Greetings!

top

Welcome to the June issue of Witchy Update. June is the perfect time to work some natural magic, as the great outdoors are abundant with offerings. Find a green space near you where you can forage a bit. Bring along a plant identification guide and get to know your local flora. Pick up interesting stones, twigs, flowers, and leaves (being sure to leave an offering – even just by saying “thanks” – if it’s a living plant you’re taking from). Then go home and revel in your little treasures.

Now what? Well, one of the oldest and simplest forms of magic is to make charm bags, and after foraging you probably have most of what you need to fill them. Think about what you would like to bring to your life. Love perhaps? If so, use pink or red stones and flowers in your charm bag. Or include herbs that correspond to your desire. To call love, yarrow works well, and is often naturally abundant this time of year. You can also go to a local bead shop and pick up small charms that relate to your wish, and include those. When you’ve gathered all your ingredients, sew up a little bag with corresponding colors, and tie it with matching ribbon.

You can empower your charm bag by holding it in both hands and visualizing what it is you desire. Then you can use the time tested tradition of knotting to seal the spell. Try these options suggested by Ellen Dugan in Garden Witchery:

By the powers of the moon (tie the first knot)
The stars (tie the second knot)
And the sun (tie the third knot)
Do as I will, an’ it harm none.

Or,

By the powers of the Maiden (knot)
The Mother (knot)
And the Crone (knot)
Bless this charm bag that I have sewn.

Or make up your own rhyme. And of course, love is only one option (albeit a popular one). You can make bags for protection using dark colors, sea salt, and hematite; or prosperity using greens, a sprig of mint, and a silver coin. The choices are endless, and by using items that are meaningful to you, your charms will be much more successful. When your bag is finished, keep it close to you until it has worked its magic. Happy wishing!

top

For a related article check out:
Amulets, Talismans, and Charms by Richard Webster

Upcoming Pagan events

top

For more Llewellyn Pagan- and book-related events,
check our event schedule

The Kabbalah Tree author:
Rachel Pollack
Workshop: Stories on the Tree of Life
June 4, 2004, 7 to 9 p.m.
The Crystal Fox, Laurel, MD
For more information call: 301-317-1980

Midsummer author:
Anna Franklin
Wessex Gathering
June 4 – June 6, 2004
Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, United Kingdom
For more information call: 01929 423201

The Outer Temple of Witchcraft author:
Christopher Penczak
Litha Celebration
June 19, 2004, 7 – 9 p.m.
Unicorn Books, Arlington, MA
For more information call: 781-646-3680

Grimoire for the Green Witch author:
Ann Moura
Pagan Spirit Gathering
June 19 – June 27, 2004
Wisteria Campground, Wisteria, OH
For more information call: 608-924-2216

An excerpt from "The Kabbalah Tree"

top

BY RACHEL POLLACK

In Africa and many other places, trees with white sap have signified the Mother Goddess, for they give "milk" yet, unlike short-lived humans, they remain strong and graceful over many decades, even centuries. Ancient Egypt identified the sycamore with the goddesses Nut (of the night sky, possibly the oldest goddess), Hathor (identified with the cow goddess), and Isis, founder of civilization, bringer of Osiris back from the dead. Osiris himself becomes embedded in a tree at one point of his story. His brother Set imprisons him in a jeweled coffin and floats him away down the Nile. The coffin drifts out to sea and lands at a place called Byblos, where a tree grows up around it to become the base of the local king's palace. Isis finds him and removes him from the tree. Osiris's ceremonies included the raising of a wooden pole called the Djed pillar, a symbol both of the male organ with its generative power and the human backbone, the structure that allows us to stand upright-like a tree-and move in the world. The backbone contains the life energy people in India call kundalini, sometimes thought of as a snake coiled at the base of the spine.

The image of a snake wound around a tree recalls the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, and also the common image of healing from the Greek caduceus, two snakes wound around a stick (now a symbol of the medical profession). And, further, it may remind us of the "brazen serpent" that God tells Moses to hold before the Israelites as they travel in the wilderness. This, too, was said to heal the sick. The more we delve into the symbolism and myths of different cultures-in this case, Egypt, India, Israel, and Greece, but we could cite even more-the more we realize that myths and esoteric teachings are not fantasies or even just psychological insights, but are in fact ways to represent scientific knowledge that the modern world has largely lost

Even in ancient Israel, people saw the Tree of Life as a real tree. Most often this was the almond, a tree whose white flowers bloomed early in spring, before its first leaves. The oil cups in sacred menorahs (candleholders) were often shaped like almond flowers. The menorahs themselves took on the form of a tree, with seven branches, one for each of the days of creation, and ultimately for each of the seven moving bodies in the sky-sun, moon, Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These seven bodies were the source of the seven palaces of heaven, the hekhaloth.

Long before he learned of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, Hermann Haindl witnessed a living ritual of this idea. For a number of years, he and his wife Erica were privileged to attend the annual Native American Sun Dance, in which various Indian nations come together in a great ritual of sacrifice and celebration.Young men, who have prepared themselves for an entire year, pierce their bodies and dance about a tree, offering their own blood, like sap from a tree, to strengthen what the great visionary Black Elk called the "sacred hoop" that connects all life. Interestingly, they perform the ritual around a sapling, not some ancient tree older than memory. The Tree of Life ultimately is all trees, and the youngest shoot reaches into the roots of the very beginnings of life.

READ MORE ...

Great Wiccan/Pagan books on sale!

top

ON SALE THROUGH MAY 26 ONLY - BUY NOW!


Bud, Blossom & Leaf ISBN: 1-56718-443-X Sale price: $11.96 (save 20%)	Green Magic ISBN: 0-7387-0181-5 Sale price: $10.36 (save 20%)	Midsummer ISBN 0-7387-0052-5 Sale price: $11.96 (save 20%)

Cool links

top

FREE daily spell

Beliefnet Pagan & Earth Based Religions

Related Wiccan & Pagan articles from The Llewellyn Journal

The Pagan Web

Definitions of Wiccan & Pagan terms from the Llewellyn Encyclopedia

religioustolerance.org
(Religious Tolerance NeoPagan Page)

I do not wish to receive further issues of the Witchy Update. Please remove me from your mailing list

IF YOU CANNOT SEE THE CONTENT OF THIS PAGE, COPY AND PASTE THIS URL INTO YOUR WEB BROWSER TO VIEW THE FULL TAROT UPDATE. http://www.llewellyn.com/newsletters/witchyupdate/witchup_02.html