Spiritual Lessons from the Kitchen

Spiritual Lessons from the Kitchen

L'Arte di Arrangiarsi

I don't own many cook books and the ones I do have tend to be old, second or third hand and be full of recipes from when everyone knew how to do basic cooking.

I make exceptions of course. I bought Two Greedy Italians eat Italy. One of the few food programs I watch. I loved watching these two old men pull the car over and basically scrump the fruit from the tree hanging over the fence. 

I don't think of my self as a "kitchen witch". This doesn't mean it is not my domain, my temple or my place to worship the creative art of cooking. I just find a lot of "kitchen witchin" bland, and overly simple. (Not that simple can't be amazing in it's self.)

The lessons that cooking teaches as layered and deep. They are in the skill of my finger and thumb to judge the right feel. The taste against my teeth, or how something changes in colour, of consistency.

I have learned that everyone's measure is different. That like a painting a dish is full of layers that sit like colours. Bright sharp yellow citrus lifts and high-light deep earthy or meaty flavours, and a touch of dark or bitter gives depth to something light. 

Time, care and love are the most important ingredients, and the right seasoning brings ideas together into a meal, or better yet, a feast.

Know what you are eating. Enjoy it. Yet always try new things. 

I opened my cook this evening and it fell open to the L'Arte di Arrangiarsi, which has no direct English translation. The why I understand it is the art of making the best of it through will power and creativity. 

What a lesson!

You only have X? Make the best of it, with love, time and creativity. 

Left over's or meals I make with left overs, like potato and bacon scones, or white chili from left over roast chicken, or colcannon with left over mashed potatoes and dark green cabbage. are our favorite meals.    

Knowing your herbs (and spices) magickal, medical and culinary uses makes sacred baking a real thing! Marigold petals in your cakes and bitter herbs like valarian in the chocolate cake (knowing the dose is everything)!

I am on vacation, holiday, my jolly hols, to Hasting for the Green man parade from tomorrow. I wonder what new food lessons and adventures wait!

I have an excellent book called The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice and a lovely shop called Lucy Drake & Co. 

Bright Blessings xxx 

Witchcraft is revolutionary

Witchcraft is revolutionary

I never really felt like a revolutionary kind of person. I wasn't a rebel at school, in fact I was head prefect and ran the student council. I knew my own mind and spoke it often but in Wales I was just "gobby" and that was that. I have always wanted to make a positive difference in the world and after finding University full of idiots (and those were the lecturers) and resigned myself to just doing things my way.
After a brief stint back home I was back in England with my hubby and (soon) children.
After my youngest daughter died I was a mess. When I came back to the world I was no longer afraid. When you go through that kind of pain it either pushes you one way or another.

 A lot of what goes into and around Wicca and witchcraft these days can feel a bit twee or "quaint".
Yet the determining of Divine and feminine as well as masculine or even instead of, is anything but. To declare feminine sacred is to take back, and pull down a structure designed to control through hierarchy and fear.
The Patriarchal is not based on religion (Rome was Patriarchal long before Christianity became popular); but it uses religion and exclusion to control. Women were reduced from human, to breeding "bitches" and cattle. So why control women at all? What is gained?
Why divide them, slice them into acceptable and vile?
Women and nature are so connected. Even today this idea is so dangerous that the lie that a woman must be "rescued" is pumped into from birth to make them feel weak. The other lie, "The One true love" is there because women are by nature sexual beings that can hold love for many in their hearts.
If women were allowed to express their natural desires they may indeed have one mate, they are however just as likely to have a complex web of relationships that serve different needs and desires and levels of sexual intimacy.
This sexual freedom and close knit friendships are a powerful force because together they can achieve almost anything.Through solidarity, loyalty and love.
This, above all else is why Patriarchy still is fighting so hard. They want women to obey a man. Then that man to obey his "better". It is in the interest of those who believe they are our betters to keep women from their social and sexual freedoms. Patriarchy pit women against other women and most cruely against herself.
A group of people who understand magick, power, words and the Divine inside and around them, rejecting external control is revolutionary. Yet while women compete with each other instead of build each other up we can not achieve they way we truly could.
Women are still seen as less, and women's spirituality even more so. We can't quite keep it out of our communities and thinking. "Bitch craft" and vamping, fear of close female friendships and the desire to be seen as "good" by the general patriarchal community weaken us from within. When we help each other stand, we can do anything, and that is what "they" are afraid of.

Check out my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice for your guide to opening your own magickal energy, power and connection.  Our Etsy shop Lucy Drake & Co. is a cupboard of magickal delights.

Bright Blessings xxx

Bone Fires

Bone Fires

Bonfires, or more accurately, bone fires are a long part of the rituals, rites and marking the movement of the year especially "the fire festivals".

Beltane fast approaches and while my fire has never been for Bel, I understand this complicated connection to the bone fire. I love fire and it rather likes me. Burns which should and could be awful don't seem to have any effect on me at all and I can put my hands into almost boiling water with little to no damage. More than that I seem to "get it" and many a time making fires while camping or for rituals people have remarked on it. I have never seen it as a "masculine" element either. The average male (not TK) is useless with fire, putting rubbish on it, or being stupid, disrespectful or dangerous with it, or poking it for no reason at all. (< Seriously irks me for no reason I can fathom).

I grew up with real fires and could carefully (and safely) make them before I was 10 years old. I cut kindling with an axe (yes modern parents, a real axe!) and cleaning the hearth, laying the fire, light it and keeping it going were, "women's work". Going out and getting wood, with axes and chainsaws was "man's work". So this whole "man, ug, fire, ug" is a mystery to me. 

I could tell you how a hawthorn sings on the grate, burning with a bright yellow flame that fades more quickly. Or soft sweet pine hiss and spitting and giving hot sparks that burning the dogs fur and they leapt from the grate. I knew that hawthorn saw dust and pine kindling start the fire best, that oak burn best for the best constant heat, that chestnut is best if you want to keep fire in the grate all night long.

Fire was sacred to me long before I knew why.  Bone fires are different of course.

For a start, a bone fire smells and has a very different energy than one made simply from wood. It is a complicated chemical process that even our ancestors could see changed bone (organic, living, wet) to stone (ancestral, ancient, of the Gods). You have to get the wood part of your fire steady and hot before you add the bones, which if you try this are usually sheep bones, but you can use what you safely and spiritually can.

Leaping over, or driving animals through a bonfire (bone fire) to me seems to imply a blessing  from the ancestral realm for the living. We never did anything like that. Our fires were practical save for Bonfire Night. Back in the day we didn't "do" fireworks but a fire... They were huge, especially as I was so small. 20 feet high, shooting sparks into the inky night light a thousand red stars being born. No-one spoke. It was mesmerizing. A giant pillar of flame, twisting in spirals and making our faces hot and our backs feel even colder. It was alive and while we watched it's birth, life and eventual death no-one could turn away. 

Tonight I will carve messages for my passed loved one and build a bone fire. I have plenty of hawthorn saw dust, and I can get pine kindling too. My fire will be for Bran and Branwen.

Don't forget to buy my fantastic book (nothing but 5 star reviews, both editions) The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice, and check out our little shop on Etsy Lucy Drake & Co making beautiful magickal things just for you!

Bright Blessings xxx

The Pagan Community

The Pagan Community

I have been pagan all of my life. Yet I have dropped into and out of communities and moots for the most part. The only time I can really say I had a positive experience was when TK and I ran a pub in North Wales back in the day (thanks Steve).The local Pagan Federation used our pub and they were a lovely bunch. I did hear that the whole thing imploded not long after we lost the pub.

At a Mind Body Spirit fair I meet Willow who at the time ran the local moot. She was lovely, more faery than human but I was busy as a new Mum (moots tend to be evenings and in pubs here) and I was still teaching and doing my thing.

I did some readings and healings out of a shop (pagan) in Crewe and met some important people in my life. Yet the bitching and in fighting and dark magickal stuff really put me off. Then a woman called A____ brought down Willows moot (you will do it my way Alexandrian put me for a long time) and Willow got really ill and retired. 

So I began to avoid Pagan Federation moots, I tried a  few times, I really did, but I either didn't like the vibe or I got put off by the "do it my way" lot. It didn't stop me meeting pagans.

There is a whole world of pagans who don't go to pagan events, don't go to moots or so on. They don't wear their faith on the outside bare the odd necklace or crystal. They have no need or desire too. Yet we would be draw together. 

The thing is, the "mainstream" pagan community that I have been around doesn't get that it is a clique. 

The off shoot groups from the larger moots get cliquier and cliquier. When I started to publishing books I kind of figured I would have to re-join the pagan community. Yet here I am! I have had three copies of their magazine and the same names and same ideas pervade the magazine all three times. Oh the art work is different and there are interviews and so on but there seems to be so little diversity.

Not that the people are all from the same path, just it is always the same few people. It is a national magazine I do not believe we don't have more than 5 contributors! 

I did not find my teacher at a moot, no we met getting in trouble together on a pagan forum (who knew quoting Shakespeare was copyright infringement ?Oh wait it isn't). We were friends on Yahoo for years before we meet in person. 

I look at "my community" and they seem to care more about "the right fit" rather than faith or light.

Most of my students I have not met at pagan camps or moots but in a supermarket, or LARP event, or at gigs. The pagan community would literally double in size if it opened it's mind and arms more. If they met in cafes or coffee shops as well as pubs. If they didn't seem to have an alt dress code, (most of the time some folks seem to think that dressing as weirdly as you can for a moot is a great idea!)

The folks I have met at moot and liked are dressed in jeans and simple t-shirts or twinset and pearls. 

Not the ones shouting in sequins or simply just shouting.

I am a pagan. Always have been. I am knowledgeable and interested and smart and I feel excluded.

I don't go camping any more (my illness really hates the cold and in the UK it is always cold or wet, or cold and wet) and I don't go to pubs at least not unless I am on holiday or something. I do go to coffee and tea shops, book shops, might even do a road trip to a sacred site or too.

Being pagan is not about who you know, what you wear, what books you have read, or what bands you listen too. Magick is not about that stuff either. I am disappointed and frustrated that they don't see it. I know I might feel differently if they allowed me into the clique but in all honesty I am not sure if I want to be in it even if they did.

The most magickal people in my life don't go to moots. Some have never even been to one. They don't tend to wear gothic clothes (and if they do they are smart goth). They tend to be lawyers and teachers and nurses, students. They tend to have PTA meeting or shift work. They have children or fur babies (or both) and have no idea who they could become with some support or a great teacher. These are students, my teachers and friends. 

They deserve a community too. Which is why I guess I keep making them!

Bright Blessings xxx

Unwavering Faith

Unwavering Faith

We all have those moments, those doubts when our dream shimmers so close before us that it takes our breath away and while it brushes our cheek and is so alive, where we are seems impossible to where we want to be. We can not see how. 

All the fears, our own doubts and those voices rear their head. 

This is how we can not get off the ground, because we let go of what is lifting us. Where we end up is not as important as that this dream, this will lifts us from our fear with grace. Our dreams may shift, may become different as we move from where we are to where we can be. That is fine. That is good.

Some people's destinies are so powerful they shine so brightly that dazzles and yet they are often the ones who struggle most profoundly with doubt and negative attacks from others.

I passionately believe in choices and multiple variations of path and the ability to change ones direction; yet some people choose their path long before they were born. 

It is easy to get stuck in the HOW?

If you let go of the that and focus on the WHY, those moments of doubt vanish like mist in the morning.

Why must you do the thing that drives you?

Why?

Does it consume your mind and body? Does it give you unparalleled joy? If it does not come from that place of love, of hope and joyful expression you will find no peace when your dream is achieved.

If it is not your dream but the dreams and desires of others, or the lifestyle or mannerisms of others, it will be as ash in your mouth.

Not because I will it, but because the soulful expression of who you truly are is still hidden, wrapped in shame and despair deep within you.

THIS, this is why I write, this is why I teach because unlocking people's hearts, lives and minds to the possibilities of themselves is amazing.  It is my destiny to awaken the joy and passion in others to make manifest their higher purpose.

I am part of an awakening. An awakening of spirit to change the world, one book, one poem, one healing at a time.

I try not to laugh at scribes and researchers struggling to be healers, or healers pushing themselves at desk jobs and not understanding why the are failing. Or even those who mimic me. Swans can not be chickens. Doves are not donkeys. Yet time after time people slump back as though they have failed. In truth they are either doing it in a way that hurts them most, doves do not pull carts well, or failing to realise they do not have to do it at all.

Everyone fails for this at some point, yet women are especially prone to shelving their dreams, passions (we are not "supposed" to have any way) and desires. They live half lives, or hidden lives away from watchful eyes.  Pushing themselves into the strangest shapes and forms to be worthy. Supporting others while crying alone in the bath, in the garden, or silently at night.

Women who can be either "mother" or "lover". Whore or saint. Women who must be bloodless and passionless to be "spiritual" or "good".

Must not be too loud, too demanding, too insistent. Told to sacrifice for others and any desire for the higher self is decried as selfish.

No more.

The awakening is happening.

It is time to stop appearing happy and do things that make you happy. The world needs your passion. It deserves it. There will always be dishes to do, but they are not as important as your happiness. 

So Sisters of The Key, Brothers of The Key, ARISE, pick up your paint brushes, get messy, sing and dance loudly.

In your wake other's will follow.

Bright Blessings xxx 

Find The Key text book here, and the Etsy shop here

Magick with Crystals

Magick with Crystals

From protective grids, patterns or placements around your home, garden, temple or workstation many people, pagan and not work with stones and crystals to work their magick.

Yet of course context is everything. Spell charging, regular working and cleansing as well as use in rituals can amplify your crystal work hugely.

A good example of this would be the mix or reading and healing I did yesterday. (I tend to do readings with my "working box" or crystals and two crystal spheres, one obsidian and one clear quartz). 

Obsidian is great for scrying but it is also amazing at drawing to the surface the hidden things. The things we hide, even from ourselves most of the time.When my friends reading showed a huge difference to the inner and outer world (one still much in the sway of her divorce last year) I knew I could help her.

After an initial sweep with my large quartz wands to open everything up I worked with spirit (hers and my guides) and cleared away deep and old hurts and barbs. After gently brushing away (and seeing it was a big job I suggested I go gently as there was a lot, but she wanted it gone.This is courage. This is braver than most. 

I got her to hold the obsidian over her heart and guided by Spirit we opened it all up. There were many tears. All the feelings of failure and disappointment, of soul deep sorrow for the choices and path she couldn't help someone she love for 14 years to change. I sang into her bones, into her spirit moving the energy, pitch and tone to shake lose the knives still lift in her back, the marks from "gut punches" and the bindings around her body and spirit and mind.The crystals allowed me to move energy better and created movement that radiated or drew out from deep, deep inside. Spirit and crystals work well together, which would be odd if I had thought about it when I started over 20 years ago, but just is now. Her guides and mine washed her whole being in cleansing light.  

The wisdom given to her (through me) was that simple.

If a plant out grows a pot, who is to blame, the plant or the pot?

The answer is nether are to blame. All things change and grow, and to all things there are a season.

Little by little, tear by tear and fear by fear we drew much out.

Then I used some rhodochrosite and place the obsidian on some salt to cleanse and heal it's self (it was very very hot) over her heart.

Layer as layer we added kind words into the spaces where cruel and hurtful words had left deep scars.   

I placed her energy bubble back around herself with my wands and we were done.
I am a writer, a teacher and a witch. I was a healer before I was any of those, and seeing all of the crap wash away was humbling and uplifting and makes me want to heal more frequently.

I have exciting developments with my workshops for my book The Key  and lots of new goodies to go up onto the shop!

Bright Blessings xxx

There is light

There is light. 
I know it looks dark and your heart is hurt but it will pass. 
You can not fix all that ails everyone and you are not supposed to.
That is their path.
Their choice.
You are here to be happy.
Yes you help others, yes you are making the world brighter, but your cup must be full.
Your cup must overflow.
 Release your tears and fears.
 Let them wash away the ashes of your old life and begin again new, clean and healed. 
Tomorrow and tomorrow, never comes, create now.
Create now.
Live.
Your spark will never again be as it now.
It will be this colour.
It will not spiral like a pillar of wind and flame.
Trust your joy.
Trust your higher good.
That is your calling.
There is light.
It comes from you.
Yet is not you.
Let go of your sensible fear.
Drop your worried shawls.
Shine.
Shine your brightest and do not apologise for one second of it.

Just passing on the message from the lady with pink flowers in her hair and at her feet.

Bright Blessings xxx

f you want to learn more about what I do check out my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice. If you want to buy bespok pagan goods pop to LucyDrake&Co on Etsy.

The Voiceless Mouth

The Voiceless Mouth

"Western civilization, at its root, indoctrinated shame around the feminine anatomy, and by extension sexuality, and we still carry that shame in unconscious ways. The male nude body is so normalized in heroic art that it doesn’t shock or shame. But this is bigger than anatomy; it’s an argument for a way of thinking. The heroic male struts his stuff; the woman, even the sexualized woman, hides hers away."

 While the author has noticed something, the removal of the female genitals, I think it is deeper. It comes back to Mary Beard's idea about women's voice in the ancient world and the idea of the "silent public women" and how a "man" is allowed or should speak. If you haven't watch Mary Beard's lecture I urge you to do so. Women in the classical world have been called bitches that yap, cows that low loudly and the like from the beginning of literature, why would sculpture in this culture be any different?

 The vulva (that misunderstood and devil's doorway) is powerful. It speaks.

It still speaks, from monthly menses pictures deleted from Instagram to punitive pornography laws that have gender ideas of what is unacceptable coming out of a woman body but not out of a man. 

What I find fascinating is the male response from this article. I know, never read the comments, right?  Largely a male response it ranges from "Shut up cunt" (how appropriate) to"damned if I do, damned if I don't". The former reviling the female in all forms echoing Socrates disgust for the female in all forms and the later trapped in the place of longing and desire verses social (at least mainstream) and cultural "death". This longing (the disgust and reviling of all things female while still unfortunately the mainstream, whether overt or not) is interesting to me. That artists and thinkers are still scared of the establishment view of woman, femininity and female-ness (regardless of gender or biology) but drawn hopelessly towards that silent mouth that sings gives me hope.

Interestingly Celtoid cultures wore torcs to honour their mother's line, echoing the vuvlic birch collar they passed through to be born. A far cry from the Barbie style baldness in Greek and the Roman, and then Western art. Maybe we need to un-learn our ideas of civilisation, of primitive, and see instead that cultures that harm half the population, cull babies like garbage, and torture those who are sick or different, are not civilised at all.
 

Bright Blessings xxx

If you want to learn more about what I do check out my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice. If you want to buy bespok pagan goods pop to LucyDrake&Co on Etsy.

Meditation Monday

Meditation Monday

Most Sunday's I swim, which means I have to try and rouse everyone early (ish) and get organized and then swim before or around lunch time. Then we eat a light lunch, I might nap afterwards and then I teach, make things and if I can stay awake listen and chat on CJMars excellent pagan show The Blackthorn Path. Gayla and Mumsy B are really great.

Sunday for me if a day of doing which tends to mean that Monday, Moonday, I don't want to. Monday is cool and blue day. Monday wants me to dwell in that dreaming place. That quiet between space of meditation and breath.

It isn't a sad place, just quiet. Were I not to be in this place I would want to eat Monday sundae's and watch films or read fantasy books.

I have already done some deep meditation work this morning. Already whispered the song of harmony with the world and all in it.

I believe Monday is a day we should be gentle on ourselves and each other. We feel things more keenly. We are more sensitive and in some cases fragile. As some people grouch and snap, forgive them. Monday, Moonday has them in her sway. Some people are sleepy or not awake, forgive them too, the dreaming calls them.

Don't forget to forgive yourself too. 

Some amethyst might help, or if you really have to focus some fiery carnelian. Be soft and don't fight against it. Nap if you can, or just be aware of that thin layer of moon dust covering everyone's eyes. Making you yawn, making you want to dream.

If you get the chance sit and meditate with water and moonstone. Allow yourself to fall deeply into yourself and find what is hidden there. Monday is a day for treasure found deep, deeper, down inside your self. 

If you feel like crying, take some time and let the tears flow. The moon moves the salty depths far bigger than you. It's okay. It is not the end of the world. It's just Monday. Tomorrow will be different, brighter, sharper and with an edge. 

Until then, forgive, accept and let it flow.

Bright Blessings xxx  

If you like what I do and want to know more you can buy my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice here and buy and order bespoke witchy wares here at our glorious little shop  LucyDrake&Co.

For Free

For Free

As an artist, a writer and a teacher and witch, you would be suprised how often people want to take from me, for free. 

"You will get good press." says someone.

"You make it out of natural stuff any way!" Says another.

"You might be a fraud/pervert/weirdo." Says another. 

Yeah, my degree cost me nothing but fresh air, and my tools, and time, oh I kind of need to eat and pay for my broadband...

"Uh, money for magick is wrong and dirty..."

But poverty is fine?

Is my work beautiful? Artful, full of magick and wisdom and light? 

Then I deserve to be paid for it. As it stands it is far cheaper than some, and if I factored in my hours of work (at say the minimum wage) you would not be able to afford it.

You want what I have, then be fair. Be polite. If you have to save up, ask me to reserve something, I will. 

If you want to do a course or workshop and money is an issue, send me a message and we can try and work something out.

I value what I do.You seem to too but being able to have a living wage is important to me.

So buy my books, (good luck asking Amazon to give it to you for free), buy my incense and wands, my charms and TK's runes. Please note that my Goddesses cost what £8.50 and I have seen similar items on sale for £60. 

My blog is free. It gives me space for my writer's voice, allows me to speak to folks all over the world. Keeps the juices flowing, acts like a journal.

If I can help someone, someone in dire need I will. A healing charm, or I'll write a ritual or the like. You are not going to die from lack of runes. Or incense. 

No I don't do free samples. Everything is handmade, mostly to order. I use the best I can because I feel that values my Craft and the forces I work with while I make.

When I visit my friend who makes soap and perfume and moisturizer (Oh it is Divine) I pay for it, happily, because I am showing her I value what she does. If on occasion I am a guinea pig for new stuff, I'm fine with that (mostly) I would never expect her as a small business to give me free things. 

I know the smaller the business the higher the cost on everything. It might be free for me, but it still cost her a lot to make.

So no, no you can't have what I do for for free. 

No I don't care if you don't like it.

Bright Blessings xxx

Accepting the Good

Accepting The Good

So my little blog about self acceptance kind of trigger a load of awesome weirdness. Firstly I was worried would people would be rude or dismissive or even angry I dared accept my amazing-ness. The complete reverse and all the pouring out of positive has been wonderful and overwhelming. 

Yesterday I had a STAGGERING number of people read my blog. Not just the one I wrote yesterday but really old ones too. It was nuts! That hundreds of people were reading my words was...well amazing.

More good news this morning. I was on GoodReads forum (bibliophile) reviewing the last two books I read (The Red Tent and Shaman's Crossing) and I searched for my book and THEY WERE THERE! Granted they were not reviewed and it is only the first edition but I was so pleased!

Even my book of poetry was there!

Speaking of I noticed I often (back in the day) write poetry onto the blog and didn't write it up or keep it anywhere else, I should collect those together sometime soon!

The number of you guys reading this from all over the world touches me greatly. I can't wait to meet you. To maybe teach you. To share my words and ideas with you. I didn't realize how proud I was of this second edition until I got an underwhelming or flat response and I was so... no, it is so good, so much better than the first edition, it has new stuff and diagrams and this... It really does do all it says it will, if you do it!

You can heal, you can forgive, you can learn and grow. Even if you think it is not possible, it is. 

You can.

Some folks have told me that I survived all my pain and sorrow by being strong.

I shake my head, no, I am strong because I survived. That some part of my heart or soul wanted to live, really live through sheer stubbornness and sometimes out of spite of those who kept pushing me down.

Maybe some of that is also down to my work ethic, "sorry I can't die/cry/shrivel I'm far too busy".

I can't remember who it was who told me (I always had an eye) to find something beautiful every day. 

At the time I was sick, miserable and struggling. It helped me a lot. It stuck with me. A sunrise (even from a cold bus) a flower just perfect, what ever it was it made me look for the beautiful. It is in the searching we find ourselves.

It was my times of agony and abandonment I found out myself, I was mine. In owning myself and accepting me, and stopping trying to be like anyone else I created a path of knowing and love that sustained me in even in the deepest darkness.

So if you are hurting, broken, thinking it will never happen for you, right now you are in the fire. A forge that while is unmaking you, is creating the new you. Let go of the impurities given to you by life and family and where you are from. Let go of it all. Be a mess for a while. Don't hold it together. 

Let go. Find out who want to be. Embrace your amazing. Embrace your skills and qualities. Hold onto your good and let go of everything else.

This might upset people. People only like us when we are _____ are not worth having around.

Also people change and grow. People who want you to stay the same will change on you and you will have lost for no reason.

You are amazing. If you don't see it, keep searching. Look for the beautiful. The beautiful is as often found in the imperfect and the perfect. Keep searching. You will find.

It won't be what I found, but then it could never be the same. We all dance differently.

Bright Blessings xxx

If you want to know about what and how I teach my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice. My Etsy shop LucyDrakeandCo is here and I can make bespoke items for you.

 

Amazing!

Amazing!

I am amazing! It took a good poke from a wonderful friend and an amazing healer to remind me and this is uncomfortable for me but here goes.

I am amazing. In a family and situations that would have broken a lot of people (it hurt and injured very deeply and I will always bear the scars) I remain.

I am amazing because I have forgiven crimes against my body, spirit and soul. This was not easy for me, nor was it something I was taught to do, but rather something I strive to learn and work at often.

I am amazing because I have a disability that makes reading, writing and maths (especially maths) really hard to learn, but I pushed myself to learn and to write with no support or help all the way up to degree level.

I am amazing because I have such a strong work ethic, to the point of stupidity almost, but I am learning to be, to dwell, as well as do.

I am amazing because I study the world and continue to learn as much as I can about all I can from herbs and mushrooms to dance and anthropology. I study and learn every day. I have a gift for anatomy and would have gone into nursing (I read nursing degree books for pleasure) had my illness not floor me.

I am amazing because after all the pain and struggles I take a gleeful delight in the beautiful magickal ordinary. From bubbles (who can be angry at the world that has bubbles?) and the tiny flowers, spiders webs in the morning light, the sensual world of smell and taste.

I am amazing because I write. I am really good.

I am amazing because I have a wide field of knowledge and skills. I learned wildcraft and foraging, birthing of animals, how to use a shovel, how to spot wield, mix concrete and cement. This do not exclude as a wealth of academic knowledge from history and anthropology, to anatomy and medical diagnosis. Then there is theology, meditation, healing, spiritual concepts and understandings. Then things like cooking, dancing, martial arts, gardening, massage of many many kinds. Then my artist training from poetry to photography, painting to writing plays.

I am amazing because I can take these separate skills and weave them together to create new. I see common threads those who do one, or another might miss.

I am amazing because I don't want to horde my knowledge (okay my cornbread recipe maybe) but delight in sharing and teaching others. I love to watch someone grasp something not only in their minds but in their bodies.

I am amazing because when I feared that the world was too large for me to change, I instead decided to change myself and help the world and people and animals in it every day the best way I knew how; one cup of tea and slice of cake at a time.

I am amazing because after all the pain and heart break all I want to do is love and cherish. To offer kindness even when it is perceived as something manipulative or grubby.

I am amazing because my instinct is to heal the hurts. Help those in need and protect those who can not protect themselves. It is who I am.

I am amazing because in a world that wants me silent and obedient I stand and sing and I teach my daughter to stand too.

I am amazing because I talk to dead people, faery's, diva, Goddesses, Gods, angels and all manner of unseen things without really thinking about being special, or better than anyone else.

I am amazing because I temper irritation of other people's ignorance with kindness and compassion instead of rage.

I am amazing because I accept the good I am given, revealing in simple things.

I am amazing because I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter, even though I had no model. My mothering is a core strength and integral part of who I am as a person without resorting "playing Mummy". It is expanding all my being and gave me gifts and love I could never imagine.

I am amazing because I understand everyone is. Everyone can be amazing and for the life of me I will never understand why they choose not to be.

Bright Blessings xxx

To workshop?

To workshop?

So...

               Do I run some workshops based on The Key? I have been quiet because I have been either writing handfastings (aw lovely) or off my face on cocodamol in bed with pain in my knee.

I am much better now due to rest and some amazing healing from my friend Lucy.

Anyway the subject of running a "school" or course that follows my book came up over the weekend and it has been rattling around my brain like a pea in a bucket. That and weird dreams about fishing (never fished in my life).

I have run workshops before. I have found them rather fun but struggled to find reliable venues (in my area).

I figured before I did a "whole course" that maybe a series of workshops would ease me in gently.

I wrote about teachers quite passionately in a pagan studies group who felt that pagan teachers should not earn money from teaching and I got really cross.

In so doing all my arguments against evaporated, because I am seasoned teacher. I know what I am doing. Being paid to share that is not wrong or beneath me, or creepy. Like for like (bartering with students) is wonderful in theory but most don't even wash their own coffee cup. In the modern age, a lot of people only respect money. 

The question then becomes, do I do them on-line, a mix of mediums, where, when, and the dreaded...how much? 

A lot of that will come down to the number of people interested of course. The cost of travel and venue prices.

In my mind I already have 3 days worth of workshops (do I run them back to back or separately) Focusing on Mind, the Body and Spirit. Rather than splitting the groups into Novice, Acolyte and Priest/ess and teaching them separately I thought it would be cool to mix them as groups to give some nice cross pollination of experience in each group.

Well I am off to gently (super gently) putter about in the garden while TK cuts runes and sands wands and Witchling plants my pumpkins. 

Bright Blessings xxx

Moonlight, Star shine and Weddings!

Moonlight, Star shine and Weddings!

So my teacher (CW) and his wife (MB) came up to visit this weekend (for a long weekend) and it has been crazy but good.

We did a simple ritual on Friday evening and did a lot of healing for all of us (including witchling and TK). It was moving and beautiful.
I used quite a formal cleansing, and casting as well as call the Watchtowers as well as the elements themselves). I read the full Charge and TK read the full Charge of the God I have written for their handfasting. We drummed and sang, we chanted and span the room right round it was wonderful. Then up to Manchester Saturday to the pagan/alt/gamer shops. It was a lovely day and TK was a hero and he helped a girl who fainted while we were there!

I did a lot of cooking. I did a lot of eating! They brought the sun with them and the weather has been lovely (ie not shitting it down).

I got the green light about the handfasting I had written and I got a poke today about the other couple and I am busy (well not this second) writing theirs. It is slightly more fraught with folks I don't know as well.

I was surprised to be asked how much I charge...not ever having charged a damn thing!

I managed to not win a single card game we played all weekend, got a book I've wanted for a while (for 50p) found out I can knock out an amazing cornbread in around 25 minutes!

It was quite blissful!

I've eaten a little chocolate but it has been a cornbread/gumbo/pulled pork weekend for me!

I am looking forward to being in Hastings for May day!

Weddings!

Weddings!

I am supposed to be resting after some vigorous martial arts last night, but I am writing, not one, but two weddings! It is always a joy to be part of someone's big day.
Both parties are already legally married and older and are head over heels in love. That is the best. I won't do handfasting with folks taking it to the dark place.
I have lost friends for a time when I have refused to handfast when I knew violence was already in the relationship. (Yet when it ended they saw I was right not to tie them together) and the friendship continues and grows.
It is still a challenge but it is a good one, and I think being more mature helps. That doesn't always have anything to do with age mind you.
I am lucky enough to have many old handfastings around to draw on, especially one my teacher performed. Nothing quite like old books, from Books of Shadows and old notes, as well as years of research.
So today I will remember fondly, maybe rub the odd tear from my face as I sit and write surrounded by books on my bed.

For love is peace, as well as passion. It is faith and surrender to something greater than ourselves. It is the joining of people and families. Love is sacred and Divine.

Bright Blessings xxx