Bodily fluids are a little less controversial than blood sacrifice over here in the US. People might be grossed out by them, but if they're scared enough or it's a big enough deal, practitioners who might be horrified at the idea of animal sacrifice will muster the courage to throw some urine or menstrual blood into something they're doing. And then there are those of us who wouldn't think twice about actually going out and pissing in the corners of our property to mark it as ours or asking our partner to ejaculate in a jar because we want to try an awesome sex magic thing.
These things are living parts of our selves, which makes them a really powerful tool and/or sacrifice. That doesn't stop people from yammering on about how horrific it is to use mingled sex fluids in a fertility ritual when you could use a rock and a leaf and call it a day. I'm in the camp that would paint fertility sigils on myself in jizz, bake vulva cookies to leave at the base of a sacred phallus, and anoint us with special infused oils before commencing the baby making. I'm ok with that. Maybe it's that it seems completely illogical to me not to use the
physical elements of life-giving that we have as part of more serious
workings. Have y'all ever asked deities about modern concerns like your body image or hangups? They're not going to suggest some nice tealights and massage oil and slow jams. They're going to wonder why someone with a nice big ass like you isn't out rutting up against the tree in your front yard where the neighbors can rejoice in your prowess and fertility.
I use blood in sacrifice and in workings sometimes. Maybe it was growing up is an alarmingly charismatic and literal Christian household where raining down the blood sacrifice on our heads and as protection was a normal thing to include in prayer. I don't know why it seems so ok, but it just does. Besides, I find that if I'm unsure about whether or not I should make myself bleed for a project, it will go ahead and stab me with a little sliver of something and take the sacrifice itself. I find that if I pray while I'm embroidering, it's the only time I actually prick myself enough to draw drops of blood while sewing. To me, that's a beautiful thing.
A note on animal sacrifice since it's part of blood sacrifice: I've never sacrificed an animal myself because I don't know how to kill humanely. I've never killed anything but an insect, so I'm not going to make that jump any time in the foreseeable future. It doesn't bother me in the least that it goes on. I try to take care of dead animals as I find them out here in the country. Bury them properly, help the spirit move on, leave offerings and blessings for it.
Showing posts with label witch witch you're a witch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label witch witch you're a witch. Show all posts
Friday, July 13, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
NY, NY: Maps
Prompt here.
I have moved too many times, lived in too many overcrowded nooks of the same city, and still I haven't found a space that feels sacred and set apart every time I go there. When I need places for something, they will speak to me and call me to them, letting me know they are willing. They are sacred for my purpose, and then that door is closed. Austin has grown up too quickly and aggressively, and the spirits of the land don't seem to have adapted well to a population that's nearly quadrupled in size in the last thirty years. I don't blame them. When they started to build McMansions cantilevered off the hills in the wild places, I'm pretty sure my mom started to pray for them to fall off the cliff faces. This is sort of beside the point, except that those McMansions are at the places that used to be my refuge for wandering and sacred space free of the traces of people. No more.
I read the week's challenge to go out into sacred space and watch for omens, listen, and be open to what I'm being told. My yard doesn't feel right for magic or sacred space ever since Cash died in it. (I never knew grief could stay so raw and close to the surface, and I just can't be out there for very long, especially without some company and serious distraction.) The land around here is all fenced up ranch land, and it is not welcoming to intruders. No siree, Bob it does not want you there. So I've meditated. I've experimented with positions and energies and methods I don't usually use to create my own space. Dreams have come. Chunks of wisdom have come out of my mouth whole during conversations, as though someone far wiser than I possessed me for a minute to vomit up some wisdom and then bailed. There have been oddly portent conversations about how I could completely shift my career. I've gotten yanked back enough to see a longer timeline and get some perspective about how temporary some challenges are, and that gives me some answers.
The themes in what I've been shown are about valuing the important kinds of work I do enough to fight for the time to make them happen. They're not what I spend most of my time doing, but they're where I find and understand my worth as a person. I've been taken on some unexpected journeys to do that work, and the contrast in how I feel while doing it and after it's done vs. how I feel when I do my job has been a stern reminder that I am called to a very different kind of work. It's good, it's meaningful, and it's worth fighting for. There have been some special confirmations of that. I know it's cryptic to say all that without specifics. It would be premature. If there's one thing I have learned from being told to my face by the Lady, it's that part of being called to the craft means that you're permanently gestating one thing or another, hidden away inside yourself. It's never ok to rip it out, half-formed, because you're not patient enough to handle what you've been given. People, situations, and dreams all need help growing, being birthed into new phases, and being fostered in love. I've always known I've been called to do that for other people. It's been good to have a reminder that it's good and necessary to do that for myself, that mine are just as worthy, and that nobody's stuff gets taken care of if I don't take care of myself as a priority.
I have moved too many times, lived in too many overcrowded nooks of the same city, and still I haven't found a space that feels sacred and set apart every time I go there. When I need places for something, they will speak to me and call me to them, letting me know they are willing. They are sacred for my purpose, and then that door is closed. Austin has grown up too quickly and aggressively, and the spirits of the land don't seem to have adapted well to a population that's nearly quadrupled in size in the last thirty years. I don't blame them. When they started to build McMansions cantilevered off the hills in the wild places, I'm pretty sure my mom started to pray for them to fall off the cliff faces. This is sort of beside the point, except that those McMansions are at the places that used to be my refuge for wandering and sacred space free of the traces of people. No more.
I read the week's challenge to go out into sacred space and watch for omens, listen, and be open to what I'm being told. My yard doesn't feel right for magic or sacred space ever since Cash died in it. (I never knew grief could stay so raw and close to the surface, and I just can't be out there for very long, especially without some company and serious distraction.) The land around here is all fenced up ranch land, and it is not welcoming to intruders. No siree, Bob it does not want you there. So I've meditated. I've experimented with positions and energies and methods I don't usually use to create my own space. Dreams have come. Chunks of wisdom have come out of my mouth whole during conversations, as though someone far wiser than I possessed me for a minute to vomit up some wisdom and then bailed. There have been oddly portent conversations about how I could completely shift my career. I've gotten yanked back enough to see a longer timeline and get some perspective about how temporary some challenges are, and that gives me some answers.
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| Used under a CC license. By jbrownell. |
The themes in what I've been shown are about valuing the important kinds of work I do enough to fight for the time to make them happen. They're not what I spend most of my time doing, but they're where I find and understand my worth as a person. I've been taken on some unexpected journeys to do that work, and the contrast in how I feel while doing it and after it's done vs. how I feel when I do my job has been a stern reminder that I am called to a very different kind of work. It's good, it's meaningful, and it's worth fighting for. There have been some special confirmations of that. I know it's cryptic to say all that without specifics. It would be premature. If there's one thing I have learned from being told to my face by the Lady, it's that part of being called to the craft means that you're permanently gestating one thing or another, hidden away inside yourself. It's never ok to rip it out, half-formed, because you're not patient enough to handle what you've been given. People, situations, and dreams all need help growing, being birthed into new phases, and being fostered in love. I've always known I've been called to do that for other people. It's been good to have a reminder that it's good and necessary to do that for myself, that mine are just as worthy, and that nobody's stuff gets taken care of if I don't take care of myself as a priority.
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