Healing

I jotted this down one day, before I was going to facilitate a Reiki circle in the evening. I shared it with everyone who attended and it seems to be appropriate to share it today. Whoever needs it will find it.

When we are experiencing periods of self-doubt, insecurity, pain, fear, anxiety, depression - whatever challenge it may be - it would serve us to remember that we are releasing aspects of ourselves that were created based on what we have been exposed to in our lives, yet no longer need. All of these feelings are keys to a process of transformation. We can stay in the same place or move through the feelings, acknowledging them, releasing, forgiving, be it ourselves or someone else, then moving on, free. This is healing.

Underneath these experiences of transformation, which can be frightening and difficult sometimes, and at other times easier to work through, we benefit by remembering self-love and self-awareness is where to find relief and a more clear reflection of who we really are. When we see who we truly are through love, the pristine essence that we will find is the Wise One or Higher Self, the one who, while knowing fear, defeat, or suffering, is the one who is Light, Power, Force, and Liberation. Finding that Wise One and allowing ourselves to move through the experiences as part of a learning process, sets us free.

Don't become too caught up in the journey to "arrive" - remember that all these experiences benefit us in some way by moving us along our path. We may not consciously know exactly what that benefit is, but we have evolved thanks to those experiences. Would we have liked to skip some of them? All of them? Sure, they aren't always pretty or nice, they are frightening. But that's what we are here for, to experience and heal. This process is for our progression - if we allow it to be. 

Winston Churchill said it best, " When you are going through hell, keep on going." In other words, keep going, you will get to the end and make it through.

Blessings dark and deep!

Invocation of the Circle

I love this circle invocation by Doreen Valiente, found in "Witchcraft, A Tradition Renewed" by Doreen and Evan John Jones. I'm always writing, rewriting, and searching out invocations, prayers, quarter calls, for my circles. I like to change it up all the time. This is a favorite.

Invocation of the Circle

By stang and cauldron, cup and knife,

By right of office that I hold,

Ye ancient powers of death and life,

Forgather to the circle's fold.

Kinship to kinship, blood to blood,

By wild night wind and starry sky,

By heathland brown and darkling wood,

To this our circle now draw nigh.

In likeness of a henge of stone,

Stand guard around this circle's rim,

While looming through the dark alone,

Stands in the east the Hele-stone dim.

I summon forth the fairy hounds,

Sharp-fanged, white-coated, red of ear,

To prowl beyond the circle's bounds,

And put intruders' hearts in fear.

Ancestral powers of this our blood,

We are your people, guard us well,

By earth and air, by fire and flood,

By magic mime and spoken spell.

Our craft's own Goddess I invoke,

And Ancient Ones of hill and mound.

With fire aflame and drifting smoke,

I dedicate this circle's bound.

By three times three,

Thus shall it be!

~Doreen Valiente, Witchcraft: a Tradition Renewed~

Is It Still A Mystery Tradition?

There will be many people who will not agree with what I have to say about this subject. Lady knows, some of my own friends, practicing witches, Pagans, and Polytheists, all for many, many years, don't all agree. We simply agree to disagree and go our own ways, down our own paths, because we are friends, and we truly respect each other's right to practice as we see fit.

Respecting others' right to practice as they choose is very important. How I choose to practice is none of anyone's business. However, if you are attending one of my rites, you will not be able to bring your children. I know many who have their children attend rites for sabbats, full moons, and other rituals. I don't attend those rituals. I don't attend large open rituals, especially with people I don't know. If you are invited to attend my rituals you will not be a man, you will be a woman who was born a woman, and you will be expected to be respectful of the Goddesses, Spirits, the Ancestors, the other women, and the way this coven practices. You will be expected to wear simple ritual clothing, not some outlandish, silly costume. You will come with the mindset that this is a mystery tradition for women, it is not open to just anyone; my coven, my choice of who belongs.

Why? Well, there are a few reasons. I see my practice, my artes of magick, communion with the Goddesses, as sacred and private. I feel, and again, this is only my opinion, my way for me, that a very large ritual generally ends up as dead space with many people who do not focus, are not respectful because they think it is a party, a freaky thing to do - not all, but many I have attended in years past. I want to know who I am practicing with and where they are coming from spiritually. I want to know that they are serious about their journey.

I also want to create a place where women are not intimidated or judged by standards that society has chosen. I want them to feel safe to open themselves to the Goddesses, to each other. I want them to find that sacred safe place.

We have sacrificed the Mystery for acceptance and popularity; with that we have lost a great deal. I do not give a rat's patootie  how others' judge what I do. It isn't open for discussion or opinions. And that is a good thing. While I share many things on this blog, there is much more that isn't shared and will never be. However, I want to give women who are searching for something more Goddess-centered, more woman-centered, a safe place for spiritual expression. I want to share a basic foundation for them to build their own practice, away from prying eyes and judgement.

For some reason, at this Hallowstide season, I felt the need to share this.

Blessings dark and deep!