Baal means “master” or “owner” and may be the title of various Semitic spirits, or may indicate the many “paths of one, in the manner that a Yoruba orisha has many paths (aspects) yet remains one.
Baal’s image summons him, as does fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, arrowhead, hammers, and images of lightning. Why would you wish to summon him? Perhaps because he has been known to stabilize the weather and provide fertility, prosperity, and protection.
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June 2: Ascension Thursday (Christianity, 2011)
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June 1: Jerusalem Day (Israel, 2011); International Children’s Day
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Did you know… |
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From Wikipedia’s newest content:
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I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant “Amen,”
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn’t free.
This hexagram shows an open mouth. Today is the time to think about nourishment – for your own body and also the ways you nurture others. In your life, the right people need to be taken care of. Do not sacrifice yourself for people who waste their energy. At the same time, you need to feed your body and spirit in the best possible way. The right amount of simple healthy foods combined with a calm manner supports your best interests today.
Did you know… |
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From Wikipedia’s newest articles:
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Is there a stack of mail teetering toward a disaster on your counter? Do you have stacks of magazines from the 1980s that you haven’t looked at since? Find your clutter quotient with this quiz from Unclutter Your Home (Storey Publishing, 1999) by Donna Smallin.
Choose a number between 1 and 4 that best describes your response to each of the following statements.
1: Never or almost never.
2: Sometimes.
3: Usually.
4: All the time.
Then add them up and see how you score below.
1. When I have free time I like to shop.
2. I keep bills, bank statements and other mail in piles, until I have time to file.
3. I have more than 10 plastic bags in my house.
4. I save magazines with interesting articles/recipes.
5. When I look around, I get tired just thinking about what it will take to unclutter my home.
6. I have two or more craft projects going on at any one time.
7. My house may look messy to some people, but I know where to find everything.
8. If someone stops by unexpectedly, I try to avoid letting them in.
9. I leave things out so I know where they are or as a reminder to myself.
10. Time keeps me from getting or being organized.
11. When it comes to clutter, I think, “Why bother? It will just get cluttered again.”
12. I can’t bear to part with things and I consider myself a pack rat.
13. The stress level in our house is directly related to the clutter level.
Next: How did you score?
Did you know… |
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From Wikipedia’s newest articles:
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In the news |
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Your Animal Spirit for Today
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AntAnt is dutiful, patient, industrious and focused. If you ever put an obstacle in the middle of an ant trail, you’ll notice that ant will go over it, around it, or even under it—but ant will NOT let the obstacle drive him backwards. Above all, ant is a team player, and knows that if each member of the team does his assigned task, the team will succeed. Do you have goals that are best met by team effort? If so, get the other players off the bench and let them into your game. |
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New-Generation Elders
Author: Rev. Mason Stone
Selena Fox, Margot Adler, Raymond Buckland, Laurie Cabot, Starhawk. The list of Elders that we have in the Pagan community is vast (those listed above were simply the first to come to mind) . The title of this essay might seem contradictory, but it’s precisely what I can’t seem to find; young people in the Craft who have the tenacity and balance to stand up for, encourage progression, and lead.
When looking to ‘Elder Qualifications, ‘ I think the best requirements are found in the Charge of the Goddess. They are: beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence. That pretty much sums it up to me. The problem is, how many of us youngsters do see that you can honestly say contain even half of those qualities?
Before anyone starts to think that I’m picking on young people, first let me say that I am one of those young people. I know that I don’t contain within myself all of these virtues. The point that I’m trying to make is that we should try to be more balanced and focused in striving toward these merits. I know that not everyone is called to elderhood but if we honestly take a closer look at this list and employ ourselves to the task, would it hurt us or empower us?
In these next few paragraphs I’m getting information from Thuri Calafia’s book Dedicant: A Witch’s Circle of Fire (published by Llewellyn) and throwing my own two cents in (what’s one more opinion) . Each of the eight qualities is given in pairs for a reason: balance. I agree with Thuri on this (being a Libra, to say that balance is important to me is an understatement) . The first pair is Beauty and Strength. To sum up Thuri’s thoughts on this dynamic duo: beauty without strength leads to feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and low self-esteem.
Strength without beauty causes callousness and bitterness. But when the two are in balance, beauty and strength, they strike a harmonious chord and promote a sense of self-worth, confidence, and the positives of both. I agree with this. Isn’t it neat how two completely different ends of the spectrum complement each other rather than take away? Guess there is something to that old opposites attract thing.
The next twosome we’re given is Power and Compassion. We have all seen what too much ‘power’ can do to a person: inflated ego, selfishness, and in some extreme circumstances, cruelty. Compassion with the absence of a sense of power comes to be meekness and usually ends up with one being the proverbial doormat to the world. Once again though, when the two come together they flower into a person who is not only ethical, but someone who is able to help others without being too timid to say “no” when they are overtaxed. This makes sense to me; do you see why the whole balance thing is important?
Our next set is Honor and Humility. Thuri says that living honorably is being honest, living in a positive manner, and being reliable. But honor is not so nice when humility is not in the equation; it causes arrogance and pride. Humility that isn’t tempered with honor leads to someone who is ignorant to his or her self-worth; they will never be able to reach their full potential because they fear it. Honor fused with humility promotes a sense of pride and also wonder, an utterly charming combination.
Our final couple of virtues is mirth and reverence. Mirth, as delightful as it is, does have its negative attributes. When one has no sense of reverence they aren’t truly respectful of the goings on, making light of everything. While our celebrations are joyful expressions of the divine, however we may perceive it, they are not one big joke for us to sit around and laugh at. Alternately, when reverence decides to stand alone we may find that we have taken all of the joy out of our rites, leaving us only with stiffness and strictness. When mirth and reverence are melded into one, we are able to have a good time and still be respectful.
To try to bring all of these thoughts to a single point, we should all, young and old alike, try to bring these qualities within ourselves and integrate them into who we are, truly striving to balance them all. The oracle at the Temple of Delphi had two requirements before one could enter: “Know Thyself” and “Nothing In Excess”. These are two tenets that I believe we should all invoke. Kind of makes sense, huh?
What prompted me to write this is that I see far too many people, mainly newcomers who are of the younger generation who get into Wicca or Witchcraft or whatever you, dear reader, prefer to call your practice simply for either shock value or the magick and spells; and then there are those who do have a sincere heart but simply don’t realize that a core precept of our ways is not to change the world around you, that’s the Goddess’s territory, but to change and make you better. If we all make every effort to integrate these qualities into the us present and accounted for and shift into an ‘elder’ mindset, regardless of our age, we can find the fortitude and positivity that our community needs to continue to foster in order to remain progressive.
It worries me that not enough of us “new-generationers” (for lack of a better term) are going to be able to take up the reins when it comes our time. One of the faults (or blessings depending on how you look at it) of the human condition is that we inhabit a body that ages, withers, and dies. In forty years, who will nurture the next Circle Sanctuary? Who will write the next Drawing Down the Moon? Who will be there to show guidance to the next set of young ones? By taking action now, we will be ready when that time arrives.
This is a Being/Intending Affirmation in the third week of
the month. Make this a purposeful day!
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My mission is to embrace trust in my world.
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ABOUT TODAY’S AFFIRMATION
This is a worthy mission! As we embrace trust in ways that
feel personal, we make a powerful contribution to the world.
Think of what a different world it would be if each one of
us trusted each other! Wow! In an instant, our world
would be transformed. Our World is where we give our
attention. As I say in the TARGETS FOR LOVE AND PEACE
PROJECT: “World Peace is a Personal Choice.” We are all
one, yet we make individual choices.
ABOUT YOUR PROCESS
You have your own unique, individual, personalized, and
singular process. Running parallel to your unique process
is the universal process. If you look carefully, you are
likely to find that your process and the universal process
are astoundingly similar. This similarity does not diminish
your uniqueness, but supports and honors it. Humanity is
stepping through a VERY dark wall of despair, fear, doubt,
and toxicity. Throughout history, we humans have been
clever about stepping AROUND the wall (denying it), going
OVER it (overcoming it), blasting INTO it (forcing or
struggling with it), and lifting it UP (glorifying it). It
is time now to walk THROUGH it with your light. Oops!
Be careful not to drop the light, believing that the
darkness is omnipresent. You ARE walking with your light.
Embrace your mission.
Good Afternoon my dearies! I know it is late in the afternoon but I am going to do things a little different today. I am going to just put on the horoscopes, tarot, I Ching and Runes. Then after that I am actually going to put on some interesting and useful info. That’ll be a first, lol! If you can’t poke fun at yourself, then no one can.
Hadn’t talked to everyone in a while, so I thought I would give you all a quick up-date. You know when I asked for your prayers for my son, his family and everyone else suffering from the flooding??? The water stopped 2 foot from getting into his house. I don’t want to toot your horn to soon because we had rain yesterday and it is also raining now. But I do have faith in you that as long as you continue to pray for him and everyone else, we will make it. May I ask you one more thing, there is a little boy who is in one of our hospitals about to die. The reason, his mother let him play in this nasty water, while she cleaned up some. I wish I knew the child’s name but I am not even suppose to know about this. So please pray for him and also pray for these parents around here that they exercise good judgement. The CDC came through here and tested the toxic levels in this nasty stuff. All the levels were off the chart. I believe if I had a kid right now about 5 or 6 and I had cleaning to do, I would nail him to the wall by his drawers.
But the water is starting to receded slowly but surely and I am sure life will return to normal. Now for my fun around here and oh, brother, has it been fun! NOT! Should I start with the idiot that is killing cats or the other idiots shooting coyote? Hmmmm……whatever is a Lady to do??? Let’s start with the cats. I had two cats that I was obviously crazy about. Either one of them were afraid of humans and now I wish they were and had never met me. I feel responsible because they lost their fear of humans. If they had just been kept wild then no one could have ever hurt them. The one that was pregnant was found dead in the field this morning. She had given birth to the kits several weeks ago and I was scared to death they would harm the momma cat. Sure enough, when they didn’t need her anymore they killed her. The big one that I wanted to keep so bad he was found dead in the field also, shot. I know who is doing it. I heard them talking one night while I was outside brushing KiKi. But hubby says without proof we can’t do anything. I don’t know what kind of proof I need? Get my camera and follow them out into the field. Then ask them to smile for the camera? That wouldn’t work at all. I would want to beat the hell out of them, then they would call the Law. But having dumped so many animals, I am sure they wouldn’t call the Law at all. I might end up like one of those animals out in the field. Now on to the people shooting coyotes. They move a trailer way out in the middle of the field. Right in the middle of every animals’ path you can imagine. Well I have been going out in the afternoon and looking at the coyotes with my field binoculars. (Yes, I hunt.) On the horizon, I saw pups a playing. It was hard to tell if they were coyote or wolf. Momma Whatever would never come up to see her babies play and check on them. But she wasn’t too far away, they all took off in a hurry. I asked the man who was doing the coyote hunting if he ran across a den of young coyotes/wolves, to let me know. I also asked him not to shoot all of them please. If it wasn’t too much trouble for him to bring me one. He did one better and made my day. He told me if they ran across a den he would send his boy over to get me and I could go with them to the den. I asked if I could take all of the pups with me. He looked at me like, “Why?” I told him I knew of enough Rescues that would take the other. There was no need to kill them all. He agreed with me. He even asked me if I wanted to go out in the future and collect the pups (if any) and turn them over to a rescue. I love animals, so what could I say, lol! But that did make my day. The man doing the coyote hunts use to come over while Mocha was alive. She was more Wolf than dog and she was a beautiful animal. But she was very protective of me and when the man came over, he always wanted to pet Mocha. I would tell her it was ok and she would let him pet her. So he knows I miss her and why I would want a coyote or wolf pup. Kiki would have to get use to it. Especially her not ruling the roost anymore, lol!
Have a great Saturday,
Lady A
Today you get to be you. Today you get to be immersed in the abundant richness that is your life.
Today you get to grow stronger by dealing with new and unique challenges. Today you have the immense good fortune of being able to create joy where none existed before.
On this day that’s one of a kind, you get to experience the wonders of the universe from your own unique perspective. Today you can envision a dream and then immediately start working to bring that dream to life.
What’s truly wonderful is that even in the midst of the most frustrating frustrations, you can make a difference. In your world, in your life and in the lives of others, you can make a positive difference.
Today, in a new and fulfilling way, you get to be you. And even the setbacks, shortcomings and obstacles make your life richer and more meaningful.
So here it is, and here you are. Stand up, step forward and live the grand adventure that now stretches out in front of you.
— Ralph Marston
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Witches Of The Craft® 
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