Fairies – Serendipities

Samhain Season Reflections

November 3, 2023
by Alexandra

I had vague plans for Oíche Shamhna — beyond the usual handing out candy as my husband took the kiddo trick or treating — but after an October where I was sick and then my husband got sick and stayed sick, and then I finally got the new covid vaccine (which, predictably, tanked me for a week), plans did not solidify and materialize beyond brief prayers.

Normally, that would have upset me, and I would have felt guilty for not being a better descendant to my ancestors and devotee to my deities, but instead I woke up on the first of November having had a profound dream, and very shortly after waking I was visited by a messenger from the High Court associated with the Chesapeake Bay watershed. I hadn't done work, but work had come to me. The dream featured Angrboda — a jotun goddess(1) who is perhaps best known as the other parent of Loki's most famous children: Hela, Fenris, and Jormungandr — teaching me to spin seidr with flax. I will need to go see her again to get the rest of it cemented in my mind, but the flax I bought online that day is coming in the mail. The messenger had news of a more personal nature for me (which is still something I haven't quite gotten used to), acknowledging the fulfillment of a contract.

If you had told me ten years ago that in ten years' time I would be up to my neck in Otherworldly conflict and politics, I wouldn't have believed you. Sure, I interacted with my Local Fair Folk then, but primarily the less powerful ones that wander about a bit, not the Gentry. But here I am and here I'll stay for good or ill. As John Beckett said recently: "sharpen the swords you have". This work is the sword I have, and I'll do it to the best of my ability, though I'll caution anyone else considering following this path that this is not a job you can just quit.(2)

In the intervening decade, I've interacted more and more with the Gentry — first those closest to my house wherever I was living, and then as time went on and I became more involved with the Court and Queen I serve in the Otherworlds, I was finding that I needed to "check in at the embassy" in every new territory before I did more than the smallest instinctive magics, which meant needing offerings for the local Gentry every time I went to any kind of pagan event, from a major conference like Mystic South or Sacred Space, to a small backyard holiday gathering at a friend's house.

And as I've done these check-ins, I've met more and more courts(3) who seem to be embroiled in the Otherworldly conflict that is part of The Great War, The Storm, Tower Time — whatever you'd like to call it. (I've taken to calling it the "Strife-Storm", recently, because it does seem to shift and build and release like weather. Although I was one of those who talked about it back in March under the term "Great War", that didn't fit as well once I took it out of Irene Glasse's metaphor and applied it to the Otherworldly conflicts I was seeing, but I didn't have better words back then! We'll see if "Strife-Storm" sticks, because I do really want a term to talk about the conflict itself, within the sort of larger context of Tower Time.) Part of my work for my Court is connecting with some of these courts I'm encountering, and doing some work to establish something like diplomatic ties that are grounded in this world, as well.

I've been tasked with keeping up these connections with semi-regular contact and offerings, and the picture on this blog is of my recently reorganized shrine, with most of the main courts I interact with all brought together. There are candles, and a few "tokens" (the pins and ring, all symbols of pledges made) and one little statuette of a husband and wife gnome kissing... That was a very specific request from the King and Queen of the High Court associated with the. I had asked how they wanted to be represented on my shrine; let it never be said that the fae don't have a sense of humor! The candle I used (and will continue using) for the Pleiades Cycle is on top of a box of trinkets and jewelry which has been the center point of my fairy shrine for most of the past decade. The rose candle is for the Queen of my immediate local area, and the two large candles are for the Monarchs of Spring and Autumn of the High Court associated with the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

In my last blog about the Strife-Storm, I mentioned battles, and those are ongoing but either less frequent, or I am less frequently aware of my part in them, which is more of a relief than anything else. Waking up feeling drained, tired, and sore with bruises I don't remember having is one thing; getting flashbacks of battlefield carnage I never saw with my physical eyes is quite another, and I'd very much prefer the first. But in general things seem to be more at an uneasy standstill by me. I heard reports of weirdness elsewhere during the last solar eclipse, which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense, as the forces my allies are fighting against seem to be held at bay by solar energy. I do not know what to expect in the coming dark season, but it's always best to be prepared. And that's really what this week ended up being, for me: a time to contemplate the work of the summer, and to prepare for the work of the winter.

Ritual for the Way Opening – My Experience

This past week, I did one of the rituals from Morgan Daimler's fairy faith Pleiades Cycle - and I did the whole thing outside for the first time. It wasn't intense (though some other people have had intense experiences with this same ritual), but it felt right in a way that's a little hard to explain.

In preparation, I baked two loaves of spiced honey apple bread (which is basically a gf muffin mix with honey and buttermilk in it, and then previously prepared-and-frozen apple slices dredged in those same spices and honey put on top to bake; simple, but tasty); one for offering and one for my family. I made silvered water for my compass casting, and picked up a candle a friend made that has been sitting unused on a shelf, poured the last of my homemade violet liqueur into a smaller bottle, and got out my last stick of poppy-scented incense.

I set up my ritual space at my fire pit, including such mundane necessities as a chair, a lighter, and a bucket of water (fire safety, y'all!). I used a round log slice as my altar for the first part of the ritual, and then burned it during the second. The first part pretty much followed what is in Daimler's book, though I used the song I wrote last year instead of those prayers as written:

Anti-sunwise compass casting, beginning and ending in the East (where the Pleiades were to rise)
Lighting the candle and inviting the Gentry to join me (singing the first two stanzas of the song)
Singing the next three stanzas, which narrate the mythology of the holiday
Uncovering/pouring offerings and lighting the incense, moving these to the eastern side of the fire pit
Singing the last two stanzas, which invite the Fairy Rade to take refreshment and bless us in return

And then I lit the log and meditated on the flame and smoke as dusk became full dark. I did not stay until I saw the Pleiades, because between the clouds, the close treeline, and the light pollution in that direction it would have needed to be close to midnight before I would have seen them. But I did pull a card from my personal oracle deck to ask if the ritual had accomplished what it needed to, a little after the Pleiades could have been seen over a clear horizon, and got "The Sun", which is a resounding "yes", so at that point I took my omen for the night, then undid my circle and went inside.

Like I said at the beginning, it wasn't an intense experience, though at one point when the smoke blew an anticlockwise spiral in my face and parted around me I could briefly feel the reverberation of thundering hoofbeats going by at a fast pace. (I'm not a horse girl so I don't know canter or gallop or what, just fast.) Mostly it just felt... right. I sat out there, in my suburban backyard, and watched the light fade, heard the birdsong die out, the songs of the crickets and katydids rise and then settle. I watched the flames turn into strange striped flags of red and orange and blue, I watched the smoke continually spiral anticlockwise, and I leaned back and looked up at the few stars I could see. And it was peaceful. And I felt aligned in both myself and my spirituality. And I'm definitely going to do the next one outside, too.

I do have a couple of thoughts for next time, though - I think I'll start a little later than I did, which was only a few minutes after sunset, when there was still a lot of traffic and human noise. I also think I'll write a compass casting and uncasting charm also to the tune of the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, to match. And I think I may want a set water-silvering prayer, and not do it extemporaneously like I did. But mostly I just want to do it again in November!

The Morrigan’s Call Retreat 2023

This past weekend, I attended the Morrigan’s Call Retreat in person for the first time. (Blog followers with a keen memory may remember that I had a presentation slated for the 2020 retreat, but that one ended up being virtual, for good reason!) It was also the first time I’d ever really been to New England (at least I assume Manhattan doesn’t count?), and the first time I ever met Morgan Daimler in person, so it was a weekend of firsts in a lot of ways, for me.

I had two presentations, and I’ll be uploading the notes from those to my Patreon for supporters as soon as I manage to find the time to finish editing them (but my time is a bit constrained now that my child is out of school for the summer, so patience is appreciated!) Anyone who was at the retreat but didn’t make my workshop is also welcome to email me to ask for the handouts or notes for either “Working with Deities of Battle” or “When the Morrigan Goes Quiet”.

I hadn’t been sure how I was going to get to the retreat itself as I don’t drive, but I trusted in Na Morrigna and it worked out — one of my sorta-local friends was also going and we rode up together, which was a really nice way to start the weekend. (Getting stuck on the train between DC and Baltimore was less nice, but all’s well that ends well.) We arrived on Friday during orientation, but the nice folks at registration and the regulars we ran into at lunch all helped us get oriented properly. I also first ran into Morgan at lunch, and met the whole crew in one pass! I got unpacked and prepped for my first workshop, “Deities of Battle”, made my introductions to the local Fair Folk, and then wandered over to the pavilion.

Way more people showed up than I expected, and it turned out that I hadn’t brought enough handouts. Whoops! People were pretty accommodating, though, sharing with neighbors and taking pictures on their phones, and I handed out a lot of business cards for folks to email me afterwards. It seemed to go over pretty well – even when I took a Deep Dive into UPG with a side dish of Extreme Woo, including the discussion of the Otherworldly War I mentioned here previously. I was really nervous about its reception, but when I later walked in on a conversation on how to use some of the types of battle sorcery I’d mentioned against A Certain Florida Man currently playing at Governator, I knew I’d found my people. Na Morrigna might not pick political parties, but They do stand for sovereignty, and right relationship, and I find most devotees take a stand against oppression and bigotry. After dinner I went to the first ritual, despite feeling a bit like my energies were tapped out. (Shout out to a tylwyth teg ally of mine for helping me actually stay upright through that!) It was pretty good, but I was focused a little too much on staying upright to get much of anything out of it. And, to my extreme disgrace, my attempt to turn off my phone earlier had apparently not taken — it was still on the “shut down or restart?” screen when the alarm went off at the very end of the ritual. Not the best omen! At least it was a pretty tinkly musical alarm and not blaring beeps…

On Saturday, I went to Morgan Daimler’s workshop “Offerings 101” and then Sionnain McLean’s workshop on “Spiritual Self-Care” and thoroughly enjoyed both. Morgan’s was a little oriented towards beginners but also had some fun anecdotes and a few things I hadn’t thought of. I think Sionnain’s flowed nicely into mine, on the topic of fallow times, and there were certainly some common themes. That workshop I’ve done a couple times before, and it opened up nicely into a discussion and sharing session where attendees were addressing each other and it really felt like we were building community. After lunch I went to “Pagan Priest/ess Work” also by Morgan, and got some great advice and also a little bit of validation for my own path, which is more spirit-focused than human-community-focused, though I still do work for the human community around me. Then my friend Katie and I just… stayed. We talked to Morgan and Mel for probably the next two hours, missing the ritual and instead going in deeply into some personal practice stuff and also veering into the weeds on a fair few other topics! It was probably more what I needed — sitting still, for one, as my spoons still weren’t quite full.

There had been a Kindred Crow concert planned for that night, but with Caine in the hospital and Irene deep in grief, that was not to be. (I share the grief, but our friend was not so central to my life, nor I so central to hers, though I miss her sorely and will be at the memorial service tomorrow.) I did attend the bonfire circle that night, though, and so was there to witness and take part in a raising of energy for the members of Kindred Crow, and managed to capture a small clip of it to send on. I also managed to finally connect with the land deeply that evening, and received a profoundly personal message — including the awareness that I was about an hour too far west to be on the land of my indigenous ancestors.

The next day, partly because of my intense experience leading to not-great sleep (and the suddenly chilly weather didn’t help) and partly just due to my energy expenditure, I spent most of the day just chatting with folks in the dining hall. I was a little disappointed at not feeling up to the ritual and workshops, but I wanted to be able to make it back to my friend’s house without fainting and that was already a tall ask. It was nice to connect with folks, though, and I managed to bond with people over my chronic illness, and over butterfly raising!

When we left, my friend graciously agreed to take me an hour east for me to greet the land my ancestors lived on when the first colonists arrived, and that was a complicated and powerful experience — one that I will probably be processing for a while. It is enough to say here: I was recognized, even as diluted and as distanced as I am. In so many ways, the Morrigan’s Call Retreat was a homecoming for me.

The Otherworldly Tides of the Great War

When I first saw the title of Irene Glasse’s most recent blog post (which you should go read now before continuing if you haven’t yet), I immediately thought of the Otherworldly Wars that I’ve been on the edge of, these past few years. That was not Irene’s main focus (seriously go read that first), but it’s a parallel stream of mythic awareness. While no words really convey the fullness of the conflict, I generally agree with Irene’s choice to label the two sides as “Pain” and “Hope”. They’re succinct, and cut into the importance of this struggle, at least on the human side. The Great War between these two is a story, a narrative, a Myth that we’re watching play out as a bloody struggle on a battlefield. Irene goes on to explain the ways we can help join the fight on the side of Hope, and some of those ways are things I have heard from the deities in my life – and some of the messages I’ve heard are things I have shared, like the messages from Na Morrigna or Bast and Sekhmet that I’ve been asked to pass along to my community. Irene’s suggestions are good and helpful ideas, ways to make our lives a little better, ways to perhaps make the future a little brighter, and for the most part they are solidly grounded in mundane reality. This is one of Irene’s strengths that I most admire: she’s a beacon of light and guidance in our community, a mystic and cleric who always has a good answer when people turn to her in tears and ask, “What now?” There’s not really anything I can add to that besides repetition or emphasis, so I’m just going to suggest you go read that! (For the third time, lol!)

Instead, my thoughts turned to the Otherworldly battles I’ve witnessed, so if you’d like to hear more about that, take a side step with me, pass beyond the hawthorn hedge and walk beside me down the thistle-lined path of my UPG, into Fairy. All of the following is my experience; none of the following has any claim on being The Only Truth, but I share in case there is one reading who might find it helpful. Still with me?

In the watershed I live in, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, it is my experience that the European Fairies seem to be organized into courts or territories that follow streams and rivers, with small courts around small bodies of water existing under the domain of the larger courts from the larger streams, and the rivers seem to have their own courts in attendance to the River Divinities (who existed here long before the first humans of European descent arrived), and there is something like a territorial Monarch, though my experience with them is that there are two, who share power and change with the seasons at the equinoxes. I can (and may well) explore that in more depth later, but that’s sufficient background information to explain my own relationships, I think. My local stream court (that is, the watershed within which I reside) has a queen that I call the Rosegay Queen, as she indicated to me that the wild roses growing along the stream in a place near to my house were Hers, and she uses roses as her symbol in her dealings with me. Out of necessity, she and I have become allies, and part of our agreement is that she will ward away and warn me of any incoming forces with clear malevolent intent against me, and in return when she is under attack from other forces, I am required to help defend her territory when she asks it of me.

When we made that agreement, I did not expect it would be asked of me as often as it has. While humanity has been fighting the pandemic, and in the US (and elsewhere, but I speak only for myself) we’ve been fighting against destructive cultural forces (the forces of “Pain”) , the Otherworlds have been embroiled in their own Great War, and while I do not have a wide enough field of vision to see the whole picture (even more so than in the mundane sphere, this is a conflict on a large timescale), from what I have seen, it seems to run along similar lines, though I might perhaps name them “Extinction” and “Evolution”. I have come to understand that there are beings and forces that believe Humanity is a lost cause, or not worth preserving, or that have no interest in us at all, or dislike for our species at best. There are also beings and forces that live in something like symbiosis with us, and have done so for a long time – whether it’s because they wish to guide us or (perhaps more likely considering the folklore) because they find us to be useful pets and tasty snacks, they would prefer to assist in our preservation, and our transformation if that’s what it takes to avoid extinction as the worlds change around us. I think of it more as a cultural evolution, not a physical one, where we will hopefully learn to live in better balance with our environments before climate change and our own conflicts push us to the brink of extinction, but the two words make a poetic mirror.

I’ve been taught some battle sorcery by both Gods and Fairies, and I’ve been using it to the best of my abilities when called upon, and the beings and forces I have seen on the other side of the battles make my skin crawl with wrongness. It’s difficult to describe, but I’ve been using the term unhael, meaning “unwhole, unhealthy, unsound” but it also seems to have that same connotation of wrongness, in a Heathen context. They’re not meant to be here, wandering our world; they’re inimical to humanity but also I believe to the biomes we inhabit. Their magic feels like contagion, and I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence (though who can say whether it’s cause, effect, or correlation) that the first battles I witnessed occurred as my local area was shut down in the early stages of the pandemic. I’m no theologian or philosopher – I don’t have a well developed and concise theory about all of this. I can only describe what I’ve experienced, I have only half-developed thoughts to share.

But I think the Great War of Extinction vs Evolution is the challenge of Tower Time, the battles of the Storm that John Beckett was warned of, and the initiatory challenge Gwendolyn Reece has spoken of for about a decade. A Great War, in which not only human people are participating, and I think it’s likely that the fate of our species hangs in the balance – though the timeline here is longer than most of us are used to working with, because even sudden climate change isn’t going to destroy everything all at once. It’s how we react to it that really matters, I think – we may survive through natural disasters only to fight over resources and then escalate into a nuclear conflict, which may well mean the extinction or near-extinction of our species (and thousands if not millions of others). I’m not trying to be alarmist and there’s no call to take this idea and run straight into fascism or eugenics. I’m thinking about the conflict on a Mythic scale, with the protagonist being our species, and I hope that we survive the challenges along our Hero’s Journey without losing sight of Hope. Not every individual human will survive, but each of us should be trying to help out our communities as much as we can, because the local communities are the real crucible for cultural and societal change, and if Hope is to prevail over Pain, to continue prevailing over Pain along down the winding road of the future, things need to change.

So: figure out what you can do to help, in small ways. Not everything has to be big, and while we should not put off the work, there is no fast-approaching deadline, either. Rest when you need to. Fight when you can. Support others when they are the ones fighting. And I’ll leave you with this quote from The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien:

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’

Song for the Winter Rade

In September, I shared a poem/song/prayer I called “Song for the Way Opening” after getting a message from some of my allies that I should be celebrating the movements of the Pleiades more intentionally. I’d followed the outline Morgan Daimler gave in their book Living Fairy, and made Daimler’s fairy cakes, and then the prayer in the book turned into a sung prayer to the tune of Thomas the Rhymer in my head, and, well. That was the subject of the blog.

This time, I intentionally worked out the poem/song/prayer, and I made an offering of nuts and whiskey, and I’ll be giving a little bit of the secular feast tomorrow as well, so I didn’t make fairy cakes this time.

The first two stanzas of the song are the same, and the last two stanzas are as well, except for the last line.

Song for the Winter Rade

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 will reach their height —
At mid-night they’ll be standing still,
Poised in the center of the sky
And shining down on all they will.

Their fair blue light, it brightly burns:
A torchlight for an open gate.
The Fairy Rade will then emerge
As seven Queen-Stars culminate.

Through the gate, and between worlds,
The Queens will ride across our land —
For our two worlds are intertwined,
Like fingers lacing hand in hand.

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 Winter’s chill.

This time I’ve also pulled an omen to share: one rune and one ogham, to symbolize the two groups of fairy folk with whom I work most closely. I pulled Wunjo and Onn. Wunjo is a rune of joy and satisfaction, and my personal poem for it is “Joy in wealth is found when it is shared; joy in life is found in the happiness of those around you.” Onn is an ogham associated with the ash tree and gorse, and my personal kenning for it is “Onward Momentum”. So, as we move into the coming days, try to find joy, and reasons to keep going forward! I know this is a hard time of year for many people, as the light wanes (and complex family difficulties are exacerbated by the winter holidays), but there are still good things to be found and enjoyed.

I do have a Crow Calls post to make soon, too, but I wanted to do it separately, so that will probably be here in a couple days!

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!

A Lunar Eclipse, The Midnight Culmination of The Pleiades, And Otherworldly Tides

It’s been a while (and a whole change of blogging platform) since I last made a “Faery Weather” post,¹ but it seems to be That Time again. For those who haven’t seen the old posts, this basically started when the Morrigan and some of my Fair Folk contacts started giving me messages to pass along about how activity in the Otherworlds was going to spill over into my local environment (which was defined somewhat broadly by Them as the Chesapeake Bay watershed region, though it is probably less applicable the farther one gets from the Bay itself). The first few blogs turned into a semi-regular series, but when Na Morrigna had me start writing out Their messages on the Dark Moon, some of the information was getting passed along that way instead. I haven’t really been sharing much of my personal involvements in various Otherworldly shenanigans recently for a couple of reasons: some of it is sort difficult to describe, some of it I can’t really talk about, and it’s all very deep in the UPG well of woo.²

But this “weather report”, though still UPG, is more general in application, and the gist of it is this: over the next few days we’ve got the waning of the Leonid meteor shower, a full moon, a lunar eclipse, and the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster.³ Any of those by themselves might mean a “high tide” of Otherworldly activity spilling over into our realm, but with all of them together and taking onto consideration just how much activity there’s been on “quiet” days lately,⁴ I think we need to be prepared for a higher-than-normal high tide.

The usual warnings apply: ground, center and shield. Ward your spaces. Check in with your spirit allies. Be prepared for extra wackiness even in your mundane life!

However, if you know how to ride a wave, this is an excellent time to go witchy-surfing (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor, haha). There’s extra liminality going on — the sun is transitioning from Scorpio to Sagittarius as well — and there’s a profusion of swirling energies, perfect to harness if you have a working well-suited to these conditions. I’m supposed to recommend caution, but I understand that sometimes experimentation is the best way to learn, so use your own best judgement.

If you are planning to make overtures to Otherworldly beings, just remember that even the Fair Folk most friendly to humanity are not always kind, and though the Fair Folk do not lie, they often mislead. I usually recommend starting with those closest to you if you intend to work with the Fair Folk — your own Good Neighbors — but others will be riding the winds and traveling the fairy roads as well: some neutral, some baleful, some hostile or even predatory. You don’t want to grab the attention of the Slua Sí! Being able to discern between neighbors and interlopers is very important in spiritwork in general but it’s especially important right now.

There have been conflicts these past couple of years that took place mostly in the Otherworlds but have spilled over into our realm,⁵ and I’ve been experiencing more conflicts taking place unseen in parts of our world as well, lately. It’s tense out there — though like with mundane wars, some places have been hit more heavily than others. There isn’t really a major physical dividing line that I’m aware of, but the idea of “front lines” (as humans experienced them in the trenches of the World Wars) makes a pretty good analogy to distinguish between harder hit areas and places that have been more sheltered from the conflicts. If you live in an area that’s been more like the front lines, it will be even more important to shield and ward these next few days.

Hopefully this message finds its way to those who need to hear it, but if it isn’t relevant to your path please scroll on by. I’m happy to discuss things over email if anyone has more specific concerns, and I’ll respond to any comments posted here as best I can, but I think it’s important to stress again that this is UPG, and not everyone experiences Otherworldly flows in the same manner. This message will be most helpful to those whose UPG best aligns with my own!

Notes:

Those are available here on wordpress, if you’re interested.
UPG, for those unfamiliar with the term, stands for “Unverified Personal Gnosis”, which is knowledge I have gained from my own personal experiences interacting with the Otherworlds and Otherworldly beings.
For that last one, I recommend reading Morgan Daimler’s recent book “Living Fairy”, on their experiences with Otherworldly celebrations following the cycle of the Pleiades cluster.
A lot of pagan writers have commented on this phenomenon, but John Beckett had a pretty good introductory pair of blogs in 2016 and has some more recent thoughts about it, too. Those can be found here on Patheos.
And these have been even worse, in my experience, than what Beckett mentions in the blogs linked above, and I’ve heard similar from a few of my fellow “fairy-involved” witches.

The thumbnail image on this post is a stock photo of the Pleiades cluster provided by SquareSpace.

Crow Folks: Send Out Ripples

This month’s Dark Moon, when I journeyed to see Na Morrigna, another of my allies came along, one of the Fair Folk who often takes the shape of a white horse, and as we five stood around the great cauldron, she bent forward so that her white hair fell into the water of the cauldron, and it filled with visions that she had seen, both Otherworldly wars and human carnage, in a sort of dreadful symmetry. I began to feel overwhelmed by it all, when the Three Morrigna spoke to me as if in one voice. This is the wisdom they would have me share:

The Cauldron of the World is too large for you to control, though you can create small ripples. Focus instead on the Cauldron of your heart. That is small enough for you to work changes within. When you have wrought change in yourself, send ripples out into your sphere of influence. Focus not on sorcery but on mundane workings, this summer.

I have been told to skip June to focus on my own work, and to return with another message or poem at the dark moon in July, in preparation for the Lughnasadh harvest.

Our Midsummer, and Working Intuitively

Midsummer, for us, is a celebration of Manannan and Fand. Last year we got down to the waterfront, but this year we stayed closer to home. We made a simple offering of an apple, some cheese (we were having grilled cheese for dinner), a fruity summer alcohol, and their candle, placed on our table and lit.

After dinner, we went to our plot in the community garden a few blocks away, where I *finally* got the weeding done (we’d had an explosion of something I didn’t manage to identify earlier), and did a bit of gathering. I brought home this mugwort and lavender to dry, along with a few other herbs, all harvested with a ceramic knife.

This is also an important time for the Fair Folk, and it does seem that whatever carnival shenanigans were going on earlier this summer are now over, and I’m a bit relieved.

I’m not exactly sure why I needed to harvest these herbs on Midsummer’s Day as the day waned, or what exactly I’m meant to do with them, but the ingredients seem to be a dreamwork blend of some sort, and I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I got a nudge, and I followed it. Story of my life, really. I do most of my witchcraft by intuition, trusting that I’ll figure it out as I learn by doing. Sometimes it all becomes clear later, when someone pops into my life, desperately needing something I made months earlier and then stashed in a cabinet!

Samhain 2018

My Samhain Season began with my transition into darkness, timed to the heliacal rise of Spica (a star or multi-star system in the constellation Virgo) on October 24th, the same day as the full moon. The timing was something I discovered by accident, as I fell down a rabbit hole of faery holidays and stellar timing following Morgan Daimler’s revelations about the Pleaides. Spica seems to be closely associated with my Faery Queen, whom I call The Starflower Queen, and she has a sort of light-in-darkness and darkness-in-light balance to her energies that reminds me of the Chinese yin yang symbol. I had noticed on previous years that her transition into darkness happened before November Eve, but this year I really dove into star charts and paid careful attention and though I believe her transition from light to darkness is somewhat gradual, the bulk of the transition seems to occur between the heliacal rise of Spica (when it rises before the sun) and when Spica is at its zenith in conjunction with the sun, which happens much closer to November Eve. (I’m still not 100% clear on whether it’s the zenith at noon or the sun conjunction that matters more, but the zenith at noon was easier to calculate: October 30th this year.)

Hallowed Homecoming, which was the subject of my previous blog post, began my ancestor work and my work with the Morrigna. For the Ancestor Altar there, I prepared a small charm box, in a repurposed Sucrets container. (I’m a huge fan of witchy upcycling.) Inside I placed a sodalite stone from an incomplete rune set carved with Othala, a fortune from a fortune cookie that bore the phrase “missing you” in English and Chinese, and a purple paper heart into which I spoke the names of some of my most beloved ancestors. It spent the weekend on that altar, among other tokens and pictures, and then it came home with me to my own ancestor shrine.

I did very little on the 31st. We passed out candy, and though I expected to pull cards for my Crow Folk, I was told I had to Wait. So, I worked on memorizing some more of the chants for the ritual I was helping plan, and I waited. I did not feel called to pull cards to speak to any of my ancestors, either – I had received the messages that were most important during the main ritual at Hallowed Homecoming.

On the 2nd of November, I attended a Memorial and solidarity Shabbat Service at a local synagogue with my husband’s family, and that was an especially poignant evening of Ancestral Communion. It was also a much needed balm for my grief, and I came away glad for the community I live in, and wishing that my own faith was better represented in it.

On the 3rd, I gathered with some friends at a friend’s house, and together the nine of us had a ritual to the Morrigna, which was powerful despite our greenness and small number. Afterwards we had a pot luck, and there was an ancestor shrine set up in one room for people to visit and take time at. My little sucrets container sat among other tokens for another evening.

Now it is the 7th, the day of the Dark Moon, and my Samhain season comes to a close. I am finishing these blogs as the sun goes down, and then I will pull cards and dream on them, seeking a message from the Morrigna. Tomorrow, I will write up a blog for the Dark Moon, and I will begin to pull cards for all the Crow Folks who have requested them.

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