My Basic Understanding of the Eleusinian Mysteries

My basic understanding of the Eleusinian Mysteries

My first introduction to greek mythology was in the 7^th grade and Mr. Edgil’s literature class. We read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology class. I remember the basic story.

Demeter couldn’t find her daughter Persephone. Persephone had been kidnapped by Hades. Zeus helped convince Hades to release Persephone but Hades had convinced Persephone to eat some of the pomegranate fruit. Demeter consented to let Persephone stay with Hades for part of the year.

 I don’t remember much other than starting to ask why we didn’t still worship the old ones. (Keep in mind this was in the beginning of my Jesus freak stage but the seed was sown. )

Fast forward to Minneapolis the year 1996. I had been attending college at Minneapolis Community College and hanging out at the Amazon bookstore at the edge of Loring park. I had just started studying Dianic Wicca and reading the works of Z Budapest and Fionna Morgan. When I moved out of my parents house and into my first apartment, I held my first solitary ritual honoring the Demeter and Persephone without really understanding what I was doing. I lit a candle, did a self-blessing ritual and ate a pomegranate.

18 years and several initiations later, I am not sure if I have a deeper understanding or just a better context for an agrarian cycle based culture and rituals that honor that cycle.

I spent the early years of my life on a farm. My father was a nursery man and grew dwarf fruit trees. He also raised a small amount of animals that were our food. Like most farm families, in the spring and summer months your time is spent outside preparing fields, sowing crops, and tending to the vegetable garden beds and animal raising. After the harvest, the activities turn indoors to crafting, food storage, and other projects that can be done indoors. Then, at some point it gets warm again and the season shifts focus to the outdoors again.

It’s our experience that informs us about our world. The Eleusinian mysteries are based entirely on that process of seasonal change and how they inform us about life, death, and rebirth. The wheel of the year.

I find it interesting that as we grow in our understanding of the world around us, our understanding of the ancient world and mythology changes as well.

For Instance Hades is still Lord of the Underworld and the Dead but as we understand how the fertile earth affects our economy and how earth becomes fertile he also starts becoming the patron of wealth and power in addition to death and what happens after we die.

As we delve into our own experience of being a rebellious child, we develop the understanding that Persephone could have been walking in her own power. We get this idea that she is willingly seeking out Hades to get a better understanding of the mysteries of life and death that our parents try to shield us from. However, just because the daughter may have willingly gone off with her bad boy, it does not invalidate the perception of the parent that she was kidnapped or taken against her will.

There is always more than one view of the story. That is a mystery in its own right.

For my own self, I have been going through a transformation process. It is almost a year that I left my family and coven. I have cocooned myself to grieve, heal and let go. While normally resurrection stories more happen in the spring, mine seems to be happening now. Relationships that were dead or dying or coming back to life and there are new relationships that are being born to see what will be. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the ashes of my life have done its job to fertilize and strengthen what remains and I rise again. Ready to do my own celebrating with not just Hades but Dionysus as well, honoring the harvest that is.

Blessed Be.

Comming soon for Mabon

The Fall Equinox is a few days away, on the 21st.

I am being drawn this season to study the greeks and specifically the Elusian Mysteries. So revisiting Demeter, Persephone, and Hades soon.

Each year, as I grow in my own understanding of things I am in awe how simple yet complex mythology is.

This year, I am celebrating quite a lot so it might be time to talk about Bacchus and the Wild Women too. 

I am reminded of some of the early books from the dianic movement by Fionna Morgan. My mantra right now is "Wild women, they don't get the blues."

More this weekend as I have time to study and write. Maybe even a solitary ritual or three.

Blessed Be!

Magic and manifestation

Mabon, the fall equinox is almost upon us. A time of balance between light and dark. The annual local signs are upon us.

School has started in several districs this last week.  The Minnesota Rennisance Festival is well underway and today the State Fair has started with everything imaginable on a stick. I could wax long about mini donoughts and fried cheese curds but I will save you the melodrama of a junk food junkie...

Around the Leaky Cauldron I would love to say I am a flurry of activity but that is not the case and I am okay with that. Healing a scratch on my eye and an ulcer on my right big toe is the order of the day. Relearning how to play the piano is my main activity outside of work as well as being more proactive about addressing my own depression and emotional healing process.

As a result, I have decided to start a 21 day reiki attunement process to deal specifically with depression issues.  I am also choosing to work with a face of the goddess that I haven't in too long and she is doing what I needed her to do: give me a swift kick in the butt to get over myself already.

I love working with Epona when I need to balance out my physical activity. In this instance the urge to be inclusive and a hermit and balancing the demands of my job as a customer service professional and that I am in a very social/active family.  When I work with her I usually use white candles and bergamont oil.

As much as I talk about sending energy to issues I want to talk a bit about what magic actually does.

Magic helps us manifest the reality that we want to have happen. Magic is the most sucessfull when it is focused on ourselves (There is that who pesky free will thing involved with other people.) Unless you are willing to change your interior and exterior reality magic is futil. To quote the Charge of the Goddess, "you will never find without until you find it within."

So how do you challenge yourself?

When I was actively counseling others, I was introduced to a process called Brief Therapy. I use it successfully to this day.

The process is: asking yourself if..
If your life was perfect, how would it look?
What would realistically need to happen in order for it to manifest?
What is one thing you can do right now to move in that direction?

When I am in my ritual time, this is largely what I am doing. I am connecting with the divine and honoring divinity in me. Then I am usually doing some sort of work to manifest the reality I want.

So, for instance I am working on my active depression. What does that mean?
Extreem self care. Making sure I am getting enough calories and enough of the right calories.
Sleeping when I need to.
Stepping back and reevaluating whatever it is I am angry or upset with.

I will soon be getting a light box to assist with the seasonal loss of light aspect of things. I will also be focusing on some home improvement things as time and money become available.

Is it a perfect process. Not always. I am human. I screw up. I allow my anger, pride, and shame to get in the middle of things. However, those are the times I work the AA solgans like "Progress not Perfection." Forgive myself and others and move along. Its all we can ever do.

So as we head deeper into fall: ask yourself what are you doing to help bring balance into your life?

Blessed Be!

Now For Something Completely Different.... Grandmother Spider and Fall Goddesses....

I love the fall in theory. My seasonal affective dissorder can make it interesting but I still love the colors and Goddesses associated with this season.

One of my favorite faces of the Goddes this time of year is Grandmother Spider.

She is a Southwestern Native American creatrix. For me, part of the romance for Grandmother Spider is that she is very straight forward and blunt about her information.Like most of the Native American Elders I know, she does not mince words.  Following traditional aspects of the Lakota tribes I have hung out with, I enjoy sharing a cup of coffee with her and offering her prayer ties and tobacco.

The stories never truely say why type of Spider energy she is.

When I am working with her she shows up as either a giant taranchula or wolf spider (an ancestral totem for me). When she shows up it usually means that I am either going to be a lot more social than I have been or will be meeting new folks that will have a heavy impact on my life.

Her altar is usually in oranges and browns. I like using fall flowers from amaranth to sunflowers depending upon what is available.  Again, offerings of seasonal fruits, nuts, and grains are always acceptable. Marigolds, tobacco, and cornmeal are also good.

For me, she reminds me of my connections. She reminds me of my creative power. She reminds me that my strength comes from my ancestors. Those I know by name and bloodline and the earliest of ancestors.

I like using the chant:

"We are the flow and we are the web.
We are the weavers we are the web." When working with her.

For incense I like using copal or cedar.

On a weather divination note: I like looking at the spider webs this time of year to predict what type of winter we will be getting.  I have several recluse spiders on my property and the more generic daddy long legs.  If the webs are incredibly thick we will have a cold winter with lots of snow. It they are thin, then a mild winter is in store. 

It will be a few weeks before I will start seeing the signs for the season ahead.

As we journey closer into fall, remember Grandmother Spider and your connections to your human community and all your relations.

Blessed Be.!

Soul Cages and Collectors Part 2

I have to apologize.  I haven't read the story in a while.  Jack does attempt to save the souls of the drowned sailors.

However I still stand by the remaining comments. In addition to what I already wrote, there are two other main instances where the concept of a collector is mentioned.  In Women Who Run with the Wolves, a collector is mentioned in the context that she collects items that are used in healing shattered souls.

The second instance is a trickster earthbound spirit that captures souls through contracts. I.e. I will give you the perfect boyfriend etc but you must give me X in return.

While my advisor was talking about a past relationship,  I look at my own choices first too see what contracts or deals I was making with the universe to achieve my goals. Yes, I will freely admit and accept responsibility for my own wyrd. 

Another area that this heavily ties into for me is the concept of self hexing or self cursing. We want a circumstance changed so badly we make up our own contracts with the universe to become earth bound in order achieve our goal.

At the moment,  in addition to continually dealing with the grief of a failed group marriage and intense work stress it is always tempting to come up with those types of contracts to fix the situation. And yes, I am equally guilty of that too.

So what's a witchy girl to do after she is done crying in the cauldron?  Energy cut aways, self blessing rituals,  and uncrossing rituals in any combination. Remind yourself of the good you are and taking accountability for your action.

Contemplative thought about the Collector

Warning this post is largely about my inner ramblings and an attempt to keep my thoughts clear. I am still working through some of the cohesiveness of it.  

One of the things I do on a regular basis is undergo Underworld Journey's. Ritual acts that help me confront my own daemons and hopefully find some healing. I went on a journey recently. Not all the shadows are chased out but there is a process being developed.

One of the things that was said to me before going to ritual was that one of my recent failed relationship partners was a collector i.e that I was more a part of their collection of people and things than a real relationship.

Being frustrated with the gods in general over my relationship history, I postulated with them what this ment about myself and my role in relationships in general.

After the ritual I was reminded of an Irish fairy tale called the Soul Cages. In it, our hero is a collector of lost cargo in a disserted area. On one of his expedition he meets a monster who collects the souls of drowned sailors in wooden cages. The hero, after a conversation, escaped. What has always bothered me is that none of the other souls are released.

The next night, while drumming, I was reminded of the story of Shango and Oba. The condensed version is that Shango was the warrior king of Oyo. He was a dancer and diviner and loved a lot of women. Oba was his legal wife. Oshun, the goddess of love and luxury was also a wife as was Oya  the Queen of the market place and the only one who can use Shango's lightening.

As the story goes, Oba was growing increasingly concerned that her husband would never look at her again. Feeling self conscious and afraid she went to Oya and asked what she could do to attract his attention again. Oya, being devious and seeing an opportunity, told Oba that if she made Shango a special soup out of one of her ears that would help get his attention. It did, Shango was terrified of the ear. Oba, feeling the rejection and fearing the damage could never be forgiven, fled into the cemetery.

So what's my point in bring this up?

At a certain point, those of us who are service subs desperately crave needing a defined purpose/role to feel fulfilled. In the Soul Cages, the imagery is there to suggest that the drowned souls were kept because they provided energy to the monster.  With Oba she was Shango's partner until she convinced herself that her role didn't exist anymore because the others held Shango's attention more often then not.

For myself, as a service sub, I am having a hard time seeing what my point is right now both at work, home and the community at large. I struggle constantly with this question of am I relevant? It is very tempting to be Oba at the moment, feeling like I have nothing unique to compete with and to run away from everything. My fight is reminding myself that support staff is still a valid role even if its not the star one.

As I get more clarity on the issues I will share more. That's enough for now.

Dancing at Lammas

I spent the last week with Harmony Tribe and the Sacred Harvest Festival.  We are in the process of packing up and heading back to the mundane world.

My biggest thing I come back with is that even if you are a solitary witch you still need community to challenge you and help you grow.

Change is inevitable.  We don't have the luxury of controlling the outcome and ramifications of those changes. However as Frank Herbert once said, "Without change something sleeps deep within us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken." Community helps us navigate those changes.  I am grateful for the friendship and leadership of this group and look forward to many more seasons to come.

Blessed Be.

Back In The Saddle

Merry Meet Beloveds!

I took myself off of the professional tarot reading market several years ago because I needed to focus on some other issues. 

I decided to start making myself available again and had an overwhelmingly positive response.

I have discovered some lessons or relearned a few lessons during my experiment.

I miss doing readings for other people. I enjoy readings.

I realistically cannot do more than ten in a day without getting really fuzzy thinking and fuzzy eyes.

I need to remember to not filter the message.

Sometimes you hear something in the back of your mind and I have to remember that it is not for me to figure out but the person getting the reading. They usually know right away what it means.

So I am happy with my progress. 

After this week I will be offline and at Harmony Tribe Sacred Harvest Festival with the family. I am looking forward to reconnecting with some folks I have been out of touch with and connecting with new people.

Blessed Be everyone.

Manifestation and Why didn't my spell work?

One of the age old questions that face magic practioners and any time of long term prayer/spell work is why didn't my spell work?

This is not going to be a long treatise on the ins and out of spell work. However, I has some minor wisdom...

Are you sure it wasn't answered? Are you really sure?

There are usually pat answers that the request didn't work because either the answer was no, our intent wasn't focused enough or that free will of multiple people are involved that muck things up.

About a year ago, I had won a reading from a facebook friend and she had asked if I would be interested in trying out a new oil she had conjure or I entered the contest for the oil and the reading I cant remember the details except I had the priveledge of trying out her new oil.

It was a truth oil, i had been struggeling with some health issues and was going to see a new endochrinologist. Long story short I did find out some interesting facts that has led to an increase in my health. I had also used the oil for helping me face some personal truth.

I am not sure what I was expecting as a result. I think something Charmed esq involving lights, trumpets and sounds but it was a slower process and not clearly visible.

All I can say is that I did start addressing some major and minor issues in my life as a result and changes have happened and are still in the progress of happening.

Don't get discouraged if you are not seeing tangible results. Sometimes they just take a little while longer to reach us and not always in a form we recognize until later.

As we approach Lammas, I encourage you to challange your perception and honor where spells and prayer requests are still in the process of being answered.

Blessed Be!

Changes, Study Focus etc....

Merry Meet Beloveds:

I have been away for a while. Life getting jumbled up with dealing with depression and reevaluating where my focus and priority is.

Work has been its usual crazy self and home has been interesting.

Now that the dust is settled and I am grounded and centered.... I am choosing to change the focus of my study for a little bit and my posts.

I am choosing to embark and a serious study of conjure/hoodoo practices and hopefully write more about the folklore of magic.

My hope is to post at least once a week on a relevant topic and attempt to get back into an actual cycle with this stuff.

Thanks for your patience and continued reading.

Blessed be!

Spring comes to Minnesota in time for Beltane and the start of summer!

Last friday we saw what will hopefully be out last big snow fall of the year.

The exciting news is that the Leaky Cauldron is not leaking. My front porch and back deck are clear of snow. Once the rain stops, I will be able to start having my morning cuppa outside again.

Tinkerbell, my cat couldn't be happier. We have both been discovering that we have a fairly active frog population behind the barn. The swallows, wrens, and mallards have been active too. It is interesting to have some new totems for the property show up. Rabit, raven and squirel have all been active this winter along with the neighborhood stray cats and dogs.

I have started some rosemary plants for the front gate. This weekend I will start my wormwood, mugwort and hyssop seeds indoors. (For those not in this climate, we don't really plant outside until late May.)

Life, in a word is very much happy! Next post may even include some picturesof the various happenings around the trailer:)

Contemplative Cosmic Belly Button Lint of the Day/Week

I constantly mull around my own behavioral patterns and mental processes to help deal with all the crap that comes our way wither we want it or not. Lately, I find myself being equally angered and bewildered on how much I have let other people control my relationships (romantic, platonic, or otherwise).

I am embarrassed to admit that because of the years of emotional abuse and isolation, I have begun to feel that getting so have time with other people is a reward/punishment for how much my behavor has pleased my partner. Even if I know logically that I am not seeing someone because I am tired or other events in my or their life have superceded getting together there is still an underlying conviction that either the gods are punishing me for something or if it is the other party cancelling that they are punishing me for something. The degree of that conviction is usually equal to the amount of other events have been cancelled or denied that week or that day.

I am also ashamed to admit that I have been letting my inner Smeagol rule the response to said events. If Smeagol is an obtuse reference for you non Tolkein friends I join my previous detractors in a chorus of :"You don't have any friends. Nobody likes you."

So what have I been doing to stop Smeagol and possibily something you can do too?

I have been doing daily self blessing rituals. The one I like the best is something modified from the Garderarian kids....
Tools: Favorite candle color, favorite incense, favorite cake and ale offering

Ground and Center
Cast a circle if you desire
Call Watchtowers if you desire
Call God, Goddess of your choice
Call the ancesotors

Thank you Lord and Lady for creating me to be your divine daughter/son.
Blessed Be my feet that have brought me along the way.
Blessed be my knees that kneel at the sacred altar.
Blessed be my womb/phallus that issues forth life.
Blessed be my ears for hearing the words of the gods.
Blessed be my mouth for speaking their wisdom.

So mote it be.

Continue to think about all the good quaities you have and the friends and family you are blessed with. Continue to imagine the road and door open to receive positive relationships that are mutualy encouraging.

When you are ready, offer up the cake and ale offering and consume.
Dismiss the circle, etc and journal the experience.

move on when you are ready.


If you are involved in any reiki work, this is a good time to do an attunement on yourself. If you are a 2nd degree or high the use of the symbols and their names as a mantra can also significantly help.

Blessed Be.

Impatiently waiting for the thaw...

Its hard to believe that the spring equinox is around the corner. Hard to believe since in the frozen tundra we have feet of snow still. My hot water pipes are frozen again and we get positively giddy when we reach any number above 0.  However, I am assured there are signs of spring.

As the Lord and Lady have given birth to the divine child, we have the sale of girl scout cookies. The basketball season is slowly turning towards playoffs. The stores are full of the weird cross over of St. Patrick's Day and Easter/Ostara decorations.

So, I have hope that once again I will see green instead of white outside my front door. Eventually I will get to have coffee on my deck and contemplate life, the universe, and everything.

As assuredly as those girl scout cookies aren't going to eat themselves, spring will get here and we will be warm again.

Forgiveness and the Hierophant

It seems a little shallow to only focus a day on forgiveness issues and the Hierophant. The Hierophant is all about how organized religion, education and popular culture form our identiy and our views about outselves.

I don't know about you but I could spend years analysising how I was offended and hurt by organized religion let along school. Both experiences left something to be desired. But the exercise isn't so much about laying blame on other people but identifying the broken places and being willing to let go of the past and the dream that it could have been different. Even where the Church is concerned or our teacher from the 7th grade who didn't ahre our vision of world dominaion...er I mean peace.....

My point being, we all have things that we wish could have been different. If we live constnatly in the shadow of what should have been we blind ourselves to the possibilities that are and the future ibes that could be. The other interesting lesson in this is the following: we humans are prone to screw up by our very nature. We cannot possibly keep everyone's desires in focus, That type of demand is simply nerve wracking and crazy making. If we cannot find forgiveness for those in or out of power around us, we won't find it for ourselves. We can only find externally what we see internally.

I am not sure I will go through each card individually. It may focus more on the cards that I still struggle with ainterpreting.

Blessed Be.

Forgiveness and the Tarot Journey Part 1

Someone once defined forgiveness as the belief that the past could have been different and letting go of that belief.
Forgiveness is a deliberate act of compassion. Not so much for the other person or situation we are being offended by but for us, the individual letting go of the bitterness and hatred that has been build up over perceived or actual offenses.

There are a lot of issues that have lead me to choose to focus 2014 on the deliberate act of forgiveness. There is ritual and meditation involved for me to help remind me to let go. One of the tools I use is the tarot.

The tarot is its own mystery school with multiple systems for interpretation. I tend to use a key word or key phrase type of system for this work. It helps me to formulate questions for journal writing and ritual creation.

For this last week, I have been working through the first five cards of the major arcana: the fool, the magician, the high priestess, the empress, and the emperor.

The thing I find interesting is that all five of these cards reflect our sense of innocence connection with our personal power. Forgiveness on this level tends to focus on those that had us question our goddess given gifts and abilities. Forgiveness on this level, is not just about our parents, teachers, friends who had us second guess our talents but forgiving ourselves for not trusting what we knew to be true about ourselves. Intuition is a powerful for that way. It is not just about trusting what we are being told by "them" about the future but trusting what we believe about the future too.