To Stir a Magic Cauldron ~ Ch. 4

Ok, jumping right on in on this one.... 

Josephine Wall: Spirit of the Elements

Calling the quarters, the elements, the elementals. What do you want the quarters to do? Witness, protect, add power? Silver noted the importance of telling them, whoever you call, what you need or want them to do. When I go back through my own written rituals, I found I do this anyway, that just came naturally to me when opening my circle, performing my rituals or spells. It's not something I would have thought of having to mention. Maybe it's the teacher in me, make sure everyone knows what they are doing, why they are here. Hmmmm. She gives some great, very imaginative ways to call quarters.... I was I intrigued as I read through them. Enjoyed them. Complicated, I am more for simple but loved them. Some great ideas and visualizations.

The differences between elements and elements was interesting. I did not realize that they were different, always saw one as part of the other, an element is the manifestation of the elemental. Have to think about this one a bit. She compares the elemental to a spirit and the elemental to the actual thing such as Tue element earth a dirt. She does not see the dirt as living thinking being which it's very different then my own druidic way of thinking - everything has spirit, life.

Watchtowers was also a be idea to me. she calls Watchtowers in addition to laments, to guard her circle, again, making sure they know what they are there to do. So read her information, I picture something like gargoyles standing at the corners (yes I realize circles are round, so does she) standing guard protect the rites as they happen.

She tasks some about faeries but I will leave that for you to check out, I had never heard of the Airts so I would rather touch upon this. What's an airt? Well, I learned that an airt is a word that means the point off the wind, at least as far as I can tell. She makes a lot of a sense here, we here in the USA read so much information that comes from elsewhere that we forget to take into account our own environment, what is on out area. Remember, our areas are very different then Europe and other places around the world. When talking about using the winds, we need to study what we each have in our own areas. What does the north wind bring, the south. How often and when do the different winds happen? How do the animals respond to the winds when they come ? How do/should you respond? These are all questions we need to study when working with any elements in our respective worlds. She hours on and I highly recommend this section of reading.

I have always loved this painting.... 

She talks about Angels... How different people from different traditions might view them if they do at all. The differences between the various beliefs in angels is huge depending on who you talk to. Do I believe in angels? Yes I do. Do you?

She then goes on to talk about totems, and them archetypes. The ancient ones is another area she covered briefly before moving on to chapter 5. And I am moving right along.

Ok, so this has been sitting in my drafts box for a while now. Want to get this one posted. Don't think I have it done yet but will come back and add more to it. But, you all can't read it if it's sitting in my drafts box so watch for more... It'll get added hopefully this weekend...

Ok. So something else I felt needed a word or two. Have you ever heard of Airts? I hadn't until now. Webster's defines airt as a "new direction. channel into a new direction." Silver talks of Airts noting that it is a Gaelic term used to describe compass points and the directions of the winds. She makes a great point about using the "airts" from our own areas. As a rule, we tend to study magic and ritual from Europe so when we start to use the winds and directionals  we use them as we seen them in books. Now I had not thought about it before but duh! If course the winds and such would be different here in Seattle then they would be is say, Glastonbury. Makes total sense. She recommends taking time, spending time out side. Making notes in our journals about wind directions at different times year. Noticing what is happening around you at different times of year. This is how you determine what elemental to use, to know what is coming "on the wind" at any given time in the year. To know what the wind bring in the spring when it blows in from the North, or what it brings in July when the slight breeze blows in off the Pacific ocean. It all makes sense, doesn't it? Hmmmm. Truly got me thinking....

I kinda gleamed over it when writing this a few weeks ago but decided today to come back to it. Totems. Do you have a totem? I would love to hear about other people's totems if they would like to leave comments. Things like how do you know. What brought these totems to you or you to them. I find this topic fascinating. My own totems consist of the horse, whom often guides me through the dream world and takes me to areas away from my sacred grove when I'm in mediation (which I am having difficulty making time for lately ~ can't wait until summer).

Silver talks about using totems animals when calling quarters. This is not something I do. In fact, usually my totems are something completely not associated with my circle casting. Not that they do not appear when I cast, but usually that is on their own accord, not because I call them. My totem animals usually come to me when they feel there is something I need to know or do, or when they feel I am in need. Where I live, there are several old oak trees outside of my apartment, both off my front door and off my patio. At any given moment, there are at least 100 crows in these trees. Early in the mornings when you leave my house, the sound is hypnotizing and they chatter above. It's amazing. the amazing thing is, from what I understand, they were not here before I came. How fun is that? To interesting. They follow me. When I am out and about, i see them everywhere. They stay outside the windows that I am close to when I am inside. When I send healing to others, they start seeing them outside their windows too. Even family members who do not know about my crows have reported seeing them when they know I have done a healing on them. And people insist on not believing.