Dreams

Dreams and how not to Fear them.

Dreams are one of those things that seem to divide people. Some see them as vital spiritual communication and other do not see them as anything but brain mush.
Dreams are of course a bit of both. Yet sleep and dreaming is hugely important not only to our mental health and well being but new scientific studies have found it allows different genes to turn on or off dependent on how much and the quality of your sleep. Heart disease, obesity and even diabetes are only some of the genes that can be affected.
I am a bit bias. I LOVE sleeping. Not only because with looking after a tiny kitten I have had less that usual, but I have always loved it. I dream in colour and when I found out that a lot of people don't I was shocked and surprised. I have also always been able to astrally travel and lucid dream all my life. As a child I was early to bed and early to rise, but living on a farm then it seemed only normal. Having kids has altered my body clock some what but I still love sleeping and dreaming.
Psychology at it's beginnings was founded on analyzing this doorways to our truest self. Dream are our personal landscape. Everything in our dreams comes from us, it is normally a part of ourselves. Other people in our dreams tend to not be the actual person but the reflection or idea of them we have. This is why sexual dreams that can seem violent, upsetting, erotic and disturbing or not as awful as they seem. It is the innocence, brutality, or any other quality we associate with that person we are trying to take into our self, or be a part of. Or of course run from or destroy.
While these psycho-dramas are a healthy response of the self trying to deal with complicated feelings and unresolved situations they are no less real than the external world for the dreamer. The sub-conscious mind, or the instinctual mind is not less than the one with a voice. It may speak in feelings and pictures but it is real and part of the whole person. Dreams are the landscape, the place where symbols are real and real is symbolic. Where rivers are feelings, darkness is our own mental and emotional shadow, and light is thought. If we are feeling anxious, preyed on, hunted, lost or overwhelmed this space will tell you, clearly and with resounding clarity. 
Reoccurring dreams are this space trying to get the mind to adjust, or accept something. A trauma, a person or place that is bad for us, something that requires our attention. The longer we avoid our self the more frustrated this side of our self will become.
There are then those other dreams. They have a very distinctive quality in that you seem to be in a different space than within. Sometimes it is a real place. The people there are not the people or places you know or go to. These dreams are often to show us something beyond ourselves. I can only say from my personal experience that the light is different to when I am within my own head. The people and creatures that I encounter there are sometimes surprised by my presence, can be indifferent or have been waiting for me. The dream would continue whether I was there or not. Sometimes I am shown things that will happen, or that have happened.(These are not always nice happy things.) Sometimes I am there to help or heal someone or be helped or healed. These places often become part of my waking meditations for the healing and teaching of others. If you have a frightening dream, look first at the dream. What or who is making you frightened? The more you look at your dreams the more you will recognize the patterns of this presence, this place, in your waking life. It is a boon. A joy. You know, I think I fancy a nap...

 

Normal service should resume soon.

Sir Not appearing in this story.

So due to being a bit ill again and in need of sleep (also because someone asked) I thought I would share some of my fiction I wrote a few years ago. It is dark and so on. Normal service should resume soon.

The Death of Gregory Rivers. Unseen Stories.

Gregory hadn't moved from the underpass all day. His urine soaked trousers slid against the cold tiled floor but the Voice refused to let him move. The Voice had been with him such a long time, it left him alone sometimes for weeks or months and he almost felt normal again, but when it spoke- the Voice was not just in his mind but is in his now wrecked body, jerking him like a strange puppet.

At first he had fought it, when one night he had drunkenly fell asleep on a grassed round-about. He had been young then, a promising student out with the boys. After that fateful fitful nightmare filled sleep he had woken changed.

He heard the Voice and it pained him to refuse it, but he had fought.

A sly smile spread across his cracked dry lips. He no longer cared about the cold, or the discomfort. His joints were swollen from the alcohol he drank to quieten the Voice enough to let him sleep for a night here or there but it didn't work as well as it used to.

The Voice had given him things, he saw the world differently. He could see lights and shimmering shades of colours around them. Most looked the same, maybe with black spots on them or parasites only he could see, like giant ticks or elongated cockroaches hanging from peoples unaware flesh.

The Voice had shown him the pattern, he must remember the pattern. His body jerked suddenly in a flash of pain as the colour and pattern was forced into his memory. It always hurt so badly, but it was so beautiful. A shifting ripple of rainbows and iridescence like a tear-drop or flame.

The Voice had given him this beautiful memory not of his own mind, but it did not temper the hate he felt towards it.

The underpass lights twitched and flickered. Something like a bird made of shadows flew pass over the heads of the regular people. How blind they were, how irritatingly hurtfully blind they were. Gregory envied and loathed them for it.

A breeze blew up and caught some leaves scurrying them into the underpass, They danced around him and for a moment he was transfixed and delighted.

“What am I?”

He asked to the wind. The wind did not answer.

He started to cough. It started slowly a wheezing choke growing ever stronger until the rattling moistness of his own lungs echoed in the now empty underpass.

For a moment all was peaceful and he was just a man again. The hold over him was growing weaker somehow. He could remember his family, what had happened to them he wondered. His childhood friends, and then he remembered Debbie.

Her dark hair and wild eyes had drawn him when he had been placed in hospital for a few months.

The ward had been crowded and nobody seemed to know what to do with Gregory. No medication seemed to work, no family had come forward. His health problems were evident, but he was just a rambling homeless man. Alcohol psychosis and delusional schizophrenia. He had taken his meds quiet as a lamb, and had enjoyed the bed and the warm bath well enough.

One day in the day-room with it's sharp objects and mismatched chairs had come Debbie like a whirling wind. She was having a fight with a male nurse that all the patience knew like to touch the girls but the staff ever listened about. She had broken his nose and the scarlet rose had exploded on his face.

The nurse swore and the torrent of accurate abuse flowed from her mouth. Some of the other patience especially the women howled in pleasure and gratification. Gregory could see she was ablaze literally, her real shape was like a flame. The other staff had now come over and begun to circle Debbie like a pack of Hyena. Someone lunged and stuck Debbie with something and she fell. She fell slowly and with a grace that mesmerized Gregory. Turning as she fell she looked into his eyes just before she became unconscious, and a spark of recognition jumped between them.

Gregory stood up slowly as the staff began to carry her away and picked up a plastic chair and began to beat them with it. The new assault from “harmless Gregory” shocked the nurses and two went flying, the guy with the broken nose tried to strike him, then in a wavering voice tried to reason with Gregory.

“We not trying to hurt you now Gregory, put the chair down. No-ones going to hurt you. Everyone is okay.”

Gregory tilted his head and smiled passively. He put down the chair, at which point the nurse made a grab for him. He batted him away easily. The Voice had given him so much strength.

“You are evil Mark. You hurt them, the girls. You are going to die soon.”

Gregory then picked up Debbie and carried her to her room. The whole room whooping and cheering as he the hero carried the damsel in distress to her room. He lay he down gently on her bed and sat holding her hand.

When the doctors had finally turned up, they had ushered Gregory into his own room.

The male nurse, Mark had never returned to the ward. Too many people had witnessed too much for them to sweep it under the carpet again.

Gregory had rescued her, and the other women in the ward and they knew it. He had told the doctors what had happened and they looked at each other nervously.

Everything went back to normal but everything was different. Some of the girls made him flowers, or gave him their pudding. Debbie did something different she just sat near him when ever she could. The staff didn't like it and discouraged them from speaking to each other but they did it anyway.

They didn't get much chance to talk about things but Gregory noticed she noticed the same things he did. The ticks and shadows the birds and animals others couldn't see, made her turn her head also.

He tried once to ask if she heard the Voice, but he began to twitch violently. The fit subsided but he got the idea that speaking to her was something the Voice disapproved of.

In the high heat of summer some of the ward were allowed to go into the garden and Debbie and Gregory went together to sit on the grass.

“Come on then.” She said jumping up.

Gregory looked confused.

“Time to go, now Gregory.”

He smiled and arm in arm they slowly walked towards some tall trees. Behind them was a sports bag and Debbie crouched down and opened it. It had clothes in it, a set for each of them and a pair of scissors. She took his arm and cut of the medical bracelet and gave him the scissors to cut off her own. She took off her clothes and Gregory blushed but followed suit. She then stuffed the bag with their old clothes and shoved a summer hat down over her eyes. Debbie was wearing a summer dress and sandals and looked lovely, as though she were going to play tennis.

They walked straight out of the hospital into town and sat in the park. From a pocket on the bag she retrieved two wallets both with money and a small soft velvet pouch. She also grabbed a packet of cigarettes and a battered lighter. She opened the pouch and inside was a large green gem set in a silver ring. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. It twisted around her finger and glowed with a radiance and fire as she placed it on her right hand. There some dried leaves in the bag and Debbie placed them in her hand and crushed them. She then took a cigarette and mashed it into the mix and placed it on the ground between them and light the mix. It burnt with a green flame and it's smoke wrapped it's fingers around them both. When the circle was complete it fell away.

“They won't find us now Gregory.”

She smiled shyly and gave him the wallet, his wallet. Everything was where it was supposed to be, except he had not owned a wallet in years. Leaning forward she kissed his cheek and pressed a small cross made of twigs and red wool into his hand.

“Good luck. Good bye.”

He sat staring at his hand and he pressed the cross to his chest and the fingers of the Voice within him lessened. After than things had gone well for a time. He lived in a hostel, thought about getting a job and made some friends.

One night someone had stolen his things and trashed his room. The cross had gone and the Voice was laughing at him. The sound would be enough to drive anyone mad. A rasping dry laugh that was pitiless and cruel.

He wept like a child. He had tried to find twigs and make the cross but it never worked. His swollen knuckles made the fiddly job impossible for him. He gave up.

He was unsure how long it had been, years since the Voice was everything.

In the underpass the sound of rainfall began. It rained a lot here, the place seemed to want to soak it's self in misery. The builds clung to the greyness.

The a woman in a long velvet skirt swept into the underpass wrestling with an umbrella. There she was swearing and her voice was low. He looked at her and he could see it. It was her. Her shape flickered and rippled, she was shining. It was more beautiful than the memory.

His eyes welled with tears. He tried to speak. His tongue felt numb.

“I HAVE FOUND HER. Hett! I have found her for you.”

His shout made her snap her attention to him. She muttered something and her flame vanished into a cloud like grey fog so many of the other people and and she began to hurry through the under pass.

The Voice seemed to purr with please in his mind. Then the Voice seemed to leave him completely.

Gregory began to cough and try to stand but his legs failed him. He began to shake and white spittle trickled down his chin as he cough and croaked to try and get his breath. Leaning against the wall he managed to rise to his knees. His face became red with the strain and the inability to breathe.

His white hair shook as dusk and leaves fell about him. He fell on his side and clutched his chest, in pleasure and agony. He began to vomit and the world around him grew hazy.

Debbie’s face was then over him, her dark eyes full of sorrow and love. Everything went white and the pain eased.

Someone was calling his name and he thought it was Debbie. Debbie sat in the garden. She beckoned him. The sky was very blue and the grass so very green. The colours saturated with light.

Reluctantly he moved slowly towards her like a dream. His face sad.

“I lost the cross. I couldn't make another. I did something terrible.”

Debbie just nodded, gently she smiled at him.

“I have been look for you for such a long time, but he found you first. The failing was mine. I should not have left you when I did but I had to keep her safe, I had to see her one last time.”

Gregory nodded.

“Who is she?”

A smile spread on her face.

“She is our hope. Our protector, and yours. Without her the Evil that hurt you would destroy all of your kind. Come now and rest my friend. Tomorrow I will take you to explore our land some more.”

Gregory lay his head in her lap and dreamed soft peaceful dreams about the shining lady. Everything was going to be okay now he knew. He was home.

 

Real Magick.

Real Magick.

When we talk about real and reality we get into some sticky areas. Philosophy, religion, belief and faith even psychology. 
I am waaaaaaaaaaaaay under caffeinated (my kettle died today) to debate or theorize about the substance of shared and singular reality.
So instead I will address a trend. This trend is to beat someones else practice with a stick of "critical history" or rude comments about how someones path/faith/magick was stolen or mashed into non indigenous practices, there by making it/them/"they" unworthy, wrong or suspect.
James Frazer supposed in his mighty tome The Golden Bough that before there was a "stone-age" or religion there was a "magic-age". This is a striking thought, at least to me. Anthropologist search hard and deep for something universally human and magick (I include prayer in this) seems to be it. So if we are one kind of beings wearing different colour meat suits from the same gene pool, how can anyone "steal" someone elses magick?
What we have here is a kind of cultural snobbery. I am not Indian or Asian, but I LOVE both kinds of food. Am I breaking some terrible cultural law? What if I add soy sauce to my Irish stew? What then? Ah but it is not authentic. So long as I do not think soy sauce is Irish, or that it makes my stew Asian all I have is MY tasty tasty dinner. Now it is never going to be the same as Great Aunt Aoife's but that is okay. You see cultures blend. They rub up against each other and share things. Food, music, art, architecture, ideas. This is not something new it has been happening for thousands of years. Romans invaded the British mainland to find many Celts speaking Greek!
Now; I really do think that moaning about dead people who can not defend themselves is a good idea either. Of course Gerald Gardener's practice had elements of shamanic practices he saw while in India, I imagine he drank spiced chai and love spicy food too. He wrote from his place of authenticity and his life was leaking though into his work. That is what happens. We do not exist in cultural vacuums. It would have been unreal, unauthentic if his life and experience DID NOT shape his work. That doesn't make his work less valid. His knowledge (which was huge and extensive) any less. He did something amazing. He was very brave and very courageous in a way that is hard for us to appreciate now and the rituals and books he wrote had many influences and while some are obvious, some are not. Authenticity comes from a sincere place. A place the the person is entirely themselves and present. In that sense he was probably more authentic than most other people to write a book about magick since.
Magick isn't something weird and "out there", it is something within us. It is a real force that has threads linking us all.

   

The Horned God

The Horned God

The gentle stag. 
The wisdom of the wood. 
The chase. 
When He is near me those with the sight see a tall ruddy stag just following me around. During my pregnancies he was there. I would dream of a forest of tall beautiful, majestic trees, and a deep dark river flowing through it. I was lying on the soft mossy ground my my head against his body. Our breathing was as one. As I raised my head to look at him he opened his eyes. I placed my face against him again and went into a deep, peaceful sleep. I know their is such furry within him but he is always, always gentle with me. Sometimes I see an old man in the distance of the trees. Often he is pointing the way, dressed in smoky blue, moving in and out of the dappled light. I can not explain this connection, a look that sometimes creatures give me, especially dogs, horses and actual stags, they seem to sometimes...nod at me, just a little "hey"  and then it is gone.
I always loved animals more than people. They do not lie (they steal, sulk, mope and get jealous) but their's is a authenticity that I love. The noise of a distressed animal seems to rip right through me. For years this meant I found eating meat difficult, impossible or weird. Yet he is a the dog and wolf as well as the rabbit and deer. He is the boar. He is unapologetic of his nature, and I feel better when I eat meat. While I try to eat as vegi as often as I can and honour the meat I put into my body as sacrament I always do my best to be respectful that my food IS sacred. It becomes my body, my flesh and bones and blood. Always with me. There is something beautiful in that.

Morning Meditation

Attempting to Meditate.

 So this space is where I want to put words and ideas for myself and the consumption of others, except what with lack of sleep and being all snotty and so on I am finding myself sliding into crabby, grumpy, snappy and impatient.
I don't want to be that way. I might have used to say the Crone is rising for her winter rule, but that is just bullshit to excuse my own negative thoughts, feelings and behaviour. I mean I could be asleep right now, like everyone else, but I am awake and feeling pissed off. Pissed off I am awake. Pissed off it is 9.30am and I am the only one awake. So I need to cleanse this out. Smoke it out (incense) and laugh at it, at myself and how easily a little stress that I chose, me, mine, my choice to go get the kitten. My choice to raise it then give it to someone who had the perfect home for him.
 I see the corridor before me. I see the doorway streaming with light and walk around HER garden. I step through  a shimmering curtain of water and I am greeted by A and I greet her in turn, warmly with much affection.
My lovely daughter comes down stairs making me jolt out of this place. She gets her coat and quietly chats to me as she readies the dog for her morning walk. Crabbiness seeps back in. She left the door open (again). I grab another blanket.
Okay where was I.... see the light, see the doorway,  step through, I get as far again and my daughter returns again. The wet dog jumps me. I laugh. Okay the light, the water flowing over me...washing me, cleansing me. Today in the garden a big piles of marigold flowers and pearls that I run through my fingers. A talks to me she says
"You are light."
I look down and at my solar plexus is the center of a galaxy. I fix on that image a while, placing it within my body.
Daughter, breakfast talking, jarred, I snap. I let the irritation go.
I chat a moment.
Right where was I, oh yeah. The light, the door, the garden, the flowers and pearls, I am light, I am a solar system, I shine.
I leave the garden, I walk through the water, I come back to myself.
Okay. Breakfast. I laugh. Tea is now required.

Books that I love/recommend.


The Book of the Hand by Fred Gettings

Rune Magic by Keith Morgan

Dictionary of Fairies Katharine Briggs

Entering the Circle by Olga Kharitidi

Women who run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A witches Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar

Be a Goddess by Francesca de Grandis

The Wise Wound by Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove

The Golden Bough by James George Frazer 

 Voices of the Goddess: a chorus of Sibyls by Caitlyn Matthews

Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck.

The White Goddess by Robert Graves.

An Autobiography of a Witch by Louis Bourne

There are many more, of course. Books that became teachers, friends and guides, by people who saw the world with either a shadow of my own sight, or were chocked full of imformation that I seemed to be able to instictualy distill. Now I am old school. I like paper books. I love their smell, old and new. I love the way pages fall open exactly where and when I need them too.

I love these books in particular because years after you have read them they suddenly show you something, something you were not looking for; something magick.

My little book, I would love one day for it to be someones friend, guide and teacher. In a dark red hardback cover with a picture of a key on it; written by Lucy Drake.... 

 

How to Write Spells and Rituals

How to write a spell.


So you need three things for a spell.

1) Power. Some kind of energy either your own or that from a natural source, a place, a plant, a Deity. 

2) Connection to what you want. An image, a figure, a symbol. If it is a person then you might consider the Law of Contagion and use either something with the persons DNA or their shadow or foot print.

3) The ability to see the out come in your mind, but NOT be focused on HOW it happens. Let it go.

Notice the large amount of stuff you do not need. Everything else is part of the creative process. Charms, balms and so on are great because they work and keep working long after you make them. You want to write a rhyme (helps with power and connection), go for it. You want to dance it. Give it some welly!
No spell in any book is going to be better than one YOU make happen. Your intention, your emotion keeps the magick flowing.
Don't have all the fancy herbs (hedgerows people -also some parks)
then USE what you have.

How to write a ritual.

First up. Know who is going to be there and work WITH those people rather than with so Hollywood ideal of "witchyness".
If you know someone is always going to be late (y'all know who you are) when make sure your ritual has a slow build up and tell them it is an hour earlier than it is likely to start. The friend who forgot to eat/skipped dinner? Have food there they can dip in and out of. Can't remember long speeches, make them scrolls (or let them make their own).
Prepare. Not for the ritual, you have been planning it a while, but for things like pee/smoke breaks, water in the circle for folks to drink, damp tea towel for fire related incidents. These people are giving their time and energy to do ritual with you, respect that.
On the flip side if someone writes the ritual, prepares the space, hosts and so on, bring food/wine and respect the effort they put in.
A good ritual has a slow build, then a leveling out,then another build, a big one. Then their must be a stillness. Then a slow build again and then a winding down and releasing. 
A lot of people are frightened of quiet in a ritual, don't be it is a wonder. Likewise some people find it hard to let rip and enjoy themselves, or be too noisy.

Work with your space. If it is tiny big spiral dances do not work. If it is massive or outside, remember that you need to be louder, the fire needs to be big and the candles need to be sheltered. Incense also needs to be scaled up. Music also needs to be louder in a large space. Also if people are reading either from a book or scroll is there enough light to do so? Will the ground be sutable for bare feet, or are boots required? Will people need extra jumpers under thier robes? Or water-proofs? (Can't ya tell I live in UK!)
If you are not making your own music make a playlist and get it set up way before the ritual, do not be the guy fiddling with a 1970's tape deck apologizing that it "normally works well".

So now the meat in the pie.
Know the space and the people. Plan around those. Do not make it a spiraling headlong rush to the finish, take your time, and have quieter as well as louder parts written in. It doesn't have to be really wordy, and try to distribute the contributions evenly.  Cleanse your space and the people who will be in it. Build your altar (and use a table, nobody want to stand on someones wand when they are dancing).
Dedicate the space. State your intention/s. Build the power.
While a High Priest/ess might be collecting/directing things it is not a one person show (unless it is) and everyone should feel they have something to do, say and were part of it. If you are partaking in substances (this includes wine/alcohol) push for it to be nearer the end of the ritual or at least have one straight/sober person their, preferably someone capable of handling themselves or other people if a problem arises.
Make it fun, it doesn't have to be a comedy, but treat your ritual as a watercolour painting. The sketch is their but the light and colours present effect how it will be so do leave space for something magickal to happen. Relax. Do not worry if someone stumbles over words, or misses steps, carry on and let that go, even if it is you.
Keep your symbols simple. Do not mush a lot of different things together that do not come from the same space, time, pantheon and expect it to work. Do not evoke anything you do not know well, and even if you do, again do not mix and match on the day/evening. 
BE POLITE. I really mean it. If you invite something into the ritual, welcome them. If they help you, say thank you. Honestly these are not forces to take the piss with, so be sincere, and mean all your "Hail"s and "thank you"s. Make sure you release them and preferably feed them too. Be generous in your libations. 
One that note. Be sincere. If it is a rite to heal someone and you loathe them, just don't bother. Really.Your negative feelings (and anyone else's in the ritual for that matter) will leak. If you do not want this person helped or healed the Old Ones will know. Either change how you feel, or rework the ritual for another focus. 
Release the power to where it is going. Say thank you, yes, again.
Clean up. This should be done by everyone, and I do mean everyone.
You can have a post-ritual chill, a cup of tea and a natter. Maybe write things up in your BoS or your journal. No matter how "high" you feel do not go out dancing. Stay and ground. Going out when you are open like that is not healthy for you, you pick up all kinds of ick. 
There ya go. Never buy a spell book again.