Night in the Woodland

Image from pixdaus.

Night in the Woodland
By Archie Austin Coates
(From City Tides, 1918, pg 105-106)

I looked into the stream and beheld the heavens,
The stars all swimming in the green depths
Like little silver fish.
And the round moon lay on the silken breast of the pool
Like a breastplate on a Valkyrie's bosom;
The trees bent low, and all around were night-sounds...
They lulled out all turbulency, they stole away the world
From me, stretched on the brown leaves,
They were crackling, mirthful leaves,
Scented with earth-scent, and damp with earth-tears.

I lay in the glow of the fire,
And you were beside me,
Speaking in a low, so carefully balanced voice
That your tones melted into the night-sounds,
And rustlied with the leaves.
And sang with the water.

I do not know what you said. . . .
I only know we had all merged into one with the world,
You and the fire-glow and the earth-smell,
And the leaves and the moon pale with night-tears,
And the stars swimming in the water,
And I, looking deep-eyed into the stream.

Submitting Your Life Force to Another

I've been discussing some things about Feri with Lee over at his blog PASSIONANDSOUL and on a private list:

http://passionandsoul.com/journal/not-a-feri-priestess

I wanted to repost part of my last response to him here.  As always, what follows is my opinion and reflects no one and no tradition but myself.

Image from TENNA-LT on DeviantArt.

I think (Feri) people tend to look at the extreme. “To be a submissive is to submit your life force to another. God forbid!” Um, no, not in a healthy sub/dom relationship. There’s a difference between letting someone else be in control and “submitting your life force”. I’ve heard it said that the sub actually has more power than the dom because she (to use generic pronouns because this sentence got unwieldy) is in control of her partner’s power over her. She decides to let him (or her) have that power and can stop it or take it away at any point. The ultimate control is actually with her, not her partner. His control and power is by consent and limited by her agreement. She still has control of her life force. It’s kind of like selling someone a license to publish and sell an art piece that you created. You still own it and can do what you want and can revoke the license at any point (in the analogy, I’m not sure legally in real world situations).

Spirit possession in Bali.
Image from Dharma Records blog.

It’s the same with the gods, I think. Ritual possession is a major part of some trains of Feri, like it is in Voudou, yet (Feri) people don’t get up in arms about that being “submitting your life force to another”, well at least I’ve never heard of anyone getting up in arms about it. Possession is by consent with a god you already have a relationship with and is limited in duration. There are limits understood by both the god and you. You willingly submit for a time. So, too, with our day to day relationship with them. We serve them willingly, submit to them willingly, but it’s always our choice, we aren’t submitting our life force to them, but lending it to them.

Whether it’s a relationship with another person or with a god, look at, as Lee said, whether you’re blossoming in that relationship. If you control your life force, you will be, but if they do, it will be a drain on you, like a psychic vampire, and you, the flower, will wither and eventually die.

FFF,
~Muninn’s Kiss

Oil of Nimue

The Sky at Dawn

This morning, I awoke with the Dawn.  I awoke with a very specific purpose.  Right now, it is the Crescent Moon, a time holy to Nimue.  And the newness of the Dawn seemed an appropriate time to honour her.

Back in November, I bought a mask for Nimue, to represent her presence in my life and in my house.  It's a ceramic mask designed to hang on the wall, with balloons on the white face.  I looked for masks for a quite a while and settled on this one, because it felt like her, a mixture of power and fun.  I ordered it, and when it arrived, I hung it on the wall.  When I hung it, my dog was outside.  When she came in, she noticed it up there right away.  It really disturbed her for a bit.  She kept looking up at it and wooing, talking in a way only huskies can.  She did get used to it.

I wanted to dedicate the mask to Nimue, to invite her into it and into my home.  I decided to use oil to represent her presence, her lao, coming upon it, by anointing it with oil as I invited her.  To this end, I needed an oil appropriate to her, both to use with the mask and to use in later workings.  With some prayer, some thought, some feeling, some advise from others, and some research, I determined the ingredients I would use and wrote a ritual poem to be part of the dedication and infusing of the oil.

Part of my decisions on what to put in the oil was from talking to other people.  Part came from Catholic symbolism and worship of Saint Dymphna, who is a real good parallel to Nimue for me, similar to the saints associated with the lao in Voudou.  I chose lavender oil, angelica root, and violets.  The recipe I wrote down at the time was:

What I decided on is a base of olive oil (I couldn't buy a large enough bottle of lavender oil).
3 of my hairs (to tie it to me)
27 drops of lavender oil
3 pinches of angelica root
3 pinches of violets (the herb store actually had some)
Add olive oil.  Charge it.  Pray the prayer to Nimue I wrote three times to invite her into it.

Life got weird at that time, so I wasn't able to perform the ritual at that time.  A few things changed by the time I did it this morning.  I rose before the dawn and got everything together.  I dressed in a way that would make me feel closest to Nimue.  Mice had got into the bag and eaten the violets I had bought.  That was in November with snow on the ground, so there were no violets outside.  I went a head with it, hoping our violets had bloomed.

Violets in Bloom

Bringing everything outside, I found that sure enough, the violets were in bloom.  It seemed like doing this in spring while they were actually in bloom was more appropriate to Nimue than the heart of winter.  I set everything down and went to work.  The sky was bright and beautiful blue and the sun was just rising, though still behind the mountains.

I began by plucking hairs from my head.  I plucked one, tied a knot in it, and put it in the bottle.  The hair is for the purpose of uniting me and her in the oil.  The knot was to bind me to her and her to me.  I found tying knots in hairs takes a lot of fine motor skills and coordination, something I don't have.  But after a while of trying, the knots were in each hair and the hairs were in the bottle.

The Lovely, Innocent Violet

Next, I put three pinches of the angelica root in the bottle, then picked three violet blossoms and put them in.  I put three drops of lavender oil in after that.  I hadn't reread my recipe and three is such a powerful number, I forgot completely about three times three times three for the lavender oil, since a drop is so small.  Three will work just fine.  Robert Cochrane said in his third letter to Joe Wilson when describing calling the Goddess, "Before you do this however, it is necessary to offer your devotions and prayers by bowing three times to the Altar, with arms crossed upon your chest and then turn about the Altar (which for normal purposes should be round, hence King Arthur) the number of the Deity you are invoking or praying to. The Maid is usually three times three - the Mother six times three, the Hag (which is anything but the true title), nine times three. Upon the last turn stop with your back to the Altar, and there begin your great chant. With a group one works in absolute silence, but by yourself it is easier to utter your prayer and meditation aloud until you begin to speak as one possessed'."  As such, I associate Nimue with three, so used this heavily in this ritual.  The smell of the bottle at this point was very lovely, fresh, strong, and innocent, like Nimue.

Having put the "core" ingredients in the bottle, I said my prayer, my invocation, my ritual poem, my spell the first time, holding my hand over the bottle and focusing and channeling energy into it.

Oh sweet darling,
Girl full of power and might.
The pool of your blessing fills me,
The water pours out upon my head.
Your blessing, your loa, flows like water,
Covering me in your presence.
As I hold my hands over this oil, pour through me,
Fill this oil with your blessing, be present in it.
Oh sweet Nimue, so mote it be.

I then added olive oil, filling the bottle half way up.  I then repeated the poem again.

Oh sweet darling,
Girl full of power and might.
The pool of your blessing fills me,
The water pours out upon my head.
Your blessing, your loa, flows like water,
Covering me in your presence.
As I hold my hands over this oil, pour through me,
Fill this oil with your blessing, be present in it.
Oh sweet Nimue, so mote it be.

Filling the bottle the rest of the way, I aligned my souls and repeated the poem a third time.

Oh sweet darling,
Girl full of power and might.
The pool of your blessing fills me,
The water pours out upon my head.
Your blessing, your loa, flows like water,
Covering me in your presence.
As I hold my hands over this oil, pour through me,
Fill this oil with your blessing, be present in it.
Oh sweet Nimue, so mote it be.

Oil of Nimue

Closing the bottle, I shook it to mix it up, three times.  And it was done.  So mote it be.

From the time I awoke this morning until the time I put the bottle in a safe place to sit and let the scents and essences and her presence blend, Nimue was strong on me.  It wasn't being ridden like the Voudou lao, nor possession of any type.  It was her sweet presence being close to me, her dwelling with me.  I felt, as I sometimes do, as a young girl, maybe twelve.  There was purity and innocence in my emotions and my actions this morning.

Nimue's Mask

The next step is the mask.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

GQV75W2JKQUD

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Magic of the Land

A few years ago, I chose as a working site a clearing on top of a wooded hill near a lake way up in the mountains.  It takes about forty-five minutes to drive there over highways and dirt roads, then about fifteen minutes to walk to it.  It is very beautiful up there, and isolated so there's no chance of being disturbed, and I doubt anyone but me has stepped foot into that clearing since I chose it, let alone gone near the circle I cleared of a few layers of rock.  It is the Rocky Mountains, so the soil is full of rocks all the way down to bed rock.  Most of the rocks are about the size of your fists, but some are larger.  I piled the ones I removed around the circumference.  I followed my instincts when I dedicated and tied the site to myself and to the valley I live in, but I won't describe that now.

The one issue with a working site up there is that this is Wyoming, where the winters are long and cold, and the roads are impassible for nine months or more most years.  So it's a summer site.  I take advantage of that time as much as I can, and do other types of workings during the time I can't get to it.  About this time of year, I start checking as when they open the road varies each year.  The other magical site I use, for much different purposes, is real high up, near the top of a pass, and has ten feet of snow over it this time of year on a normal year and I can't usually get to it until mid July and can't get there after August or September if I'm lucky.  They usually get that road open by Memorial Day (last Monday), but they predict it won't open at all this year because there's so much snow there, and what they plow during the day gets filled back in with ten feet each night, due to wind and fresh snowfall.  So I'm not ever trying that site.

So I went for a drive out in the county, out toward the mountains this afternoon.  It was beautiful day, bright sunshine, blue sky with floating clouds.  The road was still closed, though, a metal cable stretched across and a sign saying the road was closed in half a mile.  I will have to wait a little longer, I guess.  Though I couldn't make it to where I was driving, I took in the beauty and enjoyed the countryside.  It's days like this, lazy drives with stunning views, that remind me of why I love Wyoming.  There is magic in the mountains, the hills, the plains, the streams, the lakes, the irrigation channels, the glens, the dells, the ranches, the public lands.  You just need eyes to see.  You just need to reach out with your soul and you will know, you will feel the magic in the land.

Wyoming
By Muninn's Kiss

Under blue skies, stretching across the heavens,
Brighter and bigger than the mind can contain.
Rolling, billowing clouds float like islands,
Shadows that creep across the hills.

Hills and flat lands stretching and rolling,
Browns and greens, sagebrush and grass.
Hidden dells and meandering streams,
Secrets hidden in the folds of the land.

Mountains rise in purples and blues,
Snow filled gullies and rocky peaks.
So tall and so huge when standing among them,
The huge sky and plains make them seems small.

Aspen groves, green and dense, full of life,
One but many, they stand vigil around the streams.
The greens so bright, the leaves swaying in the wind,
Trees of healing, reaching out and touching my soul.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Time Marches On: A Look at Witchcraft and the Modern World

Time marches on, time marches on.

South moves north, North moves south
A star is born, a star burns out.
the only thing that stays the same is everything
changes, everything changes.
~Time Marches On by Lawrence Tracy

The world changed a lot between the "rebirth of witchcraft" and its origins.  The world of the 50s and 60s was not the same as the classical world that gave birth to the Mystery Religions of Greece and Rome.  It wasn't the same as the world that gave birth to the Gnosticism of the Middle East.  It wasn't the same as the world that gave rise to Christian Mysticism, Islamic Sufism, or Jewish Kabbalah.  It wasn't even the same as the world that gave birth to alchemy or ceremonial magic in Europe.  It wasn't the same as the world that gave birth to the pagan revival on the 1800s.  All these things, all these worlds that had passed away, influenced the "rebirth".  There are elements of them even in traditions that predated the repeal of the Witchcraft Act.  The world changes.  But does the Craft, the Art?

The roots or magic and witchcraft are very deep, back to the beginning of time.  Has the Art remained unchanged since time began, or has it changed with the times, adapted with the changes in culture, in perspective, in knowledge, in technology?  What parts are traditional and what parts are innovation?  What parts need to be kept and held onto, which need to be kept as lore but not practice, and which parts are no longer needed?  Is witchcraft an eldritch craft that has to be done the way it was in prehistory, or is part of the modern world in the same way it was part of the ancient?

I would say both.  Without the tradition, you're afloat on the ocean with no compass, no sextant, no chronometer, no map.  But if the Art doesn't evolve, it is static, and static is dead, like a pond with no outlet, rotting and stinking.  Witchcraft is all about change, and even the tradition needs to change.  I think the Art should have tradition and lore as its foundation, but modern things can be built on that foundation.  If any of that makes sense.

If there is one word that I would use to describe magic, to describe witchcraft, it's Change.  The Craft changes the practitioner, and it changes the world.  Sometimes the intention is one, sometimes the other, but it always does both.  How can something that's static cause Change?  Do volcanoes erupt do to static forces or dynamic?  What has ever been changed in the world by doing nothing?  Of course, there's a time to act and a time to do nothing, and you have to decide which it is.  But Change comes from Action.  This is, after all, the World of Action.  Action is, obviously, active.  Active is dynamic.  Change comes out of the dynamic.  If the Art becomes static, unbending, unchanging, it can't create Change.  Without Change, is it still magic?  Is it still witchcraft?  Is it still an Art or a Craft?

Whether a landscape is done with water colours and a paint brush on a canvas or using a computer, it takes the same eye, uses many of the same techniques, and uses the same symbols.  Most of the people I know that create that type of thing on the computer don't go in and change each pixel until a pattern emerges.  They either use styluses on a tablet or the mouse to do brush strokes.  And the brushes don't work that much different than a physical brush.  It's still painting.  It won't look the same, since it uses different tools, a different medium, true.  But water colour doesn't look like acrylic, nor does it look like spray painted graffiti murals on a wall or air brushed paintings on the side of a motor cycle tank.  But they are all painting, and they all use the same techniques, the same lessons, the same symbols, the same traditions.

I would see the tradition in the Art as the training the art student receives to learn the techniques and to get an eye for what is needed in the painting.  Some students train in art one-on-one with a mentor, others in a classroom setting with other art students.  Some art teachers and professors only train one-on-one, others in groups.  But there comes a point where to move from  being an art student to being a real artist that the student must make what they learned their own and apply it apart from the teacher.  And after that point, they must learn from the world around them and other sources, to integrate, to adapt.  Michael Angelo's art isn't the same art that is created and sells today.  But the same principles are still taught and still used, just applied in new ways, with new subjects, with new tools, and on new media.

There are a lot of examples from the 50s-70s of people teaching the Art through letters.  There are people who teach it through emails today.  There are people who use phone calls (adding the aural, the way things are said) or video chat (which adds the body language, which I can't read anyway) to pass on oral tradition.  I have experienced imparting of knowledge in a non-verbal way while on the telephone, and have heard of curses laid on people using pictures on the Internet.  I talked to someone who was involved in a powerful magical working on a conference call.  Modern technology can be used in the Art without it no longer being what it was.  There's things you can't do over technological pathways, but there's much you can.

On a list once, I asked if a certain book would be available on the Kindle.  Someone else on the list responded saying that you shouldn't buy books about magic in electronic form, because books have a soul so you need a physical format.  My response was:

I'm sorry, but I have to say you're wrong.  Unless magic or rituals are performed over the book when it's published, a book about magic is no more powerful than a book about fantasy.  The words have the same power no matter what medium they are in.  Maybe I could agree if you said that books that are hand written have more power than ones in electronic media, but then they would over printed media as well.  Anything that's mass produced can't have any inherent power over that of the words and diagrams, no matter what the medium.  I'm sure people thought the same kind of things when books were first published on the printing press instead of hand copied.  I have a number of books about magic on my Kindle and I've got as much out of them as I have from the printed books I have.  There are some books that I'd prefer to have in paper form, just because I like books, but there are others that I'd prefer to be able to carry with me, so I can read or refer to them when I need to, not just when I have access to my library.  I can't carry more than one or two books with me, but I can carry my Kindle and have a library full of books right there with me.  I can perform magic just as easily by referring to my Kindle as referring to a paper book.  It's your Intent and Will and Faith that works magic, not the book you read it from.

 Technology can be used as a tool in the Craft.  I was just reading an entry in Francesca De Grandis's Outlaw Bunny blog today about social media and oral tradition.  She makes a point about how even though the written word is powerful, oral tradition, spoken word, is more so, but that they each have their place.  On her Third Road site, one of the things she talks about is how she has embraced using technology to share oral tradition, even presenting her Steller Rose teleseminars to her local students.  She is using technology to do things that "traditionally" were done without it.

Technology is a major part of our world, as it always has been.  Even during the Middle Ages, major advanced in technology changed the world.  As practitioners of the Art, we have a choice.  We can either avoid technology and do things, all things, the way they used to be done, and live a static life, or we can find ways to integrate the technology and the changes in the world and move forward, in a dynamic life.  Because the Art isn't just a job we do for eight hours and then forget about it.  It's an integral part of your lives.

It's like my dream of Romulus and Remus.  The founders of Rome in a modern parking lot.  Me the priestess and our leader, sitting on a modern couch.  There was magic, there was tradition, there were the Old Ways, but mixed with it was the modern.  It doesn't have to conform to society, in fact it shouldn't, but it does need to adapt to the changes in society, and utilize what tools society can provide.  For it isn't the same world it was in the 50s and 60s in Britain.  The Art, the Craft, witchcraft, needs to adapt and Change if it's going to be of any use in the modern world.  But if it's not true to the Foundation, to the tradition, it is no longer the Art, but just a fad.

When Joe Wilson's son Chad asked Joe, in 1972, which was right, fundamental Christianity or 1734, Joe answered, "What they all have in common must be close to the truth."

This is the case with the Old Ways and modern society as well.  We need to see the magic, see the Divine, see the Art, in the modern, for it's there.  We must see the modern with the eyes of tradition, mix the Sight and technology.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

UPDATE: I found the section from Franscesca and reworded that paragraph.  It was actually on her Third Road website, rather than her Outlaw Bunny one.

On Priests, Priestesses, Bridges, and the Abyss...

The Priest and Priestess have been coming up a lot in my conversations with people and in my mind and Fetch.  I've talked off and on about this role, but haven't really put it all together.  In this post, I'll use Priestess generically, though I mean both Priest and Priestess.  (On a side note, Priestess was originally Priestress, which I like.)

Rope bridge in Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom.

To me, the role of Priestess is that of a Bridge.  The Priestess joins the mundane and the divine together through her.  Over that Bridge, the Ineffable, the Divine, G-d, God Herself, crosses over and comes to earth, comes to the people.  Over that Bridge, the people cross over and come to heaven, come to God Herself.  The Priestess is liminal.  She isn't of the "common people".  She isn't G-d (depending how you look at it).  She's in between, one foot in each world.  Like Witch.  Taboos and Geises are part of every culture, every religion, every tradition.  These are the rules that define the interactions of the members with each other and with the gods or spirits.  Most importantly, they define the boundary between Human and Divine.  The Priestess Bridges that boundary and allows the crossing over, unites the two sides of the line.  But that Bridge is only necessary and only important and only seen for what it is if the boundary already exists.  It's the image in Judaism of the curtain that separates the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Temple.  There is so much symbolism in these two structures.  Only the High Priest could cross over, pass through that curtain and enter the Holy of Holies, and only once a year, to sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat.  The taboo was broken once a year by him to bring unite the people with G-d.  But this was still dangerous.  There was a rope tied to his leg and bells on his clothes, so if he was struck dead, the bells would cease and they would pull him out.  There is an inherent danger in breaking of taboo.  This idea of a Bridge and the Priestess is very important in my practice and my beliefs.  Witch is the Priest and the Priest is the Bridge.  It's jumping the broom, crossing the hedge, it's the joining of heaven and earth and earth and the lower world in the axis mundi, the compass outside space and time yet including all of it, the centre which is the circumference of all.

Going back to one sentence I just said, if the Bridge isn't needed if the boundary, the taboo, the geise, doesn't exist, why have the boundary in the first place?  Wouldn't it be better to have no separation between Divine and Human?  No boundary means no Bridge and no separation, right?  Isn't this what we want, union with the Divine?  At first glance, it seems like it.  But we are Human.  Without the boundary to begin with, we don't see Human as one with the Divine, we see the Divine as one with Human.  We can't see the Divine because we are looking into a mirror with Human eyes and only seeing our self, and not just our self, but only the mundane aspect of our self.  We miss the Divine and so end up creating a separation between Human and Divine, and unlike the taboo boundary, this is a boundary we can't see and so can't cross.  We aren't aware it's there in the first place in order to cross it.  The taboo, the geise, creates a boundary we can see and are aware of.  We can point at it and say, on that side is the Divine and on this side is the Human.  So when it's time to cross it, to break the taboo or geise, we are able to see both the boundary, the Abyss, and to see the Bridge, the Priestess, which is us.  Before that point, the Priestess crosses for us and connects us, showing glimpses.  But when the time comes, like the Hebrew High Priest entering the Holy of Holies, we become the Priestess and the Bridge and cross to the Divine.

Kai no kuni Saruhashi no shinsha
no zu, ‘A True View of the Monkey
Bridge in the Province of Kai’
by Shotei Hokuju.  Image
from JapanesePrints-London.

One way to look at the Bridge is as spanning the Abyss.  When I talk about the Abyss, I usually am referring to the concept in Kabbalah.  In Kabbalah, there are four worlds.  The first, Assiah, the World of Action, corresponding to Malkuth and is the physical world (where actions, change, can occur) is separated from the second, Yetzurah, the World of Forms, corresponding to Yesod, Hod, and Netzach, by the Firmament.  Yetzurah is separated from the third world, Briah, the World of Creation, corresponding to Tipherah, Geburah, and Chesed, by the Veil.  Briah is separated from the fourth world (or is it the first?), Atziluth, the World of Emanations, corresponding to Binah, Chokmah, and Kether, by the Abyss.

Below the Abyss are the things we humans, with our human minds, can understand.  Across the Abyss are the Supernal Triad, Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, which can't be understood with the human mind or intuition, intellect or emotions.  Any words we use for the things across the Abyss don't come close to describing them.  It is more this abyss of ability to comprehend that forms the Abyss than anything else.  Part of it is protection for us, lest we be destroyed or go insane.

In the midst of the Abyss is Da'ath, Knowing, the "false Sephirah".  Depending on who you ask, Da'ath is either a trap or a treasure.  It's the "false Sephirah" because it doesn't really exist on the Kabbalah Tree of Life.  The Sephiroth are eternal, they are the Divine in this world and are the building blocks, the DNA if you will, of creation.  Da'ath only exists in the moment, only when you're in it, then it's gone.  It's a trap because you can get lost in the Abyss if you're not careful, and find only insanity.  It's a gift because it is a glimpse at the Supernal Triad.  In Da'ath, you get a taste of what's beyond, a glimpse that changes you, for Da'ath is intimate knowing.  What you see becomes a part of you.  But you can't stay there without losing yourself in the Abyss.

Da'ath, sitting in the Abyss, connecting the two worlds, is a Bridge.  It connects that which we can comprehend to that which we can't.  Da'ath is the Priestess.  She stands in the Abyss, holding the Divine in one hand and the Human in the other and brings them together.  She helps the people get that glimpse across the Abyss that will change them forever.

Though there were concepts of Priestess that I encountered before then, my current understanding of Priestess started with my understanding of the Hebrew letter Chet and the Chatoteret.