The seed and the fruit.

What did we plant at Imbolc? As the wheel turns and the year moves past the height of summer we begin our journey towards the time of death and rest. Nature is our constant reminder of the way things are.

Its easy to take to the garden and look at the fruit you need to collect, as it grew you watched it and nurtured it until it become ripe, ready to be harvested. This time of year has us looking at our lives in a similar fashion, but trying to figure out exactly what needs harvesting can be difficult when it isn’t a thing that we can pick up and hold in our palm. Our lives aren’t so simple and are much bigger than that. But I dunno......... maybe harvest is the wrong word to use.

I wonder if winnowing might be a better way to look at it. Grain for example, gets harvested and is then processed (by winnowing) so the individual grains are separated from the rest of the plant  ready to be used. It’s all about removing the husks or useless things to expose the grain or useful things, getting the rubbish out of the way.

Ohh well it’s all wonderful when you use an analogy but how the hell does this bloody process of winnowing help me with my job, or my debt, or my millions of other worldly responsibilities?!?!........... To be completely honest applying this to a life isn’t that hard. When we have problems or issues the best way to get past them is to remove as many complications as possible, once the problem is made simpler a solution can be found faster.

Lughnasadh is the first harvest of the year, it is predominantly a grain harvest and is about exposing the truth of what you have so you can begin to reap the rewards that you have worked towards all year. It’s also about preparing for the winter by saving that which you will need for the spring, how much of this harvest's reward can cover next seasons cost? It’s the celebration of hard work and achievement but a reminder of what follows a harvest............ We all need time to recover before planting again.

Lughnasadh is a festival of harvest. A time of separating the wheat from the chaff, but we do this all year round in our lives. When we celebrate the esbat or when we cleanse our tools for Magick. We look to our cards and our runes to show the way through the chaff of life to the truth of a matter. But you must always remember to leave a little bit, just a little bit for planting next time.


*Words of Expression*
If your looking for ideas of what you can do to honour Lughnasadh I would suggest baking something to share with others, clearing away any of your old unused tools or herbs and resins to make way for new ........... if your anything like me, more in date ones hahaha. You could also make corn dollies as poppets for further magick later on(just make sure you can find a grain to use and that you aren't stealing from a farmer). Take the time to tie up loose ends on projects before it is too late to reap the rewards. Or for a much simpler act to acknowledge the season why not have a ritual candle lit bath, remove all of the chaff from your body so that you can step forward refreshed and ready for the coming Autumn.

Have a wonderful Lughnasadh blessed by your gods and the spirits and guided by your ancestors.

Rain and shine

So summer is here in the UK and is its usual mix of sunny baking hot days and dull drizzly showers, but if I'm honest with you |I love it. Its an opportunity to go somewhere and experience the great outdoors or to crawl up and shelter with friends and family in familiar surroundings watching the water hit the windows.

This weekend just past saw a ritual and picnic on the northern beaches of Norfolk in a place called Heacham. A wonderful day spent with my friends (and grove family) enjoying the wonderful beach and (when we arrived, very very distant) sea. We visited for a ritual on the sands with papers and props at the ready but as England does......the heavens opened and we were doused in a perpetual drizzle. So as you do we just....................sat there!! We sat in the rain and had a very enjoyable picnic. I must admit it was probably one of the best ones that we have ever managed to fumble together. There was everything you could think of and it was marvellous.

When we arrived we strode out on to a beach that seemed to go on for days, the sea was at low tide and was miles out. It took us a good half an hour to walk out and meet it but in good grovie fashion we decided that we would continue to walk for another 20 minutes. As the sea stretched out further and further it never reached higher than any of our knees and it was silent and still, almost eerie in its own way. There was a sense that no matter how confident we felt about our safety, we were in a place that we didn't truly belong. This was a realm with a power that we weren't accustomed to and that power sank in to every pore.

However it wasn't long before we realised we had gone out maybe too far and headed back, quickly re-joining our party on the drizzly beach. I must have eaten my weight in junk food sat there laughing and joking. Making innuendo after innuendo and waiting for the sea to meet us a bit further up the beach.

It took a while but surely enough the water was lapping closer and closer to the dry (well dryish) sand. We took our items, our offerings, and our papers and drew a circle in the sand to mark out the boundary. The quarters were called and the herald declared our purpose, then it was time for the Priest and Priestess to commune with the water of the sea and ask for the blessings of the Lord and Lady.

Me and my companion strode in to the water and offered up a posy of flowers to the sea..........Quickly they were strewn from the glass vase and swallowed by the water, the priestess dipped her large shell in to the sea and prayed for blessings before we turned to beckon forth our comrades to the water.

I was pleasantly surprised (not in a bad way mind you)..........you just get a sense sometimes that we treat the gods and the world like a supernatural vending machine. It's easy to get trapped in this mind set of only asking for things from your gods and never sharing it.......but on this occasion. I am so glad this wasn't the case. These wonderful people who travelled all the way to the beach, packed food and drink to share, simply held out their hands to receive the waters blessing, a blessing that by all intent and purpose had been paid for and all of them had others on their mind.

They decided to share this moment across the ether to the people they love, to transfer this blessing, paid for with offerings and effort to people that they deemed worthy of the seas power. This is the blessing that I received.....I was blessed by being humbled, I stood waiting (with no expectation other than an acknowledged trend) and was greeted by people who wanted better.........better for others in their lives. Better for family, for friends, for a shared happiness in those that they cared for.

In the end our tummy's were full, the waters were warm and the blessings were received. But when all was done we left without a trace. Nothing but the flowers of our offering bobbing in the water as a sign that the gods had come to the sea and given their gifts to those that sang their song of praise.

I hope that the blessings we asked for are paid to those who deserve them in full. That we continue to look at our craft and magick as a way of improving this world we live in. I know I need to look at how I perceive those around me, kindness and generosity they say is its own reward and that's where I was blessed.

The Spirit Familiar

So here we are, looking at a title and thinking...."oooo this looks like fun" and you know what, it is!

I have been a practitioner of magick for over 15 years and in that time I have found a real affinity for working with the spirits of the natural and other world. In that I mean those spirits that are inherent in the world around and also apart from us, from simple elementals to faerie nobles. Now I'm not saying that I have always been a whiz at this or that I am an expert but with that said. Experience I think speaks to its self............

So lets talk about it shall we hehehe.

The spirit familiar by its definition (which you can easily find online) is a spirit that works to aid or complete tasks that are set by the witch (magickal practitioner). A spirit familiar is denoted by the fact that it is exactly that..........a spirit. It may appear in many forms, most often it will be that of an animal but it can also be more sinister of benevolent looking depending on the spirit or the person with whom it has its relationship.

Witches particularly were thought to commune with their familiars and gain their aid through bargains with demons or the devil himself, however..........I myself know that this is certainly not your only choice in contacting a familiar haha. The spirits of the elemental plane for example can make amazing and perfectly helpful spiritual familiars. The key of course to all of this is the word FAMILIAR!!!! Now if you look at entities like guardian spirits, ancestors, or spirit guides its important to note their familiarity with us, for our ancestors it is our shared bond of blood or society that bridges the gap and makes us familiar with them. If you look at spirit guides or guardian spirits it is the bonds of guardianship or contractual/magickal agreements that bridges the gap of familiarity.

However for a bog standard familiar spirit  like again an elemental or the faerie who visits me frequently during meditations (often to my own frustrations as he seldom arrives for any other reason than to scold me although, we have had the occasional dance on the grass) the familiarity and relationship must be created and worked on. You wont be able to have automatic access to any familiar you choose, it takes work and effort! Work and effort that yields reward based on the amount of effort and work that you put in to the relationship.

For example in my astral grove (a place that I visit and maintain in meditation frequently) a boar spirit visits and guides me during meditations and journeys through the astral. He has been my animal spirit familiar for a long time and I have created a relationship with him that I nurture every time I visit my grove. He however stays in my astral workings and rarely if ever works with me on the physical realm. This is because I have not created a conduit or portal for him to work through..............So yes I said conduit!

So putting it bluntly a spirit familiar needs a place to live, whether that be a piece of magickal jewellery, special shrine, or an animal skull. From this conduit/portal it will work with you and you can develop a relationship wit it. The conduit/portal should be what you use to build your relationship, it will be where or what you make your libations (offerings) to and you will use it  to instruct your familiar. For example in the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and Magick there is a toad called Fred which was a spirit familiar for a witch in the 1920s. Fred resided in the body of this toad and was much like my boar, an animal spirit and familiar of that witch who worked with him (I say him.....but familiars choose odd names and there is no guarantee Fred was a bloke).

The idea over all is that spirit comes to the totem, shrine, or amulet you have made in to a conduit to be communed and worked with, but is then free to move about and complete the task that it has been asked to. For example a dried toad may be kept to hold the spirit (called Fred for example) and in times of action the spirit is invoked to go about its masters bidding and complete its given task. Returning to the dried remains when its task is complete. Working with a spirit familiar is not for the light hearted or the inexperienced.

This magick which has very deep roots in folk lore, and folk magick is full of room for experimentation and of course error. but bear in mind when I say error, I mean to advise that with all the best intentions this sort of magick yields very varied results. Its power is certain and effective and when applied properly you can gain allies in every world out there. But be warned that all spirits have a personality just like you and me so you can never escape the reality that............... Even spirits can be arseholes and wont always do as they are asked.

Adorations

Daily adorations are one of the few constants outside of the seasonal and lunar cycles that I commit to doing regularly. Some days it is harder than others and some days it truly feels like a chore but its always worth it when I do it.

I worship 2 gods upon my altar who are Elen and Herne, They have been my patrons ever since I began to really take my druidry seriously. They are deeply tied to the powers of the land and I really love the tales that are told of both of them. Although their origins aren't like those of the ancient Greek or Egyptian deities there is no reason for me to doubt them or the blessings they bestow upon my life and the lives of those around me.

So every single day I open the powers of my shrine with the lighting of a candle and I evoke the awen, I address the spirit of that light and then I pray..............for everything.......for anything.........and sometimes for nothing. At times all I want to do is tell the god and goddess that I love them and want them to be with me. I then offer to my ancestors and the gods before completing the adoration. Every time I perform this ritual of adoration I find a moment of peace, of solace, of clarity, and it pulls me closer to the gods (or them closer to me, I'm not sure which)......The point is, although some days I can't wait to get to the end of the day and commune with my lord and lady and other days I have to drag myself from my bed with heavy limbs, it's positives far outweigh the negatives.

I have been sharing this dedication with a friend of mine who of course has her own set of magickal needs and expectations. For example she performs hers every morning as a pose to me doing it in the evening, she lights 3 candles on her altar to represent each ray of the awen, where I only use the one. I also pray to deities that she doesn't, but the same rings true for her as it does for me.......Every single day there is a moment that is hers, that is based on her own terms which rewards her in a way that only that moment can. We take that moment every day as sacred and to acknowledge the divine in the world, in the other world, or in the cosmos..........then in that exact same moment it acknowledges us.

Something amazing I heard on a documentary that I watched about astronomy and stars says much the same thing about how amazing it feels to connect with things that are so much bigger than you are.........."Stars are millions, billions, or trillions of light years away and we will never be able to go to those starts in our lifetimes to ever touch them, but every night when you go out under the night sky you are caressed by the very light of those same stars that are so far away. You may not be able to touch them but from so far away, a beautiful powerful vibrant and immense force is in that moment.......touching you.

That is how I feel when I do my adoration every evening, in that moment when I sit in front of my shrine the gods look back at me in love and smile back. No matter how you do it or who its too I urge you to try something.....anything.....every day. Who knows, you might feel the light of the gods shine on you too.

My home shrine that I use for my daily adorations.

Cauldron of warming.

I have begun to see a theme recently within my Druidry and occult practices. I follow the work of an artist that has been producing some amazing art with the male figure and the ideas of occultism...... http://allanspiers.com/sabbath ( follow this link to take a look, be warned that it is a wee bit rude :P). This work is a demonstration of the strength you need in magick, both as physical and as spiritual. In Magick you need to be strong, you need to be able to put enough effort in to your will to be able to have that return from your Magick. Bear in mind this isn't to say that unless you are buff you can't do Magick. No it is to say that no occultist worth their salt could be described as weak of mind, conviction, or faith there is a strength in Magick that is needed for success.

Anyway the point I was making and how it is tied in to my practice is that recently I have been going to the gym and following a diet plan. This isn't strict but it's also a work in progress, much like everything we do I suppose. Anyway, the reason for going to the gym and following this diet is simple. The more powerful my body is then the more I can put in to my Magick therefore increasing my success and the extent of my magickal will. This is also a practice that will help other areas of my life too. Work, love and family life will be easier and healthier if I have the strength and vitality to handle it all.

So today whilst I was going hell for leather on the rowing machine I was bored senseless due to the lack of music so I decided to just row, shut my eyes, and see what would happen. Inspiration struck as I began to row harder and harder and without the visual input I could feel the heat of my body rising and getting hotter and hotter. I was totally focused on my body and its movements. Before long I began to imagine a cauldron before me and a great fire beneath it (it just apeared, right there in my mind.....pop!!!!). Just like Cerridwen's cauldron which was used to brew the elixir of Awen for her ugly son. I could see clearly the fire in my body fuelling the inspiration inside and growing giving it strength. Every pull on the machine was like a breath of life to the fire and it made my vision heave with strength. It was a great visualisation and worked to keep me entertained during my workout hahaha.

So all this stuff has been going on, checking out some awesome artwork that's been inspiring me to get fit and connect to deity through my body, then working on my Druidry and the different cauldrons of the three worlds and of the body. All this stuff being done but I'm still surprised to find that during my study time I open up a book and read a translation of Irish works that talks about the cauldron of warming........ :-o ....... This caldrons is used to fuel creativity and the more you use it and the stronger it gets the more powerful your creativity.............. Well it took me by surprise and I couldn't help but think I needed to write this down and remember that we can only realise our potential if we work to unlock and release it :D.

At last I think the message has sunk in and I can't wait to work with these principals and see what new revelations occur. :D

Swimming through the sunlight

There was an amazing opportunity on Tuesday to do some outdoor ritual. It's really cold and mostly miserable right now but on Tuesday there was a break in the cloud and the sun shone down on the shire with almost if not definite magickal effect. I took this chance to invite my friend Rhiannon to come and collect some sacred well water with me. I mean why the hell not, it's not very often we have a pleasant day in Feb haha.

So traveling to the shire we visited a sacred spring that sits under the ruins of an old church. It was stunning as the ground and graves were littered with snowdrops and the air although crisp from the cold was softened with the warmth of the low early spring sun. It was an opportunity to flex my Druid ritualist muscles and whilst collecting the water pay homage to the ancestors and the kindred of the three realms of land, sea, and sky. Something that has been a research focus this past few months.

As we were there collecting water it seemed obvious to offer the spirits hazel nuts (well maybe it's not that obvious but being a Druid has its qwerks). These were to symbolise the great hazel trees that feed the salmon of wisdom. So we made three offering before collecting the water, first to the realm of  Abred 1 nut was placed upon the land, second to the realm of Gwynvyd 1 nut was placed upon the charcoal, then third to the realm of Annwn 1 nut was dropped in to the water. With that we gave our blessings and collected the water from the spring and asked the spirits to share the powers of the spring with our brothers and sisters who would join in the waters we had collected.

With the collection made we decided to spend the rest of our nuts on the local spirits. We offered nuts to the ancestors at the graves, to the kindred in the trees and snowdrops of the land and then to the great stones of the ruins and the memory of the sacred spirituality that without whom we wouldn't know of this place. There was Magick in the air at every moment that seemed to to move about us like mist through strands of sunlight.

It was simplicity but it was magick. The time me and my sister in the craft spent there was truly enchanting and the spirits certainly accepted our offerings. When the time came to work with the waters we had collected for ritual, our Augur Cerridwen read the tarot. The spirits were pleased and although they gave poignant advice and hard truth through the cards the overall message was clear. Our offerings and the work we had done at the well had been (just as I had hoped) right and worthily accepted.

This is a whole new chapter, a great new beginning and I hope others that share this journey with me can hear the whispers of the kindred spirits.

Kai :D xxxx

Circles circles everywhere and never a corner to call

Circles can be found everywhere you look, look up and you will see the sun or the moon. The motion of our horizon and our sky is circular so it's no wonder that the ancients of our land built roundhouses and stone CIRCLES all around them selves. They made circles something mirrored in their lives from what they found in nature. 

The craft that I follow also works in circles, the druidry I do and the magickal practices that I have they all work with circles. Most notably within magickal practice is the casting of a circle, this is a spell to begin all spells that works as a ritual to bring the power of sacredness and creation in to the material world. I love circle castings and know about 4 off by heart that I use interchangeably depending on the work that is going to follow it. To be fair most circle castings are in them selves spells that can be used intercahngably, they can either be used to protect you or they can be cast after a circle to do other things like invoke, evoke, enchant or to summon. Circles have an uncanny ability of bringing what is scattered in to one defined place, giving focus to the mind and giving unity to the spirit and soul.

Mostly however when you use the power of the circle casting you use it to go around yourself,or another and or even a place, you encircle things with a protective veil. Whatever your reasons for using the circle, the defining quality of a circle is that there is always something within it and something outside of it. An example of this is from a recent trip I took to Glastonbury.

This August me and my grove went to Glastonbury to perform a weekend of ritual at popular pilgrimage sights like the tor and the chalice well gardens and so on. Either way, the grove did some initiation rituals at the base of the tor where I myself was initiated in to the grove of my brothers and sisters. It was an amazing place to perform these rituals and to perform them in public too was very brave in my opinion. I was proven right too when as we were setting up a local gent (who could have been easily described as drunk haha) decided to take interest and stand in the centre of our group and wind everyone up. Myself and a few of the seasoned witches and Druids weren't really fazed and just got on with it but some of the others were a little put off by him. Some of our brothers and sisters were gearing up for an initiation which meant so much to them. Quite rightly so they didn't want it ruined by a stranger but it was too late for changes at the last minute we needed to get set up.

Now this man was really trying my patience even if I was confident in our power he was starting to get on my nerves. I had to remind myself frequently to not say anything and to just focus on getting started. I needed to make sure that when we began he wouldn't be in the way and I began to focus on getting everyone else organised and in position. It probably helped that everyone was trying to push him away with their energy and were equally focused on getting set up but it wasn't until we had finished the circle casting that I noticed the man had gone............completely gone. I realised later that our circle casting was performing a great deal of magick  before we had even begun saying the words or giving the gestures.

My sister Rae who was helping people with their initiations said she noticed the same but unlike when you practice alone she pointed out that "when we were divided he was in our way, but as soon as we united in the circle casting he vanished". I thought about what she said, thought hard about it and she was right. Even when we are alone and preparing for ritual our thoughts and our focus is not defined or concentrated and distractions abound until we are organised in to casting the circle. We define our focus and unite our mind with body and spirit. Much like within our group we were scattered thoughts and divided opinions getting ready to find our place within the whole trying desperately to deal with a distraction. But when we had finally lit the lantern and set off the charcoal our unity of purpose empowered that circle with a sacred thought in a timeless moment. The circle did more than surround us, it also focused us, gave us a point to concentrate on, and unified our thoughts. The protection came not only from just the etherial line that we drew in the air but the unified power that we wielded when the circle was cast.

I am always going to remember this and hold on to it whenever I cast a circle. That magick comes from when you stand firm in your power, when you focus your power in to a single point, when you point the wand unwavering and say the words with conviction. When you unite with the power of your gods, the power of the land you know it will fill up your circle and you will feel and see what it is to really cast a circle and why.