What are Runes?

What are Runes?

Runes. Well everyone knows what they are right? Well I do not consider myself an expert. I have read a great many books and more than that was friends with a Master Runesmith for years, but that education left me with the certainty that there was a depth and knowing, a language within I could glimpse at but that I didn't know.
Now runes are based on an alphabet but they are based on sounds and ideas rather than shape. It was a written language to reflect personal and social experience, send messages and transcend time (Northern European and Germanic cultures were big on that idea). The "I was 'ere" part of the language seems fairly straight forward. Even taking into account the multiple variations of the written forms.
Then we get to rune magick. To wear a rune, to cast one, to paint it on a rock or doorway, and this, this is where most people get it horribly wrong.
Mostly because many early books on the subject were....generous with their imaginings? Or sparse with the truth?
At any rate some of the complexity was washed away. X means gift, is fine except that it within a bindrune, a sentence or word it doesn't just mean X. The context of rune work is intricate to the point of mind boggling. As far as I can tell (and my friend would tell me, very hush hush you know) each rune belongs to one of Nine different planes (places/energies/dimensions) and how you evoke the rune (and where, and when, and with what) will affect the relationship to that particular place. Adding to the complexity each rune also belongs to an Aett or "family" of runes and interact with different Aett runes in new and interesting ways.
Runes are ancient. I mean really really ancient and have great power. Even the crap ones. The ones on clay tablets or painting gleefully onto pebbles have the capasity to do powerful magick, except, mostly they don't.
Firstly this is because they are connected to their respective planes by the tiniest thread. Secondly because people using them have almost no clue what they are doing.
The casting of runes is to whisper to the Norns, to rattle the cages of the crows and ask old Gods (who are grumpy and cantancerous as well as generous and wise) to pay attention to the caster. To draw them does the same and how they are drawn matters. Where they are positioned and how they interact matters. The same runes for new growth and good beginnings mangled together can mean dark endings and death to your beginnings. "What about intention Lucy? What if all I intended was good? Won't only good happen?"
No. You are working with code. Much like computer code if you put it together in the wrong way you don't get what you want. This is not the codes fault. This is the failure to understand the code AND how the system works.
Also remember that runes were used to curse as often as heal. Not because they were bad people, just people. The ripple, memory of that curse is still out there in the planes.
As a planeswalker, journeyer; fey traveller in strange and wonderful places I have become more aware of how runes and for that matter signs an sigils can and do connect to places. That doesn't mean I don't use runes (though I haven't casted in a while). I am just wary. Gentle with what I write and how I write it.
TK has a gift for understanding the art and poetry of this work. He connects to those places with ease and grace. I marvel and wonder at how such simple lines in his expert hands become something magickal.

Bright Blessings xxx

Shameless self promotion

Shameless self promotion or....Sorry I am bad at this, I'm British.

I do a great many fairly (you see what I mean) talented things. I am (in general) rather pleased with what I do (I never think it is perfect, except that lamb dinner I made last week, could not have been improved on) and I work hard to be better, brighter and closer to that "perfect" while accepting it is unlikely to reach it and there come a point when I have to stop tinkering with it or I will ruin it.

Yet the self pride in the work and belief in myself (which took years and is still a work in progress)is there, the whole shouting, smiling, pushy BUY MY THINGS, is as uncomfortable as wet cold jeans.

Yet I see folk brazenly selling crap for far more money than I sell my decent, lovingly made things and it both makes me jealous that they can, and infuriated in equal measure. How? How can you crow so loudly, make so many posts? It is like those awful (and secretly very funny) shopping channels that make me glad I don't own a television. How can they stand there with a straight face? 

As a Brit, we all get a bit embarrassed by that sort of thing. We don't like it much either. When people are proud (not for themselves at any rate) we get a sort of smug derision. Pride is either a pint of beer (don't ask it is revolting) or something reserved for a team you support. Pride in yourself is a social foe pas, a clumsy and unwelcome emotion, which will come before a fall. Even accepting compliments is a complicated mixture of emotions. To willing to accept and your smug confidence is enough to crucify you in some social settings. Pride and self belief also come with a good dollop of social and personal shame. 

Yet I make and write things to sell. I happen to really like my own creative products (gasp). 

I spend hours making incense. I spend weeks researching, making notes, making it in my head, re-making it. Trying to balance it's magick ingredients with a landscape of scents to create something.

Something I AM proud of, that I would put my name to. Yet the ability of other to throw three herbs from one Scott Cunningham's reference books into a jar or bag and call it incense, incenses me. 

I have come up with countless blends (many lost to time as I didn't write it down). Yet the more I do (I am very impressed with my Faery blend and my Goddess Hecate blend) the better I get. 

I love working with others too. TK made and pyrographed this wand, but I did the design work and placed the symbols appropriately. Isn't it lovely? Simple, elegant and not covered in toxic choking varnishes or oils that transfer and stain? It would suit a lefty in my opinion too. It is very traditional (old school Gardenarian/Alexandrian) in some ways but would work well with any Wiccan's work. 

Recently, a few months ago, I got removed from a facebook group for self promotion. I was as mystified and shamed as any self respecting Brit should be. The "promotion" in question was responding to questions or debates by pasting a link to this blog with an answer to (usually in great detail) the said question. I was at first mystified, then just sort of glad. I don't have adverts or make money from this blog. TK also got removed for reporting admin for breaking their own rules and more importantly the law. 

I genuinely had not seen it as self promoting. Just a quicker, more streamlined way to answer some questions, requests for help and so on. Especially as the same questions got asked repeatedly. Copy, paste, done! Yet maybe that is all promotion is. Answering a question posed by someone.

I write books. Books about Craft and poetry. 

The Key is getting a serious edit for second edition at the moment as well as having diagrams and art work added. I have a large chunk of book two written also. I really want to get second edition done before Yule but I am waiting on art work and understand not rushing is probably a great idea. 

Poetry has been a passion since I was a child. It was Samuel Peeps that was my first inspiration into pure poetry rather than just song lyrics. I was about 8 years old. Poetry makes sense to me, the way mathmatics makes sense to others. I understand the multiple meanings, the multitudinous kaleidoscopic ways a single word can paint different pictures. I adore it. Yet promoting my work which is so personal, is the worst of all. I do not want to shout about my poetry not because I do not think it worthy but because it seems alien to me. 

So here goes. Buy my things. I make them because I don't know how not to any more. Most of it is better than stuff people spend a fortune on. I ship world wide (though I can't send incense to New Zeland or Australia because they have strict laws about none native plants.)

Sorry.

I mean.

My stuff is brilliant and full of magick. It is really good. No bad reviews. 

Bright blessings xxx

Bah- Humbug!

Bah- Humbug...or Why I love Yule.

I don't come from a traditional lot. I also come from divorced parents. This meant that my festive season wasn't busting with twice the fun, just two lonely cynical people did crazy and sometimes drunkenly argumentative crap and I had to be the grown up.

No turkey for me. Sometimes it was pizza. Sometimes something gourmet (dependent on which parent I was with). The white synthetic nightmare (and probable fire hazard) that was our tree for a few years was the best of the trees I got (needles in the carpet) until I was old enough to get my own. Oddly my evil ex's whole family also sucked at Christmas. I mean at least they did the meal but they just brought a fully decked tree home from where they sold them. Everything was still fake,

I have fond memories of the huge trees in churches which I often did readings and sang in (ooh my little witch heart loved it). I loved the smell. The lights. There was and is something magick about all that green inside. There is a joy to this season, which ever holiday you celebrate that I love. "Sensible" "grown up" people bemoan it's faults (it IS hard work and pine needle DO get in the carpet) and miss the joy, numbing it with expensive gifts, (or massive amounts of alcohol) they miss the collective-ness, community and family, the magick.

Yule is awesome. 

Yule in particular for me is amazing, because we do the major "work" (the first feast, gifts and so on) days before. So while everyone else is running around stressed beyond measure I am mostly done. It is like finishing a test before everyone else. We tend to feast either just as a family or have friends or students eat with us. We tend to cook an evening meal (sooooo much easier than lunch) and have about 3 big meals over the season. Christmas day is "Dr Who and fishfinger sandwich day" unless we were looking after Pop's.... Mini witch gets a gift every day for two weeks. It is odd because you wold think "dragging" it out would make it more stressful but it doesn't. She can have a big gift on Yule or when we manage to get it. (Less pressure). If we have a fuck up of a meal, (not happened so far) we have a do over. Mini witch gets gifts and is grateful for every single one. There is no hierarchy because it all happens at once.

Our feasts are not just about food, but, ya know, YUM! There is something about coming together and eating. We ted to have ducks or pheasant (a goose if we have a lot of people). I also like getting smoked salmon and making a mouse to have with crusty bread and crisp leaves.

Part of me wishes we did Thanksgiving over here. To fill that gap between Samhain and Yule (now-ish) where it is cold and dark and unforgiving. I see why it creeps (it isn't about buying stuff). We want the sparkle, the light to remind us of the magick.

Mini witch and I make our tree decorations every years. We often make gifts for each other too. My BFF told me if I didn't my gifts for her as usual this years she would think I "didn't love" her anymore! Whether it is Yule-mas cake, or giant chili chutney jars, food hampers of spices and unique foods, paintings and poetry; making gifts started as a need but moved into a tradition.

So long as there is a tree, an orange pomander and sparkling lights, and each other it is a good Yule.

Oh I should mention the shop... buy stuff here...or don't!

Cultural appropriation in pagan circles

Cultural appropriation in pagan circles.

Firstly I must say that this is a hugely sensitive and complicated thing. On a personal level picking a faith because of their cultural "coolness" or poor research (I recently had someone shove their supposed Cherokee heritage down my throat as more pagan than thou and it was clear that even if this ancestry was true she had no actual clue to the beliefs and practices of the seven tribes, the upper, lower and center worlds or The Long Man) irritates the piss out of me. 
On the flip side of this I have had spiritual teachers (in spirit and flesh) from all parts of the world and from all backgrounds. I also like to use what works. A good idea is a good idea after all.

I am from a minority culture. As someone who is Welsh, from Welsh parents (my father was even born two miles from my childhood home) and Welsh grandparents, and only when we hit Great-grandparents does the Irish come in. I am in fact the first female member of my family to marry an Englishman since 1642. Though he would say he was a "man of the North". The Welsh are still subject to much racism, ignorance, misrepresentation. When you speak of Welsh culture many people actually laugh at you. As though this is a joke. 
So let us look at culture. 

What is a culture.
  the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

  the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

  maintained (tissue cells, bacteria, etc.) in conditions suitable for growth.

This is where it gets tricky. When someone hangs up a dream-catcher are they admiring an art form, using a good idea or internalizing someone else's culture?
Culture is often defined by "otherness" and collective ideas and customs of groups and sub-groups. Some groups are seen as "authentic" and "exotic" while other are perceived as dangerous, threatening or worse, worthless.
This changes because they are not viewed by one set of otherness but all different kinds. In the States having ancestors who were not white (and European) is not a glowing, spiritual and cool thing. At least in certain places. In fact having African heritage is preferable than Indigenous people. Yet this assumed (and often European) idea of spiritual simplicity and purity, of authenticity of "noble savages" persists especially the further you get from the US.
Likewise cultures in Amazon that are like new specimens to preserve something wild and raw are now avoided to protect their unique-ness.
Yet while we are all African in our D.N.A, all descended from a few families that made it, we evolve into cliches and groups at the earliest opportunity. We are endlessly drawn to find something human, something universal but socially the more we seek the more different we become.
Like islands evolving (socially) in stranger and stranger ways. This "otherness" and "togetherness" this cultural identity and heritage should be balanced with kindness and support.
We do both terrible and wonderful things as cultures, a word I far prefer to "civilization". This dichotomy of "noble savage" and "civilized man" are set on at best shaky ground. Civilized "man" was, civic, social and fair (although not to women, too much savage in them I suppose) and just (if not more) brutal than the barbaric savages (with deep, sensitive and co-operative ideals of their own).
Once we break this dichotomy and understand that while cultural differences can be glorious and beautiful. That dominant cultures are not dominant because they are"right" or "better" but like trees in the forest grow and take up the most light. Those underneath wait for them to topple so they can grow.
I think it is a good idea to be sensitive about the spiritual and sacred things you appropriate. Coming from an external view point distorts the deeper meanings you will be culturally blind to. Yet sincere work, work with research and dwelling within a culture (being inside is the only way to know) can bring about cross pollination that can bloom into beautiful things.
After all I live on a island which was trading with Egypt by the Bronze Age (our tin has been found) and conquered by Rome (and the multitude of colours, races and beliefs it brought), then abandoned. Fought, won and lost to Danes, Angles, Saxons, in waves of migration, invasion and war. We then got conquered again by French Danes (the Normans) bringing new exotic ideas and creating weird hiccups in our language (because the people who could eat the expensive things used a different language to those that reared them). Our royalty (to the victors the spoils) is related to almost every other royal family and pretty much everyone is descended from Charlemagne (randy old goat 19 kids).Thousands flooded in when we had a "tolerant monarch" from all over the world to work and live. They brought technology and weapons. Millions poured out when we didn't. Then we conquered half the world and in return they lived here too (well we did steal or buy your country). We still live with this fall out today. We moved thousands of Indians (maybe millions) and when they got their country back Kenya kicked them out. They couldn't go home, they could stay and this Island had moved them in the first place. So even though they fought in our wars, even though they were told they were "British" (what ever the hell THAT means) there was no warm welcome for them, even today. Others came after fighting in wars expected to be treated as hero's but they were too different, too many.
Through all of this (and maybe because of it) the people who lived here before the Romans, up in the hills and valleys, pushed into the margins, stuck it out. Protected their ideas and music. Lost and found themselves a thousand times.
It is strange for me to feel a sense of pointlessness in separation from other humans, and a fierce defiance of my own. My language, my music, the land that captivates and draws me like no other in all the world.
I love new, old and interesting cultures, we often have so much more in common than we think (did you know Cherokee have little people too?). Yet maybe your real culture is not the one you choose, but the one that chooses you. While intellectually I can see and abhor the "noble savage" and cultural appropriation that goes along with it, I understand that yearning for something pristine. Deep. Ancestral. Yet maybe if we look at ourselves, really look at ourselves we would no longer need to find it somewhere else, we would find it within.

Dear Mother...

Dear My Ancient Mother,
that woman called today. The one who I have the same eye colour as. The one who abandoned me and hurt me over and over. Some how she feels that carrying me in her womb, making sure I didn't die, some how she has the right to call me daughter. The right. All those years I would flee from her into your safe green arms only to have to leave you and to live in that house.
That hole where the love, support and kindness should be in a person was never there for me. She taught me many things. Things that with your strength and wisdom I have healed so much of. It wasn't so much that she chose her other biological offspring, though she can still do no wrong. It was that everyone, anyone was more important, more deserving, more worthy than I. Every crime, real or imagined was my doing.
When other's hurt me, under her guard, it was me that was to blame. Her lover. Her step-son. Both abused me. Both hurt and violated that sacred trust a child bestows on a person. Yet it was me they cast as outcast. Evil. Shameful, tiny hurting little child who just wanted to be loved. Who after she was truthful, and honest and brave was told she was anything but and who wanted to die. At 8 years old because the pain and shame of living in this hell were too much. This was not treated as a "cry for help" but ridiculed and used as evidence of how awful I was.
I lived in house constantly full of people, alone. I cooked my own meals, avoided everyone and gave my affection to the animals without lies on their tongues and cruelty in their eyes. I learned to be an adult very young, yet that sting of not being wanted, welcome, worthy sticks in my memory like the wet, bare leg slaps at the pool on holiday.
People sometimes marvel at my strength and pain tolerance, it is just scar tissue is harder, tougher. I have walked through hell and everything else, life, is just a blessing.
I just find a balance, a peace, a place of pity, not rage, a place of forgiveness for an abused child, who grew up to abuse, when she does something else. As though this forgiveness is permission to carve into my healing heart over and over and over again. When the person I once called sister (before I knew it had another meaning) put me in hospital this year and she was screaming down the phone at me for "making your sister feel bad" I knew something had to change.
I collected bones, all shapes and sizes. Listened to you love, and kindness and support. Carved her names onto them and scattered them in the midsummer sun, in hedge rows and ditches, crossroads and country lanes. I scattered her, grieved and to me I was at peace.
Yet now and again she would call. I would just hang up. Just refuse to acknowledge she was there.
Yet watching TK speak to her, even briefly like a person (a right I was not blessed with) set fire to something in me.
A rage and pain that until I laid my head against your heart I could not let go of. I wore it close to me, I slept in it, I eat in it. I could bare the touch of no-one, except my daughter, my gift from you and TK.
Mother I know you will protect me from this woman. That you will heal me, like you always do. I know that because ever time this person fails to be a woman, a friend or "mam" you, always you pick me up. You send me gifts. Wipe away my tears. Warm and soothe me. I am always good enough, worthy enough, for you.
Thank you my Mother, my Goddess.

Your ever loving daughter.

xxx

A planet that sings

On a planet that sings...

there are a relativity intelligent species descended from a long line of social hominid apes. These creatures are very diverse in culture and social groupings, skin pigmentation and other factors. They are sexual reproducers, who use sex in a variety of social ways.

They experience gender on a broad spectrum from a to b with a great many varying degrees of sexual and gender preference and traits. However for at least it's recent history the a.a end of the spectrum has been deemed "better" and have been the dominate force in most (though not all) in much of their memory, especially written myths, legends and history passed down. However with it being in the interest of some of the a.a group to erase, ignore, revile and demonize anything believed to be different than being a. 

This does not mean that the rest of those being on the spectrum are not interesting, important or inventive. Some of the greatest of the whole species have not be true a in gender, or sexual preference. However there are either not recorded, not passed on in written histories or accounts, works not displayed in galleries, have their memorial defaced for be somewhere other than a..

This bias does many things. It occasionally breaks out in to violence. Sometimes in the extreme. Being b; or not being as a as the cultures demands (demands vary greatly in different cultures and socio-economic areas) is an huge pressure and can explode in violence against other a.a's (fighting for dominance of non-a deemed people) or more commonly directed towards those deemed less, weaker or closer to b on the spectrum.

Interestingly non-a social hominid apes, though different are not weaker, per say. Some b S.H.A's are stronger, smarter and more talented than some defined as a.a S.H.As. 

Biologically it is the b S.H.A. that gestate and rear the young. If a b S.H.A. raises a child alone it is often pitied, reviled, and can sometimes be at the mercy of extreme violence towards the off spring it's self, sometimes leading to death of the b. Sexual consent and autonomy of their own bodies is occasionally allowed so long as this does not offend a powerful or successful a.a. individual. 

The conditions and rights for those deemed non-a differ enormously all over the planet. In some places non-a S.H.A's can vote, marry, hold office or power; though these rights are hard won with many victims and martyrs along the way. Some a.a  refuse to educate non-a's at all. They tend to breed and isolate b S.H.A's before full sexual and mental maturity has developed. Though this has no benefit to the offspring or the b S.H.A. The perceived power over the b S.H.A. elevates the standing with other a.a.'s.

In places where non-a S.H.A. give permission for more equality (until an a.a. pulls rank, either through privilege and or threat of violence) the fight for rights continues slowly. It would be heartening to say that their right to vote, marry and love who they wished had happen purely down to their own efforts, but this is not the case. There were two huge wars fought roughly 100 solar rotations ago and then again about 70. While non-a's were involved, fought and so on, predominantly it was those were regarded as a's who fought and killed each other in enormous numbers. this lead to the break down of many traditional a.a social and economic roles. This allowed non-a's to work, gain education, and be seen as capable and useful members of society. 

After these wars governing bodies did what they could to re-assert the roles and lack of right but non-a's fought and little by little they gained some rights and freedoms. This has lead to backlashes by those who are (or even those who wish to be) a.a.

Non-a's currently do not have the same rights and proclivities as those deemed a, or a.a. As a planet there is no equality, in fact speaking about this privileged position can still cause threats and insight murder. Many a's can see how rejection of a large percentage of the S.H.A. population is unfair (apes having keen empathy and understanding of such things). Some use this position to further the cause of those not born a's. They can see how the spectrum gives diversity and doesn't make their place on it less. They support and admire their b or non-a off spring. They have friends and bosses that are non-a and do not find this threatening or upsetting. They love these non-a S.H.A. and give them autonomy over their bodies and rights. Sadly this makes them targets for some a S.H.A's. 

These are strange and wonderful creatures, who are inhabiting this blue planet that sings.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice 

I am writing this blog in response (and agreement with another blog here) because I wrote an intelligent and rather eloquent response in the comments section that was eaten by the site/internet/computer beasties. I in no way shook my laptop in rage, I am a grown up! 

I will now try and remember the clever and beautifully smart things I said....

Firstly if you asked me if I made sacrifices, I would probably say I don't. Offerings sure, but sacrifice sound either like a dodgy business arrangement (scratch my back and I''ll scratch yours) or some biblical test of faith by destroying a person, animal or thing that is very important; I don't have any need to prove my faith to my Gods.

Yet sacrifice also means to offer. THAT I do all the time.

I feed my family, friends, fae and Gods (and Goddesses) on a regular basis. Sometimes in a ritual context but just as often just when I am cooking (baking in particular).

So animal sacrifice sounds like something I don't do (kill an animal to pleased, placate or bargain with those beyond the Veil) except that when I give offerings, make a dumb supper plate, put the fatty bits in a tree, in a way I am.

There is no blood on my hands per say. I wouldn't hurt or harm a pet, mine or anyone else's. Yet if I needed to take a life to feed my family, friends, fae and Gods, then I would take an animals life. I would take it as swiftly and painlessly as I could. I would honour their passing. Respect all it gave me. Growing up on a farm I saw the souls of animals up close and personal. While I wasn't allowed to hunt (not woman's work apparently) my step-brothers sometimes did, and their friends did far more often. It was not uncommon to find "payment" for hunting being hung up outside the door when we went out in the morning, be it a goose, rabbit, or in one case a bag of eels, (not bad eating though they did stink out the microwave for a while). I learned to pluck, gut and clean (women's work apparently) and eat all sorts of food.

Sacrifice (in the context of offerings) for me is a conversation, a connectedness. What I have I freely and lovingly shared with all those I love and care for in my life. It is not a burden. I always pay close attention to the food I eat. I never forget that I am eating something that had a soul or spirit and I engage with that.

There is a snobbish bitchcraft, holier than thou bunch of people on the pro and anti sides of this argument. Much of it stems different class systems in different countries (either the very rich or the very poor tend to hunt in the UK) and the generally snobbery of who is more witch endlessly irritates me. Witch is something you do. Not what you eat. 

If someone I knew was sacrificing animals (especially if was for ritual food) in a safe, humane and legal way (like rabbits or wood pigeons) I would totally get it and support that right.

This is not the same as animal abuse to use their body parts in spell work (I knew a guy in Crewe who neglected his pets to death and did just this, but because he did't snap a neck he felt he was and I quote "clean of the death". This is disgusting on every level.

Then we have the folks who respect any animal, except of course the human animal. They grant beingness to grasshoppers and fleas but can not find compassion or acceptance for the human spirit if they do not agree with their particular branch. 

For me the consuming of a meal in ritual context, the offering of what I have with others is a significant and spiritual thing. When I did the Hunter Journeying at the Hunter's full moon, eating venison was a very sacred and special part of that. It was not an abstract idea of "Stag" it was the meat in my bowl, in my mouth, in my body. 

The acknowledgement of the death in my life, from the yeast in my bread, to the meat and vegetables I harvest from the garden (many slugs died in the making of those beans) it connects me to the cycles of life and death. It roots me in the real, in the past and present. It teaches me, and my daughter who will always remember, that death is not some distant frightening specture we must avoid at all cost. It is a part life. It gives context and meaning. It is a sacrifice we will all one day make.

Bright Blessings xxx

(no this wasn't as good as the original but ho hum!)