a walking library

[auricwitch]

Almost all posts are queued unless they are original posts.

[thegrapeandthefig]

About Hera - an info dump

The idea behind this post was not to make an essay about Hera as goddess in myth or in cult. It was more about looking into the ressources I had at hand and gather cultic information that I haven’t seen mentionned on tumblr. 

But if there is one thing that I need everyone to understand it’s that: 

Hera’s main cultic theme is fertility and child-bearing.

And yes, this clashes with the Hera we know in myth. In fact, there is a huge difference between her representation as an unenthusiastic mother in myth and the cultic evidence that we have. 

For example, in Argos, Hera’s cult was centered around cattle herding as a source of wealth (reminder that the cow is her sacred animal), motherhood (as the nourisher and protector of the young) and military strenght. In fact, sources describe a statue of Hera in the Classical period where she is portrayed sitted and holding both a scepter, as a symbol of power and a pomegranate, a symbol of fertility. Hera, as the divine consort, was considered the ‘generator of all’, the ultimate mother figure. The Argives celebrated the festival of ‘Hera of the childbed’ - Hera Lecherna. We notice a similar pattern in Corinth, where the focus is especially on children. In Samos, the offerings that have been found included figures of pomegranate and pinecones until the 6th century BC, where there is a shift in her worship that considers her more as Zeus’ wife and less as an independant entity. 

Another important aspect of hers is her link with womanhood and wifery. I find it somewhat ironic that today I see worshippers attribute this role solely to Aphrodite, when clearly, it was mostly Hera’s attribute to bring protection to women throughout all their lives. Diodoros notes that even though Aphrodite was given the youth of girls, aka the time they have to marry, as well as the care of other things connected with marriage, in the end, men and women alike made their first marriage sacrifices to Zeus Teleios (‘Married Zeus’) and Hera Teleia (‘Married Hera’). Concerning marriage, a lock of hair could be given as offering to Hera when a girl married.  At Plataea there was a temple to Hera with a statue of Hera Teleia and another statue of Hera which was called nympheuomene, the bride. Hera also received offerings as Hera Gamelia, ‘Hera of the Wedding’. Hera Teleia could be invoked as the guardian of the keys to marriage: she protects the sanctity of each individual marital union.

A lot of the offerings given to her were domestic items, probably because they held personal relevance and could be dedicated at rites of transitions (weddings, birth of a child). In Perachora, the most found votive items were terracotta spindles as well as other weaving tools. Fibulaes were also found in great quantity. Another set of dedications are fertility-related, such as terracotta figures of cakes (and very likely actual baked goods too, which indicates Hera’s motherly aspect (kourotrophic role/“child-bearing/nurturing” role). 

Ressources under the cut.

Keep reading

[elucipher-deactivated20151112]

favourite poems about the forest?

edward thomas, “lights out”: i must enter, and leave, alone, / i know not how.

gabriele d’annunzio, “the rain in the pinewood”: rain falls on your black eyelashes / so that you seem to weep / but from pleasure

evie shockley, “where you are planted”: we settle into still pools of humidity, moss- / dark, beneath live oaks

amy gerstler, “bon courage”: a forest appears / to a young girl one morning as she combs / the dreams out of   her hair. 

richard levine, “in a blue wood”: the faceless couple in van gogh’s blue wood, is walking / where there is no path

siegfried sassoon, “dream-forest”: where sunshine flecks the green, / through towering woods my way / goes winding all the day.

robert frost, “stopping by woods on a snowy evening”: and miles to go before I sleep, / and miles to go before I sleep.

mary oliver, “sleeping in the forest” and “black oaks”: and you can’t keep me from the woods, from the tonnage / of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.

john keats, “ode to psyche”: far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees / fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep

r.s. thomas, “forest dwellers”: who called them forth to walk / in the green light, their thoughts / on darkness? 

léonie adams, “recollection of the wood”: toward that caress of the boughs a summer’s night / illimitable in fragrance and in sound.

gabriela mistral, “pine forest”: the night watches over its creatures, / except for the pine trees that never change.

kenneth rexroth, “falling leaves and early snow”: between the black pines lie narrow bands of moonlight, / glimmering with floating snow.

william carlos williams, “epitaph”

h.d., “the helmsman”: we forgot—we worshipped, / we parted green from green

cole swensen, “five landscapes”: the trees are half air. they fissure the sky;

pablo neruda, “lost in the forest”: wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig / sang under my tongue

atsuro riley, “thicket”: for darkling green; / for thorn-surround.

[burritosong]

here’s a fun new way of responding to anon hate, just post this pic

[thecollectibles]

Playing Cards Artwork by Mahdieh Farhadkiaei

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

So I’m under the impression that we all have guides/ancestors who watch over us. But if we all have them, how are we able to get cursed or hexed? Why wouldn’t they intervene? Can they intervene? Or do they sometimes think we deserve it?

The argument of the existence of evil is a fundamentally complex theological one, over which holy men and philosophers alike scratched their head - one which I am certainly not equipped nor qualified to answer, being no clergy and unfamiliar as I am with priestly mysteries. All I know is magic, where nothing comes free.

How are you able to bleed, to break your bones and heart, to feel pain, to get torment mental and physical ? Your spirits are no safepass to keep you safe, warm and coddled, no guardians to prevent you from being stupid and to hold your hand every day as you walk through life making your own choices in the limited pattern of that tiny corner in the tapestry of the Wyrd that you were allocated (to be clear : as small as it is compared to a greater scale, to human standards, the possibilities of that corner look infinite). Pick the wrong lover, piss off the wrong witch - you know the story. Spirits also have their own limitations, for a start (gods are more powerful than ancestors, and so on), and their own agenda, and their protection and spiritual services are more often than not directly correlated to the amount of effort, care and dedication you are willing to show in order to build a relationship with them and put the work in. I can tell you right now that faes showed up at the door of my astrologer like the mafia when she peered too close - they peered back, with a toothy grin, and sent a fair warning, because as it happens this time my boundaries matched theirs and they are terrifyingly territorial. I can tell you right now that I don’t feel entitled to unconditional love and comfort and protection given what I fuck around with and that if anything I am constantly floored and amazed when my gods step in, when they care. Unfortunately this is a tough world we live in - a world where knowing that fire burns is a valuable lesson - and they know that. Nature is red in tooth and claw - and so are your guides.

[satsuti]

I love this answer. Not to mention that big spirits, like deities, more often than not have an end-justifies-the-means approach, in my experience. Everything from suffocating one ability so that you develop another, or steering you somewhere where you literally have to claw yourself out with your bare hands. The more powerful a spirit you have a relationship with is, the more demanding it can be, and the more careful (or clever) you gotta be about what you ask for.

You pray that you want to get stronger, and so your God push you over a cliff with a ‘Ok then survive this’, and then some of yall start whining about the Gods being abusive because they weren’t the same romantic-uwu-fluff you read about on tumblr dot com. Spirits never lie; the foundations of who, what and why they are is all there written in the myths and folklore. 

It’s very important, even crucial, to not cherry pick bits you like and ignore the things you don’t like, which many of yall do when it comes to the fae.

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

Ooof, feel that. Been there done that. Thanks for your excellent addition friend 🖤

[monthoffearart]

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

For the secrets meme: I think you're really amazing, but have suspected that your experiences mark you as Other even with other witches.

This is hard for me to answer.

[winebrightruby]

Aren’t we all othered in some way or other? Acknowledging that our paths and those with whom we consort mark us means, to my mind, that different paths and associates mark us differently. The division is not simply “non-magical” and “Other” , in my experience, but of potentially countless allegiances, influences, and choices. 

[bodaciousbanshee-deactivated202]

Hi there! The idea of witchcraft has always interested me and I'm trying to figure out if it's something I'd like to practise but all I'm finding is the overly positive side of it or just get listed of spells with links that are a little overwhelming for a beginner. Do you have any resources that show it a little more realistically? Even if I find out about witchcraft and find its not for me, I want to learn about it and other topics like it and no better time to start than now.

Hello! I haven’t gotten a magic ask on this site in so long, thank you!  Firstly, that pseudo-self-care-psychological-secular-positive-thinking-pastel-aesthetic-witchcraft is most of what you are going to find on Tumblr or any social media site. I’m not knocking cutesy aesthetics, there’s plenty of cute shit on my own instagram, lol, but witchcraft isn’t always pretty. Spell recipes and lists are pretty useless if you don’t know the reasoning behind the ingredients or steps, same with those massive correspondence lists. What I’m about to say might bother some people, but on the other hand many others have blogged about this already and agree. This is just my experience, my belief based on years of practice and study: I think it’s important to understand that not all magic is witchcraft, and not all witchcraft is the same. It seems like you might be using witchcraft as a synonym for magic, which is fine linguistically, but is confusing practically.  Magic can be learned easily from books. You can quickly learn properties for the planets and stars, the properties of the elements, and the properties that the planets and the elements bestow upon various plants, animals, and minerals. You can read books and learn the days and hours and minutes each planet rules over, and learn what moment of each day is auspicious for which type of activity or spell. Learning magic is like learning a language. This means this and that means that, it’s all very simple, really.  However, witchcraft can’t fully be learned from books. There are books about witchcraft. There are books written by witches. There are spells and rituals of witches publicly available. However, a witch is more than just a profession or a religion, witchcraft as a practice changes you, it is a state of being, or a state of becoming. Historically and folklorically, a witch is something, someone, not [fully] human. Whether a witch gives up part of their humanity willingly in an act of initiation in adulthood, or if they never had a choice because it was the consequence of their parentage and/or generational trauma, or if it was their only chance of survival during a horrible childhood, academically a witch is someone who has one foot planted in the realm of the inhuman through a traumatic ordeal. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reclaiming and rehabilitating “witch” as a term, it actually makes the lives of witches easier if the world starts to think of them as just nature-worshipping folk healers. Witches can heal, and they do have a reverence for nature. I actually appreciate how the feminist movement has reclaimed the witch as an archetype of female empowerment, since women and witches have been demonized since the dawn of written language. Of course, not all witches are women, and femininity isn’t a requirement in witchcraft, but the witch is a powerful mantle for women who need empowerment. Gender and the roles attached to it are just another mundane “rule” for witches to break, and they do break it. Iconoclasty and the upending of societal taboos is a hallmark of witchcraft, so the witch is inherently queer. If you want to find out if witchcraft is right for you, the answer is not going to be found in any book in any library on earth. The answer is inside you. Think of your deepest fear, find it, ask where that fear comes from. Does it come from trauma? Does it come from guilt? Is the thing that you felt guilty about actually bad, or is it something benign that someone in power made you to feel guilty about? Was it even your fault? Whose fault was it? Aren’t they the ones who should feel pain? Do you want to punish the hypocrite who hurt you? Is that not what the forest feels when her trees are clearcut to make way for a emerald mine, or a cattle farm, or a soybean field? Do the plants and stones not call out in pain just like wounded animals? Do you hear their screams? Do you want to scream with them? Do you identify more with them than with the man passing you on the street who gives you a funny look? Do you wish to tear that look off his face? Do you want to be a force of vengeance or a force of justice? Is there a difference? Is the only difference which end of the knife you are on? Are you tired of being at the sharp end?   

[hekateanwitchcraft]

Do not despair when you are crossed, for if you honor the gods of the world below, they will hear your cries. When you are wronged, dig at the earth, howling and screaming, calling on Hekate, named Brimo, and the Erinyes, the Furies who attend Her. Cry out in your agony, pouring libations into the earth and giving your words of distress as supplication. They will come to you, snakes in their hair, carrying whips and flaming yew, bringing vengeance and righteous fury with them. Offer to them the names of your oppressors in this moment of pain and they will not deny you. They will bring you the justice you deserve.

[infected]

Fjord in the sunset light 

by Konrad Alexander Müller-Kurzwelly

[auricwitch]

How Location and History Affect Spiritual Practices

So I’ve been feeling this for a long time, and I’m curious to see if anyone else feels the same.

I’m an Australian witch, born and raised down under. I started practicing witchcraft about three years ago. The first year or so of my practice was pretty smooth - I learnt about the basics: how to meditate, how to cast spells, pantheons and different belief systems. As I’m sure you’re all aware, the more witchcraft you practice, the more aware you become of energies around you. In my second year I began communicating with plants and animals through reading energy. It was then, when I started to advance beyond 101, that I encountered my problem.

I’m directly related to both convicts and officers who came to Australia on the First Fleet (the collection of ships that invaded and colonised Australia in 1788). I’m the most ‘Australian’ you can be without being Indigenous, and yet I’ve never felt connected to the land around me, because this land is not mine. My people have been here for about 200 years. Indigenous Australians have been here for about 50,000. Their spiritual practices are inseparable from their everyday life. Their connection to the land is part of their soul, which is why it was so devastating for Aboriginal people when the British invaded. Their land was stolen from them, industrialised and seen as an asset rather than something living. For Indigenous Australians, land is spoken of as a person. They speak to country, sing for country, long for country. This is not a bond my people can come close to understanding.

This is where my issue lies: I can engage with the land around me on a surface level. Spiritually, I can build a house here, but I do not feel that I can build a home. I know, on a deep level, that there are levels to the nature around me that I will never be able to explore. I’ve considered working with native plants and animals in my practice, but it feels wrong. The land here constantly reminds me that I am only a guest. Working with introduced plants like lavender and rosemary feels so much more natural than being in the presence of a gum tree. I know that, as much as I want to, I will never be able to fully develop my spiritual practice in Australia.

Recently, I went on a trip to Rome. I was curious to see if the energy there differed, and when I stepped off the plane it hit me like a truck. In Rome, you can feel the rising and falling of civilisations. The energy has movement in it, ancient tales to whisper in your ear. It was so different from Australia. Australia’s energy signature, to me, is linear. It has history, but that history is current. Its stories are still applicable, its sacred ground still in use. Rome gave me the feeling of treading through the dust of a fallen empire. Australia’s was still alive.

If I trace my family tree back further, I’m Scottish, with viking roots. I’m planning to go to Scotland at some point to see if my practice feels right there. Rome was different and interesting, but it wasn’t home either. Australian culture is familiar to me. After being in Rome long enough, I was homesick for the way I was able to subconsciously pick up on mannerisms from strangers in Australia. I was raised in Australia, so I understand the way it works. My spirituality is in conflict with my home country; but where my spirituality is at home, the rest of me is not.

Has anyone else, particularly witches who live in areas where Indigenous cultures have a strong connection to land (Australia, North America, etc.) felt this? What are your thoughts, your experiences?

p.s. I apologise if any of this seems jumbled or doesn’t make sense, I’m tired and this is mostly all word vomit. I tried to make it as coherent as possible.

[stormbornwitch]

I understand how you feel. I too am an Australian witch. I’m not an indigenous Australian or Torres Strait Islander so my connection to the land is different. But its still there.

I was born here but I started practicing witchcraft in the US because that’s where my family lived at the time. When my family moved back to Australia things were different in regards to my practice - certain herbs that I learnt to use didn’t grown here and the land, as you said, was alive - it’s history moving like a spiral through the landscape with past and present being felt in the one moment.

It’s hard reconciling a colonial heritage with a land that has been stolen from it’s traditional custodians. But it’s worth it.

Since being back in Australia my practice feels so much more in tune with the land, the ocean and the weather because this is my homeland too. Maybe not traditionally but that’s where my practice blends the traditions of my ancestors with the practices of the land while acknowledging that we still have a lot to learn from the traditional custodians of this land.

[durranmi]

I am Wiradjuri.

I can tell you with all my heart this is not a linear place. This land is ancient and hums with stories from before, now and will be. This sovereign place is its own creation, the land carries its history and knowledge differently. A sprial is a lovely way to describe it.

When you step onto country it is a sense of homecoming so deep in your marrow. A feeling of peace and power that I certainly never felt anywhere else. I have heritage in both free settler and convicts and when I walked some of their original lands it never felt like coming home, as a historian it was pleasant and thrilling to be in a place that had visible structural history, as a witch there where spirits that gathered and whispered to me but this was not the same as walking on country and having the knowledge of history hum inside your bones.

If you know whose land you are on you can start to learn about it. Meditation will only take you so far. Engage with the land by listening to the stories, learning the traditional names of places and things, learn where you are welcome and where is sacred and where you would be uninvited. Listen to elders and lore keepers when you have the chance and always know that it is Aboriginal land but you can learn and therefore your practice can grow with that knowledge.

[auricwitch]

Thank you for your response, this was really interesting and informative to read. If you have any other insights into your understanding of magic practice in Australia that you would be willing to share I would love to hear them.

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

Do you think there is a way to help ease the transition between life and death for people or animals who are dying? I've read on the concept of "holding someone/thing's pain" for a moment and I'd like to know your thoughts on the matter. More of a concept question and less of advice- for my my first thought is medical professionals, etc rather than magic, as with most things. Should we let death be death?

Here.

This is an interesting question; thank you. 

I am of the firm opinion that this fear of death we cultivate, through silence, prohibition and hyper hygienic prescriptions, is counter productive to the acceptance of this vulnerable state of existence we will eventually all find ourselves into and is in fact detrimental to our mourning. It participates to the establishment of this difficult and sometimes heartbreaking ‘transition’ you mention. This may be a bit of a controversial statement, but I believe that yes, there absolutely is and there shall be a way to accompany someone through the passage from life to death and escort them there - and no, that is nothing to be afraid of. I would advocate that the care and dedication needed for someone about to die is the same one shall give to a newborn - provide satisfaction of basic needs, nourishment, warmth, love, contact, and shelter. Speak. Talk. Read. Sing. Touch. Hold. Caress. Massage. Be compassionate. Be here. This closure is important for the dead as well as for the living : I once read that grief is love that has nowhere to go, and as apt and acute I thought it was at the time, I can’t say now that I agree with that statement completely. For we love our dead, our love and memory do not end when their life does, in fact it is rather the opposite : if anything love is enhanced by death. So, mundane and magical recommendation : be present. Now, what to do right after the death itself... it comes down to personal beliefs and experience, because death is death - a mystery for the living. It is not a matter of « leaving death to be death » so much as it is understanding that our comprehension of it as creatures of flesh, blood and bone, is limited. I pray and sing to my dead, I talk to them, I honour them, I keep their spirit fed with offerings of food, alcohol and incense, and I light their way home with candles, I share my stories with them and stories about them - storytelling is, of course, of a tremendous evocative healing power, building bridges the same way singing holds great purificating power, giving a voice to holiness and creating sacred spaces. Comfort can be given from and to the other side with both of these tools. Now, to sit also with the corpse, to touch its stiffness and cold, to honour the shell it is and the persistance of the soul it held, to tend to the body, is profoundly transformative. Starting with animal remains, as a human corpse is impressive for many, confronting oneself with the physical significance of death is deeply informative and should be mandatory for a witch standing as they are between this world and the other. The fluids, the flesh, the bone, the smell, the rot, they all have something to teach, and a great peace comes with this simple knowledge. 

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

A thought on names : perhaps the danger is in their truth. When they become too close, when they settle snuggly. When they start to shape you. When you answer to them. When you are growing too comfortable with yours, when the sense of ill-fit slowly fades. When one cannot hide behind the safety of a mask, and is in fact facing a mirror. Do you want a mirror ? Or do you want a mask ? Do I want a mirror ? Or do I want a mask ? Do I want to reveal, or do I want to conceal ?

[astra-and-atlas]

Wear them like a cloak. Weave them into each other, trap them in the fabric of your soul. They will keep you warm, keep you safe, fit you as a second skin. But in the night they will hide you, cover you fully, until all that is left is wool and words.

Collect them like pebbles. You may never have enough. Find the names you tried on in your youth, each one a different shade of spirit, an echo of who you once were- who you might’ve been. Steal back the names you forgot you loved, that you used for three moon cycles before hiding them away, that you whispered in the darkness. Claim the names that others gave you, names the dead called you, long-left friends and blurry faces.

Write them like stories. There is always a meaning you have not found yet. Take your name in it’s fullness and dive into the pages it has written, the roots, the fables, the blood it called home. Let ink spill onto your tongue and taste the shadows left behind. Who has worn your name before you? When did it first ring out, in joy, in fear, in faith? Tell yourself why this one word means what it does, and in truth, there is never one answer. Piece the answers together and know who you are, and who you will never be. 

 Fight them. Fear them. Catch them, hold them, pry them apart just to put them back together. Know the shape of the silence around them, map out the feel of honey-sweet music as they roll from your tongue. Scream them out to the storm, hide them away, bind them in chains and bury them deep so that none may know. Let them tangle, let them dissolve into each other until they indiscernable, the secrets they hold sliding away from prying eyes. They will conceal. They will reveal. 

Your name was the first true gift you were given. And we are given many more as we walk through time. They never truly leave, never die, and they will march on without us.

Do not be scared of a name. Be terrified. Be enchanted. Be cautious. But do not be scared. 

They are yours.

[cryptkey]

I believe you do have to learn your own internal 'language' - the symbolism that you've built up over time - because it's your filter for the wider world (including spirits you communicate with) and it creates a kind of signature that can't be replicated. Being fluent in that language creates something potent in magic that's hard to articulate

[therainshallmakeadoor-deactivat]

Hey Briar. I’m interested in your thoughts on the topic of birthmarks. I know that there are many beliefs about birthmarks affecting a baby’s traits and life, similarly to astrology. Do you think that birthmarks do actually affect people in that way? Particularly as the idea of witches marks have popped out throughout history, etc.

It is an interesting correlation but still I would refrain from thinking the birthmark actually makes the witch. Funnily enough though, not so long ago, I was in a server with various occultists and magicians and we came to realize while joking about it that all the witches had, in fact, some odd birthmark somewhere on their body. I’ve heard of beliefs regarding such marks but to be honest with you I am not sure about their credentials. In French, my real surname is an old forgotten word to indicate a mark or stain, itself derived from the way we named particular horses with unusual colors. As it happens, it is a case of the name defining reality and the reality defining the name, for there is indeed a birthmark circulating around in my family. I had such a birthmark myself as a child and got horribly bullied at school for it (I was a weird kid, also wearing huge glasses as a a 2yo so this really didn’t help). Its location was quite unmistakable and made for an easy target - my face. I treaded it for an ugly scar as soon as I was able to.

Then of course I am, myself, a witch 😉

[terpsikeraunos]

ancient greek word of the day: ἀστράρχη (astrarchē), queen of stars, epithet of the moon