Types of "Wicca"?

Types of "Wicca"?

At some point or other some sweet soul will ask you about your path. This means this label-less connection to what is Divine to you will be judged on the words that next come out of your mouth.

I'd like to say that pagans are less judgey than other faith but that just isn't true. 

The thing is before the internet (was there such a primitive time?), exploring this meant finding a teacher, a pagan book shop, or a moot.

You would chat over tea, coffee or beer, explore some open circles and decide from there what felt right. 

You might work with a group or even a coven with slightly different beliefs because they were the only people practicing in your area.

It wasn't perfect or ideal. It was no less judgmental, I can promise you that! However it gave seekers something invaluable.

Experience.

You can not simply say "I don't like people so I can't be a Gardnerian or Alexandrian."

For a start most folks of these two branches of the Wiccan tree are not people people either. Secondly you can not get your brain around what a circle or coven is like, especially an Alexandrian one, if you have never been in one.

In my experience (and I walked a Gardnerian path first) I found that it is very inclusive and works very well. It works with the idea of balance, seasonality and has a broad and inclusive acceptance of personal Divinity. I have known Gardnerians who were hard polytheists, soft polytheists, an even atheists (who believed that the circle, Goddess and God were internal psychological constructs) working well and friends together.

Alexandrians are also a mixed bag. Again they are quite happy to work with folks who might be Fae, Hecitite or any other "faith" so long as the codes and rules of a circle are adhered to. 

This sounds restrictive, and it is.

However it is restrictive the same way a martial art is. The rituals are like patterns, or kata practiced over again. Knowing the steps of the dance perfectly allows something to happen, something that doesn't happen often. Something transcendent and Divine happens.

Some paths are like dancing in a club or bar. Some are like a jazz solo. Some are like contemporary dance companies. Alexandrian is like ballet.

While the idea of meeting people, in the flesh, can be terrifying you simply can not learn the steps by reading about it in your armchair. I am aware that Gardnerian and Alexandrian currently are "not cool". The idea of having something formal and communal is seen as stuffy or difficult. It is difficult but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Even if it is terrible. Even if you find it really isn't your thing, then at least you know. Magick and faith are especially quite a physical as well as a spiritual experience. To smell the incense. To feel the world and circle spin as you dance. The energy of people open-heartedly working together. 

To say a path "isn't for you" when you have never experienced it is like people who do eat certain foods. 

"Oh  I'd hate it."

How can you never know if you don't taste it?

Or even if you only try it once?

My husband had a long list of "food he hated". I and do mean long. 11 years into the marriage ( we will have been married 15 years this May) and I finally got him to try my scrambled eggs.

"Oh, these are great! Oh I don't like shit eggs!" 

So sometimes it's not the path, but those who were there, or even who you were at the time.

Humans are social animals and group ritual work is important.

There are lots of good resources for people exploring their paths now. A Witches Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar is a good and intelligent place to learn about the Gardnerian path, but you could also read books by Gerald Gardner himself. Anything by Louis Borne is pretty good too.

I am blessed enough to have a full Alexandrian book of Shadows. Typed in the sixties I think. My teacher passed it down to me and I will pass it on too. 

These are precious links now. To things and a past that seem dated but are valuable. I also have my teachers, mentor and teacher's ring. 

You can't get that from a book.

You can only join the dance.

Bright Blessings xxx

Ouija Boards

Ouija Boards

"I messed around with a Ouija board and weird/bad/scary thing happened and...."

Talking or Spirit boards

Talking or spirit boards have been around in some form for many years but the recognisable board first became popular with mediums and seances in the late 1800's. As a medium I have never needed to use a Ouija board, however I can see it's benefits over something like a pendulum or tarot cards for poorer or amateur mediums. It is simple to use for clients who might find other kinds of divination or just "raw" spirit talk too much.

The thing is in skilled hands it is a reasonable safe tool, especially if wrapped in cloth or placed in a box after use. The thing is because it seems easy to use it is often the first thing teens use or are drawn to. Teens have a lot of psychic energy, especially teenage girls. They tend to sit with candles, often somewhere "spooky". This thrilling and fear energy is what they are asking for, it is what they radiate. They have no clear idea of someone to speak to or how to protect themselves with spirit guides or guardians. They just tear a whole through the Veil and call something or someone through.

When something starts to happen (as it usually does) they usually freak out and just leg it. Leaving a tear in the Veil and the board somewhere. I have seen attachments by spirit being (they look like ticks or cockroaches to me) some thirty years after messing around with a Ouija board. Closing a tear is more difficult to do but can be done.

Fear, anxiety, ignorance and stupidity do not make a safe spell or ritual environment. I have closed doorways which should never have been opened. Yet I am not bitter at the board. It isn't it's fault. 

Things like smudging the board with sage or frankincense, writing a blessing on the back, working in a properly cast circle and asking protection from (an angel, spirit guide or God/dess) and closing down the board safely will help.

It takes years of training to work with spirit safely and competently, and even then scary or unpleasant things can still happen. Spirit is. It is both glorious white light and all the icky sludge of everything that ever existed.   

Ouija boards are a tool.

If you don't know what you are doing you probably shouldn't use it.

If you do use it, don't do so high or drunk.

If you are high or drunk and something upsetting happens don't just run.

If you do freak out, don't just leave the board.

If you do just leave the board ask a professional medium for help.

If you don't ask a local professional for help and it gets bad, don't come crying to me!

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget you can buy my book The Key here and visit our shop here.

A letter unsent: Dear Dad

I had this letter sat, but it wasn't finished so I never sent it.

Now my Dad is dead too.

Dear Dad,

 I have written and re-written this letter about a hundred times. There a lot of things I admire about you, and things I would not be were it not for you. We love to read, adore music, have a keen interest in alternative medicine (I am a trained and qualified masseuse). Love to cook and eat beautiful meals. Have to do things our own way even if it gets us into confrontation. We get absorbed into our creative projects and are unashamedly ourselves regardless of the consequences.

For me though having my children was the biggest creative project, the biggest artist achievement I could create. I was always aware that your creative path was paramount, that A and I were not your focus. Not that I ever questioned your love for me. Not once. Nor mine for you.

Your jokes were often at other people’s expense, with a cruelty and world view I just don’t subscribe to. My dislike of a person can be just as extreme but their gender, race or country of origin doesn't really colour it.

I have always been proud of our Irish heritage and my daughter carries the O’Malley name. Your desire for a son was not exactly a secret. I always felt I had to earn your time and affection.

The things that drive me nuts about you (and there are plenty) are off set by what I love. Still it was dealing with A when I already had more than most people deal with in a life time that really kept me away. The main reason I didn't visit mum when she was in hospital was not being able to magic up train fare and the fear. Fear that A would turn and bait me over and over again until I ended up in hospital again, like last year.

I like peace and quiet. While I am no longer afraid for my temper it could see me drop dead.

A’s best bait was our “idyllic childhood”. Funnily enough I don’t remember it that way. I remember being scared and angry. I remember hiding anywhere I could for as long as I could so I didn't have to go back into that house. I remember being 8 years old and wanting to die and hating myself for being too afraid to jump. I remember how mum told me I had never been abused. That I had a vindictive imagination. That I was a puppet and a toy. A liar.  Until I thought I was crazy. Until I was so angry and hard I kept everyone away. I remember someone I thought of as a brother try and kiss me when I was 13 and being terrified and alone because who would believe me? I avoided him at all costs, even refusing to get into a car with him, unless I sat behind him even though he taught everyone else to drive.

I was 18 when I began to try and deal with it. Try and unpick everything. It took a long time and the first time I was vulnerable I got hurt again. TK was and is the best man I have ever known. Marrying him was healing and soothing in so many ways. I could be the mother I always wanted to have. Yet nothing is all sweet.

After Kara died I had no skin. When mum called me and started a fight (why did she and A have to do that?) I told her everything. I confronted her.  I told her about my abuse. She said “I believe you believe that is what happened”. As though I could forget the smell of him. As though anyone would want to make that up, least of all a tiny terrified little girl. I would no longer pretend it had never happened to me. I allowed contact for E's sake but one day she took her to the farm. When I found out I began shaking violently until I was sick. I told her she was never to take her there again.

I felt like a step-child. Time and time again I was just amazed at how little I was thought of. How little time, thought or knowledge was given to me . From A ruining Christmas days after Kara’s funeral and mum saying “she’s having a hard time”.

To only being a rest stop where mum had a coffee and a pee on her way to or from visiting A for weekends or days at a time. To not being invited to A’s wedding. To being dragged from a funeral of one of my best friend’s mum “because A’s upset”. To mum screaming down the phone at me in hospital over and over again.

I always try and treat everyone with beingness until they lose the right. I am even a forgiving person. Far more so than most of our family. I wasn't angry at mum. I just couldn't allow her to keep screaming at me. I was sad to learn she was ill (though a couple of weeks late on the news by all accounts).  I grieve for her and honoured her passing as best as I could. Being excluded by A and being told over and over again I “wasn't family”, hurt again. For the most part I leaned on my friends and family. Wrote poetry and made beautiful things because that is how I deal with pain rather than spreading it like a cancer.

I have to resign myself to the fact that the little blonde girl I protected with every ounce of my spirit is gone. It’s odd how everyone thought she was like Dai, to me she was always like a little Nanna (your mum).

I spend my life healing and helping people. Making beautiful things. Writing and meditating. Creating recipes and sharing the love and joy of food with those I care about.

I don’t want or need anything in my life that makes drama, pain or nastiness. I don’t need to parent or make peace between people old enough to know better. Life is too short to be miserable because other people say you “should” be. I don’t know how long I have, I might have another 50 years. I might get another close call like I did this summer. All I know every day (even the painful difficult ones) are a privilege I do not intend to waste. 

Monday Mourning

Monday Mourning

In the last six months I have lost both my parents. Both deaths were unexpected and I have been blocked by my "sister" from attending each funeral.
So I have been overwhelmed by the love and support I have received from my friends but after this happened last time I was a straight out mess.
It was designed to hurt me as much as possible and it really did. Her behaviour has been worse this time when I tried to negate some of her control she had the police contact and basically threaten us (when she was actually breaking laws).
While I can not pretend this wasn't hurtful or painful I doing okay.
Which is kind of what is bothering me. I am sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
While spiritually I really felt my mother's death, even though we were never close there is just this sort of deafening silence which is really weirding me out.
I've done a lot of magick. Cleansing and warding mostly. I haven't had a "funeral" for him in any way, which is maybe why it still doesn't feel "real".
Maybe I just have this well I haven't looked into. I felt so lost and a lot of old pain was dragged bind my mother's bones. That is not to say I am not dreaming of death (more rot than corpses) but equally I wake exhausted dreaming of looking after toddlers in my dreams.
I feel hopeful and positive and I just feel sad about Malice.(<the best description of my sister ever, thank Bryony).
I want to write and do things. I don't feel lost of cast adrift. I feel more focused on my family. I feel so very grateful to TK and to E as well as a whole host of wonderful friends.
I want my sister to be punished and held accountable, because it is right not because I gain anything from it.
There is something very wrong with her and who she was is gone. At some point I have to stop throwing myself on her thorns.
I don't really know how to celebrate my father's life, or mourn his death. I am in no mood for war. I guess I will return to my hobbit hole and make dinner. Or at least eat dinner.

Bright Blessings xxx

Rites of Passage: Initiation

Initiation 

In terms of rites of passage this is one of the most important aspects of spiritual and magickal practice. It is not only a membership to a club that gives you access to different knowledge, both books and practical  research; it is a way of honouring your teachers. It is a transformative process for those dedicated to their spiritual path, which ever path that may be. 

This process is not only something to differ yourself from those who dabble, want to be cool, or to belong. In it's purest form initiation is about surrender as strength; as open hearted trust in something and someone other than yourself. You surrender to your Goddesses and Gods, your Ancestors and spirits to bring you what you need, where you need to be, who you need to be with and to others that need you.

It is not about being visited by a Divine or spiritual force. You might be. yet if you do not make space for these within you, external forces are not going to stick. It is a baptism of sorts. If you do not relinquish your "sins" or your control it is not going to have deep long lasting transformative power. That isn't to say the Gods are not watching, just that if you are speaking how can you hear anything else? In this space where we make promises to forces larger than ourselves; surrendering our lives to the path of love, joy and happiness.

While the ritualized process is important, even just in terms of psycho-drama, this transitional theater mean nothing without embracing total surrender. Even if this surrender happen only for the briefest moment during the process you are far more likely to have a deeper, richer and fuller experience in that one moment than those who believe that power, entitlement and deep wisdom can enter a vessel while it is still full of ego.

A healthy ego is not bad or wrong. Yet if it remains dominant during the initiation process the full transformative power of initiation becomes accessory to it rather than an event where the ego learns to co-operate, loosen it's grip and accept the knowing and power of the rest of the self. It is why we surrender our names and take new ones. Not as a device for ego empowerment but a surrendering of all were were, to become all we could be. A strong clear will and a healthy ego are essential for a good witch but the whole of the person and witch must be nurtured, centered and have a valid voice. To be able to full to do trance work, spirit work and astral journeying witching often requires letting go, surrender as an integral part of all those processes.

So what is a "valid" initiation?
For me it doesn't matter who performs it. It doesn't matter if you are in a couple or a group or a coven,or even if you are alone. A valid initiation is one where it changes you through the power of surrender. What matters is that it changes you. It is not how many bells and whistles you have,or whom you evoke or where. It is all in that moment when you relinquish, let go of who you think you are, your ideas of being in control and then, then something amazing can truly begin. It is still only the start of the journey and one with many levels and layers of surrender yet to come. Only then does the authentic spiritual process begin. If your heart, body and mind grip onto the self so tightly how can anything else enter?

All of the traditional parts of a standard initiation come from symbolically (or can be seen) as ways of surrendering. From the blindfolds, the bindings, the herbs or potions you may take before hand. There is often chanting, ordeal or pain. All of these loosen the idea of control. While they play a part symbolically and literally within a process to empty yourself of desires, fears and thoughts then you are as blind after they remove the blind fold as you were before. Not because I say so but because your illusions make you blind.
 The blindfolds and binds, herbs and what-not are not the essential part. If you are still bound by fear, of a desire to be anything but vulnerable to anyone or anything thing, these are the real bindings. It takes a lot of courage, strength and trust in the process, trust in your faith. In perfect love. In perfect trust. This is not about trusting the people, those along side you conducting the ritual (although why you would do magick with people you don't trust is beyond me) but the perfect love and trust of faith it's self.

Trusting the process, understanding that ritual is cathartic dreaming in the concious world opens up possibilities of self and community we have yet to imagine.

Bright Blessings xxx 

The Poet and the Warrior.

The Poet and the Warrior.

I have to try and balance two very different sides to myself. The Poet and the Warrior. The Warrior always sacred me. It took me years to love her, to respect her. She keeps me alive. Keeps me fighting for others. She is not pretty. Rather than deal with her I often walk away. I would choose silence over wrath. Still sometimes she slips out in unexpected ways. I am at peace with my passion. I even come with a handy visual warning! Ginger!

Still the Poet waxes lyrical. There is something beautiful about that Warrior. An artistry to the movement, war paint, the clearness of deed.

She doesn't get an outing often, my Warrior. When she is seen I feel embarrassed, rather than ashamed. Still there is a vulnerability to being seen. Women especially are told often to "Calm down". This isn't what they mean more often than not. What they usually mean is "Shut up I can't deal with this".

I don't know if it is some primal fear, if it isn't maybe it should be.

She rose her head the last few days with me in the oddest of ways. Ants. Suddenly ants everywhere, but especially in kitchen. I felt unclean. I felt disgusted. I felt like a kid watching a wasp eat your ice-lolly. I felt rage.

Now I can rage almost any activity. So yesterday I rage-cleaned. There was a lot of boiling water and bubbles. I went full Bodicca. On ants.

Yeah not proud of that one either.

Still my house is cleaner than it's been in a while. 

Breaking new there are three ants in my kitchen.

Right back to the war then.

Bright Blessings xxx.