Tag: God

The Power of Words in Spellcasting

The Power of Words in Spellcasting

We already know, words have the power to heal, to express love, to praise and to comfort and negatively to hurt or criticize.

In magick, words spoke deliberately and rhythmically are one of the most significant ways to build the energies in a spell.

In Ancient Egyptian magick, the basis for modern magick, one of the major creation myths tells how Ptah the creator God, thought the world in his mind and then created it by speaking magical words or hekau. The generative power he used was called Heka, which is also the name of the God of magick. This power is equivalent to the concentrated life force. In some versions of the myth it is Heka himself who speaks the words that give form to the thoughts of Ptah.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that this creation power animated every spell as it did at the first creation. So to the Ancient Egyptians ever act of magick was a recreation of that first act of world creation, using words to bring thoughts into actuality.

High Magic, Low Magic: Designations Help Define Our Styles

High Magic, Low Magic: Designations Help Define Our Styles

Author: Treasach

I personally find designations handy. They express no limit, only a specialization. It certainly helps you anticipate how easily you can work with another and how your styles and knowledge will mesh. I know, for example, that I don’t usually get on well with high magicians, or Iron John style wizards. That’s darn handy to know when someone tells me that he is a necromancer and a cabbalist.

As I label myself a ReClaimist, matriarchal, bardic green witch, most of you will have an idea of what I am currently working on, where my knowledge areas lie, what my focus is, and how I express my spirituality. That doesn’t mean I’ll stay like that forever, or that I’m not interested in other forms of worship, but it certainly makes it easier for us to find others of the same style. Rather like nametags at a convention.

I not only see no harm in it, I encourage folks to find a useful label for their personal style practice. Makes them feel more validated, too, especially when they are first starting out.

High magic is usually the term for what the wizards do. It’s rather like a Catholic mass, with all the ritual words in a sacred language, pomp and finery, ordained divine conduits, and strict adherence to detail. The power in high magic comes from without… the great universal energy that is harnessed by the correct performance of the ritual itself, with some measure from the performer (s) , but not much. They are mostly lending energy for the conduction of the spell to take place, which is why there is such an emphasis on hierarchy in high magic. It is vital that the ceremony be followed exactly with the correct people taking care of their assigned functions. The more powerful as spell, the less room for error.

The big draw for this kind of magic is that it offers a great deal of power in a relatively short period of time, but with a corresponding danger level as you ascend. The goal is to eventually control and submit the entire Universe. Nearly all wizards are male, white, and have terrible ego issues. They are usually still at the age where they feel invulnerable, since it’s required that you eventually wrestle with demons, for example, and incur the wrath of extra dimensional entities by enslaving them or their friends. It is often spelt with a ‘k’ to delineate it from low magic. Wizards find that sort of window dressing appealing.

Low magic is usually what witches do. Its goal is to make you one with the Universe, and therefore blissful, content, wise, with all your needs provided for. To unleash and accept your Goddess within, which is the same as the Goddess without, by giving full release to your Goddess self. This means that much attention is paid to your own instinct and the answers that are right for you, as your Goddess cannot ever be wrong, you just have to get better at hearing her. So our spells are more like mediation, sometimes with helpful symbols or foci like incense, statues, herbs, and other paraphernalia.

Most experienced witches don’t bother with it, however, unless they are trying to working on something much harder than usual. To effect change in the Universe, we try to use the Butterfly effect, to tug on the string of the Great Weave that will most affect the change we want. In trying to find the string, we learn how the Universe works and so increase our wisdom. And the Universe is vast, so She often can’t get to something as quick as She’d like.

It is therefore our job as Her representatives to draw her attention to inequities by blessing those who need it, to injustices by cursing those who deserve it, and other maintenance of the Continuum, thereby increasing our understanding and interaction with it.

Wicca is like high magic for witches. It calls upon the spirits and entities in a very ritualized format with specific assignments to the members, but primarily uses the inner energies of the group or individual to do the prescribed task. There is therefore no backlash if done incorrectly. But they do seem very fond of their accoutrements…

Most women choose the style of Low magic because it is more like their usual style of being: persuading and joining, rather than controlling. The sex of the practitioner doesn’t enter into it, other than gender training in their culture helping them have certain inclinations… That explains the overwhelming majority of practitioners in the Middle Ages being clergy. They often went into the priesthood for reasons OTHER than piety, like power and wealth, they were learned, and they had access to all sorts of magical formula, arcane materials, etc. So High magic, or ceremonial magic, was almost entirely Christian and clerical in the Middle Ages.

It is indeed all the same power. However, I can cure myself, clean my house, or get rid of my weeds and insects in my garden through chemicals created in a lab, or I can use chemicals in herbs and natural liquids. Some are just as dangerous to the environment, and myself but most aren’t.

Chemicals, like magic, are all made of the same components essentially but how they inter-react and perform is completely variable depending on how they were generated and used. They can be naturally gentle and persuading, or they can be artificially harsh, brutal, and destructive.

I’m sure most of you have heard of the phrase “As above, so below”. Only one interpretation is rendered as “As in Heaven, so it happens down here.” Another, more widely used and helpful meaning is “Change or events Outside affect the Internal, and vise versa.” ‘High’ in the case of magic means ‘external’, ‘low’ means ‘internal’. ONLY when hierarchy becomes so predominate in this culture, and High implies more powerful, and consequently more male, does High and Low magic take on some connotations that some people today take umbrage with. It’s not a personal insult to our style.

Now. When was the last time any of you enslaved a demon, deity, or angel to unwillingly do your bidding? How about binding your local ghosts, fairies, and spirits as your personal gophers? I don’t remember when it was that I forced the dead to come back in an unquiet rest to speak about the secrets of the Universe… High magic involves the use of formula and ritual to achieve just such dog collars on the Powers of the Universe. It isn’t the end in and of itself. The spell is usually to DO something, but it is the elemental being that figures out how to achieve the goal.

This kind of style offers much to recommend it to those that want a lot of power fast. Sure, High magicians have to keep their will focused on the spell for it to work, but only for the ritual itself. For the results of the spell to be efficacious, it doesn’t have to be PERSONAL, internal power that is bringing it about. That’s what the Harnesses of the Universe are for, like Jewish magic squares, Keys of Solomon, which can energize, activate, and execute many different kinds of spells simply by being performed correctly. However, the perils increase correspondingly.

I’ve seen a young wizard tell me that Hunters from the sprit world are stalking him, and we did a little complex ritual around a lamppost to confuse them so they can’t follow. I mean, I never saw them, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there, so I won’t doubt his word. Much. But I’ll tell you. I’ve never done anything in my magic work to invoke their wrath in the first place.

I am not comparing levels of power here. A very experienced or instinctive witch who is close to the Warp and Weft of the Universe can indeed stop a storm with a thought. Unfortunately, that takes a great deal of Enlightenment to reach that point, so most of us don’t get there in a hurry, if ever. Now, it takes a wizard of far less experience, personal power, and self-mastery to achieve the same ends by going through the rigmarole to capture the power of the Storm God and just fire away or let Him do the work. It’s not easy, but it’s a hellova lot easier than becoming one with the Forces of a Hurricane and personally knowing on an unconscious level what strings to pull.

With these kind of benefits attached to High magic, including the hierarchy, the feeling of mastery and the practice of invincibility, it’s no wonder that most wizards are men. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. Most powers that are so bound in High magic are not only interested in becoming Unbound as soon as possible, they would also like to wreak revenge on the mortals who dared to commit such an atrocity.

Which is why my little wizard friend was almost PROUD at the Things following him. The quality of a wizard is told by the quality of his enemies, after all… I don’t know of many women who have the same disregard for personal safety as many men do, either, btw…

Now, the next time any of you try to harness the Angel of Life and Death to cure yourself of cancer by invoking the Necronomacon and creating a doorway to Hell in your closet, rather than simply lighting a candle and envisioning the cancer going away, then you can tell me that High magic and Low magic are the same.

You must admit, the first one, if done correctly, has a much greater probability of curing you quickly and permanently, but so much can go wrong. The latter requires a deeply Enlightened, experienced, or otherwise powerful witch, and you might not be able to find one before you croak, but at least you don’t have to worry about your relatives falling through to the Second Circle when they put their coats away at your wake.

Why I’d Want Darkness In Me (Or, At Least, Not Mind It)

Why I’d Want Darkness In Me (Or, At Least, Not Mind It)

Author: Fire Lyte

While listening to an old clip from The Way of the Master Radio – a Christian Fundamentalist show, the radio host asked why anyone would want darkness in them. He asked this because Kirk Cameron, the co-host, had infiltrated a Mabon ritual and recorded the whole thing. This question came about, because pagans supposedly celebrate the balance of light and dark within them and in the world on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes – contemporarily known as Ostara and Mabon, and the two hosts could not fathom why anyone would want to accept darkness within. This is a really good question, and one that should inspire a lot of internal questioning.

Why in the world would anybody want to celebrate the balance of light and dark within him or her?

This is one of those trick questions kids ask one another on the playground that takes some fact or circumstance, twists it, and asks it in such a way that there is no good answer. For example: Does your mother know you lie? If you say yes, then you admit to lying and you assume the guilt of having let down your mother. Alternatively, if you say no, then you admit to lying to your mother about lying, and you assume the guilt of keeping a secret from your mother. There is no secret option C in which you neither lie, nor have to admit your deceit to your mother.

Well, this question is the same thing. We celebrate the balance of light and dark within us, firmly acknowledging that both exist. It is not that we want one over the other, and it is not that we want only one. This is one of the beautiful facets of paganism that I see as a benefit to our collective ideals. We may not agree on a lot of things, but we agree that we worship something solid, something real. At the heart of many of our religious tenets lies a central Earth worship, or the notion that we tie our sabbats and magical practices to the physical universe. Prosperity spells when the moon is waxing and so on. As such, we have a tendency to honor the natural laws of existence. We celebrate birth and death equally, and know that they are not points of singularity, but rather spokes on an ever-turning wheel.

Let’s try an experiment.

Think hard. Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to take an item off the shelf and just leave the store with it without paying. I mean, this economy is pretty tough, and I see lots of things I wouldn’t mind having without burdening my wallet with an inconvenient charge.

Raise your hand if you laughed when someone tripped or saw someone go through hard times and thought, “They had it coming.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to be the one who collects on karmic debts or if you’ve ever wanted to take a break from monogamy for just one day. Raise your hand if swift revenge seemed like the only option. Raise your hand if you’ve ever really wished someone would die. Raise your hand if you’ve ever thought about what a razor blade would feel like going inside your wrist. Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a dark moment…

Now, keep your hand raised if you didn’t go through with it. And aren’t you glad you didn’t?

Aren’t you glad you had enough inner balance to view the dark thought, shed some light on it, and put it neatly back in the box of dark thoughts where it belongs? It doesn’t matter if you briefly weighed the option of stealing the bottle of soda or if you dwelled upon a guilty conscience for years. The point is that at some point or another, you balanced out. You were not swallowed up by that singular point of darkness.

It would be a wonderful thing if we only ever had good thoughts. It would be great if the world were a fluffy pillow and the sun shone everyday and the radio station only played your favorite songs. But it isn’t. I’ve said before that reality isn’t fun, but it’s what we’ve got, and that’s really very true. As pagans, we acknowledge that we have our dark moments, and we can view them from a balanced perspective, because we also acknowledge our light. We differentiate them, because of one another. How would we know what moments are truly triumphant, truly joyous, if we did not have the hard times to compare them to?

It would be a foolish act on our part if we turned a blind eye on darkness. It exists, and it is as real and corporeal as if it were caressing you in the night. We are only prepared to face it, because of the balance of light and dark, because of the knowledge of past dark times, and the light we brought in to turn the dark away. If you knew an army was going to invade your country, rape your women, kill your men, and burn your cities, would you acknowledge the threat or talk about what a beautiful day it is? There is something to be said for reveling in the good times, but we must not let the good get in the way of reality.

On a different tangent, dark and light can quite literally also mean the times of year. The darker parts of the year are times when we don’t want to be as active, when the earth is bare, and when times are a bit hard. Without the sun, it is easy to become melancholic and shut off. Again, in these instances, we celebrate the light and the dark, because we know that light will come again. We remind ourselves to not get complacent in the dark, and to actively seek to bring light into every corner of our lives during times when it doesn’t come naturally. (Both literally and figuratively.)

Celebrating the balance of light and dark is celebrating the very nature of the universe, celebrating the most natural parts of nature. We acknowledge both, because both exist, and we do not wish to be foolish when the time comes to face one or the other. The good can be just as overwhelming as the bad, and can cause as much harm. Have you ever been so ecstatic that you forgot about your other daily duties? Have you ever let time get away from you when having fun that it turned into neglect of yourself or others?

If we are not conscious of consequences, the choices we make are one-sided and potentially harmful, dark. I see this with a lot of college-aged kids who stay out all night partying, enjoying the goods of youth, but forget to study or don’t get enough sleep or forget to come to work.

Balance, true balance, is what happens when we weigh our decisions carefully before making them. It is acknowledging hard times, dark times, and finding the light in each situation so that we can move forward. It is the quintessential idea of living in the present moment, of accepting the realness of reality.

So, to that radio man, I say that I don’t want darkness anymore than I want light. I simply acknowledge that both exist, because I have a brain and the ability to think and reason and accept the nature of the natural world.

Now, on the topic of sin. I ask you what, exactly, sin is, whether we should be forgiven for it, and, if so, who does the forgiving. However, I want you to think about the definition of sin without using the words Christian, or Abrahamic, or Jesus, or Bible. Remember doing those exercises in English class where you were supposed to come up with the definition of a word without using the word in a sentence? I want you to do that here. Strip away the conventions of Christianity, because sin is most definitely not simply a Christian concept. The notion of sin exists in all faiths.

So…think about it. What is sin? The majority of definitions ascribed to the word sin are that it is a transgression against some sort of moral code of conduct. In some cases this code is set forth by divine law, but in other cases it is simply that which goes against one’s personal ethics or values. But, this is just a theological idea of sin.

Chocolate can be sinful. It can be a sin to throw out a perfectly good jug of orange juice when it’s half-full. Recent statistics show that more and more people are leaving their religion of origin – yes, specifically the Christian and Catholic faiths. Half of all adults have changed religions at least once. Half of all adults! On top of that, most people that change religion do it more than once. 44% of Americans, according to a study done by the Pew Forum, do not belong to their childhood faith. 9% more say that they do belong to their childhood faith, but they changed at some point to another one.

And, in all of this mixing of doctrines, beliefs, and practices, we’ve muddled down the definition of sin. Or, perhaps we haven’t muddled anything. Perhaps, since we are in a constant state of reinvention and evolution, we have created a new and modern definition of sin. As pagans, this is what we are all about. We call ourselves neo-pagan in a nod to the fact that we take the traditions of the past and meld them with modern thinking.

Enough with the set up. What is sin? Well, I am going to say it is an action that goes against our values, morals, ethics, or other personal or social code of conduct. I include social, because some might claim that it is well within their personal system of morality that murdering someone for personal gain, revenge, or other innocuous vendetta. Some claim they should be able to take as much as they can steal, because that’s their own morality. That’s not acceptable; I don’t care if you claim you’re on the most left of left-hand paths or what. It is not ok. Your rights do not expand and envelope another’s right to be left alone.

So, if we commit one of these moral transgressions, should we be forgiven for it? Simple answer: yes. Now, notice I have yet to say I believe sin is some sort of divine act against a deity’s will. I think we should be forgiven for our wrongdoings, because we are supposed to be the best people we can be.

We need to release ourselves from the guilt of carrying around our sins, and we need to allow the person we wronged the opportunity to experience the positive karma of forgiveness. (More on karma in a future article.) In order to move on and be balanced individuals, we cannot be weighed down by too much dark or too much light, and thus we cannot carry around all the darkness of sin. To be balanced is the goal, the epitome of religious study and introspection.

However, balance is not something that occurs by purely singular means. You do not balance yourself by yourself. You shed off what doesn’t work, take on what does, and meld them together in a cohesive lifestyle. Many of us do this by focusing on the positive during the waxing and full moons, as these are times of growth and prosperity. On the flip side, we are taught that the waning and dark moons are times to banish the bad aspects of our personality, to get rid of guilt and worry and the wrongs that are done to ourselves and to others. These are times when we both forgive others and forgive ourselves. Oh…and we ask the Goddess and God for guidance.

Who does this forgiving? I’d say it is a combination of people. I might ask the Goddess to help me shed myself of some sin or other, or I might ask for the opportunity to have a positive encounter with someone I wronged so that I can seek forgiveness from them. However, when that person doesn’t give forgiveness, I simply work harder to be a better person and not wrong someone else in the way I wronged him or her.

I would venture, then, to say that sin is we dipping our toes too far into the pool of dark. It is when we tip the scales too far to one side, and we seek forgiveness from that sin in order attain the true balance that is our end goal.

What we want is not to have the darkness, but to work towards temperance. Wow…isn’t that one of the major Arcana in the tarot? Isn’t that one of the lessons of the fool? We seek true, alchemical balance by transforming ourselves, and understanding that there is no true dark and light but merely lessons we must learn. Sometimes we must learn that something needs to be learned, to be taken on. Sometimes we learn that we must rid ourselves of something. Either way, once balance is achieved, we evolve, we transform into our highest selves.

So, I don’t want darkness anymore than I want pure light. I want to be my highest self, and the only way I can think of to do that is acknowledge my sin, seek forgiveness from myself, my Gods, or those who I have transgressed against. I learn the lessons of life that come from experiencing both light and dark, and I work towards balance and becoming my best self.

Footnotes:
References in article

Curses! And the Magical Mechanics Thereof…

Curses! And the Magical Mechanics Thereof…

Author: Treasach

I’m not above quoting fantasy books myself if they say it well. “The most professional curse ever snarled or croaked or thundered can have no effect on a pure heart.” — The Last Unicorn. This is essentially true.

Curses work the same way other magic works. A Contact spell, for example, sends out feelers across the chaotic systems. A lot like a computer match up. If the potential person/s you are interested in meeting is also interested, as some of your energy is going along with it, you both work together to pull the chaos strings so that you will both meet up in an appropriate location and time for you to pursue an acquaintance. Rather like “your people” and “their people” calling a meeting. It is a two way street.

Curses are much the same. It is a two way street between the curser and cursed. The curser has decided that someone really need a kick in the ass for something, and sends out feelers. Their energies comes in contact, and if the ‘cursee’s’ own guilt, that is, their own inner Goddess of Vengeance, decides that they must be punished, both humans use that energy to create the curse effect. Rather like a karmic string tied around one’s finger to remind one of this guilt, which might not have remembered otherwise, or not gotten to it as quickly. Which is why someone must go to the trouble of cursing another in the first place, and why a curse has no effect on a pure heart. No self-need for punishment, no curse.

I believe we should most definitely treat others by the Golden Rule. There is indeed a version of that in every major tradition. But that’s almost entirely for our own benefit. We cannot become enlightened and self fulfilled without it. With neophytes terrified to practice spellcraft on their own without the aid of their ‘teacher’, the Three Fold or Karmic Laws has become an enslaving chain left over from our reClaiming days that should be abandoned as quickly as possible.

The 3 fold, ten fold, or even 11 ‘Law’ is a MYTH, told to keep newbies in line.

I’m sorry I’m breaking the conspiracy of some of the Adepts in disabusing you of this notion. There are many reasons for it, but I break from much of the crowd and teach like a heritage. I believe we must always and only discuss the true metaphysics of witchcraft to prove ourselves a mature spirituality and not a mystery cult.

Spewing the pat fluffy Threefold or Karmic Law is such an oversimplification of the complexity of the Universe that it is an obscenity to the dignity of seekers of Enlightenment and those who assist them. How does witchcraft compare as a viable path for those of intelligence and wisdom with such an obvious disprovable flaw as it’s main tenant? It’s deeply embarrassing for a spirituality of maturity and strength.

That doesn’t mean that the Universe doesn’t slap you if you choose to be an ass. You often do get what’s coming to you. But that is most definitely NOT the same performing so-called ‘black magic’ (which sounds abominably racist) and expecting to be punished for it.

Cursing, for example, is simply a form of dispensing justice where you believe it required, same as you would protect someone from getting beat up. You should get punished for NOT redressing a serious imbalance, in my opinion, same as you would for not getting stopping someone being physically victimized.

No. It’s simply that the ‘Rule’ or ‘Law’ or whatever that many teachers tell newbies when they are first starting out is merely fantasy. There are numerous reasons for this, but it is designed to scare them, control them, and ensure that they don’t go trying spellcraft on their own.

The truth is really much harder. The Universe does pay people back, but certainly not in such a lovely symmetry like three or any other number. It is ridiculous to assume that a quantitative quality can be put on someone trying to harm another, and take into account whether it was deliberate, or only slightly, or not at all, and ‘repay’ that back in some sort of mathematical formula. Like some suffering or blessing of mine can even compare to someone else’s in sensitivity, or life disruption, or level of joy, or some other feeling or quality in the first place.

If you are nasty to people, they will be nasty to you. Most times. Sometimes you can be nice to everyone, and you will be assassinated. Sometimes bad guys really do win. Totally and completely. The Universe is not so cut and dried as the ‘Law’ makes it out to be. It is not fair. And it certainly doesn’t balance. And even if it could, it is so vast that we would never be able to see it, with our limited shells.

But that’s where we come in, as Her representatives. We can see what’s in front of us and report back, so to speak, to draw Her attention to something that we would like to see remedied right now, and we specify a manner that we can comprehend. That’s one of the functions of spellcraft, particularly blessings, curses, and healings.

All people are intelligent and sensitive to some degree and deserve to be treated like seekers of truth and self-fulfillment. We do them and ourselves a great disservice when we do not teach the metaphysics and theology of witchcraft correctly from the start. In all it’s complexity.

My curses are extremely good. They can take up to two years to manifest, and they attack whatever it was that caused the person to be cursed in the first place. Completely. And, due to my style of asking the Goddess to take care of it Herself without my suggestions or too much interference, they manifest in a far more creative and complete manner than I ever could have imagined, exactly matching the infraction with the punishment. So I never worry about justice for infractions against me, though it would be nice to have the wisdom to avoid them in the first place…

And as aggressive as I am, curses come far more naturally than Blessings. Perhaps that’s where my real challenge lies…

Candlemas / Purification /Presentation / Our Lady of Candelaria

Imbolc/Candlemas Comments

Candlemas / Purification /Presentation / Our Lady of Candelaria

Jewish women went through a purification ceremony 40 days after the birth of a male child (80 days after the birth of a female child) and brought a lamb to the temple to be sacrificed. According to Mosaic law, Mary and Joseph would also have brought their first-born son to the temple forty days after his birth to offer him to God, like all first-born sons, along with a pair of turtledoves.

The Presentation was originally celebrated in Jerusalem on November 21st but once Christ’s birth was fixed on December 25th (near the winter solstice), the Presentation and Purification rituals would fall forty days later, in early February when torches were carried around the fields.

First celebrated on February 14th, in 350 at Jerusalem, when it would have coincided with the Roman festival of Lupercalia, it was later moved up to February 2nd. Pope Sergius declared it should be celebrated with processions and candles, to commemorate Simeon’s description of the child Jesus as a light to lighten the Gentiles. Candles blessed on this day were used as a protection from evil.

This is the ostensible reason given for the Catholic custom of bringing candles to church to be blessed by the priest on February 2nd, thus the name Candle-Mass. The candles are then taken home where they serve as talismans and protections from all sorts of disasters, much like Brigid’s crosses. In Hungary, according to Dorothy Spicer, February 2nd is called Blessing of the Candle of the Happy Woman. In Poland, it is called Mother of God who Saves Us From Thunder.

Actually this festival has long been associated with fire. Spicer writes that in ancient Armenia, this was the date of Cvarntarach, a pagan spring festival in honor of Mihr, the God of fire. Originally, fires were built in his honor in open places and a lantern was lit which burned in the temple throughout the year. When Armenia became Christian, the fires were built in church courtyards instead. People danced about the flames, jumped over them and carried home embers to kindle their own fires from the sacred flames.

The motif of fire also shows up in candle processions honoring St Agatha (Feb 5) and the legends of St Brigid (Feb 1). The fire represents the spark of new life, like the seeds blessed in northern Europe on St Blaise’s Day (Feb 3) and carried home to “kindle” the existing seed.

The English have many rhymes which prognosticate about future weather based on the weather on Candlemas Day:

If Candlemas Day bring snow and rain
Winter is gone and won’t come again
If Candlemas Day be clear and bright
Winter will have another flight.

These are all similar to the American custom of predicting the weather on Groundhog’s Day, in that you don’t want the groundhog to see his shadow. In Germany, they say that the shepherd would rather see the wolf enter his stable than the sun on Candlemas Day.

The ancient Armenians used the wind to predict the weather for the coming year by watching the smoke drifting up from the bonfires lit in honor of Mihr. The Scots also observed the wind on Candlemas as recorded in this rhyme:

If this night’s wind blow south
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold and snow there will be;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit;
If north-east, flee it, man, woman and brute.

This was also a holiday for Millers when windmills stand idle. In Crete it is said that they won’t turn even if the miller tries to start them.
Blackburn, Bonnie and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999
Kightly, Charles, The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, Thames and Hudson 1987
Spicer, Dorothy Gladys, The Book of Festivals, The Woman’s Press 1937

Magickal Graphics

February Eve

Imbolc/Candlemas Comments

February Eve

“Dread Lord of death and Resurrection life and the giver of life, Lord within ourselves, whose name is Mystery of Mysteries, encourage our hearts. Let the light crystallize in our blood, fulfilling us of resurrection, for there is no part of us that is not of the Gods.”

—-The Book of Shadows (1949), Gerald Gardner

Magickal Graphics

Beyond the Ethics of the Wiccan Rede

Beyond the Ethics of the Wiccan Rede

Author: Bill BluWolf

The Rede is known to many of Wiccan practitioners as the ethical underpinnings to be followed. While different versions exist, a common form is “An it harm none, do what ye will.” Most of the attribution for the Rede goes to Doreen Valiente, Alexander Crowley, Gardner and according to some, King Pausol. Regardless of the source, we are told we are free to do what we want as long as no harm results. It is important to note that the Rede includes admonishment against doing harm to oneself.

Another important consideration for ethics is the Rule of Three (Three-fold Law or Law of Return) . It states that whatever one puts out, it will return threefold. This is an attempt to warn the practitioner to do good works because it will come back to them three-fold. As an ethical consideration, it is not much different than the Christian’s “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12) . These ethical sayings also ring with the idea of Karma; (to use the Christian saying) what you sow, so shall you reap.

Notice that the ethics so far are prohibitive. They tell us what NOT to do. I get a chuckle from Google’s company motto that echoes what we’ve seen: “Don’t be evil.”

For Wiccans, there is a few last important ethical guides, one is well known to many especially Gardnerians: The Charge of the Goddess. A Charge of the God exists, as well as countless variations of both. Wiccan Laws exist as well, in Gardnerian and Alexanrian forms. I’ll spare you the gory details about the in-fighting regarding the Laws. Needless to say, many disagreed with them.

While the Rede and the Three-fold Law are largely prohibitive, they do so by also telling us we are urged to do positive works. I personally like the Charge from an ethical standpoint because it tells what we should do. In this way it is proscriptive and not prohibitive.

Paraphrasing the Charge of the Goddess, Doreen Valiente tells us we should:

Listen to the words of the Great Mother.
Be naked in your rites.
Meet once a month under a full moon.
Sing, feast, dance, make music and make love.
Have beauty, strength, power, compassion, honor, humility, mirth and reverence within you.

Many have taken her words and adapted them to make them suitable for different audiences and to fit other purposes.

My chief complaint with all of these ethical viewpoints is that they are largely useless in practical secular daily life. It is what we call applied ethics. For example, I am driving down the road and a deer jumps in front of my car. I have seconds to decide; do I hit the deer or do I drive into a ditch or hit a tree? Ethically, I don’t want to kill a defenseless animal. Nor do I want to harm my car, a tree or myself.

As an improvement, there is an international program (which Boy Scouts of America and Cub Scouts use) have a saying; “Leave no trace.” It is used when outdoors and the intent is to leave the place how it was found.

Leave no trace could cover a multitude of other situations, such as greenhouse gases, carbon footprints, new roads and development in protected ecosystems to ocean ecology. It also tells us what to do. Lets think of a short list.

1.Recycle. Our world’s resources are not infinite. We should be doing good management of what resources we do have and not waste them. We should re-plant the trees that we do take for our future generations.

2.Leave what you find. While walking in the woods, we don’t take things like rocks or animals. What is with our preoccupation at collecting massive amounts of material things? Like leaving only footprints, we should only collect what we need.

3.Be considerate of others. Not only this applies to local wildlife, it applies to other people.

4.Clean up after yourself. In the physical sense, it means trash management. In the spiritual sense, it means know your craft and behave responsibly. In the mental sense, it means don’t dump on others, and have a healthy outlook and healthy relationships.

What other things could you add to the list?

Leave no trace is attractive as an ethical proposition because it tells us what to do and what not to do at the same time.

As Pagans, we should look for a more responsible ethical framework. We were here before the other world religions. Shouldn’t we lead the way in ethics?

There are other ethical sayings we could use. “Be my best” comes to mind. The big flaw I see is that my best becomes a crutch when people do bad things. For example, “Well I was just doing my best.” might be a common excuse when a pedophile molests a child. If honestly applied, I do think it works, but maybe we can do better.

The one I like best is “Leave the world a better place than you found it.” It is all encompassing. It is a positive way to say that we should strive to do good works. It covers things from acid rain to gun laws to abortion. It is very simple. A kindergartner should understand this concept.

In applied ethics, it becomes fairly easy to do the right thing. In the example of the deer jumping in front of the car, we can rationalize some choices. The car may hit the deer. The car can end up in the ditch. But it is the more general context that makes it an improvement. Why did the deer do that? Are the local deer crossing roads due to over-crowding? Perhaps we should install fences and control where the deer cross the road. Maybe we should allocate more forestland for deer populations.

“Leave the world a better place” allows us to explore options, and become better stewards of our environment. It creates possibilities that did not previously exist and makes us better humans.

Footnotes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiccan_Rede

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiccan_morality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Three_ (Wiccan)

http://doreenvaliente.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_be_evil

http://www.reclaiming.org/about/witchfaq/charge.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace

Seeing is Believing… Or Is It?

Seeing is Believing… Or Is It?

Author: Mirage

We have all heard the age-old phrase “Seeing is believing” or ” I will only believe it when I see it.” For some situations in life, I have to agree — when dealing with the material world around us. I find it especially true when dealing with people. You can only be burned so many times and then you just end up losing your faith in human nature. I’m sure that I am not the only one here who has felt that way at one time or another- and for good reasons as well.

It saddens me, however, when people use this phase when referring to the existence of the Divine (God, Goddess, any divine entity) . I have heard so many Atheists, Agnostics, and even people who claim to have faith, make comments about the divine that basically translate as, ” I will believe it when I see it.” I have also heard people crack jokes about how silly it is for an adult to have an “imaginary friend” that they continually talk to but never get a response in return.

I am a firm believer that everyone is entitled to his or her own beliefs/opinions but I really think that we should all take a look at the other side of the fence before making any rash decisions. So, despite all of the multi-faceted views on religion and/or spirituality, I have a proposal to make. I think that if people gave the divine a chance, no matter how skeptical or bent on logic they claim to be, they would discover that seeing isn’t believing, but believing is seeing. However, this “sight” is more of an emotional awareness that allows us to “see” and experience the divine. First I think we should explore the problem before we discuss a solution…

People have asked me why I believe what I believe. Why do I believe in the Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses? Simply because I have ‘seen them’ by emotionally experiencing them or by feeling them? No, they did not manifest out of thin air and demand my undivided attention. Nor did they shout my name from the sky and underworld to prove to me that they really do exist.

I do not doubt that this could really occur, in one sense or another, but I have not experienced it for myself, therefore it is not the reason I have faith. So many people seem to have this expectation when it comes to deities. What seems more ridiculous to you- only believing in something if it makes itself physically apparent or having faith in something you haven’t physically seen but have emotionally experienced?

I think that knowing and experiencing the divine requires more of an effort on our part. If I was a divine entity, I wouldn’t just pop out at random times to offer people bits of wisdom and enlightenment. I would make them work for it! I’m pretty sure that all of the Gods and Goddesses, no matter what pantheon or time period they are from, would expect the same.

What concerns me is when people are new to Paganism, or any religion/spirituality for that matter, and expect to hit it off right away with every God or Goddess they choose to call upon. Some people are lucky, and a certain deity may favor them, so they get instant “results”. The deity tends to the individual and encourages him/her to form a relationship by allowing him/her to “see” the divine presence. Other times, the deity will choose to ignore the individual altogether or make the person work for results (most likely a fulfilling relationship with said deity) – the latter probably being more common.

This is why I think people have little or no faith. They just don’t want to put forth an effort to get to know a deity that they want to relate to. I have found that quite a few Pagans/ Wiccans at one point or another (myself included) tend to EXPECT Gods and Goddesses to grant desires with little effort on their part.

Yes, we can “promise” a deities that we will pay them homage in a certain manner or offer them incense, oils, foods, etc. so our wish will be granted, but to me that seems superficial and empty (again, I have done it myself, so I am by no means pointing my finger at others.) I think that we can almost relate divine relationships to relationships that we have with other people- especially significant others.

Sure, we can shower them with gifts and grant them “favors”, but there is so much more to a relationship besides that. We should learn about their personality (likes, dislikes, quirks, etc.) and how to work with them instead of against them. We should do this when relating to the divine as well and maybe we would get better results, thus strengthening our faith as we go.

I think that we have issues describing our spiritual experiences as well, so sometimes we put it on the back burner and brush it off as a coincidence or fate. My theory is that we are so used to describing material items, we are programmed to think that if we cannot describe the way something looks, sounds, smells, feels, etc. then it is illusive or does not exist at all.

For example, if I was asked to describe a rose, I would say that it is red, smells sweet, has sharp thorns, and so on. Needless to say, not too many people would describe the flower much differently.

However, if I was asked to describe the Goddess Isis, that might be a bit more difficult.

Since I have never physically seen Her, I couldn’t accurately describe Her physical attributes (hair color, skin color, clothing, eye color, etc.) unless I was basing it off of an artist’s depiction of Her. On the other hand, if I described my spiritual “sight” of Her, I would say that She is a being of light that brings me a very warm and peaceful feeling, almost as if She was my own mother.

Skeptical people might raise a brow to this description, but again, it all boils down to having faith, putting forth effort, and opening our minds to things we may not think to be possible.

So, if there is that one special deity in your life that you are not to sure about because he/she seems a tad bit illusive or you don’t know how to approach them, I say go for it! It won’t be as easy as looking at a person across the room from you and acknowledging him/her, but it will be well worth it in the end.

I suggest researching the deities that you are drawn to before you form a relationship with them. What are their attributes? What do they like/dislike? Do they have any aspects that you would like to relate to as well?

The research is the easy part. Now open your heart and your mind to them and allow their presence in your rituals or daily life…I’m sure that when the time is right, you will gain sight of them through your emotions and intuition.

Celebrations Around The World, Jan. 31st

Feast of Great Typos
Festival of Brigantia begins
Up Helly AA (Viking Festival)
Festival of Imbolc begins
Nauru Independence Day
Festival of Transmission Errors
Child Labor Day
St. John Bosco’s Day (patron of editors, apprentices)
Phlegm-Green, Moldy-Grey, and Gazzard Day (Goblin)
Valkyries’ Day (Norse)
St. Marcella’s Day
Kitchen God Visits Heaven (China)
National Brandy Alexander Day
St. Tryphena’s Day (patron of nursing mothers)

GrannyMoon’s Morning Feast – Source: The Daily Globe, School Of The Seasons and/or The Daily Bleed

The Wiccan Book of Days for Jan. 31 – Sanskrit’s Source

Goddess Comments & Graphics

Sanskrit’s Source

A fesival dedicated to Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of education and the arts, is held in the Kathmandu Valley region of Nepal at this time of year, with heartfelt prayers and offerings of fruit and flowers being dedicated to this lovely deity by students who are facing exams. The divine embodiment ofhe Sarasvati River (her name means “She Who Flows”) and the wife of Brahma, the creator God, Sarasvti is depicted with a crescent moon adorning her forehead. Worshipped for having introduced Sanskrit to the Indian Subcontinent, she is called Vac (“Speech” in Sanskrit), and another of her honorific titles is Savitri (“Giver of Life”).

“An Act of Kindness”

Pay your respects either to Sarasvati or to Kwan-yin, the bodhisattva of compassion who is honored by Chinese Buddhists around now. Follow the bodhisttva’s example in carrying out an unsolicited act of kindness in order to improve the lot of someone less fortunate.

~Magickal Graphics~