Month: April 2012

Circle Stones

Circle Stones

Author: Crimson

I never realized the importance of rocks and crystals when I started on my path. Not really. I collected them for all sorts of reasons: they where pretty, or full of energy. Then as the years progressed, in my studies of the stones in the earth I realized each stone had everything from a number to energy to a point of view and sometimes even its own voice. Sounds crazy, the voice part, but when one studies the Druid arts one becomes passionate about listening.

My trial and error use of circle stones started many years ago. Call me an experimenter of sorts. I would simply place them on the altar, use the energy, and go about my business of casting the spell or ritual. Then I tried something within the past five years that got the stones to become part of the circle. I put one at each corner for each guardian, Like an offering, they were there for a specific energy. One night, I forgot my little rocks at their gates and I heard, yes I heard and felt, “you’re forgetting something; you’re forgetting us”. I didn’t think, went about the ritual, and nothing happened. A few more times, same thing: the guardians didn’t answer. Everything went wrong. So I put the stones back in the circle and instead started using colored ones for each gate. I didn’t realize the guardians had blessed those stones for protection. In fact it wasn’t until I got into a nasty bit with an old friend did I realize that my circle stones had hundreds of uses.

For example, in that nasty bit, a person one day psychically attacked me. I was in a whirlwind of mental pain and sick on my stomach. I grabbed up my stones and set them around my room and suddenly it was as though I had an energy circle about me. The guardians were right there to protect me, sending the energy back to where it came from. I have also learned carrying my smaller stones around in my pocket does the same thing. It’s a protective device, a gift from the other realms. There is a sense of calm relief that the gods are right here with me. Whenever I pick up a stone or gem, I can sense the guardian of that gate and the energy flowing through me for a specific need in a ritual.

It’s become a habit now. Whenever I do any ritual or spell work, I put up my circle stones. Although I did not ask for the blessing I realize it’s one of the greater gifts the guardians have given me.

To each gate I put a colored stone first — and glass works just as well sometimes better, because glass sometimes doesn’t have an attitude. (Yes, I’ve had rocks with attitude and they are angry stones that don’t want to be touched. They get hot in the hand, or I get a headache.) For East: citrine and amethyst work great (purple and yellow) . South: it’s carnelian and hematite (reds, golds, fire colors) . West: sodalite, clear quartz, or blue lace agate (blues and aqua) . For North: moss agate, aventurine (earthy colored stones) . Or to make it easy, clear quartz works for every gate. Colors help me remember where to place the stones but simply being sincere goes a long way with the guardians.

In another one of my experiments, I tried putting clear glass stones at the gate and then mixing them up next time I had circle until each guardian had touched it. They thus become part of the circle and the ritual and they will have hundreds of uses. The energy needed will always be there. To clean them, take the stones into the sun. All negativity will wash out and the good energy will stay behind.

Picking a stone, this became my first lesson, and I learned to be very picky with the stones because of the energy fields around me. Taking the stone in the left hand (if your right handed) or right (if your left handed) , pull the stone close to the chest and ask it silently (or out loud) if it wants to go home with you. If your body leans forward, then it’s a yes; if it leans backwards as though the body is pushed away, no. Stones are like fairies; they have simple answers for everything: yes and no. I have been in a stone shop and gone through them all wondering which stone is calling because they all seem to be saying no. It’s simple and fun.

For ritual uses, I learned that sometimes even my favorite stones could say no. The guardians seem to have more than an idea at what’s going on. Like I said, they are there, without my ever drawing down a circle or calling them. This works out great when going out into the wild or if a circle is being casted after dark and I can’t remember which way is east. For this, I use my clear stones and go on about my ritual work.

It’s taken me years to learn the right and wrong way of these small little stones. They want to be apart of the magic. They always have been there. I just didn’t realize when I started my circle work that they could go in more than one place. It really is a gift.

Footnotes:
Love is in the Earth
The big book of Stones
Twenty one lessons of Merlin

Growing Up Wyrrd

Growing Up Wyrrd

Author: Liofrun

Most of us have at one point or another heard a story from a fellow Pagan about growing up in a Christian family, being disillusioned with the religion they were assigned to and later converting. These stories are one of the more popular personal narratives of NeoPaganism, but we are entering an era when many of the elders of the modern Pagan movement are old or dead and not only have children, but grandchildren who have been raised with their particular flavour of Paganism. I suspect the narrative of NeoPaganism is about to change when these people who grew up Pagan start to tell their stories; however, there is yet another narrative not talked about or told as much as the “I grew up Christian” narrative, and that is the “I just came home” narrative. The latter is mine.

Being a convert can be tough, no doubt about it, and it can be particularly straining on relationships with nonPagan family members, and equally as straining on the convertee, especially when it comes to worldview. Pagans have a distinctly different worldview (a fundamental cognitive orientation that includes one’s views of society, philosophies, ethics, normative postulates, etc.) than that of Christians, who represent the majority narrative on worldview in the world. Many do not know how to deal with it, and many blanket Pagan terms over top of old Christian views they have internalised from being subjected to it for many years.

There are some of us however, who have never internalised the majority narrative, despite being subjected to it. Some time ago, I had the pleasure of reading Robin Artisson’s Reclaiming the Pagan Worldview, which, I think, while it has its flaws (i.e., the rejection of science-I believe this discounts all our ancestors’ work toward Academia) , is an indispensible tome of wisdom for the modern Pagan when it comes to thinking like a Pagan and being Pagan. I believe he is right when he speaks of “some people think that being Pagan is a matter of […] making a blanket rejection of their original beliefs” and not much else. I think many Heathens know it when we see it, and know the importance of seeing the world in a Heathen way, especially the hard polytheists. It is a distinct way of perceptualising the world around you and your experiences and merely placing Pagan terminology over top of internalised perceptualisations can severely stunt your understanding of and experience of Heathenism and Paganism.

Heathenism is not compatible with the Abrahamic worldview, the worldview many of us have been taught since birth, and still more have had it ground into us, forced internalisation from everything from the basics of belief in the supernatural to our modern understanding of secularism and societal philosophies. I agree with Artisson that we need to reclaim that Pagan worldview if we are going to be Pagans. Our ancestors created rich cultures of Pagan philosophy, schooling, democracy and secularism from a distinctly Heathen point of view. Our contemporaries have spent years studying, collaborating and providing us with historical and archaeological references, texts and reconstructions of these rich cultures. Their worldviews have also changed how we see the days of the week, and even how we see time. A Pagan worldview encompasses everything from religious rites to our perception of language and how time passes. To not work toward reclaiming it is to do ourselves, our ancestors and especially our descendents are grievous disservice. This is where my narrative comes in.

I did indeed grow up in a typical “Christian household” but the beliefs were never consistent. No one seemed to be able to decide what, if anything, he or she actually believed. They had more internalised the worldview of their Christian society and feared letting it go, and stepping out of the cage. On the other hand, I grew up spending time at my best friend’s house, whose mother was an Indigenous Wiccan. From my earliest memories I saw nature as sacred and in my dimmest, furthest reaches of childhood memory; I was an animist.

When my friend’s stepmother told me about Paganism, at the age of eight, I felt I had “come home”. Of all the attempts to scar me with Christian worldview, not a single one had succeeded to embed itself in my mind. My friend’s stepmother’s own syncretic views of religion had a much deeper impact and while I didn’t end up Wiccan (I often saw Christian baggage being dragged in. Christians in Pagans’ clothing, as it were, and I rejected it in favour of Reconstructionist paths) , today I still see the world in the same manner, and more so.

In my teenage years when I was just discovering who I was, I began to fear the constant press of Christianity both in the forefront and in my periphery and began to work hard everyday to affect my Wyrd and prevent me from ever internalising Christianity. While I no longer fear Christianity, at the time, my young mind felt it was a severely pressing issue. I sucked up the lore incessantly and constantly looked for patterns of Wyrd and Orlog in my everyday life. Indeed, discovering Theodism and Sinnsreachd and Celtic Recon even changed my views of what Heathenry was, and that not every Reconstructionist shares the same worldview, philosophies or ethics, despite the majority narrative within Heathenry being Ásatrú.

Discovering the concept of Wyrd opened my eyes to a way of seeing and understanding the world I had only the faintest, labelless, wordless glimmer of before. I discovered it in my grade 11 English class, reading a Michael Alexander translation of Beowulf. Beowulf became one of my most treasured tomes of lore for its attempt at interweaving an archaic Heathen worldview with a Christian one, and I felt what must have been the same conflict as did the Christian teller of the tale who added his own elements to what was otherwise a deeply Heathen epic. Christianity, in my natural and carefully cultivated Heathen worldview, was morbid, self-serving and deeply confused about its own ethics. They were too focused on death and on purposeful suffering, and indeed I saw all the Christians in my life suffering in ways I could not empathise with because I had never internalised the shame and the obsession with death that forced them into their continual fear and gloom. And this is often what I see in contemporary Heathens who espouse a distinctly Christian flavour coming from being a convert, or even the children of converts. I see it less so with the “came home” narrative, those of us who had a way of perceiving our world and only later found names for it.

I would advise studying the lore, the history and especially the philosophies of not just our ancestors but the ancestors and elders of all Heathen paths and I would advise deeply connecting it to our everyday life on a daily basis. Heathenry isn’t a Sunday sacrifice, or merely posting on Ásatrú Lore once a week, it’s a way of life, it is how you see the sun when it rises, how you drive to work on a Monday, how you effect your Wyrd with every choice you make. Heathenry is who a Heathen is. No one ever said it was easy, but it’s certainly necessary.

Footnotes:
Sharples, R. W. “Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics: An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy [Paperback].” Amazon.com: Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics: An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy (9780415110358) : R.W. Sharples: Books. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. .

Artisson, Robin, “Reclaiming the Pagan Worldview.” Scribd. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. .

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’ for April 25th

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

There seems to be two important things to do in times of difficulty. One is to pray and the other to keep our sense of humor. The first is essential to make the basic correction and the other is necessary to balance the human spirit while things work out.

Without a sense of humor, we tend to become too serious about the personal self. It becomes all too important, too self-righteous, and far too self-centered.

At the first sign of trouble, we may want to find someone wiser in whom to confide and ask questions. And their advice may be most helpful, but it is still our own responsibility to get off our backs and do it with dignity and self-respect that will not lower our standards nor cause us embarrassment. And humor can help us do it.

There is humor in every situation if we can detach ourselves from the seriousness of it long enough to look for it. Abraham Lincoln knew the importance of his sense of humor and said, “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

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Available online! ‘Cherokee Feast of Days’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler.

Visit her web site to purchase the wonderful books by Joyce as gifts for yourself or for loved ones……and also for those who don’t have access to the Internet: http://www.hifler.com
Click Here to Buy her books at Amazon.com

Elder’s Meditation of the Day
By White Bison, Inc., an American Indian-owned nonprofit organization. Order their many products from their web site: http://www.whitebison.org

Elder’s Meditation of the Day April 25

Elder’s Meditation of the Day April 25

“Each person’s prayers can help everyone.”

–Thomas Yellowtail, CROW

Prayer is our entrance into the Unseen World. It is by prayer we can call upon the powers and laws of the Great Spirit. The Spirit World has powers and laws that are different from the Physical World. The spiritual laws allow healing to take place; they allow forgiveness to occur; they cause miracles to happen; they cause hate to disappear; they heal broken relationships; they guide every moment of our lives; they allow us to love even when it’s hard. Prayer allows us access to the Spirit World.

Creator, teach me to pray.

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April 25 – Daily Feast

April 25 – Daily Feast

The wild pink verbena that grew so profusely along the slopes have moved to another area. In their place are yellow flowers, unfamiliar but like sunshine after a shower. A familiar saying is that the more something changes the more it stays the same. Flowers, like people and circumstances, change so swiftly and unexpectedly that it seems like the very foundation of the familiar is moving and changing before us. The Cherokees call this a ma yi, creek water. It is always moving and changing before our eyes. Nature reminds us to renew our minds – to update and enlarge our vision instead of accepting the daily changes of the world that come to nothing. No one has ever been so perfect that he cannot surpass himself and bloom more brilliantly in another area.

~ When we lift our hands we signify our dependence on the Great Spirit. ~

BLACKFOOT

‘A Cherokee Feast of Days’, by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

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Daily Motivator for April 25th – Keep moving

Keep moving

When your efforts bring the results you seek and also when they don’t, keep moving. Welcome the achievements with humility, welcome the setbacks with confidence, and keep moving.

Don’t use success as an excuse to rest on your accomplishments. Don’t use failure as an excuse to give up.

Whatever has happened before, your best choice now is to keep moving, keep learning, keep making the effort, and keep improving. Build new value with what does work, and accumulate valuable experience from what doesn’t work.

When you realize you’ve been distracted and wandered off course, don’t let it get you down. Just accept where you are, figure out the best way forward, and quickly get going again.

When you’re standing still or being pushed backward, you have no control over what happens to you. Keep moving, because the way to control your direction is to have some direction, and the more assertively you move, the more control you have.

Life’s abundance is all around you, and each day brings new opportunities for fulfillment. Use every day to keep moving, and bring your best possibilities to life.

— Ralph Marston

The Daily Motivator

Daily OM for April 25th – The Power of the Circle

The Power of the Circle
Uniting in Thought and Action

When we are in circle with others, the energy stays contained within the group giving back to all. 

 

There are many reasons for why a gathering of people in a circle is powerful. A circle is a shape that is found repeatedly throughout the natural world, and it is a symbol of perfection. We recreate this perfect shape when we join others to form a circle. Being in a circle allows us experience each other as equals. Each person is the same distance apart from the next participant, and no one is seated higher than or stands apart from others in a circle. From tribal circles to the mythical round table of King Arthur, the circle has been the shape adopted by gatherings throughout history.

The circle is acknowledged as an archetype of wholeness and integration, with the center of a circle universally understood to symbolize Spirit – the Source. When a group of people come together in a circle, they are united. This unity becomes even more powerful when each person reaches out to touch a neighbor and clasps hands. This physical connection unites thought and action, mind and body, and spirit and form in a circle. Because a circle has no beginning and no end, the agreement to connect in a circle allows energy to circulate from one person to the next, rather than being dissipated into the environment.

Like a candle used to light another candle, the connection with spirit that results when one person joins hands with another is greater than if each person were to stand alone. People who take part in a circle find that their power increases exponentially while with the group. Like a drop of water rippling on the surface of a pond, the waves of energy produced in a circle radiate outward in circular motion. While one person may act like a single beacon that emanates light, a circle of people is like a satellite dish that sends out energy. There is power in numbers, and when the commitment is made by many to face one another, clasp hands, and focus on one intention, their circle emanates ripples of energy that can change the world.

Precious Pup of the Day for April 25th

Name: Rocky
 Age: Eighteen months old
Gender: Male Breed: Boston Terrier
Home: St-Jerome, Quebec, Canada
Rocky is a Boston Terrier dog that is owned by Daniel. Like a typical Boston Terrier breed, he is friendly, alert, expressive and playful. He generally doesn’t bark except when necessary. He really likes to play with the balls and toys. He really enjoys going at the park to run fast, to expend energy and to play with balls. Every time we come home from work or anywhere, he is really happy to see us and wants to play.We think he is a very cute black and white Boston Terrier. He really likes to stay with his owners to play and he also likes to play with everyone, even with the cats. He is friendly with all other dogs, too. He likes to go for a walk and explore everything. He loves to go for car rides and going to the drive-in for watching movies. We really love Rocky and he is like our baby. He even inspired us to create a website for Boston Terriers!He is our first Boston Terrier and the first dog we have had. We decided to get him because we were interested in having a dog. We had seen some video and pictures of Boston Terriers and we thought that they were really beautiful and fun dog so we started learning more about the breed. We discovered that we found the perfect dog breed for us. The tricks he have learned so far are to sit, lay down and shake each paw. For his favorite games he likes to play, he likes to play baseball with us. He also likes to fetch sticks and he really likes to chew them. He also like to come camping with us and going for a canoe rides.

Because there is a cold winter season in Quebec, Canada and the Bostons don’t have long fur, we found it is a good thing to protect him from the cold weather by getting him a leather jacket and some hoodies. He fares well in the cold weather, but when it’s too cold he prefer going back inside where it’s warm. He doesn’t like spending too much time outside when it’s cold, but like us he likes the snow and everything else about winter.

Rocky, the Dog of the Day
See more images of Rocky!

Special Kitty of the Day for April 25th

Name: Milly
 Age: Six years old
Gender: Female
 Kind: Seal Point Siamese
Home: Vermont, USA
Meet Milly, she’s my beautiful blue-eyed apple head Seal Point Siamese Cat. I got her and her daughter Izzy in 2008 after my cat Samantha went to the Rainbow Bridge after twenty wonderful years with me. Milly’s former owners used to breed Siamese cats and they were moving out of state and could only take two cats with them. Milly came with fleas and worms and a big desire to be outside hunting. It took a while but she adjusted to being a happy indoor cat who is leash trained and allowed outside only with supervision. She even got used to sharing her house with two pet mice and a couple of Betta fish (the only casualty was a packet or two of Betta fish food.)Milly is special because she is a typical loud-mouthed Siamese cat. She is a real motormouth and we have lots of long, deep conversations with her. She lets you know what she wants and when she wants it.(usually it is right now!) She is a great lap kitty and has a very loud purr to go with her loud mouth. She can be a quirky cat, she loves being rubbed all over, loves playing with her catnip toys and just loves food of all kinds! Milly is very direct in letting you know just what she wants, she will not be ignored, she will meow, headbutt you, try to trip you and even poke you on the nose with her paw if you don’t give her what she wants. Usually it is food or a supervised trip out in the yard but sometimes she just wants extra love and attention which we are more than happy to give her.

Milly, the Cat of the Day
See more images of Milly!

This Day In History, Wednesday, April 25th

Today In History. What Happened This Day In History

A Timeline Of Events That Occurred On This Day In History

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

April 25

1590   The Sultan of Morocco launches a successful attack to capture Timbuktu.
1644   The Ming Chongzhen emperor commits suicide by hanging himself.
1707   At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeat the Anglo-Portugese forces.
1719   Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe is published in London.
1792   The guillotine is first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.
1859   Work begins on the Suez Canal in Egypt.
1862   Admiral Farragut occupies New Orleans, Louisiana.
1864   After facing defeat in the Red River Campaign, Union General Nathaniel Bank returns to Alexandria, Louisiana.
1867   Tokyo is opened for foreign trade.
1882   French commander Henri Riviere seizes the citadel of Hanoi in Indochina.
1898   The United States declares war on Spain.
1915   Australian and New Zealand troops land at Gallipoli in Turkey.
1925   General Paul von Hindenburg takes office as president of Germany.
1926   In Iran, Reza Kahn is crowned Shah and chooses the name “Pehlevi.”
1926   Puccini’s opera Turandot premiers at La Scala in Milan with Arturo Toscanini conducting.
1938   A seeing eye dog is used for the first time.
1945   U.S. and Soviet forces meet at Torgau, Germany on Elbe River.
1951   After a three day fight against Chinese Communist Forces, the Gloucestershire Regiment is annihilated on “Gloucester Hill,” in Korea.
1953   The magazine Nature publishes an article by biologists Francis Crick and James Watson, describing the “double helix” of DNA.
1956   Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” goes to number one on the charts.
1959   The St. Lawrence Seaway–linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes–opens to shipping.
1960   The first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth is completed by a Triton submarine.
1962   A U.S. Ranger spacecraft crash lands on the Moon.
1971   The country of Bangladesh is established.
1980   President Jimmy Carter tells the American people about the hostage rescue disaster in Iran.
1982   In accordance with the Camp David agreements, Israel completes a withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula.
1990   Violeta Barrios de Chamorro begins a six year term as Nicaragua’s president.
Born on April 25
1214   Louis IX, king of France (1226-1270).
1284   Edward II, king of England (1307-1327).
1599   Oliver Cromwell, lord protector of England (1653-1658).
1873   Howard R. Garis, children’s writer.
1873   Walther de la Mare, poet and novelist (Memoir of a Midget, Come Hither).
1874   Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist, inventor of the radio.
1892   Maud Hart Lovelace, children’s author.
1908   Edward R. Murrow, war correspondent and newscaster.
1912   Gladys L. Presley, mother of Elvis Presley.
1914   Ross Lockridge, Jr., novelist (Raintree Country).
1917   Ella Fitzgerald, American singer.

Historynet.com

Daily Correspondences for Wednesday, April 25th

Your Daily Correspondences for Wednesday, April 25th

Magickal Intentions: Communication, Divination, Writing, Knowledge, Business Transactions, Debt, Fear,Loss, Travel and Money Matters
Incense: Jasmine, Lavender, Sweet Pea
Planet: Mercury
Sign: Virgo
Angel: Raphael
Colors: Orange, Light Blue, Grey, Yellow and Violet
Herbs/Plants: Fern, Lavendar, Hazel, Cherry, Periwinkle
Stones: Aventurine, Bloodstone, Hematite, Moss Agate and Sodalite
Oil: (Mercury) Benzoin, Clary Sage, Eucalytus, Lavender

This day is governed by Mercury. Wednesday’s vibration adds power to rituals involving inspiration, communications, writers, poets, the written and spoken word, and all matters of study, learning, and teaching. This day also provides a good time to begin efforts involving self-improvement or understanding.

Wicca Book of Days for April 25 – Banishing Blight

The Wicca Book of Days for April 25th

Banishing Blight

April 25 was the date on which the Robigalia was celebrated in ancient Rome. Although it is uncertain whether this festival was dedicated to Robigo, a Goddess, or Robigus, a God – or to both of them – because both deities were associated with mildew, or rust, its purpose was certainly propitiatory. Rituals that were thought to curry divine approval and thus ensure that vines and cereal crops remained unblighted by the rust to which they were vulnerable at this time of year included sacrificing a sheep and rust-colored dog at a sacred grove by the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia.

Offer Aid

A traditional Hungarian practice on this day is to bring a green wheat shoot in from the field to be blessed by a priest. Crop failure is a recurring problem in many countries, so consider offering help through a charitable organizations.

Today’s Affirmation, Thought & Meditation for April 25

Today’s Affirmation for Wednesday, April 25th

I juggle the demands of my life with grace, catching balls that give me purpose and putting down, without guilt or anxiety, those that drain my energy.

 

Today’s Thought for Wednesday, April 25th

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of so much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 62)

 

Today’s Meditation for Wednesday, April 25th

Karmic Law

Within many wisdom paths is the belief that life is governed by Karma – the spiritual law of cause and effect. This law states that our actions in this life dictate the rewards we will receive in the next. Close your eyes and spend a few minutes considering how your actions impact on your own life and the lives of those around you. How would your life differ if you strived to be kind, generous and thoughtful at all times? Good Karma depends upon pure intentions, so it is important to try to release any thoughts of self-gain as a result of your good actions. Resolve that from now on you will make an effort to respond to all situations, whether easy or difficult, with consideration for others and generosity of spirit.

Calendar of the Moon for Wednesday, April 25

Calendar of the Moon
25 Saille/Mounukhion

Day of Eros

Color: Pink
Element: Air
Altar: Upon a cloth of pink set a bow and arrows, two pink candles, incense of roses and violets, a pitcher of fruit juice, and a plate of pink cakes.
Offerings: Give affection to someone. Try to help a couple who are struggling with romantic problems, although this must be done with no agenda as to their fate together.
Daily Meal: Sweet things. Fruit.

Invocation to Eros

Hail, winged one, Lord of Love!
We do not always welcome you
Into our busy lives as we should,
For you have no regard for
Our convenience, our rules,
But simply see each of us
As another target for love.
Sometimes, when you come, we rejoice.
Sometimes, when you come, we weep.
Yet even when your arrows
Are painful and agonizing,
Even when we lie awake at night
Aching from the wounds you have dealt us,
We must remember that all love
Is truly a blessing, no matter
Where it starts or ends,
No matter what its path or means,
No matter whether it must live unsung
And die unborn in our hearts
Or whether it can run freely
Hand in hand with the love of another.
Bless us with your wounds, winged one,
As you have endured love,
And made mistakes, so you will
Have patience with us as we
Fumble our way through your maze.

Chant: Love is a river,
Flowing from my heart, flowing from my heart.
(Each steps forward and touches an arrow point to their heart, saying, “I am open to love.” The fruit juice and cakes are passed around, and the remainder is offered as a libation for Eros.)

[Pagan Book of Hours]

Calendar of the Sun for Wednesday, April 25

Calendar of the Sun
25 Eostremonath

Walpurgisnacht Day III

Color: Grey
Element: Air
Altar: Upon a grey cloth set three candles, a bowl of dust, the runes Thorn and Haegl, and a battered knapsack.
Offerings: Help those who are homeless.
Daily Meal: Fasting today, from the night before until today’s Hesperis.

Walpurgisnacht Invocation III

Odhinn the wanderer, once Lord of Asgard,
Once Keeper of Valhalla, once All-Father of gods,
Traveled the dusty roads of Midgard,
Dust for his meals and dust in his eyes,
And the folk of Midgard looked upon him
And saw only an old beggar,
And when he asked them for a meal,
Many threw stones, many threw curses,
And a few threw a crust of bread,
And counted themselves generous.
When he asked them for a drink,
Many threw stones, many threw curses,
And a few gave him a dipperful from a horse-trough,
And counted themselves generous.
When he asked them for a place to sleep,
Many threw stones, many threw curses,
And a few showed him to a pile of moldy hay,
And counted themselves generous.
When he asked them for work,
Many threw stones, many threw curses,
And a few set him to cleaning pigsties,
And counted themselves generous.
So was the Lord of Asgard served
By the folk of Midgard who saw him,
Not knowing that it was the Lord of the Aesir
At whom their stones were aimed.
And so Odhinn suffered, and made the first sacrifice:
Understanding what it is to have no home,
And count Midgard’s folk against you.

(Today, those who have no home should be invited in for a meal while the House fasts, or else the meal should be taken to another place for them to eat. Silence for the day while alone.)

[Pagan Book of Hours]

The Current Moon Phase For April 25 – Waxing

Moon Phases: New Moon

(waxing/0-45 degrees)

by Jan Spiller

The New Moon is a time best suited to making new beginnings! For the first 48 hours following the exact time of the New Moon each month, a window of opportunity opens for making wishes that, if written down, come true in the days and months ahead. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm in the atmosphere and a feeling of Springtime. This is a great time to go forward and begin projects that you feel instinctively attracted to initiating. Follow your impulses and let yourself make new starts in areas that are important to you.

Your Daily Cosmic Calendar for April 25th

As mentioned at the end of yesterday’s calendar entry, Juno squaring Mars (1:50AM PDT) is no picnic when it comes to finding stability on the romantic front. After Tuesday’s Sun-Juno 150-degree contact and Moon-Venus conjunction, it appeared that love vibrations might be increasing in frequency. However, Juno at loggerheads with Mars is nothing to look down on or ignore. Be on your best behavior with dear ones who count on your kindness and support every day. Adding to today’s possible misery index is Mercury square to underworld-ruling Pluto (7:52AM PDT) – where communications, travel plans and business negotiations can go awry. Don’t make matters worse by bullying others or being exceedingly stubborn. Another long void lunar cycle checks in at 1:32PM PDT when the Moon trines Saturn in air signs. This lunar twilight zone lasts for 9+ hours and eventually ends at 10:43PM PDT. Finish old business instead of implementing bold plans even though the urge toward innovation is strong when the Sun makes a 30-degree connection with radical-change agent Uranus (8:13PM PDT). Once the Moon enters Cancer (10:43PM PDT) – the sign of its natural abode – home and family issues top the charts over the next 2+ days.

The Magickal Aspect

The Magickal Aspect

 

by George D. Jackson

The condition of aspect, in the magickal sense, is a state of mind or space that an adept shifts into prior to performing magickal operations. Another way of looking at aspect is as an internalized mental, emotional and spiritual change from ordinary reality to a highly personal space where magick works. As such, it is a state of personal transformation. It can be described in several ways, but nothing substitutes for experience.

Aspect is developed through magickal education and practice that over time is layered into the unconscious mind. In this article, I am going to use the Hawaiian Huna paradigm as a model, with its concept of three levels of self. In this paradigm, the high self is the most evolved state and has the power to directly influence universal forces as well as aid the middle and basic selves. The middle self is one’s consciously aware state, tasked with making reasoned decisions and helping to direct the evolution of the basic self. The primal basic self generates emotions, stores all memory and runs the autonomic nervous system, as well as providing energy derived from the external environment to both the high and middle selves. In the Huna paradigm, this energy is often called mana.

Now, back to aspect. When the conscious self decides to develop an aspect, the subconscious or basic self adds emotional context to this conscious effort, and frequently the aspect develops a persona of its own. This development is akin to the psychological condition of multiple personalities, with the exception being that the conscious personality can directly interact with the aspect. Because aspects are usually constructed around a particular emphasis, an adept can have more than one of them, even though the aspects may share several attributes. Such attributes are powers and abilities that are developed and exercised by an aspect and are often derived from the high self.

Developing a magickal aspect is an act of Will. The original statement of intent goes something like, “I will become a magick user!” Some pathworking is then done, as a person sorts through the varieties of magick he or she can learn about and selects the particular type with the most personal appeal. When this decision is made, the person applies a layering of education and magickal practice, and the unconscious, high and basic selves respond by creating an aspect. We often give this persona a magickal name.

If the individual doing this has an enthusiasm for mythic or science fiction literature, the unconscious may include some of this information in the persona of the aspect, which can cause some of the aspect’s character traits to be quite different from the adept’s normal personality. Also, if study and practice diverge enough from the approach that created the original aspect, the unconscious may start producing an additional aspect keyed to the new approach. For example, in ordinary reality many of us have two aspects, one for home and one for work.

Once an aspect is established, how is it accessed by the conscious mind? Initially, meditation and trance are two of the most common techniques. Employing these, one sinks deeper into aspect. Attitude, perceptions and feelings of personal power shift and take hold, and suddenly one is there. If one persists in this practice, a time usually arrives when aspect can be assumed by conscious volition or exposure to various rituals. One of the primary goals of many initiations is to activate aspect and strengthen it.

I would like to address some negatives that can occur that can seriously effect the aspect. During our lifetimes, most of us have had or will encounter difficult or unfortunate experiences in our “consensus reality” or what we sometimes call the real world. How we relate and react to these events will have a direct effect on our magick-using ability. To quote from Peter J. Carroll’s PsyberMagick:

“Never give a wand to anyone who cannot handle ordinary reality. Magick will tend to amplify whatever tendencies a person has. It will increase general incompetence in life, just as readily as it will augment competence. The best orders and the best books on magick make the neophyte work very hard to gain anything. For, in brutal fact, nothing of any value comes from involving people who do not pursue excellence for its own sake in magick. Magick does not offer an escape from ordinary reality; rather it offers a full-on confrontation with it, which one can easily lose.”

Keeping the above in mind, I will offer some suggestions on how to avoid some of the more obvious entanglements. The first is to consider the various difficulties that we encounter in life as challenges that we are going to overcome no matter what. If this sounds like psycho-babble, please remember that for the mentally and emotionally prepared, it works. If you are a competent magick user you should be analyzing both your mental and emotional areas as an ongoing process. Along with this process should go a willingness to make necessary changes in approach to both magick and consensus reality. Also, maintaining a high level of self-confidence can frequently divert some of the more difficult situations, where possible.

A magick user should also avoid being classified as a “victim.” The oldest definition of victim is “subject for sacrifice.” Allowing a victim persona to invade your aspect can strip you of power like pouring water out of a bucket. All too often what fills the vacancy is a sense of isolation and a state of increased vulnerability. Once established, this state is hard to displace, leading to further complications. Also, this state of mind seems to attract the more predatory portion of the population, which doesn’t help matters.

As the reader can probably tell by now, I find the act of naming someone a victim appalling and accepting the appellation equally dismaying. It literally robs a person of humanity and turns him or her into a thing. It also has a tendency to invoke the ugly emotion we call pity. This is a state of sorrow for something dark having occurred, mixed with contempt for being so weak and ineffectual as to have allowed it to happen. When it comes to the victim’s condition, there is such a thing as effective denial. Use it!

Seeking Shelter in the Trees

Seeking Shelter in the Trees

 

by Catherine Harper

I have always been fascinated by the forests and mountains–the architecture, it seemed, of the earth itself, which rose around me and held up the heavens. From the house I grew up in, I could see the peaks over the lake, and I watched the sun rise first behind one, then another, through the progression of the year. Those mornings, it looked as if someone had ripped away darkness from the sky, making way for dawn but leaving a ragged edge of night–the mountains–clinging to the land.

When I was a child and dreamed, as children do, of running away, I dreamed of running to the Cascades, and of living in the woods by myself. The details of the story I would tell myself changed; one time I might do so as a child, another as an adult. Sometimes I would imagine myself in a tiny cabin, with a woodstove against the cold, other times living in a burrow camouflaged by trees and bushes.

While my fascination with the idea of living off the land has not changed, my ideas regarding its practicality certainly have. I couldn’t fit all of my books into the tiny cabin, and Internet connectivity would be chancy. Living at higher elevation shortens the growing season, lengthens the commute and leaves one far from the urban centers of liberal culture… I won’t even go into the logistical problems of living in a burrow. I haven’t entirely given up on the idea of a cabin in the woods, but if I ever achieve it, I suspect it will be a tamer and less permanent retreat.

But the seed of my childhood stories is still with me. As long as I can remember them, mountains and forests, in my mind and heart, have been a place of refuge.

When I was in college, I studied Kazakh language and culture and ran into a similar theme of mountains as places of safety. “My heart to the mountains…” went the saying, as I remember it. The Kazakhs were a nomadic people who did not shelter behind walls or fortresses other than those that nature had provided.

There is a story of a tribe that was being chased by enemies intent on killing them who fled–families, herds and all–into the Altai Mountains. On they went for days, but still their pursuers came behind them. Finally, they saw before them a she-wolf, and perhaps in memory of the long stories of friendship between wolves and their people, or perhaps just out of desperation, they followed her.

She led them into what seemed a narrow cleft, but on entering it they found a sizable cave, stretching back deep into the bowels of the mountain. Quickly, before their foes could catch up enough to see them, they and their animals all followed as the wolf led them deep inside.

On and on the cave went, and so they continued for days in the dark except for the small lights they could carry with them, straining always to see the sliver glints off the coat of the wolf ahead of them. In the darkness the children cried and the parents comforted them, but in the quiet of their own hearts they despaired of ever seeing the day again. And yet, what could they do but go forward, when behind them was certain death?

But at last the darkness of the long cave began to fade, imperceptibly at first, like the sky lightens before dawn. By stages they walked into dusk and then twilight, and then into dawn as they could see ahead of them an opening filled with daylight. When at last they emerged, they found that they had come to a long valley around a lake, lush with thick grass and sheltered on all sides by the mountains, a place where they and their children and their children’s children could live.

My mountains are not the rocky faces of the Altai range above the steppe, but always-green places, netted with rivers and frosted with snow, roofed with the green canopy of cedar boughs held aloft on their straight and sturdy pillars. Almost instinctively, now that I am grown and can drive myself, I go to them when I am troubled and the human world around me seems too turbulent.

There is a point, whether I am in a car or on foot, where I stop and look back behind me and see mountains there, too–mountains on all sides. And at such times it is as though I can cease to strain to hold a great weight, because I have no fear of falling with the mountains around me to hold me up. The very ground cradles my feet. The mountains are ancient and vast. Bigger than me, older than me, they were born of fire and molten rock and survived the advance and retreat of glaciers. There is nothing they do not know about enduring.

Compared to the bony ridges of the earth (if not to me) the trees are more fragile, and yet more brightly alive. They have sunk their roots into the land and know always which way to grow–dancing, sometimes, in the wind and singing their long, slow songs. Trees live a span that is closer to that of human years, and yet how differently they use space, how differently they consume and grow.

And so I come, one afternoon, to an impromptu hike in the sleet. There is symmetry in walking up toward a waterfall that is coming down toward you. Where the sun reaches the ground, the Siberian miner’s lettuce (a wonderful salad green, and good source of vitamin C) is leafing out, and the salmon berries are opening their early magenta flowers.

Before me, behind me and all around are the mountains, though the trail I’m hiking is relatively low and free of snow even this early in the year. In the thick woods there is less ground-level greenery. This is old growth. About me there are wooden columns that three of me could not reach around. They stretch toward the heavens, and fallen trees draw diagonal lines, caught by their living neighbors in their fall.

On the ground is a thick carpet of dead, gray fallen needles and branches, and the contours of trees that have completed their journey to the ground, some adorned now with saplings that draw nourishment from the rotting wood. A forest that is at once imperceptibly but inexorably springing into life and collapsing back into decay.

When I was a child, I imagined the forest to be a place of physical refuge that would hide me, feed me, supply my needs and protect me from the outside world. As I have grown, my relationship with that outside world has changed, so perhaps it is only expected that the nature of the refuge I seek has changed as well.

When I go to the mountains and into the forest, I am setting aside for a while the mental structure of all the things in the world to which I am tied; giving up for a space my name, my calendar, my shopping list and due dates, my friends, family and acquaintances, the model in my head of all the places that are part of my world and that I return to so often that they are mapped into my mind. I am not seeking to cut myself free from this web, but to step aside from it and its demands and see it from another place. In the forest, I am confronted with places where the touch of human hands and feet has been slight, where the cycles are not set by our minds. Not my project, or process, but the fundamental reality of rock, twig, puddle and tree.