Planetary Magic

This weekend I attended a workshop of the Olympia group with Marian Green. The subject was "planetary magic". I hadn't been feeling very well the week before, but this was interesting enough to be present! I didn't know very much about the theme, almost nothing to be precise, but thought it would be interesting. And it was!

We learned about the planetary correspondences, symbols, colours, meaning and lots more. Like always with Marian not only the facts, but also understanding what's behind it and why. She told us about the origin of the planetary symbols and how they are built out of the same elements (a crescent moon and a cross mainly). I could never remember the symbols, but now I can. The word planet comes from Greek and means "wanderer", because for the ancient people the planets seemed to wander along the sky. Just to name some things I learned. :)

On Sunday we had a ritual to get acquainted and connect with the planets. I represented Mercury, dressed in orange. Saturday evening I had done research on the www. Some of the members had made a planetary talisman; those were purified and blessed in the circle. It was a wonderful ritual. The group is awesome. Everyone can do their own thing from the heart within the structure of the ritual. There is trust, so each person can feel at ease.

It was a very interesting workshop. Marian has so much knowledge and she shares it freely. In between talking about the theme I always pick up a lot of other stuff. Olympia rocks!
I'm going to explore the subject of planetary magic further. So if you know any good books or websites about it, please share!

Blessed Imbolc

(to see the message click to open in a new window)

From The Belly of Mother Earth,
may the flame of Light grow strong and brilliant
to enlighten your path and inspire your life!

A Blessed Imbolc to my pagan friends! Blessed Lughnasadh to those in the Southern hemisphere! The above wish I read in a forum post by one of my Italian Ara friends. I think it's beautiful, so I like to pass it on.

I celebrated Imbolc with the Olympia group in Amsterdam. It was a beautiful ritual, but also a great learning experience. Imbolc celebrates the goddess when she is pregnant: the promise of new life, of spring coming. We had a pregnant woman in the circle, which gave an extra special feeling to it.
I cast the circle with my athame. I had found a lovely way to do that online: casting the circle thrice, once for the maiden, once for the mother and once for the crone and their energies. I adapted the words a bit to make it my own.
The altar looked good, with stuff from all of us there. I brought my Millenial Gaia statue, my little cow (milk is an Imbolc theme), a green spring puppet and a yellow table runner.
We did a very nice pathworking from the Pagan Dawn magazine. In it we got a gift with a message. My gift was a wonderful silver spiral. The sacred spiral is an ancient symbol of growth and evolution. It dates back many centuries and has been used by the ancient Celts, Greeks and many other cultures and peoples. As a witchcraft symbol it represents divine energy and the cycle of life, of death and rebirth. When drawn clockwise, it's said to bring things towards you, and when drawn anti-clockwise, it pushes negative energies away from you.
We each brought a cup with cotton wool. We charged the garden cress seed on the altar to awaken the numen (earth energy) and then put them on the cotton wool. While doing that we were thinking of an area in our life that we would like to grow or come into fruition. My seeds are already starting to germinate.
For cake & wine we had fresh juice and delicious bread. We gave thanks and opened the circle. After a chat and a cup of tea we each went our seperate ways.

Merry Yule!!

May the returning light at Yule
bring you love, peace, joy and health
with all the best for the coming year.

Merry Yule!
Happy Winter Solstice!

(or Litha / Summer Solstice to my friends in the Southern hemisphere!)

artwork: Cynthia Rudzis

Today I celebrated Yule in a ritual with 3 people from the Olympia group (Marian Green studygroup) at Llwella's place. We each brought some stuff to make an altar and it looked beautiful. Obsidian had written the ritual and divided the roles by drawing lots. I got East / Air. I wrote my evocations in English, but we ended up doing the ritual in Dutch so I improvised. I brought incense and feathers.

We did a guided meditation which for me hit the nail on the head. I don't remember the exact words, but it was about your body. You may not like the way it looks, but it cares for you. It's always there, working for you. Of course I've heard those words before, but somehow it came through this time. I felt my body in a way I rarely feel it and realized I love it regardless of the way it looks. I offered my apologies to my body for the way I treated it in the past and in a way still do... My body showed me a warming light inside me that's always there; I just have to (want to) see it.

After the meditation we carved our own candle with the gift we got in the meditation. I realized the candle is the gift, symbol of the light inside me. I carved little suns in it and two sentences: "My body cares for me" and "I love my body". Together we chanted while blessing and lighting our candles.

We also had a Yule log on the altar. After the ritual we did our offerings in the garden and burned the Yule log. It wasn't a real massive log of wood, but birchwood tied together. That didn't matter though and it burned very good. Afterwards we had a late lunch and some treats.

Olympia workshop

After a very relaxed week I had another busy weekend. Marian Green was in The Netherlands to give our group Olympia another workshop. The theme was "Ritual". We learned about the outline and construction of a ritual. Not only the basics were covered, but the more in-depth stuff was very interesting too. Everyone that works with magic should have certain subjects covered. It is an ongoing study, there's always more to learn.

We also talked about initiation, self-dedication and working in groups. We shared our thoughts and opinions and Marian hers. I don't think initiation is necessary to follow this path, but it can be a very special addition. What I've heard from others it can be life-changing. Personally I don't like levels of initiation. In the Ara-tradition there is just one initiation. Of course later on you can choose to go further to become clergy, but an initiate is an initiate.

For the first time the group planned a rirual together. Partly to practice what we'd learned, partly because we were ready for it. Because we are close to Samhain, that was our theme. We made a walk around the neighbourhood to collect autumn leaves. In a meditation Marian guided us to a closer contact with nature. We talked about our ancestors, our heritage. Everyone had an active role in the ritual.
On Sunday morning we did the ritual. It was very powerful. The group has good chemistry; everyone felt good enough to let the guards down. When we each took a tarot card I got the Eight of Pentacles, a card for the perfectionist I am... :-) We also talked about the harvest of the last year; Samhain is the witch's new year. For the cake and wine ceremony we didn't have wine. Usually I adjust and take a nip of wine (yuk!). This time the group adapted to me and we had delicious fruitjuice.

We planned dates for meetings to come; in December for a ritual, in April a workshop with Marian. We are blessed to have her as a teacher. She has a lot of knowledge, which she shares with us freely. She is down-to-earth, very friendly and has a great sense of humour.

Moon Magic

Yesterday and today our studygroup in Amsterdam had a workshop given by Marian Green again. She had asked us to give the group a name and by mutual agreement we have chosen "Olympia". It's a mixed group, although there are more women.

The subject for this weekend was "Moon Magic". That is a very wide concept of course, so it was virtually impossible to cover everything. Nevertheless we had a very interesting and valuable weekend. Marian has a lot of knowledge that she shares freely. Besides theory we did practical things and exercises too. I'll just share some interesting things you can do for yourself.

We looked at which phase the moon was when we were born (look yours up here). All the phases were represented within our group, although there were more in the waning moon half (including new moon) than in the waxing (including full moon). At my day of birth the moon was 97% full. I've always felt more attracted to the full moon than any other phase, so it didn't really surprise me. According to Crystal Forest full moon at birth means:
"Being born in the middle of the cycle means that your talents lie in bringing matters to fruition. You are adept at tempering logic with instinct and practicality with creativity. Moreover, this period acts like a bridge, linking you to the past, but also projecting your ideas into the future. The negative side is that you may suffer guilt and irrational fears, especially when it comes to personal relationships. Only when you learn to take control of your own feelings, rather than taking your emotional cue from your partner, will you find a way of sustaining a mutually rewarding intimate relationship. Your best efforts will find their flowering after middle age."
Crystal Forest is no longer online, but you can use CafeAstrology.

I had my horoscope done some years ago. I looked it up and the moon was in Aries at my birth. According to Astrolabe's free birth chart that means:
"High-spirited and courageous, you are a fighter when your emotions are aroused. The degree of force and drive that you can bring to any effort sometimes surprises others. You have hair-trigger reactions to specific stimuli and tend to "let it all hang out." You sometimes act before you think and do things on the spur of the moment, and that sometimes gets you into trouble. Your moods change quickly -- you have quite a temper, but you don't hold grudges. Very independent, with an extremely strong and forceful personality, you are known for being impulsive, careless, reckless, foolhardy, rash and daring."
Unfortunately Astrolabe is no longer online, but you can use the Lunarium.

I'm very tired after these two intensive days, but I'm already looking forward to next time!

Elements workshop Marian Green

Yesterday and part of today I attended another workshop by Marian Green in Amsterdam. The theme this time was "The Elements". That sounds like a very basic thing and in fact it is, but you can study the elements at several levels. Earth, air, fire, water and spirit go far beyond the well-known correspondences. This time we took it to a deeper level and it was very interesting! We did some exercises to experience things for ourselves and to make them clear. Saturday we ended with a beautiful guided meditation through the elements. I was too tired after a long day, but I'm definitely going to do it again.
We also looked a bit closer and deeper to the structure of a ritual. What we do, why, how, etc. Although everyone had ample experience with rituals we all learned new things, new perspectives.
Marian has so much knowledge to share and she does it in a very good and nice way. I feel privileged to be part of this studygroup. An outsider might say we just talk a lot, but I learned so much. I have a lot of new stuff to contemplate, great! I like food for thought. :-)

Marian Green Workshop

Last Saturday and Sunday I was invited to follow a workshop by Marian Green at Antonia's place (one of the Witchy Girls). We were with 12 people and the theme was divination. We first did a guided journey to visit the Guardian of Divination and get attuned. He wore a midnightblue cloak with silver tarotcards, runestones and other divination symbols on it.

Marian showed us that divination tools don't have to be fancy and/or expensive. Something on a string works just fine as a pendulum. I didn't bring my own pendulum, so I used a stone on a string from Marian. Needless to say it worked properly! We also learned to use a pendulum for testing and balancing a person's chakras.
It's easy to make your own oracle by collecting little things like a pebble, wool, button, ring, etc. Each item gets its meaning by everyone personally. We used Marian's oracle in two groups to answer each other's questions: "What is the essence of symbology?" and "How can the collective subconscious help to make a harmonious world?" Not the easiest questions, but with help of the oracle we found satisfying answers. Amazing!

Marian also told us some very interesting stuff about the tarot. The symbology is very old (allegedly dating back to the Egyptians), but real cards only came in the 14th century when cardboard was invented. It was originally a game, but later became an oracle. Members of the Golden Dawn had to make their own tarot deck, so that's when the variety started. Arthur Edward Waite was co-creator of the Rider-Waite deck. He was (one of the?) first to use illustrations for his deck; Pamela Colman Smith was the illustrator. Roughly 80 to 90 percent of the present-day decks is based on the Rider-Waite one.
She told much more, but I can't share all of it. We also did some exercises with the tarot. We each took a card, studied it and tried to "be" it, become one with it. My card was the Two of Cups. I had brought my Druidcraft Tarot, because I like it much better than the Rider-Waite. This is its Two of Cups. Cups stand for emotions. The two stands for love, healing, friendship, romance. It felt good to be the woman on the card!

Another topic we studied is scrying. This divination method needs a lot of practice. It isn't completely safe; the images are unlimited and you are on your own in an altered state of consciousness. Therefore it's important to take precautions. It is better not to do it alone and start in a controlled situation.
To practice we stood around a black cloth with our eyes closed. When we opened them, Marian had thrown a handful of white rice on it. We had to stare and look at what we saw in it. In 3 groups we talked about our experience and later with the whole group. It was remarkable that a lot of the same things were mentioned, although we stood on different sides of the cloth. It meant we were attuned as a group.

On Sunday we did a past life guided journey. I did that before in my first workshop with Marian in November last year. This time I was a woman surrounded by cats, walking in a green field in the woods, but near the sea. I felt peaceful, comfortable and relaxed. I had long, reddish blond hair, wore brown skirts with a white apron. It's striking that I always have cats; not only in every life, but also when I do inner journeys, meditations, etc.