Our outdoor ritual space by Magical Musings

My coven has a few outdoor areas we work in, but the most magical is when whatever space we are in seems to lift out of place and time and we are surrounded by mist or darkness and all that is there is the magic.

Air element.

One of my circle mates is just really bad with fire, she likes to stick to water or air, and even then the fire required for starting the incense for the air element was getting to be an issue. So we switched to using a bell for air, and that works really well and is actually more evocative to me. I still want the incense lit and on the altar, but it isn’t the tool for the air element anymore.

Air is also the wind, the four airts of the Irish lore, that represent the colors of the wind.  Sound a little disney for ya right?  Well its true the winds have colors for each direction. East is red, South is white, West is gray and North is Black.

The Airts Can Blaw

by Robert Burns

Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,
For there the bonie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo’e best:

There’s wild-woods grow, and rivers row,
And mony a hill between:
But day and night my fancys’ flight
Is ever wi’ my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu’ birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There’s not a bonie flower that springs,
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There’s not a bonie bird that sings,
But minds me o’ my Jean.

Air carries thoughts, sounds, birds, weather, all around.  It is something that is everywhere we look, but not something we can see, but we see through it.  In pagan Ireland, there wasn’t a focus on the four elements associated with the four directions, but rather sky and time of day was associated with the directions, red for sunrise over the sea, white for the white noon day sky, grey for twilight and black for midnight.  It really works, air is sky, all the way up to where the sky ends and space starts–and everything we see we see through air.

Handwritten Grimoire photo by all of us are lost

What is this book, what should go into it, what shouldn’t?

Here’s how I see it, the book doesn’t need to be pretty or perfect. It needs to be functional. You don’t need to put everything under the sun in it. You know what your various tools are and what they do. You don’t have to have a section on Athames and Chalices. That is just getting too precious. What do you use more than once but not often enough to memorize it? That is what goes in your witch book. Many witches dig up and make up a new spell for every occasion. There is no point in filling up your reference book with stuff you will never reference again, so don’t bother putting in a bunch of spells if you won’t need them again. If you need a new spell you will use just once, look it up in one of those many books on the book shelf. Lets get to using and enjoying this book, rather than staring at the blank page and trying to get a perfect order to everything it must contain.

I can tell you some things I don’t do often enough to memorize, but I do repeatedly so I need to reference them: The Brigit Flame Tending Liturgy, make Dragon’s Blood Ink, use Ogam for divination or writing, check the moon phases, maps,  to look up ailments and what herbs can treat them, make a witch’s bottle, plant seeds, job magic, make that scented oil that gets my lover going, you get the idea.

There doesn’t have to be an organized system. As long as I can find those sections in the book by marking them or having a simple table of contents as a I go along. Leave a few pages blank in the front to add more entries as you add information. A witch’s book is a reference tool.

Now many witches also keep diaries and journals of what they have done: spells, divination, prayers, and then the results after time. Those are valuable, and I read back in my journals about astral journeys I took and so on. But it is not the regular reference tool I keep handy for when I do that monthly ritual again.

How should this book look?

I know a lot of witches who use fancy scrap book papers, or water color entire pages for their books of shadows. Hours  upon hours go into how the book looks. I worry that these witches will spill something on all their hard work or when twenty years have passed the scrap book pages will look dated instead of timeless. I find that a simple line drawing to help me find different sections does the job and looks very timeless and elegant. Some witches are so afraid of committing something into a book that they might mess up that they use three ring binders. That is fine, but I think that something smaller and bound will be a bit more useful and pared down. A binder can get so full of stuff printed off the internet that you can’t find what you need anymore, and the rings tend to bend and wear out fast. I perfer the personal touch that comes from information written and conceived by the witch rather than print offs from the internet.  Commit to something, put it down, make your own and mark in that blank book!

I think a nice bound journal does the job nicely. I like to write in my own brew of dragon’s blood ink, but that is not necessary, as long as you can clearly read what is written and the style helps you get into the mood, then it will function for assisting you in your workings. The scent of the dragons blood ink is a trigger for me now to go into an altered state.

The only wrong way to make your witch’s book is to never get around to making it because of fear or perfectionism, or making something you won’t use. If you make it and it functions for you on a regular basis, then you are good to go.

Lugh

A favorite God

Lugh/Luga/Llew is a pan-Celtic God.  He has the city of Lyons named for him, as well as a pan-Celtic holiday, Lughnasadh held is his honor or in honor of his foster mother Tailtu in August.   He is a god of many skills, granted to him by his mother and he is a god of light, he has a very bright aura like the sun.

Many of my favorite masculine Irish figures are not gods, but rather demi-gods or heroes: Fionn, Cuchulian, Ossian, and Angus.  However, Lugh is all God, so I call him one of my favorites.

We recently held Lughnasadh and we always have an excellent loaf of bread made by one of my coven mates and this year was no different.  It wasn’t long before we had eaten all of him except for the best share which was offered to Him for fertility in our crops.

Lugh Bread

Keeper and Companion painting by Sara Star in sepia tone

A favourite Goddess.

One of my favorite Goddesses is Brigit. I paint her aspect as a Saint quite a lot. And I hope to paint her more in pagan art.

Brigit is so many things, a hearth goddess, a well and spring water goddess, a muse, a healer a forger. I find she is all things relating to creation the spark of inspiration the making and the repairing/treating of the created.

As an artist I find her especially helpful and I think of her often and am devoted to her.

There are so many traditions associated with Brigit. From the Brigit’s mantle that you set out to collect due on Imbolc Eve, to the Brigit’s dolly and bed, to flame cells, to well dressings.

Brigit is my ama chara, my heart kindred friend. I love her and want to be alike to her.

Picture of nature (water element)

Witchy tools: athame.

In the Celtic mythic traditions, the knife is always paired with the earth element, the sword and the stone, sword and shield, and so on. Swords are fused with powerful abilities and spirits and are magical beings in their own rights.

That being said. I have not found the athame for me yet. I want one that is very simple and unfinished wood so that I can decorate the handle myself and stain it with ebony wood stains.

Other than that I just use scissors and kitchen knives around the house. I use gardening shears outside. So for now the need for special knives or daggers has not come up. However, I am starting to take more of interest in athames and so I will keep a lookout for The One for me.

Here is my own retelling–mostly from memory so it could be quite off in time line and such–of the Morrigu’s role in the death of Cuchulain.  I connected events with characters I thought might be related as in a organization together to give some unity:

The Morrigu Triptych, Banshee Maiden, Warrior Queen, & Milking Crone by Sara Star

The Morrigu queens wanted to ally themselves with the winning side in the upcoming battle between Queen Madb’s army and the Men of Ulster.

They had a few things to take into consideration.  In the past, their war queen, Emain Macha had cursed the men of Ulster.  The Ulster men had grown into her disfavor twice.  Firstly when she was in hiding in Ulster and living with an Ulster Farmer, and pregnant with twins, she admonished him to tell no one of her.  However, at the King’s horse races he bragged that his wife Macha could run faster than any horse.  Macha begged the men of Ulster to excuse her from the bet because she was heavily pregnant.  But they would not back down, and she was forced to prove her husband’s claim.  Macha won the race and miscarried her twins at the finish line.  Then she cursed the men of Ulster to be weak with the pains of child labor when most needed by their country.

Yet, the Morrigu wanted to give Ulster another chance, perhaps she considered handing them this out because she had wished it for herself that day long ago when she was heavy with twins.  Perhaps despite the men’s treatment of her, she loved the land of Ulster and wanted it to be protected.  For whatever mysterious reason, Macha offered Ulster another chance.

The foster son of Fergus, the  exiled king of Ulster, Cuchulain was free of the curse because he was of divine birth, his father being Lugh.  The Warrior Queens of Morrigu intercepted Cuchulain and offered him victory if he would couple with her.  Cuchulain had already recently lost a battle at the border of Ulster because he was off in a tryst so he angrily denied the robed woman without paying attention to her.

He should have noticed she was a goddess, for she had the red eyebrows and her horse was white with red ears, both obvious signs of the otherworlds.  But Cuchulian was too distracted.  He looked away from her in disgust at her sexual offer and when he looked back, the woman, the chariot and the horse were gone, and he saw a large hoody crow.  He immediately knew his mistake!  It was one of the Morrigu, how could he have missed the signs!  It was too late, he had sealed his death warrent by spurning her.

The youngest fair maiden of the Morrigu waited by a river where Cuchulain would have to ford and she sang his death dirge and washed a spectral bloody shirt on a rock that was clearly Cuchulain’s shirt.  This Banshee was foreboding a second time the failure of Cuchulain and therefore (as Ulster’s only abled bodied man) the loss of the ensuing war to Connacht.

The Morrigu was on the warpath!  She would get revenge on all of Ulster, and on Cuchullain!  She sent three of her witches to intercept him. Cuchulain had a major geis or weakness, he could not eat dog, his totemic animal.  And his code of honor was to always accept food and drink offered to him as a guest.  The Morrigu whispered these secret weaknesses to her witches, and they cooked up a stew of dog.  They waited near the river where Cuchulain crossed and invited him to eat with them.  He received the dog stew and ate it.  It burned his mouth and disabled the s

The Morrigu in her three forms turned each into an animal that would attack and wound Cuchulain.  The watery banshee Morrigan turned into an eel and tried to strangle Cuchulian.  The sovereign Cuchulain turned into a white heifer and came out him and tried to gore him with her horns.  The wild wood Morrigan came at him as a she-wolf and bit at him.  Each time Cuchulian injured her, she was crippled and half blind when they were done.  But he too was weakened.  She would get her revenge yet!  But first she had to be healed.

The Morrigu went together, one is the form of a Heifer, and the other as an old crone woman.  They waited near the battlefield where the Connacht men were preparing for battle.  The third Morrgan when to dance upon the tops of the Connacht men’s swords and call a storm in to aid them in battle.  The old woman Morrigan milked the Heifer Morrigan as Cuchulain passed.  He was hurt and thirsty and she offered him some milk.  Out of gratefulness, Cuchulain offered her healing for each cup of milk she gave him.  The old crone was able to walk, see and was healed after sharing the milk with Cuchulain.

Ultimately, Cuchulain died fighting the men of Connacht and the Morrigu queen came down in her crow form and ate his intestines out of his belly in triumph.  In this way the Morrigu’s wrongs were righted upon the men of Ulster.

It all started on Halloween 1983

It began when I was very young, just  a girl and I was interested in witches and sympathetic to them and their familiars in stories–even when they were cast as the bad guys.  My mom encouraged my interest and taught me wishcraft and protection energy work.   She and my father were non-members of a new age eastern christian fusion church, Unity.  I became interested in Druidry and Irish folk custom in college, a few of my teachers were witches and druids in college, and one of my class mates was the priestess of an interfaith coven, and I started to get involved with it.  Her group broke up and decided to go totally Wiccan instead of interfaith. I moved on into a sort of Coptic/Gnostic interest in Christianity, especially iconography and Mary Magdalen and priestess and Mary Mother of God.

From there it was only a matter of time before I became pagan and witch.

Because of my background, I knew a number of solitary witches and magicians.  Friends lent me books, and one trusted friend suggested I find a group.  I shopped around a bit and eventually found Amy as she was founding her new group (she had moved to a new area too far from her old coven).  And we started, the group slowly grew, often it was only the two of us.  We studied together, she taught me a bit, and now it is at six/seven members.  I studied a ton, and I don’t recall exactly why, but Amy and I got interested in mandrakes.

My internet searches for how to grow mandrakes led me to a now defunct forum on Traditional Witchcraft.  I joined and learned and learned and researched and practiced and experimented so I could begin to give back.  Around the same time, I caught wind of Celtic Reconstructionalism–probably through one of the groups I tried out on experimental magic.

I also began to study under Jack Darkhand in the Millennium Tradition he was founding.   It is a Celtic and Witchcraft magic tradition and spirituality way.   I studied intensely his lesson for about half a year, read thoroughly on theory and spent a lot of time building my practice.  Then Jack Darkhand let me know he was dying.   Later on he and I had a small disagreement that led to us not continuing our lessons, but partin on good terms.  He died a year later and I went to his funeral to try and find other members of his tradition, but I did not, his friends told me it was a new tradition and only his widow is privy to more information than I am.  It saddens me know, because I mostly came around to his point of view on the disagreement and all those months of lessons we lost over it.

These three major sources molded me and I continue to work from lessons from all three, Traditional Craft, CR, and Jack Darkhand.  I bring all these things into the picture when I work with the coven and the other members bring their compatible but diverse backgrounds in as well.

It was ten years ago May, that I first got involved in magical and mystical traditions, and 6 years of being a pagan polytheist.