to control another person for some type of ego boost or a cheap thrill. They should only be done to stop a dangerous person or situation from continuing on in its destructive ways. Additionally, it is possible (but, difficult) to bind oneself to help curb negative tendencies or bad habits.

The proper intent for a binding is to visualize the person bound and unable to escape then, give them a specific set of commands to follow according to need. You should feel fully in control without malice or fear. Feel as though you are overwhelming the person into giving in to your demands (think angry nagging as opposed to kidnapping and threatening) . Bindings do require lots of energy to be effective and if the person’s subconscious mind is strong enough to reject your spell, you will quickly suffer the consequences of rebound. This is why this type of magic should be rarely done and when done at all, should only be in times of true need.

The reason for specific orders is twofold. First, it speeds the success of the spell by giving it clear focus and second, it helps eliminate rebound upon the spellcaster since the stated conditions do not apply to the one casting the spell. Let me give an example, if you need to bind a thief then, do a binding with the specific command that the person will no longer steal the possessions of others and since you are not a thief (at least I hope not…) there would be no rebound of binding your free will. That being said, there is always an energy return from every spell cast and this is unavoidable. This is one reason why it is inadvisable to dwell too often in the realms of gray or black magic. You don’t need all that negative energy returning to you and disrupting your life.

Cursing – Ah, the most controversial magical topic of them all. Now, this does qualify as black magic and as such, should only be done under very severe circumstances. To work a curse first, you must be filled with angry, vengeful energy and second, be willing to project that energy on to someone else. This will definitely result in dark energy being returned to you so, you must make sure that you are willing to deal with the consequences and that there aren’t any other, less severe options (see binding, above) that could accomplish your goal.

A curse will cause misfortune to the target of the spell and will result in a life of misery for them. Unfortunately, to curse another is to curse oneself so, be prepared to be on the receiving end of misery as well.

If the consequences of curses are so awful then, why do people use them? Well, they should only be used in times of greatest need. Dark energy travels quickly on this plane. Much more quickly than positive energy, this is the lure of cursing. It’s quick and effective magic. Many people become addicted to the sense of power that the use of such magic brings. This is ignorant and dangerous behavior.

The only justifiable reason to cast a curse is if someone has greatly wrong you or a loved one with no remorse and intends to continue doing so (either to yourself or others) . In such a case, a curse could be used to force a realization of the person’s own actions into their mind, creating a kind of tortured empathy or fill their lives with such chaos and misery that they no longer have the time or even the strength to attempt to harm you or anyone else.

You should be very specific in your goals for a curse so, much like in the case of binding, the possibilities of rebound are minimized. Again, even if the curse doesn’t rebound upon you, the dark energy will eventually return and you will face the consequences of your actions. To cast the curse, you must be filled with anger and rage and infuse this feeling into your spell. This can be exhausting, as it requires enormous energy for the proper results to be achieved. For the most part, it is advisable to leave the negative magic alone in order to avoid the harsh repercussions of its use.

The positive magical path is always a safer and highly encouraged choice.

With all of these skills, anyone should be able to fine tune their intent, cast successful spells and reap the rewards of living the magical life.

Bewitching

Bewitching

Author: Bob Makransky

  Witchcraft is a craft. It’s something you learn. Witches usually do have supernormal powers. However, these powers are learned. There can be inborn talent, but it takes a lifetime of practice just to perfect one such power. This is why the terms “occultism”, “secret science”, “mysticism”, and so forth are silly. There is nothing secret or hidden going on here. Witchcraft is merely a matter of paying conscious attention to the things, which our society has taught us to ignore.

Witchcraft is what everyone is doing all the time, beneath the surface of everyday life. Most people just pretend they aren’t doing it or else they don’t consider what they do to be witchcraft. For example, infatuation is a species of mutual bewitching. Lovers bewitch one another and themselves. But they wouldn’t consider this witchcraft. They consider it love – at least until the bewitchment, the infatuation, wears off.

Similarly, people who cannot break free of an abusive relationship are usually bewitched by their partners. Doctors, and all healers, cure people by stimulating and encouraging the people’s own faith in getting well. Good salespeople are adept at bewitching their customers. And so on.

Everyone is manipulating everyone else on a witchcraft level all the time. Any time people command another’s attention, or manipulate their feelings in any way, they are bewitching them. Thus all art is witchcraft, and great artists are merely great witches. Artists are highly intuitive people who can tune into profound feelings in their art and take other people with them.

Witches are perhaps a bit more psychic to start with than average people. At least witches rely upon and trust in their intuition more than average people do. To most people, psychic events such as precognition, prophetic dreams, omens, telepathic communications happen now and then unbidden, but are beyond control. Such things happen to witches with somewhat more frequency because witches welcome, or intend, such things. Or better said, witches are more attentive to such things whereas average people tend to brush past them (or in many cases, reject what they just experienced because it contradicts their beliefs about what is “real” or “socially acceptable”) . With some experience and practice witches learn how to control their psychic abilities.

For example, when faced with a problem, one thing many witches do is to pray (intend) upon retiring at night for the solution to their problem to come to them. With a little practice they find that this works most of the time. They receive the answer in a dream that night, or else it comes in the next day or two. And as they see this technique work time and time again, it builds their faith, and as their faith builds the technique keeps working better and better for them.

Faith, the emotional content of belief, is the key to making witchcraft work. It can move mountains. It is the lever by which we create our own realities. The only reason our thought form world works is because we put our faith in it. If we believed in witchcraft with the same certainty that we believe turning a key in an ignition will start a car, then witchcraft would work as well for us as science and technology do.

That’s what faith is all about. There have been societies on this earth, which were based upon witchcraft, such as the Mayan Indians of Central America. These societies get witchcraft to work for them as well as materialistic science does for us, because that’s where they put their faith.

The reasons why witchcraft often doesn’t work as well as the books, and one’s own spirit guides, for that matter, say that it should, are sundry. Sometimes it just isn’t time yet. “To everything there is a season.” All the prayers and spells in the world won’t make Christmas happen before December 25th. Sometimes our prayers and spells are contingent upon the right astrological influence occurring.

Other times our prayers and spells don’t work right away because we have heavy karma in the way that has to be cleaned out first. This is often the case when what we are telling ourselves consciously that we want (love, wealth) contradicts self-esteem issues left over from our childhoods. Moreover, this karmic barrier to realizing our desires might stem from previous lifetimes, as well as this one. In my own case it took twenty years of just putting in the time and paying my dues between when I first made the decision to follow the witch’s path (after reading Carlos Castaneda’s books) , and when my spirit guides appeared in my life, which was my actual entry into the world of witchcraft. From there it was another fifteen years until I started seeing some real results from witchcraft working on my own, without spirits backing me up. However, I never lost faith, and that’s why I have succeeded so far.

The difference between witches and average people is that witches have infinite patience and a willingness to confront any danger and endure any pain necessary in order to realize their desires. Average people, on the other hand, always seem to be looking for a free ride or handout in life. Average people’s decisions don’t have enough power behind them to accomplish anything worthwhile because they back down and reverse their decisions the minute the going gets a little tough. What helped me a lot in my own quest, I see now in retrospect, was that my situation was truly desperate and miserable. I had nothing to go back to, so I had no choice but to press forward.

The Spirit always plays little games on our heads to test us in our resolve. It always makes it as difficult as possible to stand by our decisions. Things never happen the way we fantasize them or rehearse them. Average people are ready to throw in the towel and weep in self-pity at every little disappointment. Witches know that once a decision has been made, there’s no going back unless the Spirit itself grants release. The basic principles of witchcraft are to make absolutely irrevocable decisions; and to go to any extreme necessary to stand by those decisions.

Power is the same thing as luck. True power involves leaving nothing to chance. Average people, if they believe in witchcraft at all, believe that witches control chance. This isn’t correct. Witches, at least white witches, don’t dominate chance or enforce their own will on the universe. Rather, they are wholly dominated by it. They give up all personal desires of their own, cease caring whether they win or lose, or get their own way or not. In this way witches become one with chance and merge themselves with it. Then their will becomes unstoppable.

Witches will to accept the Spirit’s will as their own. They give up all their own images of what they think they desire and let the Spirit’s desires for them prevail. When witches synchronize their own desires with those of the Spirit, everything becomes possible for them. The great enemy of witchcraft is doubt.

I happen to have the power to bewitch women to fall in love with me (okay, no snickering out there, this happens to be true) . My spirits taught me how to do this to show me that witchcraft does indeed work – that it is possible to make impossible things happen merely by willing it. They also wanted to teach me to hold my attention fixed upon a single object, moment-to-moment, all day long every day. They know me pretty well: they knew that the only thing that would motivate me to put out the effort and discipline needed to do this was the promise of sex.
I’ll save the details of my experiences with bewitching women for my autobiography, except to say that the last time I tried it, it backfired on me in such a way that I’ll never do it again. Besides, although you can get sex by bewitching, you can’t get love that way, so why bother?

Psychic healing works the same way that bewitching does. The healer visualizes the patient as being well, and thus overrides the patient’s doubt and self-pity. Any form of ‘ensorcellment’ involves substituting the witch’s will for the subject’s will. This can only take place if the subject is willing, consciously or unconsciously. That is to say, no one can be bewitched, or healed, against their will.

Bewitching is really no different than Creative Visualization. Witches know to keep their Creative Visualizations within the realm of reasonable possibility. Thus they don’t try to bewitch famous movie stars to fall in love with them, or to win the lottery. These sorts of outcomes are too unlikely. In order to make witchcraft work it is necessary to overcome doubt, and wishing for something that’s way out of one’s league, or too improbable, starts off with too big a doubt debit.

When bewitching for love, for example, witches start out with someone with whom they already have desire lines in place. This means someone with whom they have already shared feelings; someone they’ve already looked directly in the eye and flashed with. That flash doesn’t necessarily have to have been one of love. The flash could have been anger, disgust, humor, or sadness as well as attraction. It doesn’t matter. If, for an instant, two people look in each other’s eyes and some emotion passes between them, then at that moment they stuck lines in each another. They bewitched one another. If there is any feeling at all between two people, whether positive or negative, then they can be bewitched through that feeling.

What passes in brief moments of direct eye contact is very powerful sexual witchcraft. It is so potent, in fact, that it scares most people. They immediately get flustered, avert their eyes, and pretend that nothing happened. Even when the emotion that is being shared is humor or gaiety, there is a polite limit to how long direct eye contact can be engaged before it becomes threatening, i.e. sexual. Even if the emotion is anger or disgust, that just means that the feeling is so sexual that it has to be hidden by its negation

Sexual feeling is the matrix of all feeling. Sexual feelings are actual lines that people shoot into one another, like arrows, whenever they flash on each other by sharing a feeling. These lines appear to people with psychic vision as fibers of living light. It’s through the light fibers, which join people that they pass emotional information, such as the psychic knowledge that the other person is hurt, or dead, or having sex with someone else. It’s also through these light fibers that bewitching takes place.*

In short, if two people have ever shared any direct feeling, then there’s already a sexual bond between them. Witches can use this bond to bewitch, or to heal. They force energy through that desire line by intense visualization of their desire coming true. This brings pressure to bear upon the interpersonal barrier. This barrier is the pretense that there’s nothing going on between the participants.

Sexual desire can exist from previous lifetimes and realities – this is usually what’s behind the phenomenon of love at first sight. If there’s an underlying sexual attraction (which can in fact be read from the natal horoscopes of the people involved – e.g. the man’s sun or Mars conjunct or opposition the woman’s moon or Venus) , then there’s fertile ground for bewitching even if the two people have not yet met face-to-face.

On the surface, the witches act cordially but disinterestedly. They keep a poker face and they do nothing on their own account. Eventually that pressure brings about a moment in time when the Spirit itself opens the floodgates and the other person’s defenses evaporate. If and when it’s time for an overt move, it comes on its own in a moment of power.

In everyday society most of the actual sticking of desire lines into other people is done in the state of dreamless sleep, although the intent is set up in waking. If you have ever had a dream war with someone, that person was trying to stick a line into you, but you successfully fought him or her off. If you hadn’t successfully fought them off, you wouldn’t have had that dream. It would have remained unconscious, on the level of dreamless sleep.

Witches, both black and white, sometimes rely upon spirit helpers to cue them on what to do and when. These messages come across as sudden ideas or inspirations. But witches don’t act unless prompted.

In other words the witches’ superficial behavior betrays nothing of what they are actually thinking or feeling. Contrast this with how most people try to make their desires come true. Most people get caught up in making obvious moves, polishing their self-presentation, trying to somehow flag other people’s, or God’s, attention: “Yoo-hoo! Here I am! Over here!”
This approach will work sometimes, but it’s really inept. This is what the dating game is all about, which is why people find it so boring and predictable. There’s no sport to it. Besides there’s no true feeling to it, much less love. It’s all phony.

When witches bewitch, all their energy is held rigidly in check. Desire is inflamed by visualization, which is why witchcraft is basically a matter of bewitching oneself. Witchcraft is hypnotizing oneself into an intense, single-pointed desire. Witches first have to bewitch themselves to be madly in love – they go first. Then they impose that feeling on the subject of their desire. Better said, they give the subject a powerful option.

No one can be forced to do anything against his or her own will by witchcraft. It’s quite possible for the person being bewitched to block the ensorcellment by detaching his or her light fibers from the witch. This is felt as closing up to them emotionally. What witches, particularly black witches, count on is that most people’s wills are so weak and confused.

Witches may use some object symbolic of their desire and pour all of their attention on it. They imagine the face of the person in it and talk with it and make love with it and cuddle with it at night. For example, in the movie Bell, Book and Candle, Kim Novak bewitched Jimmy Stewart with a cat. In the book The Witch’s Dream by Florinda Donner, the protagonist bewitched his love with a devil’s mask. The symbolic object can be charged like a charm.

Thus bewitching is like normal daydreaming or fantasizing, carried to an extreme (visualized in the here-and-now rather than projected to a future which will never come) . When bewitching for love, the witch visualizes him or herself in the physical presence of the beloved – holding hands, kissing and caressing, having fun together – as if the person were actually there. In bewitching you look the other person (the lover you desire, the boss you want a raise from, the jerk you want out of your life, whomever) directly in the eye.

In normal daydreaming and fantasizing, by contrast, you’re usually not making eye contact at all. In bewitching the focus is on the other person and how enjoyable it is to be in their company (or to be rid of them, depending upon what you are bewitching for) . In normal daydreaming the focus is on yourself. Other people serve only as mute witnesses to your own glory and vindication. This is the difference between bewitching and fanning the breeze with idle daydreaming. When you bewitch someone you’re right there in front of him or her eyeball-to-eyeball. You let them do the talking and make the moves. In daydreaming they’re fawning over you while you carry on a monologue.

This is another difference between Creative Visualization, what witches do, and fantasizing and daydreaming, which average people do. Visualization is a matter of feeling, of longing, of reaching out for the object of desire. Daydreaming is a matter of thinking, imaging, distancing oneself from the object of desire. Daydreaming is actually reaching out towards self-pity, not towards the realization of one’s true desires.

You should not daydream or have romantic or sexual fantasies about someone whom you are bewitching. They will feel this through the light fibers you have in them as a sleazy vibe, a sexual expectation, coming from you. They will raise defenses against it. Creative Visualization, true bewitching, usually doesn’t have a context of sexual or romantic excitation at all. It’s too here-and-now, too spontaneous and unpredictable. It has a light, joyous feeling to it as compared to the obsessive and directed intensity of most daydreaming. Daydreams are about control, whereas Creative Visualization is about joy.

When bewitching to get rid of someone, witches don’t visualize bad things happening to that person. Rather, they visualize themselves happy, relieved, joyous, now that said person is gone. Psychic healing is done by visualizing the person as well. The point is that the visualization has to be done as if the action is unfolding in the here and now, unlike normal daydreams, which take place in the future. One has to feel all the feelings – joy, relief, health, whatever – that would be felt if the visualization were actually true. It’s those feelings, which are being felt which attract the object of desire; which make the visualization come true.

My Mayan teachers showed me some techniques for bewitching to overcome. I really think this whole thing is childish; but since it does it indeed work; and since it has helped me out a few times (e.g. when I was subjected to a nuisance lawsuit) ; I’ll pass the information along here. If you can obtain a photograph of the person you wish to overcome; or a hair or fingernail cutting from the person – great. If not, just make a small drawing of the person by hand. Make a little cross of sticks (my Mayan teachers use jocote – flat pine sticks oozing sap and used for fire starters) . Wind a red thread around the sticks to join them into a cross. Then place the photo or artifact of the person you wish to overcome in the center of the cross. Fasten it to the cross by winding the red thread around it (my teachers said not to pierce the photo, since that would be definite black witchcraft and result in physical injury to the person being bewitched. The idea is to overcome the person – not incur bad karma, which will have to be paid in other lifetimes) .

After performing a “Scat” ritual over the cross (Choose a Saturn hour for this and follow instructions in the BOS in the Witchcraft 101 folder
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WitchcraftalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Witchcraftal%20Almanac/) , place the cross in your shoe (I wrap these crosses in duct tape first to keep them intact) ; and imagine grinding the person you wish to overcome into the dirt with every step you take (as Nancy Sinatra crooned) . As I said, it’s childish; but it does indeed work.

Conscious awareness is where all links ultimately have to be made. A witch, however, never makes links through direct intervention, by acting on his or her own accord. This is how most people blow things or trip themselves up. They fail by acting on their thought forms, by being impatient and pushy, by being unwilling or unable to trust in the Spirit to bring them what they want in the fullness of time.

This shows lack of faith. Only the Spirit can move the wheel of chance. Therefore the basic principle of witchcraft is patience. Conscious awareness can only exist if there is also unconscious awareness – something that is being hidden. The trick of witchcraft is to take in everything so that nothing is any longer hidden. Another way of saying this is, we must become aware of our own prejudices and taken-for-granted assumptions, since it is our own images and expectations which blind us to the truth.

Everybody already knows intuitively how to make witchcraft work, but they don’t do it much since if they succeeded they’d scare themselves silly. This is another difference between daydreaming and Creative Visualization. In the former the person doesn’t really want the desire to come true. He or she is just playing games, fanning the breeze with self-pity. Therefore it usually takes an intense, overwhelming desire or desperation to activate average people’s true witchcraft powers. Miracles do sometimes happen, when people are 100% clear in their intent – when they permit their higher self to surface and take command. Witches strive to make every moment a miracle.

Creative Visualization, is the same thing as prayer. Everyone intuitively understands the efficacy of prayer, but most people don’t call upon it unless they’re desperate. However, desperation isn’t the best motivation for prayer since people create their own realities. They wouldn’t be in that situation in the first place unless they created it for some reason, to learn some lesson. If that lesson happens to be learning the power of faith, that prayer does work, then their prayers will save their butts; but not necessarily otherwise.

The problem with witchcraft as a spiritual path, and bewitching people in particular, is that it hangs us up in all the same stupid games of winning and losing that average people play in normal, everyday society. Witchcraft is like capitalism – it’s really pretty slimy and distasteful, but it’s the name of the game; so if our demonic society forces us to play such games, then let’s at least play to win. Witches – like capitalists – aim to be winners… whereas average people aim to be losers – to wallow in helplessness and self-pity.

In the coming century and a half our decadent, degenerate society will collapse under the weight of human greed and stupidity, and the pressure of the earth herself turning against us. The surviving remnant of the human race (if there is one) must willy-nilly reorganize itself along the lines of what is now considered to be “witchcraft”. Or another way of saying this is, that only witches – people who have learned to rely upon their own intuition and intent instead of belief in society’s lies – will survive the coming holocaust.

Fundamentally witchcraft is as much a dead-end street for an aspirant on the spiritual path as is seeking the validation and glory of society. The only value to witchcraft, which seems baffling at first but which is learned through experience, by making lots of mistakes, is understanding the difference between when one is acting on one’s own impulse, or when one is truly being prompted to act by the Spirit. This is the crux of the matter, and the reason why learning witchcraft is worthwhile.



Footnotes:
* See the drawings of humans interacting on a light fiber level in Barbara Brennan’s book Light Emerging, Bantam NYC 1993.

Brennan, Barbara, Light Emerging, Bantam NYC 1993

Being Spiritually Centered (And Tips On How To Get There)

Being Spiritually Centered (And Tips On How To Get There)

Author: Michael ‘Blackthorn’ Furie

Witches are taught that life is an intricate web of interconnected forces; that we are all one and that each piece of the microcosm can influence the whole. We are also taught to think for ourselves (a bit of an oxymoron, I know) and that every living being has its own destiny and right to exist. Furthermore, we are told that everyone should be able to believe whatever they choose and that all beliefs have validity even if only for their respective adherents, since one’s perceptions can influence their reality. This I believe is a true but potentially dangerous teaching if not framed in the proper context.

Most of us are taught how to “ground and center” in the moment as part of proper preparation for ritual or at least as a stress relieving technique however, an increasing number of us haven’t been given instruction in the necessity of, or the way to becoming, spiritually centered beings. I have known several people in my life (some Pagan, some not) that struggle with a feeling of spiritual emptiness and unrelenting frustration. They feel abandoned by the universe and whatever concept of Deity they hold dear. They don’t understand why so much of their life is filled with chaos. They feel continual conflict, both in the outside world and within themselves. I myself have suffered from this ailment and have struggled to find answers as to why. I have come to identify a reason for this chaos and conflict: a lack of being spiritually centered.

Being spiritually centered is a powerful tool that we have to truly embrace who we are as people and how we approach life. If you study spiritual gurus or masters of any faith, one key factor keeps presenting itself; they practice what they preach. In other words, they live their lives according to a set of clearly defined beliefs that they adhere to without exception. They leave no room for inner conflict or hypocrisy.

Psychologists have identified a state known as cognitive dissonance, which is defined by the American Psychological Association as: a state of despair that is induced when a person holds two contradictory beliefs, or when a belief is incongruent with an action that the person had chosen freely to perform. Because this situation produces feelings of discomfort, the individual strives to change one of the beliefs or behaviors in order to avoid being inconsistent. Hypocrisy is a special case of cognitive dissonance, produced when a person freely chooses to promote a behavior that they do not themselves practice.

I believe cognitive dissonance to be one of the greatest social ills faced in human society. When people feel driven to hold a belief because it was instilled in them as a child but they personally feel that the belief is either too restrictive or wholly invalid, a frustration and dissatisfaction with life builds within the mind. We’ve seen the results of unrelenting cognitive dissonance on a societal scale many times in the past.

When a group (let’s say the Puritans, for example) feels compelled to hold personally restrictive beliefs that are too difficult for even themselves to comply with, they then feel a gnawing sense of inadequacy, guilt and despair, now known as cognitive dissonance. This would then result in a large number of spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically unfulfilled people which, (I guess) is fine if that is their free choice.

If however, another group of people is nearby that practice a different set of beliefs (let’s say Native Americans, Pagans, Less restrictive Christians, well anybody really…) and those people appear happier and more fulfilled than the former group, the inner conflict only grows. To ease this conflict they have only three possible courses of action: isolate themselves away from the less restrictive people and continue in their ways, change their own restrictive beliefs and live a more relaxed life, or persecute those that live more freely than they, in order to reinforce their own sense of values and ease some of their secret feelings of inadequacy.

Sadly, this last choice seems to be the one that is most often chosen. Far too many people throughout history (in my opinion) have mistaken the sense of power felt when they convert people to their beliefs for true spirituality and religious fulfillment. Instead of becoming spiritually centered themselves, they choose to force their values on others; attempting to stamp out other belief systems in the hope that this will reinforce and ‘prove’ the supremacy and truth of their own beliefs to themselves.

This is why at the beginning of this article I stated that I believe that the fact that everyone’s beliefs are valid on at least some level because a person’s perceptions can influence reality, can be a dangerous teaching. If a person believes that inner conflict and a feeling of spiritual emptiness are ‘the way it must be’ then, they are living in needless misery and becoming potentially dangerous to those around them that do not share in their narrow outlook.

With all that being said, I shall (finally!) come to the point of this article and discuss becoming spiritually centered. In order to be spiritually centered, you must know who you are. You must have ‘found yourself’ as they say, and you must be comfortable in your own skin. This requires a process of evaluation and conscious acknowledgment of how you think and what you believe. The first step in this process is to ask yourself what you believe. Take a notebook and write down everything that you believe. No, seriously! Make the list as complete as possible; write down your entire Spiritual, cultural, political, and personal beliefs, both positive and negative.

After this list is complete, consider each item and determine whether you hold this belief because you truly believe it or, merely because someone else told you to believe it. Now, consider each item and decide whether or not you want to continue to hold that belief. Those beliefs you no longer desire to keep should be crossed out on your list. It is vital that a truly Spiritual person be free of clouded judgment and the weight of other people’s beliefs.

To hold any belief only because someone else claimed it as fact is a giving up of personal control to that person. A belief should only be held if, upon personal examination and experimentation, you find that it truly speaks to you and enriches your life.

Any shame or fear-based beliefs must be thoroughly examined. Truly determine whether or not any guilt, shame, fear or doubt is based on genuine wrongs that you may have committed or rather, based on unfair labels and projections placed upon you by others. This no doubt, will be an emotional journey but I assure you it is definitely worthwhile. Depending on the nature and severity of any emotional issues, therapy may be required to properly resolve them. In that case, I would highly recommend it but use your best judgment. Just remember that we are all human and prone to mistakes. One of the great challenges in life is to learn from and grow beyond, our mistakes. Let go of shame and fear.

The next step is, create a new revised list (I’m big on lists) of your personal beliefs and scan this list for any conflicting beliefs that you still hold. As I previously mentioned, hypocrisy is just another form of cognitive dissonance and will continue to keep you away from your centered self. Remember, there is a difference in being able to see both points of view in an argument and never being able to give a singular personal opinion on anything because you don’t feel able to take a definitive stance on any issue. The latter results from continuing to hold conflicting beliefs that keep you bound in shame and guilt and blur the lines so that you can’t find personal truth.

When you are centered, you are able to speak your truth with a clear and proud voice because you know deep within your heart that it is your truth and you will be unwilling to abandon it.

Once all your beliefs align, there is only one more step in becoming centered…actually living according to those beliefs. Remember that it is just as important to ‘do’ as it is to understand and feel. There are three aspects to our personalities: thinking, willing, and feeling. We need to utilize all three as equally as possible in order to live fully. Thinking and (hopefully) feeling have been involved in the process so far, but never forget the power of the human will. It is connected to the fire element and is that special spark that is only gained through actual experience; contemplation, evaluation, intellectual understanding and emotional connection are only parts of the process.

To be complete, we too must practice what we preach.

Blessed Be.

HALLOWS BLESSING

HALLOWS BLESSING

To those whose feet are stilled
And those who laugh with us no more
To you we say, our love was with you here
And goes with you hence
To that place where you rest and revel.

May the dark Lord and sweet Lady
Guide your feet along the rocky paths
To the place where all is fresh and green
And lover, friends and ancestors wait
With open arms to greet you.
Go in peace, and with our blessing
Be rested and return when the Lady deems it fit
With the countless turns of the Great Wheel
We shall miss you
We shall meet you again in the green places of Her domain.

NASA Image of the Day for October 9th

Vesta Sizes Up

 

This composite image shows the comparative sizes of nine asteroids. Up until now, Lutetia, with a diameter of 81 miles (130 kilometers), was the largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft, which occurred during a flyby. Vesta dwarfs all other small bodies in this image.

Asteroid Vesta also is considered a protoplanet because it’s a large body that almost became a planet and has a diameter of approximately 330 miles (530 kilometers). was the largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft, which occurred during a flyby. Vesta dwarfs all other small bodies in this image.

Asteroid Vesta also is considered a protoplanet because it’s a large body that almost became a planet and has a diameter of approximately 330 miles (530 kilometers).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JAXA/ESA

Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 9th

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

SDSS J102915+172927: A Star That Should Not Exist
Image Credit: ESO, DSS2 

 

Explanation: Why does this star have so few heavy elements? Stars born in the generation of our Sun have an expected abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium mixed into their atmospheres. Stars born in the generation before our Sun, Population II stars, the stars that created most of the heavy elements around us today, are seen to have some, although fewer, elements heavier than H and He. Furthermore, even the elusive never-seen first stars in the universe, so-called Population III stars, are predicted to have a large mass and a small but set amount of heavy elements. Yet low-mass Milky Way star SDSS J102915+172927, among others, appears to have fewer metals than ever predicted for any stars, including at least 50 times less lithium than came out of the Big Bang. The unusual nature of this star, initially cataloged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and pictured above, was discovered by detailed spectroscopic observations by a large VLT telescope in Chile. Many models of star formation indicate that such a star should not even form. Research is ongoing, however, with one leading hypothesis holding that fragile primordial lithium was destroyed in the star’s hot core.

Your Daily Number for October 9th: 6

Responsibilities, either at home or work, rule the day. Financial opportunities are possible, and others may seek you out as a source of wise counsel or comfort. You’re a source of emotional strength for others today, and friendship will be highlighted.

Fast Facts

About the Number 6

Theme: Family and Social Responsibility, Service, Healing
Astro Association: Gemini
Tarot Association: Lovers

Today’s I Ching Hexagram for Oct. 9th is 15: Humility

15: Humility

Hexagram 15

General Meaning: Humility is often rewarded in human affairs, just as the erosion of a great mountain fills the valley. It is the way of nature to fill the empty cup. Regardless of your position, humility is a positive and deceptively powerful attribute. If you are in a high position but are still humble, people will be drawn to you and the causes you espouse. If your position is lowly, humility will endear you to those of higher status. True humility is a virtue to which all should aspire.

The most successful and happiest people are those who know how to bring each situation into balance by reducing that which is too great, and adding to that which is too little. Such a person craves not power, but balanced and stable relationships. Humility is the virtue that supplies the balancing power, as humble people are not prey to the many illusions that grow out of self-importance. If humility is not natural to your disposition, make a conscious effort to develop a strain of self-effacing humor.

Today’s Runes for Sunday, Oct. 9th is Thurisaz

Today’s Runes

Spirit Runes are most commonly used for questions about mysticism, spirituality, and religion. Thurisaz represents a thorn, the most basic of barriers to our boon or our bane. In the case of hedges, thorns protect our encampments from that which skulks towards us from the outlands. In the case of rosebushes, thorns keep us from beauty. Though thorns are passive and have no thoughts, they puncture, tear, and may even be poisonous. Hence, this rune may also represent irrational violence and anger.

Today’s Tarot Card for October 9th is The Magician

The Magician

This Tarot Deck: Cat People

General Meaning: Traditionally, the Magus is one who can demonstrate hands-on magic — as in healing, transformative rituals, alchemical transmutations, charging of talismans and the like. A modern Magus is any person who completes the circuit between heaven and Earth, one who seeks to bring forth the divine ‘gold’ within her or himself.

At the birth of Tarot, even a gifted healer who was not an ordained clergyman was considered to be in league with the Devil! For obvious reasons, the line between fooling the eye with sleight of hand, and charging the world with magical will was not clearly differentiated in the early Tarot cards.

Waite’s image of the Magus as the solitary ritualist communing with the spirits of the elements — with its formal arrangement of symbols and postures — is a token of the freedom we have in modern times to declare our spiritual politics without fear of reprisal. The older cards were never so explicit about what the Magus was doing. It’s best to keep your imagination open with this card. Visualize yourself manifesting something unique, guided by evolutionary forces that emerge spontaneously from within your soul.

Daily Horoscopes for Sunday, October 9th

The watery Pisces Moon continues to bathe us in waves of magical feelings. But our idealistic fantasies may fade today as beautiful Venus stirs the emotional stew by entering shadowy Scorpio to intensify our desires. But this heavy cosmic message, though profoundly passionate, is countered by rational Mercury’s intelligent quintile to assertive Mars in bright Leo. Ultimately, the simple act of forgiveness can turn the darkness into light.

 

Aries Horoscope
Aries Horoscope (Mar 21 – Apr 19)

Your natural enthusiasm might be tested today, causing you to consider a new approach in a relationship. Intense interactions with a friend or partner could raise issues that reveal the limitations of your current perspective. Even if the facts make you uncomfortable now, ignoring them is not an option. You’ll need to push into the unknown if you want to make real progress.

Taurus Horoscope
Taurus Horoscope (Apr 20 – May 20)

You may be worried about the direction that a relationship has taken, yet you might believe that you still have more time before you have to determine a new course. Typically, you prefer your life to be sweet and simple. However, it’s probably a smart idea to leave a few loose ends dangling now. Delay declaring your final decision until the ambiguity begins to fade.

Gemini Horoscope
Gemini Horoscope (May 21 – Jun 20)

Unraveling your romantic feelings may be a significant part of your day, yet it’s difficult to know where your heart will lead you now. You could grow frustrated if you try to force clarity. In the meantime, minimize stress by sticking to your regular routine and get plenty of rest. Making small improvements to your diet and exercise program today is more important than solving the mystery of love.

Cancer Horoscope
Cancer Horoscope (June 21 – Jul 22)

Even if you’re feeling pretty good about yourself today, you’re not yet ready to let go of a persistent issue that continues to bother you. Unfortunately, you could obsess over an insignificant molehill until it turns into a formidable mountain. Stay conscious of your thoughts at all times; placing your attention on the positive aspects of love is much healthier than concentrating on the negativity of fear.

Leo Horoscope
Leo Horoscope (Jul 23 – Aug 22)

Although you’re feeling pressured to meet your obligations today, you could be tempted to withdraw emotionally and let everyone wait until you return. Your decision to socially disengage might not be well received by someone who wants you to perform, but pleasing others shouldn’t be your main concern now. Instead, listen to your intuition and retreat until you feel ready to take on the world.

Virgo Horoscope
Virgo Horoscope (Aug 23 – Sep 22)

You might feel insecure about your role in someone else’s life today, yet discussing your concerns doesn’t seem to help. You cannot find the answers you seek now because the longer the conversation lasts, the less clear your partner becomes. Ironically, your best strategy may be to keep your worries to yourself for a while longer and see where the energy leads. But don’t isolate yourself from those you love, for their support is probably exactly what you need.

Libra Horoscope
Libra Horoscope (Sep 23 – Oct 22)

You may still be feeling the weight of responsibility on your shoulders today, even though you rationally know it’s not your job to make everything okay. But you’re happiest when your friends and family are doing well, so sometimes it’s challenging to discern their comfort from yours. There’s nothing wrong with helping others, just keep in mind that everyone else needs to contribute a fair share, too.

Scorpio Horoscope
Scorpio Horoscope (Oct 23 – Nov 21)

You feel as if you’re ready to let go of something from the past, but aren’t quite sure yet how to move forward. Nevertheless, sweet Venus’ return to your sign enables you to get what you want in a relationship. Instead of trying to make progress on an old issue, concentrate on ways to transform your current stress into positive action. Improving the quality of your life in the here-and-now is more important than reaching a new destination.

Sagittarius Horoscope
Sagittarius Horoscope (Nov 22 – Dec 21)

You might choose to spend much of your day at home today, especially since Venus’ shift into your 12th House of Privacy makes solitude sound appealing. But postponing a fun social event may not be as good an idea as it seems, for you would benefit from the balance that being with friends will provide. Take control of your life by planning your schedule so you can make time to do it all.

Capricorn Horoscope
Capricorn Horoscope (Dec 22 – Jan 19)

It’s nearly impossible to guess what your future will look like by simply observing what’s happening right now. You are continuing on the same trajectory that brought you here, but now you have an opportunity to choose a destination of your liking. Just remember that the current transformations will be gradual and you don’t need to know where you’re heading just yet. Instead of being lured by all the potential today, take care of one practical task at a time.

Aquarius Horoscope
Aquarius Horoscope (Jan 20 – Feb 18)

You are driven to tell others exactly what you want today and are eager to get started. However, your ambitions may be more complicated than anyone realizes, making it more difficult to justify your goals. Keep in mind that your dreams don’t have to be public knowledge yet. Your personal choices are a private matter until you’re ready to reveal them.

Pisces Horoscope
Pisces Horoscope (Feb 19 – Mar 20)

Your hopes are high, but you may not know what to do now in order to reach your goals. With the dreamy Moon in your sign today, it’s not a good idea to put pressure on yourself to create a plan. Instead, just keep refocusing your attention on your ideal destination and make each decision based upon whether your response furthers your progress or not. This radical strategy requires you to trust in the universe; fortunately, having faith isn’t that difficult for you.

the daily humorscopes for sunday, october 9th

the daily humorscope 

Sunday, October 09, 2011

 
Aries (March 21 – April 19)
Arachnids will be especially troublesome today. Chances are only fair that you will make it through the day without tangling with one or more giant Amazonian tarantulas. Keep a stick within reach, is my advice. A big stick.
Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
Today you will conclusively prove that despite what most people regard as common knowledge, monkeys only rarely chase weasels around the mulberry bush. They normally engage in that sort of thing over by the petunias.
Gemini (May 21 – June 20)
You will be tickled without mercy, today. Oddly, you will not be able to see your assailant.
Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
Thrombosis. Beware. Also, your best friend will rush up and indicate by nonverbal means that Timmy is trapped under a log again.
Leo (July 23 – August 22)
It’s ok to whistle while you work. Your co-workers will draw the line at yodelling while you work, however. They’re probably just jealous.
Virgo (August 23 – September 22)
A good time to learn to laugh at yourself. Or, develop multiple personalities! That way you won’t be laughing at you, you’ll be laughing with you.
Libra (September 23 – October 22)
What are you looking here, for? You should be on a spaceship, sticking a fish in your ear. It’s not like you didn’t get enough hints. If you are vaporized, it’s your own darned fault, I’d say.
Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)
So, you’ve decided to have children. Congratulations! You, er, do know that giving birth has been somewhat unfavorably compared to pushing a flaming log through your nostril? Just thought I’d mention that.
Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)
Someone will try to give you an egg salad sandwich today. Refuse them. Be polite, yet firm.
Capricorn (December 22 – January 20)
Today you will be overcome with a sudden strong urge to learn to play a wooden flute while cavorting around in the forest. I recommend you treat those separately at first. You’ll find what you need under “Music, Instruction” and under “Cavorting, Instruction”. Don’t get talked into buying any cavorting supplies, though — they’re really only needed by professionals.
Aquarius (January 21 – February 18)
You will discover a new “5th law” of Thermodynamics. The first law says “you can’t win”. The second law says “you can’t break even”. The 5th law, however, says “never draw to an inside straight”.
Pisces (February 19 – March 20)
What you are about to do is wrong. Of course, you will only find that out much later. For now, enjoy yourself!

Have A Very Happy & Blessed Sunday, dear friends!

Days of the Week Comments

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble!  I’m the one in the middle cookin’ up brunch for my lady friends, lol! Actually, I have been toiling but it hasn’t been over a hot cauldron. I have finally linked the Goddess of the Month and the Herb of the Month. So if you have tried to click on them and nothing happened. Try it again. The reason I am running so late, dummy me didn’t bother to check which one I had already done. So guess what? I typed up another description of Onyx. I ought to know me by now and always double-check myself, lol!

 

 Well, my friends, I am going to run and get the dailys done. Then after that I am going to finish the topic of smudging. I had someone request information on smudging, so I was happy to supply it for them. If any of you have any topic you would like to know more about, please let me know. I actually enjoy doing things like this because I know someone is interested and trying to learn. So please don’t be bashful! Got to run for now!

 

 Blessings to you and yours,

Lady A 

Graphic from
~Magickal Graphics~

Goddess Of The Month

DEMETER

Goddess of grain and agriculture, pure Nourisher of youth and the green earth, health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of both marital fertility and the Sacred Law.

In Greek mythology, Demeter (Greek: “mother-earth” or possibly “distribution-mother” from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth) is the goddess of grain and agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of both marital fertility and the sacred law. She is invoked as the “bringer of seasons” in the Homeric hymn, a subtle sign that she was worshiped long before the Olympians arrived. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter has been dated to sometime around the seventh century B.C.E. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which also predate the Olympian pantheon. The Roman equivalent is Ceres, from whom the word “cereal” is derived.

Demeter is easily confused with Gaia or Rhea, and with Cybele. The goddess’ epithets reveal the span of her functions in Greek life. Demeter and Kore (“the maiden”) are usually invoked as to theo (‘”The Two Goddesses”), and they appear in that form in Linear B graffiti at Mycenaean Pylos in pre-classical times. A connection with the goddess-cults of Minoan Crete is quite possible.

According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, the greatest gifts that Demeter gave were cereal, which set humans apart from wild animals, and the mysteries, which give humankind higher hopes in this life and the next.

The Eleusinian Mysteries

Without a doubt, the most important role of Demeter was as a goddess of the Elusinian mystery religion. In this capacity, her primary function was to provide the cultic adherents with hope for eternal life (or a pleasant afterlife). Though little is known of the specifics of worship, it appears that it involved a hidden knowledge (gnosis) being shared by the participants:

The object of the [mystery] is to place the [participant] in a peculiarly close and privileged relation with the divinity or the deified spirit…. all of the members of the city, gens or household could freely join in the cult, if they were in the ordinary condition or ritualistic cleanliness; and the sacrifice that the priest performed for the state might be repeated by the individual, if he chose to do so, for his own purposes at his own house-altar. Both in the public and in the mystic service a sacrifice of some sort was requisite, and as far as we can see the religious conception of the sacrifice might be the same in both. But in the former the sacrifice with the prayer was the chief act in the ceremony, in the latter it was something besides the sacrifice that was of the essence of the rite; something was shown to the eyes of the initiated, something was done: thus the mystery[.]

These rites are one of the most compelling enigmas in human religious history, as the vow of secrecy that all participants were obliged to take has remained largely unbroken—meaning that many elements of these practices have been lost to the mists of time.

Demeter and Poseidon

Demeter and Poseidon’s names are linked in the earliest scratched notes in Linear B found at Mycenaean Pylos, where they appear as PO-SE-DA-WO-NE and DA-MA-TE in the context of sacralized lot-casting. The ‘DA‘ element in each of their names is seemingly connected to an Proto-Indo-European root relating to distribution of land and honors (compare Latin dare “to give”). Poseidon (his name seems to signify “consort of the distributor”) once pursued Demeter, in her archaic form as a mare-goddess. She resisted the sea king’s advances, but she could not disguise her divinity among the horses of King Onkios. Poseidon became a stallion and “covered” (read: violated) her. Demeter was literally furious (“Demeter Erinys”) at the assault, but washed away her anger in the River Ladon (“Demeter Lousia”). She bore to Poseidon a daughter, whose name could not be uttered outside the Eleusinian Mysteries, and a steed named Arion, with a black mane. In Arcadia, Demeter was worshiped as a horse-headed deity into historical times:

The second mountain, Mt. Elaios, is about 30 stades from Phigaleia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter Melaine [“Black”]… the Phigalians say, they accounted the cave sacred to Demeter, and set up a wooden image in it. The image was made in the following fashion: it was seated on a rock, and was like a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and serpents and other beasts grew out of her head. Her chiton reached right to her feet, and she held a dolphin in one hand, a dove in the other. Why they made the xoanon like this should be clear to any intelligent man who is versed in tradition. They say they named her Black because the goddess wore black clothing. However, they cannot remember who made this xoanon or how it caught fire; but when it was destroyed the Phigalians gave no new image to the goddess and largely neglected her festivals and sacrifices, until finally barrenness fell upon the land.

Demeter, Persephone and the Eleusinian Mysteries

The central myth of Demeter, which is at the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries, is her relationship with Persephone, her daughter through a dalliance with Zeus. In the tale, Persephone becomes the unwilling consort of Hades (Roman Pluto, the underworld god of wealth) and is taken from her mother’s side into her new spouse’s dusky kingdom. Demeter, distraught over the loss of her precious daughter, devoted the entirety of her time and attention to seeking her, which had the consequence of halting the progression of seasons. During her search, she had many additional adventures, though none of them were sufficient to distract her from her maternal concerns. Eventually, the situation on Earth grew so dire that Zeus found it necessary to intercede directly, imploring his brother to return Persephone to her mother. Before she was released, however, Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return to his realm for six months each year. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the earth flourished with vegetation. But for six months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. This myth, in addition to providing an aetiological explanation for the progression of the seasons, also explain the connection between Demeter/Persephone and the Eleusinian Mysteries (which were centered around the achievement of eternal life).

Demeter’s stay at Eleusis

While Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone, she found it expedient to adopt the guise of an old woman (Doso). In this form, she received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the king of Eleusis in Attica (and also Phytalus). He asked her to nurse Demophon and Triptolemus, his sons by Metanira.

As a gift to Celeus (in thanks for his hospitality), Demeter planned to make Demophon as a god, which was achieved by coating and anointing him with Ambrosia, breathing gently upon him while holding him in her arms and bosom, and by burning away his mortal spirit in the family hearth every night. Unfortunately, Demeter was unable to complete the ritual because one night Metanira (the child’s mother) walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright. This angered the fertility goddess, who lamented that foolish mortals did not understand the power of her ritual.

Instead of making Demophon immortal, Demeter chose instead to repay her host’s generosity by teaching Triptolemus the art of agriculture. From him, the rest of Greece learned to plant and reap crops.

Portrayals of Demeter

  • Demeter is usually portrayed on a chariot, is frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with Persephone.
  • Demeter is not generally portrayed with a consort, though the exception is Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with the goddess in a thrice-ploughed field and was sacrificed afterwards.
  • Demeter placed Aethon, the god of famine, in Erysichthon’s gut, making him permanently famished. This was a punishment for cutting down trees in a sacred grove.

Reference:

New World Encyclopedia

THISTLE

Folk Names: Lady’s Thistle, Thrissles

Gender: Masculine

Planet: Mars

Element: Fire

Deities: Thor, Minerva

Powers: Strength, Protection, Healing, Exorcism, Hex-Breaking

Magickal Uses: A bowl of thistles placed in a room strengthens the spirits and renews the vitality of all within it. Carry a thistle (or part of a thistle) for energy and strength.

Grown in the garden, thistles ward off thieves; grown in a pot and on the doorstep they protect against evil. A thistle blossom carried in the pocket guards it bearer. Thrown onto a fire, thistles deflect lightning away from the house.

If you have had a spell cast against you, wear a shirt made of fibers spun and woven from the thistle to break it and any other spells. Stuff hex-breaking poppets with thistles. Thistles are strewn in homes and other building to exorcise evil.

Thistles are also used in healing spellls, and when men carry it they become better lovers. Thistles also drive out melancholy when worn or carried.

Wizards in England used to select the tallest thistle in the patch to use as a magickal wand or walking stick. To call spirits, place some thistle in boiling water remove from heat and lie or sit beside it. As the steam rises call the spirit and listen carefully; they may answer your questions.

Reference:

Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs