Hunters Moon
Hunters Moon is one of the most successful paintings of this blogs parent website, what is the hunters moon?, it has now been joined by a sister painting called Blood Moon , the same event by a different name.
I have created a Hunters Moon Necklace for all to purchase.
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My first pagan activity witch was a ritual in it's own way, to discount the hunting of Easter eggs perhaps, and though it wasn’t really clear to me at the time, was in 1966, forty five years ago. I was nine years old, and living in north Germany, where my Father was stationed as a British soldier.
It was my good ‘ol Dad who encouraged me to ‘go haunting’ as we called ‘trick or treat’ the way he did as a boy on Hallowe’en….Samhain.
Getting a Pumpkin was out of the question, even if I could get one I couldn’t afford too, in the event I didn’t need to. The local farmer grew sugar beets and that would o fine, so scrumping was the way forward! Trying to hollow one of those out however was hard work, dinner cutlery was the tool kit, much got bent or broke!
On the big night I took with me two school friends, Nicholas, the son of the only Navy Officer in the region, and a girl whose name escapes me.
Knock knock we went, shame faced Father’s realising what they had forgotten about coughed up goodie’s or coins, some told us to buzz off, that was bound to happen, but we did nicely, Hallowe’en seemed to be at a low ebb indeed.
The following year I had to go it alone, the itinerant lifestyle of the forces had left me alone on that housing estate, the previous years companions had moved on.
The following year I had moved to the huge NATO garrison at a place called Rhiendahlen, where there was a Canadian Regiment, their children led by example a thriving event and my exclusiveness was lost.
However, the English kids didn’t have the same style as the Canadian ones I afraid to say, a few dressed up, but mostly it was the Canadian kids, and a sprinkling of American kids who were there to take part that had the local farmers taking a dim view of Hallowe’en! Just so long as they ever worked out why scores of sugar beet were being pulled up!
Somewhere along the line I picked up in the library that Witches weren’t really what they was cracked out be, I didn’t extend on it then, but deep down I’m sure a spark had been struck to produce the Wiccan I am today!
Hallucinogens in Pagan History
Mans relationship with mind altering substances goes back to the dawn of his time on Earth, it pre-dates Christianity and Islam by millennia but is still inextricably linked to his spirituality, so it is a Pagan topic if we use the term lightly. Researchers have discovered it as least as old as the cave paintings he made of his quarry mostly; they found that many of these paintings were in places he wasn't going to be dwelling, sometimes a mile deep in the cave. This also coincided with the use of Red Ochre as a medium, hollow bones found on site showed this paint have been sprayed through them onto the cave walls, by holding a reservoir of it in their mouths.
That amount of exposure causes this substance to become a hallucinogenic, this coupled with the fact that the locations always seemed to be in a place where an echo was produced. Picture yourself as a caveman now, you're seeing things that aren't normally there or at least seeing them differently, your drums and voices are calling back to you, you would be forgiven for thinking you was in the Spirit world or in communication with it!
Fly Agaric, also known as the Magick Mushroom grows right across the Eurasian world, it has for thousands of years been used as a bridge to the Spirit world by Siberian Shamans, using them and drums & chanting they would go into a trance to whatever it was they set out to do.
When Lewis Carroll wrote his world famous Alice in Wonderland the effects of Fly Agaric are everywhere!It is itself in many illustrations, but the little people and animations are also synonymous with its effects on the mind, had Lewis Carroll been a user of it?
Lets move on to the medieval period. LSD, this has firm links with the burning years the active ingredient is lysergic acid is the active ingredient that makes it a hallucinogenic and that is yielded from a fungi called Ergot. It occurs as a black mould on Rye corn in damp conditions, the symptoms of Ergotism include hallucinations, and violent seizures that could kill. Medieval people, even the more sceptical doctors put it down to Bewitchment and scapegoats were soon found often someone who lived on the outskirts of the given village as they didn't get affected, these were often people who were prospecting to join a village, it would take years to be accepted. It is just this sort of thing that led to the well known Salem Witch Trials, as was often the case, they all denied being Witches, it seems very few people who were burnt as Witches really were!
That Witches didn't really fly on broom sticks isn't lost on us here, but what was really going on? That some of us were dancing around fires naked (Sky clad!) is well known, and most of us will have heard of Flying ointment.
Agaric must surely have been one of them, but it isn't always available, or to be found or locally known, or even the ingredient of choice.
Flying ointment if you ask me is how you choose to make it; there is no single secret recipe. Some of us could get stoned at the grocers, others in the Forest, it seems our ancestors were no different. Whatever the active ingredient, and many would not have known what it was, it was mixed into oil and spread over a nude body that is going to sweat as it is danced around a fire, its pores opening, it would be so received into the system and have its effect on the user, our innocent forebears thought they were flying indeed. But not only were they dancing around fire, they were playing with fire! Don't try it at home!
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The return of Max.....vivid dream or visitation?
Hi all
One night some years ago I had a vivid dream (?) I heard a rattle, the familiar sound of a dog bowl being moved about as it was being eaten from, I jump up and go to the front door to see my Alsatian Max trotting off as fit as a three year old, down the stairs he went, emerging in the courtyard below, looking up at me with a wagging tail his face dominated by the three black dots of eyes and nose, and out through two doors somehow on his own, ...I run over to a gap in the wall to see him trotting along the side of a building at the greens edge where I'd walk him several times a day, the long way around to the far gate so I could first see that it was OK to take him in, coming back a little later looking up at me before I wake.
That datewas the day he passed onto Diana a year ago aged nearly 14 and very lame was very much in mind, did this trigger a dream, or did he come to visit?
Max has his own memorial, you can visit him .... http://www.seawitchartist.com/max-Memorial.htm
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A Ouija Board Experience..
My own experience of the Ouija board I have published often before on the Internet, and it is to explain not only what happened but why I would probably not go back there without an exceptional motive.
Back in 1976 I was a soldier serving in Gibraltar, long before I became involved in Wicca. I was in a group of four who had taken up the offer of one of us to 'do the Ouija board' and so we began, being very much led on by the instigator and not taking it very serious.
Not so a Lance Corporal who objected to our doing it, that we was messing with something we shouldn't be, but did not extend to ordering us to stop it, on reflection, it would have been an unusual order to say the least! We thought he was exaggerating things and laughed him off.
We carried on with fun in mind, and for all we could see, with no result either?
Perhaps we did have a result, the Lance Corporal who had been objecting did within the hour if my memory serves me well, have a motorcycle accident and a very bad one, Gibraltar can be an unforgiving place to have one, to say you either go into a rock face, or you go of one isn't much of an over statement , he had gone into one.
The motorcycle didn't belong to him, but one of the four in the Ouija board game.
The motorcycle he did often borrow but this time he did so on impulse and without permission, he crashed very quickly and nearly died, he was repatriated for his health and took a long, long time to recover, if he ever did so properly.
He described his having the crash as a case of 'just losing it'…I wonder?
Many months later while exploring the thickets that abound in Gibraltar and not a hundred yards from the scene of the crash or the Ouija board game I found items that were Army dispatch riders equipment, a much decayed leather helmet and goggles, some canvas webbings, probably wartime stuff.
So was the Ouija board the cause of all this? Was it just coincidence? It could have been, and plenty of people would dismiss it as such, but as a Witch I wouldn't settle for that.
I'm mindful that the Ouija Board was invented to be a Board game much the same as Monopoly and Chess were, you can however, create a monster. 'Used with love and care a Ouija board is OK' I hear often. But how can something so random be used with care? To use one is to disturb any entity that is reached....not invite, count on anything with the Earthbound, but don't expect an apparition.
What ever, what happened around me was enough for me, without a pressure I can't see happening, I won't be messing with them anymore.
There's other ways and better times...like Samhain, to contact the dead ...indeed, the dead may contact you!...
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Jay, messenger of the dead.
Ever had a Warning Dream? Some years ago while I was still going to sea I had one about a Jay, our most colourful Crow, I was on leave in London, and like any self respecting sailor, I was drinking loads. I mean LOADS! ..Well, something out there must have decided this couldn't go on.
Bear in mind that a Crow in our dreams is the warning of a threat,and a colourful bird is a move..to prosperity, happiness.
A Jay is both, he is also the messenger of the dead!
I was sleeping of another night on the town when I had a dream I'll never forget, I wrote a poem from it that has always been well received. it goes:
Of a Jay I dreamt, flying by, staring vividly at my minds eye,
He's a colourful bird, and a daunting Crow,
Both have their meanings, and both I know.
"It's up to you" he called
"Your fate is your's to choose,
"A future that is bright, or one to drown in booze"!
I got the message. I eased up on the drinking a while and found other things to do.
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Those Witchey Tea Clippers...
As a life long enthusiast of the late Sailing ships I studied the Tea racing era very deeply, and began to notice ‘we’ seem to win everything!
I thought I’d raise this topic here so to share some observations I made some years ago.
That the Cutty Sark, the world famous ‘Tea Clipper’ that still exists today, has a Witchey name is down to the fact that this is how Tam O’ Shanter, for the want of knowing her real name addressed her. As before, Cutty Sark means short shirt or shift, it seems their creator Robert Burns was shy of the word ‘Skyclad’ ...that delightful Pagan term for nudity.
That’s a shame really, in stark contrast to nudity, all that extra sail would have made ‘Sky Clad’ a cool name for an Ocean flyer like a tea Clipper!
Over 200 British and American Tea clippers were built and raced in the china Tea trade but the top performers produced an astonishing line up of Witchey and Pagan names that began with the era starting, record breaking Sea Witch in 1846 and probably end with the Halloween in 1870, they included Cutty Sark,Halloween,Witch of the Wave,Sea Witch,Witchcraft
Ariel,Raven,Phoenix and Undine......
It seems a good name helped!
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The Hunters moon..or Sanguine or blood moon if you want, was not, unusually, the brightest full moon this year, that was the Wolf Moon in January.
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The Dark moon Full
Crowds wait, wishing clouds away
still stands the Sun god, he waits this day it seems
on she comes, unseen this day, unseen last night
on she comes and still they wait.
Anticipation below, her God she touches, contact made from afar.
Two passing equals, skeptics preach, few want to hear,
for on she comes, the faithful wait.
The Sun god calms, creatures of the night stir, creatures of the day retire,
a canine howl gets a cheer, on she comes.
The Sun god darkens, he receives his Bride,
beads dance, horns draw in, the Diamond ring flares,
gasps below in the dark of the umbra, silence then cheers as the Corona bursts
the Sun god tamed by her equality, divine union made.
God and Goddess above the sky, in perfect harmony
symbolism made for us, in our time.
Mighty representations for the mightier still
On she goes, here he comes.
We are reminded, on we go.
To read more about the Pentagram/pentacle you see in the image above.....
Pagan Pentacle-Pentagram
See the associated Jewellery I make.... Divine Union Pentacle and chain...
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Corn Moon & Horse Brass.
On the night of 23rd August 2010 I lay on my couch and noticed one of the many horse brasses I keep was hanging crooked, securely mounted and out the of anything that could have knocked it this struck me as strange. I posted this on the social networking site Facebook and got quite a few responses. ' Fairies!' suggested the Pagan artist Mickie Muller humorously, well at that point it was as good an explanation as any. The next day I saw it was straight again and I had not touched it. Later I remembered what Mickie had said and wondered if it was one of the Devon Pixie brasses I have and went to the hall to look. But no, it was in the picture here, of a wheat sheath and farming implements. A few hours later the full moon rose, the one known by the English medieval name of....Corn Moon! As a Witch I'm less than eager to put things down to coincidence, there has to be a reason! But what?
Orbs, what are they... supernatural or just a photographic issue?
Orbs are a much debated thing in the Pagan world especially, many dismiss them as a photographic problem associated with moisture, others swear they are Spirits or other supernatural beings...and some say both. At the time of this entry you can do the poll at the top of this page, have your say while it's there!
I'm satisfied they are both magickal and mundane. They occur often in some places, like St.Nectans glen where there is a waterfall as seen in the picture here, also they occur often at Stonehenge in photos...and it is indeed that the camera is nearly always what captures them visually, but it's not a rule.
A trusted fellow Witch and friend saw one with her naked eye and this was at home. I often saw things that may have been orbs (or dust on my eye surface) as a child while I lay awake at night, as I frequently did. Children and animals may have an easier time connecting to things like this, but animals can't be asked or tell, children are seldom taken seriously. But my own memory has a style that retains many snippets from earliest childhood , and I for one am satisfied that supernatural orbs really exist, the orbs that are truly photographic thing aren't the orbs we are talking about...just because something looks the same, it doesn't mean they are!
Orbs are a much debated thing in the Pagan world especially, many dismiss them as a photographic problem associated with moisture, others swear they are Spirits or other supernatural beings...and some say both. At the time of this entry you can do the poll at the top of this page, have your say while it's there!
I'm satisfied they are both magickal and mundane. They occur often in some places, like St.Nectans glen where there is a waterfall as seen in the picture here, also they occur often at Stonehenge in photos...and it is indeed that the camera is nearly always what captures them visually, but it's not a rule.
A trusted fellow Witch and friend saw one with her naked eye and this was at home. I often saw things that may have been orbs (or dust on my eye surface) as a child while I lay awake at night, as I frequently did. Children and animals may have an easier time connecting to things like this, but animals can't be asked or tell, children are seldom taken seriously. But my own memory has a style that retains many snippets from earliest childhood , and I for one am satisfied that supernatural orbs really exist, the orbs that are truly photographic thing aren't the orbs we are talking about...just because something looks the same, it doesn't mean they are!
