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Monkey Mind

2/22/2019

I've been having trouble getting to sleep lately. I toss and turn so tense that my muscles cramp during the night. Usually, my mind is chattering ceaselessly, reviewing the challenges of the day and my frustration over relationships and situations that seem out of my control.

Last night, I tried performing the “Monkey Mind” meditation shortly before going to bed. It works! It gives me a method to shut off the constant babble in my head, which, in turn, lets my quieted mind move more easily into rest.

The “monkey mind” is a Buddhist metaphor that describes the natural, chaotic state of our untrained minds. This exercise creates a visual representation of your mind to help you move from chaos to calm. When you’re first learning to meditate, this visual helps you understand how easily the mind becomes distracted. Knowledge is power, and that which is known can be controlled. Give this meditation a try and see if it works for you also.

What you’ll need
1 Mason jar filled with water
1 spoonful of dirt of sand
Ritual Steps:
1.     Observe the clarity of the water in the Mason jar. It’s clear and free, with nothing to muddy it.
2.     Add a spoonful of dirt/sand to the water. This represents your thoughts, feelings, fears and worries. Tighten the lid on the jar and shake it vigorously. This represents how our thoughts and feelings are in a constant state of motion.
3.     Look at the water. Is it unclear, distorted, cloudy, and murky? Take a moment to reflect on how this jar is similar to the endless chatter and movement in your mind.
4.     Breathe. Watch the sediment slowly settle to the bottom. Breathe. Watch the dirt settle. Breathe. Watch the dirt settle. This is your focused point of attention—watching the clutter of your mind settle. Breathe. Watch the dirt settle.
5.     Every time your mind is hijacked by another thought, feeling, or worry, shake the Mason jar and start over. Go back to your point of attention, watching the dirt settle and breathing. If another thought, idea or worry comes into your mind, shake the Mason jar again.
6.     Continue this exercise for 13 minutes.
7.     Repeat steps 1 through 6 whenever you feel as if you’re in a state of chaos.
Blessed be.

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Amazing Owls & Magic

2/15/2019

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In rural and forest areas, such as around our cabin, the frigid stillness of February nights is sometimes shattered by the mating call of the Great Horned Owl. It’s an eerie unearthly sound. And their hunting noises are downright frightening. I remember hearing a long, single owl call as I lay in bed one night. “Hoo- hoo-hoo.” Immediately after, an animal, perhaps a rabbit who had foolishly ventured out of its hole after dark, gave a series of blood-curdling screams which were cut off abruptly mid-cry.

I went out in the woods the next morning and looked for blood marks. All I found was a circle of tiny frenzied paw prints.

No bird (except maybe the raven) has as much myth and magic surrounding it as the owl.

Because it’s a nocturnal bird, and night time has always seemed mysterious, the owl is a symbol of the feminine, the moon, and the night.

Ancient civilizations had widely divergent opinions about owls. The Greeks chose owls to represent Athena, the goddess of wisdom. She had a companion owl on her shoulder which revealed unseen truths to her, and it was the guardian of the Acropolis.

The Romans considered them bearers of ill omens. They believed placing an owl feather on a sleeping person would allow one to discover the sleeper’s innermost secrets. It’s not hard to understand this superstition when you look at the owl. It is a bird of night, stealthy and soundless in flight, and its eyes can adjust from telescopic to microscopic focus in a fraction of a second. When you look into an owl’s eyes you certainly feel he knows your deepest secrets.

The ancient Egyptians had a kinder view of owls, believing that they protected the spirits of the dead as they travels to the underworld.

Many Native shamans considered owls to be intelligent messengers, and would listen for their calls so they could time their magical work accordingly. To the Pueblo, they were associated with the Skeleton Man, the god of death, but also a spirit of fertility.

If you work with owl medicine, you will be able to see and hear what others try to hide. You have the unique ability to see into the darkness of other’s souls and life. This can be scary to many people and one reason why owl is often the medicine of witches. But while you may be drawn to magical practices and perhaps the dark arts, you should resist any practice that takes energy away from another person or being.

There are more than 100 species of owls, and they have always had an intimate link to humans. Where we live, so do rodents, one of the owl’s primary food sources.

The Great Horned Owl, sometimes called a hoot owl, is the most successful predator in the owl family. It can easily snap the neck of a woodchuck or rabbit and will not hesitate to take whatever live food presents itself, even other birds of prey. This has enabled the owl to adapt to constantly changing environments. Unfortunately, this same ferocity has interfered with the reintroduction of the peregrine falcon into some of its former habitats, including the Virginia coast. In the peregrine’s absence, the great horned owl has taken up residence and refused to share its habitat or food source.

The favorite food of the great horned is the skunk! The owl doesn’t have a great sense of smell, which is probably why it is the skunk’s most fearsome predator.

The tufts on the top of this owl’s head is not its ears, but merely tufts of feathers. The ears are located lower in the head.

The Barn Owl, (my totem bird, along with the raven) can locate its prey even easier with its ears than with its eyes. The ears of the owl are asymmetrical, and one ear is usually larger than the other. They are also located in different positions on the head. This enables it to sort out the auditory signals it picks up. The barn owl will swivel its head and rock back and forth to pinpoint noises of its prey. It also makes periodic clicks as a form or echo location.

If you have an owl in your barn, count yourself lucky! Unfortunately, many hunters and farmers kill owls, believing that cats will do better with rodent control. Not true. A barn owl can kill ten time the amount of mice that a cat can in a single night and more if it has young to be fed.

Owls have some of the strongest talons in the avian kingdom. The five-pound great horned can curl its talons with a force of 300 pounds per square inch, roughly comparable to the strongest human bite. And the largest owls, such as the great horned, have talons comparable in size to those of much bigger eagles, which may explain why even desperately hungry eagles usually won’t attack their smaller cousins. In fact, depending on the habitat, great horned owls can be considered “apex predators,” meaning that healthy adults have no natural predators in the wild.

Owls blink by closing their upper eyelids, giving them a human-like expression, but, unlike humans, they cannot move their eyes. Instead, their neck is flexible. While it can’t turn completely around, they can move it so quickly that it can appear to make a full rotation.

If an owl has claimed you as a totem and your neck is stiff and inflexible, you may be hindering your own perceptions to a great degree.

The barn owl has a heart-shaped facial disk which is unique among owls. As a totem, this reflects the ability to link the heart and mind. It also has darker eyes, and a golden buff feathering on top. When seen at night from below it has a ghostly appearance, which has earned it the name of ghost owl. It is an owl whose medicine can connect you to old haunts and spirits of properties and homes that may still be lingering about. Its medicine can be used to help develop mediumship and spirit contact.

Many owls do not build nests. They lay eggs in the forks of trees or use the abandoned nests of other birds. People sometimes find owlettes and fledglings at the base of trees where they have fallen. Many people pick them up, believing them to be abandoned. This is rarely so. If left alone, the mother will take care of them.

Owls fly silently; the front edge of the wing has a fringe that silences flight, and the large wingspan enables the bird to fly slowly and smoothly. This silence is something that all with an owl totem should practice. Keep silent as you go about your business.

We know quite a bit about owl’s eating habits, predominantly due to “owl pellets.” An owl will usually swallow its prey whole and head first. The parts of the prey that are indigestible (bones, fur, teeth, claws, and such) are then regurgitated in the form of pellets. It is said that by swallowing the prey head first, the owl takes into itself the wisdom and energy of the prey. The regurgitation reflects its ability to eliminate those aspects that are unbeneficial and unhealthy for it.

To awaken your owl senses, select a night when you will be alone. Outside, light a single black candle, and decorate your space with tokens of winter, such as pine cones and evergreen boughs. Gaze into the flame while you visualize an owl flying silently above a frozen woodland. See it lead you to your goal.

Return slowly from your vision of the owl to the here and now. Tonight you’ll likely have a vivid dream relating to your quest.

Happy flying, and Blessed Be.

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Hearth and Home

2/8/2019

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For Christmas this year, my son Ian gave me a small Hestia statue. I was going to make an altar in our fireplace for her. She is, after all, Goddess of the Hearth. But she made it clear she wanted to live in our kitchen, so there she resides, on the mantle of our kitchen window.

Few of us have an actual hearth anymore – that central location bordering an open fire that serves as light, heat, and cooking spot. The hearth is the central symbol of the home and love, nurturing and safety. And the hearth keeper—the cook-- holds both the inner and outer worlds simultaneously.

On farms in China and Japan, the cook is often considered so valuable that he is excused from working in the fields so he can devote his energies to cooking the midday meal. In monasteries, cooking is regarded as an art. Only the monks of long-standing practice and wisdom cook for the temple.

In Latin, focus means hearth. I think we’ve lost that focus, lost the center of our home that is so important to true contentment. Honoring the hearth is a state of being that radiates outward, nourishing other parts of our lives.

That’s what my little Hestia statue now reminds me daily: to weave more home and hearth ritual back into my daily life.

It’s easy to lose our focus, to not pay attention. Listening to TV or talk radio, scanning emails or Facebook on our phones while we chop and stir in the kitchen, these are all habits that get in the way of the practice of consciously tending the hearth.

Bringing ritual back into the kitchen is actually a way of coming back to the center of yourself. But how does one begin to change something as intimate as eating habits?

I’m starting with healthier foods, closer to the rhythms of the seasons, and in synch with my hunger schedule. Nothing elaborate. Cooking fresh ingredients, simple meals. Taking the emphasis off of what I can put in the microwave and eat right now. Eating always with mindfulness, rather than ravenous mindless snacking because I’m lazy and waited too long to fix something.

I’m also going to bring awareness into what goes on in my kitchen, and make it a sacred space.

Light a candle for Hestia when we begin cooking
Stand in the kitchen, just for a moment, without doing anything, to take inventory of my mental and emotional state. Am I feeling scattered, worried or angry? I am about to make something with my hands, and that is a power in itself. Offer up any irritability in an offering. Then release it.
Limit distractions. My phone is merely a tool. I don’t need to use it now. Facebook and messages, even phone calls, can wait.
Honor myself as a cook. Even if dinner is leftovers and a piece of bread, respect the food and its preparation.
Decorate the room with crystals, greenery and fresh herbs in pots, plus a pleasing natural fragrance. Experiment with what brings me a sense of calm.
Finally, clean the kitchen as if it were my temple. I already know a sparkly clean kitchen makes me happy. Keep it that way always!

What rituals do you perform mindfully now in your hearth and home? Are there practices you’d like to add?

May your home be a place of comfort and refuge to you too.
Happy Valentine’s Day.

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Hagia Sophia and Peace

2/1/2019

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I’m sharing with you today a wonderful writing from feminist witch and activist Z. Budapest, from her book The Grandmother of Time.

Speaking as the Goddess Hagia Sophia, this passage embodies the spirit of February and late winter perfectly.

“I have hidden this month’s message inside a bear’s cave, then changed my mind and thrown it on your threshold. Did you feel me encircle your house? You would hardly recognize me, I am so beautiful, my cheeks are red from the winds, and my feet are damp from all the moisture I am pumping up to the tips of my forests from the depth of the earth.

Nothing is showing now, of course. It’s still the dead of winter, but I have my hidden activities. We are busy down in the depths! My rowan is about to burst out in flowers, and in the south blooms my laurel, my bay. There are crocuses in my hair, and I have tiny snow-white flowers blending with the snow itself. I am heralding an initiation.

A spiritual strength, unlike that of any other time, is surging through me like the sap of the trees. I care for the depths of the soul. It’s a new down. There is no more need to hide the spiritual strength of women. My name rings out freely from their lips, and I answer the call. I answer the call every time. This season I am the all-wise seeress, the witch of transformation. Have you heard the stirrings of my power?”

Sophia, the spirit of female wisdom, disguised herself as a white dove, her sacred bird. Christianity tried to write her out completely, retaining only the symbol of the dove, which is the giver of powers to Jesus at his baptism, and also appeared to the apostles when they gathered after Jesus was killed.

In Gnostic tradition, Hagia Sophia, the Great Mother was born from silence. She was the great revered Virgin in whom the Father was concealed before he created anything. She suffered great slander from the new patriarchal religions, which despised a female god but couldn’t quite eliminate her worship.

Eastern Christians built her a magnificent cathedral in Constantinople in the sixth century A.D., which became one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
“Sophia” in ancient Greek translates to “wisdom,” and from this we derive the words “philosophy” and “sophisticated.” And “Holy Wisdom” translates to Hagia Sophia. Her cathedral represents harmony, peace and religious tolerance and is a meeting point of the world’s religions.
We are living through one of the most turbulent times in American history. Racism, gun violence, drug addiction, sexual abuse, religious intolerance, immigration issues — you name it — abound at an alarming rate.
Last year saw wave after wave of new revelations about the extent of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis. It saw deadly hate crimes, as well as major #MeToo moments in many major communities. While we won critical milestones for religious minorities on Capitol Hill, we also witnessed a radical conservative bloc moving further to the right in the United States — wandering into nativist, anti-immigrant and, frankly, anti-Semitic territory.
What better time for us to recall the precepts of Hagia Sophia: Harmony. Peace. Religious tolerance. Finding a meeting place of the minds.
Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, Allah, the Pagan Gods and Goddesses, all welcome mankind in its entirety. Love for all. No matter which god you worship, I’m pretty sure that God judges us first on how we treat the stranger, and then on how we meditate on his omnipotence.
My spellwork (and prayers) this year are going to center on making even a small dent on the above list of atrocities, and getting back on the path of blessing, not cursing, each other in 2019.
Blessed Be!

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Hollow Bones

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Amazing Owls & Magic

Hearth and Home

Hagia Sophia and Peace

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