1er Congreso Isadora

I am starting to get just a little bit excited, tomorrow I travel to Lugo in Spain as I have been invited to talk at the 1er Congreso Isadora, a new venture aimed at respectful discourse and sharing of knowledge between different magickal and spiritual practitioners. I have chosen to speak on the Importance of Balance within our daily lives and in sacred ritual. I was rather hoping it might be Hekate free, but as per usual she has managed to sneak her way into the proceedings, I probably shouldn’t have expected anything else really seeing as the conference has been organised by a Torchbearer of the Covenant of Hekate and I think more than a few of the attendees are also members. I am so looking forward to meeting people who I’ve only ever had the chance to interact with online, I am sure its going to be the most wonderful experience. I am also going to get the chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long while, seeing that Lugo is only 120km from Santiago de Compostela, I intend to take a day and a rather long bus journey to Santiago and walk the last couple of miles of the Camino Primitivo.

I am a bit of a pilgrimage junkie and the energies that are generated by so many sincere souls all walking with a common spiritual purpose should not be sniffed at regardless of which faith presides over the act of devotion. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan or any other path, I believe that everybody should make at least one pilgrimage in their lives, obviously you can chose a destination that is meaningful to your own faith, you don’t have to be a complete spiritual floozy like me.

Anyway there is still time to book into the conference if you fancy listening to me talk about different energetic techniques and how to create your own. Details can be found either on the website:

http://www.portalisadora.es/congreso-isadora/

or through the Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/congresoisadora

Maybe I will see you there 😀

Our Lady Hekate

At Yule I had the distinct pleasure of being able to meet for coffee with a very talented lady and member of The Covenant of Hekate. An organisation that I have spoken of before here. The lady in question was Mima Cornish and we spent a lovely afternoon putting the world to rights, thinking about where our lives will take us in the coming year and how many of our activities seem to be influenced by our work with the Goddess Hekate.

One of the topics we discussed was a project of Mima’s which had recently come to fruition in rather a spectacular manner, as it was launched at one of the biggest Mind Body & Spirit events in the UK, which rather amusingly is held at Olympia. It is collection of guided meditations on CD which focuses on working with different aspects of “Our Lady Hekate”. I know this has been a labour of love for Mima and musician Paul Landry and so I was very honoured when as we parted she gave me a copy of her CD as a gift and I am even more delighted to give it a glowing review.

The CD is split into 4 tracks each one dedicated to a specific aspect of the Goddess. They are as follows:

  • Hekate Soteria – The Saviour
  • Hekate Phosphorus – The Light Bringer
  • Hekate Einalia – Of the Sea
  • Hekate Chthonia – Of the Underworld

I like that all the meditations are drawn together in a central location around an image of the Goddess, with repeating phrases in each meditation, that allows moving in and out of the different meditations to occur easily and smoothly. The symbology of the rose garden and the Alkamenes style multifaceted statue gives a Graeco-Roman feel to the meditation but I do not think that this detracts from the overall experience if you are a hard core Hellenic.

Also the continuation of the rose symbology in the form of an offering to the Goddess during each mediation also is reminiscent of the ancient practise of hanging a rose as a sign of privacy and secrecy and harkens to the old idiom of “to know, to will to dare and to stay silent” which I am sure will appeal to many; as will the thought that Mima has put into the symbology of each aspect of the Goddess during the meditation.

From a more practical point of view the sound reproduction is excellent, and Mima’s voice is very gentle and calming and her words are well enunciated. The imagery she creates is enough to build a picture without being too detailed or prescriptive, allowing the listener to genuinely have their own experience.

I’ve immersed myself over the last few weeks using this CD as the basis for my meditations and I can heartily recommend it to anyone either beginner or old hand. So support a fellow Hekatean and go buy one right now!


Who are Mima Cornish and Paul Landry?

Mima Cornish is a healer, an artist and Oracle living in Cheshire. She has been working through artistic trance and meditation for a number of years and was recently inspired to produce this collection of guided meditations about the Goddess Hekate which can be purchased from her website : www.hedgerosehealing.com

Paul Landry is an independent musician and composer of new age and ambient music. His collaboration with Mima is sensitively done providing an excellent backdrop for her spoken word. All Paul’s work is available on CD or downloadable from: www.newagemusicgarden.com

Cover and Artwork is also by Mima Cornish and the packaging is made from recycled materials.

The Scent of a Goddess

I am aware of how certain smells can evoke very powerful images and the use of fragrance is something that fills both my everyday and my devotional life. It doesn’t even have to be smells you particularly like very much. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to attend a wonderful workshop entitled “Sacred and Ritual Perfumes” held in Glastonbury by the wonderful Marina.

Marina is a fantastic natural perfumer who owns The Perfume Garden and as part of the workshop we had to discuss smells we did and didn’t like. I expressed my deep disgust at the scent of  unadulterated Patchouli, it has such negative connotations. My first clear memory of it was in the late 1970’s. I cannot have been more than 7 years old and we were eating in the Vegan cafe in our local town, a treat I normally relished. But his particular day the person who was waiting table smelt terribly of body odour overlaid with another smell, the combination was so sickening that it stayed with me all day hanging around under my nose and I was physically ill on the bus ride home. The other smell as I discovered later was Patchouli.

I can recall the clothes the person was wearing, the gaudily painted walls, the ethnic hangings and the beaded curtain that separated the kitchen from the customers. I can even feel the wooden table under my hand and recall swinging my legs from the seat which was too tall for me; so strong are my memories. And every time I have smelt Patchouli on its own since then, those memories come flooding back so strongly that I have to take a moment and centre myself.

The connection with smell and the ability to recall memories is not a new concept and it is a phenomena we can use in our work with Deity. After all if smell can quite literally summon up a memory so strongly that it can physically make us sick, then imagine what we can do with our primal mind and smell, what we can connect with when we use the right smell and let our conscious minds go.

This is one of the primary reasons in my opinion, for using incense during ritual or path-working. Yes of course you can use it as an offering of sorts as we tend to blend incenses that are aligned with whichever entity you are working with and there are of course many historical references to using fine perfumes and smoke as offerings to the Gods. But when we work we want to align ourselves with and summon up an aspect of something. And there really isn’t a quicker way to evoke an image of something than through our sense of smell.

I tend to blend a lot of my own incense and I have provided recipes for a few of my own in my book but from time to time I venture into the world of prepared blends from skilled artisans, and I have to say that the Hecate Oil from Rosarium Blends is possibly one of the best ritual scents I have come across in a very long while and to me it evokes the very essence of Hekate. It is deep and rich and earthy, with a sweet undertone which stops the combinations of Oakmoss and Myrrh and Frankincense making the smell too masculine. And funnily enough, it contains Patchouli 😉

Beautiful Things

 

I recently read a friends Facebook status declaring that they would start posting about the small beautiful things in their life. The idea I suppose is that perhaps if we all looked for more beauty in the world then the world would, to us, effectively become a more beautiful place.

I have in ages past considered this desire by many to always see the *good* and the *beautiful*, to be a big pile of new age clap trap. After all the world is not always beautiful, nature is not always beautiful and people most certainly aren’t always beautiful in either body or deed. I felt that this opinion of mine was even further validated because what one finds beautiful another may find abhorrent. In essence beauty is so strongly in the eye of the beholder how can the world be full of beautiful things that satisfy every perception.

Something drove me however, to contemplate and try to re-evaluate this opinion, dare I say it to find the beauty in this viewpoint so I started exploring it and came across possibly one of the earliest written forms of this belief.

“Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.”
-Plato, Symposium

In my opinion Plato here is actually saying, look if you contemplate and embrace things that you perceive to be beautiful, you will be able to create a subjectively beautiful reality and in doing so you will achieve true excellence (the word virtue in Ancient Greek is actually arete which is more akin to the word excellence). By finding those beautiful things, you will further your physical and spiritual well being and in turn achieve your true purpose, your own specific union with the divine and a state of Henosis.

Something so many of us are striving to achieve. Wow would you look at that, this whole idea of beautiful things isn’t New Age at all, its very very Old Age and something I rather approve of. Well fancy that!

The Dance of the Horae

Not all the material I wrote made it into my book some bits didn’t make the grade and were left out, one of them was the concept of a Hekate related calender, after a debate with a fellow Covenant of Hekate member this evening, I thought it was time to post up one of the sections that didn’t get included as it may help others in thier journeys, I do hope you enjoy it.

The Attic Calendar

“All-coloured Horae, rich increase your care, circling, forever flourishing and fair”

We briefly touched upon the subject of the Attic Calendar in the chapter for divination, as it is the Hellenic calendar which has survived in the most complete format, it is appropriate to use this upon which to base a ritual year.  The months as has been explained before do not correlate directly to the months in the modern calendar as we understand it, and it is this common misconception that leads to comments like “the 13th of August is sacred to Hekate”, which undoubtedly came a about as a result of the 30th of the Month (Deipnon) falling upon August  13th rather than the actual date of the 13th being sacred.

The Dance of the Horae
The Horae or seasons of ancient mythology were originally just two, spring/summer & autumn/winter, however over the centuries this grew, the a large majority of writers named them as three and artwork of three seasons is quite common, these seasons correlating to Spring and new growth after a fallow period, Summer when the fruits and beans were in season and Autumn when the grain crops were ready for harvest. This can also cause some confusion for the seasons in the Mediterranean do not correlate accurately into a Celtic Northern European wheel of the year, the fallow period was considered to be during what we would know as midsummer, for this was a time of drought, with the planting of wheat happening later in the year when the first rains arrived sometimes as late as November or December by our reckoning, and then harvested in May or June, as a result Persephone’s decent into the underworld for example would be most fitting on or around the summer solstice, not the winter, and rites that you may choose to create around this mythology involving Hekate should reflect this.

Provided below is a list of the Attic months, and other information such as known dates of festivals to Hekate or associated deities which can be used to create a more complete ritual cycle2, in cases where a festival or mystery rite took longer than one day, such as the lesser mysteries during Anthesterion, a shorter 2 day period has been indicated for modern usage; Also for convenience sake modern seasons have been included but traditional festivals have retained their rightful place in the dance of the Horae as it would have been.

Attic
Gregorian
Festival
Hecatombaion
Jul – Aug
  1. Noumenia
30   Deipnon
Metageitnion
Aug – Sept
  1. Noumenia
16   Sacrifice – Kourotrophos, Hekate, Artemis
30   Deipnon
Boedromion
Sept – Oct
1     Noumenia

20   Greater Mysteries
21   Greater Mysteries
30   Deipnon
Pyanopsion
Oct – Nov
  1. Noumenia
30   Deipnon
Maimakterion
Nov – Dec
  1. Noumenia
30   Deipnon
Posiedeon
Dec – Jan
1     Noumenia

26   Haloa
30   Deipnon
Gamelion
Jan – Feb
1     Noumenia

27   Sacrifice – Kourotrophos, Hera ,Zeus, Teleius, Poseidon.
30   Deipnon
Anthesterion
Feb – Mar
  1. Noumenia
12   Anthesteria Khoes
20   Lesser Mysteries
21   Lesser Mysteries
30   Deipnon
Elaphebolion
Mar – Apr
  1. Noumenia
30   Deipnon
Mounichion
Apr – May
  1. Noumenia
6     Didymeia
30   Deipnon
Thargelion
May – Jun
  1. Noumenia
19   Bendidea
30   Deipnon
Skirophorion
Jun – July
1    Noumenia

3    Sacrifice – Kourotrophos, Athene, Polias, Aglaurus, Zeus,  Polieus, Poseidon, Pandrosos.
30   Deipnon


Noumenia – The first day of the new moon and of the new month, this was associated with Hekate through the works of Pindar who said that Hekate gave omens of victory on the 1st day of the Month, this day is a particularly fortuitous day to perform works of divination at dawn, oracular work and skrying can also incorporated into the rite. As the start of a new month this is a good time to perform devotional work and a reaffirmation of your dedication to the Goddess in the coming month.

Sacrifice to Kourotrophos – This sacrifice happens during 3 months of the yearly cycle, Metageitnion, Gamelion, Skirophorion, and although only one specifically names Hekate, the epithet of Kourotrophos appears in all these festivals which make them appropriate to celebrate for you can evoke Hekate in that aspect, in addition you may wish to also evoke, Artemis and Zeus as appropriate. As they are relatively evenly spaced throughout the year and are an excellent time for topping up defences around the home petitioning the Goddess to protect it, and its inhabitants, particularly children, records show that a suitable sacrifice for the Goddess at these times were pigs, as many today may not wish to handle pork (or any meat) products creating a votive offering in the image of a pig and immolating it would be another alternative to consider, do however make sure you inscribe it and dedicate it to Hekate. If at all possible try and make this rite in the month of Metageitnion coincident with a clear night when it may be possible to witness the Perseid meteor showers, which are named after Hekate’s father.

Greater Mysteries – These are the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, in which not only was Hekate perceived to guide the Mystai with Iakkos, but also when she became companion and guide to Persephone. This is a most fortuitous time for rites of self dedication and initiation, it should be marked annually with a day of fasting (or abstinence) followed by a night time vigil or procession celebrating Hekate in her aspect of torchbearer and light bringer. This is also a time for making reparations over past wrong doings, and offering the olive branch to would be enemies, clearing the slate and stating anew.

Haloa – Whilst for a us a midwinter festival, this would have been a festival of growth in the Mediterranean world, it was considered a time of feasting and thanks marked with bonfires and banquets and an all night vigil to greet the rising sun, as this falls so very close to Yule and Christmas, it would be more than acceptable to perform this rite on a solstice night, evoking Hekate and inviting her to attend a feast in her honour which should be contained within the ritual circle, Reif3 does suggest that this may have been a “women’s only” rite of a rather bawdy nature, think hen party and then some, so you may like to consider telling the males in your group to find a quiet pub to spend the night in for this one, after all we don’t really wanting them to know “all” the women’s mysteries now do we girls?

Anthesteria Khoes – The Attic equivalent of the day of the dead, the God Hermes in his role of psychopomp was honoured on this night, when the spirits of the dead were said to wander abroad. This is an excellent night to honour both Hermes and Hekate together as well as honouring ancestors and those who have passed with a dumb supper rite, the records note that casseroles with root vegetable were offered most probably because they grew underground.

Lesser Mysteries – All initiates of the Greater mysteries first had to undergo the lesser mysteries and these took place every four years, the gods honoured during these rites were traditionally Demeter, Persephone and Dionysus and was considered by some to be the nuptial celebration of the divine couple; this is an excellent time for performing rites of blessing, both upon relationships, but also new ventures, homes and welcoming family into the fold both magickal and physical. Within that remit it is worth evoking Hekate alongside the deities mentioned above, especially considering her close connection with the greater mysteries. This would also be a time for prospective initiates to request initiation at the following Greater Mysteries and dedicate to the period of study required to undergo such a rite.

Didymeia – This was an annual Pythian rite to Apollo held in the town of Miletus in Caria, the date is ambiguous, but some academics have surmised that it took place in the Milesian month of Taureon, which is believed to have occurred some two months after Anthesterion, this date would correlate for the rite was sacred to Apollo and this date ties in with the Attic date which is recognised as Apollo’s birthday. During this rite two large stone cubes were placed before “Hekate at the Gate”; during this ritual, temples both astral and physical should be cleansed, magickal protections should be reinforced and divination should occur to ascertain the direction of your work (or groups work) during the following year.

Bendidea – The annual rite of the Thracian Goddess Bendis mentioned by Plato in his work Republic, it was considered quite a spectacle and involved horseracing by torch light through the streets of Athens. Whilst it appears that the original rites were one of purification and solemnity, they eventually because fairly bawdy raucous affairs, if working in a group, this might be a suitable ritual for the gentlemen to get all down and dirty with the men’s mysteries, you know, beer, wine, song, curry etc. etc. Competitions both physical and mental could also be incorporated into this rite.

Deipnon – Performed monthly during the dark moon the Deipnon was primarily about cleansing, and petitioning Hekate to keep the house safe during the coming months, because of the offerings given it eventually became a time for charity for the poor it was said, fed from the suppers laid out on the crossroads for Hekate.  Suitable offerings would be eggs, garlic, fish, honey and cheesecakes, which should be placed outside separately from the cleansings of the home. It is a good time to perform physical cleansing as well as magickal cleansing, make sure all tasks that need to be done such as any outstanding obligations, household or work related paperwork etc. In fact any ends you want to tie up should be done so before performing this rite.

————————-

1 Orphic Hymn to the Horae
2 Festival Dates taken from http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/
3 Reif, J. Mysteries of Demeter 

The Temple of Hekate

Exploring the Goddess Hekate Through Ritual, Meditation and Divination
 
Buy Now
Well it has been a long time in the coming, but my book is finally here, I got a copy in my hands a week or so ago, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little taken with it. The journey to the completion of this project has been a difficult one, yet another example of how Hekate always asks for more than you think you can give, but never more than you are capable of.As per usual, I always foolishly hope that when I complete a project in her name, it will allow me some breathing space, and as always, she always finds a way of getting just a little bit more from me, and always in the most unusual ways, but that is another post for another time.

The reason this book means so much to me, is that I am not a natural writer, it does not always come easily or readily to me; and in a world full of aspiring writers many of whom you can now find inhabiting social networking sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter promoting thier skills, the idea of writing down what I had learnt and what I knew was, well just a little overwhelming, to be honest. The only thing that I clung onto to preserve my sanity was a fragment of something I had read years earlier, although where I cannot now remember; the fragment was, “there is one book in everybody”. And apparently this adage may be true.

I do hope people will enjoy my work, and I look forward to hearing peoples stories and experiences from the exercises that I have included; I always feel that we never stop learning and I hope to learn as much from those who read my work as I hope they will learn from me.

The Priestess & The Ferret

“They turned her into a deceitful weasel (or polecat), making her live in crannies and gave her a grotesque way of mating. She is mounted through the ears and gives birth by bringing forth her young through the throat. Hekate felt sorry for this transformation of her appearance and appointed her a sacred servant of herself.” ~Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 29 (accessed online www.theoi.com)

The part Hekate plays in the transformation of a person is often profound, and is a reoccurring theme in ancient literature and the myths surrounding Hekate, some more pleasant than others. The except above, is part of a retelling of the birth of Herakles; the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alkmene, Hera in her usual jealous rage for her husbands philandering had persuaded both the Moirai and Eileithyia, (a Cretan Goddess who was adopted into the Greek Pantheon, and later became syncretised with Artemis and possibly even Hekate) to keep the poor woman in perpetual labour. The friend and former childhood play-mate of the afflicted Alkmene contrived to break the concentration of the Goddesses, thus allowing the birth of Herakles, but for her impudence was turned into a polecat. Hekate however took pity and made her a sacred servant.

Aelian, however, claimed that the Polecat was in fact the Sorceress Gale who had angered Hekate; the inference is that it was her “incontinence and abnormal sexual desires” that were the cause of this transformed state; but I do have to query if this was that case, for Hekate is generally the one who takes on unfortunate creatures transformed by other Gods and when you consider the shenanigins that some of her Priestesses get up to, a little bit of a “womans problem” and some unusual appetites seems to have a ring of untruth about it, especially when the Polecat it seems was a sacred servant to the Goddess; whilst of course we cannot always claim to the know the will of the Gods, why on earth would you “punish” a person by elevating them, through transformation, to a position of favour?

This theme of taking the unwanted, ill-favoured and outcast is even further supported by the story of Hekate and Hekabe, who after the fall of Troy murdered a Thracian King and then commited suicide to avoid an unelegant death, but by Hekate’s will was transformed into a hound who was the goddess’ attendant, again when you consider that history is pretty much told by the victors, and the trojan war is one celebrated in the Greek tradgedies, we see Hekate taking the role of adoptress or mother of the underdog heroine or outcast; those whose side of the story will or can never be told.

Even Hekate herself can be considered a victim of transformation in the manner I have discussed, for according to Hesiod, in his catalog of Women, the Maiden Iphigenia, was sacrificed by her own father to appease the Goddess Artemis, but the Goddess felt sympathy for the maid and transformed her into “Hekate”. What Hesiod meant by this is unclear, obviously the knee jerk reaction is to assume that the girl literally became the Goddess Hekate; but I have harboured a small thought in my mind for a while, and I believe it is possibly supported by Euripides version of events portrayed in his two plays “Iphigenia in Aulis” and “Iphigenia in Tauris”. The former play describes the events around the slighting of Artemis and the girls sacrifice to aid her father, and how at the last minute the girl was whisked away by the Goddess and a deer left in her place, the latter then tells how Orestes, the maidens brother is sent by the God Apollo to Tauris to perform a task (again as recompense for a wrong doing) where upon we discover that the Priestess of Artemis is none other than Iphigenia herself.

What if by becoming a Priestess, the girl had in effect become Hekate; I have in my personal practise worked with the concept of “becoming Hekate”; the Chaldeans named Hekate as the world soul, and Theurgists strived to gain union with this divine essence; what if Iphigenias willing act of sacrifice allowed her to achieve, even momentarily, this union, this state of oneness with the divine?

Many Priests and Priestesses I know who name themselves as one of Hekates own, often place an emphasis on service, both to the Goddess and those around them who would strive to become closer and learn more; and her demands are often very precise, works of art and literature are often cited as being “by her command” and what better way to bring a soul closer to the divine than via the mediums which inspire and elevate the human condition.

Our transformations will obviously never be so physically profound as the anti-heroines of old, but that does not preclude them from being as meaningful, and with each little metamorphosis, perhaps, just perhaps, we will step one pace further towards becoming Hekate.

Her Sacred Fires – Redux

It barely seems more than a month or two ago that I travelled through an ever darkening sky from my home in Cheshire to the Brecon Beacons. Unlike other magickal journey’s I have undertaken in the past, this inclement weather bore no omen for me other than a sense of familiarity, more than a few wild and drunken weekends of my misspent youth were passed in the Black Mountains and their temperamental weather systems; so in many ways the journey felt a little like “coming home”.

The journey this time was for a different purpose; I was to spend the weekend with the enchanting Sorita d’Este and her lovely husband David Rankine, with the intention of participating in the inaugural performance of The Rite of Her Sacred Fires, a rite which was initially concieved as a celebration of the release of a unique collection of essays written by Hekate devotees from across the world.

We already knew in our hearts the potential enormity of what we were doing, after all when Hekate has a hand in something it far from inconsequential and she’s been nadgering a lot of folks for a lot of years, myself included. But quite how large, this rite would become had yet to be revealed; thousands of people from across the world working together in harmony for a common purpose, to show devotion to the Goddess Hekate!

Within hours of the final performances of the rites which had been rippling across the globe during the 24 hour time span given, people were asking if it could be repeated again the following year, a new festival for Hekate. It certainly seemed like a good idea, but that was a long time away, a whole 12 months, I had much work to do in the intervening time; even just a fortnight ago it still seemed like an age away, even when fellow Devotee’s & Torchbearers of The Covenant of Hekate started talking about their plans, and how to publicise the event this year it still hadn’t quite sunk in how quickly the time had passed.

On that stormy night we had decorated the altar with Cherry blossom, and it was only this weekend whilst collecting blossom for my newly constructed outdoor shrine that I stopped dead, flowers in hand, the blossoms were out again, it was nearly time, on the 16th / 17th of May 2011 we will again join together across the world to celebrate her mysteries and dance in the light of her sacred flames.

Seeing through different eyes.

So I did promise you a post about my recent eye surgery and this morning seems like a good time to write it; I woke early, before it was even daylight and sat on my doorstep drinking a coffee, the moon very low and very golden watching over me. I can see her still even though dawn is now upon me, over my shoulder through my office window.

It was a gorgeous day yesterday, balmy, the blossom is out on my Damson tree in the garden its delicate white petals literally just sprang forth over night and the birds have all gone twitter-pated as my dad used to call it. Spring has definitely sprung. But the spirits of winter cling albeit deperately on for a few more weeks and beautiful clear days are followed by bitterly cold nights and last night was one of those nights, the grass is covered in a freezing glistening coating of very heavy dew, almost frost.

On a morning such as this I would normally have stepped out from my cozy kitchen and instantly steamed up; it would have taken much polishing of glasses to afford me a clear view of the moon above me, removing them would have been pointless for I would not have even been able to make out the step at my feet let alone a solitary satellite orbiting above. But this morning there I sat shivering just a little in my dressing gown and pyjamas staring in wonder. Even now nearly two months after my surgery little things such as this, something many take for granted, delight me.

It not all a bed of roses though, one eye didn’t take the surgery as well as the other and as a result I have some ghosting/double vision in that eye, but combined my binocular vision is 20:20 so my jury is still out as to whether I will take the surgeon up on the offer to have a 2nd surgery to try and correct it. Life after all is not perfect, its all about tolerances. Look at any machine or gadget in your home, it functions, serves it purpose, as a complete unit you could say it is an item of perfection, yet its component parts may be far from perfect, all manfactured to a specification plus or minus a certain degree of tolerance. The natural world operates in the same manner, the seasons, the weather, when the flowers bloom and when the animals breed happen to a timetable but that timetable again has more than a little bit of flexibility in it and it happens in its own sweet time and its own sweet way, but it does happen, it works, a perfect item.

I’ve pondered long and hard as to why so many people purporting to lead magickal or spiritual lives seem so dissatisfied with thier lives, their constant striving for perfection (however they define it) leads to naught. And I think the problem comes down to understanding the tolerances involved, the balance that is required to take these imperfect things we are given and make them a working whole. We are all given a bunch of pegs and a board full of holes, and if peg A is just a little too large to fit in hole A, we shouldn’t sit down and moan that we have no sandpaper to make it fit, first we should try and see if peg A fits in holes B, C, D or E first, we may find that all the pegs fit in a hole somewhere even if it isn’t in the order we imagined and no sandpaper is required.

Somebody asked me about spellwork and Hekate the other day, and seemed quite disgusted when I suggested that Hekate was not generally the Goddess to approach for everyday spells. “Why is she known as the Witches Goddess then?” I was asked. And it is an interesting question. And I think it comes down to perception of what a witch is and what a witch does. And in my opinion a witch does what works! Let me explain; I was for over a decade an Engineer and a large part of that time I worked in Quality Assurance, I could look at a circuit board under a microscope and tell within a thousanth of an inch if the tracks printed on it were too close together, too thin, too thick, too raised or any number of other criteria given by the designers. If you place tracks too close together wierd stuff happens, odd harmonics can be created by the signals running down these little strips of metal affecting the operation of the device, shorts can happen, tracks that heat up can buckle causing catastrophic failure, those boards are rejected, or sometimes sent back for rework; the witch does the same, s/he takes what they are given they inspect it and accept or reject it, and unlike the clear cut function of a circuit board which is either fit for purpose or it isn’t, a witch can take what they are given and find a purpose for it. They have to look at things with different eyes, Witches are in short the Quality Assurance of the natural world.

And Hekate is the Project Manager, you can tell her you need more pegs, (or boards to inspect – pick your metaphor), but she rules the work flow. She knows what needs doing and when, she will present you with something, but it might not be the something you were expecting, or even specifically asking for, but it will be a something you can use. After all what is it Hesiod said?

By Whomever she chooses, she comes and stands in full presence and helps him.


 

The Faith of the Wise

I wanted my next post to be about my experiences of sight and sound; having recently undergone LASIK surgery a whole new world was for a time tantalisingly dangled in front and yet hidden from me but persistance showed the way and experiences I had never dreamed of came shining through; but something else happened, or maybe it happened as a result I am not sure which; during the many quiet hours I’ve had away from the computer and reading and for a short while even light many things from my past came swimming to the fore and I laughed at the irony of it as a friend had asked me just a mere few days before if I ever just sat and did nothing, my reply was, well not very satisfactory.

But this time of “altered” sight which was physically neither clear nor perfect showed me in great detail things I had not seen before; some of which is still happily swimming round and bopping me on the nose days and weeks later.

I’m not a newbie to the craft and the world of the Occult, but I wouldn’t call myself a learned master either, I’ve been on this road only slightly over a decade there are many twists and turns left to explore, I travelled for a while alone, but something made me seek out others to learn from them and thier experiences. A determined soul I searched and found, in fact I keep searching and I keep finding; the point is I found what I was looking for and needed then!

I remember somebody telling me I was an “old crafter” and the sooner I got comfortable with that the better but I had to go away and look to find out what that meant, the closest thing I could find to define this concept of “old craft” was the concepts of Gwyddon, Coven of the Scales and The Clan of Tubal Cain; none of which have a huge public presence that is for sure. I picked up the Bob Clay Edgerton Book published by Ignotus Press, and I picked up The Robert Cochrane Letters and The Roebuck in the Thicket by Capall Bann. I’ve picked up many other books along the way too, thousands of pounds worth actually on just about every subject imaginable, to the point we are seriously considering cataloging my books within the household insurance as we are not sure they would be covered under the general contents.

Yet despite all these wonderful tomes, these 3 little books not one of them priced above £12.99 are the most loved, treasured and refered to books in my collection; sorry things they are, backs all broken and torn, pages filled with highlighter pen and post it notes, pages all sellotaped together, and still they endure and call to me, perhaps less now than before, but even now 10yrs later I would say there is less than 6 months goes by without me referring to these books or working from them in some way.

A chance conversation happened this evening a fellow insomniac was bemoaning thier fate and I told them to take up spinning as it was very relaxing and was capable or putting any person into an alpha state within minutes with the right practise, I quipped that as a result of my spinning addiction I was more qualified to sign off FFF&F than many I know that have used it. And that took me aback because for many years I refused to use that as a sign off on my correspondence, to me, it should be used by only those who understood the concept of each and every one of those “F’s”.

And it got me thinking again, as a non pagan friend asked me a month or so back if I was a witch and I said categorically that no I really wasn’t one, well not in the way she was thinking anyway. But there it was shouting at me in the back of my head, The Ritual of the Castle, was I really one of the quick and the dead and maybe sadly or maybe other wise the answer was no I wasn’t. I am other, I am what Cochrane defines as witch. I personally think it is an entirely human condition and far from supernatural, its rather mundane actually when you get to the bare bones of it, but to be a member of her darling crew isn’t so much a doing but a being and I think this is where people who want lables fall down drastically.