A Tribute to The Wild Blackberry

 Many years ago, I attended a ritual led by a Druid.  At the end of the ritual, we had to go off and find ‘our tree’.  In the dusky evening, we were to walk towards a tree that called to us, greet it and welcome the message it gave.

 In the lousy light, I meandered off towards the dark tree line, thinking I’d find a native tree that would impart some deep and meaningful message, either directly or when I looked up the meaning and history of that tree.  Then I walked into a large patch of wild blackberry.

 Fucking Blackberry!! I was horrified and decided that it didn’t count.  It wasn’t a tree.  I went around the patch and moved forward again into the shadows and straight into another patch of blackberry.

 I was mortified.  I’m a weed.  I’m a nuisance plant that everyone is trying to get rid of. 

 It stayed with me for ages.  It undermined my self-confidence. All I could see was the brutality of the thorns, the way they grab and don’t let go, they rip your skin apart. The weedy nature of blackberry, the way it springs up where it’s not wanted and blocks paths, fills pasture and chokes waterways.

 Over the years, I’ve thought about it often.  More so since moving to our block where we have a lot of wild blackberry. Every summer, I spend hours picking the sweet and juicy berries.  My husband often talks about putting up fences and wires where the blackberries grow to tame them and make them easier to pick. 

 All this time spent around the blackberry has taught me many things that weren’t immediately apparent. 

 Blackberry is resilient.  It is always springing up where you don’t want it because it’s almost impossible to knock back entirely.  It always gets back up again and thrives.

 Blackberry can produce lovely sweet fruit in the harshest of conditions.

 Blackberry can accept support without doing damage to what is supporting it.

 Blackberry thorns protect the plant.  The thorns will stick in your skin and make sure you treat it with respect.

 Blackberry can’t be tamed.  You can cut it back and try to restrain it, but it will find a way to come back.

 Symbolism and spiritual meanings are varied.  As always there’s no consensus and you can always cherry pick one that means something to you.

 I choose to own all the wonderful things that blackberry is, I am fiercely protective, I am resilient and I produce many sweet things.

 All hail the blackberry.

Blessings

Debbie

A Harvest of Introspection

 You reap what you sow right?

That's a big part of what the Lammas Sabbat represents.  Harvesting the seeds you've sown in the past seasons. Physical seeds and spiritual ones.

I haven't done much of anything besides work over the past year.  My garden is abysmal and neglected, due to some major renovations, my house looks like a bombsite and my spiritual side has been fairly absent. I've barely written, except for when I was bored in lockdown and most of that has stayed on my laptop and not gone anywhere else.

I noticed late last year that I had lost a big part of myself and I wasn't sure where it went.  I went from being that outspoken friend who will stand up for you when you can't do it yourself to being a complete doormat.  I lost my fire.  I lost my confidence and ability to do what's right.  I feel that I lost my sense of integrity in there too.

I have overthought myself into wanting the approval of some hideously toxic people and saying nothing when others who didn't deserve it were being set up to take some major falls. I found myself a weapon in someone else's war and then a casualty in another. I found myself just wanting to be still and silent and unnoticed when stuff was happening that normally I'd speak out about.

A lot of this has manifested into a physical injury.  An old injury that has flared up into something that has made me live in constant pain and unable to physically do much at all.

Today, however, is Lammas.  It is the first harvest and I find myself getting involved.  I am speaking out again over the past week.  I am also finding myself incredibly introspective.

If I may digress a little.

A man I know and worked with used to be quite high up in corporate banking.  He spent years living in Dubai and London and being sent all over the world for his bank. Then, stuff happened, he lost his job, his marriage was falling apart and he wanted to sell his house, but it wouldn't sell because of what was happening in a neighbouring property.  

He started drinking and took matters into his own hands out of sheer frustration.

When I worked with him, I found him lovely.  He was always cheerful and friendly and keen to help out. We had some marvelous conversations about all sorts of things, working manual labour gives you those kind of opportunities. I was quite happy to regard him as a friend. There were rumours about his drinking, but I knew that he was diabetic and had a bowel condition and he never seemed drunk to me, so I mostly dismissed the rumours.  I believed that his water bottle contained water and that he had genuine health issues that led to all the times he went home early and that his falls down the stairs were unlucky and clumsy.

I feel rather naive about it now.

The work we were doing was seasonal and on fixed terms.  When each season finished and our fixed term would end, the company would pick and choose who they wanted to keep for the next part of the job.  Not everyone was invited back.  When it came to one, he wasn't invited back for the next contract.  The story went around that he rang and said he wanted to come back for the next part.  He was told no thank you. So he turned up to speak to the manager.  The manager wasn't present at the time and he became quite abusive and threatening to the people who were present.  He came back when the manager was there and she found him intimidating and I'm told had to threaten him with Police removal if he didn't leave. I initially found the story hard to believe and thought it had perhaps been blown out of proportion, but I have since heard it directly from several of the people who were there when he turned up both times and they had no reason to lie or embellish it.  They were just as stunned seeing it happen as I was hearing it.

A few months later, he was all over the news for having taken matters into his own hands regarding that neighbouring property mentioned earlier.  He had pleaded guilty and been sentenced for it.  Part of that sentence was alcohol rehabilitation.

I bumped into him a few months after that.  He'd not long gotten out of rehab and was getting his life sorted.  He had a new job and was quite proud of his time in rehab.  He was bubbly and friendly and seemed to be doing just fine. I've bumped into him a few times since and wondered if he was drinking again, but never been sure. I saw him go into the wine section of the supermarket, but didn't want to make any assumptions that he was actually buying.

Then what he did to take matters into his own hands happened again last week.  I couldn't see him being the cause of it this time, he didn't have the reasons he did the first time but I worried that he'd be the low hanging fruit, the easy target to take the blame.

And he was.  

I found out today that he is the person who was arrested and charged.  He hasn't had his day in court yet, but it is coming.

I find myself indescribably sad about his whole situation. How does one go from being well-off, top of your game, with property valued in the millions to an alcoholic diabetic renting a room (not even the whole house) on a benefit in a few short years? How does one go from being a successful man approaching what is looking to be a comfortable retirement to being almost homeless, relying on others to get you to appointments?

So much of his story has affected me today.  I said I was feeling introspective.  I feel like I want to stand up for him and say ... something? I don't know what that something is.  I know there will be people crowing over it and saying how they always knew he was <dangerous/crazy/insert whatever other adjective fits here>. I believe he should absolutely face the consequences of what he has done (if he actually did it this time) and if that means prison time, then so be it.  I don't want people who don't know anything about him to be judging him but at the same time I'm aware that this happens all the time, everywhere and there's not a damn thing I can do to prevent it. Part of me wants to reach out to him and offer him help and support (that I know he wouldn't accept anyway) and part of me wants to just sit back and watch sadly. It's not really my problem or responsibility.

I don't know what the right thing to do is in this situation. And that makes me even more sad. Is my agony of indecision a part of this harvest? Have I spent the past year working myself into this overthinking but underdoing mess?

In other situations over the past couple of days, I have found myself stepping up.  I am filling my space and not caring who notices.  I am not shrinking myself in order for the storms to pass over me. My fire is starting to smoulder again. I only really noticed it today.

I don't really know what I have sown in the past year, but today has been a day of epiphanies and thought-provoking moments.  

I seem to have a first harvest of introspection

Wards and Shields

I often see discussions around empaths, psychic attacks and curses and the usage of shields and wards.  Commonly the person complaining about being attacked, cursed or overwhelmed asserts that they have shields up, they have their wards in place but whoever their assailant is can get around them.

The obvious answer is to change your system, it's clearly not working for you.  But this seems to be met with a wall of "Wait, what? What do you mean change my system? It's a ward."

There isn't a single method.  There isn't a single way of doing this that will always work every time.  Attacks can take many forms and no single shield or ward will be infallible.  If you give out information on how you've set your wards, you're effectively inviting someone to come and break them or get past them.  I know people who would do it just for the practice.

So, in designing or reworking your wards, first you need to decide how you want them to work and what you're warding.

Do you want you or your property to be invisible? This can work, but you need to be specific about who it is invisible to and how that is determined.  Does it require an invitation to find it? Does ordering pizza qualify as an invitation?  I know that may sound silly, but I know of one person who went with this as an option and couldn't get anything at all delivered until they changed it. Is it invisible only to those with harmful intent towards you and yours?  Many curses can be worked as blessings, will they sneak through?

Do you want your property to have the energetic equivalent of high fences with razor wire? This can also work, but again, you need to think of the specifics.  Can anyone see through? How will the positive, wanted energies get through? The other thing to consider is that much like physical high fences and barbed wire, this kind of thing is like putting a big sign up saying "there's something worth protecting here".  Have you ever paid attention to which houses get burgled most often? It's usually the ones with obvious security, these are the people who have stuff worth taking.  Doing your energetic security in a similar way may attract all kinds of curious things. How strong is it really?

Do you want a solid impenetrable wall or bubble? I like this as a temporary measure now and then, but remember, if nothing can get in, then nothing can get out.  And if nothing can get in, that means nothing at all, the positive will be excluded as well as the negative.  Nothing moving in or out will make the environment inside stale after a while.

Do you want to set a guardian? A guardian can act as a warden or gatekeeper to monitor what comes in and allow access or block as needed.  The type of guardian you choose and how you instruct them in their role will make a difference to the value they add.  Will your guardian be an ancestor or spirit guide?  Will it be a construct? How will you provide them with the energy required to fulfill their role? How will you maintain a good relationship with them? Are you wanting a single guardian or a team or the equivalent of a pack of guard dogs?

Will your wards be a single piece or different layers? Different layers will be more work and will take more thought in to what each layer will be comprised of. This isn't a bad thing.  If your outside layer is something like "nothing to see here", it will deflect most of the frivolous types saving the serious juice for more determined attacks.

Will your wards be tied to an object or several objects? For personal shields, this can be a piece of jewellery. For a property, this could be charged items placed in the corners. Will your wards be affected if the item is moved or taken away altogether?

Do you have some sort of alarm or notification system built into your wards? Will you know if they're being tried?  Will you know if they need more energy or a repair in a weak spot? Do you want to be advised as it's happening or would you rather do a check now and then?

I believe it's best to answer these questions for yourself, figure out what you want and work out a way to make it work from there.  There are no right or wrong answers, there is only what works best for you in your particular situation.  If you get it wrong for you, learn from it and fix it or change it to something else.

Experiment, make mistakes, learn from them.  Rinse and repeat.

Blessings





Debbie

Autumn Equinox 2019

Yesterday was the Autumn Equinox.  I haven't really done much to celebrate it over the last few years as it's quite a busy time for me.  As it is a harvest festival, I'm usually flat out preserving my crop to keep it over the next year.  This year hasn't really been too different, although my garden has been mostly neglected during our horrendously hot and oppressive summer.  I'm well known amongst friends and family for this, so I am also often the recipient of their overflows and have been given a lot of fruit to work my magic on.

This year however, the Equinox fell almost a week after the shootings in Christchurch.  A far right, fascist, anti-immigration lunatic shot up two mosques killing 50 Muslims at prayer and wounding 50 more.

His hateful reaping however, harvested something truly amazing.  The outpouring of love from Christchurch people, from New Zealanders and from the rest of the world has been awe-inspiring and overwhelming.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a contrary person.  I am naive and always wanting to believe the best of people while also being a cynical old bitch.  So while I hoped for a positive response, I expected the opposite.  So the response from people everywhere has left me hiding away from people while I cry often.  Those tears aren't fear or an inability to cope with my city being changed again and while there's still sadness for the tragedy, mostly my tears are about people being better than I'd given them credit for.

I'm in awe at the messages of love and support. I'm in awe of the strength of our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her grace in handling this.  I'm in awe of the opposition parties in our Government pulling their heads in and supporting our PM.  I'm in awe of the actions ordinary people are taking the world over because of this event.  I have never seen the goodness in people shine through on such a massive scale and I don't know how to adjust to it.  I am in awe of the constant vigils, the markers of respect and support (I think our florists nationwide have run out of flowers repeatedly) and the turnout of people attending these events.  I am in awe of our gangs, previously violent rivals, coming together, putting their differences aside to stand in support of the Muslim community. I am in awe of our Police force and emergency services for their hard work and incredible strength.

So this year, my Autumn Equinox celebration is one of genuine thanksgiving and gratitude.

I am grateful that I was wrong about people in general and give thanks that I was wrong.
I am grateful that I live in a place where this is how we react to things like this.
I am guiltily thankful that my family were safe although I can't say that anyone is unaffected by it.
I am grateful that for the most part, this has caused a huge shift in what ordinary people will and won't tolerate with regards to casual racism and hate speech.
I am grateful that our Government has used common sense in tightening up gun laws and gun licensing and done it quickly.
I am grateful that as a nation, we're being held up as a beacon of sense and respect by the rest of the world.

I am grateful.

Blessings




Debbie

Self-examination and Doubt

Every so often, I get to wondering about the magic I have performed.

I wonder if the results I have gotten are real.  Rather, I wonder if my actions and spells worked have had any effect at all to achieve the results that have occurred.  I wonder if the ending would have been the same whether I did anything or not.  Do I do these things as a way to fool myself that I'm actually doing anything useful?  Am I using confirmation bias to justify the things I do?

Then I wonder if the results happen the way I wanted them, does it matter?

I am a firm believer in brutal self-honesty.  I believe most magical journeys will include some aspect of this if the practitioner is to grow as a person, to be fair, most life journeys need this if anyone is to grow as a person.

The times when we look back over past events and ask ourselves how we could have done things differently, take responsibility for the times when we cast ourselves in the role of victim instead of perpetrator and the times when we realise that perhaps our own poor choices led us up that sorry path to an unpleasant event in our lives.  Equally, it is important to recognise when things weren't your fault, when there was nothing useful you could have done and to forgive yourself for what you think you should have done but didn't.

There seems to be a popular idea that you should just let everything go, forget about it and move on.  I dislike this concept intensely.  It gives no closure, it gives no opportunity to learn from your mistakes or even to recognise that you made them and it gives no chance for you to grow into a better you.

The down side to doing this kind of work on yourself is that it can lead to doubts.  Doubt in your abilities, doubt in your sense of self-worth and doubt in everything about yourself.  As I started this talking about magic, let's also add doubt in your ability to create change in the world and perform successful magic.

Doubt is the magic killer.

Like the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear from the Dune series by Frank Herbert, doubt is destruction.  For those unfamiliar with this classic work of science fiction:

I must not fear.  Fear is the mind-killer.  Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.  Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will remain.

As an affirmation or mantra, this is not particularly useful.  Fear is the main concept focused on and emphasised and this will build fear.  So I'm not suggesting that this be reworded to use doubt instead of fear.  But the way fear is talked about in this quote is useful for discussion purposes.

Doubt is the magic killer.  Doubt eats at your confidence to achieve results, doubt eats away at your purpose until the suggestions doubt makes replace your purpose.  This isn't usually a conscious thing, this is the "what ifs" taking over.  Doubt is failure.  Facing your doubts and freeing yourself from doubts isn't necessarily as easy as allowing them to pass over and through you.

When I have a bout of self-examination and exploring past events I usually focus on the things that went wrong.  The catastrophic and painful.  I often forget about or gloss over my successes.  This is where doubt is able to creep in.

Look equally at what went well.  What do you think you did that made this event a success?  How can you build that into more successes?  Can you reasonably expect that to work again or will it need some tweaking to continue the momentum?

They don't have to be big successes.  Some will seem like small ones until you weigh up what the opposite effect would have been.  Any success is as valuable and equally a learning opportunity just as much as a mistake would have been.

So when I'm in my "what if all my magic is me using superstition to fool myself that I make a difference" headspace, I remember the time that every car in my street was broken into and siphoned for petrol except mine, which I'd foolishly left unlocked in my driveway overnight.  I remember when a stalker suddenly seemed to forget about me altogether.  I remember when a friend's father who was not expected to last the week surprised the medical staff in the hospital by getting well and is still going strong months later.

It genuinely might be purely coincidence, I accept that.  But I got the results I wanted so does it matter?

Blessings



Debbie

I am Grumpy.

Very grumpy.

I had noticed that a couple of my facebook groups were missing from my feed.  I wasn't overly active in either group so it wasn't a big deal, but I was bored so I went looking for them.  I couldn't find them at all.  I hadn't just been booted from the groups, I had also been blocked.

That's not something you could say was a facebook glitch, that requires someone to go out of their way to tick a few boxes.

As I had been more of a lurker than someone who comments anything controversial in both of these groups, I was more confused.  I couldn't have said anything that upset anyone, since I hadn't said anything at all in either group for weeks.

I reached out to one of the admins from one of the groups to find out why.  I wasn't certain if I cared enough to rejoin the group, but I was curious about my removal.

That admin did some digging and came back to tell me I had some haters that claimed I was trying to shut down groups.  I was banned and blocked because of that, without anyone coming to ask me what the story was.  She went on to ask if I'd heard of a certain person, let's call her Ms W, who was the second in command in a very large group.  I had never heard of Ms W and I have had nothing whatsoever to do with that group since the previous (late) owner went on a massive power trip and spent a lot of time and energy hunting down people by their associations and trying to have them banned from everywhere.

She told me that Ms W had posted all about me in a group specifically for admins and mods of pagan groups.  I admin several pagan groups, I applied to join.

I was accepted and fairly quickly found the post.  Up to that point, I had assumed that I was only one of the accused and that it was really about a plagiarism and copyright theft watchdog group I'm a member of.  Apparently it wasn't.  The post started with my profile picture, a link to my profile page, claims that I got a group or two shut down by reporting copyright violations and warnings to be careful of me.

Now if I'd done it, I wouldn't have an issue.  Shit yeah, boot me for standing up for the authors who you are stealing from, you miserable pieces of filth.  I'd be owning it and damned proud.

But I didn't.

I only heard of these groups after they'd been shut down.

The first came to my attention when someone in one of my groups asked if anyone knew what had happened to it.  I went looking and found a new incarnation (the third as it turns out).  I went back and shared the link with the person who'd been looking.

Another friend was already in this new incarnation of the group and they sent me screenshots of their files section.  Eight pages of screenshots.  The files section contained lots and lots of pdf copies of books that were still under copyright. 

So I passed this on to the watchdog group.  There are plenty of authors and people from publishers in there.  If they saw their work, they could request its removal and report it if that didn't happen.  My part was done.

A lot of people don't seem to understand that only the copyright owner can take action of any kind.  They are the only person who has the right and ability to say "this is mine and you do not have permission to be distributing it".  They are the only person who can file a report for copyright violations, on facebook and anywhere else on the internet.  They are the only person who can file a DMCA and have a website taken down.

For me to report copyright violations, it would have to be all my own work.  I have written only one book and had one piece included in an anthology. 

It takes more than one report for facebook to take action like this.  It takes multiple reports before they'll look closer and decide you're clearly a problem and repeat offender.

Through circumstances in which I was merely a spectator, the files in the new group were removed.  Great.  Issue resolved. 

The other group only came to my attention when someone posted about them in the watchdog group.  The owner of the second group was a member of the watchdog group and was called out about his so called Library.  He made his group secret and blocked the admins of the watchdog group.  This got him booted from the group.  But not before he'd gone through the entire membership of that group and individually blocked all the members. 

Well, he must have missed some because I know of at least one who is still in his group.  I've seen more screenshots of the paranoia he's taken to the new group, individually interviewing each new member before they're allowed in.

So here are two groups that I apparently had shut down by reporting copyright theft to facebook.  Copyrights I had no right or ability to report.  Groups I had no knowledge of and had never heard of until after they'd been reported.

So I commented on the post naming me in this Admin group.  This post that had apparently been doing the rounds of admin groups for a couple of weeks.  I rather politely (given the circumstances) defended myself.  I pointed out that only the copyright holder could report these things.

My comments were liked by some of that group's Admins.  I read through the rest of the group.

It appeared that an accusation of some kind of wrong-doing was all that was required for many of these admins to remove you from their own individual groups.  I saw one case that included proof and that was pretty awful.  The rest were "This person did that in my group" with a link to their profile.  This was then followed by various claims of "Eww, I recommend empaths and sensitives don't go and look" or "Thanks, removed from my group".

Gossip and rumour were that was needed for these people to decide to remove someone from their groups.  No kind of proof was provided or needed most of the time.  Hearsay is enough for hanging.

I noticed a subthread going on in the thread about me, but I was having problems opening it to see what was being said.  I kept getting messages that said "Something has gone wrong.  Please try again later."

It took some time, (I think there was some kind of weird glitch on my phone that made it seem stranger,) but I discovered I'd been removed from this group and blocked.  My friends had been removed from the group and blocked.  One commented on the thread and managed to get a screenshot before she was removed and blocked.  My comments where I defended myself had been deleted.

Somewhat ironically, the friend that got screenshots, posted on her page to warn people about this group.  The first comment was from someone else saying the first group was absolutely shut down for illegal pdfs.  She'd emailed several authors and publishers herself and sent them links to that group.  It's a public post, anyone who chooses to stalk her profile can see all of it.  I'm really hoping that someone is going to go looking.

This is the type of person that is running many facebook groups.  They aren't interested in finding out the truth of an issue, they'll believe anything of anybody.  The more salacious, the better.  They're happy to believe the worst without proof.  I'll lay money that they're the ones who require "negative" people leave their bad vibes at the doors of their respective groups too.

What I find even worse is that I'm a problem for wanting copyright laws respected.  If these groups weren't breaking the law they would have nothing at all to worry about, even if I was the person doing the reporting.

This is a very sad state of affairs.  The so-called leaders in these groups are childish gossips, looking for an opportunity to see the worst in their membership, sharing hearsay and rumours and finding more fault in wanting to uphold the law than in breaking it.

This has left me with quite a sour taste in my mouth.  I am disappointed in the Pagan community for allowing this and most of all, I am grumpy.

I am very grumpy.

Bread magic

While doing some research for something else today, I came across a reference to Bread magic.  There was one small example, but nothing more.

That example was blessed bread broken into quarters and placed in the corners of a barn to protect the stored crops.

There was so much more that could have been suggested under this heading, so many ideas that I have and things others have spoken about.  Why was this not included?  So I have chosen to address that lack.

Bread in History and Culture

Bread (in various forms) has long been used in ritual and religious ceremony as well as having strong cultural meanings.  The word companion comes from Latin com - "with" and panis - "bread".  In Central and Eastern Europe, offering guests bread and salt is part of a welcoming ceremony and has been written about in plenty of medieval culture fiction books as a way of ensuring guest rights and responsibilities.

The phrase "to break bread" with someone is commonly used to describe not just a meal shared but also a sense of camaraderie, of meaningful connection, of friendships formed or maintained.

In Abrahamic religions, bread has significance.  From eating Matzo at Passover to the bread of the Eucharist, bread features strongly.  In Islam, bread is representative of all food in general.  In Ancient Egypt, bread was left as offerings to Gods and ancestors as well as being symbolic of all food.

In many Pagan Traditions, bread is a common offering for Gods, spirits and ancestors.  It's sometimes part of the cakes and ale commonly at the end of ritual.

Making Bread

The process of making bread has so many opportunities for magical work.  Getting the yeast started and frothy - a wish could be made or a purpose declared with the sugar and yeast and visualised as growing with the froth and bubbles.

I find kneading my dough to be quite a meditative process even when I'm not adding magic.  So using it for raising energy seems like an obvious step.

Shaping the dough is where, for me, the magic really comes to life.  Someone has hurt you?  A bread poppet, possibly stuffed with other things, then left out for the birds to peck to bits.  Want to draw something to you?  Shape the dough into a sigil or representation of what you want to bring into your life.  Consuming the bread is bringing it more literally into your life and yourself.  The possibilities for this are limited only by your imagination.  Make a protective sigil out of bread, varnish it and keep it stored forever.  Create a blessing for your crops and bury it in your garden.  Some healing magic? Add some beneficial (and culinary) herbs to your dough and eat your way to good health - or gift it to someone who needs it.

Lammas

We can't forget Lammas, quite literally a Bread Festival as Lammas comes from Loaf Mass.  Although it was originally tied to the first grain harvest, for many who are not in an agricultural setting, Lammas is all about baking bread and breaking bread.  Many modern pagans have their own bread recipes and associated bread magic for Lammas.

There are often bread recipes offered for each Sabbat on many blogs, websites and in books.  Many seem to have little association with the Sabbat except perhaps in some subtle way known only to whoever is publishing it.  That said, I would still encourage trying the recipes and seeing if they work for you.

Have some fun with bread and use your imagination!

Blessings




Debbie