Out into the forest wild...
via Happiness Is...
Saturday, April 28, 2012
The future of this blog
Dear Readers & Enthusiasts of all things Pretty,
I have been absent on and off for some time from this blog but want to reach out some more and include some interviews with other witches, more interactive (I will find how!) posts which ask for your opinion and even more information on how to live as an ethical witch. Therefore I encourage you to send me in any information which would help to make the Craft as ethical as possible as - apart from sharing beautiful things - I would like it to become a strong theme of this blog.
As ever, I insist that this blog remain free for all readers in every sense: no horrible advertisements and no payment will ever be necessary on any level for you to obtain all of the information here. I insist on sharing information for free and it will stay that way. What is posted here will be purely for the benefit of your spirituality, the earth and your hearts.
Of course, if any readers would like to see more of anything, I can see what I can do! I do work full time and don't get to the blog incredibly often.
Peace, love and blessed be,
)O( Elspeth.
I have been absent on and off for some time from this blog but want to reach out some more and include some interviews with other witches, more interactive (I will find how!) posts which ask for your opinion and even more information on how to live as an ethical witch. Therefore I encourage you to send me in any information which would help to make the Craft as ethical as possible as - apart from sharing beautiful things - I would like it to become a strong theme of this blog.
As ever, I insist that this blog remain free for all readers in every sense: no horrible advertisements and no payment will ever be necessary on any level for you to obtain all of the information here. I insist on sharing information for free and it will stay that way. What is posted here will be purely for the benefit of your spirituality, the earth and your hearts.
Of course, if any readers would like to see more of anything, I can see what I can do! I do work full time and don't get to the blog incredibly often.
Peace, love and blessed be,
)O( Elspeth.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Should teenagers be allowed to dabble with the Craft?
When I started with the Craft when I was about 13/14 I had no idea about how to maturely deal with the ethics of the Craft and what kinds of ramifications could come from my actions. I started out with some very average books which were not (I believe) taking the ethics of the Craft seriously at all, especially when they actively encouraged you to work spells for love and did nothing to prevent you from doing something against someone's will. It was much later into my working that I considered doing divinations in order to see where a spell could take me - and as a teenager, you rush into spellworking so quickly, you would never consider setting about using divination to see where your spell could lead you. Nor did any of those books in my early years teach me about the difference between low magick (i.e: spells to get you what you want, which is often what these books were about) and high magick which helps you to truly develop as a practitioner.
I started thinking about this recently and wondered what everyone's opinions were. A friend of mine has a long line of Witches in her family and her mother actively discouraged her from experimenting with the Craft as a teenager because teenagers still had to mature into their responsibilities. I'd have hated it if someone had told me not to do what I found most fascinating, but then I picked up and put down the Craft until I felt truly able to handle it and also see how it could take me out of some bad times as a mature person on a genuine spiritual journey. I guess if I were the mother to a child who wanted to experiment with the Craft I would have to guide them very carefully myself... If they told me everything - and would they? Teenagers can hold burden to so many secrets in their day-to-day living - how could this be managed?
Of course in watching the film The Craft, it's plain to see how magick can get out of hand in the hands of teenagers: they yearn and lust for things which they don't need and just about knock it out of each other's hands to get what they want or what their ego wants.
I would say - as brief as this writing is - that I would not take back the awkward attempts and mistakes of my teenager Crafting years. They taught me a great deal about my parameters on so many levels and have eventually lead me to a place of balance which I'm proud of.
I would like to know what everyone else thinks - the forum is very much open...
)O( Elspeth
I started thinking about this recently and wondered what everyone's opinions were. A friend of mine has a long line of Witches in her family and her mother actively discouraged her from experimenting with the Craft as a teenager because teenagers still had to mature into their responsibilities. I'd have hated it if someone had told me not to do what I found most fascinating, but then I picked up and put down the Craft until I felt truly able to handle it and also see how it could take me out of some bad times as a mature person on a genuine spiritual journey. I guess if I were the mother to a child who wanted to experiment with the Craft I would have to guide them very carefully myself... If they told me everything - and would they? Teenagers can hold burden to so many secrets in their day-to-day living - how could this be managed?
Of course in watching the film The Craft, it's plain to see how magick can get out of hand in the hands of teenagers: they yearn and lust for things which they don't need and just about knock it out of each other's hands to get what they want or what their ego wants.
I would say - as brief as this writing is - that I would not take back the awkward attempts and mistakes of my teenager Crafting years. They taught me a great deal about my parameters on so many levels and have eventually lead me to a place of balance which I'm proud of.
I would like to know what everyone else thinks - the forum is very much open...
)O( Elspeth
The Apothecary's by George Sterling
THE APOTHECARY'S
by: George Sterling (1869-1926)
Its red and emerald beacons from the night
Draw human moths in melancholy flight,
With beams whose gaudy glories point the way
To safety or destruction--choose who may!
Crystal and powder, oils or tincture clear,
Such the dim sight of man beholds, but here
Await, indisputable in their pow'r,
Great Presences, abiding each his hour;
And for a little price rash man attains
This council of the perils and the pains--
This parliament of death, and brotherhood
Omnipotent for evil and for good.
Venoms of vision, myrrh of splendid swoons,
They wait us past the green and scarlet moons.
Here prisoned rest the tender hands of Peace,
And there an angel at whose bidding cease
The clamors of the tortured sense, the strife
Of nerves confounded in the war of life.
Within this vial pallid Sleep is caught,
In that, the sleep eternal. Here are sought
Such webs as in their agonizing mesh
Draw back from doom the half-reluctant flesh.
There beck the traitor joys to him who buys,
And Death sits panoplied in gorgeous guise.
The dusts of hell, the dews of heavenly sods,
Water of Lethe or the wine of gods,
Purchase who will, but, ere his task begin,
Beware the service that you set the djinn!
Each hath his mercy, each his certain law,
And each his Lord behind the veil of awe;
But ponder well the ministry you crave,
Lest he be final master, you the slave.
Each hath a price, and each a tribute gives
To him who turns from life and him who lives.
If so you win from Pain a swift release,
His face shall haunt you in the house of Peace;
If so from Pain you scorn an anodyne,
Peace shall repay you with a draft divine.
Tho' toil and time be now by them surpast,
Exact the recompense they take at last--
These genii of the vials, wreaking still
Their sorceries on human sense and will.
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