The Ramblings and Wanderings

Archive for the ‘Practice & Learning’ Category

This one is on Witchvox this week and is host to a number of typos, I’m not sure how they got there. I must need a proof reader or something. So here is a cleaner version for y’all:

“This is what happens when you dabble! You can’t practice the Craft while you are looking down your nose at it.” ~ The Aunts from Practical Magic

So why do I have to do all this required reading and research? Isn’t that work? Its so time consuming and the books are hard to read! Why can’t we simply practice solely based upon our instincts and natural talents?

Instinct is only one part of the equation.

Imagine that your spiritual practice was a house. Now, try to build that without blueprints, without a plan, without the knowledge of how to properly the use a nail-gun and electric drill. You could probably build yourself and nice little shanty but it’s probably not going to keep you very warm come winter time. It is also certainly not the four bedroom post and beam home you had hoped for either.

It’s all about balance. It is alright if your spiritual path leans more on the instinctive side than the research side, or vice versa. After all you should build a house you’d actually want to live in. However leaving out one or the other entirely is just plain irresponsible.

An adult doesn’t go into a job interview without having some experience at that job, or without at least doing a little research first, or else they wouldn’t get hired. So a Witch shouldn’t be summoning spirits, ancestors and gods without having a clue as to what they are dealing with and how.

I know a number of Witches and Pagans who practice almost totally based on instinct and natural talent alone. It’s wonderful to be blessed with strong instincts and natural talent, if you have it. However these instincts only Witches will, more often than not, report frightening and bad experiences or a lack of anything “special” happening at all. Why you may ask? This is because instinct and talent is the starting point, not the be-all and end-all.

They go walking into ritual and situations they are not properly prepared for and wind up doing more harm than good. If instinct and talent were all that was required than these instincts only Witches would not be having such bad experiences in the first place.

Working based on instinct and talent is supposed to come after years of research, practice and trial and error. Practicing a beautiful and fulfilling non-scripted ritual is your reward for years of practicing with a script in hand until you don’t need one anymore.

Starting at the 101 level without a script, with out doing your research, is taking a shortcut. It is lazy, immature and irresponsible. It will never be as enlightening and fulfilling as a ritual, rite or Craft that you earned the hard way. There is no such thing as “good enough” in a spiritual practice, especially when that “good enough” means you did next to nothing at all. A spiritual Path is not supposed to be easy and the gods don’t like lazy people.

The gods, spirits and ancestors do not reward people who do not do the work to earn their respect. If you want to develop a relationship with the Otherworld and the Spirits of the Land you have to earn it. You cannot simply show up with your hand out expecting a prize, for no work, like a spoiled child.

This is Witchcraft & Paganism, not a revealed religion. You cannot just show up, sit down, open one book and expect heaven to be handed to you for no reason other than that you are a good person. Declaring “I am here and I am good” may work for monotheism, at least on the surface, because they are on a conquest kick and want as many people to join as possible. Yahweh and Allah just aren’t all that picky, its enough that you are willing to show up and feel guilty for the bad things you do and then try to coerce other people to join too.

Our gods expect a little more from you than that. After all, they put you here and they made you good (at least that’s how you started out as a newborn anyway) so showing up and saying “I’m here and I’m a good person” fails to impress them. Our gods used to be worshipped by people who would sacrifice their very best goat to them and now you expect them to hand the Mysteries over to you because you showed up with Enya playing on your MP3 player? For shame!

You cannot expect your ancestors, people who fought battles with swords, who pushed horse drawn plows, who would walk many miles to the yearly feast grounds, to give you long lost lore for nothing. What we must look like to them, we who are so spoiled and pampered that we whine and complain when the processional to the ritual is longer than 3 city blocks. How can you ask for their aid, protection or knowledge when you are willing to do little more than pour half a bottle of cheap whiskey out to them once in a while? The processional for the Eleusian Mysteries in ancient times took a whole day.

Now I know I am being a bit hard on you here. I do so because I care and also because I myself have learned these lessons the hard way. I was once a young aspiring Hedgewitch who covered herself with too-potent, homebrewed, flying ointment only to have a truly terrifying, mind shattering, life changing experience. The kind I would not wish on my greatest enemy. So I speak from experience here, not a high horse.

Allow me to give you another example from my own experience. I have a staff that I now call my “fluffy staff” made many years ago when I was younger and impatient it is covered with poorly researched runes and ogam, silly markings and glued on crystal beads. Truly it looks like a cheap prop for a small community’s stage production of Harry Potter. I grimace every time I look at it now and vow that one day I will sand it down and start again.

In the meantime however I have spent the last six years slowly creating a most wonderful and beautiful stang. Made of juniper wood from an uncles back yard and seasoned for three years. It has been carefully laid in the sunlight and moonlight, placed in the winds of the great Canadian Rockies, the Kootenays, the wind off the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Carefully carved, each stroke with the knife researched, planned and mediated upon. Lovingly hand sanded over an entire winter until my hand ached. I have loved this piece of wood for the better part of a decade now; I know every millimetre of it better than I know my own body. All I have to do it touch it to enter into a light trance state and it has not yet been blessed.

This stang is nearing completion and will be finished in its seventh year of creation; it will be one of my proudest achievements as a Witch. And it will be a tool far more potent and powerful than anything even an Elder could whip up in only a week’s time. I know all this work and worry, waiting, plotting, planning and research is worth it. I know that when I come into the presence of the gods with this tool in my hand, they will see plainly my dedication to the Craft and approve.

I have learned to earn my right to call myself Pagan, Witch, Priestess and Shaman.  How about you?

“Properly prepared I must always be” ~ part of the 2nd degree oath as written by Gerald Gardner.

I am a farm girl; I “get” the lambing season at Imbolg as I have spent many sleepless nights in the barn, praying to Brighid as I midwife livestock. I don’t need to be reminded of where my food comes from, I have grown it!

I don’t need a lesson to tell me how to experience the elements, I have lived in them, and I have worked in them. I have been up to my knees in frozen mud and in snow, with the winter sun beating down on me as I fix the horse fencing. I have had a wind burned face, a sun burned nose and frost bitten toes.

I have lived at the edge of endless wilderness all my life. I have performed rituals in a real grove. I have done meditations under an elder tree that is older than my country. I backpack into the wild on a regular basis, I have had bears on my property in spring and summer, fishes spawning in my creeks in fall, and moose that walked by my house each morning.

I have touched a shrine to Epona on my way into the stable each day. I have poured offerings to Taranis when ever the storms loom close and threaten the seedlings newly planted. I have sung to Danu when I walk the fields. I have praised Cernnunos as my hound and I track wild rabbit.

I adore wildcrafting and learning the native plants of an area. I have dozens of field guides. I love learning about animal tracks and all of that. I love being bale to walk through a landscape and know what grows/lives where and why.

My connection with Nature is largely through animals, a result for farming and working in animal rescue, as well as the wild. Thanks to living in places where I have accesses to it as well as being raised by the kind of Dad who teaches his daughter orienteering for fun on the weekends.

Formal gardening is an area I am not a strong at. My mother and grandmother have terrific green thumbs and are amazing gardeners. Things just come naturally to them. Anywhere my Mom is, things grow bigger and greener than they “ought” to be. This didn’t happen for me, so I was put off a little when I was younger, feeling frustrated and inadequate.

I am a much better container gardener for some odd reason. Also I do very well with xeriscaping and growing native plants, that are happier to be allowed to do their own thing for the most part, rather than working with finicky rose bushes like my Mom.

As for the home I talk to house spirits and they are normal to me in a rather odd way. I have a kitchen shrine and a house altar and a sunroom shrine. Honestly I feel quite unhappy, even a little anxious not having my shrines up, they are such a part of my life now.

The gods and spirits get fed regularly, usually home made biscuits or something along those lines. The ancestors have a permanent place on the house altar, where they get acknowledged everyday.

I love to cook, though I am no expert. I love to bake more and have a little notebook I cram with hand written recipes. I love to experiment with food and make a terrible mess in the kitchen.

I always have a Birth of Venus hanging in my bathroom, a witch ladder somewhere, broom by or above the door, witch balls hung in the window etc

I love having a magickal home, living in an enchanted world. My poor man, Dr. Philosopher has to adjust to it. Just the other day he dared to put a half full tea cup on the shelf with my herbalism gear, which is below the house altar! He got a “tsk tsk” for that!

Having recently moved into the city, I have to adjust to pulling the blind down if I want to wander around naked, setting off smoke detectors with smudge sticks and having not moonlight but streetlight coming in through the window.

It’s easier to not notice the big maple tree on the corner when in the city. I find myself talking down to house plants in a way I’d never do to potted juniper on the front stoop, let alone a 100 year old elder tree!

Where exactly do other women learn about things such as decorative pillow shams, vs useable pillow cases?

Or the difference between dishes that are just pretty and are not placed in a dishwasher or microwaves vs practical dishes?

Where do women learn about clothes that match and how to judge other women for having socks that don’t match?

Is there a class my mother failed to take me to where we are supposed to learn how to tell if something is an antique or if it will clash with the drapes?

I am tired of feeling like a failure as a woman (and often being treated as such) because these things go right over my head. Is there a crash course I can take to catch up?

Some kind of tomboy recovery center where I can learn all about carpets and stain removal …

I read blogs like Mrs. B’s and feel like a big fat loser. Am I alone in this?

Am I the only woman who practcies domestic magick fixing the toilet or replacing the radiator hose in the car and not making perfect little curtains for the kitchen?

“This is what happens when you dabble! You can’t practice the Craft while you are looking down your nose at it.” ~ The Aunts from Practical Magic

So why do I have to do all this required reading and research? Isn’t that work? Its so time consuming and the books are hard to read! Why can’t we simply practice solely based upon our instincts and natural talents?

Instinct is only one part of the equation.

Imagine that your spiritual practice was a house. Now, try to build that without blueprints, without a plan, without the knowledge of how to properly the use a nail-gun and electric drill. You could probably build yourself and nice little shanty but it’s probably not going to keep you very warm come winter time. It is also certainly not the four bedroom post and beam home you had hoped for either.

It’s all about balance. It is alright if your spiritual path leans more on the instinctive side than the research side, or vice versa. After all you should build a house you’d actually want to live in. However leaving out one or the other entirely is just plain irresponsible.

An adult doesn’t go into a job interview without having some experience at that job, or without at least doing a little research first, or else they wouldn’t get hired. So a Witch shouldn’t be summoning spirits, ancestors and gods without having a clue as to what they are dealing with and how.

I know a number of Witches and Pagans who practice almost totally based on instinct and natural talent alone. It’s wonderful to be blessed with strong instincts and natural talent, if you have it. However these instincts only Witches will, more often than not, report frightening and bad experiences or a lack of anything “special” happening at all. Why you may ask? This is because instinct and talent is the starting point, not the be-all and end-all.

They go walking into ritual and situations they are not properly prepared for and wind up doing more harm than good. If instinct and talent were all that was required than these instincts only Witches would not be having such bad experiences in the first place.

Working based on instinct and talent is supposed to come after years of research, practice and trial and error. Practicing a beautiful and fulfilling non-scripted ritual is your reward for years of practicing with a script in hand until you don’t need one anymore.

Starting at the 101 level without a script, with out doing your research, is taking a shortcut. It is lazy, immature and irresponsible. It will never be as enlightening and fulfilling as a ritual, rite or Craft that you earned the hard way. There is no such thing as “good enough” in a spiritual practice, especially when that “good enough” means you did next to nothing at all. A spiritual Path is not supposed to be easy and the gods don’t like lazy people.

The gods, spirits and ancestors do not reward people who do not do the work to earn their respect. If you want to develop a relationship with the Otherworld and the Spirits of the Land you have to earn it. You cannot simply show up with your hand out expecting a prize, for no work, like a spoiled child.

This is Witchcraft & Paganism, not a revealed religion. You cannot just show up, sit down, open one book and expect heaven to be handed to you for no reason other than that you are a good person. Declaring “I am here and I am good” may work for monotheism, at least on the surface, because they are on a conquest kick and want as many people to join as possible. Yahweh and Allah just aren’t all that picky, its enough that you are willing to show up and feel guilty for the bad things you do and then try to coerce other people to join too.

Our gods expect a little more from you than that. After all, they put you here and they made you good (at least that’s how you started out as a newborn anyway) so showing up and saying “I’m here and I’m a good person” fails to impress them. Our gods used to be worshipped by people who would sacrifice their very best goat to them and now you expect them to hand the Mysteries over to you because you showed up with Enya playing on your MP3 player? For shame!

You cannot expect your ancestors, people who fought battles with swords, who pushed horse drawn plows, who would walk many miles to the yearly feast grounds, to give you long lost lore for nothing. What we must look like to them, we who are so spoiled and pampered that we whine and complain when the processional to the ritual is longer than 3 city blocks. How can you ask for their aid, protection or knowledge when you are willing to do little more than pour half a bottle of cheap whiskey out to them once in a while? The processional for the Eleusian Mysteries in ancient times took a whole day.

Now I know I am being a bit hard on you here. I do so because I care and also because I myself have learned these lessons the hard way. I was once a young aspiring Hedgewitch who covered herself with too-potent, homebrewed, flying ointment only to have a truly terrifying, mind shattering, life changing experience. The kind I would not wish on my greatest enemy. So I speak from experience here, not a high horse.

Allow me to give you another example from my own experience. I have a staff that I now call my “fluffy staff” made many years ago when I was younger and impatient it is covered with poorly researched runes and ogam, silly markings and glued on crystal beads. Truly it looks like a cheap prop for a small community’s stage production of Harry Potter. I grimace every time I look at it now and vow that one day I will sand it down and start again.

In the meantime however I have spent the last six years slowly creating a most wonderful and beautiful stang. Made of juniper wood from an uncles back yard and seasoned for three years. It has been carefully laid in the sunlight and moonlight, placed in the winds of the great Canadian Rockies, the Kootenays, the wind off the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Carefully carved, each stroke with the knife researched, planned and mediated upon. Lovingly hand sanded over an entire winter until my hand ached. I have loved this piece of wood for the better part of a decade now; I know every millimetre of it better than I know my own body. All I have to do it touch it to enter into a light trance state and it has not yet been blessed.

This stang is nearing completion and will be finished in its seventh year of creation; it will be one of my proudest achievements as a Witch. And it will be a tool far more potent and powerful than anything even an Elder could whip up in only a week’s time. I know all this work and worry, waiting, plotting, planning and research is worth it. I know that when I come into the presence of the gods with this tool in my hand, they will see plainly my dedication to the Craft and approve.

I have learned to earn my right to call myself Pagan, Witch, Priestess and Shaman.  How about you?

“Properly prepared I must always be” ~ part of the 2nd degree oath as written by Gerald Gardner.

A world-traveled Druid and a down-home Hedgewitch are touring central Canada, and are looking to meet feollow Pagans & Witches!

Dr. Brendan Myers, Ph.D. is an award-winning Canadian philosopher, writer, and public speaker. He is the author of several well-respected books on ethics, environmentalism, mythology, and Celtic spirituality. His titles include “The Other Side of Virtue”, “A Pagan Testament”, “The Mysteries of Druidry”, and “Loneliness and Revelation” (forthcoming in 2010).

Juniper Cox is an experienced practitioner of traditional hedge-craft, and the web-master of the popular Walking the Hedge website, blog and forum.

If you would like us to visit your shop, coven, grove, or circle, we are available for workshops, lectures, book-signings, and impromptu concerts! (or just hanging out)

Our tour schedule includes:

November 2: Calgary Alberta

November 4: Regina, Sask.

November 5: Winnipeg, Man.

November 7: Thunder Bay, Ont.

November 8: Sault St. Marie, Ont.

November 9: Sudbury, Ont.

November 10: Ottawa, Ont.

Please contact Brendan at bmyers33@live.ca, Juniper at juniper138@gmail.com,

Find out more about Brendan

Find Juniper on the web

If you know of someone in your area who would be willing to put us up for a night (two adults and one friendly elderly dog), please let us know as well. Many thanks!

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.” ~ Joseph Campbell

Throughout history the hearth has had a special significance in the home. For ancient cultures, the hearth was the center of the home. Nearly every household in history had a hearth, in one form or another, which was particularly respected by each member of the family, but typically cared for and safeguarded by the household matriarch. The fire had greater meaning than merely the source of light and warmth it symbolized the lifeline of the family and its ancestry.

In Modern days, the kitchen is still a focal point of the home, as is the fireplace. Even the fire pit out in the backyard is still a place around which humanity instinctively congregates. Personally, the sound of the furnace “firing up” is very welcome in my home during winter.

Finding the sacred in your home is as easy as stopping for a minute, and thinking about the sources of heat, warmth, comfort, food and togetherness in your home. This may be the ornamental fireplace, the stove, the fire pit outside, even if you lack all these things, there is still someplace in your home where you and any members of the household congregate.

It may seem daunting to select a windowsill in the kitchen, a place on the mantle etc to create a new shrine. It doesn’t have to be. Are not the family photos on the television a kind of shrine? Is not the collection of knickknacks and oddball items on the microwave stand full of sentimental value and fond memories?

Choose one such place in the home and finding a way to signify the importance of the spirit of hearth and home. This spot will be shrine to family, home and the hearth flame. It will be a place to honor household gods and invite helpful household spirits to bring protection to your home.

“To this very day fire is sacred to all Lithuanians. No other phenomenon fits religion so well as fire. Only the flame turns wisdom to the path of spirituality” ~ Vydunas

Lets take a look at what Sacred really IS:

Sacred:

* Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity/In the service or worship of a god

* Worthy of religious veneration

* Made or declared holy

* Dedicated or devoted exclusively to a single use, purpose, or person

* Worthy of respect; venerable/ Regarded with particular reverence or respect.

* Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices

* Protected from violation or abuse by custom, law, or feelings of reverence

* Given over exclusively to a single use or purpose

A lot of what is Sacred boils down to perspective. Making the conscious decision to treat your kitchen, fireplace, woodstove etc as something sacred. An electric range or modern stove can have a dual purpose, to provide food and to act as a ritual object in its own right. Even the most modern oven can be home to the ancient hearth flame.

The simple act of placing a candle or lamp in a corner of the kitchen or living room can bring the sacred into that room, if done with the right will and intent.

Take a second look at your kitchen, or around the area of your chosen “hearth”. Sometimes something as simple as painting or wallpapering a border, putting an attractive piece of fabric on a shelf or placing family mementos and pictures of your dog can help to encourage a sense of a sacred and magickal home. Hanging something decorative in the window, or hanging a new picture on the wall may seem like ordinary acts, but that is entirely the point. Hearth craft is all about finding the sacred and magickal in ordinary, everyday acts.