Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Ritual Of Self Blessing

This ritual of self-blessing has been around for many years - originally published by the Pagan Way. This version is taken from Amber Wolfe's "In the Shadow of the Shaman" because it is not as Goddess oriented.

This version can be used by anyone, regardless of religious principle, because it is easily adapted with the name of your own diety. The important thing is that you are calling on your highest spiritual force to witness your life/problems, and in calling attention to yourself, you are begining to take charge and deal with the problems. There is a very real, very deep power in this ritual, no matter how simply or elaborately it is performed, and it should never be performed in fun or for show. Use it whenever the need is great - any moon phase is permissible, although it was originally intended to be used at the waxing moon. It will embue the celebrant with a sense of calm connectedness and peace.

What follows is the text as Amber Wolfe has written it. Balance and blessings.

Ritual of Self-Blessing

You will need

- a small votive candle and holder (white is always good, but use color if you feel called to do that)
- an incense stick, cone, or herbs (such as sage or thyme) to burn
- a small container of water
- a small container of salt

I find that a sugar and creamer set works very well for this. These can be purchased quite reasonably and set aside just for this use.

This is a ritual which connects you to the deepest levels of healing. It also connects you to the four elements and their energies. In this way it is most helpful for dealing with the shamanic elemental energies of Nature.

The candle represents the element of Fire
The incense or herbs represent Air
The container of water is Water
The container of salt is Earth.

Beyond that, these elements reflect your own needs.

The element of Fire reflects your relationships, protection, ideas and achievements.

The element of Air reflects your creativity, spirituality, inspiration and philosophies.

The element of Water reflects your emotions, intuition, dream states, psychic gifts, and healing balance.

The element of Earth reflects your practicality, knowledge, sacred wisdom, and growth.

Find a quiet time and place where you will not be disturbed. You may make this as ceremonial or as informal as you choose.

Light the incense and take a few moments to consider the element of Air. Consider the gifts that Air reflects in you.

Light the candle and take a few moments to consider the element of Fire. Consider the gifts that Fire reflects in you.

Take a few moments to consider the element of water and how it reflects in you.

Take a few moments to consider the element of Earth and how it reflects in you.

Very gently, pour the water into the container of salt. If you are using herbs as an incense, you may sprinkle a few in the water and salt mixture.

Stir the salt and water with your fingers. Consider the blending of elements that creates life itself. Consider the balance of elements and their attributes in your life. Take a few moments to do this.

Facing the candle, dip your fingers in the water mixture and touch your forehead (3rd eye area).

Say: "Bless me Mother, for I am your child." (The original was written for the Goddess as Mother. Another diety name can be substituted here, or simply say "Spirit.")

Now dip your fingers in the water mixture and touch the area around your eyes carefully.

Say: "Bless my eyes that I may see you."
Dip again and touch your nose.
Say: "Bless my nose that I may breathe your essence."
Dip again and touch your ears.
Say: "Bless my ears that I may hear your wisdom."
Dip again and touch your mouth.
Say: "Bless my mouth that I may speak your name."
Dip again and touch your heart.
Say: "Bless my heart that I may feel your love."
Dip again and touch your lower abdomen.
Say: "Bless my cauldron center that I may create harmony."
Dip again and touch your feet.
Say: "Bless my feet that I may walk in balance."
Dip again and rub your hands together.
Say: "Bless my hands that I may share your healing in my work."

Take all the time you need to concentrate on the elements before you. Focus your attention on the candle and visualize healing light flowing into you. Feel strength emerging from deep inside yourself. Breathe deeply and capture that moment. Connect with the source of strength and healing.

When you feel you are finished, blow out the candle. I often save these candles just for this ritual of self-blessing. If I am extremely pressed for time, I simply light the candle and take a few moments to connect with the energy of the ritual.

It is good to leave the incense burning if you can. Air is a communicating element, and smoke is transformation. The incense carries the messages of healing and strength to Spirit. If you have used herbs, it is good to return the ashes to Nature. In this way, you
are grounding the energy, bringing the message and the transformation to earth. Make sure the ashes are cold; then place them at the roots of a tree or bush if possible. If not, place them in soil or sand.

The salt and water mixture can be used very effectively in several ways. You may wash your gemstones or other stones in this. Crystals love this, since their energy is so personally connected to yours.

You may save the mixture and dab a little on your third-eye area every day for a few days, as a reminder. You may pour the mixture into your bath for a gentle energizer. When the bathwater drains, visualize a connection between yourself and the energies of Mother Ocean. You may return the mixture to earth by pouring it on soil or sand. Remember, plants don't thrive in salt; so keep the mixture clear of plants. You may sprinkle the mixture throughout your house to seal in positive energies and protection.

by -=Satinka

Aphrodite Hecate Witch Mother Goose

I was thumbing though a book of poetry and came across the following:

This knot I knit,
To know the thing, I know not yet,
That I may see,
The man that shall my husband be,
How he goes, and what he wears,
And what he does, all days and years.

Crow Omens

One's lucky,
Two's unlucky,
Three is health,
Four is wealth,
Five is sickness
And six is death.

Whenever the cat of the house is black,
Its lasses of lovers will have no lack.

Spell of Power

One-ery, two-ery,
Ziccary zan; Hollow bone, crack a bone,
Ninery ten:
Spitery spot,
It must be done;
Twiddleum twaddleum
Twenty ONE.

Well, I thought, what intriguing little spells and verses; they would be perfect to print with the coming Samhain Tide. I looked to the source of these jewels and was astonished to learn they were not only from Mother Goose, but published to the general public for hundreds of years!

Hundreds of years! Right in the middle the fanatical Christian suppression of anything even remotely Pagan, are these and other verses. They were printed and illustrated in books that were lovingly read to the children of the time. I wondered how many people knew or suspected the origins of these rhymes and then I opened my own childhood Mother Goose book and experienced the second thunder bolt of the day. On the title page of The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book, is a picture of, as far as I'm concerned, a witch riding a goose. In the various images of Mother Goose I came across in the coming weeks, I consistently saw an old woman, tall pointed hat, black cat and even a broom. Could the resemblance to a witch be any clearer?

In my book's picture, she carried an egg in her right hand as she flew. My Pagan mind jumped to symbolic connections between eggs and fertility and old women and wisdom. This is a very potent symbol for young children to gaze upon. How many people consciously saw a witch reading stories to their children? Did they know that she was passing along hundreds if not thousands of years of wisdom? Did they know that storytelling has always been the role of the old woman, the hag, the witch?

Amongst the lace, baby powder, and pastel pinks and blues is the very image we have been warned against. Even though we have been instructed by our most threatening authority figures (church leaders) not to trust this woman, indeed to shun her, she is watching over and reciting to our beloved children as Mother Goose.

We have been told for centuries that the witch is evil, consorts with the devil, hexes the innocent and boils infants in her cauldron. Her image is meant to represent the old and the haggard and the frightening.

With all the bad press, you'd think she would have been banished from all sight, yet at the height of the steam- cleaned morality of the Victorian age, she is there as Mother Goose. In some depiction's she is plump and grand motherly instead of spooky and witch-like, but most often she is how I have described above.

I decided to do some research into this matter and see what I could come up with. I first did some reading on the general subject of Mother Goose and what follows is a medley of information I came across in three different encyclopedias.

Mother Goose is described as ". . . fictitious narrator of nursery rhymes. She is the smiling old woman with magic wand, tall hat, and flowing cloak who rides through the air upon a goose. . ." ". . . fictitious old woman, reputedly the source of the body of traditional children's songs and verses knows as nursery rhymes. . ." 3 ". . . Some scholars believe that Mother goose is based on a real person, but others say that Mother Goose is a fictional character."

Mother Goose's identity has been attributed to the Queen of Sheba of biblical times to Queen Bertha, the mother of Charlemagne in medieval times, (Bertha's nickname was 'Goose-footed Bertha' or 'Queen Goose-Foot'. This nickname was not elaborated on, but one can speculate that she had some webbed toes or was pidgin-toed.) to Elizabeth Goose (Vergoose/Vertigoose) of colonial Boston.

No one will ever prove who she was or from whence she came, but it is my opinion that she is a combination of real-life women and arctypical characters. No matter how suppressive or scolding a patriarchal society is, it cannot eliminate our need for the divine feminine.

Mother Goose has not only cloaked ancient pre-Christian beliefs from modern eyes, she was the medium of scathing political commentary. Her rhymes were taken from ancient folklore, songs, ritual, proverbs and the political opinion of the common folk. Below are two examples of her political tongue:

Georgie Porgie, pudd'n pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
Attributed to a promiscuous monarch of the day.
Jack Spratt could eat no fat,
His wife would eat no lean,
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.
Possible commentary of the fat and greedy churchman , and in
particular an Archdeacon named Pratt.

I next investigated the goose she always rides and did not have to dig very deep to find a solid vein of goose mythology. I learned that geese, ducks and swans have been in our history and storytelling for thousands of years.

The Egyptian goddess Hathor gave birth to the sun when she took the form of the Nile goose and was often referred to as the 'Goose that laid the Golden Egg'. The goose was sacred to Celtic tribes because of the connection to the Sun-Egg. Even today in some areas of Ireland, the goose is 'kept but not eaten'. In medieval times it was forbidden to kill a goose in midwinter because the sun was thought to need the incubation of the goose in order to be re-born.

Our own dinner-time custom of a chicken's wish bone can be traced to Western Europe when a goose was killed and eaten at Martinmas (Nov. 11. Currently Veteran's Day in the US). The breast bone was allowed to dry over night and the next day the oldest of the household made her/his divination on the coming winter based on the shape of the bone when pulled apart.

The goose has been linked to a holy bird which flew in front of the earth-mother Berchta in Germanic lands. This same Berchta is closely related to Queen Bertha (mentioned above) and is Connected With fertility.

Gula the Healer, goddess of ancient Ur, is pictured seated on four geese as they fly across the ocean or the sky. From India, China and Japan come ancient stories of young women riding geese across the sky. These images are nearly always referred to as symbols of fertility. The goose being the male symbol (the sun) and the woman the corresponding female (moon) element. Aphrodite and Adonis are seen riding in a chariot drawn by two swans. 6 Alone, Aphrodite is depicted on the back of a swan or goose from the Mediterranean to Britain.

I must come to the conclusion that Mother Goose being in the company of such an ancient symbol is no accident. I must also conclude that her resemblance to a witch is not happenstance, but our need to keep this woman and her teachings close at hand. However superficially we detest the hag, she manages to stay in our midst.

At this time of year, she is everywhere as the wicked witch_ someone to fear and hate, yet the costume of the witch is one of the most enduring for children and adults at Halloween. I can take some comfort that the witch will always stay close by, even if too often portrayed in a negative light, but my warmest comfort comes from her image as Mother Goose. She is a hag of wisdom and learning, also known as Hecate, the Ancient Greek triple goddess who ruled heaven, earth and the underworld. She guides us into the future with lessons
from the past. I know Mother Goose is a witch and now, so do you.

1. Skelton, Robin and Blackwood, Margaret. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Arkana, Penguin Group, New York, 1990, pp. 65, 69, 72, 229.
2. Bracy, William. Collier's Encyclopedia, P.F. Collier Inc., New York, 1993.
3. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 15th Edition, Encyclopaedia Britanica, Chicago, 1994.
4. The World Book Encyclopedia, World Book Inc., Chicago, 1993.
5. Bracy, William. Collier's Encyclopedia, P.F. Collier Inc., New York, 1993.
6. Walker, Barbara G. The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred Objects, Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1988, p. 402.
7. Armstrong, Edward A. The Folklore of Birds, Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1959, pp. 30-40.

Note: If you search into the origins of the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel's popular song Scarborough Fair, you will discover that a good deal of it is from a Mother Goose rhyme called The Tasks. 1 p 229.

Books in PDF format to read:

Aleister Crowley - Book Of The Heart Girt With The Serpent
Michael Magee - Robin Hood And The Witches
Andrew Lang - The Witch And Other Stories

A Victim Of Ideologies

PLACE was just a place.
without form or future,
barren of inhabitants.

Then RAIN appeared - and gave PLACE moisture.
And SUN lent PLACE light.
And EARTH molded PLACE into form.
And WIND and BREEZE breathed
sweet airs into PLACE.

And CLOUD smiled and MOON shone.
And STAR brought forth beauty,
wonder, magic.

And PLACE awakened.
And grew trees, and grass.
Animals appeared.
And PLACE was graced with
lakes, and ponds,
and light, and shadow.

'Thank you!', cried PLACE.
'I am alive. Thank you.'

And the Elements conferred
among themselves,
And preened, and swelled, and gloated.
'See!', cried SUN. 'We are all powerful-'
'we have a RIGHT to be proud!'

'Ah!', said RAIN. 'But I was the first!'
'And Without me', said EARTH,
'PLACE would be shapeless!'
And the elements fought, and argued, and battled
RAIN and WIND changed to STORM,
killing, ripping trees asunder.
EARTH shook, imposing vast destruction.
CLOUD, MOON and STAR retreated,
while SUN flared, burning all to ruin.

And angered, with bruised pride,
the elements departed.
Only BREEZE remained upon this barren,
blackened Desert that was PLACE.

'Oh cruel brethren! What have we done?'
and BREEZE tried to resurrect PLACE,
but it's power was too weak.

And so dead PLACE remains
the mournful cry of BREEZE
it's only voice.

Shadow Hawk

Books in PDF format to read:

Saint John Of The Cross - Dark Night Of The Soul
Daniel Defoe - A System Of Magic
Kelly Link - Magic For Beginners

Hornsong

Great stag's horns are sprouting out of my head!
Now I sing great songs!
Thundering voices roar
ancient melodies

That now are caught in my Magickal horns
To power my soul
And to heal my body
And enrich my mind!

Listen as I soar! Listen as I sing!
My Words are power
To heal bodies, minds, soul
And to conquer death!

by Hugh Read (01-29-89)

Books in PDF format to read:

Daniel Haigh - The Anglo Saxon Sagas
Edward Bulwer Lytton - Zanoni
Phil Hine - Rites That Go Wrong
Sir William Stirling Maxwell - The Canon
Hrafnagaldr Odi - Odin Ravens Song

Healing Quarter Calls

East

Wings of Healing, wind of understanding
Carry me aloft to the clear blue sky
Wise and knowing, curious and wondering
Home to my mind, that I might know why

South

Flame of Healing, sweet determination
Power my belonging, make me strong
Wild and hungry, joyful and insistent
Home to desire, for the fire I long

West

Waves of Healing, serpent of the Mystery
Swallow me below to the tender deep
Strange and dreaming, wakening my wonder
Home to my truth, that my heart not sleep

North

Cave of Healing, rhythm of my heartbeat
Cradle me to silence, still my pain
Cool and patient, welcoming and wordless
Home to my bones, make me whole again

Book: Norse Mythology A To Z by Kathleen Daly

"Norse Mythology A to Z, Third Edition" examines the characters, objects, and places whose stories make up the folklore of the Norse people, who lived in the region known today as Scandinavia. Passed down through the generations by word of mouth and finally written down in the 13th century and later, these myths include tales of Gods and Goddesses; heroes, giants, and dwarfs; and serpents and dragons that inhabit enchanted realms. This colorful volume brings to life many of these Nordic myths. Entries of this title include: the most famous gods and goddesses, such as Odin, Thor, and Freya; plants and animals important to Norse mythology, such as the oak tree and the eagle; stories and poems, such as "Treasures of the Dwarfs" and the "Poetic Edda"; and, much more.

The term mythology can refer to either the study of myths or a body of myths. For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece.

The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story; however, the academic use of the term generally does not pass judgment on its truth or falsity. In the study of folklore, a myth is a symbolic narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form. Many scholars in other fields use the term "myth" in somewhat different ways. In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story

Download Kathleen Daly's eBook: Norse Mythology A To Z

Books in PDF format to read:

Reformed Druids - Anthology 08 A General History
Reformed Druids - Anthology 00 Introduction
Reformed Druids - Anthology 10 Oral Histories
Peter Andreas Munch - Norse Mythology Legends Of Gods And Heroes
Kathleen Daly - Norse Mythology A To Z

Liber 058 Qabalah Or An Essay Upon Number

Book: Liber 058 Qabalah Or An Essay Upon Number by Aleister Crowley

Also sometimes refered to as "Gematria" or "An Essay on Number". A General discussion of the Method and uses of the Qabalah. This was originally published as The Temple of Solomon the King, Part V in Equinox I v. See also: The Temple of Solomon the King in the Equinox: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX

Download Aleister Crowley's eBook: Liber 058 Qabalah Or An Essay Upon Number

Books in PDF format to read:

Aleister Crowley - Liber 051 Atlantis The Lost Continent
Aleister Crowley - Liber 031 Qbl Or The Brides Reception
Aleister Crowley - Liber 058 Qabalah Or An Essay Upon Number

Magical Poetry

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Ritual Of Self Blessing

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Aphrodite Hecate Witch Mother Goose

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

A Victim Of Ideologies

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Hornsong

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Healing Quarter Calls

Norse Mythology A To Z

Book: Norse Mythology A To Z by Kathleen Daly

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Liber 058 Qabalah Or An Essay Upon Number

Book: Liber 058 Qabalah Or An Essay Upon Number by Aleister Crowley

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