Practical Witchcraft: Dirt Poor Witchcraft - Stealth Altars and Shrines.

 Dear Reader,

Sometimes we find ourselves in places hostile to our religion. And yet we wish to have an icon and a small place set aside for worship. Being a bit crafty you can create everything from a portable altar to a portable shrine (as I have pictured here devoted to Freyr-Ingvi).

I'm not a big fan of stealth altars and shrines but I recognize the necessity of them and I have used them in the past when it was necessary. Candy tins and diminutive boxes are excellent tools for this sort of project. With a little craft paper, you can line the inside of the box with designs you associate with the deity or spirit in question. ModPodge is a popular adhesive used for these projects but I find it dries to fast for me to position things just right. Arleen's Craft Glue is less expensive and has just about the same versatility as ModPodge. If you're looking for a serious business method of securing things in the box, don't go with super glue because it may destroy your project. Use judicious amounts of hot glue.

Some people want to have an icon in their shrine/altar box. String dolls are an excellent way and sometimes you accidentally capture the essence of traditional figures of the deity or spirit in question. That penis shaped portion of the string doll of Freyr was entirely unintentional. I still don't know how it appeared. The choice of yarn color for the string doll was based on what I had at hand. You can be guided by traditional correspondences or your personal associations for color if you have the luxury of a range of colors available.

The most important part of a stealth shrine or altar is making sure that it can close discreetly, fit where ever you need it, and that you have all your supplies for it inside, neatly tucked away so it will close.

The devotional Scripture embroidery project is complete!

 Dear Reader,

This embroidery project was a great way to meditate on the meaning of the quote. It also did a wonderful job of helping me keep my temper when my sons were stressing me out. On my Tumblr post, I described all the stitches and the thread I used. I will spare you that level of detail. 

I believe this will be the first in a series of quotes that I will embroider. I have a habit of making samplers. This sort of came out like on with the different stitches used on different areas of the project. I think, however, I will make a legitimate sampler in an antique style for one of my quotes. 

Right now, I am busy working on gifts for Yule/Nativity. I knit so slowly, I worry if I'm going to get my eldest son's sweater done. And then there's the holiday baking to be done for the first time in years. I think I figured out some diabetic friendly cookie recipes.

Practical Witchcraft: Dirt Poor Witchcraft - Offerings

 Dear Reader,

Offerings are a big deal. They are part of the glue that keeps the relationship between you and the spiritual beings in your life chugging along. There's a lot of competition between folks who post pics of their altars as to who is giving the best offerings and such. There is also a great deal of unverified personal gnosis that is flying around the community as to who likes what offerings and dislikes what other offerings. Don't let all of this talk discourage you.

While offerings are a big deal, they don't have to be expensive, brand name, or luxurious. They can be simple, humble, and as mundane as a shiny stone you saw that reminded you of Them. One of the most common offerings when one is on a tight budget is water. Some may scoff at water being an appropriate offering. For millennia, potable water just couldn't be had. This is why so many ancient cultures brewed up things like beer, mead, and wine. Yes, there was alcohol but the alcohol in it was what made the water safe to drink.

Your Mesopotamian spirit friend may be quite bored with beer, as it was their everyday beverage. Giving a glass of clean water would be a delightful change of pace for them. Offering common modern beverages is also an option. Popular rumor has it that Loki enjoys an occasional bit of Mountain Dew. It doesn't have to be a special wine glass or something you inherited from your great grandmother's china to serve it in. It can be in a mini-plastic cup (they're basically shot glasses but don't call 'em that).

Breads of many forms are staples of offerings. This doesn't have to be the case. You can put out some cookies, bake some biscuits, or make an extra serving of oatmeal in the morning. Indeed, you can put a small portion of your meal aside for Them. Don't go too far and sacrifice your health in order to express you affection and devotion. Your spiritual companions want to see you doing well and as healthy as you can be. This leads to a third option in giving food or drink. Dedicate your first bite/sip to your spiritual companions. For people who come from a Christian background, this may be a bit awkward at first. 

If you have been raised in a custom where you ask the Divine to bless your meal, you can compose a blessing dedicating the meal to your spiritual companions to be said (whispered or thought) over the meal before you eat.

My First Question that the Opera Omnia couldn't answer.

 Dear Reader,

I have spent months reading, researching, and attempting to make sense of a single line from the teaching in the Clear Recital : The Three Loves. I have discovered this teaching is missing from the Gospel of Our Mother God. I have found that it is present in all other versions of the Clear Recital, including the one I was head editor on. At the time I was working on the Children of Déa version of the Clear Recital, I was focused on improving language and format. I and my team did our very best to include as much of our research into the book. 

One can imagine my surprise as I was reading the CDV's version of the Three Loves and I came upon this line.

And rightfully it has been said that your soul shall be placed in the balance against a feather, and if the beam tip even by a fraction are you condemned. CDV: The Three Loves, Verse46; Page 104, lines 4-8

I immediately sought my other copies of the Clear Recital. Word for word, this line was present in each copy except for the Gospel of Our Mother God. I then turned to the Opera Omina for some form of exposition upon this line. I found nothing to help me interpret it in either volume. This was a large disappointment. I then began looking through the digital library of the Society for Filianic Studies via the Wayback Machine internet archive. I found a great deal of discourse about politics but little about theology and nothing to clarify this line.

Thus I was forced to sit in contemplation and try to puzzle out the answer to the questions that arose from this line. These questions are:

1. Who places our souls in this scale?
   
2. Which direction of the beam tipping are we facing damnation?
   
3. Who judges this scale?
   
4. How does this condemnation/damnation effect our eternal rescue from Khear by the Daughter?

I have thought long and hard on these questions. I chose the word damnation in this post because, to be honest it is a very functional synonym for what is expressed here. I have no answers for these questions. I have prayed over this line for many days and all I find is a sloppy connection to ancient Egyptian mythos and the weighing of the heart. The feather belongs to Maat, the goddess of justice. Anubis, the god of the dead presided over the weighing. And Thoth recorded the results. If the heart was filled with good the scales would be equal. If the heart was filled with evil, the scale would tip towards the heart. And the soul would be given to Ammut, who would eat them, for they were not the blessed (good) dead who would go to live with Osiris in paradise.

This requires deeper thought and raises more questions. Like why did the foremothers of the faith choose this connection when there had already been an established system for what happens when you die.

Searching for answers.

Dear Reader,

I have decided to re-read the Opera Omnia in an effort to answer some questions that have come up in my regular reading of the Clear Recital. I've cross referenced all the editions I have on a number of quotes, there are some variations in how the things that bewilder me are phrased but nothing more to clarify the sections that keep me asking questions.

So, I am going to chew my way through the Opera Omnia again to specifically look for answers to my questions. I suspect that there will be nothing satisfactory. I, however, am in a gloomy mood and Déa will provide guidance.

As I meditate and pray, I will be working on my latest design for embroidery. It is a quote from the Clear Recital (can be found in all versions). I am not satisfied with how my lettering came out so uneven, but writing on fabric is hard. The color I'm using for the lettering is DMC's 798.
 

An update.

 Dear Reader,

The last several days have been super busy and I haven't had a chance to update the blog (or work on my NaNoWriMo project). Turkey day week is always chaotic. I always forget that fact. I will do my best to get back into my regular posting on various topics. If you are shopping for a Filianist in your life (or for yourself as a treat) I have several books out along that vein. You might want to start with the first one that I put out in 2014, Rose Petals: A Filianic Psalter. If you're shopping for a Heathen (or, more specifically a Lokean) in your life, I have a new book out. It is The Veiled Witch's Ritual Book, Vol. 2: A Lokean Devotional. The Lokean devotional gives detailed instructions for building a person relationship with Loki, the Norse God of Mischief.

I thank you for your consideration of possibly picking up a copy of something I have written. And I thank you for your continued readership. As we march forward into the holiday season, I hope that you all find great joy and many blessings. I'm going to do my best to keep up through the chaos of the holidays. Post may be a bit shorter than usual. I apologize for the brevity in advance. Finding time to write is getting a little hairy this time of year.

Print Lokean Devotional is Live!

 Dear Reader,

The print edition of the Lokean Devotional that I wrote is live. It whipped through the review process a lot faster than I expected. There is a bunch more material in the print version. I also hint at something that I'm going to be writing over the course of next year and the year after (because I've got a whole ton of things to go over and get set up for being in hardcover format). I'm still working my way through my list of book topics. There's a bunch of stuff in the works, but I finally got this one finished up for you. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful.

♥

Baby Steps: Continuing work on Sacred Texts

 Dear Reader,

I have just finished mashing together the three existent versions of the Clear Recital that I could get my hands on. I have completed my first round of line edits and I need a cup of tea. On one hand, it was fairly easy work because 98% of all three documents agreed with each other. That made me feel a bit redundant and silly as I was working. On the other hand, the language used in each of the texts was heavy and difficult to read in various different sections. 

So, I have been spending my time editing to make things easier to read, weeding out typos, and correcting some stylistic elements (that I hope were stylistic elements and not horrific grammar in a few cases) so that the entire text flows better. I will be taking the liberty of putting the Holy Mythos as its own 'book' and then the Teachings of the Daughter as its own 'book'. I am seriously debating removing the parables at the end of the Teachings of the Daughter and inserting them at the beginning.

On one hand, rearranging the order of the texts with out making major change to the content is a fairly minor process. Each person who has sat down to work on the Clear Recital has had to make decisions as to how to order the wisdom texts. The more I think about it, placing the parables closer to the beginning helps the work flow from the Holy Mythos more clearly into the Teachings of the Daughter. I know that one thing I am going to make sure I do is put the Sermon of the Apple Seed first. Probably then the parable of The Child followed by the Foolish Maiden. I know that the Crystal Tablet needs to be paired with the Pillar of Light to make sense.

I'm still working on this. I'm not sure when exactly I'll have this complete. I just finished my first line edits of the work as it stands right now. I haven't really reorganized anything yet in the wisdom texts. I'm still determining the most logical way they flow from one into the other.

From Consideration to Contemplation: A Process.

 Dear Reader,

When one is confronted with holy mysteries, it is easy to gloss over them when you cannot see their connection to daily life. Sometimes, we just shrug and say "It's a mystery and beyond our ability to comprehend." Other times, we proverbially cover our eyes and whistle past them, trying not to be unsettled by what they might mean if we looked directly at them. It is an easy path to acknowledge holy mysteries but not reflect upon their role within our faith, whatever that faith might be.

It is when we move from considering them on the holy days to contemplating them through out our days that we move deeper into faith. We begin by considering their meaning at the times that are fitting. For a Wiccan, the holy mystery of the Great Rite may become a topic of thought around the time of the Full Moon, when that faith typically celebrates it. For a Filianic or Déanic believer, the holy mystery of the Daughter's death and resurrection may become a topic of thought around the time of high holy day of Eastre. For a Christian, the holy mystery of the birth of Jesus of Nazereth may become a topic of thought around the time of their high holy day of Christmas. Regardless of your faith, there are mysteries associated with days and seasons. It is easier to consider them during those days and seasons because there are reminders about us.

More challenging is to consider the holy mysteries when there are fewer reminders immediately present. Still, with discipline and practice, one can build up a habit of thinking about the holy mysteries in relationship to their own life. One can recognize the cycles of the holy mysteries reflected in their lives and become a participant in those mysteries. For some, this is done by way of ritual prayer such as the rosary. For others, this is done by way of devotional reading and journalwork. Yet still others move along a path that blends both together.

Consideration is the act of observing the mystery and how it moves in your world. Contemplation is built upon a foundation of consideration. Contemplation is the act of engaging the mystery and how you move within it. It is changing the frame of reference from external to internal, from an event to a personal experience. As life is ever changing, the process of contemplation of the same mystery at different times evokes different experiences. Most people are comfortable with consideration. It is a depth of relationship with the Divine that allows them to percieve greater independence from the Divine. This is a socially encouraged attitude within the U.S. because our overculture places great emphasis upon "rugged individuality". Contemplation, however, opens one up to see that they are connected with the Divine through the holy mysteries and connected with the world through the same mysteries. This can be uncomfortable and it can make life complicated.

There is, however, a unique reward to engaging in contemplation. The deeper relationship that one has with the Divine, the more that relationship becomes a two-way relationship. The contemplative relationship enables one to see where the Divine is manifest in the world and the gifts offered by the Divine to the devotee. This is the first step upon the path of the mystic. A mystic is not some elevated being wrapped in human flesh. They are but a person engaged in a deeply personal and powerful relationship with the Divine. While not everyone can have the relationship that a mystic does because it runs counter to their temperment, they can still build a personal relationship with the Divine that brings them comfort and strength during times of difficulty. All it takes is contemplation.

Virtual Worship Space 1/3

Dear Reader,

As a friend of mine noted, virtual worship spaces have existed for a significant time now. They've been used by members of worship communities that are separated by physical distance and scheduling problems. It is a modern construct that should be embraced, especially during the time of COVID-19. It is different in functionality and nature as each group that uses a virtual worship space can be.

In some ways, the use of a virtual worship space has been present for a longer time than the Internet. The theater of the mind allows us to reach out to and connect with the Divine. This is not the realm of pure imagination, though imagination has a place for setting the stage. We move through the realm of imagination into a place that is somewhere between within ourselves and without. In that liminal space of the soul, one might build constructs that have an impact upon reality for they resonate with the mind and body, just as one harp string plucked will resonate with other more distant strings on the instrument.

In previous posts, I have spoken of such constructs of a specific form. The Egregore and Servitor are constructs of this liminal space built for accomplishing deeds and creating changes in reality. There is another form of construct one may create. The spectral worship space that one may envision and focus their energy into bringing into being within that liminal place between within ourselves and without is the specific construct I wish to discuss.

Within Filianism, this is known as the Temple of the Heart. The theology of Filianism places great importance upon the Temple of the Heart and stresses that it is difficult to reach for the untrained mind and soul. It is also stressed that it is difficult to reach because of the thorns of khear that separate us from the Holy One. However, also expressed in the theology of Filianism is that within us are vast spaces where we might build constructs for worship or other purposes.

This is not very different from what I was taught early on in my education in witchcraft. Through focused meditation, one might create within themselves something of an antechamber where they might encounter the Holy. It might be envisioned as a gothic cathedral, a forest grove, or something so fantastic that the world has not yet seen it. Through meditation we enter into this antechamber and may make ourselves known to the Holy. If the Temple of the Heart is the doorway into Déa's presence, this constructed place of worship is a window where we might look upon that doorway and see that it is ajar, waiting for us to arrive.

Rites and rituals conducted within this construct of the mind and spirit are as legitimate as rites and rituals conducted upon the physical plane. It is possible to celebrate a great many different forms of worship here, some that would be impossible in the physical plane. Keeping a journal of one's prayer experiences may allow one to identify themes in their worship patterns and a record of what their prayer life is like.

Through a collective group meditation upon such an antechamber of the Holy, one may experience the presence of others where the spiritual realms touch the mental ones in this liminal place. Doing so at a synchronized time with a recorded guide that allows all people to participate can make for a powerful experience.

An Excerpt for the Ritual Book, Vol. 1 - Filianic Rituals and Rites

Dear Reader,

While my training and education as a priestess is from a Wiccan and neo-pagan position, I did a great deal of research into Christian and Catholic Christian devotionals in the process of writing this book. The profession of devotion to Dea that is given in this volume of the Ritual Book is actually an adaptation of a profession of life long devotion to Mary. The version presented in the book is designed to be facilitated by clergy but it does not require clergy to be effective.

For a solitary vow of perpetual devotion, the following may be recited before one's shrine. Prior to making the recitation, it would be advised to have some manner of garment or jewelry that would be worn as an outward sign of the vow to serve as a visual reminder of one's vow and special bond with Dea. Head covering is a common outward sign of devotion but in cases where that is not possible, a special article of jewelry such as a necklace, bracelet, or ring.

The vow:

My Queen and my Mother,
I give myself entirely to you.
And to show my devotion to you,
I consecrate to you this day my heart,
my spirit, and my whole being without reserve.
Therefore, good Mother,
As I am entirely your own,
keep me, guard me, as your treasured child.

After making the vow, retrieve the items placed upon the shrine and put them on. Spend some time in contemplation of the vow and your special relationship with Dea.

Devotion while depressed.

Dear Reader,

Some days, devotional worship comes easily. You feel that connection with the Divine clearly and your devotional activities come easily to you. No one talks about the days where devotional worship is really very hard. Days when you are sick, stressed out, or just 'too busy' to do what you expect for devotional worship happen more often than we'd like. In some cases, we just don't feel like there is any point to it because it feels like we're just going through the motions.

Building a devotional relationship is like training for a marathon. It takes a long time to reach that marathon level of practice. It starts with small motions and focused attention on what you are doing. Watching my Beloved train for his first marathon was an interesting experience. He couldn't just go out and start running. He had to learn how to stretch and prepare for running. He had to start with walking the distance and work his way up to running it. Then he had to keep running until he built up the endurance to run that marathon.

It is important to keep in mind, not everyone can run a marathon the same way. There are people who make record time consistently. There are people who wind up walking most of the way. And there are some who can only make part of the run and have to be helped across the finish line. Now, one may ask me how this metaphor holds up when we are talking about devotional relationships with the Divine.

First, everyone has different levels of devotion as their goals. Second, everyone has different levels of devotion they can accomplish at a given time. Thirdly, these levels change overtime, sometimes even on a daily basis. When you are in a state where you can not reach your devotional goals for the day, week, month, or year, it is very discouraging. This disparity between goals and what you can accomplish for the given time is often the reason why many give up on having a devotional relationship.

As a person who struggles with depression and low energy/spoons on a regular basis, I have learned a few things over the years since my diagnosis. The first thing I learned is that I have to accept that I have limits. These limits are not a sign of moral weakness or laziness. They are simply limits just like a box has confined limits for what can be placed in them and how much weight they can hold. This was a very difficult lesson for me to learn and I still struggle with it, to be honest.

The second thing I learned is that the Divine knows and accepts that I have limits. It takes a considerable amount of humility to say that the Divine knows and accepts that I have limits. We are often goaded by our pride to say that we must do 'better' and say that we must do 'better for ...' the Divine, people in our lives, our employers or any number of others who we say we must exceed our limits for. But what is really pushing us to do 'better' when we're not at peak performance is our pride (and possibly a heap of anxiety if you're like me). It's scary and awkward to say that Zeus, for example, recognizes and accepts that you are a human being who can't give offerings every day or engage in daily prayer because of life circumstances.

The over culture teaches us that if we can't do these things all the time, we are some how in the wrong. This is entirely inaccurate. The Divine is well aware of our limitations (more so than we are ourselves in many cases) and interacts with us on the basis of where the Divine can meet us where we are at. This brings me to the third point that I have learned in having an active devotional life even when I am unwell, everyone's devotional life and devotional practices look different, even within the same religion.

On days when I am so depressed that doing the bare minimum to keep the household from collapsing under its on weight is too exhausting, all I may manage is to mumble a few prayers or just to think of the gods. On days when I am hypomanic and I can't focus enough to get through my prayer routines, I more or less do the same thing. Same for when I last had the flu and was sleeping pretty much all day and didn't even so much as look at my altar the time I was sick. The Divine does not want us to push ourselves to the point where we can not function, they will forgive us for forgetting to say our prayers properly or forgetting them all together. It is our greater struggle within ourselves to have that level of understanding and forgiveness.

An Explanation of Sayings.

Dear Reader,

It gladdens my heart that many of you are finding A Year with Dea to be of use and comfort to you. There is a question that has arisen about the sayings that I have quoted that are not canonical. While I have included a reference to the text those sayings are contained in, I think it better that I tell you the story of them in addition to what you can find in Drowning in Light.

I have had visions of Dea since I was young. My experiences with her have been confusing at times but always a comfort. My first vision happened September of 1991. I went to the woods to meditate, for I was still learning this practice and the woods was where I could escape the distractions of my parents' house. A vision came over me. I was in a place of white light. The light emanated from something so bright it blinded me. I vaguely saw a female shape but the light was so brilliant that I couldn't look on it to see her features. A voice filled the air. It spoke my name and I felt like I was in a ringing bell. The air vibrated and I could feel the vibration from that voice fill me. When my vision returned, I was no longer sitting against the tree but rather laying flat on the ground as though I prostrated myself before something.

I didn't speak of my vision to anyone. I knew that my parents would be hostile towards me for it and accuse me of making things up. I was twelve and afraid of the reaction anyone would have had towards me for it. The household I grew up in did not consider the supernatural as more than anything for a laugh and cheap movie tricks, at best. A few weeks later, in late October, I was again in the woods behind my parents' house. A voice filled the air. It was a sweet sounding female voice. It called my name and I looked around to see who could possibly be there. Then, before I could call out to see if anyone was present, the voice said to me, "All who believe are kin." In that moment, I knew that I was having some kind of spiritual experience. For the voice that spoke had the same feeling of being within a bell as happened with my first vision of her. I ran home, frightened that I was in some manner of trouble for even having an experience that my upbringing had so firmly denied.

The statement echoed. It echoed in ways that did not make sense to me at that age, not knowing much of anything about anything religious at all. Still, I looked at the different faiths in the world and saw how they were all related. I saw how everyone who had faith were somehow kin to each other, including they who had nihilistic beliefs, for they had faith in their own beliefs. Somehow, I didn't understand it, but somehow the capacity for faith had made us all kin.

Recurring dreams of a woman of queenly bearing in white and blue happened for months. In these dreams, she held flowers and walked in a garden more lovely then I had ever seen on Earth. She was always dressed as a great queen of the high middle ages. I struggled to understand the fact I kept having this dream. At the same time, I was in the midst of my early spiritual training as a witch. Thus, meditation was a thing I practiced daily and I kept a detailed journal of what came of it, as I did of my dreams as well. I came to the conclusion that the Lady in my dreams was a goddess of some kind. (At this time, I was unfamiliar with Catholicism and only had a vague concept that Mary was revered by them. For all my fascination with the middle ages, I was more interested in the stories of knights wooing their loves than I was with the era. After all, I was twelve.)

It was in the midst of all of these dreams and my confusion that I had my second vision of Dea. It was late November. I had gone off to the woods with out my parent's permission and in secret (and rather recklessly, I confess now for it was at the beginning of hunting season) to meditate where I had my first vision. It was chilly and the poplar leaves were on the ground now instead of a few up in the trees still. I was in a garden filled with flowers. At the center of the garden there was a noble Lady. She held lilies in her right hand and roses in her left. A silver circlet was on her brow. She wore a white wimple and veil. Her gown was a dark blue, almost cobalt in color. She held out the flowers to me and said, “Come, my chosen daughter.”

When it had passed and I hastened home, my mother complained that I stank of roses, as though I had bathed in perfume. I hadn't any perfume and the distance from where I had been to my parents' kitchen should have been enough to have muted the scent just because of the wind blowing. I didn't say anything of the vision because my mother was already irate that I smelled as I did and I was fairly sure I was going to be punished if I said anything that sounded strange to her.

Over the years, through out my education and studies, I sought to find and know the Lady who had claimed me as I sat in a grove of winter-ready poplar trees on a hillside. It lead me through many different paths and many different ways. In the progress of it all, I discovered that the Lady was not the only deity out there who took interest in me. But, she was always there. Always. At one point, I thought perhaps I was to become Christian and that was the meaning of this all. Then I had the confusing "It's not you, it's me," conversation with Jesus, where he said I was very clearly not one of his people, though I was a very nice and good person.

Filianism made itself known to me in 2005. I was at a dark place in my life and said that it clearly couldn't be the right path. After all, I had all of these OTHER gods around me and I deal with spirits and the dead. I was a witch, how could I be of that faith and be one at the same time, right? Filianism continued to come up as a theme time and again. When I started this blog, I finally stopped avoiding what was right in front of me.

I am a seer. Dea or perhaps one of the other gods, I honestly don't know, has given me this gift. Sometimes it seems a curse because what I see is so tragic. Sometimes I feel as though I'm going crazy. For a time, I honestly thought that my spiritual experiences simply had to be my imagination running away with me or perhaps hallucinations. Until I started having hallucinations, which was horrific. My spiritual experiences didn't go away with the hallucinations. They became the lifeline that helped me endure them until I hit a point of absolute crisis.

I'm on medication now for my psychological illnesses. One would logically expect for these spiritual experiences to cease when they are on high doses of antipsychotic medication for an extended period of time. They have not. They continue with a good degree of regularity, waxing and waning with the seasons in some cases. In others, they're just random and daily. But the sayings in the book I published and that I referenced in my other book, they have been said to me by Dea and the angels.

I am humbled by them. I am guided by them. And, I live in some degree of holy awe of them. My relationships with Dea and the angels is different from my relationships with Loki and Freyr. Dea is my mother, my Lady, and the source of all wisdom. From her all of my other loves stem. But, Dea claimed me as her priestess an a cool autumn day when I was hiding from my parents and siblings, giving me a place of refuge for my spirit that I was desperately seeking.

Gemstones and the Janyati

What I have been working on today. Compiling a list of stones and their associations with the janyati for use in beading devotional jewelry. My notes are all over the place and I've only a partial list. You will find that there are stones with meanings that overlap and stones that are shared between different janyati. I find it interesting how many are associated with Sai Raya and Sai Vikhë. This is the table I'm working on for the rosary book's section on how to construct one. This is but a partial list. I expect the table in the book to be larger. I will likely be reorganizing it by the names of the stones in alphabetical order. But, this is a work in progress.

Stone	Meaning & Janya
Quartz, clear	Calming, Sai Candre
Citrine	Warming, Sai Raya
Quartz, smokey	Grounding, Sai Rhavë
Diamond	Clarifying, Sai Raya, Sai Thamë
Quartz, rose	Love, Sai Thamë, Sai Sushuri
Hematite	Grounding and courage, Sai Rhavë, Sai Vikhë
Blood stone	Vitality, Sai Vikhë
Pearl	Peace, Sai Candre, Sai Sushuri
Agate	Protection, Sai Vikhë
Goldstone	Prosperity, Sai Raya
Onyx	Protection, Sai Vikhë, Sai Rhavë
Amythest	Clarity of thought, Sai Thamë, Sai Mati
Garnet	Courage, Sai Vikhë
Topaz	Wisdom, Sai Mati
Zircon	Spiritual growth, all janyati

As seen on my Tumblr account

Photo by JUAN CARLOS LEVA from Pexels

Observe the Holy Child turns from the Mother towards the fallen. So it is that love flows outward from the very beginning of the Holy Child’s days. Blessed are we upon whom the Holy Child gazes upon with mercy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I have been thinking about devotional lives. Not everyone is called to a life of solitude and prayer. But there are many who are called to devote themselves to their deities. I think that the deities turn towards us even as we turn towards them. That the devotional life is a life of communication and communion with the divine. And I think that is beautiful and should be embraced in all communities. Because the people who go to the divine come back to the community with wonders to share because of their special relationship.

Psychic Life: A Sketch and some Ramblings.

I had this post typed up and then all the text got eaten when I tried to save it. Here is a sketch of Loki that is in progress. It is on 50 lb weight paper. I used mechanical no. 2 pencil and prismacolor pens (brush and .005mm tip). I plan on filling in with colored pencils. I have a box of them in a wide array of colors from a wide array of brands (some going back to the 80s and the company is out of business). I drew this last night after getting frustrated with writing and attempting to be social on the internet. I felt like everything I was doing was going wrong. Loki told me to draw a picture, so I started this. I kinda felt a bit better about the world after that. (Please forgive my youngest's photobomb. He does this every time I go to take a picture.)

Loki and Freyr have been having some serious conversations with me. They revolve around the fact that I am not cured of my depression despite the fact that I'm beginning to feel better. Some of the conversations have been warning me not to place too high of a set of expectations and demands on myself. Some of the conversations have been encouraging me to get back to doing things that I love, like drawing. And there have been a great deal of 'If this doesn't start to get better soon, you really need to bring it up with your doctors.'

My ancestors have also been quite vocal over the last few weeks. They are telling me that I seriously need to get back into practicing magic on an everyday basis, as I did in the past. The argument is that it is going to give the extra push to help change my situation for the better because I'm accomplishing the best I can by pure willpower and mundane means. My familial ancestors have been exhorting me to not give up on improving my health and to continue to focus on things like exercise and stable blood sugar (which they say will help get some more of my bipolar issues under control and make it easier for me to sleep at night).

My spiritual ancestors have been pushing me to finish projects I started years ago and abandoned mostly completed because I was depressed. Mostly, these have been writing projects. some of them, however, are embroidery ones that I completely forgot I had. Embroidery was one of the first connections I felt to my ancestors. It seems fitting that I'm being exhorted to engage in it again as a devotional activity as well as a way to pray my anxiety away.

Sacred Text Transcription Project.

Dear Reader,

I am at work on a project that I know will interest you. I am making a handwritten transcription of The Gospel of Our Mother God. I'm presently at work on copying over the holy mythos of the Daughter. The book I am using for this has room for me also transcribe at least one other version of the sacred texts of the Filianic/Déanic faith.

My goals with this project are two fold.First, it is a meditative act of devotion. Secondly, it is for me to make notes comparing the different versions of the texts. I'd like to eventually have as full of a set of text variations as I can acquire and copy. This is a desire of mine because I want to study the texts as deeply as I can and I want to cross reference the different variations and, if possible, come up with an annotated set of texts that I can study when I hit a quandary in life.

I have decided on a red hard bound book for this project with archival quality paper and I have been using pens with archival quality ink. When I have filled this book up, I will be recopying it with pen and ink onto a blank book with archival quality paper and illuminating it. I expect this to be a very much long term project. I am thinking about making pages with black-work (embroidery technique) like ornamentation and reserving color for miniature figures and such. This part of the project, however, is still in the idea stage. The initial transcription into the red book is where my focus right now lies.

Blessings upon you and yours.

♥