Paganism – Page 5 – Serendipities

Samhain Season, Spooky Season, and Spicy Spirit Weather

This morning when I woke up, there was frost on the ground – the first frost I’ve seen this year. It’s earlier than the past two years I’ve lived here; previously it was just a few days before or after October 31st. The farmer’s almanac was close though – their prediction this year was the 18th, 3 days ago, and it got down close to freezing then but not quite. I took a few photos on my walk this morning and posted them to my instagram. It was early, just about sunrise, and the neighborhood smelled like woodsmoke – a lovely start to my personal Samhain Season.

While a lot of pagans and witches consider Samhain to be the one day most often celebrated as a neopagan high day (generally November 1st), my personal observance of Samhain includes October 31st (known in Irish as Oíche Shamhna, or November Eve), November 1st through at least the 7th or 8th (the astrological halfway point) and sometimes through the 11th (the adjusted old date, before the calendar shifted), and the first frost, wherever I am. It’s a little loose for a liturgical event, but it’s more than a single day holiday for me. The end of the summer half of the year and the transition to the winter half of the year is a liminal space and I let it take up space in my practice and in my life. Samhain is the name for the whole month of November in modern Irish, and there’s evidence that some of the fire festivals went two weeks in length, and that’s sort of the feel I’m going for. This period also usually coincides with a stellar date that’s important to my practice: the heliacal rising of the star Spica. She’ll rise just after the sun on November 2nd this year, after being gone from the sky for about the last six weeks, and that observance has also become part of my Samhain Season, marking a time of personal transition towards darkness, as I prepare for the winter months.

That transition towards darkness and winter is also a big part of why fall is sometimes called “Spooky Season”, I think. Some people only use “Spooky Season” to refer to the month of October and the run-up to Halloween, but lately I’ve been hearing it about September and November as well, and I think it’s sort of fitting. Autumn is a season of harvest and death and decay, and that can be a bit spooky – in a good way, in my opinion! It’s a good time to reflect on the past and engage with our shadows as the nights become longer and colder. Death is omnipresent, and not just because of Halloween decorations. I start to feel the stirrings of the Wild Hunt on the wind in September most years, and by the first frost at the end of October, they’re running strong most nights. Oiche Shamhna has long been associated with the proximity of otherworldly forces, or the “thinning of the veil” in modern parlance, and with the Dead especially. My own practice around Samhain focuses on the Morrigna, Be Chuille, and the Dead. In my new monthly calendar, I honor the Morrigna in October and Be Chuille (and her family) in November, and my Samhain practice transitions between those two in a way more overlapping than sharply delineated.

The Dead being more present and the Wild Hunt running around both contribute to the seeming uptick in supernatural events, paranormal activity, and general spirit weather that occurs this time of year. I’ve seen more than one post on Facebook reminding fellow witches and pagans to ground and shield and make sure your wards are tight – and with good reason. Not everything riding the wind wishes us well, or is friendly or favorable to our intentions and lives. Nor are they truly evil or even baneful, however – they just Are. I don’t assign moral meaning to forces of chaos or destruction, personally; they can be for good or for ill, just as forces of order and creation can also be used for good or for ill. Wards are fences – as much as I might enjoy the presence of my Local wind riders when I’m walking around at dusk, I do prefer them to stay outside! I stay out of their way, and I hope they’ll stay out of mine, and good neighbors may we be. How much to avoid them and how thick to build wards to feel safe inside is a matter of personal preference, and I recently saw these upticks referred to as “spicy”, which struck me as a perfect analogy! Some people (like me) like their food with a bit of a kick, and while sometimes we might bite into something a little hotter than we can manage, we know how to remedy that situation and generally we can handle it with good humor. Some people, when they bite into something spicy, find only pain and no enjoyment (and sometimes shake their heads at spice lovers in disbelief). There’s no need to engage with the wilder spirit weather if you don’t want to, but it’s my jam, personally, and one of the many reasons I love the fall. Samhain and Bealtaine are probably my two favorite holidays, mostly because of the wild and carnivalesque otherworldly tides of energy surrounding those two times of year, and because of how important both transitional periods are to the Fair Folk I’m connected to. It invigorates me and my practice in ways that steadier energies don’t. So don’t mind me, I’m just gonna take my hot apple cider and be off with the Fairies…

Healing the Morrigan’s Crows: A Recorded Ritual

October 12, 2022
by Alexandra

So, the other day, I did a healing ritual the Morrigna had me develop originally for the Morrigan’s Call Retreat 2020, which was going to be my first year heading up there… until Covid happened and it ended up being online instead. Still, nervous as I was, the ritual did work in an online format, and now I’ve done it twice more since then. I was asked by someone who couldn’t make this last one if I would record it, and while I opted not to record the entire Zoom session, I did do a stand alone recording of just the ritual and journey, and have now edited that and uploaded it as an unlisted Youtube video, which I’ve embedded below. The lighting isn’t great, and the quality isn’t great, and the titles are very basic, but it EXISTS, and if this works out well for folks, I’ll be doing more like it in the future.

This workshop has two main parts. In the first part, I normally discuss a few examples of battlefield healing from Irish mythology (including the use of the Well of Sláine in the Cath Maige Tuired, and the exchange of healing between Cuchulainn and the Morrigan in the Ulster Cycle), and talk about how that informs my own spiritual healing practice, as a healer called to serve the Morrigan and her community of Crows. I did not record that part; that information (as well as the entire ritual and journey script) is available in a shared PDF document I’ll put a download button for, below. In the video, I refer to this as the “packet”.

In the second part, which I did record. I lead a short healing ritual focused on cleansing away all wounds that prevent the Crows from doing their sacred work, so that we can return to the battlefield, renewed and ready. This includes invocations of deities of healing, a chant to help create focus, self-anointing or -asperging with blessed water, and then a journey to travel to the Well of Slaine. To follow along at home, you’ll need a few things on hand before you start:

Vessel to be the Well, full of water
Small dish to hold the salt
Small dish to hold the 9 pre-mixed healing herbs
Bottle to pour out offerings from
Vessel to pour offerings into
Stirring implement

For the herbs, I generally use nine that I have on hand and most of which I have grown myself, selected intuitively for the need I sense at the time, but the idea is mostly that whichever nine you pick will align themselves with the 365 that Dian Cecht and his children strew in the water, and allow for a resonance. Choose based on what your specific healing concern is, or based on whether you want to drink the water after rather than just anointing, or based on what you’ve got in your spice cabinet. It should work just fine!

Get the Packet

Crow Folks: Reflect and Plan

September 28, 2022
by Alexandra

This month everything happened nearly all at once: the equinox, and then the acronychal rising of the Pleiades, the Dark Moon, Rosh Hashana, and I got knocked flat by my own moon cycle. So this one is a few days late — apologies. When I went to see Na Morrigna this time, we talked about the tarot card from before, and I was also told that it’s time for more complicated poems again.

This month’s tarot card is the second-to-last one in the series They gave me: the 10 of Wands. This card can sometimes be a warning, but when I went to speak to Na Morrigna about it, I got the impression of completion of work, instead, something like a harvest. And, well. That card in this deck depicts a bunch of skulls on pikes — Macha’s acorn harvest. We’ve fought well, Crows, we’ve done the hard work, the training, the introspection. We’ve taken stock of our own shadows. We’ve learned to balance work and needful rest. We’re not perfect at all of this (there’s always room for improvement), but now we should reflect on how far we’ve come, and take a moment to be proud of that. Then it’s time to plan. We need to set goals for the coming season, to think about what tasks and responsibilities we can commit to, in preparation for rededication to Their Work. I am planning to begin my own rededication preparations on the next Dark Moon, October 25th, and then continue for nine days, ending on November 2nd.

As for the poem — this isn’t really a rosc but They appear to be happy with it, and hopefully it resonates with some of ya’ll.

Summer ending
A good harvest gathered in
Merriment and gratitude as seasons turn

Many turn to their craft this season
Flexing fingers, stretching will-wings
Proficiency gained through tasks and trials

A long road of trials already overcome
Powerful black wings will rise over new obstacles
Guided by Gods and Ancestors

Also, I’m repeating my (free) Healing the Morrigan’s Crows Ritual on Sunday, October 9th, at 2pm, so if you’re interested please reserve a space by going to the eventbrite page! Link here.

Freyja’s Falcon Flights

September 25, 2022
by Alexandra

In my home practice, the Autumnal Equinox is a celebration of Freyr and Freyja, although that celebration often dovetails with both the Pleiades acronychal rising and Rosh Hashanah. Generally, I try to make something that has both apples and honey, drawing on the common themes. This year I made an apple spice cake in a spooky bundt pan, but with no honey due to the allergies of a household member. (Then I went back and made a honey-filled fairy cake, hold the spice, as you saw in the previous post, and there will be raw apples dipped in honey for tomorrow.) That was the main focus of my celebration: just food shared with my household, our household spirits, our ancestors, and the two deities of the occasion.

A few days previous, I did a journey to check in with Freyr and Freyja, to see what they wanted for their holiday, and that’s when I got the go-ahead to make the apple spice cake. I also asked about something that had been flitting in my head for a few weeks, which I was pretty sure had come from her. I’d had an inkling that she wanted something monthly from me, going forward — that she was finally ready to step up (or rather that I was finally ready for her to step up) and become more central to my practice. I had the term “Falcon Flights” rattling around in my head, as a sort of analogue to “Crow Calls”, but until I went to journey to her I didn’t know what that meant. I had sort of guessed that it was meant to be something oracular, in keeping with my Dark Moon rituals to Na Morrigna, and my previous Bright Moon rituals to the Eyes of Ra, but, nope. She wants me to write and share journey prompts. “Falcon Flights”, indeed.

This month is a little late, but for next year I’ll be doing these from equinox to equinox, on the waxing half moon before the solstice and the waning half moon after the solstice, so this will be the only one until next March, and they will only overlap with the Morrigna Dark Moons in August and potentially September (depending on the moon cycle). This year that waning half was the 17th, before the equinox, but I didn’t journey to see her and Freyr until after that (whoops!).

I also asked her what tarot deck she wanted to go with the runes (similar to how the Morrigna have a preferred tarot deck that I use alongside ogham), and she picked…. none of the ones I already had. We settled on the Dark Wood Tarot, by Abigail Larson and Sasha Graham, published by Llewellyn Books, and that got here yesterday, at which point I clarified a couple of things about this new endeavor via divination, and then… I got enormously sidetracked by my Way Opening celebration. After that, I just didn’t have the energy to do another journey (to test the prompt) and then write up a blog, so I apologized and begged off and here I am on Saturday night, writing it up now, instead.

Note: This journey prompt is based on cosmology used by my Seidr Guild, which was adapted from Hrafnar’s cosmology as written down in Diana Paxson’s book The Way of the Oracle. If you have your own method of getting to Freyja or Folkvangr, feel free to use that, instead! And I hope I don’t need to say it, but I’m only providing a prompt; you do this journey at your own risk. Try to do it safely, and practice good spiritual hygiene! This doesn’t have much of a lead-in or return, as it’s meant for a more advanced audience, so do whatever your usual routine is for trance and journey work: cleanse, shield, ground, center, etc. You could write out a longer script and then even record it, maybe, if you work better from an audio file than a written prompt. Make it work for you, and your practice! I’m just the messenger, not the keeper of orthopraxy.

Falcon Flight to Himingbjorg

(Prepare an offering for Freyja, and one for Heimdall, before beginning.)

Begin in stillness, and quiet, and darkness. Find your center, and align yourself with earth and sky. As you stare at the darkness behind your eyes, feel and see as mist swirls up from the ground, obscuring everything around you. After a moment, it begins to part, leaving you standing in a flowery meadow.

When you arrive in the meadow, take a moment to observe around you, turning until you see a path. At the entrance to the path are two shrubs, and as you move on that direction, you see trees as well. Shrubs give way to trees and undergrowth on either side of the path, getting taller and denser as you move onward, until they join overhead into an arch, forming a tunnel of trees that slopes downward, getting denser and darker.

Eventually, you notice that the path has become flat, and then it begins to rise. Now the trees are thinning again, branches giving way to brightness, and as the trees again give way to shrubs, you see a gate in front of a wide plain and beyond it, the great world tree. If you have any guides or guardians you wish to accompany you, ones who can join you in flight, call to them now, before you step through the gate and make your way towards the tree.

As you approach the World Tree, circle around it clockwise, until you see an opening beneath one of the great roots. Duck under this root and enter the tunnel beneath. There is hard dirt packed beneath your feet, and the entire tunnel seems to have been hewn from that same clay-rich dirt and sandstone. Not as many feet come this way — the floor is still rough in places, so watch your step as you continue forward. There are torches set into sconces in the rough hewn walls, and their light looks like fire but you feel no heat as we continue past, and you smell no smoke or pitch.

The tunnel curves gently and then begins to rise in a gradual incline, ending in a doorway, two huge stones on either side and capped with a third. Touch one gently as you step out into the fresh air — these are worn by the elements and smooth to the touch. If you look back to the entrance, you will notice that on this side, the tunnel leads into what looks like a large burial mound, standing alone in a large clearing, though the forest is slowly encroaching from all sides.

Smell the air — the pine sap scent is strong, and your nose can tell there is moving water somewhere nearby, even if your ears cannot yet hear it. Now you should continue, following a clear trail deeper into the forest. Your footfalls are muffled by pine needles, and the air seems still. The scent and after a while the sound of water is to your left as you walk, and after a short time, you arrive at a fork, with three paths to choose from.

One path curves to the left, and you can just make out a bridge over a creek in the distance. The one to the right seems to vanish into the trees. Continue down the middle path, which leads straight ahead. After a while, the trees seem to thin a bit, and the underbrush grows less tangled. There is a little smoke in the sky, above the rise of the hill, as though it comes from a hearth-fire, and you follow the path towards it.

As the path reaches the edge of the forest, and the pine needles give way to a large open field, your eyes are drawn to the great hall. It is large, and you know at once to whom it belongs. This is Freyja’s Hall, Sessrumnir, and you are in Folkvangr. Go and find the Lady of this place, and give her the offering you brought.

When she has accepted your offering, ask for the lend of her falcon cloak, that you might fly on to your next destination with her blessing. Place it on your shoulders, and hold still as she waves her staff over your head, completing your transformation.

Take off into the sky then, and fly! Fly for the sheer joy of it, swoop and roll. Higher and higher — but do not forget your ultimate destination. You seek the Bifrost, that you might follow it to Himingbjorg, Heimdall’s cloud-castle.

When you arrive at Himingbjorg, alight on the wall — Heimdall will help you regain your own shape.

Thank him, and then give him the offering you brought.

Once he has accepted it, you may ask one question and one question only, and he will show you what he can see from up here, and give you your answer.

When you are well answered, ask him to help you transform once more, and then return to Freyja, waiting for you on the ground.

After she returns you to your own form, give her back the cloak and thank her. If there is anything else you wish to say to her, do it now.

When you are ready to depart, go back the way you came: through the forest, to the mound, through the mound-tunnel and out from under the root, across the plain, and back to the gate, through the tunnel of trees, and back to the meadow. Then the mist will swirl up again, and take you back to your body.

Song for the Way Opening

For a few years now, Morgan Daimler has been celebrating a liturgical cycle based on the movements of the Pleiades, and sharing their ritual formats (which are also collected in their book Living Fairy). I’ve sort of marked the dates casually, giving offerings but that’s about it, until this year. This year, one of my local allies, who I call the Autumn King, indicated that he would like it if I’d celebrate the entire cycle more intentionally, and so after the strong energy that came through last night (during which I perceived his Rade), I decided I really needed to do something tonight for the acronychal rising, or what Daimler calls The Way Opening.

So, this afternoon I made some fairy cakes (original recipe also by Daimler and available here), but I altered the recipe slightly, doing a full cup of oat flour, and half a cup each of applesauce and honey. (Don’t use steel utensils, though — I unthinkingly picked up a stainless steel measuring cup that I used twice in the previous 24 hours without incident, and this afternoon it cut me nearly bad enough to draw blood. Message heard, whoops!) I then used an unsalted butter to grease a glass dish, and baked a single round cake (approx 40 mins at 350F).

I offered this with a glass of beer, and sat down to read out the prayers from the book, altering them slightly to fit my practice a little better.

And then… and then.

For some reason, one of the prayers reminded me of a stanza from the ballad of True Thomas/Thomas the Rhymer, the one that describes the road to Fairy:

And see not ye that bonny road,
Which winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Whe[re] you and I this night maun gae.
(Traditional Scots)

And then I started hearing the music in my head, and I went to find the song and listen to it, and about ten minutes later, I had a full ritual hymn with seven stanzas, adapted from Daimler’s own prayers but with some of my own flourish… and probably Their own inspiration.

Song for the Way Opening

I call to all you goodly wights,
My kin and friends whoe’er shall be.
All you who’d be my allies true,
And come and walk this path with me.

I call to all the Queens and Kings,
Monarchs and Sov’reigns, all gentry near —
If you would celebrate with me
Tis time to come and join me here.

Tonight the Queens rise in the East —
The Seven Sister-Queens so bright.
They’ll cross above the horizon
As daylight’s falling into night.

Their Eldritch light, it brightly glows:
A signal fire, burning blue.
The Queens will dance at twilight’s edge
As their sky gates open anew.

Between worlds, and between time,
The gates will open fully wide,
And then upon that fair broad road,
The Queens and noble hosts will ride.

As they ride past, may we be blessed,
With token or with smile or nod,
And may they take our offerings,
As their refreshment while they’re abroad.

A good word to the Fairy Rade,
And may you never do us ill!
Ride out along the fairy roads,
Bringing with you Autumn’s chill.

I do have a small thing to share from Freyja as well, from my equinox celebration, but that’s going to have to wait another day or two for me to get it worked out and typed up!

Spirit Relationships for a Defensible Home, Part Two: Inside the House

September 14, 2022
by Alexandra

In my blog on Warding for a Defensible Home, I mentioned that spirit relationships are a layer of my defensibility, and in my last blog, I discussed relationships with spirits who dwell outside my house and property. For this blog, I’ll be focusing on the inside.

The above picture shows part of my hearth shrine, including: my hearth candle, the candle and offering cup for my steward, his spirit house, a nisse plush doll he asked for, a wooden box containing his other treasures, and a few mushroom decorations we’ve given him as gifts over the years.

Inside my house, besides the house itself, there are a number of spirits I consider to be part of my household, several of whom also assist in home defense. These spirits travel with me when I move, for the most part, and they’re connected to me (or to other human members of my household) more than to the place. In your house, you might also think about including any benign spirit residents or hauntings, if you have them, but the place I live now was uninhabited in that sense when we moved in.

My personal preference when it comes to spirits inside my house is to have a thriving ecosystem, not a barren void. I find that having a number of spirits around reduces the number of interlopers I get, as the space is already inhabited and busy. Plus, when unwanted guests do show up, I don’t have to rely on only my own awareness to sense them — I have help from the spirit members of my hosuehold, who can get my attention much more easily. I do get a fair number of unexpected guests who are willing to follow the house rules and play nicely, or to wait patiently for my attention in my office, and I think it helps that there are enforcers already here to keep them in line.

Some people might not want any additional residents or household spirits, or they might not feel equipped to handle them, and that’s fine, they aren’t necessary. But if you’re a reasonably advanced enough spiritworker to handle having spirit members of your household, and you’re interested in having spirit roommates who can help with making your home more defensible, I recommend having at least two: one to function as a steward and make sure the household is running smoothly and any problems with wards/etc are coming to your attention, and one to function as a guardian to help keep interlopers out, or to kick out any spirit guests who fail to follow the house rules. My household has quite a few at this point, but I have one of each of those, and they’ve both been with me for years. I can’t count the number of times they’ve been helpful, and I really find them to be invaluable.

My house steward is something like a brownie or a nisse, though when I first met him I did specify that I was looking for someone who would not be offended by a bit of clutter (which brownies are known to be, in folklore). Between the small child, and every adult in the household having some kind of disability, there’s just no way my house is ever going to be as clean as a magazine spread, or even as clean as I’d like it to be, and I’ve sort of had to make peace with that. A very finicky spirit would have just been incompatible and a waste of both our time, so I was sure to be specific in what I was after.

The closest this-world analogue to my guardian is probably a leopard, but she’s not an earthly creature (mundane leopards don’t usually glow blue), and she doesn’t have a fixed size, which is very useful in a defender. She doesn’t leave the property, though — she will chase things to the property line (if she doesn’t eat them), and then stay within my wards. Sometimes she’ll be aided by Scotty’s wolf companions, and those will follow things off the property and continue to pursue them (as long as the engagement is within the bounds of our agreements with the local Fair Folk). The leopard is also a spirit I sought out; the wolves are members of a pack to which Scotty’s wolf spirit familiar (for lack of a better word) belongs.

I mentioned in the first blog paying special attention to things like electrical cords and pipes flowing into your home, and we have two spirits who help with the management of those, and also of less physical egresses: mirrors and dreams. The first is a giant spider queen (or so she introduced herself), who, with her numerous children, guards our mirrors, the dreams of the human members of my household, and our internet connections. That last wasn’t something I’d even considered at first, but she offered, and made a pun about guarding webs. We first sought her out when we were having difficulties with nightmare attacks. The second spirit is more like a cluster of spirits, something akin to a siphonophore, a marine creature that’s actually a group of organisms that all have specific functions. They help maintain and protect our electrical and water systems, and in addition to guarding them, also have let me know on several occasions when something is beginning to go wrong with one of those systems. The siphonophore was brought to us by Manannán Mac Lir, when we consulted Him for possible help as we were settling into our current house.

Manannán also brought us two more of our current household spirits: a cleaner shrimp who changes sizes, and a fish similar to a cleaner wrasse (the species of which I haven’t been able to identify). The shrimp assists in removing stagnant energy that is missed or somehow gets stuck even despite my flushing system (which I mentioned in my warding blog). The fish removes small energetic parasites or other flack and detritus from the human members of my household, and sometimes from other people who enter our home, just to keep us from accidentally picking up their hitchhikers. They also both assist me in my healing work on in-person clients. (They aren’t the only ones, but describing that crew would fill another whole blog!)

As I’ve briefly touched on above, the spirits in my household mostly came to me by two means: 1) they were brought by a deity, or 2) I sought out a spirit that would fit a job description. The first method is fairly self explanatory, I think — just ask one of your gods whom you trust for a spirit helper, and verify the spirit when they arrive. The second method, however, is a little more involved, and I’d like to briefly describe my process. (Though if you’re not interested, feel free to stop here!)

My first step to deciding what kind of spirit to invite into the household is to identify the role, niche, or job I/you would like them to fill. Do you want a house guardian that will hunt and eat malevolent entities that come near your house? Do you want a house wight that’s more like a butler, keeping things running smoothly and helping you keep energies clean and tidy? Do you want a familiar, to help you with your craft? Do you have something specific you want to learn, and are you looking for a spirit that can teach you? Once you’ve figured out what general sort of relationship you want, start thinking about what sort of species or type of being you might like best. Be specific in who you’re looking for as you draft your contract!

Another consideration is offerings. Decide what sort of offerings you could provide, and how often, based on your budget. Most spirit companions are given offerings of food — is there anything you wouldn’t be willing to offer? One of my friends is a vegetarian, but she doesn’t mind buying fish, so she had to find a guardian spirit that would be happy with fish over red meat. I typically offer the leopard, wolves, and spider some kind of meat we’ve cooked as part of our own dinner, or raw pieces we set to the side before cooking the rest. My steward gets the first splash of any whole milk or cream, and also baked goods or potatoes or oatmeal. The other three that I mentioned above I light candles for, as they get enough to eat simply doing their jobs. You’ll also have to decide how frequently you’ll make offerings, and include that in your contract proposal.

Once I have an outline for the contract, I usually write it out in the manner of a personal ad:

SEEKING [type of spirit to fill a specific role],
and OFFERING [what you’re willing to provide].

Once it’s written out, I sign it, and then send it out into the universe the way I might any other wish-spell. For me, that usually means a candle spell, but this can be adapted to suit any practice. Then — you wait, and see who answers!

When a spirit shows up, you’ll want to conduct an interview, similar to any human household employee. You’ll need good spirit-sense and discernment: call on your gods and guides to make sure you aren’t being deceived by a malevolent being; use divination to check that you’re understanding the spirit’s answers correctly. If you get multiple who show up, interview all of them, to find the one that seems to fit best. When you’re satisfied that a spirit is a good match, go over any house rules, and really nail down the contract details. Then it’s time for the binding agreement, which works best as a ritual (but again, is adaptable to suit any practice). I find that it’s best to start with a probationary period of about a month before moving on to something more permanent. You can attempt to renegotiate at any time, but it’s better to get the details as right as possible at the beginning! My final step when inviting someone new into the household is to do introductions to the others, if I haven’t already. My steward is usually involved in the interview process, but it’s a good idea for everyone to meet everyone else, and that includes introducing them to the land spirits.

Spirit Relationships for a Defensible Home, Part One: Outside

September 7, 2022
by Alexandra

I said in my last blog that spirit relationships make up another layer of my home defensibility, and they do — both inside and outside my house. I’m working from an animistic perspective here, because that’s what I do and who I am, but I think there might be some helpful kernels even for folks who aren’t starting from that perspective. In the last blog, I mentioned greeting the spirit of the parcel of land, and the spirit of the house itself, and those are the first two spirits I build a relationship with in any new place I live. Those relationships are usually somewhat less “showy” (at least for me) that some of the others I’ll mention in this blog, but they’re the foundation for everything else. If you’re not on good terms with them and well situated in your property, it will be difficult to make your home defensible, no matter what else you do. Also, if you’re not the property owner, you can still form your own relationships with the house and land, and that will help support any wards you place around areas (like a bedroom) that are specifically yours. You can also make relationships with spirits both outside and inside the property, to support your defenses. For the purposes of this blog, I’m just going to cover spirits that are found outside the property, because I originally had started writing out both “outside” and “inside”, but it became a bit too long for one post!

*This is an image from unsplash of Great Falls on the Potomac, which is very similar to an image I took that I almost used – except this one is much higher quality!*

Land spirits, (ie spirits of the land itself, not nature spirits more generally) in my experience, seem to be some sort of nesting dolls, in that you can ask to speak to the spirit of a particular property, and one will show up, and ask to speak to the spirit of a neighborhood, and one that feels slightly different and slightly bigger will show up, and the same (slightly different, slightly bigger) for a town, a region, etc. (However, when we start to approach places the size of the state of Virginia, they get a little too big for me to really pin down borders. I find it easier at that point to attempt to contact the spirit of a particular geographic feature, like “the Appalachian Mountains”, or “the land to the east of the Chesapeake Bay”, rather than relying on my memory of a map of human-drawn borders!) For the purposes of A Defensible Home, the neighborhood or perhaps the town should do you pretty well — this is the larger land spirit that encompasses the land you call home, and it is a good idea to get to know them, and to remain on friendly terms. For me, that usually means being a good “citizen” — picking up trash when I see it, making sure my yard has plants helpful to local insect life, not disturbing local animal life, and the occasional offering of water or something biodegradable that won’t disrupt the local ecosystem (no invasive plants, no foods that will harm wildlife, don’t pour alcohol on plants, etc). When we “talk”, it’s more a mind-brush than a conversation in words, and most often I just ask about the weather! The creatures who live on the land this spirit encompasses live in symbiosis with it — and we should strive to, as well. That also means that all your plant and animal and insect “neighbors” can provide omens, should you need to seek them. I have mapped my local birds to the ogham, and that often provides my land and nature spirits with a way to get my attention. I know which birds live nearby, and which are infrequent enough visitors that their presence might be meaningful.

Spirits of your local waterways are likewise important, and also seem to function like nesting dolls, with a spirit of a stream, the creek it feeds into, the river that feeds into, and then around here — the Chesapeake Bay. I really think every animist witch ought to know what watershed they live in, down to the small streams closest to you! At the larger end, your local river spirit can be a very powerful ally, and with the vast number of witchy uses for water, especially running water, I think it makes sense to nurture that relationship. As with the large land spirits, my offerings to my local waterway spirits are mostly “being a good citizen”, and my contact with them is more mind-brush than casual conversation. Interestingly, though — and this is just my personal experience, so your mileage may vary — I do find the river spirits to be more likely to take on humanoid forms and speak to me in words. That may come from my background in Irish Polytheism, where several river names are those of goddesses, because I do tend to address rivers (and the Great Lakes, and the Chesapeake Bay) as deities in their own right.

For both of these categories of spirit, the role they play in the defense of my home is mainly that I can ask them for forewarning if danger is nearby, and for assistance if I attempt to expel something from my property. If I banish something, I don’t want it to take two steps and come right back, and sometimes the land and waterway spirits are willing to help keep it away. They can also ground out or disperse unwanted energies, though I find it best to ask them how to transmute the energies so that they will be most useful. I have even used some of my excess energy as offerings recently: I was running a little hot due to a hormonal problem, and got up early in the morning to go on a cave tour. Inside, I ended up stumbling a bit because of drowsiness and balance issues, so I stopped and greeted the spirit of the cave and asked what I could give, in exchange for sure footing. The answer I received: your heat. So I took off the jacket (which was a little warm anyhow), and let my excess heat float off of me, into the cave. And after that, I didn’t have any more trouble walking over the uneven terrain!

The other main category of Outside spirits just consists of spirits who live nearby. You have human neighbors, and animal, plant, insect, fungi neighbors, spirits of land and water and (perhaps) of constructed things, but also there are other types of spirits who just go about their business mostly unseen in this world we share. For me, the spirits of this category with whom I interact the most often are the Fair Folk. (All the rest of this paragraph is my own UPG, based on my own experiences; I make no claims that others will experience it the same way, even within my local area, and outside my local area I have no idea how things are organized. Understood? Then let’s continue.) There is a fairy court near me that has territory roughly corresponding to the local stream’s watershed, and the Queen of that court has become a close ally of mine. When I banish something, her folk will (often) chase it beyond their own borders, and when there are dangers, she (often) warns me, and when she requests my assistance in her own difficulties, I aid her with my magic as best I am able. As her stream empties into the Potomac River, her court seems to belong to a larger assembly of courts aligned with the Potomac watershed, and then above that, there seems to be a higher authority encompassing the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed. I try to nurture relationships with each of the small courts I come into contact with, and with the larger authorities, but the court whose territory I live in is the most important for my home defense. We are very frequently in contact, and I give very frequent offerings, and when there is something I need help dealing with that lies beyond my wards but not beyond her borders, it is usually to her that I first turn, even before my gods. The Fair Folk are fickle though, and so diverse it’s impossible to paint them all with the same brush — the type of relationship you’re likely to have with your local Fair Folk depends on them perhaps even more than it depends on the steps you take to nurture a relationship. It is far easier and far safer to be on pleasantly cordial terms like “you stay out of my home and I’ll not meddle in yours” than it is to be involved in a pact that amounts to mutual defense, but for those who do have Good Neighbors inclined to alliances, for prices you’re willing to pay, they can be very valuable allies.

Some of the members of the court local to me do come in the house now and again, but mostly they stay outside, hence their inclusion here. However, they are the main reason, as I said in the first blog, that I don’t use iron at my property line. That does mean I have to use a little more finesse when it comes to creating wards that will allow emissaries in, for example, but not those inclined to make trouble. I do rely on my agreement with their queen for that, in large part, but I also have some finely tuned interior wards, as I mentioned before, and House Rules, which I will explain in more depth in the next blog. In the meantime, Daniela Siminia has an excellent overview of her own approach to allowing in some-but-not-all, on her own blog, here.

And as that’s already quite a long post, we’ll call that a wrap! I’ll be back with part two next week, hopefully. I’m trying to post a new blog every Wednesday, so check back then!

Edit: Here’s the link to Part 2!

Warding for a Defensible Home

August 31, 2022
by Alexandra

I first started thinking about writing something on this topic a few months ago, when Irene Glasse posted a very good blog on Set-And-Forget Protection Magic. She touched on things like using iron, witch bottles, and witch balls, and a number of rocks and plants that are known as protective.

That got me thinking about my own methodologies, including my personal reasons not to use iron. I made a few notes, and then… didn’t write the blog. Fast forward to last Dark Moon, and the instruction to make Defensible Homes, and I realized it was time to take this back out. The image below (which is also the one used in the thumbnail) is what comes to my mind when I imagine “defensible”. It’s a strong, tall, castle wall, with a few places for archers and lookouts and other defenders.

I’m not sure what castle this is, as the image was provided by unsplash, but look at that wall! Those crenellations!

In my own practice, the first thing I tend to do in a new house is a claiming. I greet the spirit of the parcel of land, and of the house itself, and I inform them that I will now be dwelling here, and caretaking these spaces. This is now, as I explain, my territory, and I will build a safe nest, and I will defend it against all who wish me ill. Generally, the spirits of land and house are just happy to have been spoken to at all, and they’re willing to allow me to proceed.

Then, I’ll usually walk the perimeter (as best I can) and repeat the claiming there: all that I encircle is my territory, my home. This was traditionally done with burning torches in places like Norway and Scotland, but I’ve done it with a candle, and I’ve done it with sprinkled oats, and I’ve done it with a staff. Clockwise is best for this sort of thing, at least in my personal practice, beginning and ending either at the front door or the driveway (if there is one).

Once claimed, I’ll then sweep and smoke out any stagnant or unwanted energies, and evict any spirits who won’t play nicely with others. You’ll want to do that before you’ve set up the strong wards on a new house, or after you’ve taken down the old wards, if you’re rebuilding them, to make the sweeping out easier.

Next, I’ll refill the space with the sort of energy I want to have in the house – generally I use some kind of a blessing, in water or smoke. You shouldn’t just sweep out the unwanted, without have a clear idea of what should replace it, because otherwise you may create a magical vacuum, which of course will then fill itself with whatever is nearby.

Once the energy I do want is filling the space and spilling out, I’ll return to the perimeter, and this is the part where if there’s land, I’ll sink in a few spikes or nails as anchors. Railroad spikes are very popular and very effective, but my work involves the Fair Folk far too much for me to want to use iron as my ward anchors, so I tend to use copper instead (silver would also work very well for me, but it’s a bit more expensive). I place anchors at each corner, and the edge of each entrance (like the driveway, and the front walk), moving in a clockwise direction. I set part of the enchantment into each anchor before I drive it into the ground, so that I can feel those and pick them back up when I’m ready to weave the warding-walls. (Though don’t think of “walls” as just a fence – you want to block off access above and below you as well.) For my ward weaving, I usually work primarily in trance, with very few props (outside of the anchors I’ve already driven into the ground), but you could also create some sort of object to hold the spell, if that’s the kind of work you’re more comfortable with. You could tie all the anchors back into a jar spell of some type, perhaps.

As I move around the perimeter, I also ask for the help of any trees or shrubs near the property line, near the driveway and front walk, and near any back or side doors. Although I haven’t really lived in a place where I’ve done a lot of landscaping, if you’re considering putting in some new bushes or shrubs in any of those places, maybe do a little research on which plants are considered protective! I have a little baby hawthorn that’s still in a pot for now, but will hopefully one day be placed near my front walk. Some protective plants are already pretty common in landscaping, such as roses and holly!

I also set up zones within the perimeter, to designate whether and when friendly-inclined spirits are allowed in. For example, I generally recommend that children’s bedrooms have an extra layer of warding to keep out everything but allowable humans and pets, and the child’s own guides and guardians. I also usually have tight wards around my own bedroom, and the bathrooms. I try to keep the Folk who are “wandering through” confined to my office (which doubles as ritual space) and not out in the house at large. And while you’re thinking of wards, don’t forget the other types of entrance: water pipes, electricity, the internet. I tend to use sigils or bind-runes above doors and windows, as well as around pipes and conduits, as my inner layers of warding, sometimes literally drawing them in paint. Do remember to paint over or otherwise remove them before you leave, if you move away, though!

In addition to the “zones”, I’ve drawn sigils around my house to create a sort of “flushing” system, so that if I need to clear the house quickly, I can use a sigil on the front door and activate the others throughout the house to flood the area with a deluge of cleansing energy. It’s not as good as a deep clean, but if you’ve ever wanted to smoke-cleanse the whole house after an unwanted guest left and you found yourself too drained to do so, you should maybe try it. It lets me address an issue in the moment, pretty much regardless of my current energy levels, and stops the problem from getting too bad before I can get around to a full cleanse-and-bless.

One thing that I try to do with wards that I don’t see talked about a lot, is I try to create some kind of feedback system, so that I will be aware quickly if anything tries to get past the wards, or if they are damaged. Part of my system for that includes my House Steward, one of the key spirits in my household, who can do some repairs on his own, and is more than capable of grabbing my attention when needed. Spirits and spirit relationships make up another entire layer of the defensibility of my home, but I think that might be best discussed in its own blog, so we’ll do that next week!

The final thing I’ll say, though, is that even most set-and-forget wards and protections need to be looked at once a year or so. If you’re using a jar as a focus object, maybe put that jar somewhere it’s not in the way but you’ll still see it occasionally, so that you will notice quickly if it breaks or something else problematic occurs. For anything you can’t see to check on periodically, it might be a good idea to incorporate a check-in into your seasonal practice somehow! Maybe every January (New Year, New Wards) or some time in March when you get sucked into Spring Cleaning. Whatever makes the most sense for your personal practice!

Here are the links for the blogs on Spirit Relationships for a Defensible Home: Part 1 and Part 2.

Crow Folks: Protect Yourselves

August 28, 2022
by Alexandra

Last month, I was given a series of tarot cards for the upcoming months, and for this moon cycle that is beginning, I was given the Nine of Wands. I pulled that card out of my deck, and then went to go see Na Morrigna, taking my usual path, and finding them gathered as usual around their cauldron. I threw the tarot card into the cauldron, then, and it bubbled and then stilled, and the imagery came apart and was reflected across the surface, showing me another triad they wished me to write. I crafted it slowly, seeking their input and approval on my word choice, and when we were both satisfied, I had what appears below.

Three Means of Protection:

A Strengthened Body,
A Disciplined Mind,
A Defensible Home.

Left to Right: My Morrigna candle, the Nine of Wands from the Archeon Tarot Deck, and an offering of Hardywood Raspberry Stout

I have a couple personal thoughts about these types of protection, which I hope ya’ll don’t mind me sharing. For the first one, a strengthened body, my understanding is that this is very much an “as much as you are able” instruction. Not everyone will be able to be “strong” as we sometimes conceive of it, but I think most of us could stand to be stronger. The second one sort of surprised me – why a mental aspect, to protection? But as I think about it more, it does make a lot of sense: a disciplined and organized mind is going to help you notice sooner when things are “off”, and it will help you strategize more quickly if and when a problem comes up. The interesting thing about the third one was Their emphasis on defensIBLE, not “defended”. We need to plan ahead, and lay in protections, not just rely on our ability to fight off an attack. A village with a wall around it is more defensible than one with no wall; it will take fewer people to defend. Kind of a “smarter, not harder” vibe, and I think that’s in keeping with a lot of the other advice I’ve gotten from Na Morrigna over the years. I have some thoughts on home wards that I’ve been percolating for a while, and I think instead of expanding on those here, I’ll leave them for the next blog, which I’ll aim to get out on Wednesday evening, so look for it then or on Thursday!

Wep Ronpet 2022, and the first Bright Moon of the New Year

This year, I started the Epagomenal days on August 4th, and Wep Ronpet on August 8th, drawing a tarot card for a blessing from each deity on the day of their birth for the Epagomenal days, and then two cards for an omen for the new year from all the Netjeri on the 8th. Here below are the omens I received, in order:

Message from Wesir

Message from Heru-Wer

Message from Set

Message from Aset

Message from Nebthet

Omen for the New Year

Message from Wesir: The Knave of Swords

This card depicts the Scribe of Ma’at: make sure your actions are on the side of righteousness in the coming year, that you are contributing to order and justice and not to their destruction.

Message from Heru-Wer: Six of Swords

This card depicts the Ship of the Dead, and Heru-Wer reminds us to be careful and prepared as we voyage into the new year, but not fearful. Preparations will help you overcome the obstacles you’ll find along the way, but the journey you are taking is necessary.

Message from Set: Two of Pentacles

This card depicts the Power of Djehuty (Thoth): the process that returns us to ma’at, to right order. You may be juggling things in the next year, but with careful attention you will be able to prioritize and manage everything well.

Message from Aset: Ace of Wands

This card depicts the Sceptre of Horus, representing new enterprises and undertakings, and creative, initiatory energies. In the new year, Aset will help us with the new beginnings we each seek.

Message from Nebthet: Queen of Chalices

This card depicts the Lady of Life, and represents her wisdom, generosity, and hospitality. Nebthet’s blessing for the coming year is intuitive wisdom, and compassionate guidance, so that we can care for ourselves and those around us.

Omen for the New Year:

The King of Wands depicts the Lord of Fertility, who leads with great vision. The Knave depicts Horus’s Messenger, who brings promise of successful new ventures. In the New Year, we will be given the blessings of the Netjeru for abundance in our lives, as we work to bring our plans to fruition.

A positive omen for a prosperous year!

The first full moon following Wep Ronpet is my renewal day, for my contract with Bast and Sekhmet. This year that contract renewal conversation was slightly delayed as I was out of town visiting family, but I went to go see them today, to ask about this coming year. In the years previous, it hasn’t really been a question that I’d continue to do monthly Bright Moon rituals, the negotiations mostly covered minutia and what else I was required to do, but this year going in I didn’t feel so sure.

And now, having returned to the waking world, I have to announce that I’ll no longer be doing the ritual every month.

I did it every month (or as close to that as possible, because of illness etc) for five years – this coming year, I’ll do the ritual only as needed, when they ask me to. I’ll still do my own shrine offerings every Bright Moon, and I’ll do heka for myself and others (up to 4 free for others a month, as before), but I won’t do the oracular ritual unless there is a need for it. I’m not sure yet what that will look like, but I expect it will become clear to me as I go.

Instead, they want me to focus more on the liturgy I’ve been developing for the holidays I celebrate, and really dedicating more time to that, to complete it, so that I can share it with others. I expect once that is complete, we may be parting ways altogether. It’s bittersweet, this first foreshadowing of the ending of our time working together, and I didn’t really expect it.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported me along the way; it’s been a pleasure to take this journey with you all.

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