New Moon Old Magick

Hello dears!

Blessed Beltaine!  May this holiday bring you love and joy as you gather with your dear ones to celebrate the full blossoming of Spring.

Shrub Rose

There are some disagreements about exactly when Beltaine should be celebrated.  This is one of the four bonfire holidays, or fire festivals.  Currently, we are between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice.  Beltaine celebrates the stepping thru from the otherworld into life.  It is the joining of male and female forces into conception and birth.

Some urban (and suburban) witches choose to celebrate this holiday on April 30, the night before May 1.  In most modern neo-pagan traditions it’s become fixed there, because of our contemporary dependence upon the fixed calendar.  One traditional witch I know tells me that in some circles, Beltaine is a week long holiday, a gathering of the tribes, as it were.

With my astrological bent, I focus on a bit of a different anchor for this holiday.  I was told many many years ago, and I personally agree with this, that originally the long gathering of the Beltaine celebration peaked when the Sun hit 15 degrees of the sign we associate with this holiday – Taurus.  There is a beautiful and symmetrical logic to this view, if you will but look.

Traditionally, the four bonfire festivals occur in the ‘fixed’ sign attributed to one of the four elements.  If you look at the wheel of the year, with it’s twelve signs, there are three signs in each of four elements: cardinal, fixed, and mutable.  And each of these three phases of the elements is a different expression of that element.  Beltaine is celebrated in Taurus, the fixed sign of earth.  Another example is it’s polar opposite Samhain, or Halloween to you muggles, which is celebrated in Scorpio, the fixed sign of water.

Why fixed?  And why 15 degrees?  Well, the fixed sign of an element is the fullest expression of that element.  Taurus is earth.  It is a force of fertility and creativity, and yet it is also firm in it’s grounding and manifestation.  If the water element harkens to potentialities and the impulse to create, the attraction of polarities, and coming together in love, then earth is conception, pregnancy, and birth.  It is definitely here and now, and we can ignore the earth element only by proceeding with our eyes closed, risking running into the stone wall right in front of us.  However the earth also provides us with the path supporting our feet, and soft moss upon which to rest, as well as the trees that cover and shelter us.

15 degrees of Taurus is the exact center of the sign.  It is the fullest expression of the most fixed of the earth signs.  In rock language, that would be granite.  It is at this moment that we are able to manifest that which we would bring into our lives.  It is traditional on Beltaine to jump over the bonfire for luck in the coming year, and to bring your wishes into manifestation.  It is also a night in some traditions when men and women would pair off after a certain amount of celebration, Beltaine ale, dancing, and bonfire jumping, and other miscellaneous partying, and vanish into the night woods or countryside.  Any child of that celebration night would be considered a holy or sacred babe, a lucky child.

Flower Child

Historically, May Day is another incarnation of this holiday, the May Pole, with its maidens dancing with ribbons and wrapping the pole, and its unashamedly phallic symbolism, is in itself enough of a description of what this celebration is all about.

A word to you wand-makers, this is your holiday!  Take your wand out and bring it to your Beltaine parties.  Put it on the celebration altar for blessing, and carry it with you over the bonfire.  If you are celebrating by yourself, forgo the bonfire jumping and use a candle in a jar or one in a cauldron for safety’s sake.  If you haven’t yet chosen or applied your decorations to your wand, it does not matter in the least!  This is an ongoing project that may last quite a while until you feel it is done.  But now is the time to wake the current in the wand that was sleeping when you cut it and claimed it for your own. Wake it with chanting, dancing and drumming.  Wake it with song and blessing.  Wake it and enjoy!

This year, the Sun will reach 15 degrees of Taurus in the small hours of the morning on May 5th at Greenwich, UK.  That will mean 10:25pm on May 4th, 2012 on the East Coast of the US. You can calculate from there to your own time zone.  This is the time of peak Earth for the year, folks.  I highly recommend doing some sort of ritual to bring your desires to fruition. If nothing else, plant something that will bear fruit into fertile earth, feed and water it well, and as you do so, pour your desires into it.  Allow it to carry the energy of that which you wish to bring in for yourself and your own life.  Remember, this is not a time to try to manipulate other’s lives, or to apply destructive force to something you do not want.  This is a time to celebrate and pull into being that which is good.  I will return in a day or two with a peak Beltaine ritual for the night of the 4th, if you so choose to use this manifestation energy!  May your efforts be blessed.

Thank you for reading my blog this past season, my friends.  I wish for many more posts that they may be of use to you for your enjoyment and edification! Blessed be.

Marie Angeli

Hello dears.  Welcome to Diana’s Bow.

The moon is just now becoming visible in Taurus.  What a wonderful time to plant new things in your garden and in your life!  And what a great time to do anything creative.

Spring Hummer

Because Taurus is such a fertile Earth sign, now is really a fantastic time to sprout all sorts of seeds, transplant seedlings or anything else really, or propagate by cuttings.  The roots will go deep because of the tidal forces of the earth, and that will make for strength and longevity.

Feed your spring craving by buying that houseplant you wanted, and make sure you have green things growing around you, and lots of color in your surroundings as well.  Now is the natural time for us to look for plant growth, I think it is one of those things that is actually in our DNA!  I believe the craving for color is also, since flowers usually indicate fruiting, and that is definitely a survival mechanism.  So if you are in an apartment, feed that need.  Try to have some herbs in your kitchen, if you can.  Add one or two flowering plants in your sitting room.  If you have only one room with one window, and that is facing a brick wall, then you can still have shade plants.  And even shade plants flower!  C’mon!!  You know you want it.  I’ve been in situations where I could only have a postcard of a verdant landscape, but if that is what it takes, do it.  Get some green growing stuff into your consciousness.

The creative side of you may be yammering to get out now, as well.  Your very body may be responding to the moon phase, and now is the time to get out your woodburner, or your carving knives or paint and decorate your wand.

Although in ceremonial magick, there are specific ways in which a wand should be decorated, our work here is more natural and solitary.  In other words, do whatever you want!  As long as you understand that this wand is an extension of your own energies and is creative in nature, then you can do it as it suits you.  I’ve made many a wand, and I’ve used a woodburner to inscribe runes and other symbols.  It is traditional to fill the burnt indentation with a red color, and I’ve used acrylic paint for that.  I’ve sanded certain areas and left others barked.  I’ve drilled here and there and strung silver and copper wire.  I’ve also attached semi-precious stones and crystals, some with elaborate settings, some with wire wrapping.  I’ve carved female figures (cause well, I’m female), and when I was sure the wood was dry, put on staining or varnish.

So, play away.  One of things I firmly believe is that play informs your magick. If you are worried that you are not doing this right, don’t be!  That worry will convey itself into the wand as you work!  Play as much as you can, and meditate before you start so that you can set the right energy.  The more joyful your creative experience, the better.  Remember as well, there are no mistakes in your creativity.  Only opportunities.  If something happens that you don’t expect, figure out how you can use it in your expression.  Most worthwhile creative work has an equal share of planned expression and ‘accidents’.  Use them.

If you are more in need of stealth, your wand can be as plain as you wish.  There is no requirement for decoration, especially if you meditated with the branch or the dowel before cutting.  I’ve heard stories of women whose wand was a wooden mixing spoon because they were so far underground.  Whatever suits you and your life is what is important.  You can always be very minimal, and use a fine-point Sharpie on the end of a plain stick or a wooden chopstick, writing your initials, or some sort of symbol that has meaning for you but no one else.  Or simply drawing a decorative border.  Doodles are good.  They are an active expression of your inner self.

Give your planned symbols some thought.  You will be using the tool (hopefully), and will need to feel comfortable and familiar with whatever you put on it.  If you pick up the wand to use in ritual, and you get held up looking at some sort of symbol from a book that you’ve elaborately marked all over it, thinking “What the heck did I do that for…” then it probably isn’t a symbol you should have used longterm.  Traditional symbols from the Eldar Futhark (runes), from the Angelic Languages and planetary symbols, magickal language symbols from the Atlantean charactars, these are all things that can be found in any number of books on ritual magick, and they can all be used, if you wish.  If you choose to go that way, spend time, even a few days or a week, in meditation and know exactly what symbols you wish to use, and what they mean.  There is a lot of energy behind some of those sigils, and you would wish to be able to use those energies comfortably.

If you are interested in the method of constructing traditional High Ritual wands, then I’d suggest looking at material on the Golden Dawn, especially the book by Israel Regardie.  They are not the only group out there, but they have published a lot of material and can be a good resource.  This is not what we are practicing here, but there is no reason not to know!

Work on and with your wand, decorate it as you please, meditate with it, and just hold it as you walk around your home.  Be familiar!  When next we visit this subject, we will talk about how and when to consecrate the wand to sacred use.

That’s all for now, my dears!  Have a lovely Sunday of planting, play, or creating.  If you, like millions of others, are on the job today, stick a leaf behind your ear!  It’s the first Diana’s Bow of Spring!!

Blessed Be,

Marie Angeli