Rayneschild October, 2011

I watch the brightly colored leaves

Blow in the last of daylights Autumn breeze

The sun has finally left the sky

And now at last the time is nigh

In an outdoor cauldron

I lay the fire

With sacred herbs and wood

And conjure loved ones memories

Be they bad or good

I smile, I laugh,sometimes I cry

And every year I question why

Life’s lessons are so hard to learn

And I sit and watch the fire burn

The hours pass, I’m unaware

On this Samhain of a Solitaire

But the lessons learned

I’m proud to say

Have made me who I am today.

Here are a couple of herbal blends that are specifically for Samhain.  They can either be burned as incense or added to the fire, when added to the fire however you lose the purity of the fragrance.

Samhain 1

Equal parts nettles, bayleaf,calendula,tarragon,sage,oak leaf and 2 drops of Frankincense or Myrrh oil.

Samhain 2

Bay leaves, nutmeg, sage.  This blend also works well when contacting your personal spirit guide.

If you add oak leaves and nettle to the fire all the better.  It is sometimes possible to obtain really large bags of sage at pow-wows or occult stores at a super reasonable price and that’s a great additive to the fire as well, although it does produce a lot of pungent smoke.  However you choose to mark this important occassion have a Blessed Samhain!

Tags: fire, holiday, incense, sabbat, samhain

• Articles

K. White Moon September, 2011

The Banishing Power of Fire: A Ritual

There’s no denying the hypnotic, mesmerizing power of fire, whether in the gentlest candle flame or in the terrifying destruction of a forest fire.  Of the four elements, fire is the most volatile and fast-acting.  Its effects are often permanent and dramatic on the physical plane and the same can be said for when it is used in magick.  The element of fire encompasses passion, determination, action, success, anger, sex, big changes and fast transformation.

You don’t need to have access to a bonfire to harness the energy and spirit of fire in your spells and rituals.  Most of us have to make do with candles, and this is fine:  a small flame can pack just as much energetic punch as a large one, so long as your intent and belief are strong.

Think about it.  Fire is truly amazing.  It can turn wood into ash, water into vapour, paper into a whirl of smoke.  It can make things disappear, in a way.  It is a natural fact that a forest or prairie grows faster and lusher than ever after it has been consumed by a large-scale blaze.  For this reason, I feel fire is perfect for use in banishing and purifying all types of negativity, be it bad habits, self-defeating thoughts, shyness, a lingering broken heart, loneliness, poverty or even negative people that keep popping up in your life.  Ridding yourself of these things clears the way and makes room for personal growth.   Here is a simple spell or ritual using a candle flame to banish negativity.

You will need:

-a black or white candle (I prefer black for banishing, white for purifying…  it really is your own preference).

-a small twig about the size of a pencil stub.  Some trees with a history of being connected with banishing and purifying are Lilac, Peach, Pine, Cedar and Birch.  If you can’t find any of these, any twig will do in a pinch.

-A small piece of paper.  An alternative to the paper is a shred of birch bark, if you have it.  Birch is associated with cleansing and purification, and the bark is thin and paper-like.  The more natural materials you have the better, after all.

-A fire-proof dish (Cast iron is good).

-This ritual is best done during a full moon, or just after.  Then as the moon continues to wane and decrease so should your problem.

Before you begin, decide what you would like to remove from your life.  Do you want to stop attracting hurtful relationships?  Maybe you have trouble saying no, or you have an excess of stress in your life.  It can be any influence, energy or thought you’d like to stop experiencing, as long as you are not trying to harm anyone.  This ritual will not make your boyfriend’s Ex spontaneously combust, in other words!

When you are ready, do your usual circle casting or calling upon deities if you wish, depending on your beliefs or if you feel a need to incorporate your own tradition into it.  Light the candle and spend some time feeling its heat with your hands, appreciating its powerful bright light in the darkness.  Note how it melts the wax and consumes the wick.  Know that it has the same ability to transform and cause change to your life.  Respect it and acknowledge its power.   Once you feel you have achieved an understanding for the fire, take your twig and dip it into the candle flame.  Allow it to burn for a couple of seconds and then blow it out.  When all the embers are dead, it will be blackened with soot.  Using the black soot like ink, start to write out the word, phrase or a symbol of that which you are letting go of.  You may chose runes, a simple drawing, a personally designed sigil, initials, or to simply print out a word.  If your black “pencil” runs out, dip it into the flame again, blow it out, and continue until you are finished.  Draw with power and feel what you are doing.  Pour your problem into the drawing and paper.  An easy way to do this is to picture a bubble of light in front of you.  Fill it up with your negative feelings about the issue.   See the feelings leaving you and entering the bubble in the form of splotches of color.  Once you feel unburdened and lighter, sink the “bubble “ into the paper, symbol and stick.

When you are done, extinguish the stick thoroughly and hold the paper in both hands.  Pour the negativity into it until you are cleansed and empty.  Do this as long as you wish, until you feel the heaviness begin to lift or your focus starts shifting.  Then, light the paper carefully on fire with the candle (you may want to use tongs to protect your fingers).  Set the paper in the fire proof dish to burn.  As the fire consumes the paper and the symbol of your ills know that the spirit of fire is also consuming the problem and rendering it powerless.  Symbolically, your problem is going up in smoke.  Burn the remainder of the stick in the dish as well.

You can either let the candle burn out on its own now, or over the duration of the waning moon light it for a while each night and pour your negatives into the fire until the new moon.  You can bury what is left, compost it, throw it into a body of water or otherwise dispose of the candle stub at this point.

In my experience this is an empowering and transformative ritual, which helps with personal growth and inner strength, and helps cleanse out lingering grievances from the past.

Bright and fiery blessings to you!

***PLEASE exercise caution and common sense when using fire.  Don’t wear loose clothing.  Keep fire away from flammable items and surfaces.  Keep a bucket of water and a fire extinguisher nearby.  Don’t leave a candle or any flame unattended, ever.  Use a sturdy candle holder and a flat surface.

Tags: banishing, fire, ritual

• Articles

Jazz August, 2011

The Burning Times

The Burning Times, or Witch Craze is a dark time in history. What really got it going were two main things. In 1320 Pope John XXII authorized the Inquisition and then of course the publication of the Witch’s Hammer (Malleus Maleficarum). This book was written by two Dominicans named Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer.  They  were inquisitors of the Catholic Church and worked in the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The purpose of this office was to defend the Catholic and trial other religions. The Holy Office was one of the most feared in Europe.

The Burning Times lasted almost four Centuries, but the presence of the witch trials was reduced in 1682 because Louis XIV enacted an edict. The actual witchcraft act wasn’t repealed until 1951.  The very first trial against witches was even before Pope John XXII, happening in 1245 in Southern France.  Pagans were not the only religion that was affected in this time, other religions that suffered included Hindus and Jews. Also homosexuals were tortured and killed at this time.

85% of those killed in the Burning Times were women. Women’s power was associated with darkness and death. Witchcraft was bad because it brought up ideas of women actually having power. Women healers were brutally burned at the stake, even though the vast majority of these healers were practicing Christians.  During these times, women could not gather together, especially not at night. Those who did continue to practice had to do it in severe privacy and be careful with who they communicated with. Neighbours and family turned on each other. It was a hard time, and it was especially difficult to be a woman. Woman was the obstacle of mans holiness.

Over 40,000 people were burnt, hung or tortured to death in Europe alone! Sadly, people were still being charged with being witches and for performing black magic in the 1980s and 1990s and were killed in places like South Africa and Indonesia. The word ‘Witch’ was confused with ‘Satanist’, and so people were taught to fear the word. There are obviously still numerous misconceptions on the word. Cultural rituals were dismissed as witchcraft. Even in today’s time people still cannot escape the vision of an old woman with warts and a pointy hat and riding around on a broom.

The witch’s hammer is a book that has been rewritten and published numerous times. Citizens would refer to it religiously, which started horrific deaths and torture that lasted for almost 400 years. Mass hysteria spread after the first publication. It is divided into three parts: details on how a witch is real and so is the dark magic they cast being the first part. Secondly, it depicts such details as pacts with the devil, that the witches were responsible for. Lastly, it has various methods and techniques on how to trial a witch. Having flipped through this book personally, I noticed various mentions of St. Augustine and St. Raymond.  It is declared that torture and execution are acceptable methods of punishment and trial.

Signs of being a witch were vast and always growing. Some of the signs included:

- Owning a cat

- Fighting

- Begging

- Having warts, moles or other blemishes

- Having a crooked nose

- Gossiping

- gathering at night

- Being poor

And because the average lifespan in this time was around 40 years old, being elderly meant that you were a witch.  Being blamed or pointed out by anyone for any reason as being a witch, pretty much meant that you were to face a trial.  The majority of those punished were actually Christians. People in the community would blame someone for the crops being bad, someone being sick, or just looking odd, and then the community would watch them being burned or tortured in the town square. The burnings and hangings were a form of entertainment and people would cheer and bring their children to watch.

Before you were condemned to death, you would be ‘asked’ to confess to your crimes. Methods of persuasion included:

- Sleep deprivation

- Mutilation

- Disembowelment

- Limb Dislocation

- Use of hot pincers

- thumb screws

- sexual humiliation

- removal of eyes or tongue.

There were witch hunters who gained money by charging magistrates for every person who was executed of confessed. Of course if you confessed, you were sentenced to death, it just meant less torture. If you did not confess and declared you were innocent and not a witch, you may be forced to a test. This was to see if you really were innocent of not. There were countless methods and outrageous ideals when it came to these tests. Some of the ways to see if you were a witch included things  like ‘the water test’. which mean that you were dropped into the water, with your arms and legs usually tied. If you sunk and drowned that meant that you died an innocent death, but if you floated and lived, you were found guilty and were killed.        Another method was ‘the scales test’, where you would be weighed against the bible. If you weighed more than you must not be righteous and are guilty and to be killed.  One other popular method was a tricky one. ‘the piecing of skin’. someone would piece a blade into your skin, if there was no blood or no pain than you were a witch. The tricky part was that people would use things like retractable blades.

The Burning times were a horrific period of history that has caused irreparable damage and has tainted the name of Witch, Wiccan and Pagan to this day! During the witch craze churches were built overtop of Pagan shrines. Hundreds of thousands were killed and tortured. Unfortunately the  Holy Office of the Inquisition is still operating, but it now goes under that name of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They currently focus on issues like homosexuality and abortion.

Tags: burning, fire, past, witches

• Articles

Administrator November, 2009

This is a fire meditation that requires the ability to keep your mind blank and should be practiced in complete silence.

What you will need is a fire – be it inside or outside doesn’t matter. This will not work with only a candle as a single flame is not enough.

Once your fire is well lite and burning brightly start with a basic grounding and clear your mind. Focus only on your breathing. Once you feel calm you may sit in front of your fire. Be sure to have correct posture as it helps energies flow correctly, and don’t sit so close that the fires heat is distracting you from your meditation.

When you are ready gaze into the fire. At first I want you to notice the logs, the colors, the individual flames. Now, slowly bring your attention away from the small details and focus on the fire as a whole; watch it dance.

It may take a few moments but eventually you will start to receive impressions from the fire, and with practice you may even start to “see” things in the flames.

In decoding the images and impressions you receive you will have to use intuition. What emotions did you feel? What did you think of? Did you feel inclined to think of a certain person?

Tags: fire, meditation

• Articles

Jennie Johnston September, 2009

Experiencing the Elements at the Playground

I am pleased to be a new member of the PaganPages family.  Welcome to Pagan Parenting Every Day.  Each month we will be exploring topics that relate to every day parenting with a pagan spin.  As a new parent looking for articles that relay parenting topics through a pagan perspective I find a lack.  I hope to address this gap and bring ideas to the table for discussion, learning and pondering.

Before we get to this month’s topic I’d like to say that the views presented here are based on one pagan parent’s perspective.  I am not trying to advocate a “pagan way” to parent, as I believe that as each child is different, so is each parent and each pagan in tern.  Rather, I am hoping to create a dialogue for parents and offer up some parenting styles, tips, methods, activities and issues.  The wide world of parenting is often daunting and a sense of support in our community can be a blessing to us all.  I also welcome questions, comments and suggestions for future topics.  You can contact me at stonegirl1177 AT yahoo DOT ca.  And now onto our topic for this month: Experiencing the Elements at the Playground.

As North American society has moved away from predominately dwelling on farmsteads and into urban lifestyles city parks have become a nature refuge.  As pagans many of us think that getting into nature, meaning out of the city and into a National park, camping, etc. is the only way to experience the elements.  But other than our 2 or 3 weeks a year of vacations, or our weekend day trips how can we bring the lessons and just plain fun of the elements into our children’s lives?  Some urban dwellers have backyards where they can explore the elements with their kids but if you don’t, or even if you do and you are looking for a change try taking a walk to your local playground.  The power and wonder of the elements are right there waiting for you and your family to appreciate them.

AIR

Swings and slides are perfect tools for really experiencing air.  Pumping your legs, you move faster and faster.  The air is all around you, blowing your hair and for kids who have a hard time understanding what they can’t see or feel in the moment this movement helps air, the invisible element become tangible.  Not to mention swinging is fun.  For toddlers and babies this aspect of motion is as far as you’ll need to take the activity.  Although you can repeat “Wind!” with glee in your voice to let them associate the sensations they are having with air.  For older children you can talk about the sensations they feel and mention some air correspondences like communication and the intellect.

FIRE

Fire is not an element you openly see at parks.  It is not something you really want to encourage either.  But the big ball of fire in the sky can be your children’s plaything in its own way.  Shadow play is very entertaining.  Running and playing shadow tag, seeing the interesting shapes that you can make and for older kids you can talk about the length of your shadow and how that corresponds to the different time of day as the sun moves from east to west.  If it is a particularly warm day you can also teach even toddlers about the wonder of shade cast by trees or a nearby building.  You can move from the sun to the shade and experience the sensations of fire through the intense heat of the sun.

WATER

Water parks with their spraying are of course great to experience on hot summer days and a very fun way to play with water.  If you are out after a rain puddles can hold a wonderland of enjoyment for kids of all ages.  If your playground has a drinking fountain that is a great way to start a dialogue about the precious nature of water.  Even if your local playground has no water available for play or drinking you can bring some in a thermos or water bottle.  As children play they inevitably get thirsty, as they break for a drink they can think about how the body is mostly water and why they need to replenish their supply after they exert themselves.  Perhaps they can carry their own water bottle and this can be a great lesson in understanding the precious nature of water as a resource.

EARTH

Sand boxes, pebbles, grass, wood chips, there can be many surfaces at the playground that are earthy.  Sand boxes are endless in possibilities for play: mud pies, drawing in the sand with sticks, shoveling, sand castles, and just getting dirty are all great ways to interact with mother earth.  Rolling down grassy hillsides, climbing trees, the reassuring thud of the earth beneath on a see-saw, share earth’s rhythms with your child and you can also chant if the mood strikes.  If your neighborhood playground is on concrete there is usually some crack somewhere with plants pushing up through it.  What a powerful lesson to learn about, how even a substance as strong as concrete can be severed by the earth and strong plants will reclaim the space if left to their own devices.

Regardless of time constraints and nature access you can have family adventures with the elements in urban settings.  All it takes is some imagination and a desire to be in the moment.  A healthy dose of spirit can make our neighborhood sacred regardless of how much vegetation is around us.  We are nature; nature is with us in each moment, just waiting for us to notice.

Tags: air, child, children, earth, elements, fire, kids, Pagan, parents, water

• Articles

Blacksun May, 2009

Dancing in the Flames

This is the third in my Elementals Perspectives series for PaganPages.  As you might guess, this one is all about the Fire Element.

When I was about ten years old, I nearly burned down a forest; I played with matches.  If it weren’t for the vigilance of my parents, I probably would have been the cause of enormous damages and maybe even loss of life.  It has been the cause of many nightmares for me over the years and it’s been difficult to forgive myself for my childish stupidity.  The only good thing that has come out of it is now I respect the Fire Element in the world around me to a degree that is probably a notch or two higher than many people.

As magic workers understand, Fire represents power, energy, consumption, change, transformation, and all the other ways we label those concepts.  Fire has to be a part of our magic or nothing happens.  But, as I learned most profoundly in my childhood, Fire must be handled with care and caution.  When you play with Fire, it just might reach out and bite you.

Anthropologists often mention the discovery of fire as being a major step in the development of human history and this would certainly be difficult to dispute.  Purposely making fire (and I am describing ‘fire’ in this case as meaning an open flame that is kept alive through our feeding it fuel) created a whole new world for ancient humans and it might be argued that fire-making separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom.  Other than using sticks and rocks for tools, it is perhaps the most significant technology ever incorporated into our world.  Our modern understanding of physics and all the other so-called ‘hard sciences’ is due to our use and study of fire.  Our technology uses fire and its derivatives in over 90% of everything we take for granted in the world around us.  Even the previous two Elements I’ve discussed in the last months (Earth and Water) would not exist if it weren’t for Fire.

The biggest fire you’ve ever seen is the one that hangs over us in the sky every day.  It (the sun) is directly responsible for maintaining life on this planet.  And the atoms that make up you, me, and everything we can touch, see, smell, taste, and feel were made in the fiery depths of stars like our own Sol.  If we can direct Fire properly, we can perform some pretty amazing magic.  Of course, ‘properly’ is a relative term.  But to be able to have any ability to manipulate Fire, to have some control of ENERGY, we need to know something about it.

Fortunately, this is where science and magic come together very nicely.  For instance, we hear a lot about energy in the news lately and since most news media guys don’t know much physics, the word, ‘energy’ is bandied about as if all energies were the same.  Well, guess what… they are.  Energy is energy is energy.  The main difference between thermal energy and, say electrical energy is the way we measure it.  Don’t believe that?  Okay, try this:  thermal energy is measured in basically two ways: degrees and calories.  There are formulas that can convert one to the other as long as you know a few other measurements (calories measure how much the degrees change things).  Now calories can also be converted to horsepower.  That too measures how much change is made in overcoming inertia.  Go to your local hardware store and ask for an electric motor and the salesperson will ask you what horsepower you want.  That’s basically how they’re rated.

The way we measure energy depends on what changes we’re interested in.  Magic is also interested in changes.  Of course, magic is based on the belief that everything is connected to everything else.  Modern physics has finally come to that conclusion as well, thank the gods.  When magic users ‘raises energy,’ we don’t necessarily make a big thing about what type of energy we’re raising because we believe there’s always some way to convert the energy we collect together into the type of energy necessary to get the job done at the other end of our spell.  Please note that I’ve said we collect the energy.  This is actually a more correct way of phrasing it.  Mostly, when we get to the part where we’re supposed to ‘raise energy,’ what we do is insert some form of activity (usually through our own physical efforts, but not always) that we’ve collected together in one place and one time.  Now comes the tricky part: converting that energy into the form that will make the changes we want.

Actually, this is only a small problem, a very small problem.  Remember how thermal energy was converted to electrical energy?  Basically, it wasn’t changed; it was only put through some things that made us measure it differently and, viola, it was that form of energy.  What happened in between is we used some physical device that allows us to measure energy in one way going in and another way going out.  Ask a physicist how that happens and he might tell you about sub-atomic particles and dimensional exchanges, etc.  That’s fancy physics talk about stuff that we don’t know very much about how and a lot more about what happens.  But don’t worry; we aren’t demanding you become the next Einstein just to cast a spell.  It’s all magic; having a degree in physics doesn’t make it anything less than magic.

Spell crafting depends mostly on our Will.  That is, it depends on our ability to formulate and hold a clear goal in mind and heart until that goal is reached.  As I said before, physics and magic have come together nicely and this particular point is where there is close agreement.  Quantum mechanics says that nothing in the universe actually happens until we measure it.  Simple observation counts as measurement.  With every observation comes an observer and that observer has expectations and a certain amount of Will.  It isn’t hard to connect the dots and realize that any energy we direct with a strong enough Will ends up doing pretty much what we expect it to do.  All schools of magic train the student to focus their Will and the rest is easy (well, okay, easier).

Our spells and rituals are the devices we use to collect and convert the energy all around us.  Essentially, energy is change.  So any change is some form of energy that we can use if we can create the correct spell to convert it to the form that accomplishes our goal.

But hold on a minute.  Let’s go back to me and my stupid matches, or rather, my matches and stupid me.  My mistake was not that I didn’t understand that matches made fire and fire burned things.  My mistake was that I didn’t understand that at some point, I would be unable to control the fire.  My young/dumb self didn’t respect the fact that energy was all around me and it could overwhelm me if I didn’t put some safety features into the way I handled it.

Energy is all around us… everywhere and all the time.  A great deal of it is in the form we call matter.  Matter is only one way energy hides.  But as soon as you spark the right change (remember that all energy is measured by the changes it makes), the matter starts to convert into some other form of energy.  In the case of my younger self, the wood around me began to convert mostly to heat and light… in other words, it began to burn.  Given the right ‘spark,’ any bit of matter can be coaxed to convert itself to some other form of energy.

The Fire Element requires us to exercise considerable caution.  Otherwise, we can burn the forest down around us.  Learning to use this Element isn’t just a matter of knowing how to raise energy.  It’s also about learning how to handle the energy we collect and convert.  All too often, students of magic concentrate on producing the right energy but forget to put safeguards in place.  I guarantee this will lead to big problems.

And that is why you are supposed to cast a circle.  Circle casting is mostly a mental thing for most spells.  And anything that deals with the mental aspects of the universe is relegated to the Air Element, which will be the subject of the next article in this series.  Between now and then, think long and hard about various ways of safeguarding your energy raising.  It well might keep you from getting burned.

Tags: elements, fire, magic, magick

• Articles