Tag Archives: Enchantress

Priestessing

28 Friday May 2021

Posted by in Enchanted, Following Delight, Magic, Queenship

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One thing I love doing is Priestessing. Facilitating ritual and magic for others makes my heart sing.

Holding that space just for myself though? Prioritising that can be really hard. Making the time to let go of what I’m told I *should* be doing to perform a ritual just for me feels decadent sometimes.

And yet, it’s important.

We can engage with the world magically every day, but making time for ritual adds an extra layer of connection, of honouring our selves and our gods and spirits. It can give structure to the passing of time, and support us through changes. More than that, it gives structure and space to our relationship with the divine in our lives.

We can nurture this relationship by praying and making offerings, but also by consciously wearing jewellery or colours that honour them, by keeping an altar, tending a garden, by dedicating our creative acts to them. Like any relationship, doing things with our gods brings us closer together.

Me exploring being a Priestess of Freya and the deities of love, magic, and sex – photo by Ruth Hogg, editing by me

I am both a witch, weaving active magic everyday, and a Priestess, honouring the Divine in the world. You may be one or the other, or both. You don’t need to work with gods to practice magic, and you don’t need to practice magic to honour the gods.

But if you do walk the path of priest/ess/x/hood, then I’d love to hear about how you connect with your gods every day, in the ways that aren’t flashy, that people outside might not notice. Please do comment below…

One of the ways I enact my devotion is through my writing, so my first two books are offerings to the Faery Queen and Gods of Wales. You can buy them here.

I am also a devotee of Freya, as Lady of Magic & Passion and The Crimson Coven is a collective or creative, magical folk founded to honour her and the other gods & powers of the Divine Erotic… You’d be very welcome to join us.

The Crimson Coven

Brewing Magic

31 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Enchanted, Faery, Philosophy, Reflections

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This last year I’ve been dancing and storytelling and studying more than I have been writing.

I’ve been brewing thoughts, and allowing them to percolate. There have been many challenges, and a whirlwind of changes: Two house moves, marriage, turning 30, publishing my book, learning to dance.

Pen and Ink - Dances with Trees

My love and I now live in our own caravan! It is a static caravan rather than a mobile home like I dreamed of, but I think it’s better for us. Wales is our home and it is good to have a foundation here. Roots. I’ve been putting down roots, I suppose, choosing where I stand. Reflecting on who I am and where I am.

In my book (Pagan Portals; Your Faery Magic) I talk about some of the thinking behind my beliefs, I philosophise on Faeries and the Feyhearted Path. This is only scratching the surface though! And for a while I’ve been pondering questions, like;

Who and what is The Faery Queen – how does She relate to deities, archetypes, spirits? How does she tie in with the many goddesses that hold the title Faery Queen? She isn’t an archetype, though “Faery Queen” is also an archetype… so what is She? How does she manifest throughout the year? Does she change or it is constant… and what does that mean for her nature?

Who and what is the Faery King? Am I just falling back on my early neo-Wiccan reading when I want to bring Him in too? (Most of the books I got hold of when young and just finding my way were neo-Wiccan, and many of the books I see now are heavily influenced by that, whilst it can be a very useful structure, I don’t want to force energies and beings into a pattern that doesn’t serve them, or me, so what patterns belong to them?) Or is there a good reason for bringing Him in explicitly? (Aside from the fact that he turns up! But just because they come, does that mean we should work together?)

How do these powers/beings/deities(?) relate to deities that share the titles which seems to be their names?

How does this Enchantressing path relate to the Craft? To Priestessing? What are the differences? How do they overlap? Are they all words for the same thing or distinct practices?

What is the purpose of what I do?

How does this honour the land? How does this help my community?

How does my work fit within historical practices and traditions? What is my “lineage”? I’m clearly deeply rooted in neo-pagan structures, practices and attitudes, but that isn’t the only influence. And what does it all mean?

Who and what are the Fae? How metaphorical are they? How metaphorical is our relationship to them? How do they relate to other spirits? Is Faery-work just a form of spirit-work?

And so on… Alongside continuing practice I’ve been mulling theory, and I’m feeling the urge to start sharing again. I make no promises on how much or how often I’ll post, but I hope that some of these questions are interesting to you, and perhaps you can take them and apply them to your own practices and beliefs for an interesting think! (If you enjoy that kind of thing… not everyone does!)

It being Imbolc over the next few days it feels good to be seeing the seedlings sprout and these questions begin to find the light of day. My Queen wears white now, as do many goddesses at this time of year, and she beckons for us to awaken to ourselves and dance among the snowdrops and hailstones as the light grows and the land begins to stir.

Back to working on my Thesis now…

 

Map Making Step 6 – Devotee of Delight

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Enchanted, Following Delight

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An Enchantress is… One who enchants;
One who brings beauty, healing and delight to those around her.

One who works magic of the Fae.
One who brings beauty to the world.
One who causes change.
In recent posts I’ve discussed each of these aspects, how an enchantress uses Glamourie and Honesty, a hint of what it means to be Fae, what beauty is and how this relates to Healing. Each of these is an aspect of enchantment, the magic of the Fae. Each one can be used in negative ways too, illusion and glamourie can be used to mislead, transformation is not always healing and Faery runs by its own, untamed laws.

As human beings who live within the world, with other human beings and dependent upon the land and those around us – however self-sufficient we can manage to become we still have to depend on good relations to allow us to stay in a specific space! – it is sensible to use these skills in positive ways, to work to heal and help ourselves and others, whether human or Fay. The majority of magic-workers understand this and the fact that everything is interconnected. The double-edged nature of enchantment – and all magic – means that we can protect and defend ourselves where necessary and the interconnected nature of all means that we will think carefully about what course of action to take. As a result I will be posting almost exclusively about the positive side of enchantment and trusting my readers to follow their own ethical codes.

An Enchantress is one who enchants.

As one who focusses on beauty, healing and joy, I am also a Devotee of Delight.

I am Enchantress and Devotee of Delight. When I remember these two things together I follow a healing, beautiful path.

Map Making Step 5 – An Enchantress… causes change

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Enchanted, Magic, Reflections

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An Enchantress is… One who enchants;
One who brings beauty, healing and delight to those around her.

One who works magic of the Fae.
One who brings beauty to the world.
One who causes change.

This week I’m looking at what it means that an Enchantress causes change and how that relates to healing. And Circe makes an appearance!

***

Circe
Tranforms
men into beasts
What she sees
their true nature
revealed.
Circe,
Do you know
How their time
Spent four-legged
Healed them
Once returned?

One of the most notable enchantresses in mythology named as such is Circe. She lived upon an island and had the power to transform humans into the animals they appeared to be. You could understand this as her revealing their true nature. Perhaps the men who she changed into pigs couldn’t see how greedy they were being when they tried to steal her treasure. You can guarantee that they understood this after their time with four legs!

Everything is change, constant change. If a key activity of enchantment is the creation of beauty then creating more beauty will include healing as healing is change that leads to wholeness and greater understanding.

An enchantress then heals by causing change. By sharing beauty and joy, by creating glamourie and mirroring those around her and through direct methods of healing she creates space for change and helps others to change themselves.

 

Map Making Step 3 – An Enchantress is… Fae

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Enchanted, Faery

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Moving through the darkness
Light a candle
Say a Prayer
Sing your wishes to smoke on the air
Music lingers
Notes unsaid
Kisses from Angels
Of deep black and red.
The Waterbound lady
Holds out a blade
Choosing wishes and dancing
Or the quietest glade.
~Halo 15/11/12

An Enchantress is… One who enchants;
One who brings beauty, healing and delight to those around her.

One who works magic of the Fae.
One who brings beauty to the world.
One who causes change.

What do these mean?

First, ‘the magic of the Fae’ asks the question, who and what are the Fae?

Being Fae, from my writing project ‘Faery Steps’

Words weave strange tales, a vision of what is and was and will be…

Fey; adj. Mysterious and strange, ‘fated to die’, ‘visionary’ and ‘mad’.
Fairy; from faierie (Middle English); the realm or characteristic activity of the faie; enchantment.
Fay; from Faie which evolved from fata (Latin); one of the ‘Fates’; i.e. a spirit
(Courtesy of Wikipedia!)

‘Fey’ and ‘Fay’ have different roots, words which have come to be connected through the resonance we hear and thus cousins. We, as strange mortals who see beyond the veils, become fey and thus fay. Fey is the human that is visionary, seeking magic and the world’s beyond. The Fay are those that live beyond the material, that shape the land and guide the growing things, the spirits who weave the destiny of each living thing. Untamed and wild, their ways are often different to our but strictly governed by their own code of conduct. The first rule of conduct is ‘Honesty’. Honesty with oneself allows you to know who you are, what you want and how your subconscious will effect your choices in ways that support or contradict your conscious choices. Honesty with the Fae is firstly a matter of respect – if you break your word to them you show you do not respect them – and secondly it shows that you can be trusted. Without honesty you cannot trust yourself to navigate the brambles to the Well of Vision and the Fae will not trust you to deal fairly with them.

As a word for the land, the act of enchantment and now the people who enchant, ‘faery’ reveals to us the interconnected nature of all three. As the fate of nature Faery is that which must be, the blueprint and soul of the natural world.As seekers of the land of faery we become visionaries, we become fey. In becoming fey we become fay and thus faery. This, in turn, connects us to the land that is Faery and we join the magic that moves through the realm that gives shape to the world we walk.

We are the realm of magic. Our hearts beat out the rhythm that shapes the world.

Map Making Step 2 – Commit

21 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Enchanted

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As the moon swung into darkness I dreamed.

I dreamt of the sea, crashing against the shore.

I dreamt of emerald green forests on red cliffs.

A butterfly landed on my head and I heard music.

The song of the wild world.

I took a deep breath and I sang.

At the dark moon I made space for my enchanting, an altar to the Queen of Faery and Enchantment in my studio space.

As the moon turned bright I lit a candle and prayed that She would guide me along the path of enchantment and that I, in turn, could bring beauty, joy and healing to the worlds every day.

I felt her presence and her assent.

I dreamt of stairways through darkness and coridoors that moved, of hidden rooms and choosing life.

I felt the weight of mundanity. How to follow the magic while working retail? I walked through the dark, breathing, waiting, praying. How? Until the darkness lifted and I realised that even here were people to enchant, folks to offer laughter and to lighten the day for. I remembered my goal as someone who offers service to customers… I hope to bring a little joy to each heart that I encounter, to help them leave with a smile even if not what they came to buy.

I know I do not always succeed, but even at work there is space for joy. Everywhere there are people there can be enchantment.

Enchantress in Training; Lesson 1.

Commit to enchantment even where you don’t think it is possible. Try, wherever you can, to bring a little joy into the lives of those around you. Make this your offering to the Queen and a gift to those around you. Remember that you cannot please everyone and remember that every real smile makes the world a little happier.

Commit to enchantment.

Map-Making Step 1 – Prepare the Page

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Enchanted, Faery

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For the past few years I’ve been picking my way down a dimly lit path through the forest, following a song just barely heard but so insistent it cannot be ignored.

Long time readers here have seen me return and return again to my attempts at drawing out the map of where I’ve been, where I need to go. I share because, in part, I discover and explore this path through writing and in part I feel compelled to share what I’ve found in case others find it helpful… and the few voices that have replied to tell me that seeing my sharings reassures them that they are not alone have reassured me in turn.

I wrote The Faery Heart as a guidebook to uncovering one’s Fae self, the magic of your heart. Pixie Kisses came from a project for enchanting your own life. Both start with the self and the home.

Now it is time to move outwards.

The seeds I’ve been planting in my own life, in the soil prepared by the work of self-discovery and making space for enchantment, are growing and I know of no better way to nurture, strengthen and develop the seedlings than to write and paint through the journey.

So here I go again. Sharing pieces of my work with you all here.

***

The new moon is breaking through the darkness. The ground is laid. The next stage of training the Enchantress must begin!

I have begun where I am.
(Where are you in your life?)

I have explored who I am.
(Who are you? What roles do you play? Who do you wish to be?)

I have made space for magic, for Faery, for Enchantment in my life.
(How can you make space in your life for enchantment?)

Each of these are continual steps, a never-ending process of self-discovery, of making space and of choosing the path again and again from where I am right now and I have reached a point where the foundation is strong enough for me to explore the landscape and share some of the map I am drawing. Not everything is shareable because some magics are a mystery and no two paths are the same but I can shine a light on the page and, perhaps, it will illuminate the road-name you have been searching for too.

May the map of a world enchanted help you to find your path to Faery and Home again!