Monday, May 25, 2009

Even more reasonable candles, straight from the source

Nimbin Candles (the source of the taper candles provided below)

If you go straight through their website you get them EVEN cheaper, so that the two hour taper 20 pack below is $5.50.

They do not, however, have any cat candles or human figures which the site below has at a very reasonable price (they have skull ones!!!). Nimbin just sells ordinary candles.

They also have gorgeous pyramid candles for up to 1000 hours of burning (surely that's a lifetime!).

They also have gorgeous copper candle holders.

http://www.nimbincandles.com.au

Really reasonable candles - they are so hard to find these days!

Above: two hour tapers and the cat candle

Reasonably priced altar candles are SO hard to find these days! I've been going all over town trying to find the traditional dinner-style candle in variations of colours in Melbourne and it is SO hard!

This website sells candles at a really reasonable price
The above two hours tapers are $6.50AUS for 20 - and you can choose 20 of one particular colour if you need heaps for some kind of celebration or handfasting.

They also have packs of small, lean 'wish' candles at 20 per box for $7.50 if for some reason you want to have a lot of gold or silver candles.

I am rather keen on the cat candle found in the Spell Candles section (below - $7.50AUS)



Go to the site and click on 'Candles' on the left hand side from the home page:
http://www.ozwicca.com/shop/index.html

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Reliable moon calendars

These calendars are reliable, the version below from here
*Remember not to cast a spell three days before a full moon, which can either lead to incredibly bad luck or not work at all.

Year New Moon First Quarter Full Moon Last Quarter
2009 Moon Phases dates
2009
Jan 4 11:56 Jan 11 03:27 Jan 18 02:46

Jan 26 07:55 A Feb 2 23:13 Feb 9 14:49 n Feb 16 21:37

Feb 25 01:35 Mar 4 07:46 Mar 11 02:38 Mar 18 17:47

Mar 26 16:06 Apr 2 14:34 Apr 9 14:56 Apr 17 13:36

Apr 25 03:23 May 1 20:44 May 9 04:01 May 17 07:26

May 24 12:11 May 31 03:22 Jun 7 18:12 Jun 15 22:15

Jun 22 19:35 Jun 29 11:28 Jul 7 09:21 n Jul 15 09:53

Jul 22 02:35 T Jul 28 22:00 Aug 6 00:55 n Aug 13 18:55

Aug 20 10:01 Aug 27 11:42 Sep 4 16:03 Sep 12 02:16

Sep 18 18:44 Sep 26 04:50 Oct 4 06:10 Oct 11 08:56

Oct 18 05:33 Oct 26 00:42 Nov 2 19:14 Nov 9 15:56

Nov 16 19:14 Nov 24 21:39 Dec 2 07:30 Dec 9 00:13

Dec 16 12:02 Dec 24 17:36 Dec 31 19:13 p


This site is also helpful for daily moon phases if you want something visual

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The American Council of Witches, The Pagan Alliance & Covenant of the Goddess

This is a new one to me... all of the principles below have been what I have been trying to say about witchcraft in every way, and it is perfectly written out here - wonderful!

by Silver Raven Wolf
Source: http://www.pinellasintergroupsociety.org/CAW.shtml

At the spring Witchmeet of 1974 held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Council of American Witches adopted a document titled .Principles of Wiccan Belief. in an effort to inform, educate, and define for the general public, as well as new Craft practitioners, the central belief system of Wicca (Witchcraft).

This document represents an overview of Craft law and theology, but does not contain the many nuances of the religious structure that most Witches may follow. As with any religious belief that has had time to grow and change, no single set of thirteen statements could completely define the faith. The Principles of Belief serve well as a simplified explanation of the system.

Unfortunately, the Council of American Witches disbanded in that same year, but this does not mean the efforts they made were inconsequential--quite the contrary! Thirty years later, in 1994, the religion known as Witchcraft (Wicca) made history, when members of its belief system were invited to attend the World Parliament of Religions Conference in Chicago. Those attending included Selena Fox (of Circle Sanctuary) and members of the Covenant of the Goddess (COG). Through their fine efforts, Wicca moved from what many thought of as a fad to find a definite place among the religions of the world.

Principles of witchcraft by the American Council of Witches:

1. We practice rites to attune ourselves with the natural rhythm of life forces marked by the phases of the Moon and the seasonal Quarters and Cross - Quarters.

2. We recognize that our intelligence gives us a unique responsibility toward our environment, we seek to live in harmony with Nature, in ecological balance, offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept.

3. We acknowledge a depth of power far greater than is apparent to the average person. Because it is far greater than ordinary, it is sometimes called "supernatural," but we see it as lying within that which is naturally potential to us all.

4. We conceive of the Creative Power in the Universe as manifesting through polarity - as masculine and feminine - and that this same Creative Power lives in all people and functions through the interaction of the masculine and feminine. We value neither above the other, knowing each to be supportive of the other. We value sexuality as pleasure, as the symbol and embodiment of Life, and as one of the sources of energies used in magickal practices and religious worship.

5. We recognize both outer and inner or psychological worlds - sometimes known as the Spiritual World, The Collective Unconscious, the Inner Planes, etc. - and we see in their interaction of these two dimensions the basis for paranormal phenomena and magickal exercises. We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary for our fulfillment.

6. We do not recognize any authoritarian hierarchy, but do honor those who teach, respect those who share their greater wisdom and knowledge, and acknowledge those who have courageously given of themsleves in leadership.

7. We see religion, magick and wisdom-in-living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it - a world-view and philosophy-of-life which we identify as Witchcraft, the Wiccan Way.

8. Calling oneself "Witch" does not make a Witch, but neither does heredity itself, or the collecting of titles, degrees and initiations. A Witch seeks to control the forces within him/herself that make life possible in order to live wisely and well, without harm to others and in harmony with Nature.

9. We acknowledge that it is the affirmation and fulfillment of life in a continuance of evolution and development of consciousness that gives meaning to the Universe we know and to our personal role within it.

10. Our only animosity toward Christianity or toward any other religion or philosophy-of-life is to the extent that its institutions have claimed to be "the one true, right and only way" and have sought to deny freedom to others, and to suppress other ways of religious practices and belief.

11. As American Witches, we are not threatened by debates on the history of the Craft, the origins of various terms, the legitimacy of various aspects of various traditions. We are concerned only with our present and future.

12. We do not accept the concept of "absolute evil" nor do we worship any entity known as Satan or the Devil, as defined by the Christian tradition. We do not seek our power through the suffering of other, nor do we accept the concept that personal benefits can only be derived through denial to another.

13. We seek within Nature for that which is contributory to our health and well-being.



Covenant of the Goddess

So many links, my brain might explode and there is no time to write. Look here.

The Pagan Alliance - Australia and New Zealand

Still to scour through this, and the site design is so naff you'd think it was an embroidery club!

http://pagan-alliance.org/



Odin, the God of Wednesday

Above: an image of Odin and his one all-seeing eye pointing outwards. Artist unknown. Source: http://tinyurl.com/ossff2

I really needed to know more about Odin and his 'all-seeing eye' and I am enraptured with this God! His story is so romantic and chilling as the God of all Norse Gods who can 'make the dead speak to question the wisest amongst them.'



Odin

by Micha F. Lindemans
from http://www.pantheon.org/articles/o/odin.html

The chief divinity of the Norse pantheon, the foremost of the Aesir. Odin is a son of Bor and Bestla. He is called Alfadir, Allfather, for he is indeed father of the gods. With Frigg he is the father of Balder, Hod, and Hermod. He fathered Thor on the goddess Jord; and the giantess Grid became the mother of Vidar.
Odin
Odin is a god of war and death, but also the god of poetry and wisdom. He hung for nine days, pierced by his own spear, on the world tree. Here he learned nine powerful songs, and eighteen runes. Odin can make the dead speak to question the wisest amongst them. His hall in Asgard is Valaskjalf ("shelf of the slain") where his throne Hlidskjalf is located. From this throne he observes all that happens in the nine worlds. The tidings are brought to him by his two raven Huginn and Muninn. He also resides in Valhalla, where the slain warriors are taken.
Odin's attributes are the spear Gungnir, which never misses its target, the ring Draupnir, from which every ninth night eight new rings appear, and his eight-footed steed Sleipnir. He is accompanied by the wolves Freki and Geri, to whom he gives his food for he himself consumes nothing but wine. Odin has only one eye, which blazes like the sun. His other eye he traded for a drink from the Well of Wisdom, and gained immense knowledge. On the day of the final battle, Odin will be killed by the wolf Fenrir.
He is also called Othinn, Wodan and Wotan. Some of the aliases he uses to travel icognito among mortals are Vak and Valtam. Wednesday is named after him (Wodan).

Monday, May 11, 2009

Zeitgeist – a documentary on global power with some interesting insights on Pagan history and how Paganism created the Christian Church


If you haven’t already watched this extraordinary documentary, then get your ears and eyes around this rollercoaster which challenges and attempts to reveal the frightening pawns of power in place within our global society. It's simple story reads: What does Christianity, 911 and The Federal Reserve all have in common?

See it by clicking HERE.

It is a difficult documentary to take seriously, as every accusation of power struggle seems so extreme yet is so intelligently laid out with one epiphany after another that try to translate themselves as facts that are too hard to ignore. I cannot, myself, conclude that these are facts in their own right because the knowledge and research behind this piece is so extensive; you would need to spend the rest of your life trying to validate it all from scratch. How anyone ever had the energy to add all of these elements together is astounding.

The reason why I bring this to the fore is because the documentary begins with its oldest form of ‘conspiracy’ – that being the Christian church. I cringe writing this, but am fascinated by this documentary’s ‘discoveries’ yet I do not want to dispute the faith of a true, good Christian whose belief in Jesus and God are ingrained into their daily lives with nothing but good will behind them. I always want to be open to the benefits of all religions and want to make it clear that I do not write off Christianity or its people.

The documentary begins with various Pagan rituals and rites based on the astrological calendar. It explains how the movements of the sun and the stars have created similar stories of Jesus throughout world history. They provide a list of other prophets and gods who were born on December the 25th and shared many other similarities, such as the three kings being drawn to the Eastern Star.

The Eastern Star is at its brightest around the birth of Christ and is followed by three bright stars (being the three kings) who form Orion’s belt. Others know of this bright star as the dog that leads Orion which I spent a great deal of my childhood staring at because it was the brightest and easiest constellation to find. The sun (or ‘son’) slowly sinks with every day until the 22nd of December where in the Winter Solstice or Yule (Northern Hemisphere) takes place. This represents the end of the winter cycle or ‘death’ where the sun sits at the same low point on the horizon for three days and is then ‘resurrected’ by turning back and creating longer days for the crops with the beginning of Spring. In the Southern Hemisphere this is Litha – the Summer Solstice from the 20-23rd of December.


From a Wiccan perspective, Yule (Northern Hemisphere) is described as follows:

*The Longest Night. Sunrise marks the birth of the waxing year – from now the days grow longer and it is a time of feasting, celebration and making plans for the coming Spring. In the Myth the Goddess gives birth to the Male Child of Promise and as such the Dark God is reborn as the infant Sun God. A Yule log is burnt and the ashes are kept to be put into ointments and potions for healing as they have life-giving powers. Part of the log is also kept to rekindle the next year’s Yule log.



Here lies the point: our physical world and Pagan worship has been borrowed and put into physical form where the Sun God becomes the Son of God. The feminine and masculine aspects of nature have been anthropomorphised into human beings who in their own right carry through a series of stories in the Old and New Testament that had already been told for thousands of years, but given gravity by using people and miraculous events.

The documentary’s ‘conspiracy’ of Christianity was – as has always been argued – to use the Church to allocate control over civilians and to use Christ as a martyr with beliefs that the people already had ingrained in them from Pagan stories. I’d like to leave this ‘conspiracy theory’ alone, as I believe that in every religion, there are those who use their faith to manipulate others, and those who have good will and genuine kindness in their inner light. I respect their inner light and leave you with the Indian salutation: Namaste, meaning ‘the light in me honours the light in you.’


*Source: Horne, Fiona, 1999, ‘Witch: A Magickal Year,’ Random House Australia, Milsons Point, p.45.

Friday, May 8, 2009

New York Public Library Collection of witch pictures

Tam O'Shanter and the Witches
1892

Notes: Written on border: "Illus for Burns' 'Tam O'Shanter.'" "1896."


Original Source: From Character sketches of romance, fiction and the drama. (New York : Selmar Hess, 1892) Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham (1810-1897), Author. Harland, Marion (1830-1922), Editor.


Wonderful stuff, they seem to have such a collection, but I wonder why... click here for more.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Fiona Horne - supplies via her site

Thanks to the dear Fiona Horne, you can get your hands on a reasonably priced Book of Shadows and a whole list of witchcraft books which I've never seen before which are also incredibly reasonable.

http://www.mysticmonkey.com.au

One such book I am VERY interested in reading:

POPPY PALIN - CRAFT OF THE WILD WITCH
Poppy Palin teaches how to read nature's language and develop a living relationship with the land. From the perspective of a Wild Witch, she reviews Sabbats/Esbats, spell-weaving. Fairies, companion spirits, intuition development, and much more.

Her site also contains a list of your local witchcraft suppliers around Australia (via "About Witchcraft") with a supplier just around the corner from me which I had no idea even existed!:

http://www.fionahorne.com/

Eqyptian & Greek Gods

Above image of Sekhmet from The Center of Light

http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/index.htm

I had no idea how many Egyptian gods there were, including Sekhmet, whom I'm a small fan of:

Sekhmet
Patron of: divine retribution, vengeance, and conquest.
Appearance: a woman with the head of a lioness.
Description: Sekhmet means "The Mighty One," and she was one of the most powerful of the gods and goddesses. She was the goddess who meted out divine punishment to the enemies of the gods and of the pharaoh. In this capacity she was called the "Eye of Ra." She also accompanied the pharaoh into battle, launching fiery arrows into battle ahead of him. Sekhmet could also send plagues and disease against her enemies, but was sometimes invoked to avoid plague and cure disease.
Sekhmet's capacity for destruction is well-documented. In one story, Ra sends her to punish those mortals who have forgotten him and she ends up nearly destroying the entire human race. Only the cleverness of Ra stops her rampage before it consumes every living thing.
Worship: Worshipped as part of a triad made up of herself, her husband Ptah and their eldest child Nefertem, her cult center was at Memphis.


With short blurbs on each god, this site is more of a jumping-off point rather than providing the entire mythical story of each diety. Some stories are provided, such as the Birth of Athena and more information is available on classic Greek literature:

http://www.greekmythology.com/

Great website for Goddess education

http://www.goddess.com.au/

Rarely do you come across anything as informative as this site. Anita Revel's research provides the witch with great detail and the origin of the Goddess within each culture, such as:

Inanna is the Sumerian goddess, honoured at the dark moon, as it is she who fixes destinies at each new moon. Inanna's journey into the underworld and subsequent revitalisation represents the soul's evolution through hardship into glorious renewal.
In her quest for clarity and knowledge, Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth descended to Earth to rule her people, where (so that her people would not know hunger) she made a sacred marriage to ensure the fertility of the lands. She thirsted to understand first-hand though, the true sufferings of her followers, so she descended again, this time to the realm of the underworld, the domain of her sister Ereshkigal....

The majority of the website hosts a list of Goddesses on the right hand side - a great deal I'd never heard of - which she has gone into great detail on from Egyptian, Welsh, Sumerian and many other cultures.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Southern Hemisphere rites

Samhain: ( April 30th )
It's the Wiccan New Year. A time for meditation and remembering of those who have passed away, coinciding with the end of the harvest, and when they say the veil between this world and the other thins to it's most. In the anglosaxon countries it's celebration lived on with the Halloween feasting, taking some of it's symbols like Jack o'Lanterns. A sabbath traditionally considered as excellent for divination, and on which offerings are left at the doorsteps for the souls of the Dead which come to visit. At this Sabbath we celebrate de death of the God and the promise of his rebirth in Yule
Yule: ( June 21st )
The Winter Solstice Festival, when the sun, after it's withdrawal and the longest night of the Year, starts to come back closer to the Earth. This new closeness marks the rebirth of the God from his own seed planted on the Goddess, and was later taken by christianity as Christ's birth day (keep in mind Yule falls near christmas in the northern hemisphere). It's a solar festival, in which traditionally all lights and fires were put down, lighting a new one by midnight using rubbing methods. Then, from that first fire all the rest were lit. We find something similar in the England of the victorian period with the Yule Log, which was burnt slowly all along the year and was said to prevent the house from being struck by lighting.
Imbolc: ( August 2nd )
Fire festival, taken by the christians later to their Candlemass celebration. At this time we celebrate the first hints of spring after the long winter. It's the childhood of the God, and a celtic traditions honours on this day the Goddess, calling that feast Brigantia.
Ostara: ( September 21 st )
Spring Equinox. The God is young, and him and the Goddess fall in love, their love renowing Nature like the sun that gently caress the earth, also inspiring the animals to multiply. It's a feast of love and growth.
Beltane: ( Octubre 31st )
Celebrated with famous fires, it's perhaps the most well known Sabbath after Samhain. It's THE fertility festival, where we celebrate the union of the Goddess and the God. It still survives in the May Poles in some places of the Northern Hemisphere. This celebration was condemned by the Church, saying it promoted indecent sexual behaviour.
Midsummer: ( December 21st )
Summer's Solstice, where the God reaches the peak of it's power before starting it's withdrawal again. The shortest night of the year, and traditionally good for magick and love rites.
Lughnassadh: ( February 2nd )
The feast of the celtic god Lugh, identified with the Sun, and one of the names the God can take upon Himself. The power of the God is lesser, but even then he blesses the cattle in a traditional ceremony where they're driven over the ashes of the fires lit during the festival.
Mabon: ( March 21st )
The Autumn Equinox, when the Earth gets ready for the absence of the God and the days start to get sensibly shorter. It's a good time for meditation and introspection.



Source:
http://www.puertasdebabel.com/wicca/beliefs/wheel2.htm

Recipes

NOTE: Do not rely on this website for Southern Hemisphere Rituals.

Recipes are also found here for Moon Cakes and chocolate Yule Logs:
http://paganwiccan.about.com/cs/r.htm

Wunderkammer - insects, egg shells, skeletons and curios for spell casting

This shop is something else. I applied to work here and strongly advocate their amazing range of products - bar the stuffed animals! As the moth is my familiar, I am dead keen to get my hands on one of their framed critters despite all ethical issues that I ought to have as a vegetarian.

Their essay on Natural History in the Victorian era is something else and a must read and various potions can be kept in their medical vials that are available if you are a very aesthetic witch like myself.

Hopefully I can go in there with their permission and take photographs for the blog, so stay tuned, otherwise visit them at:

http://wunderkammer.com.au/main.htm

439 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne, Vic, 3000

Ph: 03 9642 4694
Fax: 03 9642 4695


We invite you to visit us to see all all that is new (and old) in the Chamber of Wonders.

Opening Hours:
Tue-Fri 10AM-6PM
Sat 10AM-4PM

Welcome!

This blog is designed to educate, advocate and discuss Wicca from events to calendar dates in the southern hemisphere. I want to build this up so that there is a page dedicated to celebrating nature in the most healthy way for your mind and body, bring in recipes and rituals for the domestic and social settings in tune with the lunar cycle and the seasons.

Blessed be, and more will be on here soon.

xo
Elspeth