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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been out and about collecting and trying to identify the plants and herbs around me. As I walk through my favorite forest, I see trees with these yellow flowers. It was not until later I realized just how many WITCH HAZEL trees are there. (Hope I can remember which ones they are next time I go back!)
Anyway, along the pond there are Cat tails and also this odd plant which I have now identified. No good uses for it that I can see at this time but who knows:
Bur-Reed, Sparganium americanum
I also found several large patches of the following two herbs which are very useful:
Wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens
Squaw Vine (Partridge berry), Mitchella repens
Lastly, I found a small plant that I have not been able to identify. Anyone with any ideas, PLEASE drop me a line.
http://www.wookey.co.uk/news.htm has provided me with the best entertainment for the day. They are looking for a witch and willing to pay handsomely for it. The 50K salary mentioned is in British pounds which equals over 80,ooo USD! I think I should learn how to cackle!
There are a lot of disgruntled witches living around the country. Wearing pointy black hats and black hessian drapes they’re reduced to casting spells whilst sitting on a sofa in front of a 38” flat-screen TV in a suburban semi, using own-brand potion ingredients sourced from the local Sainsburys. Not the des res, executive, no mod-cons, wind-swept blasted heath of their dreams. For one lucky witch though, these ancient yearnings could soon be fulfilled. There’s a unique job on offer at Wookey Hole in Somerset. It’s a job which comes with witch-perfect live-in accommodation in a spacious cave, and a 50K salary. £50,000. Enough to buy designer-label rags, frogs from Fortnum and Mason’s and a Le Creuset cooking pot.
Wookey Hole wants the appointee to go about her everyday business as a hag, so that people passing through the caves can get a sense of what the place was like in the Dark Ages. This was when an old woman lived in the caves with some goats and a dog, causing a variety of social ills including crop failures and disease. She also turned the local milk rancid.
Eventually, an Abbot called Father Bernard was summoned from Glastonbury. Armed with a bible and a candle, he entered the cave, spotted the witch and tried to reason with her. She started screaming and casting curses, and ran off into the depths of the cavern. His efforts at conflict resolution through dialogue exhausted, Father Bernard scooped up some water from the cave, blessed it, and then threw it at the witch who turned to stone. And there she stands to this day.
So the job is straightforward: live in the cave, be a witch, and do the things witches do. Wookey Hole is advertising nationally and hopes to attract a strong field of candidates, with the £50K salary serving as a major incentive. Interviews for the post, which will involve on-site assessment incorporating a range or standard tasks, will take place on Tuesday 28th July at 11am. Given the nature of the role, Wookey Hole has decided to run the process on an “open audition” basis. Ambitious witches, looking for a key career move, should turn up dressed for work and bring any essential witch accoutrements. A limited range of potion ingredients will be available.
Reluctantly, Wookey Hole is allowing BOTH men and women to apply. A common misconception is that male witches are “warlocks”. Wrong. Male witches are witches. According to specialists in magic lore “warlock” is just an insult. Wookey Hole HR has accordingly been advised that under sexual discrimination law, unless it can provide documentary proof that the original witch was female (which would allow them to advertise for women only according to the exclusion to Employment and Training Law No.1661 (2003), pt.II, para 7, clause (a) – no, honestly), it can’t issue a gender-specific JD. Since Wookey Hole can’t furnish the required, legally binding proof, it has had to accept that the post might eventually be awarded to a man.
The authorities hope that Wookey Hole will employ a trans-gender witch, preferably recruited via a youth training initiative.
For further information please phone Wookey Hole
Things have been so topsy turvy lately. So much to do, nothing as it should be, reorganizing and readjusting to strange places. Finally, a trip into the “happy place” brings some relief and focus. Not as much time as I’d like to sit and soak in the calm (or I’d be soaking in the rain that fell where I sat!) but it was nice. I took the time to take pictures of the area and unknown flora in hopes of indentifying later.
I love the idea of the wise medicine woman who can go out into the wild and know every tree, every bush, what can be used for which ailment and how best to prepare. I’ve walked in the woods before but my eyes were closed then, I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. Once I found some odd leaved little saplings and I really wanted to know what they were. SASSAFRASS! I never realized. And right near home? My awe turned my eyes to other trees and plants around me. Funny how I always thought the trees were predominantly Maple in this area but when I ACTUALLY looked, I saw more oak than anything. (And not just one kind!)
Here are some of the pictures:
Last year I had the pleasure to meet in person one of the most outspoken Satanists of the area. What a nice guy! I mentioned the meeting in an earlier posting. Well, how things have changed.
This Satanist who was VERY verbal about creating a real world magickal community, minus the “fluffies” and becoming a force of power, has converted to Christianity. Yup, and he reads Tarot in the name of Jesus now.
This conversion supposedly happened after a traumatic encounter with a being he felt was classic “demonic possession”. I listened to his description of what happened and this is my interpretation. I think this Satanist, who was already in a state of split loyalties (He himself admitted to) finally met up with possibly a truly “evil” individual. Was this individual “possessed”? Possibly. This person knew things, says the Satanist, that he shouldn’t have (although this or that information can be found on certain web sites admits the Satanist) and knew “third party info” which is one of the signs of possession. (Not like the guy could have possibly knew a friend of a friend and you didn’t know or maybe was a little more “interested” in obtaining info than the Satanist thought, no, that would be too simple an answer.)
True Evil and truly evil people do exist on this earth. I have seen it and curled back my lips and hissed like a cat and curled up to avoid the attention as much as possible. Disdain,vileness, and attitude do not mean the person is possessed. You live and dip into the darkness of the Universe, eventually it will come to your door. It seems to me that this Satanist saw the face of vile and hatred like he never saw before and ran away with his tail between his legs.
Others I have spoken to see it as purely a materialistic shift. His stores and business were doing poorly so he decided to create this story to sell to the Christians instead of the Occultists/Witches/Pagans. All his site have converted along with him, and “donate” buttons abound.
From witchy royalty to Reverend Jesus Tarot Reader. All seem fishy to me. He has the right to believe as he chooses, but to encourage people to converge on an area and then leave them high and dry is wrong. If his heart was torn spiritually then it wasn’t REALLY this incident that shocked him into switching, he was already there.
Credibility. It’s what’s for dinner.
Well, an alchemist I am not. Not in the sense of change that I’ve posted about, but in the extraction and burning and recombining of herb and ash and tincture.
Maybe it’s because I’m lazy. So much work burning and if it’s not exactly the right stage, it ruins the tincture when you mix them, no matter how much you strain and settle the “crap” afterwards.
I have found that I DO like making the tinctures. I’ve actually made a medicinal one from olive leaves and have begun taking it daily. Why Olive? Well, it is very safe and very good for you. So, I think I will back off from trying to solidify a spagyric concoction for the sake of alchemy and stick to step one.
I am not going to pursue outside alchemy, but internal is another matter. Less Scientist and Ceremonial Magician in that manner and more Witch. I’m ok with that.
What are you looking for? Why do you practice Magick in the way that you do? What are your beliefs?
We all hear these questions, either from others or from ourselves. This is an attempt to clarify myself, who I am, what I’m about, and all the whys I can think of. It’s for others to understand me a little better, maybe see parts of their own journey within mine, and also for myself, as a record in the future of how I might have changed or not.
My latest explorations are in alchemy, more specifically creation of my tinctures. The original purpose was simply to have a tool to increase my magickal workings. In process and research, I am finding so much more to it.
The main goal of the alchemist is either the transmutation of one material into another, as in the search to turn lead into gold, or the evolution of the “raw and unfinished” nature by a process of separation and recombination, sometimes resulting in an “elixir of life” that will cure all disease and extend life indefinitely. Well, this is what I hope to attain! I guess I’m an alchemist!
The raw material to be transformed is myself as I stand this day, in all states of humanity and unfinished roughness. Working through LHP practices to learn and know myself, I hope to bring new understanding of who I am in this world and how I relate to everything around me. It involves a deep look within as well as without, pushing boundaries and experiences so I understand my body, my heart, my soul. Some of this need not be as extreme as others may lead to believe but the work on ones self I feel is an integral part of reaching a relationship with divinity. I don’t necessarily think that aligning with the 4 elements is the way or even enough. Maybe it just isn’t in my case. I am lead and it’s going to take a lot of work to become gold.
Apart from the practice of LHP processes, I do seek a union with the divine but I see having to go left in order to proceed right. Does that make sense to anyone? By separating, establishing and understanding myself as an individual in the universal sense, in the end through recombining with divinity I will be part of the elixir creation. It will be an enlightenment that will connect me to the divine and bestow the knowledge, healing and everlasting life as I come to know all that I am a part of. We are all energy and energy never dies and so of course there is life after death, just not in a more classical Christian kind of way, more of an Einstein conceptual way.
So I am on this journey of discovery and transmutation. With Jung and Yoga, Gurdjieff and the Qabbalah I shall be turned from lead into gold and drinking the Elixir of life from the holy grail!
Alchemy at it’s simplest.
I have started draining my tinctures and burning the herbs. Boy, those suckers are harder to burn down than I figured. I’ve had to introduce high grade alcohol to get them to continue burning. The 500 degree oven doesn’t seem to do much either, 3 hours later the ashes still aren’t quite white like I think they are supposed to get.
I did find that after burning down most of the way, if I ground the “chunks” of carbon down it did go faster. I’m still not at the white phase though. Grrrrr. Anyone have any advice?
I also wonder if I’ve made a faux pas in the burning. I strained the herbs using a coffee filter, not a metal strainer as advised but then (not thinking) I put them in my cauldron to burn them safely. The cauldron is metal. I’ve read burn them in a glass baking dish but I’m pretty leary about that. I’ve had glass pans shatter on me before and am much more comfortable with the blaze in a metal container.
Tonight it was brought to my attention that there are colleges that have free online course information. By information, I mean the assignments and readings that someone who took the course had.
Browsing around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology site, I came across a course in the Anthropology Dept that was taught in the Fall of 2003.
“Magic, Witchcraft, and the Spirit World” shows a complete reading list and assignments. More info can be found by clicking on the bar on the left of that site. For an interesting historical trip into the study of possession, snake handlers, witch hunts and more, take a look and maybe embark on your own personal independant study class.
You might also be interested in the “Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism” information.
On March 8th Saturn will be at it’s closest to the Earth. You might even see it with a small telescope. Ahh, the Perfect timing for a Saturnian working on (SAT) the night of the 7th!
I’m planning a HUGH ritual with hopefully wonderful implications. I’m debating if I should crack open my tincture a little bit for this one. It’s only been sitting a week but it has a wonderful color and scent already.
I’m finally feeling myself and my magick going somewhere. With some guidance and advice from some experienced Thelemites and other practitioners I think I’m finally finding my niche. It’s much more Qabalistic than I had originally thought, but then again I didn’t understand it much before. I suppose it’s like a “When the student is ready the master appears” kind of thing.
Anyway, I like it.
Following the new moon, I am working on qabalistic planetary tinctures.
I am gathering the corresponding number of herbs and/or stones that I might have on hand for each sephera and creating on the correct hour and day. According to my research, they have to sit for a minimum of 2 weeks. I’m playing around with the idea of somehow working more correspondance in there somehow but I might just stick with 28 days-the moon cycle for all of them.
Most tinctures, according to information that I am getting from others, are usually one herb and made to consume in water or wine. Mine (at least these I’m currently working on) will NOT be able to be ingested. Having to work with what I have on hand, not all the herbs I’m adding are non-toxic so these tinctures will be used in anointing objects, creating magickal inks, and any other way I can figure out to boost workings and meditations.
Now that I have begun and put more thought into it, I will start a few consumable ones. I’ll use those as I do personal work through the Qabalistic spheres, attuning vibrationally to each planet and seeing how each affects my work. I KNOW I’m going to start with a solar one.
