Anna's Amazing Astrology-Kit Holiday Special!

Friends,

How would you like to give a gift that continues to give all year ... and beyond?

For the next week, I am offering a limited number of special "Astrology Kits." 

I say "kit" because this is not just a reading -- it's a LIFE TOOL.

For $80.00 this kit includes:

• *** 60 minutes of my recorded chart interpretation for the recipient on CD in mp3 format. This recording will include a personalized natal chart interpretation as well as a personalized 2014 forecast, in two separate files to make it easier to refer to. They can listen to this over and over.

• *** A printed Natal + Forecast report (12 - 25+ pages) generated using absolutely the best and most astonishingly accurate astrology report-writing software on the market. My own jaw literally dropped when I read my own report. I called my husband and read passages to him and he agreed that it was "me" to a "t." No joke. It's written by one of the great European astrologers of our time, and I guarantee you and your recipient will be pleased. Plus, it uses simple language with clear graphics and a minimum of "astro-gobbledy-gook."

• *** A recorded guided meditation on CD with affirmations PERSONALIZED to your recipent's chart to maximize their talents and help them with any discordant spots.

• *** All of this in an attractive folder delivered with a holiday card, mailed by Priority Mail, to your recipient's house by Christmas.

• *** AND because it's the holiday of giving, I'll throw in a 15-minute phone consultation for your recipient at no extra charge! Just in case they have any questions down the road.

That's a LOT of astrology, and a LOT of personalized, custom information, at an extraordinary price that I will not be able to repeat in the future. 

I have availability to produce EIGHT of these AND guarantee delivery before Christmas.

**********************

To order:

STEP ONE: Email me at crystalcoastreiki@yahoo.com with the number of astro-kits you want to order plus the recipient(s) FULL NAME, MAILING ADDRESS, and - this is important - their DATE and TIME of birth (include AM or PM, please) and LOCATION of birth.

If you cannot find the time of birth, email me and we'll talk. There are options.

STEP TWO: Click on the Paypal button above and order the kit!

SIMPLE! 

Musings on Sacrifice

A friend wrote: "Thinking about my 'offering of sacrifice'. I realized this morning that my kids, made within my body, nurtured by my body, raised in the household that I set the daily tone for, [are a] long outpouring of sacrifice. To my family line, to my world."

This immediately got me thinking about the Goddess, and I don't mean a particular cultural Name, but THE Goddess, the Great Goddess, the Creatrix of all we see and are, and about sacrifice.

Wicca, and the various Wiccan-style Pagan traditions, give offerings to our Deities as tokens of affection and respect. Usually this is wine, fruit, milk, bread, honey, or other food substances and takes place a ritual context. In my tradition, it expresses love and gratitude and helps us feel that we and the Gods are participating in the ritual together. Sometimes we make bigger offerings that involve more energy and effort. We might make something and ritually destroy it in offering to the Goddess; I might bake a special cake for Her and take it out and bury it in the Earth. We call these offerings sacrifices, because we sacrifice ("make sacred") our energy and goods. 

However, I've never had the sense that the Goddess needed my offerings or sacrifices. She does not need my offerings to love me, and She does not need them to communicate with me or to act on my behalf. She loved me and spoke to me way before I ever started formal rituals or offerings. It's like when a beloved elder relative comes to visit and you offer her a cup of coffee and some cake. She does not need that coffee and cake, but it is polite and caring to offer it to her, and she appreciates the thoughtfulness. If you were not to offer them, she would still visit and love you, but she might think you were a bit rude, and some life lessons in thoughtfulness and generosity might follow.

When I was really little, my mom used to give me a bit of money at Christmas so I could buy a Christmas present for her. The idea is cute and silly, because I was using her stuff to give her stuff, but it acts as an analogy for the offerings we give our Lady. "All things come of Thee, Oh Goddess, and of Thine own have we given Thee" (to paraphrase 1st Chronicles.)

This places the Wiccan-style Pagan traditions outside of antique Pagan traditions and even some of the monotheistic traditions, where sacrifice was/is seen as necessary to forge a proper bond with the Deity, and without which, one could not have a proper relationship. The rushing-out of chi or prana in shed blood during an animal sacrifice forges a strong link with the Otherworld. The nature of the animal sacrificed "toned" the nature/quality of the power gushing forth and attracted/excited the denser spiritual parts of the Deity being invoked: like attracts like. It was believed that the bond with Deity and perhaps even the strength of the Deity depended on such sacrifice as well as great quantities of other offerings. The bond had to be renewed frequently with more sacrifice.

The point of the Christian mythos is that there came a time when there were not enough animals or offerings to satisfy Yahweh or atone for humanity's basic errors, and so the God himself had to incarnate and sacrifice himself to Himself to forge that proper bond between humanity and Deity. Because that God is considered to be outside of the limits of Time, so also is his sacrifice seen to be outside the limits of Time; it is ongoing, which is why the Eucharist (in liturgical churches) and the concept of being "washed in the Blood" (in the charismatic churches) are so important.

So we have a situation in many ancient (and some contemporary) Pagan religions, and even some monotheistic religions, where sacrifice is seen as necessary to have a proper relationship with Deity. How startling, then, are the words of our Great Mother Goddess as spoken in the inspired liturgy of the Charge of the Goddess:

"Nor does She demand sacrifice, for behold, She is the mother of all living, and Her love is poured out upon the earth."

The earlier Charge of the Goddess actually did make reference to sacrifice: "At mine Altars the youth of Lacedaemon in Sparta made due sacrifice." However, this was dropped. The sources of the Charge of the Goddess are many: Aleister Crowley's writings, Leland's Aradia, Apuleius' The Golden Ass, and the inspiration of Gerald Gardner and, especially, Doreen Valiente. I believe that the eventual omission of the line about the "due sacrifice" in Sparta was dropped because it conflicted with the Goddess-given gnosis that She does not demand sacrifice.

Because She is the mother of all living, that means Her essence is inherent within us, just as my friend's essence and nature is inherent within her children. I, you, this computer, my cat, bulls, dogs, turtledoves, loaves of bread, water, honey -- all are already of Her body, and there can be no alienation or separation from Her intrinsic form in us, anymore than my friend's children could one day decide to take out part of their DNA.**  Traditional sacrifice acts as a bridge, but why build a bridge to yourself? So we don't need to sacrifice to the Goddess, in the traditional sense. Her ongoing love, "poured out upon the earth" is the bridge to us. When we love Her back, we are herself loving Herself.

When we create something to give to Her, we are participating in Her inherent Power of Creativity; She is the source of creativity. When we offer something back to Her that is beautiful or sweet or fine, we are acknowledging Her beauty and and sweetness and fineness. And, She is acknowledging those qualities in Herself. We are also growing our spirits by mimicking her generosity. (We can learn a lot about right love of self from the Goddess.)

Finally, offerings can act as a language, a means of conversation, and there are offering techniques that are very powerful in this regard. These things create more of an awareness of Her in us, and strengthen our awareness of Her in our lives; they are very worthy to do, and powerful, and meaningful, but She does not need them anymore than my mother needed that 25 cent figurine I bought for her with her own money, and our relationship is not predicated on the offering.

I am comforted by the idea that I do not need to do anything in order to be loved and nurtured by the Great Mother. It makes me love and appreciate Her even more.

**(Which they would never do because my friend is AWESOME.)

The Goddess' Athames

A few years back, a Pagan man wrote an essay and published it on Witchvox in which he called him "the Goddess' athame." The point of this striking metaphor was that he considered himself to be an instrument of the Goddess' Will in all the ways that an athame works the Will of a Witch.

Last week, I got to experience the marvelous effects of several dozen "athames of the Goddess" all pointed at me in Love and Grace, and today, I sing that Love and Grace.

Since my initiation into an American Craft tradition in 2002, Lord Death has visited me and mine all too often. Now, I understand Lord Death's role in the greater scheme of things; life without death is cancerous, toxic, and miserable. For several Samhains I have enacted the Mystery of the Descent of the Goddess  into the realm of Death, the sacrifice of the Sacred King, and sung "Hoof and Horn / All That Dies Shall Be Reborn" with gusto.

Nevertheless, the deaths and the endings and the mournings and the letting-go-of-things have piled up and especially in the past two years, it's been relentless. Not only with the passing of people and beings I love, but the death of relationships I cherished; the death of my priestess role within my community, and my place in the community; and of the hopes and ambitions I had for my tradition. All gone. All failed. All faded away. 

It's been a lot of Winter. 

And so when Freya, my beloved and most special cat, my L'il, the Tiny Baby Kitty I helped feed unto life as a kitten, when she sickened, it was too much. Too much. All the grief of the past two years recapitulated into this one big grief. I reached out to the Goddess in confusion, asking, what should I do about Freya, what decisions should I make? And I felt nothing whatsoever except a blank and terrifying silence. My Goddess, why has thou forsaken me?

I was wrong. I was not forsaken at all.

Going public with my despair, I was astonished at how many people, dozens of people, took time out of their busy lives to read my posts and offer their words of  sympathy, consolation, and heartfelt advice. It was easy to see that every one of their messages was sincere. Some of these people I have never met face-to-face. Others I have not seen in over 20 years. 

It was an astonishing outpouring of Love and Grace, and through it I found great healing, and through it I found and felt once again the Goddess. 

I realized several things:

1. There comes a point where sadness morphs into depression, and the biological markers of depression often include a deficit of that marvelous spirit of connection that is the neurotransmitter "serotonin." Without adequate levels of serotonin, it is very hard to perceive, to feel viscerally, any kind of connection. That is one the reasons I had a hard time feeling the Goddess directly.
2. The Goddess, however, does not have to manifest directly into neural networks that may be misfiring at the time, but She can and does work through other people, who are not really Others at all, because we are all cells linked in the body of Her greatness, and love given is love shared.
3. That in this case, the Goddess very much implemented Her Will through these dozens of people who took the time to say a kind word, or many kinds words, to me. Every one was an athame of the Goddess, pointing a stream of glowing Love at me, and at Freya.

I have not felt the Goddess' love this tangibly in many years. It reminded me so powerfully that nurturing and cherishing the web of connection we have with one another is the highest form of service one can give the Goddess. Every single thing else pales in comparison, falls utterly away into insignificance. Status, "witchiness," tradition, form, praxis, all of them are meaningless unless they are subsumed into the service of Her Love. Without this Love, all these forms and items we Pagans cherish are like those decorative athames you hang on a wall: pretty and interesting, but ultimately useless. I know that is going to be a lesson I'll be unpacking for some time to come, and in that realization will come Spring, and the healing of my heart.

It may seem irreverent to quote a pop band at this point, but once again I marvel at the Awen of the Beatles - perhaps not surprising since they were, after all, Celts: "And in the end / the love you take / is equal to the love you make."

What's the Point of What We Do? Or, My Journey to Magickal Skepticism

I've been swimming in the Pagan/Wiccan/Witchcraft pool for 13 years now. It's been largely enjoyable and rewarding, for most of it. I have always had an insatiable curiosity about Life, the Universe, and Everything, and to be able to peek behind the curtain to the inner workings of that Universe (and engineer it a bit) (has felt deeply satisfying.

Since the New Year, however, I've found myself deeply ambivalent about this path. In the past couple of years I began to read widely into ceremonial magick, a bit into Solomonic and grimoire-based magick. Part of this was to understand the roots of the Western Mystery Tradition that I practice, and part of it was to get familiar with the material that the more advanced Witches and Magicians seemed to delving into. It seemed like the next step to becoming the best I could be.

Boy, was there a lot of it. Lots of grimoires, lots of techniques, lots of tools and  materials and not stuff you could order from your mom'n'pop Pagan biz. I was still practicing my own tradition as well as rebooting my small business after an accident left me out of commission for a couple of months, so my plate felt pretty full. In fact, I began to despair how I was going to manage it all.

Then one morning I was reading Franz Bardon's book,The Practice of Magical Evocation. Franz Bardon was a highly-regarded magician from the former Czechoslovakia. Many serious magicians consider his works to be first-rate, quality material. The Magical Evocation book contains his forays into the world of spirits. He identified hundreds of spirits for each element, each planet, and even each degree of the zodiac. They are named, their sigils drawn, and their properties described.

One gets the feeling, reading this material, that a magician could do just about anything with these spirits. They are supposed to be quite powerful. Some of them conferred the ability to hide you, some the ability to get out of confinement or prisons, others were for healing.

I sure wanted a piece of that action, but I was in despair as to how I was going to manage the work on top of everything else. Really, I worked myself into some real turmoil over this. And then, an epiphany. Like a cold slap in the face with an icy branch.

In a rush, the thought sprang into my head: these spirits did not save him. Franz Bardon died in a Czech prison at age 49. You're older now, and freer now,  than he ever got to be.* 

Oh no.

I thought: where were his spirits when he needed them? All those spirits that are supposed to confer invisibility or loosen bonds; and he still ended up being captured by the political establishment and dying in prison. I mean, what the hell?

Whoa. This was .... game-changing. I panicked a bit. Well, uh, maybe he didn't have the right tools or something in prison.

But he'd done all the exercises in his magical training book, Initiation Into Hermetics. He surely knew how to do some of this work outside of a formal temple setup. And why'd he get arrested in the first place?

Well, ---.

Um, .

Silence.

So what is the point of working with them?

Silence.

A month later, my husband and I celebrated our anniversary at the Edgar Cayce center in Virginia Beach. Edgar Cayce was a Christian psychic and medical intuitive whose readings from the "Akashic records" helped make Atlantis and reincarnation, crystal therapy and auras, famous and popular in the U.S. He was a founding father of the New Age in America. And as we Witches and Pagans know, the New Age is a bunch of silly, shallow, wishful-thinking blather that is (1) a watered-down ripoff of Witchcraft, (2) delusional fantasy by starry-eyed fools with more money than sense, and (3) devoid of any real ability to give satisfaction, develop character, or help a person manifest a deeply satisfying life.

That's the party line. I never quite bought into it, because my profession demanded I keep up with some New Agers and a lot of them seemed like really cool people, but I still sneered at them. I had The Real Deal. I was a Witch.

Unfortunately for my ego, the teachers and practitioners I met at the Cayce center that weekend  turned out to be the Realer Deal. A lot were older people who'd been reading, meditating, and practicing their spiritual Art for 30, 40 years. They were grounded and balanced. They were highly intuitive to demonstrably psychic. They practiced interesting meditative techniques that, when I tried them, got impressive results. They took care of their bodies and while some of them had some ailments, considering the mean age, they were pretty healthy. They radiated confidence and serenity. They were prosperous enough to manifest travel to various areas to attend workshops that were much more expensive than most of the Pagan workshops and meetings I'd ever attended.

I  could not think of a single area where any Witch, Pagan, or Magician I knew bested them. 

I enjoyed myself there, but I came away looking at my own practices, and at current trends in the greater Pagan/Magickal world, with a skeptical eye. Because our movement is rushing straight and headlong into ... "the Past," as if "the Past" were a Sacred Book like the Bible that, if we could just understand and practice The Past well enough, we'd have the Real Deal and be practicing the Real Stuff that would get us ... something. If we crack open enough grimoires and hold our tongues just so, if we can summon spirits and partner with the darkest and grimmest of ancient Gods,  if we can find a scrap of archaeological evidence that the XXXXXX ancient priests poured milk on stones while always standing in the southwest and then copy that, then, well, then Mighty Things would happen and they would be Good Mighty Things. Yeah. Really Good Mighty Things. Yessiree.

I look around and I see a lot of people doing grimoiric work, or reconstruction, or going deeper and deeper into the Mound, or getting grittier and more chthonic, or pouring over old writings, or ... lots of stuff. All the stuff that's become cool and trendy amongst the magickal elite. And I don't deny they're having a good time with all this interesting stuff. But I don't see where many people are getting joyful. Or well. Or very wealthy. Or enlightened. Or mundanely powerful. Some, yes, are doing that and writing about it, but not a lot. 

And so, what's the point? Why do we do what we do? What do we expect out of all these practices?

I can't help but feel that a lot of we all consider to be powerful and important is really neither. Fun and engaging and helluv interesting: oh yeah. No doubt! And so, it's important to us. But vastly superior to the practices I saw in the Cayce center crowd - I simply see no evidence of that.

I came into the greater Pagan/Magickal scene with the assumption that we do what we do in order to grow our own spirits, in order to exit this world not only with more knowledge, but with greater gnosis, and also, and especially, with having worked some of the kinks and quirks out of spirits that drag us down life after life into situations of despair. That's what I came in for; I guess I assumed most people did. Magick was to grease the wheels life so that they would turn more smoothly for me and my loved ones so we'd be freed up for spiritual pursuits. Perhaps I was wrong.

Nevertheless, since this winter, I've been casting a cold, critical eye on all of our practices and found a lot that don't seem to live up to the hype. There's gold here, yes, but I think there's a tremendous about of dross as well.

This is the first in a long series of blogs that I will be writing about that "dross." In short, there are trends, fads, and assumptions that have become default assumptions within our greater Scene, and I'm calling them out. This will not endear me to my peers. I understand that.

Next up: The Past as a Pagan Bible, or Our Quest For 'Authenticity.'

* Wikipedia states: "Bardon continued his work in the fields of Hermetics until 1958 when he was arrested and imprisoned [in Czechoslovakia.] Bardon died on July 10, 1958 while in the custody of police."

Midsummer: What the Wren Knows

When you walk a magickal path year in and year out, dancing that Wheel over and over, it gets in your blood. You become the Wheel, and the Wheel becomes you. In this state of Union, the Gods can speak to you clearly through tokens and omens that come through the spirits of Nature, and I don't just mean Otherworldly spirits. I'm talking about the plants, animals, and birds that you encounter as you go about your daily life.

Last summer it was crows and dead cats all over the place, and we all know about the shitty transformative energies of the Summer o'12. This year, it's a wren.

Our washer and dryer are in an outbuilding, and we often leave the door open so the cats can go inside when it rains. There's a shelf full of dryer lint and various stuff near the machines. I went in a few weeks ago and startled a little bird flying around. The door had been closed at that time, and I thought the bird had been caught inside accidentally. 

The next day, it happened again, and this time I saw it: a hollow hive-shaped nest deep within the dyer lint, and several speckled eggs inside. Ah! 

It took a few days to figure out what kind of bird it was, and it is a Carolina Wren:

Of course, it's always cool when the wildlife comes near, but it took a while for my mind to shut up and listen to Wren's message. 

Which, when it came through, floored me, and by that I mean, shook my very foundations.

This is what She said:

Druid.

You're a Druid. 

Or, as you prefer, a Druidess.

You've called yourself Witch, you've called yourself Wiccan, and you've earned the right to call yourself those things. But I know what you really are. And so do you.

What are your earliest memories? It's the time your mother got all the big pine trees cut down in the front yard. It's the way the light looked on the tree leaves before a thunderstorm. It's the smell and curious shapes of the sassafras leaves. It's the color of the willow oak leaves against the blue sky in autumn. It's the glory of the yaupon in winter and the filigree of bare branches against the sunset sky.

It's a hundred memories of trees, and plants, and birds, and all the things of Nature, wherever you go, Hawaii, California, Washington, Germany, Massachusetts, Indiana. What do you notice? The trees. The birds. The weeds. What do you remember, after all these years? The way the Light and Dark play on the Land. When do you mourn the most? When trees are killed and weeds are killed and the secret places are desecrate. When does your heart soar and sing? When you are talking to the wild flowers, and the weeds, and the trees.

And who is your Goddess? Who, after all these years, did you finally meet and know? Cerridwen. Do you remember your poetry? Do you remember how you used to be able to sit  down and compose a 20-page term paper in your head, and type it out completely intact, with endnotes, with no rough drafts and no revisions - on a typewriter, and get an 'A'? Why do you think you loved William Blake and John Keats so much? They knew the Awen, She gave them the Awen, a word you started to chant by instinct 10 years ago this Midsummer. Your officemate, not a Pagan, out of all the words in the world names her business "Awen;" can We send any message clearer than that?

The Witches, your friends, your family, your kinspeople, they're fine. Nothing wrong with them. Stay with them. But not for you the world of perpetual Halloween, of autumn-tinted shadows and the night-mysteries all the time; for you are also of the day, the green and the gold and the blue, the clear fine sky, and the Alban Heruin, the rays of Light on the Shore. And you have always known and felt this. Stop pretending.

For you not just the Sacred Union, but the fruits of the Union, which are the poetry and the song and the art. 

And you are a philosopher. Like your forebears, like William Blake himself, you can speak many languages of Spirit. Jesus is okay. Perhaps his feet in ancient times walked upon England's mountains green.

 Druidess you have been, and Druidess you are, and Druidess you will ever be. Dryw, my name in Welsh, which means "Druid" and "Wren." 

For I am the King of the birds. I have flown higher than the Eagle, and I give the power of prophecy, which you have already discovered. I was Taliesen, who is in you. I give the power of song, and I give the power of cunning. 

Having come home now to what I truly am, I feel no need to rush off and join a Druid organization. My current spiritual technology can serve my needs just fine, I think, for the time being.

I am in awe of how clear and direct these omens and tokens are. It stirs in me a desire to create, to worship, to serve Her and emulate Him. What a marvelous multiverse.

What a relief no longer to be an oval peg trying to fit into a round hole - more frustrating than a square hole, because that's obvious, but with an oval peg (to extend the metaphor), one keeps feeling as if one could and should fit. It's the almost-ness that gets you.

Blessed Alban Heruin. May the Light shine brightly on your Shore.

Hawthorn: Queen of the May

As I mentioned yesterday, two Plant allies have come to me this year: lemon balm, and Hawthorn.

One must capitalize Hawthorn, for this is a regal tree, a tree that carries the gravitas and majesty of Queendom. She is compelling and complex, Dark and Light, healing and hurtful; more of a shrub than a proper tree, but as commanding as the mightiest Oak.

The Hawthorn that graces my life (I can't say "my" Hawthorn) was planted as a sprig from the Arbor Day foundation 8 years ago, sandwiched between two crabapples. For years it was just a little shrub; and then suddenly, three years ago, it expanded and blossomed right on cue for Mayfaire. The creamy white blossoms enjoy the sunny branches up high. They don't last long, and one poem compares the breeze-drifting petals to tears. (There is a curious amount of poetry about the Hawthorn.) No worries, though: the new leaves are vivid green and tinged red (a clue to Hawthorn's membership in the Rose family), and the astonishingly red berries, called haws, light up the dimmest winter months.

Lady Hawthorn ... how shall I say this? She has a reputation. She's not an aphrodisiac, but men who fall asleep under Her wake up with their heads in the lap of the Faery Queen, and yes, that is poetic euphemism. But Hawthorn isn't interested in your naughty bits. She's after your heart.

What does She want with your heart? Why, she wants to heal it. And that's exactly what She does, blossom, leaf, and berry. Hawthorn has extensive benefits for all manner of physical heart ills. She lowers blood pressure, reduces arterial plaque (arteriosclerosis), gentle  dilates the blood vessels and therefore opens up circulation and increases oxygenation, steadies irregular heartbeat, and helps lower cholesterol. 

Energetically, She is calming and centering, albeit in a slightly different way than Melissa (lemon balm): you can actually tell that Lady Hawthorn is working in the heart center, whereas Melissa (lemon balm) is more in the head.

You know that feeling in your chest when you are angry, tense, or afraid? Even in healthy people there's a constricted feeling in your breath, a very slight choking that may not even be physical? Hawthorn opens all that up. Hawthorn lets you take that deep breath that helps move the anger away. 

Oh, and like the Lady She is, she provides nutrition but also helps normalize your digestion and your appetite.

I am a crab; Cancer is my Sun sign, and there is a strong streak of harrumphy, coldhearted curmudgeon in my nature. Hawthorn helps me loosen my crab-claw grip on the grumps. A little hawthorn, and I can take a deep breath and go into the place of loving or empathy or compassion that I need to be in.

True to my -ishy approach to herbalism*, I started by pulling a couple of berries and eating them. Very powerful. Please understand that when I say "very powerful," I'm not talking about a head-rush or anything like taking a pharmaceutical (legal or illegal). I just could feel my heart chakra open up, my breathing deepen, and my core being get calmer. The blossoms make a wonderful tea, but mine were all gone before I realize they were all gone. However, you can eat the leaves, and they work. They have a bland taste. I think they dry well enough to preserve for teas or capsules.

The thorns .... oh, the thorns! The Lady protects Herself and Her own. She's got, like, 2 inch thorns and they are as sharp as a needle. But then, that's true to Her rose nature, like roses, blackberries, brambles, etc.

Lady Hawthorn helps me connect to my Celtic-ish based practice. I've never fully bonded with the 13 month tree calendar or many of the Ogham because I have no context for many of them in my life. Blackthorn may make many witches quiver with lust, but I've never seen it; I have no relationship with it. Ditto with the much-loved Rowan. They don't grow in eastern NC; they are foreign to me. And I've always felt foolish trying to work magick or divine with something I have no familiarity with. So getting to know Lady Hawthorn up close and personal has been very rewarding from a practitioner level. 

In the Ogham, it's called "Huath." The Authorities focus on the thorns and call it a tree of protection and defense; true enough, it's used to make hedge-fences in the old country, to keep in what needs to be kept in, and to keep out what needs to be kept out. It's often determined to be a masculine tree. Well, it's masculine to me in the same that the High Priestess can strap on a sword and be the Priest in a ritual. But she's still a Priestess, and so is this tree.

She is sacred to the Goddess Cardea, of Roman origin but deeply embedded in our subconscious as associated with cardiac, although The Authorities don't recognize Cardea/Cardia's name as a source of the word "cardiac." Cardea is a Goddess of hinges, or doorways, of thresholds. Hawthorn is Her sacred tree. And it's a tree associated with the realm of Faery, of people falling asleep beneath it and actually going into the Otherworld.

There are also levels here about boundaries, personal boundaries, when to open up to people and let them in your heart, and when to provide a beautiful exterior that hides enough thorns to deter those who would steal away the goodness you have to offer. What can Lady Hawthorn, and Cardea Goddess of Thresholds, teach us about loving but having proper boundaries?

There are Mysteries here, mysteries of a whole heart, a green heart, an open heart needed to go into the Otherworld, and to encounter the Queen of the May. And the paradox: it is the Goddess, the Queen of the May, who can heal our hearts. And safety is important for all of this.

* "Ishy" is my vague and idiosyncratic approach to herbalism that is absolutely imprecise. You can do this with mild herbs. I can do it with Hawthorn because my heart is pretty healthy and because I'm cautious by nature and never eat more than two or three leaves. However, I don't know you. Because Hawthorn works on the heart, even in a very, very safe manner, I do not recommend this -ishy approach for anyone else. In fact, if you want to try Hawthorn, read up on all the links on google; inform yourself, check with a doctor if you have any cardiac or blood pressure issues, etc. In other words, you're a grown-up and your relationship with this Plant is between you and Her.

**************

The Hawthorn in my yard is a "Washington" hawthorn; there are many species. Mine definitely has the medicinal and energetic properties. 

Here is a lovely poem from Willa Cather called "The Hawthorne Tree:"

ACROSS the shimmering meadows—
Ah, when he came to me!
In the spring-time,
In the night-time,
In the starlight,
Beneath the hawthorn tree.
Up from the misty marshland—
Ah, when he climbed to me!
To my white bower,
To my sweet rest,
To my warm breast,
Beneath the hawthorn tree.
Ask of me what the birds sang,
High in the hawthorn tree;
What the breeze tells,
What the rose smells,
What the stars shine—
Not what he said to me!

The Waxing Tide of Life: Long Days and Balmy Eves

Returning to a theme I started last winter: there are certain things in our cluster of spiritual practices that They Can't Teach You In Books.

One of these things is the knowledge you get from living the Wheel of the Year over and over again. The repetition allows you to notice how you respond personally to the different tides of Power. For me, the Beltane-to-Summer-Solstice period is when I fall in love with the Earth all over again. I channel my inner Romantic poet:

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild–

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;

And mid-May’s eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunts of flies on summer eves.*

This Tide brings me mystical experiences with the Elves, the Fae, the Spirits of Nature, sometimes life-changing. I wander outside, entranced, greeting plant after plant with astonished delight like the old friends they are. Hello, elder blossom! Hi there, yarrow - you're early and quite luscious this year. Oh look, there's my vervain who visited me last summer - I forgot about you - you came back! It's a reunion. I greet them. And they talk back. It matters not if they are "weeds" or plants I put into the ground. Some of my best friends are "weeds," which is why I am a shitty gardener - I can't stand to get rid of the beautiful, vibrant "weeds" full of nutrition and unexpected medicinal and magickal power.

Note that this period does not begin precisely on April 30 and end at the stroke of midnight on June 22.I am a fuzzy Crafter, driven by instinct, full of -ishness. My practice depends less on the calendar (and none whatsoever on precise astrological degree) and much more on the look and feel of the Land; what's blooming or dying; the rush of the increase of Life and growth -- or the slowing down, the decrease and the stillness; and the quantity and quality of Light. I celebrate the Full Moon as long as the Moon looks full; I work with its waning when I can see it beginning to wane. 

My herbalism is much the same. And one of this year's revelations is that I am, indeed, an herbalist. I'm just a very -ish herbalist. My idea of herbalism is to listen to an inner voice tell me you need this, and then go out and pick it and eat it. I check to make sure it isn't Deadly Poison, and then I just ask it for some leaves, kinda-sorta-informally, and I put them in my mouth and chew them up and swallow them. And then I see how I feel.

I have had astonishing results from this. Back in 2006, some instinct told me to pick feverfew leaves and eat them. I did and experienced relief from chronic pain and tiredness: enough to go back to full employment, and to continue to work on the chronic pain and tiredness, which I resolved. I probably owe my current life and work to Feverfew. The effects did not last long. After a month or so, the relief waned; but by then, I no longer needed it as much. Apparently it had given me whatever I needed, worked toward my own homeostasis, and boosted me into another level of being. This relationship was entirely with the fresh plant. Teas, tinctures, dried matter did nothing whatsoever.

Two summers ago, a clary sage plant suddenly grew and blossomed and for a couple of weeks, the back yard smelled like the Goddess. In the Goddess' perfume, I guarantee you, is a liberal helping of fresh clary sage. I would walk by and brush my fingers lightly against the flowers and melt inside. I saved some seed, but the plant, a biennial, died away eventually (as it was supposed to do). You can purchase clary sage essential oil, but I assure you that it has none of the sexy, sensuous depth and musk of a clary sage plant in the fullness of the Sun. This plant brought me closer to the Goddess of Love and also helped me experience some mild but interesting altered states of consciousness.

This summer, I have two friends: lemon balm and hawthorn. After the Great Clusterfuck that was 2012, apparently the Plant Spirit world decided to send me a team. DH and I both have a certain amount of unresolved stress, anger, and trauma. Our nerves are frayed and it's affected us physically somewhat. This has exacerbated my old friend ADD. Happily, the Plant Spirits responded by giving me a bumper crop of lemon balm. In fact, it was the quantity and exuberance of the lemon balm that clued me in: maybe I need this.

 I've had lemon balm for years, but never bonded with it. I tried the tea, didn't much like it, and always let the plant bolt to blossom. It smelled good and made the bees happy and that was fine. This year, however, I walked by and picked a fresh top and ate it, and quickly felt calmer and more focused. Ahhhhh..... so that's what 'centered' feels like. My, it's been a while; I'd forgotten.  A little research and I discovered that lemon balm is a marvelous nervine ( which I knew) and helps the mind be more focused (which I did not know). It's recommended for kids with ADHD, and I can tell you it helps with adult ADD as well. It helps reduce allergic response, irritation, and anxiety.

This and hawthorn are turning things around for me. [I'm going to blog separately on hawthorn, because it's such a magickal tree as well as medicinal, and there's a lot of lore associated with it.] The lemon balm has helped so much that I'm motivated to go beyond my -ishy picking-and-eating thereof. I'm infusing lemon balm into wine, and this morning I pulverized a quart and blended it with brandy and 151 grain alcohol for a tincture. I might make some "Carmelite water." There's a bit of a race against time, since all The Authorities say you need to pick it before it blossoms to get the most benefit, and mine is loaded with buds. They also say you can dry lemon balm, but it seems to lose a lot of its virtue in dried form; the volatile oils that give it so much punch evaporate. Nevertheless, I'm going to try drying it, and also making an infused vinegar. 

I sang to it as I picked the tops. I love you lemon balm. You help me think. You help me focus. You help me feel good. You smell so good. You're so pretty. Thank you for helping me. I always feel bad, picking a lot of a plant, although Goddess knows I have a lot of lemon balm left. I'll give her a drink of water tonight in repayment.

Although The Authorities assign lemon balm to the Moon and Water, I think of yellow-blossomed lemon balm as an herb of Air, of Mercury; it's at its best in the month of Gemini, and it's a premier plant of the nervous system and thinking, all Mercurial functions. However, it's a bee plant; its Latin name is Melissa, which is Greek for "bee," and it reportedly has associations with Diana. And the bee is definitely a Goddess-creature from before recorded history. I have not yet worked magickally enough with my new friend to be able to say much in this regard, but I'll let you know what I discover.

I always thought you had to have shelves full of tinctures and jars of dried herbs, and scales and droppers, and know about drams and how many drops make a milliliter, to be a Proper Herbalist. I don't know if my efforts to be a Proper Herbalist will work. I don't know if lemon balm tincture will do for me what walking by and picking some and eating it on the spot will do. Perhaps lemon balm is just for me here, now. That seems to be true of herbs and me in general. Our relationships are profound but pass quickly, like the Tides of Power around and between the Sabbats; like the waxing Light and the "murmurous haunts of flies on summer evenings." This may be one of the more hidden lessons of Lemon Balm, my friend Melissa, with its strong but ephemeral volatile oils that smell so heavenly, and give it so many benefits, and yet are so hard to fix and preserve. Enjoy the beauty and fineness of this moment. Take a deep breath, and just be in relationship with your Self and what's around you.

*John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," one of the best poems ever.

These links on lemon balm were of benefit to me:

http://www.herballegacy.com/Lemon_Balm.html

Good Mrs. Grieves: http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/balm--02.html