Old and New teacups with a dash of Crossed Keys

The sun is still clinging to the hemline of the horizon and it stretches thinner as if to taunt me by saying: not yet. .  . The wind has died down from its furious pacing across the yard and if all holds the way it is now, I may be able to set up out doors in the back to be under the moon light for Her Sacred Fires Rite tonight.

I have been reading the Crossed Keys by Michael Cecchetelli. I find it interesting in  he manner that he shares some of his personal experiences with the Black Dragon Grimoire. As I was reading the evocations, I began to wonder several things about the original author of that grimoire including if the person was a priest to begin with and, if not, was this person disguising the dialogue within a Christian frame in hopes of not appearing to be a heretic. I also began to wonder about the origin of these 'demons'. As it turns out the 'demons' may not be what we think they are. Even in King Solomon's day that which we know as angels were called demons. I suspect some of them are probably divinities from cultures long passed and have been labeled as demons for the simple reason of not bowing to Christian-dom. The more I read and re read what was presented to me, the more I began to think upon my own native divinities within Feri and why would I want to add to a roster of beings (as though they were something to collect) when I have perfectly good connections of my own to call upon. I don't. As much as respect the work and praxis of the magicians presented here in this book, I don't think it's my cup of tea. . . (where's my old cup anyway?)

I have started to delve into parts of my tradition I have not thought to sink into before and I have The Crossed Keys to thank for that. I already have a connection to Gods and Goddesses and have only chanted their names with little thought of really connecting to them and creating a working relationship with them. I have always been the one to remember to say please and thank you and even yes sir/ ma'am, but these particular divinities always seemed distant to me upon evocation for ritual. While reading the Crossed Keys, I felt pulled, hard toward them even as I was fascinated with the praxis in hand. So with that in mind, for the next twelve weeks I will be working with each one in turn to begin individual introductions and personal dialogue. I have a wealth of connections and I should be cultivating and nurturing those instead of creating new ones as working with the Black Dragon Grimoire would demand I do.

I begin with Ashtaroth. She is a Phoenician Goddess also associated with Inanna and Ishtar as being one and the same on just about every different site I visit. I also see many Christian sites who call her  a demon, but that wouldn't be any new thing from them. She is a love and war goddess. However, there is more to her than love and war. She is a teacher of the liberal sciences, she also seems to have an affinity for groves, trees, the woods. She has been called a stellar Goddess and a bringer of visions and prophetic dreams. I come from a tradition that values personal experiences so reading was not enough for me. I went and built an altar for her in the West, put out my gazing mirror and made offerings of perfumed oil, sourdough bread, and a liquor. I wrote her an evocation and called upon her in the afternoon after meditating upon her in the morning. I shouldn't have been shocked by actually making contact with her, but there was something in me that was. Maybe it's just the recent stresses of my mundane life speaking. My PTSD makes me believe all sorts of crazy things like: maybe I have been abandoned by my gods. It was a good beginning this rite. Is she Inanna and Astarte and Ishtar??? I don't know, maybe. What I do know, is that I did dream something that was not the usual of late and it didn't make me afraid.    

While I am looking for employment, I keep my little etsy shop going and keep busy with other things on top of trying to decipher legal speak. . . the law really should be something that is readily accessible AND easily understood by lay people, but it's not. So needless to say, I am turned upside down and twisted into pretzel knots trying to read it while trying to keep the panic attacks to a minimum which means more breaks than I really want. Still I over do it and some times end up in full blown anxiety attack mode. It's getting better though. With the acupuncture treatments counseling and some of the coping skills I have been acquiring, I am really seeing improvement from a few months ago. I still need to be reminded to take my homeopathic remedies because there are times when I don't catch the precursors myself.

I will be okay, eventually.

Well the wind is up again. I can hear it whip by my window. . . so the rite is indoors tonight. 

Oh Spring, you tease. . .

 After reading Georgi Mishev's Thracian Magic, I decided two things: I was going to learn how to make sourdough bread from starter and I was going to make Martenitsi ( as threatened, there is a ribbon shoved into that section. Yes, the pretty blue one.)

I got really lucky, I think, with the sourdough starter and followed the directions given for catching wild yeast. I gave myself plenty of failing time just in case and before December 20, I had a nice starter and was able to make a ritual loaf of bread for my ancestors and family. My yeast beastie is happily brewing away in my fridge and gets pulled out weekly for feeding. If anyone asks if there is something living in there I can, in fact, say there is something alive in there and to watch out it may bite. Okay, maybe the biting part is over kill, but if Hagrid can unleash a monster book of monsters on his students, than a yeast beastie in my fridge should be nothing.

There has always been something a little different about bread I made myself. Something extra that comforted and nourish all those little life cravings that only melting butter on hot bread can soothe. What I experience while eating the sourdough bread was just that to an Xth degree. I suspect it was the difference in the genii intelligence of the yeast culture. It is the only thing that has shifted in my ritual breads. I will be using this recipe for all bloodless offerings. It's a good thing that this bread is so good, it will not keep very long so it's just best to eat it while it's hot.

Within the book, Georgi discusses a ritual that is literally days long all surrounding the making and  kneading of dough. It is a very communal thing and only participants of the rite walk away with the bread ( and any puzzle pieces from the Mysteries.) Secret herbs are poured in by the elders, the bread is serenaded and danced for, magic is definitely afoot. I may not be able to get together with the 'village' and perform the full rites, but I can have my daughter help me knead the dough while blasting out our favorite holiday Jingle Spells songs. ( as I said earlier, some traditions are going to have to be tossed out the window and seeing as how I am the only one in the family to dig up and pass on family and cultural trads, the whole grandma thing will have to take a back seat.)

Speaking of Grandma, another thing that will have to be done by myself are the Martenitsi. I liked the whole description of how the eyes were supposed to be closed during the crafting. That and a whole other list of proscriptions, reminded me of the faery tales of one eye open: one eye closed, on one leg in the door jam was where faeries could be seen in their realm. In another story, the whole one eye, one leg, in a door jam thing is done completely upside down! Immediately, you can see where one thought form is of protection and the other of sight or insight, but both can be infused upon crafting with specific conditions. Technically, anything can be infused during crafting. . . we have all heard about the One Ring business.

My first set of martenitsi, was of course, like all first draft writings. . . crap, but canon. I kept it and hung it in my office; it will be joining the others in the tree out front on Ostara. I thought about my failing with the martenitsis and a new design began to form in my head. I really liked the comfort stars shape as I was making them, they just turn right between your fingers making them perfect places to catch wishes. I stuffed them with lavender, a fresh smell during the last dark days of winter. I decided they would be best functional as zipper pulls as we would all be wearing jackets for a while yet.

 I stuck with the canon colors of red and whites and as I began making these, I saw that these things were not only familiar to me, but in ways I didn't quite expect. I looked around the web for some lore on the tradition and found several different variations. I had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions from the author and his answer at first vexed me. He said that it was more about the experience of creating and wearing them than the lore. As I was focusing on my connections with Hecate, I did so in a manner that spoke very deeply to my Feri views. When I pulled back and looked at what I had created, I put together that both the iron and pearl pentacles were involved in the whole wishing process. It had become a reminder to run both exercises as I was walking through the neighborhood.

I know the magic is not quite done and that my tree will probably not look as awesome as the one in that pic. The little zipper pulls will all dangle from the limbs of the honey mesquite tree and soak up more of the sky as spring pushes into my life. It's good to know that Hecate has a faery smile too.

I am finding it easier than I imagined to add ancestral cultural practices into my personal Feri praxis. I think that makes me sigh in relief. It is also good to know that, even though it's been a long time coming back, that war and hate cannot strip us of our heritage completely. The tracks of the beast are still in the forest.

Storyteller shamans

I have always thought that the telling of stories was one of the most important things for a strong society to bond into a people. Not the news, not documentaries, not the neighborhood gossip sort of stories, but the ones of legendary proportions. The ones where the villain looks to be larger than life and invincible, the heros reluctant to step to the plate, the magic hidden in plain sight. These are the stories that truly matter. They used to be told in the flickering light of a fire at night when the creatures of night stalked their shadows. The Shaman or storyteller would have everyone huddled around scarce to breathe for missing a nuance of tone as the story came to life. Sometimes the fire would help with a dramatic pop and shower of sparks. These were the days when tribes were small.

Our tribes are much larger now, but stories are still a major bonding thread through our cultures. It's not likely that we are going to huddle around a fire ( although that still sounds fun) but we all at one point find ourselves scrunched down in a movie theater chair or a sofa in our living room waiting to be told a story. When we really look at it the storyteller has to jump through many more sacred hoops to tell their tale, but the beginnings of the storytelling process remains the same. The storyteller turns inward and flies up into a realm of ethers that he or she has been invited into. Literally it is a new world with rules, heros and villains all of it's own.

Like the past, these stories link tribes of a culture together regardless of what part of the world the story travels. All who hear and love the story become kith and kin, welcomed into the world with a common understanding of humanity even if the language is different. These stories not only bind cultures together, they can act as a guide in the dark shadowed night of the soul. Often times when we are listening/ watching/ reading these stories, we end up empathizing with a specific character in the saga. During times of demon dancing it becomes helpful to look to these figures and those around them for wisdom and guidance while you dance your own shadow dance. The wisdom revealed may not be a direct application to your own motion, but rather a sudden flash of realization and inspiration. This is a true aspect of shamanism: the application of the shaman's vision to the realm we walk in whether it be a large outer world project or a personal quest.

Shamanism is not a dwindling practice, it is alive and well. It has evolved, shifted to suit the medium, the people, the largeness of the world's tribe. Maybe the traditional means and methods of training have been passed quietly around to certain keepers of these secrets, but lost they are not. There are those out there who continue the traditional practices in secret with a small group of people in clusters all over the world and sometimes in places most unexpected. Often times these Shamans, if you will, do not share their adventures believing them to be irrelevant to the outer world or useful to anyone but themselves. Sometimes what is revealed, the shaman feels should be kept secret for a time until it is the correct place in time to reveal the mystery for further unfolding. Sometimes the shaman never reveals the story because the battle is their personal dance.

Every once in a while, I fall upon a movie, book or painting that reveals to me that the art of the storytelling shaman is still alive and well. These people may not recognize what it is they are doing, but I do. If there is any doubt, ask the story teller this:" how real are your characters and their world to you?" Most of them will tell you something like this:" my characters talk to me and have a running commentary on my life." These storytellers may not have been trained in traditional manners or be keepers of traditional secrets, but they have tapped into something larger than themselves and come back with a legend to pass to their perceived tribe. Some of these modern legends have swayed the thinking and understanding of real people in this realm, possibly shifting this world in a very real manner. If that's not shamanism, I don't know what the hex is.

I believe society needs these story tellers to help make sense of our world and lives. I believe that these stories make us stronger as both a society and individual. Think carefully, who are your storyteller shamans? How have they affected your universe? What untold stories have you been invited to dance within and have you the courage to tell them?

Hello. . . God? It's me, Nalaya!

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I am one of those who believes that the Universe is alive and sentient. I believe in Gods and Goddesses who hear your call and respond in kind. I also believe that these beings have your best interest at heart. Ok most of them, but that requires an explanation on an entirely different posting.  I also believe in signs. I believe they are everywhere once you establish a solid connection to your higherself and divinity.

Actually, I think I have come to a point where belief is no longer an accurate word for what I experience in the signpost department. Believing implies that you know it's out there, you have heard stories about it from other people whom you have faith in, but you have yet to have the phenomenon touch your life. I think experience of a thing changes that belief into knowledge. So, I stand corrected. I know that the signs are there.

You can even ask for them to be specific. . . although how they manifest is usually unexpected, yet exactly what you ask for. In a lot of cases, it just shows that the Universe and the Gods really do have a great sense of humor. The largest hurdle to over come is usually the same one everyone else experiences in any other spiritual path: Faith in something larger than you really is listening and willing to help. You must establish that you are expecting to see that sign you asked for and are willing to follow it. ( this does not mean we abandon common sense mind you)

Patience is also part of this formula. You must be willing to let the universe to arrange things for the sign to happen. That does not mean we sit on the couch in a catatonic state paralyzed to do anything until it shows up. It means: keep calm and carry on with your normal life with a sharp eye and open heart.

I have an open dialogue with divinity. Sometimes there is frustration, sometimes there is gratitude and yes, sometimes even anger. I have been told by someone I consider to be wise that if you have not shook your fist in anger at the Gods, then you have not felt their hand in your life. I have also been told that the Gods are large enough to take your anger. They have a perspective on life that we cannot understand and they know that we will get angry with them the same way that a child gets angry when told "no."

The first sign you may want to start working with is the one I call: Hello Gods? It's me, Nalaya. If you can hear me show me a ( insert your own sign here.) Then be patiently observant as you go through your life. Don't be afraid to be daring, if you want see dancing pink elephants as your sign. . . it will happen. It may take some time. . but it will happen. The more you practice this, the faster you will see results. Establishing a dialogue like this with divinity is just like any other skill. It requires practice, patience and belief in yourself.