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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Witches
Reveling in Love and Lust: A Beltane Tryst

Beltane is the sexiest high holiday for witches and one that is anticipated all year. I always look forward to having a joyful “spree” every May. Witches begin to celebrate Beltane on the last night of April, and it is traditional for the festivities to last all night. This is a time for feasting, dancing, laughter, and lots of lovemaking. The Celts of old made this day a day of wild abandon, a sexual spree, the one day of the year when it is okay to make love outside your relationship. On May Day, when the sun returns in the morning, revelers gather to erect a merrily beribboned Maypole to dance around, followed by picnicking and sensual siestas.

Ideally, celebrate outdoors, but if you are stuck indoors on Beltane Eve, pick a place with a fireplace and have a roaring blaze so celebrants can wear comfy clothing and dance barefoot. Ask them to bring spring flowers and musical instruments, including plenty of drums! Place pillows on the floor and serve a sensual feast of foods from the following list, under the title “Oral Fixations,” along with beer, wine, ciders, and honeyed mead that you can make or obtain from a microbrewery. Gather some of spring’s bounty of flowers—roses, tulips, and my favorite, freesias, in your favorite colors, or whatever is blooming with the most vitality where you live. Set out candles in spring colors—yellow, pink, red, green, white, purple. With your arms extended, point to each of the four directions and say, “To the east, to the south, to the west, and to the north,” and recite this Beltane rhyme:

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Parsley: A Garnish That Belongs in a Grimoire

Parsley is more than a dinner plate decoration that has a long history of magic and symbolism. The Greeks used parsley medicinally and sometimes wore crowns of it at banquets and festivals. However, it was not used as a culinary herb because it was regarded as sacred to the dead. Associated with Persephone and the underworld, the leafy stalks were used to adorn graves. The Romans had a different take on it. According to legend, Hercules adorned himself with the plant, making it a symbol of strength and vigor.

During the summer solstice in parts of Eastern Europe, parsley was given to cows to prevent witches from casting spells on them, which would effect milk production. In the Pyrenees of France and Spain, parsley boiled in water was given to a person who may have been bewitched.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Thistles: Protective Magic and More

Thistles have prickly stems, leaves with spines, and pointed bracts (modified leaves) around the flowers, which turn into tufts of white hair known as thistledown. During medieval times, blessed thistle was believed to counteract poisons, heal bites from mad dogs, and even ward off the plague. Often used as animal fodder, young stems and leaves (shorn of their spines) have eaten by people and not just in times of famine. Thistledown was used to stuff pillows and mattresses.
     Thistles were scattered in grain fields to drive away demons and the seeds were burned to cure illness caused by evil spirits. In addition to warding off evil, a thistle flower carried in the pocket was said to avert melancholy. Thistles were planted in gardens to prevent thieves from entering a house.
     A potion of made with thistle seed and St. John’s wort was given to women on trial for witchcraft to make them tell the truth. It was also believed that witches used thistle with the spit of toads to become invisible. In Essex, England, warlocks reputedly used the tall stems as walking sticks. Elsewhere, wizards were said to use them as wands.
     In Ireland, thistles were regarded as faery plants. After casting a travel spell, they were said to ride home to faeryland on thistledown. Pixies reputedly use thistle spines of spear thistle as swords.
     The Scottish thistle (Onopordum acanthium) grows about five feet tall and has flat, spiny wings along the stems, silvery-green leaves, and dark pink to violet flowers. Reaching up to six feet tall, the spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare) has purplish-pink to purple flowers and lance-shaped leaves that that narrow to long, sharp spines. Growing about two feet tall, the blessed thistle (Cnicus benedictus) has red stems and reddish bracts surround the yellow flowers.
     Magically, if you find a thistle flower that is going to seed, hold some of the thistledown in your hand, make a wish, and then blow it to the wind. Use the spines in protection spells or to break a hex. Thistles also aid in working with spirit guides, dealing with challenges, and releasing anything unwanted from your life.

 

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Of Magic and Mardi Gras

Journeying With Tarot

In my second delightful interview with High Priestess, Author, and Activist Phyllis Curott, we dove deeper into her new tarot deck, The Witches' Wisdom Tarot. She shared how she and artist Danielle Barlow journeyed to discover the true meanings of the cards and they developed them together organically. I intimated that I treated myself to the tarot as a gift for the holiday season and have been doing some journeying of my own with them. To be sure, this is no ordinary deck, but a re-envisioned working of the tarot deck concept, with a focus on nature, the Goddess, and an "as above/so below" theme which is much more aligned with the belief system of Witches, Wiccans, and Pagans. Each card is meant to be meditated on—there are lessons to be learned as well as overall themes and takeaways. Additionally, Phyllis has included a bit of magic you can perform incorporating the card into your spellwork. Intriguingly, drawing just one card a day while familiarizing myself with them has been telling the story of what's going on in my life in the here and now. The cards beautifully echo what is in already in the framework and help me focus on next steps for my goals. I can also tune into areas or relationships that might need more of my attention. Listen to one woman's journey with the cards described in detail in our latest "Women Who Howl at the Moon" podcast interview.

 Podcasting and Patreon

Phyllis also had some exciting news in the way of a trilogy of new books she's working on! Speaking of things exciting and new, I'm launching a Patreon page where listeners can lend support for my "Women Who Howl at the Moon" podcast. There are opportunities for giveaways, gift bags, and personally crafted spells for you, so please do check it out. It's also a chance to hear extended versions of the witchy good interviews I'll be conducting–many are so fascinating I'm reluctant to edit them down, so this is a win-win for me, as well! To hear more details, I will have the extended interview with Phyllis available for Patreon patrons.

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Summer Solstice Rituals and Traditions

Summer Solstice: Celebration of Light

June 20 is Summer Solstice! The Sun moves into the sign of Cancer at 2:44 pm PDT

The seasonal cycle of the year is created by Earth’s annual orbit around the sun. Solstices are the extreme points as Earth’s axis tilts toward or away from the sun—when days and nights are longest or shortest. On equinoxes, days and nights are equal in all parts of the world. Four cross-quarter days roughly mark the midpoints in between solstices and equinoxes. We commemorate these natural turning points in the Earth’s cycle. Seasonal celebrations of most cultures cluster around these same natural turning points.

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I Opened It © A. Levemark


Summit of full summer.

Feel the sun within you shining with abundance, as we blink in the light of that glowing promise, resurrection from death. The triumph of light peaks, slides slowly to dissolve. This is the tipping point for everything: democracy, misogyny, racism, climate, freedom. All are on a cliff edge. We've reached the neon-bright entrance to The Great Turning.

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Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Witches, Fairies, and Hallowe'en

 When people think of Halloween, or from a more pagan perspective Samhain, the image of witches comes quickly to mind and it may be the single day of the year most strongly associated with witches in Western culture. Yet there is another layer to Halloween that also intersects with witchcraft and witches but isn't as commonly acknowledged in mainstream culture and that is fairies. Halloween and the general period of time around Halloween has long been known in the folklore and folk practices of the various Celtic-language speaking countries to be a time when the Good Folk are more active and more present.

The connection between witches and fairies more generally is complex and multi layered. Scottish witches who were brought to trial mentioned dealing with fairies as often as dealing with demons and were as likely to say they had sworn themselves to the Queen of King of Fairy as to the Christian Devil. This is discussed in Emma Wilby's books 'Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits' and 'The Visions of Isobel Gowdie' and touched on in Davies 'Popular Magic' which all review various material from the Scottish witchcraft trials in which confessed witches talk about their connections to the fairies. We also see references to both Irish witches and mná feasa [wise women] who learned their skill from the Good Neighbours, as well as specialists called fairy doctors in English who were supposed to have been taught by the fairies (Daimler, 2014). This overlap, briefly summarized here, was one where the witch might both serve Fairy and also be served by it. 

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Posted by on in Studies Blogs
John Barleycorn & the Ale Wives

There's an Old English riddle from the Exeter Book that is part of a long tradition about the abuses of alcohol through the ages. While there is much to celebrate in the joy of drinking, there is a dark side, too, that many have fallen prey to over the years. The poem goes like this:

Biþ foldan dæl     fægre gegierwed
mid þy heardestan      mid þy scearpestan
 mid þy grymmestan     gumena ge streona ·
corfen sworfen     cyrred þyrred
bunden wunden     blæced wæced
frætwed geatwed     feorran læded
to durum dryhta     dream bið iinnan
cwicra wihta     clengeð lengeð
þara þe ær lifgende     longe hwile
wilna bruceð      no wið spriceð
 þōn æfter deaþe     deman onginneð
meldan mislice     micel is to hycganne
wisfæstum menn     hwæt seo wiht sy.

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  • Tyger
    Tyger says #
    Very interesting. Thank you!

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