lets start the new year with a Meme, that i might of changed somewhat...

so there is a pagan meme going around, and to be honest it looks like it was written by a teenager with much glitter and whitelight, from americas (it was very northern hemisphere centric and given that i live int he southern part of the world i might of been somewhat miffed)  which i have to admit when i was a young pagan i would of eaten it up, and then gone in for seconds.. however i am not that person anymore.. so being the responsible growen up, i made a few changes.. teheh.  if you want to steel it, go for it say.. whee!!

i will put in actually content at some stage here.. in a few weeks or so, after lughnasadh camp mmk

 

Pagan Meme Mark II 

Do you have a magical Name?  Nope,

How long have you been a Pagan? Around 17 years give or take

Where you pushed or did you leap? Oh there was pushing involved and maybe some yelling on my part. 

Solitary of Group? Mostly solitary although there have been groups, open circle type stuff

What flavour of pagan are you? I’m an Eclectic Urban Witch if you want to give it a lable...

What is your Path? Witch, Teacher, Priestess,

Are you giving it your all? Damn yes! And some

Are you out of the Broom closet? Hell i can’t even hang my cloths in a closet, you expect me to get in one? Also in New Zealand because of the influence of Britsh English closets are where you keep your broom and other cleaning insundries, and toilets.. aka Water Closet.. Wardrobes are where we keep our clothes.. but that could be going into, too much random detail right?

Deity

How do you believe in deity? I come from the belief that people created deity, not the other way around, however i have also been known to work with individual deities...

Do you have a parton God and or Goddess and if so who are they?  No, not that i would call patron or matron, more like a balance of familiar energie that is male and female.  Ok if you want names, they would be Gaia, aka the earth, and a god with horns, which represents the universe. And a old spider that spins it all together.   I like balance.. well my style of balance. 

How did you find them or did they find you? Well give that i believe people created deity, i certainly didn’t go looking.. i guess you could say they found me after a fashon. Although i do wish that the old spider would not send her minions quite so close, cause i tell you trying to dry yourself after a shower with a HUGE spider on your towel, but then it certainly got my attention.. !!

How do you feel about other Deities from other Traditions and Religions? Given that we are all different and perceive much of the world in different ways, i do not have a problem with other religions and or traditions.. nor do i believe that any one is better than another.  For me it is about where it speaks to you.

Are you scared yet? Only sometimes, and of spiders

Nature

How do you perceive Nature? Nature is in everything, not just out in the wilds, it is also the city to, are we not animals, and is not the concrete that some pagans abore so much, a product of this earth, made from components that are of this earth?

Do you prefer the city, country, woods, mountains, ocean or Forest? some of each please.. oh wait i live in Wellington city, and am lucky to have some of each with in easy distance and in some cases in the middle of the city (a large hill called mt Victoria, that has a forest.. a small one but it is there)

In your practice do you work with animal or plant spirits? Yes and in a variety of ways.

Have you worked with the land? Now here in new Zealand this is somewhat important, especially as the land is inhabited with what i class as land spirits.  Also i have worked with the land in a physical sense and did gardening as a job for a year while i was a student.  Nothing quite like laying down on freshly turned earth.. oh apart from the spiders.. *sigh*

What about spirits of the land? Like working with the land in NZ asking permission of the spirits of the land to do rituals, and or magic is also important.  Obviously some places it is more important than others, so to speak.  And often you will get told/informed NO, however this is not the time to give up as you can also politely ask if there is a better place..   also i have found that NZ land spirits and spirit of the land to be inseparable, and subtle...

Do you hug trees? Even when people are watching...

Do you hug buildings? now that you mention it, i might have to give it ago and then compair and contrast with hugging trees

Do you hug strangers? sometimes

What is your favourite tree and or plant?  Pohutukawa and Kowhai ß these are New Zealand Natives.. pluss i have Kowhai blossoms tattooed on my back..

Does it all fill you would a sense of wonder and chills? Yup, almost every day!

Wheel of the year

What seasonal festival/celebrations do you most often celebrate? Samhain, is special as it is celebrated with Tribe, and Yule, because for us it is in the middle of the year...

What seasonal festival/celebrations do you find difficult to celebrate? Summer solctice, because it is so close to Xmax with all its weird winter iconography, and i have the hardest time making sense of it all. 

Do you realise that the earth is made up of two hemispheres and while it is Yule in the northern hemisphere it is litha summer solstice in the southern? Given that i live in the southern part of the planet.. then yes..

How would you celebrate seasonal Sabbats in a tropical climate? I do believe it would take me at least a year to figure out  and observed how their seasons worked.. beause i am given to understanding that their growing season is oft in what those who live in more temperate places would consider ‘winter’.. of course that would depend on where in the tropics a person is... it would also take a bunch of researching of plants, climate and the like. 

Have you ever worked with or felt the veil? Yes, i have helped a person cross over, so to speak.  Also this taught me that that type of work was not my path and i while i could do it, it would only be something i would do for tribe and family...thank you very much. 

Ever danced the Maypole? Actually not in the sense of ribbons and trees...

What does the Maypole symbolise? Dancing right?  *sniggers*

 

Divination

What is your favourite form or forms of divination? Currently i favour cards, i have the druid craft tarot, and the animal medicine decks. 

Do you work with astrology? I don’t really understand enought about astorolgy to really work with it.. its on my list of things to learn tho. 

Do you work with omens, if so how? Yes, and i work with them carefully and intuitively...

Spells

How do you see Spells working? by providing a focuse for the energy, as well as using the energy of plants, stones and bones that you are using.

How about one to banish a demon? That why i crochet in circles. 

Turned anyone into a frog? They were already a toad, so there was no point

Healing Spells? several

House spells? With the vacume cleaner.. thats ok right?

Do you prefer spells or rituals? Depend on the situation and what the reason is behind why i am doing directed magic in the first place..

Can you make me a love spell please? Sure, please hold this posey while running around that tree yelling very loudly how you love yourself and the universe.  Please put this sparkly hat on to... oh and these chaps....

Cryptozoology

Do you believe in Vampires? Not even the sparkley kind.. especially no the sparkley kind.  Although sometimes there are those people who i do find quite draining at times..

Do they sparkle? Bwahahahah.. only when you burn them

Werewolves? No

Shapeshifters? In what sense.. someone who travels the inner planes and can change shapes while there.. then yes.. otherwise.. not so much.

Elves? No

Faries? Nope  (no i will not clap my hands.. *frowns*)

Hobo’s? Yes and sometimes i get messages from said Hoboes..

Witches? Yes i believe in myself.. all good..

Dragons? There is that komodo dragon.. thats real..

Nymphs? No

Landspirits? After a fashon, i have often wondered if becaue of where i live and the belief in landspirits, i see what others would call faires, nymphs etc etc but call them land spirits... and spirit of the land.. *ponders this*

Flying ponies? Oh how i would love a flying pony...

Sprites? No

Mermaids? No

Satyrs? No

Fluffy bunnies? Now there used to be some on the roundabout by the airport.. these huge lop eared fluffly bunnies... oh those are not what we are talking about.. *grins*

Ever seen, talked or done magic with any of the above?  Yes and no

If so wanna share? Yes i have talked with land spirits when contemplating doing a ritual or magic in an area that i am not familiar with, or if i believe that i must ask ...if it is an area that i am family with i just check in, so to speak.  

Random

Do you believe in guides? yes and know, do i believe they are all knowing and all seeing then nope, do i believe that they are separate entites, not so much, do i believe that they are there to help by providing perspective on what you are asking, doing etc etc.. then yes...

Do you have guides? the voices say yes and then duh//

When you meditate what does your inner-scape/world look like? Like a house with a large, nay HUGE library, and a HUGE but comfortable kitchen.  I’v had this place a long time and it has grown with me.  Reciently it gained a dedicated temple room..  oh and the whole place is round!

Do you believe in past lives? Its complicated.. lets just leave it at no and yes...

Were you Cleopatra in a past life? *bwahahahahaha* 

Do you believe in Soul Mates? in that can’t live without them, oh you complete me kinda way, then no

Any final words about anything really?  so i looked at the other pagan memeage that is going around and just couldn't leave fill in the answers, but wanted to do one.. thus i made this one, and stoll some of the previous memages questions.. and layout.. but then made up a bunch of ones i liked.. its like when i’m, cooking, just can’t leave a recipe alone..

*beams*

Polly

Publishing Pagan Books, Please Read.

Dear Pagan Publishers, especially you larger ones with your Capitalistic model of publishing..

The world is changing, and along with it how people and Pagan purchase books is also changing.  Now why do i think this, well let me explain.

A few years ago i was researching my masters, which was on books, specifically Modern Pagan books from 1954 to the present day.  It is called a Witches library, and being that i didn’t write  it as per university requirements I am still i guess you could say researching and seeing if some of my conclusions are coming to fruition, which i believe they are.  *ponders this*  If you want to listen to a series of talks i gave on the topic you can do so by googling “pauline lind witches library”  it is 4 recordings all about 45 minutes long or so,  however i will give you a brief overview here.

There are 4 waves or styles of books staring with Gerald Gardner's Witchcraft Today published in 1954. Now this book and the few that followed afterwards, are what i call First Wave, and the identifying character of these books was that they were written for a coven based audience, or somebody who was soon to be involved with a coven or group, thus they do not have overt instructions, and it is expected that 1 you will read between the lines, and that 2, your coven will teach you the details of such things, like grounding and centring, raising energy etc etc.  Most of these books were published in England, with a smattering from America, although America had quite a few more books written by plucky reporters who had discovered covens of witches.*insert dramatic music here*  The other important First Wave book and the beginning of what i call bridge books is   Lady Sheba’s Book of Shadows which  introduced ritual scripts, which were a copy of the oath bound Gardnerian Book of Shadows, apart from the Flame Wars that this books caused, it also had a basic framework of rites and rituals which enabled new traditions to go forth and blossom, predominately   in America.   

The Second Wave, was strongly influenced by the books coming out of the Goddess Movement, such as Starhawk, and Z Buddapst, which I placed in the first wave but as a bridge, this was because while their focus was still on a coven based audience, there was room and allowances made if you were practising alone, and they introduced the explicit instruction but still contained enough theology and history to keep them in the first wave. So by the end of the first wave books were staring to be published that had rituals scripts and explicit instructions such as grounding and centering, breathing, drawing energy etc etc. 

Second wave books as you may have guessed where aimed at an individual based audience. This is the defining thing that separates second wave from first.    These second wave books also are mostly published in America, from around the late 70s petering of around the late 90s and early 00’s.  Having said that, there are several types of second wave books that are still being published today, mostly the introductory type of second wave, but it is lessening.  The other characteristic which is important for the Pagan publishers to note, is that these books simplified the theology and history.  It could be said that these books to a degree watered down the theology and history that could be found by reading between the lines of the British first wave books.  This was and is both good and bad, the second wave produced some good introductory books, which was lacking, however it at times simplified things a little to much, and to be honest, not much depth.  And many of these second wave books became dated very quickly.. Almost faddish, publishing houses beginning to cash in on the growing Pagan community. .. Also important note is that many of these later 90’s second wave books where written at the behest of the publisher,  again cashing in on the Pagan community and the growing public’s interest in all things magic.  This mean that a lot of what might of been good Pagan authors had to go the not so good rout in writing and researching to get their book out within the given time frame.. this in my opinion was where Pagan publishing began to lose the plot. 

Now we come to an interesting point, as it is during the end-ish of the second wave that the 3rd wave came about, larger publishing companies began noticing the success of Pagan books, Llewellyn publishers went from being a now medium sized publishing house to one that was worldwide,  and Buffy showed up on our TV screens, with a character called Willow, and a magic shop called the magic box, oh how i envied that shop, but i digress.  What Buffy did was to fuel what i call the witch hungry public, and large publishing houses jumped on the Pagan publishing bandwagon, and a slew of spell books came out.  What characterises these books from the second wave and first wave is pretty much the amount of spells and the glossiness of the paper.  Plus many of these books where set out like women’s magazines, with little or no history or theology, hell mostly they just had spells like cooking recipes.   They are however how many  young and not so young Pagans during the late 90’s and early 2000’s  got their introduction to Modern Pagan thought.  If you look at the census stats you will see a spike in the rising Pagan religious numbers.. well it is in NZ.. which coined the continual phrase in the media, “Paganism the fastest growing religion and or spirituality in the world today.”  

Now while this was happening something a little different was happening with in the Mature Pagan community itself, Pagans where asking for more, more depth, more history, more food for though and less obvious instructions and rituals scripts.  However what they were getting was the tail end second wave or what is also known as Wicca 101, and spell books.  

Now when the Buffy Series, and its off-shoot Angle finished, these Third Wave books where resigned to the $1 bargain table,  and these large publishing houses figured out they were flogging a dead horse, it was noticed that Pagans where still calling out for ‘advanced’ books

Some, less than scrupulous publishers became aware of this wanting for more ‘Advanced” Text, but what was published was far from what the Pagan community wanted.  Just because a book has Advanced in the Title didn’t actually mean that is was actually advanced. This is when Pagans began to feel stung, and for some used.  Some of the better known publishing houses lost a lot of respect and trust from the Pagan community in general during this time  Which leads us into the fourth wave.  (also, i am generalising.. i figure its a blog post, and not a book mmk)

Pagan Publishing has now come full circle with fourth wave books.  Once the’ not so scrupulous publishers’ realised that it was difficult  to pull the wool over Pagan eyes, they began looking at publishing actual ‘advanced’ Pagan books, but at the same time they had lost the trust of many from the Pagan community,  what started happening is that smaller specialists, or boutique publishing houses starting showing up, these are small independently  own publishers, who  are focused on specifically Pagan and magical type books, that are beyond that of the Wicca 101, books that are have in depth, theology, history, discussion, and specialists types of topics. No longer telling the reader what to think and how to perform certain rituals, but more about encouraging the reader to think about what is behind what they are doing.  These publishing houses are somewhat fluid, and have a tendency to come and go, but there are a few earning a good reputation. 

i have also noticed that the ‘normal’ capitalistic model of printing and selling fast doesn’t work for Pagan books, and the reason for this is pretty clear.   If you look back to where i discussed a little, the story of the early ‘advanced’ books, and the plethora of 101’s just with different titles, making so many Pagans feel like they had been fleece, dooped, at the mercy of greedy publishers, you will see why. Pagans did not like purchasing a new book on the promise that it was advanced or different from the ones they already had on their bookshelves, and they did not like feeling that the publishers were just out to make as much money as possible, at the detriment not just to them as readers, but also to the Pagan authors.   

Pagans have for the most part always been a somewhat of a word of mouth community, they took to the internet like ducks to water, and then went to Pagan gatherings and festivals, and talked to one another, discussed magic, other festivals, magic and many discussed books, what books they had read and what books where good and what books had the good stuff.  I would guess that there was even on occasion discussion on various experiences from the various rituals, meditations and practices within the books that they were reading.  This would of course lead to recommendations, and because you knew or had met this other Pagan, you would be happy with the recommendations.  in short Pagans have become discerning in their choice of books.  Also Pagans are becoming a lot more conscientiousness of where their money ends up, in the hands of the author, or the publisher?

What does this mean for you Pagan publishers.. Well it means that your books that you have published and your authors whom are writing the books, need to be of a high value, written with integrity, heart, spirit, and references, with sources cited..(Even if it is my guide said, or in my experience, because this will let the discerning Pagan decided for themselves if they believe what your guide said, or if your experience is what they also experience.)  Your authors also need to have a truck load of integrity and be honest with what they have or have not experienced.  it is easy for most Pagans to tell a book written from the heart, & spirit and one that is written just to make a buck.   

Also your wonderfully written book will not sell out within the traditional time frame of publishing books, especially if you are a first time author being published.  It is going to take some time for your book to earn its reputation and it will take time for your first time author to gain the respect of the Pagan readers.  (of course it will help it the author already has a blog, or podcast *nods*) .  It will take more than the ‘traditional’ review on Amazon or on your publisher’s website.  It takes time to read and digest a good Pagan book; it takes time for the stuff to be understood, for the rituals and practices to be tried.  Thus  it will take some time before it shows up on respected Pagan book review sites such as Pagan Book Review and Pagan Bookworm, and before it has shown up there it will of probably been reviewed on various Pagan bloggs, and journals, and then spoken about at festivals, and coffee meets, as well as coven meets. Also i suspect that reviews that are written by experienced Pagans will hold much more authority than those written by one books wonders, (Pagans who have only read one book and know it all)  or those ‘employed’ by the publishers themselves.  All of this will take time, and i am not talking a matter of weeks or months, more like a year or at the very very least six months, but i would bank on a year.   which for the way the current publishing model works, is a disaster because currently publishing and economy just dosn’t work that way.  (i believe it is changing though) however this  also means that you will need to start looking at a new economic model with which to sell these books.  The idea that books will languish on someones shop self for a year before it sells can give many people nightmares, but you know what, its going to happen with Pagan books, thus a new economic model is needed, one i suspect that is not about squeezing as much profit from the Pagan community as possible but more one that is about providing the Pagan with a service, sure make a living but do not get greedy.. *coughoppsrantingcough*

Oh and other thing that might help, the Modern Pagan community is constantly evolving, and changing, some books from the second wave are now considered dated this is because the Pagan community has grown past them.  How we view the our Pagan and magical history is a good current example.  Our perceptions of some magical practice and understand has deepened and much of our practice has evolved as well, but then Paganism and magic is a living tradition thus prone to evolving and change.   Sometimes, however a Pagan author will write a book that is a Little ahead of its time, and sometimes it can take a couple of years for the rest of us to catch up.  Also at the other end of that scale, Pagan authors will sometimes write a book that dates faster than yesterdays fish’n’chips wrapper, but that is generally an author who writes with too much ego and to many $$ in their eyes, and little understanding.  Having said that,  there are some Pagan classics, that have withstood the test of time.  These are the ones that are still recommended today and were published over 20 years ago.  And no i am not talking about Bucky’s big blue or Silvers broomstick, both which was good for their time, but is now in my opinion quite dated.  Scott Cunninghams solitary practitioner, is commonly recommended around these parts, with the caveat that it was written in the 80’s and bits are dated.. but it is still a good book.  (Do you see what i am getting at?)

So if you are going to publish Pagan books, and  there is defiantly a market out there, it is just a very cautious one.  Remember these few things:

o   It takes quite a bit of time for an author to build a reputation, a solid one, so many times the first book is excellent but the second just becomes are hash of the first with added bonus bits or it just falls short of the mark. It helps if your Pagan author has a blog or journal that they regularly post to, it give potential readers a chance to learn a bit about said author.  Remember even some of the better respected authors still find that their books sell slowly.  And the reason as i see it Pagan books will sell slowly because the Pagans themselves have become what i like to call discerning about what they purchase. 

o   Pagan Books and its economic model of selling is quite different from that of the ‘classic capitalistic publishing model.  You are going to need to come up with a new one and one that is not based in Greed, mmk.

o   It is much harder to pull the wool over the eyes of most Pagans so don’t think that just because the title is different that we won’t notice the contents is the same as all the others. 

o   Smarty Pants Pagans are where we are at, and trust is earned.  Something you will have to earn. (Smarty Pants Pagans said by Juni and Bren of Standing Stone and Garden Gate podcast first)

(As an aside, you have a very untapped market over here in little old New Zealand, we are in many ways starving for books of the advanced variety, but alas like so many things it becomes quite price prohibitive to get them here, and or any of the authors.. *sigh*.. but i digress sort of.  

Also Pagans are not always very good at saying what it is that they want, then know that they want a more in depth book, one that contains food for thought, and one that is well references and sources cited.. However when further asked about what topics, generality here will be some silence, maybe a cough or two and staring.  This is when you need to ask more focused questions about what they want.  would you be interested in a more in depth book on the subject of virtue, (actually there is a wonderful author who wrote about that Brendan Myers) *grins* would you like a more in depth book on Pagan community and it dynamics, for those who are looking at stepping out and facilitating their local Pagan community in a face to face way.. ?    (i might be projecting *grins*) You will kind of have to give the Pagans you are questioning, permission to go wild, to imagine, to get the topics they are interested in at a deeper level.  

right.. any questions? Further clarifications, Job offers?  (I’d make a great Pagan Publishing Advocate)  *nods*

*ponders things*       

Balls Inspector!

or what i made today.

today was all about balls, namely making incense balls similar to that of the Egyptian incense, and i am sure a few other cultures made them in a similar way but can't quite remember.  anyhoo i made five different varieties, see the picture below

there are five different sorts? flavours? smells? i even have names for and they are, Yemaya, Sea Witch incense balls, (those are the ones on the tray that are oblong shaped) the bowl behind that is the Mamma Watta Bath Salts, they are similar and go together.  the round ones on the tray are called "Earth Goddess"  the dark ones on the plate next to the bowl are the counter Part to the Earth Goddess, i guess they could be called, The Green Man, ??  (as opposed to Gods sticky Balls, teheh )   the ones on the plate next are called Furious Rose (the title of a Lisa Lobe song, cause the lady who suggested the excellent combination of rose, cardamon and ambergris reminds me a little of Lisa Lobe) and then the balls on the plate at the front of the picture are ones i made two weeks ago, and they are sweet temple incense.  yay..

so i spent the day grinding, burning and smelling as with Fire Fly series playing in the background.  most enjoyable.  below are extrema close ups of the various balls..  for your viewing pleasure.  these should be showing up on the etsy store in i would say 5 weeks or so.. as they take some time to harden.

incense balls are pretty easy to make, it takes herbs, flowers, resin, type ingredients which have been ground into a powder.  thankfully i have a coffee grinder which i use to do some of the harder herbs like storax bark, and moroccan rose resin, and star ansie, the rest i used the more traditional mortar and pestle which is fun to and your arms get a good work out. once you have ground your herbs you add the honey, which i heated in a little glass bowl in the sink which had hot water in it, as it makes it much more runny.  i was using manuka honey thus it is a little more viscous than clear runny honey.. anyhoo.. you mix in the honey until it becomes like dough, sorta. then you kneed it,, actually i just passed it from one hand to the other and squeezed it cause i made about a good sized handful of each.. once i figured that all of the ingredients had been combined enough i used a tiny 1/4 teaspoon and made little balls, or pallets, and ta'dar,, balls, sticky balls.. but fun all the same. 

not so difficult but you do get sticky incense stuff under you nails so i suggest that you cut them before hand.. *nods*.

Sweet Temple

Furious Rose

Yemayas, Sea Witch

Earth Goddess

The Green God

anyway our house smells of the following Ambergris, amber, honey, ginger, Storax, Damar, Patchouli and a whole slew of other exotic scents.. kinda nice really.. *beams*

What is Pathworking and why is there a goose

So we, and by we I mean me understand daily practice, and what that means to me. And I recently furthered that understanding when I watched a youtube video with Laurie Cabot, where she said

“We get up the morning and we balanced our energies with the cosmos, the moon, the starts and the ground we walk on, so it is consciousness that is a way of life”

Currently I am having difficult getting my head around “Pathworking”. I believe that I understand what path means or “My Path” it is a term that is freely bandied about in the pagan community and people seem to have an innate understanding of it. The students in my class the other night all nodded their heads when I asked them. However “Pathworking” I'm at a loss to explain. While on the one hand that intuitive hand I understand, on the other hand I can’t seem to quite find into suitable words...

My path is easy, well I know what it is and the understanding of it is deepening everyday. ok it was not really as easy as all that but now that i have settled into it, i am walking it.. finding it however not so easy. Now for me my path is where spirit leads me, what the Divine has revealed and helped me to understand about myself, my places in this world and what it is that fulfils me. I am a Witch, Priestess, and Teacher. It is my path to introduce others, to help others find their path, what ever path that may be, Eclectic Witch, Wiccan, traditionalist, ceremonial magical, pagan priestess, Christian, Rabbi, what ever really.. It took me a while to recognise that I was doing this and this was something that I had kinda been doing all along but hey, I am much more confident now, and through this path of teaching and helping people find their own paths I am learning so much more. But still not sure if I really understand this concept of Pathworking.

Pathwork, I presume is the work that you do once you have found or are finding your path right? So would that not mean that Pathworking is the way you go about finding you path? That also makes sense.. But still I feel like something is missing. one of my students commented that it sounded not that dissimilar to that of finding out what you wanted to be when you grew up, although his words where much more eloquent than mine. Given that in that job type aspect I still have no idea about what I want to be or do as a job, is it any wonder that I am having trouble with figuring out Pathworking.

So let’s look at this from a different angle.. So if pathworking is how you go about finding your path, and I know where my path is, how did I get there? Gosh that takes me back. Let’s see, well umm, *ponders* That's a lot harder than first thought. At 17ish I knew that I was looking for something but had no idea about what that was, I can remember being very drawn by the word Witch, going so far as to trichem (fabric pain in pen-ish form) the picture of a witch on a broomstick flying through the moon on the back of a white demin jacket, it was awsome and I wore that jacket to death. however i did not have any clue beyond being drawn to this word Witch.

Then fast forward a few years, a few very difficult lessons, i am 25 and I had a flatmate who was a witch. When I first meet her she took one look at me and said ‘so you are a Witch then!’ boy did that ring bells especially after she gave me Cunningham’s solitary practitioner and said "you should read this" after that I became an avid reader, and not only was I reading but I spent a lot of time discussing things magic, as well as giving it a bash, <---- kiwism, and gosh did giving it a bash get some results, there was the blessing candle, that nearly burnt down the wall of the house. Thats a well blessed baby said my flatmate. The cursing with a twist and an understanding that not everybody was nice. The centering and grounding and the energies of the earth that sang, caressed and spoke volumes. The voices, some might call them the Divine, me i thought people that heard voices where nuts. The guide, and the acceptance that the voices did not mean i was going to be the old crazy lady to with many guides. The Divine, and how it felt to be in the presence of. It all became integrated into my life in a seemly effortless way, natural some might say. the acknowedgement of sometimes just knowing stuff, of heart knowedge, someone sat me down oneday and said to me “I have never meet anyone who is so intouch with their heart knowedge”

Eventually moved to Wellington long term after having a few false starts in other cities, started university as a mature student and settled into a degree with honours in religious studies. I found the internet, message boards, websites, witchvox, and had any conversations with many different pagans all over the English speaking west.. Ok mostly American but hey there were some Australians and Canadians to. l learned the difference between northern hemisphere and southern, i part took in an online healing ritual that was quite global, with interweaving energies going both clockwise, and anticlockwise. i learn the importance of grounding after said ritual. I meet up with others, started a coffee evening, found a strong dislike for being considered a guru, so ran away. It could be said when I look back that this was about the time that I spent doing this elusive pathworking. while I did not approach it in a orderly manner and at times I might of be blatantly ignoring, and got slap up side the head quite often by the powers that be aka the Divine, I certainly did a lot of thinking, of pondering and a lot of finding out information, reading, talking with people, in some ways who ever would listen. I gave two conference papers, one on my honour paper, and one on my thesis topic. i learnt about community and history and romanticised mythological history. I guess you could say I was gathering the pieces of a puzzle, a puzzle that was my path and where I was meant to be going on this path.

after a while I left university, (read ran screaming for the hills after 10 years) and started on a new path, you see all through university I believed that I was going to be an academic, one who studied Modern Paganism, one who had something different to offer as I was from New Zealand and New Zealand had a somewhat different pagan culture to that of Australia, Canada, American and Britain. However I was to find out that this was not my path. when push came to shove, the belief of becoming an academic dropped of, but still the draw, nay need to teach, to share to help people discover their won paths, was becoming stronger and stronger. I learned about institutionalising and tall poppies.

I started going to the Woolshed, a pagan place and retreat run by Pamela Meekings-Stuart, the voices and urge became stronger, Pamela was also encouraging and vocal.. *laughs*. Then I joined in with the occasional open women’s only full moon group, where i learned about and went through initiation, and self dedication. I went to a lughnasadh camp with the druids and then did so again the following year, as well as a few magick earth festivals. It was around this time and with the encouragement and support from people at the woolshed that I dedicated myself to the divine and my path, of Witch, Priestess and Teacher, and as a Witch Priestess and Teacher I was dedicating myself to the Pagan Community in Wellington, my community. not longer after i the witnessed self dedication i started teching my first set of classes, i learned about learning more, facilitating and gain a new tribe member and new friends.

Of course there are a few things missing from the above, the experience with the goose and the lesson that it brought, and the times spent at Kiwiburn with my tribe and chosen family. in a round about not so obvious way I for most of the last 15 years Plus, I have been Pathworking, not what I would call on a conscious level, but certainly Pathworking. it has all the hall marks right, self development, learning, discovering, shadow work (that would be the aforementioned goose) finding my courage, inner strength, and heart knowledge, as well as acknowledging that yes I had a job to do and yes I was an instrument of the divine, somewhat reluctant at first but i got there and am still getting there. at one of the first festivals i attended i ended up being referred to as the irreverent Witch because i called a Willendorf Goddess statue a booby doll, i still have that statue and still call it my booby doll More recently I have been learning that I do not need to do everything by myself, there are others out there who can help and want to help. Am I sharing too much about myself... maybe but then again maybe not?

So that is pathworking.. But still I wonder if I am not missing something, *ponders this* Perhaps what i am missing is how to teach pathworking to others. Is there a ritual? A way of pathworking, a specific thing, way, something that I am missing? Anybody have any suggestions? Or can point me to a website, book or blog that is on this topic? See look, I’m asking for help.. *grins*

Maybe pathworking is the physical act of walking your path and seeing where it takes you?

Practice Practice Practice Daily or Regularly

Lately I keep hearing and reading about this thing called Daily Practice, *cue dramatic music here* and it has taken me a while to get that to sit well in my head, and how that sits within my own practice. To start with I had read that daily practice was important, however the reason behind such practice was missing or I was missing it, as I do at times, I often became confused because one source would say that daily practice was communing with your gods, and others would say that it was grounding and centring. Others still would prescribe that one should do at least 20 minutes of deep meditation communing with your Gods morning and night, while another would say that you can do a daily practice is a few short moments something as simple as lighting incense on your altar. These various writes at times made it sound so easy, however when I sat down to figure out how to work this into my own personal practice, it became quite difficult. First I could not figure out why a specified daily practice was needed in order to commune with the Divine, when this was something that I did every day, and being as i am not a formal type of witch, did it really matter how I did this? Also what was the purpose of this daily practice, and how important was this daily time schedule? And if this daily time schedule is important what happens when you miss a day? Do the gods punish you?

Because in reality in this world we live in doing daily practice is not as easy as it sounds, even with the simple stuff it can be rather difficult to find the time in our busy schedules to it in. And then when we don’t manage to do daily practice as prescribed by our favourite authors or floggers we start to beat ourselves up, start to self punish, to feel bad, feel guilty because we have not managed it,. and this is what we are supposed be doing. And because of feeling bad because of not successfully dong your daily practice you beginning to associate it with a feeling of guilt and bad thus less likely to want to do a daily practice. This daily practice is sounding less and less appealing

Why again do we need to do a daily practice and what should we be doing? without answers to these aspects of daily practice, daily practice seemed like something that was pretty much out of my reach and even when i did have time, why, to what purpose should I be doing this daily practice? Lighting a candle is all very well but why am i doing this. in some ways the feeling felt related to circle casting, because so many times when reading a pagan book about such things the purpose of casting the circle for me seems to be missing, thus i end up standing around thinking what is the purpose of doing this? and being someone who is practically minded, purpose is an important component for me.

All of this did not entice me to want to start a daily practice or work one into my day nor did my understanding increase any, thus the standing around being confused bit. And to add to that confusion I was still drawn to this thing called Daily Practice. *insert echoy voice over here Daily Practice* You know that thing that is at times unexplainable but you know that you should be doing it anyway, like the hand of the divine is pushing you in that direction. yeah that was happening.

Now me i am kinda stubborn about these things and until i have figured it out, understand and made peace with whatever the practice is, in this case daily practice, i generally will not be doing it.. no matter how much pushing is involved. (yes i have an interesting relationship with the divine, but then it suites me so its, and i suspect not that different from others?)

Then i happened to be listening to several podcasts on that very same subject, and a couple of phrases struck out as being the key. One was regular practice, not daily but regular. This is in many ways psychological, as regular practice sounds so much easier than daily practice, right? well i thought so, and it is something that i tell my students. this encourages them to actually go out there and give the prescribed homework a try. because I have not said 'thou must practice this daily without fail or you will go to hell' *cue echo* 'hell, hell, hell' and quite frankly i don't like going to places i don't believe in. but I digress. instead i instruct my students, or is that suggest to my students that regular practice is key, and that when they do something or regular practice to reward themselves for it, because then this practice becomes associated with good things and not self punishment, making you more enthusiastic about doing it in the first place.. pavlovian much?

let me take you on a small digression. i had a dog a whiles ago Onyx was his name, and i like many dog owners made a very obvious first dog owner mistake with young Onyx. that mistake was that when he had been bad over there *points into the distance* i called him back and told him off.. 'bad dog don't do that growl growl* which was teaching him bad associations with being called back. i know now that what i should of done was to reward him for coming back when called because despite the retraining he was never very reliable at recalling. for me this relates to regular practice and rewarding yourself when you do practice.. *nods*..

so regular practice sounded much more achievable, much more like me, but when sat down to think about working regular practice into my day to day life I discovered that I was already doing regular practice, especially communing with the divine, and with my environment, because this was something that I did pretty much every day, when I walked down to the train station in the mornings I often spoke with the divine, could see and feel the divine in the coming day, actually whenever I was walking around the city I was doing regular practice. But still something was missing. It was all too simple, there must be something more. It certainly felt like I was missing something further.

Then today while i was listening to an interview with Rae Beth, on Druidcast, one of my favourite Podcasts, there was mention of a spiritual and psychic discipline. which of course made my ears prick, in that way, you know that way that tells you there is something important being said here. That was when the penny dropped.

Regular practice is not just communing with the divine, or your sense of deity, it is so much more than that, it is also how to build a spiritual and psychic, although i prefer the word magic, how to build a spiritual and magical discipline. Regular practice is about leaning a new magical skill, such as grounding and centring, shielding, journeying, meditation, visitation, raising energy, connecting with the universe and receiving messages from the divine. Regular practice is about creating your own discipline and expanding your own skills, and furthering your relationship and understanding of the divine, the world around you and with yourself. well it was for me your mileage may vary

Do any of you remember learning to drive? When you first started out it took practice and much thinking about driving when you were not behind the wheel, you learned not only to drive but also to see the world in a whole new way. You learned through driving were the one-way streets where in your city, the best parking, and about when pedestrians were more likely to leap out across the road or not. To get around the city it was no longer about hopping on number 3 bus and riding along, but more about knowing what streets you would be driving because instead of just riding along you were now making your own choices, you where diving yourself. Does this sound familiar? Is it ringing any bells yet?

Learning a new magical skill is similar to the experience of learning to drive. First you need to know what it is that you wish to learn. Let’s say you want to learn to journey deeper, because you are hedge witch, or in my case a urban witch, and you want to learn about riding the trax, or hedge crossing. You already know the basics of journeying and how to achieve a trance state.. But what is it going to take to get that step further? yes thats right regular practice, regular intervals of journeying and crossing that boundary of riding the hedge, of the trax, what ever visualisation you go with. To learn to cross the trax or to ride the train, there will be experimenting with a variety of techniques until you hit upon the one that works for you. for some it will be physical, wearing out the physical body so that the mind and spirit is free to to its work, for others it will be about the process, memorising words to a poem, setting the candle in the right place, invoking the gods, and for others it will be a more simple practice of sitting comfortably and meditating. again everyone will be different.. and there may even be a process of finding the right technique, the right trigger. and that is much of what regular practice is about. that experimenting with different ways and practicing them untill driving through your city or any city is a skill that you have now achieved.

now i would like to point out one final thing here. if you regular practice becomes automatic, and you find yourself going through the motions but with no real affect, i would say that you no longer engaged with the practice that you are doing, you are no longer present. this is the time to take stock of what your regular practice is and change it so that you are once again present and engaged with what you are doing. it is the other thing that bloggers and authors talk about when discussing daily practice, that you have a variety of practices which need to be changed so that you are once again focused, present and engaged. something i am planning on writing about in a future post.. *gasp!* yup planning posts.. anyhoo..

so to summarise

Think about regular practice not daily, so as not to set yourself up on a punishment based cycle but a reward one

use regular practice to lean new magical skills, be it learning you tarot cards one card at at time, or crossing the trax, journeying, contacting the divine, meditating etc etc.

and when you find your regular practice becoming mindless and automatic, it will be time to change it or work another aspect into it.

make sense? anybody want to add anything? anybody gots a different point of view?

*smiles*

Polly

open for business

so i listed 6 items in my etsy store Urban Witchery which is a start. curently i have elemental oils and an altar cloth up for sale. this evening i am hoping to get up my incenses as they are quite popular with my friends. they are loose leaf type incense that needs a charcoal to burn them on, which i will also be selling.

of course there will be spelling mistakes but they to will also be creative.. *laughs*

its all very exciting and a but nerve racking as i wait to see if anybody wants anything that i have made so far. over the next few months i will be making salt and sugar scrubs, and bath melts as i really enjoy using these myself so figure that others might like to as well.

gosh its a whole new adventure really..

*smiles*
Polly