Fidel’s a Sacred Place in Wellington

I read in my blog feed a week or so ago, Lupas post asking people to show her their sacred places and being that I am an Urban Witch who lives in New Zealand’s capital city, it got me thinking about sacred places in a city.  And what are the Sacred Places that I go to in my city?

For those who know me it will come as no surprise that I consider Fidel’s Café as sacred.  Fidel’s has been around for over 25 years on Cuba Street.  It is an offbeat and popular café that is quite an iconic Wellington Café, and over the last 6 years or so it has become one of my sacred places.

In 2007 Tats and I started hanging out at Fidel’s on a Friday evening after work.  Mostly because it was quite and didn’t have drunken people talking loudly or trying to pick you up.  Neither Tats nor I drink and we are generally uncomfortable around drunken strangers.

We started sitting out the back, away from the hustle and bustle of the main café.  I drank pots of tea and tats bowls of latte we talked connected and generally enjoyed each other’s company. Over the years friends started to join us, our conversations widened and changed to include the interests of our friends and our connections to one another grew.  The community bond was strengthened via the support and shared cups of tea as life event unfolded were talked over and were resolved.

Over the years, Fidel’s has become a place of refuge and community.  A place where some days everyone knows your name, and the staff understand you like lots of milk with your tea.    It’s a place where I feel safe and loved.  Memories lay about the place, like scattered autumn leaves.  Fidel’s is where friendships form, problems are solved, adventures planned and most of all loved is shared.

And not just on Friday evenings.  I often feel the need to go to Fidel’s, order a pot of tea reflect and write in my little red book of doom.  Other times I have meet up with fellow Witches and other magical people and discussed things magical.  At other times friends have invited me down to Fidel’s to talk about things not best discussed on a Friday night, extended from Friday night.

That is what makes Fidel’s a sacred place for me in my city of Wellington, a place were friends meet, food is shared, connections made and love shared.

Just Magic

Its like falling in love all over again

I happened to tweet that I had been having thoughts about magic verses community with regards to Paganism which was favourited by Joseph from Candle Smoke Chapel and something that I may post on later as I am still pondering on this.  However I followed Joeph’s link on his twitter and a few clicks later I was on Candle Smokes etsy and experiencing the feeling of seeing old friends that I had sort of lost touch with, over the years, in the form of Medicine Cards

I was given my deck of Medicine Cards way back in 1994 which is nearly 19 years ago.  They were a gift that my then flatmate Juliette gave me for my birthday.  Not long after I attended classes on how to read them run by another friend of mind, Simone, whose tarot classes I had attended earlier on in the year.  I have to say that I didn’t mesh very well with tarot, and it would be another 15 years or so until I picked up another Tarot deck.

But the Medicine Cards I took to like fish to water.  I remember that by the 3^rd or 4^th class I was helping the other students to read their cards.

There was something about these animals, these medicine cards that spoke to me like the Tarot didn’t.  Even at first glance it was like meeting old friends.  You see these Medicine cards were not about ‘fortune’ telling instead they were about you, your personality, what and where you were now as opposed to how I was the tarot, which was about predicating someone’s future.  Who they would marry, money, success, etc etc.

The future, I have and do believe is something you created yourself by the choices and decisions you make in the present the here

I have only ever had one tart reader pick up on that.  She said to me, as I handed her the cards after I had shuffled them ‘ the cards say you don’t like your future ot be read’ at that was an excellent reading

What I learnt from my Medicine Cards as I read for myself and others was that there was a lot of misinterpretation and misunderstanding when it came to the purpose and use of divination cards.  Or more to the point I was misunderstanding the purpose of divination cards.  For me cards such as Medicine Cards and tarot cards were for understanding the here and now, and not about ‘telling ones fortune or future’

I don’t use the Medicine Cards so much now, as a several years ago I picked up the Wildwood tarot, which in a similar way to the medicine cards speak to me in ways that other tarot don’t  but perhaps it is time to work with  my Medicine Cards again?

FireDragons for Samhuinn

This year my Samhuinn celebration and ritual was an adventure held in Auckland, which is about an hour’s flight from Wellington.  about six weeks or so ago my Friend Nicola suggested that we take advantage of the cheap Air New Zealand flights and go to Auckland for the next Sabbat, which as you may of guessed was Samhuinn.  There were a couple of reasons for this: 1/ to see our Friend Nanny Ogg aka Caroline,  whom we love to pieces, and 2/ to experience how other groups around NZ actually do and participate in their own rituals, Namely Fire Dragon Grove.   Also ‘adventures’

So we intrepid travelling druid and witch, got on a late but cheap flight to Auckland.  Nanny Ogg was there to meet us at the Airport and whisk us off to her house somewhere in the wilds of Auckland not far from Conwell Park, which I will one of these days visit proper.  Cornwell Park is a huge wonderful green area with sheep and cows, and trees and a hill called One Tree Hill. . . that no longer has a tree because it was cut down by the an activist, who was incidentally the same activist who had a go at turning the Americas Cup into the New Zealand Plate. .. .  But that my dears is a topic for a different blog.  *coughs*

Anyway Nicola and I were whisked away to a nice house near this park, where we stayed up until the wee hours catching up over cups of tea and tiny digestive biscuits.  On Saturday morning I woke early, cause I have a tendency to do that when I am travelling.   I made cup of tea and then wandered outside.  The birds sounds that morning were not familiar to me, in Auckland they have doves, and minor birds which we don’t have in Wellington.  What was missing was the frockling sounds of about 25 Kaka Parrots, the Twitterings of Fantails and the song of the Tui, but then in Wellington my house is about 10 minutes or so from our local wild life reserve.

After waking Nanny Ogg with the making a second cup of tea or was it the third?, I might be a bit of a tea-soak first thing in the morning )  anyhoo,  the rest of the morning was spent planning on what we would be doing for the afternoon.  One of the things I wanted to do was to go and visit Aucklands witches Shop Cauldron Craft http://www.cauldroncraft.co.nz/

which is found in Devonport.  Luckily they had a sale on. as the story is closing down in June 2013 *sad face* but given that I live in Wellington it is difficult to get up there and spend my money.  However I here that it is going to be an online store.. *rubs hands together*

Anyway the three of us went wild.. I purchased many herbs and resins, plus a obsidian plate? Made with local Obsidian whoot.. Samhuinn ritual, and Nicola found things made of crystal and metal, otherwise known as shiny, of course you should buy the shiny.

Nanny Ogg brought a box of locally made candles, and incense for the evenings ritual. Devonport is a bit of an artsy place so we stayed and had lunch, cause we were hungry witches and druids…

Then it was home again to prepare for the evenings invasion of Druids, but given that Fire Dragon Grove is a Druid Grove it is not surprising that the Druids were invading.  *grins*

And yes the ritual was different from that of the Summer Stars Grove, for one there were less and different people, and for two in a small intimate group it is way easier for the main rite to be a lot more intense and personal, which it was for this Samhuinn ritual.  the quarters were called, the peace sent, awens sung and ancestors invited, things that we had forgotten to organise were brought by the other grove members, starting with the crumble, then seawater from spirits bay, the place it is said where the spirit so the dead in New Zealand travel to get to the underworlds.. then the oak leaves arrived with the blacksmith.. who had the same ideas about what to do with them as we three had discussed at lunch, must be magic.   The group was very much like a well magical oiled machine, everyone had something to offer and everyone had something to do.  After the main rite of a meditation it was the turn of the Cailleach to arrive, as really, this is her season.  The oak leaves were burned with the intention of what the druids were taking with them.  Then the Cailleach mixed in some oil with ash from the fire, and each participant was anointed.  ‘What you carry with you will transform and strengthen you’ was whispered in each participant’s ear and sealed with a kiss

After the circle was uncast, the feast and eisteddfod was had, eisteddfod is a time where grove members tell stories or recite poems, some related to the season and others not.  I believe that in England this is held during the ritual, but here in New Zealand we have  a tendency to combine it will the feasting, it just works better for us.

There was also a supper place with a little bit of everything that was put out for the ancestors as a way of honouring them further.  Stories were told and great food eaten, and our night finished just nearing midnight the witching hour, with many hugs from new friends and magical people, for they were magical and the evening magic filled.  

 

the Friday Befor ANZAC Day

We will remember them

For the Fallen

Ode of Remembrance

By Laurence Binyon‘ 1914

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal,
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation,
And a glory that shines upon her tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the daytime;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known,
As the stars are known to the night.

As the stars will be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Kissing The Hag: Book Review

Kissing the Hag: The Dark Goddess and The Unacceptable Nature of Women
By Emma Restall Orr 2009

Kissing The Hag

Often books come into my life when they are needed, and other times I by a book and it takes me several months or years before they get read.  This one is a little of both, I knew of its existence,   when it was first published back in 2009 but never really felt the need to buy it until recently and it is one that I pretty much started to read straight out of the box.

This book is not a how to book, nor does it have rituals, rites, spells or seasonal correspondences, and despite its content and title with the Dark Goddess in it, is not strictly a pagan book either, but then it also is. ..  given that it is written by a practicing druid priestess.   I am also reluctant to call this a self-help book, as it is not telling you that you are broken so much as helping you to more fully experience the different aspects of who you are, as a woman.

This book is about the often unspoken aspects of woman’s nature both the powerful and dangerous sides to the often unacceptable nature of women.  Emma writes about these unacceptable natures in the form of Dark Goddesses, I guess you could class them all as Hags in one form or another.  Emma also uses coarse language in places, using it as an effective tool to get you away from your indoctrinated thinking, and start thinking about difficult topics from a completely different angle.

I have to admit that when I first started reading this book, I was several pages in when I stopped and asked. “ What the blazes is this weird incomprehensible drivel?” however after a few more pages I was beginning to understand that it was not incomprehensible drivel but rather, it is more theological psychological and spiritual in nature.  Emma writes about concepts that will both enlighten and challenge how as a women you understand yourself, and I suspect as a man how you perceive and understand women.  She also writes about  The Bad and The Ugly as society has taught us it is, and how confidence, power and sense of self can be found within the different aspects of these various Dark Goddess types, which are so often seen as The Bad and The Ugly, so to speak.

The Blood, The Virgin, The Whore, The Mother, The Bitch, The Witch, The Old Bag and The Hag these Goddesses of both Light and Dark, as they have aspects of both can been seen in each of us as we go from birth, living, and on towards Death.  Emma posits that they are not always tied up with ageing as we can be pretty much any of them, but she also posits that they do represent women as we do age.

All in all I am very glad that I stuck with this book and have read it, it has certainly been timely, and has given me some spot on concepts and understandings to work through in my own life. I want to recommend this book for all women, but also for pretty much all genders.  I also want to say that it is not a book that should be read quickly, as it can take some time and quiet contemplation to unravel each sections meaning and how that relates to you.  And another  thought, I wonder how a trans-woman would find this, if it would be useful in opening them up more fully to being a woman, embodying the various goddesses both dark and light?

So no this is not a heavy magical occult tome, but it is magical and has an energy that challenges but also comforts.  Kissing The Hag  is a book that will make you think.  It is a book that will confuse you in places and it is a book that will definitely challenge you in interesting and somewhat unusual ways.  Part of me wants to say not for the faint at heart, but you know what, if you are faint at heart, read this book because it will help you understand how to be strong of heart.

I give this book 4 cups of tea out of 5

Emma’s Website  Druidnetwork Bio   Book Depository

Women, Goddess’s and Religion

Today I stayed at home as I have a Cold, and while laying about in Bed playing on FB a link to a Documentary flashed by.. there are three all together on Women and Religion, all presented by Bettany Hughes and they are all quite fasinating, thus I am sharing them whoot

When God Was a Girl

Priestess: Handmaid Of The Gods

War of the Worlds: Women and Religion

 

Also if you look at the rest of the House of Documentary there are a bunch of other interesting looking Documentaries..

enjoy!

Shadow, Deep and Community

 

Usually I try and find a story of sorts to begin these posts, but alas this time there isn’t one.  This idea, or revelation came to over the last couple of weeks and it is about the 3 types of magical work that I do, or that I perceive I do.

Shadow Work:

This is where magic is used to work on yourself, inner work if you will.  Work to understand, heal and grow in a psychological personal sense.  It is about working with the darker aspects, as well as the lighter aspects, of yourself that come into view as you live a magical life.  It has always been my belief that if you are not working on this as a part of your magical life, then are you really living a magical life?  But having said that, living a magical life is not and should not be entirely focused on the self, hens these two other type of work which are a part of my practice and magical life.

For example this year I have been making a concerted effort to write more because all through my schooling I was told I was lazy and stupid, and then when it was discovered that I was dyslexic, as an adult, I had to overcome the common understanding that dyslexic people while not stupid could not write.  Hence the magical blogging and writing on a fairly regular basis.

Deep Work:

This is not always overtly magical as so often reading and study is not seen as a magical act, but that I suspect depends on how your framework looks.  Deep work is about deepening your understanding through reading study and practice of your path, your magic and your connection with the Divine and the Spirit world.  As Kris Hughs from the Anglesee Druid Order said, it is when your eyes are Black with the magic of the ovate.  This can happen when you are deepening your understanding of the above be that reading, study, practice or ritual.

For example this year I learnt about trance-meditation, connected and unconnected magic, which I have then put into practice and now have a much strong connection with Spirit, the Divine and a clearer connection with a Spirit Teacher who I have been working with for years.  I also leaped into the abyss with gay abandon but that is not something will be sharing here.

Community Work:

This for me has a strong connection with Surrendering to service.  it is the service you provide, not just to you magical or pagan communities but also you wider community.  It is talking to the little old lady at the bus stop with an empty cat carrier and offering her an ear, and sympathy because she has just had her very old cat put to sleep.  It is about helping a new pagan discover what their path and spirituality is.  It can be about organising or talking part in a beach clean-up, or helping friends move house.

For me part of my community work is helping others find their magical and spiritual paths, and talking to people at bus stops..

Of course there is crossover.  Deep work can bring up Shadow work that needs to be done and Community work that could be an aspect of your Deep work as you find yourself offering your services in the name your God or Goddess.  You get the picture right?

So there you go, three types of magical work that are key to living a magical life, or at least how i am living my magical life!

 

 

Talking to Myself

Today here in New Zealand it is Lughnasadh, the first of the harvest festivals, first fruits, and I attended a ritual and lunch at a couple of my magical friend’s house.  During the ritual a passage from a book was read out, and one thing struck me as quite profound.

If you talked to your friends the way that you talk to your self would they still want to be friends?  So often we are harsher on ourselves that we actually need to be.  This gave me pause, as currently I am going through a bit of a crisis of faith, if you will, trying to redefine my path, my magic and with it the direction that I am going in.  I mentioned to a friend the other day that the deeper you go down this path of spirituality, whatever flavour it is ,  the harder your crisis’s of faith are, because I am quite sure that everyone has these crisis’s of faiths…

So now I am wondering, what advice I would give myself.  If I I came up to myself and asked for advice, asked why be a witch? What does it all mean? Why is that important? and how do I find where I am going?

My first instinct would be to turn the questions around, why do you want to be a Witch? What does it mean to you? What would make it Important to you, and Where do you want to go.  Which would probably have me arguing with myself, cause those are very difficult questions to answer, but they are however questions that need answering.

So this evening of Lughnasadh I will be contemplating more about what I would tell myself.  Given that I know myself pretty well.. I am guessing a conversation would ensue which would consist of many cups of tea.  So this evening I am going to go on a journey, and have cups of tea with myself.

 

Book of Shadows, Apparently I Have One

 

This is my Book of Shadows, except I call it The Little Red Book of Doom.  It is nothing like the Book of Shadows that you see on the TV, and written about in many Wicca 101 books.  It doesn’t have fancy boarders, with exotic looking script.  Nor is it just spells, workings, rituals or rites. Instead it is full of my writing, well this one is,  most of it is somewhat magically themed, but a bunch of it is not.

It contains thoughts, drawings of wall hangings and trance pillows, spelling mistakes, shopping lists, and appointments for job interviews, as well as questions that I wanted to ask during said job interviews.  There are doodles, clothing designs, phone numbers, emails and to do lists.  It’s a little like a diary and not all at the same time.  It is a mix of mundane and magical, but then, so is life no?

The Little Red Book of Doom lives in my bag along with a few pens and a mechanical pencil.  I carry it with me everywhere I go.  I have had similar books for years, sometimes they started off with drawings, doodles really of things I wanted to make, things I was thinking about and other random type stuff.  This last year’s one has more writing in it as I wanted to become comfortable with the idea that I could actually write.

This cover, of the now Little Red Book of Doom, I picked up in Canada so it is a little difficult to find new lined books that fit inside but I have managed ok.

And it has only been this year that I have realise that all of these books that I have filled over the years with drawings, todo lists, magical thoughts, book reviews, job interviews and shopping lists is actually for me a Book of Shadows.  But then sometime I am a little slow on the uptake.

I am sure that some people are able to keep a book of Shadows like you see on the TV  and that are written about in the Pagan 101 books, but I am not that person, and I am coming to realise that and in so many ways.  So often what I have read in books is vastly different from how I practice, but then it is the same to.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

So do you have a collection of various diaries, and journal type books that you have used over the years?

Dancing the Sacred Wheel, By Frances Billinghurst

Dancing the Sacred Wheel: A Journey through the Southern Sabbats
By Frances Billinghurst
TDM Publications, 2012
300 Pages

There is a certain style of writing about the various topics of witchcraft and magic that I look for when reading books about, well, Witchcraft and Magic, which is difficult to pinpoint exactly but I can tell you that several of the books I have been reading lately have it. It is something to do with how they make you think about the topic at hand, and how they provide you with further things to think about, or as I like to call it food for thought.  It is important for not just books but podcasts as well.. .. but I digress.

I am very pleased to say that Dancing the Sacred Wheel by Frances Billinghurst also has this quality that I enjoy in good pagan themed books.  Which is most excellent as it can always be tricky to review a book of someone that you kinda know.  I met Frances way back in 2003 at a Pagan festival here in New Zealand, and needless to say we got on like a house on fire, in the pavilion of judgement, and at the table of dissension.  *coughs*.  There is now a seat of sarcasm, but that is a different story from a different Festival.

Dancing the Sacred Wheel is a book about the Pagan Seasonal Wheel as it is celebrated in South Australia, along with information about Aboriginal seasons for the different temperate climates of Australia.  This should be interesting to anybody who practices in a country that is not England.  I do not mean this to insult people from England, but instead to encourage those who have been asking ‘why do the seasons in the country where I live not fit the Pagan Seasonal Wheel I read about in all of these books?’, even if you live in a Northern Hemisphere country.  This is because this book will give you a new perspective with which to perceive the seasons in the reader’s own country.  Hell, I live in New Zealand, just to the east of Australia also in the Southern Hemisphere where we cast our circles anti-clockwise and have Christmas in the summer, just like Australia, and I gained a deeper understanding of how to honour the seasons where I live.

Frances is also careful about including both Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere dates for the Sabbats.  In some ways it is a little ‘compare and contrast’ with an excellent explanation as to why we here in the southern hemisphere cast our circles starting in the east then north then west then south.  It follows the path of the sun, as our sun rises in the east, like everywhere in the world, but then tracks north, not south.

What I like about Frances’ book is the combination of historical, mythological and traditional information about each season. It is well researched and referenced, which is engaging and interesting. It encourages the reader to celebrate and practice their craft, not just read about it.  I also enjoyed the excellent referencing, so that if the reader is interested in any aspect of what Frances is writing about, finding further reading material can be done with a quick Google search, or by searching their library or online bookstore and from the bibliography at the back of the book. This is not something that you find very often in modern Pagan books…  just saying.

As well as history, each Sabbat chapter has a section on mythology and traditions. There are examples of how Frances and her coven honour the season, and an example of what they do.  This is not in the form of the infamous ‘Ritual Script’ as in other books, but done in a reflective style that the reader can gain inspiration from.  Again this encourages the reader to actually do something rather than just read.  Perhaps the subtitle for this book should be ‘The book that gets you to read and practice.’?

Intertwined in each chapter as you follow the season are several traditional myths, such as the Oak King and the Holly King, and the descent of the goddess. These lead into the section about inner work for each Sabbat and season, again encouraging the reader to actually do things.  At the end of each chapter are correspondences for the relevant season which include colours, candles, scents, and items that are traditional to have on your altar for that season — a most helpful reference for the beginner and adept alike.

All of this combined in an excellent book becomes not just about the seasons as Frances and her coven celebrate them, but more about helping the reader to figure out the season where they live and the land they live in and how to honour and celebrate them.

I give this book Five cups of tea English Breakfast tea! and very worth the read no matter which hemisphere you are from.

You can purchase you copy from Frances’s website here

Edit: Alternatively you can Email Frances Directly frances@templedarkmoon.com for details of this account if you reside in New Zealand and would like to purchase a copy of my book. hooray