Tag: Boline

YULE LORE

YULE LORE

One traditional Yuletide practice is the creation of a Yule tree. This can be a
living, potted tree which can later be planter in the ground, or a cut one.  The
choice is yours.

Appropriate Pagan decorations are fun to make, from strings of dried rosebuds
and cinnamon sticks  (or popcorn and cranberries) for garlands, to bags of
fragrant spices  which are hung from boughs. Quartz crystals can be wrapped with shiny wire and  suspended from sturdy branches to resemble icicles. Apples,
oranges and lemons hanging from boughs are strikingly beautiful, natural
decorations, and were customary in ancient times.

Many enjoy the custom of lighting the Yule log. This is a graphic representation
of the rebirth of the God within the sacred fire of the Mother Goddess. If you
choose to burn  one, select a proper log (traditionally of oak or pine).  Carve
or chalk a figure of the Sun (such as a rayed disc) or the God (a horned circle
or a figure of a man) upon it, with the Boline, and set it alight in the
fireplace at dusk on Yule.   As the log burns, visualize the  Sun shining within
it and think of the coming warmer days.

As to food, nuts, fruits such as apples and pears, cakes of caraways soaked in
cider, and  (for non-vegetarians) pork are traditional fare.  Wassail,
lambswool, hibiscus or ginger tea and fine drinks for the Simple Feast or Yule
Meals.

The Boline

The Boline

The boline is the tool used for cutting things in the physical realm. It usually has a white handle, a blade curved inward, and it’s very sharp, and usually very expensive. It’s used for cutting wands, carving words in them as well as candles, but mostly herbs and branches for wands. In my opinion, as a city Witch, this tool is not really necessary, and just a waste of money (which is why you don’t see a picture of it). You can carve with the tip of an athame, and cut or carve, with magickally charged heavy duty scissors (like the one’s above). But for Witch’s with giant herb gardens and lot’s of trees, the boline may call to you much more than a city Witch.

Old WOTC Yuku Site

The Witches Magick for Oct. 30th – Solitary Samhain Ritual

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Solitary Samhain Ritual

Place upon the altar apples, pomegranates, pumpkins, squashes and other late autumn  fruits. Autumn flowers such as marigolds and chrysanthemums are fine too.  Write on a piece of paper an aspect of your life which you may wish to be free of; anger, a baneful habit, misplaced feelings, disease. The cauldron or some similar tool must be present  before the altar as well, on a trivet or some other heat-proof surface (if the legs aren’t long enough). A small, flat dish marked with an eight-spoked wheel symbol should also be there. [This is just what it sounds like. On a flat plate or dish, paint a large circle.  Put a dot in the center of this circle and paint eight spokes radiating out from the dot to the larger circle. Thus, you have a wheel symbol  – a symbol of the Sabbats, a symbol of timelessness.]

Prior to ritual, sit quietly and think of friends and loved ones who have passed away.  Do not despair. Know that they have gone on to greater things. Keep firmly in mind that the  physical isn’t the absolute reality, and souls never die.

Arrange the altar, light the candles and censer, and cast the Circle of Stones. Recite the Blessing Chant. Invoke the Goddess and God.

Lift one of the pomegranates and, with your freshly-washed Boline, pierce the skin of the  fruit. Remove several seeds and place them on the wheel-marked dish. Raise your wand, face the altar and say:

On this night of Samhain I mark Your passing,
O Sun King, through the sunset into the Land of the Young.
I mark also the passing of all who have gone before,
and all who will go after.
 
O Gracious Goddess, Eternal Mother,
You who gives birth to the fallen,
teach me to know that in the time of
the greatest darkness there is the greatest light.
 

Taste the pomegranate seeds; burst them with your teeth and savour  their sharp, bittersweet flavour. Look down at the eight-spoked symbol on the plate; the Wheel of the Year, the Cycle of the Seasons, the End and Beginning of all Creation.

Light a fire within the cauldron (a candle is fine).  Sit before it, holding the piece of paper, gazing at its flames. Say:

Wise One of the Waning Moon,
Goddess of the Starry Night,
I create this fire within
Your cauldron to transform
that which is plaguing me.
May the energies be reversed:
From the darkness, light!
From bane, good!
From death, birth!

Light the paper in the cauldron’s flames and drop it inside. As it burns, know that your ill diminishes, lessens and finally leaves you as it is consumed within the universal fires.  [The cauldron, seen as the Goddess.]

If you wish, you may attempt scrying or some other form of divination, for this is a perfect time to look into the past or future. Try to recall past lives too, if you will.  But leave the dead in peace. Honor them with your memories but do not call them to you. [Many Pagans  do attempt to communicate with their deceased ancestors and friends at this time, but it  seems to me that if we accept the doctrine of reincarnation, this is a rather strange practice. Perhaps the personalities that we knew still exist, but if the soul is currently incarnate in another body, communication would be difficult, to say the least. Thus, it seems best to remember them with peace and love – but do not call them up.] 

Release any pain and sense of loss you may feel into the cauldron’s flames. Works of magick, if necessary, may follow. Celebrate the Simple Feast. The circle is released.