witchcraft

Oak-corns & Apple-thorns

Modred December, 2011

Mystic Witchcraft

I am standing in front of the mirror, toothbrush in hand.  It’s Friday at 10:30 PM.  I’ve had a long day followed by a glass of wine and my lids are heavy.  All that stands between me and a good night’s rest is this piece of recycled plastic with a pea-sized blob of paste on the tip.  As I start brushing my teeth, I note with disappointment the receding gums that have come with middle age.  Slowly I begin to contemplate what other degradations of the flesh are in store as I approach the end.

And then it comes unannounced: a visionary blast, a bright white flash of experience.  It lasts for perhaps a second or two, but in that span I see myself as what I am — one of 7 billion organisms swarming on a ball, insects whose lives are infinitesimally brief.  So small, so impossibly small, against the backdrop of existence am I.  I feel my identity begin to slip and I have a moment of panic before I see that I am a part of a larger immortal organism, a mortal cell in an immortal body.  Then follows a calmness and a warmth, the assurance that All Is As It Should Be.

The next morning is Saturday.  I rise before dawn and finish the set of wooden blocks I’ve been working on as a gift to my little grand daughter.  I make plans to take my children and grand kids to the movies on Sunday.  Later that afternoon I meet with a friend, and I make a point of letting him know how really gifted he his and how I’m certain he’s destined to achieve great things.  In the evening I give my wife a foot rub.

Life, you see, is simply too short to put off such things.

Technically speaking, mysticism is direct experience of deity, but it’s more than that.  It’s about seeing yourself from a greater height.  Mystic witchcraft isn’t about navel-staring, blind devotion, or winning salvation; it’s about practicality and fun.  It makes you happier and healthier.  It gives you insights into yourself and your life so that you can take action.  Witches put the craft in witchcraft.  We like to get things done.

If you aren’t given to having mystic insights, know that I didn’t used to be either.  It really isn’t difficult.  Once you’ve had one such experience, the next one comes more easily, and the next even more so, etc.  The trick is to have your first one — and here are some simple steps to doing just that.

1. Belief.  You must believe unequivocally that mystic visions are possible.  A drop of skepticism might as well be an uncrossable ocean.  If you have the need and the desire, belief should be easy enough.  But if you need a shot of encouragement, solidify your belief by reading accounts written by or about mystics, shamans, prophets, and seers.  Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticsm is the definitive work on the subject, but you could just as easily choose Saint John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul, Saint Teresa of Ávila‘s The Interior Castle, or Marian Green’s A Witch Alone.

2. Need.  You must have the need and the desire for mystic vision.  You cannot create the desire for mystic experience from the need to have a vision of the lottery numbers.  You must need it as you have never needed anything else, like a man on his third day in the desert needs a sip of water.  The desire for my first vision was the result of the need to recover from a serious illness, but that isn’t the only way.  Use whatever raw material you have at hand — love, grief, angst, or what-have-you.  Your desire can spring from the need to experience unity with a Goddess or God whom you adore, a need for spiritual wellness, the need to escape the desolation of a spiritual crisis, etc.  As long as it is sincere and heart felt it will do.

3.  Location.  Your first mystic vision can take place anywhere, but it may be had more easily in one place than in another.  Hills and mountains are excellent choices, as are hidden glades and forest clearings, fairy rings, and so forth.  An evocative location — some place that makes you feel moved, inspired, at one, or at peace — is a good choice.  For some people that will mean a high hill; to you it might be sitting alone in your late granny’s rocking chair in front of the fireplace.  Is there a pleasant spot in your yard or neighborhood park you can sit or kneel relaxed and undisturbed?

4. Triggering.  For reasons I don’t fully grasp, witches in general seem to have a strange distaste for prayer.  But devotion and prayer are the best way to start, so overcome any aversion you may have and get started.  Try praying at the same time each day in your chosen location.  If it’s outdoors, make a small dolmen of three stones or bricks in honor of a deity; go there daily to deliver an offering as you contemplate, pray, or repeat a short devotional poem you have written and memorized.  Use prayer beads if you like. Traditional meditation is unlikely to be an effective trigger.  Remember that boundless emotional need — for love, for relief from grief or pain, for fulfillment, etc. — is the most direct way.  Let your prayers ring like bells through all the worlds as you express your deep and abiding need.

5. Fostering an Mystic Environment.  After your first experience, give thanks and be open to having more.  Return to the location of your first and make an offering from time to time.  When life is bearing down on you, keep the mystic avenue in mind.  Set aside time for prayer on a regular basis.  Underhill said that love is the essence of the mystic way, and I think she was onto something.  Love Her and she will come to you.  Deity is everywhere, you just have to let Her in.

Once you have triggered a single mystic vision it will become easier and easier still.  Eventually you’ll find they come unbidden, at the strangest times and in the strangest places.

Like, in front of a mirror while brushing your teeth.

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Little Manual of Witchcraft

Ian Elliott November, 2011

No one person can teach all of the Craft.  No one person can learn all of the Craft.  The Craft is too big.  Every witch specializes in something, and acquires proficiency with three or four other things.  This is why the saying declares “You cannot be a witch alone.”  It is best to be in a coven, from six to twelve persons plus the high priestess.  But people move around the world and it is not always possible for covens to keep together.  The next best thing is to associate with one or two witches and keep in touch with others over the internet.  Witchcraft and Neopaganism could not survive in the world today without the internet.

No one can compile an exhaustive list of topics covered by the Craft, and everyone’s personal list will be prioritized differently, according to that witch’s practice.  For me the Craft includes herblore, traditional handicrafts, farming and hunting lore, divination, dreamwork, trancework, meditation, spellwork, study of ancient religions, study of indigenous religions, local study of nature, ritualwork, and covencraft, but I am proficient in only a few of these areas.  I am not proficient in herblore, and moreover I currently live in a country, Norway, where people do not enjoy herbal freedom.  It is very difficult to obtain certain herbs here, and people are not supposed to import them.  For my herbal knowledge I must rely on friends who live elsewhere in the world and who can advise me over the internet or by telephone or letter.  Sometimes these can be obtained in the woods.  Except in the cities, there are small stretches of forest throughout the lowlands.

Local study of nature can only be carried out locally.  If you have one or more partners in the Craft, you should acquire some guidebooks to local flora and fauna, geology and topography, and go out together in different seasons of the year for camping trips and hikes, to study the locale and familiarize yourself with the animals, plants and minerals of the area.  For this topic one must combine book-learning with personal familiarity.  I am aware of the animals and plants in my neighborhood, though I am not given to long hikes or to camping anymore.

Every witch will practice some physical discipline and engage in some form of work developing manual skill, in addition to more mental pursuits.  Every witch seeks balance, both within and with the environment, including inner and outer spirits.  Witches seek freedom in all its forms, and for this reason will not use addictive substances, and will either abstain from habit-forming substances altogether, or at most will use them rarely.

Witches follow the Sun-wheel in all their practices, seeking balance in their use of the powers of elemental Air, Fire, Water and Earth.  They align these practices with the directions of East, South, West and North, respectively.

Air contains the power to know.  Thought is breath.  Every process is begun by increasing knowledge.  Witches always seek to know rather than hide from knowledge.  A witch is nothing if not practical, and will always seek to make use  of knowledge in some way.  Knowledge that is purely negative will be buried by a witch, who can draw on its power without letting its negativity emerge.

Fire contains the power to will.  Will is inseparable from action.  Witches cultivate strings of actions which require regular effort.  They take oaths before the gods to fulfill these strings.  Some strings, such as learning a language, are ongoing and have no foreseeable end.  Strings are cultivated through two forms of action, practice and praxis.  A practice is engaged in at particular times and for particular intervals of time.  A praxis is engaged in at random moments, whenever one thinks of it.  Practice and praxis support each other, and every string involves both forms of action.  To establish a string requires some form of sacrifice, for space must be found in one’s life for the new activity.  The sacrificial fire was always built traditionally in the south, and it is the means of communication with gods, demigods and ancestors.  Witches begin by sacrificing very small things, such as minor habits, which generally tie up large amounts of energy.  The ancestors approve of such sacrifices and will send the witch a special form of vigor as a sign of their approval.

Water contains the power to dare.  Witches dare to go beyond their current limitations.  They examine their assumptions and question them, seeking to think outside the box, as the saying goes.  They explore other possibilities, of awareness, of living.  They change habits to experience living in other ways.  This can also take small forms, such as taking a different route to work on occasion.  But they also seek initiation, psychic death and rebirth, and, when it is the wise choice, they will follow their passions.

Earth contains the power to keep silence.  Silence is inner as well as outer, and involves physical stillness as well as control of speech and thought.  In order to be physically still one must exercise regularly and stay in shape.  A witch will practice some form of meditation in order to be inwardly still. Avoiding unnecessary talk is important not just to preserve discretion (very important during the Burning Times and still important today), but as a way of conserving energy.  A witch conserves energy and only uses it to accomplish a worthwhile purpose.  For this reason, witches are enjoined to overcome and suppress nervous habits.  Unnecessary talking, especially expressing negative emotions, qualifies as a nervous habit.

A witch has several names.  His or her innermost name is known only to the gods, and the witch uses it in silent prayer or when praying and offering to the gods alone.  If a witch is in a coven with a tier of initiations, he or she will have an inner court name, used only among fellow initiates.  Among non-initiates or non-coven fellow witches or pagans, he or she can use an outer court name.  My outer court name, which can be read above in the byline to this paper, is Quicksilver.  This means that one of my gods is Hermes or Mercury; it also means that I tend to spread myself thin in my interests and jump around a lot from one thing to another.  I celebrate this weakness light-heartedly and by naming it I keep it within bounds, thus converting it into a strength, or at least into an element of personal style in my practice of the Craft.  The inner court name, if one has one, and the innermost name should likewise be meaningful, with the innermost name in some way expressing where one is at in one’s current incarnation, and where one is going.  An innermost name can often be the name of an animal or bird.

Witchcraft is both serious and joyful, in this way resembling the play of children.  We witches believe in reincarnation, and also periods of rest and recuperation in the Summerland  (a pleasant place in the Underworld) between lives.  Thus, we are not in a hurry and can afford to enjoy ourselves.  At the same time, our play and restful recreations generally involve some form of learning or practice.  We are children of the gods practicing being grown up, with a view to eventually engaging in some form of work helpful to the demigods (daimones) and elementals, and through them to the greater gods and goddesses.  Laughter and light-hearted glee or zest is an important part of play.  Witches come together at Esbats (generally held at the full Moon) and Sabbats (eight per year).  ‘Esbat’ is from a Middle French word, esbattier, meaning to frolic.  ‘Sabbat’ means a rest.  This implies that the real work of the Craft is done between these occasions.

Witches regard all forms of life as equal and worthy of equal respect.  Humans are not regarded as higher than animals, and even stones are thought to be conscious in some way.  Personal evolution involves harmony within and without, and faculties shared with animals and other forms of life are considered just as important to cultivate as those that seem unique to human beings.

Progress in the Craft is not uniform in pace; it slows down and speeds up at intervals.  As with mountain-climbing or attending a university, there are certain levels to be attained, and reaching them requires a period of intensive preparation when one is getting close.  In the Craft there are three levels or degrees of initiation.  Upon attaining to a new level, the nature of learning in the Craft changes its form.  One emerges victorious with respect to old struggles but must now assume more mature responsibilities; this is described in the witch saying “First the victory, then the battle.”  Initiations are like promotions in school.  Eventually one graduates, and this graduation, lifetimes ahead, is sometimes referred to as the transmutation or transformation.  Thereafter, a witch need not incarnate but can stay on the Other Side, performing work useful to the daimones.  He or she acquires the ability to visit this surface Earth, at first as a sort of light; later on a material body can be projected temporarily for a particular purpose.  This is what the ka was believed able to do in ancient Egypt.  Transmutation generally takes place on the Other Side, though accounts from stregheria (Italian witchcraft) suggest that it can occur while in a material body on this side, in which case the experience is said to be excruciating.

Witches are not much concerned with transmutation.  It lies far ahead.  One goes to the Sun and receives a body of light.  If you’re interested you can read about it in the Prasna Upanishad.

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Prunings from the Hedge

Ian Elliott October, 2011

Inner Witchcraft

Working with Elementals

Introduction

These chapters were originally presented as information supplementary to that provided by the High Priestess of a coven I was advising over in Colorado.  Since I could not be physically present among them, I provided more private aspects of my practice, some part of which would surface at times were I with them.  My contention throughout has been that most magical energy is locked up within the human body and therefore preparation for witchcraft must attempt to remove some of these blocks so one can experience and make use of one’s native magical energy.  By ‘magical’ I mean here ‘capable of producing unexpected effects.’  This loosening up of energy locked within the body is presented here as preparation for spell work, but, as with all work on the Sun-wheel, one must go round multiple times.  As it is a circle, the Sun-wheel has no beginning or end.

I  begin with an attempt to describe the main types of knowledge as touching the Craft.  The East is associated with discursive knowledge, knowledge involving symbolic systems, whether linguistic or arithmetical, knowledge of an object separate from the knower.

The quarter of fire involves personal knowledge, in which the knower and known meet in a link of mutual understanding in which both are subject and object of shared knowledge. It is in this sort of knowledge that one contacts the gods and demigods in prayer, and has an ongoing partnership with each of the four personal elementals.

The quarter of water / west is ruled by the Crone, and this is where we contact and make use of her shadow-knowledge, which reveals hitherto overlooked features of the world and can lead to altered modes of awareness.

The quarter of earth / north is the quarter of stillness, where work with elementals both begins and ends, and where the spell is earthed after release of the cone of power.  Its essence is inner and outer stillness.

The partnership with elementals is a focusing device that fixes the witch’s attention on the functions they represent.  Work within the eastern quarter of discursive knowledge makes no further requirement.  Work within the southern quarter of will involves personal knowledge, so that the practitioner takes up the resident magical weapon of the elemental and tries to visualize its form within the weapon.  The witch acts towards the elemental as if it were a real person.  Nothing further is required.  This is part of ‘the theatre of witchcraft.’  The energy exchanges between paired opposite elementals are necessary for the completion of work within those quarters.

Work begins in the northern quarter of keeping still.  The witch meditates to quiet the mind, and then slips into the silence between successive thoughts, descending to the level of inner whisperings.  On this level a compulsive habit can be dismantled by removing one of its weak links.  The witch begins with very small habits controlling various nervous movements or tensions in the body.  Overcoming one of these habit-cycles releases the energy that was used to run the habit.  This is made available to the salamander, who is ready to do inventory.

Inventory is work in the southern quarter of will.  It involves, initially, going through all the clutter in the house and putting things in better order, throwing out whatever is no longer needed.  If an object or document, et al., is connected with an old unfinished project, the witch decides then and there whether it needs to be completed.  If not, the project and its artifacts are abandoned; otherwise the project is scheduled for immediate attention.  In this way, past commitments (which do not go away when we put them ‘on the shelf’) can be cleared away, making mental space available for commitment to a new project, such as,  in time, some spellwork.  This is done by the witch and the salamander together, the latter making use of energy freed by the witch and  the gnome in the northern quarter.  The offering of mental space from completed or canceled projects is the salamander’s requital of the gnome for the latter’s gift of free energy.  The primary motivation of elementals in offering the witch initiate their services is to effect this energy exchange with their elemental opposite ( gnome – salamander; sylph – undine).  They also share in the balancing of elements the witch is achieving.

Under the guidance of the High Priestess, first degree initiates are taken into the western quarter of daring, where they enter a state of altered awareness in which to practice raising the cone of power together, subsequently earthing the spell in the quarter of the north.  Witches are cautioned to stay out of the west / water / daring when on their own, until passing the second degree initiation.  Some information is given on initiations at this point and the nature of the second degree in particular.  But all this is more properly the High Priestess’s province, so I pass from it to the quarter of daring as subject.  In all quarter work, my aim has been to show how to free up energy and mental space, then uses of elemental work in ordinary life, and finally, their application to the Circle and spellcraft.

I  end with an account of work in the western quarter.  Further information on earthing spells is best left to coven work; and besides, we have already considered the general nature of work in the quarter of stillness.  A possibility for future development is briefly mentioned in connection with dreams, namely, developing the ability to dream lucidly, in which the dreamer knows it is a dream.  This is presented as a springboard towards astral journeys.  Such can lead in time to a transcendent experience in the Summerland called ‘the true Sabbat,’ traditionally reigned over by either King Saturnus or by Bacchus and Ariadne.

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Proving Grounds

Vivienne Grainger October, 2011

Faith and Witchcraft

Faith can be held in a lot of things: that the Sun will rise in the east, that Tuesday follows Monday, that your car will run well enough to take you to work tomorrow. A witch may well believe in any or all of these things, but faith does not enter into her or his relationship with the Divine.

Why? Because through meditation, guided visualization, group or solo astral travel, a witch has direct personal experience of Divinity1.

Experience may have shown this witch that the Element Fire has more to do with a person’s sense of humor than the Element Air, that a seedhead of grass is a perfect expression of the endless and loving abundance of the Goddess (a lesson which may have been taught in the Eleusinian mysteries), that an extremely troubled relationship to the witch’s own father does not preclude having a loving relationship to the God.

“Believing” in the Empedoclean elements – earth, water, fire, air – has a quite different effect on the psyche than experiencing them for yourself. To have fields of ripe wheat appear in your mind’s eye, waving and rippling in the wind, will forever link “Air” and “movement” for you.

Journeying to experience the deities linked to your favorite pastime can teach you volumes about yourself. Many dedicated hobbyists start with Hephaestus, whose careful attention to detail is a function of His love for what he does.

Feeding the Runes your own blood, listening hard as They begin to talk to you by saying Their names, etches them into your soul in a way that memorizing multiple meanings for each Rune cannot.

What you know, you cannot believe in. As Terry Pratchett puts it, “It would be like believing in the postman.”2

Therefore, if I had any advice for a witch who has newly discovered that that’s what s/he is, it would be to get down in the trenches and take the journeys, walk the paths, meditate. Witness the turning of the Wheel of the Year, the passage of Life through the generations, sunrise, sunset, the first sight of the New Moon through a smoky summer haze, the glorious orb of the Full Moon through winter-bared trees, any birth, the rising of bread, the fermentation of wine.

Be surprised by nothing, and awed by all of it.

Every single one of these is a miracle, a signal of the Divine Presence in our lives.

Our ability to witness these miracles for what they are is what sets us apart from the believers, who are often called the “faithful” – those full of faith. In many faith-based religions, the ability to interact directly with the Divine is parceled into the hands of the priests, and kept from the faithful, who must rely on their faith that the Divine exists, and that their priests are cultivating right relationship with that Divine.

The witch has no such distance between Self and Divine. We are out there, talking to and serving our Gods, on a daily basis. It is this that marks out the true witch.

We don’t have to believe. We know.

Witches don’t need faith. We have experience.

So don’t bother to believe. Don’t bother to have faith. Instead, experience your connection to the Divine, and see where that takes you.

The trip will be wonderful, even if the destination surprises you.

1 I do not mean the fudge, even though fourteen out of every ten people like chocolate.

2 Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” series provides a wonderful picture of witchcraft in “Wyrd Sisters” and “Witches Abroad.” I don’t know if he is one of us, but if not, he’s done some very critical thinking about what it took to be a practicing witch in the pre-industrial world, and written about it very well. I also recommend his “Tiffany Aching” series (“The Wee Free Men,” “A Hatful of Sky,” “Wintersmith,” and “I Shall Wear Midnight”) for young adults … no matter how “adult” you might be.

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Prunings from the Hedge

Ian Elliott May, 2011

Three Kinds of Knowledge in the Craft

Three kinds of knowledge concern us in the Craft.  These may be called knowing about, knowing by acquaintance, and knowing without words.  They belong to the Maiden, Mother and Crone, respectively.  There is also nescience, the sublimation of knowing, which belongs to the Goddess in her dark aspect.  Although the power to know is assigned to the eastern quarter of Air, each element involves a form of knowing, and these are quite distinct.

Knowing about is what we commonly consider knowing.  It is knowing a subject, knowing something from the outside.  It is the only type of knowing considered scientifically viable, for it falls in the public domain and is independently verifiable, at least within the limits of its subject matter.  In this it resembles the Maiden, who in her virginity (ever renewed) remains aloof from the objects of knowledge, inviolable.  She provides purification to set aside old, stale knowledge and thus make room for the new.  Her purity and diffidence are reflected in the rules of scientific method restricting subjectivity.

Every process begins in the East with knowledge of this sort.  If we want to get close to a particular god or goddess, we must begin by studying the myths concerning that deity, together with what lore remains concerning his or her rites, tastes, ritual occasions, and sphere of activity.

So long as we are only concerned to know about a particular deity, knowing about is sufficient.  When we want to erect a shrine to him or her, whether indoor or outdoor, and begin offering, worshipping, and meditating on that god or goddess, a different sort of knowledge comes into play.  Now we are committing a portion of our time, our life, to interacting with the deity in a religious manner.  These acts of piety become part of our subjective experience, and hence part of ourselves.  Science does not deny subjective experience, for the most part, but considers it relatively unimportant as a component of knowledge.  Scientific materialists deny any independent reality to subjectivity, considering it an epiphenomenon of the brain, a ‘fever of matter’, as Thomas Mann described it.

Idealist philosophers like Berkeley point out that all we can know directly is our own subjective experience, and all scientific propositions extrapolate from such and are analyzable, ultimately, into statements like “at such and such a time I observed x, y and z under conditions q,” and then predict the circumstances under which these will reappear to an independent observer.  All the contents of the scientific proposition in question derive from subjective experiences of observers and are simply cast into an abstract form that subtracts out those parts of subjective experience considered irrelevant to the matter under discussion.

As witches we are not required to take part in such philosophical controversies.  We can be content to note the value of both sorts of knowledge, and cultivate them both in their proper quarter.  A responsible parent will learn as much as possible about childbirth and early infancy, and will defer to the superior knowledge of the doctor; but the bonding between parent and child is a real subjective experience, and provides numerous instances of transfer of thoughts and feelings deemed questionable by scientific materialists.  The scientific materialist who is a father, though, when he has locked up his laboratory and gone home to his newborn, will enjoy telepathic bonding with his child as much as the most convinced Berkeleyan.

It is easy to see how knowing by acquaintance belongs to the Mother; it is a knowledge involving the interpenetration of two subjectivities, and from the two a third subjectivity is born, the ongoing relationship between them.  As with all relationships, more is involved than mere knowing.  There are promises, compromises, commitments, personal sacrifices to make; for these all involve the will, and the proper field of action of knowing by acquaintance is the quarter of Fire and will.

A witch, my HPS, recently learned that the Watchers’ names from a book of Celtic witchcraft originated in ceremonial magic.  At the suggestion that she substitute names of the four directional powers derived from Celtic folklore instead, she declined, saying that she had already built up a history of devotion with the ceremonial names.  This shows that in the practice of the Craft, knowing by acquaintance is at least as important as knowing about, and once certain relationships are established, it is better to continue in them and let one’s pantheon remain somewhat eclectic.

One can also see from the foregoing that the practice of spellcraft is personal and religious, and in fact cannot be separated from religious piety.  The most effective spells are heartfelt prayers.  Witchcraft, unlike ceremonial magic, is not a mechanical, instrumental affair of manipulation but is every whit as personal as the other interactions that enter into a witch’s life.  Even the magical tools, the wand, athame, cup and pentacle, in some traditions are experienced as providing homes to individual elementals of the four types: sylphs, salamanders, undines and gnomes.  In such traditions, the witch at initiation enters or re-enters on a multi-lifetime commitment and relationship as a pupil to the four Watchers, and receives from each of them an elemental helper who enters into its respective tool.  Thus, the circle is cast not so much by the athame as by the salamander resident in the athame, co-operating with the witch’s will.  It is this sort of knowledge, belonging to the Mother, which allows the witch to consecrate to a specific purpose.

The third sort of knowledge relates to the other two much as one’s shadow relates to one’s body.  The first knowledge studies the body from outside and the second knowledge studies it from the inside.  Knowing without words involves placing the attention on peripheral experience, experience that is, in its details, unrepeatable, and which is thus not expressible in words.  This knowing is generally denied the status of knowledge by materialists and idealists alike, both of whom insist that if it cannot be put into words, it either doesn’t exist or else is too trivial for consideration as a type of knowledge.  It nevertheless lies at the limits of knowledge, the limits of perception, and is as essential to a full survey of knowledge (which we are here examining in the mode of knowing about) as the outline of a body is essential to a knowledge of that body, or as the outer edge of a picture must be included in any complete view of the picture.

Attending to the edge of the visual field is an example of knowing without words, as is listening to background sounds along with foreground sounds.  Watching one’s phosphenes, the lights and squiggles we can see when we close our eyes, is another example that comes into play when our eyes are shut.  Maintaining sensory awareness of our apparent headlessness, in the absence of a reflecting surface, and keeping one’s eyeglass frames in view are variations on the same theme.  Keeping a slight memory of recent dreams in the background of one’s present waking experience can lead to its mirror opposite, lucid dreaming, in which one wakes up in the dream and realizes one is dreaming.  This last is important to a witch as preparation for astral traveling, the fifth power of the magus (“to go”), associated with the element of aether.  All of these examples of wordless knowing belong to the Crone and the western quarter of Water, whose elemental power is the power to dare; that is, to dare the unknown, to dare to go beyond the limits of the ordinary.  Cultivation of wordless knowing opens the witch to altered states of awareness and provides the strong jolt of power needed to charge a spell.

After the spell is cast, it must be forgotten.  This is done through the northern quarter of Earth and keeping still (keeping silence in the body as well as speech).  Even the negation of knowledge is a sort of knowledge.  If knowing without words explores the penumbra of experience, the half-shadow, the act of earthing and sublimating the spell uses the full shadow.  Knowing about examines the witch from the outside, and knowing by acquaintance from the inside looking out, that is, looking out directly where the eyes are pointing.  If knowing without words looks out obliquely where the eyes are not pointing, at the limits of perception, then this final non-knowing concerns what cannot be seen because it is behind the witch’s head, and moves with the head as it turns.  We are aware that there are things in back of us that we cannot see, and we know in general what they are from turning our heads.  But how if there were things that remained in back of us, that turned with our heads and stayed in the shadows?  The witch cultivates this feeling that there is something else, and hurls the cast spell into that feeling upon releasing the Cone of Power and dropping to her knees in the circle to ground excess energy.

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Journey of a Witch

Sky_Emmons April, 2011

Sea To Shining Sea

“Treat the Earth well,
It was not given to you by your parents,
It was loaned to you by your children.”
Indian Proverb

We all want to do better for the earth. Many of us recycle, reuse, and cut down
on traveling when we can.

We celebrate Earth Day with festivals and have feel good talks on how we are making changes for the better.

Hey, we’re doing so much better now, aren’t we?

And yet…

Mother Earth is speaking.
We seem to not hear her in the hum of the city.
In the hum of the technology that surrounds us.
The hum is loud and drowning. It keeps our soul disconnected from Earth.

As children between Earth and Sky we used to feel her. We’d hear her breath in the ocean and her sighs upon the wind.

We listened to the gentle singing of the trees and the hum of life around us.
Harvesting the land, surveying the sky for storms,

becoming the animal in The Hunt, navigate  the land, and sea using the sun, moon, and stars.

Those were our tools.
We were a part of Earth.

Now, we live in cities, pay a lot of money for tools and capes and listen to our cell phone instead.
We travel far and wide to attend Pagan festivals  (some at sacred monuments) that create trash and congestion.

Mother Earth is not in those sacred monuments.
Just like Buddha is not in those statues and Jesus is not on that cross.

We use symbols to connect to the sacred but the sacred is not in the symbols.

The Sacred is the ground you are standing on, the air you breathe; your own breath.

I had a dream that the oceans went black.
Every ocean creature died.

Yes, Mother Earth is speaking.

She’s saying, “my children are dying.”

No one really knows what catastrophes or, for that matter, what good lies ahead.

What things will really be like if humans continue to argue about whose responsibility is it to change.
It’s like little children saying “I won’t go unless she goes.”

Earth has had many children, from volcano’s and lava to simple celled creatures to giants.
We are one of many and yet, on our watch we have managed to alter the face of Mother Earth with our own hands.

Not wind or water, but our human hands.

Yes, there have been massive extinctions and the earth has rebounded.
I suspect in given time she will rebound but perhaps without humans this time?
Maybe good for her, not so for us.

So with these hands let us pick up more trash.
Let us walk more, recycle more, and travel less.

Most importantly, let us demand more earth friendly energy.

While we are at it tell those huge companies like Monsanto to shove it and support a local farmer.
Your local farmer has more soul in the land than Monsanto, which is destroying farmers and the food we eat.

Speaking of the food we eat…

Animal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors of global warming.

Go vegetarian, even if just part time.

I’ve advocated a vegetarian diet through-out my articles.

Perhaps like me, you’ve heard from people, stories of  how easy it was to become a vegetarian and how  they lost weight…blah blah blah.

Seems no one is saying anything different.

So, if you are struggling with becoming a vegetarian and feel guilty because it seems so easy for others, let me tell you something.

Is it hard? You damn well better believe it!

It’s friggen hard when you like a cheeseburger!

Nothing worth fighting for is easy, however so I keep on fighting.

I struggle with it and I’m not perfect. In my heart I know the pain and cruelty animals thought of as food experience.

It is not always convenient as a mom with 3 children but all I can do is try.

Find support anywhere you can including me, hey I’ll support you!
Being the only veg in a family can be a struggle for one who likes meat but wants to change.

I do not want what I haven’t got.
Support local businesses hey, why not learn to make some of your own things? We used to.
Before the age of consumerism, we did not know how much we wanted. We only knew what we needed and we created it ourselves.

I don’t need your poisoned weed killer Monsanto!

Keep the seas shining.

In the garden you grow, in the candles you make, and in the clothes you sew.
What you do with your hands will be the most important imprint you leave behind.

Forgo the Earth Day festivals and stay home.

If you wish to attend a festival, bike, carpool or ride the bus and make sure to clean up after wards.

Get digging, cleaning, and planting.
Make candles, soap or soup!
Celebrate Mother Earth with your heart, home and hearth.

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New to the Craft

Witch1979 May, 2009

Concepts of Deity

As mentioned last month, divinity can often be a touchy subject.  Ask ten different people what their definition of the divine is and you are likely to get ten different answers.  Is there a God?  Is there a Goddess?  If so what are they like?  Every soul will ask these questions in their lifetime and either accept established doctrine or come to their own conclusions.  Spiritual growth is our quest for understanding of that which is greater than ourselves. And while we may arrive at ideas which are universal, the journey is, by necessity, personal.

Wicca is not a religion that promotes dogma or rigid notions on what deity is or is not.  Instead it offers a general framework of thought that most Wiccans share, but which is by no means written in stone.  Like any pagan path, the Craft embraces diversity.  The most fundamental concept is that of immanence.  In contrast to the monotheistic faiths, Wiccans do not consider their gods or goddesses to be “out there” somewhere.  Rather they are here, in the most immediate sense, and in all things including ourselves.  Transcendent deity is the common idea of a powerful figure in the clouds far removed and above humankind.  Immanent deity is also powerful, but it is not separate.  This is difficult to truly grasp because it is beyond the intellect alone.  One analogy is just as all cells of your body are part of you, we are all part of the divine.  Or to state it another way, we each have an inner God, Goddess, or Higher Self within us upon which we can call because we are part of the whole.  Deity is part of nature, or rather is nature, and as natural beings we are constantly in communion with it if we accept that it is so.

The next basic concept of Wiccan deity is that it is dual: there is a God and a Goddess.  There is wide variation and emphasis within the traditions here, but the basic model is that of complementary forces whose combination produces life as we know it.  Remembering that these are immanent forces, the God and Goddess are not a superhuman man and woman.  We may personify them as such in order to relate to them, but when we speak of Wiccan deities they are first and foremost the most primal of forces in nature.  Their interaction is necessary for life, time, and growth.  Without the light of the sun or the rain from the sky (the God) the seeds of the earth (the Goddess) would lie dormant and sterile.  Though we say God and Goddess there is no gender bias between them.  It would be just as accurate to envision deity as twins of the same sex, as many cultures have done, and arrive at the same ideas.  The important point is that they are dual in order to express their interaction.

Beyond the two teachings of immanence and duality there may be little in common for divinities between individuals in the Craft.  Everyone will attune to these greater forces in their own way and this is as it should be.  Many if not most Wiccans find that they connect with the pantheons of a particular culture.  The God and Goddess are seen as universal deities that can be personified and related to more easily as a particular god or goddess from ancient myth.   For instance, groups with a British Traditional focus may invoke the names of Aradia and Cernunnos.  Classical pantheons may choose Diana and Pan, or Demeter and Dionysus.  The list is endless.  It can also vary with the intent of a particular ritual or magical working.  Perhaps I may call on the Goddess as Brigid at the Imbolc sabbat, but as Venus if I am in need of a love spell.  All of these gods and goddesses are faces of the larger deity they personify and none are incorrect.  Meditation upon the greater forces of God and Goddess is the surest way to find your own connection and know what works for you.

Besides calling on specific deities it is also popular in Wicca to represent the deities according to the archetypes of the Horned God and Triple Goddess.  Both of these motifs were common in ancient mythologies as expressions of fertility and immortality, survival and continuation of life being vital preoccupations.  The Horned God rules the wild forests and the animals therein.  He is the king of all noble beasts who is born at midwinter of the Goddess, grows to maturity to become her partner/consort, and gives his life in the autumn so that life may continue.  His cycle follows the solar cycles and the harvest, and he is reborn each year as the child conceived by his union with the Goddess.  The Triple Goddess reflects the threefold face of maiden-mother-crone, also reflected in the lunar cycles/phases.  The Goddess does not die each year as does the God, but instead shows these aspects in turn as part of the yearly cycle.  She is the maiden in spring, the mother after her union with the God going into the summer, and the crone in the waning months of autumn.   As he is reborn she is also renewed and they are young together once again in the new year.  These patterns are mythological expressions of the cycles of nature that we experience, and their popularity in Wicca is understandable given that they aid us in our attunement with them.

Knowledge of the divine is a goal of any religion.  Wicca may acknowledge deity as an immanent duality, but that cannot answer the question of what the experience of divinity is.  If my deity is immanent, is it a force outside of me or just a higher part of me?  Does calling on the divine entail reaching outside to the universe or within myself?  Are their gods/goddesses/angels/fairies/etc in the world or are they my projections?  I make no claim to have any answers to these questions as I am still seeking answers myself.  And I have a feeling that the answers I arrive at can be different from yours, and we can both be right.  To a certain extent it doesn’t really matter.  Whether the forces we work with in Wicca are inside us or out in the world, we have the ability to harness them for ours and other’s betterment.  In that sense the God and Goddess are most definitely “real” because we can see their effects every day.  I like to think of them as forces I may never comprehend, but that I can work with when in need and learn from at all times.  My Goddess is not above me in judgment, but I sit at her feet in deference as a student to a wise teacher who would seek to learn great wisdom.  May she grant me the understanding that I may prove a worthy pupil.

Journal for the Month of April:

I am gearing up for Beltane at the end this month, and the flowers are finally starting to bloom!  This is truly a beautiful time of the year (excepting my allergies), and I am really aiming to stop and smell the roses so to speak.  Even in hard times there is so much beauty in nature that we can enjoy for free.  Sometimes I find it even more important to see these things when things are tough, because it helps me to remember that there is a greater world out there and maybe my problems aren’t as long-lasting as they feel at the moment.

Anyways, I should have more to report next month, I have a vacation coming up in which I plan to cram as much reading and meditation as possible.  I think I’ll throw a little bit of gardening in there too; my herb stocks are quite low!  Here’s wishing a merry Beltane to all!

Until next month, blessed be! )O(

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Role of a Mentor

David J Mehling April, 2009

Like many others my age, the first witch I saw on TV was Samantha on the show Bewitched. But there was real life witch in my area whom I saw on TV several times. Jeffrey B. Cather RN, better known as Lady Circe of Toledo, OH, was respected by the media when they turned to her as the unofficial representative of the Pagan community. She was well spoken, knowledgeable and had an air of leadership about her. When I saw her on TV in the 70s and 80s, I was not yet studying the old ways, but it was in the back of my mind and the knowledge that such people existed kept the spark of my interest alive. When she passed away in 2004, I read she was a WW II veteran and since this was before the VA decision to add the pentacle as a symbol of belief, I’ve wondered if her headstone was ever changed.

Shortly after I was hired by the Postal Service in 1994, I saw a documentary called “Witches, Werewolves and Vampires.” It was more on the lighter side, but I was intrigued by what the Witches were saying about a magical nature centered religion which included a goddess. This was the moment I decided to see if what the Witches were saying was true and if this was something for me. Its funny how the words and attitudes of someone we never meet and who have no idea we exist can change our lives, so perhaps our words and attitudes can in turn affect people we will never meet and may not even know they exist.

I looked in the library in Port Clinton, OH where I was working at the time and found a book, the name of which I have long ago forgotten. It claimed to be about witchcraft, but with instructions to self initiate that included saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards three times at midnight and making a wand stuffed with a blood soaked cotton ball, it sounded weird even in my naiveté. Fortunately it disappeared never to return before I could check it out. Perhaps someone was keeping me from starting out with misinformation.

Eventually I found a few useful accurate books at the library and bought some at a bookstore in another town. But I yearned for contact with a like minded person, someone I could learn from, ask questions, and gain understanding. There was a woman on my mail route I wanted to talk with as she received metaphysical catalogs, had a stained glass pentacle on her door, stickers on her truck reading “witches heal” and “born again pagan” and had a banner in her window wishing “Blessed Samhain.” One day she was sweeping her sidewalk, so I stuck up a conversation, complimenting her on her Halloween decorations. She replied that it was important to her as she was a Witch. I replied that I was a newbie Wiccan and she offered to be of help.

I learned so much from Soraya. She explained the difference between Witch and Wiccan and elaborated on her path of Hedgewitchery. She was the first other Pagan I had met in person, so being a newbie, I tended at first to hang on her every word, something she discouraged. Instead, she encouraged me to listen to different views, try different things and see what worked for me. There was an author whom I idolized at the time, but my mentor had a rather negative opinion of her. I was able to step back and be objective about that author as well as any other. We were comfortable disagreeing agreeably and I never felt pressure to agree with or imitate her. I was a fan of the TV show Charmed and she thought it was stupid. She thought the movie The Craft insulted our religion but I could watch it over and over although I understood how those not familiar with our ways could get the wrong idea. Practical Magic was a movie we both enjoyed.

Soraya encouraged me to interact with other Pagans. She started a local meet and greet called Pagans in the Pub and invited me to come. I was too reluctant to do so and unfortunately after two meetings, it stopped due to lack of interest. She was a member of a Cleveland, OH based group and drove to their monthly meetings. We talked about me riding with her sometime but again I was reluctant. Considering the problems I have now finding the time to participate in Pagan groups, I wish I would have went.

I did manage to find other Pagans online and she pointed the way. She recommended the Witch’s Voice and a few other quality sites as well as setting up her own Pagan message board, Soraya’s Witch’s Tavern. I was one of the first members at her invitation and as I sat at the library internet computer pondering a user name, it came to me, Postalpagan, a name I still use 12 years later. It amused me when she said that some of the other members asked her if it was a reference to the term “going postal”, and she replied that I was her mail carrier. When someone asked her how she changed her hair color like one of the girls in The Craft did, she replied that she started by going to the drug store and buying a box of hair color. One Imbolic morning I knocked on her door because I had been feeling like I had way too much coffee since an early morning ritual. She went through a checklist of the steps of ritual and when she got to grounding and centering at the end, I realized my omission. Once I followed her advice to perform the missing step, I felt myself calm down. One thing she would not do was let me join her in ritual as she said she was strictly a solitary.

Her proudest moment during the time I knew her was the front page story on her in the local newspaper. She had called them about ten days earlier to point out the error in a Halloween article that claimed the Celtic god of the dead was Sam Hain and Samhain was named after him. After she replied yes to a newspaper staffer’s question if she was Pagan, she agreed to an interview at home. The article with a photo of her on her porch swing was published October 23, 1999 in the Port Clinton News Herald. It was spot on both in regards to her personally and our religion. Only one of my coworkers at the Post Office criticized her as eccentric and I defended her even though I was still in the broom closet. In spite of her fears, she did not receive any threatening phone calls or hate mail. I walked into the newspaper office to praise both the article and their willingness to be open minded. Sadly, I found out a few years later from another newspaper staffer, who was Pagan, that they received so many complaints that the editor decided that they would never run another piece on anything Pagan.

A little over two years later, I transferred to Clyde, OH and said goodbye to Soraya thanking her for her help which had meant so much. She encouraged me to keep learning and practicing as well as remaining active at the Tavern. But she soon closed the message board and I heard she moved to North Carolina. I saw her on the membership listing of Witchvox under that state for a while, then she disappeared and repeated web searches have found nothing. If perchance she is reading this, I would like to give her a big thank you for being my mentor and my dream is that someday I could be as helpful to a new Witch somewhere.

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Shadows From The Past

Nicholas Haney April, 2009

Some Myths of Witchcraft

Before we can set out on the journey ahead, we must first set a foundation on which to build. Thus we shall define some concepts that are relevant.
-  Witch – A person who uses (being real or perceived) natural powers or forces to influence the order of things.

- Witchcraft - The practices of a Witch

- Magic(k) – The use of natural energy to achieves ends

Thus by the above definitions, magic and witches are connected and intertwined.
There are many common myths associated with witchcraft. We shall discuss some common myths in depth, and then analyze why they incorrect.

Myth: A witch uses supernatural powers.
A false myth. Since everything that exists is part of the natural order, everything is thus natural. So any power a witch claims to wield, is thus natural. While it may be argued that there are different levels or “planes” of the natural order, these “planes” are still natural and thus do not represent anything above (or below) the natural order.

Myth: Witchcraft is the oldest religion in the world.
A false myth. Witchcraft has only in the last century gained status as a religion, under the name of Wicca. Practices that may be considered witchcraft date back tens of thousands of years, but as an established, formalized religion, witchcraft is less than a century old.

Myth: Modern witches can trace their heritage back to the dawn of time.
False. Modern witchcraft or Wicca, can only trace its history back as far as the early 20th century. However, Wicca is largely INFLUENCED (and therefore not directly connected) by far older practices, being those of the Ancients (Greek, Rome, Celt, Egyptian, Ect.) It is important to remember that witchcraft in its modern form (as distinguised from older forms of belief that may be considered witchcraft) is largely eclectic, taking roots from many different sources, these from many different time periods, both older and more modern.

Myth: Witchcraft means “craft of the wise”
False. The word witch derives from the old English word wicca (prounounced witcha), which is a derivative of the word wiccian (prounounced witchan) which means ‘to cast a spell’. Thus the word has no connection to the old English witan that means ‘to know’.

There is an old saying that goes something like “to gain wisdom, one must let go of cherished allusions”. So remember, whether something is true or false, it does not keep it from having power. Like modern Wicca, whether it be a fabrication or a survival of an old religion, it still has power in the modern world. Learn from the old ways, but live in today.

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A Simple Path: Journey of a Hedgewitch

Willow Winterborne April, 2009

*The Hedgewitch lives in the space between the Village and the Forest. Between the mundane and the magical. S/He lives with a foot in both worlds.
This column is dedicated to the Hedgewitches of the planet earth.

April in the hedge; Communing with the Maiden

This is such a magical time of year, when the Maiden is dressed in Her finest, and the lush, verdant energy of the season seems to stir young and old alike.
This time of year always makes me so grateful for my Path, and an appreciation of the simple pleasures available all around me. I walked for years without taking notice of these tiny treasures, and it warms my heart to take time to truly see and be grateful for them, now.
The spider web covered in dew. The palest of green leaves sprouting off bare branches.
With a turn in the weather, folks come outdoors and spend time on their lawns and in flower beds planning, tilling, dreaming.
It seems Divine inspiration has descended on the whole hemisphere and the people and animals alike are feeling reborn anew.

This time of year always makes me want to join them, outdoors, and I tend to neglect the indoor chores. But even in this seemingly inconvenient event, I find, the Maiden has a lesson for me. Bless this mess, she whsipers, with a giggle, as I squirm for ways to avoid having to begin the washing up.
This puzzles me, for a moment, as My Goddess has never spoken to me in tired cliches. What in the world is She talking about?
Then it hits me. I have all these dirty dishes because I had food this week. We ate abundantly and without worry. No dishes means no food, and as I pray for abundance always, this suddenly strikes me as significant.
My in-box is overflowing (almost onto the floor) and this is a sure sign of business transactions, of bills being paid, and orders being received. Isn’t that the whole idea?
So, as I start some wash water for dishes, I chant to myself, Bless this mess, for it means I was blessed. Thank you, maiden, for showing me another way to perceive this.

I find that even as the breeze tickles the wind chimes, and stirs them to song, laughter has been filling a lot of my days. There is a spirit of joy that has come to live with me here in the hedge, and I smile with gratitude when I remember all the little jokes and puns and silliness.
I have many friends in this new town, and I appreciate them all so much.
These, too, are gifts of the Maiden, as Her joy is boundless, Her whole youth spread before Her like a picnic blanket.
her joy is contagious and I laugh along with Her in this time of renewal.

And while Her Magic feels neverending in this very active season, I feel compelled to stillness. To listen to the owls hooting from the top of the giant maple tree. To walk quietly along the sidewalk, breathing in the scent of growing things being carried on a playful breeze. To stop what I am doing and just Be.

There are so many blessings this time of year, I am remiss in forgetting to mention more than I have. I invite you to find your own blessings of simplicity and nature this verdant season.
And to take time to commune with the Maiden, the carefree, innocent, joyful nature of nature.
Bright Blessings to each one of you!

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