Second edition is here!

The Key:

Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice

 

The Key; second edition, is a magickal manual to unlocking your own potential. It is practical, insightful and allows the student of any level to look at their path with new eyes. There are assignments, poems, prayers, mediations of many kinds with a support and warmth that a seasoned teacher gives. Regardless of your place under the pagan umbrella there is something within this book that can teach you. It treats the student holistically to allow greater balance with both ritual and non ritual magickal life. Whether you are a neonate, an acolyte, or on the priestess path, you will find this workbook insightful and challenging. Available here now!

" Great Book! It is very slim in tome but do not let that put you off. She has a great teaching style. I really believe If you cant explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough. It is a practical book with no fluff. If you are an absolute beginner or who lost ground / confused due to too much reading and lack of practice this is the best book to start out with. This book will keep the serious student busy for a few months and give the confidence that needed to delve deeper into magickal studies. I hope she will write more books in the future." NIKKI

"The Key is a wonderfully practical book, packed with useful and important mental, spiritual and physical ways of living a life in magic. Lucy stresses that this is not a path for those unwilling to invest themselves in the dedication and hard work required, which should be a clue right there that she's the real deal. She includes some wonderful guided meditations, and a few beautiful, simple rituals that can be incorporated in to daily life, to bring magical awareness to even the most mundane work. This path isn't for everyone, but if it's for you, then Lucy's book is a perfect way to start. If you are needing a little something to kickstart you back into practice, lucy's guided meditations and tender butt-kickings are very motivational! An excellent choice for beginners and life-long seekers!" Gayla Drake

"This is an excellent work book for Magical Practitioners of all flavours.
written in the words of an encouraging but firm teacher, who truly believes this is not beyond your capability if you push yourself. The exercises are simple, but provide enough challenge to grow and develop, at whatever pace suits you.They do not require tools or dogma. I would definitely recommend this book to beginners on the path, as it provides a really solid foundation to build on in later years.
For those of us that are more experienced, it still holds value, as all too often the foundations may become neglected over the years, and it works wonderfully as a Magical M.O.T. to take a step back and press the mental re-set button, and ensure that your basics are strong. taking the time to perform these exercises will be helpful for people at any stage in their path."  
Mrs Sheena Leversedge-Wood



Find the first edition here.
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Bright Blessings xxx

Visualization Tips and Tricks

Visualization:

 Tips and Tricks

1) Practice and Observation.

 Visualization is a common technique in magickal circles, yet people assume everyone starts in the same footing and this simply isn't so. Most people skim read the world, while others study light and patterns. Observing something for sometime is not something most people spend any amount of time learning. Need a candle, but don't have one, try here. Need a bowl of water but on a bus? Try here!

In my experience it is something you can learn, but as with most things it takes practice. 

In my book The Key, many of the meditations start with observation and then holding the image within the mind after the fact. If you can hold the image and not let it get "fuzzy" or morph into something else then you are on the right track. 

Having the object (or elemental symbol) before you and observing it everyday changes not only how you look at things, or how you see them but how solidly you can hold them in your mind.

2)Animate your mental picture.

Once you can hold a still image in your mind comfortably and bring it to mind clearly at will then next part is to make the candle burn. the water move. Instead of making a "photo" in your mind, make a short movie/film/gif. 

3) Apply texture

How something feels is just as important as how it looks. You can observe with your touch, your skin, your feet. Focus on it the way you would with your sight. This kind of meditation requires focus and drawing back the awareness to the body and is something many practiced meditation practitioners can struggle with. Things like yoga, and tai chi, even martial arts and dance (in which I have practiced most of my life) help with this awareness and kind of meditation.

4) Back to Black

Once you have managed to achieve some success in the three fields your visualization will be much improved. Yet observing the black before your own eyes as a meditation practice is more difficult than it sounds. We tend to want to add things, or make it "black" but the darkness before our eyes is very rarely black. Observing how something is and not changing it is actually very tough. Once you have a handle on your own space before your eyes you can repeat exercises 1-3 within this space.

Most of these techniques are woven carefully into the exercises I give in my book taking fragments and extracts from meditation techniques I have used over the years.

If you have any questions about visualization (or anything else) come listen to The Blackthorn Path radio show Sunday evening 8pm Eastern 7pm Central over the next few weeks as I will be guesting this great show with Gayla Drake (no relation!) and Mumsy!

Check out some of their other shows if you have missed them (or like me live somewhere the show is super late!)

Until then

Bright Blessings xxx

My mourning

My Mourning

My tea of the day is Darjeeling.
I am in a weird place, a healing place, but off my balance a little. When I was 18 I fell in love at first sight. Across a crowded room. Time slowed and everything, except of course I did not. This person was, of course, very important to my life, yet somehow they were always leaving. Given my childhood I did not expect less. Over the years since she has left me a hundred times. Left me with confusion, blame, broken-heartedness, in limbo, in secret, and I could never see I was a ego boost. We needed each other so much, had so many parallel experiences but we never really saw each other. I changed the whole course of my life to embrace a person she never really was. She changed me for the better as well as the worse. She was a muse, and inspiration. What is they say about meeting your hero's? This game of affection (I will not call it love) and shame spiralled and spiralled. I gave when I barely had anything myself. I gave her time, money when I could when she was starving and stealing just to live. Then when she kissed me at her hen party as I left in a cab to come home something broke in me. Yet I put it in a box with her name on it of pain. I watched her wed someone else and part of me crushed into nothingness.
Then when her baby was going be born sick, spent hours sending light, talking when we could, only to be told after the birth I wasn't welcome at the hospital because I "wasn't family". Ping,oh look another piece of something like my soul, never mind, put it in the box.
It took me a long time to not to play the spiral game. When it stopped she cut me from her life. Not a word. Not a moment of warmth and I FELT BAD.
This is not love. Not anything close to it.
This is not friendship.
It is odd, that this box I placed all of this is now open and I can see it so clearly. It was never her falling. It was never me leaving. It was me through the mirror and not me at all. Love is not something you say, it is what you do. I am not even angry, am disappointed in all that time, and energy and magick I wasted that I should have spent on my life, on those who were there.
Good bye Flower Princess, I will remember Channel number 5, the feel of tequila on my tongue, the hangovers are not worth it. I don't drink any more.
I don't need your permission (or anyone else's) to dance. I don't need your approval (or anyone else's) in what I do.
So I dance, drink tea, burn sweet herbs, light candles and dance with Goddess and angels.

Bright Blessings xxx

The Great Mother

The Great Mother

“She had a soft and soothing voice and her presence was as reassuring as a mother’s embrace. The fact that God is a Holy Mother instead of a Holy Father doesn’t disturb me, she is everything I hoped she would be and even more!" Father John Micheal O’neal 

When I "connect with source" during meditation, prayer or even dance, I feel an overwhelmingly female presence. A rush of emotions sings through me as though I being hugged by someone who loves and has missed me. 

For me this was difficult when I first felt this awareness, presence around and inside in. This love, this unconditional caring, was so new, so alien to me that as much as I wanted it, I couldn't trust it. This echoed with my relationship with other women and of course myself. Yet little by little I connected, reached out my heart and mind to Her.

I could always find her. I simply had to look. To reach out.

My rational (and irrational mind) wanted to know she didn't just "fix everything". Yet as a mother myself I could see that most of the mess was my making, and that much like watching your child get sick with chickenpox, you tend them carefully, say soothing words, but know they have to go through it. That it is better that it happens at this point or that point, that while there may well be scars but they make you no less beautiful or perfect. 

She isn't there to "do" everything. She is there to love and support you while you "do" everything. While all the faces, and names of Goddess and Mother are individual and distinct, there is always this energy in their robes. 

I think of these "Earthy Goddesses" like saints or Ascended Mothers. Human and divine, of the earth, and the land, steeped in human female reality, of body, blood and spirit. Fierce in battle, in birthing,  in washing and tending the dead. 

I do not claim some Universal truth or have a monopoly on Goddess, wisdom or love. I just know that underneath everything, beyond even spirit is this love, awareness, awakeness, I call Mother. I call Goddess. 

Bright Blessings xxx

Healing 3

Healing continued

Herbalism

Most children grow up with a connection to plants. From berries they shouldn't eat, or dock leaves to rub on nettle stings. Growing up in the wilds I certainly knew more about the natural world than my peers. I would run my hands over the plants in the wilderness of a "garden" we simply called The Front". They would speak to me, sometimes in little songs, sometimes simply in their perfumes. I knew what was edible and poisonous by sight, touch and smell. I was a wild little thing. All skinny arms and legs and big hair, up in trees, or in the tall grass. Weaving flowers into rings of unknown design.

At about when I was 16, maybe a little younger, my "mother" decided she wanted a "proper" garden and my step-brother built her one. It consisted on a brick pathed area with matching raised beds on each side and walls that were hollow for planting diving the garden from "The Front".

We began to grow herbs. Ones I had never heard of in my wild ramblings. "Mother" bought a book. We agreed to share it. I still have it. Since then I have grown, sown, potted and planted many herbs and plants and gathered herbal books as some gather porcelain pigs or cushions.

Herbal medicine is older than humans. Chimpanzees do it. Elephants do it. They gather and eat herbs to make them feel better. 

I know a lot of doctors and ordinary people poo poo herbalism as though it is silly. Yet poison ivy or nettles, cannabis or foxglove have real affects on the body. Why one plant is "too dangerous" and others are ridiculed is beyond me.

Aspirin, Valium, and even heart medication are based on compounds found in herbal medicine. Interestingly sometimes the impurities within a herbal compound seem to make it work more effectively than the pure extracted compound. 

Herbal medicine was and is a deeply skilled art and while I have researched and studied for years I am not a professional herbalist (though I have thought about becoming so a few times).

I have a deep affection and profound respect for this craft and it's ability to heal. The chemical compounds found within plants and herbs are potent and can be dangerous when mishandled. Yet anyone can grow a lavender plant. Or an aloe. 

Whether used as teas to relax the body so it can heal it's self, or decotions, lotions, lozenges, syrups or tinctures for a stronger or deeper level of healing it is amazing what simple and common herbs can do to the whole person. 

I have two rules about herbal craft when I teach.

1) Research. Know your plants, wild and cultivated. Learn the Latin. 

2)Do not give to someone else something you have no direct experience of using.

For more healing blogs read here or here.
If you want to see the things I make with herbs and my craft come visit here.

Bright Blessings xxx

Healing continued

Healing

Continued.

So last time I wrote about healing we did a brief look at crystal healing, reiki and spiritual healing. Now I have practiced more than a couple of martial arts in my time. The first was judo (where I broke my collar bone). As such things like Shiatsu has always made sense to me.

Shiatsu

Shiatsu as a healing system came to Japan about the 6th century via a Buddhist monk. Over the centuries it was refined and adapted to Japanese culture and in the 20th century Tami Tempaku incorporated elements of physiotherapy and chiropractic methods into much older methods. It was officially recognised as it's own distinct form in 1964.
The type of Shiatsu I  have experienced and on occasion worked with focuses on working through clothes and manipulation of the sun, or acupressure points around the body, as well as gently re-aligning the joints. I have read a great many books about shiatsu but I seem to have a knack with it. My hands know. Interestingly (at least to me) the client and the practitioner (though full clothed) become one. The ki (chi) moves through both parties. It is like tai chi with two bodies.

Acupuncture

My first experience of acupuncture was watching my Dad lying on a table covered with tiny silver quills. The therapist joked that I should I want something, now would be the time to ask. I was not upset, or frightened. I did not take him up on his offer.

Acupuncture is a part of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is a very old system of healing based around the balance of energy and allowing things to flow energetically around the body. It uses herbs, (we will cover this at some other point) food, as well as massage and acupuncture to heal emotional blocks and physical injury.

While I react wonderfully to shiatsu, I have a metal reaction to the needles. I have always thought that I would do better with traditional bamboo needles but they are hardly used any more. 

That said I would have loved to have had the surgeries I have had with acupuncture as the anesthetic because it takes ages to work on me and then I am usually out for ages as they give me to much. Acupuncture has had huge successes used this way even during open heart surgery. 

While the meridian system used is much more intricate than the one generally used in shiatsu many of the principles are the same. They treat the person as a whole being, including emotional well-being a part of health. 

Aromatherapy 

Aromatherapy for me is part herbal alchemy, part sensory stimulant, part massage. I love it. Other than the herbs and flower potions I made as a kid my first brush with aromatherapy was when I first left home as a student. I started working with and researching oils after having them used on me at the osteopath for a neck injury. I collected more oils (having always massaged any way) and more books until I left University and I signed up for my first holistic therapy course. I have done three since then and yet my only qualification in holistics is in aromatherapy. This therapy has it's roots in almost all ancient cultures, Egyptian, Greeks, Chinese, and many others had forms of using essences for healing the body, spirit and mind.

Smell has a huge impact on our brain function, memory, attraction and desire. Some people think this is the key to aromatherapy. While that is true essential oil are absorbed very easily into the body and mimic many hormones the body naturally produces. While the distilled, pressed and extracted oils of flowers, woods, leaves, seeds and roots do often smell pleasant they also seem to affect the body, sometimes for days.

The herbal alchemy of taking the "essence" of a plant is both beautiful and interesting to me how oils are used and applied makes a big difference in how they work. Certain oils seem to work better through physical application, while other better vaporized in a space (whether oil burner, incense or steam room). 

Aromatherapy massage has many different forms (I have been taught three different massages by the three teachers I have had.) Some work with the chakra system and with the breathing, other purely the physical body, then some are more like shiatsu massages.)

It is something I have a great skill in and something I love to do (which does beg the question, why don't I do it more often). While hard work, it is one of the most rewarding and relaxing things I do. There is something wonderful about massaging someone. 

That is all for this blog...so much more to cover!

Bright Blessings

Under Attack

Under Attack

Sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed and attacked. After all energy goes where attention flows. Yet as I stated in Laws of Magick like attracts like, in all things not just magick. If you are being attacked the last thing you want to do is have your decisions made out of fear and anger.

If you let go of your fear, and anger, even if it is only for a few minutes when you meditate it will almost immediately help. If other people are able to make you feel bad you are giving them the power. You always have a choice how you react.

This is not me, or anything to do my my life right now. However I do get lots of messages from people wanting my help. This blog was to address so concerns that a few people have reach me to help with.

The next thing I would recommend is cleanse and clean everything. You can mix salt and herbs into your cleaning water and scrub everything. Wash your floors, your doors and windows. As I said in Protection blog cleansing and warding fix most problems. If you have a spirit problem get a professional reputable medium and if you are worried about children follow my advice from Not-so-imaginary-friends . I sell banishing salts here.

When you allow fear to colour your perception of the world you draw, you, yes you, draw the very things you fear to you. When you find poise, stillness, calm you can act instead of react. 

Now that is not to say you won't be attack on occasion. Yet if you get into a magickal tug of war using the same emotion (and there for energy) you won't get very far. Anger is pain, turned outwards to protect yourselves from vulnerability, as though being soft and open is the worst thing in the world. It is not "silly" or naive. It is uncomfortable but needed if we are to live happy lives.

Most often when we feel attacked we try anything to make ourselves immune to being vulnerable. It becomes a circle, the angry person lashes out making other people angry and so on and so on. 

If we take a moment to be vulnerable (even if it is alone with our breath) and let go of the pain, we do not need to pass it along.

Most people think that the best defense form attack is this

Yet in truth you will get much more peace, and happiness is you combat an attack like this.

If you are "surrounded by darkness" then BE the LIGHT. If you are worried about demons read this. 

The funny thing is no amount of "gift" or psychic ability will mean a damn thing if you collect the energies, emotions and crap from other people all over yourself. You are a conduit of something into this world and if you clutter it with your emotional garbage and hurts how can you shine that light into the world? If you do not accept your own power within the life you lead, your own thought, words and actions how can you expect good to come to you. I have known folks who say only "nice" things, and do the "nice" things but their minds and hearts or pits of rage and hate and pain. It always, without fail, comes to bite them on the ass. 

The Charge of the Goddess says

" Keep pure your highest ideals, strive ever towards them. Let naught stop you or turn you aside."

Whether you follow The Charge or not, not bad words to live by. Keep pure, and strive towards. 

Bright Blessings xxx