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Halo's Journal

~ Enchantment, Philosophy & Fairies – Magic and the mundane, kissing.

Halo's Journal

Tag Archives: Healing

Equinox Blessings!

21 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by Haloquin in Enchanted, Herbology, Reflections, Witchcraft 101

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aberystwyth, Adventures, beauty, Blodeuwedd, Ceredigion, Change, Craft, cycles, Diary of an Adventuress, Druidry, earth, Enchantment, Faery, Garden, gratitude, growing things, Healing, Herbalism, Land, learn magic, learn witchcraft, Magic, Pagan, paganism, Plants, process, Roses, self acceptance, Self Care, Self Empowerment, summer, Wales, Welsh Magic, Welsh pagan, Witch, witchcraft

Happy Equinox!

As spring is here I’m thinking about the allotment I’ll be working on this summer, and that reminded me of my indoor plants and of course the thought train then got all metaphorical…

ID: Roses, back-lit in a window, next to a barely recovering mint plant.

People tell me that indoor roses are fussy and mint is impossible to kill… But roses were the first plant I managed to keep alive for more than a season, and this is the first potted mint plant that has recovered from meeting me… And trust me, I’ve tried many times!

Perhaps those of us that are “fussy”, “difficult”, “sensitive”, or “too much” are simply in the wrong environment… And the apparently hardy ones are mostly just getting more of what *they* need? I’ve heard it before, but it bears repeating…

Plants are tenacious, and so are we. But we all need different things. Look for your magic, your relationship with the world, your rhythm and home, in the places that make sense to you. Don’t treat yourself like mint if you’re a rose, or rose if you’re a mint.

But remember, either way, to breathe, rest, bathe in the growing sunlight, and drink your water!

I’m learning to do better with mint, at least. And I’ll be repotting both (separately!) soon.


(Oh, and there’s a meditation up for my Patreons for the Equinox – Spring or Autumn – use whenever you need a moment of calm before a change.)

Map Making Step 5 – An Enchantress… causes change

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Haloquin in Enchanted, Magic, Reflections

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Tags

Change, Circe, creativity, Enchant, Enchantress, Feyhearted path, Healing, inspirations, Journey, Living Life, Magic, musings, process, Stories, Transformation

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.

 

Iron pentacle – Sex

10 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by Haloquin in All Posts, Magic, Pentacles

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Healing, Iron Pentacle, life, Living Life, Magic, Sex, Suggestions, Tools

As I posted yesterday, I will be blogging on each of the points of the Iron Pentacle. As areas which need healing for almost all individuals, these concepts can be triggery, can be upsetting, and can bring up issues and objections for people. For that reason alone I’ve put this post under a cut.

If you are worried and still want to read: I do not, in this post, talk directly about specific experiences, or outline anything that is unsafe for work, as it were. If you do not want to read, please pass on by…

Continue reading →

Art class drop out

14 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by Haloquin in Art Craft and Beauty, Creative Process

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

choice, Creation, Determination, Devotion, Dreams, Giving up, Healing, Imperfection, learning, Living Life, Starting Over, Strangeness of Life

When people walk into my room, they often comment on all my art on the wall. They don’t know how I believed I’d never make art like this.

I wear my world on my sleeve, so to speak. I remember hiding in the library at school, half the time I’d be reading stories or books about psychology or religion, the other half of the time I’d be drawing.

I almost failed GCSE art. I dropped out of Art A-level after a month.

I knew I loved making art, and yet I could barely pass the class.

For years I doubted my ability, lacking formal training, how could I really make art? How could I be an artist?!

And still I kept at it. In fits and starts, not so much an undeniable impulse but more like a slowly building pressure, only relieved by the soothing sound of colours stroking the page.

There is, simply, nothing like it.

Once I start, I never want the process to end at the same time as impatiently longing to see the finished picture.

I couldn’t jump through the hoops of formal training because, frankly, I just wanted to make art.

I dropped out of art class after a month.

I wanted the skills, but the formality was destroying me.

When I went to university to study Philosophy I secretly thought I’d left art, sadly, irrevocably, behind me. I could still draw, doodle, play, but I could never really be an artist.

But then I found myself painting, drawing, more and more… I painted my thoughts out for an essay, then wrote the essay based on the painting. Friends loved the art I made, asked me to make piece for them, which sit proudly on their walls.

Somehow, I’d dropped out, and tuned in.

Somehow, as an art-class drop-out, I found I could still be an artist.

I am grateful that I only gave up on my dream for a moment, and, in returning to myself, I find myself here… making art.

It makes me wonder what dreams the people around me have given up on, even if they haven’t realised it. It reminds me why the old cliché exists: it is never too late to do what you love, to be who you are, regardless of what the world might think.

Herbology

17 Monday May 2010

Posted by Haloquin in Herbology

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Beginning, Determination, Devotion, Faery Queen, Garden, growing things, Healing, Idunna, learning, Plants, process, Roses

The image of the witch stirring her bubbling cauldron resonates through the ages.

When I first began on the pagan path I gathered bundles of herbs and hung them round my room to dry. I collected jars which filled with deliciously scented green leaves and brightly coloured petals. I occasionally took these jars out, inhaled the contents and then placed them back in their basket.

Once or twice I made up a flying incense, which, strangely, I never thought to burn but instead would breathe in the scent of woodland before meditative journeys. It worked. I wish I could remember the recipe, but I believe the main ingrediants were pine-needles and optimism.

I relocated to Wales, five years ago now, and last summer I threw out the jars of old, dusty herbs that had resided in my Mother’s attic for the time I had been away thus far.

And then, this spring, I began to feel the urge, again, to understand plants. Having passed the initiatory challenge of keeping a houseplant alive for a year this Imbolc, two miniature rose plants no less, I began to feel hopeful that perhaps my history of killing spider plants would no longer count against me. I bought live herbs from the supermarket, the basil thrived for a while, but eventually joined the other two in brown, shrivelled death.*

And still I have the nagging feeling that I really should be learning about plants, learning from plants, learning to use plants. And graduating from ready-mixed dried herbs and black pepper in the kitchen would not be unwelcome either!

Perhaps something to do with the Fey-Queen’s prescence in my life, or perhaps because Idunna finally revealed herself to be one member of my childhood ‘invented’ pantheon (You only had to ask, she reminds me gently, I’d have told you sooner if you’d asked.) Perhaps its the green of Wales finally sinking into my bones, or the garden planted in my heart by elemental guardians. Whichever perhaps, I’ve begun to explore.

The Herbology category will track my posts as I collect information, both book-based and experiential, slowly about the plants I encounter. As a devotional act I am exploring this world of green green things. In gratitude for the information I’ve found online – and to keep myself  both active and accountable – I intend to post my findings here.

Enjoy.

*I also have packets of seeds waiting for when I settle somewhere a little more permanent than 3 months… I will grow a garden one day soon.

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And for the over 18s… My alter-ego, Ms Quin, writes erotica, kinky poetry, on sacred sexuality and the like. You can explore some of Her writings and poetry readings, and find her sexy book of poetry via links at Twisted Ms Quin.

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