August 31st, 2006 at 11:03 pm
(Witches Weekly)
How do you feel about animal or blood sacrifices? In terms I’m speaking about using your own blood as a sacred object during a spiritual working, and using all parts of an animal (hunting deer for meat/pelts) rather than solely for ritual sacrifice. Though if you want to speak about plain animal sacrifice, by all mean
It depends on the context of the working. If I make a tool, such as a wand that I’m not going to let anyone touch- ever, then yes, I think using my blood is a positive thing. It means that you’re serious about empowering the wand, you’re putting your personal energy into it, and you’re personalizing it. You don’t have to use your blood to do this but sometimes I find it meaningful to me and something I need to do.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to use your own blood in spells/workings involving other people, especially negative workings and concerning people you wouldn’t want a link with. I feel that using your blood in such a ritual will definitely link you with the object of the working and you could lose a lot of personal energy or affect your self in a karmically negative way.
I have no problems using my menstrual blood in nature magick and I do enjoy, call me sick, watering plants with water containing that blood, especially those I intend to form a link with or use for myself herbally or magickally. Some witches find menstrual blood to be particularly strong in potency and like to use it in ritual- and I have no problems with that.
I have big problems with ritual animal sacrifice because I don’t believe other lives are more important than mine when it comes to getting the desired result. I’ll go out on a limb and call it profane to my spirituality. Even if I still ate meat, I’d have an enormous problem with it- Why does an animal have to die for someone to get a new lover? Why would I be pompous enough to believe that an animal would want to die so I could achieve an end? I believe there are animals who will give themselves so people can eat them and live but since there are other ways of showing that level of seriousness- like suffering yourself, fasting, sacrificing an object dear to you, or using your own blood- I feel that killing an animal for ritual work is against all I believe in.
If you hunt an animal and use all of its parts ritually, not just to sacrifice its life, I feel that it is right and proper for you- especially if you propitate the animal’s spirit beforehand. If you make an offering and honor the animal, the yes, that is all right. If you hunt in an ethical and sacred manner, I cannot object to a person fashioning parts of an animal into ritual objects. I do object hunting to kill and not honoring the animal either by leaving the body to rot or not obtaining its permission to be used in a ritual manner. I personally do not like the idea of propitating an animal to use its death only for sacrifice and not using the body. I suppose it is and can be done… but I don’t like the idea at all.
This is odd because I had thought about submitting something like this as a question. Oh well- well done. 
August 28th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
(Reflections, Wild Foods and Medicines)
Please, at the next oppertunity, order a nice, large bottle of tincture of Cleavers at MountainRose to go with your poke berries. You happen to be wonderously sensitive to Grandmother-Sister and two berries’ worth of juice is your limit. You will now suffer from over-active lymph glands for the next day or so and have learnt an important lesson. But at least you collected the berries mindfully and processed them mindfully. Just think what would have happened, had you been a git 
Have an achy, lesson-filled night.
Me
P.S.- At least your mind has become acute once more. Small, blessings, right?
P.P.S.- *lmao@you*
August 28th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
(Interstitial Cystitis, Writing)
I really need to find a way to get some more energy. I haven’t been able to push myself very hard these days at all. Perhaps I’m being unfair to myself. Dunno.
I haven’t updated the brush site in over a month and I feel bad about it. NANOWRIMO is coming up and already I’m fearing that I won’t be able to sustain enough energy to write all 50,000 words. Hell, some days it’s a chore to string together three coherent thoughts. Maybe I’ll be better after father’s surgery? I sure hope so. I still can’t get over how nervous, scared, and horrible I feel about his whole situation. Which causes me to bood over stupid things that have happened to me in the past, like there will never, ever be good days again.
But at least it’s not affecting my bladder. At least. Right? Sometimes I feel I should go back to eating meat because I should suffer.
Maybe I’ll call my therapist after all.
Don’t mind me; I get this way sometimes.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:36 pm
(Artistic, News, Thoughts, Wild Foods and Medicines)
I’ve come out of hiding for a bit. I know I’m a bit off right now but then again, so does everyone else. Forward blogging person!
My father had his MRI on Monday. Today he had another doctor’s appointment to discuss what the results were and to set up his surgery. The cancer is only in his large intestine and was, as I’ve been saying, caught very, very early. This means that he’s only going to have to have a section of his colon removed but no chemo or radiation. His surgery is set for September the 18th. It is set for that far out because he didn’t want to have to fast until 1pm *L* He’d rather have his operation in the morning. Well, I don’t blame him, however, I wouldn’t be able to eat anyway, and wouldn’t care after the operation, so get that diseased bowel out of my body. *heh*
The berries on my special poke plant are taking their sweet time to ripen but I suppose it’s for the best as it gives me more time to forge a bond with her. I’ve been checking her daily for a week and all there are are those fat, tiny, green pumpkin-looking berries on her, so I just give her a pat, put down whatever I’ve brought her, and wander back to the cottage. I like to give her nettles and herbal teas. Sometimes I give her a bit of white sage. I’ll make a big white sage offering when I collect berries. When I go for a root this late fall/early winter, I need sacred tobacco. That’s what she wants; that’s what she gets. The only problem is finding ethically-raised and harvested tobacco. I might grow my own in containers next year, since it’s so hard to find. Anyway- I want the plant to know I respect her because she’s so powerful- she’s a power plant, like fly agaric or peyote and you treat those like your grandmother or grandfather: with healthy respect. You won’t catch me simply playing with poke… though I’ve read that the food industry does use the de-seeded berries for food coloring.
I’m already agonizing over this years NANOWRIMO. I want to finish this one, not simply reach 50,000 words. I have a main character, something of a setting, something of a secondary character, and the Thing to Be Overcome. I still need an ending. And stuff between. *L* But I’m working on it.
I’m also thinking about making another layout for the blog, just because I have the disk space and the bandwidth to do so. But I don’t know what I want yet. Just that I’m in the layout-making mood.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
(Witches Weekly)
What method do you use to plan through rituals or spellwork? (such as a ritual outline, etc) Give a brief rundown of how a particular ritual for you goes.
First, I have to decide whether I need a full ritual or not. A lot of spells for me are cast via “breathing mana”, that is, gathering energy by breathing it in from my surroundings and then releasing it all at once, fixed to an intent. Breathing mana can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. If I anticipate a longer working, I usually put up some protection because I don’t like to be tranced and open to everything.
If I decide I need an actual ritual, I must then determine whether I need an elaborate ritual or a simple ritual. I’m not into big ritual but if something needs extra oomph or if I feel strongly about it, then it will be elaborate. Small rituals usually consist of the following:
Define my intent
Define supplies needed: Usually herbs, stones, oils, and candles, perhaps incense
Cast circle
Call in guides, helpers, etc.
Invite in the Deity I wish to work with
Re-state intent
Charge materials
Affirm intent is carried out
Thank Deity
Thank helpers, guides, etc
Open circle
Big ritual involves ritual dress, the choosing of the proper location, offerings of herbs or resins or foods. It may also involve inscribed papers, salts hand-blended beforehand, special invocations. It also takes longer.
I don’t do too many rituals outside of breathing mana. This isn’t to say that I don’t like ritual but rather I try to live my rituals so that I only need to organize something if I really feel I must.
August 14th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
(Nature, News, Uncategorized, Wild Foods and Medicines)
I’ve been laying pretty low here recently. I feel guilty for not taking this well. I’m staying up late and punishing myself for not being a bastion of strength. I’m losing weight but I promise I’m eating. I’m very mad at myself right now- I’m not the one in danger, dammit.
Father’s supposed to have tests this week. Until then, we don’t know the exact stage/state of his cancer or whether it started somewhere else and migrated to his colon. That’s his biggest fear- that, like his elder brother, the cancer in his colon orignated elsewhere and it’s much worse than we suspect. Uncle Alvis’ prognostication says that he has under a year to live but the chemo is really shrinking his tumors, so I believe they might revise it. Truthfully, I don’t know how Father is handling it because it’s not my parents’ way to talk to me about such things- they tell Eloric instead, swear him to secrecy, and then he tells me anyway. I don’t know why they can’t tell me. I mean, I know they are doing it to spare me… but the result is the same anyway, so might as well have it firsthand.
We did finally make it down to the creek for white teasel heads the other day. This essence was rather the same as lavender teasel but it works on more subtle levels, rather like an energetic soul retrieval. It also insists that it is male and the other is female. Interesting because most male essences are the ones that work on the physical issues and the female are more emotional/energetic. This mother essence was also bitter whereas the sister was all sweet and lovely. You learn all of the time, I guess. I bottled more of this one than I did of the other, since it seems to require a course to deal with a specific issue.
I ate part of a poke berry yesterday. I don’t encourage other people to do it, simply because I don’t want others to eat something strange and get sick. You can eat the ripe berries as long as you don’t crush the seeds within… but do your own research first. I don’t want to get sued. Anyway- It was very bland, not at all what I had expected from Grandmother. I had thought the berries would be tart but they’re pretty blah, maybe a bit sweet. I could sense the power in the plant when the juice touched my tongue- like a rush of power going into my body. Poke is a power plant, by the way, and must be approached with respect. I was to chicken to eat the whole berry because it wasn’t from the plant I’ve been cultivating a relationship with since it sprouted in the spring. And I was just plain chicken. *L* But I will have one off of the other plant here when they ripen. I’ve offered a good bit of white sage and various herbs to her as well as energy, so maybe I’ll have a good experience.
I’ve been waiting for poke berries since spring as I’ve read they do much for arthritis and my costochondritis has been playing up for about three months now. I am dreading winter.
Thurien tried to pierce my nose yesterday. I know he was trying to be affectionate but I don’t want an infected nose like Eloric had when Tar did the same to him. Tar likes to give kisses but he also does “I love you” nose bites and it’s hard to tell when he’s going to affectionately puncture a nostril. I’ve been putting tea tree oil on it, so hopefully it won’t form an infected boil. *cringe*
I think I’ll go for a bit of a walk in the yard. It’s hard to outrun your mind but maybe I’ll have a bit of peace for a minute or two.
August 9th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
(News)
Ever since my uncle Alvis was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer, we’ve been on my father to get a colonoscopy done just in case. The same thing happened when uncle Roland was diagonsed and then succumbed to prostate and bone cancer. Today pop had his test.
He has colon cancer.
.
..
…
..
.
We’re all still kidding him about being loopy on the Versed but the fact is, we’re all trying to cover up our shock. The doctor who did the scope said that it was caught very, very early. This is a good thing. But it doesn’t change the fact that he has cancer and is going to have to have some sort of operation. The patch was very small and looked as if it didn’t reach past the mucosa, which is also very good. It is very fresh and very hard for me to write about as it brings up all sorts of fear, saddness, and physical symptoms (which I feel guilty about because *he’s* the one who’s sick, ffs.).
Right now I don’t want to think about it. Gods know I will be thinking about it enough in the near future. My mother was nearly belligerent in telling me not to worry because of how early it was caught- and I understand as that’s just the way she deals with things. But I’m going to worry. But I don’t want to think about it right now.
August 7th, 2006 at 12:27 am
(Metaphysical, Nature, Wild Foods and Medicines)
I haven’t been very talkative lately as- surprise!- I’ve been feeling ill again. I think something’s going around but I would really like to stop catching random things, you know? I don’t complain much about having a chronic illness any more but I sure whine about catching little things. *L*
I’ve been really obscessed with tea lately. I mean like I’ve been drinking 8+ six ounce cups every night, drinking it like it’s a religious obigation or something. I have to say that the tea I ordered about a week ago is mostly the most lovely tea I’ve ever had… except for the Osmanthus Green. It has a sort of beer-y finish and I’m not a fan of beer. I adore Osmanthus Black, so I thought green would be as good. Wrong. Oh well. The Tea Table is still teh awesome, even though that particular tea is not. I just had three cups of Pur-eh tea and I’m addicted. It’s like drinking earth and fall leaves- which is just my style. Lori gives samples too- many of them are free unless you want something exotic. Tea, tea, tea! Mmmmmm.
I have also written the first version of How to Make Essences- hopefully it’s helpful and mostly complete but feel free to ask questions or make suggestions on what needs added. I tried to be thorough. Hopefully no one will take me to task for writing all of that but honestly- there are other articles out there. And it’s an art more than a science. I might write another later on how to get totems or other energies into the water… when I figure out what goes where.
I’m supposed to go down to the creek tomorrow to get a white teasel head. Teasel has opened so many doors for me already. I’m both excited and apprehensive to try this different colored flower as I tend to worry that the experience will go wrong somehow or not be as strong. It’s also put me off of stones as I guess I’m supposed to be working with plants right now. Figures that then I would be able to get Bustamite and OuroVerde quartz. Must think hard about whether or not I will lust for the OuroVerde later as I had before teasel entered my life.
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