Consecration

Consecration 

Consecration: association with the sacred.

This a process that is at once a blessing and a transmutation. It is taking fermented grape juice and turning it into holy wine. It is taking a substance (water, salt, wine, oil) and dedicating it to spiritual, ritual or religious work.

Different faiths do this in different ways.

Salt is using blessed on an altar. It is usually charged to cleanse in the name of a specific deity or in the names of the Lord and Lady.

Sometimes it is very ritualised.

"I cleanse you oh of creatures of salt. I awaken you to cleanse the way. To remove all malignity. In the name of..."

Of course saying the words and drawing a star doesn't awaken anything if you are still sleeping.

Sometimes it is charging a space with power and channelling it all into an item (a wand, cup of wine, crystal). Touching it with your breath and seeing it awaken.

Consecration is difficult for those looking outside themselves for their power. It is about drawing in what is holy in you, reaching out and digging deep within and connecting with that light, and connecting that light to a simple bowl of salt.

Bright Blessings xxx

You can buy my book The Key here or here and buy our salt here.

The Eduction System

The Eduction System

Before I was a Home Educator I knew there were things wrong with the education system in this country. My mother had been a teacher (mostly supply and/or music). I was also rather lucky at junior school (aged 7 to 11 years) to have not one but several really amazing teachers.
They were inventive, inspired and most often projected based. We did basic weaving. Made sweets. Read together. I learned to read music and sing in a choir. I even learned cursive script (though I hated it at the time).
I could see that being a good teacher (something I still believe) is about have a presence and control of a class, and yet inspire them, liberate their ideas and excitement. To create moments that change the way they think about something.
As I was leaving university a lot of my feckless peers who "wanted to be famous" decided to go into teaching to cover the bills. I knew I would be a great teacher but I refused to do it. I knew I would have to be one of those sparky teachers and after my degree I was exhausted. I didn't have it in me to do it at all. No if I was to do it, I would have had to have been amazing.
Then I had some life. Teaching craft to adults was different. Harder, easier. Having a family. Writing, readings.
My daughter went to school.
As a parent, to watch my daughter be damaged a little more everyday was soul destroying. Truly. I did everything right and it was still hell, hell for all of us. After the second year I began to research HE. The third year was a little better, she got a great teacher, who then promptly left after one year for a better school.
 Sometimes you don't realise how ingrained the system is, how broken, how controlling until you really leave it. I had had some friends who were teachers (still have some too). Some teachers had never not been in the education system and it is really weird how...odd they are! School is their only frame of reference. They know nothing outside of the bubble. Tiny things become huge and huge things become hidden. Like colonies in space, anything outside is alien and dangerous.
The thing is we know more about children than we have ever known. Yet all this knowledge is not used in schools unless it can be bent, restructured or twisted to fit into the "school" shape.
This why schools don't work well for most students. It is not just that there is poor teaching (there is) or that there are poor teachers (there are), it is that system is more important than the children. Yet the system doesn't work.
There of course, there are still great teachers. Yet many leave, struggle, have health issues due to amazing amount of stress wanting to teach in a sparky innovative and inspired way, and not being allowed to do so.
Teaching craft is one of those things, (I have taught all kinds of people of all ages) that has shown me that people (and default) children don't learn the lessons you want them to learn. That if they don't want to do it, they won't and if they do, they will moved heaven and earth to do it.
A great teacher inspires. Shows the the hem of something. A hook. A good student will then want to follow it where ever it leads and will devour it. Once a student is shown how to learn, how to grow their knowledge they won't stop. They can't.
Until the system is not controlled by politics (big and small) and what we know about child development is put into an education system it is going to keep fail, letting down and destroying children.

Bright Blessings xxx

Death is not the Enemy

Death is not the Enemy

When you live, really live death is not the enemy. It cheats us of nothing, because is sweeps away the pettiness and pointless things and brings into clarity the things that matter. Who we love, how we love. What is left when we stop. Death is like winter. The seeds I have sown by accident and by design will grow on without me, but something of myself will nourish what continues to grow.

I have no fear of death or dying. 

I don't want to go just yet, I have things to do. Places to see. To feel the sand and dust beneath my feet. The sun and rain against my skin. Words to write and share.

When we lose others, when they die you can rail at it. Kick at it. Draw the shadows of grief around you. At some point you have to look at your own face in the mirror and know it will be bones and be okay with that.

In a odd sort of way this knowledge doesn't make me sad in the slightest. Part of me, (I am sure it is Fae part) keeps grinning at all the mischief I get to do first.

I do aim to misbehave. Not in a cruel way. I just enjoy being alive. I like singing and dancing. Oh I love to eat too.

I want to bang my drum loudly. Paint the world with colour and kindness. Throw those seeds around like a Goddess.

I have all kinds of chronic conditions that can make making hell difficult. Yet in the gamble of preserving my "life" in the future, or my quality to live now, I choose now. I might get hit by a bus!

The other thing is there are many deaths over one lifetime.

It is good and right to mourn their passing.

I will never be who I was, and I am fine with that. That angry slip of thing that danced and drank and was a whirlwind of power is gone. So too is the cynical and bitter person I was a few years ago. All that fear, that need to control! I honour them. They are me. I let them go. It is a privilege to carry their memories.

You see I am happy. Not for some great miracle. I am happy because I am alive. I am happy because their are blue skies and clouds that look like ancient beast floating in the sky, and snow and thunderstorms. I am happy because there is tea and cosy blankets and music.

I am happy because I am loved. Loved my others and finally, finally loved by myself.

Am I perfect? Nope!

Does that matter?

Nope!

I was never enough! Smart enough (clever people make mistakes too and that is PART of the process). Pretty enough (I was too thin, too pale, too fat, too short, too much hair, for someone at some point.) Spiritual enough (in a weird bloodless, joyless and pseudo-Abrahamic sort of way, that I could never fit into no matter how I cut myself up into bits.)

Do I have a temper? Damn straight I do. A righteous fury that burns in me like a battle Goddess brushed my cheek with her Raven's feather. I am a red-head. I come with a visual warning! This has keep me alive, given me great power and it is my deep feeling caring heart, that cares so much that gives me the capacity to feel so deeply. It allows me to protect the weak and vulnerable, even that is myself.

Of course I am better at letting things go too now. You can't cure stupid or crazy and it is not my place to correct every idiot I meet! 

My job is to put the knowledge and passion and the magick out into the world. To stand in my presence. To be me and inspire.

Bright Blessings xxx

Detox? Start with your Mind First!

Detox?

 

Start with your Mind First!

You want to "be a better you" this coming years? Well don't start with a juice cleanse or a gym membership, start with your mind and soul.

Firstly setting yourself up to fail at something again isn't going to "do you good". No-one is ever "enough". Thin enough, healthy enough, cleansed enough until they deal with their hearts and minds and souls. What are really hungry for? What is it you really want or desire?

Secondly doing something crazy and difficult to maintain makes crashing in late January early February almost guaranteed. 

That doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't strive to better yourself, far from it. You can transform your life and self. Truly and you don't need to spend hours at the gym.

You can spend 10 minutes meditating every morning. You won't need any special tools, and if you do you can find them easily and it changes your mind from the first time you do it! You could buy a book to help you. Take a class or watch some good video's on Youtube. 

You want to detox? Let go of the idea you can change from the outside in. Has it worked before? Did it help last year or the year before? How about letting go of anger? Or fear? Fear that we "should", that we are not "enough". This year, drink one extra glass of water a day. Take a walk some where green. Be present in yourself and in your own magick and power.

Wouldn't it feel better in late winter to not be carrying all the anxiety and disappointment?

That you have achieved something real that has nothing to do with your relationship to a set of scales?

They can not measure your journey. They can't measure how kind you are. O how gentle. Or how full of magick.

You want to do more? Dance! Walk dogs for those less mobile. Do something fun and that most importantly MAKES YOU HAPPY.

You can be more. You can carry less "weight". You may even get healthier.

Bright Blessings xxx

Yule ~ Family Traditions

Yule ~ Family Traditions

Yule for us as a family usually starts on the 21st of December, and lasts for 12 to 14 days. We bring a live tree into the home and make our own decorations. Some out of clay. Some out of spices. On our tree we add corn stalk decorations too.  The image of the green man is either above the tree or facing it. The star atop our tree was made by E when she was LittleWitch (I can hardly say that now as she is about the same height as me). It is an eight pointed star painted gold and held onto the tree with red and gold ribbon and florists wire.
When E was little we would leave our treats for Father Yule (much like Father Christmas) and she would get gifts every morning for two weeks. Sometimes they would be little stocking fillers, sometimes bigger gifts.
Even dead broke (and there were quite a few times we were) we always feast. We would get gifted things, or even have what we wanted fall in our lap for a discount price. We also feed others. Often those without family, or those lost and struggling. Sometimes it is just those we would love to see.
When I was running coven's we would have a coven meal and/or ritual over the season too. With the Holly and the oak king fighting.There are some real comedy moments that spring to mind with that one!
Most of our gifts for people were handmade. In fact when we were suddenly flush one year and I was going to buy things for friends there was a revolt! "I want my hamper of Lucy's food" was the cry!
I love Yule for the reasons that I like Christmas.
I love the food, and I love the magickal quality sitting in a room of sparkly lights and candles. I love the smells, and the quiet as well as the laughter.
TK rules the kitchen at feast times. Even when I did 90% of the cooking he did the roasts.
This year was no different. It was actually really relaxing yesterday. Some friends dropped of gifts and we gave them there's. (I did attempt to get everyone up to watch the sunrise but I was super foggy from lack of meds and I got snuggled into submission).
We had a lovely late lunch of cheeses (well I had a bunch of cheeses), salad leaves, pickles and pork pie. Then we gamed for a while and E got an in game bunch of keys to upgrade her character (one you pay for).  We sat down to eat our family feast at about 7 pm. It was a pork joint roast stuffed with pork, sage and apple. We had roast potatoes, parsnips (my favourite) and carrots. Savoy cabbage with bacon, and a rather full gravy boat! It was lush! We all raised a cup (mine was very small and full of mead) and toasted, again and again. When we were done I gave what was left in my cup to my house spirits (including the Green Man).
 Today will be StarWars day (my treat).
Of course there is much pudding for me to eat today and my cake (a heavy boozy fruit cake) is almost half gone! Still we have enough left over (except roast potatoes and parsnips) to eat the same meal again, as well as sandwiches and salads. It will last us about four or five days.
Some of this year will be spent with me up a ladder painting E's room (her present proper).
There will be other feasts, more gifts and cheer. Yule is a celebration of magick, of light and hope. Of hearth and home and those who make us happy.
I would love to sit and do circle too over the season. Yet it is a time for restfulness.


Brightest of Blessings
Lucy Drake & Co

Don't forget to by my book The Key for recharged spiritual journey in the New Year, or as a gift, after all who doesn't want a little magick?

Doing the Work

Doing the Work

No amount of platitudes or shiny things from Etsy or Ebay or Gothic, Hippie clothes will make you an awakened magickal being if you don't do the work. Work on yourself and work for others. Witch is a job description, witching and witchcraft is something to do. You study, you read, you go out into the cold, wet world and you do it. Balls to bone. You have to do it. You can't not do it. It hurts your heart to see the injustices, the pain and fear. It makes your soul soar when you see the kindness, goodness and grace. You have to do it. Alone in the dark facing your demons so you can help others do the same. You have to wait up all night to see the sunrise. You need to bake that cake, light that candle, do that spell, hold that person's hand. It's when you sit and channel during your morning cup of tea. It is the blessing of the food you eat at lunch. The silent prayers and sacred songs. In the child-like wonder at the gobsmakingly glorious world around you. Yes you will have bad days. You will get sick or broken, or even kind of crazy. Yet you get back up. You pull up your grown-up knickers and get to work.
Yet you can do it. You can change the world in big and small ways every single day. Every. Single. Day. It has an awful lot less to do with mystical charms and an awful lot more to do with stubbornness. Stubbornly refusing "that's just how it is". 

“There is a power in you. Old and strong and deep. It remembers being a wolf. It is time to stop pretending otherwise. To stop the platitudes and insincere niceness. You need not be cruel but if you are look at your cruelty squarely in the face.  To be strong is to find your weaknesses and to sit with them, give them tea and look them in the face. Often they are ourselves, ghosts haunting us from the great beyond of self death. Sometimes they wear our parent’s faces, or grandmother’s or that teacher who made you terrified.
You don’t have to like them, or forgive them or be suddenly transform them with love. Yet after really looking at them, seeing how they hold sway over your internal life, of your thoughts and feelings and desires these faces fade. Sometimes they crumble into dust before your eyes and are blown away by the beating of your living heart like moth wings.
The strangest thing is that those who don’t fade, the scariest parts, like the wolf, stop snarling at you and sit at your feet. They growl at those who would harm you long before you see the knife. They push you to live when you are pulled into the soft glorious afterlife draws you. It digs you out of the numbing cold into the fire of being awake, aware and living.
When you walk in this, with a thousand angels at your shoulder and a wolf at your feet, some only see the angels, and some only see the wolf.”

Magickal Names

Magickal Names

I am sure I have written about this before but, I can't find it. So lets have a quick chat about this frankly irritating woo woo nonsense that seems to "do the rounds" every so often shall we?

Right.

Firstly your Magickal witch name is not:

Your on-line avatar

 A way to show off

A way to re-brand or market yourself in the pagan community

A thing to prove how cool/magickal you are.

First off your name is not about creating something. It is about peeling away all the bullshit and finding something pure, your spirit, your soul, your highest of higher beings. It is like an essential oil of you. It is unlikely to be long (if it is this is not an essence). It should to totally secret, except to those you trust with your mind, body and soul. Totally secret.

If you have/want a cool on-line name, go for it. That doesn't make it your True Name. It just doesn't. I would never, ever, ever use my name as an on-line name. For a start it is not clever magickal practice. Your name (as your essence) can make you vulnerable to magick as giving someone a lock of your hair, your tears or blood. In some ways more so. You blood belongs to your meat suit, your name belongs to your soul! 

You want to use your name to show off by all means create on. The problem is old(ish), more veteran witches and pagan folks will probably think you are kind of an idiot. If Pixie Raven BloodWytche is what you are going with be aware you run the risk of pissing off people who work with Fae (Pixie is cute to you but not so much when you actually work with Fae); people who have deep ancestral reasons to work with corvids ( from First Nation people's to those who walk the Morrigan Paths) and BloodWytche offends pretty much anyone who likes grammar. Now I don't care if this your on-line handle, it just is NOT your True Name. If you want to market yourself to the pagan community or re-brand yourself this way you run the risk of upsetting or offending folks. It doesn't make you look cool. It makes you look like you read too much fiction and not enough actual pagan books. If you use this as a protection because you are firmly in the broom closet great, fine, not my business. 

It however is an artifice, not an essence. 

Your True Name has nothing to do with your birth month, your star or moon sign, your age, or books you read.

Your true name is the colour of your soul, or the closest thing in a word to it.

Some people just ARE Willow, or Skip, or Rain, or Ember. Some people are Bird, Ratty, Raynard, Heather or Pearl.

That is what someone's true name is.

It is a revelation of something divine and higher and pure. It is beautiful and sacred.

Bright Blessings xxx

Psychic in Real Life

Psychic in Real Life

I stopped doing public readings and parties and such like when my health got bad.
It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it, it was just such hard work. The energy of travelling to the space, setting up the energy, then the readings, then travelling home.
Every reading is unique. You are drawn into their lives and loves, their hopes dreams and nightmares. You see the discord between the face they show and the sorrows they walk with. Not to mention the spirits that are often with them.
I "got the message" very strongly that it was time to do readings again about six weeks ago, but I resisted because I was going through hell myself.
Then I get offered a spot and Cosmic Jewel's (a little stall in the indoor market in Hanley).
I did four readings the first week, which was great and the next day I felt energized and up. I could see the difference I was having in people's lives. I worried (as I do) that I wasn't good enough. I did struggle to find the words (especially with the young man who has the exact same problem).
By the end of that day everything felt a bit like mush though. Everything was just, SO LOUD.
I felt drunk and tired as I pressed through the city centre towards the taxi rank.
This week (Friday) I did ten readings. Often straight on top of each other. I felt I managed better, and most were only short readings, but I detached some oook from a "ghost hunter", felt their longing for home, held the hands of the heartbroken, wiped tears, and so on and so on.
It was all very intense and hard to explain to folks who might do a reading every so often what it was like.

I am overwhelmed by the privilege but it is not an easy thing for the body, spirit or mind. I am good at forgetting, but some images haunt you long after the reading ends.
I healed and help those who needed it (that is always the message I send out into the light).
It was sad for me to see C grow more annoyed with me that more and more people came. She resented me and that they weren't buying her things. I was "stealing her thunder" or "invading her territory". None of which was spoken. None of which was any of my business I suppose either.
I can't make her see that it is not about me. I am just a vessel for the light and it has a will all of it's own. I have no desire to look especially clever or important, I spend a great deal of time trying to be as "normal" as possible. That if she sees me standing in my power, owning it and radiating it, I do it to inspire, not intimidate. In the past "knowing" this, feeling it in waves from people made me want to shrink. I know now that I won't any more.
I wish she would raise her gaze from the ground. That she would stand up in her light and power. She has had to dim her light for others. I see the scars. She spreads her energy so thinly and has not faced her shadow, and I worry.
It feels better to give voice to this feeling. That I see a person struggling as I struggled, as all spiritual women do, with being so much more than we are "allowed" to be.
I spent much of yesterday asleep. It is the spiritual equivalent of running a half marathon (a full marathon is doing ten half an hour readings). Even if I Cosmic and I's journey ends tomorrow ( though we are not yet done I think) I have helped a lot of people the last few weeks and that feels priceless.

Whatever happens I will embrace this. This new place where I am to be the seer ad healer again.
It has only ever brought important people into my life.

Bright Blessings xxx

The Magick of Scents

Follow your Nose

I am very much lead by my nose in things. I can't easily be in a space that has a smell I don't like in it. I can smell much from people too. Sometimes just standing down wind from people is enough! I can tell health, habits, pregnancy and death.

They all have very distinctive smells.

Little wonder aromatherapy makes sense to me. That the too much of this or that in someone's scent can be balanced with oils. Too hot and dry, rich fresh and moist scents. Too sickly sweet, something spicy or herbaceous.

This instinct is also how I mix my herbal mixes for spells, spirit dolls, oils, salts and incense.

Much of my life I have studied herbs, flowers and trees to try and explain what I know with my nose.

When I make a blend of herbs or an incense I make a scent-scape.

A moment or and idealised moment in a ritual or spell. 

My Yule incense HAD to have pine needles, real pine needles in it. Nothing else smells like it. Nothing else makes me feels so full of the holiday spirit as that smell! Growing up in the 80's with a mother who hated the holiday's with a passion we had the worst fake pink and white tree you ever did see. I would see the great giant trees we had at school and feel sad and embarrassed.

No the smell of the tree is as important to me as the smell of orange and clove, or the crackling fire. Of the sweet herbs and resins, and the smell of rich fruity cakes and puddings.

Yule to me is sitting by the fire with a slice of Christmas cake and mug mulled wine, orange and clove pomades, the tree bedecked with lights and shimmering baubles in the low light.

That is place I want to smell. That moment of peace and stillness. Something warming and comforting. A little bit magickal for no reason, except that feeling of possibility.  

I haven't been in much of the seasonal spirit but as the storm passed over us yesterday I climbed up to grab some whole bay leaves and found an unmarked jar. 

"Oh, is that my Yule mix from last year?"

I opened it and had a good whiff, and it was. That little sparkle of that moment washed all over me.

No tree up here yet, but I am definitely feeling the spirit now!

Bright Blessings

Lucy Drake

Family

Family

Family is a funny thing. The more I heal who I was the more I see family is not biology or blood. Family are those around you that pick you up, worry, walk the path with you, or leave a space to sit in their home at 2 am when your heart is breaking. They are the ones who look us in the eye quietly to call us on our bullshit. Make a joke at just the right moment.

Family is something we make, not something that makes us.

We live so many lives, even in one life time and we have the opportunity to create so many kinds of family. Family is those who sit around a table with you. Message you to see if you are okay. 

Family is who we care for and who cares for us. It is unselfish. It is more simple and more complicated than that. 

Age, colour, gender, sexual orientation, distance mean nothing.

They sing our song back to us, when we forget it. Tell us we are beautiful when we feel like crap.

You might have one, two, a hundred in one life time.

Family is a thing you make.

Self Preservation

Self Preservation

It is difficult to explain the how's and why's of the strange habits of adults who grew up in aggressive, violent or abusive homes. Our seemingly aggressive attitude to what other's think are slight things, especially personal space. Our defence is offence and sometimes, no matter the years, the healing, the work we are constantly doing to heal ourselves; something wild and fierce erupts from us.It is something primal. Yet something I have been ashamed of, and shamed by other's for doing.
I have a strong sense of duty as well as a deep well of kindness. From family to friends we have had several people live with us, even when we had nothing.
I will give what I can to help others all the day long. I made myself sick running around the country caring for the spiritual and otherwise needs of others.
It took almost dying, I had people calling and asking for my help in A&E (ER) to wake me up to the healing I needed and also deserved. That I had to give to myself if I wanted to live.
I have had a lot of surprised eyebrows and sidelong looks or raging silence from people who have known me a long time and were shocked I didn't rush to my dying mother's bedside.
In truth, I surprised me too.
When my Nanna (my father's mother) was dying in hospital, I was the only one in the family to go and visit. I washed she unconscious face and hands. I sat with her. I opened the door for her to pass over.
Yet every fiber of my being simply refused to allow me move. I was peaceful ad calm, yet I did desire to do the same as I did for my Nanna. Yet any attempt to try and go there, even speaking with my sister on the phone left me with a cold sickly feeling of dread. I was aware that being there (I tried to attribute this to my sister presence but I don't know if that is a rationalisation) would harm me deeply, maybe even cause my death.
After I finally got the text message that my mother had passed the dread stopped. Then I felt guilty and confused. I deal with the unexplained all the time but I couldn't find the words.
My sister began her punishment of me by refusing all access to the funeral, in fact any details about it at all. I see now it was her last weapon.
Everyone was outraged. I was hurt. Which was the point of course.
Comfort came, as it always does, from strange places too. An author whom I had connected to on facebook sent me one of his many books.
I am not finished yet, nearly though, it has already lifted such man-made weights like guilt and fear from me.
I was not "being selfish" or "uncaring", I was heeding my need to stay alive. It was self-preservation and I do not need to feel any guilt or carry the weight of other expectations. I do not need to hurt myself there are plenty of ego driven drama makers who would love to do it for me.
Unfortunately they have no sway, and no oxygen from me any more.

 Bright Blessings

Poetry These Eyes

These Eyes


These eyes are sore from tears.
Again.
My solace in soothing strangers
Who will never know my pains.
Yet the wolf in me knows.
Growls and draws back.
Digging deep into the snow.
What is underneath this cold?
I am frightened of falling
Into the abyss in my heart.
Of losing my balance.
Cover me in the ashes of my burnt bridges.
Let me howl like the wind.
Can I be brave enough to be hopeful?
Can I?
Can I dream of the desert and the warm sun,
So it seeps into my broken bones?
My mother's corpse lies,
Small and fragile.
Black blood on snow.
What are my tears for?
The ghostly reflection of my own death?
The idea of love?
Or is it the cold in me that burns my eyes?
There are no words.
Only the wind
The moon
The snow.

Blood and Bone

Blood and Bone.

I had initially decided not to write about abortion and the act of terrorism that happened in the States this week.
I felt that, especially seeing the waves of frankly crazy foaming at the mouth reactions, it would be safer not to. The bravery of other women gave me the kick in the arse to.
Witches have been traditionally mid-wives and herbalist ready to help conception, and abortion.
There is a knowing that women are doorways of both life and death and pregnancy is physically hard work and potentially deadly. While this might sound far fetched in our modern clean age, childbirth in the States has a HUGE mortality rate. Any ailment that the mother has tends to flare up, causing all kinds of complications, some of which can be deadly too. Then there is birth. Before modern medicine half of women died giving birth. Half. From toxaemia to haemorrhage you are not out of the woods yet.
I say all this because certain men I have known have felt entitled to point out a woman with an unwanted pregnancy could "put it up for adoption".
Well she could if she doesn't die from complications. Also she will probably lose her job (most common reason a woman is fired in the world). She might get far behind or have to quit school too. As well as getting kicked out of her home.
You see a victim of rape can more easily be given access to an abortion. There is a sense of wiping away the physical trace of the rapist. Yet abortion should be accessible to any woman or girl.
It is her body, her life.
A child changes your life in often profound and far reaching ways. Having a child, however, doesn't make you a parent. A mother is so much more than a walking incubator.
A toxic mother-child relationship does unimagined harm, to both. Resentment, bitterness and anger not warmth and love is often the best the child can hope for, the worst is neglect and abuse.
Someone I went to school with grew up in just such an environment. She even told her she was a "failed abortion". My own mother wasn't much better but she planned me to save her marriage but that is a different blog.
It is fine for a woman not to want to go through all of this. It is fine if she doesn't feel safe, or ready. It is fine if she wants to finish school. Wait until she is more settled, with a life partner, or where she wants to be. It's fine if she just never wants to be a parent at all. It's fine if she already has no/one/two/three kids and she doesn't want any more.
If those foaming at the mouth about the sanctity of life wanted to really do something, make it easier and better for mothers. Maternity pay, on site childcare, allow women to breastfeed where ever and however they like. Free tribunals for women who lose there jobs during pregnancy or just after.
"But the taking of a life? It's murder!"
I don't think it is murder. Most often it is barely a bunch of cells with the potential to be a person. There is more murder in your morning eggs and bacon than this act. One that saves women and girl's lives every day.
You have to decide if the potential person is more important than a woman. Which is what this really boils down to.
Should a girl or woman who had sex be allowed to have control over her life and body?
Absolutely.


Bright Blessings

All acts of Love

All acts of Love

 and pleasure are my rituals.

NSFW 18+

I have seen a lot of ho-ha about oral sex on-line this week. I thought I would add my perspective as a bi-sexual woman.

Let me just say that if your sexual partner/s has bad personal hygine (and guys are far more likely to fall into this group) then oral sex can be gross. If you have terrible breath you wouldn't expect someone to kiss you. 

Yet the grosses thing about giving oral sex to a man, scratch that, boys is the expectation of sexual entitlement. That push on the back of the neck or head. The way some push regardless of the other persons desire. Some boys have definitely treated my mouth, my voice and face as a wet hole to stick their cock in. THAT for me was my big issue with male oral sex for a long time.

I feel that oral sex with a woman is a different experience entirely. It wasn't a race to throw someone else flemmy body fluids as far back into my skull as possible. Not that it didn't become frantic, but more often than not it was mutual. 

Organism wasn't the finish line, they were the fireworks over the party. 

I think that sex with women taught me not only how to pleasure myself and other women it made me re-examine my oral sex expectations with men. I began to see it not as a "safe" cop out when I didn't want intercourse, or a facial violation. I began to see that if I could do all these amazing things to a vulva and clitoris, I could do them with a penis.

I discovered that oral sex for both genders could be decadent, without that sense of it needed to be a race.

I discovered it was an act of great pleasure. I discovered it could be wildly erotic. I discovered a sense of intimacy and pleasure it could bring both parties.  

In short, it is not the act but those who fail to understand it and miss the point of great oral sex.

Men, or more rightly boys, have a lot of really messed up and entitled ideas that come into play with oral sex.. These ideas of selfish pleasure, control and the lack of seeing the other person as a person at all. These tend to be the attitudes and experiences most women experience first. The push on the back of the neck, the pull of hair.

Note I have not said the word "blow-job" this is to me part of the problem. Blow-job implies work, not pleasure and blowing (really always thought that was odd and wrong). While"going down" and "eating her out" sound equally gross and badly descriptive.

I don't think anyone is entitled to any sexual act. Or that one is "better" than the other.

It comes down to this (sorry bad pun). If there is a pressure or expectation to do something and you don't want to do it, don't. In fact don't have sex with someone who doesn't get that.

"Getting off" while amazing is not the point of most sexual contact. Pleasure and organism are not the same thing.

I am lucky my faith sees pleasure, joy and sexuality as something holy and sacred. That our whole beings and whole self can take part in sexually acts. That sex is normal and healthy. I wish that this attitude of entitlement some women are now adopting (which is is just as repugnant as a when a man does so) would stop. Lets change this act to something beautiful, pleasurable and safe for all parties.

"All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals." 

Bright Blessings

Snow

Snow

I have always loved snow.

My favourate kind is the angel feathers.

A whirlwind of white thick flakes

That stick to the sides of posts and trees.

The way it swallows sounds except whispers.

It transforms all things.

The shadows change colour.

You can not tell sky from ground or ground from sky.

Dancing one way, then another.

Like a whole world is dreaming.

All things familiar are strange.

All things strange familiar.

It vanishes with the hot touch.

Burns cold into hands and feet and noses.

It smells like left over thunder

Bitten tongue

And cold.

No matter my rage or pain it transform me too.

Smoothed away ugliness.

Cools the temper

Leaving something pure

Like snow.

Light in the Darkness

Light in the Darkness

Between my mother's death and my sisters seemingly endless bile and hate I have been wounded and pained the last few weeks. So I didn't want to give into that feeling or anxiety (and I can't meditate all day) so I made beautiful things. From poems to charms and Yuletide tree decorations.

I have also been so blessed by strangers and friends in their kindness and generosity. 

Last night it snowed and an annoying inconvenience to most felt like a very personal blessing. 

https://twitter.com/lucydrakeandco/status/667830473175887872

I don't want to moralise. You should be this or that. I just know that in the darkest times if you can not find the light around you sometimes you need to create it. 

We are so powerful and such radiant being if we only choose to accept it and grow fully into ourselves.

The heart is after all a muscle that we use. If we allow joy at simple things like snow falling or a really good cup of tea other joys always follow.

I am not saying it is easy. I am not saying you must pretend that it doesn't hurt. You do not have to be perfect to do good in your life or anyone else's.

Though visiting my friend yesterday was tough on the bones I feel so lifted and inspired today.

Bright Blessings xxx

Sigils

Sigils

Sigils: whether you pronounce them sij-jills or cig-uls (either is correct as the origin of the the word could be Latin or Hebrew) this kind of magick is often misunderstood and misused.

Being British I say the word sij-jil, probably because most magical users were school in Latin and presumed it was pronounced as a Latin word.

To understand what a sigil is it is important to understand writing. Writing and the written word has always been seen as a magickal act. Taking an idea, a word or phrase and making have solid physical form is the basis of many spells and magicks. From Babylon to Eygpt, from Norse runes to Chinese script, the act of writing was sacred and powerful.

The act of writing was seen as one of magickal creation. The creation or use of a sigil is much the same. As reading and writing became more widespread in different cultures codes, cyphers and abstract symbols of groups and people's began to form. It was a way of passing on knowledge and also hiding it. A way to differ and align yourself.

The Hewbrew connection (drawing much from the Babylonians) used much from mathematical squares (kameas) converting names into numbers and then abstract shapes. This way of making the ethereal tangible, manifesting a idea and focusing on it completely as a foci or meditative practice is the core of sigil work.

Much like a mandala it is the process rather than the completion that tend to be important. In fact the destroying of the sigil is often seen as the way to release it's magick and allow it to manifest as the magic worker wishes.

Sigils are also used to call or a specific energy or entity to a place or person. Some practitioners use sigil to summon. 

Summoning is, in my humble opinion, stupid.

Beings do not like being "summoned" and it creates a tension and power dynamic I would avoid at all costs.

From Paracelsian to Dr John Dee sigil work continued to grow and develop into ever more complicated cyphers and codes from the Middle Ages to the Elizabethan eras mixing with alchemy and Middle Eastern ideas (brought back from crusaders).

Modern use of sigils tends to draw Chaos magicians. I have nothing against Chaos magicians per say,  I just tend to find their self centred world view a bit...narcissistic? Short sighted? Too neat and simple?

Sigil work can be amazingly beautiful as well as magickally powerful but like all ancient and powerful thing respect is key. Ideas are, after all terribly powerful things. Words even more so.

Bright Blessings xxx

The Easy Way

The Easier Ways

You know I can now see why some people genuinely believe that lizard folk are running the world. It is easier to see the alien and unconnected as a different species than accept the fact that some people are really that stupid, ignorant and hateful. 

Rage and hate is another cop out. So much easier to feel "right" when you don't have to think about it. Just dwell in your hot burning wrath.

The other way is to make passive platitudes. Pay lip service to the horrors and agonies of the world. 

The problem with most of these, even rage and hate is it doesn't change anything and certainly not for the better. I do not believe that it is my personal responsibility to fix or heal the whole world and everything in it; but I think that kindness, compassion and an acceptance of the messy chaos helps.

Death is tragic. There is no rhyme and reason, except under the flow of chaos are a set of circumstances, the conditions for a set of things to happen.

My mother had a sudden bleed in the brain and died. It was sudden and shocking. Yet she smoked, never really talked or let anyone in. Bottled everything except anger.

The conditions were set for something sudden (or even not so sudden) to happen. 

Violence is like that too. A set of circumstances. A set of conditions, within the abusers as well as the systems that fund and use them.

I can see why conspiracy theories spring up. It is much easier to believe that some deep dark evil group organizes all the terrors than the truly terrifying idea that people, humans, can be so awful. 

There is no one reason why people do terrible things. It isn't religion. It isn't "human nature". It isn't fear or greed or money. 

People do terrible things because they can.

They do it because it is easier than talking, and listening and admitting that you are fighting other people. It is easier than looking beneath ideology, creed, race, and gender we are all people.

This fear in seeing others as people will drive people to kill or even die rather than other humans as humans.

It is a set of conditions. It enables smarter people to control those lost and willing to be lost in this stew of emotional crap. It enables those who make weapons and feed on the carrion left in the wake of violence.  

I feel for those who have lost loved one. I recognise the agony on the faces of keening mothers.

"Why my beautiful baby?"

There are no easy answers.

No quick soundbites.

Dream of peace. Breath it in and out of your body and soul and be kind to as many people as you can.

People are capable of doing anything.

We have the capacity to do anything.

Let us not chose the easy ways.

Bright Blessings xxx

Respecting Others

Respecting Others

My mother died. She didn't have much faith in anything, but was nominally Buddhist. 

When a Buddhist dies they go into the first bardo. A trance like state where they do not know death has occurred.

As my mother was brain dead a while before she passed and I knew I could not reach her physically, I went a bought a small statue of Buddha. I cleared my altar and placed a new cloth on it.I lit two new white pillar candles and placed a photograph of my mother and the image of Buddha in alignment.

I anointed the forehead of the statue with lotus and sandalwood oil and my forehead too.

I sat and meditated using three different mantra. for about two hours the first night.

The altar stayed through out the day but I moved the Buddha onto the mantel piece so our feet would never be higher than his image.

The second evening I moved the Buddha to face the picture of my mother while I meditated and chanted for the same again. I burned sandalwood the whole time too.

The third the same as the first again.

It is oddly comforting to embrace things from my childhood, though I never used mantra then, though it would have made even more sense to me.

I do not know if she has reached the second or third bardo.  I don't know if her childhood Methodist kicked in. I just know that she would have preferred this to what ever monstrous funeral arrangements my nominally Catholic sister will make. I am certain I will have no say (as usual) if I even get told when it is.

I have had to make peace with this. My own health has suffered greatly due to the natural rage at her appalling lies and behaviour. I can not change her. I am not sure the child I once knew is even in there any more. I can just show my mother's spirit the respect she deserves, not as my mother but a human being.

Bright Blessings xx

Emilia

Emilia

The last few days have been challenging. Yet surround by love and warmth, friendship and faith it has made me appreciate things all the more.

Last night (after snuggling with my TK and E all day) I got a lovely message from a pale witch called Emilia.

It read

"Hello,

I have featured your beautiful item on my BLOG for witcheries of Etsy! The blog has over 11,800 followers by now. I hope you like the blog and that the feature drives new traffic your way!We'd be very grateful if you wanted to give our shop a shoutout back somewhere on social media!

The blog is here: etsycult.tumblr.com
I also pinned the item here: pinterest.com/heliumraven/witchy-etsy

Our shop is here: gorimbaud.etsy.com
And we're @gorimbauddesigns on instagram!

Happy sales!
Emilia"

As you can see, it is quite lovely!
In the spirit of sharing and putting positivity out there in the witchy community I thought I would share it here too.

Bright Blessings xxx
Our Pintrest is here https://www.pinterest.com/lomalleylocal/lucy-drake-co/

Dear Mother

Dear Mother,

                    that person, woman, abuser who carried me in her womb and gave me such deep and grave lessons is at deaths door. Her other child, the favourate one has been calling and texting. It is the first time I have spoken to her since she put me in hospital. Actually what was suspected I had, but thankful didn't was exactly what befell my "mother". It happen on Samhain our most holy of holies. I could not go to her. Nor was I sure I wanted to. She is unconscious with a bleed on her brain. She has had two operations and is not breathing on her own.
If I could get there (that is a big IF) I would just sit and meditate. Maybe take her a small figure of Buddha. Place some lotus oil on her brow. However, doing all these things would be "wrong". So to is not doing all these things. At least to my "sister". All she wanted was for me to be her punching bag. I politely refused. I could hear in her voice how she is hurting but I am not a punching bag. I don't need spite or nastiness. My calmness was read as indifference. My resistance to her drama was me being "difficult".
It has been a year and a bit since I grieved the loss, the hope for a parent, the desire for that bond, that unconditional warmth. I grieved deeply and made peace with much of it. I feel sad. Not a deep pain in my heart and soul more a cool sadness of a life unlived. Of a lack of connection and love.That a human is suffering.
I gained much from her. She taught me deep soul lesson (yes many were of agony and pain) but the were important. Even if she makes it through, she will not be herself.
I pity "my sister". Yet she fills me with rage and anxiety. I have yet to unpick that ball of pain in my heart. TK said something last night. That she was jealous of the attention I got when the abuse investigation happened. That she never forgave me for "stealing her thunder". That I had never wanted that attention, that it was hurtful and harming was not the point. People looked at me. Sidelong and whispering, but they all looked.
Oh my mother, my mother. is this your will? You gave to them what they tried to do to me? Is it the fey? Fate? Something else? Is it just life? The consequences of smoking and holding in to all that...everything? I have not prayed one way or the other but left her, as she left me in your hands. I let her go. I scatter her bones and see if you unmake her or re-make her.
Thank you for my sisters. My true ones. I was blessed with a helpful distraction this weekend. A way to try and make everything fun (even though I struggled). There were games and costumes and childlike wonder.
You always give me the medicine I need.

Thank my dearest Goddess, my mother.


If you have a toxic relationship with your "mother" try reading this. I have too many on this list.
I hope it helps. You do not have to accept these people in your life. You can not change them and they will not love you in a healthy way, regardless of how much you want them to.

Naked in your Rites

Naked in your Rites

 Last night night we as a family did our Samhain rites. The night before though we set up the altar and ate a traditional Irish meal only I sat in the dark drumming and singing, charging my crystals and tarot cards under the full moon.

 I had no plan just a space of reverence. 

This little bell is one of my most precious objects. I have almost nothing from my family and this was my beloved grandmother's. I would have loved one of her tea cups too. So delicate and beautiful. However this is all I have. It is a small brass Welshlady in traditional dress.

This a piece of raw coal carved into a miners helmet. It was a gift from us to Pop's a few years ago. When he past we kept it. TK's line are miners. Like at least 4 generations, probably more. From my side, my great grandfather was a colliery fireman at one of the worst disasters in history. I was going to add the antique miners lamps we have be we can't light them and seeing them "dark" would have been sad.

Last night the altar still had the crystals but I put away the cards. We had a list of names in Memorandum. The saddest thing for me was the glut of names over the last few years. We started by playing funeral music/ favourate songs of loved ones.
This is where the naked comes in. You see having no clothes on is not the same as naked. In most cases I hadn't heard the music since the funeral/dead. This lead to some very real and deeply snotty crying. Then it lifted again, shifted to something more jovial, again with the music. Then it was the usual, cast the circle, call the corners and evoke the Lady and Lord. Then TK said a few words about the parted. Then I guided a meditation to connect with spirit. It was uplifting.
As it was getting late we thanked everyone and released the circle. TK went outside and placed the offerings.
I slept better last night than I have done for a while. I think I really needed to "touch base".

Bright Blessings xxx
We left a very "working class" plate of potato and rum on the altar too.

Autumn Makes

Autumn Makes

I have been writing a bit more but my health has been sucky the last few months and I have been doing real world things like set up a Home Ed gaming group where I live. Pretty cool and awesome! (or nerdy as hell)

I have been attempting to write and research Adventures in Pagan Baking, and it is patchy at best. This was a date and nut yeast bread. It was good.

Then I found this in a shop and fell in love with everything about it!

Which lead me to this.

Me and E (aka was mini-witch but is nearly as tall as me) made the leaf and toadstool decorations and pimped the felt leaf garland we bought!

Well then we had a big make for a secret project (known as Critmas) including a load of new makes and designs like this. It was a cool make and I enjoyed it a lot. (if you like thid sort of thing check out the shop).

Then came the papermache pumpkins (lots of glitter) the third one is "still in progress" and E wants to design a "proper scary face". 

I have made incense, writing huge stories, designed two towns and loads of goodies for people in America.

My writing and blogging has suffered BUT everything is an education right?

Bright Blessings xxx

Oh no! Witches!

Witches!

I know it is the season and all that but Goddess almighty PLEASE, please just stop!

I am not unused to bad representation in the media but it has really just got under my skin. I enjoyed Pennydreadful's first season a lot. The complex level of good and evil, the nature of people to be corrupted but to hope. The acting was awesome.

And then came the witches, inhuman, in league with the devil, all bad, then came the baby murder and butchery.

Witches can be good and bad, mostly in the middle, same as most people. However we are human. We are people. Murdering babies for spell components? Nope.

Witches of all faiths heal more than they harm. Protect and deal with dark and vampiric forces. This anxiety of powerful women, of their freedom and choices seems to be playing out on big screen and small. If a woman does not bow down before God and also man, she must be sleeping with the devil!

The devil is, a Christian concept. A "get out of jail free" card for a religion with no personal responsibility for the "bad" things that happen. This scapegoating, blame and shame concepts became more and more complicated as Christianity developed. (Early Christianity was kind of awesome, with freedom for both genders, peace, gay marriage, non-violence and kindness being the core message.) Once the masculine Patriarchy rebelled this aspect was not only suppressed but they denied it ever happened at all!

The Jewish devil became a different beast, collecting names and traits from old Gods, popular ones at that. From Bacchus and Bes, Pan and Herne. The Horned Gods, old Jewish Gods and anything wild, untamed and free became fair game. Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan is a great historical and funny program exploring this.

Witches in general (there are Satanic witches, but they seem to worship Lucifer, the angelic, not the demonic);  however most witches don't believe in the devil, much less worship "him".

Their Gods tend to be older than the devil by a couple of thousand years if they worship a God at all.

I am tired of news articles leading with Witch murders, when it is Christians murdering those they fear and hate could be witches instead. 

From the early witch trails to the hunts for Satanic cults in the 80's, to the mass murder of women in Africa and India, today it is the witch that is in more in danger than dangerous.

This "excuse" is killing women, who aren't witches at all. Violent and sadist crimes against women have for centuries be sanctioned by the "witch" excuse. Any disobedience was meet with this threat. Conform, behave or we will destroy you and your family, one thumb screw at a time. 

The demonizing of women must stop. The twisting of headlines, the murder of innocent women is given purchase in these ideas.

This is what witches look like.

Human, beautiful and divine.

We wear wellies, suits, sportswear, dancing shoes, in fact we look just like everyone else...mostly.

We are teachers, and nurses. We are writers and artist, musicians, therapists, train drivers, and stay-at-home mums and dads. 

Even if we don't like people, hurting the innocent is a line too far.

We are those who help and heal, stand in the darkness bringing light, shelter and safety.

Bright Blessings xxx  

Where are my Deities?

Where are my Deities?

I overheard this question to another teacher and it was funny (because she misread it as dentures) and was sad because it implies this person is behaving like a child up late at night waiting for Father Christmas (Santa Claus) demanding presents.

Every time I have had a connection to the Deity level of energy, the frequency if you like, I notice many things. One there is a LOT of energy and power there. Secondly they are often shouting and trying to communicate to those who don't bother to listen.

It sort of reminds me of that old joke where the Jewish guy praying and praying to win the lottery and eventually God manifest and yells "Buy a damn ticket!"

Our Gods must be met half way. You must allow that energy into your life. You have to open up (something we in the West are pretty bad at) and allow something much much bigger than the self into your whole being.

It takes time and practice, faith and trust. They are also under no obligation to be as you wish them to be. You can not decide to make something sweet, cooler, or more "acceptable". Deities can be wrathful, as well as tender. They might not think you are doing enough. They might not like how you are doing it. Or with whom.

It is inside ourselves, in the quiet where we open up and listen. To listen we must stop talking, even within our minds. After that it is sincerity and time.

"For behold! I have been with you since the beginning and I am that which is attained at the end of all desire. And to know me is to cease looking. For if you never find me within, you will never find me without."

It can be as simple as accepting the good you are given. Letting go of the fear and anxiety. Accepting the opportunities even if it doesn't look perfect. You have to do half the work!

If I ask for something or think about it too strongly (whatever that may be) it manifest. I have to be careful, mindful with myself and others.

I work on accepting things for myself, as well as for others. To be worthy of the Divine within and around me.

It is not a perfect process, but when I let that energy into my life wonderful things happen.

Bright Blessings xxx

In Poetry

In Poetry

As a poet, artist, creative person...I really do wish I had a bad-ass title, I have certain poets that are dear to me. I became a published poet at aged 11 and the bug has never really left me. My (Welsh) culture is infused with poetry in a way that England is not. Poetry and the love of words is not something for “rich toffs” as it is seen here, but a web of words and being woven into the lives of ordinary people. I first wrote poems to explain the vivid images and feelings I experienced. Snippets of other people’s lives, deep memories from centuries ago, the heart-achingly beautiful nature all around me, to capture them in some form.

At the time I would have loved to paint but my co-ordination and execution were not good enough for me and in this frustration I created pictures with words. I remember writing a poem in the style of Samuel Peeps about the fire of London, I must have been about 8. The next one I remember was about a Second World War pilot for the competition at 11. It was published in a little book and I remember the poem on the other side of the page to mine more than my own. (It was about having an amazing older sister, I was enthralled and mystified.) I received an award from Brian Pattern at a theatre in Mold. There are no photos of me gaining it or anything. No framed poems at my parents houses.

I received Gargling with Jelly, a children’s book of poetry, which allowed me to be able to see that poetry could be funny and foamy, as well as deep and full of raw emotion. The next poet I found were singers, from jazz classics like Love for Sale to Kim Wild’s heart felt and angry words. I don’t exactly remember when I found Dylan Thomas. At school competitive poetry performance was a big deal and I feel like I heard him long before I read him. Cargoes by John Masefield and Bed in Summer by Robert Lewis Stevenson were two I performed with and won with. Both full of character and rich with imagery my next poet and I had a long affair. Billy Waggle-Dagger or William Shakespeare was something like discovering a whole culture of exotic and spicy food. It was the richness, the sumptuousness and that it was not a bite, but a feast. Shakespeare, like Thomas, have this utter joy and delight in words to be spoken. It is storytelling, and so much more. Henry V has one of my favourites, not that I could pick easily. It is easy for me to believe an actor wrote these plays, because of how the words feel in the mouth.

You might have noticed something, none of these voices were women. Until university I had not experienced female “poets”. University was terrible for me. It was brutal and invasive. Cruel and pointless. Having been writing so long it was jarring to be told my “voice was wrong”. More disturbing to me was the news that once I handed in my word it could be published without my knowledge or consent. This actually happened to one of my peers, he didn’t even get a decent mark for it! One of my “lecturers” I won’t call her a teacher read one of my experimental pieces and called it “nice”. Nice it was not. Dark, disturbing, full of trauma and pain, but not nice. In desperation for some actual feed back I gave to a lecturer who was a writing tutor but took me for Contextual Studies workshop/group. She did two things. The first was properly go through it and ask questions like “Does this need to be here?” or “Could you expand this idea” and so on. The next thing she did actually saved my life. She said “read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath”.

Sylvia

I feel a sorrow Hard to see.

I didn't save Sylvia

When she saved me.

Though she was already

A long time dead

Before the conversations

Within my head

She gave me a fragile

Needle of hope

A strange togetherness

That helped me cope.

For when Sylvia was there I was not alone.

She felt what I felt Mind, Spirit and Bone.

For her prison was a prison for me

Her understandings

Set me free.

I feel a sorrow

Hard to see.

I didn't save Sylvia

When she 

Saved Me. 

I happened to re-read just a short line of her work last night and it all came flooding back. Maybe because she was my first, or because she was good. Of course I have read and enjoyed many other poets male and female since but Sylvia will always be special to me.

Bright Blessings xx