The Law of Return

by Amanda Silvers

The threefold law of return: We hear much about this, but do we really comprehend the meaning? What you put out comes back times three (or more), means unequivocally that, good or bad, you reap what your actions have sown.

How do we define “putting something out”? A thought, a deed, a word are all actions that contain energy. Think about this: If you disburse money willingly, with the focus that you are contributing to the prosperity of the community, the prosperous energy returns to you. Not always in the exact way that you want; sometimes in the most unexpected ways!

If you choose to live in lack, feel like there is never an adequate amount of anything and attempt to hoard and hold onto everything, the flow stops. It’s akin to putting a dam on the energy flow. If you are broke, give a little away, whether it’s time or energy or money. Doing so will create a vacuum effect, which will then help to get the flow started back toward you instead of away from you.

Money is only paper with numbers on it, it is used to represent energy. You expend your energy for some of it and then give it away for something someone else put energy into. Just like everything else, it goes around in a never-ending cycle; there is an ebb and flow to it. Sometimes you have more, sometimes less, but there is always a coming and going of cash; that’s why it’s called cash flow!

This philosophy also works in other areas of life, love for instance. Do you suppose that you have only a limited amount of love? Is it to be rationed out as you go through life? Will you run out? I think not. The more affection you give, the more you generate, the more you experience, the more you give! Just like that. The cycle turns the wheel.

Try this in another area. Have you ever been frightened of having something happen and then had it happen just as you hoped it would not? Or have you ever said “I will never ______ (fill in the blank)” and found yourself doing just that shortly thereafter? Magickal components are a part of everyday life. You have an intent, put emotion (energy) into it, take action and bring it into being. You begin to create with nothing more than a word or thought. It works remarkably well for those things that you say never about, because you feel intensely about them and put a lot of energy into them. What do you think would have more power: “I wish I could win the lottery!” or “I will never have enough money!”?

Your subconscious mind does not recognize the word “not”; it’s a non-word. When you say “I do not want to do that,” it is a direct command to your brain; you are basically saying that you really do want to do whatever it is. If someone says to you, “I do notwant to hurt you,” be careful!

If you sit around all the time, agonizing about your bills, your job, your health, your love life… what kind of energy are you putting out? How might that energy be contributing in a magickal sense to your circumstances? Would you do a spell to get a job you hate, or to get into a bad relationship? Of course not! So why sit around and put energy into negative crap when you could be furthering your positive wishes? The universe is a bountiful place; the Goddess is generous with her gifts. There is plenty for all. Does this ring true for you? If not, you might ask yourself, “Why not?” What beliefs that you hold to be true are sabotaging you?

“Try” is another one of my pet peeves. When a person says they will try to do something, it is just an excuse for not doing it, as in “I tried! I just couldn’t.” Think about what you say. Instead of saying “I will try,” see how much power there is in actually committing. Say “I will do it!” Also, how much power is there in saying no to those things you really don’t intend to do. Wow, what an enormous amount of energy you free up by just saying no in the first place! Then you don’t have to worry till the last minute whether you should actually do it, then have to make an excuse for not doing it – not to mention maybe having to do something you’d really rather not. You will find people will respect you more and value your energy more when you can be believed and counted upon to do what you say, as well as for your being in control of your boundaries.

Finally, be careful what you wish upon someone else, because just as positive thoughts come back to you, so do the negative ones aimed at others. Don’t wish on someone else something you would not like to have happen to you and yours. Be careful of those things said thoughtlessly or in jest. How might you feel if the nasty thought you thought when you were angry at your friend or mate were to happen?

Make your statements in the positive. Strive to be conscious of your every thought and word and the energy around them. Focus on the here and now and what’s happening. If you can accomplish this, the law of return will work in your favor and only good things will come to you.

Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it!

Raising Magickal Power

by Harley Hashman

Webster’s dictionary defines power as “…the ability to do or act…” or as “…strength or energy…”. Some might say that magick and power are synonymous; after all, magick without any power is nothing at all. I think Crowley’s definition of magick is perhaps the best of all (despite what you might think of the man himself) – magick is the ability to compel change to occur in conformity with the will. Therefore power is the level of this conformity which your magick achieves.

What are some of the means of raising and increasing magickal power? I have thought long and hard on this question. There are several principles which will aid the magician in the raising of energy. There is conservation, timing, visualization, emotion, will, the use of deities, and physical conditioning.

The first principle is simply conservation. If you expend energy that might be saved and employed in magickal workings, you won’t have much potency left. I myself have a terrible temper at times and might burn off a great deal of energy cursing at that chair that leapt across my path and made me stub my toe – or that ferret that just splattered chocolate pudding all over my book of shadows, after yanking all of the bristles from my witch’s broom and scattering them all over my living room rug. Some of us might waste energy in needless worrying.

Other emotions which may be destructive to magickal workings are jealousy, rancor, envy, self-pity, and depression. Emotions arise from thought, not perception – we process our perceptions of the world and then generate these feelings. Our internal dialogue reinforces our emotional responses to the world. If we practice clearing our heads of habitual thought patterns, we can minimize this source of waste. Should we find ourselves about to waste power in useless emotional habits, about to agitate ourselves needlessly, we can enter into a state of mental silence or try to divert the course of our mental dialogue.

Some habits may lead to the consumption of our energy, including smoking, alcoholism, arguing, oversleeping, judging others or excessive criticism, complaining or whining, and self-importance. I have met many witches, sorcerers, and magicians who practice such habits (self-importance being epidemic); that badly compromises not only their ability to focus power but how other practitioners view them. An important principle of all magickal practice is self-knowledge. It is much more difficult to raise significant amounts of power without this understanding, as we can then be trapped in mental patterns that deplete our resources without the tools to break free.

Timing of magickal workings is also important. The use of lunar cycles is commonplace. Typically constructive magick, which includes such workings as spells for love, wealth, health, and protection, are done during the waxing of the moon and destructive magick, which would include binding spells, are done during the waning phases.

Why? The moon is just a vast rock in space. It has to do in part with the effect the moon cycle has on biological rhythms; the menstrual cycle is just one such rhythm that naturally coincides with the 28-day lunar orbit. Called in some Wiccan circles the Blood of the Moon, the female cycle is a source of perceptual change for that sex. For many of the species on this planet, key biological rhythms are linked to the lunar cycles. It is widely believed that during a full moon, all the “crazies” come out and this is borne out by statistics generated by police records.

Another more important key to the value of lunar timing is simply that many witches include Lunar Goddesses such as Diana and Selena in their pantheons; therefore the moon is quite important to their practices.

Visualization is another component I believe to be vital to the focusing of magickal power. It is simply the ability to form mental images of people or objects. Visualization works with emotion to raise power in the first place through one’s emotional response to an image. If one were trying to bind an enemy, for example, it is important to construct a mental image of the despicable character to be bound. This acts as a lens to focus the energies on the desired target. If the image is weak or shaky the power of the spell may be also.

I have said that some emotions can restrict the flow and raising of power. Yet without emotion, the power itself cannot be stirred up. Magick works when emotion is combined with visualization and will to produce a noticeable effect. If one does not feel strongly about a working then it may be that little or no energy can be raised. I feel the key is to isolate the feeling that is best for the working at hand and not allow other emotions to divert or interrupt the spell. Magick usually requires the use of will, a single-minded determination or attitude, combined with the fury of an emotional maelstrom. A limp, half-assed attempt is a waste of time. As Yoda said, “…Do or do not. There is no ‘try’.” And he is just a muppet with Frank Oz’s hand up his arse!

The use of deities is critical to many magickal workings. In shamanism it is the use of spirit guides or allies that grants the sorcerer a gift of power. In ceremonial magic it is the evocation of preternatural entities like those listed in the Goetia. In Wicca it is the invocation or evocation of the Fey or elementals or various gods or goddesses. In each case a being whose power is much superior to any mortals donates some of that ability, if only temporarily, to a given working or quest for knowledge. Here again it is the visualization of the entities in question combined with emotion, will and timing, that makes the transference of energies possible.

Lastly, physical condition is important to magickal workings. If one is so ill that you cannot get out of bed or your legs have recently been broken by a rampant wildebeest then your energies will be largely diverted towards healing and it would be ill-advised for you to try any magickal workings. Many practitioners, myself included, are out of shape physically and this may rob us of our maximum potential. If you are panting and out of breath after small exertions then how can you be expected to have any energy in your magick?

To raise power for magick one should practice magick – a muscle gets stronger with use. Regular magickal exercise whether alone or in a group will increase your abilities tremendously. If you are an arm-chair witch you may have the knowledge of magick but not the power to make it go.

Embarrassing Secrets of Pet Parents

Nicolas, selected from petMD

Dr. Vivian Cardoso-Carroll, PetMD

The other day I was in an exam room with a client and she sheepishly admitted that her dog sleeps with his head on her pillow. My tech looked over at me and said, “That would be a good blog topic: What’s the most embarrassing thing you do with, for, or about your pet?”

I thought it was a great idea. You guys have the benefit of being relatively anonymous. I, on the other hand, have to stand tall in front of you faceless masses to admit my doggie dirty-laundry. But that’s okay — I don’t think I’ve got anything too scandalous going on!

So after some thought, I’ve come up with a my most embarrassing dog confession. You can start thinking of your embarrassing moments now, too.

First, Two of my three dogs are dubiously housetrained. Katelin, my Min Pin, became my dog precisely because she’s potty training-deficient.

It was during my first job post-vet school, as I was walking through the kennels, that I saw her lying on a little bed in the back of a run. Katelin was simply the cutest dog I had ever seen. Supposedly her owners were pretty sure she was a Min Pin (Miniature Pinscher), but they had bought her at a garage sale for $35, so who knows? I told them that if they ever wanted to get rid of her, I’d take her.

The little voice in my head said, “Hey newlywed girl, maybe you should run that by the new husband first?”

I ignored it, naively thinking nothing would come of my offer.

Well, Katelyn’s issues became a problem. Her owners offered her up and my receptionist took her. I realized my folly and figured I wouldn’t make my never-had-a-dog-before husband have to deal with a second dog. However, the receptionist couldn’t potty train her — this wasn’t her excuse for not keeping her, but I don’t remember what was.

She gave Katelin to a lady with cancer. This lady pretty much sat around all day with Katelin in her lap, so it was perfect. Except for the fact that Katelin peed over every inch of her house (or so I presume). The story was that the lady was too sick to take care of her. I’m sure that was the case, even a perfectly healthy person tires of cleaning dog excrement all the time.

Then Katelin went to my friend’s friend, Marty. Marty had been looking for a Min Pin. Perfect! He took her for approximately 24 hours.

You can guess what she did.

He said that, well, actually he wanted a Min Pin that fetches, and Katelin didn’t fetch. This I know is untrue because she loves to fetch; she bounces after the ball like a little red gazelle! She really just peed all over his house.

So I picked her up from Marty’s house and brought her home, telling my husband it would just be for the weekend until I could take her back to work on Monday. My secret plan, though, was for him to fall in love with her and let me keep her.

Well, he’s not really a dog lover. He likes them okay, I guess, but ultimately dogs are my thing. So I subsequently appealed to his engineer side: I wanted a cat, but couldn’t have one because of his allergies. Katelin was about the size of a cat so… I should be able to keep her instead of a cat!

“Fine,” he relented. “She’s our substitute cat.”

Cats are far easier to housetrain than our stubborn little Katelin. She was extremely talented at peeing and pooping in areas of the house we didn’t frequent; the formal dining room and the game room, for example. These places were like little graveyards with poop headstones all over the place.

We finally had to resort to the “umbilical cord” method of potty training: you keep her on a leash on your person at all times. She has to go out every 30 minutes (praise when she potties). If she has an accident in the house, we provided negative reinforcement — shake a can with coins in it, etc. to startle her. This way you can catch her in the act. It took about 48 hours, but she got it.

If you give her one little inch, though, she takes it. She also forgets her potty training every winter, when it’s too cold or wet to bother using the great outdoors.

We have gates everywhere to block her from potty locales.

Currently, her favorite place to potty is my closet. It’s the only place in the house with any carpet left that isn’t gated. We’re putting springs on the doors so that they close themselves.

I’m not sure why we’re bothering, she’ll just find some other place to go.

But we love her, so we keep trying to stay one step ahead of her “accidents.”

So that’s confession #1; my poor potty training ability.

My second confession I came up with right off the bat, when my tech mentioned the subject: I have a tendency to tell my dogs I love them more often than I tell my family.

How ’bout you?

Eco-Friendly Pet Care

Adria Saracino

With an increasing number of us choosing to make the change to a greener, more sustainable way of life for ourselves and our families, it makes sense to extend our eco-friendly inclinations to caring for our four-legged friends. Our pets are exposed to the same pesticides and toxins as we are, so it is natural for us to want to protect them, too. Here are some environmentally sound ways of caring for your pets.

Eco Eating

A healthy diet is essential for maintaining good pet health. Many of our most trusted brands of “premium” pet food have been revealed to be using low-quality ingredients that would not be fit for human consumption, and if it’s not good enough for us, then it’s not good enough for Fido!

Thus, look for organic options and ask yourself, “do I really know what’s in my pet’s food?” Certified organic pet food must meet strict standards set by the USDA. It is guaranteed to be free from hormones, chemicals, genetically-modified ingredients and artificial flavors and colorings. Luckily, most organic pet foods also tend to be sustainably sourced, so you will be helping local communities in addition to improving your pet’s diet.

Green Grooming

Although looking after your pet’s insides is extremely important, what you put on the outside makes a huge difference to their health and well-being, too. For both bathing and getting rid of fleas, there are plenty of natural options available at retail centers like Native Remedies. This site offers products that provide a gentler alternative to support your pet’s immune system, and won’t contain potentially harmful chemicals which can wreak havoc with your pet’s health if ingested.

Conscientious Cleaning

Cleaning up after your pet has the potential to be a much greener activity, too. Did you know that every year approximately 10 million tons of pet waste will end up in the nation’s landfills? Clay-based cat litter is not an eco-friendly product, but thankfully there are many biodegradable and organic alternatives available.

The equivalent in “business management” for your dog is the biodegradable waste bag. Picking up after your dog is essential, but using plastic bags won’t help with your green ambitions. Biodegradable bags decompose naturally and can reduce landfill waste substantially. Also, when it comes to all the little accidents that accompany pet training and muddy paw prints, using natural cleaning products such as baking soda and lemon juice helps to reduce the toxins you’re letting loose in your home.

Holistic Health Care

If your pet was to get sick, there are many alternative treatments that you could try. Chiropractic, homeopathic and holistic remedies are becoming more and more common for pets. Acupuncture, veterinary orthopedic manipulation, massage therapy, hydrotherapy and pet rehabilitation are also available. These types of treatments are thought to vastly increase the comfort of pets that suffer from conditions like epilepsy, cancer, allergies, and injury.

While these options can improve your pet’s comfort and overall health, they tend to come with a price. Thus, look into pet insurance options. Note, not all insurance providers include coverage for holistic methods, so be sure to read the coverage details carefully. Embrace pet insurance is one option for alternative therapy coverage. They offer both cat and dog insurance that includes coverage for treatments like chiropractic, acupuncture, and more.

These are just a few ideas to get you started, but it doesn’t have to end there. Think green and enjoy the immense satisfaction you’ll get from knowing that you and yours are doing your bit for the planet. The pets of the future will thank you for it!

Infusions

Infusions

By Lady Wystira

Another word for infusion is tea. Infusions are used for drinking herbs as medicine, not as a thirst-quencher. To make an infusion, use the softer parts of the herb that grows above the ground (stems, leaves, flowers) that have been properly dried.

Usually one would use 1 to 3 teaspoons of the herb to 1 cup of water. You can’t store infusions for very long, so it’s best to use it right away. At the most, I’d recommend making only about 3 cups and use the day it’s made. For most infusions you can drink up to 3 cups per day. You can store an infusion for up to 2 days in the refrigerator.

The following is a very basic recipe to make an infusion:

(I like this method because it’s so easy)

1. Place the herbs in a teapot

2. In a saucepan, bring the water to boiling, turn off the heat, and pour the boiling water over the herbs in the teapot.

3. Cover the teapot, and let the herbs steep for at least 10 minutes (and up to 20 minutes).

4. Strain the liquid into a cup for immediate use, or into a storage container for storage in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

5. After it’s been stored, you should heat up the infusion in the microwave.

Grounding Your House: Creating the Right Energy Field for Your Home

by Sienna

Home Sweet Home. Home is where the heart is. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

Humans pride themselves on living in large homes. We are the only species that creates homes much larger than the space that we need for sleep. Bees and ants create large homes, but only as the swarm or tribe grows. We don’t hibernate, nor do we share our stores with large groups. Therefore, we make sure that our homes can keep us warm in bad weather, provide us with a place to prepare meals, hold all our stuff and be a safe haven when the world outside turns bitter.

But if you are energy-sensitive or emotionally sensitive, you want to make sure your home is a pleasant place to be, a place of contentment, happiness and peace. Sometimes this is more difficult than it sounds, as negativity comes and goes through our lives. A bad day at the office can come home with us, make us slouch around the place, slam doors, insult the pet. If we live with others, their bad moods can affect us more than is commonly recognized. So how do you keep that energy from affecting your peaceful place of solace?

There are many ways to cleanse energy, such as smudging with sage, cleansing with sprinkled salt and water and doing banishment by a rote working. But trying to do these things while the thoughts of traffic jams and crappy work schedules cloud your mood is usually counterproductive. Who wants to go through the hassle of lighting that sage bundle when all you really feel like doing is lighting your boss’s house on fire? Usually, when we come into our houses feeling negative from the outside world, all we want is to sit undisturbed for a few minutes and get rid of that feeling. If your house is full of that feeling anyway, it makes finding a peaceful mood even more difficult.

The method I present can help you keep your house clear all the time. It doesn’t hurt to smudge or cleanse or banish daily as well. However, if you don’t have time, or you want to create that mellow feeling in a new place, this method really works.

I recommend doing this practice with any new home before you move in, while the place is still empty of furniture. Once you have the keys to your new place, you can slip in before the moving van shows up. It only takes a few minutes, and you can have all the necessary articles in a gym bag or other “incognito” carrying case if you don’t want to alert your new neighbors to your paganism. It works just as well with apartments on the fifteenth floor as it does with entire houses. If you want to ground a home that you already occupy, take into account the furniture layout and try to get as close to the walls with the cleansing as you can. In either case, if you’re concerned about neighbors’ opinions and are using a smoking sage bundle, keep it below window level until or unless you have privacy blinds or curtains in place.

Start by smudging, banishing or cleansing with salt and water, as you might already do. If you don’t know these methods, the easiest one to learn is cleansing with salt and water. Use sea salt and ordinary tap water or rain-caught water, and combine them in a special bowl or chalice. Then walk around the interior walls of your home clockwise, sprinkling the water sparingly as you go. The thoughts in your head should be of clearing out old negativity. Imagine the negativity scurrying out through the walls as you go around the edges of all the rooms, through doorways and past windows. Don’t skip over alcoves, closets or small rooms.

Once you have made an entire pass around the outer rooms, go to any rooms at the center of the home and make sure they are cleared also. You should feel a difference immediately. Next, find the middle of the floor plan. You can do this by looking around the place and estimating (if you have lived there long enough, this should be easy). By examining the floor plan on paper or measuring the distance between all the outer walls and calculating the center mathematically, you might be more exact, but you may also find that your center point is in the middle of a wall. If that is the case, then pick a point just to one side of the wall. If you have several floors, do this on the lowest floor or in the basement.

When you have located the center point of your home, sit there. In your typical meditative posture, calm yourself, center yourself and begin visualizing a large tree root growing from your body down through the floor and into the Earth. If you are above the ground floor, make that root go through the floors below you in a straight line downward. See that tree root go all the way to the hot molten center of Mother Earth, creating a flow of energy downward. You may be surprised when that warm Earth energy travels back up the root. This is clear, clean energy and will replace any negative energy you removed with the cleansing. If the flow upward doesn’t happen automatically, use your visualization ability to make it happen.

When you have established the flow of energy to and from the heart of the planet, use your mind to attach the energy permanently to the floor space you are sitting on. You can see it attached biologically (tendons), mechanically (bolts) or electronically (circuitry), whichever suits your personality best. Next, imagine that smaller roots reach sideways from the main root to the outer corners of the home. See these roots attach to the edges of the home in the same fashion, as many as you think necessary. When you are done, the system of roots might resemble a tree with your house perched in its branches.

Activate these smaller roots with the same flow as the main root. See all the energy from the corners of the house following the smaller roots to the main root, then down the main root to the heart of the Earth and the positive Earth energy following it back again. If you have several floors, make sure the small roots reach all the way up to the attic. If you are in an apartment, and you have people living below you, remember that the root is astral and will not negatively affect anyone or anything below you.

When you have that visualization in place, emphasize its permanence within your mind. Know that it will be there daily. Then open your eyes, and consider yourself finished.

This working will create an atmosphere in your home that is self-cleansing. All negativity will be funneled away and replaced with that good, clean Earth energy, every day, without you having to lift a finger. It is still a good idea to smudge or cleanse on a regular basis, but now you won’t have to do it until your mood is right.

When you come home each day from your daily schedule, remember that the root system is there, and allow it to pull that negativity from you as you settle in. This practice will go a long way toward helping you keep a peaceful, mellow atmosphere in your home.

Let’s Make Magick!

by Janice Van Cleve

When I began this article two years ago, I got nowhere. Either I was not ready to write it, or the article was not ready to be birthed, or maybe the world was not ready to see it. It languished for months until one day my editor gave me a deadline. Suddenly I was ready, the words came forth, and you are reading it. Was it magick? Certainly my skills and knowledge continued to grow over the years, but they were not enough. It took a need to kindle the will. The will found the path that knowledge alone could not. A deadline is a powerful spell!

So what is this thing we call magick and how does it work? Its very name conjures up images of mystery, delight and power. Its tools are everything from “an eye of newt and toe of frog” in Macbeth to “the Force” in Star Wars. It has been judged both good and bad, depending upon the outcome or the perceiver. It either explains the unexplainable or creates it. Magick reaches beyond the reality we know.

Scientific Reality

The reality we know is relative. Science continually extends our capabilities to discover and to document our reality. We all recall the old movie: Natives capture explorer. Explorer uses magnifying glass to start fire. Natives are awed. They embrace the event as an act of magick. To the explorer, it was just basic science. What is magick for one person may not be magick for another.

Thousands have died of HIV/AIDS, but now new combinations of drugs are apparently able to restore T-cell counts and hold the fatal disease in remission. Lives that used to focus on early death are now faced with the challenge of life, career and old age. Was that magick? It took years of methodical research and countless tests to produce the drugs, yet the effect was to transform lives and create futures where none existed before. So what was a reality yesterday may not be a reality today.

As science continues to observe, analyze, synthesize, replicate and document the unknown, it converts the latter into knowable reality. This act itself may seem magickal to those outside a particular field of research, but the fact that we know that somebody knows how it works — even if we don’t ourselves — removes it from magick to science. Even the practitioner does not need to know how it works as long as the procedure produces predictable results. Many medicines were invented by wise women of the village from their own experience, which later have been revalidated by modern doctors. Shamans at Stonehenge may not have known modern astronomy, but their observations allowed them to predict the seasons and eclipses with accuracy.

Most everybody loves to watch magic tricks. My favorite is the rope trick. When the magician slides that knot off the end, we marvel and applaud. Yet we know that the magician presents us with a disconnected reality, by hiding the intermediate steps in the process. We deliberately participate in this disconnected reality for our amusement. While we ourselves may never discover just how the trick was performed, we are nevertheless confident that it is indeed a trick and not really magick.

Changing Reality at Will

So if science continues to expand reality and trickery only manipulates our perception of it, where is the magick? Somewhere the power of the will must operate to make the impossible possible, to span realities, and by definition to do so with deliberate intent.

Who can do such things with more deliberate intent than marketers? Think about it. “Things go better with Coke.” “The Friendly Skies of United.” Joe Camel. The engineering that goes into a marketing message is one of the most highly developed sciences in the world. Millions of dollars and countless hours are invested in creating a perception that will catch on with the public and become a household word. Nobody uses tissues; they use Kleenex — even if the tissue in their hand is a Crown Z product. Nobody photocopies; they Xerox — even on a Canon copier. These are examples of very successful brand marketing achievements created and abandoned as business dictates. They have no basis in science. After all, things go very well without Coke, the skies have no friendly emotions, and camels don’t smoke.

Marketing creates powerful realities, not all of which are intended or beneficial. The Nike swoosh is a registered trademark with legal standing in court, while a 20-year relationship between two lesbians with children has no standing. A high-school student is suspended from school for wearing a Coke T-shirt on Pepsi appreciation day. (I’m not making this up. It happened in Atlanta!) A child in Detroit was even killed for his sneakers because their brand and style had been elevated by advertising to have a higher value than a human life.

Is this not magick? It is an act of will that deliberately alters reality on many dimensions in symbolic language. It is widely understood, and it has clear, tangible outcomes that are not always intended. By extension as a tool of the state, it has created nations like the two Koreas and has eliminated nations like those of the Native Americans. It both imposed apartheid in South Africa and overthrew it. Marketing’s magick bubbles only bursts when marketers cannot sustain the illusion, as when the lofty rhetoric of clashing ideologies is reduced to counting chads.

The Internet has also changed reality at will. A Montana rancher, hundreds of miles from the nearest library, who has never been out of the country, is completing his doctoral thesis on eighteenth-century Russian literature from the University of Minsk in Belarus. A surgeon in Kinshasa, Congo, is performing a delicate operation with the help of a team of specialists online at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York.

The Internet has created a connectedness of human consciousness unparalleled in history. It has created a new dimension where virtual images have all but replaced the tangible entities they represent. The almost instantaneous transmission of human thought and emotion, brain to brain, across hundreds of miles is very nearly an out-of-body experience — a “sending.”

Is this not magick? Parties can transcend physical reality to operate with deliberate intent in a virtual cyberspace and affect tangible outcomes. They can enter and exit multiple webs at will. From warfare to Wall Street, lives and fortunes are directed by digital images.

Disappointed? Were you looking for magick in a cauldron and found this article telling you to look in a computer? Were you looking for magick in an incantation and instead found it in a commercial? The word “magick” has been used in many different and often conflicting ways. Starhawk in The Spiral Dance defines magick as “the art of changing consciousness at will.” She calls magick an art of elaborate metaphors, not truths. She warns us that if we use these metaphors “for glib explanations and cheap categorizations, they will narrow the mind instead of expanding it and reduce experience to a set of formulas that separates us from each other and from our own power.”

From this viewpoint, magick is not only an alternate reality to be reached and relinquished at will, it is also a personal consciousness of ourselves in relationship to the interconnectedness of all people, and ultimately the interconnectedness of the whole universe. Magick is not about changing tangible things or intangible images so much as it is about changing our own personal relationship to them.

Years ago, I bought into the patriarchal, suburban, career Yuppie philosophy and alternately valued and despised myself by those yardsticks. Then came the layoff, the collapse of my savings, resume rejections and finally the emergency room at the hospital. I had to let go of the old yardsticks. From inner values, I visioned a new place for myself in the world that had more to do with who I was instead of a corporate title. I learned to give generously and to receive graciously, to be part of the flow rather than looking for paybacks. As it turns out, I prospered even by the old yardsticks, but it didn’t matter anymore. I took risks I could not have imagined earlier, and I achieve incredible goals as commonplace occurrences in the new flow of my life.

Was that magick? Indeed it was. Often we read stories of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things. We read about their courage or determination, and sometimes we reflect how different their attitude is from our own. Coaches say attitude is everything, and counselors teach us that affirmations help build our self-esteem. However, unless these become integrated parts of our lives and we become integrated as well into the whole universe, they will have no magick for us.

A cup may be half-empty or half-full. Neither science, nor tricks, nor marketing, nor computers can change the volume inside the cup. A pessimist may complain; an optimist may be grateful. But the worker of magick? She drinks!

Waiting for Spring: How One Pagan Greets the Earth at Imbolc

by Catherine Harper

Spring comes to Puget Sound early and slowly. First, there is the false spring in January, the few warm bright days that arrive along with the seed catalogs so soon after the Winter Solstice and tempt the gardener outside. I always seem to plant a few seeds for New Year’s, no matter how well I know that winter is not over, a few broccoli and hardy lettuces, or a row of radishes. By the middle of the month, the ground has frozen again. Yet the first stirrings of a lasting spring aren’t far behind.

As the days lengthen, even if the skies are leaden, the air full of rain and the thermometer nailed at 40, plants again begin to grow. It’s an odd time of year for eating. What’s in season is what has lasted from the year before — root vegetables, squash and suchlike — and what can be kept in the garden, such as cabbages and leeks that hold well there even if they don’t grow. And then there are the first shoots of new growth. The corn salad that went to seed in my garden last summer and sprouted in the fall has resumed its growth, giving me half a bed of 4-inch leaves for salads. In my herb garden, the salad burnet is producing new green leaves like serrated coins, tasting of cucumber. And throughout the yard are the tender young rosettes of wild sorrel, dandelion and pepper grass.

It isn’t much of a season for foraging; your time and effort will grant you only damp knees, cold fingers and a scant handful of leaves. But I find these few young shoots and last year’s gleanings irresistible, the first new tastes in the kitchen since the end of last year’s harvest. My salads are tiny handfuls, sometimes, masses of little leaves more strongly flavored than lettuce. I dress them simply with a sprinkling of oil and a few drops of good wine vinegar from our vinegar barrel — unlike the tough imported commercial greens of this season, their taste is worth savoring. Dandelion, picked young, is tender and only pleasantly bitter, rather like the taste of a cultivated chicory. Sorrel is a sharp green lemon, pepper grass a spicy cress, corn salad mild and crisp. And soon, within weeks, perhaps even only days, the first sprouts of chives will appear above the surface, marking another start of the year.

When writing for a pagan audience, it’s sometimes tempting for me to discuss these forays in terms of ritual practice: a recognition and greeting of earliest spring, or an opening to a discussion of holidays and symbolic significance. There’s something a little naked about saying “I went out today and saw a beautiful tree, and it made me tremble at my very roots,” and sometime I find it comforting to hide behind history, behind symbolic reference, behind, essentially, my own intellectual understanding of magic.

Yet in some ways, whatever lofty words I use will be but an abstraction of the simple physical reality. Outside, right now, there are green shoots. The waxing of the year might not be very far along, but it has started, because these shoots are growing more quickly now after almost stopping altogether only a few weeks ago. If you check on them regularly, you can see this. And if you go out into your yard, or someone else’s yard, a park or an overgrown lot, you can find them growing among the grass, plantain and pineapple weed. If you are hungry, you can pick them and eat them. There is still in me a great love of ritual, and yet at times all the ritual seems to pale before taste of these greens on my tongue.

In the kitchen, it’s a vexing, restless season, the time I am most tempted by imported peppers and avocados. With so little new choose from, it’s hard not to reach for some faint echo of summer. But it’s a time for patience, too, a time to acknowledge the cold and dark that is so much larger than our little pools of light, instead of trying to ignore them. At this time of year, I fire my brick oven frequently and bake bread, and then while the oven is hot I make dinners in clay pots — mousaka or lasagna, roast game hens, braised leeks. Late in the evening, using the recipe of a Finnish friend I put a pot of oats in the warm oven (a brick oven, once fired, holds heat for at least 20 hours) with water, cream and perhaps a little cinnamon, honey or molasses. In the morning I open the heavy iron door and pull out hot porridge, slow-cooked over the night.

It’s a good time of year to see what can be made with what you already have. Risotto with chanterelles saved from last autumn, or stored butternut squash and prosciutto. Dried black-eyed peas cooked with ham hock, dried tomatoes and peppers. Muffins with a handful of last year’s frozen blueberries. Potatoes sliced and baked with leeks and a little cheese.

And, of course, it’s the season of soup. I love soup. Noodle soups built on the last of the frozen broth from the Thanksgiving turkey carcass. Eight-fungus hot and sour soup. Red lentil tomato soup (which has the virtue of neither looking nor tasting like mud, a challenge that faces all lentil soups). Thin soups with ginger and pepper to drink when you have a cold. Thick soups for dinner with crusty bread. Winter minestrone to simmer on the back of the stove and feed whatever hordes might descend on your kitchen. Borscht to teach you a proper respect for those stout winter vegetables. On that note…

Winter Minestrone

This almost falls in the category of reaching for summer…. but the tomatoes are canned, oregano is growing in my garden, and even in the darkest months I can usually come up with a handful or two of greens fit for the pot. Broccoli greens are a favorite for this, though kale, chard, cabbage or even spinach will work just as well.

Dried beans
1-2 onions, chopped
4-6 cloves garlic
Canned tomatoes (at least two 14-ounce cans, but amounts are approximate)
1 chunk parmesan rind
At least a double handful of noodles (shells are my favorite)
A couple of handfuls pot greens, coarsely chopped
1 glug red wine
1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano, or a teaspoon or two dried

Cover the bottom of a soup pot with dried beans, though the layer should be no more than two beans thick, and one is plenty. Soak the beans for at least three hours in warm water; overnight is better. Drain off the water, replace with some inches of fresh water and simmer gently over low heat until the beans begin to be tender. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes and parmesan. Simmer for another half-hour or so. Add noodles. Around the time the noodles just start to get tender, add greens, wine and oregano (you can also add a similar amount of dried basil, or of fresh basil should you be so lucky as to have any). Salt and pepper to taste, and serve when the greens are tender with crusty bread.

Borscht

I cannot claim any lineage of note for this borscht. The base recipe came from a cookbook some years ago, and I have adapted it (some might say taken liberties with it) to suit my tastes. Somehow borscht — even without either bacon or sour cream — manages to be more warming and filling than can be expected from a bowl of vegetables.

2-3 pieces farmer’s bacon (optional)
1 large leek (or two smaller ones)
3-5 medium beets
3-4 large carrots
1 small or 1/2 large head cabbage
2 tablespoons paprika
2 glugs wine vinegar
Salt
Sour cream

Cut the bacon into small pieces, and fry them in the bottom of a large thick-bottomed pot. Chop up the leek, and fry it in bacon grease (or omit the bacon and use some decent oil). When you can no longer prevent everything from sticking to the bottom of the pot, add a bit of water. Finely dice beets and carrots, add them to the pot and add enough water to cover. Chop cabbage (reasonably fine) and add it to the pot — add water if necessary, but remember that the cabbage will go limp soon and release its fluids. It doesn’t really need to be covered all the way. Cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Add paprika, vinegar and salt. Cover and cook a few more minutes, and correct seasonings. Serve big steaming bowls, each with a dollop of sour cream.

Inviting Magickal Fey Into Your Garden

by Jimbo

Fairies, Gnomes, Nymphs, Sprites… Creatures of the Earth, Air, Fire and Water… those who live in the veil between this plane and the next… mischievous, lucky, magickal, beautiful and grotesque, large and small… All fey friends welcome! Welcome! We invite you to inspire us! We invite you to invigorate us! Infuse us with mirth and laughter! Excite us with your magick and mischief – in a good way. Come! Play with us! We welcome you.

Many a tale has been spun throughout the ages involving some sort of mysterious creature. Fairy Tales, Fables, Folk Tales – often with a trickster, prankster, or magical creature that grants wishes!

I believe that these creatures exist all around us – often unseen in the nooks and crannies of our lives. Where many often banish the fey, I invite them into my rituals – to aid me in my magick.

What do the fey represent?

Every person has their own relationship with the archetypes represented by different fey creatures. I like to think of the fey as a “personification of nature”.

The apple tree in the back yard has a true personality – it’s an old, chatty wise woman, with her sweet apples and knobby branches. She is great for climbing, and if you sit in a particular spot, she tells you stories about the orchard that used to live there, and all sorts of things that have happened. She loves to cradle you as she sings you the song of the sunset, and whispers as the breeze flows through her leaves. She is a tree nymph _ and she is wonderful. Also in the yard are lots of little fey – a family of gnomes under the shed, and a whole clan of fairies in the back fence overgrown with prickly blackberries. (They like to steal a tool or two and bury them somewhere in the lawn)

You, too, can bring the fun and frolic of the fey alive in your personal space as well. You can create a special garden or shrine devoted to the fey.

Be creative! There are so many ways to invite these wonderful creatures into your life! From simply hanging a sparkly wind chime outside, to placing a sweet cookie on a pretty plate on your altar, gestures to the fey really make a difference.

Here are some ideas on how to create a garden for your yard or a smaller one for indoors. But this is by no means a limit to the different ways you can connect with that special inspiration we can only attribute to our beloved fey friends.

Indoors

Bring some of that ethereal inspirational spirit into your apartment with an indoor fey shrine.

Start with a miniature arboretum. It can be planted in any size or shape of container – many of which are available at home and garden stores.

Fill the planter with soil and plant herbs, moss and even mushrooms. Smaller leaved herbs work well, like thyme and oregano. If well clipped, rosemary and dill are great too. Think about the type of fey that may live with you in your space, and allow them to inspire the selection of plants. Add some rocks, crystals, and a pretty ceramic bowl to use as a reflecting pool.

You can also create a hidden garden in a large houseplant you already have. Beneath the broad leaves of a Peace Lilly or the branches of a Fichus tree, arrange some small sparkly stones, and tie some colorful ribbon to the stalks. With two different colors of fish-tank pebbles, create a pattern on the soil.

The fey (and cats) that live in your house will enjoy discovering these elusive hideaways!

Outdoors

Outdoors, the possibilities are endless. Use rocks or bricks to build some sort of altar to the fey. Landscape a small area of your yard with pebbles, crystals and a variety of plants. Transplant that bothersome moss in your lawn to your fey garden – it will really grow! In the spring, plant Lobelia, Forget-me-nots, Baby’s Breath, and even Cosmos. I enjoy planting purple flowers in the spring that bloom all summer. In the winter there are all sorts of perennials that can be planted: herbs, grasses, ferns and succulents are good ideas.

Using found materials that are attractive to the fey is a good approach, especially in residential areas. Tiles, which can often be obtained inexpensively, are a nice touch to a garden. You can also place special crystals here and there. I like to work small, and create little wee places for my fey friends to play.

If you see mushrooms in your yard, dig up a small patch around them, and transplant to your garden. They will spore there and more will grow next season.

You can add a fairy mound – a small hill covered in moss, with a small door (from a doll house, or hand crafted) on the side. A variation is a small round mirror or reflecting pool on the top.

Even branches tied together with an old window, arranged rocks, a shiny pinwheel, and ribbon streaming from the fixture is sure to keep the fey as well as your human guests enchanted.

There are so many little things to do in the mundane world that attract the fey. Perhaps the best idea of all is to allow these magickal creatures to speak to you in meditation – they will let you know what they want (believe me!).

A Super-Simple Way to Grow Food: Start a Bag Garden

Shelley Stonebrook

I’m all for planting in well-worked, well-maintained garden beds, but because of busy schedules and limited growing space, that isn’t an option for everyone. If you’ve been thinking of taking the plunge into the joy of growing your own food and want to start with an easy method, a bag garden might be for you.

To plant a bag garden, you simply purchase a few bags of topsoil from your local garden center (buy more than a few if you have the space and want to grow even more). Lay the bags anywhere that gets full sun and has dirt below—most people just lay them on the edge of a yard in the grass (note: the bags will kill the lawn directly below them, but that’s OK because this has transformed into garden space).

Next, use a utility knife to cut out a large, rectangular window on the upper surface of each bag. Leave the sides and 2 inches of each top edge intact, resembling a picture frame (see illustration above). The 2-inch rim of plastic will keep the soil from spilling and help retain moisture. Lightly dust the surface of the soil inside the bags with organic fertilizer and mix it in with a trowel. (Skip this if the bag’s label says fertilizer has already been added.)

After that, stab each bag through at least a dozen times with a screwdriver or a big knife to create plenty of drainage holes in the bottom. Plant roots will eventually use these holes to grow down into the soil below the bags.

Next, it’s time to plant your seeds! Consider trying easy-to-grow spring crops such as lettuce and spinach. Then, sit back, watch your veggies grow, and before you know it you’ll be enjoying a fresh salad you grew yourself!

7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food

Judi Gerber

Not that being part of a trend is ever a good reason to start or learn something new, but if it helps you move forward by being part of the “in” crowd, then you really need to plant your own edible garden this year.

That’s right, having your own vegetable garden is now trendy. In fact according to the 2009 Edibles Gardening Trends Research Report conducted by the Garden Writer’s Association (GWA) Foundation, over 41 million U.S. households, or 38 percent planted a vegetable garden in 2009. And, more than 19.5 million households (18 percent) grew an herb garden and 16.5 million households (15 percent) grew fruits during the same period.

The study found that there was a growth in edible gardening from both experienced gardeners and from an influx of new gardeners: 92 percent of respondents had previous experience and 7 percent (7.7 million households) were new edible gardeners.

And one-third of the experienced gardeners grew more edibles in 2009 than in the previous year. The GWA indicates that given the strong response for plans to grow more edibles into 2010, the vegetable gardening trend will continue and there will likely be a new high level of edible gardening activity this year.

Another survey done by the American Gardening Association showed a 19 percent increase in new hobby country farms and urban edible gardens in 2009 over 2008.

So, aside from its popularity, do you need some other reasons to grown your own food?

The GWA’s survey found that the main reason given for increasing or maintaining edible gardening last year was to supplement household food supply — to help them save money on food. That alone is a very powerful reason.
There is nothing more local than food grown in your own backyard, your windowsills, or on patio containers.
Growing your own fruits and vegetables means that you know exactly what does and does not go into your food and exactly where it comes from.
You will get healthier in a number of ways. Not only will you end up eating more fruits and vegetables, but you will be getting added exercise. Did you know that you can burn as many calories in 45 minutes of gardening as you can in 30 minutes of aerobics? And, working in the garden reduces stress.
You will get a bigger variety of your favorite fruits and vegetables because you can choose from hundreds of different varieties and you can grow the things you like the best.
You can teach your children or grandchildren where their food actually comes from and that it doesn’t come from the supermarket but from the soil, the earth that we all depend on.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace, how sweet the Earth
that bore a witch like me!
I once was burned, now I survive,
was hung and now I sing.
T’was grace that drew down the moon
and grace that raised the seas.
The magic in the people’s will
will set our Mother free.
We face the East and breathe the winds
that move across this earth.
From gentle breeze to hurricane
our breath will bring forth the change.
Turn towards the South and feel the fire
that burns in you and me.
The spirit’s flame will rise again
and burn eternally.
We greet the West, our souls awash
in tides of primal birth.
Our tears and blood, our pain and love
will cleanse and heal the earth.
Reach into the North and know your roots
down deep ancestral caves.
We find the wisdom of the Crone,
Of circles we are made.
Amazing earth, enduring life,
from death into rebirth.
T’is earth I am and earth I love
and earth I’ll always be.
Amazing grace, how sweet the Earth
that bore witches like we.
We once were burned, now we survive,
were hung and now we sing.
Goddess bless, so mote it be,
Our magic spirals on.
Merry meet and merry part
and merry meet again

Courtesy of Dana… From GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast Archives

Planting Seeds at Imbolc

By C. Cheek

When I was a student at UW, I walked to class every day from my apartment. Along the way, I’d pass some less-than-beautiful sights; empty lots, alleys, easements, and the crud that gathers near gutters in parking lots. Not to worry, I assured myself, come spring, flowers would grow, filling these ugly spots with bursts of color. But then April came, and May, and June, and the route I walked to school stayed barren. Nature provided the sun, soil and rain, but no one had planted seeds.

Sometimes life just hands us what we need. Sometimes all we have to do is wait. And sometimes we have to do a little helping on our own. An envelope sits in my coat pocket. Inside this envelope are seeds mixed with sand to make them spread farther. Some of the seeds I purchased at stores, some I gathered last summer. Now, whenever I pass a patch of dirt, I’ll sow some of those seeds, and with them, I’ll sow a little hope. Hope is the time between planting a seed and seeing it bloom, or die. Hope is when you hear the phone ring and don’t know yet if it’s your best friend. Hope is the moment between buying a lottery ticket and scratching off that final square. When I was child, my mother often told me that wanting was better than having. It took me many years to find out what she meant. Even if your seeds don’t sprout, even if it’s a telemarketer on the other end of the line, and even if you don’t win the lottery, for a brief moment, possibility shines.

Getting in touch with Imbolc means gathering a kernel of hope. For me, as a writer, this means sending out my manuscripts. I call it “applying for rejection letters.” I read the editor’s requirements, check over my story for loose commas, type up a query letter, double check the spelling of the editor’s name, put the pages in an envelope with an extra SASE, and wait. Query letters have a germination period of about three months. At the end of three months, I’ll usually get a tiny slip of paper, not much bigger than a cookie’s fortune, which reads “Thank you for your submission, but it does not suit our current needs.” These little slips of paper cut me, they wound me, they callously toss aside what I’ve spent months writing. So, I find another name, and send it out again. Why? Why do I keep sending the stories out again and again? Because for three months, I can imagine how great it will feel to get an acceptance letter. In my fantasies, an acceptance letter turns into a three-book contract. My daydreams take root, and soon I’m the next J. K. Rowling, with legions of adoring fans, and respect of fellow authors, and book tours in Europe and then… and then…

And then, most likely, I’ll get a slip of paper, or maybe even a letter written just for me, telling me “No thank you.” But for those three months, the daydreams flourish, as sweet as the bite of chocolate you imagine just before tearing off the foil and wrapper, when the bar of candy lies unopened, waiting in your hand. Hope is rich soil, seeded with maybes.Providencewill decide if I happen to write the right letter to the right editor, and if she’s in the mood to read my work. Nature decides if the wildflower seeds I scratched into the mud will grow into seedlings. Even if my efforts don’t bear fruit, I’m guaranteed a period of hope, while waiting to see what happens as the months pass.

The other gardening chore for early spring is pruning. Trees don’t have many ways of communication, but they “know” that sharp loppers shearing off branches early in the year means that it’s time to send out buds and shoots. Roses too, lie dormant in the winter and need the snip-snip of a gardener to wake them up. “Wake up,” I tell them, as I trim off last year’s growth. Inside the house, I peer out the window at the bare canes and think of the months of fragrant blooms lying under that frost-touched bark. When the weather warms, they’ll send out furled leaves, reddish then green, and buds will soon follow. As an inexperienced gardener, I didn’t trim the roses. It felt wrong, cruel somehow to cut back a perfectly healthy plant. The roses still bloomed, still grew, but the leaves didn’t get as large, and the flowers weren’t as numerous. I’ve learned my lesson now. My shears are sharp and ready.

Sometimes nature takes its course without our help, and sometimes it needs our assistance. Friendships are like that too. When I was at the store, I purchased a handful of postcards. Who buys these things, except tourists? Who sends postcards, except people who want to brag about how far they’ve gone on vacation? Well, I do. I got out my old address book and started writing down names of friends I hadn’t talked to in a while. It seems so hard to call people out of the blue. I’m always afraid of what they’ll think. She’ll think I need to borrow money, he’ll think I just broke up and am trying to flirt, my cousin will think I want a favor. So I write instead. No one, it seems, minds a postcard.

I’ve learned that I don’t have to write much. “Thinking of you,” seems to cover it. Or maybe, “I saw this postcard with a beagle on it, and remembered your old dog Spot. How are you and Spot doing?” People don’t often write back. Sometimes you have to send them four or five cards before they write you, sometimes they don’t write back at all. Sometimes they’ve moved, and don’t get the postcard. And sometimes, sometimes they’ve missed you too, and wondered why you’ve drifted apart. Sometimes they get out their address book, and pick up the phone, and call to ask you out to coffee. A rectangle of cardstock and a twenty-three cent stamp, and you automatically get a week of hope that you’re about to rekindle an old friendship. And even if that old co-worker doesn’t remember you, or if he’s moved and the postcard arrives at the house of a stranger, you’ve probably brightened someone’s day. That’s worth fifty cents.

Every day we pass people whose names we never learn. That pierced, pink-haired barista that you buy your latte from might have gone to your high school. That old woman who sits on the same spot in the bus might have important lessons to teach you about life. Your study-partner in that night class might be looking for someone to share his theater tickets with. Sure, they’re just strangers, people we don’t know, and don’t need to know. On the other hand, if you see the same person every day, or every week, how do you know that person isn’t meant to be in your life? It’s hard to be outgoing, hard to strike up conversations without an introduction or the comforting venue of a cocktail party. Seeds don’t need much to grow, a bit of warmth, a bit of rain, and nature takes its course. The wind changes, and flocks of birds know it’s time to return home. Maybe all it takes to turn “that girl from the coffee shop” into “Tina, who plays tennis with me on Mondays” is an extra smile, an extra nod, an extra moment of attention. We are each other’s sun, we are each other’s rain. We have the power to turn the barren soil of strangerhood into a small connection between fellow human beings. You don’t have to do it all, in fact, you can’t make a relationship develop by force any more than you can make a turnip grow faster by tugging at its root, but you do have to make an effort. Plant a small seed of possibility.

I’ve got a small stack of postcards on my desk, each one addressed and stamped and ready for the mailman. It took an hour, and half a booklet of stamps. I wrote just a sentence, or just a smiley face and my name. I’m already imagining how fun it would be to throw a party and invite people I haven’t seen for years. On my kitchen windowsill, tomato seeds wait in their peat pots. In my mind the tomatoes (which haven’t yet sprouted) taste like sunlight, miles better than any of the icy slices the guy at the deli puts on my sandwich. At lunch, I smile at the deli guy anyway, and comment on his funny button, and call him “Eddie,” from his nametag. He recognizes me when I come in now, and even though he calls me “No Peppers, Right?” it’s a start. A lottery ticket, unscratched, is stuck to my fridge with a magnet. It could win me ten thousand dollars–or maybe not. It’s fun to wonder, and hope. I’ve got my novel in the hands of an editor too. As February turns into March, and March turns into April, she’ll work her way down the stack to mine. She’ll read it, and she’ll send me a yes, or a no. I’m in no rush to get my SASE back with the answer. For now, I’ll just savor the possibility of what might happen. Few things in this world taste as sweet as hope.

13 Ways to Celebrate Imbolc

by Heather Evenstar Osterman

Regardless of what religion we grew up with, most of us have favorite memories of things we did every year for specific holidays. These traditions were what made our celebrations special. So what do you do when the holidays you celebrate now aren’t the same ones you grew up with? How do you share the joys of Imbolc with your family?

Imbolc (or Candlemas/Brigid/whatever you choose to call this celebration) falls on February 2nd and is a time to honor the quickening of the earth and the first manifestations of spring emerging from winter. This Sabbat is sacred to the goddess Brigid in particular, and is a wonderful time to acknowledge your own creativity, expand your knowledge, and practice the healing arts. Here are my suggestions to get you started developing your own family traditions!

Help your kids go through all their clothes, toys, and books to find the unwanted and outgrown items. Donate everything to a charity that will give the items to children who need them.
Collect canned goods from family and friends to give to a food bank. Yule isn’t the only time people are in need.
Go for a walk! Search for signs of spring. Take off your shoes and socks and squish your toes in the mud.
Open all the doors and windows and turn on every light in the house for a few minutes. Let the kids sweep all the old energies out the doors.
Lead the family on a parade around the outside of your home, banging on pots and pans or playing musical instruments to awaken the spirits of the land.
Make corn dollies and a cradle for them to sleep in.
Create a sun wheel out of stalks of grain and hang it on your front door.
Meditate as a family. Have everyone explore what it would feel like to be a seed deep in the earth, feeling the first stirrings of life. Lie on the floor and put out tendrils. Stretch and bloom.
Have your children hold some herb seeds in their hands. Talk to the seeds. Bless them with growth and happiness. Fill them with love. Plant an in-door herb garden.
Decorate candles with stickers, metallic markers, paint and anything else you can think of! Light your candles and give thanks to Brigid for her inspiration.
Help your kids make a special feast! Spicy foods and dairy dishes are traditional. Try Mexican or Indian cuisine. Top it off with poppy seed cake. Drink milk or spiced cider.
Set a fabulous dinner table with your candles, evergreen boughs spring flowers, dragons, sun symbols, or whatever says Imbolc to you. Use the good china.
Let your children make their beds in a special way to represent Brigid’s bed. Go camp style with sleeping bags or build a makeshift canopy! Have sweet dreams…

Heather Osterman is the Family Services Coordinator for the Aquarian Tabernacle Church.

Light a Candle, Cast a Spell

by Melanie Fire Salamander

In Northern European societies, Imbolc or Candlemas traditionally fell at a time when, with the end of winter in sight, families used the animal fat saved over the cold season to make candles. I don’t butcher stock, and I’m not planning to render meat fat to make candles, but I like connecting with the past through candle-making. And though the days are longer now than at solstice, they’re still short enough that a few candles help.

To further your magickal purposes, you can make a spell candle for Imbolc — a candle into which you imbue a particular magickal purpose. Once you’ve made and charged your spell candle, you burn it over time to further your intention. I find spell candles particularly good for goals that require a period of continued energy to manifest, for example a new job, and for things I desire recurrently, for example peace and harmony for myself and the people around me.

Also, Imbolc is traditionally a time of initiations, of divination and of all things sacred to the goddess Bride, including smithcraft, poetry and healing. To align with the season, consider making spell candles dedicated to these ends.

You can make two kinds of candle, dipped and molded. For spell candles, I’d recommend molded candles, so you can include herbs and other ingredients that wouldn’t mix evenly with dipping wax.

Things you need

Cylindrical glass container or containers
Paraffin-based candle wax
Double boiler or other large pot in which to melt the wax
Wick
Scissors to cut the wick
Popsicle sticks (tongue depressors), one per candle
Metal tab to anchor the bottom of each wick (a heavy paper clip will do)
Crayons, old candles or candle coloring for color, if desired
Small objects appropriate to your spell
Herbs appropriate to your spell
Scent appropriate to your spell

For your molding container, the best thing is the used glass from a seven-day candle. You can find seven-day candles all over, including at Larry’s Market. The Edge of the Circle Books has them, or check your local pagan store.

You can also use glass tumblers, jelly jars and the like. The larger the container, the bigger the possible candle and the longer it will burn. Seven-day candle containers have the advantage of having a good candle shape, so that the flame easily melts the wax at the sides of the glass. To accomplish your purpose, ideally you’ll burn the entire candle, leaving no stub, which is easiest to do in a container shaped like a seven-day candle’s. Make sure also that the glass of your container is fairly thick.

If you do use a seven-day candle, you’ll need to clean out any remaining wax. To do so, heat the glass in a pot of water to melt the wax. Be sure to heat the glass with the water, rather than introducing cold glass into boiling water, which might break the glass. You’ll need a bottle brush, detergent and some concentration, but it is possible to clean these containers.

Candle wax can be found at candle-supply stores and craft stores. It comes in blocks of two pounds each; the smallest amount you can buy is more than enough for several candles. For wick, again you’ll need a candle-supply or craft store. Lead-based wick, which has a thin thread of metal covered with cotton, is easiest to work with, but you can also use pure cotton wick. The popsicle stick, a craft store or drugstore item, is used to anchor the wick at the top of the candle.

If you do use a seven-day candle container, and the tin tab at the bottom hasn’t disappeared, save it. Such a tab anchors the wick to the bottom of the glass, making sure the wick lasts the length of the candle. If you haven’t saved the tab, you can use a heavy paperclip or buy the real thing at a candle-supply or craft store.

The remaining ingredients depend on the intention of your spell and should have associations appropriate to that intention. None of these ingredients is required — you can make a spell candle by simply making and charging it, or by charging an ordinary candle. However, as with any charm, the more energy you put into in its creation and enchantment, the stronger the spell. I give some ideas for ingredients following; for a full list of associations, check your favorite table of magickal correspondences, or see The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk; Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, by Scott Cunningham; or Aleister Crowley’s 777.

The easiest way to color candles is to melt crayons or old candles with your wax. To get a strong color, use more colored wax. Don’t mix colors, or you’ll end up with a muddy brown. You can also purchase candle coloring at a candle-supply or craft store. For color symbolism, check tables of correspondences; as always, your personal associations and preferences are the strongest and most resonant. Some common associations follow:

Red: Lust, passion, health, animal vitality, courage, strength
Pink: Love, affection, friendship, kindness
Orange: Sexual energy, earth energy, adaptability, stimulation
Brown: Earth energy, animals
Yellow: Intellect, mental energy, concentration
Green: Finances, money, prosperity, fertility, growth
Blue: Calm, healing, patience, peace, clairvoyance
Purple: Spirituality, the fey, meditation, divination
Black: Waning moon, release, banishing, absorbing and destroying negativity, healing
White: Waxing or full moon, pro-tection, purification, peace, awareness; good for most workings

Probably the most common small object to add to a spell candle is a written expression of intention. Candle makers often add semiprecious stones; you can add a stone appropriate to your intention, for example sacred to a deity who rules that area of life, or personally connected to you, say a birthstone. Depending on your spell, other small objects might suit. If you’re doing a spell to invoke the peace of the ocean on a still day, you could include sand or seashells. A candle to draw love might include small cut-out hearts, one to draw money pieces of dollar bill. Note that any added objects should ideally be flammable, or if not flammable small enough not to prevent your candle from burning.

You can use herbs suitable for incense to further your spell. Use herbs you can safely burn indoors. Herbs may make a candle smoke and can combine with the wick to create a large flame, so use them sparingly. Also, herbs tend to clump at the top and bottom of the candle, often producing a stub at the end that’s hard to burn. However, herbs are easy burnable ingredients to add in line with your intention, and if you choose the right herbs they’ll smell good. For lists of herbs, try any incense-making book, such as Scott Cunningham’s The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews or Wylundt’s Book of Incense. To make sure your herbs smell sweet, burn a pinch first.

Both the preceding books also discuss scents, which you can incorporate also. For a strongly scented candle, you’ll need to add perfume. It’s best to use candle scent, found at candle-supply and craft shops, or synthetic perfume oil. Essential oils are volatile and break down in the wax, leaving your candle with no scent at all.

The candle making processAs with any spell, start by considering what you want and what symbols represent your goal. Likewise, as always, don’t try to compel someone who hasn’t consented. Remember that what you do returns to you threefold.

Start by collecting your ingredients and planning your candle-making for a day and hour appropriate to your intention. Imbolc this year falls just after the full moon, so for spells of increase you might want to wait till the moon turns. Or phrase your spell to release something negative. If you need money, banish poverty. If you want love, banish loneliness.

Give yourself a few hours to make your candle or candles, during a period when you’re unlikely to have your concentration broken. Just melting the wax alone, depending on the volume melted, can take from 15 minutes to an hour. You’ll be using the kitchen, so make sure you’ll have it to yourself or that any visitors will be attuned to your purpose.

First, melt the wax in the top of your double boiler. If you want all your candles to have the same color, add the crayons or old candles now. You can use a single pot if you’re willing to watch the wax closely — you don’t want it to burst into flames. Break the wax into small chunks beforehand, so it will melt faster. Heat the wax over medium heat, but don’t let it boil. If you want candles of different colors, you’ll need to melt the crayons or old candles separately, then add clear wax to about the right volume in the pot and mix before filling your containers. Add candle coloring according to package directions.

While the wax is melting, pad your working space well with newspaper, because you will almost certainly spill some wax. Make sure all your ingredients and tools are handy. If you have herbs in unmanageable sizes, for example whole rosemary stalks, break them down so the pieces are a size to burn without becoming small bonfires.

Once the wax is fully melted, turn the heat low and let the wax cool till the wax on the sides of the pot starts to set, at approximately 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Cooling the wax a little helps prevent the creation of large air bubbles in your finished candle.

Now you’re ready to start forming candles. I usually cast a working circle at this point, calling my patron deities to witness, but without a lot of tools or formal setup. You can work as elaborately or simply as you like. However, I would recommend making the candle with focused intention, as well as charging it later.

Take a moment, then, to focus your concept of your goal. You might create a running mantra to repeat through the rest of your candle-making, or consider an image or group of images to help you concentrate. Be sure to state your intention simply and firmly. If it seems appropriate, write your intention down.

First, if you want multiple candles with the same scent, or you’re only making one candle, scent the wax now.

Next, cut a wick for each candle. The wick needs to be as long as your candle container, plus several inches. Thread the end of the wick through the metal tab or paperclip, or other object appropriate to your spell — for a money spell, you might anchor the wick with a folded bill. Then, drop the weighted wick-end to the bottom of the glass container. Making sure the weighted end sits flush on the bottom and the wick stays as straight as possible, wrap the other wickend around a popsicle stick and set the popsicle stick across the mouth of the glass. Make sure the wick-tail is in the center of the candle-to-be. The more centered your wick, the more evenly your candle will burn.

If you’re using unleaded wicking, pour a little wax around the tab at the end, then let it harden firmly. Then gently stretch the wick taut, and rewrap the top around the popsicle stick.

Next, add the nonwax ingredients to your candle. Drop your folded written intention, if any, and any other objects into the bottom of the candle glass. As each falls, imagine it adding strength to your spell. You can add herbs now as well, or you can add them to the top after pouring, if you want them to float down through the wax and be distributed through the candle.

When your objects and initial herbs are in, pour the wax. Pour evenly and slowly, and try to make sure your wick stays in the candle’s center. If you want to add herbs after pouring, do so directly afterward. If you want to scent a candle singly, now’s the time.

The next part is the really hard part — set the candle out of the way, and leave it alone! It will take up to an hour to harden. You can continue to meditate on your purpose, set up an altar to formally charge your candle, or take down your circle for the time being. You might want to check your candle in this interim period, as the top’s center may form a depression, which you can top off with melted wax. To this end, keep some wax melted.

When your candle’s solid, cut off the extra wick at the top, leaving about a half-inch.

Next, energize the finished candle with your intention. Cut your circle and call any deities or spirit helpers you like, if you haven’t yet, and restate your purpose. Then raise energy in your chosen manner. When the energy’s at its height, send it into your candle, then ground any excess into the earth, keeping what you need for yourself.

Finally, burn your candle. One of the great things about burning a candle in a glass container is that you can keep it going night and day in relative safety. Make sure, however, that the candle is in a place where no human or pet can knock it over, and where no combustible thing can fall across it. Also, at the end of the candle’s life, you might want to burn it while you can watch; it’s during the last inch or so that the glass will break, if it’s going to. Either way, just in case, burn the candle on a nonflammable surface, say an earthenware plate or a tile floor.

If you don’t want to burn your candle every day, burn it on days appropriate to your spell. For example, burn a love candle on Fridays, a day sacred to Aphrodite, Freya and other love goddesses. Again, tables of correspondences can help you figure appropriate days, or you can determine them astrologically. Or you can burn your candle when you feel particular need.

Ingredients for different intentions

If you can’t find or don’t like any of the following ingredients, by all means cut them, substitute or better yet create your own recipe from scratch! The stronger the associations for you and the more personal your candle’s creation, the more effective your candle will be.

For divination and psychic work: Purple coloring; a small image of an eye, for far-seeing; lemongrass, sandalwood, cloves, yarrow and a pinch of nutmeg; frankincense scent
For protection: No coloring; basil, vervain, rosemary, St. John’s wort and a pinch of black pepper; vetiver or patchouli scent
For healing: Pale blue coloring, bay, sandalwood, cedar, carnation, lemon balm; eucalyptus scent
For peace and harmony: Pale blue or lavender coloring; lavender, meadowsweet and hops; lilac or any light floral scent
For inspiration in the arts: Yellow coloring; a small image of a lightbulb; a piece of amber; bay, cinnamon, lavender, orange peel; scent of bergamot, or any citrus scent
To attract love: Pink coloring; small silk or candy hearts; rose petals; jasmine scent
To attract sex: Red coloring; sexual images; rose petals, ginger, damiana, ginseng, a vanilla bean; musk scent
To attract money: Green coloring; a folded bill or shiny dime; dill, lavender, sage, cedar, wood aloe; oak moss, vetiver or patchouli scent, or some combination of these
To get a job: Green coloring; a topaz or turquoise; pictures of tools you use in your work; bay, lavender, cedar, red clover, nutmeg; orange scent, or any citrus scent

As you make and burn your candle, attune to the season as well as your intention. Now is the time to ask Bride for inspiration and to light a new flame, beckoning the longer days to come.

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Human dignity is that silent something in us that keeps from falling below the level where others look down on us to make light of our very existence. None of us exists who cannot sense to some degree the feeling that others hold for us. It may create in us a “show them” attitude that takes us through life more successfully, but it will more likely destroy our desire to be anything more than what is expected of us.

It is an appalling thing to see others impose their superiority upon human dignity of those whose literacy may not be equal to their own. Only profound ignorance could convince anyone they have the right to see and idly judge another’s intelligence, or to insult the dignity of any human being.

The little silent people who have not yet discovered within themselves the abilities they need to lift themselves, still have the right and dignity of being human. A small amount of respect and direction might start them on the road to better things, though it might be all uphill. At least if they know it is all uphill they may work harder and reach and place where they can look back at those with lofty ideas about themselves, standing forever stagnant, and feel more compassion than they could ever have felt.

*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*

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

Elder’s Meditation of the Day – January 26

“All life is a circle.”

–Rolling Thunder, CHEROKEE

The atom is a circle, orbits are circles, the earth, moon, and sun are circles. The seasons are circles. The cycle of life is a circle: baby, youth, adult, elder. The sun gives life to the earth who feeds life to the trees whose seeds fall to the earth to grow new trees. We need to practice seeing the cycles that the Great Spirit gave us because this will help us more in our understanding of how things operate. We need to respect these cycles and live in harmony with them.

Great Spirit, let me grow in knowledge of the circle.

Daily Feast for January 26th

January 26 – Daily Feast
There are in every life both sunshine people and rainy-day people. There are giving people and there are those who take, but how so few in number are those who understand. To have someone understand why we cry or laugh, why we feel downcast for no apparent reason, is to have a friend. A friend accepts our changes of mood without telling us to snap out of it. They know if we could so easily handle tears we would have done it already. All our loneliness and worry and fear seems to fade in the presence of a friend who never judges but stands alongside with loyalty. “My u na li, take my hand and walk with me until you can go alone.” It gives us what we need to be a friend as well.

~ We shall not fail….to nourish your hearts….about the renewal of our amity and the brightening of the Chain of Friendship. ~

CANASSATEGO, 1742

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

Auras, Chakras, Light and Sleep Cycles

Celeste Yarnall, Ph.D

What is an aura?

An aura is an electromagnetic energy field that surrounds, encompasses, and permeates all living things; it includes the being’s physical structure as well as its energetic outer layers. It is made up of four bodies outside the physical body: the etheric body (where some suggest our past life experiences may be stored), the emotional body, the mental body (two layers: higher and lower), and the spiritual body (three layers: higher, middle, and lower). The colors of an aura vary depending upon the condition of the being. Anyone can learn to see auras; there are also professional readers and even cameras that can photograph them.

Where are our chakras located?

First chakra (root/base of spine)
Second chakra (chi/below navel)
Third chakra (solar plexus)
Fourth chakra (heart)
Fifth chakra (throat)
Sixth chakra (third eye/brow)
Seventh chakra (crown/above head)

What are the Chakras?

The chakras are energy centers aligned along a spiral column in the etheric double; energy is absorbed from the surrounding air and brought through the chakras into the physical body. The Vedas, ancient texts of India, contain the first known reference to chakras. The chakras are considered to be spinning wheels of light energy. (Chakra means “wheel” in Sanskrit.)

Various spiritual schools have different systems of identification for the chakras, but a widely accepted version identifies seven major chakras, beginning with the first, or root, chakra, located at the base of the spine and moving up the body to the seventh, or crown chakra, located a few inches above the top of the head. (There are also five minor chakras, at the hands and feet or in the case of our dogs and cats, their paws, {which I cover for our feline companions in my book The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care}, co authored with Jean Hofve, DVM) and then the hollow at the base of the skull, where the brain meets the spine. It is said that as we spiritually evolve, new chakras will emerge.)

Why are the various Chakras assigned colors?

A specific color is associated with each chakra because color can be used to stimulate, sedate, or balance the chakras and their associated organs.

The use of light and color in healing dates from ancient times. In Ayurvedic medicine, it is believed that there are cycles that are the most conducive for certain activities. In Chinese medicine, yang and yin symbolize light and dark. It is of utmost importance to honor our daily cycles of light turning into darkness, as our moon travels around our planet and our planet travels around our sun.

FIRST CHAKRA (root/base of spine)
Red stimulates the immune system by building up the blood and helps with detoxification. It is said that this color fights tumors, has an antiviral effect, and relates to the reproductive system and the procreative imperative to survive. Those with compromised immune systems may benefit by be ing surrounded by the color red as much as possible.

SECOND CHAKRA (chi/below navel)
Orange is said to be an appetite stimulant and a lung builder. It may depresse the parathyroid glands, and may stimulate the thyroid as well as the mammary glands in the production of milk for all types of mammals. Qi (chi) emanates from this chakra.

THIRD CHAKRA (solar plexus)
Yellow is thought to stimulate the gastrointestinal system and helps keep hormones in balance. It’s also said to be beneficial for the liver, gallbladder, kidneys, and for diabetes and hard chronic tumors. The fear/fight/flight mechanism originates here.

FOURTH CHAKRA (heart)
Green is said to stabilize energy and is a bronchodilator. It may be beneficial in the treatment of infections. Many believe that love emanates from the heart chakra. Pink is the secondary color of the heart chakra.

FIFTH CHAKRA (throat)
Blue is said to aid in the healing of third-degree burns, scratches, sores, and infections. It may be beneficial for all fevers that respond quickly when used in conjunction with holistic remedies. Blue is a very cooling and sedating color. The related color turquoise can be soothing for irritations, inflammation, and itching. It may help induce sleep, and it should follow green in treating all infections. It is known as the chakra of self-expression.
See my note below regarding the importance of sleep.

SIXTH CHAKRA (third eye/brow)
Indigo worn around the neck is said to help stabilize the thyroid if a person or pet has a hyperthyroid condition. The third eye chakra is best known for providing living things with intuition and instinct.

SEVENTH CHAKRA (crown/above head)
Violet is said to increase the white blood cell count, stimulates the spleen, and is a color for high spiritual attainment in humans.

NOTE: When we don’t sleep in sync with seasonal light exposure, we not only alter our etheric double, our own aura and our own chakra’s but also alter our biological rhythms that control hormones and neurotransmitters determining appetite, fertility, and mental and physical health as well as those who share our living space with us, such as our children and companion animals.

By relying on artificial light to extend our days, we fool our bodies into living in a perpetual state of summer which is when our ancient ancestors were always anticipating the scarce food supply and forced inactivity of the coming winter, when we do this our body begins storing fat and slowing the metabolism to sustain us through months of hibernation and hunger that never arrive.

We, along with everyone who lives us with us in our homes, including our animals, are all extremely sensitive to natural light and dark rhythms. There is a strong case for all of us to sleep in the summer months between 10:00 p.m. (2200 hours) and 7:00 a.m. (0700), and starting at the Autumn Equinox between 9:00 p.m. (2100) and 6:00 a.m. (0600).

Our early ancestors obeyed these seasonal rules by honoring the seasons and their natural rhythm of light and dark. Our bodies generate a cascade of protective chemicals, including those that help prevent cancer, obesity, diabetes, and depression, to name but a few, only when we sleep deeply with no interference from any light leaks whatsoever, including the LEDs on electronic equipment, digital clocks, night lights, and the light leaks that seep in from outside. We all desperately need a true black night sleeping experience, that tracks with what we did before civilization turned the lights on everywhere. Think about creating a cool dark cave concept which truly produces a wonderful nights sleep. It’s also best to not have caffein after 3pm if you want to sleep well that evening.

The ramifications of not honoring this light and dark concept are enormous for our own health as well as that of all the living things in our household. If just one person leaves a light on in a sleep cycle and any part of our body can sense or feel it we all will suffer the consequences from this chronic addiction and abuse of light. This of course includes our computer screens and TV at night. There is a little trick which helps somewhat if you must work on your computer in the dark cycle and that is to have rose tinted lens made with your prescription in them. This is what I do: I remove my contacts where my glasses which have a rose tint to the lens’s which the eye optometrist called a plus 3 rose tint. You can also use them for driving at night and with or without a prescription they are said to help preserve some of the chemical cascade that we need to have take place in these precious evening hours of darkness when we must remain in artificial light.

I was astounded to learn that studies suggest that even tiny light leaks (0.2 lux), as little as a single candle flame, adversely affect our own health, our childrens health and that of our companion dogs and cats. If light leakage and subsequent lack of melatonin has been found to promote tumor growth. Could the use of light after dark actually be one of the causes of not only having an impact on tumor growth but cancer in people, in children and our pets, as well? So turn out those night lights everywhere in the house. And for a closer look at the importance of honoring light and dark cycles, see “Lights Out” by author, T. S. Wiley.

This simple adjustment in our sleep routine may actually have profound consequences in our own ability to heal ourselves on every level possible, including our chakra’s and etheric double.

I personally include the use of 2.5 mg.’s of sublingual (which you dissolve under your tongue) Melotonin, 30 minutes before bedtime.

Nothing said herein is meant to be construed as medical advice. Please be prudent and consult with your healthcare providers for any serious disorders. These idea’s are presented for informational purposes only and should be treated as such.

We can very easily begin to explore what role our aura and chakra’s play in our modern lives if the idea resonates with you. We can perhaps benefit in many ways when we are open to the ancient idea’s presented by many other cultures around the world. These cultures have all honored nature and the natural order of life from the dawn of our first foot prints on this planet. Perhaps we too can benefit by looking more closely at what we do in our own day to day lives in this modern hi-tech, brightly lit, big blue spinning ball, we live upon.

Your Chakra Colors and What They Do

Annie B. Bond

For millennia, eight colors have been thought to correspond to energy centers in the body. Wearing or surrounding yourself with these colors leads to balance and inner healing. For example, if you want to open your heart, there is a color that corresponds to the heart that will help. If you need to speak your truth to someone, you can wear a throat-chakra-colored scarf for encouragement. Find out about the chakra colors and what they do.

Red – First chakra, base of the spine. Groundedness, trust, belonging, lessens feelings of mistrust.

Orange – Second chakra, belly just below the navel. Sensuality, emotion, creativity, lessens feelings of inferiority.

Yellow – Third chakra, solar plexus. Will, identity, commitment, lessens feelings of confusion.

Green – Fourth chakra, heart. Compassion, forgiveness, intimacy, lessens feelings of isolation.

Blue – Fifth chakra, throat. Expression, communication, power to manifest, generativity, lessens feelings of stagnation.

Indigo – Sixth chakra, third eye, between the eyes. Clear sight, intuition, integrity, lessens feelings of despair.

Violet – Seventh chakra, crown, top of the head. Spiritual connection, mastery, lessens feelings of distraction.

White – Eighth chakra, just above the head. Radiance, expansion, lessens feelings of limiting attachment.

Adapted from The Chakras in Shamanic Practice, by Susan J. Wright (Inner Traditions, 2007). Copyright (c) 2007 by Susan J. Wright. Reprinted by permission of Inner Traditions.
Adapted from The Chakras in Shamanic Practice, by Susan J. Wright (Inner Traditions, 2007).

	H.P. Lady Beltane on Only 2 Posts Today I’m N…
	Alpha on Only 2 Posts Today I’m N…
	H.P. Lady Beltane on I Need a Little Help Plea…
	Billy Murphy on I Need a Little Help Plea…
	H.P. Lady Beltane on I Need a Little Help Plea…
	H.P. Lady Beltane on I Need a Little Help Plea…
	H.P. Lady Beltane on I Need a Little Help Plea…