Ex Penna

This story has been a long time coming but I really wanted to be able to tell it properly.  On Monday I told you about something that happened to me earlier this month but now we're going to go way back and talk about a experience I had last September that I thought might never be possible.  Please note that absolutely none of this is in chronological order, but perhaps if you too have visited New Orleans you'll understand why that isn't important at all.

On a long-awaited day that seemed to arrive quite suddenly, I and my sister and niece took the long highway trail that leads from north to south, from Pennsylvania to Louisiana, and the bright, hot, magic-infused city of New Orleans.  Being a northerner through and through, NOLA seemed as distant as the moon so when the opportunity came up, I leapt at it.  Without any expectations (which is my favorite way to travel), I packed my things and hopped in the van to spend a week under the influence of the bayou and its ways.  I was not disappointed.

First, I'd like to note that though I am a witch and have been driven primarily by magic and Pagan thought since I was an early teenager, I chose not to explore the city in the standard way.  So I passed up the magical shopping (I'm already well-stocked so to do so would have been just the lookie-lou shopping that is a waste), I took no ghost tours, and I didn't have my fortune told.  There were, of course, a multitude of opportunities for each of these, but I enjoyed coming to the experience with an eye to find magic in the places that presented themselves to me without being bidden.

To that end, I took in the city as best I could in one week.  We saw both the rich and poor neighborhoods.  We walked quietly through the cemeteries.  We enjoyed street performers and jazz parades, ate at small restaurants, and talked with locals.  It was a scavenger hunt for all the particulars that make New Orleans its own beast.

What was most surprising to me was that even without hitting the standard magical scene, the city itself hums with magic.  Though the look of the place was fairly modern, the feeling one gets is that of the often yearned-for past ages when magic was accepted as obvious and ever-present.  Voodoo, Hoodoo, talismans for every purpose, spells, curses, occult symbols...they are everywhere.  Like my first trip to Salem, MA, I was confronted at every turn by images that I previously felt were so individual to my sub-set of society that it was a delightful shock to view them openly.


The juxtaposition of tall, sleek hotels and tiny mom-and-pop shops; the modern facades and old wrought iron railings and decorated window casings; icons of African diaspora and Catholicism, the well known business brands next to houses painted with touches of shocking tangerine and turquoise details.  Everywhere were bits of the profane and the sacred, the mundane and the magical, the thrill of a party town and the peace of classic Southern repose.  Though they surprised me at first, they never came across as contradictions, as though NOLA never learned who she was, but rather a sign of the variety and combined cultures who formed the city and grew with her.

The House of Blues was a temple to music.  What seemed like a simple venue from without quickly revealed itself within as an homage to the blues, jazz, and the kind of camaraderie that both seem to evoke from its fans.  We spent an evening in the parish and the signs of the building's former life
were like little eyes peeking from the shadows.  The likenesses of saints looked on from their alcoves lined with Hoodoo novena candles, the parchment colored walls and painted ceiling accommodating modern stage lighting, the stage itself festooned
with the painted inscription "Unity in Diversity."  I've never been in a lovelier church.

The other house of worship on our tour was Bourbon Street.  I'm not much of a drinker but the ever-present party spirit was enough to change my mind for the week.  Naturally, this lead to a case of too much too fast and I found myself regretting the pleasure I took in choosing the biggest and most colorful drinks available.  I couldn't have been alone in that state, though I saw only happy faces as we moved through the throng that filled the streets.  The scent was quite another matter.  In the halls of decadence are many pleasures and, I would suppose, few bathrooms.  We were told that the whole area had to be hosed down every night to wash away the vomit and urine, and the pungent evidence of this hung in the warm air.  Always the optimist, I prefer to think of this as one more inhibition shed: society forces us into a nearly constant state of discomfort that only a good party can properly loosen.  I kept myself within arm's reach of societal norms on my visit, but I don't mind those who didn't.

To me, the most important stop on our journey was a visit to what seemed to me to be the very heart of the city, the cemeteries.  Easily the second most recognizable "attraction" of New Orleans (right
after Marti Gras), the cemeteries are a lovely reminder of how this city has suffered but also how it has absorbed such suffering and made it beautiful.  The magic that feels like lifeblood in NOLA pulses through these places.  A respect for the dead, and death itself, is a permanent aspect of events.  The lurking underworld
spirit is actively invited into daily life, talked about, talked to, painted and sung, honored, even loved.

Walking in the gates at St. Louis #1 was strange mainly because it was so popular--great clusters of people regularly filtered through, a man at the gate was selling cold drinks, the tour guides proclaimed loudly to their wards.  A cheerful lady asked us as we were leaving if we knew where to find the tomb of the mass murderer Madame LaLaurie.  It was all too much.  Much like I feel in the local city library where "library voice" has been completely abandoned-- even by the librarians--I felt compelled to be extra quiet and meek to make up for the bustle.  But then we went to one of
the smaller cemeteries and found ourselves completely alone.  There the silence present needed no help from me.  I wandered silently in that still place, as though I had entered a painting.  I took sparse photos only out of hopes to capture that uncanniness, though with every snap I felt as though I shouldn't.   It was lovely, though, and so easy to make beautiful in film that I couldn't help myself.  Everywhere was whitewash and black wrought iron, potted plants on the steps of tended tombs and scruffy wildflowers growing atop those untended, all stretching out in the bright sunshine of a cornflower blue sky.  If this was a painting, someone had done a masterful job.

Coming back out again was a weird experience.  The rest of the city was so busy, even in the back alleys, that the contrast of the peaceful cemeteries felt impossible.  I don't recall hearing the traffic from the nearby streets while we were inside those gates.  Perhaps that's part of the mystique of such a place--it entombs you with all the rest and while yet living you may understand the peace of the dead.

Indeed, coming back to Pennsylvania after this trip seemed much the same.  There is a rich history and blend of cultures in my own home state but nothing quite so vivid as what I discovered in Louisiana.   I had entered the gates a student of experience and emerged again no scholar but certainly wiser and with one eye open to the underworld.

Catnip


The standard application for catnip is in love spells and potions, as well as any kind of work for peace and enduring friendship.  However, there is a flip side to this calming plant; it can be used just as well for instilling fierceness, courage, and energy.  Think of the different reactions cats have to it and this becomes clear; some roll in the leaves and then fall asleep purring, others eagerly tear through them and bite any hand they see.

I like to chew a leaf or two before starting something really challenging.  One of the hardest roads I cycle in my standard 13 mile trek has a row of catnip plants growing alongside it, which is perfect for me because they're right at the bottom of the biggest hill I climb.  A quick pluck from a plant as I pass, the taste of catnip, and suddenly I know I can conquer this mountain like I've done with all the others.  I've also taught our son (now 10 years old) to do the same when we go for runs together and he is starting to lose his enthusiasm.

Catnip tea has been a popular relaxant for thousands of years and I highly recommend it.  The Amish families in the area in which I was raised grow great quantities of it just for after dinner tea.

As an interesting addition, whole dried catnip leaves (the bigger the better) were said to be traditionally used as bookmarks in witches books to keep anyone unwelcome from reading them.  Even though we have little to fear from angry villagers with their pitchforks and torches, it is still an excellent idea to protect your BoS from the snooping of others.  After all, you may possibly consider your own grimoire to be sacred but it is also certainly private.  To expose to foreign eyes your written explorations of magic, your own mind and wishes, your fears and how you conquered them, as well as every spell you've cast and who it helped or hurt is both humiliating and damaging.  So even if you think that no one would try to spy on your personal thoughts, it's a good idea to protect them nonetheless.  

With the exception of the last example, all of the other ways to use catnip can work equally well in dried form as in fresh, so if you are not as fortunate as I am to be writing from the convenience of summer in a rural valley, you can still work this wonderful herb into your magic and your life.


*Also check the link below for information on the use of catnip tea before entering the sweatlodge.


Image from:

insidetaekwondo.com/2012/08/07/catnip-not-just-for-cats-anymore/

Instructions to Make a Flying Paper Lantern


Instead of my usual explanation, I'd like to tell you a story that meant a lot to me.

On the evening of this past 4th of July, my family and I went into the city to watch the fireworks. As I wended my way through the crowd that had filled the parking lots and side streets which were blocked off for a fair in its honor, I saw lots of things: loud people, various radios playing their own brand of loud music, food on the ground that had been crushed into the pavement, colorful drinks sweating in the heat, kids running and their parents shouting after them, puddles from the recent rain, and precious few clean places to sit.

This surely makes me sound like a puritanical bore, but I had done nothing but work, work, work as of that time for the past several months as I scrambled to get all the illustrations done for the comic book I'm producing with my teammates at MixMinds.  I knew that as soon as I got home it would be time to get right back to work.  It was natural, then, that I cast a bit of a critical eye at the outside world that was both my distraction and my supposed respite.

The sun went down and it was dark, the kind of milky not-quite-darkness that can only happen in the presence of street lights, however dimmed.  Then they were turned off. Things got a little quieter and I sat with my husband and our kids idly watching the sky until the show began.

And then I saw it.

Not far away from where we sat, a glowing orange light, an ethereal ember, was slowly lifting off over sea of strangers.  It was a paper lantern and I was glued to the sight of it.  It climbed softly into the sky, now a denim blue, and I watched until it was nothing but a speck and then was gone.  What a sight!  Like a little leaf riding the surface of a smooth running stream, like a tiny flame that dances on the tips of a log when the rest of it is only char, it was captivating because it seemed pure and calm in a dirty, overwhelming place.  After a few minutes pause, another took to the air on the other side of us, and then another much further away, nearly across the river.  There was an intensity to their burning, too, because we all know they won't burn for long.  But it will burn on nonetheless, and that is all I can manage to think about a life well lived.

Burn on, my friends.

I'd like to present a new feature to go along with the herbs, charms, formulas, and spellcasting shortcuts of Witch Tips Wednesday--Unpleasant Truths.

In a practice that so often tries to be above the muddle of ordinary life to the point where we should all be levitating under the power of our own enlightenment, it can surprise folks to hear about the very real, gritty, unadorned, un-charming parts of magical living.  But I'm here to drag them all out into the light and show them off!  It's okay, though, we'll all be better for it.

So this week's unpleasantness is about the magical community at large--it can be a very rough place.  It's not, as is sometimes claimed, "safe space" away from society; it is a society.  You're just going to have to accept that there will be a notable presence of cliques, prejudice, and criticism.  Even here, no one is obligated to like you.

Think on that one for a moment, if you would.  If joining the magical community is like joining any other, then that means that the rest of the world isn't as horrible and soul-shattering as you may have thought.  You are just as likely to find good people living on your block as you are to find them in your new coven.  And, likewise, rotten people can be in both as well.  Despite having every reason to play nice, there will always be those folks who see themselves as separate and above.  They won't join the club, they'll hide behind it.  It's best you know this now.

Seals of Solomon


These ancient images are among my very favorite tools of magic.  While they were originally intended to be inscribed upon metals corresponding to their planetary influence (and, of course, they still can be), even if you only have pen and paper you can make good use of these talismans.

I recommend that you become friendly with this style of spellwork especially if you are strapped for cash to buy magical goods or space in which to house them.  However, nothing beats their use by an experienced caster of any variety.  If you are needing a little boost to your practice, peruse this list and think of the kind of delicious witchiness you could concoct with Solomon's work as your aid!  Casting is a witch's bliss--get to it!

That means no excuses, no better-not's, no I'll-do-it-tomorrow's.  You have to get up and get busy living if you want to live your dreams.  And this will open so many doors to you that you won't believe that the world was made of anything but opportunity.  You will find yourself making magic just by showing up and feeling like something great is going to happen.  If you're ready to have this happen, then you're ready to try. But you must do so every day.  Magic is the work of the practitioner in their regular lives; it's not special reserve only to be taken out when company comes over.  If you want something durable, flexible, and beautiful, you need to work with the everyday stuff.


So how do we do start?  Maybe you're ready to find a teacher, take lessons, read a bunch of books, or go it alone and listen to your intuition.  You're ready to try but what does that mean?  It means that you must start now to put in effort that will have definite results.  You need to make a plan, a set of objectives, and take the little steps that will lead you there.  In short, you must be productive.

It's no surprise that I am deeply interested in both magic and organization.  Witches have a lot of information to keep in order (and being a shop owner, professional spellcaster/tarot reader, and writer means that I have even more to sort!) and having some skill in this field really helps.  So, to this end, we'll be borrowing from a type of motivational article ("Increasing Productivity" by Steve Brunkhorst) usually reserved for managers and other corporate types.  I've followed its excellent advice ever since discovering it in 2005 and am happy to pass it along to you in this updated format just for spellcasters.   A link to the original can be found at the end of this post.



1.  Set Priorities in Your Magic and in Your Day

There is one simple method by which you can give strength to any magical object, no matter what its purpose--bury it in the ground.  Let it there for as long as you can up to one full moon cycle.  If it is made of a material that will be damaged by such a long period of time, just leave it there overnight.

To begin, give the object its initial charge.  Give the amount of energy and power that you are able from your visualization and projection; the Earth will do the rest.  Wrap the object in cloth or place inside a box if it's ornate, easily damaged by moisture, or very small.  Otherwise, you may place it directly into a hole you have dug for this purpose.  Give the object one final charge, noting specifically its function.  Cover the object with the dirt you removed while requesting that the earth give power to your work and turn this simple object into a great talisman (or whatever it may be) of uncanny magical strength.  Remember to be humble; this is a request, not a command.

When it is completely covered, mark the place with something you will remember, like a colored stone, a stick stuck upright, or just note the number of paces from another landmark (3 paces West of the maple tree, for example).  Return home and write in your almanac that place marker on the day you are to retrieve your object.  Try not to think about it until that day comes.  Then you may unearth your talisman and receive the strength and nobility of the earth itself.