Website currently under renovation - thanks for your patience! Dismiss

Tag: oracular work

Another Kind of Update for my Crow Folks

This month I have been sick and overwhelmed and battling severe fatigue, and when I went to see Na Morrigna, I asked - what would you have me to this month?  Can I just rest?

No, not only rest. They wanted me to finally start a piece of devotional fiber craft, and to share a small, happy update.  One of my workshop proposals was accepted to the Morrigan's Call Retreat 2024!  So it looks like I'll be going back to Connecticut this coming June!  Perhaps I'll have finished the shawl by then and will be able to dedicate it - or pass it along to the person it's meant for.  I'm not entirely sure I'm meant to be making it for myself.

But I hope to see some of ya'll at the retreat this summer!  Tickets should be live on their website soon.

My workshop is titled "Sovereignty and Otherness", and here's my abstract:

This workshop begins with a discussion of what sovereignty means, and a few examples from lore of how the Morrigan, Macha, and Badb wield their own sovereignty, and how we can strive to follow the examples they set.  We’ll talk about the importance of self-sovereignty, and the ways in which our modern society attempts to undermine it, and then I’ll open up into a brief discussion of the ways in which we are othered – as pagans, as witches, as queer folx or people of color or neurodivergent or disabled people or as any other demonized minority group – and how we can use the insight those experiences give us, and turn it into power.

The second half of the workshop is then a guided journey, based on the same themes as the first half, where I will lead the attendees on a path through the woods to a clearing where we will meet Na Tri Morrigna around a fulacht fiadh, an outdoor cooking pit associated with Na Morrigna and the fianna, the warrior-bands.  Each person will add one item representing their personal Otherness to the cauldron of stew, to add sustenance to the pot, and then after speaking with Na Morrigna, will be instructed to ladle out a bowl to eat, returning their Otherness to themselves as the power and strength of personal sovereignty supported by a diverse community.

Crow Folks: Things Needed in Darkness

This dark moon, my journey led me back to the more usual place, where I met the Three Daughters of Ernmas outside a cottage, around a great cauldron.  When I asked what message they had for me to bring back this time, they reminded me that this was the last moon cycle, dark to dark, before the light started coming back.  After the next dark moon there will be a brief dark period, but the solstice falls near the first quarter, so the light of the moon will be growing at that time, at least.  I asked what I was to do, and they showed me a candle flame lit in the darkness, and told me they would guide me in writing a triad.  So that's what I have for you all, today.

Three Things that are Needful in Darkness:

a candle-flame of hope

a plan of battle

a cloak of wool

All three will keep your blood warm.

The first element of the triad at first was really obvious — a candle — but then they showed me that it wasn't just a physical candle, but also a feeling.  As they made the feeling swell in my chest, I recognized it: Hope.  A light in dark places, indeed. And a tiny flicker of warmth, in the hand holding the candle, and the hope in my chest.  The second one came as a visual, a map with lines and markings on it like a sports playbook or like many of us have no doubt seen in fantasy or historical movies.  That made sense to me more as a thing that was needful in the metaphorical darkness of a difficult time — plans show us the way forward.  The third item it took me a little while longer to understand, because I was shown a person sitting beside an extinguished cooking fire out in a field; it wasn't until I realized I was feeling a ruana around myself that I was not actually wearing that it became clear and I could feel their approval.  A good cloak, I thought, but no, they wanted all three things to be the same format of three words, and for some reason the type of cloak felt very important, so: a cloak of wool.  It's better than any other type of fabric for damp chill.  And the last line ties them all together in a slightly different way than the first: all three will keep your blood warm. "Blood" was clear in the imagery they gave me.  It was clear that the candle and the cloak both could literally keep your body warm, but also that hope and a battle plan were necessary to keep you alive, to keep your blood flowing through your veins and not cooling as it congealed.  So not just the darkness our eyes see, then: also the darkness in our hearts, which affects many of us at this time of year.

Crow Folks: Hold Fast

During the dark moon this week, I went to visit Na Morrigna in my usual manner, and we again gathered outside around their large cauldron.  I had pulled an ogham fid as an anchor before starting the journey — Dair, associated with the oak tree (among other things) — and when I arrived at the cauldron, I found myself holding the walking stick I had received from the spirit of Dair during my work with them and the rest of the spirits of the ogham feda.  There was also a small stump I hadn't seen before, and I was instructed to stand on the stump — which was hardly big enough for both my feet — and to hold my walking stick parallel to the ground, for balance.  "Hold fast", They told me, and I was given images and sensations of things flying at me, trying to make me move, but I resisted and kept my footing.

My personal kenning for Dair (which I developed in communion with the spirit of Dair as I came to understand them better), is "Dignified Steadyness" and that seems to be the lesson Na Morrigna were ingraining in me, this time, and the message they mean me to pass along to all of you.  Hold your ground.  Be immoveable.  You are strong; they cannot harm you, and they cannot sway you.

While I wasn't expecting to basically have a martial arts lesson, I guess it makes sense after last month's message asking us to plan.  We planned, and now its time to keep moving on those plans, to implement them and make sure the foundations are solid.

I expect we're at the beginning of another uptick already, though it may not be obvious until we get closer to the equinox.  Make sure your agreements are honored and your wards are tight, and it might be time to reread my blog series about a Defensible Home (1, 2, 3) if you haven't, and the one about protection during otherworldly high tides.

Crow Folks: What Plans Will You Make?

Once again during the dark moon earlier this week I went to visit Na Morrigna in the place I usually find them.  This time we gathered around their large cauldron outside again, and when I arrived, I placed some incense into the fire below it.  When I asked for an omen or message to share, I was instructed to stick my hand into the fire in the journey while using my physical hand to draw three ogham feda, and had a sort of double vision of my ogham set (birch coins I pyrographed myself) overlaid with a birch limb darkened by fire, with clear markings down one side.

The three ogham feda I ended up with were hÚath, Dair, and Coll.  Broadly, I understood these together to mean that yes, we have been wounded, and scared.  We have fought packs of wolves, we have been battered and bruised.  But nonetheless, we are still standing.  We stand tall, we stand strong.  We have healed our old wounds as best we can, and we are centered, in alignment, and ready to continue.    We have learned much from our trials, and we have tasted sweet wisdom.  We need to integrate all that we have learned, and we must be ready for the next challenge.  It is time to harvest wisdom and prepare ourselves for the work of the autumn and winter.  We should be consulting our allies, both human and Other, and making plans.  So, what plans will you make, Crow Folks?

What I’m hearing from my allies is that, in my local area at least (DC/MD/NoVA), the run up to the equinox is likely to be Particularly Intense as far as Otherworldly Activity is concerned.  So I’m focusing on my Local allies, first and foremost, as they are likely to have things they’d like me to do, and I’d like to continue being in their good favor and under their protection.  The next dark moon is the 14th of September, just about a week before the equinox, so I kind of expect that to be the “deadline” for figuring out what things I’d like to focus on in my personal work with Na Morrigna from now until Imbolc.  I’ll still be doing these, of course, and that seems to be mostly oracular poetry or ogham or both, for the most part, but I do have some things that are just for me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one with shadow work that needs doing, as that is a constant process!

Open post

Crow Folks: Three Things for Lughnasadh

I was planning to write up my experiences of Mystic South for this week’s blog, but while I was there I attended a ritual to the Morrigan and the Dagda (run by the same lovely people who put on the Morrigan’s Call Retreat), and I was reminded that my service usually starts on the dark moon closest to Lughnasadh, but that the timing was at Their discretion… and yep, that started this past weekend, and I’m already running a little behind on posting, as I try to catch up on sleep and get unpacked and the bunnies resettled from their vacation, and my house even remotely organized, while my child is doing his best impression of velcro.

So.

I did the journey to my usual place, and was given a set of three tasks to share with you all, for Lughnasadh, or perhaps more appropriately for Brón Trogain, the Earth’s Sorrowing:

  1. Fearn: Renew your protections
    Both shields and wards: on yourself, your children, your animals; on your house, your car, your place of work

  2. Idad: Honor the Might Dead and your own personal allies
    It’s a good time for renewing oaths but also for just coming together with those who are your kith and kin

  3. Gort: Blessing the first fruits of the harvest
    Whatever is coming into ripeness right now, collect some and hallow it and offer it to those same allies

Fairly simple, fairly straightforward, and honestly it seems very doable, even for a very busy practitioner. Reminder, however, that this is of course all UPG – I seek what wisdom they would have me share, and they tell me in a mixture of ogham, imagery, and words, and then I write it up and ask for their approval… and edit and tweak until they give it.

Open post

Crow Folks: Continue Defending

This month, as I went to journey to Na Morrigna for the Dark Moon, I took my usual path, but instead of taking me to the usual cauldron outside a small house, the path swung left and continued until it emerged out of the forest, and led to a broad road. Beside this road, a horse stood waiting for me, and I swung on as I heard riders approaching from my left. I saw Macha, on a red mare, riding at the front, and her two sisters flanking her, one on either side. I joined the company of riders, and we rode together on further, across a plain and then up a large hill to a fort with impressively tall walls. We were hailed, and then let inside, festooned with ribbons and silk flowers on our way, through the winding streets to a large hill on the far side of the fort. Everywhere there were decorations, and I knew instinctively they had been made both in preparation for our coming and in preparation for the festival. As we dismounted and got our horses settled into the stables, we each made our own way into the large hall. Inside, there was food to eat, mead to drink, and much talking and laughing and even some gambling. As the night went on, however, the merriment gave way to more serious conversations and strategizing, preparation for the coming season. Always we must look onward, keep preparing for the next season, the next battle, but there is still time for celebration.

My vision then shifted forward in time, and I saw the warriors I had ridden in with defending the fort from the walls, making repairs, and keeping a watchful eye out across the plain, which was laid out before us on all sides, as the fort was on a lone hill. Another shift – and now a large force had been spotted coming towards the fort, and our warriors were preparing to go and meet the challenge, the most energetic and fierce preparing to engage in battle outside the walls, while others planned to shoot arrows and offer other support from behind the walls. “Two things are needed,” I was told, “to defend a fort soundly: blood-frenzied warriors, and stout walls.” This then, is the lesson I was meant to impart to my community, the advice for the coming months when I will not be journeying to meet Na Morrigna at the Dark Moon: we must continue to defend our walls.

Crow Folks: Tend to Your Vessel

This month, on an intuitive feeling, I drew ogham to ask what I should bring with me when I went to seek Na Morrigna around their Cauldron. I pulled Ailm, and so when I journeyed there I brought with me a pine sprig. What next followed unfolded a bit like a fable, a simple story with a deeper, metaphorical meaning and a moral, instruction in proper behaviour.

– – –

Na Morrigna turned my pine sprig into a spoon, and with that spoon They instructed me to stir the liquid in the great cauldron, clockwise around, a total of nine times. By the time I had finished, the liquid was a swift whirlpool, a vortex through which the bottom of the cauldron could be seen, just barely. One of the Sisters pointed, and I bent down, to look more closely. There was a tiny crack, a hairline fracture, in the base of the cauldron, and as I watched, the force of the whirlpool strained the cauldron, and the crack began to widen, and the liquid began to flow out so that the bottom was no longer visible, and then with a loud crack, the bottom broke in two and all the rest of the liquid was quickly absorbed by the land beneath, gone and leaving no trace. What a disaster came of such a small thing! “Protect your foundations.” They told me. “Tend to your vessel. But when it breaks…” I looked to Na Morrigna as They went silent again, wondering what They would have me do next. Instead, They each took their walking stick or spear and pounded the broken vessel with those, to break the cauldron further, into small pieces of rubble. When that was done They set down their sticks and raised their hands, using sorcery, and reduced the rubble to dust. As the dust settled, I reflected that it seemed like it had more potential this way than it had as rubble, and that was strange to me but also right, because this was more completely destroyed. Then each Sister took up a new task: One poured water on the dust to hydrate the clay, One shaped the clay with her hands into a new pot, and One piled wood around the new cauldron that was taking shape, taller than it was tall, and in a wide ring, surrounding it. When their work was complete, They all three took up a place around the wood ring, and bent to strike a fire, so that it might catch from all sides. The blaze began to fire the pot, and by the time it had burned down to coals, the new Cauldron was finished, and ready to once again be filled.

– – –

When it was finished, I was sent on my way with the memory of what I had seen, to share with my community. The experience reminded me in many ways of a dismemberment healing, a similarity that was somewhat underscored by their use of the word/concept “vessel”, as in the saying “you can’t pour from an empty vessel”, which means that we (the vessel) can’t help others if we don’t have enough energy for our own needs. I’ll leave the story as I saw it happen for you all to think about and interpret (and feel free to share any meaning you glean from it!) but my personal interpretation is along those lines: we need to take care of ourselves and our needs, in order to be able to do the Work that Na Morrigna are calling each of us to do. This time of the year, that can be really difficult for many of us – particularly those of us who have difficult family situations and many social obligations. But as that hairline fracture with the added stress of the whirlpool caused the whole cauldron to crack in two, so too can small issues in our own lives – when ignored for too long or stressed by difficult circumstances – cause upheaval. The message, I think, is that sometimes more destruction can actually be fruitful at that point, if you can get back to a place of potential and open possibilities. It’s given me things to think about, for sure.

Open post

Crow Folks: A Resting Place

This month when I did my Dark Moon ritual (a few days ago, sorry for the delay posting), I began my journey at the cottage where I usually meet Bé Chuille and Dinand, and I spoke to them first, and then took the path out back which, in a meandering way, leads me to the place I normally meet Na Morrigna around their cauldron. I had a feeling, as I walked up, that we’d be doing prophetic poetry again this month, and sure enough, as I lowered my eyes to look in the cauldron, what I found was a small stick with ogham carved on it. Three feda: hÚath, Uir, and Tinne. My kennings for those three are, respectively: “Humanity’s Hedge”, “Unending Cycles”, and “Tested Resolve”.* I was told that we’d be working on poetic forms with specific numbers of syllables this time. Three lines of three syllables, followed by two lines of five syllables for each ogham fid, and then an ending couplet with three syllables on the first line and seven on the second.

Here is what I ended up with, when They were satisfied with my work:

hÚath

Held at bay,
At thorn-point:
Disaster.

It will not come if
it is not summoned.

Uir

Cycle turns.
Remember:
Prepare, breathe.

Not a finish line,
just a resting place.

Tinne

Hardened blade
Thorn-sharp edge
Clean and smooth

Forged in melting fire;
plunged in ice water.

Together:

Moon Cycle:
Time to reflect and to plan.

* I developed these kennings as part of the Ogham Intensive through the Irish Pagan School a few years ago.

Open post

Crow Folks: We’ve Reached the Herald of Wands

A few months back, as part of my monthly ritual to Na Morrigna to seek a message for the coming moon cycle, I was guided to use tarot to connect, and since then we’ve been following the Suit of Wands, from the Seven to the Herald, the card that showed up in the original reading reversed. At this latest Dark Moon, we’ve now arrived at the Herald of Wands, finally upright, and thus bringing us some much-needed relief! Upright, the Herald speaks of good news, optimism, and satisfaction. It’s time for the last harvest, and we’ve done well for ourselves. I could personally use a little rest and relaxation! And it’s always nice to hear that our efforts have been successful. Being as this month is election month here in the US, and Election Day falls on the next full moon, I’m tentatively optimistic about that, as well. (But you can bet I did another round of politically-focused magic this dark moon!) Time will tell. (But please – vote!)

This month when I went to journey to Na Morrigna, I found myself led not to the place I usually go to see the three sisters, but to Ráth Cruachan, a place I have only seen photographs of, and ruins at that. But it was unmistakably clear to me, in the way things sometimes are in journeys. The fort itself was standing, not a ruin, but I did not go inside the walls. Instead, I was drawn to a small cauldron hanging over a firepit in front of the walls, somewhat to the left of the gate. There, I found just one sister, whom I addressed as Morrigu, and with her was An Dagda, which was also somewhat unexpected. No poetry they asked of me this month, and no great news, just a request for my household Samhain celebration: when we feast, let it be meat that we cook outside over flame, and let one piece fall onto the coals and stay there, as an offering to Them.

So instead, I leave you with this piece of Old Irish poetry, translated by Morgan Daimler (and found in their book “Tales of the Tuatha De Dannan”). The full poem is about foods fit for each festival, and here is the stanza for Samhain:

Meat, beer, nuts, tripe,
They are suitable food for Samhain,
Bonfire on a hill with a company,
Buttermilk, a roll of new butter.

Open post

Crow Folks: Reflect and Plan

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.

Posts navigation

1 2 3 4 5 6 7