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Kemetic Bright Moon 2/21

This month we had a Supermoon on the full moon, and it was also the Spring Equinox here.  The energy was running so high I had a hard time sleeping!  Despite that I felt well enough the next day to do my ritual, though a family visit prevented me from writing it up right away.  So here you are!  This month’s message from Bast and Sekhmet is below.

You are seeking, and working towards, your heart’s desire, but you have not yet attained it.  Do not doubt your worth because of your long struggle; it is part of the journey.  The struggle is not who you are, but where you are.  You are a being of unlimited potential, and you can find the freedom you crave to create the life you want if you continue forward down your path of discovery.  Do not limit yourself – your circumstances are already doing that, but you can grow beyond that if you plant seeds now so that they will flower later.  You are exhausted and overwhelmed and you may feel like giving up, but we are with you, and this spring is a new chance to rise to the challenges of your circumstances, and overcome them.

Hopefully this message will find those who need the encouragement.  Keep going, friends.  It will be worth it when you get there.  Happy Spring!

Tarot Deck Review: Fantastical Creatures Tarot

Deck: Fantastical Creatures Tarot

Publisher: US Games Systems, Inc.

Writer & Artist: D.J. Conway, Lisa Hunt

Overall Rating: 8/10

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Cardstock: Not too bad.  One of the cards tore slightly about halfway down the side like the third time I ever shuffled the deck, but besides that, there’s no damage after about 4-6 years of moderate usage. (I’ve had this deck for about 10 years but for the first five I barely used it, and a few years ago I bought a ton of new decks and stopped using it for about a year.)  The backs are a sort of ivory-beige and there is some discoloring from repeated handling, or possibly they weren’t quite uniform to begin with?  Shuffling is fairly easy, and the coating is still intact and slick.

Artwork: The art is very vivid, super evocative, and perfect for intuitive readings.  The backs allow for reversals.  The color palette tends toward blues and greens.  The cards have rather wide and decorative borders, and the images fill the entire inside with detail.  The original artworks are referred to as “paintings” in the LWB and to my inexpert eyes it looks predominately like watercolors.  The human figures are well proportioned.  The aesthetic feel is generally of temporarily suspended movement, a snapshot of a larger world.

LWB:  The book is pretty helpful. Its main strength is in the explanation of the fantastical creature chosen for each card and a tidbit about their mythology and the symbolism in the artwork.  That is the longest paragraph, and following it is a short paragraph about the divinatory meaning (upright only), and a few lines about potential magical uses of the card. For example, 7 of Pentacles: “Use to convert negative energy into positive energy, which will attract good fortune.”  All three paragraphs are longest for the Majors, of a medium length for the court cards, and shortest for the numbered Minors.  The book does not include any suggested layouts.  Also, it is important to note that this is a Fire Swords/Air Wands deck.  I prefer that elemental association, but some people find it counterintuitive.

Likes:  I love the general feel of the artwork, and I love how it feels to read with this deck intuitively, based on the artwork and what catches my eye about the card.  I find that the deck is happy to read with reversals, and it tends to give gentle and encouraging answers, which is useful in a lot of situations but might be too wishy-washy for an “only” deck.

Dislikes:  I’m really not crazy about the color choice for the backs and the borders.  I’m also a little put-off by some of the fantastical “creatures” being deities (Morrigan, Manannan, Neptune, Anansi, Kali Ma, Yemaya), although some of these are court cards which makes a certain amount of sense.  I’m a lot more bothered by “creatures” (again, often deities) drawn from closed traditions (Aboriginal Rainbow Serpent, Iroquois Atahensic, Nahuatl Quetzacoatl, and depending on one’s perspective, this also includes Anansi and Yemaya).  There are also quite a few from semi-closed traditions, like Hinduism, Shinto, and African Diaspora Religions.  (Some people consider ADRs fully closed, as mentioned above. I know and respect black practitioners of both viewpoints, and it’s not really my business so I don’t have a firm opinion.)  On a completely separate note, I’m also not crazy about how the fae are depicted and described, because it’s very New Age: they’re extremely helpful and benevolent tiny spirits.

 

Overall Recommendation:

Despite a few misgivings, I generally recommend this tarot deck to beginners and advanced diviners alike, especially anyone who likes to read intuitively based on artwork.  I really can’t say enough how much I like the artwork, and the photo above  doesn’t quite capture the wealth of detail in the cards.  I’ve been working a bit more with this deck lately and I think it may become my go-to for in-person tarot readings because of the ease of interpretation.  It’s available for about $20 on Amazon which is about average for a deck like this, by a major publisher.

Saturn Return: Beginnings

I mentioned on the last dark moon that the Morrigna told me to take a step back so that I could more fully immerse myself in my first Saturn Return. My plate was already close to full, and I needed space.

Well. If I use the outline of one of my favorite local astrologers, Alan O’Connor, and I use +/- 3 degrees of my natal Saturn, this Saturn return started on February 10th and will continue until July 26th before finally moving out of those degrees… Only to come back as it retrogrades in November, and from then until it goes direct and passes completely beyond in mid January 2020. So, I suspect it’s going to be an interesting year.

The first Saturn Return is usually thought of as a time for growing up, for figuring out your priorities in life, for getting into alignment with your Great Work or Soul Purpose, if you believe in that type of thing. (I do, mostly. That is, I believe I’m here for a reason this go ’round, but I’m agnostic as to whether or not that’s a universal experience.)

When Scott went through his first Saturn Return a few years back, he sort of tugged us into place as a family, in our own place, and with a child. And our home life is good, balanced, stable, so I’m grateful to have a pretty decent foundation to start from as I explore further. We’re like that a lot in other things, too – he’s the Land to my Sky, and we both meet in the Sea. Which is not to say that he didn’t do any exploring – Scott was actually the first one to say that we should create Serendipities now, instead of leaving it to be a daydream or maybe a retirement project.

So we’ve both been exploring some already, and that exploration and the work I’ve been doing as I get more deeply involved with the local community (both seen and Unseen) meant that I came to this Saturn Return already pointed in the right direction, already changing and being changed as I seek better alignment. But that doesn’t mean the work ahead of me will be easy. Far from it, I expect. I have already been struggling. Instead of big, sweeping changes, I’m finding myself drawn to smaller details.

I’m finding myself needing to plan more, both because I’m having a hard time remembering things lately, and because I’m juggling too many things in my head to do my usual style of intentional manifestation. I’m cluttered, and it’s exacerbating my anxiety disorder. So, I’m trying a new planner system, and I’m trying to take better notes, and so far it seems to be working fairly well. I did some mind-map planning for where I want Serendipities to be in two, five, and ten years (and, spoilers, we have Big Plans). I have a new anxiety workbook I’m working through that’s based on some of the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques I learned as a teen, because I need to brush up on them.

Also, I’ve started a shadow work tarot prompt challenge, which is designed to be done every day for a whole month, but I’m spacing it out to twice a week or so, and I’m doing art journaling as my integration of each tarot prompt and answer. I try to do shadow work as it comes up, as I realize there are parts of myself that could use integration, but the prompts of this challenge are very broad and it feels like a good way to make sure I’m not missing anywhere. Again, I’m looking at fine details. There are a few larger things I have been working on for some time (most related to trauma processing), but I want to be sure I’m not missing smaller things, lest they cause hiccups along the way. When I started the challenge and the art journaling, my first impulse read to share it, but something made me hesitate, and I realized that if I started sharing, I’d feel compelled to continue, and the expectation of an audience would change the whole tone of my work. So I won’t be sharing it at all, with anyone, and that feels a little odd for someone who’s generally fairly open about all aspects of her practice.

Depending on how things go, I may continue blogging about my Saturn Return experiences every Dark Moon. But for now, it felt fitting to fill the space the Morrigna left for me.

Bright Moon Omen 2/20

Here’s this moon’s message from Bast and Sekhmet, Eyes of Ra:

A new cycle is beginning; you must prepare to sprout and then to bloom. You’ve been steadfastly waiting and praying for guidance, but you must make the decision alone. Any decision would be better than continuing to wait, but it is best to lean into your passions and go with the option that makes your heart-soul burn brightly. This may mean setting yourself apart from others, retreating into solitude for a time, as you stare into the gaping maw of your deepest Self. Things will come full circle.

As usual, the closer you are to me both physically and in practice, the more accurate this will be for you, but hopefully there’s a kernel of truth in there for everyone who reads it.

The next Bright Moon is 3/20.

Crow Folks: A Final Message

I’ve been told to step back from this work, the messenger role I was thrust into around Lughnasadh last year.  It’s been six months, and the balance feels right.  I’ve learned a lot, and hopefully so have you.  I’ll still be around to answer questions privately through divination, and I’m happy to pull three more cards as I did for myself, to elucidate your new roles going forward.  But my three cards spoke of a need to step back, to spend the next few months on internal work.  The timing makes sense – my first Saturn Return begins next month, as Saturn encroaches within three degrees of its position in my natal chart.  That will be my focus for now, that self-work and my ongoing relationships with Starflower, and the Eyes of Ra.

That said, I do have one last message for you all, as we move into spring:

“It is time to seek harmony amongst yourselves.  This may require stepping out on your own in order to see things more clearly, in order to reorganize your priorities so you know where you can compromise and where you cannot, where bridges can be mended, and where fires can only be extinguished.  You need to continue training, but it is time to try things on your own.  What can you accomplish by yourself?  You have grown stronger, and you need to know your new limits, and what weaknesses still require ongoing work.  In the coming months you will be tested, and when we are ready, new leaders will be chosen.”

Good luck, Crow Folks.  May the winds be kind.

Imbolc!

 

This year for Imbolc, we helped to organize a ritual at our local UU church.  At home, our deities of the occasion are Cailleach and Brigid, and the group agreed to honor them for our ritual.  We used a shortened version of the ADF creation of sacred space and ritual center, honoring of the Hallows (Fire, Well and Tree), the Kindreds (Shining Ones, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits), and a short meditation to help us connect to the space between the worlds.

Then we invoked the Cailleach and Brigid.  Another participant read a prayer they’d found called “Prayer to Brigantia, Keeper of the Forge“, by Patti Wigington, substituting “Brigid” for “Brigantia”.  I wrote a poem for Cailleach following the same pattern, and Scott read it during the ritual.  I’ve reproduced both, below.

We also tied raffia to pussywillow branches for our hopes and intentions for the spring, similar to cloutie ties, and we sang Kelianna’s song Brighid’s Flame together.

It was a simple ritual, but poignant for many of the participants, and it’s proof that we can pull something together in less than a week.  Still, I think we’re going to plan farther ahead for the Spring Equinox!

 

Imbolc Prayer for Cailleach, by Aleja Nic Bhé Chuille

Hail, Cailleach! Bringer of ice and snow,
She who blankets the world in white,
She who freezes the world so time seems to slow,
She who encourages us to rely on each other,
She who is called the Blue Crone,
And teaches us the true meaning of survival.

Hail, Cailleach! Queen of Winter,
She who frosts the ground with her staff,
She who dropped rocks and made mountains,
She who shaped valleys and hills,
She who flies over the land as a great winter storm.

 

Prayer for Brigantia, Keeper of the Forge, by Patti Wigington

Hail, Brigantia! Keeper of the forge,
She who shapes the world itself with fire,
She who ignites the spark of passion in the poets,
She who leads the clans with a warrior’s cry,
She who is the bride of the islands,
And who leads the fight of freedom.

Hail, Brigantia! Defender of kin and hearth,
She who inspires the bards to sing,
She who drives the smith to raise his hammer,
She who is a fire sweeping across the land.

 

[Feel free to use my prayer to Cailleach for your own rituals, with proper attribution!]

 

Kemetic Bright Moon 1/20

This month, the full moon is also a Super Moon, and in the Northern Hemisphere, a Blood Moon Eclipse.  It’s tonight around midnight here on the East Coast, but my Ladies have permitted me to do the ritual the day before.  Here is the message from Bast and Sekhmet:

This Bright Moon brings you the strength of a lioness on the hunt, bloody and determined.  Use your claws to tear away things you do not need, and execrate them.  You will be left with simple clarity about your spiritual purpose, and then you can prepare for this next cycle of your journey, for the new secular year.

I think I’ll be doing a red paper execration, which I’ve explained elsewhere.

See you on or around February 19th for the next Kemetic Bright Moon!

Kemetic Holiday: She Is Led Back

Due to illness and sudden out of town guests, my celebration of the return of the Eyes of Ra was a bit more subdued than I had planned. Here’s a picture of the altar following their unveiling, however, with an offering of chocolate, and clear water. I also gave them a plate of the dinner we made that night, but it didn’t fit neatly in the picture, as it encroached into the space allocated for Athena Columbia. (I expect that a larger shrine, and perhaps even one that closes, is the next thing on their wishlist for Wep Ronpet.)

Next year, I think I’m going to try and write a specific prayer or song for the second half of this holiday, and offer that and some food each night as they come back, as a sort of extended feast.

Next Bright Moon is on January 21st!

A Call to Action

I want you to know that I hesitated to write this blog, Dear Reader.  I want you to know that I have been struggling with it all afternoon and have been turning it around and around in circles in my head because I was afraid of what you might think.  Afraid you might think I’m writing this for the fame, for the drama, because I’m paranoid, because I think I’m the ultimate witch.  But no.  I wouldn’t have written this at all if I hadn’t been called the fuck out by a deck of cards I used to ask Na Morrigna for clarification.  “What should I do?” I asked.  Do I really need to tell others about the working I’ve done?  Do I need to share my UPG?  It’s very, very, deeply, woo.  I had hoped the answer would be No, that They would tell me I’d done enough in bringing the situation to the attention of a few key groups and networks.  But, alas.  “You agreed to be our Priestess.” They said.  “You agreed to help organize the Warriors.” They said.  “So DO YOUR FUCKING JOB.”  I didn’t argue.  I wrote the blog. Here it is.

Today, I got a news alert from NPR.  That is not unusual.  The news alert said that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had missed a day of arguments.  That is unusual.  Very unusual.  It has never happened before in her entire career.  I immediately had a Bad Feeling, and while I initially thought it was a bad feeling of the usual sort, it remained seared into my brain until I had a quiet moment to check in with my gods and guides and as soon as I was paying attention, they roared DO SOMETHING.  This was not a normal feeling, this was not a normal occurrence – something beyond the mundane had happened.  So, as is my usual inclination, I first sought more information.  I did not have much time just then, so my first dive into trance was shallow, only enough to touch base a little deeper with my allies.  The message they had for me was fairly clear, though: banework had been thrown, likely by a group as a concerted effort, and not only at RBG, but also at Sotomayor and several members of Congress, particularly concentrating on a few newly-elected progressive women of color.  Na Morrigna were also waiting for me, and their message was brief: Activate your Networks.

So, I began to spread the message.  I posted the news article and suggestions or requests for curse-breaking, healing, and protective magical workings, in several different places.  Practice and study groups on facebook, on my witchy tumblrs, even a few private messages.  I kept it close to home, so to speak, within circles where people already know me, and are already more or less familiar with who I am and the work I do.  Some people responded back, and one in particular launched immediately into their own investigation and working, and then discussed with me at length the messages they were receiving – many of which confirmed my own.

My own working had to wait until I had enough time to focus, which did not occur until my toddler went down for a nap. (Ah yes, the joys of stay-at-home parenthood.)  I began with almost a dozen candles to various deities and spirits, including DC land spirits, the Potomac River, my ancestors, and the ancestors of those targeted, with pleas for help and aid.  I’m a devotional polytheist, and that’s where I usually begin.  Bast and Sekhmet as Eyes of Ra.  Be Chuille and Dinand, the sorceresses of the Tuatha De Danann.  The three Morrigna.  Apollo.  Athena Columbia, Elutheria, Dike, Nike.  I pledged, I pleaded, I offered, I cried.

And then I made myself comfortable on my couch, I set up my meditation music, and crossed into the Otherworlds.  I began, as I usually do, in the Waystation, my home in the Otherworlds.  There is a shrine in that space, a sanctuary in the middle of a sanctuary, where the being I call The StarFlower Queen, the Fairy Queen to whom I am bound, does workings Over There.  She joined her powers to what I had begun, and replicated the candles I lit to increase the strength of their call.  She also created protection spell candles for those most severely affected by the baneworking, and stuck them in her eternal flame, to keep them ever-burning until such a time as they are no longer necessary.

Then, we spoke to her mother, Be Chuille, and asked what she could do.  As we have done before on a smaller scale, Be Chuille used my body – my human, incarnated body – as an anchor in time and space, to help Her move more easily to where work needed to be done.  And then move She did: bindings and banework turned to vines in Her hand and then withered, died, and became the damp detritus of the forest floor.  This fed the land spirits, who rose to Her call and ate away larger vines wrapped around buildings, and I came to understand how it had been cast.  The casters knew where the targets would be (the Supreme Court, the Capitol Building) and cast it there to wait to ensnare the targets when they came by.  But I watched Be Chuille remove vines from children, spouses, family members, and supporters as well as representatives – the traps had been set wide and imprecise.  (I wondered, then, if that was a side effect of people casting magic with prayer and intent but without the full knowledge of what they are doing.)  There were so many baneful ropes, though, and Be Chuille was more focused on removing them from those who had not been directly targeted.

Dinand arrived, then, speaking to the spirit I know as the Lady of the Potomac River, a land spirit I consider to be a local goddess. They discussed the need for a storm, for precipitation to help wash the leftover energy away, and to dissolve any that remained after being removed.  When I was back to myself later, I shared that with a fellow practitioner who has a close relationship with Gwyn Ap Nudd and His Wild Hunt, especially as they relate to storms, and they agreed to talk to Him.  I was told that Gwyn agreed there was a need for a cleansing storm, and He reiterated a need for human practitioners to do work alongside His own, to tip the balance.

The StarFlower Queen collected me again then, and she began working more deeply on RBG, Sotomayor, Deb Haaland, Sharice Davids, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Kyrsten Sinema, and perhaps others.  I assisted as she disentangled banework from blessing, and drew the banework out, allowing the blessings to move closer to their skin.  She snipped the fine threads of banework – my brain supplied the visualization of a scissors – working methodically until she had removed as much as she could easily find.  I got the sense that time was distorted – as long as human practitioners do their work in the next few days, we will all be working side-by-side, at the same “time” and in the same “place”.  As she worked she began to shine more and more brightly, until she finished and then blossomed into the star that is the reason for the use-name I know her by.  What stars do is their own business, but it seemed she was still working on cleansing, just on a grander scale.  Dispelling the Glamours Gwendolyn Reece discusses, perhaps.  Things distorted beyond my ability to easily recount what I witnessed before she returned to her more normal size and shape.

After that I was handed over to Na Morrigna, as has lately been my position, and They transformed me into one corvid in a flock, swirling in the air, towards I knew not what, at first.  When we arrived, however, it became more clear.  I saw something that had a humanoid shape and glowed uncannily, and yet seemed not to be a natural being – it felt more like clockwork, like an android, like a computer program.  I can only imagine it to have been something like an egregore, yet those are somewhat outside my realm of expertise.  Whatever it was, however, it is no more.  Na Morrigna gave a battle cry, and we all descended upon it.  Corvids, carrion birds, and birds of prey clawed and pecked, while wolves and other four-legged creatures tore with claws and teeth, and the thing was destroyed.  Many of the spirit-creatures then ate of the flesh of the thing, which fell into the shape of a horse once mortally wounded.  Once they had their fill, the remaining flesh melted into slimy water, now fertility for the soil.  I returned to the Waystation, and then I returned to myself, on my couch, my head reeling.

Food became necessary, but was not nearly enough to ground me.  My toddler awoke and that helped to focus me some, and when my husband returned home, he assisted more, but I still felt the pull of unfinished business… until I sat down, riffled my cards, and asked the Morrigna if I had done enough, if I really needed to do more.

And the answer to that, of course, is at the top of this post.

Consider this your call to action.  Do what you can, be it curse-breaking, healing, protection, storm-calling, or simply lighting a candle and praying for divine assistance.  If you have a favorite deity of justice or healing, go to them.  If not, ask assistance of the one in your favorite pantheon, or turn to someone I mentioned above.  Do what you can, and do it now.

Crow Folks: We’ve Done Well So Far

The Dark Moon is tomorrow yet the message from the Morrigna comes to me tonight, with the first of my moon’s blood.  And the message in a nutshell is this: we’ve achieved a lot so far.  This is especially true for those of us who are in the US.  As with all of these messages, they’re most accurate for those closest to me in time, space, and association.

You have trained, you have done the work, you have achieved victory.  Much of what we have worked for has come to pass, and more will come to pass soon.  This success is earned; we have manifested our shared desires.  Revel in it for now, but do not lose sight of the longer term goals.  False confidence and arrogance can ruin these foundations before they have time to set.  There is more to build in the coming months, and those who have risen to the top must lead the others.  Gather them beneath your wings.

I get the feeling that after Imbolc we’ll be working at a slower pace for a while before it ramps up again, and that we may be rotating instead of all on call, so to speak, but as of yet that’s not been made clear to me.  I have one more of these, for the Dark Moon directly following Imbolc, on Feb 4th.  I expect it will be clearer at that point.  Until then, fly joyously.

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