Lost in my moment

Lost in my moment

I have been lost in my writing moment these last few days. While it is a great way to honour my gifts it does mean I forget to connect with people. Neglect emails and messages and generally end up in a "huh?" when I do pop my head out. For no reason I can fathom I couldn't sleep last night. I saw 4 am for the first time in a long while. Then I had crazy dreams. So this morning feels particularly bright and loud.

My father-in-law was taken into hospital yesterday, something I didn't find out until about 4 am when TK, who fell asleep downstairs, told me when I went to drag his bones to bed. Pops has been on his way out a while now so it isn't surprising.

I got a message about some incense using herbs and resins that, well, stink and when I read it I was just confused. I think I am still confused. Maybe it is lack of decent sleep. Maybe it is that sad feeling that we make things harder, more bitter and difficult than they need to be. Echoing our battle's with Pop's. He is actually a kind and sweet man, but he is stubborn and heartsick. After TK's Mum past we were relieved. The abusive relationship and the living hell she put him through were over. Yet he spiraled in a depression so dark and deep that he refused to eat, sleep, take medication. We battled for him so hard for years and even had him live with us almost 6 months. He fought us every inch of the way. He almost died 4 times and each time it was me that talked him down (or into hospital) saved his leg (though not his toe). Yet nobody wants to deal with him, acknowledge his illness (serious some mental health medication 3 years ago could have add between 5 and 10 years to his life). We fought so hard, for so long but he doesn't want to live. Nothing we do, or say, or shout or show makes him want to. Yes he is a gross old man who doesn't smell great, because he is too proud (or ashamed) to let his carers wash him properly). Yes he is difficult (seemingly for it's own sake) about medication, diet and doing anything positive. I remember him. Holding the step ladders while I was heavily pregnant and painting our new tiny house, because I am also stubborn. I remember him pulling faces at Ken's birthday meal. I remember talking to me, because I just gave him space and really listened. Oh and they were great stories. 

Why do we make it bitter and fearful and difficult? Why do fight so hard? After the last time I got him rushed to hospital, and I carefully and with great intelligence and small cutting words made the doctors keep him in hospital, I knew then that it was the last time I would fight. It is his life, and his choices and while I know he is not well in so many ways other than his physical health I have to let go of the difficult, the bitter and hard. 

I let him go, I let him go in peace. Knowing that it is what he wants, what he has wanted for a very long time.

  

Isn't Wicca a new religion?

Isn't Wicca a new religion? 

Yes and no. It is a little complicated. As far as we can definitely prove it is a new religion. 
I have Triumph of the Moon by Prof Ronald Hutton and as an academic book it can only speak to the sources it can prove. 

Much of Western mysticism's knowledge and beliefs were passed on orally (especially in cultures with strong oral traditions like Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland, parts of Spain and Wales). While "Old Dot" was never seen as a serious person to academics many non-academics believe she did exist and did run the coven Gardener joined. While his flare for the dramatic and study of rituals from all over the world influenced his rites and practices this person seems to have existed (read the essay chapters in The Witches Bible Janet and Stewart Farrar).

 While Dorothy's "wicca" was undoubtedly different to Gardeners (if you read his book of Shadows you can see edits of important texts deliberately left out to ensure that the oral tradition was maintained. One of the reasons Wicca feels ancient is because in ritual context time is so different. Ritual being the core of these practices and being a mutable and powerful force to change not only those within the circle but outside, it is hard to express this sensation of time, of "before", of echoes of something without using the world "ancient". Ritual (Victor Turner) is at the core of social, mental and spiritual changes. Ritual work dwells in a place of symbolic, of archetype, the sub-conscious and for practitioners, the spiritual and Divine. These places are ancient. They are as old as symbols and just as full of paradox, depth and opposing forces. If at least once a month you dwell within this space within the ritual circle and yourself it is hard to dismiss this sensation of being in the presence of something very, very old.

Spirits. The other side

Spirits.

The other side.

So what is "the other side" and what is between these places. Well some call it ether, some the astral, I call it The Veil. If you think of bubbles or foam then that to me, is what the Universe is like. All these different dimensions mushed up but not touching. Ask Carl Sagen about it, he explains it better than I do.
I am a medium. I have seen spirit all my life. I claim not ultimate truth and can only talk about my experiences. Firstly everyone is different. They deal with their lives and deaths differently too. Folks that had no inclination to believe there was or is anything else after death tend to have a hard time passing over. As do those who are frightened of what awaits. They are not always bad people, just scared. Also when we get down to it, souls and spirits are not the same, they are very different. 

Spirit is the form they wish to be seen as (trees often take human-like forms when communicating with people in spirit though I feel this has to do with respect and understanding), a residual self image is a powerful thing. Like our own thought form we create throughout our lives. This spirit can leave the body, travel and go and do many things yet is is connected to the physical until we die. The silver chord is well documented in terms of astral (Veil) work. When spirit is on this side of the Veil they often look like shadows, or like people. Often you only see them briefly.
 As a medium it is my joy and duty to help them cross over. When a spirit passes there is a lot of light and something lifts and feels cleansed and better in this place. Some people just need to be heard. Some forgiven. Some just guided. Others a push is required.Spirits that spend a long time not going through, or staying on this "side" start to fade. Their souls seem to leak, their memories get blurred and they often can not remember who they are or why they are there, all that energy seems to just dissipate. I have crossed some people through that were shadows of themselves. I don't know what happens when they cross over exactly. I haven't seen it from the other side. 
For me I saw so many people waiting for me. So many places I could go. I was at peace to sit beside the river in the summer meadow, the sound of lazy bees and children playing, wafting on the air. 
When spirit comes through this light to watch over us, or wants to communicate with the living through me they are clearer, brighter and make more sense when they have passed over. All spirit guides are spirits who have crossed over. It is a spirit that guides you. It is a spirit who has crossed over (not a ghost that haunts you or bugs you) that has chosen to guide you for a set time, lesson, or part of your life.

This spirit may not be human (we are not the only life forms with spirits). You might have an animal guide. This is not the same as a totem or familiar. The animal spirit (or person) might look like a swan, otter or dog, but that doesn't mean they are or were. Nor should they be revered too highly or dismissed too quickly. 

I told someone their spirit guide was a swan and they were mortified. (Clearly it wasn't cool enough/sexy enough/spiritual enough).

As a child my spirit guide (one of) was a large white horse that would gallop towards me. There are two interesting facts about this. I happen to be born in the Chinese year of the horse (not something I knew in rural Wales at the time). As my Grandmother was dying she keep saying she was seeing (she was blind most of her life) white horses running. So much so that a white horse was made of flowers for her funeral. I had never spoken to her about my horse, nor she to me.

Now to work with your guide you need to be in touch with spirit. If you don't do spirit work, your guide will still be their moving things unseen, helping meet the right people at the right time, and so on.

Working with spirit is not glamorous or spooky. It takes time, effort and practice. (Okay I think we lost a lot of folks right there).

That is the truth though. Working with spirit is about inviting spirit into your life and practice. Spirit guides are not perfect, they are often just good people. My guide when I first started working with spirit my guide was an artist (a French guy). I wanted to channel using a paintbrush, so that is what I did. It was odd thinking in french sometimes. During this time I meditated daily, sat with other mediums up to three times a week and learned my ass off. While my friends were getting high and getting laid, this was what I was doing.

When I left my body and journeyed to spirit/astral/Veil as an (nearly) adult for the first time I was greeted by many spirits. Nearly all of them were animals. I didn't feel upset or disappointed by this. I cried with overwhelming joy. I tranced out of my body after a meditation in the farm's kitchen. (no glamorous ritual required). This reunion was brief and it was mostly human guides I had from that time on.

I have two spirit guides at the moment. One I have always had (lets just call her the blue lady) and the cheerful Druid. Sometimes when I heal with spirit I get "the doctor" (a small tubby American gent with round glasses and very little hair).

My spirit guides don't move things, knock stuff over or "haunt" me. My fey are another matter entirely. They do love to take things. Eat things. Move them, then sometimes put them back.

Most things that live have souls. It is an awareness, a light, each unique shimmering force. The more conscious the being (the more sense of self and not self) the more flame like this soul force seems to be. Spirit seems to come from something else. I have encountered spirit creatures that seemed soulless, but rarely.

Souls on the other hand have no form or thought. They are (for me) swirling vortexes of energy. When a person dies their spirit carries this soul back to the place where it came from. A seemingly endless lake of pure liquid light. Sort of reminds me of the places dreams form in Roald Dahl's BFG. This soul place heals and nourishes the souls. Spirits when they cross over tend to have what they feel they deserve. Some have trails (metaphorical and otherwise) some speak to people they need to speak to. Sometimes the dead usher their own (family by blood or spirit) to some place together. Certain things mark spirits and souls, the taking of another's life especially so; also the "higher" aspects too, how loving, kind and sweet, how spiritual (not religious). Some spirits choose to stay in spirit. Some choose to be re-born. Some watch over the living. Some watch over a place. Each is unique and beautiful.

Handfasting

Handfasting: Love and Binding.

A handfasting sounds romantic, and it is. A loving couple joined with magick to weather the storms of life. Except sometimes they don't end well. I have seen it mess up good people, make marriages implode and tie lovers together in spirals of despair.

When handfastings work they do so because the person conducting them knows the couple well, knows the light tough required for this joyous occasion where the Olds Gods listen.

The ritual is one of cleansing and then binding. It ties the fates together. The ritualized space and level of depth, knowledge and understanding in my opinion required to do this far exceed most who try.

A long long time ago, when I was a student in halls there was a girl who was "more pagan than thou" and in Freshers Week bound a cute lesbian couple in a handfasting. I wasn't there to see the rite, nor did I want to be. Over the next few years this couple went round and round. Fighting, cheating, high drama, always pulling against each other but never able to leave. It was awful. There were not bad people, just young and they did a "game" that scarred them both for a long time. In the end after a suicide attempt I stepped in and broke the binding. Over night they split up amicably and went on their ways.

This is what happens when those who wear the costume of what I do, try and do what I do.

This is not only the privy of the young. Some couples who have been together a long time, and who know it isn't working often try a handfasting to "fix" what is broken in the relationship. It might be to "control" a wild partner, or to try and find the love and respect that is missing entirely. Oddly enough it never works.

When it does work, when they really know and see each other, it is beautiful. The shimmering light around them and the circle is just stunning. There is a peace and light to this ritual. It is a marriage of our highest selves. A purity and joy in the flame of unconditional love. The building of families and homes, safety and harmony.

I have refused to do many fasting because I could not, and would not bind people together in something base, needy and wrong. I would not join people whose desires were based not on love but fear. Fear of being alone, fear of losing a person they had made their world, fear of unfaithfulness or unworthiness.

A handfasting is a rite that taps into the purest light of the Divine and the purest love in the heart.

It says

"I see you, I know you, and we are one, separate and together, grow with me."

That is the beauty of a true handfasting.

It is not some vampiric feast of blood and control, fear and lust, pain and hollow glory.

It express the best and honest love, imperfect but real and Divine.

The Key

Magick, writing and teaching.

The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice was a labor of love documenting the early exercises, ideas and work that I work through with my over 20 students. While it is not like the personal tailored experience of working with me I believe it is a close second. Right now I am working a lot on my next book which is the follow on but also with the year and a day of work towards initiation.
I love books and and I am avid reader and there are plenty of books on paganism and witchcraft what could I possibly have to say that others have not?
Well firstly these books tend to focus either on spells or rituals or dogma (some all three). Very few show, encourage or describe the work you need to do to get to the place to use these ideas.
They make huge assumptions about the equipment, level of knowledge or abilities of the students. Don't get me started on Idiots Guides, context people, context! Those books are often just a mush of ideas, concepts and symbols.Over the years of dealing with real people I have learned that the place where most students have start from is a place of reading (thinking) but not doing. So generally the first thing I throw at them are not theories but exercises to get the energy, their energy moving. This has mixed results but is always a learning experience!
I have spent a lot of time this week working through assignments and exercises, enough for over 12 weeks of work so far in book 2. It is hard work but I still feel I can teach well. That what I say and can show students is of value because I have the experience of teaching real people.
So while dancing to Beastie Boys, cuddling the dog and catching up with my people on G+ I am still mulling over the next places to guide my book students. I can't wait!
Bright Blessing.

Teaching

Teaching

My students always have the best intentions with notebook and journal work, then as they get into it they let it slide. They don't mean to. They all laugh at the story of past students sitting in their cars outside my house frantically scribbling in their notebooks, then they all do it, or something similar! I have tended to have 3 types of students.

The Juggler. 

They tend to be a little late, but let you know because they have 2 full time jobs and a family, a sick dog and another course they are studying. These folks are organised, work hard when they are there and respect what you do. However sometimes these guys just burn out, break down or lose the plot. They can't help it, every juggler drops something eventually. Yet sometimes they just pick everything up and start again.

The Pooka.

 They look perfect. They say the right things. Sometimes they even do the right things. Yet sooner or later their real faces appear. They want to please but more than that they want to be the centre of everything. They tend to copy mannerism and behaviour. Every outfit is a costume. Every gesture a dance. When they lose it, it is because they are so frightened of themselves, of their ugliness that they can't bear that someone has seen them.

Old Kid Faithful. 

They have something about them. They may have book learning, or not. There is a grace to them. They don't always do the work, and they can't always even tell you why. They were lost in some dreams, or some art. Whether it be gardening or painting. You ask them about something and sometimes they look at you blankly. Then a little later they come out with the most moving and profound thing.

Then of course there are those that are just unique. Those who like a butterfly in a room just pass through.

Being a teacher as long as I have you would have thought I would have learned who was who by now, but I just let my heart guide me most often. This is wonderful but you never know until the mask slips who is who. Who is the Pooka and who is the Juggler?

All images are Wendy and Brian Frouds work. 

Currently Writing

Hello I am here.
I am around and watching, sort of. I am writing my second magickal manual. I know that you guys you liked The Key and are keen to progress. I will also stop writing all the other books I have been working on! The pagan book of baking is just so fun though, as well as my Fey fiction I have been working on!
Please do bear with me. I have so much I want to do!
Keep smiling,
Bright Blessings

The Abyss and Robin Williams

The Abyss and Robin Williams

A great man has fallen. His death seems all the more tragic because he might have chosen to end it himself. Personally I loved his work, but it is not Good Morning Vietnam I think of today, but What Dreams May Come.

Yes Robin Williams was an addict,  addicted to cocaine and alcohol which do not do great things to the body, spirit and mind of a person, but the reason he was an addict was because he was in crippling agony. A spiral of shame, guilt and paralyzing fear. His love of his children made him deal with his addiction but that simply meant his self medication, his crutch was gone.

Maybe his soul sickness went into remission, maybe he just hid it better. Maybe he took medication.

The truth is this man, loved by so many did not know how to love himself. 

How do I know this? I have never meet him. Listened to his darkness late at night when he thought I was sleeping. I never woke and wondered, if today would be the day his pain would suddenly tip over and the need to end the pain would consume him. He has never look straight through me because he is staring into the abyss. I have never wept for him because the talents and joys I can see in him he is utterly blind to. 

Yet I have loved many that do. Many have been addicts in one way or another, alcohol and cocaine tend to be their poisons of choice. They choose these not only because they are easy to obtain but because they effect emotional pain very quickly. Cocaine numbs it. Yet it makes the rot even deeper. Alcohol feels warm and comforting, but you are still freezing to death. 

It is easy to judge. Yet I want you to imagine the greatest pain you have ever been in. I want you to imagine that it hurts to stand, to breathe, to think. I want you to imagine that you feel like you have no skin. That everyone's words hit you like cold sharp rain. Then some bright sparks will ask you to "smile".

They will tell you that this pain "isn't real". That the agony you are experiencing is nothing. Some might shame you. Might make you feel guilty for being in this pain you never asked for. Might refuse to acknowledge your bravery, and call you a coward. This shame and guilt of pain can make people go to crazy lengths to hid how bad you are hurting. This pain is medically called depression. A dip. A dimple. How odd? It sounds like nothing and feels like a yawning chasm of darkness. I have only been through this level of pain once in my life. Yet I live and love many with this illness? Disease? Agony? What do you call it to give it the weight it deserves? 

They all tend to be smart, talented, funny and kind. Some have tragic childhoods, not unlike my own, yet some don't. Sometimes the not knowing where this darkness started only adds to the guilt and shame.

I have seen these friends shamed and blamed by loved one. Seen them rage against what they believe is themselves. Watched as the joy drained from their lives and faces. See how all was ash in their mouths and they kept trying to smile or make dinner. Watched my lovers hate themselves for needing support and love. Seen my husband writhe in the agony of his own existence. All haunted by the people they pretend to be, wished they could be, knew they could become but for the abyss inside them.

So I don't wonder why Robin Williams took his life, I marvel that he lived so well, for so long. I applaud his courage, his humor and grace. I will cherish his legacy in films. From aliens and artist, doctors and villains. For me, he is a hero. 

When my step-brother took his life earlier this year I gave his daughter this poem and she read it to him,  smoothed his hair and placed it into his coffin. I do not know what comfort it could give Robin William's family, but as I light a candle for him later in his honour I will speak these words.

Lay in Rest

Goodnight, goodbye my friend

I pray you lay in rest.

Lay in happiness and peace

Lay in the light of your love

Let those who nourished your being

Liberate you in peaceful death

For all time, undoing all sorrows.

Goodnight, goodbye my friend

I pray you lay in rest

Lay in hush and comfort

Lay in the gentle dream of tranquility

Let those who sustained you in life

Liberate you in unity

For all time, lay in true rest.

Here come the drums!

Here come the drums!

 

Last night was a wonderful ritual. Nothing too complicated.  In circle was TK, mini-witch and N as well as myself. I got everyone to help cast a circle (which is more difficult than it sounds as you need to get everyone to visualize the same or similar things). I called the fey spirits and then we sang down the moon. Each of us had a drum. As it began slowly. A simple rhythm, a simple chant. Then gradually, organically we all joined in. It flowed and ebbed and built a trance like state we were all part of. Then as naturally as it started we all stopped together. Then began the study of sage. Nothing special or rare just the study of the kitchen sage. We brewed only one teaspoon in the pot and wrapped it well to keep in the heat. We would all taste and observe the tea, make notes and observations on flavor, colour, dryness, mouth feel and smells and tastes that were similar. We circled the cup round each tasting and describing as we went along. TK and N by about the end of the second cup, beginning of the third were feeling "drunk" or "high" TK especially. Mini-witch and myself were not. We experienced a clarity and calmness.
At about this point I stopped the tea study.
We began to drum again. It was good but none of us achieved the connected trance we had managed the first time.We sang and drew down luna energy and charged our crystal balls and crystals. Then bless the cup and the cake (lemon again, it was lovely).
Then I released and gave leave to the spirits and we unwound the circle all together,
I had very deep sleep and extremely vivid dreams. Golden children, a cafe, a strange spy story interjection, tree houses, and much more that have now become fragments or photographs.
I have had lovely peaceful morning and think I might hit the flicks later for my geek quota (though everyone like super-hero comic stuff now).

Hope, Faith and Joy

Hope, Faith and Joy

I am busy making things this week. I have made 4 different heart charms. Charms for the broken-hearted, cold-hearted, those in need of self-love and then spiritual love. I am also making a Goddess charm.

Hope and Faith are not always popular words in the world today. If you manage a positive outlook people tend to look at you with a distinct amount of wry eye rolling. Being positive, hopeful and having a belief in yourself, and in the world's ability for figure it out isn't naive. The thing is the idea that if we expect the worse we will surprised by the good just isn't true. If you radiate it, that is what you get. If however, you roll with the punches, know that you will make it, you always do. This doesn't make us immune to bad things, it does mean we see it as part of a learning curve. Part of something not the whole.

If people had more faith in the positive, in the good inside themselves and others imagine how amazing the world could be! If you live in your healthy joy only good can come. I don't mean just sit and get high or run away from the world. I mean follow your passions for helping others, for creating beautiful things.

The radical idea that you should spend your days doing what you love instead of what you feel you should do seems like sense to me. Yet from the youngest age we prime ourselves and our children for following their miseries instead of joys. Do something sensible. Do something practical. What about a back up? What about _____ to fall on? There are "hobbies" and "jobs" and "careers" and those who define them don't seem to care that those lines are of their own making. We talk our children out of astronaut, or mega-star and wonder why our children are miserable!

Not everyone can be ______ (add something here) but not everyone wants to be. I thought I should be an actor like my Dad my whole life and I worked my ass of at it. Until I figured out that it made me soul crushingly miserable! That magick and massage and writing make me happy. The thing is with the technologies we have today one person can do the work of 30 or 40 people! So what do those guys and girls do? Grow vegies? Design gardens? Build custom cars? The world is changing and if we can we can change the world for the better! With some hope, some faith to follow our Joy and make the world brighter.

Bright Blessings.

We are Pagan We are Proud

We are Pagan We are Proud

 

Most of Lucy Drake&Co attending the national PaganPride parade and event in Nottingham yesterday.

I met a ton of amazing new people. I met the UK openly pagan magistrate. I met Robin Hood (Tony, nice guy). I met funny grumpy hungover folks who had been to the Inkubus Suckubas gig in Leeds the night before. I saw folks I knew from MBS fairs, and folks who where also not LARPing! TK took the pictures, and therefor is not in any of them. Yet he and his Wookie backpack will be much remembered I imagine!

Stopped traffic!
I have never been in a parade before but it was great. From being in about 500 people shouting WE ARE PAGAN WE ARE PROUD gave me goose bumps. We waved at tourists, firemen, and some random dude who rushed out of bed to film us in his dressinggown. You could feel this odd connective energy to all these people and a sense of being part of something much larger than yourself.

Stalls+Shops
Everything was extremely well laid out and well organised. Even the ladies loos at the park, though the queue was massive, volunteers came in and cleaned and made sure there was enough loo rolls and so on. Some stalls had the usual stuff on but others had books and took cards! I didn't buy anything for myself except food and ice-cream. The food vans were a mixed bunch and the 2 best ones being both reasonably priced and quality food had huge lines. Other were charging a fortune for a bottle of pop.


Kid friendly
There was so much that was kid friendly, though Sassy didn't do loads, she was painted (purple dragon scales on her arms) and decorated (and ate) her own biscuit! I wish that there had been more for her age group (12-14) as the older kids had bands and music (none of which were to her taste) and toys that were aimed much younger. She said she would have liked a bellydance class for girls (and boys) of her age.

Hanging around
We hung around being organised by folks for an age! Luckily we were very close to the loos and had a great bunch of people near us to chat with and so on. Somewhere between an hour or so of just standing around was a bit rubbish but the guy shouting about SATAN was moved on by the police. We had the bright idea of going top Costa Coffee for tea and food before the parade as we were just a little early. Turns out this was genius.

All the Things
Like a kid in a sweet shop I was so overwhelmed I don't think I took full advantage of everything there because I couldn't decide what I wanted. There were written programs but I think for me they made it worse as I knew what I was missing! In the end I feel like I didn't hear the lectures I wanted to hear but I did have a great time anyway. I will know better for next time!

Too hot. Too Tired.
I am glad of the parasol I had, it was definitely needed and not for the show as although clouds looked threatening from time to time the weather was hot and sunny. I imagine for the normal folks it was pleasant and great. I am, however, a natural ginger and I struggled with the sun and heat. I certainly couldn't join in the bellydance classes in the full sun!  My kidneys were not happy with me and I couldn't have carried the amount of water that would have been right for me to drink. I am suffering somewhat today. Still I am sat with my feet up (swollen and rather sore) and already think about next year!