Value and worth.

Value and worth.

We have been busy here at LucyDrake&Co. On Friday we had a big photo shoot of some of our products and yesterday E. mini witch and I blended ground, tweaked, tested and tweaked some more a large batch of incense for Lughnasadh and another batch for Blessing. This took hours. It took hours because I haven't made incense on this scale before. It took hours because I was also teaching. It took hours because hand grinding, cutting and shaving tiny curls of wood takes time and effort (especially rose wood and juniper berries!) It took hours because scaling it up from the small batch recipe didn't make it smell like the small batch at all! It took hours because every time an other ingredint went into the cauldron we chanted. It was fun, but it was very hard work. I was surprised these last few days at some people's ideas about the value of things and the worth of people.Whether it was someone charging a 10p for a tarot reading (ooh that will come back to haunt you and no mistake) or how much art, artist and handmade products are not always seen as the more than the sum cost of the parts. It is the time, the research, the years of honing your craft, the practice, the mistakes, the energy and of course, the love. You are not buying something that is a piece of pressed plastic, you are buying someone's time and creative love. It isn't the fabric, wood or stone it is the power and passion of that person. It is their magick that you are buying and that can never be cheapened. It reminded me of that phrase, knowing the cost of everything, the value of nothing.When you buy something made in a sweat shop by kids who can not afford to go to school, THAT is the energy in your things. When you buy things that are made with love, whether it is the paintings of your young child, the skilled work of a craftsman (or woman) or something you make your self that is the energy that radiates into your life. 
The runes above are TK's creation. Within those coins of holly wood are not only the markings of an ancient language, but his years of research, his time, his love and appreciation for the Norse culture and his magick.

When I make a Dancing Goddess Fertility charm, I not only make the pattern, fill with stuffing and herbs, and sew it shut. Every stitch is a prayer, every row is a blessing. I put my time care and love into each part. It is not a toy or a joke. I had a fair few more of these but I gifted them to friends struggling with conception, pregnacy and birth. They have work for these lovely families. It isn't a sure thing, I don't have the power of life and death, but they don't hurt a drop! Many ladies have them with them in the birthing room as a focus as they are soft and sweetly scented. They say that they had that feeling of connectedness to something bigger, something ancient.
How do I put a price on that? Yet I live in the real world and to have a shop I must. 

So as I stitched a sweet sleep candle pillow last night and watch E make a clay Goddess I knew the value of friendship, time, and love. The value of magick. These items are not just acts of creation. They are acts of love.
Bright blessings xxx    

What are Demons and are they real?

What are Demons and are they real?

 

Right! I work with spirit and non physical, quasi-physical and multi dimension beings. I work with energy and thought and have created thought-forms, house guardians and fetches. This energy being that has a little life span, and is of a place and time, like a willow the whisp, a cat of shadow, it is well documented thing in many practices. In Janet and Stuart Farrar's a Witches Bible they talk about. Louis Bourne too. 
So are demons "real"?
Well I have encountered "demonic" and inhuman entities. For the most part they just feel and look weird. They are not great house guest but I have not encountered a single one that wasn't man-made. Either on purpose, or through mental illness. Where someone who is mentally ill has taken their life there is this "personification" of their illness that is sometimes hanging around. This is not the same as a persons spirit that hasn't crossed over. They can be dark sometimes (people get cranky when ignored or there are people in their house).
Daemons or "Lords of Fire" or fire beings are different again. This being of light and fire sometimes manifest through an actual fire or flame. They see to belong to the Fire Fey realms and through fire can connect to this realm. Most of them are (like most fey) ambivalent to human for the most part, but not unkind. They think their own thoughts, can travel and do what they like. They do not think like humans or have the same sensibilities. I haven't met one that I didn't get on with, I like fire spirits.
When someone tells me they "summon demons" I have to work hard not to roll my eyes. I figure they are either making it up, making them into existence, or some spirits are having a good old laugh at their expense.
The thing is if you spend all your time and energy making "dark" and "negative" things take actual form in the Veil that isn't going to make your life good of happy. Also these creations don't leave when you leave and if you are not powering them they will feed on anyone who is there. This means that Muggin's aka me, or someone, has to disperse them from whence they came. These kinds of spirits don't like loud noises, salt, bright lights, or sage. This is because these things are usually seen as "demon bane". A quick smudge, a run through with a witchblade and they return to smoke and bad attitude.
Much easier than having to spend hours and talk sweetly, kindly and lovingly to coax someone to cross over.
So yes. Demons are real, but only because people make them, but intention or by illness. They are not big or clever. They are not funny or cool. They are not like working with spirits of a place, or the dead, or the fey.

Have a lovely day. Bright Blessings xx

Good things

Good things

So I am sat listening to the wonderful Gayla Drake's music. All is right with the world. I have a lovely glow and energy all around me. Today we will be shooting pictures for goods to go into the Etsy store. I am excited. I am also happy that the plumber will around a little later to fix the (nearly new) loo they put in. Some kind of valve problem. 
I am just so grateful and happy this morning. I can feel that "thing" that was stuck, that block is now gone and everything is flowing, exactly as it should.
Tomorrow I will be making that hand blended herbal incense (no fillers, no synthetics, just herbs, resins and essential oils) with E. I do like making days. I could even make some more charms. I feel like I could do anything today.
All the right people are almost in place for another something I am working on. I call it The Healer Guild. I am drawing local healers of all kinds together to heal each other and learn from each other too. Healers give great advice but rarely take their own so having folks there to take care of each other as well as be around like minded folk of all paths and so on can be nothing but good.

What tools do I need as a beginner in the Craft?

What tools do I need as a beginner in the Craft?

The most important magickal tool you will ever own is you (and that is a loaner). If you learn to focus your mind, work with not against your body, infuse your life with your own unique spirit, you will always have magick. Always. If you want to know your own knowing it will take time and effort, and those are the only tools you need. Oh except a pocket knife those things are handy!

 In terms of what to read it depends on what "speaks" to you. If you are academic then the older more difficult books are a good place to start. Those would include The Golden Bough, the White Goddess, and Gardener's Book of Shadows. If native traditions speak to you read folklore and stories by medicine men and women, like Entering the Circle, or Black Elk Speaks. Rad Culpepper or Hoffman about herbs. Read old books about palmistry or ghost stories, spirit stories. 

Take a dance class (belly-dance is especially good) and feel the rhythm move you. Enjoy your body. Swim. Take up fire-walking or fire poi. Be in the world but not of it. Make music. Scuba dive. Fly kites. Feed birds. Dig a garden. These are all deeply, soulfully connective spiritual practice.

At the beginning of your path there is little point buying or making ritual tools if you do not know what you will need. If you are going into the wilds you will need different things than if you are heading to the library. That is not to say you can not be both or do both. I am a bibliophile who loves camping so it is not either or.

Practically, a decent pocket knife, a weather proof coat (preferably with deep pockets), walking boots, a notebook and pencil/pen, are my MUST HAVE'S. Barefoot sounds wonderful until you turn your ankle on tree root. Naked sounds great (it is great) but there is always "man with dog" and in some cases "owl watching group". Deep pockets can collect all kinds of treasures you find, horse hair, lambs wool, thorns, a pretty rock, a small guide book (flowers, birds, rocks).  If you need to poke something, move something, cut something, leave a mark for some reason, a knife is essential. You can even use it as a temporary athame if you needed to. 

 

New Adventures

New Adventures

It has been a bit of a mad time around here, what the the Solstice and helping out in D's garden (yes I know I had a lumbar puncture, no it wasn't clever). For a little while I have been thinking of making and selling charms and incense, TK has been making sets of runes (ooh they really POP) and collecting wood to make more. I also have some very talent students who could use my knowledge and skill to learn and also make some money.

In short. I am opening a Etsy shop called 

LucyDradeandCo  

(it would have been LucyDrake&Co but the thing wouldn't let me.) I don't have the best pictures at the moment but I will soon!
I have all kinds of ideas for spells and charms.TK reads and writes Egyptian hieroglyphics, and could make written personalized spells and charms, cuts a pretty good bind rune, makes gorgeous wand and staffs.

 I am not too shabby at sewn charms, balms, oils *I am a qualified V.T.C.T aromatherapist* and I hand grind herbal incenses. We can both make spells, charms and ritual objects including sacred art for ritual rooms. 

I am teaching E my herb craft and we will be making Lammas/Lughnasa incense this weekend (she has a pretty good head start). E also is a fabulous artist, so personalized pages for Books of Shadows or Grimoires, altar pieces, hand written prayers or poems from my book can all be ordered.

 D will be taking photographs and adding them to the shop. D is a good reader, his tarot work is coming on leaps and bounds. He also a wonderful artist. 

So get your orders in! I imagine we will be furiously busy. This shop comes about for quite a few reasons. One of them being that I am on several on-line market boards and the utter flat, lifeless, cheap junk being sold breaks my damn heart! Not all, some really has the passion and fire. The spark of something sacred, but many just add beads to a stick and charge a FORTUNE. I do have to say it was D's idea though. I was grinding real ritual incense and I was explain what not to buy and where not to buy it from, when he suggested I sold mine. I honestly hadn't thought about that before. I had thought of a little shop, almost like an old fashioned sweet shop, with many jars and bottles and a high counter (this works in my brain but not in life, I am tiny). Selling runes, and herbs, natural feathers, incense, wands and the like. So until such time as I have a little shop I will have the on-line version. 
 Blessed Be you lovely people!



:)

To Love

To Love

 

Loving openly, honestly is the bravest and most courageous thing we do. Not loving someone FOR something. Not loving them because of what they do, or could give us, but because this person simply sparks delight. This love can be friendship, sisterhood, maternal, or something undefined. It is pure because there are no desires. It is pure because it is not based on an action, but on beingness. Accepting this love fully into whole being is a skill to learn. Loving this way can take much time too.

Eros, Philia, Ludus, Agape, Pragma, Philautia.

Our Western culture seems to place much more value on sexual love than say Agape, the generous universal love. We dismiss all love and loving relationships that are not with Eros. It is possible to love someone in all of these ways, at different times of our lives. 

You can not possess and ocean or a breeze, yet there is often a violent desire to possess a person and we call this love?  

I want this person to make me feel...?

 I want this person to...?

I want this person and then everything will be...?

None of these are loving. Loving is about the desire to wrap your arms around someone and make them feel safe, cared for, loved. We get so wrapped up in our feeling we almost do not need another person at all. Maybe this kind of love is our misguided way to have Philautia, self love. For loving our self kindly, honestly open the door to loving others.

When we do not require someone else to fill our cup, our hearts, our worthiness, then we able to full pour or affection towards others.

I try and spend a few moments every day dwelling in a state of love. For myself and for all those who I open my heart to. For those who can be anywhere, do anything and still I love them. For they are like stars, mururations, fireflies, a newly blooming flower, like sisters, mother's, brother's, children, lovers, and they are a delight.

Accidental Magick

Accidental Magick 

The Two Laws of Magick state that "like attracts like", that "you are connected by D.N.A." .

To do magick requires will, energy and focus. This doesn't mean you willingness to do the magick it means your desire for something. Our desires are not always nice, they are not always understood and they at odds with our emotions.

A good example.

I really want that job. Yet I feel unworthy, fearful, distrustful.

These two feelings are at odds with each other. The desire is not as strong as the fear. There is no belief, no light. In this space the feelings we radiate spoil the desire. We will attract magickally the thing we fear not what we want

I really want to smack that person up the side of the head. I shouldn't think nasty thoughts. I should be kinder.

In this situation the desire is stronger than the feelings of what is "appropriate". The negative desired affect (whether perceived or not) is radiated. The desire is very strong it overwhelms everything else. Magickally this is what we are pushing towards that person.

I am want success. I feel really good about myself and trust good is coming.

In this situation the desire and the feeling are in harmony.The feelings and the will are in balance and what we desire manifests easily.

This is why meditation of both thought and emotion is important. It is choosing to radiate harmoniously. All people think do this tp themselves and other. All people do this kind of magick.