The Rite of Sacrifice (Filianic)

 Full Wolf Moon (Age: 14 days)
Sign: Cancer
Weather: Winter Storm Izzy
Snow Pack: 1ft+
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This is my interpretation of the Filianic Rite of Sacrifice. If you follow the link > here < , you will see a picture of the altar with the offerings on it. This is a monthly ritual held on every full moon. This ritual is very similar to the 'cakes and ale' portion of a Wiccan ritual.

Items needed:
Bread
Wine (if you can't partake of wine, it can be substituted with another beverage. I used water.*)
Incense
Candle

At your altar or shrine, light your candle for Déa with a prayer of your choice invoking her presence. Place the bread and wine on the altar/shrine. Light your incense. Then state the following prayer:

Dear Anna, you who sacrificed everything for the good of all, please accept this that I give you. Please keep [name/community/the world] in your care and heal them of all ills. As I cry, thus may it be.

Leave the bread and wine on the altar/shrine until the incense is fully consumed. The offerings can be considered accepted at this time. The bread and wine are now consecrated to Déa. You may consume them as a sacrament to bring you closer to her or ritually dispose of them as you would any other food offering. If this rite is being conducted for more than one participant, supply enough bread and wine to be shared with all and leaving a portion for Déa. The officiant of the rite is the person to distribute the consecrated food and the last person to partake of it.

* Clean drinking water is perhaps more precious than wine. It is a commodity that is scarce and in high demand around the world. It is also diabetic friendly. These are the two reasons why I chose it.

An experiment in Shadow Work

Waxing gibbous Milk Moon (Age: 10 days)

Sign: Libra

Weather: Rainy, cool, light breezes

Drought status: 0

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I picked up a doll to represent myself in some shadow work. I am not happy with this thing. It has glitter on it. It isn't anything like the doll I was going to make but I just don't have the spoons to make the doll. But, I'm going to try to channel my anxiety into the doll and when I have anxiety issues talk to the doll to work through them.

Gods only know I'm going to look like a crazy woman. But, maybe I can make some forward progress in this mess that is my psychiatric health through a little shadow magic. The next step is going to be making masks for the different 'selves' I am trying to sort out. I'd do the paper mask but I need something more durable. Time for a run to the craft store.

My plan is to make the masks for these different pieces of my psyche and wear them as I write in a journal to facilitate expressing what is going on in my head. The journal work I have been doing is not going to well because I'm finding it hard to write due to depression. Maybe this artistic stuff will break through that wall and get me moving forward on this.

Basic hex breaking spell.

Full Harvest Moon (Age: 15 days)

Sign: Aires

Weather: Cool, rainy

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This spell is a good general purpose spell for breaking hexes.¹ It is not very complicated and the resources for it are fairly easy to acquire. It can be worked at any phase of the moon, but it is most effective during the waning phase.

Items Needed:

• 3, 5, or 7 thorns (ground to powder in a mortar and pestal)
• fireproof container with a layer of sand
• charcoal
• source of open flame (a lighter works for this)

Ritual

1. Place the charcoal into your fireproof container. Light it.
2. After the charcoal is no longer emitting open flame, drop powdered thorns on to it. Recite incantation while doing so.
3. Let charcoal burn to ash. Dispose of the ashes by burying in a place they will not be disturbed or into running water. (Yes, turning on the sink and casting the ashes into the stream will work in a pinch.)

Incantation

Burn away. Burn away to ash. Curses, baleful malice, and harm passes away. Your power is ashes, blown away with the wind

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1. I use the term hex here in the colloquial sense, meaning a malevolent spell or psychic assault.

How to create a basic talisman.

Waxing Harvest Moon (Age: 9 days)

Sign: Capricorn

Weather: Seasonable, fair skies

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Items required:

• small object that can be carried on one's person or worn
• blessed salt water
• lit stick of incense

Ritual:

1. Hold object in the hand which is used to project energy (most frequently the dominant hand).
2. Envision the object filling with energy focused upon the purpose of the talisman.
3. When object feels 'full' pass it through the incense smoke, sprinkle with salt water, and recite incantation.
4. Carry or wear object regularly in order to use. If you feel it is losing effectiveness, cleanse the object and repeat the ritual.

Incantation:

This [name of object] is blessed with [purpose] energy. It is full and powerful. Let this power be fixed by fire and air. Let this power be fixed by water and earth. As I will, so shall it be.

Notes: 

Incantation can be adapted to different purposes. Keep the lines from "It is full ..." onward. Can include appeal for deities to bless object.

Spell to Ward off Ill Wishes

Waxing Harvest Moon (Age: 6 days)

Sign: Sagittarius

Weather: Fair skies, seasonable temps

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This spell is a simple one. With only five steps, it is a good one for beginners and experienced practitioners alike. I have found this to be useful to keep the malefic magic of others out of my home. It can also be repeated and used in a work environment, simply keep the jar on your desk. If you are using this spell in a location where others might be inquisitive about it, you may want to use a jar with opaque glass or colored glass. This way it looks to be more of a decorative object than something just sitting with no apparent purpose.

Items Needed:

• 1 small glass jar with lid
• 10 to 20 slips of paper
• Crumpled scraps of paper that will fill the jar
• Red inked pen
• Sealing wax

Ritual:

1. Select one slip and write your name on it. On remaining slips, write gibberish. Fold all slips.
2. Fill jar with slips of paper and crumpled paper at random intervals. Use first intonation as completing this step.
3. Draw an eye on the inside of the lid. Use second intonation while completing this step.
4. Close jar and seal with wax. Use final intonation for this step.
5. Place sealed jar at entrance into dwelling, where it may be visible. 

Intonations:

1. Many slips of paper lie. Many scraps between. Never shall you find me with your baleful eye.
2. Watchful gods and spirits turn away the evil eye.
3. Safety and goodness sealed within, let my magic's might begin. 

The matter of ISIL

New Flower Moon (Age: 0 days)

Sign: Taurus

Weather: Warm, fair skies

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It was with great deliberation and much consultation with my Dísir that I came to the conclusion that it was appropriate to curse ISIL. They had added on another focus but I am not to speak of it until the full moon. Yesterday, I performed the curse on ISIL and I did so under the guidance of my Dísir. This really was the first time I have done magic with the active participation of the Dísir. I honestly have no idea how this will effect the manifestation of the spell's results.

They told me to do the exact opposite of my usual curse breaking spell. My usual curse breaking spell consists of taking three thorns, grinding them to a powder, and burning them. As I do so, I focus on the malevolent magic and energies that have been directed at someone and drive them down into the earth to dissipate. It sometimes is harder to do when I haven't much invested personally in the outcome of the spell. I think that is because I do my most effective magic when my heart is entwined with it.

 

The curse on ISIL was assembled in the physical realm by taking three thorns and driving them into a candle at varying intervals. As I lit the candle, I declared what the results of the curse would be and the target. I then allowed the candle to burn completely. It was interesting because as the candle burned, it cracked apart where the thorns pierced it. Also, the candle continued to burn for a little while when the wax about the wick was used up. I am more then a little bit certain that last bit was the hands of the Dísir. 

 

Unlike other spells I have done recently, I did not feel a great flow of power from myself into the flame. In this instance, I saw the flame drawing energy to it and then that energy was sent elsewhere. I also had the distinct impression that there were more deities then Loki, Freya, Odin, and Tyr observing (if not influencing) this. When the candle had burned down and extinguished itself, I disposed of all the remnants, taking care not to touch the components. I had the candle set in a 'bowl' made of aluminum foil. I did this because I didn't want to have the trouble of cleaning wax out of a candle holder. When I realized that the action also preserved me from handling the miasmic leavings of the spell, I immediately wondered if I had been guided to do so by the gods. 

While ISIL is causing havoc in the middle east, I've noticed that all of the old gods have sat up and taken notice (with more then a little displeasure). They've also been taking note of the other group that I was directed to include as a focus. I did a separate ritual for that. This second ritual has a longer time frame then the first. I think this means that the first will manifest more quickly. I feel that something is moving beneath the surface and the spells I have done this phase of the moon are going to have some far reaching consequences.

I was careful to manufacture the spells so that the blow back was as carefully directed as the spells themselves. I know that sending energy out means that energy returns to you. The curse that I sent out was crafted in such a fashion that the energy that returns will be something that removes harmful things from my life. Oddly enough, it was Freya's direct guidance that engineered that. I did a lot of the heavy lifting whilst she gave directions.

I haven't done divination on what the results of this will be. I am not going to either. I will just let it be as it is and let the plethora of gods deal with it. I have more immediate concerns to deal with right now. And perseverating on how the spell will manifest is only going to make me stressed out. ISIL and the others have kicked a hornets' nest. My actions merely funnel the direction of the hornets on to them. And that was all I, honestly, was willing to do.

Could I have gone farther with it? Yes. But I didn't think it was worth the fall out from doing so. And neither did my Dísir. And when all else fails, it's good to listen to the ancestors because they usually have a perspective that you don't on such things as magic.

Broomclosets suck.

Waxing Egg/Pink Moon (Age: 12 Days)

Sign: Virgo

Weather: Clear skies, chilly

Snowpack: gone :)

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It didn't hit me until a few days ago that I was making my way back into the broomcloset and not attending to my children's spiritual education because I was afraid. Now, one may ask what I am afraid of. When I was younger (foolhardy and feisty), I was public about my non-Christian status. I asked questions in an attempt to make sense of Christianity that, among other things, lead to my getting thrown out of a church. Protip: Don't ask the Catholic priest: how he can be sure that god is real when the bible is written by fallible human hands and people lie for power, thus how does he know his scripture is true? I was 12 at the time this happened. That peer who invited me to go to church with her stopped talking to me and her parents were down right frosty towards me after the incident. Go figure. Getting thrown out of a church was a very confusing experience for me because I thought that everybody was welcome in a church and I knew that asking questions was the best way to learn something. It was a matter that had been troubling me and I figured since the priest knew more then I did, he was a good person to ask. Silly me, I was using logic.

That, however, was really tame compared to the harassment I got from my peers. They would do things like talk about how I was going to Hell because I didn't believe in Jesus, that my family was going to suffer because of me, and that my lack of faith was the reason why my elderly great-grandmother died. (It was Alzheimer disease, but I had a hard time grasping that.) Now, you may ask, why did the topic of religion even come up when I was going to a secular school. The problem is one teacher decided to demand to ask us all 'who made you?' one day. My peers answered 'god' and I answered 'my parents.' I had a rough understanding of where babies came from, even in 3rd grade. The teacher flipped her lid, banished me out of her class room with the classmate who she some how learned was Jewish. We spent a good half year stuck in the hallway because of that shit. I think this is part of the reason why I have so much difficulty with multiplication, to be honest.

But, when that little fact came out, all the bullies used it as fodder to harass me. And it got nasty. As I got older and I started trying to make sense of how the world worked and fumbling my way through theological concepts, I had people who would ambush me with this demand that I convert to their faith or go to hell. I was already getting pushed around in other areas. This was one point that I just couldn't get pushed into because I hit my limit. Thus, the harassment got worse over the years. It wound up with things like my acquiring a reputation as a 'whore' after they decided the epithet 'Satan's whore' was good for me. That resulted in a couple of guys from the local collage propositioning me for sexual favors. I was 14 at the time.

Somewhere around when they started in on the 'Satan's whore' business, I fell into Wicca. As I learned about the history and mythos of the faith, I got angry. So, when someone decided to use my 'godless' status as an excuse to shove me into a locker, I grabbed 'em by the lapels and used their momentum to slam them into a locker while telling them quite loudly to stop mocking my religion. I stayed 'loud and proud' for a long time. Heck, I was one of the two token pagans at the Catholic private college I attended. (The other being my best friend. The nuns were wonderful to us. Our peers were apparently afraid of me but decided to physically harass my friend. She didn't let me know about it until years after the fact. I was livid on her behalf. She said it was sweet of me.)

No, I got quiet after I had kids. Why did I get quiet after I had kids, because it was no longer just me and my husband to worry about. And my husband is a big guy, he can handle pretty much anything that gets thrown at him and does it well. But having these two little boys to worry about, I got progressively quieter and quieter about my faith until I all but stopped practicing for a while there. (Loki had some choice words to say about that. Pointedly reminded me the worst they could do was kill me, because they really couldn't do anything else beyond that due to the fact that the rest of the family would step in to protect the boys if needed. He also reminded me that I am a fighter and that fighting was an option. Somehow, I forgot that.)

I guess it was a few weeks ago, as the kids started talking about Easter (actually, I think the itch started closer to Christmas) that I got to feeling angry that they were being indoctrinated passively into the Christian faith. And it hit me that if I didn't give them any sort of grounding, someone else would. And, quite frankly, the variety of Christians around my neck of the woods has been skewed increasingly towards the Dominionist variety. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them get their mitts on my boys. Those folks are dangerous as fuck.

So, I am taking steps to come out of the broomcloset that I found myself in and moving towards actively teaching the boys about my faith. Beloved is indifferent to the subject of religion, though he is happy to support what I say and willing to explain things in the terms of the Norse faith (as much as he understands). I did some divination on this recently. I was told to focus on family traditions and ancestor worship as a way to start the process of their spiritual education. While my household will probably never be one for saying grace before the meal (I thank the lives that give us our sustenance as I am cooking and do my best to honor them through creating the best meal I can each time. It seems to work.) I think we need to have some more formalized activity of worship going on.

With Easter coming, I will be doing something for Ostara. It will be small and the kids are probably going to be happier that they're getting a special surprise rather then anything else. And I'm going to start making active things for honoring the gods that the kids can do. They're not old enough to light candles on their own but maybe the electric tea lights will count. And I know there will be someway to put out offerings as the weather gets nice.

At the same time, I am terrified that the neighbors are going to do horrible, horrible things to us for this. And I am saddened and angered by that fear. Even more so that, on some level, it is justified.

The Frosts, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Accounting.

I have held my piece with regards to the issues surrounding Marion Zimmer Bradley because I felt that others who were far more knowledgeable and eloquent had addressed them better then I could have. Then, just today, I learned something about the Frosts that made me feel chagrined to have considered their work useful and daring to recommend it to students I had in the past.

It has come to my attention that the Frosts had written an initiation ritual intended for family covens that involved sexual activity for pubescent children in their highly influential work The Witch's Bible. Their supporters insist that the ritual is misprinted and that the Frosts did not intend for the ritual to include children. In all kindess, I cry bullshit on that argument. This is a book that has been reprinted many, many times. Not once of those reprints had been amended to correct the supposed mistake. The Frosts have had ample time to see and correct this 'error' and have not done so.

Indeed, their failure to correct the 'error' and their arguments that said work should be allowed to persist in its original form and be considered within the merits of 'tradition' lends one to believe that ritualized sexual abuse is condoned by the Frosts and that they believe such should be perpetuated within the Wiccan community.

This is absolutely not ok. Sexual abuse is one of the most heinous and insidious of crimes perpetrated against children. Abusers force children to participate in sex acts by ways of creating situations where the child sees no other choice. The children are not free agents in this activity but doing so under duress. Additionally, abusers who choose sex crimes as their method of abuse have the great impetuous of the social stigma that is attached to sexual abuse to force their victims to be quiet. This is in addition to what ever threats might be made or what mind games are played to coerce the victim to keep silent.

The use of initiatory rituals to force sexual activity of any sort upon another person is a direct violation of one of the most central tenants of Wicca, perfect love and perfect trust. The initiate trusts the initiator with their welfare as they prepare to undergo the rite. They trust the coven they are joining with their safety as well. Forcing them into sexual activity is repulsive and a violation of that trust. It also makes a mockery of that claimed 'perfect love' that the coven would say they extend towards the initiate.

Some people will claim that I am a 'lapsed' witch and that my positions on this 'traditional' initiation are a reflection of how far I have 'fallen' from the craft. I name those people fools and supporters of this kind of abusive behavior. It is possible to initiate someone into the craft with out forcing any form of sexual behavior upon them. If we look into the history of modern Wicca, we find that old Gerald Gardner was initiated by having a basin of water poured over him.

We have a responsibility to the younger generations of witches who are being raised within the Wiccan tradition (and all other pagan faiths) to secure their safety and create an environment that promotes their well being. The intersection of that which is holy, magical, and mundane should be a place of safety from the beginning. Only when the initiate has reached the age of consent and agreed to it, should sexual activity become part of magical or religious ritual.

If this position makes people declare me some sort of apostate or otherwise have forgotten my faith, then I wish them the luck of it. I will continue to maintain a position that the safety of children is more important then the pretty rituals you would devise. I don't care what your arguments are in favor of this. I reject them all and declare them to be anathema.

Wedding Vows for ceremony 6/19/13

Love is the prime mover of all things. It is Love that hols the stars within their courses, and all the worlds of the immeasurable cosmos within the harmony of the celestial music. Love is the soul of harmony by which all existence is made possible. And it is for Love's sake that we have gathered today to witness the union of these two people, (Bride) and (Groom).

Who gives away this woman into the bonds of matrimony?

[reply]

Do you, (Bride), take this person, (Groom), as your lawfully wedded spouse? Do you solemnly vow to cherish (Groom) at all times, in sickness and health, in joy and sorrow, and in all other things that come to pass? Do you solemnly vow to protect (Groom) in times of weakness and celebrate him in time of happiness?

[reply]

Do you, (Groom), take this person, (Bride), as your lawfully wedded spouse? Do you solemnly vow to cherish (Bride) at all times, in sickness and health, in joy and sorrow, and in all other things that come to pass? Do you solemnly vow to protect (Bride), and her son, (name), in times of weakness and celebrate them in times of happiness?

[reply]

Do you, the gathered, witness this exchanging of vows?

[reply]

The rings, please.

(Bride), please repeat after me: With this ring, I take thou as mine own, uniting us and adding to my family.

(Groom), please repeat after me: With this ring, I take thou as mine own, uniting us and adding to my family.

It is by the power vested in me by the State of New York, I pronounce (Groom) and (Bride) as husband and wife.