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.