Days 61–90
Magical Items to Gather
You will need the following magical items during the next 30 days of training:
Day 61
• A 5–6 inch red taper candle
Day 64
• 1⁄4 ounce dried and powdered acorns or dried white oak bark
• 1⁄4 ounce dried Dittany of Crete
• 1⁄4 ounce cedar (bark chips or powdered bark)
• Powdered sandalwood
• Sage essential oil
• Patchouli essential oil
• Vegetable glycerin
• 1⁄8 ounce dried mullein leaves
• 1⁄8 ounce dried wormwood (leaf)
Day 71
• Pencil, pen, markers, crayons, or any other favorite drawing utensil
Day 72
• Two 4 x 4 inch squares of paper
• A red ink pen
• Dried holly (mistletoe, pine, or some other evergreen herb)
• Dried powdered oak (or a perennial herb such as lavender)
• A small burning vessel, such as an iron pot
Day 73
• A 5–6 inch red taper candle
• Small amount of dried pine or pine needles
• Self-igniting charcoal/matches
Day 74
• 2 pints brown ale
• 1⁄2 pint dry sherry (or dry white wine)
• 3 ounces sugar
• 3–4 apples
• 1⁄2 lemon
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Day 76
• 1⁄4 ounce dried mistletoe
• Gold leaf (a few sheets)
• Vegetable glycerin
• A 6 x 6 inch square of green cloth
• Gold thread
• A sewing needle
• Pine essential oil (optional)
Day 77
• 1⁄4 ounce powdered sandalwood
• 1⁄4 ounce dried pine bark (or dried cedar bark)
• Several crushed, dried pine needles
• Vegetable glycerin
• Pine essential oil
• Rosemary essential oil
• Bay essential oil
• Twelve frankincense “tears” (or pieces of resin)
Day 78
• A piece of blank paper about 4 x 4 inches square
• A pen with red ink (or a quill pen with dragon’s blood ink)
• A small piece of cheese, bread, or fruit
Day 80
• A bucket that contains milk and water
• A broom
Day 82
• Five taper candles, one yellow, one red, one blue, one green, and one white
• A pin or sharp-edged knife
Day 83
• A small piece of wool (perhaps from a spool of wool yarn)
• A sack of birdseed
• Flax seed (optional)
• An iron pot, a large cooking pot, or a cauldron large enough to accommodate all five upright candles
• The ash you collected from burning your Yule log
Day 86
• 1⁄4 ounce white sage, cedar, or frankincense resin
Day 90
• 1 ounce powdered sandalwood
• 1 teaspoon dry bay laurel
• 3 teaspoons myrrh powder or resin pieces
• 1 teaspoon dried coltsfoot (leaf or flower)
• Vegetable glycerin
• Myrrh essential oil
• Basil essential oil
• Bay essential oil
Day 60
Samhain: The Bagabi Chant
One important practice during Samhain is chanting the Bagabi incantation. Scholars suggest that the Bagabi was written in a long-dead version of the Basque language. There are several versions of the Bagabi incantation that circulate within the Wiccan community and with this distribution, the chant has acquired some changes. The oldest verified version of the text comes from the thirteenth-century troubadour Rutebeuf’s manuscript, which is now part of the permanent collection of the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris.
On Samhain, Witches traditionally chant the Ba-gabi incantation while walking widdershins, (which means counterclockwise in Wiccan parlance) around the inner perimeter of a magical ritual space that they create. This widdershins movement ritually symbolizes the state of death as a counter-movement to life. In combination, both the widdershins movement and ancient sounds of the Bagabi form a great mandala, a magnificent symbol of the interplay between the principles of life and death.
In today’s practice, chant the Bagabi incantation, and simultaneously walk, taking one small step for each word you recite. You will be combining the practice of moonwalking—which you learned in earlier lessons—and chanting. In some covens, a drum is beaten for each step participants take while chanting the Bagabi. If you know someone who might drum for you, you can try this technique out.
As you attempt to chant the Bagabi (and I say attempt, because the words are difficult for everyone to pronounce!) do not focus on the words themselves. Focus your attention on what the chant seems to evoke for you. If you focus on pronunciation, you will miss the point of the practice. Move into the heart of the practice, which is all about evoking the interplay between the opposing energies of endings and beginnings.
Bagabi laca bachabe
Lamac cahi achabe
Karrelyos
Lamac lamec bachalyas
Cabahagy sabalyos
Baryolas
Lagozatha cabyolas
Harrahya!
Palas aron ozinomas
Baske bano tudan dona
Geheamed cla orlay
Berec he pantaras tay.
When you are finished with the chant, sit down and sense any changes of energy within the physical environment, or within yourself. Take time to journal about your experiences or talk about the experience with a friend.
Day 61
Contemplative Day:
Learning About Power
Meditative Question: What is power?
Symbolic Color: Red
Symbolic Direction: South
Contemplation
Power is an important issue in Wiccan spiritual exploration. Power, who has it and who does not, is an issue that permeates and charges the stratification of most Western cultures. Eco-feminist and author Starhawk explains that power in our culture assumes three distinct forms. Our power forms include “power over,” “power with,” and “power from within.”14
Power over is a model with which Westerners have the most familiarity and it is a structure that is highly removed from the patterns of nature. Power over operates from the premise of domination, force, containment, control, authority, and compliance. In this model, someone (or perhaps a group) in charge determines the rules, the order, and the common good for everyone else. Suppression of one’s own experience, voice, and wisdom, as well as obedience to a central authority, are the hallmarks of power over. Many Western religious paths that feature a one-and-only-god, spiritual regulations, and hierarchy for the religious community operate from this authoritarian and patriarchal postulation.
By dismantling stratified power structures, power with is a model that turns “top-down” authority on its side. Power with encourages shared, interdependent power and functions similarly to the symbiotic and interdependent systems found in nature. In power with, the strengths of many individuals are braided together, community welfare becomes a focus, and authority becomes a grassroots, localized affair. The heart of Wicca and other mystical spiritual traditions rests securely in this more matriarchal form of power sharing. Power with generally starts from an individual’s understanding that he or she is part of a vast, cosmic whole; this is the premise of power from within. In considering the three models of power, which ones do you identify as operating in your life, your family, community, friendships, relationships, and work?
Today’s mystic contemplation allows you to discover your own links to and understanding of power. Where does power come from? Where does it go? Is power real? After focused contemplation of these matters, you may arrive at your own conclusions.
To begin working with this contemplative question, find a comfortable, meditative sitting position in a quiet space while facing the south. Light a red candle, set it before you, and cast your gaze upon the flickering flame. Meanwhile, hold the meditative question firmly, as though you were gripping it with your abdominal muscles. Relax your shoulders and arms and breathe normally. Sit holding the question for 20 minutes or more.
Instead of trying to logically answer the question at the conclusion of one meditative sitting, work to absorb the question into your spiritual center. Allow your body, mind, and spirit to become this question and take it with you into the world. Eat, sleep, work, and play as the question. Over time, a shift in your perception will take place and you will realize your own answer.
Day 62
Devotional Day:
Honoring Cerridwen
Table of Correspondences: Cerridwen
Symbols: The cauldron, the old woman, hearth fire, the moon
Tools: The cauldron, the broom
Magical Essences/Herbs: Sandalwood, sage, henbane, hemp
Direction: Cerridwen is aligned with the north
She Rules: Wisdom, longevity, knowledge, the occult, shape-shifting
Animal Symbols: Sow, greyhound, otter, hawk, hen
Sacred Foods: “Greal,” corn
Magical Stones: Moonstone
Cerridwen is a Welsh triple goddess; she represents all three stages of the goddess’ powers (maiden, mother, and crone). She is the lady of the cauldron of change and of wisdom. She is the patroness of shape-shifting, Witchery, and all magical knowledge. In Celtic myth, Cerridwen had a cauldron called Amen, filled with a brew of six magical herbs, which she called greal. As the story goes, she asked her apprentice, Gwion, to stir her cauldron of greal. Cerridwen then stepped away, and Gwion tasted the cauldron’s contents. When he did, he was filled with knowledge. When she discovered what Gwion had done, she pursued him in various animal guises.15 One source suggests this mythic chase sequence links to the ancient initiation rites of Druids.16
Wiccans associate the goddess Cerridwen with inspiration itself. Cerridwen is the goddess who rules wisdom and hidden knowledge revealed only through initiation. When you tap into the archetypal energies of Cerridwen, you evoke the ability to change consciousness. Once you assume Cerridwen’s consciousness, lore says that you are able to adopt the various powers of the animal world.
Rely on Cerridwen when you’ve run out of ideas and you need inspiration. Cerridwen serves to remind us that nothing is static; life evolves from one moment to the next. She embodies the insight of Charles Dickens, who said “Change begets change.”
Cerridwen Practice
Build an altar in Cerridwen’s honor today. When the altar is complete, face it and intone her name one syllable at a time (pronounced: KER-i-dwen) until you sense her energies surrounding you. Once she has arrived, spend some time contemplating what it might mean to serve her. Internally ask Cerridwen what it would mean to live life through her energy. Listen for her answer and follow her advice.
Day 63
Day of Silence and Review
Today, as you observe silence, focus your attention on your thoughts. It may take your highly concentrated efforts, but attempt to observe your mental activity without trying to control it. When the day is complete, answer these questions:
• What were the most frequent kinds of thoughts I had today?
• Did my thoughts influence my emotions today?
• Did my thoughts influence my energy?
• Did I have times when mental activity increased or decreased?
• How might maintaining awareness of what I think about be of benefit?
• Have I improved in my ability to remain silent since my first attempt?
Review
For today’s practice, take time to ask yourself the following:
• Of the information I have learned up to now, what stands out as most vital?
• What information seems least relevant to my current spiritual development?
• Which of the practices seemed to move me spiritually, and which had little impact?
• Of the information I have learned so far, what would be best to review? (Take time to review it now.)
Day 64
Samhain Incense and Oil
Witches make their own magical incense and essential oil blends that spiritually align with the energies of each sabbat. Witches make these special magical blends to use during their sabbat celebrations in consecration of the participants and as an offering to the Old Ones, the gods of the Craft. Burn the Samhain incense that you’ll make today at your Hallows ritual, or at any time that you want to evoke the energies and insights of Samhain.
Samhain Incense
What You’ll Need:
• 1 part dried powdered acorns or white oak bark
• 1 part cedar (bark chips or powdered bark)
• 2 parts powdered sandalwood
• 5 drops sage essential oil
• 3 drops patchouli
• 1⁄4 cup vegetable glycerin
• A medium-sized mixing bowl
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add vegetable glycerin and mix until it has the consistency of coarse cornmeal. Add the drops of essential oil. Mix thoroughly. Allow the mix to settle and dry for at least three to six hours before burning on hot coals.
Samhain Oil
Again, the magical oil of Samhain evokes the energies and influences of this spiritual tide. When you are finished making the oil, use it to anoint yourself today. Then note any changes you may sense in your consciousness or physical energy levels.
What You’ll Need:
• 1⁄8 cup vegetable glycerin (or grape-seed oil)
• 5 drops sage essential oil
• 5 drops patchouli
• Pinch of dried mullein
• Pinch of dried wormwood (leaf)
Find a one-ounce bottle and fill it half way with vegetable glycerin. Add plain water until the bottle is three-quarters full. Add the drops of sage and patchouli essential oils. Now add the dried mullein and wormwood to the bottle. Shake it up before you use it to assure a proper blend.
Day 65
Samhain: Funeral Arrangements
Make time today to discuss your death ar-rangements (funeral, burial, cremation, etc.) with a spouse, friend, or family member. Then take practical action: complete your will, write your eulogy, and plan the funeral arrangements in practical terms. At the end of the day, reflect on these questions:
• Did you procrastinate on these tasks today? Why? Why not?
• Did you feel these tasks were important or relevant to your life right now? Why? Why not?
• How might engaging in these tasks hold power for you in both practical and spiritual terms?
Day 66
Samhain Meditation
Samhain is a magical energy tide that unites your personal spiritual process, your individual energy system, with the universal. Each of the sabbats offers us opportunities to shift our consciousness from personal concerns to those that are universal, collective and archetypal. They offer us the chance to move from an ordinary to a mythic mindset.
For best results with this guided imagery, have someone else read the text out loud to you while you meditate. Or you might create an audio recording in your own voice that you can play back later.
Reader
Lie down. Cross your arms in the Osiris Position (the crone/sage magical pass). Close your eyes and take several deep breaths. Focus attention on your breath. Follow the trail of your breath down into your chest. Now trail it down even further, into your solar plexus. Feel the life that this breath gives your body. Sense the energies of your body as they manifest in your chest and abdomen. Allow this awareness to spread, feeling the inner body’s energy, its vibration downward to your pelvis and upward to your neck and shoulders. Now spread this awareness of energy further to include your arms and legs. Now include your hands and feet. Now feel it in your neck and head.
Hold this awareness of your whole body vibrating with the energies of life. Imagine now that you feel a hand that very gently touches, even caresses your own hands. Visually follow the length of the hand, arm, shoulder, neck, and face of the figure that touches you. Is this figure male or female?
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
What is this figure wearing?
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
This figure is death—your death. Ask this figure to tell you the lesson it holds for you.
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
Now ask how you might best and most powerfully live your life.
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
After you hear the response, ask any other question you might have.
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
Once you receive your answers, it is time to return to the waking world. Bid this death-figure farewell and it will vanish from your vision. Now it is time to return to your physical body. Feel your awareness filling your physical senses and then slowly stretch your arms and legs. Open your eyes.
When you feel that you are fully present, take time to journal about what it was you saw in your magical journey. How did death tell you to conduct your life? Be sure to live as closely as possible to death’s advice.
Day 67
Samhain: Graveside Observance
Have you been stuck in the house lately? Well, let’s break that cycle of gloomy isolation and do something fun! For example, let’s take a field trip to a graveyard in your community. Honestly. Find out the location of your nearest graveyard and go visit it. Bring a stick of incense with you (along with a lighter or matches) or some other small token—such as fruit or a loaf of bread—for an offering. Once you are at the graveyard, take some time to wander through the gravestones. Open all of your senses and take in the whole experience. What bodily sensations do you experience as you walk through the cemetery? Do you sense any tightening or constriction in the body? Where are you constricting? Do you feel emotions stirring of any sort? What are they and to what do you attribute them?
Continue wandering, simply viewing each of the gravestones as you walk. When one seems to draw your attention, sit down in front of it. Place the incense or food offering in front of the stone you have selected and sit silently in front of the grave. Look at the stone and learn the name of the person who lies there. Imagine that it is your own name that will one day be on a similar stone. Contemplate the limited time you have on this planet.
When you are finished, thank the person who is buried in the grave. Now leave the site, never looking back. Take time to journal about whatever insights regarding your life and your death may have arisen during your graveside observance. Now, wasn’t that fun?
Day 68
Yule
When the sun enters the sign of Capricorn, anywhere from December 19 to 23, you have also officially entered Winter. Witches call this second celebration in the sabbat calendar alternately Winter Solstice, Midwinter, and Yule. The word Yule comes from the Norse Iul, which means “wheel.”
Yule marks the rebirth of the sun—the “great wheel” of the sky. From the time of the Summer Solstice to that of Winter, the days become progressively and visibly shorter in the northern hemisphere. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight hours. Imagine how feared this time would be for the tribal folk of Old Europe. As the days became shorter, the crops in the fields would die out. The darkness of night with its myriad spirits and goblins would reign supreme during this tide. The rites of our ancient ancestors were often aimed at coaxing the sun, “Return, O return . . . ” to bring back light and life into their world.
There are two dominant mythic themes that represent the interplay of the energies of birth and death at Yule. The first is the battle between the Holly and Oak Kings. Holly is an evergreen that can survive the harshness of Winter’s chill and it represents the winter-tide. The King of the Holly is the Winter King, the Underworld Lord of the waning year. He represents the death principle. On the flip side is the leafy, deciduous oak tree that comes into its full power during the summer months. The Oak King is the Lord of the waxing year, the time when the daylight hours grow. He represents the life principle.
During the Winter Solstice, Witches join together to ritually enact the mythic battle between the opposing forces of holly and oak. The Oak King reigns victorious; the life principle wins over death at Yule and the celebrations and symbols of Yule reaffirm this life principle.
Yule’s second mythic theme is that of the child-sun, who is born of the “white lady,” the “snow hag” of winter. This myth tells how the sun is reborn at the moment of greatest darkness on the night of Yule. In British traditional covens, the High Priest calls upon the goddess to “bring forth the child of promise” at the exact moment of the night’s greatest darkness.
And what would Yuletide be without the appearance of the familiar “Santa Claus” figure? The Jolly Red Elf takes his name from the Christian Saint Nicholas. However the Christian figure has his origins in the pagan past. The name Nicholas itself is not a mistake as it is rooted in the name “Old Nick,” a reference to Nik (also Woden), who is an old Scandinavian Holly-King god. The myths of Nik describe him flying on the back of a horse through the night sky instead of being pulled by the familiar reindeer (animals which are, incidentally, another symbol for the pagan horned god.)
The evergreens that we use to decorate our homes at Yule—such as pine, mistletoe, and holly—are pagan symbols of everlasting life. These plants became symbolic of the eternal life principle, since all of these evergreens thrived at the seeming center of death. Mistletoe was reputedly a highly respected magical herb for Druids who collected it only at their high holy days of Midsummer and Midwinter. The Druid priests would use a golden sickle to harvest mistletoe from oak trees, which they regarded as teachers and sacred beings. Ancient reports describe how the Druids would devise elaborate means to assure that they would cut the herb without touching it with their hands. They could allow cut mistletoe to drop onto a white cloth, and an officiating priest would sacrifice a bull or another sacred animal as a token exchange to the tree for its gift of mistletoe.
Contemporary Witches use mistletoe in their Midwinter spells and, of course, they suspend it over a doorway under which they kiss someone to assure a lasting love.
Practice: Yule Questions
• Spend some time today journaling about your winter holiday memories.
• What is it about the winter months that you enjoy? What are your least favorite aspects of winter?
• As you contemplate your past memories about winter, what are the dominant feelings that emerge?
• How did you feel after reading about the historical roots of Yule? Was this information startling or disorienting? Or did you find it settling and comforting? Why?
• Which of the old Yule customs have you (knowingly or not) observed in your lifetime?
• Which of the holiday customs from your memory are the most powerful?
• How might you incorporate or adapt some of your traditional winter holiday customs to your new Yule observances?
Yule: Solar Practice
Find time to sit in the sunlight today and feel its warmth against your skin. If the weather does not permit this activity, start a hearth fire or light up a dozen candles and arrange them in a grouping on a table. Now close your eyes and feel the warmth of the fire, the warmth of the sun. Whether you sit before a fire or outside in the sunlight, imagine that you absorb the sun’s warming energy with each inhaled breath. Become one with the heat-energy.
When you have finished this exercise, journal about your experience and any energetic changes you experienced.
Day 69
The Meaning of Yule
Imagine the cosmic event of Yule. Go ahead. Close your eyes and see it all happening. From out of the deepest, darkest night of the year comes a “newborn” sun, full of promise for days of greater light and warmth. It is this event that symbolically reminds us that light comes out of our darkness, the chaos of our lives, the heartbreak and the pain we sometimes endure. Yule is about promise. It teaches us the lesson of the mythic Phoenix that rises out of the ashes of what appears to be complete destruction. The continual rebirth of the sun illustrates for us that destruction is a fantasy. Life and energy go on eternally.
Because the new solar light emerges from darkness, we also see that life may be full of seemingly opposite and complementary components. For example, there may be a hint of sadness in a moment of joy. Or there may be a glimmer of hope in despair. Life is a mix of these things, and nothing can remove itself from the mix entirely. We live in a sphere of duality. There is up and down, light and dark, life and death, etc. The Winter Solstice reminds us that even in our darkest hour, we can find a spark of light. Our task as Witches is to always search for that spark (not only for ourselves, but for other people too) and to help it grow into a blazing sun.
Many of the magical workings you will encounter in the course of the next several days have their roots in the essence of Yule, facing darkness and transforming it into light.
Practice: Darkness Exercise
Go outside at night and fix your gaze upon the vast night sky. Now bring to mind a negative or destructive situation in your life. Feel all of the emotions that this situation stirs up. Take your time with this so that you feel everything intensely. Once you are at the peak of your emotions, begin to exhale deeply. Imagine that with each exhalation, the negativity of the situation you imagined leaves you and dissipates in the vastness of space. Continue with this practice until you are completely drained of negative feelings.
Once you are drained of the negativity, stop the exhalations. Close your eyes and sense the vast emptiness, the spaciousness you have created inside of you. Now imagine that a glow of light emerges from this empty space within you. The glow becomes brighter and larger until it fills you completely. From this glow comes a word or a phrase that will tell you the bright spot in your negative situation. Listen closely. How might the word you receive change your perspective on this difficult situation in your life?
Use this technique whenever you face darkness or difficulties in your life.
Day 70
Yule: Banishing Winter Shadows
Since the theme of Yule focuses on the return of the sun, light, joy, and life, Witches use this tide to engage in practices aimed at dispelling darkness, in the form of shadows, from their lives. In the Witch’s world, shadows refer to aspects of your life experience that you have not fully explored or that you might even overtly deny. These denied and fragmented parts of your total life experience take on a powerful, even uncontrollable force. There is no shame in having shadows—we all have them to varying degrees. It is simply a part of being human.
But from where do shadows come? Shadows emerge from every corner of our lives. We unwittingly fashion our own shadows out of taboos, both personal and cultural. They are our unexorcised emotional burdens, our unexamined sadness, fear, anger, and other dark (but purely natural) emotional states. We also make up shadows when we suppress natural feelings that arise from traumatic experiences such as a death in the family, a brush with danger, or a frightening ordeal. These unexamined emotional states fester over time and result in dark and often disturbing behaviors.
Shadows also emerge from our cultural standards or rules that regulate behavior by social agreement on what is acceptable and unacceptable. Cultural standards can create rigid behaviors and strong emotional reactions—especially when you observe someone within your culture abandoning the agreed-upon rules. For example, imagine that in your culture, the word “please” should politely precede a request. If someone does not respect the rule that you have learned (and to which you are accustomed), then you may experience feelings of frustration, offense, or confusion. In reality, this was only a rule that a social group agreed was real. The rules we learn from culture are often those reinforced in our families and they are strong enough to create illusory emotional states. In other words, we can experience joy or sorrow simply because of made-up rules, but these rules are so powerful and pervasive that they can dissolve relationships, cause stress, and even push us toward self-destruction.
At the time of Yule, certain Witchcraft practices involve encounters with shadow, penetrating its reality and seeing it for what it is (which is nothing substantive at all). Our magical work over the next several days will introduce you to your shadows so that you can further your own work with these energies.
Practice: Knowing the Rules
• Make a list of at least ten socially enforced rules that you have learned from living in your culture of origin. For example, your culture may tell you that men are supposed to be the main financial supporters to a family. Or it may tell you that it is shameful to have sex outside of marriage. After you have compiled your list of cultural rules, take time to journal about how each one has affected you both positively and negatively.
• Make a similar list of 5–10 rules that you are supposed to follow as a member of your gender. When you have your list, take time to journal about how these rules have affected you.
• Now make a list of rules that you are supposed to follow as a member of your family. Then journal about how these rules have affected you.
Day 71
Yule: Finding Shadow
To begin this exercise, sit quietly for a moment with pen and paper. Jot down your three most negative traits. Okay, most of us have a few more than three—but three will keep you busy enough for a while. Select one of these negative traits for this exercise. Next, find a comfortable position, either sitting in a chair or lying down. Close your eyes and take several deep breaths. Imagine that you can see the word of your chosen negative trait in bold letters, floating before you. The letters soon dissipate and become a misty dark color. The color begins to swirl and form a vortex before you, which sweeps you up and carries you through time and space.
Soon you are through the vortex and find yourself in front of an old wooden door. Open the door and walk into this dimly lit chamber. There on the far wall of the chamber is a mask, glowing with an unearthly light. This is the mask of your shadow. Go to the mask, lift it off the wall, and examine it. Place it against your face and you will notice that it fits perfectly. After you place it on your face, ask how this shadow affects your life. Remember what the mask tells you. Then ask what it is you are doing to keep this mask alive. Listen for the response and remember it.
After you have learned the function of this shadow, take the mask off, place it back on the wall and leave the chamber. When you open the chamber door, you are greeted by the same swirling vortex that transported you here. Step into the vortex and allow it to bring you back to the place where you began this journey. Once you feel that you have arrived back to your body, open your eyes. Take a moment to contemplate what it was you learned in the shadow chamber.
• Use a pencil, pen, markers, crayons, or whatever you choose to draw the shadow mask you saw
• Somewhere on the page, write down the name of this shadow mask
• Write down how the mask affects your life
• Contemplate how you might affect the life of the mask; in other words, what are you doing in your life that might be energizing this mask and allowing it to have power? (note: this is a difficult question to answer; it requires candidness and introspection)
• Keep the mask imagery near you for the remainder of the day
Confronting your shadow masks and knowing their names, examining what it is they do in your life, is often enough to disperse them. Continue to shine the light of your focused awareness on this shadow until it no longer holds power in your life.17
Day 72
Yule: The Mortal and
the Immortal
During the Winter Solstice, the “birth” of the sun from the darkness of the longest night holds deep archetypal symbolism that can instruct us on the way to live our lives. The solar solstice activity symbolizes the interplay between the polar opposites of life and death, as well as the issues of mortality and immortality. In symbolic terms, the darkness of winter’s longest night can represent our human, mortal state. Just like our human body, the dark tide of midwinter eventually passes. What is born at the moment of winter’s passing? Daylight. The sun is reborn. The light of day and, specifically, the sun, are symbols that cross-culturally represent the immortal dimension. This is because the sun is a constant source of light in the heavens, which means that, symbolically, it is an importal light.
The popular European myth of the Holly and Oak King battle also represents this interplay between mortal and immortal. As we learned earlier, the Holly King represents the dark half of the year and the cycles of death and return, while the Oak King represents the seasons of light and life. In their mythic battle, the Holly King relinquishes power to the Oak King at the time of the Winter Solstice. In essence, the symbols reaffirms to us that darkness gives way to light at Yule. The mortal yields to the immortal.
Interestingly enough, it is only within the Western mythologies that we can find the two primal forces of life and death, mortal and immortal in a state of conflict. This may well be the result of ancient Greek philosophies that portrayed spirit and matter as discrete, separate, and conflicting forms. In contrast, Eastern myths and symbols express an understanding of the natural interplay between the forces of life and death, mortal and immortal, spirit and matter. Life and death, spirit and matter form a single continuum in Taoist philosophy, for example. The familiar yin-yang symbol from Asia also illustrates the two aspects of mortal and immortal in natural union and harmony, with light and dark energies wrapped around, embracing one another. In essence, this symbol portrays polar opposites as being both “two” (that is to say, distinct) and “one” (meaning that they are also indistinct). In the realm of spirit there is no differentiation, all opposites collide and unify. On the everyday, mundane level, differentiation is clear and distinct.
In the spiritual realm, there is neither mortal nor immortal. There is only this constant, unnamable, unformed energy that is always ready to assume a new form. It may become a human being, a plant, an animal, a rock or anything else that is ready to come into existence. In the ordinary physical realm, you come to know the undifferentiated life energy through its many distinct forms.
In today’s magical working, you will experience the dual forces of light and dark, mortal and immortal residing with you.
What You’ll Need
• Two 4 x 4 inch squares of paper
• A red ink pen
• Dried holly (or pine or other evergreen herb)
• Dried powdered oak (or a perennial herb such as lavender)
• A small burning vessel such as an iron pot
To begin, close your eyes and take several deep breaths. Relax your body completely. Imagine that you stand before two wooden boxes. One box is made of light-colored wood and the other is made of dark wood. Open the dark-wood box and you will find a single word that represents your mortal nature. This word represents the part of you that will pass with time. Remember the word. Now open the light-colored box. Inside you will find a single word that represents your immortal nature. Remember the word.
When you have seen both words, open your eyes. Use your pen to write the words, one on each 4 x 4 inch square of paper. Take a pinch of the powdered oak (or perennial herb) and place it at the center of the paper with your immortal word written upon it. Now fold the paper into a tight bundle. Take a pinch of the evergreen herb and place it at the center of the paper with your mortal word written on it. Fold this paper into a tight bundle. Use a length of string to tie the two bundles together. Light a match and set the two tied bundles on fire, allowing them to burn in the iron pot.
Watch as the two aspects of mortal and immortal become one ash. Keep this magical ash in a small container (or even plastic baggie, if that is easier) for a future ritual working.
Day 73
Yule: Invocation
What You’ll Need
• A red taper candle
• Incense made from dried pine wood or pine needles
• Self-igniting charcoal/matches
Begin this invocation practice during nighttime hours. Find a quiet, secluded spot and turn off all of the lights. Light your red taper candle. Light some self-igniting charcoal. Allow the coal to get hot (it will be white around the edges). Then sprinkle the pine (either the wood or shavings) on top and allow this to smolder. Hold your hands, palms open and forward, fingers spread and reaching for the sky. Orient the palms of your hands toward the flame. As you practice this chant, allow your mind to incrementally focus less on the words and begin to open to the feeling behind the chant. When you practice this chant long enough, you can lose yourself in it, becoming one with the sound. This, then, becomes a practice to awaken and to bind your own mortal and immortal natures as one.
Queen of the Moon! Queen of the Sun!
Thy nightly labor hath begun.
Queen of the Heavens! Queen of the Night!
Lend thy power, lend thy might!
Queen of the Waters! Queen of the Earth!
Bring to us the Child of rebirth!
It is the Great Mother that giveth birth;
The Golden Sun who is born again.
Darkness and tears are set aside,
And the Lord of Life shall commeth then!
Io! Evohe! Io! Evohe! Io! Evohe!18
After chanting, extinguish the candle and the incense. Put all ritual items away. Take time to sit and sense what changes this invocation may have brought about.
Day 74
Yule: Wassail
Making wassail is a favorite Yuletide pagan custom. This traditionally spiced ale (or mulled wine) filled with magical solar herbs has its origins in Saxon history. The word “wassail” was a salutation for the ancient Saxons. It literally meant “be in good health.“ By the twelfth century, the Danes had introduced the term to the Britons as a drinking toast. As time went by, Britons used the word in reference to the drink in which the toast was offered. The magical spices and herbs that infuse the wassail invoke the energies of the sun in anyone who drinks it.
Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night (another winter holiday) became the traditional times that celebrants would drink wassail. One twelfth-night tradition involved invoking the gods to bless the apple trees that would bear the crop from which next year’s cider would be made. Ancient celebrants would invoke the solar deities by soaking small pieces of bread in cider and placing them around the apple trees. They would then sing special wassailing songs that would encourage the tree to bear fruit.
What You’ll Need
• 2 pints brown ale
• 1⁄2 pint dry sherry (or dry white wine)
• 3 ounces sugar
• 3–4 apples
• 1⁄2 lemon
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Preheat your oven to 350° F (180° C). Wash, peel, and core the apples. Place the apples, sugar, and 4 tablespoons of the brown ale into a glass baking dish or heat-resistant bowl and bake this together for 25–30 minutes, or until the apples are tender. Peel the lemon rind, removing only the bright outer layer. Remove the apples and their collected juices from the oven and set aside. On top of the stove, set out a large pot, and add to it the remaining ale, sherry or wine, lemon peel, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Mix this together and simmer gently over a low flame for 10–15 minutes. Add the apples and juices and serve immediately.
Non-alcoholic Wassail
What You’ll Need:
• 1 gallon apple cider
• 1⁄2 gallon orange juice
• 1 pint cranberry juice
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 24 allspice berries
• 36 cloves
• 1 large orange
• 1 cup brown sugar
Press cloves into the orange. Combine all ingredients in a pot and boil it over high heat for 5–7 minutes. Reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Day 75
Yule Log
Burning huge communal bonfires was another ancient Yule custom. Pagan folk would first select trees that they considered to be sacred. Each household would cut down a sacred tree and add it to the communal fire. Some of the trees sacred to the ancient Europeans included birch, oak, holly, pine, and willow. Pagan folk believed that while the wood burned, it imparted some special or magical influence.
The hearth fire replaced the customary outdoor bonfire over the course of time. Because of this change, pagan folks typically burned only a section of the tree—a Yule log—instead of the entire tree. New magical traditions arose with this change. For example, pagan folk would first select a tree for logging on the land of the home where it would be burned. Like other magical tools, the Yule log was not a thing to purchase. It could, perhaps, be a gift.
Families would cut Yule logs from the thickest parts of the tree. Sometimes huge roots or giant stumps found their way to the hearth. After cutting the log, the householder would then ceremonially drag it across his or her land for luck. Once the log made its way to the hearth, family members and neighbors might then decorate it with sprigs of holly, pine needles, and berries. The master of the house would sprinkle the log with oil, salt, and cider or wassail. A young girl would then ceremonially kindle the log, and attendants would keep it burning over the course of twelve nights. In other accounts, the log was supposed to last for twelve hours; it was considered an evil omen if the log extinguished before the end of twelve hours.19
A family would then, customarily, preserve a piece of the log from the fire. This piece of wood served as kindling for the next year’s Yule log. In the rural parts of Europe, a farmer might attach the piece of unburned Yule log to his plow to assure a bountiful harvest. The early Europeans also believed that they could bless their crops by mixing the ash from the incinerated Yule log into the soil just before seeding. Pagan folk might also keep the ash in their homes as protection from lightning, malevolent forces, or from evil spirits.
For today’s practice, select one of the magical woods listed below, based on its magical influence:
Magical Wood / Magical Influence
Aspen: Invokes universal understanding and compassion
Birch: New beginnings, a fresh start, new ideas, new projects
Holly : Inspires visions and reveals past lives
Oak: Evokes the power of the sun and brings healing, strength, and wisdom
Pine: Invokes the energies of prosperity and growth
Willow: Invokes the triple goddess’ aid, psychic power
You won’t need an entire log for this activity. You can use a branch or even a twig. Sprinkle the wood with salt and rub it vigorously with olive oil. Cut off one end of the branch and save it as kindling for your Yule log this winter. Burn the rest of the log in order to release the wood’s magical virtues. When you are finished, place the ash in a small bundle that you make from a red square of cloth. Tie the bundle with green thread and hang it near the hearth to keep away unwanted forces. Be sure to save this ash, as you will use it in future ritual work.
Day 76
Yule: Mistletoe Charm
In the ancient Celtic world, mistletoe was an herb that represented immortality. It was a panacea for the Druids who would grind the herb and infuse it into elixirs and curative potions. It is little wonder the Druids died out, as mistletoe is a highly poisonous herb! Today, you will make a charm for long life using dried mistletoe.
What You’ll Need:
• 1⁄4 ounce dried mistletoe
• Gold leaf
• Vegetable glycerin
• A 6 x 6 inch square of green cloth
• Gold thread
• A sewing needle (or if you lack sewing ability, use a fabric pen)
• Pine essential oil (optional)
In a shallow mixing bowl, stir together the mistletoe and three tablespoons of the vegetable glycerin. Add the glycerin, one tablespoon at a time, since you will use only enough to coat all of the mistletoe. Now add a few leaves of the gold leaf. Use a fork or a whisk to blend the gold and the mistletoe. The glycerin should act as a binding agent and cause the gold leaf to distribute evenly and to coat the mistletoe. Set this aside.
Use the needle and gold thread to stitch the magical symbol of the sun (xsun) onto one side of the green cloth. If you are unfamiliar with sewing and don’t want to learn now, then try using a fabric pen to make the markings on the cloth. Make the symbol by stitching (or drawing) a perfect 2-inch circle. Inside of this circle, at the center point, make a smaller 1⁄4-inch circle. Use your needle and thread (or again, use your fabric pen) to stitch words that represent the everlasting qualities you might desire in your life. For example, you might stitch simple words such as love, or joy, or wealth.
Lay the cloth flat so that the words and the sigil are face down, toward your work surface. Place your gold-leafed mistletoe into the center of the cloth. Fold the cloth in half and stitch around the outside to seal in the golden mistletoe. Set the bundle in a place of prominence so that you can see it often.
Anoint this magical charm with pine oil at the center of the sun symbol at least once a month for a strengthened effect.
Tradition says that you can additionally use this charm to increase the fidelity of a lover or the longevity of a relationship. To do this, hold the bag of mistletoe at the level of your chest (your heart chakra). Bring your lover or spouse close so that you hold the bag between both of your chests. Now kiss to seal the magic.
Day 77
Yule: Incense and Oil
Burn this Yule Incense at your Yule ritual, or at any time that you want to bring about the energies and insights of the Yule season.
What You’ll Need:
• A handful of powdered sandalwood
• Dried pine wood or bark (or dried cedar wood chips)
• Crushed, dried pine needles
• Vegetable glycerin
• 3 drops pine essential oil
• 4 drops rosemary essential oil
• 2 drops bay essential oil
• Twelve small frankincense chunks
In a medium-sized bowl, place your powdered sandalwood. Stir in about two tablespoons of vegetable glycerin. Add the tablespoons one at a time, and then mix with a metal whisk or a fork. You simply want to create a soft, fluffy, compound. Do not add in the second tablespoon of glycerin, if it feels like it would be too much, causing the incense to be too wet.
Now add in the essential oils and whisk. Add the frankincense pieces and stir them in. Finally add the other dry ingredients. Wait for at least a day for the compound to settle before you sprinkle it on hot coals.
Yule Oil
Use this oil to anoint attendees of your Yule ritual. You can also use this oil any time that you want to awaken the insights and mysteries of the Yule season. This oil awakens the magical energies of immortality, long life, and knowledge of what lies beyond death.
What You’ll Need:
• Vegetable glycerin (or a carrier oil such as grape seed oil)
• 6 drops pine essential oil
• 8 drops rosemary essential oil
• 2 drops bay essential oil
• Twelve frankincense tears
Find a one-ounce bottle. Fill the bottle half way with vegetable glycerin. Add plain water until the bottle is three-quarters full. Add your essential oils and your frankincense tears. Close the lid and shake the bottle. After you have created this oil, anoint yourself with it and see what changes it evokes for you.
Day 78
Imbolc
Imbolc is the second of the Greater Sabbats in the Witches’ Wheel of the Year. Imbolc is an Irish Gaelic word which is pronounced im’-molk. Other variations of this festival’s name include the Gaelic Imbolg and the English Candlemas. Imbolc celebrates the official end of the “dead time,” the period from October 31 to February 2 during which Witches perform very little magic and no initiatory rites. This dead time coincided with the “death” of the sun, the light of day, and subsequently all perennial plant life. Pagan folk could see that daylight hours were visibly longer at Imbolc and country folk and Witches alike celebrated this turn of events as one of awakening for the earth’s energies.
Along with this extended daylight came the promise of spring and the renewal of life. Imbolc is a celebration of the first stirrings of the earth. In northern and western Europe, the ground is often still frozen or snow covered in early February. The return of light, the lengthening days signaled promise of the long growing season of the still-distant Summer.
The ancient Celts favored Brigid, the triple goddess of wells and springs, as the patroness of Imbolc. Devotees of Brigid believed she could bring fertility, and they lit candles in her honor to mark the growth of light and the coming change of season. So popular was Brigid’s worship that she is still the patron deity of contemporary Druidic circles.
Ancient celebrants made “Saint” Brigid’s Crosses from new rushes and hung them near the pens of farm animals to assure their growth and fertility. After the celebrants wove their crosses, they would carefully bury whatever rushes remained. Ancient celebrants might also make dollies from oat sheaves or corn-husks. One old custom consisted of dressing the oat or corn dolly in woman’s attire and then placing it in a “Brigid’s Bed” (usually a simple basket) along with a phallic symbol. Pagan folk believed that the custom assured a fruitful and prosperous year.
At the time of Imbolc (which literally means “in milk”) the ancient pagan folk noticed that female herd animals usually gave birth and suckled their young. This “lactation” period signaled the rebirth of the earth energies and the promise of spring and summer. The suckling of young, birth, and fecundity of the animal world gave rise to several pagan customs. One practice involved pouring the first pail of cow’s milk on the ground to assure a prosperous spring. It was also a day set aside for the blessing of plows and other agricultural tools. In one custom, farmers would wash their spades and other tools in fresh cow’s milk, again to assure bounty. In areas where the weather permitted, the plough might be dragged from one home to another. Yet another account tells of farmers pouring whiskey over their ploughs to assure blessings and a bountiful harvest.
Celebrants also made small food offerings to the fairy folk, who they believed blessed the fields with their magic and assured a good crop. Farmers might make the offerings to fairies by placing cheese or bread on a plough and then leaving it unattended in the fields.
Although customs varied from one region to another, the celebration was important for the ancient agrarian societies since it symbolically prepared the way for the earth’s fecundity.
Practice: Fairy Offerings
What You’ll Need:
• A piece of blank paper about 4 x 4 inches square
• A pen with red ink (or a quill pen with dragon’s blood ink)
• A small piece of cheese, bread, or fruit
To begin, use your red ink pen to write a wish you might have on the blank piece of paper. The lore of fairies indicates that they grant wishes for healing, fertility, or general blessing. Go outdoors at dusk and place the paper with your wish written upon it on the ground near a fern or a flowering plant, both of which are favorite places for fairies. If there are no flowering plants or ferns nearby, place the paper in some place hidden, such as in a shadow where it will go unnoticed by humans. Place your food offering on top of the paper, then turn and walk away, making sure not to look back at the site. Return to the offering site in a few days to reclaim the wish paper. Once you have it, burn it and scatter the ashes near your front door. If the paper is missing, know that the fairies have taken it. Word has it that the fairies work cheaply, so know that the fairies have noted your wish and they will grant it in return for your food offering.
Day 79
The Meaning of Imbolc
When thinking about Imbolc and learning to decipher its inner meaning for our contemporary lives, it is important for us to first consider the sabbat name itself. As you learned yesterday, the word Imbolc literally means “in milk.” One of the primary mythic themes of the great wheel of the year is that of succor; it is the celebration of consuming nourishment from the goddess’ body. Since the dawn of time, one of the primary images of the goddess is that of “she-who-nourishes.” Mythologist Joseph Campbell writes that the ancient goddess myths and rituals can inform us how we might come into perfect union with the female principle and her unique, spiritual form of nourishment. Regarding this, Campbell states:
“[The] woman with her baby is the basic image of mythology. The first experience of anybody is the mother’s body. And what Le Debleu called participation mystique, mystic participation between the mother and child and the child and the mother, is the final happy land.”20
Milk holds tremendous symbolic value as a basic nourishment. We first experience milk as children, whether we are bottle or breast-fed. Both literally and symbolically, we are children of the goddess, children of the earth. We rely on this great mother to sustain our lives, just as the infant relies upon the mother to nourish with milk. It is important at this time of year to honor the earth and acknowledge our direct reliance upon her.
Imbolc is also an important time for you to get in touch with whatever nourishes your soul. Have you left your interest in art or music behind so that you can focus seriously on your real work, your career, monetary gain, or daily routine? What nourishing interests have you abandoned—no matter what they are—simply because you cannot seem to find the time for them?
The goddess bids you to awaken to your whole self. Feed yourself with the nourishment of enjoyment, the sustenance of life. You are not complete when you repress your talents, your interests, your sense of fun and curiosity. Imbolc is a time to return to simple pleasures, good food, good sex, good friendships, and whatever nurtures your tender soul. These are what quicken the flame of Candlemas, and what stir the seeds of full potential within you.
The earth first awakens at Imbolc, according to Wiccan lore. Likewise, the festival should be about your own awakening. But to what must you awaken? Awakening always consists of becoming present to life as it unfolds before you. Life is not something that is happening to you. It is something that you are. Don’t hold back at Imbolc. Join in. Become one with life that is happening right now. Use all of the ingredients of your life. Once you connect wholly with life, you find that even without trying, the goddess’ nourishment is there in abundance.
Imbolc Practice: My Favorite Things
What’s been missing from your life? It is easy to lose track of what is important to us when we shift our attention to family, children, work, and responsibilities. These are important, but since you don’t get a second chance at this lifetime, you might consider making room in your life for the things that bring personal enjoyment—things that nourish your soul. What are your favorite foods, hobbies, types of friends, clothing, etc.? Make a comprehensive list of these items and attributes. Once the list is complete, review it to see how many of the listed items are part of your life right now. Check off the words that currently apply to your life and spend the day actualizing parts of the list. Go to a dance class. Write a poem or a story and read it to a friend. Try out a new recipe; or better yet, enroll in chef school. Start learning a new language, paint, sculpt, or create an origami figure. Bring back the “Funky Chicken”; just do something that awakens your innate sense of joy and enthusiasm.
Day 80
Imbolc: Blessing the Earth
Imbolc is a time for preparing the earth for plowing, seeding, and growth. Naturally, blessing the earth, the source of all sustenance, is one of the Witches’ favorite activities of this seasonal tide. Today, you will practice blessing the earth, preparing it to become verdant. In the process of this rite, you bless your own life.
What You’ll Need:
• A bucket that contains milk and water
• A broom
I have based this magical working on an old Witches’ custom for changing the weather. To begin, fill a bucket halfway with warm water. To this add some milk. Add just enough milk so that the water becomes white and opaque. Go someplace outdoors (the best place would be on some land adjacent to your home). Set the bucket at your side and dip the broom bristles in the milk-water.
Face the east and shake the broom over your head toward the east, flinging the milk-water in that direction. As you do this, say:
To the East: Renewal!
Dip the broom bristles again and then fling the milk-water overhead, toward the south, saying:
To the South: Warmth and heat!
Dip the broom bristles again and then fling the milk-water overhead, toward the west, saying:
To the West: Succulence!
Dip the broom bristles again and then fling the milk-water overhead, toward the north, saying:
To the North: Growth! Abundance! Fertility!
As you say the last word, spill the entire bucket and its contents onto the ground. The rite is finished.
Did you change the weather? Or did you change your consciousness?
Day 81
Imbolc Meditation:
Seeds of Potential
When one considers early agrarian life in Old Europe, it becomes an easy matter to understand how the cyclical patterns of the plant world took on an important mystical focus for our ancestors. The changing seasons and their effect on the growth of food crops became a powerful metaphor for the ancients. The passage of the seasons, which affected the birth, growth, and propagation of crops, also represented the basic pattern for a human life.
Seeds usually scatter after a plant dies, but seeds are points of potential. They are unformed life. Rituals that involve the planting of seeds at Imbolc represent setting potential into motion. The seed rituals of Imbolc symbolize the principle that death is really an illusion; life always continues, sometimes in a hidden or an unseen form.
In today’s mystical working, you will identify your own inner (possibly hidden) seeds of potential.
Meditation
General directions for guided imagery meditations are included in the text for Day 13.
Reader:
Find a comfortable sitting or lying position and close your eyes. After several deep, slow breaths, imagine that you stand before a great stretch of freshly ploughed farm land. The soil is rich and dark. Reach down and feel the cool, sticky, dampness of the soil. Inhale the dark, earthy scent. Now cast your gaze into the center of the field. There you will notice a golden glow that you had not noticed before. Walk through the field to the golden glow.
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
When you reach the glow, you notice that it is a golden sack, lying on the soil. It is a seed sack. These are the seeds of your greatest potential. Pick up the sack and you will find a word written on it that represents your potential. Imagine now that you plant these seeds all over the field. As you plant each seed, the earth takes on a golden glow.
(Reader: pause for a moment.)
When you are finished, slowly return to the place where your body rests comfortably. Open your eyes and take time to contemplate your visions. Write down the word that represents your potential. You will use this in tomorrow’s exercise.
Day 82
Imbolc: Sacred Inscriptions
What You’ll Need:
• Five taper candles (any length, but short ones are best): one yellow, one red, one blue, one green, and one white
• A pin or sharp-edged knife
Take a look at the word (or words) that you saw in yesterday’s guided imagery meditation. Deeply consider this word which represents your potential. While you contemplate the word, use a sharp knife or a pin to engrave this word onto the white candle. Next, you will develop a list of four other words that represent the four elemental energies surrounding this potential. You will learn more about the four elements later on in the year, but for now:
• Write one word that represents the state of mind you would need to realize your potential. Engrave this word onto the yellow candle.
• Write a word that represents action you would take to realize this potential. Engrave this word onto the red candle.
• Write a word that represents the feeling underlying your potential. Engrave this word onto the blue candle.
• Write one word that represents a type of behavior you might omit in order to achieve your potential. (For example, if you wanted to make more money, you might omit overspending.) Engrave this on the green candle.
Set aside these inscribed candles for tomorrow’s ritual working.
Day 83
Imbolc: Seeds Ritual
What You’ll Need:
• The five candles you inscribed yesterday
• A sack of birdseed
• A small piece of wool (perhaps from a spool of wool yarn)
• Flax seed (optional)
• An iron pot, a large cooking pot, ora cauldron large enough to accommodate all five upright candles
• The ash you collected from burning your Yule log
To begin, fill your iron pot, cooking pot, or cauldron with birdseed. Fill the pot just enough so that your candles will stand upright when you wedge them in. Try this out before you begin the rite. Once the pot is filled with birdseed, sprinkle in some of the ash from your Yule log. Be sure to retain some of this ash for another ritual. Add in a small amount of milk and water. Now add in your piece of wool (and if you have it, flax seed), saying this old English incantation:
Iron, water, wool and blood
Ash, milk, and flax-thread,
Here, the countless masks made bare,
And seed is but bird’s bread!
Place all five candles in your right hand and use them to stir the pot of seed and ash, using the candles. Stir the pot three times clockwise.
Then light the yellow candle, saying:
In thought I change with the birth of light.
Place it in the birdseed along the easternmost edge of the pot. Light the red candle, saying:
In action I change with the birth of light.
Place it in the birdseed along the southernmost edge of the pot. Light the blue candle, saying:
In feeling I change with the birth of light.
Place it in the birdseed along the westernmost edge of the pot. Light the green candle, saying:
In silence I change with the birth of light.
Place it in the birdseed along the northernmost edge of the pot. Light the while candle, saying:
My soul will change with the birth of light!
Place the white candle in the center of the pot. Stay with the candles and allow them to burn almost completely out. Be sure to exercise caution during this operation. Blow out the candles if they threaten to ignite the birdseed. After blowing out the candles, wait a few moments for the melted candle wax to solidify and then take it out of the pot. Scatter the seeds in an open area so that the birds can eat them and thus carry your spell to the four quarters of the globe.
Day 84
Imbolc: Preparing Sacred Space
The theme of Imbolc is preparing the way for fertility. One of these preparations is the creation of sacred space. In magical terms, all space is really sacred space, but there are specific spaces—for example, a ritual room, a temple, or a church—that are set aside for religious activity. Communities generally refer to these as sacred spaces. Because Wicca is a path that does not separate the religious from the secular life, it extends the definition of sacred space to include one’s home, office, or any space that one might want to set aside with spiritual blessings and protections.
Because of the natural symbolic connection between the goddess and the archetype of home, a Witch’s primary sacred space is the home. It is therefore important to foster this sacred sense in our homes. The first step in this process is always evaluation of your existing household environment. Remembering that in sympathetic magic we believe “As above, so below,” it is a simple matter to note that the home environment represents an intersection between our inner and outer realities. This means that how we decorate our rooms, our choice of color, fabric, texture, object placement—each of these aspects of our homes is a representation of our internal state of affairs.
Take time today to ask yourself these questions:
• Is my home a mess?
• Is it militarily spotless?
• Is it cluttered or dark?
• Is it sterile?
• Is it warm?
• Is it adult or childlike?
• Is it somewhere “in between?”
• What is your home saying about your internal world?
Take time to contemplate what your home environment might be communicating. This is a difficult task to undertake. It requires a certain amount of detachment and objectivity. Like most of us, your home interior may never make the cover of House Beautiful, but it should reflect a modicum of attentiveness, cleanliness, and orderliness. A tidy, well-managed household is also one that allows for a natural flow of energy. When your home’s energy flows, it is balanced, serene, and free of clutter. Health and abundance are sure to emanate from such an environment. In the coming days, you will learn a few basic principles that can help make your home energetic, magical, and sacred.
Day 85
Imbolc: Straightening Up
Find some part of your home that has become a mess. Maybe you are like me and you scrape the contents of your desk into drawers until they are overflowing. Perhaps you have a closet that has taken on a life of its own. How is the garage or storage space? What is going on in your checkbook? Dare you peek in the attic or cellar? Before you do anything about the mess you find, take time to contemplate it. Sit in front of the clutter and ask yourself how this happened. What part did you play in allowing clutter to take over? Was there fear? Anger? Was there sadness underneath it all? Take time to fully examine your feelings. Now take time to explore how you might feel right now facing the prospect of clearing away the clutter. You might take time to commit your feelings and thoughts to paper. That process in itself clears away some mental clutter.
Now go through the physical mess. Clear away things that have no use to you any more. Why are you still holding onto these things? Find at least three things in this clutter that have some value, but that you do not use regularly. These are things that you should give away. After you have straightened out the mess, take time to stand back and admire your work. What effect did clearing away the clutter have on your mind and spirit? Almost everyone can notice a difference in energy before and after cleaning a space. Explore your experience now.
Day 86
Imbolc: Clearing Harmful Energies
Before you can bless your home and renew its energies, it is a good spiritual practice to clear out any harmful or destructive energy forms. Energy moves naturally in waves and patterns, and often we block the free flow of energy in enclosed spaces with clutter, closed doors, a lack of ventilation, obstructed light, and we evoke a generally chaotic feel by haphazard placement of our belongings. When we block the free flow of energy in a home, it becomes stagnant and unhealthy. The energy can take on a life of its own and wreak havoc with health, finances, relationships, and more.
Fortunately, Wiccans have many methods for clearing these blocked energies. These methods range from ritual spellwork and other specialized magical methods (which you will learn later on in the year) to simple but highly effective techniques that do not require any specialized knowledge or abilities. Over the next several days, you will have the opportunity to try out many of these simple, easy, and effective methods.
The first method calls for clearing your space with representations of each of the four basic elements that compose all of life: air, fire, water, and earth. Today you will begin with clearing your home with the element of air. Lighting certain types of incense is the simplest method to cleanse a space with air. Some air-cleansing incenses include:
• Important: White sage, cedar, frankincense.
• Always Useful: Dragon’s blood resin, white copal.
• In a Pinch: Prepared incenses such as Nag Champa or just plain sandalwood.
How to Cleanse with Incense
Light some incense and stand at the front door of your house. Move clockwise through the building, going from one room to the next, always in a clockwise manner. As you walk through your building, imagine that the sacred smoke is clearing away all stagnant energies. When you return to the front door, extinguish the incense. Stand there with your eyes closed and breathe deeply. With each exhalation, imagine that you emit a bright yellow light that fills the entire house. Once you have completed this visualization, open your eyes.
How does the house feel to you after cleansing by the element of air?
Other Air Cleansing Techniques
• Turn on an air purifier regularly
• Use an ozone generator to neutralize toxic gases and odors
• Open all of the windows of your home regularly, for at least one hour at a time
Day 87
Imbolc: Clearing Space with Fire
Today you learn how to clear your home with the element of fire. Fire techniques bring a decidedly active quality to purifying the energies of your home. Fire is a direct and immediate element that clears a sacred space rapidly.
How to Cleanse with Fire
Light a red or white candle and stand at the front door of your house. Move clockwise through the building, going from one room to the next. As you walk through your building, imagine that the energy of the candle flame is clearing away all stagnant forces within each room. When you return to the front door, extinguish the candle. Stand there with your eyes closed and breathe deeply. With each exhalation, imagine that you emit a bright red light that fills the entire house. Once you have completed this visualization, open your eyes.
How does the house feel to you with cleansing by the element of fire?
Other Fire Cleansing Techniques
• Light a fire in your fireplace; as you watch the flames, clear your mind (but while you are there, open yourself to receiving messages or visions from the realms of spirit)
• Light candles in various rooms of your home regularly, for at least one hour at a time; again, be sure to attend to open flames; not only is it unsafe to leave a fire unattended, but Wiccans consider an unattended flame an invitation for awful luck
Day 88
Imbolc: Clearing Space with Water
Learn today how to clear your home with the element of water. Water techniques are aimed at clearing away any stagnant emotional energies in your sacred space. Water is a natural and familiar choice for cleaning a sacred space; after all, you use water to cleanse objects in the physical world.
How to Cleanse with Water
Fill a bowl with pure, clear water and stand at the front door of your house. Move clockwise through the building, sprinkling the water with your fingertips in each of the rooms of your home. As you walk through your building, imagine that the energy of the droplets is rinsing away all stagnant energies. When you return to the front door, sprinkle a few drops there as well. Stand with your eyes closed and breathe deeply. With each exhalation, imagine that you emit a deep blue light that fills the entire house. Once you have completed this visualization, open your eyes.
How does the house feel to you with cleansing by the element of water?
Other Water Cleansing Techniques
• Fill a small, clear bottle or glass with water; set the glass on a windowsill so that the water is exposed to the light of either the sun or the moon; after the water is “charged” with either sun or moonlight, sprinkle this around your house
• Place a small fountain in each room that you sense needs a touch of water energy
• Use a humidifier in rooms that feel especially dry
• Fill a clean, empty spray bottle with water and a few drops of apple, rose, or gardenia essential oil (use only one essential oil for this clearing technique); shake up the bottle, and use this to mist the air in rooms that need a quick cleansing with the element of water
Day 89
Imbolc: Clearing Space with Earth
Today you learn how to clear your home with the element of earth. Earth techniques have a grounding, solidifying effect in the home. The Earth is your spiritual mother and she offers a solid conduction of elemental energy. When you introduce earth to your home, you evoke the most solid, nurturing aspects of the goddess.
How to Cleanse with Earth
Fill a small bowl with kosher salt21 and stand at the front door of your house. Move clockwise through the building, sprinkling the salt around the rooms of your home. As you walk through your building, imagine that the grains of salt absorb all stagnant energies. When you return to the front door, sprinkle a bit of salt there. Stand with your eyes closed and breathe deeply. With each exhalation, imagine that you emit a green light that fills the entire house. Once you have completed this visualization, open your eyes.
How does the house feel to you with cleansing by the element of earth?
Other Earth Cleansing Techniques
• Place small bowls of kosher salt in each room of your home to absorb stagnant energies
• Place at least one river rock on each windowsill to absorb harmful vibes
• Make a rock garden, using small dark stones and sand in a box that you prominently place in your home
• Place quartz crystals in the rooms of your home to facilitate the movement of spiritual energy
Day 90
Imbolc: Incense and Oil
Imbolc Incense
Burn this incense at your Imbolc ritual, or at any time that you want to bring about the energies and insights of Imbolc.
What You’ll Need:
• A handful of powdered sandalwood
• 1 teaspoon dry bay laurel
• 3 teaspoons myrrh powder or crushed resin
• 1 teaspoon dried coltsfoot (leaf or flower)
• Vegetable glycerin
• 6 drops myrrh essential oil
• 3 drops basil essential oil
• 2 drops bay essential oil
In a medium-sized bowl, place your powdered sandalwood. Stir in about two tablespoons of vegetable glycerin. Add the tablespoons one at a time and then mix with a metal whisk or a fork. You simply want to create a soft, fluffy compound. Do not add the second tablespoon of glycerin if it feels like it would be too much, causing the incense to be too “wet.”
Now add your essential oils and whisk. Add your myrrh, coltsfoot, and bay laurel. Mix thoroughly. Wait for at least a day for the compound to settle before you sprinkle it on hot coals.
Imbolc Oil
Use this oil to anoint attendees of your Imbolc ritual. You can also use this oil any time that you want to awaken the insights and mysteries of Imbolc. This oil awakens the magical energies of healing, creativity, and action.
What You’ll Need:
• Vegetable glycerin (or a carrier oil such as grape seed oil)
• 6 drops myrrh essential oil
• 3 drops basil essential oil
• 2 drops bay essential oil
• Pinch of coltsfoot or myrrh “tears”
Find a one-ounce bottle and fill the bottle half way with vegetable glycerin. Add plain water until the bottle is three-quarters full. Add your essential oils and your pine needles. Add dry ingredients, close the lid and shake the bottle. When you are finished making this oil, anoint yourself and contemplate any changes you might feel after application.