WINTERSPELLS: Life on the Magical Path

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As a child, Fairy Tales gave me a taste for questing. We were surrounded by woods full of dense trees, little streams and clearings with evidence of  long gone buildings and stone walls. The wonderful thing about the stone walls was that they provided guidance in the woods, for they always came out someplace close to home. We never had to fear getting lost.

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There were many wonderful places in the woods. I loved the little swamps with their wild irises and tiger lilies, frogs leaping in the murky dark pools with fringes of ferns and mossy rocks. Like the stone walls, narrow rivulets of water beckoned me to explore deeper than I would dare to go without them to mark my path.

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One autumn, I found a large mound of earth in the woods. I had followed the little stream into a swamp as it wound like a snake across a carpet of brown pine needles deep into the woods. There was a ruined stone wall to climb over that bounded a broad sloping clearing inside a ring of trees. In the middle of the clearing was a high, smooth mound of earth covered in the same dead pine leaves that lay in layers over the ground.

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Most adults would say it was an old pile left over from the when the land had been clear pasture, but for me it was a mystery, imbued of course with my childish creative imaginings. But then, the way to that place was initially across the cemetery, and years later I was taught that the Fairies lived under mounds of earth, and much later was taught that those mounds of earth were the burial chambers of Kings and Queens and all their retinue. Within the mound, they held court with masques and dancing and lavish feasts, and on  certain nights of the year, they emerged on their shining horses, to chase the hare into the depths of winter and out again into the spring.

But these Faery mounds are not in America! We don’t have Kings and Queens.

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But in Massachusetts we did. For two centuries we were colonies of Queen Elizabeth and then several Kings thereafter. And who is to say that some royal person was not buried in a mound near an ancient cemetery in my home town.

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For me the mystery is not whether there was a mound of earth in the woods, or whether a King was buried there, or even if it was a Faery mound. It is in how the mind brings certain images together in a certain way so that the intuition grasps knowledge it didn’t have any way of knowing before hand.

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The Color of Christmas is Black

Christmas is a celebration of the dawning of the light.

In the Western World we have combined elements of Pagan rituals with the Christian Mystery of the nativity for a joyous recognition that new Light comes out of Darkness, that the resurrection of life after death is part of the cycle of nature.

Red, green, gold, tinsel, these are the colors associated with Christmas. But the old color of Christmas is black. The black of the long night filled with stars, the black of life still quickening under the soil, The darkness of the evergreen forest with glints of sun shining through,  the darkness of snow banked  houses inwardly lit by candles and hearth fires.

And then there is the old tradition of Saturnalia.

Ancient Romans told tales of a Gold Age ruled over by King Saturn, God of sowing and husbandry. Old King Cole was a Merry Old Soul could have been written about him. The earth brought forth abundantly  as King Saturn brought people together from far and wide to teach them how to plant an harvest and till the ground, how to live lawful lives under his generous and peaceful rule. All property was held in common, greed and war were not even thought of.

After King Saturn vanished, or died, his reign continued to be commemorated by the Romans with shrines and festivals in his honor. And every winter from the 17th to the 23rd of December, great revels took place led by the Spirit of Misrule. Slaves were freed and allowed to act the part of Masters. Masters waited upon slaves. Class barriers were further razed as everyone indulged in feasting, drinking, dancing and orgies. The high point of this carnival was the coronation of the Mock King. Usually chosen by lot, the slave who was mad King, ordered the people around, often requesting the drunken revelers to perform ridiculous antics, like silly dances, mimicking animals, or carrying musicians on their backs.

But as was the case in most ancient agricultural societies known for an abundantly fertile and yielding earth. there was another side to these festivities. For the Mock King, who for a few days enjoyed every indulgence, for whom was his command, ended his reign with his head on the block, burned in the fire, or hung on the gallows tree.

It was believed that the Sun actually died on Winter Solstice, and that the only way to bring it back to life, was to exchange one life for another — a human life for the life of the sun.  The Mock King of the Saturnalia, chosen by chance — and therefore by the Gods — drunken and in a state of high excitement, was a slave for whom these few days may have been worth the price of his short and miserable life.

The Battle of the Summer and Winter Kings

What is this connection of Christmas time and death? For Christians it would be a pre-configuration of Easter, when the Son would die as a human being and be resurrected as God, and bright solar God at that.  In December, the Mock King, a Christmas Fool dies to bring back the Sun.

The Celts had a tradition of the Oak King and the Holly King meeting on the field of battle at Winter Solstice. The Oak King o Summer must give way to the Holly King of winter, but will not do so without a fight. That it was a fight to the death is a given in the books I have read on the subject. Was this another way to insuring the sun coming back in exchange for a human life? Or was this battle enacted in the Dreamtime — the Otherworld realm where European  shamans battled witches to protect the fertility of the land?

It is the brightness over the darkness that gives Christmas its special character. Gold over black. The warm glow of fire, the colored lights, the shining evening clothes and jewels shining in the long dark night of winter is the glamor of Christmas. But under the reassuring images of Santa Clause, and  abundant gift giving in honor of King Saturn’s Golden Age, and the Peace on Earth that also characterized his mythical reign, is the deeper complication of our mortality and our place in the scheme of things. We call on angels, wise Kings and a Great Mother Goddess to bring forth the Light now.  The Mystery still remains — the birth of the Divine Child, the one and only God, entering the darkness of the flesh to awaken the Light within us all.

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Winter Comes

I have news for you,
Stag bellows. winter snows,
Summer has gone,
Winds high and cold,
Sun low, short its course.

The streams running high,
Deep red, the branches
Their shape is lost,
Wild goose flies,
Cold has seized her wings,
Season of ice,
This is my news.

–Anonymous, Celtic poem

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Before you go to sleep, imagine you are following a black stream into the woods. As you follow it along, begin to focus on the trees, the patches of sky above you, and the ground beneath your feet. Set the intention to find the sacred animals, to connect to one that may be special for you, and will promise to guide you deeper into Faery. Perhaps you spy a frog or toad at your feet near the steams edge, or a low  flying owl brushes your head with its wings. Maybe a deer awaits you further along, or a fox slinks through the underbrush. Whoever it is, offer a small gift to thank them for being your guide, and then follow them wherever they may lead. I promise you it will be lovely, disturbing, transformational…

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Thank the Goddess for the beauty of the earth!

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For those of you who want something to do after dinner beside watching the football game, I have a special treat.

I found Todd Atteberry’s  wonderful blog “A Gothic Cabinet of Curiosities and Mysteries” while I was hunting for images.

I don’t know what Mr. Atteberry does, but his photos look like paintings by the Old Masters such as Rembrandt, or Vermeer.

His work is so beautiful, that I  commented on his blog and went back a few times to his many galleries of  evocative, eerie, haunting images. When he told me he was going to Salem for the first time, I sent him my blog post Haunted Salem so he would know a little bit about how it was before the 1980′s economy crash in New England inspired a true horror  show of commercial theme park kitsch exploiting the town’s reputation for witchcraft.

He made his trip, told me via Facebook that the article helped him a lot which was nice to hear.  I was then directed his page where I found a gorgeous picture of one of the old graveyards under a spreading old oak tree. I have been to Salem many times over the years and have never seen such an evocation of the power in the land as that photo. Todd seems to be able to erase all evidence of the modern world. You feel like you have walked into that time over 300 years ago when America was still a colony of England and our King was George III.

These new images of Salem are on his blog now –  GO HERE NOW:

http://www. gothicghoststories.com

I hope you enjoy these gorgeous images of autumn in New England and their evocation of the true meaning of Thanksgiving by a true artist who has the gift of Seership and records his visions with a camera.

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Go off into cyberspace and explore Todd Atteberry’s many art galleries. And, if you feel like you have to own something,

or want to send your Friendly Witchy Blogger a Yule Prezzie — he sells these for a song!

Here is a link to his big gallery:

http://toddatteberry.com

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Could you be a Carrier of the Witch Blood?

Sharon Tate in “Eye of the Devil”, 1963. Initiated by Alex Sanders in preparation for her role as Odile LeCaray, she may have been a natural witch. Her Astrological chart with its strong Neptunian influence suggest this may be so.

Are You:

psychic?

drawn to dark, mysterious things?

not just interested in Vampires and  Faeries, you want to be one?

unable to stay away from books about witchcraft and sorcery?

able to see or sense ghosts, and the past lives of places?

excited about going to places like Salem, or Whitby?

into dark glamor and wish to convey a powerful presence?

compelled by the Mysteries?

having trouble staying in your body? Are out of body experiences a away of life?

Since childhood you have practiced rituals to either placate the Gods, or communicate with spirits.

in a natural deep communion with nature and the spirits in trees, plants, animals, and landscapes.

passionate that sacred things and places must be protected.

more perceptive than most other people you know?

convinced that you have to keep these qualities to yourself.

These are just some of the  possible traits that can indicate that you may be a hereditary witch — that you are a carrier of the Witch Blood

Margaret Hamilton caught on fire while filming the Wizard f Oz!

How it Used to Be

I grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, in a small town of Irish and French Catholics in Massachusetts. Witches were believed to be either fairy tale characters or evil old women who were burned at the stake in the Middle Ages.

England had serious laws against witchcraft until 1951. After these laws were repealed,  Gerald Gardner went public with Wicca, a religion he developed by cobbling together folk lore, the ideas of Margaret Murray, some involvement with British magical traditions, and perhaps with a mix of the tribal ritual he may have seen in his years as a civil servant in Indonesia.

Robert Cochran came along later claiming to come from a long line of witches, as did Sibyl Leek. Still, the idea of a family carrying on an unbroken heritage of witchcraft or magical practices was considered a very wild claim. Yet some people seemed to be born with psychic and magical powers, were clearly drawn to tales of witchery and magic, and had the imagination to create communities of like minded souls who came together to be witches.

Those desires had to come from some place! This is where the idea of the Witch Blood was born. It may have been Robert Cochran who coined the term to describe people who for some inexplicable reason were willing to risk everything — jobs, houses, partners, families, etc. in order to pursue the path of witchcraft. Witch Queen Maxine Sanders was driven out of her home by frightened neighbors and had another house torched when they found out she was a Witch, even though she had done them no harm.

The conclusion was that, just as in fairy tales in which the Beggar Maid is discovered to be a Princess by virtue of her uncharacteristic beauty and refinement, someone with witch blood in their veins can be spotted by other witches.  Perhaps there are people who come from families where the Craft was practiced long ago. These practices went underground, or were replaced with Christianity, but something remains in the genes that is passed down to one or members of the family unrecognized, or misunderstood.

Dormant Witch Blood can also be ignited by Initiation into Wicca, Faery Witchcraft practices,  and the creation of a magical way of life.

Carole Bohanon is the new witch at  Wookey Hole Caves, England.

Now

Today, many people have been born into witch families, and raised in the Craft. There is no doubt that they are hereditary witches and carry the Witch Blood. There is no mystery surrounding it as there when I was a young person just finding this stuff out about myself.

Still, I am sure that there are some in the current generation who feel these things and have no role models in their families. Their families may even be fundamentalist Christians — I have known a few people like that. Some Christians doth protest too much, and some ex-witches have gone into Christianity because of bad experiences in covens, or after frightening themselves when the magic actually works! They can be the most virulent antagonists against witchcraft.

Of course films and now television are currently having a field day with witches. Teenagers can take them on as role models, and in many cases, not be stigmatized as weirdos. In general, I have found witches to be a pretty happy lot, optimistic and creative, imaginative and fun loving.  If sinister overtones are there, it is because of the dark cycle we all must go through, and the way some us walk between the worlds. Some witches are also sociopaths, but that isn’t just because they are witches, nor is sociopathology exclusive to witches and magicians.

If you have found yourself wandering in the woods, or walking the hills like a lost soul, hoping somewhere deep inside, where even you cannot verbalize it, that you will find them, then you might be blessed with the witch blood. If you leave offerings for the spirits, try to engage others to sit in a circle and call the spirits, if you feel you have  a secret name, you might have the witch blood. If you are more drawn to these things than “normal” activities, are more comfortable in nature than in a church, if you can’t get your nose out of certain types of books….then I may have news for you….

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The Power of Self Healing

I had a profound healing experience yesterday that I thought to share with you. In all my years as a healer, I never  did any work on myself that was so surprising and transformational. I discovered the core of my money issues and the healing process shook my foundations in a way I never would have believed. Since we all have these issues, I thought this little post might provide some helpful insights.

Backstory

Just to set this up, i came back to the States exactly three years ago after nine years living in London. I had a Tarot reading stall in Camden Lock Market. Before that, I had had a thriving healing practice in Seattle, and made enough money to allow me to travel and live a very nice lifestyle with a lot of freedom and few worries — plus I helped a lot people. In London, I was reduced to eventually having to put in four days a week in hyper stressful environment, reading Tarot cards for a relative pittance. After a while I got so busy that I began to experience serious burnout and everything in my life fell apart. It has taken me these three years to recover my health and balance.

I have an arsenal of healing techniques that have evolved over the years. Among them is a method that actually changes DNA patterning so that you can unload  past conditioning and replace it with something you want – so you can move forward instead of being stuck.

Money has been a serious issue for me since my return. For one, during the last year I was in London,  I was not able to make very much money so when I came back to Seattle, my savings was used up re-locating and I had to get a J.O.B. I was only able to work part-time because I needed to heal.
Result: barely making it. Then the economy went bust. Combined with my inability to work for tyrants,  here I am on unemployment just squeaking along below the poverty level.

I have begun to see clients again. And after twenty-five years of experience, I feel I am entitled to charge premium prices.  I have arrange things so that I see  fewer clients who pay more  for the sake of my health. I do not want that burn-out again. I am still undercharging and struggling with the issue of translating value into money.

Revelation

A really nice lady was referred to me  for a Clairvoyant Reading by a client I have had for years. The reading went so well, that it also over time, and I charged her for the extra half hour. This was great for me because I am determined to feel deserving to be paid what I am worth. But, after she left, I felt guilty.

This feeling of guilt was so strong, I had to sit down and deal with the fact that I felt  guilty about being paid — even when I have provided excellent value to the client. The first thought in my head was that if i were a man I wouldn’t even think twice about it and would have charged more in the first place. I remember being told long ago that, whereas female’s in the helping professions are expected to have sliding scale  payment options, males rarely do, if ever. I was feeling very tired of how us women seem to  have been programed to lose all the time. So often, women put themselves “on sale” as Suzi Ormond says — and its wrong.

I struggled with this curse for an hour or so and realized I need to do something about it, because I am so sick of this mindset. Since I have been on the internet,  in the last six months, I have become aware that there are huge numbers of people in this country who think nothing of dropping $20,000 on a  weekend seminar — who cry poverty while they money out of their ears. It is a real eye-opener.

Poverty Consciousness Sucks

I grew up in a poor working class French Canadian family in Massachusetts. My father never made more than $20,000 a year in his entire life working in the office of a factory. My mother worked part-time in a department store. There were three of us kids. My mother still thinks $20,000 a year is fantastic money. Cripes, I made way more than that as a part time healer and psychic — even working part-time in the theater! And it wasn’t enough just for me to live on! To make it even more deeply programed, all of my friends have to struggle financially. They are mostly women, and a couple of guys, who despite their brains and talents barely make ends meet.

There is nothing like getting over 50 to make it plain that if you continue on that path, Bag-Ladyville is your destiny when you live in the Land of the Free.
And nobody will care.

So, I decided to use one of my DNA techniques to do away, once and for all, with this stupid Poverty Consciousness. And it is stupid. Its a total waste to live like that. I decided I had to stop putting myself on sale. I am not a bargain basement.

SO

After my usual hectic week, I sat down last night and did this Energetic Re-Patterning of the DNA technique on myself. In this method, you decide if the problem is in your organs — in the Chinese  Five- Elements system, or your Chakras. Then you connect with your Higher Self and  begin to pick numbers from a list. I have found that even though I have the lists in front of me, I can make myself not see them — I am good at unplugging my recognition of the ones I know by heart.

I started with  the Chinese Five- Elements, and this is what I came up with — it was so dead on it was scary!

Question: Why Do I feel guilty Accepting Money in Exchange for My Work?

Earth Element:
Organ: Stomach —  deficient energy
Reason: Over-sympathetic  — Need to Nurture Others

Primary Pattern: Not feeling I have the right to give support and ask for it back. I do not believe my needs are equal to those of others.

(Well, that hit home like a ton of bricks on so many levels. But it was only descriptive and I needed more, so I decided to check into my chakras as well.)

Energy was stuck in my Second Chakra and my Third Eye.

2nd Chakra : Lack of Pleasure
I must sacrifice pleasure to survive
Primary Pattern: Lack of ability to nurture myself

(Another bingo! This one is so me these days, and with a Venus ruled horoscope not normal or conducive to anything good. I could become bitter but I won’t )

3rd Eye: Vision in denial
Not having the ability to imagine something that has never been before
Primary pattern: Loss of imagination and ability to dream.
(Who me? Things are worse than I thought.)

The Universal Fear was — no surprise:
Lack of Self Worth in the eyes of others. Hahaaha!

My Karmic pattern had to do with Astrology in relation to earth changes,
My kidnapping someone in a past life (these are often metaphors)
and Birth tTauma having to do with my mother’s  memories of deaths in the family.

That last one set my mind in  a spin. I am the first born. My mother was 20 years old when she had me. When she was quite small her little 3 year old  brother had an appendicitis attack and died. She had been left alone with him while my flashy grandparents were out partying and they refused to come home when she called them. so she was left alone to watch her  little brother die. Their extraordinarily colorful family crumbled after that. I won’t go on…

In my DNA due to past life carry-over:
Pain
Slave
Beggar
(Well that speaks for itself!)

My Womb Pattern: To survive I must fit in
(I’m the last person to do that aren’t I? If I survival depends on fitting in I’m doubly screwed!)

Points of Pain

What really hit me was the idea that I must sacrifice pleasure to survive. That brought up masses of pain. I’m an artist  ruled by Venus –  I live for beauty and sensual pleasure — or I used to. It also hit me how I was throwing myself away. I can’t afford to do that. I enjoy living indoors in the lap of luxury. i would like to stay in 5 star hotels when I travel. I hate being poor. Though, true child of the 60′s, I used to mix that up with being free!

So, taking that as a point of pain, I began to meditate.
Here is where it all comes clear.

If  you come from a poor background, and have poor friends, or are women depending on a man for survival — something my generation was shamed into letting go of by feminism — this may  resonate with you.

In meditation, my mind went back over the family history as I had heard and experienced it growing up. It was depressive and gray,  black and white. Images of Victorian London ( or in my case France or Ireland)  with cobbled streets out of Charles Dickens came up in which I appeared to myself as a poor thing, an insubstantial waif in the street, and then I turned into a hardened woman, old beyond her years, scrubbing the steps in front of my house in the slum. I kept hearing myself saying “scrabbling, scrabbling, endless scrabbling.” That phrase summed it all up. It kept repeating, so I used it as a fuel to  move energy.

(This image relates a lot to mother and her side of the family as well, and is one of the reasons for the forced glamor of my grandparents who sought to escape their poor backgrounds by acting the fashionable party people. Of course their attempts to have pleasure, and escape survival mode, backfired horribly. That is the power of conditioning!)

Meanwhile my body from chest to waist and the back of the neck was a solid block of pain. This was where I was holding this DNA pattern of “endless scrabbling.”   It was so intense I worried I wouldn’t  be able to move it.

In the method I use, you examine  the images and feelings held in this energy. You must also forgive whoever instilled it in you, and  at the same time feel the pain of what it has done to your life. I had to forgive the whole family tree. That wasn’t too difficult. Many of them had suffered more than me. I had also had a rather amazing life without much money, so the effect of this poverty training wasn’t that bad — until now. The cost of living in this country has become  ridiculously high since 2002 and it is slated to go up again.

And it is hard to get older with nothing in the bank, and no support system. Money has become a  necessity now.

So I let the images arise of gray and miserable and hardened form in my mind. I knelt “scrabbling” on the cobbles with a wire brush cleaning the city dirt off the front doorstep. Finally,  I was able to pull away from the images.  As I detached emotionally,  I stopped  judging the goodness or badness of the situation and this neutralized the fear. Then I  let the whole thing sit, there as nothing but a ball of energy.

My whole being shook and shattered like nothing I ever experienced before. Years of pain broke away and I felt myself opening up and expanding — making room for more. It is hard to convey intense power of this in words, but if you can imagine how a genii who has been stuck in a bottle for centuries feels when some one finally lets him out. He can expand to his full size! he can breathe! That would be worth three wishes, wouldn’t it? My aura got bigger and the patterns dropped off like shattered glass. Then I drew the energy into my heart, with forgiveness, and  and healing of the wounds took place.

So much for an issue I had not thought of as being important. All the pains in my body that one might associate with age are gone. Lack of money, poverty programing, turned out to be  deeper, and more profound an issue than I ever imagined.

But  poverty was normal!  Not just for me and my family, but for my friends  and associates as well. How often do we question “normal”?

The second step in this DNA process is to replace that old program with a new positive one. I wanted to feel free to be rewarded with money equal to the value I give in my services. And that clients are happy to pay me, and I am more than happy to receive money in exchange –  according to the just Law of Reciprocity.

Considering I have changed so many peoples lives, that could be quite a lot.

This was even more mind blowing. Normally manifestation techniques are relatively quick, but this shook me to foundations.  The kundalini rose like  wildfire and started moving through everything and blowing out patterns and DNAs, expanding my energy yet again, and showing me visions of book deals and money pouring down from the heavens in the form of gold coins until I was buried in a mountain of cash.
I sealed it and thanked it.

Today I will do part 2 of this process which is an emotional clean up.

But I wanted to post this to inspire you all to look at your money issues in a new light — as being symptomatic of deeper problems that if left unchecked could magnetize some dire straits to you. Especially you women — stop putting yourselves in the bargain basement sale. Take a page out of the men’s’ book. We should not have to just give and give and give and get nothing back. In the end you could be left with nothing at all.

So maybe just reading about my programing — different than yours of course — might get you thinking about why you have money problems, if you do, and how you might benefit from tackling them head on.

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Diary of Drawings

This is a drawing I made in the mid 1980′s.

During the two and half years that Saturn transited my Eighth House of love and death, I went a little mad you might say.

It wasn’t insanity or anything, it was because of psychic attack.

I had been in a deep relationship with a man who was separated from his wife. If there is such a thing as a Soul Mate, we were it. We openly talked about ourselves that way. I had a vision of him shortly before we met. During my daily meditation practice, I saw him falling out of the sun towards me. When we met, it was an instant attraction. Numerologist Tania Gabrielle would probably look at my 44-8 birth numbers and call it Fate.

But the estranged  wife wasn’t having any of it.  When she found out he was seeing me, she decided wanted him back and went on the warpath with me.

There was a point at which she got really aggressive and started to play games. I was a pretty otherworldly and therefore naive in the way that otherworldly, ungrounded people are. I had nothing against her anyway — this guy and I were Soul Mates. What was I supposed to do?

When the fallout started, I was kicked out of the apartment by my room mate. I moved into a house closer to where my boyfriend lived and spent most of my time at his place. She started coming around. Next thing I knew, I fell into such a deep depression that my personality actually changed. I even looked weird to myself surrounded in this horrible dark vortex.

I always drew pictures and started doing that for hours at a time instead of studying — I was in University then. I mostly drew images of this guy and me in boats and in towers. I began a series of myself with antlers on my head. The drawing at the top is one of the survivors.

Its me looking into a mirror and seeing  antlers on my head.  Before that, my boyfriend had told me I looked like a deer. Maybe it was auto-suggestion, but I do have a Capricorn Moon and associate this self image with that.

Dreamtime

At one point I became very ill and had to go to the hospital with anemia. I was a vegetarian, but also very depleted in other ways.

I became obsessive compulsive, especially with the drawings. I just didn’t stop. Drawing is a wonderful thing, but I felt like I had a motor in my head — maybe I had become autistic or something. It was just weird.

I had been a regular meditator since I was seventeen, and with this boyfriend, had gotten into Tibetan Buddhism and had been initiated into a few saints whose names I can’t remember any more. One was a purification saint. I have always been a great visualizer, and had built up images of these saints in my mind that were very powerful. I was really good at meditation.

So imagine how it felt when I couldn’t do it any more. All I saw was a swirling black energy that made me sea sick. I even went back to Massachusetts to visit my family and it was still just as bad. I was always nauseous and a light- headed, and very confused.

My dreams were  violent. I was always being chopped up into pieces. My body parts were scattered all over the place. I had a series of these  dreams and I drew pictures of those and burned them because I was afraid I might be murdered or something.

Then one night, I dreamed my body parts were scattered over the snow and it was very bloody. Some Inuits came up the slope and wrapped all my body parts in a seal skin. Then they put me inside a sweat house — I can still remember lying on a bench near a wonderful steamy rock pile. I stayed there for a long time.

When I was healed, I dreamed all the time that I swam under the sea with the seals. I was a kind of mermaid.  I drew the seal under the boat that my boyfriend and I were on all the time in my drawings. I let the seal guide me through my emotional turmoil and show me what I needed to know.

Psychic Attack

Our relationship suffered because my boyfriend  just wouldn’t deal with what was going on. He was too weak, and they had a six year old daughter that he felt guilty about.

I began to isolate. I was not a fighter. I still hate to fight, but have learned since that sometimes I have to stand up for myself. But I do hate conflict.

One day I was in my room and took a break from drawing. I wanted to meditate. I remember so clearly sitting in front of my altar and seeing the black vortex spinning all around me. I also saw all these spirits, very flat with triangular heads — a bit dog-like and cartoonish. There were hundreds of then all over the room. I felt sick as one of them stood behind and was tying something around my neck. Seeing them, I said to myself, “I am going to push them away with my light.”

I focused really hard on the light inside of me and sent it out until it was all around me. I continued to expand, obliterating all those little dog things, intending to fill the entire room.  Suddenly there was a kind of explosion, and it was as if the sun had come into the room!  Golden light was streaming everywhere and in the midst of the light were these eyes, black rimmed and compassionate, and face like Christ, though I am not if it was He or some older God. The golden light kept pulsating all around me, erasing all of the spirits, filling the room and healing me.

Deer Lady

It was after that I began to draw the deer lady pictures.

My relationship bit the dust. She was a lawyer and he didn’t stand a chance. Exhausted  ( and I haven’t even told you the half of it) I bowed out and concentrated on school.

This was the 80′s. Lots of books and courses were being given on the West Coast especially. I was also living near some of the most powerful Indian Tribes in North America. Powerful for magic that is. Gradually I learned about Shamanism and was told by one of the Salish Elders here that I had had a Shamanic sickness. All the dismemberment dreams were about taking me apart so I would be put back together in a certain way. The Seal medicine was help me to flow in the sea of the emotions — I also say the unconscious.  The Inuits are at the North Pole where me spirit came into the earth’s atmosphere before birth. They  still have a very strong Shamanic culture.

I see the Capricorn Moon at work as well. The fish-goat who climbs to the top of the mountain and dives deep into the ocean, is very much like the selkie seal lady and the deer lady I became. The Indian gave me a name: Whiteswan, a spirit  bird who transits sea and sky. I also believe that the psychic attack forced me  to strengthen my power, strengthen my light, because that was all it took to make the attack stop and fill me with a vision of golden light and the presence of God.

Two years later I was drafted into the healing profession and have been doing that ever since. Though the seal medicine healed me, it is the deer that I feel is the most like me and images of people with horns and antlers cast a kind of spell over me. I suppose I am more sure-footed that way.

Chesca Potter

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Author and occultist, Sorita D’Este,  posted this on Facebook and I just had to put it on the blog! It is really gorgeous with vocals by Loreena McKennitt and some very cool storytelling. Its also a nice follow up for the Ogham post.
Thanks Sorita! And enjoy!

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Irish / Celtic Gods and Goddesses (Part 1) – The Ever Living Ones The Celtic pantheon is known from a variety of sources, these include written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statu…
Irish / Celtic Gods and Goddesses (Part 1) – The Ever Living Ones

The Celtic pantheon is known from a variety of sources, these include written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names.

It should be understood that there are two main types of Celtic deities: general and local. General deities were known by Celts throughout large regions, and are the gods and goddesses they invoked for protection, healing, luck, honour, and many other needs. The local deities were the spirits of a particular feature of the landscape (such as particular mountains, trees, or rivers) and thus was generally only known by the locals in the surrounding areas.
Category: Education

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Ogham and The Book of Ballymote

I am writing a book on the Irish Ogham. I have been working with the Trees and the strange alphabet based on them, and reputed to be one of the only things to have come to us from the Druids,  since the mid 1980′s. I wrote a poem way back then called Witches Wheel, using the Trees on the Wheel of the Year. This poem was instantly snapped up by the editors of Seattle poetry mag Bellowing Ark, launching my brief, but eventful, poetry career.

I was going through some journals and things and found that old Bellowing Ark with this poem in it. It inspired me to put a book together using this poem based on the order of trees in association with the months that felt right to me back then, and still do now. It is not the standard Celtic Tree Calender, or Celtic Astrology we have had marketed to us for the last 20 years. It is based on the thirteen month lunar calender of the Celts — equally speculative, but more appropriate. I back up my ideas in the book and will make it available through this blog.

At the time I wrote Witches Wheel, I was heavily under the influence of Robert Graves’ White Goddess.  I wrote a few others under that influence, including Song to the Gundestrup Cauldron lurking somewhere in the Archives of this blog. Recently as I was doing research to refresh my memory a bit,  I was poking around in an online version of the Book of Ballymote. There I found this list — a nice bit of wonderfully poetic Tree Lore.

Click below for that poem:

Intimations of Ancestry: Song to the Gundastrup Cauldron

The Book of Ballymote was written by a scribe and named for the parish of Ballymote, County Sligo, in 1390 or 1391.

I don’t know really know much about it except that it is full of Ogham, like this page here: all these arrangements of little lines symbolize particular trees, and everything they are each associated with.

For more details on the Book of Ballymote, there is a fabulous website:

www.equinox-project.com.

Ogham Scales from the Book of Ballymote, by Dr. Barry Fell.

Faery Divination?

I think it was from R.J. Stewart that I first heard where the Faery Tunes of Ireland, like Pretty Girl Milking a Cow, and the Faery Tunes of O’Carolan, came from.  In my other brief career as folk musician, I knew that some tunes were  known as Faery Tunes, but I did not know that they came up from under the ground.

Call me what you will, but when I was in Ireland, I took a tour on a bus out to the Burrin. As we rode along, I could have sworn I heard music coming from under the ground. Had I known how to write music, I could prove it!

The Faery Tradition is a path of imagination and poetry. In the same way that Turlough O’Carolan captured Faery music as it rose up from the Underworld, I believe that one can get messages from Faery through the trees, the patterns the branches against the sky, and the flight of birds across the sky seen through the trees. Some of these messages may be oracular. A Faery Seer sees signs everywhere, and  with a certain poetic sensibility is able to interpret them.

These meanings are mostly about the actual uses of the trees- as types of firewood, cattle fodder, what can be made from them, what insects or animals might hide in them- or are simple descriptions of the trees. While some of the meanings are quite intriguing, I don’t believe that these lists are specifically related to divination or magic- although they could have been part of a larger system that was.

List One:

From The Scholar’s Primer:

Word Oghams of Morann Mac Main

Parentheses are mine. My meditations have been quick. They will bear deeper work, especially when you are familiar with the trees and can, in a sense, go into them. Be the tree and at the same time, the observer of the tree and you will find the juncture for divination.

At the end of this post, i gave a nice little divination technique.

B – beith, birch – faded trunk and fair hair
,   ( this is how Birch looks)

L- luis, rowan – delight of eye, blaze or flame
, ( the berries of the rowan are flame red)

F- fearn, alder – shield of warrior-bands,   (the bleeding alder was used for shields)

S- saille, willow – hue of the lifeless
,   ( willow is the threshold of the Otherworld, death)

N- nion, ash – checking of peace (a sign of peace)   ( upholds the earth)

H – huath, hawthorn – pack of wolves
   ( the Faery Tree, dangerous to touch)

D – duir, oak – highest of bushes     ( large)

T – tinne, holly – “Another thing, the meaning of 
that today” ( holly is the Winter King who must replace the Oak of Summer)

C – coll, hazel – fairest of trees
  ( poetry and wisdom)

Q -  quert, apple – shelter of a hind, a fold, lunatic ( romantic, sexual love. Lovers run mad in many Celtic tales)

M – muin, vine – strongest of effort ( you cannot break it)

G – gort, ivy – sweeter than grasses, cornfield   ( spreads everywhere like grass, but is sweeter)

NG – ngetal, broom – a physician’s strength    ( luck)

ST – straif, blackthorn – strongest of red (dye color)
  ( Also, a tree of suffering — blood)

R – ruis, elder – intensest of blushes, from shame   ( witches tree)

A – ailm, silver fir – loudest of groanings, death rattle
    ( the ghost rising up out of the earth, birth coming from death)

O – onn, furze – helper of horses, chariot wheels       ( feeds horses)

U – ura, heather – in cold dwellings, mold of earth
    ( grows close and all over the ground)

E – eadha, aspen – distinguished wood for the trembling tree  ( good fire)

I -  idho, yew – oldest of woods  ( immortality)

EA – ebad, aspen (or white poplar)- most buoyant of wood  (graceful, flexible)

OI – oir, spindle tree- most venerable of structures   ( house building wood)

UI -  uillean, gooseberry- sweetest of wood
       ( berries)

IO – ipin, honeysuckle (or woodbine)- juicy wood
     ( wine)

AE – emancoll, witchhazel- expression of weariness   ( end of wisdom)

List Two:

These meanings show another aspect of each tree.

Word Oghams of Mac ind Oic:

b, beith, birch – most silvery of skin ( bark of the birch)

l, luis, rowan – friend of cattle  ( I think cattle shelter under rowan)

f, fearn, alder – guarding of milk   ( The Fery King who guards women — shields were made of alder)

s, saille, willow – activity of bees ( the buzzing of bees signal proximity of the Faery Queen. Willow is her tree)

n, nion, ash – fight of women    ( the Three Norns live under Yggdrasil, the World Tree and spin the Web of Wyrd)

h, huath, hawthorn – blanching of face ( fear the Faeries –  supernatural beings, harbingers of death)

d, duir, oak – carpenter’s work
  ( wood for building houses, Door)

t, tinne, holly – fires of coal     ( holly fires, berries turn  white, green, red, and then black)

c, coll, hazel – friend of cracking  ( hazel nuts being shelled)

q, quert, apple – force of the man
  ( sexual potency inspired by beauty)

m, muin, vine – condition of slaughter, a man’s back
  (captivity,  lashes)

g, gort, ivy – (med nercc, meaning “abundance of mead.”)

ng, ngetal, broom – (this list skips this letter..)

st, straif, blackthorn – increasing of secrets   ( anything hidden under the blackthorn is safely guarded)

r, ruis, elder – redness of faces, sap of the rose
   ( Enchantress’s tree)

a, ailm, silver fir – beginning of an answer, child’s cry ( birth)

o, onn, furze – smoothest of work

u, ura, heather – growing of plants, the soil
  ( holds the soil as groundcover)

e, eadha, aspen – synonym for a friend

d
i, idho, yew – most withered of wood, or a sword  (old and yet strong)
ea, ebad, aspen (or white poplar)- corrective of a sick man

oi, oir, spindle tree- (this list skips this letter)

ui, uillean, gooseberry- wonderful of taste

e
io, ipin, woodbine (or honeysuckle)- great equal length

ae, emancoll, witchhazel- (this list skips this one)

Ogham Staves for Divination

I am not sure if Ogham staves are authentic, or if they a new thing based on the I-ching. They are cool though.

For modern people,  who don’t spend a lot of time with nature watching the trees, Ogham staves can be a replacement for this observation of the patterns of trees. Having the forest reduced and encapsulated  into a set of tools,  saves you having to learn the names, growing conditions and seasons of each and every tree.

I would tend to visit a tree — say a yew in the park close to my house — and work ask it to help understand the forces of death and rebirth, and immortality.  Or I would  find a willow if I wanted to increase my psychic powers.

I call Observing the  Ogham Faery Divination at its purest. Casting the Ogham staves can work in much the same way if you learn the qualities of the trees,  their life cycles and where they fit in the chain of life. Then, when the staves are thrown, you merge with the spirits of the trees and gather the messages from the images that come to mind. The spirits you commune with are Faery beings who impart to each tree is numinous, eerie, poetic attributes, making the staves into doorways to the Otherworld where the answers lie.

I have used Ogham divination in this way for other people. You could try it too.

1. Have the person bring you a leaf. or several if they need them. As they gather them, they should be thinking the whole time about their question or concern, and thank the trees for the leaves.

2. Go out with your client and find a tree that the leaf belongs to. For instance, if they brought you an Oak leaf, find an Oak tree.

3, Sit under the tree, lean on its trunk, and go into communion with the spirit of the tree — its Faery self.

4. If you like Geomancy, this would be great to use it, but only  if you need a tool besides Clairvoyance. But if you meditate deeply enough, you should be able to receive direct impressions — messages from the tree, the wind in the branches, the life all around it. What falls on your head?

5. What animals come along? Imagination is the key to Faery divination.

6.  You can also make a board like the diagram above and throw stones on it and see where they land if you need more detail. This is good if you have to  stay inside, or want a bit more information on an issue and require more trees.

Have fun!

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