That Which is Remembered, Lives.

Blessings Darlings!

Today (as I type) would have been my Mother's 102th birthday.  Not coincidentally, it would also have been my uncle Sid's 102th birthday, since they were twins. 

They have already been served their home-made birthday cake.  And before I served THAT I cleaned up more so Mom wouldn't be upset.  Not that she wants ME to clean - she wants me to hire someone to clean. 

Mom and I still have some disagreements, to say the least.  Sid and I probably do, too, but Mom is going to make sure that he keeps his mouth shut about them. This keeps him in the 'benevolent protector' mode he took towards me.  Unlike the mode he was in towards his own kids.

Ancestors that you KNEW are ... so very human.  You know their warts, their weaknesses, their fuck ups.  It's so much easier to only honor the far more ancient ancestors.  If you don't know their actual stories that is.  Knowing them as they were would make them more problematic too, I'm sure.

Happy birthday, Mom and Uncle Sid.  You are remembered.  That which is remembered lives.

Frondly, Fern

Work, not Spells, Increases Will Power.

Blessings Darlings!

In my online travels the other day, someone asked for spells to increase their will power.  I was kinda gobsmacked by the question, and not surprised that the person asking hadn't done any mundane work on increasing their will power ... nor had done any work on learning how to do magic (BTW - there are no 'spells to make me know how to do spells', either.)

It's just way easier to increase your will power thru' mundane means than by magical means.  This is because you need to have a LOT of 'will power' to learn magic.  Learning to do magic is a long and tedious process.  You won't make it thru' that process without will power.  Going thru' the process you will develop will power ... but it's a side benefit.  Doing it directly is way more efficient.

For those who are wondering - I'm talking about 'small w' will power.  Not contacting/manifesting your Higher Will.  

So what mundane stuff helps a person strengthen their will power?

1 - Do things you want to do early. And often.  Don't put them off.  Procrastination is your enemy here.  Eat veggies with breakfast, meditate early, stop reading e-mail during the most of the day.

Which might mean you have to take a fearless look at the rhythms in your life.  In my case, my husband wakes up before I do, and when I get up he will interrupt anything I work on in the morning.  So to get MY important stuff done early, I have to be clear that I need to be uninterrupted for the next 20 minutes to meditate, or for the time needed to do offerings, or whatever.  I have to be clear about my needs and communicate them to him. 

2 - Build in a reward for having done the thing you want to do.  Brush your teeth after meditating (You're going to do that before leaving the house anyway, right?) Don't have that second cup of coffee/tea until you close down your e-mail.

3 - Put off doing things you want to stop doing.  Delay having that cigarette.  Or those carbs.  Procrastination is your friend here.  Throw in some distraction as well.  Maybe captioned cat pics. Maybe not if that's what you are doing instead of work.  Put on some hand lotion that you don't want to get on your keyboard if you don't want to be online as much.

4 - Build in a 'punishment' for doing things you don't want to do.  The old 'wear a rubber band on your wrist and snap it if when you swear/whine/whatever".  Donate money to a cause you don't particularly support when you screw up.  I'd say not to go as far as to give $$$ to a candidate you hate, but ... maybe donate to a charity that's just not a PRIORITY of yours.  Maybe a public jazz station if you don't listen to jazz or such.

5 - Remove temptations/cues to do what you don't want to do.  Oust the desserts/cigs/computer short cuts/whatever. 

6 - Make it easy to do what you want to do.  Keep the foods you want to start eating around.  Maybe in frozen form, so they don't go bad while you push yourself to eat 'em.

7 - Work to make it a habit, rather than 'will power'.

8 - As ALWAYS - don't fear failure.  It's a process.  You're changing things.  It doesn't happen immediately.  Your BUILDING will power.

9 - Always Be Testing:  Some folks find that they only have a limited amount of 'will power', and that while it increases with time ... it's going to be weaker later in the day after they used some of it up by not killing coworkers, dealing with traffic, doing whatever practice, etc.  Maybe you need to limit the opportunities to test your will power by simplifying choices.  Or maybe you need to 'practice more' by inflicting your will power on meaningless shit like - I kid you not, this suggestion is all over the internet - brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand.  THAT is going to be very individual.  It might vary by the amount of stress you're under, too.  Be aware of yourself and your limits on a day to day basis.

BTW, in researching this, there were lots of suggestions that 'regularly meditation for 8 weeks increases your will power".  Nope, the meditation wasn't it.  The daily 'do it early and make it a habit' things covered above is what did it.  It was the mundane, not the woo.

Frondly, Fern

June 2018 Political Post

 Blessings Darlings!

I don't have time to crank out a 'real' blog today.  I've been busy with the Trump policy of separating asylum seeking and immigrant parents from their children and other immigration issues.  So here's a copy of the letter we gave to two of our congresscritters yesterday (we also had a sign-wave outside their offices - FAR more approval from passing cars than disapproval!) 

                                                                                                         Your Constituent 
                                                                                                         Jefferson & Berkeley Counties, WV
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito
Rep. Alex Mooney
300 Foxcroft Ave
Martinsburg WV 25401
                                                                                                                June 27, 2018
Senator Capito:

The Zero Tolerance policy has failed. All this punitive, "tough guy" stuff doesn't work. It is turning
the world against us, making the US more isolated and weaker.

And it is turning more voters against YOU.

The effects of separation on children are catastrophic, creating long-term irreversible effects on the
child's developing brain: increased aggression, withdrawal, cognitive difficulties, more likely to be ar -
rested later in life, much more likely to have drug & alcohol abuse, gang affiliation, and gambling
problems. As they get older, traumatized children become prime recruits for extremist groups.

This may well be creating a whole new generation of terrorists -- right on this continent -- who hate
America.

We the undersigned strongly suggest that you try something more constructive:

• Return the children to their parents, as soon as possible. Publicly state your support for this.
• Do not attempt to incarcerate whole families indefinitely. Publicly state your support for this.
• Support a bipartisan bill that does both of the above.
• Scrutinize the commercial prison corporations that are making a profit from these policies.
• Work with the Central American countries to reduce their drug cartel violence that is causing so many of their people to come to us for asylum.
• Urge the President to nominate an Assistant Secretary of State for the region.
• Call for a regional Conference to address the problem

Types of Magic

Blessings Darlings!

Let's settle in with a summer drink for a discussion of 'types of magic', and try to get this done before my husband drags me off to practice holding webinars using Webinar Jam (*I* am not looking to do webinars, but an organization we're involved in is, and the Chubby Hubby offered to do the tech stuff so ...)

Now I'm not going to talk about Green magic vs hedge witchery vs water witches vs whatthefuckever.  Personally I see those divisions as micromanaging.  YMMV.  Instead, I'm going to start with what are to me the Two Big Divisions, and then look at a hierarchy of approaches to magic.

The Big Two: Theurgy vs Thaumaturgy  

THEURGY:  "Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of achieving henosis and perfecting oneself."  (Wikipedia)  And henosis fundamentally means union with the Divine or Ultimate Reality.  Which is, really, what 'religion' means at its roots, that is re = again and lignon = uniting.  In short - Theurgy is magic for spiritual progress.  It's hard to measure results, as they don't easily translate into direct changes here in lovely Malkuth/earth/manifest reality.

[Side note - if you feel you're becoming perfected and other folks find that you've becoming a pretentious prat - go with THEIR feelings.  IJS.]

THAUMATURGY; This here is miracle working.  Measurable changes on Earth/shared reality from magical actions.  More money. New relationships. Measurable reduction in violence.  Healing/reduction of physical ailments (debate on whether 'feeling better' is theurgy or thaumaturgy is something I'm not going to cover here.)

 Those two categories are the Big Two.  I'm not usually into dualities, so savor the moment.   

A Brief Hierarchy of Magic

This hierarchy is about power, pure and simple.  

Basic Bitch Level Magics include chants and herbal/oil/etc mixes.  Making a potpourri to cleanse or bless your house.  Doing a chant for some purpose (didn't we ALL start off as kids doing the 'rain, rain go away" chant?)  Amulets. Sachets. Soaps. Washes.  Most crystal use. Herb use in food - heck, everything in the proposed "First you take a dead chicken" cook/spellbook.  I'd even add doing magic by planetary hours here.   Any time you are taking some item that is associated with your purpose and putting it together with other items associated with your purposed and that is the bulk of the spell.  Certainly these things can be layered like flavors, so you take your herbs and oils and do a chant over them.  That can help.  But it's still Basic Witch Level.

Intermediate Bitch Level Magics start when you consciously start raising/tapping, shaping, and sending energy.  You're not just doing a chant over that amulet - you tapped energy and charged that amulet.  You threw the ingredients for an herbal salve into the Instant Pot to slow cook ... but also charged a candle to power a specific magic into that salve while it cooks.  You 'woke' the Florida Water so it could do its thing. 

It can also include involving magical helpers with your magic.  Having spirits that you have alliances with help power the spellwork or the promise of offerings to the spirits involved if the spell works.

Badass Bitch Level Magics and you're going what you want, when you want, and only use herbs/other tools when you want to for the pleasure of using them. n You can do magic stark naked in Times Square with no tools while walking to an appointment and avoiding the police bothering you for indecent exposure.  OTOH, you might still choose to do 3 hour deeply ceremonial ritual timed to start in a 8 minute window between the end of a retrograde and the start of a full moon if that is what you choose to do another time for some specific reason.

 I am NOT Badass enough to do successful magic naked in Times Square, that's for sure.

Frondly, Fern

Familiars - Is Googling 'Familiar Spirit' a redundant action?

Blessings Darlings!

TL/DR: If it eats and shits, it's a pet not a familiar spirit.

You KNOW it's true:  damn near every online Pagan group has constant posts of animals and people claiming that the animals/pets are their familiars.  Such posts take up a huge amount of bandwidth (I'm so old that I remember when that mattered).  So let's start with what a familiar spirit is and what its traditional functions are.

First - as alluded to in the abstract above - it's not a corporeal being.  It's a spirit that puts on the glamour of some being, usually an animal.  It works for the person, maybe gathering information, maybe securing hard to find magical needs, maybe making introductions to other spirits, etc.  Some folks say that one's familiar spirit also take 'magical hits' for you - it puts itself in the way of curses/etc sent towards their human. You don't feed them food.  You may offer them food, and they will absorb the spiritual essence of it - but the physical food will remain.  Since it's not a physical being, it won't need walks, litter box scooping, etc. 

Second - why are they there? Often folks were given them as gifts or part of an inheritance, but it's not clear to me why the spirit gets this job assigned.  I'm guessing that it has to do with the spirit's growth in this spirit incarnation, but I'm blowing smoke on that one so take it as even less than UPG.

Third - Purpose #1, information.  If you were a magic user in the days before the printing press (or were a typically illiterate magic user, since most folks back in the day were illiterate), the familiar went out and could get the information from manuscripts and bring it back to you.  Need a spell out of a grimoire you don't have?  Send the familiar spirit to get the information.

And here we see a role that the Internet can replace.  Google search and you will have more info on any topic than you can get thru'. Buy a book via Kindle or Nook, and it's yours instantly.

Forth - Purpose #2, materials.  Again, you're an isolated worker back in the day.  You want, say, ginger for a spell.  It doesn't grow in most of Europe, and you're in Europe.  Traders don't tend to bring it to your village.  But your familiar can arrange that it shows up.  Or if you need an herb/tree bark/whatever that IS local but rare - it can take you to that herb/tree. 

Again, a role that the internet has supplanted. You can buy anything you need online with a few clicks, and it will be delivered right to your door.

Fifth - Purpose #3, Introductions to other spirits.  I will probably date myself if I say that Familiar Spirits have big Rolodexes.  So fine - they've got lots of contacts in Spiritual Social Media.  They can arrange to introduce you to who you need to be introduced to. 

Now THIS is still a service that the Internet can't do for you. 

Let me again point out that NONE of these things can be done by your pet hamster, cat, or dog.

Sure, your pet may well be very close to you.  It might groove on the energy of your rituals.  It may see you are trying to focus on something and decide that since you're focused ... it should be the object of that focus.  It may come by when your sick or sad or whatever.  It's a pet, an animal companion.  You are part of its family (the lousy hunting side of its family).  But it's not a familiar spirit.

Frondly, Fern

Are we all pagan/witch brothers and sisters?

Blessings, Darlings!

Subtitle: The distribution of assholes is pretty much uniform thru'out the world and amongst all groups.

 Yes, welcome to another installment of "oft bandied phrases" in the neopagan/witch world.  Today is "we are all brothers and sisters."

You're probably a nice enough person, but you are not my brother or sister.  My pagan/witch siblings are folks that I have built emotional bonds with over time.  I haven't done that with most of the folks who read this blog.  I CERTAINLY haven't done that with random folks in chat rooms, or folks I've just met at a Pagan festival.

Becoming family takes time.  And effort.  And shared crises.  It does not come automatically because we both say that we're pagan, or we both say that we practice witchcraft, or whatever.  It is NEVER automatic.  To pretend that it's automatic cheapens the shit out of it, it makes the term meaningless. 





                                                                                                                                                                         Every time you meet a new person - online or 'in real life' - you are starting off in Malkuth.  You need to practice Discernment to see if they are actually friend material.  You need to leave Greed behind - that is, you don't collect 'friends' for the sake of collecting friends.  Forced intimacy, pretending that they are your buddy immediately, sharing TMI immediately, etc - are warning signs, not invitations, about future intimacy and their respect of boundaries.



And not only are you starting off in  Malkuth - but you've got a whole bunch of Spheres to get to before you get to Da'ath.  It takes time. 



You're going to find that there are a lot of assholes out there, claiming to be your siblings.  To quote the Eurythmics, "Some of them want to use you. Some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused."  Discernment, baby, discernment.

Now, some folks are going to say that we're all trying to head in the same direction.  Uh -  nope.  We're not.  We are all on paths, but some paths are climbing one mountain, one a different mountain, one's heading for the sea, one to the plains, and they are on different continents.  Someone collared by the Morrigan is not heading the same place as someone called by Quan Yin ... or by Loki.  Don't paper over the real and profound differences between us - because THAT is part of what prevents actual intimacy.

If I don't know your phone number, so I can't text you for bail - you're not my brother or sister.
If you'd ask what I did to NEED bail money before saying you'd help raise it - you're not my brother or sister.
If you don't know if I prefer coffee or tea, you're not my brother or sister. (funny how I have this listed AFTER bail money ...)
If you don't know what my preferred pig farms are, you're not my brother or sister.

Just because a person is a pagan or a witch or whatever doesn't automatically make them ... friend worthy.  Let me repeat that the the folks in back: Just because a person is a pagan or a witch or whatever doesn't automatically make them ... friend worthy. And not all the friend worthy ones are going to become 'family'.  You're just not going to develop emotional intimacy with that many folks.  You certainly don't have it with strangers in chat rooms.

Frondly, Fern

Fern and Spawn Go To A Funeral

Blessings Darlings!

At this point of time I'm actively grieving the death of a friend.  Her funeral was this morning, my son and I (we both worked with her) were able to attend the funeral but not last nights viewing.

We don't go to many funerals.  Part of it is our ages (relatively few of the folks we're close to die very often), partly because for family deaths we are more likely to visit the family during the week of observing shiva ("the week-long mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives"), but mostly because we have a policy of being with folks for celebrations while they are alive.  When you move and leave family 600 miles away - I think that's a sound policy.  YMMV.

This was the Spawn's first time at a Christian funeral.  All the funerals he's been to before have been Jewish.  Judaism, being orthopraxic, has funerals based on respect for the body, remembering the person who died, and performing the appropriate prayers for the dead and for comfort to the mourning (specifics of those can be Googled but a good synopsis is available here).  

This funeral was not like that.  I don't know if it was a regional difference, this being West Virginia/Western Panhandle Maryland/flyover country and not some Big City Suburbs (the last Christian funeral I was at was in the DC suburbs) or if it was the brand of Christianity.  I didn't ask.  I expected hymns, Psalms of comfort, and, yes, I did expect an altar call despite none of the other Christian funerals I'd been at having altar calls. 

The altar call was there, calling on folks to come to Jesus and alter their lives.  The Spawn was surprised by that.  I'm going to have to have a chat with him that monotheism stuff again, and why some monotheists see their way as the only way.  

The secular country and pop music in place of hymns was a surprise.  Two of them I found jarring. Dudes - Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" is about sex, not a religious song. I'm guessing that's regional?  The minister seemed, for quite a while, to be MCing the funeral rather than leading it.  Even when the one recorded Christian hymn was played ... no one sang along.  It was a performance to be heard by an audience, even the minister didn't sing.  Then, the only things he said about our friend herself (other than what a blessing it would be for her funeral to lead folks to Jesus) was to literally read her obituary.  That was it.  Again - jarring.

Yes, I'm used to both Jewish and Pagan funerals/memorial services.  The living people at those services are PART of the service.  That's what a Jewish minyan is all about - a quorum of folks working together.  Working together.  THAT'S what was missing the most.  The only thing that you could do to 'work together' was to show up and be a passive audience.  Jarring.

I'm still processing the death.  I'm still processing the funeral.  I'm pondering regional differences.

I'm still

Frondly, Fern