The Earth Tide Ebbs

As the Earth Tide ebbs at the Solstice, the world softens and the Witch’s powers of influence increase.

The time is auspicious for spells of prosperity,  and for manifesting anything on the material plane. The most effective spells worked at this time will have some material bases--talismans, poppets, charged stones.

Winter Solstice

from the Pagan poet Gwion:

We are only concerned with light.
We have given up on warmth,
Have abandoned discernment
Of color and brightness and shape.
We are only concerned with light,
Because the sky, wide vessel
And disperser of radiance, is dark.

We tend our sparkles of fire
In the calendar's frosted eclipse.
We have come to the Season of Man.
This single night
The only light is our own
For all the lands and seas and skies.

The log must blaze!
And every quick branch bear candles,
Not to suffuse us with a cheery glow,
But to ensure that no gust of winter
Will snuff it out.

We are only concerned with company.
We have frozen standing quarrels,
Have abandoned distinctions
Of preference and propriety.
We are only concerned with company,
Because the sky, Great Hall
Of perpetual companions, is empty.

We gather our kind
From withered prairies and crusted shores,
We have come to the Season of Man.
This single night
Ours is the only company
For all lands and seas and skies.

We must be merry!
We must raise a common voice in any song.
We must pledge ourselves without reserve,
For no other rampart stands against extinction
But our bonds.

This single night, this Season of Man,
We are the only gods; the universe is ours.
Behold our magnificence!
If we are diligent
And sacrifice all lesser concerns,
We may keep the light from dying
And our hearts from growing still
Until dawn,
When the gods return
To take the year from our narrow shoulders
And hurl it toward a season bright and fertile.

Lucid Dreaming

Source of image: www.hyperluciddream.com

The Water Tide flowed at Lammas, and now has turned to ebb at the Fall Equinox.   

 

When a tide ebbs, a Witch's power grows. In a flowing tide, the powers of Nature are in the ascendant, and the work of magic is more a matter of divination than sorcery--of reading the course of things, and riding the waves. In an ebb tide the manifest world has less will of its own, and the Witch's will has more effect.

 

Dreams, the creatures of water, are now available not only to our understanding but to our influence, and can even be wielded to influence the course of events.

 

"Lucid dreaming" is a term used to describe dreaming which the dreamer consciously controls. It is, obviously, a powerful magical technique.

 

The most challenging first step for most people is learning to recognize that they are dreaming while the dream is still in progress. You are ready to start working on this when you have reached a point in the work of dream retrieval when you can generally recall at least one dream each time you awake, at least when you are able to wake naturally. (When you are wrenched out of sleep by artificial means, dream-catching is more difficult.)

 

Here are ways develop conscious awareness that you are dreaming;

 

Make a habit of asking yourself regularly, when you are awake, whether you are awake or dreaming. The habit of asking yourself this question can carry over into your dreams. 

 

Ask yourself "Am I dreaming?" in situations that resemble ones that commonly occur in your dreams. Go through your dream journal and not images or situations that appear repeatedly, and which can also occur in waking reality. For example, if you dream often of bodies of water, make a habit of testing your state each time you see a body of water, and each time you swim or bathe. 

 

Go through your dream journal and note recurring images and events that would be impossible in waking reality. Examples might be flying, or watching or experiencing magical shape-shifting. Give yourself the suggestion that the next time you dream about such a thing, you will know that you are dreaming.

 

Stop at some random moment during the day and ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" Then continue to imagine what could happen next if you were dreaming.

 

Work to become more aware of the subjective nature of your waking perceptions. We construct our waking experience with our own minds, just as we construct our dreams. Form a habit of viewing events from more than one point of view. When you perceive and respond to something, work to imagine other interpretations which could be put on the same events. You do not have to hold and commit to such alternative perceptions if you do not wish to; you are just building mental flexibility, as you build physical flexibility with body exercises.

 

Create a vivid mental image to use while falling asleep, that you can carry between waking and dreaming. One such image in Buddhist tradition is the "flaming lotus," a delicate pink flower with a bright flame in the middle, which is located at your throat (Interestingly, if the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is mapped out on the human body the "hidden sephirah" Daath lies at the throat.)

Moon Festival

This past full moon was the Chinese Moon Festival. I had an in-class essay in which several  Chinese students spilled out their homesickness--it is, most of all, a time for family gatherings. The assignment was a response to an essay that only mentioned someone's homesickness in passing, but in honor of the occasion, I cut some slack for writing off-topic.

There are a number of different stories connected with the Moon Festival. Here is the one I like the best:

Long ago, there were ten suns in the sky. The earth was hot and parched, and no matter how hard people worked, they could not grow enough to eat. The king declared that he would marry his beautiful daughter to the man who could destroy nine of the suns, and leave them with only one that was needed for life.

A mighty warrior presented himself, and true to his word, fought with nine suns and destroyed them all, until at last only one good sun was left in the sky. The king was true to his word, and gave his daughter's hand to this mighty warrior.

The princess, however, was not happy in this marriage. The same ferocity that had given this warrior the power to destroy the nine suns also made him a jealous and violent husband. She soon came to understand that for the good of the land, her own hopes of happiness had been sacrificed forever.

So one night, she went to her jewel box, and chose from it one large, perfect pearl. She went out into the courtyard, and threw the pearl up, up, until it came to rest high in the sky. Then she took a running leap, and jumped high above the palace walls. She flew up to the moon, and there she lives joyfully and alone, giving comfort and encouragement to all unhappy souls below.

At the Dark of the Moon

Introspection, trance work, self-evalution

Dream work

Fast or eat sparingly

Don't overwork

Wrap yourself in a covering or veil of some kind, arranged so you can breathe properly (oxygen deprivation is not an essential part of the experience.)

I especially like some slow and evocative sound for this--Tibetan temple bells, for example.
Close your eyes and go into a cave. As you go deeper in, the light becomes fainter and fainter, and you have to feel your way with your feet and hands.
The passageway becomes narrower, and more difficult to negotiate. You go deeper and deeper into the earth.
Then after a time you will suddenly lose your footing and go floating in free fall, around and around, down the passageway, until you land in a cavern deep inside the earth.
There you may find something, or you may meet someone.
You may be told something you need to know, or you may be given something to take back with you.
Perhaps you will find or be given something that must remain in the cavern, but which you can return to again.
When you are ready to leave the cavern, you will find that you can float up and out the passageway, by the same way you came.
Then you will find your footing, and make you way along the passage, feeling with your feet and hands, until you return to the mouth of the cave.

Discovering the Meanings of Dreams

Examine any emotions which accompany the dream. If the emotion seems inconsistent with the thing you dreamed, pay more attention to the emotional content than to its apparent stimulus.

 Explore your associations with a puzzling symbol. If, for example, a dream person has blond hair, free associate on the phrase "blond hair," jotting down anything that comes to mind.

 After recording a dream, quickly and instinctively give it a title. This will often provide a clue to its meaning.

 Pay attention to any involuntary slips of the tongue, pen or fingers which you make as you speak or write about the dream. These are sometimes significant.

 Pay particular attention to symbols and situations which occur repeatedly in your dreams.

 On waking, imagine endings or continuations for your dreams. Record these and examine them along with the dreams themselves

 Waking, place yourself in the position of another character in the dream. How would the dream appear, and what would it mean, to that person? (For example, if you dream of being pursued by someone, place yourself in the position of the pursuer instead of the pursued.)

 Give creative expression to your dreams in drawings, poetry, dance. This extension will often fill in missing meaning in your mind.

Be aware that any one dream has multiple levels of meaning. The possibilities include, but are not confined to:

• Processing and integrating experience from the previous day.
• Wish fulfillment.
• Messages from your unconscious to your conscious mind.
• Self exploration and analysis; often one possible interpretation of a dream involves seeing each character in the dream as part of the dreamer.
• Symbolic representations of physical conditions in your body.
• Dream symbolism may include puns or plays on words.
• Contact with spirits or Deities often occurs more readily in dreams than in waking.
• There may memory of the distant past, of early childhood, or of other existences.
• Experiences of precognition, telepathy and clairvoyance are more common in dreaming than in waking.
• Your mind may use a dream to take control of a problem and solve it.                                                                                                                                

Waxing Moon

Magical work for fertility, prosperity, growth and plenty:

Harvest crops and herbs that grow above the ground.