#goddess

#goddess

Objectifying and Liberating.

Someone needs to sit down and have a nice long chat with those helpful boys at #Instagram. While they tell us that they are removing images "for our own good", to protect us from pornography they might want to ban some other words before they ban #goddess. #cunt for example, or #vagina, perhaps?
Just a suggestion.
No, we poor, delicate creature need to be protected.
Also shamed because ew period, ew gross.
Oh my GAWD is that a nipple, is it just sat there?
It isn't even on a FAKE breast covered in suntan oil, or a thin white t-shirt. EW.

You see boys, (isn't making sweeping gender assumptions kind of off putting) while you say you are trying to protect us, what you are doing is censoring women voices, women's bodies and their #goddess, regardless of belief.
If an image doesn't fit into the Western ideas or body ideas what a woman "should" be you remove or censor it.
The naked body is not in it's self an erotic image.
The nipple of a woman is not some evil thing that is going to corrupt people, most people have seen them before, mostly their mother's.
Breast are owned by both genders but are a deeply personal part of a woman's life and story. They change a she changes. Grow, and shrink, and rise and fall. Are covered in all kinds of marks.
They are not "fun bags" for consumption. They are not "for" anyone but the woman who owns them.
They are not to sell cars, or burgers, or beer.
A woman's body does not belong to those looking at her. It belongs solely, and soulfully to her.

Seriously women, more often than not, do not choose what they wear, how they have their hair, or make-up (even on dates) to impress men. They wear clothes for a thousand subtle reason (even down the size of their heels) as a code that women tend to read in each other. The same is true of make-up (everyone woman has different persona with different make-up looks if they wear make-up). It is a code that sends signals to other women, not seen by most men at all. Oh she is wearing red lipstick? She MUST want to have sex! Nope. Just as likely she is on her period, has a zit she is trying to draw attention away from or even liked the colour as it matched her scarf.
It isn't about you.
I feel like I need to say it again.
It is not about YOU.
Is that a new dress/skirt/perfume?
Maybe, or maybe it is awfully close to laundry day and she only has her "good" dresses left.

You see women, and this is a shocker; are people! They find their own bodies beautiful, powerful and magickal and some men do too. They don't feel the need to own them, or turn them into objects and things. They don't have to talk to them like children that need "protecting" from themselves.

Oh no, sit down Instagram boys, I am NOT finished.
#goddess is not only used to empower women and girls, sometimes there might be nude images (but they might not be sexual, and there maybe sexual images that are not nudes) and you need to deal with that rationally and sensitively.
You can no more divide the Divinity from a woman's body that you can from the land. They are intimately connected. It is this very power that is the uneasiness you feel.
#goddess is not simply about women's bodies but something much older, much deeper.
Goddess is powerful.

She is ancient. Even if you do not reinstate the hashtag She won't be going somewhere. She is the moon, the earth, the stars. She won't be silenced any more.

Bright Blessings xxx

Do remember to BUY the book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice and if you want your own Goddess Spirit Doll pop to the shop on Etsy Lucy Drake & Co.

Feminism and Philosophy

Feminism and Philosophy

Only 25% of philosophy posts are occupied by women in UK Universities.

Why could this be?

Well philosophy is not seen as a subject that is "female friendly", but make no bones about this, it has been seen this way since the Ancient Greeks. You know, the ones who believed that only "bitches" barked in public.The very foundation of this discipline is based around a certain way of thinking, speaking and acting that embodied "maleness". Do check out the Mary Beard lecture (funny, smart and informative.)

Myself, I was put off philosophy but the students I knew studying the subject (one of the classic combo of my University was writing and philosophy). Again they were all male. There had all kinds of beliefs and backgrounds but they were all greasy and very smug.When our writing lecturer was found to have no background in writing at all, she bribed them all to turn up to her class with beer and cigarettes. It sickened me to my stomach, because it worked.

Of my own free will because I wanted to know I went and researched philosophy as an adult. Again it wasn't that I didn't understand the concepts, or the metaphors. It didn't bother me the the entirety of Western "thought" was that of men, with some very odd ideas of "normal". Or that the few female philosophers I knew of were edited out of the history completely.
It was it's detachment from the world I suppose. Don't get me wrong some of the French guys were pretty wild! Yet as a pursuit it was detached from the physical, from form, from the land and the body.
It was bloodless.

This detachment is seen as "perfect" or desirable, and yet this, this I believe above all else is why philosophy has the biggest problem with women. The dispassionate, disembodied was the ideal state, because philosophy was about the mind, the consciousness.
"I think therefore I am."
It subjugates the physical. It subjugates and makes one kind of thinking and being preferred over another.
In this way it excludes. In this way it makes women (and men of feeling and form) divorce part of themselves to be included in the arguments. Persisting the kinds of arguments that are likely to happen. Creating an environment of competitive, repetitive ideas, ideals and blinkers.
Of course this divorce of awareness, consciousness and physical form is quite alien to most people.
For me it boils down to this.
"I am, therefore I think." or more clearly to me, "I am and I am aware, echoing that I am."

Philosophy has a problem with women. It is not one that is easily fixed. It is not one that academically will be transformed until philosophy wakes up to the totality of existence, awareness and new possibilities. Of course teaching about more female thinkers, aiming classes at both/all/mixed genders would get some much needed fresh eyes into the mix.

Bright Blessings xxx

Go and buy my book! The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice NOW!
Or visit the shop Lucy Drake & Co.

Gnostic Magick?

Gnostic Magick?

This is something that is still rattling around my brain so if it this a bit raw, my apologies.

You see I don't really know what to call it and well Gnostic, seemed the best word I could find.

A long time ago, while I was ready The Golden Bough; which is thick with ideas, concepts and a wealth of ideas, rituals and worlds that no longer exist, it said something that made me stop.

It was an interesting idea.

The later premises and context not withstanding.

It said that before there was anything. 

Before there there was civilization, before religion or even stone tools there was a Magic(k) Age.

Now THAT is an interesting idea.

To the writer it was a proof of how backwards and "primitive" Magic(k) and all it's taboo's and rites were. That the superiority of modernity and Western thought was more evolved. Of course Fraud and Jung, and even the first World War were yet to sink this unshakable view. 

Yet think of it.

What if our first tool was this one?

What made me think of this was actually something Alan Moore said in his article for Pagan Dawn this quarter.

"consciousness, preceded by language (and thus art) were all phenomena arising at around the the same momentous juncture of human development and that all of these would have been perceived as magick." 

You see what I mean by Gnostic Magick, is one that one that thinks. One that questions. One that delves deep inside and out into uncomfortable spaces. Within and without.

Is consciousness magickal?

What do we mean by consciousness?

What do we mean by magick?

What real and reality mean when they are both subjective?

How does this inquiry change your practice?

How does it change our belief?

If everything (and nothing) is real, how do we navigate this psychic soup to meaning?

I look forward to read Alan Moore and Steve Moore's book, Moon and Serpents Bumper Book of Magic. 

I am not looking for answers.

I look forward to new questions, and maybe new ideas I have found before but not mined deeply, or not even dreamed of.

The dumbing down of Magick has many consequences we can not yet imagine. Yet I believe there are people who think, maybe not like I do, but those that question, not through lack of faith (I have seen too much to NOT believe), but because they want to know.

They wish to walk deeper into the places we have not looked. Ask questions of the oldest of bones, in the newest of places.

I will meditate on it.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to buy the book and visit the shop.

Psychics are so cool.

Psychics are so cool.

After the initial burst of gratitude and love from being alive and home, exhaustion kicked in. So too did all the great (please note this is sarcasm) amount of psychic weirdness.
Well not weirdness, normal for me.
I am sure some people thinks this makes me feel "special" and "wow" and ooooh. No. Nope. Not at all.
It makes me tired.
Kinda grumpy truth be told.

Yesterday I got jolted awake by someone slapping the back of my head so hard (all of which I felt) making a needle I was holding in my mouth go right through the roof of my mouth.

Not fun. I felt all fuzzy and not quite headache all day from that one.

Moving on. This morning. At least it was an interesting story, but my back is kinda sore from the bullet.

"I" am in a Nazi prison, but it a movable "camp" not a fixed one. I am dressed as a nun and praying in Latin as the officer takes off my habit and beats me. The soldiers look terrified and uncomfortable. Some of them begin to pray under their breath. I don't know what made me think of it, but I start to sing psalms. We lurch and stop. I hear gunfire. The officer order the soldiers to see what is the hold up. I hear a familiar voice. A woman. I make a grab for the knife at his belt. I stab him just twice, under his arm and in his neck. Betty is at the door. She lets me out and we put on soldiers uniform on, then our nuns habits. I find my gun. We walk through a village. It is busy with people and the is melting snow.
We find our hidden motor bike and get strip off our habits. We laugh. We even smoke a cigarette together as we speed down the hills. I can still feel some of the documents of paper pressed against my skin around my belly. We get off the bike and head on foot up a steep bank. I bury the camera in the green wet ground. We crest the bank..."

I have just had a big ass salt bath so I can maybe get some peace. I will also be simmering herbs and oils all day to try and keep the dead more firmly the other side of The Veil.

Being psychic is a gift. Yet not one that that is cool or even particularly fun for the most part.

I am not quite ready to write about my adventures the other side of the Veil while in hospital, I will probably share some of those in my other blog.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to check out the shop and buy the book!

Hospital

Hospital.

So I have been in hospital this week which is why I have not been on g+ or written blogs or anything.

Hospitals are weird places full or rules and procedures that make sense only to themselves.

I am doing better.

Glad to be home and sleeping in my own bed. Not being a human in cushion. 

Glad and full of gratitude and love.

So much love.

Bright Blessings xxx

Life is Bitter and life is sweet

Life is Bitter

and life is so sweet.

Gratitude is the fulcrum of positivity. It helps you see that what you have, what is around you is not bleak and barren place.

You have hands to hold on with?

To touch the world?

To make music with?

To create with?

To cradle those you care for?

But the mistakes, the pain? Ah the pain.

The people I hurt and have hurt me...

Pain and pleasure.

Sensation and learning.

Birthing experience.

All so mixed up.

Like pain in your fingertips

From playing guitar until your fingers turned black.

It feels good.

It touches the memory of that expanded state.

Lips bruised from kissing.

Wind burn from being in the snow

Or too near a fire.

I should have seen.

Ah you see NOW!

What a gift!

Eyes to see the world.

Beautiful pools of soulful vision.

To look.

To see.

To been seen.

Bright Blessings xxx

Misty eyed views of the Past.

Misty eyed views of the Past.

I have a book about the Mabinogion by a reasonably reputable pagan author. Yet as I try to read this book (it is a bathroom book) I find myself reading just a little and then finding my eye twitching.
I find there to be a lot of opinion dressed as fact, and worse than that (I really I no expert) there are glaring white washes about this "Welsh" mystical text.
The author seems completely unclear, either through ignorance or cultural embarrassment as to why these stories in these valuable books were "forgotten", until they were re-discovered by a plucky English woman (like the author?) in the 19th century.
The books they speak of such as The Red Book of Herges and the White book of Rhydderch were stories, treasures from a time of Celtic, or Celtoid culture was once wide spread over much of what we now think of as Scotland, England and Wales.
Wales, did not forget or lose these stories (down the back of the sofa?) they were stolen. They were removed deliberately, just as the Welsh language was harangued, harassed, butchered and stolen. Like our lands were pushed back, our Royal lines all but wiped from existence. From Anglo-Saxons, to Norman Kings, "The Welsh" were pushed, occupied, bullied, set to other parts of the Empire for fighting for food an basic rights, if not just hung.
Our words, our myths and stories about our Sovereignty (over our lands) and place within it was a powerful weapon, one best not left in Welsh hands.
While some of the tales do take place in and around Wales and it's glorious mystical and very real landscapes, these stories also speak of a time when we ruled much of the Isle of the Mighty.
Rhiannon did not happen to lose her child, it was stolen, by some monstrous force.
The wells that were occupied to stop people drinking from them in the village I went to school, were English soldiers. The older remembered of the community when I was in school still remembered it. You could out of spite or maybe religious solace) such a sponge of Vinegar. My school was on Vinegar Hill.
Now I get that these texts are mythical full of deep, soulful meaning. Amazing themes, archetypes and so on. Tales that are in their own way nurturing and healing.
I understand there draw. I understand how they might shape someone's path.
Yet viewed out of context you miss not only there importance to the larger world but to a groups of people. Ones that are still subject to a huge amount of racism, ignorance and hatred.

I don't know if I especially have a point.

Bright Blessings xxx

The Power of Stories

The Power of Stories

Mabinogion Musings

I was lucky enough to study with Dr Gwilym Morrus on-line a year or so ago for a short course on Welsh Mythology. It was intense and very uplifting. It both gave me new knowledge about history, place and symbols, and deeper appreciation of the vast wealth of things I know next to nothing about.

As a writer and poet I have always had this feeling, or knowing that there was something mythic, mystic and "other" about writing. When I discovered Women Who Run With the Wolves in my late teens the idea of psychological and healing narratives came into my awareness.

Years later researching depression and mental illness I found this idea of personal and group (or outer) narrative as negative structure or boundary that can fracture.

 Stories (like plays) can be psychological pysho-dramas playing out our internal world outside of ourselves, so we can be seen, recognised and most importantly, transformed.

Stories shift things inside our own narratives, the stories of who we are, and move us.That movement can simply be one of recognition. "I am like that", for both good or ill, and in so seeing that insight we can choose to change.

The Mabinogion is interesting. It is interesting if you like a good story (or 20). It is interesting if you are interesting in mythic, in ancient and in Celtoid cultures. It is interesting is you are interested in stories and poetry. It is also interesting if you interested in ritual, performance and healing narratives.

I have had this feeling (not one born out by fact) that the Mabinogion is a collection or Medicine Wheel of stories, about stories. That they are tales about rituals, spaces and practices made mythic to preserve some of their knowing, maybe even as an inside joke. There these odd little nods that seem to break the fourth wall that speak to this awareness.

While predominantly for the consumption of younger men and boys (much like a mythical version of Exciting Stories for Boys my Dad still had copies of when we cleared his mother's house) full of adventure and lessons in what was "good" and culturally appropriate behaviour; women are everywhere, powerful and un-tamable.

It also hints that there maybe an equal but separate court for wives and women where they told their own stories. These, of course, were not written down. (I can only imagine how lewd, funny and depraved they would have been!)

Many of the stories, though set in familiar places (at least to those who were commissioning the writing of the books) the stories read as both psycho-drama, and ritual initiation process. While the symbols of "The Grey Man Hunting" or "King of the Otherworld" brush the hem of very ancient archetypes, they also as the guide, the Shaman, the Priest with whom you must trade places. 

A journey must be undertaken (you must go and seek and hunt), you must confront and respect the ragged stranger (who is really a King). You must follow and trade places, wear his face (a mask, a set of antlers) and lie a bed with the most beautiful Queen in the (under)World (is she Goddess, or Priestess?), but not lay a kiss on her.

 You must fight the "dark" King, but not give into frenzy or rage. 

Then you must return. Wiser, better and whole.

This is a great story, and is the basis of many many stories, but it is also the basic structure of an initiation ritual. A spirit quest. A coming-of-age quest.

The more I look at these tales (especially the core myths of the Four Branches) the more I see a series of rituals, made into narratives, mixed with humour and local places. Those who knew the rites would have a different understanding than those who did not. I wonder if they were as much for the Bards to keep their own rites and rituals alive, as they were for the audiences to learn, heal and grow.

My preferred version of the Mabinogion is one by Sioned Davies.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to buy my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice and to check out the shop on Etsy. 

Flags: Symbols and Banners

Flags:

Symbols and Banners.

Fair to say there have been flags and banners all over the place the last few weeks. Their symbology and meaning creating much debate, anger and deep feeling.
A symbol, by it's design is a paradoxical and slippery thing full of many meanings to many people. It can have deep cultural significance, be both loved and hated, a symbol of love, or freedom, or hate, or all of those things at the same time depending on who is reading it.
The thing about a symbol is that you can't have a "correct" or "right" view of it. Nor can you simply wipe away aspects of it you don't like simply because you wish them not to be there.
The Confederate Flag has a problem right now in so much (and as far as I can tell). It is the similar problem to the St Georges Cross (English flag). The problem is the people who tend to wave them around, put them on their cars, hang them in their gardens tend to be, well, utter violent racist dicks.
Now regardless of it's long history, it's multitude of meaning, and so on and so on, what people remember is "Oh, dicks!"
Now the people who rightly or wrongly see this as something else, a historical and poignant reminder of some nostalgic past glory, get all huffy and weird and try and correct the people who have, for the most part, had to live around people waving it and around, shouting and generally being dicks. They have this overwhelming desire to correct people to it's "real" meaning.
This is the mistake. If this flag has some deep seated beautiful message you want to share, don't try and convert us. Nope it won't work. What you need to do is honestly address is the behaviour of those waving it around being racist dicks.
You can not erase the common and over riding message of violence and hate until you deal with those who use this image as a banner underwhich this behaviour is normal, right and good.
I might also suggest, that the "I'm not racist but..." look really closely in a mirror.
This symbol is being used to terrorise and hurt people. Right now. It is being used as a cape to dress up violent hatred. It is being used as a way to make appalling, and inexcusable actions political rather than simply mindless hate.

Rainbows

I have always been found of rainbows, as my vintage Rainbow Bright doll smiling down at me will attest to.

I like songs about rainbows.
I like rainbows, there is something beautiful about them, something poignant, fragile and full of magick. As LGBT symbols I don't think it could be more perfect. It is a symbol of peace, hope and comfort.
Of course sometimes a rainbow is still just a rainbow. Sometimes folks just like the pretty colours and some people get offended by it's LGBT associations.
This what happens with symbols. They become infused with new meanings all the time. Attached to those who use them, wave them and display them. You can not separte them from meanings once added.
I have never been to a LGBT Pride parade. It simply isn't something I have exprienced. Yet I find the rainbow more beautiful, more full of meaning and if I had to choose a flag (other than the dragon) I would choose this one.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to buy my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice or check out our shop on Etsy. 

What Makes a Coven?

What Makes a Coven?

Moots

Firstly, a room of witches or magick uses does not a coven make! Most often these groups or meetings are know as that, Moots, or meetings. Sometimes they may hold space for rituals, sometimes they market the season with orchard blessings (Wassailing) or Bilberry picking, some might be just sitting around in a pub. A light hearted moot can be a lot of fun, especially if child friendly.
Down sides are that anyone can turn up and say they are anything. Some might have the stuff to back it up but that also doesn't mean they are trust worthy or a good person. Also at least in this country/area most moots are held in pubs at night.

Open Circles

From social gatherings small groups from different paths and ideologies might want to explore a ritual, rite or have a need for some healing, or even some teaching.Some maybe a regular thing, more often it is a response to something one of or many need. These groups fulfill a need within an area or community.  Again these groups can have problems with the power hungry, weirdo's, untrustworthy folks, but they can also be breeding grounds for cliques that can ruin great moots too.

While doing any kind of magick with someone else weaves your magickal essence with another's, this kind of group is often young in experience (if not age). They fail to see that Carl (who is summoning demons on the weekend) is using their magick to do so, and that the consequences of that magick happen to everyone. They spring up quickly and often die or implode quickly too.

Circles

A slightly more formal group that may meet once a month, or even once a week. Their paths are similar (no two paths are exactly the same) and they know each other well, though may or may not socialize outside of the circle. This may be because it is a secret (in the broom closet) or to do with time. While is has the same opportunity for abusive situations, cliques and so on, there tends to be a closer bond. More trust and less interest in outside magickal meets, moots and so on. Teaching circles are quite common as are circles who have a specific design or function. (Healing, protection of a place, worship of a kind of spirit or Deity.) Circles tend to be quite stable but have the problem that they tend people over periods of transitions in their lives. This leads to core members and those who join, get what they need and leave.

A Coven

A coven can start in a few different ways. Again it can be an organic process from running regular circles that the core members decide they wish to work more closely and intensely with each other. They might not have a goal in common, except to do magick with each other on a regular basis. What is regular for one coven (meeting once a week) is smothering for another (two or three times a year).

The other way is the more "traditional" form that a group or family have been working within a coven structure and over time some people leave, some people join. There are always roughly the same amount of people and they are highly vetted before new people are added (or at least should be). When covens work, they are beautiful, and powerful, uplifting and satisfying. Covens can last years, generations in fact. However if it implodes (couple meeting and or cheating, a sudden illness or departure, even a death or birth) they really implode. 

A coven is a decision to do magick with each other, for each other (and your extended connections). It is a magickal contract, quite a binding one. Most of a coven is quite different from each other (rather than quite the same) and fulfill different but important roles and the like.

Over View

I have at one time or another been involved with, taught in or been a part of all of these kind of groups. I enjoyed all of them at one time or another too. Yet the coven is by and far my favourate. I like the routine. I like the family of magick not blood aspect to it. Being part of a team doesn't mean you won't practice magick alone (daily practice people, daily practice!) it means you have a family when you need one.

Internet covens tend to be more like open circles than physical covens. The internet is great but it can to hard to get the measure of people properly without sitting in a room with them, looking them in the eye and so on. Yet they have an increasing large presence and as such are more than worthy of note.

All of the same problems found IRL can be found on-line with added bonus of catfishing too!

Yet they do give some fantastic places to learn about new things, old things and how you could be.

You are likely to make mistakes. Learn from them. Other people's eyes on a subject allow us to see things from a different perspective than simply our own. This in it's self is why connecting with others is a great idea.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to buy my book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice or visit the Etsy shop (while you still can), or even check out some of my g+ groups too!