My Grandmother's Words.

My Grandmother's souvenir set containing oil, incense, soil and holy water from Jerusalem

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If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, depression, etc. This entry may be triggering for you. It may also be cathartic. If you were bullied growing up, came from a hostile or toxic home life...etc. The same thing may be true. I want to "trigger warn" anyone coming by because I really, really, don't want you to hurt over my hurt. I want to you be free of your fears and suffering. I want you to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to live by my Grandmother's words or rather the meaning behind them. 

This is not, on the surface, a woo-woo post.  This is also not an attempt to declare a change in my religion.  This is me cleaning out an old wound, and making some thinly-veiled commentary on bullying.

My Saturn Return started when I was in my early twenties. It loomed on the horizon like something out of Lovecraft (accompanied by blasting trumpets and screeching metal) and impressed upon me that it was about to mess me up so profoundly that by the time it was over I wouldn't even recognize myself. I took to heart its message and made grand, drastic, changes in my life to sweep a path for it to pass without injury. Except that an entire decade of the stuff means you can't keep everything out of harm's way and focusing on trying to save it all means you often save only the most precious things, or realize their loss in the aftermath.

Dangerous Knowledge. Pt.2

Hamsa from one of my personal workbooks.

A long time ago I made a post about the situation I found myself in as a youngin, and the horrors I went through as a result. Now, as an adult, I've been going through massive amounts of soul-retreival-type work and discovering... well... the whole woo-woo thing didn't start there, that's just where my memory of it picked up. So, in that respect it's basically just "pretty lucky" that it took until then to get weird/dangerous.

Recently I've had several people mention the "Dangerous Knowledge" post to me, either in passing or in direct reference. When that many mentions happen you need to pay attention, and I've found that it's definitely time to revisit the topic. 

And here's precisely how I dealt with it, though your own needs may vary.

I Hear The Sound of Chainsaws.

One of Granny Cedar's many Eyes.

I Hear The Sound of Chainsaws. 

It is coming from the deep, wild, woods. I am revolted. I cross the fences, descend down a hill and trail to the vast clearing that surrounds a sacred tree - beyond it, just out of sight, behind a veil of trembling leaves is the source of it all. It is beyond the River, and over the Hill - beyond the mythic horizon.  It is something terrible, it's not merely chainsaws and bulldozers and bright blue floodlights. It is perverted, and its wrongness affronts me and raises primordial fear and disgust. The things it raises in the back of my head, the things I know it does and wants... they are the true evils.

And realize that this is a nightmare. 

Permissions.

Railway spikes found near a dump-site in the woods.
Brought home and re-purposed to "nail down" the corners of my land.

I have decisions to make, but I'm not alone. 

Decisions about trees.  Decisions about wildflowers. About fallen logs. About old bricks. Decisions about rocks. Decisions about dirt. Un/fortunately, I am not making these decisions solo. There are a myriad of spirits and forces that have to be taken into consideration before these decisions can be made.

Re:Blogging Familiar altar.

Familiar Altar - Originally posted on Tumblr on 3/11/2014

The old setup of my familiar altar.  This is how it was for a few years, on the lower portion of my gigantic oak altar.

The urns are hand sculpted and painted by me using a combination of native clay slip and commercial under-glazes with lots of scraping.

However, the toadfrog lady smiling benignly at you (and her tiny green bottle) is by Erin Nightwalker, and was inspired by the toadfroglady spirit in the urn between her and the deer skull.

Since this photo was taken the altar was completely redone, and Ladyfrog acquired several more trinkets and statues.

Posting photos of ritual regalia and familiar Things always takes a lot of arguing with myself and struggling in order to finally manage it. Because, to me, it feels rather like posting photos of one's friend or lover in the nude and possibly in a compromising position.

But over time my familiars have explicitly stated that they desire to be photographed and posted, so I do. Yes, I airbrush out names and sigils, but at least viewers can still get a feel for things.

Re-Blogging: First Spring.

Early Spring Foliage - originally posted to my tumblr on 3/10/2014

The Signs of Spring are getting to be a little hard to ignore. But one could be forgiven for missing this one. A tiny 1/4” Least Bluet hidden in early chickweed and wood sorrel sprouts.

First Spring doesn't happen until it happens. I don't even bother trying to conjure up the land serpents until they show that they're ready to wake up. I mean, really... "Never tickle a sleeping dragon."

So when the first of them feels restless, when the blue has come off of its eyes and it seems ready to split the old skin and emerge shiny and clean then I will brave the chill of the night and drum and rattle and stomp until it gets the point and stops lazing about.

The first signs could be anywhere from early February to April. If it goes much later... I simply tickle the dragon anyway.

Re-Blogging: Garden Spider

Garden Spider - Originally posted on my Tumblr 12/17/2014

Fangs and Claws.

The clock has stopped ticking. My spouse's snoring has gone quiet. The cat's grooming has ceased. Everything stills, utterly, completely, fully.

The only movement in my entire body is the slow surge of blood, and my breathing. I am so still I can feel the swelling of veins move tissue and muscle. I will, through sheer force, myself into a point of consciousness somewhere behind my face, and nothing else. This is the reverse of phantom limb syndrome - my body is insensate and alien. I cannot feel my breathing, my limbs, my blood, or the bedding. And thus removed I feel my body change, to be as it is when I run wild, ecstatic, in the night. As I reshape the image of myself, I expand my awareness back into my body, bit by bit, until I can occupy those changed members once again - first the surges of blood, then the rock of breath.

And then I am a beast.

I stand up from the bed, and my skin is there - empty, sagging, dead to the world. This new shape that had been hidden in it crouches to get through the gap beneath the door, tip-toes through the house, and out the chimney. It thuds down to the deck, through the garden gate, and to the hedgerow fence. As soon as my toe crosses the line, the pack is there, waiting.

Doing this is different than "just ending up" at the Sabbat-hill. The conscious direction stays, and so it is with the others there. We make our signs and off we go, faster than fast. Blazing, blurring, twisting. Half-smoke, half-form, bestial and wild as demons.

Tonight our hunt is sinister. A black bear the size of a house takes us thundering to another person like us - a horse so beautiful it's just a shame what's about to happen - we eat him. I know that some terrible law was broken, and that his body in this world must be taken from him so it cannot occur again. I really have no idea what happens to him when he wakes up. I imagine this un-asked question is answered by "nothing good."

And the strange thing is, I can tell that my spouse is shaking me in the bed. I've howled in my state, he's getting upset. I gallop back, crawling between my own teeth like smoke so that I can draw a perturbed breath and say "The hell did you wake me up for?" - I have to come back quickly, he gets scared because when I'm asleep a ladybug's fart wakes me up, but when I'm out... I may as well be dead.

I can taste horse. Not the blood, or the meat. But the musk and sweat. The froth and foam of a panicked prey-animal. The clock is ticking. My spouse is settling back into snoring. The cat is slurping noisily at her toes.

For that night there will be no more flight.

Nostalgia.

The literal first thing I ever purchased at the woo-woo shop (itself rife with nostalgia and sentimentality for me) was a package of really pretty pricy incense. I didn't want to buy witch stuff strait out, man. I had to ease into it with incense and a few crystals at the ripe old age of 'teen-and-terrified. I had to ask a few groundwork questions, and make myself a known entity before I laid out my cards.

Being a poor kid who would get shouted down at the mere whiff of incense burning it became a secret, sparing, indulgence. I only burnt a little at a time, and only rarely. I burnt incense like most teenagers smoke pot - with a towel crammed under the door and all the windows open.  Incense was broken out for the most important rituals, for the most sacred moments.

Well, recently at another occult shop. I saw they had some incenses that came with mini oils. Being a fiend for miniature vials of oil I had to have it. The second I lit it up I was transported back to my youth, the scent was the same as that first package.

I was taken back to my late night forays into witchery, to setting lights in the high, small, octagonal window over my bed (I'd somehow gotten the idea in my head that the window, being neither indoors nor outdoors was a really nice liminal place to worm things into)- to being affronted by and conquering a malevolent entity.

I was taken back to what I'm sure most people think of as the onset of personal freedom in their teens. Being socially isolated, my freedom took place in dark woods under a hooded robe rather than in shopping malls or movie theatres...(that's a thing people still do, right?).

When I started in on my 30 days of reconnecting (it's been more than 30 days and I'm only 14 posts in) it brought me back to a time when anything was possible. When the ideas that came out of my head didn't require research to validate them (experience worked just fine), but also to the amazing rush of discovering that the ideas from my head were the right ideas after all.

So tonight I jammed the window open, stuffed a towel under the door and shared an entire stick of the incense with my familiars. Something I'd never have done back then in the days of 1/2" at a time, a hasty snuff-out and a quiet prayer that no one would come fussing.  I shared with my childhood self.

I reconnected and remembered.