That OTHER "10 daily things witches do list"

Blessings Darlings!

It occurred to me that I should really do a blog on what was in that OTHER 'what witches do' list. The items and my brilliant (why doesn't this have comic sans as a font option) commentary.

Here goes - starting with the original post:

"10 Daily Witchy Things

1 - Cleanse your bed in the morning when you make it - to remove the stress and negativity of the previous night and have a peaceful sleep the next night.
2 - Make a cup of tea and charge it with positive energy to get you through the day.
3 - Clean your desk/workspace/wherever you do creative things and draw productivity sigils on it in cleaner or keep a clear quartz nearby to focus energy.
4 - Bless your car keys before you get in your car for protection on the road
5 - Use a special scrub or face ask in the shower for a glamour spell.
6 - Spend time outside or keep your blinds open to allow sunlight in.
7 - Take a walk outside, if you can and ground yourself with each step.
8 - Use wax melters, incense or other scented items to fill your space with an intended scent.
9 - Clense your phone/other electronic devices - clean out the old apps and photos, clean out the negative people from your contact list, and reset your ringtone and wallpaper to increase positive energy.
10 - Before you go to bed, take 10 minutes and thank your deities (if you have any) and reflect on your day.  Before you fall asleep, think of one thing that was good about the day, no matter how small, and be grateful."

Item #1 - If you're having stress and negativity in your bed at night ... what the hell have you invited   into your bed each night?  Look at THAT, not 'cleansing the bed'.  The BED isn't the problem!
Item #2 - Obviously I find 'positive energy' too vague, and would be far more specific.  The  last         clause is a bit worrisome, tho'.  I'm not sure if the writer meant "To last the full day" which is a useful affirmation, or if the "Get you through the day" is a sign that the writer feels that her days suck and she needs to be dragged thru' them almost against her will.
Item #3 - Of course a clean desk is nice, and some of my creative time is spent at a desk.  What bothers me is reliance on external things like a sigil or crystal.  Reliance on those things (as well as working at your desk) doesn't prepare you to work elsewhere.  I can be creative in the library, at a coffee shop, etc, in part because I don't rely on things like that.  Learn to focus your energy without props.
Item #4 -  At the very least - let's make that more general.  Not everyone drives, not everyone has a car, etc.  You CAN enchant your house keys for protection when you leave your house.  That would cover it all.  Or you can ... wait for it ... wait for it ... have personal shields like I keep harping about.
Item #5 - No special products needed.  Charge your soap.  Yes, I can see doing a glamour daily for a while. such as when starting a new job.  "Image" of competence until you actually have competence at the job.
Item #6 - Just a quibble.  It's summer and I'm NOT letting sunlight in that will heat the house.
Item #7 - Taking a walk is a nice idea.  Being able to ground anywhere is also a good idea.  Don't get tied to only one way to ground.
Item #8 - Just not my style.  Just like I don't have music/tv on in the background all the time.  For me - I often get 'messages' thru' scents that pop up out of nowhere.  AND many scents bother my son's asthma.
Item #9 - I guess I just don't have problems from 'negative people'.  OTOH, I'm the type who - while I don't worry about 'Mercury Retrograde' use all the posts about upcoming ones as a cue to back up my devices.  Backing up my devices is more important to me than 'clearing' them.  Devices can crash and 'clear' themselves just bloody fine, damn it!
Item #10 - Not a bad suggestion - but also make your 'to do' list for the next day, so you can put that list aside and out of your mind.  That might even help the issue cited in Item #1!

Work smarter, not harder, Darlings.

Frondly, Fern

10 Daily Things Witches Might Just Consider Doing.

Blessings Darlings!

I just read a really masturbatory and inefficient list of 'What Witches Do'.  It was immediately obvious to me that I had to create my own list!  Really, almost all of them come down to either "Work to bring down the Patriarchy" or "Do your craft more efficiently"

1 - Read the local paper, so they are informed local citizens. 

2 - Read a good 'National/world' paper, so they are an informed world citizens (New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, whatever).  Witches should never be ignorant twats.

3 - Ground and center where you are.  No need to go somewhere else to do it.  And "Long Walks in Nature" may not be available in your area nor safe to do.

4 - Charge all the food you buy with 'health and power' as you bring it into the house after shopping.
Sure, you can charge individual foods when you cook or eat them for specific purposes too.  But this way EVERYTHING has at least some charge.  And if you're bringing in some food that you know is going to NOT work for 'health and power' ... you need to face that.

5 -  Charge your vacuum cleaner (or broom, or carpet sweeper, or whatever) to deal with 'negative energy' as well as dirt/dust/etc.  And did you notice the word 'Daily' in the title of this post?  Use it/them!

6 - Charge all your cleaning products for the same purposes as in #5.  Again, note the 'daily use' clause. 

BECAUSE CLEANING DAILY WILL SOLVE A WHOLE LOT OF WITCHY PROBLEMS.  DUST BUNNIES AND PILED UP DISHES ARE EVIDENCE OF 'NEGATIVE ENERGY' THAT ***YOU*** ARE ENCOURAGING.

7 - Charge your bath soap for some purpose.  No need for a different product than what you're going to use daily.

8.  Fight for justice.

9.  Support your communities.

10 - Do what self-care you can.  Eat as well as your finances allow, and learn what your body works well with.  I can do neither Keto nor heavily starch/grain/bean based eating, and we are poor (I work two jobs. And I'm in my 60's).  Turnips are cheap. Cabbage is cheap.  Eggs are cheap.  Well, they are cheap if they agree with your body.  Otherwise they are expensive.  Try to get enough sleep.  Have that bed time routine that eases you into the arms of Morpheus.  If your body allows it, get some daily exercise.  Clean your body daily - even if it's a sponge bath -  you'll feel better. 






Frondly, Fern

The Wiccan Rede

Blessings Darlings!

It's time.  I can't put off looking at "An it harm none, do as ye will".

Let's start with this:  it's 8 words.  EIGHT  E*I*G*H*T .  Shortening it IN ANY WAY changes it completely.  It's meaning is not 'harm none' any more than it is 'Harm' or 'an it harm, do as ye will".  It has to be taken as a whole, or at the VERY least leave the clauses intact and see how the clauses interact.  You know that - you're a magic user, right?  You know that the number of the words matters.  8 is the number of magic.  And eight is the goal of the initiate, having gone through the seven stages.  Numbers matter as much as words do.

Let's move on to -  it's Wiccan.  It's not 'universal' in any way.  
Let's move on to - its "Rede".  Rede does not mean "law".  It means advice. 

Now then, let's get to the meat of the matter, and look at the first part of the saying, "An it harm none".  First, and most important, is that it only addresses acts that harm no one.  It doesn't say anything about acts that DO do any harm. Just like when we discussed that 'my worship is in the heart that rejoices' is just addressing ONE thing, ONE place that Her worship is but does not rule out other place - "An it harm none" is only addressing ONE category of results.  It's not pretending to talk about acts with other results.  And, clearly, the second part of the phrase is permissive "do as ye will".  So in the case of acts that don't harm folks - if you wanna, then it's ADVICE is that you can go right ahead if you choose to.  It is permissive.

But what about acts that DO cause harm?  Again - THE WICCAN REDE DOES NOT ADDRESS THEM AT ALL.  It has no 'blanket advice' for you about acts that harm.  You are going to have to look at the individual situation and decide what you are going to do/not do.  And you're going to have to take responsibility for the action/inaction.  You're not going to be able to blame/credit your choice to advice coming from outside of yourself.  

I supposed that I should say a few words on 'harm'.  Okay.   "While actual harm is not limited to the physical, being fucking butthurt is not harm."

Let me assure you that I did want to write a whole lot more about that.  But ain't no one wants to hear me whine about other people being butthurt.  Let's just pass them the lube and tell them to ... well, maybe SIT DOWN and shut up might be rude ...

Frondly, Fern

Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.

Blessings Darlings!

The oft-bandied about Wiccan phrase we're looking at today is "Perfect Love and Perfect Trust". 

Can imperfect people do anything perfectly?  And ... love and trust in who or what?

Let's start with an easier part of this.  WHERE and WHEN do you need to have perfect love and perfect trust?  Well, the only time that the phrase is used (and I'm talking about in the 'general Pagan community - I'm not talking about what is oathbound and/or in hand-copied lineaged BOS's) is when entering a circle.  Even then the only time I've seen that challenge given (that I recall) is to an initiate/member when they are undergoing initiation/membership ritual.  Again - that is MY experience.  Other than at that time, I've not seen a knife at anyone's chest.  Your mileage may vary. 

I've certainly not seen it at open rituals anywhere.  Have you?  The logistics of challenging everyone in at ritual with 150 people boggles the mind.  [Okay, I just ended up distracted by figuring out the logistics.  Many folks handling the challenge, but you'd still need either a HUGE opening in a pre-cast circle (making the work of the folks casting and holding the circle in place EXTREMELY difficult if not impossible, or you'd cast the circle after folks entered, making the challenge not actually about entering the circle making it just odd.  But I digress.]

That said, in any group work, you  need some serious trust.  First, do you trust the work about to be done?  Is it in line with your view of what should be done?  Is it being done in a way that does not clash badly with your approach?  If it's not well aligned with your approach, can you suspend your approach for the time?  Do you trust the people who have organized the working, so you can work with their system when it is different than yours?  If it's large public ritual - do you feel that they can control the energy of 150+ sources and knit it into a coherent whole?    Heck, with 150 + people, what are you going to do about your personal shields?  Not all those folks in an open ritual are going to have focused energy.  Some of them might be energetic predators.  Again - what's your real trust level of the folks running the show?  

Next let's look at perfect love and perfect trust in terms of a coven or other small working group of magic users.  Say from 3 up to 25 people that you know well.  Because for ME perfect love and perfect trust has to be based on actually knowing the people involved, or at least knowing the people who vouch for anyone you don't know.

I'm going to digress here a bit.  Loving humanity in general is easy.  Loving individuals is more problematic.  If you know folks well, you're going to know their weaknesses.  Their faults.  Their capacity to focus.  Their capacity to do magic.  Some of these things are going to matter when in a circle.  Some of these things won't matter in a circle.

Most of all - you should be aware of your own weaknesses, faults, capacity to focus, capacity to do magic, etc.  Can you put aside your self-doubt in any areas during your pre-ritual purification to do the work ahead?  If you do your preps, and still find yourself too whatever to do the work - can you trust yourself to keep yourself out of the ritual?  I've been at rituals where folks have done that.  They stayed outside the circle because they could still be supportive even if they felt they couldn't actively contribute to the working.  Sometimes they could go so far as to help with drumming from outside the circle.  But they understood that their energy would not mesh with the purpose so stayed out of the circle themselves.

Do you trust and love the purpose of the ritual?  Can you at least put aside your doubts about it working for the time of the ritual?  I've been involved in World Peace rituals that I felt were considerably too ambitious, but I did a fine job of putting that aside and giving it my all. 

Do you trust the Gods involved, or whatever Spirits you might be working with?  In some rituals coughGoetiacough you might not trust the spirits, but you could have full trust in the system that allows you to work with them safely. 

And now, finally - do you love and trust the members of the group?  Love them as they are.  Trust that they will be who and what they are.  And can you handle that?  At the very least, you have to trust and love them to do the work you are entering.  You  might now trust them enough to do a business deal with them out in the mundane world.  What matters here is that you trust that they will be in the right mindset and put their energy to the working you're going to do.  Are they taking the drugs they should be - I'm almost certainly addicted to the SSRI I take, and it would be totally reasonable for any magical group I'm in to make continued taking it a condition of my working with them.  Are they not taking 'inappropriate' drugs prior to the working?  Or will they show up stoned or high?  If they are -  what does your perfect love and perfect trust ask you to do about that?  If one of the members has 'trouble handing energy' and falls out during EVERY SINGLE INTENSE WORKING - do you stop having them at such workings?  You trust them to be themselves, and you love them.  What's the intersection of things like not handling energy or addiction or whatever and perfect love and perfect trust when what you trust is that they will break down at a crucial point of ritual?

There have been times when my purifications leave me able to focus on the ritual and do my part fully, but the best I can do on 'perfect love and perfect trust' is suspension of non-love.  Since I trust folks to be themselves, and 'themselves' are no more perfect than I am, perfecting that type of trust is something I can do pretty easily.   Love may not be harder to feel - but figuring out the proper loving action sometimes is a challenge.

Even more of a challenge than a knife at my chest.

Frondly, Fern

Names

Blessings Darlings!

Sometimes the Gods give us names.  Sometimes, however, they give us nicknames, based on how we come across to them, and it's not always easy to tell the difference. 

So, the Gods say you're "Wolf"?  That could just mean that you are not impressive at all - you attack the sick and the weak, rather than speaking truth to POWER.  Or that you are a 'Lone Wolf" - so much of a psycho asshole that the pack wants nothing to do with you.

Or - "No, when I said you are Skunk, I did NOT mean that as your 'power animal'.  I meant you stink.  Take a shower before you come before me!  What part of 'ritual cleanliness' did you miss?"

Or - "When I called you Priapsis, I didn't mean you're a stud.  I meant you're a dick".

As I said, it's not always easy to tell a 'name from the Gods' from a nickname.

It  pays to ask.

Frondly, Fern

Prepare Ye The Way of the Lords (and Ladies)

Blessings Darlings!

I'd like to expand on a theme I've touched on before, over in http://fernsfronds.blogspot.com/2009/06/intimacy-with-gods.html . 

I'm in a lot of Facebook Pagan groups.  It could well be argued that I'm in too many Facebook Pagan groups.  At any rate, I see recurring themes in all the groups, one taking place around spell-begging (asking strangers online for spells for X, Y, or Z, or even for ANY spells) the other around 'how do I know what God/dess is my patron?"

The first is, well, spell begging in general. I get that they are beginners (at least usually they admit to being beginners, once you ask them.  The others, who have claimed to be experienced in other threads but somehow need help from strangers online now ... ahem.)  But, really folks, it's like never having played the piano before, then one day renting piano and walking into a music store saying "I want the sheet music for the best music out there!"  You're going to be handed, say, the Rach 3 (Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3) ... and you're going to fail at it.  Because you don't have any of the basic skills, from finger work on, needed to play it. 

The second issue is, in fact, almost identical.  It's a beginner, without much knowledge in ... anything ... who wants to be aligned with any God or Goddess, or thinks that they are being called by some God or Goddess. So they ask strangers online who their Patron is/should be.

I understand the yearning.  In both cases.  But you gotta do the basic work.  You have to learn basic energy work to be able to do spells (in my never humble opinion, and, hey, this is  MY blog).  You have to work on yourself, to make yourself not just able to HEAR the Gods, but to be worthy of them paying any mind to you. 

I'll get into those basics in another post.  Probably one for tomorrow.  Maybe not - I work tonight, and I may not have time.  Damn, I'm such a tease, or at least too damn busy for my own good.

So, a little musical inspiration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuUl522_8jQ

Frondly, Fern

Before First Aid

Blessings Darlings!

Today I saw a FaceBook post from a friend.  He's teaching first aid, and wanted to know what to teach along with that.  This is my reply ....

About a decade ago, my boss collapsed - Atrial Fibrillation. It took 18 minutes for the EMTs to arrive (that's a story for a different time). One of my coworkers was a volunteer firefighter, had spent the past year and a half I'd worked with her claiming how ready she was to deal with anything.

That coworker froze. I, along with a woman from the loan office housed next to ours, did CPR and kept the boss going until the EMTs got there and defib'd her.

Why did the 'trained' person fail, while I could function (even tho' my CPR training had been two decades earlier)? Because in ALL things I didn't procrastinate, instead my habit was to deal with problems as them came up (and try to head them off, of course, but that, too, is a story for a different day. OTOH, my coworker was the youngest child of many, and her siblings would usually step in to 'help' her if she was slow in doing things, or her boyfriend would handle unpleasant things, etc.

Cultivating the habit of handling problems (that you failed to prevent) as they happen, so you don't freeze and act out the habit of putting things off and having others handle them, is to me the most important thing to learn along with the skills involved in first aid.

Frondly, Fern

Pagan Dreaming

Blessings Darlings!

So in my dreams this morning ...

First remembered dream, I was back in grade school.  Which was not a fun time.  I came out of the restroom into the classroom and could not recall which was my desk. There were no visual signs - no backpacks, no books/pencils on an empty desk, etc.  I admitted I couldn't recall, but didn't get any crap.

Then there were fires in the area, along with flooding from thunderstorms in denuded areas.  I went to look at the near by river, and saw a bear on fire.  I 'willed' it to go into the stiller water to put out the fire.  It did, then came over.  It was a very small, young bear, and it's coat was very like a sheep's coat.  I took it back to the school for the school nurse to help (had to put a collar on it to have it come along!)  I was then sent to room D-1 for something.

Later, I was magically avenging something, a death of a relative.  Related to going out a hotel window into a fire. This somehow involved dealing with an A/C unit. That was part of a seat in a movie theater.  I gathered the materials I needed.  Then got together with Kerian Nox (who had her own doom to deal) and Shae McQuoid.   And then Pagan Illini somehow joined the dream, meeting in a university owned camping site .... which I was sure was D-1.  I turned to lady bugs to spread the word, getting in touch with them using some bushes that I was sure my father had had planted outside the dream-version of the Jewish shul I attended as a child.  The Chubby Hubby helped me advertise the ritual I was doing (Keri's was not connected), which was to be Pagan interfaith.  Kevin Costner drove by in a pick up truck, and was going to return for the ritual. 

Hard Won Gifts

Blessings Darlings!

As I noted a few days ago, we have a bit of a heat wave here.  Today will be another hot humid day, and we MAY have air pollution warnings - DC has warnings, but I don't know about the Blue Ridge.  But I digress ...

As a result of the heat wave, I was out working in the garden very early today, while the temperature was in the lower 70's.  Oh my goodness, it was sweet outside then.  The birds were chirping, no tractors were running yet (either mowing lawns of my neighbors or cutting hay), the breeze was NOT from the cattle barns, etc. 

I, of course, was sweating exactly the way a pig doesn't.  This is because to be more intimate with my immediate land base I work my garden by hand.  I worked the bean bed again today, with the days work being taking a spade (and not a shovel) and turning what would be topsoil (if I was still in Illinois).  Here in my little corner of Appalachia it is NOT topsoil - it is clay.  Heavy red clay.  I need to do another round with that now broken bed, and work compost into it so it is ready for the seeds.

Heavy Red Clay.  I looked at those first spadefuls, and a soft voice said, "You know those runes you want to make? They can be made of clay."  I went back to the garage and got a bucket.  And a lid.  By the time I had the bed turned I had 4 gallons of great red clay, 13 pieces of quartz .... and a blister.

Because the real gifts of the Gods are their quiet voices.  Not in them doing the work for us.

Frondly, Fern

Calling a Spade a Spade.

Blessings Darling!

Let us all say this in unison - Fern is not everyone's cuppa.  Did I hear all my Mountain Sisters (and I don't just mean Owl Mt, I mean all the Delicate Flowers of Appalachian Womanhood) snickering? 

I am an opinionated, wordy, judgmental, and precise bitch.  The same in person as I am online. Did I just hear an "AMEN" and "Preach it, sister" from Asheville?

I'm not the person who uses a lot of exclamation points, even tho' I have strong opinions.  Instead, as you may have noticed in the previous two paragraphs, I ask a lot of questions. I am not just interested in your conclusions, the 'what' you do, I am also interested in the 'why you do it part'. 

Some people seem to think that the 'why' part is an attack.  I find that view odd, to say the least (see, I CAN be diplomatic).  I assume that you have good reasons, even if I can't see them, and want to know what they are.  Because magical and life-skills THEORY matters and informs what we all do.

Yes, I think that what words you use matter, too.  If you make up your own definitions to words rather than using the meanings used in normative English and in the dictionary - then you are NOT actually seeking to communicate but to hide things or sound like you know more than you do. 

Did you notice above that I did NOT say that I was "not everyone's cup of tea", even tho' that is a commonly used phrase?  I'll tell you why - tea is a precise word, referring to a precise family of shrubs.

I'm not everyone's tisane, either, which is what you get when you made an infusion of other herbs.

So if you are easily offended, this is not the blog you should follow.  You probably shouldn't follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook, either.

Because I'm going to continue to call a spade a spade.  And not a shovel.

Frondly, Fern

Can't Escape Classical Greece

Blessings Darlings!

Today the remarkable Suz and I went to the coffee shop to write.  As it happened, we were both writing about Hellenic Paganism.  Which isn't TOTALLY unusual for us, her being Hellenic and me being ... all over the board when it comes to blogging. 

The coffee shop features art for sale.  Some weeks we like the art more than other weeks, of course.  This week, the art was okay, nothing we'd buy if we had the money.  Until .... after writing a while I got up to stretch and looked at the inexpensive monographs by Susan Carney.  Lovely work, in general, and one got us all tingly.  We both took pictures of it to show others.  A monograph entitled "Minotaur", featuring a woman, and bull, a man ... some amount of overlapping.  Figuring out especially when the man and bull began and ended was not clear.

I may come back and buy it, but I'll need a frame for it.

The picture alone got us talking about an aspect of Ariadne we hadn't much considered before - that she is sister to the Minotaur that she helped Theseus kill.  In a sense, she helped him kill a part of herself.  What part of herself lay dead in the labyrinth when Theseus followed the thread back to her?

Gotta love it when you go out into the world and blog "Hellenic" - you're always going to find references and start you thinking!

Frondly, Fern

Addenum - after I got home the Chubby Hubby and I DID go back and buy the Minotaur monograph.  I will need to find a frame for it, of course, but at least we both agreed on a piece of artwork.  I want to put it up in the dining room.

Nature Unaided Fails

Blessings Darlings!

I want a stang.  Y'all who are Pagans have seen stangs before - they are the 'staff with two or three points on the top'.  Here's a grand article about them http://witchofforestgrove.com/2011/02/27/how-to-use-a-stang/.  I have heard it can be used as a magical gateway, and want to try that out.  I have to admit I don't quite get how that would work, or why it would be different than using a 'regular' staff, or my staff with the antler on top. 

Today, a cold day with a seriously sharp wind, I moved from inertia into active on getting one.  Or co-creating one. 

We have a whole lot of Tree Of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) growing around here. It and I have decided that my stang will be of that wood.  While a import (and, let's face it, an invasive one at that) in the US it already has a mythos here.  Not only does it resist city pollution, but it's the tree that was the central image in the book/movie "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn".  And it grows fast, which is part of why it and I are working together on this.

Because while I WANT a stang out of this wood, that doesn't mean that the trees here have the formation I want ready.  Or at least ready somewhere that isn't 40 feet in the air.  So today nature and I started working together. 

I went out to the smaller of the two copses - the one my main altar and the huge holey stone is in - and started evaluating and conversing and building a relationship with the smaller trees.  I removed the side branch buds forming under 6 feet high on their stems. Once they get to be about 8 feet tall, I'm going to be pruning the main stem back about 2 feet, and letting two or three branches form and grow up, competing to be the main trunk.  Once those get to be a couple of feet tall, I will fell the tree and make the specialized staff.

You might have noticed that this is not an instant-gratification version of getting a magical tool.  No, this is a form a relationship, grow together, work together, THEN work to turn out a tool (and working to a freshly cut tree whose fresh sap can cause blisters).  This is taking time to build the right long-term relationship.  This is not 'shopping for a tool'.

It is the tree working on my nature, as much as me modifying nature.

This, my darlings, is the Great Work.

Frondly, Fern

Charmed, I'm sure.

Blessings Darlings!

A recent question, not asked to me exactly, but posted online: "This is going to sound silly, but I love to have all my pieces with me, particularly the ones that function as jewelry, so my question is how do you pick which to wear? My stones help me regulate my emotions and I can't forsee [sic] what I'll need thoughtout [sic] the day. Any tips?"

Amulets probably go back almost as far as jewelry does.  Maybe farther, but my observations of children's brain development tells me that 'pretty' comes before 'symbolic' in their use of items, so that may be true of general human development as well.  And most humans being hoarders, the idea of 'the more the merrier' probably goes way back, too.  So humans have had to find ways to handle carrying around lots of amulets at once.

So humans made special necklaces and bracelets and sachets.

The idea of bracelets being used to hold special items is still common today.  They are called 'charm bracelets' - remember them?  Now the charms tend to be symbols of life events, like a charm representing each child born, or getting married.  But charging and then adding a wire-wrapped crystal or stone or tooth or whatever for a magical purpose is a natural way for a magic-user to move a charm bracelet back to, well, a bracelet of CHARMS. Of course, a this can be worn either as a wrist bracelet or an ankle bracelet and serve the same purpose. 

Creating your own necklace as a multi-purpose amulet is also a great option.  From delicate looking ones, using beads from a craft store (different sizes/colors of beads charge for different purposes) to the more old-school rustic ones, using, say, animal teeth with holes drilled into them for protection, along with (again) wire-wrapped stones and crystals (hard to drill holes in them yourself!) or plant seeds you've carefully made holes in and lacquered, or whatever materials, each type charged for its purpose.  Strung on nylon, leather, cotton, or your own hair. 

Even using charm bracelets and necklaces, you will still have times when you may want to use a sachet.  Sachets (which Byron Ballard, writer of "Staubs and Ditchwater" on Appalachian Rootworking assures me is to be pronounced 'sa-chet' here in the Appalachians, not "Sa-shay") are little cloth bags that you fill with 'stuff'.  The 'Stuff' can be herbs, roots, bits of stones/clay/crystals, whatever.  Sachets tend to be one-purpose items, the way I use them, and somewhat time-limited.  After the one, two, or four-week period I keep it with me, I will usually bury the entire bag, to return it to the earth. 

Do y'all need me to go into how to magically charge things?  My online group reading is making me think that a lot of folks haven't been taught that yet.  Please - let me know.

Frondly, Fern

Dream Worlds

Blessings, Darlings!

The more you track you dreams, the more you are likely to see familiar and repeating layouts and figures in your dream world.

I 'know' a person online who has been writing about her dream worlds for year. While it can make starting to read her blog difficult (in most places deep knowledge of what she's posted before really helps), there are times when story arcs begin and those places are where her blog is most accessible.

So, to enter a coherent and pretty well-mapped dream world of one individual, I give you Three Different Ways: http://threedifferentways.katalytis.com/2012/05/the-gathering/ at a place where the first three posts can stand alone, but the story arc comes back in a big way over the rest of the year.

 Frondly, Fern

Casting a Quarter-Cast Circle

Blessings Darlings!

I'm going to steal my own writings here.  I explained circle casting in a Facebook group today, and I'm cutting and pasteing that here now.  Enjoy!

A circle is one way of creating sacred space for magic or ritual or healing or whatever purpose. The 'typical' circle is a quarter-cast one, using either the 4 directions or the 4 elements as part of the structure. Details, as always, will depend on the magical group or tradition one trains in. Generically - you can start in the East. Using your finger, or an athame, or a wand, you ask for the power of that direction or element to ward the circle and add it's power to your working, then visualize a blue (usually) etheric flame pouring from it. You visualize that line of flame going from that quarter to the next, as you walk to the South. Repeat, asking that direction or element. Repeat for the next two quarters, and after you invite the North or Earth, continue the line of blue flame to the east again, completing the circle. At that point, change the visualization of the blue flame from a circle around you in one dimension to an orb around you in three dimensions.

You can get fancier. You can have altars at each of the directions. You can draw pentagrams at each direction and open a gate for the power of that direction to enter thru'. Etc.

After you do the hoodoo you do in the circle, you take the circle down by thanking the powers you invited and bidding them farewell. Some do this in the reverse order that the powers were called in, some don't. Use the same tool you used to cast to 'suck up' the energy of the blue flame as you dismiss. And ground that tool afterwards (ground yourself if you used your hand/finger, put the top of the tool to the earth if you used a tool).

Here are the words to two sung quarter-castings by Isaac Bonewits http://www.neopagan.net/IB_Songs_WiccanRitual.html

The Calling, with the blue flame visualization, really is it for a simple circle casting.

The only tool needed is Knife/athame, or wand, or pointed finger.

Again, you can get fancier.  And you're going to get better results the more intimate you are with the elements/elementals and the directions.  

Any questions?

Frondly, Fern 

Imbolg!

Blessings Darlings!

Being as I'm even more of a hermit than my friend Suz is, I don't get out  much.  But today I found myself driving off to the Big City on business, and I ran smack dab into Imbolg. 

At first it was a subtle thing.  The bare trees of winter no longer seemed as harsh.  Their outlines had softened with the faint beginnings of swollen buds.

Then came the official in-my-face sign:  LAMBS!  Very young lambs, already rather coated in the signs of Mud Season.

As I've mentioned before, I don't personally celebrate the High Days based on either the calender or astrological timing, I do it by local herding and agricultural signs.  These are the signs of Imbolg in my area.

So, it's official.  Imbolg has arrived.  Bridget - come in, come in, and welcome!

Frondly, Fern

Who Controls You?

Blessings Darlings!

So you say that you are a Witch, or Wiccan, or some other form of Magic User.  You Create Change in Conformity to Will (a phrase that goes back to, gasp, Aleister Crowley).  Or so you say .....

If you and your Will are so tight, then why can perfect strangers push your buttons and get reactions from you that cause the clerk in the store you're in to have to try to calm you down?  If you can't control yourself, and be in charge of your anger/reactions so you can choose how you act, how do you expect to control the Universe, or even do a working to help you in some smaller way?

Get it together.

Frondly, Fern

Omen or not?

Blessings Darlings!

Neatly bucketed black walnuts, now scattered over the deck.
Very cute garter snake sunning itself on the back step.
Dreams for a week all about the same area of Chicago.
Barking foxes every night at 11. 

Are any of them omens?  How would you know?

None of them are actually 'magically significant' for my life, as it turns out. Black walnuts scattered? Squirrel! Garter snake sunning? It's fall, but that was before the first frost - they are sunning themselves EVERYWHERE, lots of them run over on the roads. Barking foxes? they have a den in the larger copse by the house, and there's another under the big altar in the wooded area on the East of the house. Dreams about Chicago? That's my guilty conscience telling me to call my Mother more often.

Know what's normal for your area, and what's not.  Only the unusual should be looked at as an omen at all.  Certainly that the daughter of a Jewish mother is feeling guilty is NOT unusual. 

Frondly, Fern

Incoming!

Blessings Darlings!

For discussion purposes I 'divide' magic into two broad categories, thaumaturgy and theurgy, the thaumaturgy being measurable 'miracle working/money drawing/physical healing/etc' and theurgy being "spiritual development work".

I've posted some about those things before, like here, and here, and here, and here.

Now, probably everyone agrees that the theurgical magic you do is tied to you.  Cuz who else would it be tied to?  I'm also assuming that you probably use your magical tools to do this magic when use of them is appropriate.

It has come to my attention that some folks don't think that 'everyday' magic you do is also tied to you.  As in "Blood anoited [sic] tools binds magic to you and your bloodline. Not wise if you plan on to use the tool for basic everyday spells."  This was a response I got on the Witchcraft, Paganism, and Wiccan page on FaceBook.  I'd link you, but, due to people posting complaints about the regular plagiarism there, posting by all but the admins is now closed so getting at MY post is impossible. 

Darlings, your tools are ' yours' because you and then are bonded together.  that's a fundamental part of your being able to use them fully.  If you are REALLY bonded to, say, Wand, then you can use your finger and not a pretty anointed with ANYthing stick. And, guess what - your flesh, blood, and bone makes up that finger.

ALL MAGIC YOU DO IS TIED BACK TO YOU. That's how we trace back hexes to who they came from.  That's how the "Law of Return" works, to those who believe in that.  That's how the 'three fold law' works for those who believe in that.  That's how your senses work, for that matter - that tree I'm looking at is sending things that ENTER MY EYE so I can see it.

If you think you can duck being tied to your magic by NOT being 'blood tied' to your tools, you are fooling yourself.

Poke Berries and Mullein.

Blessings Darlings!

I've been blessed with the poke berries and the mullein that I was looking for.  Poke berries are drying for future use even as I type, I'll dry the mullein after they are done and I've washed everything clean of the toxins.

I'm still putting out to the Universe that I'm looking for a few good hawthorn trees, one or more for the haws and one (best by a well or stream or river) as a clootie tree.

Oh, I got a bonus today - wild hickory nuts, when I thought I was going to be getting more black walnuts!  I'm not sure these will be my favorites, tho.  While it is FAR easier to get the outer husk off the hickory nuts, the meat itself come in smaller/narrower twists and turns in the shell, which makes the meat harder to get out once you've freed and cracked the nut.

Frondly, Fern