New Year, New Moon

Peach Moonstone pendulum with a sterling silver spiral womb goddess pendant and tiny sterling silver and moonstone rounds. Moonstone is a feminine stone, ideal for awakening one's intuition and deepening one's meditation practices.

Tonight marks the first New Moon of the still very new year, making it a perfect time to work quite a bit of magick, all in one night. New Moon magick is dedicated to new beginnings, new projects, capturing your independence, feeling your personal strength and honoring your instincts. And as we all know, the new year is the time to cast off that which is no longer working for you and bringing in new beliefs and behaviors that hopefully will make you a much better person.

I had planned on just spending a little time in circle tonight meditating on the new year and all the possibilities and hopes she holds, as well as purifying and consecrating within the four elements my new moonstone pendulum, but then a friend gave me a wonderful new year's resolution ritual that just spoke to my heart. I'm generally not one for once-a-year resolutions as I try to be constantly aware of what I'm doing and thinking and how it impacts both myself personally and all I come into contact with in my own little corner of this vast world. I modify myself countless times throughout the year, changing what I am able to, as the year progresses through her seasons. In that vein, much of what this ritual called for has been discarded in favor of a very simplified act: writing down onto pieces of paper those things I wish to leave behind, personal beliefs that I feel no longer work for me, behaviors I wish to eliminate, anything I want banished from my life, and burning them on a bed of dried sage in my cauldron as I make a conscious intention to let these things go. It's a sort of witchy variation on the tradition of making one or more New Year's resolutions. I thought the sage would be a nice spiritual touch and a sweet-smelling way of sending those unwanted things back to the universe, where she can recycle that negative energy and sent it back out to the world as something positive.

After much hemming and hawing over candle colors for the quarters, I've settled on a deep, rich purple, the color of spiritual strength, power, healing, psychic gifts (needed for my work with this new pendulum) and because this color provides a link with the higher planes.

All in all, it should be a wonderfully productive, spiritually deepening and emotionally cleansing circle tonight.

Blessed Be.

New Year's Tarot Reading

Here we are again at the new year and, come the first, I'll be doing my annual New Year's tarot reading. I do one for myself every year on New Year's Day and have found it to be a fairly reliable way to forecast what the year to come has in store for me. I use a twelve-card clock spread, substituting the months for the hours starting with January in the one o'clock position and so forth. I spend some time meditating on what the new year might hold for me and then lay out the spread. In addition to simply reading the card for each month, I try to establish any patterns or particular issues that may be in the offing. I keep all my readings in a leather-bound book that now dates back many years. Oddly enough though, I seldom remember to ever pull that book out during the year to see what the immediate months ahead have in store. I will take it down from its shelf and take a peek if things are particularly intense or I'm going through a tough time, just to see if I not only predicted this ugliness back at the beginning of the year, but also to see if there is going to be any blessed relief in the near future. And come New Year's Day, I do read through the previous year regardless of whether I ever looked at it since last New Year's or not before I settle in for this year's reading. I can't wait to see what 2011 will bring me, good or bad.

Regardless of what your plans are for the day, I wish everyone a happy, healthy, safe and blessed New Year, one and all.

Seasonal Yule Ritual

This is a very sweet, simple, and quiet little ritual. As we wrap up the year passed and approach the beginning of the new year, take a moment to reflect on your humble life.

What you'll need:

incense (frankincense or frankincense resin, pine needles or pine resin, cedar chips, juniper berries, cinnamon)

a censer

a charcoal block on which to burn the incense

a large sheet of paper

a pen

a white candle

To make the incense:

2 parts frankincense

2 parts pine

1 part cedar

1 part juniper berries

a pinch of dried cinnamon or a small piece of fresh cinnamon stick

Grind all ingredients together until well blended. You can say a small incantation over them if you'd like, holding your power hand over them as you do so. Remember to always grind in a clockwise motion to infuse your incense with positive energy.

Place your censer and candle on a heat-proof surface and light them both. Begin to burn your fresh incense when your charcoal block is ready. Take the sheet of paper and draw a circle on it. Visualize this circle as a shield for all the good things you have or desire to have in your life. Write down within this circle everything that brings you joy: the material and mundane things of your everyday life, spiritual things you hold dear, nature, beloved animals, the people who make your heart sing, traveling you'd like to do, experiences that make you happy, anything and everything you'd like to draw closer to you. By writing all these lovely things within your circle you are setting up a boundary that will allow in only that which brings you happiness. This creates a shield, protecting who and what you are and sends this positive energy out to the world on a subconscious level. Outside this circle, write down everything you wish to remove from your life: bills, people you would prefer to have move on, bad habits and behaviors, and any other troublesome aspects of your life. Outside the boundary you can also write down those good things you'd like to draw to you only when you personally invite them into your life such as a visit from the in-laws or criticism from a friend.

Spend a few minutes meditating on all you have written and then give thanks for the many blessings in your life. Snuff your censer and when it has cooled, scatter the ashes on the earth.

Photo courtesy of stellaretriever on flickr.

Art Book of Shadows

My Book(s) of Shadows are nothing special. Really. I have a growing collection of notebooks and journals that I've filled through the years with notes, information, spells I've copied and altered, spells I've created myself, lists of essential items and other pertinent data. They run the gamut from ones that I've bought on sale at office supply stores to nice leather ones that cost a bit more. I do have a small, very interesting-looking little blank book from Tibet that Griffin found for me that I use to write down my rituals for various sabbats, observance days and those special occasions when a circle is needed for more timely energy work. It's small enough to not be cumbersome in ritual and it is a very sweet little book, but like my myriad notebooks, I've always treated it like something utilitarian and nothing more.

So last week I had another one of my 'Eureka!' moments. These are always especially startling to me as I am always stunned that whatever it is that has suddenly dawned on me never occurred to me previously as it is now so obvious. I am an artist. It's what I do. So why has it never occurred to me until now to create a Book of Shadows that is also a work of art? When I have the time, in and around my serious work, I create art journals and I frequently use old books that I modify for this purpose. I usually have a few waiting patiently for their turn and when the idea to create an Art Book Of Shadows hit me, I knew exactly which book to use: a very large-sized hard cover book about angels full of amazing papers, funky little mylar envelopes and other visually unusual tidbits that I had bought at a used book sale at my local library. It's the perfect blank canvas on which to begin. I'm going to put all my own original spells in it as well as record all the mundane directions for all of my various rituals.

I had just begun to glue up and gesso the pages when I was quite suddenly offered a show from a completely unexpected direction (and when it was suggested that I have my opening on the Solstice next June, I knew it was kismet). Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining at all. I'll quite happily put my Book of Shadows on hold while I spend the next seven months working on this upcoming exhibit. As it hadn't occurred to me before now to create this book, then it can certainly wait another few months before I begin it. Besides, sometimes the best ideas are the ones that are brewed slowly over a nice long period of time and not rushed into. And that's okay. Everything in its own time.

Photo courtesy of Rowan Tree Design on flickr.

Tarot

I'm a lazy tarot reader. It would be one thing if I did readings for others on a regular basis, but I don't. I don't charge money for a reading as it isn't my goal to make people pay me to tell them what their cards say. Not that there's anything wrong with doing readings for a living provided you're really paying attention to what the cards are saying. I've been to quite a few people who I could guarantee had no knowledge of the tarot and this was painfully obvious when they told me the usual schtick: you're coming into money, you're going on a trip, anything positive they thought I wanted to hear for my dollar. In fact, in all the years that I have been reading tarot, which is now approaching 28 years, I don't think I've ever once seen these things in my own spreads. While the cards can be pretty issue specific, they aren't that specific. I do read for friends when they ask me, which I very much enjoy doing. But when it comes to myself, most of the time it just seems like too much bother to get out the cards, shuffle them and throw down a spread. It doesn't get more lazy than that.

Every once in a while I'll go through a brief spell of reading a card a day, to see what that day holds for me, but again, that requires the effort of the process and when I am first hitting the floor in the morning, the last thing I usually remember to do is pop out a deck and pick a card, any card. I'm more focused on the trillion and one things I have to do that day and how there isn't ever enough time to get everything done that needs to be done, let alone sit down and spend some time quietly contemplating the card(s). Reading tarot takes concentration, it takes relaxation and a bit of meditation and first thing in the morning that's impossible for me, especially given the fact that I am not even remotely a morning person. I'm lucky to even be ambulatory and recognize my own name before lunchtime.

I do however do a yearly spread on New Year's Day. Many witches who do divination of some sort like to do it on Samhain, a traditional day for that sort of thing, but I started out many years ago doing this on New Year's day and thus it's remained. The witch's New Year is not only a beautiful time for this but an especially potent time for this, but when that calendar ticks over into a fresh new year, it just seems to me that that's the perfect time to see what the coming months have in store for me, not in October. I have kept a journal of these spreads through the years, too. It's not only nice to see what has transpired during this year, but in years past as well. It's a lovely way to mark the changes within me and the passage of my life from year to year. My hopes, my fears, my personal journey all laid out courtesy of the cards that fell on that particular winter afternoon. I was once telling someone how accurate this is, that most of what I read for myself on January 1 actually does come to fruition throughout the year and I was asked how many times I checked during the year to see whether my reading was spot-on or not. I hadn't actually thought about this before and I would guess to a skeptic the idea that I could be reading my own journal periodically throughout the year and subconsciously manipulating the events of my daily life to coincide with what the cards told me on New Year's is a possibility. But I don't do that. In fact, I seldom even read my journal until the following New Year's day when I sit and do my reading for the new year. I admit I will occasionally, if things in my life are especially trying or difficult, take a look at what I predicted and see if this was something that the cards had foretold, but otherwise I never think to check.

Still I wish I had the time, the discipline and the dedication to do regular readings for myself and for those closest to me. It's a beautiful art that I'm thankful to know. And even after nearly three decades, I never cease to be amazed at how intimate and accurate this divination can be in knowledgeable hands.