The Nine

Tags

ancestor worship, archetypes, spiritual ancestry, witchcraft

Some time ago, I was playing with some sculpy clay and ended up making a set of little skulls. Each was lovely and creepy and could sit on top of a quarter. Nine skulls were plain, and a tenth had a witch hat. I never knew what to do with these little lovelies- they remained unpainted, and would occasionally come out on an altar, but never with much more purpose than just to represent ancestors. One of my trad teachers told me I’d need to ask the ancestors on how I’d like to use them. I can’t remember if I ever did consciously. But after a few years, I’ve finally had it pop into my head on how I should use these little creations- I’m going to use them to represent 9 archetypes of spiritual ancestors. The tenth skull, with the witch hat, will be something I keep to represent myself, a product of the spiritual heritage of these archetypes.

When I say archetypes, I don’t necessarily mean just them as archetypes. I may connect with specific ancestors of that role, but I just haven’t yet. These archetypes aren’t just about being a witch either, but also intrinsic, at least for me, to being woman.

Priestess- women who have devoted themselves to the Gods, who carry on worship and perform works in their names

Seer/Diviner- the oracles, the bone readers, the vision seers, the women who have insight to the future, through the gods, spirits or themselves

Cunningwoman/Poisoner- the classic idea of a witch, the women who use plants and animal parts and anything else needed to heal or harm, for their own benefit or those around them, and who know and communicate with the spirits of the plants and animals and surroundings involved in the workings

Enchantress/Sorceress- the women who embrace both magic and their own sexuality, to benefit themselves or others, to manipulate the natures of men, not always for evil but not always for good

Hearthtender/Weaver- the women who weave magic through tending the home, cooking, weaving and other domains long considered part of domestic life

Shaman- the spirit walker, she who crosses realms, to heal and mend wounds, who acts as the voice for the spirits, allying themselves, walking the path between worlds, often acting to benefit the greater community

Lorekeeper/storyteller- those who write down the knowledge and lore passed down through ages, the women who weave magic with words written and spoken, who hold the stories and secrets in their hearts

Wildwoman/shapeshifter- the woman who uses wild magics, who lives away from civilization and has allied with the spirits of flora, fauna and place to transcend her own skin, shifting to animal and back again, protecting wild spaces from those who threaten them

Magician- she who learns magic from arcane tradition, who uses the elements and conducts rites through ceremony, who creates and destroys with careful precision

These are archetypes I’ve found that, in different ways, resonate with the path that I follow. I’d like to eventually incorporate honoring and working with them into my practice. For now though, I must get a few hours of sleep then get back up to study for a quiz!

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Trad Website Updates

http://theforestsedge.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/flavors-of-witchcraft/

Not to try and rep too much for my own trad, but here is a post on our new blog site! Huzzah! I’m not the admin, but one of our trad members did a fantastic job with it!

The Questions

For a while now I’ve struggled with questions like “Are you a soft or hard polytheist? What do you mean when you are panentheist, and isn’t that just a cop out for people who have monotheist sympathies? How can you be in both your tradition and also be as influenced as you claim with the Hellenic Gods? Isn’t feeling drawn to Gods from multiple cultures just appropriation and a bad habit? Isn’t eclectic just a synonym for appropriation? How can you be a witch and worship the Hellenic Gods?” Quite frankly, many of these questions aren’t ones that have been directly stated to me (hell, I’ve gotten very little direct badgering over my blog and, let’s be honest, who would come to this tiny corner to insult me, and if they did why would I give a shit?) and are in fact questions I’ve been anticipating before I involved myself into any sort of serious discussion with the broader Pagan/polytheistic community. Particularly with the way that the Neo-Pagan flavor of things has gotten a very bad rap and the way that many polytheists and Pagans now shut down any of the influences drawn from the Neo-Pagan movement, I’ve been quite hesitant to involve myself with the community at large.

In some ways, dealing with these both inner and outer questions has been a major roadblock in my path. They lead to much inner skepticism that has made it at times impossible to fully throw myself into my practice and devotion to the gods and spirits. Yet, over time I think I’m finally beginning to conquer these questions, at least in my internal monologue. Whether or not these would prove satisfactory in communicating with a skeptical polytheist, Neo-pagan or anyone else is still remained to be seen, but quite frankly at this point I don’t give a shit. I eventually do want to involve myself with the community at large. Although perhaps not at the moment (being barely able to function with school such a large part of my life) I think that I will be able to contribute to the Hellenic polytheist community. If all goes well I’ll be graduating with a bachelors in Classical Civilization within the next two years, with a year and a half each in Greek and Latin (with my own private goals to continue studying the languages until I can translate the Theogony and Marcus’s Meditations for myself, the latter a gift for my sweetheart) and then going on, I hope, to get my MLS and become a librarian. If anything, I have access to sources that many people can only dream of, being able to access a library of a top 20 (US rankings, not world) University with a Master’s Graduate Program in Classics and a fairly thriving Undergraduate department (not trying to sound snobbish, but I have a goal to saturate myself with the academic study of both Classical religion, comparative religious studies and modern social and religious movements so that I can specifically be a better member of the community and help develop it so that, maybe when I’m old and gray, I can point my maybe existing in the future children to this time and show them the vast amount of progress we’ve made, instead of showing them to the mass of petty squabbles and internet cat fights that have been going on lately).

I realize that I want to share the strides I’ve made, mentally, about these questions-in part, because I usually do better with discussion than with purely internal monologue, and in part because I hope that they can stand up to base scrutiny and that, just maybe, they can help inspire others to critically examine their own cosmological views so that they can at least try to understand the notion of internal consistency (again, not to sound condescending, but I do notice a tendency towards inconsistency within individuals that I find to be a weak point in the state of both the larger Pagan/Neo-Pagan movement as a whole and in the respective smaller movements). I’ll probably do this in a set of posts, since it is difficult to address all of what I want to mentally in a concise format. Already I’m over 700 words in this post alone, and I’d rather not create TL;DR monsters that make people skim over my blog like old milk- these are supposed to be serious examinations that could possibly provoke serious conversation, and even if it doesn’t (considering the small scope of my blog thus far) I’d like to at least delude myself into thinking that they will have that potential. I’m off to campus soon, but I hope to post something later today with more specific substance.

Until then, enjoy this little fantastic bundle of awesome and let it make you have the most enormous smile today (even if people look at you like you are crazy!) (no seriously, I’m not kidding. Watch this and you will be skipping afterwards)-

Recent Adventures

Tags

Altar, beasts, crafting, deer, Incense, ritual, turkey, woodwork

(warning, lots of photos)

The past month or so has been fun of random bits of awesomeness, from the tracking of deer in one city to the finding of bones in another, to incense making and ritual preparation.

A while back, during my spring break, I headed out with my stepdad to explore the woods behind my mother’s home, a small house in the middle of the city that happens to border a wooded area. There, they get herds of 7-13 deer, some of which my mother can identify quite well. Since the area had seen so much deer traffic, the signs were everywhere.

Signs of bucks in the woods

Hoofprints in the mud

The air was rich with a dash of wild magic, as I slowly learn to try and see the world with new eyes. Perhaps the tunnels of thorns are faery glens and to walk under archways of old spiny growth would be to walk into another land, never to return. Mushrooms form ladders and scale the trees, and the signs of life are everywhere.

A gateway

Fungi ladder to the sky

Also, there was a LOT of deer poop. Just sayin.

I’ve been experimenting in different kinds of crafting, from clay (which I’ve used before) as well as beginning to wood burn.

A sculpy rose before baking.

Belladonna and death for my alraun, first experiment into woodburning.

A partially done box for my magpie smudge wing, 2nd attempt at woodburning

Amarth and I got together on a Friday night and began crafting some incense, first a batch of for the dark moon and then one for the full moon, while burning some lovely bee propolis resin from Sarah Lawless. We drank tea and nibbled apple butter toast after, while watching the awesome movie with SJ and Bekah Kelso, Ember Days. We set up a small altar on the table and called the presences as well as calling my house spirits, who I figured would like to get in on some of the goodness.

Our altar for crafting and offerings

Me grinding away. Excuse the tank top, I was in comfy clothes!

Amarth huffing and puffing away!

Our finished products are drying and curing right now, perhaps we’ll test the full moon one soon!

First time making incense pellets. Hopefully they smell good. Used honey to bind them.

The next day, Amarth and I, along with his boyfriend, headed out to the local lake. We ambled along the shoreline and found all kinds of goodies and dozens of holey stones, one of which I took home with me for my first! We also found some old red bricks we will scrape and turn into brick dust.

After, we journeyed into the woods. We had intended on harvesting some poplar buds (we were going to try to use eastern cottonwood instead of balsam, as we don’t have those pretties in the south) for balm of gilead, but we realized we couldn’t identify one in the midst of hundreds while just relying on bark alone. We’ll have to wait until next year after we identify more trees in the area. We romped around for a while and found a giant cedar. After some fun climbing, we found a small vertebrae at the bottom. We buried it, and when we returned a week later found flowers growing over it.

Later during the first visit, we found the most amazing thing- 2 deer skeletons! They were not intact, but we found a large portion of bones (no skulls, but jawbones), as well as some remains from a turkey. We gathered part and created a small shrine area of the rest, as we didn’t have room to take care of all the bones (we each live in apartments). We left hairs for an offering then and came back the next weekend, leaving corn and other foodstuffs as well as spending time cleaning up the woods around the bones. We are fairly sure coyotes were responsible. While I have no pictures of the bones (I will post after cleaning and whitening), I do have some of us being silly!

Climbing a deadwood tree overlooking the low shoreline of winter lake water

The shoreline and lakeside

Amarth and Nym in a tree. I’m not a natural climber, so my feet look really awkward

PBP: A is for Altars

Ok, so I know I’m wayyyyy late to the party, but I do want to write this year for the PBP, so let’s see if I can catch up. I’m pretty slammed with end-of-semester schenanagins, but I decided that I really wanted to write a new post!

First, I’d like to direct you to a wonderful post from Ruadhan at Of Thespia on the differences of altars and shrines. What I am posting on are actually examples of both, but I figured since I was posting on one I might as well do it on the other too.

I’ve always had a difficult time constructing altars and shrines. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and quite frankly very picky as to how things are arranged and what sits in my spaces. I’ve tossed different altars around for a long time, and every since I moved last June I’ve not had an arrangement I’ve been truly pleased with, but I’m happy to inform that is no longer the case! I’m going to share with you my 3 main spaces, albeit slightly cramped ones, and explain what I’ve used and why I think it’s appropriate. Some things are tradition specific for me, while others are not. I took time in carefully deciding each piece and why I felt it needed to go upon the space. I’ll be sharing some pictures of them during the day time, so you can see each of the goodies upon it, but later I’ll post either on here or my tumblr pictures of them lit up at night, which is veryyyy pretty. So without further ado….

This is my main altar. It’s in a big tv stand that I use to store most of my witchy goodies. It’s pretty decent, since I can kneel in front of it, although work space is limited. This isn’t a huge deal for me, however, since I don’t cast circles. In my trad, we ‘raise the hedge’ instead, which has it’s own connotations, which I may or may not discuss at a later point. Anyway, explanations!

First, the background, which is an image print from the lovely Witch of Forest Grove, represents the shamanic cosmology and the world tree. In our altars, we always like to have some representation of the hearth and/or world tree. When setting up my altar, I wasn’t sure what to use for this at first. If the space were larger, one could use a besom upside down to represent the world tree, but alas, the space is relatively confined, albeit a largish space. I searched for a bit before finding an image I really enjoyed to put on the background, and the wonderful contrast of the different areas of the tree along with the snake in the roots sold me. Next, the large green pillar candle and antlers represent Tradition (specifically, that of the one I’m a student in, The Forest’s Edge). The elements are represented by a few different things scattered on the altar. I don’t really call the quarters in a ceremonial way, although when I do ritual the elements are invited in the course of inviting all the Presences. The mostly burned candle on the right in the gold bird holder is for fire, the small brown covered pot contains earth, and so of course is earth. Water is represented by the large amount of shells in the bowl to the right, and finally air is represented by the incense in the little cauldron and/or any misc. feathers. While I do feel the cauldron by itself is a more watery symbol, I happen to be using it for this right now. In addition, one of the back candles, preferably the white one on the shorter vine holder, can be lit to just represent all of the elements. Next, the nature spirits are represented by the green bowl that contains random things from nature, both around me and from my garden. The taller vine candle is also lit for that. The ancestors are honored and called by the red candle in the hand held lantern, which I find very appropriate, since it is one you hold and they guide your way. The final presence, Deity, is represented as God and Goddess here (while still in between soft and hard polytheism, I do believe the archetypes of the God and Goddess are powerful and exist in their own right, as I refuse to shove the gods into roles they don’t want) in 3 ways each. First, the horn is for the God as he relates to the animals and living things of the earth. The large red pillar on the sun holder is the God’s other aspect as the Sky God (so I take into account both earthly and solar cycles). The Goddess is represented in the two statues, one for her aspect involving the earth and nature, and one for her as moon and magic. While I wasn’t too keen on using these fantasy statues, I think they actually fit fairly well. The final deity representation is contrasted by the two feathers, crow and hawk.

The other random things are my only wand thus far, my ritual blade, my mask, an offering chalice and a small cup to receive the rest of the offerings from that, a little bowl that a friend made that contains random offerings, a scrying mirror, a little bell, a holey stone, a quartz chunk and two skulls that are currently wrapped up for a future ritual purpose.

Next, my altar to Hekate. This will be less explained, but I’ll do a bit.

Here, you can see two statues for her, a few candles (the two silver ones are more of ‘mood’ candles), owl and crow feathers, a chalice and offering bowls, a box that houses my prayer beads, an incense burner, snake skin, and then various charms and representations of her, some of which are there to charge right now and may be put away later. The two black bundles are another pair of skulls that are waiting for a ritual (I have 6 in total wrapped, I’ve got plans for the Dark Moon…).

Finally, here is my shrine to my ancestors

The large candle represents both my ancestors of blood and spirit, while the 3 small ones are personal candles, for my Grandmother, Grandfather and Father. In addition to an incense burner, offering cup and offering dish where I place coins for the dead, there are personal effects from my family and a photo with all three of the above mentioned (along with myself and mother, it’s one of the few with my mother’s parents and my father together). This is of course a shrine, as it is strictly to honor them and has nothing to do with workings. My Hekate altar functions as both a shrine and altar, for things go there to honor her as well as workings.

To cope with the small space in my altars, I will use the floor or a little wooden tv tray to put extra materials upon, thus solving the overcrowding!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed getting a look at my personal spaces. I wanted to share them not just for the PBP but also to help those who struggle with making their own altars. Don’t rush things, you will accumulate and your tastes will evolve over time. Instead of trying to follow a formula of certain things in certain places, you can go with what pleases you (unless you have to arrange a certain way for some reason). Even if you are like me and have a hard time with these things, you’ll find your sweet spot, and one day you’ll step back from your work and think “Hot damn, this is awesome, and I know everything that will see this space will love it too!”