Hey everyone! I'm back from my moms! Did you miss me? I missed you guys. I truly wish my mom had internet service so I could blog while I was with her. This weekend was great, I got to get my air trimmed, spend time with my mom and have some conversations with her about magick, and go into the city and get some tarot cards. Mom bought her first deck and I bought my third. I also replaced my Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling Playing Cards. I'll share photos in a moment. I also bought a bookshelf to put my magick books on and a college ruled composition notebook to use as my tarot journal.
Mom and I also discussed our heritage and I'm proud to say I am a hereditary witch but because of my great-grandmother and my grandma what was our heritage was lost. But from the conversation I had with my mom I learned we have French, Scottish, and English heritage so I've been researching a little bit. I'm drawn to Gypsy magick and Druid and Celtic magick (even though to be 100% honest I really don't know the difference between Druids and Celts). There are so many different forms of magick from the English countryside I doubt I would ever be able to narrow that down. So I'm excited to tell you guys that I am trying to discover my heritage and my mom wants to learn magick that goes with our heritage so she will be learning with me. But I have to go, there is a movie playing at the local theater that Miss K wants to go to and she will not give me a few minutes to blog about everything I want to blog about. I'll share pictures of the new tarot cards with everyone when I get back from the movie.
Showing posts with label Witchcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Witchcraft. Show all posts
3/01/2010
2/11/2010
Sacred Space
When I first started studying the craft I read a lot about sacred space. At first it seemed so confusing. I though sacred space was a place where you went through complicated rituals to create it. Now that I've matured and I'm finding my own path I understand it a little better. The best way for me to understand sacred space is to think of the wonderful peace, love, and trust I feel in my grandparents home (which is basically where I consider my home to be). That to me is sacred space, a place where you feel perfect peace, love, and trust.
Now that I'm in school and living in the dorms far away from home, I strive to make my dorm room feel that way. That includes keeping it clean, decorating it in such a way as to make it look and feel like my home, and while cleaning, kicking negativity out. A lot of the stuff I read about sacred space mentioned keeping altars in the living room, etc., but I've never really like having an altar. So, I keep my place clean and free of negativity and it feels like sacred space to me.
Along with my physical sacred space, I do have astral sacred space. Actually, I have a couple of them. One is a sort of meditation type room that has floor pillows, candles, and lavender incense. This is where I go when I just need to calm my mind and push the negativity that accumulates in my life away from me. Another one is kind of hard to explain. Picture a white cottage with a wide front porch with white wicker rocking chairs and a natural wood door (meaning you can see the knots in the wood and everything), in the middle of a meadow surrounded by a forest. Roses climb the porch railings, and there are window boxes filled with gorgeous flowers. This is my favorite place. I go to my cottage all the time. There is always a good cup of tea waiting for me by my rocking chair, and I've spent a lot of personal time with the God and Goddess here.
The little ritual I do while maintaining my sacred space here at the dorms is very easy. Miss K and I clean, and while cleaning I mentally picture removing all of the negativity. Mentally I might ask Aphrodite to come into my living room and my bedroom and bless it with her love and passion. And just like that my sacred space is complete. Even people who don't know how to feel magickal energies can feel the difference.
Mental space is mainly a mental exercise. I picture my places and mentally cleanse them of any negativity that might be lurking there, and move right on in. Each time I visit an astral sacred space I get rid of all negativity first and then speak with Aphrodite or just spend time sitting there getting back into a positive frame of mind. And that's all there is to it! What about your sacred spaces? Do you have a combination of physical and astral sacred spaces? Do you only maintain an astral sacred space or just a physical sacred space, and what kinds of rituals/spells do you do to create and maintain them?
Now that I'm in school and living in the dorms far away from home, I strive to make my dorm room feel that way. That includes keeping it clean, decorating it in such a way as to make it look and feel like my home, and while cleaning, kicking negativity out. A lot of the stuff I read about sacred space mentioned keeping altars in the living room, etc., but I've never really like having an altar. So, I keep my place clean and free of negativity and it feels like sacred space to me.
Along with my physical sacred space, I do have astral sacred space. Actually, I have a couple of them. One is a sort of meditation type room that has floor pillows, candles, and lavender incense. This is where I go when I just need to calm my mind and push the negativity that accumulates in my life away from me. Another one is kind of hard to explain. Picture a white cottage with a wide front porch with white wicker rocking chairs and a natural wood door (meaning you can see the knots in the wood and everything), in the middle of a meadow surrounded by a forest. Roses climb the porch railings, and there are window boxes filled with gorgeous flowers. This is my favorite place. I go to my cottage all the time. There is always a good cup of tea waiting for me by my rocking chair, and I've spent a lot of personal time with the God and Goddess here.
The little ritual I do while maintaining my sacred space here at the dorms is very easy. Miss K and I clean, and while cleaning I mentally picture removing all of the negativity. Mentally I might ask Aphrodite to come into my living room and my bedroom and bless it with her love and passion. And just like that my sacred space is complete. Even people who don't know how to feel magickal energies can feel the difference.
Mental space is mainly a mental exercise. I picture my places and mentally cleanse them of any negativity that might be lurking there, and move right on in. Each time I visit an astral sacred space I get rid of all negativity first and then speak with Aphrodite or just spend time sitting there getting back into a positive frame of mind. And that's all there is to it! What about your sacred spaces? Do you have a combination of physical and astral sacred spaces? Do you only maintain an astral sacred space or just a physical sacred space, and what kinds of rituals/spells do you do to create and maintain them?
2/05/2010
OMG! You're A Witch?!
Last semester we had a few conversations about religion and how each of us views things. Thankfully I'm able to explain my views well enough that she completely understood my point of view. She was raised Christian just like many of us in America and still enjoys the Christian ideals. Although I understand and respect Christian ideals, it is not my religion of choice. Thankfully Miss K understands that and my religious views have never bothered her.
Last night we discussed Witchcraft in general. Although she is a very open-minded person and she understands my personal practices, she refuses to think of me as a witch. I don't mind the word Witch, I would probably be very honored if someone called me that, but mostly I consider myself a magickal person who is close with nature. These were the things I discussed with Miss K.
Last night some how we got on the subject of ghosts and the devil, and I explained my own beliefs a little more deeply. Although she knows I do not believe in the devil she still holds the misconception that all spellwork involves demon work, being in league with the devil, and other silly notions. I explained to her that most people who do magick don't even believe in the devil. Of course there are still forms of magick out there that do handle some pretty nasty things and I explained that to her as well. She knows that I don't do such things. I don't even know how those things work. I should probably read up on stuff like that because I look at that like Zsuzsanna Budapest does: you cannot heal if you cannot hex. A knowledge of hexes never hurt someone, it's when they start using it that bad things start happening.
Miss K is one of the most open-minded Christians I've ever met. She accepts me the way I am, and she even handled my books about Witchcraft last October when my parents' house burned down. Those books and a few of my classics (Shakespeare, etc.) were the only things salvageable. Coincidence? I think not. The point of all this is that even though Miss K is open-minded she still held misconceptions. Those misconceptions didn't apply to me because she's seen what I do. She basically lives with me ... By now if I was going to do something crazy weird like sacrifice a cat, she would already know. But she doesn't consider me a Witch. She looks at my beliefs as being similar to Native American beliefs, which they are, but I also work with magick. I cast spells, I use tarot cards, I have a relationship with the earth and Mother Nature. She still thinks of Witches as women riding around on brooms, dancing naked with the devil and fornicating with him.
When Miss K was young she lived in New Jersey. She related the story of the Jersey Devil, as she understood it, to me. I want to share it with you because I think it is a pretty good story. According to Miss K, there was an unwed woman who lived in the forest. She had 13 children. She threw the 13th child down her well, hoping to kill it because she couldn't raise it. Instead of dying, that child was rescued by Satan and released from the well as the Jersey Devil. The child, now the Jersey Devil, flew up from the well, splintering the part at the top that held the bucket for getting water from the well. Miss K has seen this home and the well. She says after 200 years the house is falling down, but the well is still there. She said the way the top part of the well is broken it really looks like something flew out of it and splintered it. She also states that after 200 years it could have been anything that broke the well but it still frightened her.
Of course, I don't really understand much about the Jersey Devil. I'm from Texas, born and raised, so I've never had the opportunity to hear much about it. But, to me, this story sounds like another horror story made up to make kids listen to their parents, "If you're a bad kid, the Jersey Devil will get you." I've always loved stories of superstition like this. Although they are a little bit like the original "Fairy Tales" like the original Grimm Brother's writings, they are enjoyable. My one hope though, is that one day people will understand the different sects of Witchcraft and know that not all of us are bad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)