As Maias

On this night of the 29th of April, the protective powers of the maia (Cytisus Striatus) are used on every entrance. We find these bright yellow flowers adorning windows and doors to keep out the maio, or donkey or carrapato: malignant forces often equated with the Devil. It's a small reminiscence of a feast where, depending on location, boys or girls were adorned with these flowers and whorshiped all day with song and feasting; or of the garland of flowers placed at the door of the girlfriend one wished to be married to, or of the procession of animals and boats to recieve blessings of abundance and comemorate the vibrant life all around.

The cold and wet winter is over, the Earth is green and the breeze carries the scent of jasmine and wisteria. Tonight we dance because we are alive and our blood burns and our feet are fast. The house is prepared with all the flowers but the Devil, however, is welcome.

The (a)morality of the Gods

A few months ago I recommended "The folk-lore of plants" as a very good read. What I didn't mention was that the book required a very nice dose of goodwill and a certain detachment to be able to stomach without putting it away with a feeling of disgust. Indeed, Mr. Thieselton-Dyer made some rather crude and uncanny remarks regarding the people he considered to be of a "lower race" and "primitive" as opposed to the Aryan "cultured races" of Europe, however, what he did was nothing more than a presentation of the time's worldview. Fortunately for academia, perspectives evolve and the academic world considers that making students realize that we cannot pass judgment on the past using our current moral and ethical standards an important enough subject to spend a whole semester debating and dissecting it using an historical perspective. When Kenaz Filan wrote a blog post on the (a)morality of the Gods I wondered if that wasn't what was happening, if the discussion wasn't already heading on the wrong direction simply because something like this might be overlooked.

Myths and legends and all of the materia fantastica of humankind have some underlying lesson to them and some of those aren't pleasant. That lesson might be a Mystery: the abduction of Persephone or Eros and Psyche; might be a legendary account of past struggles with another nation: Athena and Arachne; might be an anthropomorphization of natural events: Iris; or it might just be a nursery story. Whatever they are, and wherever they fit, what they will provide, above all, is a testimony to its people's worldview and a window to their attempts to reconcile the human with the world through observation and rationalization. If we truly are to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors, the first thing to do is not to mask them but to understand, to any possible extent, their world. Expecting to find an all-loving and, by our standards, ethical and moral and godly god or even considering myths with this frame of mind is to take a great painting, scrap the paint off and then re-do it to our liking. The world is amoral, the gods are the world and also amoral. Their purpose is not one of comfort but one of attrition and, at times, reward for right action. But the myths aren't for the Gods neither are they facsimiles of the Gods. The myths are for the humans, who get to know that the path to glory lies in choosing the crooked path instead of the straight one; that get to know that Zeus raping sprees involved a third young God, one that shoots arrows and whose vitality runs the world and brews new life that is bound together by the gifts of his mother, that get to know that the gods are forces beyond their control. This is a game of shadow and light and peering into the mythic mind requires care because the symbolic and the ontological intertwine, sometimes in an indistinguishable way. The voice of morality is the chorus of the Greek Drama. An outside observer that revels in the right action, mourns in grief at our hubris, cries in sympathy and constantly reminds us that we are fated. This voice is so intrinsically human that always leads the audience to understanding of the forces outside our grasp that, godly such as they are, pain and torment us so.

Deipna Hekates

"Infernal and earthly and heavenly Bombo, come. Goddess of waysides, of cross-roads, lightbearer, nightwalker, Hater of the light, lover and companhion of the night, Who rejoicest in the baying of hounds and in purple blood; Who dost stalk among corpses and the tombs of the dead thristy for blood, who bringest fear to mortals Gorgo and Mormo and Mene and many formed one. Come thou propitious to our libations."
Hippolytus

Tradition requires that when the moon is dark, the house must be cleansed in the name of the daughter of Asteria. The garden was dully cleansed and consecrated to the arts of rhizotomoi and pharmakeia; a small apotropaic figure of Her placed at a corner. One needs Rue to fashion such figure and enshrine it in Laurel gathered in the wild. The fumes of incense made with 3 small crushed lizards mixed with myrhh, frankincense and storax purify and vivify it on our, most holy, circle of exile.


"You see Hecate's faces turned in three directions, to guard the crossroads branching several ways"
Ovid

For the supper, a plate of food was placed at the meeting of the three roads. Chopped leaks, garlic, goat's cheese as well as the remnants of spells covered in olive oil ended this month's offerings. Tomorrow she's rising in the sky, and I have tasks to complete.

Trioditis, Triformis, Enodia.

Not much to start with....

 With a full blown-spring, great weather and carte blanche to extend the "garden", i went to one of my favourite places in the hopes of bringing home some cuttings to plant. I hadn't been at that particular spot for a few months now and went there to find  an empty and grassy area with only a few Salvia officinalis "purpurascens", the ever existant Spearmint and few dry Lemon Verbenas. What a shame. But not all is lost! I was told that next saturday is the 3rd weekend of the "Spring Faire", an event for the locals to buy cheaper organic food, produce, folk crafts and, of course, plants!

The place i got alloted to do as i please aint that great. I get a bit of walkable roof and a small balcony turned to the east that has been completly neglected during the winter months. I'm still not sure what to do with the plants that already have a residence there. Some are still alive, altough in terrible shape and the others only seem to be a hotel for weeds. The remainder of this week (a full day yay!) will be used to plan where to put the newcomers and work something out with the green residents of the luxurious balcony. All will be temporary because i plan on building some large wooden containers, so for now the "hotels" will have to do.

The best part of the day was finding a local beeswax provider. In it's golden glory, the smell of the wax filled the kitchen whilst i fought it relentlessly in an effort to break it into chunks, and the chunks into pieces, and the pieces into little pieces.



Yes, today was a really good day.

A witch in the city

 It is all too frequent to hear and read about the great virtues of the wild land and the untamed places, where the green genii dwell unrestricted by human hand. Exalted such as they are, these places would no longer be "wild" or "untamed" if a host of well-meaning hippies and other "nature-inspired" folk would make such areas their favorite and frequent dwelling place. Bearing this in mind, and even if we are conscious in our trips to the wild, it isn't always affordable or possible to do, especially if you live in a city that occupies a large area. What to do then? For years, on and off, as i tip toed from magical system to magical system i wondered about this. A few questions lingered on my mind, fueled by a romantic understanding of the wild grove. Are those trees we commonly find on the street cognoscente? Or have they gone dormant, their dryad leaving them for greener grass? In my mind, those questions were perfectly logical. As logical as any mystical reasoning, that is. After all, those great and proud trees were no longer in their element, grown out of nature and by nature's own devises of ecosystem practicality and homeostasis. Instead, they were used for beautification purposes or to wage a silent war against pollution and noise. I saw those trees being cut down when their branches stretched too far or sawed down when their roots threatened the evenness of the sidewalk. Not alive, they couldn't be. It was in the midst of this belief that I had my first communion with a tree. It was a huge maple growing in a near a gas station, right in the intersection of several highways. I was walking home from work, worried sick about something that didn't really matter when a certain buzzing was felt in the air, gently pushing itself into my awareness. It is a hard task to explain, but as you feel that certain tension that tells you that someone is looking at you and you turn only to find a person staring, so did I turn, but only to find a few houses, grass, cars driving by and the night to keep me company. The buzzing, however, didn't lose its strength because I couldn't identify its source. It merely became stronger and different as I moved forward until at last I discovered its source. Shining like a beacon was a tree and when I approached it something happened and the novelty of it left me in awe. Like a stream, another consciousness poured into my own, ordaining my own thoughts, giving the answers I was seeking, reassuring me and comforting me in an absolute kindness. During that congress, my spirit dissolved and responded to that foreign, so complete and infinite emotion for goodness knows how I long. For a moment, brief or not I cannot say, there was no clear line between me and the tree, just reciprocation. Eventually I came to my own senses and realizing that it just wasn't wise to stand at that particular crossroads at night I went away. Today I really wish I hadn't for no more than a week later there was only a stump left. I guess when I look back, that the tree knew it was marked to die. That would surely account for the melancholy I sensed within her, or maybe wisdom and age is tempered a bit by it. I don't know. It aids my sadness, however, when I think on it, that Maple saw fit to, before departing, to open my eyes to the wonders that are hidden in plain sight.

How is that story relevant though? To me, it showed that a city is much alive. It's different, certainly, than the life that fills a wild place, but a witch is formed by the land where she lives, not by the land that she visits and where she will always be, at best, a guest no matter how welcomed she might be. This reciprocation is what marks witchcraft. To know and follow the flow of the web and tide of place, chasing it and learning it in the midst of centuries old stones and bones. So know your city, city witches. Woo the trees that know you well for they have seen you and the ones that came before you, make allies within the graveyards that hold your ancestors bones and will one day hold your own, greet the river and the ocean that saw much misery and brought much fortune to the ones courageous enough to brave them. Parks, gardens, fountains, churches, financial buildings and courthouses, markets and other places of trade, theaters and brothels, all of this plays its part in our very own human life. A city and its surrounding places are worlds unto themselves. They have their own threshold guardians, their own taboos, and their own requests to make and gifts to give. There aren't guide books to its mysteries, only direct instruction from its guardians, if it so pleases them.