Why is Feminism called Feminism?

Why is Feminism called Feminism?

Firstly there a lot of people who misunderstand or do not understand the basic facts about this movement or idea.

Feminism origins

Feminism as a idea if not as a word came about when Mary Wollstonecraft first suggested that women were not inferior to men but lacked education. Her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792 was of course not given as much attention as who she slept with. (As things change, how they stay the same).
We tend to forget that women have been fighting long and hard for rights and autonomy for a long time. That this fight still isn't over. That women are still viewed as property, to be sold, bartered and domesticated like a cow, or even swapped for one.

More modern Movements

Feminism isn't a single set of ideas. It is wave after wave, ebbing and falling, like a tide coming in, 

First Wave Feminism

It is odd that when I think about Suffragettes I don't think of forced feeding, hunger strikes and arson (which there were plenty of) I think of Mrs Banks in her colourful sashes in Mary Poppins. Wealthier women had access to mass produced books, were educated and driven. While some made things better for poorer women important things like family planning, and domestic violence (much of the Temperance movement was based on the idea that alcohol created domestic violence and poverty, not just poverty) they wanted to have a voice, a say in how the country was run.

The odd thing about this first wave if how people some how felt they achieved this, yet the Suffragettes movement was largely dissolved because of the 1st World War. What changed was 16 million people died in or around the fighting.

Women got more jobs and freedoms because there were no men to do them.

Second Wave

The second wave came about much later in the 1960's. The time between women won the vote but it had been a slow process. Where as the first wave wanted to be treated wanted to treated better than criminals and the legally insane, the second wave wanted to treated as equal.

How women should be treated equally meant the fracture of the world and the idea of feminism. 

Many rights and laws were past increasing women's rights, but not bringing about equality. Many feminist who were angry (and some who were not) rejected anything that they thought repressed women, from marriage; to children; wars and military service; even bras.

This image of the bra burning screaming feminist, who hates men is a Germane Greer classic, but  my mother was one of these women in her own way. She did not have a high opinion of men, mostly from experience. While this wave looks like a shower of shits now who messed up a lot (which is true) they also made huge strides in how we treat women and how we treat each other. This wave over mostly over by the 1980's.

The Third Wave

This wave I was aware of, just, as a teen. Oddly enough we thought we had won but then, we had not. We still didn't get equal pay, we still got verbally abused in the street, raped and blamed.

I grew up with a feminist and knew for me and those who used the world it meant equality. This feminism broadened again and allowed people from all races, and religions and backgrounds into the forum. Herstories, especially those of black and ethic peoples opened up and we found new hero's and brave souls who did amazing things. They fought for reproductive rights, for anti-discrimination laws.

I never imagined that the seeming progress we made would have such backlashes, but they seem as constant of the waves of progress. 

It seems amazing to me that people think that feminism is about and for only women. That it belittles them, or that they have already won.

Yet the truth is we do not have equality. From the countries that still have child brides, or cover up wholesale celebrity child abuse. The the rapists are "poor boys" and the victims get death threats. 

It was not against the law to sexually discriminate in the Isle of Man (part of the uk) until after 2001.

In Summary

Feminism is an idea that women are not cattle. That they should have a voice, a vote. That they have a right to an education, to their own bodies, and they own sexual desires. How this feminism is expressed or held together will depend on who the feminist is. 

My feminism is no milder than my mothers. I do not believe marriage is a yolk that woman are slaves under, that children are anchors or millstones that draw out your creative and independence; but my passion to be treated and that my daughter is treated as an equal, that she should not have to worry about being harassed in the street, groped a work, paid a pittance, fired for being pregnant, or gay, or pagan, or different; is just as fierce if not more so. That she should not have to be hard, or bitchy, or one of the boys to get on in her carer. That she should have to pretend to be less smart than she is, shave her body hair (it is choice), have a certain size or shape to be worthy. That a man will talk over her, interrupt her and explain something to her like she is a child, simply because he is male and certain that she could not be correct, regardless of her knowledge on a given subject.

I believe in equality, for women and men, for anyone of the sexual or gender spectrum, and any skin colour. That how well we do our jobs should define how we get paid and that a living wage so that a parent can stay at home raise their own children is important. That employers need to change how they work and the hours people are expected to put in. That paternity rights and benefits should be up held and people should be able to adopt and foster more easily. 

My feminism will not be someone else's yet I am aware I sand on the shoulders of giants. That thousands if not millions of women chipped away at this wall of ignorance and assumptions, traditions and fear.

The work goes on.

Holy Holidays

Holy Holidays

Well this holiday season has been quiet. With all the lack of in-law-ness it has been serene and uncomplicated. We have feasted. Exchanged gifts. Played games together online and tabletop (I have to tell you that from dying three times, a run of bad luck of unprecedented magnitude I turned the tide and won the game, Munchkin is a serious business.) We have been swimming which was glorious and quiet too. I have done quite a lot of yoga, mostly because my sciatica has been giving me jip and when I discovered by doing a little how stiff and made of bubble wrap and elastic bands I was I figured I should do something about it. So I have rediscovered some of my flexibility even in just doing a little everyday. When not eating lots of rich food I have been quite good eating simply and making use of my beautiful new Chinese handmade tea set and drinking green tea or Ceylon. I have rested, napped and lay about reading and felt more "on holiday" than I have in a long time.

Mini witch (who is decidedly less mini) has had some wonderful moments (and some truly "I just turned 13" moments) my favourite been how much she geeked out about her Lantern rings. My other best one was last night where she turned to me Wednesday Addams style while we were waiting for Doctor Who to come on and there was some awful Christmas tatty TV on and said

"I think I just died a little on the inside."

Her timing was perfect and I roar with laughter and was unable to explain to TK what had set us off.

After Doctor Who we gamed a little more and then I did yoga and TK stretched. I found I was calm but quite stimulated and wrote my blog about Frankincense and took some photos. It was the best Christmas day I have had in a very long time, possibly ever. When we could (not hosting for someone or other) we eat fishfinger sandwiches and watch Doctor Who but this year we knew it was just us. A great weight has lifted and a sense of deep peace has washed over me.

Then TK mentioned something just before we went to sleep that kept me awake on and off all night, that is was suppose to SNOW today. Some part of my brain kept waking me up to look to see if it was all the time.

That and my damn hip.

I think I will do some baking today. I don't know whether to just make a savory pie with the left over lamb and leek cawl or use my chestnut and macadamia nut butter and the puff pasty to make some pies (nicer and lighter than mince pies which I like but get a bit sick of).

I still have incense and some candles to make I just want to hold onto this feeling a little while longer.

Bright Blessings xxx

Frankincense

Frankincense

Frankincense is a resinous sap tapped from a desert tree. My preference has always been for the Boswella carteri, as it tends to have a wider range of notes within it's fragrence, and rightly or wrongly I think it has more of it's medical propeties. 
People have been using this resin as perfume and medicine for over five thousand years. It has been used in spiritual practices just as long and by all who encountered it. Though grown only in the middle east and northern Africa it was traded as far as China and the colder parts of Northern Europe. Because it is a solid oil it burns with a lot of smoke. The tiny particles and fine oils making it have a blue tinge. When smoldered on charcoal pyrolysis happens (a thermochemical decomposition without oxygen) changing it from one state, to another that can not be undone.
Frankincense lifts people. It heals them inside and out. It is more than cleansing in the sense that it remove impurities from a space, it also changes the people within it. It seems to hang in the air like a spirit just about to form, watching, waiting. Peaceful, radient even. Frankincese is a blessing, a healing spirit, a whisper of something ancient, sweet and beautiful.

It is so simple to not exprience it's wonder. Yet unforgetable when you have.

Bright Blessings xxx

Twas the Night before Yule

Twas the Night before Yule

The day before Yule was rather frantic as we knew we would be having guests and we did our last mad dash to get all the gifts we were giving made, the treats we were sharing baked, and the house in some semblance of order.
Gifts were given, tea and alcohol was drunk and a jolly good time was had. As they left to continue their travels and visits we got on with decorating the living room. Much grumbling and some fish supper later as a family I tried to get everyone to sing with me.
Mini witch was joyous and rather tuneful for the most part but TK just glared at me. Still the room was dark save for the fairy lights in the tree (growing in a pot from last year). Singing sounds of joy and tenderness reminded me of concerts and caroling as a child. Of Plygain. Of standing in a open courtyard with lots of other people, all of us holding candles and singing together. It was magickal. I feed all the house spirits and lit a candle in the front window in a lantern before I turned in. It was a simple act but felt meaningful.
I found sleep did not come easily that night. I luxuriated in the tender darkness. In the dreaming. (We all dreamt vividly that night too).
The grey of morning hung heavily on us and Mini witch got to open her first two gifts (if you don't count what she was given by our friends). In an unfortunate twist we had forgotten a few things and had to brave the supermarket. Suffice to say this was not the high light of my day.
After a simple but filling lunch I was exhausted. I went to nap but it took a while for sleep to take me and I awoke at the time I had wanted the bird in the oven!
When most of the food was in the oven or pan we sat together and watched Firefly. It was wonderful watching mini witch fall in love with Wash and Kaylee, but oddly sad too.
The meal was really great, though I forgot the pigs in blankets! For desert we had the cake and sweet treats made and given by PMK, which we worked out way through sat together watching Firefly some more.
It was quiet and peaceful.
It has been a weird year. I gained three students, who don't want me to teach them. The Old Ones are nothing if not ironic. Yet I suppose they have all come and gone for their own reasons and brought gifts and lessons too. I feel oddly at peace with it all. I will quietly keep doing what I have been doing, writing. If things are not meant to be, that is the way. I can not make other's believe in themselves, or in the work, or in each other. You have to find your own peace, not someone else's.
We all went swimming yesterday and it was wonderful and very peaceful. As I always do I prayed while floating to water and to The Goddess. We swam a great deal but I was not tired at all until I stepped out of the water.
The feast was the same as the first (sweet potato stuffing with bacon, spiced green cabbage, turnip and potato mash, baby potatoes, chunky carrots and parsnips with smoked paprika and onion seed salt, roast chicken, Yorkshire puddings, pigs-in-blankets and gravy).
It was as wonderful the second time as the first and much more relaxed as with the exception of the pig-in-blankets and chicken (re-heated with super hot gravy) everything else was just warmed through by TK.
This is how I imagined my second edition of the book would be. Simpler. Calmer. A matter of table dressing. It may yet be.Today I will make chutney and maybe some Hecate incense, eat chicken and stuffing sandwiches, make cawl for tomorrow and dwell in my own little world.

Bright Blessings xxx

The Morrigan

The Morrigan or..

Great Queen

Last night I spent my time with The Blood (red wine) The Feather (crow) and The Egg (duck).
A lot of people think that The Morrigan is one Goddess. She is of course a multitude. All her names have deep meaning and symbolism.
In a culture than minimises emotion and women she seems all the more odd. She has links with the Fae of course, for her memory is old and deep.
 Badb The Feather. The Crow. Omens and meanings. The whisper of souls returning. Fate and glory. Death and loss. She morns. She sees it all. She keens. Mortals do not listen well. The guide of the restless dead.
Macha The Egg. New beginnings. False starts. Painful births. Secrets revealed. Fragile life. Small sacrifices. Promises. The land speaks. The land listens. Matriachal lines. Women's wisdom and curses.
Nemain The Blood. Passion. Frenzy. Fury. Untamable. Poisonous rage. Burning in the fight. The peace of letting go fully to the desire. The singing red mist. A whirlwind of blades.

There has always been much of the Morrigu Morrigan Morriganua about me.
As someone who speaks with and for the dead. As someone who gives warnings and messages to the living (rarely listened to) and someone with the red mist in her blood, with a power and fury that makes most who see it re-think women as the weaker sex.
Yet she has always frightened me. Proctected me but I felt and was shamed by this warrior in my blood. Yet she has kept me alive. Protected me as I protected others.
The red mist was a sign of my weakness, not my strength. Yet as I trained. As I punched and weaved and listened to that fury just under my surface, we worked together.
Only when some asshole tried to break my leg did it bloom into the red flower I feared would kill or mame.
So then another Godess held me gracefully in the cup of her small hands. The bloom grew, then whithered and died. For The Blood, also quietened me. My daughter's presence saved me, and them.
How powerful The Blood is. How much passion and power, love and family bind us in ways we do not understand.
Last night I honoured all of that in my dancing. In my healing, and accepting of my frustration. My sublination of rage was not working. I was just snapping at other's instead. I had to admit I was angry. I had to admit that depending on other's makes me vulnerable. That people will let me down. That that is part of life. That being vulnerable and trusting other's is part of the process. I am not The Great Queen. People won't do what I want them to, when I want them to. People will treat me like I am an idiot. Yet that is their problem, and letting it make me angry is not smart.
I am at peace with my passion.

Bright Blessings  xxx

Walking in Circles.

Walking in Circles

What is a circle? Or at least what do I mean by a circle. A circle is a an energy bubble cast for ritual purposes. It keeps energy in (until you channel it somewhere) it keeps things out (with some exceptions) and it defines a time and space. 
A temple (or church) can have many circles held within them, yet every circle is different.It is a lens in many ways amplifying the people and energy in a space.
Circles can have one or many within them. When I "hold circle" it is not a coven meeting because coven for me is a different beast entirely. A circle can be open or closed. A coven for me is a closed and invited space. It is the ultimate trust. An open circle is not a dedicated group of core teachers, students and devotees. Yet many of the same practise happen within. Dancing,drumming, singing, meditation, herb craft and so on.
A circle is that breath of Anwen. Of depth. Of a space that is between places. Of a place out of the usual flow of time. (My student and friends notice the time weridness at my circles often; a ritual lasting an hour can feel like a whole night has past, or feel like an hour when five have past).
Time in a circle is to dwell within the dreaming while awake.

How do you cast a circle? We you pull up energy from the soles of the feet and hold it in the chest. Then you draw down energy from the top of your head and again hold it in your chest. Joining the two you cast the energy like a bubble around you. To release of course you suck the energy back into you and through you and release it out of the top of your head and out the soles of your feet.
You can make it a single layer or many. You can visualise it as trees, brambles, white light, smoke, ice, or fire. It can be stone, or crystal. Practise makes it easier. Yet what is borrowed will be restored.

Bright Blessings xxx

How to write a Spell

How to write a Spell

(I feel I have written this blog before but I can't find it so there you go).

Writing a spell sounds intimidating. Yet as your knowledge of magick grows and a deeper understanding of how magick works you can understand that each situation is unique and requires a delicate touch.

The formula for a successful spell is as follows:

Symbolic object+Connection+Power= Magick

The symbolic objects (or processes) are often the easiest part to obtain and are a creative part of the magick. It is important that the symbols are used with knowledge and are not muddled or mushed together.

Using natural things like stones (tiger's eye is a protective stone and is symbolic of an eye) wood and leaves and some black cord you could make a hundred different spells. 

A charm is a radiating spell that sits in a space. The more simple the intent the better they work.

If you don't know what your symbols are saying your "like attracts like" will be muddled you will get weirdness. That is not to say your magick won't work, but you might not get the desired results. This is where research and practice come in. This is why eclectic magick practices often have difficulty or patchy results. Their symbols are from everywhere and are not as defined as someone who walks a singular path.

The next thing you need is the Connection (Contagion) part. If you are doing a spell for yourself, that is easy. Anything from your hair, or saliva, tears can be used. If it has D.N.A you can use it. (Just because it is the connection doesn't exempt this from also being symbolic, choose your connection wisely). If you don't have a physical connection (an example of this would be my Aunty Anne got sick and though I haven't seen her in years I did some healing) you can (if you have the skill or practice) connect to the person on the astral plane (in The Veil). It requires a lot more work and journeying there while you do the spell. IF you are being bothered by someone it is easier because you can follow the thread back to them.

Power can and does come from many places. You need to be able to draw power into you and channel it into your work. You can use objects (tools mostly) that have great power to aid you, or you can use the power of a place (even if you are not there physically). Yet power from chanting, dancing, drumming and the like increases the power to put into the spell. It is free and easily available to anyone.

Magick is about winding your intention through the symbols and connections carefully and focusing the power (through the symbols) for an out come. You can choose to be very specific or very general. The middle ground tends to be the worst. If you don't care HOW a thing happens so much the better. The Old Ones are nothing if not creative (and with a very distinct sense of humor).

A decent witch can use anything to do this process. Though having a stock of herbs, woods, tinctures, essences, salts, rocks and so on helps. Much like cookery if you understand why an ingredient is in the mix you can use a substitute. So if you are using rosemary because it is cleansing you can use another herb or resin (rosemary and frankincense are often substituted this way); however if you are using rosemary because it is symbolic of remembrance, Aphrodite, or the sea you can not, nor should not substitute it.    

If in doubt you can always get so help or advice or buy a focus from someone who has done the leg work!

Bright Blessingsxxx

The Privilege of Parent

The Privilege of Parent

I am a High Priestess. I have been on this path in one way or another my whole life. It is hard sometimes. It is a duty that sometimes can feel overwhelming. The "things" that need to be done, the planning, the cleaning, the organizing, the careful inter play of energies coming, holding and releasing; it is hard work. Yet it is a boon. A gift and most of all a privilege.

I see things, know things, experience and allows others to experience amazing spiritual moments.

It is an honor.

So too the title Mother sits with me.

Something happened to me, right around the second trimester of my first pregnancy. Firstly I could feel a person inside me. Not a blob or a thing but the spirit of a whole persons, complex and interesting inside me. I could feel her aura. Her energy. Her hiccups. She felt like the smell of thunder storms, the blue before the setting sun, powerful, calm, deep and peaceful.

I also felt this doorway, a place inside me that I had not known before. A connectedness to something instinctual and powerful, a knowing, deep beyond measure. Something wild and fierce in me. 

My birth experience was not great and I ended up having an emergency C-section under general anesthetic. I awoke to find this screaming worm fighting against my body and to an agony in my womb I could not bear. 49%  of me wanted to push this weird creature that was hurting me away, 51% knew she was mine. MINE. There was a snarling dangerous beast in me that wanted to destroy anyone who came near her. 

My eldest daughter didn't nurse well. Didn't sleep well. I had no help other than TK who was working split shifts 6 days a week. It was just me and Mini-witch. I was fascinated by this person staring at me with these deep knowing (slightly judgmental) eyes. I would spend hours singing to her, talking to her (not that there was anyone else to talk to) holding her to my face. It was awful. It was amazing. I got no more than an hour and a half of sleep for 4 months. I barely ate. I spent anytime not with mini-witch (while she slept) cleaning. After we began supplementing breast feeds with soya milk formula and she started sleeping it became easier. 

I wanted to explore this new power in me, this whole ancient force flowing within me. More than that the idea I would give her to someone else to look after physically pained me. If I went somewhere, she came with me. If I was teaching she was there. If I did readings she would sit there too. Good as gold. Those large eyes looking the clients up and down too. 

Someone had said (I don't remember know) that if you didn't invite your children into your life and allow them to know you, experience you as a person, they would not have anything in common with you when they were adult. That showing them "parent" was not enough, that you needed to share yourself with them. This process for me (and the fact I was young) allowed me to find out who I was and share that journey with my daughter.

I LOVED (and still love) being a mother. TK and I decided to try for a sister for Mini-witch and I got pregnant straight away. The pregnancy was different. She was orange and heat and summer meadow. 

That is how Kara came into our lives. We had to move. There was a lot of stress. It was far from perfect, but it was amazing. The birth was long and difficult. My old C-section scar re-opened and and my sudden instance on a C-section saved our lives.Unlike last time I bounced back quickly and Kara slept straight through the night from the get go. I was teaching, working magick, caring for 2 kids under 2, yet it felt that I was doing what I was made for. Mini witch was not jealous but loving and impressed by this small warm person. She nursed straight away.

The morning we found Kara dead was oddly sunny for December 9th 2003. She was seven and a half months old. First came shock. Then pain. Pain the like of which you can not imagine. I don't want you to imagine. 

Loss.

Lost.

Agony.

That primal part of me roared and gnashed it's teeth.

I refused medication because there wasn't anything wrong with me. I did not want to numb the pain. I hurts because I miss her, It SHOULD hurt.

Yet that primal animal mother, got me out of bed. Made me read to my Mini-witch. Made me eat. Made me sing songs and care for her. That small but insistent voice made me live, not for my own sake, but because I had a purpose. I had someone to look after and she was all the more special because she was mine.

It is that part of me that rages in my heart and head when people piss on the word "mother". Or when I watch people ignore their children. Or lean over the pram with cigarette in mouth. Not because it isn't fair. Not because I did everything right but because they do not see their parenthood as a privilege. As something fragile and fleeting and more important than your facebook page, your ipad, or going out and getting drunk or working every hour. They are not sandbags that hold you down. They can be the most beautiful and powerful part of your whole life, if you spend sometime looking deep into their eyes and learn how to see your privilege. 

Crystal Healing

Crystal Healing

As a child I would collect rocks. I particularly like fossils. For some reason I kept the ones that were my favourites in my dressing gown pockets. This was what lead to the end of my collection as my "mother" picked it up and promptly dropped it on her foot. She threw them all away. By the 1990's (how old does that make me feel!) I had been healing for about 18 months (spirit healing) and a crystal healing course came up at a local college. I ended up attending. I can remember very little about it except we used a lot of quartz and talked about cleansing and programing crystals.Something clicked. Whilst I read a lot more I never had another lesson. No qualification to speak of but I noticed how crystal use the white spirit light I was working with. I noticed I could "wake up" stones, ask them to cleanse or heal, then tell them to "rest" or sleep again. I began building a collection and by the time I had finished University most of what I have now was set. I was rather lucky. Crystals were larger and cheaper back then. I got some interesting and more rare pieces and notice that crystals come in fashions and waves. I kept healing with crystals, in fact the way I didn't starve post-University was through people paying for healing and readings.

After a while I helped out M's shop in Manchester and was paid in crystals. Not only that I gave free healing and a crystal "perscription" to customers. I got some rare angelwing selinite and calcite formations from that time. I wished I kept some desert roses, some moldvite and cheap lazer points, but hindsight and all that!
After meeting TK my relationship with crystals changed. After he touches a crystal they bond instantly. This was both wonderful and irritating in eqaul measure. I sort of felt a bit rubbish compared to him so I didn't do any healing with them in a long while.
TK has a modest collection of his own and my is now growing again. Saying that the Holy Stone collection is so huge is made the house sing when they first got here but they are quieter now. Humming to the sound of the house in general.

I taught a few workshops about crystal healing but folks don't really want to understand the complex creatures, they just want a "this for this" remedy kit. They don't quite work that way. They sing. They open and radiate places on the body and spirit. Something wonderful for one person is awful for the next. It is the song, the sound the whole that is important.

Bright Blessings xxx