Support Your Local Pagan Shop!!!

Hey, I know times are tough but the Pagan shop in your area is a hub of community service and connection so I am just putting out there to please check your local pagan shop first before ordering something like sage or incense online. 

PLEASE!!

Cobleskill, NY: The Broom Closet, 554 E Main St, Cobleskill, NY 12043

Troy, NY: Hippies, Witches and Gypsies, 33 2nd St, Troy, NY 12180

Morrigan: An Introduction

You would think that with Lughnasadh coming (Lammas), coming in a few weeks I would want to initially post about the god Lugh, but I will get to that holiday soon enough. Instead, as usual these days, I am called by Morrigan to stay with my attention focused on her and the strength she is giving me to fight my own battles, internal and external.

Morrigan is an amazing goddess with a complicated history. She is woman, through and through. Maiden, Mother and Crone, she appears as a Crow or in one of her triple Goddess forms. She has been connected to Macha, Badh, and Danu, but is also whispered to have come even before Anu. 

  She has always been a battle goddess and a goddess of death, but as pagans, we must always remember that death is nothing to fear, simply a transition to a new way of being as energy cannot be destroyed. In this day and age, on many continents, we have less cattle thievery and clan war, but we are also always at war as a nation. This goddess fills me with the wish to go to those places where war is happening and put an end to it so innocent people are no longer hurt.

  But she is also the goddess of the little battles and the strength that women in particular need to get through the day and fight those battles inside and outside. 

  Her crows are a symbol of death but also a symbol of divination that she gives and I receive happily through my tarot cards. Remember, the death card in a tarot deck is not about actual death of a person but about change and a big change, which could be internal or external. 

As I am firmly entrenched in my Mother stage, the wisdom that comes with that stage is a welcome gift as well as the strength to stand as a role model for my daughters as they grow into themselves. Morrigan wants you to be the best self you can be, as she tried to get Cu Chulainn to be and will test you. She wants us to own our sexuality and enjoy it. To raise power through our sexuality and be whole. She wants us to stand firm like a stone in our battlefield and conquer ourselves as well as succeed in our battles. 

  Considered a dark goddess as a goddess of death, she brings change where ever her crows sweep through, so welcome her with open arms and respect and she will guide you to your best self. Not all hear her call, but when you do, be ready. Be strong. Be amazing.

Blessed Be
Talia Ravenspath

Energy Work and Imposter Syndrome

What a beautiful day after the rain yesterday. The rain is a great resource to ground energy down. If you feel stressed or sad, simply step out into the the rain and let it flow down you, taking any excess or negative energy with it. If it's not raining, get in the shower and just let it flow down you with the same feeling. I've always preferred showers and rainstorms to baths, though a good sea salt bath with lavender can be extremely cleansing too.

The energy of the universe is something that you can feel instinctively, even when you do not know what it is. It flows down the chakras of our bodies and can get stuck at various places, depending on our stresses or life lessons. 

Reiki is simply an energy healing technique that is used to channel healing energy with the intent of compassion and healing towards another person. It is not our personal energy that you are sending, but energy that you are funneling from the universe, that is all around us.

For years, I have been manipulating the energy in my body. I could feel it flow down my arms and pool in my hands and wonder that I couldn't see a light because I could feel it warm up my hands and vibrate my skin. On January 2016, about 23 years after I first felt this energy, I started on the path to become a Reiki Master.

Today is the day that I completed my training (this is my given/muggle name). 

Honestly, I'm floored that I finished it and it is far from the end of my learning. I am planning on taking other classes with other Master's to achieve a well rounded understanding of what Reiki is and how so many of us use it.

The use of Reiki energy is largely instinctive and classes in using it help us become more open to it with attunements and help us to focus it with the symbols and hand placements (though we should listen to our instincts as to the use of these guides). 

Starting this path wasn't easy for me. I felt like an imposter. That is the core of what the imposter syndrome is. You feel like you aren't good enough and that someone is going to call you out. You know what? Someone is going to disagree with how you do things sometimes. Someone is going to have a strong personality and try to help you without asking. This is life. And it's okay. You can take the help or advice and decide for yourself it works, or you can let it flow off you like the energy that resides in your aura that you can manipulate with ease once you train.

The goal of Reiki treatment is to direct energy towards a person with kindness, compassion and the intent that it will go to the place it needs to go to help the recipient heal in spirit, energy and body. As long as you keep your intent focused on those goals, you cannot do harm. Always asking for permission before doing a Reiki session is polite, though I have been known to send a spurt of kind energy towards a person from time to time who I haven't asked permission from because I feel called by the gods to do so. 

Reiki is very like prayer. Prayer creates the intent of the energy, and sends it out into the world towards the person or situation to try and heal or resolve something. 

Imposter Syndrome is tied to anxiety and overly worrying about what others think of you. But your intent is paramount. I am a pagan and a witch, I try to do no harm and if I feel I am coming close to wanting harm I will bind someone or banish instead. Release your anxiety and stress, relax into your life and goals and take control of the one thing you have control over: the way you perceive the world.

We do not have control over anything else in any life.

We can direct energy, but we do not control where it goes ultimately.

We can cast spells, but this is also a type of energy work.

We can set our intentions, but again the energy goes where it needs to go.

We can choose our job, our partner, whether or not to buy a new car or a house; but we cannot choose how the people around us act towards us.

All we have control over is how we react to others.

It takes practice to do this and sometimes we still fail because we are only able to do what we can do. Do we take criticism as a negative thing or can we look at it, really turn it around in our hands and see if it is something that you can understand from multiple views?

As this moon expands
Think on how your energy flows
Allow it to grow
To flow
To ease down you 
As a wave slides over the sand.
Let it sink
Sink your energy down
Down into the earth.
Goddess take this energy
Renew it and send it
Send it to someone who needs it.
God of the sky and forest
Allow me to resonate 
And feel your hands on me
As I pass through into peace.
May the light pass through me.

Blessed Be
Talia Ravenspath

The Spiritual Guide

  Heading up to the full moon, I have noticed in my readings for others that I have been bringing up spiritual guides. We all have one in each life and this is the little voice of wisdom that tells us not to do something or to go for it, why not. 

When I was 13 and first met the Goddess in her all encompassing earth spirit form/feeling, I also met my spiritual guide who has been with me ever since.

  As a trained therapist with a Master's degree in Counseling, I can categorically say that there are things in our pagan experiences that do not fall in the realm of understanding for culture by and large. But we all have that little nudge or voice that we sometimes do and sometimes don't (usually for ill) listen too, this is your spiritual guide. 

  In my experience and through much meditation and research, I have come to believe that these spiritual guides are spirits that we have known in our past lives and they choose to "walk" with us in this life to help us learn the lessons that this life is geared towards. The little ones and the big ones that help our spirits evolve and the general spiritual understanding of the universe of vibrations as a whole. 

   What I mean is, the lessons we are here to learn do not just help our spirits come to a higher understanding each lifetime, but help all of the spirits in general as we share our lessons and understandings at the end of each life when we release these bodies and return to the stream of energy that we all are connected too even when alive. That is where Reiki energy comes from and returns too. Energy cannot be destroyed or created but transmuted by the lessons our spiritual selves absorb. 

So how do you find your spiritual guide? 

The good news is, you don't need to go looking, they are literally with you and have been there since the day you were born. 

If you want to have a more connected relationship with your spiritual guide, this is achievable through meditation, especially guided meditation specifically geared towards that, which I am working on writing out but you can also find it almost anywhere online if you google it.

It is easiest to do this type of work in a natural setting where you are comfortable. I prefer the beach. The sound of the waves constantly rolling onto the beach is one of the most soothing sounds to me. And if I sit in a chair on the beach, close my eyes, and open my third eye while I breath deeply, I can feel my spiritual guide beside me, also sitting and enjoying the beach and my presence. 

What do they look like?
Do they feel male or female or neither/both?
What are they saying?
Do you remember a time when they comforted you?

Spiritual guides are extremely personal to you, specifically to you. Sometimes a reader or medium can talk directly to your spiritual guide. I often feel their presence, and sometimes someone has more than one, though that can sometimes be people who did pass in this life. I don't get words, but I do get impressions from other peoples spiritual guides and that helps to give a relevant and accurate reading when I'm doing a tarot card reading for someone.

What is your experience with your spiritual guide?

Blessed Be!
Talia Ravenspath

Human Gatekeepers

It is not easy to have a physical store and not be a chain. It just isn't. And even then it is hard. Pagan stores open and close with a fairly regular commonplace. But even for the short time period that they are open, sometimes those humans that run them are gatekeepers. Not to keep people away, but to open doors for people and welcome them in. Not as guards but as the welcoming party. The first welcome. The first hurrah you are here!

Melissa is such a one at the Broom Closet in Cobleskill, NY. This store opened at some point last year and closed for a few months while they restyled the store. Since they have reopened her position as the community gatekeeper has been firmly established, whether or not she realizes it. 

She is welcoming.

She is open.

She is laid back.

She is happy to introduce you to the many connections she has in the pagan world if you want to know about anything.

Because of her continuing presence in the store, the store itself has a welcoming environment. This isn't something that can be faked. You cannot sage this into being, it has to come from someone. 

Do you know of a store or a person who has that kind of presence?

I am told I am motherly haha. But I have two young daughters so that makes sense to me. ☺☺☺

Look for these spaces, though. Spread news of them. Shop at them if they are a store. Let's keep them alive!!!

Blessed Be!

Talia Ravenspath

Ideas for the New Moon

With the new moon sliding in this week (July 12th) and this Friday being Friday the 13th, it is a day of beginnings and new growth. Of opening what was once closed and of the beginning of healing.

 Some ideas for the new moon, or the dark of the moon, are as follows:

1) Meditation
           An oldie but a goody. There is not better time to meditate than during the dark of the moon. This is a time of pause. A time of contemplation and of setting intent and goals to culminate in two weeks at the next full moon. 

2) Setting Goals
          Speaking of setting goals. All you need is some white candles and a few pieces of paper. Write out your goals over the next two weeks on the paper and you can burn them or you can keep them, either way works as it sets your intent into the world.
         One way to keep the intent strong in your mind and keep your moving forward towards it is to get a jar (like a clean Prego sauce jar) and put your intent papers in them. As the two weeks progress add more pieces of paper on how you are actively visualizing or creating the change or opportunities that you set in motion during the new moon and on the full moon read each little note with pride and perhaps even create a little bonfire of success in a bowl or cauldron (if you have one) and burn each one after you read it.

3) Invoking a Dark God.
         Dark does not mean evil, just means perhaps this is a time to invoke and listen carefully to what Morrigan or any other dark god or goddess has to say that has been poking at you recently. Respectfully research the best ways to acknowledge, as you would with any other invocation. There are a great deal of book available on the subject. Don't be afraid of the battle gods, their strength can get us through anything.

4) Divination
          Oh yes, the new moon is a good time for divination. It is a time of shadows and these shadows can be understood through a tarot reading or other types of divination. Keep it in mind. I know I will be doing an extensive reading for myself.

5) Reiki Healing/Self-Healing
           This is also a great time to do some Reiki healing. Setting those energies to work over the building of energies towards the full moon is a very positive thing and healing something that may be on your mind, or a pain in your knees or heart or head can be a very helpful thing. I know I need to keep on my daily regiment to stop the migraines!

I am working on a special blog post for Friday the 13th. Don't fear it, embrace your power! What is your favorite number?

Be well and whole.

Talia Ravenspath

Secrecy and Our Witchcraft

Over the weekend, a good friend of mine shared an article on whether or not practicing witches should share their spells and craft with others.  (To be Silent by Adrian Monogue & To Keep Silent by Phoenix LeFae).

I was struck by this idea, that when I researched it was everywhere. Do not talk about or share your spells. Keep them secret or else their power will decrease.

Having been a solitary most of my life (for the past 25 years) I have to say that this bothers me because even today, though witchcraft is more accepted and it isn't as hard to find others, it is still hard to find a teacher. And I know what people will say, the teacher will arrive when the student is ready. But if all this secrecy is keeping people's tongues tied, how on earth can people learn anything? And I cannot tell you how many times I have been "told" that if I didn't learn it from a person and not a book it isn't as valuable and I'm not as skilled. No JOKE. You know that attitude is there.

Of course there is such a thing as oversharing, but there is a GREAT need for teachers who are willing to reach out to not just those who are looking to pay (which there are few who have the funds for some of the weekend sessions I've seen advertised, holy cow, I don't have that kind of cash), but also to those who are searchers and looking for guidance. How can we learn, if we don't share our knowledge?

And what about the many books that you can get? I cannot help but feel that even though secrecy is considered important, that the hundreds of books on witchcraft and spells that you can find is a direct flaunt in that direction. It doesn't decrease the strength of a spell if over a thousand people are using the same spell with their own personal intentions. And why should it? A circle is cast, a energy is raised, the spell is cast and set with the energy raised and with our intent is sent out into the world. We can resend that energy and intention from a new moon to a full moon, but why would it dissipate if you share what your intention and spellwork is to other people you know? What if in sharing that you are taking someone else to a new level of understanding about energy work?

  I cannot grasp this idea that if we share what spell we did, our hopes and dreams around it, that it will dissipate and be less powerful that it originally intended to be. It's already out in the world and getting battered around in the direction it was sent. Perhaps you were in financial straight and you did a money or luck spell. All of the factors around your financials issues may ease, but other people are influencing it just as much if you don't share what you did than if you do. That is the nature of living in a world where we are all connected by energy and all influencing each other. Secrecy ignores that reality. Ignores the fact that we are all connected at a basic level and influence each other in a nonstop manner on a basic energy level.

So really, my problem with this idea of secrecy is three fold:

1) There is a need for people to step up and be teachers and encourage mutual learning.
2) I honestly do not believe that sharing spellwork that you did will dissipate a spell any more than you waking up the next day in a shitty mood and actively doing something that will mess up your plans.
3) Secrecy can lead to unhealthy cult and ego behaviors. It's kind of like how I do not care if someone wants to be in a polygamist relationship, but the family should be open to the world and not closed off hiding as those types of closed off behaviors naturally draws abusers of all sorts, the power trips.

Do with it what you will, but I just feel that secrecy is unhealthy and can block yourself from learning and others from learning from you.