Prints Available

This is one of the other things I've been working on: prints available through Deviant Art. Click here for my prints gallery.

I've got a few more than thirty of them up now, in various sizes; all the Gods, and starting in on the Goddess Oracle cards. I'm working on getting them all up (with a couple of exceptions, namely Melaina, which is just too dark, and the Sheila na Gig, which contravenes their policy, which is, yes, stupid, as it is a sincere religious work of art); but if you have a specific request just drop me a line (my first name at my first name my last name dot com) and I'll move it to the front of the line.

Also if you're interested in something larger (the biggest I've got them is like ten by fifteen inches I think) let me know. I'll have to make up more art at a higher resolution, but it's not a problem at all.

Guardian Angel

No, I'm not dead. I'm not exactly sure what is going on right now, but I suppose we can call it being Muse-ridden. I have no idea where it's going to take me.

Also, yeah, guess I dropped the ball on the Pagan Blog Project, didn't I? Ah well.

Here's what I've been driven to make the last few days. It's another one of the daimon portraits. Seraphim, I hear, are the six-winged sorts; though cherubim are the ones with the eyes:



Ai me. If you recognize that model, please don't say it out loud. It's all so ridiculous. Though I suppose if you're real sharp that unnaturally colored songbird gives it away right straight.

I can only laugh at it all, I suppose.

Query

Anyone interested in hedgewitchery, drop me a line. My address: my first name at my first name my last name dot com, all lowercase.

J Is For Jasasara

Never heard of the Goddess Jasasara, you say? Oh, you have, trust me. You just didn't know that was Her name.

All right. I suppose I should state right up front that I am not any sort of academic; I am, as ever, an interested amateur. Nor, especially, am I a linguist, so I have to take other people's words for it.

So this is going to take a little bit of explaining. The scholarship is based on that most enigmatic of languages, whatever the language was: the one written down in so-called Linear A.

Yep. We're talking Minoan, here.

There were several scripts, properly syllabaries, in Minoan (and Mycenaean) Crete; a syllabary meaning a script in which the symbols stood for combinations of letters, usually two, though vowels on their own are included. Linear B, the later of the two, was famously translated by Michael Ventris in 1952; he realized it was an archaic form of Greek. Linear B is of course called B because it derives from Linear A; the language, however, of Linear A is not Greek, and has proved difficult to translate, in large part because there just aren't a lot of examples of it, but also because it doesn't seem to be related to much else, meaning, there are a lot of pet theories out there.

However, Linear B did come out of Linear A; and the symbols in Linear B have reliably assigned sounds. What that means is that more than a few Linear A symbols have been presumed to have sounds similar to their Linear B counterparts.

Now. A lot of what we do have for examples of Linear A is the so-called Libation Formula, a set series of words inscribed on various offerings, generally found dedicated at peak sanctuaries in Crete. They seem to say 'so-and-so of such-and-such a place dedicates this to Jasasara' and then three more (untranslated) words; the word 'Jasasara' is consistent, and is taken to be the name of a Goddess.

The name may simply be a title meaning 'Lady', much like the later Potnia of the Greeks. It has parallels to the Hittite Goddess name Esha-sara or Ishassara, which also simply means 'Lady', as well as to Asherah of the Canaanites.

Now, fair enough, as a title, Jasasara may refer to more than just one Goddess, as the later Greek term Potnia certainly did; I'm inclined to think, though, given that the offerings dedicated to Her are found primarily at peak sanctuaries, that we are talking about one Goddess. Of course, whether or not the Minoans worshipped one Goddess with several aspects, or quite different and separate Goddesses is still being debated, and I imagine we won't ever really know barring a time machine. But this is a name for Her, or one of Her, that is not Greek. And it is an important name, too, and so I imagine, an important Goddess, given the number of times Her name appears.

Again, I am not an academic, but I thought this was interesting. It's a name I hadn't heard until recently, though it seems to be pretty solidly accepted; and I thought it deserved to be more well known that the name of an important (perhaps the?) Minoan Goddess is Jasasara.

Sources:

Aegean Art and Architecture, by Donald Preziosi and Louise A. Hitchcock.

The Cambridge Companion to the Bronze Age, edited by Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, chapter seven, "Minoan Culture: Religion, Burial Customs, and Administration," by John G. Younger and Paul Rehak.

The Language of the Minoans, by Virginia Hicks in the Anistoriton Journal of History, Archaeology, Art History: Viewpoints

Also by Virginia Hicks at the same site is a very interesting article in which she connects Jasasara to a very old form of Athena. I'm not sure I'm sold on the Sun Goddess idea, but it is quite a fascinating read.

G Is For Goddesses of Finland

(This one took a while to write up, which is why I'm behind with these Pagan Blog Project entries. Not that I'm surprised or anything.)

Well, okay, you didn't think I was going to let G pass without somehow talking about Goddesses, did you? This is me, after all. Among other things, as part of that year-and-a-day course I'm taking (in Christopher Penczak's book The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft) I am supposed to research a particular culture's mythology.

Yeah, I know; what a drag.

So I chose Finnish mythology, because it is so heavily steeped in both magic and shamanism, so it seemed appropriate. It's also one I don't know a whole lot about, although part of that is because there isn't too much information out there, or there isn't at least as far as I've been able to find (in English). I have acquired a copy of the Kalevala, the so-called national epic of Finland; it's pieced together from traditional folk songs collected in the early 19th century by one Elias Lönnrot and so is a little problematic as far as a source goes, since to make it into some kind of coherent narrative Lönnrot had to mix it up a bit. Still, the tales, or songs, called runot (which means, yes, 'runes') are pretty clearly speaking about the Gods.

Or, as is ever my focus, the Goddesses.

There is of course generally more information out there about Gods than there is about Goddesses, and the mythology of Finland is no exception. So often, researching Goddesses is about piecing together the tiniest scraps of information. But I'll try.

These are, necessarily, going to be brief entries, just a taste; I suspect that this will form the germ of the Finnish series over at the Obscure Goddess Online Directory, my crazy project I started because I just get obsessive about researching Goddesses.

I'll start with the creation Goddess Ilmatar.

Her name means 'Female Spirit of the Air', from ilma, 'air', and the suffix -tar, meaning 'female spirit', though in other names the latter looks to be translated as 'daughter', so Her name could I suppose also mean 'Daughter of the Air'. She is also called Luonnatar, though that is technically a title rather than a proper name, and means 'Female Spirit of Creation' or 'Daughter of Nature.'

She is quite certainly a primeval creation Goddess of great power. Her story, related right at the beginning of the Kalevala, is that She grew bored with living in the air, so let Herself fall into the Sea, the only other thing (besides light) that was in existence in those earliest of days. By the Sea She floated in She became pregnant, but as there was no dry land yet, She could not give birth. One day a bird, depending on the version an eagle or a scaup (a type of duck), landed on Her upraised knee, and made her nest (in Larousse, the author, one F. Guirand, of course consistently calls the duck 'he', even though 'he' lays an egg, reverting to male-as-default even when it makes no sense.) In time, though, Ilmatar moves, and the egg rolls off into the Sea, where it breaks open. From the egg, then, which is of course a symbol of infinite potential and the beginnings of life and matter, Ilmatar creates the rest of the cosmos. From the yolk She makes the Sun, from the whites the Moon; from one half of the shell the Earth, and the other the dome of the Heavens.

She then shapes the land, hollowing out bays, smoothing out shores, arranging islands; she also sets up 'the sky's pillars.'

Finally, after more than seven hundred years, She gives birth to a rather impatient Väinamoinen, one of the heroes of the Kalevala.

Now, one of the other major heroes of the Kalevala is one Lemminkäinen, rather a rakish and impulsive sort; on one adventure He descends to Tuonela, the Underworld, where He is bitten by a poisonous serpent, drowned in a whirlpool, and then cut in pieces. His mother (Whom He didn't listen to, of course), searches for Him far and wide, taking many shapes:

The mother sought the one gone
astray, for the lost she longs:
she ran great swamps as a wolf
trod the wilds as a bruin
waters as an otter roamed
lands she walked as a pismire
as a wasp headland edges
as a hare lakeshores;
rocks she shoved aside
and stumps she tilted
moved dead boughs to the roadside
kicked dead trunks to form causeways.

('Pismire', in case you're wondering, is an old word for an ant.)

Finally the Sun tells her what He has seen; She Herself then descends to the Underworld and fishes the parts of his body from the river with a rake. She then reassembles Him, and brings Him back to life, and, yes, Lemminkäinen is rather a shamanic figure, as His death (threefold, incidentally) and dismemberment very much resemble a shamanic initiation.

But here's the thing. His mother goes unnamed, though She is clearly a very powerful figure, at the very least a powerful magician, probably a Goddess. But She is only ever called in the Kalevala 'Lemminkäinen's mother.'

But then there's this: Crawford, in the Preface to his 1888 translation, says that the Finns thought Väinamoinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen to be descendants of Ilmatar, which is usually taken to mean they are Her sons. So Ilmatar, the Creation Goddess, the one Who formed the Earth, is Lemminkäinen's mother, and She has a name.

Another major Goddess is Louhi, the Mistress of Pohja, norther Finland or Lapland. She is roundly portrayed as an evil figure, Who thwarts Lemminkäinen, has the ability to lock the Sun and Moon in a dark cave, and let loose disease upon the land of Kalevala. She also demands that Väinamoinen forge the magical sampo as bride-price for Her daughter. She may well be the same as the Goddess Loviatar, the blind daughter of Tuonetar (the queen of the Underworld, Tuonela) and Tuoni (the king there and God of death). Like Ilmatar, She was also a virgin mother, in Her case made pregnant by the wind, and bearing nine sons Who personified various diseases.

Tuonetar Herself is infamous for Her hospitality: in the Kalevala She offers Väinamoinen a two-handled flagon of beer swimming with frogs and worms, then tells Him to drink up, to which He says He's not interested in getting drunk. She then tells Him he'll never see His home again.

Her daughters, like Louhi's sons, are Deities of diseases, the first being Loviatar (probably Louhi), as mentioned above, considered the origin of all evil. Other Goddesses of illness are Kipu-Tytto, Kivutar, and Vammatar.

Mielikki is the Goddess of the forest, invoked, with Her husband (or father-in-law) Tapio and daughter Tuulikki, for success in the hunt; She also protects domestic animals, like cattle, and heals wounded animals. Her name comes from the word for luck, mielu.

Vellamo is the Goddess of the Sea, said to be the wife of Ahti, the Sea God, a name often applied to Lemminkainen in the Kalevala, though in that epic His wife is Kylikki. Vellamo and Ahti live in a place called Ahtola, located under the waves by a cliff.

And I'll end this with Mader-Akka, a Goddess of the Lapps in the north. Her name simply means 'Woman'; her husband is Ukko, the God of thunder and the sky. Between the two of Them They created humanity; She making the bodies, and He the souls. Mader-Akka, or just Akka, granted fertility to women, and successful harvests; She corresponds more or less to Mother Earth. Her Estonian name is Maan-Eno; She was also called Rauni, after the rowan tree, which are sacred to Her.

Mader-Akka and Mader-Atcha (another name for Ukko, I assume) had three daughters, Sar-Akka, Uks-Akka, and Juks-Akka. If the child to be born was a girl, Sar-Akka placed the soul into the body to be born; if a boy, Uks-Akka did so.


Sources:

New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, section on Finno-Ugric Mythology, by F. Guirand.

Wikipedia (I know).

John Martin Crawford's 1888 English translation of the Kalevala, accessed through sacred-texts.com.

Keith Bosley's translation of the Kalevala, from 1989.

Greater Celandine

After all that the next thing I write happens to be a G entry, ha! Isn't that just the way it goes.

This particular plant has been a familiar one since I was a kid. So familiar, yet I never knew its name until recently. It was just that weed that was everywhere and had that weird bright yellow sap. We used to break off stems and use them to write with as kids. But here's a picture of it, taken in my yard today:



And here's one from Wikipedia, showing its very familiar flowers (since it's not in bloom here yet):



Its Latin name is Chelidonium majus; it is not particularly related to lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), which is a member of the buttercup family, greater celandine being a member of the poppy family (as evidenced by its four petals). The name comes from the Greek word for swallow, khelidon (χελιδων), as its bloom period coincided with the return of the swallows. It's the only plant in its genus, but still called majus, which means 'great' in Latin; I assume because of the common name. And kids, don't mix your Latin and Greek like that. It hurts.

It's not native to the 'new' world, having been brought over by the early European colonists for its medicinal value. From there it escaped, and spread, and spread, until now it is considered invasive in some states (though not in mine).

These days it's considered poisonous, toxic in moderate doses, so, though historically it was taken internally, personally I think I'll steer clear of that for right now.

It has a long association with the eyes: Pliny (the Elder, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79CE) in his Natural History says the juice, boiled with honey, is good against 'films on the eyes' (cataracts, maybe?); Culpeper, who was quite a character, let me tell you (bit of a socialist before his time whose mission was to bring healing to the poor through the use of freely available herbs; he was at one point accused of witchcraft, natch), in his 1653 Herbal also says it is good for sore eyes. He connects the plant with Leo and the Sun, I assume because of its yellow flowers and yellow sap; as the Sun is long associated with the eye, perhaps that is part of where that comes from. He also says it is good for the liver and curing jaundice; again I suspect the yellow color has something to do with that. He recommends it against 'the tetters', what we call ringworm today, though it's not a worm but a fungal infection; one of greater celandine's common names was thus tetterwort. He also says 'It is good in all old filthy corroding creeping ulcers wheresoever' and man, I just gotta say Nicholas Culpeper is a real hoot sometimes. And then he goes on to grouse about how lesser celandine is misnamed, as any idiot can tell it's nothing like greater celandine and obviously unrelated (I paraphrase, but not by much, honestly; seriously, go read the Wikipedia article on him—his sarcastic use of all caps is genius).

But then he says something really interesting. He says that 'alchymists' use greater celandine to make a substance (after a lot of work, as usual with alchemy) that is 'sufficient for the cure of all diseases'. I'm not an alchymist myself, but that does sound rather close to the famed Philosopher's Stone, doesn't it?

The juice of the plant can irritate the skin (though I've been yanking it out of my gardens for years and have never noticed anything), and was used to treat various skin diseases, including warts, which the fresh juice is said to dissolve, giving it the really quite wonderful name of wartwort. It was also called swallowwort (from the Greek I assume), felonwart (a 'felon' being an inflammation of the fingernail), and kenningwort ('kenning' being related to sight, I think in this case pretty literally, given the connection with the physical eyes).

Those are all its traditional uses. Now to the magical ones, as they say. A.J. Drew in his Wiccan Formulary and Herbal says it transforms bondage into love; and Cunningham, in his Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs says it 'aids in escaping unwanted imprisonment and entrapments of every kind'. Both say to effect these changes one should make a sachet with the leaves, and carry it on the person.

As to my own experience with this plant, I suppose I should first say that I don't really have much experience with any plants, at least magically speaking; these articles are going to be, of necessity, more about book-learning than my impressions, or unverified personal gnosis if you prefer; but I will say this about greater celandine.

I was out on a walk the other day, through the old, historic part of town, and, since I've been thinking about herbs and plants a lot recently, I was paying quite a bit of attention to the plants at the side of the road. I saw no greater celandine, though it is all over my own yard.

Until, that is, I came to a house, one that is in serious disrepair, though it is still lived in. It is literally shuttered, and where there are no shutters the blinds are lowered; and the yard itself is all overgrown. I suspect, because I just have a sense for these things, that the person who lives there is a hoarder. And her yard was full of the stuff, like mine, like this hoarded yard my sister and I have been cleaning for several years now. Escape from imprisonment and entrapments, says Cunningham. There is a reason, I think, that it has caught my attention just now.



Sources:

Nicolas Culpeper article at Wikipedia.

Chelidonium article also at Wikipedia.

The Complete Herbal, Nicholas Culpeper

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, by Scott Cunningham

Natural History, Pliny the Elder

A Wiccan Formulary and Herbal, by A.J. Drew

Blog Note

Apparently Blogger is being stupid about comments; I'd noticed it myself trying to leave comments on other blogs, but figured it was just me with my ancient (Mac) browser. I'm not sure what I can do about it, as it doesn't appear to be on my end; and I don't suppose if you're experiencing problems you can leave a comment letting me know, ha. So I don't know what to say except to let you know. Sorry.

G Is For Green and Growing Things

Okay, so I'm a bit late, again; I was having a block on the letter G. Alphabetical groupings don't necessarily make real sense; they aren't after all proper categories, just grouped together by more or less luck. So I've been finding I want to write about lots of things, but was having a hard time fitting it into the rules of the Pagan Blog Project.

Not that I'm giving up on it; I like that it is getting me to write here on this blog in a more consistent fashion. So I'm keeping it for now.

I've been working my way through Christopher Penczak's The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft: Shadows, Spirits, and the Healing Journey. And though it's not one of the 'official' assignments in it, I'm finding I really want to learn more about herbs and plants. This is a big gap in my knowledge, one that really ought to be remedied if I am to call myself a Witch.

Now I've done plenty of gardening, and so I do know a few things about plants here and there; but this is a little different. This is about the history, the symbolism, the old connections and correspondences, not just the planting zone and does it want sun or shade. This is a more Witchy approach.

But it's a huge subject. And so I haven't known where to start.

But then it came to me: start where I am. I mean, that's where any of us have to start, anyway. And where I am is living on this little patch of land in New England, this yard. So I'll start there, with the plants that I've been looking at all my life, and then, maybe, branch out to the exotic stuff like mandrake (which I think is a couple planting zones out of my range, as I'm pretty sure it's native to the Mediterranean). So I'll start here, with my own yard.

To that end, then, this G is for Green and Growing Things is not going to be one article, but a series, as I find writing proper articles, for an audience, to be a very good way for me to make sense of information; in presenting it to others I have to make it make sense to myself, first. I'll give them all their own tag, too ("Herb Series"); I may even give them a listing of their own on the sidebar, just to make it easier for folks to find.

So I'm going to start with one of the most familiar plants in my yard, a plant that's always been there yet whose name I only figured out recently: greater celandine. Off to write!

F Is For Feline Meditation

Funny, I had originally started posting this just as a bit of fun while I tried to think of the second F post for the Pagan Blog Project, as I had a bit of a block on it. But when I finished it I realized it was, after all, an entry for F. Well okay then.

This meditation requires a couple of willing participants. It will very much depend on the second of the two. The first being you, and the second being a happy cat who purrs loudly. You can see that this will depend on the cat. As it should.

But the next time you find yourself in close proximity to a happy cat give this a try. It works best if said happy cat is on your lap, but next to you within range of being touched is really all you need.

First, get that cat good and revved up and purring loud as a lawnmower. Then put your hand on the cat so that you can both feel and hear the purring. (You may need to keep patting the cat so it keeps up the loud purr).

Next, close your eyes and listen to that purr. Listen, really listen, to it. At the same time feel that purr. Feel it through your hand or wherever the cat is touching you, probably your lap.

Then, open yourself up and accept that purr into yourself. Let it fill your brain and your heart with joy.

Mind you, this is simply passively receiving what is freely offered to the air. You are most emphatically NOT pulling anything out of or from the cat; for one thing that would be rude, and for another this is a cat; seriously, don't be stupid: they will always out-witch you.

It works wonders as a mood lifter (well obviously) both in the moment and I think with more lasting effects, but it also works as practice in being in the here and now, in your body and grounded.

Give it a try!

F Is For Faery

I've been working my way through Christopher Penczak's book The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft; this month, the third month of lessons since I started the book with the new year, is focused on the Lower World. Among other exercises such as finding your 'power animal,' (which I find I have to put in quotes because it doesn't seem like quite the right term to me), he also talks about beginning a relationship with the local fairies.

The thing about fairies, or faeries, or the Fay*, or the Good Folk, or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods, is that everyone knows, more or less, what they are, but no one can quite define them. I suppose that's appropriate, given their in-between nature. They might be nature spirits, the dwindled remains of former Gods, the Dead, all of the above, or something else entirely.

One thing that does seem to be agreed-upon, however, is that they have an aversion to iron. I have always taken this to mean that iron is a symbol of civilization and of mankind's determination to control and subjugate nature; and so as the voice of the wild, the fairies are naturally not too keen on the stuff.

Now that leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. You may have heard (or you may not have, since I imagine a few readers will have popped over from the Pagan Blog Project page), that my father was a hoarder. A hoarder who was also a mechanic, which influenced what he hoarded. Oh sure, he hoarded the usual things, newspapers, books, and used paper coffee cups, but his especial speciality was junk cars and, guess what, iron.

My sister and I have been cleaning up this yard for the last couple of years; that's a whole other blog. Hie thee over there for the gruesome details, including a video of the yard at its worst. Oh, it was bad. Trust me.

There were piles and piles of iron here, saved against Godsknow what dark future my father feared, though, honestly, my latest theory is that hoarders believe that if they save enough stuff for 'what-if' or 'someday' then they will be prepared. And by prepared I mean they think they will be able to avoid the bad stuff, because they have something saved just for that. And by bad stuff, I mean death. I really think that hoarders, or at least my father, think that if they save enough stuff they won't die.

Anyway. We've taken lots and lots of iron out of here in the last few years. By last count, and this is a real number because I have the receipts, we've brought more than seventeen tons of iron to the scrapyard. Yeah, seventeen tons. And it's not anywhere nearly cleaned yet. There's still plenty more where that came from.

The thing about iron is that is decomposes; it rusts. So even if we were at the point where we'd taken all the surface stuff away, there would still be bits and pieces of rust in the dirt. When we rake up the debris, the more we rake, the more iron and rust we find. My father hoarded this property for something like forty years; that's layer upon layer of rust, and leaves, and dirt, and I have no idea how far down it goes.

And there's plenty of iron in the soil around here anyway, just naturally. The local mill-stream runs red, and the rocks within are coated with it. We used to have well-water. I could never understand what people meant when they claimed water had no taste; to me it was this horrible metallic stuff. Once, my father put the faucet on a slow but steady dribble, then held a magnet to the side. The water bent.

And so where does that leave the local fairies? I can't imagine that any of them are going to want to come anywhere near my yard, not for a very very long time, like decades, maybe. Or if they do, or are here already, won't they be angry, really, really angry? Not that it is my fault, and yes, I am cleaning it up as best I can, but still. That much iron is not going to agree with them; it just can't.

And so I can't imagine inviting them in; it sounds, well, mean of me. Come hang out in a place that will hurt you. That's like asking your friends over when your smoke detector is stuck on alarm mode. Ouch. Penczak does say that it's optional, and something you should only do if you feel called to it; and so I think I will hold off on it for now.

I do think the fairies would approve of the clean-up job I'm doing; but I just don't think the place is anywhere near ready yet.



*Pet peeve from a Tolkienist: fey with an E describes a certain kind of who-cares-any-more clear-sighted despair due to being near to death and knowing it, for example in the late mental state of the guy of whom was said A Túrin Turambar turun ambar-tanen; it is not the same word as fay, which is another word for fairy. Maybe, maybe, under the definition of 'displaying unearthly qualities' it could be applied to fairy sorts, but, sorry, no, it's not just another way to spell 'fay.' SO STOP IT PEOPLE.

E Is For Emerald

I have said before that my experience of my daimon, that Spirit Guide, linked soul, Muse, Inspirer, whatever he is and no after all these years I still don't really know, everything and nothing, dead and alive, here and not here all at the same time, is both present, immediate, and profound. By which I mean (for example) that when I go to bed at night and close my eyes there he is.

And lately, when I see him, he has taken to hanging emerald on me, both the color and the gem. He has, night after night, been holding dresses up to me, dresses in blue-green silk shot through with gold, green as Tara, green as the mantle of Our Lady Brighid, and judging them against me, seeing if the color suits. It is very strange. He has never done anything like this before.

But mostly it is emerald jewellery.

I have also said before that these visions, I guess, are very detailed and very precise. And so I can describe, and I'm quite sure I could draw, very accurately, necklace after necklace after necklace. Like:

A collar set with emeralds an inch round, surrounded by diamonds, extravagant and thick, like something found about the neck of Liz Taylor;

An old Roman number, of beads made from the raw six-sided emerald crystals, strung together with gold wire twisted into little knotwork loops;

One of innumerable emerald drops, thick as leaves;

An Art Deco set with square emeralds in-a-row and two rows of smaller square diamonds above; in the front the two ends meet and join with a medallion just below the breasts, to end in a tassel of diamonds and emeralds, with, a pair of earrings of emerald and diamond long enough to splash on my shoulders, and a bracelet worn over elbow-length gloves with a little chain, or string of diamonds hanging, plus, a little barrette to wear with a 20s bob, with a square emerald in the center and parallel rows of diamonds to either side;

A wide gold band from which a fringe of gold and emerald beads depend; this one goes with a sleeveless dress with a wide scoop-neck, this straight almost shift thing but in the most incredible fabric—overlapping rectangles of many different greens, some shot with gold, like something Klimt would have designed;

An articulated silver necklace shaped like a snake, clasped in front, with the snake biting its own tail, every scale of which is set with an emerald.

I do not know why he is so obsessed with emeralds. I really don't. When I ask him he just says It's a good colour on you. While this may be true, I know that is not the real reason he is doing this.

So. There's something about emeralds that I should know, I guess. So let's see what I can find.

It's a kind of beryl, emerald is, namely beryllium aluminum silicate. They are almost never perfect, and so are often oiled to hide cracks and flaws, and to make the color brighter. And yet, even with the imperfections, they are one of the most highly prized of all gemstones. I like that; that the imperfections and flaws do not diminish their worth.

In the west they are commonly associated with the month of May, and with the Goddess, or planet, Venus; the green color also makes them symbolic of youth and springtime, of green and growing things, of increase, wealth, and happiness. They are also a symbol of faithfulness and marital happiness, which is more properly June; let's say they have something to do with love, then. One could, I suppose, also connect them with the heart chakra (to switch to another system), given the connection with love and their green color.

The emerald is also strongly associated with sight, of both the first and second kind. It was believed to have great powers to heal problems with the eyes and vision. It was also thought to sharpen the wit and intellect, to make people more honest, and to improve the memory and bring eloquence.

Emeralds were also thought to reveal the truth. On the mundane side of things, this meant they were believed to be able to reveal whether one's lover was cheating, usually by dramatically cracking or breaking in their presence. This affinity for the truth also meant that emeralds were thought to be able to neutralize curses and cancel spells, which, if I'm remembering correctly, is also an attribute of the plant cinquefoil, which I wrote about a few weeks back. And like cinquefoil, emerald is associated with the number five.

Emerald was also known for giving or enhancing the powers of prophecy; to cultivate this it was recommended to place one under the tongue.

So, what have we got, then. We've got marriage, love, youth, springtime, truth, honesty, breaking curses, sharpening the wits, the memory, and the Sight, which I'm going to assume includes the intuition. The emeralds my daimon has been draping on me have for the most part been necklaces, things about the neck, the throat. So that's probably something to do with the voice, or the heart, as that's the general area. That's interesting.

I keep coming back to how the flaws do not diminish their worth. Emeralds are still prized, highly so, and the imperfections are a natural, and expected, part of them. That is a good thing to be reminded of.




Sources:

Gemstones (an Eyewitness Handbook), by Caroline Hall, 1994

An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, by J.C. Cooper, 1978

From the Curious Lore of Precious Stones: Being a Description of Their Sentiments, George Frederick Kunz, 1913, accessed through Google Books

E Is For The Elements

Once upon a time I was in a coven. It was a while ago now; we split up when some of us moved north and others of us moved south and it just wasn't working, geographically, anyway.

In this coven, like a lot of others, when we cast circles we used the correspondences of east as air, south as fire, west as water, and north as earth.

I went along with it; it was what we did, and I guess I didn't think about it too much. But one thing always bothered me and never made any sense to me at all, and that was putting earth in the north.

North is winter. Winter is cold, dead, sleeping, comatose; none of this makes sense to me as earth. Oh I get that earth represents the Void in some ways, the black primal matter from which all else arises; but in my experience with the Void, or the wings of my daimon, shall we say, that black is not dead, but vibrantly alive, teeming with potential: radiant, even. And north and winter just don't fit that, for me.

If something is going to function as the I guess archetype of the element, then I'd expect that element to be awake, at least, and for earth, that means growth, luxurious unbridled inexhaustible life, zoë, as Kerényi would say. In other words, not winter.

But then in my wanderings about the internet I found this article: Re-Thinking the Watchtowers, by Mike Nichols. If you've never read it, go do that now, and then come back. I'll wait.

He makes a fairly compelling argument for doing it this way: east as earth, south as fire, west as water, and north as air.

So I tried it, since north as air fit with what I'd always seen, here in New England, which is so much like Old England, in both the lay of the land (once in fact the very same land, which split off with continental drift) and, more or less, in climate. North as the place from where the cold winds blow? Yes, that makes sense to me.

And it worked. Holy moly it worked. Everything got upped, got more powerful. I could feel it. Mostly, I think, because, like Nichols says in his article, you get a sort of 'generator' effect, of alternating 'feminine' and 'masculine' energies, of the obviously horizontal (earth and water, that which literally is the horizon and that which seeks the level, east and west) and the vertical (fire and air, both of which can flow upward, heat rising through the air, south and north); and it really does feel (to me, anyway) like an radial engine firing, round and round and round, building up power.

Now. One of Nichols's arguments for putting air in the north, is that it corresponds to the layout of the land, specifically the British Isles. When you look on the map, to the west is the Atlantic Ocean, to the south, the warmer lands (and eventually the equator), to the east, the great land mass of all of Asia, and to the north, the cold blustery Arctic, which, incidentally, is not land anyway, being a frozen ocean.

But then the other night I was again wandering about the internet and came across another web site talking about the elements and the directions; alas, I don't remember what the site was, so I can't link now, but the author recommended trying all kinds of different correspondences, to see what fit best for you. Everyone, after all, has different associations with things depending on circumstance and experience, or on how one's individual brain works.

So then I thought: well, much as I like England and wish I were there (I've been and it felt like home, oh my god it felt like home), I am not. I'm in New England. And when I look at the map of where I actually am, the land I am supposed to be grounded to, my landbase, as Hecate would say, what do I see? I see water, that same Atlantic Ocean, to my east, and the great mass of the rest of the country to my west. Now I know, west as the Sea over which the Dead pass, sure, that's very ingrained in folklore. Folklore that I've certainly read, and which resonates, because my family does ultimately come from those lands, but folklore which is still specific to a place that is not where I am now.

So I switched it again, putting water in the east, and earth in the west. It still has the same horizontal/vertical, feminine/masculine tension to it.

Now I've only just come up with this, and so I've only had one chance to try it, and that wasn't in a full circle, just as part of cleansing a space. But as I faced east, I could picture the ocean before me, the ocean I know and am familiar with; and facing west I saw the rest of the land, all the way across the Mississippi, over the plains, over the mountains, all the way, all this land, and I knew where I was. I could feel my feet firmly planted in the reality of this land, this specific place.

So I'd say, if you live on the eastern seaboard of the US (Hecate, yeah, I'm totally looking at you), give it a try. It grounded me instantly, profoundly, unthinkingly, just as a matter of course, because it represents where I am.

D Is For Dark

Yes, well, these posts are taking a dark turn. I'm not surprised. Well, less a dark turn and more an honest appraisal that where I am now is in the dark. It's not a bad place; I rather like it, actually. It's less stress on the eyes. These posts are also less overtly Pagany, and more personal; but that's much more interesting, to me at least I suppose. And, I am Pagan, through to the marrow of my bones, and always have been, even if I didn't know the word for it. So, to me, personal is going to be Pagan. It can't help but be.

I used to be afraid of the dark. Still am, I suppose, a bit, though that's weird to admit as a supposed grown-up. That's the literal dark, though, the dark room I have to pass through, the yard at night with I don't even know what there lurking. Nothing much different than what's there during the day, I know, but still. But I'm not afraid of the dark of the mind, as in the dark unconscious, or of what is within that, the Shadow.

I may be a bit weird. Okay, that's obvious; what I mean is that I seem to be one of those people whose polarity of the neutron flow has been reversed since birth. I am right-handed, but I have always, always, naturally done things widdershins. I can make a conscious effort, to say, stir a magical recipe deosil,* clockwise, and I'll think I have; but after a moment I'll realize, that, no, that's widdershins again.

I have done some Shadow work. It seems to be different for me than what most people mean when they do Shadow work. It's never things that I reject because they are awful; it's things I reject because they're good. It's the things I figure I don't deserve. This would be a direct result of being neglected as a kid, I know now.

But anyway, here I am in the dark and oddly enough I find it comfy. Even the stuff dug up, the nasty stuff, is comforting in a way; for it is validating. See? I can say. There was something fucked-up about it all. It's not just me.

It helps, a lot, that my daimon is a creature of the dark. It is his fundamental nature to be a messenger between the dark and the light, the unconscious and the conscious. No matter who he looks like, whose body he's borrowing, his hair will always go to black in time; and his eyes, if not black, will still always go dark eventually. And with him as Guide how could I be afraid? It is his place, his, if not realm, at least partly his home, and he is not afraid there. And so therefore it is my home, too.

Mostly what I have found, there in the dark, over and over again is richness. Richness, and beauty, and magic, that numinous dark glow informing what I find there. My best ideas come straight from that Source. Visions originate there, as far as I've seen anyway, and poking around in there gets me full pictures of paintings, dresses, weird Tarot cards, oh like this one:



That's from the deck my daimon reads with. The cards are wondrous strange, let me tell you. They are, of course, also profoundly, uncannily, accurate. How could they not be?

The bottom of the well, from where the water springs, the clearest most watery water, is also far down in the dark, where the light does not penetrate. The water on the surface isn't quite the same, not as powerful, pure, concentrated, numinous. You have to be willing to go to the depths to drink of it.

But it is worth it.



*Pronounced JAY-shill, incidentally. Spread the word!

D Is For Daimon

Yeah, well, D is for Duh, too.

I have talked about him here and there on this blog, my daimon. There is a lot to say about him. I really haven't said much at all. Thing is I don't know how much I want to share. It is, shall we say, very personal.

I am aware I am repeating myself lately; but let's go over the basics, again, just to have somewhere to start. There are, after all, I'm sure more than a few people coming over here for the first time because of the link at the Pagan Blog Project site.

I have a daimon. The word is Greek, originally, and simply meant spirit, usually referring to a personal guardian spirit who served as intermediary between the Deities and humans. It has much in common with the idea of the guardian angel, though of course the religious underpinnings aren't the same, and there is, well, other stuff of a kind that Christianity is famously allergic to. Socrates had one, though the only time he heard from his was when he was about to make a mistake; then his daimon would tell him No! One of the Greek words for happiness, eudaimonia, literally means 'good spirit', i.e. the state of being guarded and protected by a daimon.

I am using a bit of a different definition, one that describes my experience (though I am not alone in this, not at all); really, daimon is in a lot of ways just the word that more or less fits. I do think it is a phenomenon, if you will, that has been recognized throughout the ages, and so has more than a few names—daimon, genius, Muse, guardian angel, spirit guide.

Like I said I think it is a phenomenon, and so I do think that most everyone has one, if they care to look. Like some people will say that everyone has a guardian angel.

Except the daimon is not some ethereal creature made of light and air and clouds who watches over someone in a suitably platonic, abstract heavenly love sort of way. Oh-ho no, and furthermore, snerk.

This is Paganism, remember? In my experience, and in others' experience too, else, why would Caitlín Matthews have titled the book In Search of Women's Passionate Soul: Revealing the Daimon Lover Within there is a huge heaping dose of Eros in the boy, too.

Because the daimon is about passion. In the language of psychology, and I do think that is one of the legitimate ways to describe him, he is connected with the libido. And that's about desire. Not just sex, though that is a big part of it, but about all desire: the desire to grow, to thrive, to create as well as procreate, to travel, to explore, to live, to really live, from the solid base of one's true self.

So you can see a guy like that would be handy to have around. He knows how to live, even though he is probably, technically, dead, or at least not currently incarnated. I think. It is an unusual relationship, that's for sure. But a very rewarding one.

Because we talk. We talk a lot. I'm talking hundreds of pages by now. Mostly we talk, and I write it down, like taking dictation, only it's very much a conversation and not simply something channelled, some wisdom dispensed from above; he is a friend, and a good one at that. Or it's closer to automatic writing and he borrows my fingers on the keyboard, I don't know; it's pretty seamless by now.

So. From this point in the post I've rewritten things four or five times, because I didn't know what or how much I wanted to say. I wanted to say something different about him, about my daimon, and I don't know, I want people to get a taste of this, both, I think, to make myself feel less weird, I guess, but also to show people what this is about. Because I have found it so profoundly helpful to have him around. And if this is something that is potentially there for most everyone? Not that I could write a how-to guide, I don't think, though maybe I could? I suspect it's going to be different, as far as methods go, for everyone. But if anyone finds this even a tenth as helpful to them as I have for myself, that's some serious help available. Because I cannot even begin to tell you how much talking to my daimon on a regular basis has changed me, has helped me, has taught me compassion and kindness for myself, has relaxed and calmed me, me who has dealt with anxiety and huge amounts of fear my entire life. I am more centered, stronger, more compassionate, more myself, for knowing him. Knowing him has fostered some serious growth on my part.

I wanted to write down a conversation with him, to show you what it is like. But it was all awkward, and strange, and the push-pull of public and private sort of wasn't working. But then he had a brilliant idea. To be fair, his ideas usually are brilliant. He is a Muse, after all. But his idea was that I interview him for this blog. We can play David Frost, he said. Have I mentioned how English he is lately?

Like I said, a brilliant idea. I will do my best to keep a straight face. I can't promise anything though. It's all very silly, which is a good thing. Play is one of his favorite things, and a good way to bypass fear.

All right, I guess I'll just format this as a conversation then, with quotation marks and all.

"Well then," I say, "welcome to Interview With A Daimon. It's so lovely to have you here as my special guest."

'It is, isn't it,' he says. 'It's lovely to be here. And guest, ghost, same thing.'

"We'll start with the basics. Who are you?"

He laughs. 'I am here. I am yours. I am me.'

"Do you have a name?"

'No. Unless you count "Mr. Took," but that's my married name.'

Cripes. Two questions in and he's already threatening to make me blush.

'Oh I do hope so,' he says, and grins.

"Okay, then, what are you?"

'God. A spirit. A little bit of Divinity. A lot bit of Divinity. Someone dead, someone alive, someone who loves you, someone who knows you and has known you for a very very long time.'

"Really, God?"

'Yes. Just like you. Do try to remember that.'

Yes I've heard this before.

'Well of course you have but the viewing public hasn't, now have they? And this is a right and proper interview. So stop breaking the fourth wall.'

Okay, fine. I ask, "How do you come to be here?"

'What do you mean by here?'

"You know what I mean. Here, like you are always saying is where I always am."

'You mean here with you then?'

"Well what else?"

'Tetchy interviewer, aren't you. I think I prefer Charlie Rose.'

"Stop it," I say, and seriously, people, do you see what I have to put up with?

'Actually make that Craig Ferguson,' he continues. 'He has such a sparkle to him. He knows.'

We're getting away from the topic.

'Yes, true, sorry, could you repeat the question?'

"Why are you here with me?"

'Because I love you. Because I'm your husband, always have been (well, except when I'm your wife). Where else would I be?'

"So, reincarnation then?"

'Yes, yes, I've told you a thousand times. We take turns. Like in square dancing.'

"That's not very English."

'Well I used to be Texan, remember?'

Shhh! Ixnay on the Exantay, okay?

He laughs, and rolls his eyes.

"Okay," I ask, "are you dead?"

'Of course I'm dead. I don't have a body, do I?'

"Where do you come from?"

'Oh now that's an interesting question. Again, same place as you.'

"And where's that?"

'It's hard to describe. The dark, the void, the potential, the singularity, all that.'

"Well I didn't mean it in quite such cosmic terms. Okay, how about this then: Why are you here?"

'Same reason as you. To experience it all. To love it all, to get my hands dirty in the black black earth.'

"But you're dead."

'Well I am now. I'm not always dead.'

"Why are you with me?"

'Because I love you. Because I want to be with you. This is an old agreement, you know, a mutual one.'

"Yes I know, and I believe that. What is the purpose to being with me?"

'Well it doesn't have to have a purpose, not like that. What is the purpose of the colour red? To love each other, and help each other, I'd guess I'd hope; so I am here to help.'

"How can you help if you're dead?"

'Now I know you're just asking that even though you already know. So I'll say how. I can talk to you, at the very least. I can talk you out of all that rubbish your self-hating brain throws at you, all the crap inculcated into you by those bastard parents of yours, all the negative self-talk, oh it breaks my heart to see it, over and over and over again and you know all this, you do. So I am here. To show you how to love yourself, and maybe, just maybe, if you can see how much I love you you will begin to believe you are worthy of love, no not even worthy, hell if I can get you to see the bare fact that you are loved already and therefore by definition lovable then we'll have gotten somewhere.

'Is that too personal?' he asks then. 'You can edit it if you like,' he says softly. 'It's the truth though Love.'

"I know," I say. "I am glad you are here."

'I know. I'm glad to be here too. And I'm glad that you can see me. That's unusual, you know.'

"I know. I am very, very lucky that I can see you so clearly. I mean you're right here, holy moly. Look at you!"

'I know, funny funny face this time. Not sure about this nose, honestly.'

"Okay moving along..."

'You don't have to admit to anything you don't want to you know.'

"I know. But it slips out."

'That just means it's hard not to keep your guard down around me. Which is a good thing.'

"Yes I suppose. Let me think, other questions? Should I take some from the audience?"

'Ooh going out into the aisles with a mic? That's very Phil Donahue now, not so David Frost any more.'

"You're hopelessly old-fashioned."

'I'm hopelessly old.'

"How old?"

'Ooooh,' he says, sighing out, 'very old. Not as old as you. It's hard to say, though; Time isn't linear or anything and it loops and squiggles around more than you'd think. On a completely unrelated note,' he says with a smile, 'this body suits me rather, don't you think?'

"Yes, speaking of that, why do you change your appearance?"

'Oh good save,' he says. 'Because you love it. Don't try to deny it.'

"Well yes I do, of course. But there are other reasons, aren't there?"

'Yes, of course. I change to show you.'

"Show me what?"

'Well it depends on the change. This time, this change, it is about showing you that you are after all adventurous. That you are ready to leave. That you are worth it all, worth the attention of a, shall we say, higher being. And that goes for the attention of your higher being, your higher self if you will. This is pulling things up a level. It is also bringing a lot of things full circle; this all has old, old, roots, as you are well aware. Not that anyone out there is going to know what I am talking about, of course.'

"Okay, then, about them, other people. Does everyone have someone like you?"

'More or less. It is a birthright, though not everyone chooses to do this.'

"How can someone get in touch with their daimon then, if they wanted to?"

'Put out a call, and then resolve to listen. Invite him or her in. Make space. Make a bit of quietude, a space to hear.'

"In practical terms?"

'Well it will be different for everyone. Some people are better at some ways of listening than others.'

"What types of listening, then, work?"

'Again, different for everyone. Really I only know what works for us two. Though trust me, we're willing on this end.'

"We?"

'We daimones, I suppose, not that I know a whole bunch of others or anything; we don't exactly hang out or set up play dates.'

"Yeah but is that just you?"

He thinks about it a moment. 'Yah,' he admits finally, 'could be.'

"What you don't have any friends besides me?"

'Oh now I didn't say that. I've got lots of friends. I've been around, you know.'

"Yeah I did figure that."

'Yes of course you did.'

Well I should probably wrap up this interview. "Do you have anything else to say?"

'Oh I have tonnes to say.'

"Well yes, in this form you are rather chatty, true. Actually, it's more like you never ever ever shut up." He grins then, almost embarrassed, like I've just complimented him. "I mean," I say, "do you have anything to say to the people out there?"

'What people?'

"The people reading this blog, you mad man."

'I'm not mad,' he says, 'and neither are you.'

I just look at him. "Do you, or do you not," I ask, "fall under the heading of invisible friend?"

He laughs. 'I have no comment on that.'

All right then. I ask, "Do you have anything else you'd like to say?"

'Okay, then, to everyone out there: you are loved. Never forget that. It's true of you all. Trust me.'

"By whom?"

'Lots of things.'

"All right, then, my friend, thank you for being on Interview With A Daimon."

'You are welcome, Love. Glad to be here. It was a brilliant idea, wasn't it? Why gosh who's the genius who came up with that? Ha! Genius. That's a pun!'

"Yeah, yeah, cut to credits already."

'Hey!' he says, laughing.

C is for Compassion

I used to have compassion for some people, by whom I mean my father.

But I have learned that having compassion for, well, people who are frankly abusive, doesn't get you very far. It's a nice idea, and it sure is easy to talk about if it's not your problem, if you've got the distance to be able to talk about it in the abstract, but—

My father was a hoarder. I've only had a name for it for a few years now. Before that, it was just this completely baffling... thing. Now, however, not only do I know that what he did is called hoarding, but I know that it is a serious mental condition, in his case, something called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Not obsessive compulsive disorder, let's get that straight. But a personality disorder.

And the thing with those is that the person doesn't change. The person can't change. The person doesn't think there's anything whatsoever wrong with them. It's the entire rest of the world who is wrong, in their mind. It is a fundamental brokenness in the brain. Think sociopathy, or narcissism.

I know, I'm repeating myself. Sometimes I think that saying it over and over again is simply validation, or maybe due to disbelief on my part, which I am trying to break through. It is a strange thing to come to terms with, when you grow up thinking it normal.

So people don't generally 'suffer' from personality disorders; like I said they don't think there's anything wrong with them. But the people around them sure do suffer.

If a person has something wrong with their brain, something that cannot even be perceived by them, never mind understood as something not-right, they are not going to change. They just aren't. They can't. But that person is also not going to be able to help harming those around them. They can't change that either.

I have found that having compassion for people like that, while you are one of those people around them, just means that they hurt you over and over again. And especially when that person with the personality disorder, the, shall we say, self-absorbed, or perhaps, toxic person, has trained you to consider their needs first, always. Well, that's not quite true; in my father's case it was more like his whims came first, before the needs of the rest of us. It was more important to him that he got to pile some rotton boards on top of each other in the yard, than it was to see that the water heater was installed. So compassion, in this case, just gets you hurt.

So fuck compassion.

Now, I may come back to it sometime in the future; I don't know. But here's the thing: there is nothing wrong, morally, with where I am now. Which leads me to the other C's:

C is for crooked path. And C is for curse.

I have never yet cursed anyone; I have, in the past, thought it morally wrong. But that was before I started thinking about things like my dysfunctional family and my neglected childhood.

I spent years, no decades, literally decades, trying to talk my father into cleaning something, anything, up. I memorized the littlest shadings of his moods, the subjects that would get him to open up, just a little, what time of day was best to talk to him. I learned diplomacy, when to push, when to leave things alone, what to bribe him with, how to butter him up, and I had the patience of all the saints combined.

It didn't work. It never worked. It couldn't work, because my father was incapable of change.

I have no patience left, none at all. I used it up. I also have no compassion for him, now; not, in this case, that I've used it up, but that it was coming at the expense of compassion for myself. And that must, absolutely must, come first.

And so I find my outlook has changed. I can see nothing wrong with curses, morally. They are simply neutral. Some things cannot be solved any other way. If someone is abusing you, and there is nothing you can do to stop it? Self-preservation must come first. You, I, have the right.

There is of course no need to curse my father now. He is safely out of the way in a nursing home, after a stroke that damaged what was left of his brain, after the personality disorder and the dementia he had due to age. He can do no harm where he is.

And I am very, very grateful for that.