Ex Penna

Tonight I went into my workroom and sat down at my desk to prepare for some spells I needed to cast.  And, yet again, an essential piece was missing.  This time, it was the spell itself I couldn't find--the protection talisman I was talking about last time.  I set to finding it right away.  I knew it didn't come from any book I own, so it had to be in one of my big binders of filed information.  I pulled them down and looked; it wasn't under Spells, nor Amulets and Talismans, nor Sachets and Conjure.  None of the other categories fit, so I put the binders up and checked my BoS.  Being the pseudo-librarian I am, this, too, is heavily indexed.  But nothing!  I thought that maybe it was a newer addition to the book and had escaped my labeling, but no.  With a frown, I slapped my BoS back on the shelf.  *Humph!*  I was starting to get mad.  It wasn't in the "To Be Filed" folder I keep by my desk.  It wasn't in any of the notebooks I have stacked on shelves or slid in drawers.

Alright, hand it over, lady!

This is, sadly, nothing new.  I often discover that there are missing ingredients, missing jars and bottles, missing papers, tools, ink...you name it.  While making a batch of Vesta's Marriage Repair candles for the shop, I noticed my Reconciliation oil running a little low.  So I got into my books to assemble the ingredients for making a fresh bottle.  I went through all the books I own that contain formulas, all the binders, notebooks, and files I have that might contain the recipe.  I even went online to see if anything I found there looked familiar.  And I still came up empty-handed.  Anybody out there know how to make Reconciliation oil?

On the same day I wrote about cleansing the house I had done a ridiculous dash through the house searching for my censer, my head waggling left and right trying desperately to spot it in some out-of-the-way place.  When I finally gave up, I found it--sitting on a canister of wishbones on my workroom desk.  Was it there all the time?  Was this someone's joke?  How could this happen?  How could it continue to happen?   

With how crazy it makes me (and how hilarious it must look when I go crazy), I can easily imagine that this is the work of little peoples unseen.  But there's more to it than that to make me blame the fairies.  Firstly, I don't go in for the tinkly-music and bubbles version of fairies.  But neither do I see them as buxom coquettes with corsets and butterfly wings.  My views are a little more complex, yet also a little less defined.

I guess you could say that, from experience, I think the fairies are tricky, sneaky, and irritating--but all without malice.  Like a 3 year-old.  And like a 3 year-old, they can make anything disappear into nothingness by simply turning your back on them for 60 seconds.  If that thing is shiny, they will snatch it.  If it's movable, they might break it.  If it's something you want, they will indubitably want it more and prove it.  With a 3 year-old, you need to either safeguard all your precious things by putting them up before little fingers enter the room, or hope that you can shift their interest to a safer object once they've got something expensive in their grasp.  (Note: this isn't some disgruntled babysitter or friend-of-a-new-mommy talking--I've lived through 2 little ones and had numerous magical items get dumped, crushed, and drooled on in their time)  But with fairies it may not be so simple.  They can get into anything and move your stuff wherever they choose.  If you need it now, then it's all the more fun.

I first had this trouble about 10 years ago when I incautiously invited the fairies living in my yard/garden into our home for the winter.  "Poor things!"  I thought.  "They'll be so cold out there!"  Who I should have been pitying was me, since it was from that time on that all manner of items routinely came up missing.  They would--maybe--be found a few days later in some odd place for which no obvious reason could be found.  The tradition continues to this day with the kids' toys, school papers, my husband's projects, and my magical wares.  I had been tempted to blame it all on that one incident so many years ago, but I'm more inclined now to see it as another example of the attention that magic-making here brings from other places.

Part of the purpose of casting a circle is to keep back all the disruptive influences that are gathered by the act of casting a spell.  But most witches (myself included, of course) cast smaller spells all the time without benefit of a circle.  Some form of magic is to be found in this house at least 3-4 times a day.  That's a lot of circles!  And even if I did protect myself each time, I would have to cast it around the house to keep these pesky little critters away from my belongings.  Our house isn't very big and yet that's not very likely to happen. 

So here's my plan to regain my missing objects and set some limits for the future:

• Presents!  Everybody, from cranky relatives to immortal Gods, loves to get things. Offerings are a simple way to open up communication between two parties, no matter who they may be.  
• Tricks of my own.  I read about a little girl who came up with an ingenious way of dealing with her fairy troubles.  She and her father place a strawberry on the table and then put a glass over it, like a tiny force-field.  Then they announce to the fairies that they can have the strawberry when the missing item is returned.  I can just imagine them wringing their pointy hands and biting their little lips.  Grrr!
• Lure them back outside.  I think it must be the lateness of the year that draws them to our home's never-dull interior.  Outdoor activities and decorations soon-coming for Halloween may catch their eye better.
• If all else fails, it's back to the old standard of salt, iron, and St. John's Wort.  If they won't hand it back nice, I'll get nasty!  It's not as though I've got no weaponry!

So here's hoping that tomorrow morning I receive a pile of goodies heaped at the end of my bed as though Santa had been here, not the least of which are my missing talisman instructions and Reconciliation oil formula.

My family and I have many animals living in our home.  Our cat named Cinder, ball python named Hiss, and two parakeets, Helios and Phoebe (so named after the sun God Helios and His legendary chariot, Phoebus, meaning "shining."  Lil' Phoebe is all yellow, get it?), as well as our daughter's gerbil, Storm.  We have also, in our time, cared for a beloved dog, rabbit, a second gerbil, a third parakeet, two hamsters, a baby robin, a guinea pig, a massive cricket, and three cats (in this house, that is). 

But none of them are pets.  At least, I don't call them pets.  To me a "pet" is a critter you have around to entertain you, to name "Mrs. Snuggle-Wuggle-Kins," and put funny hats on at the holidays.  And they're not my babies (I have two of them already!).  All our animals came here after they no longer needed the care of a mother, so it's a rather moot point to insist on being "mommy" to them.  Plus, they all did have mommies.  Cinder's six-breasted mother was a lot better at feeding and cleaning him and his siblings than I could be.  Why compete?

Maybe that opinion is a little skewed, but my point remains that I don't acknowledge any owner in our relationship.  Our animals live here, play here, and get cared for, kept safe, and loved by all of us, but they are their own beings.  Almost all of the animals we've ever had here were rescues.  The rest showed an affinity to one or more of us before coming to live here.  I think it's only fair to give an animal the option to stay or go, like I would anyone else in my life.

This gets a little tricky when I think of all the traditional bits of magic that can be worked on animals/pets.  In addition to the standard spells with the aid of an animal, there's also spells to keep a cat from straying, to make a pet loyal, to turn an animal into a familiar (in the case of the spell I have, by placing a low-level spirit within the animal's body, like assisted possession), etc. make me question my standard attitude that all magic has merit within the context of the need which formed it.


So though Cinder missed us like mad when we went on vacation, and refused to cease meowing when we returned until he finally lost his voice, I've never felt that I had the right to force his loyalty or compel him stay home all the time.  Like a love spell, I can understand using magic to create artificial closeness in a more casual relationship, but not with someone who lives, eats, and sleeps with you. 

The exception to this rule of mine, of course, is protection from danger.  While I understand an animal's desire (and right) to come and go as it pleases them, I would never suggest it if it were dangerous to the animal.  We live near a road with infrequent but fast-moving cars and trucks.  That's part of the "charm" of country living--everyone knows there's no police nearby so they use the road as their personal Autobahn.  Poor Cinder has had to endure staying indoors for the past two weeks, while the absolutely lovely weather is calling him by name, because I needed to wait for the right timing to recharge his protection talisman.  When he has that, I don't fear him going out to play in the fields and chase grasshoppers.  Without it, even a solitary bask in a sunny grassy spot seems, to me, fraught with danger. 

Though keeping those I love safe and happy is always at the top of my list of important responsibilities, I am forced to reconcile this with the knowledge that our animals--like our children--may someday choose to go their own way without concern for those who gave them love and shelter for years. 

That's just the nature of life, though, and a witch never runs from life.

There are witches out there who do house cleansings on a regular schedule--like at the New Moon--but, as is standard practice for any busy mom, I do it when it needs it.  And today it really needed it.

For those of you who may not know just what that would feel like (and, honestly, most books don't explain), I'll give you the situation here at my house.  It all starts with irritation.  Everything irritates--not a lot, just little by little, like an itchy sweater.  I notice it in our kids; they fight over senseless things, they bicker and hit out of nowhere, doing routine things (like getting a shower) makes them super cranky, they cry and want nurtured while also pushing everyone away.  I notice it, too, in my husband; strange pains out of the blue that lessen outside our home, being both very tired and also sleepless, short-tempered, strange dreams.  And in me, naturally, it's easy for me to notice; I am anxious and tense over nothing, I anger quickly and tire quickly, I ache all over, I become overly critical of everything, and the house feels incredibly dirty to me.  It's this last one that really sets me off.  It's like the baneful influences are so thick on the walls that I can see them!  Then I know it's time to do something drastic!

Today was perfect timing since Gigi was doing all the standard chores (vacuuming upstairs and down, washing dishes, cleaning out the pets' homes, etc.) so once we were both done the house would be both physically and spiritually clean.  In the spirit of her new lessons on magic, I showed her how I make a wash (note: check the BONUS page for more on making washes!) and how to wash the walls.  I was using one to drive away evil.  She was very curious about where evil comes from so we talked about the Evil Eye and other ways that regular (non-witch) people can cast spells, plus spirits and other things that create bad luck.  I was quite proud to overhear her later that night as she perfectly answered her little brother's questions about the Evil Eye! 

While I washed the walls, I threw open all the windows in the house and burned a big batch of newly ground Clearing Incense.  I was sure I'd set off the smoke alarms, but somehow they remained quiet.  I usually pop out their batteries before burning a large amount of incense but since I often forget to put them back in until a few days have gone by (bad idea!), I would rather disable them only if necessary. 

With the incense burning away on our house altar, I also lit some white candles rubbed with Van Van Uncrossing oil.  On my personal altar, I also stood the Sun card from one of my tarot decks.  I was in full-out cleansing mode!

Hey!  I didn't get any cookies!

Stopping for dinner, I noticed how nice everything felt.  My husband always feels it first thing in the door, so I'll be watching him when he gets home from work in the morning!  After getting the kids to bed, I decided to finish the job right.  I scrubbed the floors with a bucket of washwater to which I added Van Van oil and Cascarilla powder.  All throughout the house I sprinkled the last of my saved Rose of Jericho Water and then put my dried rose in water to open again on a table in the living room.  The last step for me was to clear off my altars and wash everything before replacing it.  I rubbed the candles with special oils I got just for that purpose on my last trip to Salem and burned Offertory Incense for my Patron Gods.  I cleaned and spruced up the house altar and got out a new set of candles for my husbands' Gods. 

Now it's done.  Sometimes it's more elaborate than that, other times less.  But, to me, the job is done when it feels done, and not before.  If you're experiencing something big, by all means, go big when getting rid of it!  I once had a neighbor (who was a witch as well) and she gave me a whole laundry list of woes, from rampant illness to no income to mysteriously unfixable vehicles--and never thought of using magic before that point!  Please don't wait that long!  You're not over-reacting by cleansing when bad things happen--you're under-reacting when you wait for some critical point.

And P.S.--my neighbor's story has a happy ending.  I made up a kit for her out of the same things I use in our house.  Did the trick right quick!  And (prepare for the landing of a shameless plug for my shop) you can order that same kit (and many more) from Quill's Occult Supply. 

I'm so super proud of this beautiful new item in my shop, I've just gotta brag!  No one on Etsy offers brown cascarilla powder--until now!

Making brown cascarilla is more than just crushing shells of brown eggs.  Instead, white shells are flattened and then slow toasted for hours in the oven until they turn brown.  This is a long and very...fragrant...process (okay, honestly, hot eggshell smells awful!  It's like a roadkill casserole!  Bleck!  But, lucky for you, once cooled they are scentless).  After the shells cool, I grind them superfine by hand in my big marble mortar and pestle with chants and charms to drive away evil.  A lot of work goes into this little bag!

Cascarilla powder is such a potent cleansing and protecting agent that it can be used in any number of ways to guard from evil, malicious magic, and disease:

• If someone leaves a trick on your doorstep or you find some suspicious item in your home from an enemy, dust your hands well with this powder before picking it up.  This keeps the evil from transferring to you, and you can dispose of it safely.
• Add some to your bath water or sprinkle in the wash bucket for scrubbing the floor to disperse negativity. 
• Use cascarilla powder to make symbols on the floor or altar during ritual or spellwork. 
• Add a bit of water and use it to paint symbols on your skin or use it dry to dust your body for all-over protection.

All this magic talk has my mind percolating.  I'm in the mood for some spells--I'm off to my workroom for provisions!  Happy Equinox to you!

Related reading includes  The Magic of Iron,  Who is This "Joe Pye"?,  What's in a Spell Kit? 

First off, I am a big fan of Osho (though, I usually call him by the name I first read him under, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) and I have tremendous respect for his ideas. Osho has caught a lot of heat in the past for his sometimes politically-incorrect views.  One such view came to my attention only recently now that I'm his Facebook friend (Wild, isn't it?  Renowned the world over--and dead--and he's my friend.  I sure must be something special).  In an article linked from his website, he expounded on his thoughts about homosexuality being an expression of socially, physically, and religiously repressed heterosexuality.  He believed that without those conditions, homosexuality would not exist.  Though I don't believe that myself (and, for all I know, Osho himself may have changed his ideas since writing this in 1979) I do see what he's doing by saying it.  And it's a fundamental of teaching, no matter the message.

Here, for your enlightenment (if you haven't already read it) is the original article, taken from his "Be Still and Know" talks.  Read it and watch closely your reaction:

http://oshotimes.blog.osho.com/2012/06/same-sex-relationships/

So, were you intrigued?  Outraged?  Hurt?  Ashamed?  You'd be surprised at how few responses I've seen that answer the first.  Most people seem to say something along the lines of "I used to respect him, but no more!  What a quack!  What an affront!  How dare he?"  Here's a good example, straight from the gay community: 

http://gaysifamily.com/2010/06/07/osho-i-love-you-no-more/

Ouch.  Coming from the point of view as a teacher, I can say that every one of these people who are so grieved over Osho's statement, so hurt, so ready to turn their backs and shun his name, they have totally missed the point.

So what was the point?  Why is it that I can say I know this "as a teacher?"  It's because I've seen it happen plenty in my own teaching.  First you get this fresh-faced student, all geared up and ready to learn at your feet.  Then they hear you say something they don't like, something that offends their little ears.  "I have to practice this?"  "You expect me to do homework?"  "Wait, so I don't get to pick and chose what you'll teach me?"  And then it comes out--"I used to respect you, but no more!  What a quack!  What an affront!  How dare you?"  Yup, they're all yours until you challenge them.

But learning is about the challenge.  That's the reason we go into it.  Maybe it's been too long ago for adults to remember starting school, or maybe they just figure that it's a different story when you choose to take classes instead of doing it by government mandate.  But it's not.  It's still hard, it still takes work and dedication, and it will often fly in the face of what you knew before.  But that's good.  It means you're learning.

Sadly, I've lost more than a few students because they didn't like having to think.  I feel sorry for them.  We seem to have become a community that treasures individuality to the point of not wanting to even consider a teacher's right to say needful, if uncomfortable, things.  I'm not asking for students to worship my words, but I do want them to hear them, mull them over, practice what I prescribe, and then come to a conclusion.  Opinion-forming should be a process, not a reaction.  Just because your brain came up with it doesn't make it right. 

Unfortunately for Osho and I (though I'm not claiming to be in his league at all), people want to worship words.  They want their teacher/leader to say things that are easy to accept and agree with.  They want to nod at every line and be comforted.  "Work" should never enter into it for them.  And that has driven away many potentially enlightened people.  Osho might not have felt this pinch quite as profoundly in 1979 as today, with gay rights being one of the topics at the forefront of politics, but just the reprinting of this talk has people leaving in droves the shadow of the temple they built for him in their minds.  If they had only listened, they wouldn't still be inside it; they'd be out into the light of day.

Neither Osho nor any other teacher is perfect.  They have silly ideas sometimes, they work through impossible theories--they're learning as they go as well.  But they are ahead of the student, often far, far ahead.  We shouldn't follow blindly but we should follow and listen.  I saw in Osho's talk a viewpoint vastly different from my own.  I took some time to think about the possibility of it being true.  Could it really be that way?  What would that mean in general?  What would it mean to me?  How does this change my thoughts?  After that, I decided that it is not likely to be scientifically, literally true, but that there may be a kernel of truth underneath.  But, in the end, it gave me pause for thought.  I had to consider my own ideas and weigh them up against what I was seeing.  In the end, I feel pretty much the same about the topic as I did before, but my mind is just a little bit more open.  I still think about it from time to time, juggling these nearly opposite ideas and considering them all over again.  I think about the worth of speculation, of keeping open options, of not making harsh critical statements without full investigation.   Seeing the anger at other reader's fingertips, I feel sorry that they're missing out on this.  And I miss those students who refused to try to open, not for me, but for themselves.

In our home, we don't hide from the important issues and we don't create an information gulf between child and adult.  Sure, there's "grown up" stuff I don't tell the kids, but I figure that if a child's old enough to ask a question, they are old enough for a straight answer.  This has been especially true with magic.

Now, I don't believe that magic is an adults-only game.  Nor do I see it as a membership club where, by someone else's say-so, you're either in or you're out (more about that later!).  So I believe in teaching children as early as possible.  Our daughter, Gigi (11), was only a few years old and making it rain and healing the neighbor boy's hornet stings.  The little man (7) is an expert incensier  (that's my freshly minted word, by the way: incensier [in-cen-SEER] one who compounds incense.  Sounds about right.) and I love employing his little biceps at the mortar and pestle.  But, until now, their learning has been atmospheric.  I always figured that the proper time would come for them to be formally taught.  And now, I believe it's Gigi's time.

Gigi and I were talking before getting her to bed tonight and I mentioned this.  She was happy to and only requested that it be a "weekend thing."  Fine by me!  Weeknights are plenty full as it is.  So I asked her if there was something she was especially interested in learning.  Her reply--dreams and curses.  I didn't say anything for a moment.  She explained that she wants to know how to return to a dream or get a specific dream, and how to give someone a little curse--if you're really mad--like bad test scores.

That set me back a bit.  Yes, the first one's no big deal and they're both easily done.  In fact, I could teach her everything about those two subjects in a day or two.  But...should I?  The kids know that I do magic of all kinds; sometimes I'm nice and sometimes I'm not.  That's just the work of a witch for me.  When I have clients who request curses or people who write asking for information on them, I don't turn them away and I don't tell them their feelings are wrong.  So I tried to look at it from that perspective.  I surely can't tell Gigi that it would be wrong to curse someone at school.  I'd be making a liar out of my practice.  And I can't tell her that it's not for her to know, because that could make her either perversely intrigued in this forbidden topic or dismissive of magic altogether since her lessons won't provide what she wants to know.  So what should I do?

I've been thinking about this ever since she said it.  I told her at the time that we'd talk more about it when it was time to start.  I guess that's the best way to go--talk it out and get to the core of the issue.  I can't say that at her age I didn't have the desire to blast some classmates, but maybe I can reroute those feelings so that she's less inclined to do it to the whole class.

Cursing is just as valuable a skill as any other in magic, so she will be learning it sometime.  Like any other spell, there's a right way to do it and a wrong way.  I believe most of the people who shout about the dangers of black magic and say that curses will always rebound on the witch did it the wrong way once and believed that it was the only outcome.  Training would have changed everything.

So maybe I'll let her get her feet wet.  She's not blasting crops or poisoning wells, just spreading a little revenge.  She'd probably be doing that anyway, and much sloppier too. 

Feel free to write in with your feelings on this topic.  What would you do?

This is so my new ritual garb.

As a woman in a cat leotard famously sang, "Look, a new day has begun!"  And it sure has.  But I haven't gone to bed yet; I've been up all night working for my shop, blog, and making homemade tortillas for sandwich wraps in 3 packed lunches.  I'm not very sharp in the morning unless it's technically the end of my day.  And for the past two school-years I've worked it out that I stay up all night and sleep once our kids go off to school.  I'm simply too much of a night-owl to stop what I'm doing at a respectable 10 pm.

In fact, when the sun goes down, I come up, even if it means I sleep fewer daytime hours than I would have gotten at night.  Unfortunately, last night was absorbed for the most part by figuring out this blog business (fie on you, technology!), but now that it's done, I have new plans to set before I lay down my head around 9 am.

This all may sound a little unconventional (and it is), but being unconventional is pretty much what a witch does.  I have seen so many people eagerly blurt out "We're just like you!" in interviews, books, and on the street as though there were something for which they must apologize.  But there just isn't.  You and I don't owe the "regular folk" anything any more than they owe us.  You don't owe them an excuse, and explanation, or even a second glance.  So long as it's working for you, it's no one's business.

So I stay up all night writing, drawing, and working magic.  My husband is an inventor and mad genius.  Our kids pretend like they're robots and cats (or, sometimes, robot cats!) constantly and for no reason.  We are an openly Pagan family, living next door to a church.  And we don't owe anyone a reason why.