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!