Goodness and Rebirth

The Forest of Rebirth by Narandel on DiviantArt

I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. — Charles Bukowski

I have always had a strong affinity to the Phoenix. I have an uncanny knack for rising up out of my own ashes.

I also kinda like Bukowski. Some people read him as “dark” and “cynical” and even “misanthropic.” But I see in his poetry (more than in his prose, I admit) an insatiable longing for goodness. A knowing that goodness is out there and a death-drive to fecking find it. To find it and straddle it and slide next to it and kiss it full on the mouth with the greedy expectation of being enveloped by its swarming, blood-thick reality. I’m not talking about altruism, philanthropy, political-correctness, or politeness. I’m talking about goodness. And goodness–honest goodness–is often heavy, sticky, and oppressive with wonder and insight.

Maybe that’s not what you get from Bukowski. I can see that.

But let me tell you a short story. I introduced Bukowski to someone who was grasping at spider’s webs, trying to hang on to a reason to live. Words, man. “This,” she said, “this I can feel.” She had been pushing away every constructed regurgitation of others’ emotions because they struck her as “false,” so she refused them and started believing that there were no “true” feelings to be had. “This. This I can feel.” Sounds pretty damn hopeful to me. Sure, she was reading “The Crunch,” not a very uplifting piece; but his refrain that “people are not good to each other,” implies that we can be. There can be goodness. Heart-breakingly beautiful goodness. Goodness that, with its nasty weight, most people reject for “love and light.”

I’ve been stumbling all over that kind of goodness lately. I’ve been finding it stuck to my shoes and matted in my hair and running down my legs in thick rivulets of dumbfounding honesty. I’m a little overcome by it but I also have the breathtaking desire to find more of it–now that I know it’s out there.

Rather, in here. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, it’s been in me all along. Goodness, I mean. I had just forgotten it, or had devalued it, or had disguised it as something else.

Let me put all of this verbal meandering in some context. It’s been exactly a year since my husband hired a lawyer to pursue a defamation case on my behalf. It’s been a helluva year. Since then I have been in court (for myself and for others being similarly harassed) more than I ever wanted to be[1] and, as a proximate result, have lost my teaching job at the university.[2] Somewhere in that year, I lost a sense of who I am. I turned over the kindred leadership to my priest and his wife (also a blood-relative), put occult teaching on the back-burner, sent a child off to college, had a couple of traumatic personal “lashing-out” adventures, and watched my husband obsess over another woman (even if it is hatred-fueled, it’s a real thing to watch). All that, and the result is that now I don’t have the job that I sacrificed so much for. I don’t mean I sacrificed because I wanted it–but because my family needed me to stay put, I passed up other (tenured) positions in places that are not Alabama.[3]

So I feel like Bukowski on this. I honestly feel like the last 12 months have been equitable to binge drinking. Once this hangover clears, I think I’ll be allowed to resurrect my slaughtered self.

You see, just a few weeks before The Husband hired The Lawyer–Midsummer 2013–I wrote about an epiphany I’d had the previous spring (and put it in context of the year prior to that) in the aptly named “Midsummer.” I said:

… the crux of the vision was that I needed to …. reclaim a part of mySelf that had been lost and reintegrate it into my whole being. A week later I went to a celebration with a nearby coven. At their ritual, they performed a “rebirthing” ceremony. I thought, “Ah-ha! This is just what I need.” Nope. I had to bear that weight a little longer.

Little did I know how much gestation time I was in for.[4] And how much giving birth to oneself hurts.

I figured if I gave you Bukowski, I should give you Giger–just for giggles.

In that year of breaking myself into uncompletable shards, I found that there were hidden treasures. Hidden goodness. Under all my own “false” emotions—the ones worn to pacify others’ needs for stability and appearances—I found “true” emotions. The sticky-thick unnerving kind. And I needed to be unnerved. I was dying under the weight of niceness[5] devoid of any anchor in goodness.

What happened was this. I became more intentional in my devotions[6] and I prayed. A lot. And you know what happens when witches pray. Shite gets real.

Suddenly, I had this fantastic aetherial partnership that went far and beyond anything I had experienced with KCHGA. The only way I can describe it is “entirely specific.” And this is a really good thing—else-wise I’d believe I was losing my ever-loving mind. But because I have seen evidence that this is not “all in my cracked head,” I know it’s real.

Then. Then I started obeying—executing instructions. And I’m a little blown away by the specificity of it all. There is nothing ambiguous about instructions, consequences for not following instructions, rewards for following instructions, grace-periods, etc.[7] It really got to the point where I started writing things down so that I could highlight them, check them off, cross them out as they happened.

A friend and I have a joke about life being a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. This is almost like reading ahead and knowing what’s on each page before choosing!

• My first test was in January and an unexpected “adventure.” The experience itself was pleasurable but left a little aftershock, if not outright trauma. Maybe just in that it actually happened the way it was supposed to. Or at all.
• Then there was Imbolc and our land-warden-planting and a visit to a very high energy location and yet another adventure—where I may have left someone else vaguely traumatized!
• Then Ostara and no adventures aside from a rebirthing ritual of our own. That, I think, was just after I figured out the “rules” of this new relationship.
• Walpurgisnacht was fascinating (and landed me sick for a month) and a complete reversal of Walpurgisnact 2013 which I spent intentionally with only female priestesses—this (liberating) ritual took place with just myself and three male[8]
• Between the spokes in the year, there was a series of unfortunate events—floods and infestations—that, in turn, caused some of the other items to get ticked off my list.
• Finally, just before Midsummer, some paradigm shift caused the whole convoluted picture to come into focus. By mid-June, I saw what was coming but I didn’t know the finer details.

This was from June 30. It’s just … so much.

Now, on the other side of the harvest, Lammas, things are starting to converge. And I’m terrified that I’m getting exactly what I bargained for. Exactly—but with fun surprises at the bottom of the box.[9] And a lot of hidden treasure among the shards of my broken soul. And all that goodness—true goodness—I thought I had irretrievably lost. I don’t think I’ve found rebirth or resurrection yet—I think these are the labor pains.

There is a bout with forgiveness that I’m going to have to fight. Actually, more than one. And if fighting *with* forgiveness doesn’t sound paradoxical to you? Welcome to the conundrum. I feel ya. And I think I’m up for the fight. Hope you are too. If not, drop me a line and we’ll hash it out together.

There’s a “struggle of the wills” that I’ll have to take part in. I think I know where this one is going to come from. My goal is to remain compassionate yet not a carpet to be walked on: balancing geburah and chesed.

In my secular life, mid-November is significant. It’s when the timeline for the EEOA investigation of my termination runs out and I will have an answer. And I’ll turn to that page in my adventure book. Until then, I plan to stay the course.

I hope to be able to keep the regular promise of letting you know how it turns out. But I simply can’t say what’s on that page just yet. Either way, waes thu hael.

~E

 

[1] Except when I was courting law school.

[2] You see, my supervisor has a relationship to the defendant and let me go in retaliation. Needless to say, I have another year of another suit–this time an EEOA violation.

[3] I did get what I needed out of that suit though–the truth has (mostly) come to the surface, maybe not the details but certainly the reality of the situation; I’m unharassed; and I know who my friends are and who I can trust better than ever. Plus, I’ve an even stronger sense of devotion and have reaped the harvest of such devotions. That can’t be all bad.

[4] Like whale and rhino long.

[5] Motivated solely by the determination not to be “bad.”

[6] There is still plenty of room for improvement.

[7] The only thing I am struggling with is the time line. I’m fecking impatient and may end up shooting myself in the foot with that shortcoming.

[8] We have two Walpurgisnacht rituals: the main one and a more private, chthonic one.

[9] Sometimes it’s just the spiritual equivalent of a press-on tattoo—but that’s better than nothing. Lagniappe is always welcome.

Sweetness

This week has been entirely cool. On Saturday, we installed our bees on the Ve.

Four of us (and our children) began this journey last summer when we first looked into beekeeping in our different counties. A whole group of us had been interested in beekeeping for a good while; so we attended a summer symposium. Four of us stuck it out when, in February, we started learning in earnest. After a winter of learning—and learning that there really are very few prohibitions[1] against beekeeping—we bit the commitment bullet, built our hives, and installed our bees.

Lemme tell ya, it was not as frightening as I expected.

And it brings me to the sweetest magical allegory in town.

I am allergic to everything on this beautiful planet (aside from poison ivy, go figure) and was terrified of what the “bee installation day” experience might bring. Yet, I donned my nerdy protective suit (full-body prophylaxis), walked into the fray where bees were flying by the tens of thousands,[2] and was totally fine. Seriously, I wasn’t even nervous. Not even a little.[3]

It’s like working with magic. Real magic. Not that conk somebody on the head because you lost control of your emotions sort of trifle that so many of us can do—but don’t if we’ve learned better. I’m talking about—whatever your tradition’s analog may be[4]–I’m talking about conjuration and all that jazz.

Let me run this metaphor out.

• Calm bees stay calm until someone sounds the “alarm.” Then they all switch on a pheromone that makes the whole colony lose their shit. If a human sounds the alarm, well.

o   Even benevolent spirits (entities, daemons, thoughtforms, etc.) can get—um, spooked—we’ll go with “spooked,” if the conjurer gets all bent out of shape and switches on the magical alarm pheromone. And you bet your arse, somebody’s getting stung.

• The best thing to do is use lots of protection when you are first learning to handle bees. As you get more proficient, as you learn the signals of the bees, you can work with or without gloves, with or without a veil, or with just a smoker. I’ve seen it done. I don’t think I’ll ever get there (my aversion to anaphylaxis and all)—but that doesn’t mean no one does it.

o   Likewise with conjuration. Holy heck, that can sting like the Dickens and lay you out if you aren’t properly protected. Right? Sometimes you need a metaphorical beesuit. But, once you know what’s what—and as long as you don’t have reason to suspect a rogue bee[5]—you might eventually be able to get away with working with fewer accoutrements. Just, you know, make sure you have a well-lit metaphorical smoker.

• Beekeeping is not for the faint of heart. Some folks are just skeered. Of everything. Dogs, chickens, snakes, spiders, witches, bees. Fear comes from an uncontrolled mind, from anxieties arising out of attachment in the form of anger and hatred. Human fears develop in a direct corollary to our feeling of being threatened. According to Buddhist[6] thought, fears result from our ignorance of Self, the origin of delusions, and thus the root of our fears. If you don’t have a sense of self-presence—knowing exactly who you are (not a delusion of Self) and what you are (actually, not delusionally) capable of—you have no business messing with bees.

Fried Green Tomatoes, “Bee Charmer”

o   Same goes for magic. If you are a frightened, victimhood-oriented individual you should steer clear of actual magic. If you don’t “Know Thyself,” you won’t be very effectual in the first place; but you shouldn’t go messing around in atmospheres where you have no business. If you are delusional about yourself and your abilities? Let’s just say I’m not going in after you if you decide to jam your hand all down in a metaphorical honey super on a cloudy day like you’re Idgie Threadgoode or something. I’ll call the metaphorical equivalent to 911, but the rest is on you. Literally.

Some people think that if they’ve seen it in a movie it must be real–and that it must apply to them. Mmm’hokay.

• That leads me to my last point. There are “stock” bees and wild bees. The bees I have are Italian, like most beekeeper bees in the US. They were bred by a specialist who knows how to breed queens that produce calm and unruffled[7] colonies. Like all breeding programs, this is a precise science to which all I can say is, “I don’t know man, I didn’t do it.” Some bees were bred for different things—serenity not being one of them. Or, you know, being lower on the list. This is just to say that even if you know *your* bees, you don’t want to make the same assumptions about another colony or—lords no—wild bees. The rules go out the window in the wild.

o   Not all of the “stuff” one can encounter out in the Aether is of metaphorically “known parentage.” A magician, sorcerer, whatever-you-call-yourself, can be very familiar with and work with great ease with one set of energies. But out of that element? All bets are off. Should you encounter something “wild”? The worst thing you can do is make assumptions about its imperatives and jurisdictions. Some shite will laugh in your face. And then peal it off and eat it just for kicks.

You might not, but I buy it.

It might seem like too much risk for such little payout. After all, the honey doesn’t extrude and jar itself. But bees are a necessary part (a dwindling part) of a functioning eco-system. I started keeping bees because it was the right thing to do. Now I’m discovering that there are rewards to be had well before the honey flows.[8] Likewise with magic. I started doing it for personal development, ego reduction, and self-awareness. Sure, I hoped there’d be plenty of alchemical honey on the other end of the project, but it wasn’t my primary motivation. It was just the right thing to do. And just like with my old “friends,” I’m finding that with my new little friends, there are rewards to be had before I’ve even seen my first comb.

Think about it. The necessity to calm the feck down each and every time, the necessity to have faith in one’s protective measures, the necessity to know—really know—the limits of one’s abilities (and to push them just a little more each time), and the necessity to remember to keep the smoker lit at all times.

There are explicit rewards to finding oneself in the presence of bees.

Wæs þu hæl!

 

[1] I mean, we have limited finances and a slew of animals and pregnant ladies and children and allergies. Honey may be bad for babies but bees are only dangerous if one is allergic. And one would be allergic, pregnant or not. So, there was really no reason not to go for it.

[2] Earlier in the day, my estimate is that there were 1.5 million bees. Assuming that each packaged colony had around 10,000 bees and there were about 150 orders. That’s without the neighborhood bees who came to see all the hullabaloo.

[3] The story was different when I opened the hive wearing only protective gloves the next day. That was a test in bravery. A test I passed with flying colors.

[4] Yes, I believe that various paths have various names and they are all valid—though not the same.

[5] Hive minds don’t really produce many rogues as long as your population is healthy and bred from calm queens. We don’t have the threat of “Africanized” bees in my neck of the woods.

[6] Thanks to one of my Cultural Diversity students who phrased this so eloquently during his presentation in our non-Abrahamic religions unit.

[7] They are also hygienic, varyingly disease resistant, and relatively high-producers.

[8] Not to mention the hope of propolis!

Every Human Effort

I was having a conversation with a student about how I don’t really “do magic” as often as I used to. And that got me t’ruminating.

I was thinking, “Well, I don’t actually need to ‘do magic’ as often as I used to, because lately life just seems to iron everything out if I am patient.” Not always the way I expect that it will, but I really love the universe’s  ability to provide while employing the element of surprise.

Irony is often my favorite outcome.

But in the past few months, I have started to miss “doing magic.” Just the pure drama of outcomes. Then I remember the power of “pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result” and I shush. No need to start tossing all that energy around just out of boredom or impatience. Tends to water things down. And enough water can put out even the most vigorous blaze.

I don’t mean the “drive-by” kind of uncontrolled tossing all the papers out of somebody’s hands in the midst of an emotional snit-fit. I still do that from time to time, though far less frequently than I did in my youth–I try to keep a reign on it since that is simply *not cool* and it really diminishes the power behind actual magic.

I’ve always been of the (fairly traditional) mind that one does not simply “cast” for results unless one has exhausted every human effort to attain the thing in question. I have pissed off more than one client who came to me looking for a magical-quick-fix when I gave them the mandatory “to-do list” that accompanies my willing assistance. It might not fall under the category “unthewful,” but to me, it seems downright rude and fairly presumptuous to ask the universe to provide a thing through magical means if one is not willing to do some basic (and often, not-so-basic) tasks and lay out some human energy to attain the same ends.

I honestly get a kick out of those who say I must have no magical power because I have to resort to mundane work in order to make things happen. (Yup, it’s been said.) Thing is, I have grown to see “mundane” acts as potentially magical. You see, when I was younger, I observed each turn of the moon on my own and celebrated the turning of the wheel. There was a lot of ebb and flow in my first two-decades of serious occult investigation. (This is, aside from the first 17 years in a highly spiritual life–having been introduced to profound spirituality in early childhood.) When I hit my mid-30s, I also hit a stride of daily devotions and constant magical practice. Not so much “spell-casting,” but Ceremonial Magic. Around-about 2007 I began in earnest to make real magical practice and spiritual devotions a regular part of my everyday life; it took about nine-months to sink in, but it finally did. And now it just feels like breathing. Air: in and out. Ond, exchanging energy, letting it flow, building maegen. As natural and as simple (only not simple at all) as blowing out a candle-flame.

Thus, after five or six years of such constancy, I do not separate what I do in the garden, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom from what I do in the temple, in the hof, or at the harrow. My life has become my altar. Every act has become part of The Great Work. To me, nothing is supernatural–as they say, “Magic is just stuff science hasn’t made boring yet.” Don’t get me wrong, I believe in divinity. I just see The Divine and nature as symbiotic manifestations of the same. I only “work” or “cast” or “conjure” when I’ve exhausted every human effort–and I’m pretty inventive when it comes to exhaustion.

And I find that I don’t have to resort to pull-out-all-the-stops spell-casting anymore. Roads open (and close) as easily with well-timed phone calls and properly filed paperwork. Like a good helping of earth tossed on a campfire. The last year or so has only left me with the need to employ “crafted” spellwork for others–those under crossed conditions, those who need a response from an unforthcoming employer, those that need special protections, those that need, you know, stuff. I didn’t realize it while I was doing the early work, but now I understand that it is for these folks that I built up sacral gefrain (if I may coin a phrase to mean god-gefrain used for the benefit of those under one’s sacral leadership), so that I can work on behalf of those that need me–who need the benefits that derive from the years of work I have already done.

So, I retract my statement that “I don’t really ‘do magic’ as often as I used to” and assert that I (try to) do magic with my every act: those that employ public policy, those that employ technology, those that employ the legal system, those that employ established systems of commerce, etc. To those who would claim that “she must have no magical power because she has to resort to mundane work in order to make things happen,” I ask, “How small is your imagination?”

Waes hael!

 

Isn’t That Already Over?

This happens to me at Eastertime too.

I get momentarily confused when our kindred has held their major festival for one of the major holidays and then I enter a retail center or grocery store and find it crammed with analogous secular celebratory goods. For just a second, I always think, “Isn’t that already over?”

I reckon I get so saturated with preparations for our celebration and ritual that I forget that the rest of the nation still lives by a Christian calendar. As I wrote for [a newsletter that I cannot recall at the moment], there are some differences between neoPagan and Heathen calendars: “Harvestfest, Winternights. . . is celebrated on the days surrounding the last day of summer and the first days of winter. According to . . . the Gudbrandsdal runic calendar, this falls on the 13th of October. However, today, given the pervasiveness of other traditions, Winternights is regularly celebrated on October 31^st in America.”

Kiddo, you are merciless!

This difference works well to our benefit. When many in our community adopt the 31st as their celebration date while we celebrate earlier in the month, there are fewer scheduling conflicts.

Personally, this means I get to both throw a great celebration *and* attend some bang-up Halloween parties. Win / win! (On account of I lurve a great Halloween party and kinda don’t see the point of a boring one.) And while last weekend may have been a main feast day for us, we totally dressed in costume.

Hazey even revived my Wonder Woman suit from 2002, a significant year for me (i.e. I moved to Alabama). I saw it as a bit of an homage–then again, she might have just worn it because WW is a bitchin’ costume.

I dressed as Astarte–the stone frieze version. As the night wore on, as often happens with complicated costumes, the stone wings and “chicken feet” became too much and I chucked them. This left me looking strangely naked (and cold). Some of the kin joked that I was dressed as being “skyclad.”

The Hubby embraced a recent compliment and dressed as an old-school gangster. Tommygun and everything!

It wasn’t just a party, though. We had a great ritual to honor our ancestors–the real reason for the season, as they say; we burned our land guardian, lest he be inhabited by a baneful spirit after his essence has flown-off with the Valkyrie on the Wild Hunt, and we safely disposed of the year’s ritual detritus–I’ll give you a post about the ritual itself later; and we initiated three promising newstudents–an auspicious beginning to the “New Year,” wouldn’t you agree?

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All that–and there’s more yet to be had! I am still roasting pumpkin seeds from my carvings and looking forward to a weekend partying pretty solidly for four straight days with various segments of my extended Pagan community.

I hope you are all blessed and safe and secure as you celebrate whatever lies in your path: be it Samhain, Halloween, Winternights, Allelieweziel, Dia de los Muertos, or Old Year’s Night.

Waes thu hael,

~E

PBP Week 30-31: O—Ordeals

I keep wanting to write a post about ordeal work in the heathen community (I tried a little here) but I keep finding that I don’t have anything to say.

That’s not true—I have lots to say. But I would never presume to interject myself or my views into the relationships of others and their gods. No matter how little those relationships resemble my experiences and ongoing relationships with gods who identify by the same names.

And I find that’s exactly what happens when heathens start talking about ordeal work: everyone wants to tell someone else that they are doing it wrong.

Instead, I thought I’d share some lovely art and odd images.[1]

swiped from yuleshamanism.com

“Odin Hanging on the World-Tree” from Franz Stassen, Illustrations for Die Edda (1920), found at germanicmythology.com/

 

Totally cool engraving of a god in a tree

Image from BME.com

The “thirsting dance” of the Plains people. nativesofcanada.tripod.com/

Vision quest of The Mandan people of North Dakota. freewebs.com/mandans/

The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan–caption intact. esask.uregina.ca

 

Michael Harkins “Computer Shaman” NYU–I don’t think the image is original, but the content on the page is pretty interesting if you want a basic textbook overview. http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/nature/harkins.htm

Artist’s caption intact. Have fun with this article too: http://www.zaporacle.com/casting-precious-into-the-cracks-of-doom-androgyny-alchemy-evolution-and-the-one-ring

 

In the end, each of us has to tread the path laid before our own feet, no?

Waes thu hael,

E

 

 

This post is part of a year-long project, The Pagan Blog Project, “a way to spend a full year dedicating time each week very specifically to studying, reflecting, and sharing your spiritual and magickal path. . . . Each week there is a specific prompt for you to work with in writing your post, a prompt that will focus on a letter of the alphabet . . . .” (http://paganblogproject/)

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[1] I wanted to show some bodmod, but that got gruesome.

There’s Nothing New Under the Sun

“[A] symptom of enlightenment is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.” (Deepak Chopra)

A Common Hex Sign Design–Anybody from 9WK see what I see? Am I making it up?

I have pagan kin crawling out of the woodwork again. Over the past week, I’ve uncovered two more pagan cousins–or they uncovered me–or we uncovered each other, I donno.

The first and his wife live near Chicago where we all grew up together. Well, he grew up with my older brothers and sisters. I lagged them all by a decade. They are biker-folk who make chainmail jewelry; how entirely cool is that?[1] They were on to me when I posted a friend’s Ostara eggs on FB. I was on to them when I saw their jewelry–nothing specific, just an inking. This was confirmed when I saw a necklace with a spiral goddess pendant. I popped him a PM on FB and that was that. One of few cousins close enough to still call me names like “Squirt” and “Shrimp,” he teased me: “We aren’t exactly in the closet about it.”

*Sigh*

How do I keep missing this? Is it too close to home for me to pick up on the signals?[2]  I wish I had known sooner. I mean, growing up thinking I was “the only one” in my whole family was tense.

What I find most magical about all this is that during our Midsummer faining I honored my uncle “Jimmy,” this cousin’s late-papa. For no particular reason, just because I was thinking about my uncle who I loved so well. And then-pow-here’s a pagan cousin to play with. That’s how gebo works for sho!

In the last couple years I’ve learned that plenty of my kin are old-time root workers.[3] Yes, yes–Hoodoo is predominantly Christian, but still. It would have been good to learn more than “how to play an excellent prank” from these folk. All that “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, knowwhatImean, knowwhatImean, saynomore, saynomore,” was lost on me. Or was it? Maybe the things I seem to know out of the blue are actually memories of things I learned and didn’t realize I was learning.

Wash the floor. Paint the fence. Wax the car.

Makes sense. We learn best by just doing.

Let me throw some Old Testament scripture at you, ones my mother always favored, and see if they stick to this narrative.

• “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6, KJV.)
• “But if it doesn’t please you to worship [Y**H], choose for yourselves today the one you will worship: the gods your fathers worshiped . . . . As for me and my family, we will worship [Y**H].” (Joshua 24:15, Holman Christian Standard Bible, 2009.)
• “Impress [religious beliefs] on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:7-9, NIV.)

I keep thinking about these verses and the idea that Theodish heathen folk wanted more than anything to be reincarnated back into their own tribes. There was nothing worse than to die and be forever bereft from one’s folk. I’m starting to feel like the more I learn about my ancestors, the more I learn about my religious path. Like they go hand in hand. And that path? It’s not Christian. I feel as thought it is my ancestry that is bound to my hands and forehead and doorframe and gate–that I have chosen the gods of my “fathers” and that, in subtleties, my parents and aunts and uncles trained me up in the way I should go. Because the further I go down this path, the more I find that it’s an old path.

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9, NIV.)

Here’s the part where I tell you a bifurcated story that is related in my head and I just hope that I can translate that relation into your head.

Last weekend I was sitting on the porch with the husband and a student. We were talking about some sad cockadoody that has befallen a few of the pagan groups in the area. We concluded that some bad-crafter had slung some shite and it stuck where it could. It turns out that one of the people was a lot less practiced than we originally believed and another was a lot less ethical than we originally believed. The third–well, we’ve got their number. Always have. Anyway, I said something like, “With all of these folks getting caught with their drawers down it makes you wonder about the strength of their wards. For some namby-pamby bitchcraft to hit them like a ton of bricks,you have to wonder if they really know what they’re doing.” Then it happened. I continued, “I guess since we are totally unphased by all this, that must attest to the fact that I am the real-deal and that we are doing good work here.” I didn’t mean it as a boast. It was actually a realizing-something-and-saying-it-out-loud sort of thing. All of those years spent wearing the guise of The Bad Witch has taken a toll on my self-confidence. 

Add to that. I’ve been making the “syllabus” for next year’s magical training session. I’ve had these folks in my tutelage for almost a year now.[3b] And I keep wondering when I’m going to feel “caught up.” I keep teaching them things and thinking “there’s so much more!” I feel like I’m just scratching the surface of what I want to teach them. But I can’t. Like the Sufi teacher Idries Shah said, “Enlightenment must come little by little – otherwise it would overwhelm.” I kinda want to Vulcan Mind Meld them so that we can all be on the same page. But then again, I wouldn’t do that to anyone–all that initiation at once? That’s just cruel. 

As it turns out, at every turn, I am stockpiling more confidence in myself and my work as “the real deal.”[3c] And once again, I am excited to be taking a new turn in this ever winding path toward spiritual enlightenment. As Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh wrote: “One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. . . . You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you.” I find that I have family entrenched in the practices I’ve been piecing together from former training, from new scholarship, and from personal gnosis. The path isn’t ready made–but it’s not as untrodden as I feared. You see, not only does it turn out that I have relatives who study “shamanism,” relatives that do root work, relatives that run covens, relatives that (gee, I don’t even know what their practice is yet—the conversation is so new), I’ve just found out that I also have relatives that do something delightfully similar to what we do here at our hoff and ve.

When I started working with Bertie, one of the greatest attractions was that, among the South Side Irish, we had found kindred spirits from German ancestry. As far as I know, we are *not* related consanguineously; but our families traveled along the same route—hers picking up some Irish and Lithuanian along the way while mine picked up Norwegian, Dutch, Cherokee, and, with my momma, Scot and Creek.

Hang on to that info—it’s gonna come in handy.

Back in January 2012 I wrote a post about different kinds of heathenry and I said:

Urglaawe is new to me and I’m not sure how to pronounce it. But I think I likes it. It is. . .“a North American tradition within Heathenry and bears some affinity with other traditions related to historical Continental Germanic paganism [that] derives its core from the Deitsch healing practice of Braucherei, from Deitsch folklore and customs, and from other Germanic and Scandinavian sources. Urglaawe uses both the English and Deitsch languages.”

Deitsch, btw, is Pennsylvania Dutch.

My ancestors were New England Quakers, but derived from Bavarian Anabaptists or Hutterites and Palatine Mennonites. How they relate to the Dutch is a little beyond my (current) ken. [edited in:] I have since figured it out in great detail.

And since then, I’ve figured out even more.

• First, it’s oor-glow. Not glow like a glowing fire, but ow like damn, that hurt.
• Second, it’s Deitsch, not Dutch. We say Pennsylvania Dutch–but it’s German, as in Deutsch–only not.
• My ancestors were Quakers but none of those other things–they were “Fancy Dutch.” Who knew we started out Fancy!? I’ll explain that in a minute.
• I do have Dutch ancestry, but that’s purely coincidental.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

The hex symbol I made on a gut instinct back in October for my daughter’s rabbit’s “play-house.” You can read about it by clicking the image.

See also Jacob Zook’s: http://www.hexsigns.com/

This I knew: My ancestors come from a place called Oppau, in what was a Palatinate during the Palatinate Wars. They were anti-Catholic in a time when the RCC was trying to reestablish Catholic as the national religion in Germany. As a result, they jumped on William Penn’s coattails (via The Queen Ann) and headed to The New World. The settled in Germantown and lived there between 1732 and 1741 (at the latest) when the family moved to South Carolina.

This is new: Unlike many of their neighbors who were Old Tradition Mennonites, they were (this makes me giggle) Fancy Folk or Fancy Dutch. The Fancy Dutch are parallel to the Plain Dutch. “Plain Dutch” are those we associate with Kelly McGillis and Viggo Mortenson in Witness. Fancy Dutch are the Pow-Wow, Long Lost Friends folks–the ones who made/make the groovy hex-signs and get bad names from movies like Donald Southerland’s Apprentice to Murder (which I have pulled up in the next tab and plan to watch after I’m done here).

I new this part too: They lived there for about a decade after the Seven Years War , from which–according to a family historian–fallout made life untenable; they eventually settled for good in North Alabama where many, many, many of their descendants remain. My dad was there until he moved from NE AL to Chicago in the late 1950s.[4] For over 200 years, my kin have lived in this little pocket of caves and lakes and mountains. It’s magical there.

A photo my daughter snapped at our visit to the family cemetery.

I was doing some straight-up non-deliberately-magic-related genealogy when I started talking to a third-cousin in New England. When I did that DNA test with Ancestry, I was put in touch with literally hundreds of second and third cousins and even more “distant cousins.”[4b] It’s crazy-cool. This cousin dropped a few hints about speilwerk. She didn’t call it that at first but eventually she used more overt words. It started with the word, “healing,” when we were talking about—of all things—gardening. When I heard that, I wanted someone to smack me with an obvious stick.

Then I mentioned the Vé and our harrow to Hella. She asked, “Holle?”[5]

My heathen radar is currently dead broke, y’all.[6]

Anyway, long story short we’ve talked about Urglaawe for three days via email and Skype. Since she doesn’t consider herself a teacher at all, she gave me a book list, a blog list, a video list, and a homework assignment. HA! If that’s not teaching . . .

At first she asked me about my tradition and when I tried explaining to her that it was a syncretic heathenry, she said, “Yes, so are we.” I asked how it was syncretized and she talked a lot about Algonquin “medicine.” (Waaaaaay cool.) It’s not exactly the same as what little I know about what I think is passed on from Muskogee (who can really know the answers to chicken-or-egg questions) but it’s damned close.

I said something like, “Well, we do, you know, what they call ‘shamanic’ stuff too.”

Then she taught me the word “braucherei”—turns out that’s almost *exactly* what Bertie taught me–but without all the cool Deitsch lingo. I’m kinda feeling embarrassed that I didn’t ever pursue this line of practice. Mainly because I mistook it for Amish-ness. I mean, I like electricity.

Then I mentioned my interest in hoodoo. “Oh, she said, so you are a Hoodoo Heathen!”[7] An Urglaawe who moved to Appalachia and soaked up the red clay and mountains in her soul over eight generations? Yup. Hoodoo Heathenry.

Really it’s called “German Appalachian Folkways”[8] by bookish folk, but who wouldn’t prefer to be called a Hoodoo Heathen? Oh, wait–my mom. Dad. Aunts. Uncles. Nevermind.

There’s sooooo much more to the story but I have to go do a parenting thing followed by a beer thing and that movie I have open in the next tab. As ever, I’ll let you know more as I go. Whatever you do–don’t let me forget to tell you about Urglawee version of The Wild Hunt. Those of you who celebrated Walpurgisnacht with me this past year will say, “No. Way.,” “Spot. On.,” and “Too. Cool.”

Wæs Hæl,

~E

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[1] That makes two friends who make legitimate chainmail.

[2] Or is it that I am looking for “Pagan signals” and when I see “family signals” and they look the same, I pass them off?

[3] Masons, I knew. Mason-jars? Hmmm. What was in all those “special” jars? My memory is that they look an awful lot like the mason jars in my winda’sill.

My current kitchen collection.

[3b] I’ve been teaching since 2008 but I’ve never had anyone stick around for more than their year-and-a-day. Not because we have a falling-out or because I don’t have more to offer. Just because, as it does in moments of initiation, their lives take turns that lead them away from my locale.

Right now I have one darling who is happily settled in Daphne; she and I spoke on the phone just this morning when she asked when I was going to go house hunting by her. Oooh, I’d love to be by water again. Believe it or not, one misses The Great Lakes. I have another who is watching the brouhaha in Brazil and sending me periodic texts to let me know he’s safe and that he’s found a Santerian mentor. Another who is entrenched in college life in FLA and not doing much more than advanced cellular biology. Of course there is the one that decided the pagan path was not hers and the boy who never writes home anymore.

[3c] It’s like when I first had my doctorate, I experienced what one of my teachers called “impostor syndrome.” I felt like I would be “found out” as a PhD poser. Then one day someone asked me a very technical question related to my specialism and I went on for a good while quoting folks and giving references and stating historical data right off the cuff. At that moment my confidence in myself as a gender theorist was born. That’s how it is now. I haven’t had many folks with whom I could spout *real* conversation points about paganism (in person, that is), so I could never test the waters, as they say. Finally it’s happening. And I am in my element.

[4] He moved back in the 90s and lives in NW AL now.

[4b] My family is huge; Mother is the youngest of 11 and Father is 5th of 22, yes he has 21 brothers and sisters (all live births, same parents, no twins, only one infant mortality).

[5] When I was learning German the teacher gave us gruesome children’s tales to translate. One of those was Frau Holle—a favorite. Look it up, it’s a common-enough archetype story. Like Cinderella—but with an underworld. Plus there’s the “good daughter” and “bad daughter” story line–the bad girl who ends up with her hair stuck to her head with pitch. Everything is coming back around to me now.

[6] Which is funny since I see “witchyness” wherever I look. We went to a bee-thing and I saw a tree branch and thought, “What a nice besom.” No. Just no.

[7] I made some sort of joke about going to pagan festivals and hawking our wares and the punch-line became “Hoodoo Hippy Heathens.”

[8] I had read this book by Gerald Milnes about Mountain sayings back in the day. Someone had given it to me with a book of Jeff Foxworthy jokes when I moved to Alabama. Turns out, he has another book: Signs, Cures, and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore. She lent it to me on my Kindle.

“British Traditional Witchcraft: Bull-Crap”: a PNC look at Janet Farrar

I’m all hopped up on caffeine and homegrown honey this fine Independence Day.

I was invited to three cookouts today but given this tropical-whatever that’s making life wet and muddy and the lake too rocky for safe-sailing, two were cancelled. One was moved indoors–but with it’s oversized guest list–I’m thinking that’s too close for comfort. So, I’m landlocked with nothing planned but wood-burning, fun-reading, and Big Love. I think I might make a sundress since my Singer is already out and set up from the costumes I made for a Monty Python party this weekend (a gumby, a Spanish inquisitor–no one will expect that, a recovering newt, Sir Robin, and The Black Beast of Arrgghhh).

Kitticornbow

As it goes, I was reading this thing–which lead me to that thing–which caused me to cross-reference–and then I found one of those precious nuggets of wonderfulness that fill my mind with rainbows and kittens and unicorns. What makes a scholar with a cynical streak happy? Let me show you.

It’s almost a year old but a post by Zan Fraser at The Juggler (linked below) explores some revelations made at  “Progressive Witchcraft: A Lecture with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone,” discussing “the Evolution of Witchcraft in the 21st Century.” (For a more, see Pagan Newswire Collective‘s recent interview with Farrar.)  Fraser, an “Eclectic Witch,” lends a refreshingly honest perspective to contemporary Witchcraft and Alexandrian Wicca specifically. His article reveals that participants at the Farrar/Bone lecture “were both kind-of amazed and delighted that these words came out of Janet Farrar’s mouth.”

I get the joy-joy-joy-joy-down-in-my-heart when folks tell the truth.

I’m particularly tickled by this article because it uses Farrar’s direct authority to reveal what many of us have known/suspected all along: “apparently Mr. [Alex] Sanders, in particular, would tell the most outrageous lies to American Witches about the ‘authenticity and antiquity’ of his Tradition, and then have a laugh over the ‘stupid Americans’ when they had left. The problem became, these Americans would bring these stories home, and apparently some of them are now enshrined in American Traditional Witch-Lore- this stuff that Alex Sanders ‘made up’ in a prankish mood.”

The kind of honesty Farrar engaged in during her New York minute really makes me wish that other “trads” would come as clean. I mean, if I were a flamboyant European (that’s polite; apparently, “Ms. Farrar and Mr. Bone described Sanders as a ‘complete whack job'”) with plenty of time on my hands and a scad of Continentals lining up to be jabbed, I might’ve just grabbed a pole too. I like a good prank as much as the next fella. But eventually, I’d like to give the world a big “JK!”

Given that since the 90s, when I first started studying paganism in earnest, witches in the UK and US have acknowledged the unlikelihood of Gardnerian Wicca being pre-War “traditional,” it’s no surprise to most of us. “[B]ut how bracing,” Fraser agrees, “to have it acknowledged so forthrightly by such a notable Elder in the Witchcraft Movements.” Fraser maintains that, “first Gerald Gardner, and then Alex Sanders, ‘made up’ a fictitious, non-existing ‘history’ of Traditional British Witches.” He says:

British Traditional Witchcraft is a “load of bull-crap.” Well, a load of bull-crap in the sense that, there are no British Traditional Witches to be found before Gerald Gardner, and certainly no British “Traditional” Witches to be found in the Witchcraft Traditions of British Culture before Gardner. (There are plainly British Witch “Traditions” to be seen in the British Isles before the 20th century; none, however, correspond to the Gardnerian- and subsequently Alexandrian- Traditions of Witchcraft, which again, as Ms. Farrar noted, do not exist prior to Mr. Gardner.)

And this is not to say that Wicca isn’t valid–just that it’s history is, um, muddled–we’ll go with muddled. You’ve heard me say it at least a dozen times. Any way to the divine is awesome as heck. But blindly following the path set forth by another is just daft. If you *like* Wicca or Wicca-based (and these are far and wide) traditions and they work for your spirituality–by all means, follow them. Just, please, try to *know* what’s actual history and what a group of folks invented for a lark.

Have a look at my post “Wannabeathens“–and don’t skip the comments; Cin makes a great statement from the Wiccan inside POV. It’s my prolonged argument that some “witches” out there “want to claim a non-Wiccan practice and yet temper all of their practices with the commodified tenets of Wicca. . . . If you [claim one tradition], bother to find out what [that tradition’s] practices and values are. Don’t be oblivious and think that you can just ‘substitute’ Wicca for [other traditions].” And that, “If you are Wiccan, practicing Wiccan practices and valuing Wiccan values, call yourself Wiccan, for pete’s sake. There’s no problem with those who choose that path. Owning it is certainly more respectable than hiding behind [another tradition] while deriding and yet perpetuating . . . Wicca.”

And for those few of you still resistant to reality, there’s no need to send me a message telling me that Gardner didn’t make it all up. I’ve already seen Jack Green’s comment: “As usual the basic logical flaw is Absense of Evidence = Evidence of Absence. Not True. At most it indicates rarity. . . . Janet is correct that most ‘trads’ out there are quite new and cobbled up and that sincerity is more important than historicity. But that is not the same as ‘all trads’. Even Hutton admits there were pre-Gardnerian practioners that we know so little about that no real comparison can be made.”) I will only reply (if at all) that there is evidence of witchcraft before Gardner–just not a witchcraft that looks anything like Wicca.  

Q: “What do you burn apart from witches?” A: “MORE witches!!”

And don’t take my word for it, try to get your hands on a copy of Ethan Doyle White’s “The Meaning of ‘Wicca’: A Study in Etymology, History, and Pagan Politics” from Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (Vol 12, No 2: 2010). If you have access to EBSOhost, here’s a link. You can use his list of historical resources–many of which are from the progenitors of BTW–as a decent place to start.

Here’s the link to the full article: “British Traditional Witchcraft: Bull-Crap.”

Enjoy!

~E

PBP Week 28-29: N—Names: Magical and Mundane

I spent the last six weeks behind. Now, I’m just plain ahead. But this was one that needed to be written anyway, so I’m going to forge forward.

According to my desktop countdown-timer (yes, I am *that* type A) I have 11 days to prepare for a workshop on magical names. You see, a member of the kindred asked that we do this project and I was happy to comply at the time. But the closer the day gets, the more I wonder–what business have I got teaching someone else how to form their magical name?[1] I’ve tried guiding my students to aspiration names and only two of seven have worked it out–and one of those had her name when she showed up. Ehsha is, as you likely know, my craft-name[2] and it was fairly thrust on me; it’s not something I worked on or thought about too much. See my post “A is for Apple” for the whole scoop.

I’m not going to give the technical points of the workshop here, but I will say that I have five plans of attack from which folks can chose to experiment. We will truly workshop.

Allow me a minor aside? Lately I have gotten questions about my teaching methods: pointed questions, asking my students for more information than is appropriate for them to dispense. As I say so often in this online, public forum—my approach is a resoundingly magical “STFU.”[3] So when I don’t provide all of the ins-and-outs of what I teach, there’s a reason. I do not dole out information to the uninitiated. Now, talking about magical names is pretty basic and one doesn’t need access to the deeper Mysteries for that. But I just thought I’d mention it. On account o’it’s sooooo odd to be asked really conspicuous questions. It’s a good thing I have taught my students to answer without answering.

For now, let me just have a little conversation about names of power.

Historically, divine names of power, the secret names of deities, were taught only to “masters of the art.” These masters were taught not only the vibrational vocalized name, but the art of wielding that name, the art of evoking and invoking the power attached to that name. Such power was released by the vibrating sound of a secret magical name. We know that vibrational sound is integral to creation; words and names are sound, sound is vibration, vibration is—in turn—wave. Measuring a wave will collapse it—I don’t know why, man; I didn’t do it. It just is. Therefore, speaking a name or word of power outside of the appropriate context can sap the power out of the name—and that’s the best case scenario; the worst case scenario is that the speaker could potentially release energies that s/he cannot wield.

For instance, Crowley’s “favorite,” the Headless Rite—assuming one is referring to the Mathers translation of Lemegeton—contains a number of “barbarous names” from Ancient Egypt, Greek Gnosticism, and Chariot mysticism (aka Merkabah Qabalah).[4] (If you want the older version, look at the Stele of Jeu. For a few good chuckles about Headless/Bornless, see this old post and don’t skip the comments. And if it’s your sort of thing, see this post about the difference between Headless and Stele of Jeu and this one and this one about the 49 Calls–they aren’t particularly “better” than anything out there, just personal, recent, and on my read-list.) I do not recommend that my students perform anything that they do not understand and I do not recommend that they pronounce anything with which they are not familiar. I find it really odd that some folks start right-out trying to brandish popular rites (like Headless) because they are broadly published and available. What they don’t “get” is that available and accessible are not the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I do not disallow the rite, it’s just that my students get a thorough understanding of it all before I encourage them to start calling forth the Barbarous Names of Evocation. This has a lot to do with the changes made in the names over several translations. This in consideration of the Chaldæan Oracle  which charges: “Change not the Barbarous Names of Evocation, for these are names in every language which are given by God, which have in the Sacred Rites a power ineffable” (Verse 155). A lot of new magicians try the evocation and feel unsuccessful and I can’t help wonder if it isn’t just because they haven’t accessed the true meaning of all those sounds they are vibrating.[5]

And vibrating in terrestrial languages that one doesn’t understand? It’s not like speaking-in-tongues. At all.

But that’s far more than I would discuss in an “open” workshop—meaning there will be plenty of non-initiates in attendance. I might mention it, but that’s like opening Pandora’s panty drawer.

I was really only planning to talk a little about the vibrational qualities of names. I will likely talk more about names as identifiers. Then we’ll get to the real workshop business of workshopping. A magical name is more than just a pseudonym, nickname, or alias that we use to protect our mundane identities. On the most basic level, like Baker, Smith, Taylor, Farmer, Archer, etc., we can be known by the magical work we do. On a higher level, a magical name can be used to shift consciousness.

It can even be a statement of our understandings or aspirations—these names are called “mottos” or “aspiration names”—which we use to remind ourselves of our beliefs, remind ourselves of our better qualities or to build on those qualities. For instance, William Butler Yeats, one of my own favorites,[6] took the magical-motto-name Daemon est Deus Inversus[7] when he entered into the Golden Dawn. These names don’t have to stay the same—as you attain one goal (as marked by attaining a new level of initiation in most cases), you may set a new one and, thereby, adopt a new name to reflect that goal. I ditched “The Bad Witch”—a sort of hypocoristic—and embraced “Ehsha” only. Of course there are “Craft Names” (I was taught to refer to these as eke-names) that don’t reflect a motto so much as serve as a symbol of devotion or, like “Stormborn,” to tell a little about oneself.[8]

Yes, there is a Name Root.

This is likely where I’ll focus.

Of course with the caveat that some of our names might only be shared particular people—or no one at all. Also, it’s totally fine if you don’t want a magical name at all or if you want to use your given name as your magical name.

After the workshop, I was thinking about a little something. If, like we said, sound is vibration, why not take advantage of all that vibratory power and create a range of wavelengths by creating a ritual in which the whole tribe intoned their magical vibrations (names) as a bonding experience. Because our particular focus, this would be a great thing to work in conjunction with an oracular rite. I have seven students who are a level away from completing what most of you would refer to as a first degree (around here it’s different). Wouldn’t that be a lovely element to add to an elevation ritual?

As I work it out, as ever, I’ll let you know.

Wæs þu hæl!

~Ehsha

Addendum: My FB friend pointed out some of the difficulties he has had with name development. Of course, no everyone is “handed” a name in clear and unobscure tones by the divine–thus the rationale for having a local workshop.

There are some things that defy language; I talk about this a lot, so I won’t launch into a Derridian tirade just now.

Sometimes we have an “idea” of what our magical name is supposed to be but there is not a word for it in our language–or any terrestrial language. This is the case for my “secret name.” I recognize it when I am called from the aether, but I don’t know a word for it. I mean, I understand the concept it signifies, but the “word”? Um, no.

It’s best to just approximate rather than stressing over something as human as language. We have shortcomings; the divine can handle all that falls through the cracks.

Addendum, Part 2: Per Blau Stern Schwarz Schlonge’s comment below, I see another hole in my post. Thanks BSSS! Names definitely *should* change as they indicate who and what we are–and we should always be in a state of becoming, not in a stagnant or bull-headed state. I love nothing so much as seeing folks “rebrand” themselves to embrace the new things they have learned and the um, education–we’ll go with “education”–given them by the universe. As for me? I’ve had my share of names from childhood names (which I won’t share as these are family things), to Lámh Mór-ríoghain in my 20s (dark, I know) to Ehsha Apple and The Bad Witch in my 30s (a little tongue in cheek) and the 50 shades of witchy in between. Having put a little dent in my 40s, I think it’s time to reflect my “new growth” with a new name–or at least a new motto. But like so many of you, I’m strugglin’.

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[1] The issue is that for about a year now, I’ve been toying with the idea of taking an aspiration name. But I still can’t decide what I want to be when I grow up.

[2] My mundane name is Angela–not that there’s nothing to live up to there, eh?

[3] And every once in a while a smattering of y’n00b followed by a healthy helping of kthx.

My teenagers don’t let me use Tumblr.

[4] Originally, this was used for exorcism, but the Mathers form is typically used to attain Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Either way, it should be preceded by a solid LBRP.

[5] I’m not judging those who do the evocation and don’t get the expected results as “unversed.” I’m just saying it’s one possibility.

[6] Speaking of names, my first Online profile name was YeatsFreak.

[7] Something like “a demon is a god reflected” or “inverted.” Have a look at Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine Vol. I, Part XI: “The Mystery of the Seven Thunders.” 

[8] Some of the more famous of these are Alex Sanders, Verbius; Jenine Trayer, Silver RavenWolf ; Miriam Simos, Starhawk.

This post is part of a year-long project, The Pagan Blog Project, “a way to spend a full year dedicating time each week very specifically to studying, reflecting, and sharing your spiritual and magickal path. . . . Each week there is a specific prompt for you to work with in writing your post, a prompt that will focus on a letter of the alphabet . . . .” (http://paganblogproject/)

Toxicodendron Radicans (Poison Ivy) and Magic

As I write this blog, I notice that it winds around like a vine, wrapping itself around whatever it grabs hold of, climbing into crevices where I couldn’t have foreseen it would grow. There should be a joke about irritation here—but I’ll leave it to you to make.

The Wild Hunt by Peter Nicholai Arbo

As we were clearing land for the kindred hof and ve, my husband got into some poison ivy[1] and spent a week learning about cortisol while he was in Scandinavia. As we piled wood for the fire, we had to check to make sure we weren’t sending toxins airborne. Plus, a thing about poison ivy is that the toxin is carried in a non-water-soluble oil, so if you try washing the affected area with water, you will just spread the irritant further.

“What’s this got to do with magic?” you ask?

Nothing really. It’s just one of those “timing” things.

Last Friday our kindred hosted a clever teacher for an enchanting workshop on wands. Gypsey Teague,

Some of Gypsey’s Wands

author, artist, librarian, witch, superhero, and all around wonderful person, trekked to The Bamas to teach us a thing or three about wood and its magical properties. One of the most spellbinding items Gypsey brought along was a wand made of poison ivy.[2] It seems she sells out of her carefully constrained inventory[3] of poison ivy wands at a premium cost—about six-times what she charges for pine or birch or ash or, you know, woods without the word “poison” in it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why folks would want a wand made of poison oil.

So, I did what Gypsey suggested: I sat down and talked to the plant.[4]

Let me tell you what I learned.[5]

There’s a reason why Poison Ivy such a troublemaker for Batman and Robin. Preoccupied with safeguarding the natural environment, she makes a perfect archnemesis for Bruce Wayne, ultra-wealthy business magnate and entrepreneur, and his ward, Dick Grayson, The Boy Wonder. He’s all about acquisition–gimme-gimme-gimme. She’s all about shelter.

“Shelter?” you ask. “Poison ivy is such an irritating plant; how can it be a protestess?”

Well, if you think of a female protective spirit as warm and fuzzy like the angel on the bridge or the sexxxy images of deviantART-style Valkyrie (instead of the ferocious Valkyrie of the Wild Hunt, above), you’ve never met Palden Lhamo (below), a (real) Norse Shieldmaiden, or even the terrifying side of Galadrial from Tolkien’s tales.

Not all guardians are appealing—that’s kinda the point. The message of the guardian is: “You are not welcome!” “Turn back!” and “Go away!” This makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

And it brings me back around to poison ivy.

Poison ivy is most common at the edges of the woods. Poison ivy is a protectress to the depths of the forest. Birds and other mammals, for the most part, have no negative consequences whatsoever if they come into contact with her, um, charms. The message poison ivy sends is sent directly to humans. When poison ivy creeps along the edge of the forest, she seals it off and guards its edges from encroaching bipeds. Let’s face it, humans contribute to erosion, deforestation, and pollution. Poison ivy protects her territory from intruders.

Cedar at The Vine tells us:

What is a warning to some can be a teasing invitation to others. If we heed Poison Ivy’s message to tread lightly in these sensitive areas . . . she will often lead us to places of beauty seldom seen by two leggers. Once we have been initiated into this process, she may also lead us . . . [to] exquisite discoveries . . . . [T]his injection of knowledge . . . is sometimes painful to the recipient. . . . Her teachings therefore speak to the gaining of insight and compassion through the process of Regret. Poison Ivy can help up with regret, loss, and grieving. . . . Poison Ivy shows herself to be sacred to Hecate [the goddess of the crossroads], who rules most of the baneful, toxic, and entheogenic herbs. . . . If we find ourselves at a crossroads in life, with a difficult choice to make, perhaps Poison Ivy’s link to Hecate can be availed. . . . Planting Poison Ivy can be a truly revolutionary, enwildening action, politically, personally, and spiritually, and will certainly strengthen the bond between you and this powerful Plant Ally.

I love the way she says, “Once we have been initiated” by poison ivy. I thought about this for a good long time.

Initiation is not supposed to be easy—if it is, you prolly did something wrong or weren’t fully invested. After all, receiving wisdom is almost always associated with pain, poison, and even near-death experiences. I think about the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the snakes of the Minoan Serpent Goddess (like the protection of Wadjet); these seem to me to be like the unsympathetic trials of ayahuasca.[6]

Just as the simplest identification of poison ivy—“leaves of three”—is triadic, so is the image of the triple goddess. Like her, poison ivy can keep a place virginal, can initiate as the mother, and grant wisdom like the crone.

Hecate, Mór-ríoghain, The Norns, The Moirai, The Erinnyes.

And if that wasn’t cool enough, wait—there’s more.

The oil that makes poison ivy such a pain in the, um, wrists and ankles mostly, is called urushiol. It’s also found in poison oak, some variety of sumacs, mango, a tree (ironically) called “soapberry,” cashew, and pistachio (the trees, that is). As it turns out, the word urushiol has nothing to do with the Hebrew underworld, Sheol, my first instinct.[7] The origin of the name is “urushi,” a material gathered and refined from Asian trees, meaning lacquer.

It’s that shiny, shiny gloss that we are used to seeing on Classical Japanese and Korean art.

But that’s not even the punchline.

Shugendō Buddhist monks mummified themselves alive by using urushiol in a practice called Sokushinbutsu. Basically, what happens is the monk practices 1000 days (2¾ years) of extreme fasting followed by 1000 days of bodily purgation; this is followed by another 1000 days of self-poisoning with the lacquer/oil which renders the body too toxic for maggots. In this state, he sits in the lotus position until he dies. He would ring a bell every day to indicate that he was still alive; once the bell stops ringing, he is sealed in his tomb for a final 1000 days where his remains are mummified.

It hasn’t always worked.

So, what then is the message of this use of urushiol?

Wouldn’t you say it was about the same? The message of the crossroads is always one of sacrifice for knowledge. The monks’ ordeal was geared toward Enlightenment—a wisdom for which he gave his life.

In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky wrote: “in all the ancient cosmogonies light comes from darkness.” In Hebrew lore, Adam and Eve traded innocence and immortality for the knowledge of good and evil; Odin traded his eye for wisdom; the oracles of old put their lives at risk for a glimpse into the underworld. The agnishvattas “fell” so that they might bring “light.” Likewise Prometheus. Hermes himself is the god of both trade and wisdom—you see, there is an ineradicable connection between the two concepts.

What will you sacrifice for knowledge? Nothing? Good luck with that.

The pain and danger of poison ivy seems to me to stand guard between “safety” and the kind of enlightenment which requires a spiritual (and physical!) sacrifice.

Tread carefully.

~E

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[1] It’s never bothered him before. Maybe this is why it got him this year.

[2] Truthfully, she brought three.

[3] I think she said six a year.

[4] I collected it in what looked like a hazmat suit and a lot, a lot, a lot of plastic and cardboard. All while articulating supplications.

[5] And it’s a good thing I did. One of my seidrlings has decided to make urushiol oil and poison ivy wands on her own. I want to get a “leg up” on the info to help her out. Turns out? You only need about 0.25 ounce (7 grams) of  pure urushiol oil to inflame every living human being on the entire planet! Plus, the oil can stay active for up to 5 years. I’m vaguely less worried about the magical repercussions than the straight-up physical ones.

[6] Or the less exotic diliriants found in this particular psychonaut’s yard: belladonna, trumpet flower, datura, henbane, mandrake, moonflower, morning glory, and tobacco (which doesn’t look like it’s coming back this year).

[7] I mean, it is chthonic—and hellish at that.

Chicken Soup for the Witchy Student’s Soul

I wrote this post on April 9th. It’s one of those that sat in my “draft” box for much of this month. I was going to revamp it and publish it, but I think I will just go ahead and let it be what it is. Mostly.[1] You see, last night I had a conversation with a student who was frustrated by hateful remarks made by another blogger.

It’s no big secret. Everybody knows that there is tension—we’ll call it tension—between me and another writer. Dance all you want. It is what it is. Over the last year I have learned to ignore it all—the oblique false accusations, the sideways insults, the innuendo.[2] Sure, I get texts and emails and “Did you see?”s. Usually I haven’t seen. And usually I don’t even go look. But this time she took  a low jab at my students’ progress.

This is just to set the record straight on their behalf. Muck with my reputation all you want[3]—hands off theirs.

The original post follows—my retrospective commentary and comments concerning the insults made about my students are in blue. The picture is new.

****************************************************

Ceci n’est pas un vrai livre.
This is not a real book.
It is a .jpg of a real book (by Toni Patrick) that was doctored to make me giggle.
It did.

4/9/2013—I have a final class tonight before my first degree Neophytes make an elevation over the weekend and I thought I’d just record the moment and fill you in on what it’s been like to have my student population explode over the past year.

This time last year, I decided to start taking-on students again after two years’ hiatus. Last spring, there was one. Then there were two. A few months later there were three. By November, there were six. Then five.[4] Now, there are ten (temporarily) going on eight, then expected to be twelve in August.

I’ve decided to put a moratorium on newcomers until August when the more seasoned students can help out. Which they can–intellectually, but there is a matter of their school/family/life schedules. I don’t have a single student who doesn’t have a full-to-the-brim adult life (except perhaps my son, the youngest in the crowd by four years). And yet, they all manage to work magical studies and kindred support into their routines.

Aside from the pilot, the lawyer, the journalist, and the other amazingly talented members of our tribe[5] that are not students, we have a nursing student, several parents (toddlers to adults), military folk, ex-military folk, business owners, artists and musicians of all kinds (including tattoo artists), students of all kinds, and professionals of–well, not all kinds–but several kinds. Average age hovers around 31. Our conversations are “in depth” as well as “with breadth” to say the least. Everyone comes at magic from a different perspective and yet manages to land on the same square. Simpatico.

For the good of all, I’ve decided to slow down the training of the most senior class by a few weeks and speed up the training of the second level class by a few weeks so that they can all work together. That means that in a few weeks, I’ll have a nice big class where everyone can study together. My heart is saying, “Thank you!” My main goal is to have the more experienced students mentor the less experienced students within the year.

This has been the bombdiggity as far as I am concerned. And boy-howdy do my students seem to like it. We don’t fit in my classroom anymore so we gather around the family dining table sitting all on top of each other batting around profundities and processes and sharing experiences, occasionally digressing into a nonsensical string of levity that binds us together even more strongly. We craft and weave and work together like any healthy working temple should. No competition. No monopolies. No power-struggles. I often seek council from my most senior students, who—in turn—are open and honest with me about their opinions but always deferential to my authority.

Our program is very intellectual but includes a ton of hands-on lessons. For instance, last week my “Seeker” class (0 grade) had eggs and tea and pendulums and Tarot cards and coins and the I Ching and . . . and . . . and . . . for a class on divination. I always have such fun with that one.

For me, the program has several levels of “beginner” grades. The four outer-levels make up what would typically be considered the “year-and-a-day” training. I don’t expect that all of my students will make it through the whole thing. (Mostly because of the time obligations.)[6] It’s rigorous. More rigorous than the home-grown year-and-a-day curriculum I’ve seen floating about.[7] We do a lot of hands-on work but we read the work of others as well. I mean we read—a lot. And, every now and then, some of it borders on secular academia too. Like tonight, my Neophytes are giving presentations on creation myths and pantheon legends–but they also have to apply the legend to The Hero’s Journey. (This then applies back to their ongoing Tarot study on a basic level—it is comprehensively intertwined.) So, I guess I attract a particular kind of student: smart and willing to think critically and to question all things, busy—but dedicated to craft-learning, fun-loving—but able to stay on task when the moment calls for it (and to goof-off when the moment calls for it!), and—damn—they are kindred-minded. To watch them pull together on group projects is such fun. No competition,  no backbiting.

I’m glad I mentioned this in the original draft. You see, we are not a Wiccan tradition. Therefore, it is just downright goofy to peg our elevations as 1-2-3-Wiccan-style (which is a totally legit structure—for other traditions, just not ours.). We are a mystery tradition and, as such, have a tiered and methodological approach to unraveling the details. This is just to say that my students do not rapid-fire elevate as was recently alleged by someone who knows nothing—absolutely nothing—about my curriculum.  

I’m not telling y’all this because I feel like I have to defend myself against meaningless disparagements made by complete outsiders, but because I know that my students are working hard and I want to go on record as saying that their progress is beyond reproach. I know what they are achieving; they know what they are achieving; most importantly, the gods know what they are achieving. Whatever you think of me, their gefrain is such that there are no grounds upon which their training can be questioned.

By-and-large, these guys get behind the balls and really impress me. I have one student who regularly sends me links to things that he finds while he’s studying. If half the battle is engagement, we win—these folks are engaged! This past week the newest bunch were tossing all sorts of divination articles at each other. I love the spirit of cooperation with which they approach occult studies more than just about anything. It’s the heathen in me that loves to see kindred-spirits form and congeal as they become family.

And that’s what we’ve become. We are not just teacher, student, priest/gothi, priestess/gydia, har-gydia. We are a unified kindred.[8] I love youse guyse. You have no idea how much you have blessed me this year. Between affirmation, education, and chicken rearing, I don’t want to think of a life without you.

And after last week’s mondo-lesson, I think I’m ready to start talking about low-magic once more. It’s like falling in love with an old friend all over again.

I’ll leave you with that; and as ever, I’ll let you know how it goes.

~E

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[1] After my rooster moved from my momma’s house to my sister’s house, I wrote one called “Everything I Need to Know About Hookin’ I Learned From My Chickens.” Now I reckon I’ll have to re-look at that one too.

[2] Well there was this one time this winter that I allowed myself to get irritated. But now I don’t even remember what it was. If you remember, don’t remind me; it’s all SSDD anyhow.

[3] And I reckon if you’ve know me long enough, you feel you have the right. But from now on, how’s about you do it in person? You know I’ve always been open to full-disclosure arbitration. Go on, call my bluff. 

[4] One decided to return to Christianity. It’s all good. She’s more open-minded and better armed to defend her personal faith today than she was before the class. Good on her! She still comes to kindred gatherings.

[5] Holy-Hela, I said “tribe.” Lest I be accused of plagiarizing the term, may I point out it’s what nearly every heathen calls their folk. I’ve been biting my tongue on the term for too long. I don’t use “theod” out of respect for the Theodish way.

[6] Right now, I’m at 27% attrition—but 2/3 of those plan to return in August.

[7] Now, I’m sure there’s other out there. I’m just sayin’ I ha’n’t seen it.

[8] Actually, I will be initiating a few folks into priesthood soon. (That happened Saturday, BTW.) I’m thrilled that 3/4 of them are my students who have risen to the occasion and have proven themselves capable of priesthood within the kindred. The kindred (“church”) is different from the training program (“school”). There is a good deal of layover in membership, and each supports the other, but they are not a single entity.