Sabbat Oils from Natural Magick Shop

Yule

Yule, the Winter Solstice, is usually on the 21^st or 22^nd of December, the shortest day and longest night. Yule oil was the first of the eight Sabbat oils from Natural Magick Shop. It has Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh, evergreen trees, and holiday spices. Enjoy as a ritual anointing oil for this or in concentrated form for aromatherapy diffusers.

Many Pagans celebrate this occasion as the birth of the Divine Child, also known as the New Year and Baby Jesus. This might be why we use this holiday to honor children by giving them presents. What I think might also be happening with this holiday, from a sociological point of year, is a ritualized re-distribution of wealth. During the cold winter months, back in simpler times it would become clearer who has plenty and who faces hunger as the shelves get bare. (The traditional lump of coal for bad children might be a needed source of heat for a poor family.) So it makes sense for adults to give gifts, and we still play out this in our own families and in charity. If you are a starving college student, you give your uncle a hand-woven potholder or such, and he cuts you a check for a C-note or two.

For Pagans, it is difficult to separate the Winter Solstice, which marks the beginning of the solar year, with New Year’s Eve, which marks the beginning of the calendar year. Perhaps the minor separation is just because of the Julian calendar not working so good all the time. anybody needing charity, it can be a humiliating thing to receive directly from wealthy people. So perhaps the “invention” of Father Christmas a.k.a. Santa Claus makes this more graceful for both parties. The gifts were delivered at night, through the chimney, by Santa, and nobody need know who was giving and who was getting charity.

Other traditional pagan motifs involve tree worship of some sort. What else would you call the decoration of the Christmas tree? There is also the burning of the Yule log, which according to some, should burn all night long as sympathetic magick to bring about the return of the Sun. According to others, the Yule log was supposed to be a whole tree that burned all YEAR long. The burning of the Yule log, among other things, is to mark the change of the year-king from the Holly King, who rules from the Summer Solstice to the Winter Solstice, over to his brother/rival/alter ego, the Oak King. So if we sacrifice an evergreen tree, it represents the peak and fall of the power of the Holly King. We burn the oaken Yule log to give energy to the new Oak King, who rules until he is sacrificed on Midsummer’s Day. So you would select an oak tree to cut down and divide up among the villagers, to keep until it is burned at Yule. Pagan traditions love to make sense of the seasonal cycles and provide continuity among the holidays.

Then, a few days after New Year’s you have the Annunciation, which in European countries is the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas. In Italy, there is the tradition of La Befana, a faery-witch-crone-goddess who gives candy and gifts to good children and a lump of coal to bad ones. Now they make a black hard candy that looks like coal, and all the kids get it, because they have all been at least a little bad! Again, different name, but the same idea of anonymous giving by a proxy deity, and the honoring of children.

However you choose to celebrate the Solstice, I hope it brings joy, friends, family, and prosperity to you. The great thin about being Pagan is that we can celebrate all the holidays for this time of year! So Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Yule, Kwanzaa Blessings, Serene Solstice, and Merry Christmas, y’all!

Imbolc

Imbolc, Imbolg, or Brigid is the pagan Sabbat on or about February 2nd. Use this oil for ritual anointing to accentuate any ceremony or candle observance to honor this day, and to celebrate the growing light. My Imbolc oil smells bright and fresh for the newness of the Sun and the growing light.

I also wanted it to have just a touch of the smell of burning candles, since this is a Candle holiday. This holiday is also known as Brigid, dedicated to the Goddess Brigid, and in other places, we call this holiday Candelaria or Candlemas, or Ground Hog's Day. This holiday is often observed with blessings, consecrations and initiations, so Imbolc oil could be used for any of these purposes no matter what time of year.

At this time of year, the rate of change of daylight is at a peak…you will be noticing it! Imbolc means “in the belly” and refers to the sheep who begin to give birth to lambs at this time of year. So the colors of the holiday are whites for the wool and the milk, and the snow.

In Celtic lands, this holiday is associated with the goddess Brigid, and observances include the procession of little corn dollies in miniature beds by young women and girls. Married women and heads of households received these representatives of the Goddess with great respect, and often treats.

A relative of mine from Puerto Rico told me they celebrate the holiday as Candelaria, and the custom is to burn your Christmas tree and light candles on this night. Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria is an avatar of the Virgin Mary who came to south and central America from the Canary Islands, and one of her feast days is February 2^nd.

A great way to celebrate this Sabbat might be to make your ritual candles for the rest of the Wheel of the Year. Since Brigid also keeps a Sacred Well, blessing of holy water, or other water healing and cleansing rituals would be appropriate.

Ostara

Ostara is the holiday of the Vernal Equinox, usually on or around March 21^st.

Most modern neo-Pagans call the Spring Equinox either Eostar or Ostara.  Natural Magick Shop Ostara oil celebrates the Spring with a very green,fresh scent that has a hint of the wildflowers soon to come. Use it for candles dedicated to any ritual for this season, or to anoint celebrants.

Eostar is obviously a cognate with the words Easter and East. Many of the “Christian” motifs for Easter are the Pagan interpretations of this time of year: pastel colored eggs, chicks, and of course bunnies. We almost always have an “Eostar” egg hunt for the kiddos, and maybe we paint cascarones and have a confetti battle. Ostara is the name of a German goddess of the spring who often appeared at this time in the form of a white rabbit. So there you have it, the Easter Bunny, usually thought of as being a boy, is actually a goddess.

Once I hired a friend who was from the Czech Republic to help with packaging. She overheard me talking about Ostara to a Wicca 101 class I was teaching. At the end of the class, she came out and told us that in Czechoslovakia they have a custom for this time of year. The men would go out and cut little switches of new growth from trees, then they would swat the women “about the thighs and buttocks” until the women gave them an egg! Do we really need Mr. Freud to explain that one to us???

The main other Pagan cycle for this season is another fertility myth. Anyone familiar with high-school mythology will know the basic story of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and Persephone: Persephone goes missing, haven been kidnapped by Hades, god of the UnderWorld, and Persephone’s mother, Demeter grieves, causing famine and the first winter on Earth. Finally Persephone is reunited with her mother, and the joy of their reunion brings about spring. This drama is enacted as sacred theater in many Pagan traditions of Greco-Roman orientation.

Beltane

Beltane is one of the "cross-quarter days," a time in between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, usually celebrated on May 1^st or May Day. Beltaneoil is a sweet, sensuous smell to celebrate the lush eroticism of the season, as well as to greet the waking Faery folk with a fragrance worth a merry dance or two. No more than three. Okay, we're dancing all night!

On or about May 1st, Beltane is one sexy holiday, a celebration of the erotic awakening of the Goddess and God, sometimes portrayed by participants as a Sacred Marriage between the May Queen and May King. We dance around the May Pole with ribbons, adorning a phallic symbol with our wishes and desires. This tradition was originally NOT a children’s game! Then there was the balefire jumping, where it was alleged that the flame that got up under the maidens’ skirts was what caused the pregnancy (obviously it was NOT what happened in the bushes around the bonfire after the rituals). In general, as we watch Wild Nature in the raptures of rutting, growing, and blooming, we are invited to celebrate with equally lusty and wild abandon. Music, often very bawdy songs, dancing, costuming, and oh, the mead!

Beltane is also the biggest worldwide celebration of human labor, and it is only in the U.S. that “Labor Day” is not celebrated on May 1st. All over Europe and South America, May Day is about workers marching in parades and socializing at picnics in solidarity with unions, organized labor, and the working class in general all over the globe. It is tempting to wonder if there are any historical connections between the Pagan holiday and the labor holiday.

The holidays of Beltane and Samhain are also connected to the stars, to wit, our most beloved Pleiadean cluster. The Pleiades are in the area of the Heavens ruled by Taurus, and we go into Taurus at Beltane. By some accounting, and according to most Celtic traditions, it is not the exact date May 1st or October 31st which determined the dates of Beltane and Samhain, but the dates where the Pleiades rise at dawn and sundown, respectively. So depending on which latitude you were in, the date would change accordingly. This helped link the Pleiades and Beltane to the agricultural cycle, and in MesoAmerican traditions the Pleiades strictly ruled the planting season as well.

The final Pagan association with Beltane that I will leave you with may also be related to Pleiadean myth. It is often said that the “bad Faeries” go underground at Beltane while the “good Faeries” come out to the surface of Earth to live. Then at Samhain they change places. So this is why the “Veil Between the Worlds” is said to be very thin at these two times of year, good for spirit contact, divinations, and journeys into the UnderWorld or OtherWorld. I have always found that these two holidays are very much linked across the Wheel of the Year. There is always something of Halloween in Beltane, something scary and death-dealing that contrasts with all the flesh and flowers, and conversely, there is always something of May Day in Samhain, a sexy sub theme to all of the death, ghosts, and monsters. So we could celebrate Beltane by welcoming the Bright Faeries who have awakened, and send the Dark Fae back to sleep with one last hoo-haw.

If you don’t have any Pagan kinsmen to celebrate Beltane with, just look to the secular celebrations that crowd the Events section of the local newspapers at this time of year. Because of the (hopefully) mild weather this time of year, there are all sorts of festivals and fundraisers planned for the weekends around May Day. You can probably find a delightfully Pagan theme within any of them, or create one by joining in the planning committee. I bet they’d love it if you offered to set up a May Pole “for the children,” hee hee.

One way to connect the celebration of Earth Day with Beltane would to be to ally ourselves with the Faery races for the Re-Greening of the world. The Earth Spirits would probably love to see humans joining together to heal the planet as opposed to our current endeavor to drive ourselves and everything else extinct. Perhaps we could listen well during this time that the Veil is thin, for messages and suggestions on how we can make our footsteps fall more lightly on Earth, and live in a more balanced reciprocating way. Then all we would need is the courage to do it.

Litha

The peak of the Sun’s power is June 21st, the Summer Solstice, referred to as Litha or Midsummer’s Day by Pagans, and the Feast of Saint John by Christians. Especially in the more northern latitudes, this time of year is easily noted for the long day length, a blessing to be celebrated since ancient times.  Litha oil by Natural Magick Shop is full of fiery Sun energy to bless ritual participants or add Midsummer energy to ritual candles.

Much of what is practiced by modern neo Pagans for our Litha celebrations is inferred and collected in bits and pieces from many different sources. For example, St. Eligius in the 7th century warned Flander’s newly Christianized citizens against Solesticia, rites of “leaping and diabolical chanting. That sounds like Pagan fun to me!

Wicca and related neo Pagan traditions emphasize the peak power of Sun and the element of fire in this holiday. Herbs, especially herbs known for their magickal protection properties, are at their most potent if gathered on Midsummers’ Eve or Midsummer’s Day. This makes sense since herbs are naturally at their most productive during this season. I’ve read in different places that nine herbs should be gathered to throw onto the Midsummer’s fire, depending on the source:  rosemary, thyme, marjoram, hyssop, sage, St. John's wort, violets, vervain, carnations, mugwort, mistletoe, and fennel. In particular, I have heard that mistletoe would have been gathered by the Druids for protection charms. All sorts of herbal arts and crafts can be incorporated for your Litha spellworking. My big project for this time of year is to make the Dragon’s Blood oil to ensure that it is as fiery as it possibly can be.

Like the herbs, trees are in their finest form and most rampant growth by Midsummer’s. This is the Green Man’s wildest and most fertile time. Likewise, the Oak King reaches the zenith of his reign on this day, only to be bested on the next by the Holly King, who will then rule the rest of the year as days grow shorter. With this cycle in mind, it would make sense to go out and harvest Oak wood, picking out one nice log to keep for your Yule fire. (The rest could be your magickal barbeque wood!) If you saved your old Christmas tree, you could also use it to start your Midsummer’s bonfire to create a continuous cycle. The ashes of the Midsummer’s bonfire had uses in many protection charms, and livestock would be forced to walk through the ashes or smoke to protect them from disease.

Bonfires were also an ancient observance of this longest day/shortest night. The fires below reflected the fires above. Naturally, whenever fires are a part of a Pagan celebration there is likely to be the attendant dancing, drinking, music making, and telling of tall tales.

Speaking of tall tales, my favorite Midsummer’s stories is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I always rent this one for viewing as a part of my very neo Pagan ritual. Try to find the old black and white one where child star Mickey Rooney plays Puck.

Shakespeare was definitely reflecting popular beliefs that the Faeries also celebrated this holiday in a major way, and especially it was time for the trooping fae of the Seelie court to make wild rides through the sky. Drink some mead around the bonfire and look up to see if you can catch the parade.

If this is not enough to choose from for your Midsummer observances, here is an entirely new one, originating in Japan and South Korea. It is called Candle Night, and on June 24th, many municipal lights will be turned off, and candlelight performances, dinners, story tellings, etc. will proceed. It is a meditation on world peace and energy consumption, and I think extremely appropriate for the fire/energy focus of the Litha holiday.

Lammas

Lammas, or Lughnasadh, is the pagan Sabbat on or about August 1st. It is most often celebrated as a first harvest holiday, focusing on harvest of grains. This is a “Cross-Quarter Day” midway between a Soltice and and Equinox. Lammas oil is created to be both celebratory and offeratory. I have tried to give it the smell of fresh bread and roasting grains along with the brightness of the waning sun, since this is the first holiday after High Summer, the Summer Solstice. Use this oil for any ritual or celebration for this time of year, and to honor the Celtic solar god Lugh, who rules the weather and harvest of this time of year.

Lammas is also a time of races, contests and games of physical skill. The landscape is a village harvest of the grain fields. This is a time of celebration (at least, if the harvest is successful and bountiful) and all the village is at work to get the harvest in. It is said that the contests begin with who can harvest the most grain. Then it was said that the laborers would leave the last sheaf of grain standing and the contestants would try to be the first to cut it down by throwing their harvesting sickles at it.

The fields are now clear, and there is all this open space which is available. Footraces, horse races, team sports, all have an open arena. This becomes a sort of Pagan Olympics, and celebration of the vigor and strength of young adulthood.

Beer is brewed from grain, so it is easy to imagine a brewfest of some sorts becoming part of the festivities.

Another fascinating motif for this Sabbat is a confessional and attonement ritual. The aforementioned last sheaf, or a Corn Dollies, or a Corn Man (the first loaf baked from the freshly harvested grain) represented John Barleycorn, a god or hero who represented the sacrifice that the Grain God made for the community’s survival. He will be mourned and buried (sometimes burned/cremated) but there is an opportunity before he is committed to the final resting place. You have the opportunity to whisper a confession, or some secret you want John Barleycorn to take to the grave with him. You can in this way be absolved of your guilt, and no other living being need know your crime.

Mabon

Mabon is the recent pagan appellation for the Autumnal Equinox, usually September 21st or 22nd. This oil honors the elder Celtic king, Mabon, and includes herbs and resins suitable for offeratory purposes and for any celebration of this time of year. Mabon oil smells like Autumn, with Oaks and mosses, and a hint of apple.

Since Mabon is the time when day and night are equal, Mabon oil could be used not only for this holiday, but for any time that balance or clear and fair judgment is needed.

Mabon is an Elder King, so I use this holiday and this oil to honor the wisdom and contributions of our living mature and elder community leaders.

The main legend of Mabon leaves one wondering why the name of this god was chosen, evidently in recent times, to this holiday and time of year. Mabon, son of the goddess Modrone, was kidnapped when he was only three days old. Nobody knew where he was taken or if he was still alive. The hero Cullwch was given an impossible number of quests to win the hand of his beloved, Olwen, and the rescue of Mabon (now an elder king in a dungeon for his whole life!) was part of the epic. The adventure included the aid of King Arthur’s court, and five Spirit Guide animals, Crow, Stag, Owl, Eagle, and Salmon.

Autumn is a favored time for outdoor activity, from camping to hunting, and perhaps we could extrapolate from this legend to include Animal Magick, and the seeking of Animal guides. Mabon oil would certainly harmonize well with campfire aroma and other Autumnal nature scents.

Samhain

Samhain is the pagan Cross Quarter Day Sabbat otherwise known as Halloween, All Saints Day, Dia de Los Muertos, celebrated on October 31st to November 11th, depending on the tradition. This oil is to honor the dearly departed as well as to protect the incarnate living from any bogies or phookas may have made it across while the Veil Between the Worlds is thin. Samhain oil by Natural Magick Shop is sweet, sultry, and mysterious.

Samhain oil is attractive to spirits; discarnate and noncarnate forms of beings, but its nature is to feed and propitiate these entities, thus preserving a bond and a boundary between the worlds. Samhain oil is powerfully activating to the Third eye, so it can be used to make us more sensitive to messages and communications from the Beyond. Most people find its smell to be comforting and fascinating, as Death is Itself. For this reason, Samhain oil is helpful to resolve and honor the grief process, no matter what time of year it may come to visit.

If popular culture understands anything about Pagans, the Halloween observance may be the reason! The iconic images of the Crone Witch, the Black Cat, the Scull, the Spider, and the grimacing Jack O’Lantern are the perfect mix of attraction/repulsion for the morbid curiosity of the human condition! Samhain is a celebration of Death, and preparation for the Winter that is coming.

Like its opposite holiday on the Wheel of the Year, Samhain is a time when the Veil Between the Worlds is thin. The realms of the Dead, the lands of the Faeries, and the Human world are said to be close. Additionally, this is a time of movement…all the dead who passed earlier in the year now have their last feast with their surviving family and loved ones before passing into the realm of the Dead. So places are set for the dearly departed, portions of the meal are served to their plates, and toasts are made to say goodbye. The Pleiades now come to be visible in the night sky, and this is where the Seelie Courts migrate, while the Unseelies (bad Faeries) are now free to haunt the darkening landscape. This is also the season of the Apple harvest, but we leave one Apple on the tree for the Apple Tree Man. Any apples left on the trees in the orchard after Samhain night were property of the Spirits, Faeries, and/or Dead, and it was tabu to harvest, much less eat these apples

Children act out this seasonal change with their scary costumes, and we offer them candy, money, and food, propitiation against the pranks of the Goblins and other malevolent spirits, and the Dead who can find no rest. Our customary Jack O’Lantern is carved, and his protective powers are activated with the lit candle. A fit champion against these mischief makers.

This was a time of revenge, and with all the Spirits, Goblins, and costumed revelers going about, it was expected that calamities of any sort might take place. So any laborer might have cover, to take his revenge against a feudal lord who had cheated the sharecropper out of his share of the harvest. This harsher aspect of the holiday still persists as Devil’s Night or Hell Night where pranks advanced to arson and other forms of property crimes in urban cities, particularly Detroit.

One other widespread Samhain observance is divination and prediction of the future. When the Veil is thin, we are more likely to be receptive to messages from the spirit worlds, dead relatives, or other informants. So here we are back at the cottage of the Crone Witch, where she stirs her cauldron of visionary herbs, to have our fortune told. Bring out the Tarot cards, the inadvisable Ouija board, crystal ball, or swallow the seeds of the apple are in order to have a dream of our future spouse. Samhain oil would be an appropriate enhancement for these or any Samhain observances.

Cord Cutting Ritual: Old School and New Fangled

Cord cutting is a ritual done to remove unhealthy energetic attachments between yourself and another person or persons. I believe that Diane Stein was the first to detail this protocol in her book "Psychic Healing With Spirit Guides and Angels." I will transcribe her tech and append a number of variations that may suit your occasion. This is well-worked magickal practice which has developed considerably since her writing.

It is illuminating to consider what these cords are. The theory is that they are the visualized energy transfer conduit between two people. One is usually the donor, and one is usually on the receptive end. It is a relationship of dependency between a stronger being and a weaker being. If this is sounding unhealthy already, good! However, it has been theorized that these conduits are modeled after the umbilical cord. Your first cord cutting ritual was at birth! That was the severance of the meat of the cord, but there is usually no doubt that an energetic cord of (hopefully) healthy dependance remains between baby-child-young adult and their parents. Cords also form along this umbilical model between friends, lovers, spouses, employees and employers...and unfortunately between predators (aka energy vampires) and their prey.

Because we are all people somewhere on the spectrum of mental health and emotional unbalance, with motives from pure to puerile, there are many opportunities for cords to be formed, whether we like it or not. Some of these connections are healthy, others codependent, others outright malicious.

Diane Stein's original exercise goes:
"Enter the meditative state, ground and center, do full body
relaxation, and invite in your spirit guides, angels, and God/
Goddess/Source. Place protection around yourself. Look within and
ask your guides to show you the first layer of negative chakra cords
to be removed. Look at your solar plexus first. You will see coming
from that center one or more of what look like electric cords plugged
into it. They will seem ugly, dark, or moldy looking, and of various
sizes and thicknesses.

Pick one to focus upon and ask whom it is connected to. You will see,
feel, or know ther person. If it feels right, ask to cut the cord; if
it doesn't feel right, there will be another time. Cutting the cord
does not harm the other person in any way, it just frees your energy
from that person. To cut the cord, visualize scissors or light doing
the job, or ask your guides to cut it or unplug it like a lamp. The
cord will snap back to the person it came from; if it doesn't or there
is a root of it left, ask your guides to take it away. Send light to
the person who has been released, if you can, then fill yourself with
healing light where the plug came out to heal the chakra."

I was taught a variation of this by Reclaiming teachers. We would go to each chakra in turn, starting with the Root Chakra and proceeding up to Third Eye. If you just do Solar Plexus cords, you would miss the cords attached to your Heart with an ex who you can't get over, or the Root Chakra dependencies with a boss who uses your paycheck or job security as a way to control you, and so forth. I disagree with her that there is any “need to know” who the cord is shared with. “Needing to Know” is a trait of obsession which only benefits either the unhealthy attachment at hand, or the tendency to enter into others in the future.

There is no need to cut cords from the Crown Chakra. This is the chakra of the Higher Power, and cords to this chakra only attach to the Divine nature we all share.

We also used actual knives to cut our cords, and the ideal would be your ritual Athame. I have a very gnarly Boline for this work!

Some cords of love lost or codependency are re-formed out of habit, and this is why we should repeat this operation every day for a week or so to get over whatever grief or unhealthy attachment.

Some very persistent Energy Vampires are very aware of this magickal act, and will know when their feed tube is cut off, and reattach it. I have heard of and used a couple of these strategies, but really this is a very rare situation which should be scrutinized to eliminate that the source is not an internal one.

1) First, realize that any agent who seeks to feed off your energy is inherently confessing that they are weak and you are strong. This knowledge will ALWAYS give you the advantage in such a struggle. Most victims feel powerless compared to their predator, but this is a cheap mind trick which is often the ONLY developed skill of the vampire. If they were truly more powerful than you, they would not need you at all.

2) Use Banishing oil or Four Thieves Vinegar to rinse the ritual knife, athame, scissors, etc., before and after the cord cutting. Four Thieves Vinegar is used to eliminate and bring dissolution to enemies, hexes, and the like. The Witch Bottle technology is a similar way to diffuse negative magick sent your way.

3) Instead of allowing the cord to "snap back" to the vampire, plug it back into either the Crown Chakra or another Fountain of positive energy such as a Unicorn Spirit Guide, Guardian Angel, or the like. The needy party is then flooded with more energy than they know what to do with, and become healed by communion with the Divine. Sometimes otherwise positive romantic relationships can become discordant or veer into unhealthy or codependent terrain. You might try re-attaching your cords to your Beloved to the Crown Chakra, to bring the relationship back under the guardianship of each other's Higher Power.

4) Instead of allowing the cord to snap back, plug it into some large, immobile, and useless material object, such as a junk van on a wrecker lot, or a building that is always on the market that nobody will buy. This connection will cost the parasite more energy than they can afford, and theoretically they will give up after a few more attempts to re-attach.

5) You can hand the severed cord off to any God, Goddess, Spirit Guide, Totem Animal, or Ancestor that you are on good terms with, and ask them to take care of this for you.

6) Attach the severed cord to a mirror. Put the mirror in a black bag or pouch some place away from your home where it will be undisturbed for some time. This metaphysically causes the perpetrator to reflect on what they are doing and receive the energy they are giving.

Some of these techniques are tried and true, and others are more experimental Defense Against the Dark Arts. I would definitely ask for feedback on how these or the many other versions have worked for you.

Most importantly, since Nature and Magick abhor a vacuum, return to mundane life and replace the negative energies with protection, self blessing, forward focus, and dedication to your own Will. DO NOT OBSESS on your little problem. (Vampyers love obsession...) Try to think of it as something you will have to remind yourself to do, like taking an antibiotic on time every day. Other than that, you have much more important things to do with your life!

Cedar Stevens
Sept 2012

Happy Blue Moon!

What is a Blue Moon? The most current use of the term defines it as the second of two full moons that occur within a calendar month, and seems to have cropped up no earlier than the 1980's.

Another older definition has to do with the Christian Ecclesiastical Calendar, which purportedly defines the 3rd Full Moon in a season that has four Full Moons to be the Blue Moon. This seems to just be an attempt to disregard a Full Moon in order to keep dates straight in the twelve-month calendar.

Modern pagan correspondences and interpretations proceed from there. The main literary interpretation is: unusual. It doesn't happen very often: once in a Blue Moon.

It is a Full Moon in any case and therefore a time of maximum power and fulfillment.

The Blue Moon as previously defined is a wholly human construct and therefore is a human-use holiday entirely for human systems, not natural ones.

The rarity of the event suggests that it be used for magic of an unusual, special-request nature.

The color Blue has certain associations: Peace, Healing, Truth, and Throat Chakra.

Therefore, I channel and organize the Blue Moon phenomena to be a time of power for the speaking of Truth, the articulation of Magic for the purpose of Peace, Healing, Truth, Petitions and Special Requests.

In honor of the Blue Moon of August 31st, 2012, tonight I stayed up all night and created Blue Moon Oil. Blue Moon oil is made...once in a Blue Moon! If you love the Full Moon oil, it is the same recipe (since the Blue Moon is a Full Moon) with nine drops of a special magical blue ingredient. Blue Moon magick is a magickal concept still in the development phase, but I use it for Special Requests and Wishes on the night of a Blue Moon. Since the next Blue Moon event is not until 2015, I have captured this one in a few bottles. You could pull it out if you have an unusual request in between now and then.

Blue Moon oil is dedicated to the memory of Neil Armstrong. Truly the Man in the Moon!

Illustration yoinked from The Secret Society of Happy People. How is it I have not met them? Oh, yeah I meet 'em all the time!

Cleansing Magickal Items and Tools

I regularly get questions on how to cleanse and attune or charge magickal tools. There is SO much information out there, in books and on the web, I have wondered why anyone would ask! My views do vary from most so hopefully I will add to the magick teque toolbox with these prescriptions.

First the orthodoxy, (with a few field-tested qualifications thrown in), then my own recommendations.

Many references will tell you to cleanse stones and other magickal tools by letting them soak in salt water (using sea salt dissolved into a bowl of water.) You would not want to do this with some items, including anything that is made of ferrous (iron-based) materials, because salt water would cause it to rust. Some metallic stones, like lodestones, pyrite or ordinary iron objects are particularly susceptible to the corrosive effects of saline solutions. For these, or any items you are unsure of, I would recommend any of these techniques:

1) Allow it to absorb cleansing Sun light over the the course of a Sunday when the Moon is waxing. A hot sidewalk is fine, or you could make a little altar of yellow or gold cloth to set your tool onto. This would be especially appropriate for items with a Masculine, Fire or Solar property. One of the traditions of Litha or Midsummer is to cleanse your tools in the noon sunlight of this longest day of the year.

2) Allow it to absorb cleansing Full Moon light over the course of the night of the Full Moon. You could make a little altar covered with white or silver fabric, set your item on top at sunset, then collect it first thing the next morning. Any Feminine, Water or Moon purpose tools would benefit from this ritual.

3) Pass the item through the smoke of a Purification incense, Sun incense, or Full Moon incense or Water incense. This might be employed as an adjunct for either a Sun Bathing or a Moon Bathing cleansing ritual. Other options would be a Van Van oil, or Full Moon or Purification oils, or a bath of Purification herbs.

4) For worst case situations! - Bury it for the night of the Dark Moon. It is difficult to detach energies from some highly contaminated magickal items, and especially metallic and magnetic stones. The nature of these tools is to capture and hold energies, both positive and negative. For things like this, it is traditional and more effective to bury from one Dark Moon to the next, to use the grounding gravitational power of Earth to draw away impurities. I would think a single night is plenty. If you decide to go for a month, you would certainly want to protect your tool from moisture that could cause rusting, so you can put it into a ziplock baggie or jar with an airtight lid. I've used a nylon fishing cord to tie around my buried goods that  is left above ground, so I can find it when I want to dig it up!

The extent you go on any of these treatments will depend on what the nature and history of the object is, and the purpose and longevity of service needed. A knife I bought at a pawn shop, (criminal history possible) but it is exactly the kind of knife I want to use for my athame? I'd bury it for a month, then attune it with a full on ritual circle. A knife that belonged to my great grandmother who loved me and had great magick? Who would want to "cleanse" that granny witch energy off your ritual knife? I would just attune it in some way, and Grandma will offer advice on how to do it in your family tradition. A chalice I made in ceramics workshop, well it already has my attunement, since I made it with hands and thought and intention, and no purification could match the fire of the kiln! How about  hematite stone that you are using to absorb negative energies that you encounter from day to day life? No need to attune it, since it is not your energies it is grounding out, and when it collects a toxic dose of ikky, is it worth burying for the month, or could you just toss it and buy another for a buck from the rock shop?

This leads me aside. So much of the magick teque developed for cleansing originated with the metaphysical stones extraction industry. We are mining crystals and minerals out of the Earth at an unprecedented and unsustainable rate. In many cases this is being done at peril to human life and even widespread ecological destruction. Could it be that the need for all this cleansing is because we are trying to wash our guilt for overconsumption from the crystal? A lot of this is being done in the name of "Earth Healing" but might the Earth be better able to heal if we left the minerals where they are instead of creating more strip mines? Can this lustful craving for pretty shiny things be purified by putting the rare Apohyllite crustal in a salt bath? Better to put the Witch into the salt bath instead!

My other big challenge to this area of magick is: why do we need cleansing so much? Are we coming into contact with THAT many nasty energies? Is it the power stone that needs purification, or it is the wearer? There are basic standards of cleanliness that protect from disease, but! Remember, we humans can get downright obsessive about this sort of thing, and especially where the concept of "purity" is involved, we are especially adept at an avoidance technique called projection. This is where we perceive a problem, but can't accept that the problem is caused by the Self, so we fabricate a story that the problem exists in an external agent. Presto! Not My Fault!

Perhaps all this vicarious cleansing could be done more gently towards the Self, and loving and tending our Shadow Selves. Our magickal tools, used properly, can take care of themSelves. We might find we don't need so many shiny crystals to cope with ordinary life, and we might not gravitate to people and situations that cause harm.

My last recommend: To keep your magick tools clean and healthy, use them! Magickal energy is naturally cleansing. It is the movement of energy that sustains life.

Witch Way? Advice To Baby Witches On How To Find Your Path And Develop A Personal Witchcraft Practice

One of the most rewarding parts of being an “Out Witch” with an open shop and a public persona has been the welcoming of Baby Witches (thanks to Otter for this term!) into the craft. 

Beginning Pagans, Witches, Magicians, Warlocks, Druids, Wizards, Practitioners, - whatever self-identification term they eventually decide to adopt - each of them express a wash of gratitude, relief and joy to have found themselves at the start of their Path…FINALLY!!! “I thought I was the only one,” “I didn’t think anyone would understand,” “I felt so alone,” and “Now I know I’m not crazy!” are all common statements they tell me. Then I get to hug them and whisper, “Welcome Home.” Because what they are feeling is so widespread that it has been given the name, the “Coming Home Phenomenon” by author Kathryn Rountree. Experiencing my baby witches’ coming home allows me the privilege to re-experience the joyful satisfaction of my own coming home.

After the endorphins peak out, the next question is invariably, “Now where do I go?” No matter what we call ourselves, we are all Seekers!

 There are certainly very good resources for you to begin a solitary practice or a small group study, bookwise:

Ancient Ways by Paula Campanelli has a year's worth of pagan practice from a very artsy/craftsy nature perspective. It is very hands-on, and you will find fun stuff to do with your kids in this book, outdoors and at the kitchen table.

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Spiral Dance by Starhawk is one of the best guides for developing your magickal skills, with an especial focus on raising, channeling and directing magickal energy  and developing the powers of visualization. It is written from a feminist, activist, self empowerment perspective, which is a voice and energy that can activate the Spirit of a Witch in any tradition.

My first coven began as a working group. We worked our way through these two books for a year and a day, then initiated ourselves/each other. The material in these two volumes is very different but complimentary.

Many of my customers and friends found Scott Cunningham's Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner to be the only introduction to a solitary practice that they needed.

A lot of beginning material is very feminine and Goddess oriented in nature, and while this is good training for all of us, injured as we are by the Patriarchy, an excellent masculine perspective on the beginning/intermediate level is Full Contact Magick: A Book of Shadows for the Wiccan Warrior by Kerr Cuhulain.

Additionally The Triumph of the Moon: a History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft by Ron Hutton provides a solid, fact-checked history of our NeoPagan ways. There is a LOT of misinformation out there, like 9 million women were killed in the Burning Times, witches back then were healers and midwives, and Gerald Gardner's coven held an unbroken tradition of a pan-European Goddess religion that had been stomped out by Christianity. Go ahead and read it, (Drawing Down the Moon and Aradia: Gospel of the Witches, and The White Goddess, for example) but most of the early material on our traditions lacks historical and scholarly rigor. Ron Hutton has distinguished historical fact from early guesswork and outright fabrication for us.

Whatever your source material may be, working your way through the eight Sabbats over the course of a year and a day is a truly transformative process. Grounding yourself deeply into the cycles of the Earth's seasons transcends differing traditions, liturgies, etc. Here is the real stuff with no personalities, politics or rules, just you and the seasons and elements. This is making contact with the Solar year, the masculine cycle in most practioner’s worldview. Likewise, the observance of the Lunar cycle as a devotion for at least a year and a day serves to attune your body mind and spirit to the feminine cycles of our closest Celestial guardian. Your observances could be as simple as a white wine toast to the Full Moon and red wine toast to the Dark Moon, and a drive down a country road on the day of or close to each of the eight Sabbats, or full-on participation in Full Moon and Sabbat ceremonies led by a respected priestess, grove or coven.

As far as online connections, I need point you only to The Witches Voice. You will have ongoing years worth of romp and play in there, with inspiring and challenging articles, as well as contact opportunities for pagans near you, and juicy festivals worldwide that you might want to attend.

Which leads me to...covens. I generally advise beginning pathworkers to avoid covens, until you know the parties involved and the nature and culture of the group. Covens, especially closed covens, are structures easily abused by power/over controlling personality types, bullies and codependent operators. Not that all covens are like this, but it is the closed nature and hierarchical structure that engenders these human frailties. I definitely recommend utilizing the Advanced Bonewitz Cult Danger Evaluation Form to evaluate any coven or group you choose to associate with.

Open groups, like Reclaiming have less for the narcissist to feed upon. I also like the non-hierarchical structure of this tradition, and it is where I learned my own priestess skills, and it would be an excellent foundation no matter what tradition you eventually end up settling on. Reclaiming holds Witch Camps across the country, which are a week long magickal training usually in a wild/rural place of beauty and bliss. I highly recommend a Witch Camp for beginners and advanced practitioners. It is really a great way to progress very rapidly, and then...have no obligations beyond that to the group! Some camps have provisions for children, others are adult-only.

If you can find three, four, or five friends or acquaintances who are more or less on the same level of exploration, I highly recommend the “Working Group” structure. This could be just a group organized though social media like MeetUp who want to do Full Moon circles where everybody trades off leading the group, or it could be advanced to intermediate practitioners who are normally solitary or from different traditions who want to explore a specific area of Magick. For example, my first coven developed as a working group that committed to a year and a day of Full Moon and Sabbat observances and spell work. Our goal was to establish a coven that would continue a developing tradition indefinitely. After our year and a day, we initiated each other into the coven (self-initiated coven). The group did not last long after that, but it certainly had satisfied our goal of becoming initiated Witches with a firm foundation! For another of my most successful examples of the Working Group structure is The Cult of the Faery Star. This group explored Faery lore, mysticism, and was obsessed with the seven pointed star. We were at times an open group, then closed, and eventually went our separate ways, leaving a large volume of fascinating unpublished material and a seven week course of study which one day we may publish.

No matter what direction you go, keep a broad spectrum of either formal or self-directed education into classic studies of logic, literature, history, mythology, natural sciences. If you develop curiosities into these areas, they will lead you to your power paths that develop your Will, and the Magick you need will always be along the way.

Cedar Stevens

2012
Photo and baby witch creation with permission from Dawn M Schiller. Thanks Dawn!

The Witch Bottle

Witch bottles have been used for centuries in various ways. Nowadays, as perhaps before, they are used primarily as decoys to attract, absorb, confuse and defuse negative psychic energy being sent to a target or victim, whether it be random ill will or malicious cursing.

All it takes is a bottle or jar with a good watertight lid, and all sorts of bent pins or nails, broken glass or mirrors, cactus thorns, anything spiky, bent, or broken. Fill the jar or bottle with this stuff and then fill it a little more than halfway with a combo of: your own urine and/or a drop of blood or menstrual blood, and either plain water or vinegar, or for stronger effect, Four Thieves Vinegar. Cap the jar tightly.

Then you bury the bottle somewhere near your house, preferably under the front porch or near your front door. This is best done during the dark moon or just before, at midnight, but really anytime will do.

Here is the theory behind why the Witch Bottle works so well: Your urine or blood identifies it as “you,” and so then acts as a decoy for energy sent your way, the bent pins confuse the hex, the mirrors reflect the energy back to sender, the vinegar dissolves the curse, and the burying "buries the hatchet."

Good luck!

Cedar Stevens 2008