Harvest Of Highest Beauty

ו' בתמוז תשס״ט
Faunus 7

In preparation for sabbat Lughnasadh, the upcoming Celtic fire festival which marks the beginning of the harvest season, I've acquired my first ritual drum - a tunable Celtic bodhrán made with a natural finish mulberry wood frame and a goatskin head. It's an instrument of most high beauty. So simply perfect!

Mulberry corresponds to the magical Ogham letter muin. The associations of muin include:

harvest
highest beauty
celebration and bounty
respite from labor to enjoy the fruits of one's labor
completion
exhilaration and joy
deep mysteries of divine ecstasy
inspiration
communication
release of prophetic power
the throat and the path of the voice
mead (also called honey wine)
in vino veritas (nichnas yayin, yatza sode)

Interestingly, most of last week I was bedridden with a nasty case of the flu, waking up one morning from a dream with a wizard's cauldron brewing up fiery energy in it [1] and feeling like my throat was on fire. The sore throat has since resolved. I am still recovering from the cough and congestion, though those have very much improved such that I no longer feel so weak as to be bedridden. I am healing and more importantly, my throat and the path of my voice have been purified by fire.

This instrument is a gift of Goddess to me.

Footnote:

[1] I didn't eat any of the stew-like concoction brewing in the cauldron, as there was fire in my throat already and the stew didn't appear appetizing to me on account of that. Also in the dream, I threw one of my pearls into a magical pool of magical water. Like Excalibur, only my chosen would be able to go into the magical pool of magical water to retrieve it.

Endless Legion From The Elementary Sea

ח' אב התשס"ח
Lughnasadh 9

I dreamt.

Behind the scenes some who didn't like me were trying to create animosity against me in secret meetings within a community located by the sea, where I too was located. It was a small movement doomed to failure. More and greater were those in need of me.

In the dream, another evening meeting place over and against the instigators' meeting was occurring in the gymnasium of the elementary school I had attended as a child (the building is no longer a school). I was sitting on the stairs (in the middle) right outside the gymnasium, which led up to the fourth/fifth and sixth grade classrooms which I had once occupied in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades.* Here in the elementary school of my youth, support for me was mustering together.

The wizard who now owned the old elementary school was calling up forces more powerful than those against me, and way beyond the small domain of my enemies' forces. Sitting on the stairs of old Lynch School, I felt trusting, innocent and childlike. I felt so protected, sitting on those stairs, so at home, so magically rooted into the heart of the earth.

Then, I saw the forces coming together in the darkness of night outside the building. An endless legion of creatures ascended from the sea and came ashore, onto the land of living creatures, and mixed into the community. Elemental forces swirled invisibly with the air surrounding the building. A warm fiery glow softly lit the consecrated space inside the schoolbuilding.

I felt completely safe, completely protected. My spirit rested with perfect peace.

I woke up.

*Classrooms for Grades 1-3 and half of 4th Grade were located on the ground floor. Classrooms for the other half of 4th Grade and Grades 5-6 were located on the second floor. I spent 4th Grade in the second floor classroom. In this dream, I was sitting in the middle of the stairs 'between' and 'joining' the first and second floors. I attended this school for all 6 years of my elementary school education.

Mechitzah

י' בסיון תשס"ז

I dreamt.

A powerful evil wizard ruled the area and had stolen my husband's treasure, making us poor among the people. The evil wizard and his minion of witches and warlocks would kill us if we tried to retrieve our treasure from him. Our treasure was a most powerful, coveted treasure.

The evil wizard and his troupe of magicians put on a show of entertainment for the local population. The stage sat below many rows of seats in a big building that served as a central organizational place. My husband and I went to the magicians' play like everyone else in the area. I knew I was a powerful witch. In fact, I was a more powerful witch than all the witches in the evil wizard's minion combined. More importantly, I knew it, and I was going to retrieve our treasure.

At one point during an act on stage, audience participation of witches was invited. I got up and went down from the greater audience to sit among the front rows with the other witches who had volunteered to "do magic" before the two witches on stage. The two witches on stage were facing each other with their hands held up, fingers outspread, facing closely but not touching, the corresponding hand of the other witch. They were casting some kind of magic spell.

A big black cat like a black panther guarded the stage and came out into the audience to get each witch who had volunteered to "face off" (from below and before the stage) with the witches on stage in a demonstration of witchy showwomanship. Each time he came to get a witch for her turn, he passed me by and wouldn't choose me for any turn. Finally, I was the last volunteer witch left in the front rows. The black panther came to choose me. "I saved you for last", he spoke. Even if the neither of the witches on stage nor the ruling wizard nor any in his minion knew it, the black panther knew it - I was an unusually powerful witch. And he had saved me for last.

I went down before the stage and stood before it, facing the two witches on stage. I held up my hands, fingers outspread just like the two witches - only I didn't face another witch to cast my spell. I worked magic alone, my outspread fingers opened into the air. I swayed, saying nothing, casting a spell of words unspoken. No one realized what I had done. Finishing my witch's spell, I went back to my seat in the audience beside my husband.

The magic show over, the audience went home, and I waited for the oppressive system to fall apart, to retrieve our treasure. It began.

The central organizational building was going to collapse into the earth. I knew it. Somehow, the wizard now had an inkling as to what I had done, and all his own efforts to prevent it would bring his system down. I made my way, as did some other poor women like me, to the outer edge of the building so that I could escape when it collapsed and wouldn't be sucked into the pit of the earth.

My husband and all the other poor men like him of the community were caught in their workstations in a huge blast. My husband and the other men like him had also been at the edge of blast area. Their eyes had been blinded shut by the blast, but being at the edge, they had survived.

My husband and his men, like myself and my women, were thrown face to face, against a clear glass-like pane with bars in it. The barred glass-like pane formed a barrier separating the men from the women - each husband and wife opposite one another. The men were hard pressed and blind against the glass-like separation. The women were hanging from the edge of the pit into which the big building had collapsed, swallowing up the evil wizard and his ruling minion.

I looked across at my husband, separated from me by the glass-like pane with bars. His eyes were shut. Open your eyes and look at me! I commanded him. See me! I commanded him. He struggled to open his eyes. I struggled to hold on, as he had commanded me (he must have commanded me to hold on because I struggled to hold on, just as he struggled to open his eyes to see me as I had commanded him). He opened his eyes. As he opened his eyes and saw me opposite him, the separation became permeable to him. He reached across through it with both hands and grabbed both my hands. Our fingers intertwined. We were reunited, face to face, hand in hand, fingers intertwined, the separating barrier melting away.

I woke up.

mechitzah - מחיצה

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The Golem Watcher, A Wizard's Familiar

Researching defensive magick, I came across this about "familiars" in Mastering Witchcraft (Paul Huson) which sounds amazing like the magical golem of Jewish tradition.

There are several types of familiars, or magistelli, to give them their more correct title. Basically, there are three types of magistellus.

The third type, and to the individual witch (or wizard), most important type of magistellus is that of the magical servant. This may be a demonic entity who has been "bound" to some magical instrument such as a show stone or mirror, permanently or temporaily. It may also be an elemental creature formed by the combination of your witch (or wizard) power and some natural phenomenon. This type of magistellus becomes the protective spirit or Watcher, a magical guardian of the home. They take time to formulate, but really can prove to be of tremendous value. For unlike the general Earth spells which are effective to guard your home from general bad vibrations, to guard against out-and-out magical attack, a magistellus is ideal; it possesses a definite will of its own, the entire aim of which is to protect the house and those that dwell in it from all offensive sorcery. As such, it is really a magical type of vigilant robot, programmed solely to watch over the safety of the home. A sorcerer's watchdog, in fact.

Interestingly, in Jewish tradition, the term golem (a creature created "artifically" by magical means) is also used to describe newbies to the tradition and Torah study. In other words, ba'alei teshuvah and converts are often used as golems, magistelli and familiars are used. They are "simple" people, in terms of Torah scholarship, and are eagerly looking for acceptance into a community. Consequently, they can easily be used as watchdogs and to "bide the issue" as discussed in a previous entry on Craftwork Of A Jewitch regarding lost curses, where a wizard or witch uses the uniformed to absorb the "cost" of curses that misfire or fail to find the intended victim.

In my own way of thinking, a wizard or witch ought to be willing to take full responsibility for his or her magic. If he or she isn't willing to do this, then something is terribly wrong with the kavanah and/or magic of the wizard or witch, and clearly he or she suspects that the magic may have a cost that he or she is unwilling to pay.

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Real Witchcraft - The Old Way

Elie writes in The Wizards & The Jews:

I believe those authorities who prohibit reading Harry Potter in particular, while allowing secular books in general, are severely misinformed.

The apparent grounds for this prohibition is the tacit assumption that the Harry Potter books depict - or even promote - the type of witchcraft/sorcery that is forbidden by the Torah (Exod 22:17, Deut 18:10). The Rambam explains that the Torah's forbidden sorcery is a form of idol worship, since it inevitably involves calling upon demons and other evil powers. And in fact, this form of witchcraft can certainly be found in the pop culture landscape; e.g., Dr. Strange, Charmed.

But as even the casual Potter reader knows, the witches and warlocks of Harry's magical world do not call upon the forces of darkness, nor does their sorcery have anything in common with religion. Rather, magical folk and "muggles" (non-magicals) are born that way.

Unfortunately, alot of people are severely misinformed about witches and witchcraft - this includes some novice and/or undeveloped witches, who in the craft some refer to as "fluffy witches". I numbered among the severely misinformed at one time.

As Elie noted later in the entry regarding the witchcraft of Harry Potter, true witchcraft is about training and using, in more specific ways, the inner powers we have had all along. Similarly, we are not "granted" such powers through our spells; rather the spells are ways of focusing those powers.

As Avraham Abulafia has written, "every soul is a witch" (or a wizard or warlock, in a male's case). Witchcraft is a method of spiritual development and of training and directing the "powers" (whatever they may be) which may arise naturally out of the course of that development.

While Wicca may be a religion, witchcraft is not. There are many kinds of non-Wiccan witches. Many non-Wiccan witches also practice forms of other mainstream religions, Judaism included, in parallel with his or her witchcraft. Some non-Wiccan witches are completely secular and practice no religion at all. Again, witchcraft is not a religion, even though Wicca is a religion developed by some religiously-inclined witches as an alternative to traditional mainstream religion. I think it's legitimate for witches to do this (make their own religion).

I like the analogy Elie also makes between witches and the hidden mutant community of Marvel Comic fame. Indeed, this is an apt description of the real "communtity" of witches. I also agree with the analogy Elie made between the community of witches and the community of the Jewish nation. Both are communities made of people with "magickal" destinies.

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