Healing Charms

As I told you a few weeks ago, my co-blogger, Leanne is dealing with some scary health stuff right now.  It was recently discovered that she has a hole in her heart and will have to have open-heart surgery to fix it.  She is understandably frightened by this, but especially so because she has a five month old son.  So not only is she frightened, but she's feeling a bit depressed too.  That is actually a major understatement, but you get my meaning.

Anyway, I decide to write a healing spell and make some charms for her, which I am sharing with you.  Well, the charms anyway.  I decided to keep the spell back, I think it will be more effective that way, and so it won't be making an appearance on this blog unless Leanne wants to share it after her healing has run it's course.

What I found interesting while creating the charms is that they ended up with two-fold purpose: 1) to aid the physical healing (my intent); and, 2) to aid in emotional/spiritual healing (the fun bonus).  So these charms will, I think, help with healing both a physical and metaphorical broken heart!  It was a pleasant surprise to say the least.

Charm 1

 This is a fairly simple knot charm, tied with red string, and in the shape of a Celtic heart.  I'm a big fan of knot charms.  They're quick, their easy, and can be quite beautiful.  For me, the most difficult thing is learning how to do the fancy knots, because you've got to get it tied while concentrating on your intended purpose.  Otherwise, it's just a piece of string knotted prettily.

To make one of these, and to make it magical, you should:

1) Find and prepare your string or cording.  It can be as thin as thread, or as thick as rope.  Silk, linen, hemp, jute, cotton, or something synthetic.  Pick your color, something that radiates your intent.  To me, RED is the color of love, strength, and courage, and while it may not be relaxing, I find it to be healing because of those attributes.  My string is some kind of synthetic, mostly because it's affordable and easy to work with.  I cut it the length I need and scorch the ends.  It's also very forgiving, so I can untie and retie the knots until I have them just right.

2) Learn the knot.  There are so many different things you can do with rope, so many knots you can tie.  This heart knot I thought appropriate for this healing as it represents the part of Leanne's physical body that needs to be healed, also the bits of her spirit that need bolstering, and, well, my love for my best friend.

Practice the knot until you can do it without really thinking about it.  You'll want to concentrate on the healing/bolstering while tying, and don't want to have to break that concentration to figure out how the pattern comes together.  Now, I don't know these knots perfectly and usually have to go over them a couple of times to make myself comfortable with them.  I also still think about the tying of the knot, it's just in the background.

You can learn how to tie this knot here or by watching the video below:

3) Intent.  Think on what you want your outcome to be, write a few lines of spell or prayer and mutter them while tying.  I picture myself capturing wispy bits of love and healing with every turn of the cord, like a knot that traps and holds the wind.  Concentrate on that.  It's a meditation, and outflowing of energy, and a binding of that energy to your will.

4) Combine the above to create the charm.  As simple and as complicated as that.

Charm 2

Another knot charm, this time in the form of a very simple friendship bracelet.  What can I say?  I cam of age in the 90s, and these were all the rage.  It's a simple pattern, just the repetition of two colors of embroidery floss.  These are knots I can tie in my sleep, no reminders necessary.

The colors I chose are true healing colors: blue for calm and patience, and green for physical and emotional healing.  With every knot I tied I focused on calm and healing, hoping to ease my friend's fear and strengthen her body.

The steps are the same as the single knot above, just with more repetition.

You can, if you want, make a far, far more complicated pattern, and if you want to do that I recommend Friendship-Bracelets.net to get an idea of what is possible.  I felt that my simple and familiar rope-like bracelet was fine for my purpose, so that is what I created.  It can also be used as keychain, if the person you're making it for doesn't want to wear it.  Or, of course, it could just be set on a shrine or altar.

Charm 3

I found this little mesh(-ish) bag in my bedroom, the green of new growth, and knew I had to send it to Leanne.  It's another weird synthetic fabric, but, hey, it was free.  I really have no idea where I got it.  I decided to make a little bag filled with healing herbs and this was perfect.

Here's what I put in it:

• 1 bay leaf
• fennel seeds
• mint
• thyme
• dried orange peel
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 1 bloodstone

I put a little over 1/2 teaspoon of each herb in the bag.  All the herbs are known for their healing capabilities, and the mixture smells divine.

I added the bloodstone because for some reason or another I bought a bunch of bloodstones a few years back, and because it seemed appropriate.  According to one website:

"Bloodstones are also known as stones of courage. It improves physical strength, enhances self-esteem and self-appreciation, and calms anxiousness . . . And it strengthens the heart."

Plus I just like the stone.  It seems to have a calming effect on me, and I thought to pass that on to Leanne.

 Charm 4

This one I like best.

I cut two hearts out of felt.  One I left blank, the other I stitched the word HEAL in Ogham.  Then I glued the two pieces of felt together.  One side represents the whole, healed heart–the ideal; while the other side represents the damaged heart healing–the reality.  I chose Ogham, because I'm studying Irish Polytheism right now, and because I think it looks like stitches.  Again, it seemed appropriate.

If you can't see my photograph well, here's what HEAL looks like in Ogham:

᚛ᚆᚕᚂ᚜

I found this Ogham Transliterator online, which was just so useful.  I'm totally going to use it again.

The most difficult task was choosing what word to stitch onto the heart (though my stitching leaves a lot to be desired, it's not that hard).  In addition to HEAL, I considered HEALING, HEALTH, STRENGTH, HEALTHY, RESTORE, and several others.  HEAL, though, is a command and not a description; ultimately, I felt a command was what was needed in this situation.

So those are the charms I made for Leanne.  Add to their magic by sending healing thoughts her way. I'll post again at the next full moon, and maybe have an update on Leanne.

Apologies

By Peter Freiman [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

I'm sorry.  I missed the moon this month, and forgot my post.  My fault entirely.  A new book I've been waiting for came out and I spent the nights of the full moon reading it.  Totally worth it.  Also, I literally did no magic for the entire month, and since this blog is meant to record our (my and Leanne's) magical practices first and foremost, I just didn't have much to write anyway.  Fortunately, in the coming days and weeks I expect to be busy with an abundance of spells, charms, and prayers, so I'll have a bunch to record at the next full moon.  Unfortunately, I'll be doing most of these in honor of my friend an co-blogger, Leanne, who is going through some scary health stuff right now. So it's a good news, bad news sort of situation and any prayers or good vibes sent Leanne's way would be much appreciated.

Until the upcoming full moon I'll leave you with a thought, you could call it a core belief of mine:

Words have both meaning and power, they should be used (and received) with care and precision.

The Essentials

L'Envoûteuse (The Sorceress)
Georges Merle Georges Merle, France, 1851 - 1886
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

When you look up spells online, or read a book of introductory magic—or even beyond that, you're generally inundated with a need for things: this wand, that candle, that herb or stone or incense.  Trappings, that's all they are, and I've found that you don't really need them.  What you do need are: a safe space, a quiet head, and an open mind.  These are what I believe to be the three essentials to a successful magical practice.  Eventually, I'd like to write more in-depth essays on each of them, but, for now, I think a brief introduction will do.

A safe space

A safe space can be anywhere that you won't be disturbed and that you feel, well, safe.  It can be anyplace.  I currently use my bedroom and sometimes my kitchen, but I have used parks, woods, the shores of both lake and sea.  Magic can happen anywhere, but I find that I work best in a space where I'll not be interrupted.  I also think that it's best if whatever space you're using is clean, uncluttered, and relatively peaceful.  You need a place where you can concentrate, let yourself go, and just be.  If you're constantly worried about being stumbled over, interrupted, or, gods forbid, attacked, you just can't get into the correct mindset.

A quiet head

A quiet head is one that is at peace, where your mind's not jabbering at you constantly.  It's a mind that's cleared of all thoughts but that of the task before you.  This is difficult, but can be cultivated with meditation.  The trick is finding a meditation that works for you, and that in itself can be a struggle.  One of the reasons, I think, is that we have this idea of meditation as being the emptying out of all thought, so we sit and we struggle because our minds won't stop working.  Thoughts keep coming in, we get annoyed with ourselves, and eventually we just give up, usually with a disgusted feeling of "I just can't do this."  I don't believe that to be true.

First off, there are several different ways to meditate.  You can use a form of moving meditation: dancing, Tai Chi, running, yoga.  Moving meditation is just a form of moving where you have to concentrate on the movements your making rather than how you're going to pay your phone bill, or what's going on on your favorite TV show, or whatever.  Those thoughts may enter your head, but they don't stay because you have to be all in your body.  You have to check your timing, your breathing, where you're hands and feet are.  You have to concentrate on what you're doing, rather than what you're thinking.  It helps to center you, right?  Getting lost in movement.

There's also visualization.  You focus on a picture or scene in your mind.  You plant a seed and watch that seed grow behind your eyelids.  See the roots seeking water and deeper earth, the sprout pushing up towards the sun, see it quiver, see it breathe.  Or you can focus on a memory, preferably not an unpleasant one, but something agreeable.  The first time you flew a kite, or rode a roller coaster.  What did it feel like?  What did the wind feel like?  The tug on your arms?  What color was the sky?  Remember the way your heart beat on the way up, and down.  Remember the twists and turns, the feel of almost falling.  Picture it in the most minute details, the sounds, the smells, the flow of blood through your veins.

Or you can just focus on something something so much that it fills your head.  Use a flame, watch it dance, breath with it, stare into the heart of it.  Pay attention.  Watch that stream stream flow and bubble.  See the most minute detail of that tree, try to capture it in you mind.  Calm down and just look, choose one thing, and look.

You can do the same with almost anything.  The more you practice it, the easier it will be, and the clearer you're brain will feel.  You can start slow, five minutes a day, working up to fifteen, twenty, an hour, whatever.  Meditation helps to clarify your mind, clean your head out, and can help to minimize the damage negative or obsessive thoughts cause.  I'll not claim that it's a cure for depression, because I'm proof that it's not, but, for me, it helps to put things in perspective and kind of break that cycle of "my gods, you're a worthless human being" that I tend to get stuck in.  I really can't do anything when I'm in one of those cycles, let alone magic.  A quiet head is one that doesn't have those thoughts screaming on repeat constantly, or one that can disregard those thoughts as unimportant and shush whatever unhappy voices that want to take up all the space.

An open mind

What do I mean by an open mind?  Imagination, intelligence, the willingness to believe in magic.  You need the ability to change the way you look at the world, and the wits to recognize the change.  You also need to be able to experiment, to find out what works and what doesn't.  You need to learn and continue learning.  I find it's helpful to be good with words—some of my most successful spells have been little more than rhyming quatrains.  Life is a constant evolution of the mind, and it's my firm belief that if you aren't learning, you aren't living, and living is important.  You need to read, write, dance, play, pray.  Learn how to raise energy, and to ground it.  Find out what's works for you, tweak it, revise it, try again.  Find a new way that also works, or doesn't, and tweak that until it feels right.  Do it again.  Do it again.  Find another and do that.  Rinse and repeat.  Keep learning.  Be willing to keep learning.  Keep changing.  Believe.  Know.  Know down to your bones.  That in itself is a magic.

Be willing to put in the work.  Be willing to see the results.  That's how you do magic.

Lá Fhéile Bríde (Imbolc) 2016

By Culnacreann CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This is going to be a long post since a lot is going on with me.  Generally, the ritual portion of today's celebration will not be so long, as I like things a little less formal, but must needs this year.  So Lá Fhéile Bríde (Imbolc) is going to be a little more involved than I plan on going forward.  It will also be more than a welcoming of spring and celebration of Brigid; it will be a petition, a renewal, and an oath of study and service.

Also, normally, cleansing and purification would be more one-step.  A combination process of sorts, but I am in need of a deep, deep physical and spiritual cleanse—and have been for some time, really—so, multi-step-multi-day process for me!

Things'll simple up after the day.

Schedule

1. Clean everything!
2. Bake.
3. Cleanse self.
4. Purify everything.
5. Cleanse and consecrate tools.
6. Petition my gods and the Tuatha Dé Danann.
7. Honor my previous commitments to my gods.
8. Prayer celebrating Brigid and the coming spring.
9. Divination.

Plans for the Next Year

By Ken Crawford, Veil Nebula, via Wikimedia Commons

So my goal for this blog in the upcoming (now on us!) year is to publish a post on or about every full moon.  Sometimes rituals, sometimes recipes, and sometimes philosophical thoughts on the nature of magic, the gods, faeries, etc.  Additional posts will be made by myself or Leanne whenever we have time or something interesting to write about.  I also plan on writing short, solitary devotional rituals for the 4 fire festivals, which I will try to get out before the actual day—no promises.

My personal goals, for my own practices of both magic and worship, are, right now, more ethereal.  I plan on starting daily practice of meditation, and morning and evening prayers to my gods.  I'm devoting the next year to learning about Manannán mac Lir (specifically), the Tuatha Dé Danann (generally), and, of course, Hecate (who claimed me first some 20 years ago); so, it's only polite that I offer to them all.  I'm going to figure out a schedule for offerings to the spirits and faeries, as well—I'm thinking bimonthly, but haven't made any definitive decisions yet.  All this will start in February with Lá Fhéile Bríde (Imbolc), which is when I plan to formally start my studies.

Beyond all that, I'm hoping to find the time to study ceremonial magic.  I've always been more comfortable with hedge- and kitchen-witchery, small spells, fairly simple, but lately I've been finding the need to change the way my brain operates, the way I see the world, and I've been reading John Michael Greer's Well of Galabes blog and really digging what he's saying.  So I bought—a while back—his book The Celtic Golden Dawn and it seems interesting.  I think I can learn something from it, so I'm planning on following the lessons and incorporating what works for me into my magical practice.

In another effort to rewire my brain, I'm going to study two languages: Mandarin Chinese, because I think it's beautiful, and I took 3 years of it as an undergraduate, and I'd like to work on my proficiency—which is sadly lacking after several years of nonuse; and, Gaeilge (Irish), because I've always wanted to learn it, and it seems appropriate right now considering what I'm about to step into. Language is a powerful thing.  Words are powerful.  Learning a new language will help me look at the world with a different view, I think.  Anyway, it'll be fun and I've been bored since getting my Master's degree and I can't afford right now to go after my PhD.

So those are my plans.  They will require more time studying and less TV, which I think is a very good thing.  Once I figure out my daily practices I'll create a post or a page here outlining them, and then, occasionally, I'll write about my experiences—successes and failures.

Expect a post at the next full moon!

Happy New Year, everybody!

Update: News, Plans, and Other Likely Stories

Miranda–The Tempest, John William Waterhouse via Wikimedia Commons

I can't believe that it's been six months since either of us has posted anything!  Seriously, I started this blog with the express purpose of posting at least something once a month.  Leanne expressed to me the same desire.  Life, it seems, had other ideas.  Leanne spent those months preparing for and then welcoming her son to the world.¹  While I, like the ship in the picture, spent my time crashing against the rocks with a major case of burnout that ultimately cost me a job; granted, it was only a part time job, but since my other job is also part time I'm feeling the damage.  We've had no time for magic, is what I'm saying.  Or recording our magical practices, anyway.  More's the pity.

That, however, is changing.  I don't know about Leanne, because babies take a lot of time and effort, but I am planning on posting more.  I've promised my gods that I will observe all the Celtic Fire Festivals (Lá Fhéile Bride [Imbolc], Lá Bealtaine [Bealtaine], Lá Lúnasa [Lughnasa], and Oíche Shamhna [Samhain]) and I'm thinking I'll probably celebrate the solstices and equinoxes as well.  Everybody like a party.  I will record my ritual doings here.  As well as any major or minor magical happenings in between.

My religious leanings–polytheistic–have been pushing me more towards a more devotional practice, and towards Irish reconstruction and the Celtic pantheon.  I've been dreaming of Manannán mac Lir for months now, and, more recently, Brigid.  This change of perception requires a boatload of research, practice, and patience.  I will likely post articles about my path and what stumbles befall me.  It should be interesting.  Also, if you're interested, I've constructed an eShrine for Manannán (and Hecate and Bendis) over on Tumblr.  Check it out.

In addition to spells and rituals, and witchery of all types, I'm hoping to add poetry, prayers, stories, and songs.  I'd also like to add more reference pages/posts, which, I think, will come in handy on my journey, and will hopefully be helpful to our readers as well.  So keep an eye out for posts on: gods, gems/stones, the fair folk, plants/herbs, tools, shrines/altars, divination, and whatever else we think of.  Though, likely, those posts won't come any time soon.  There are a lot of changes happening in our lives, Leanne's and mine, in a lot of ways we're both having to rebuild from major upheavals, so please be patient!  We'll get this blog rolling again soon.

¹Cutest baby boy in the world, her son!  Not cutest baby in the world, as that title currently belongs to my brother's new daughter. ;)  I'm an aunt twice over (kith-aunt & kin-aunt)!  So exciting. 

What I'll be doing on the 31st of July

by M. Gage.  The logo is a highly stylized symbol of Ba'al.

I'll be participating in the Polytheist Day of Protest and Remembrance.  This is a mass ritual cooked up by Galina Krasskova, and posted on her personal website and polytheist.com.  It is meant as a remembrance of and protest against the destruction of ancient and holy sites by Daesh.

Check out the ritual and join me.