Summary of my Craft and Arte

Mythos

The Great Orgasm of God Herself, the birth of the Divine Twins, the Twins' interaction which is our world.

God Herself is the Star Goddess, Night, YVHV, God the Father, the Tao, Ayin, Ayin Soph, Ayin Soph Ohr, pregnant proton, Brahma.

The Divine Twins are the Dual Consort, paradox, Yin and Yang, Lucet and Tettens, Lucifer and Nocifer, Yesh, electron and neutrino, Maya, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Pathos

To cross the Abyss, to be a Bridge, to live paradox.

Ethos

All things have life force, are part of the Divine, and hence require respect.  Not to not harm, but to give respect to the Divine in them.  Be conscious of the effects of your actions and think about them before you act.

Logos

To learn all things from all people, spirits, and gods, that I might see beyond the words, facts, and ideas, into the Truth beyond.

Nomos

Well, that would be going a bit far, don't you think?  ;-)

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Pretty Words

Image from Flickr.

Pretty Words
By Elinor Wylie

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens fed on cream and curds.

I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

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

GQV75W2JKQUD

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