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Happy Lughnasadh!

7/28/2018

When summer is at its peak, when the berries are ripe for the picking, and when we are basking in the sun's warmth, it is time for a celebration.

Our ancient Celtic ancestors celebrated this time with a Sabbat they called Lughnasadh. Pronounced LOO-na-sa, this was the first harvest celebration of the year, and marked the time when the first round of crops would be harvested.

Widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, Lughnasadh was originally observed on July 31 or August 1, half-way between the summer solstice and autumn equinox.
Lughnasadh is one of the four Celtic seasonal festivals, along with
Samhain, Imbolc and Beltane. It corresponds to other European harvest festivals such as the English Lammas.

Lughnasadh is said to have begun by the god Lugh as a funeral feast and athletic competition in commemoration of his mother, Tailtiu. She is said to have died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture.

According to medieval writings, kings attended the games, and a truce was declared for its duration.

Trial marriages were also conducted, and young couples joined hands through a hole in a wooden door. The trial marriage lasted a year and a day, at which time the marriage could be made permanent or broken without consequences.

Lughnasadh customs are still being practiced in Ireland. The Irish climb their mountains in celebration, the most well-known being Reek Sunday—the yearly pilgrimage to the top of Croagh Patrick in late July, which attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims each year. In fact, the Catholic Church in Ireland established the custom of blessing fields at Lughnasadh.

At some gatherings, everyone wears flowers while climbing the hill, and then bury them at the summit as a sign that summer is ending. In other places, the first sheaf of the harvest wheat is buried.

Some Wiccans mark the sabbat by baking a figure of the “corn god” Lugh in bread, and then symbolically sacrificing and eating it. And in Hungary, public tables are set up at crossroads, containing fresh loaves of bread and glasses of wine.

Regardless of the exact ceremony, Lughnasadh is the time to give thanks to the spirits and deities for the beginning of the harvest season, and to welcome them with offerings. It’s the cross-quarter holiday commemorating the miracle of rebirth, remembered with gifts of the harvest—corn, berries, apples, grapes, and summer squashes.

So, as you visit an August county fair or a plentiful farmer’s market, remember that they are all remnants of the ancient celebrations of the prosperity of our beautiful earth.

Eating with focus on the food and hot on the TV or phone, is one way of expressing thanks for the harvest—all year round, but especially at Lughnasadh.

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Harry Potter for Grownups

7/21/2018

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Happy birthday, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter!

The author of the beloved fantasy novel series turns 52 on July 31. She shares her birthday with her most famous character, The Boy Who Lived.

If you haven’t read the Harry Potter series since the first time your child picked it up, it’s easy to miss many of the references J.K. Rowling packed into her books. One of the joys of revisiting the series as an adult is finding all the mythological, allegorical and historical references she scattered throughout the pages.

First, there are the more obvious references. Most people are familiar with the sphinx, for example. "Minerva" was the Roman goddess of wisdom. And Fluffy looks an awful lot like Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the Ancient Greek underworld.
But below are some tidbits you are more likely to have missed.

Snape’s Hidden Message
Rowling is a master of subtext: the meaning beneath the dialogue; what the speaker really means, even though he’s not saying it directly.

Photo by Annie Leibowitz

Consider, for example, this conversation between Severus Snape and Harry Potter during their first Potions class. Snape asked Harry a series of questions, including this clue: “Mr. Potter. Tell me, what would I get if I added powered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” Of course, Harry, being new to the wizarding world, had no idea.

According to the Victorian language of flowers, asphodel is a type of lily meaning “my regrets follow you to the grave” and wormwood means “absence” and symbolizes bitter sorrow. If we combine the meanings of those two plants, we could interpret the truth behind Snape’s question as, “I bitterly regret Lily’s death.”

Cold-hearted as Severus Snape might have been, readers eventually discover that he’s been in love with Lilly Potter for all of his adult life. In fact, this failed love story is the catalyst of Snape’s entire character arc, and it’s the painful seed that grows the complicated relationship between Harry Potter and himself.

Rowling gives us the first clue early on. Of course, deciphering it requires a working knowledge of Victorian flower meanings.
Along that same line…

The Wizarding World Plants Come from a Real Book

“I used to collect names of plants that sounded witchy,” Rowling told 60 Minutes, “and then I found Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, the answer to my prayer.

First published over 350 years ago during the reign of Elizabeth I, Culpeper's Herbal remains one of the most complete listings of herbs and their uses in existence. From Adder's Tongue to Yarrow, the book contains plant descriptions and old-time uses.
To give a few examples:

Dragon’s blood. While truly the bright red described in Half-Blood Prince, it’s not from dragons. It’s the resin exuded from the wounded trunk of the Dracaena draco tree, found in Morocco. The resin’s exquisite scent is often used in soaps and such.

Wormwood. One of the ingredients Harry Potter students use to make the Draught of Living Death, wormwood is used to make the alcoholic spirit Absinthe.

Absinthe has been portrayed through the years as a dangerously addictive psychoactive and hallucinogen, and it was banned in the 1900s. More recent studies have shown Absinthe’s psychoactive properties have been exaggerated, and it has enjoyed a revival since the 1990s.

Severus Snape used Wolfsbane to treat Remus Lupin when that character turned into a werewolf.

That’s the folk-remedy name for the real-life herb Aconite. Folklore says this virulently poisonous herb could be added to sachets to guard against vampires and werewolves.

The screaming Mandrakes who made their appearance in the Chamber of Secrets, really do make a scream-like noise when uprooted.

And yes, the dried roots do often look like people. They have long been used as magical poppets for home protection.

Wand Maker Ollivander Chose Carefully

The main threesomes’ wands are actually connected to the Celtic Tree Calendar. The Druidic calendar assigns letters in the Celtic Ogham alphabet to correspond to a specific tree each month.

First, we have Harry, whose birthday is July 31, which corresponds to Holly, his wand wood.

This evergreen plant is protective and reminds us of the immortality of nature. People born under Holly are natural-born leaders.

Ron’s wand is Ash, which matches his wand and March 1 Birthday
Hermione’s birthday of Sept. 19 corresponds to her vine wood wand.

For whatever reason, Rowling did not choose to have Voldemort’s Yew wand match his birth date of December 31.

Personally, I think she wanted the Yew associations of death. Yew is poisonous. Every part of the tree contains alkaloids that are fatal to humans. And Yew remains poisonous after the tree has died. Similarly, Voldemort’s Horcruxes and Death Eaters lingered on after his demise at Godric’s Hollow, poisoning minds and destroying lives.

The Author Put her Classics Degree to Use
Almost all of the spells in her wizarding world play around with Latin, and pretty much every creature and character name has some hidden significance. Here are some of the historical and mythological references in the Harry Potter books I found clever:

Expelliarmus, the spell to knock a weapon from an enemy’s hand, combines expellere, meaning “drive out” or “expel,” with arma, meaning “weapon.” Incendio, which lights a fire, comes from incendiaries, or “fire-raising.”

Likewise, the curse to kill Harry’s parents, “Avada Kedavra,” is an ancient spell in Aramaic, and the origin of abracadabra, which “let the thing be destroyed.”

And Hogwart’s motto is Draco Dormiens Numquam Titilandus—“Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.”

The Death Eaters were originally known as the Knights of Walpurgis, which is a reversal of “Walpurgis Night,” the name of an old witch’s holiday on April 30th celebrating the rites of spring—exactly six months from Samhain (Halloween). On both nights, spirits were free to arise from their graves and roam.

Hermione’s unique name comes from a Shakespeare play, The Winter’s Tale, but Rowling says the etymology was her inspiration. The name is a female derivative of Hermes, best known as the messenger of the Greek Gods. Hermes was also the god of eloquence, wit and quick-thinking, traits Hermione has in spades.

Rowling said her favorite beast in the series is the phoenix, a mythical sacred bird who ignites into flames when it reaches 1,000 years old, only to emerge from the flames as a new, young version.

My favorite is the Thestral, a breed of winged horse with a skeletal body, reptilian face, and wide, leathery wings like a bat.

Thestrals got a bad rap in the books, and became known as omens of misfortune and death because they are visible only to those who have witnessed death. What I found most interesting was how Rowling used the Thestrals to distinguish people who have witnessed the process of dying, as opposed to those who have only seen the resulting death. Those who have witnessed life ending will forever see life differently.

Behind the Scenes
Daniel Radcliffe has been very open in the past about his struggles with alcohol. He admitted to Playboy Magazine that he drank heavily between the ages of 18 and 20. He said his life went off the rails for a while when he turned 18 and was filming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

“People with problems like that are very adept at hiding it,” he said. “I can honestly say I never drank at work on Harry Potter. But I went into work still drunk. I can point to many scenes where I’m just gone. Dead behind the eyes.

Realizing he had to change his ways, Radcliffe quite drinking a month after filming the final Potter film, and still doesn’t drink.

Dame Maggie Smith, the actress who played Professor McGonagall, filmed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while undergoing radiotherapy for breast cancer. “I was hairless. I had no problem getting the wig on,” she said. “I was like a boiled egg.”

Despite the jokes, filming the last HP films were a struggle for the actress, who has since been cancer-free.

On a lighter note, Daniel Radcliffe broke about 80 wands during the filming of the Harry Potter movies because he used them as drumsticks.

Lastly, J.K. Rowling says one of the creatures in the books are based on her own struggles with depression after her mother’s death from multiple sclerosis in 1990.

She used her experience to create Dementors, creepy creatures that feed on human emotion. “It's so difficult to describe [depression] to someone who's never been there, because it's not sadness," Rowling told Oprah Winfrey. “I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling—that really hollowed-out feeling. That's what Dementors are.”

If you could ask J.K. Rowling one question, what would it be? Do you have a little-known Harry Potter fact I didn’t mention? I'd love to hear about them.

Until next week, here's an idea: go back and re-read the whole Harry Potter series. Let me know what revelations they bring you!

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Workspace Quirks

7/14/2018

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I’ve read a hundreds of articles on de-cluttering your home, and almost as many on creating a calm and productive work space.

But here’s the rub: Unless you’re moving into a custom-built home, you have no choice about the physical space you have to work with. You have to get creative within the confines of your room.

During the summer months I live at two homes: Our permanent house in Phoenix, and our summer cabin in the woods at Munds Park, three hours away.

I spent some time walking through both homes this week, and looking at them with fresh eyes. I tried to just take everything in and simply observe. Then I asked myself: How does this home make you feel?

Kitchen Table - Phoenix

It’s my happy space. I drink morning coffee here, surrounded by dogs and usually with a 20-pound black cat or two beside the laptop in front of me. It’s a sunny, open-feeling space. When the dogs go outside, I can watch them play (and, unfortunately, poop) through the bay window behind me.

I work on my laptop here a lot. A LOT. My son Ian hates this habit, because he Christmas-gifted me double monitors and a docking station upstairs in my office (where I’m supposed to be working). He nags me to clear off the kitchen table so we can eat there without my mess. I think he’s hurt that I don’t appreciate and use his gifts. Rightfully so.

Do I feel guilty? No. The kitchen is where the action is. The pets would have to choose whether to go upstairs with me, or stay here in hopes of an occasional table scraps. Besides, I’d have to walk those stairs twenty times a day, and my knees are 60.

Solution: Move your butt upstairs girl!
*Do a fall cleaning on the filing cabinets to make space for all of your working files.

*Clear the desk off completely and add a green plant. The cat will have room to lay beside you, and he will come because he’s glued to your work space.

* Put a dog treat or favorite bone in the dog crates (on opposite side of room, not shown in the photo). They’ll come too, especially if the windows and blinds are open so they can survey the back yard.

* Add a fan for better circulation, it gets hot in the afternoon.

* Add music, large water bottle, and healthy snacks. You won’t have to go downstairs as often.

2. Kitchen Table - Cabin
I have picked up the same bad habit of working at the kitchen table in the cabin also. Up there, it’s for a different reason: I love to be able to look out at the forest while I’m working. But it’s distracting, and so is the TV which Paul watches at the other side of the room. I have a combo office space here as well, but haven’t been using it.

First, we had to add a slide out tray for my keyboard because the built-in corner desk was too tall. And there’s not enough lighting. The entire room is dimly lit. The corner desk feels claustrophobic, and there is little actual desk space that’s usable.

Solution: Re-arrange the room and add lighting. Add a side section/credenza to the desk.

* The desk light we bought doesn’t cut it, so Paul is going to install an under-cabinet light that will shine down on the back of my desk without glaring in my eyes. I’m also adding a tall desk lamp in the wasted space at the back of the corner desk’s “pie” shape. I have a stacked file holder back there now, and a project calendar on the wall, but it’s too dark to see them.

*I’m going to re-arrange furniture and either move the sewing machine table or use it as a credenza. Also moving the huge clunky printer so it’s not wedged in right next to the desk. It blocks the light the desk could get from the double window.

*Add a small fan for air circulation.

*Leave blinds up in double windows, and install ceiling hangers to hang a plant in each window.

*Clean up and deodorize the breezeway room next to the office. Open the screen door and windows in breezeway for added airflow. Maybe even figure out how those two rooms can be used together for space in the summer (breezeway is too cold in the winter).

Once I’ve made these changes, the key will be to keep the areas organized, not let my work “spill out” into other spaces around the house.

Employees of Disney properties go through an extensive training at Disney University. One of the things they are taught: If you pass one tiny piece of paper on the ground without picking it up, you’re fired.

Disney has figured out two things. First, it takes less human resources to keep the park clean if it’s kept spotless from the get-go. And second, both employees and guests will take pride in the cleanliness code and help to enforce it. Think about it. Where are you more inclined to throw a gum wrapper—on totally clean grounds or somewhere where there’s trash already?

I think the same “code” will be true in my offices. If I leave unfinished, unorganized “stuff” lying around, it will grow exponentially until there’s chaos.

I’m adding a physical in-tray to each office. I’m also going to have a “Master To Do” list at each office, to keep me aware of the big picture, and not have to recall everything from memory. Actually, I do this list already, but I don’t keep it out on my desk, it just gets written and filed away. Usually I find it a year later when I’m making the next annual master list. <sigh>

No more! From my master “To Do” list (on my desk now!) I’m going to pull a daily chore list. (I also do this already, but on a much too ambitious scale. It ends up being a source of added stress since I never get everything crossed off in a day.)

Now I’m going to start by pulling 5 tasks I’m pretty certain I can get done. That will probably not be nearly everything I think I should get done in a given day, so it will be necessary to prioritize—and stay on task—ruthlessly.

Before I stop my work for the day and go into evening relaxation, I’ll review the day’s list, and finish what I didn’t accomplish. THEN, I’ll write the following day’s list of tasks. Then dinner and some relaxation time.

Because filing and shredding tends to be a task I despise and tend to fall behind on, I’m going to take a tip from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” best-seller. He suggests designating one day a week for those tidying-up tasks that may have slipped through the cracks. These chores will be in place of, not in addition to, your 5 daily tasks.

Since I’m going to have separate lists for work and personal, I think I’ll put “vacuum” and “clean toilets” on that designated day as well.

Sounds easy here. I doubt it will be. Controlling clutter—or rather, lack of control—has been a big stressor for me for years. Now that I have two homes to maintain, and a husband who refuses to hire help at either place, I’m constantly stressed about the messy state of my home(s). If these organizational changes actually help, I will be one happy writer!

If you have other tips for organizing your work space, or your life in general, I’d love to hear them. Please leave your comments here, or look for this blog post on my Facebook page (Sandy Wright) and comment there.
Blessed be. And may your home be a peaceful and productive space!

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We Are Aradia

7/7/2018

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Afternoon fog clung to the sea cliffs as we drove into the headlands of Mendocino State Park.

For our little band of Arizona witches, this was the culmination of two day’s driving, and the gateway where magic begins.

We piled out of the vans with the items we had made, eager to begin our gift exchange. In this way, we showed our fondness for each other, as well as beginning our calming time, our time to settle our minds inward in preparation for the craziness that is Witchcamp check-in.

The gifts are different each year. I’ve received homemade muffins, tote bags, stones, astrology stuff, a pendulum set, an athame, coasters, tarot bags, bath salts.

This year, I gave little leather mojo bags with customized totem animals and stones. Every one of the gifts is precious because it’s made with love. When we piled back into the vans for the dirt-road drive into the Redwoods forest campgrounds, my heart was full.

This is my bag. The raven is my totem animal, and my bag is dark green, my favorite color for magic. The two little skulls are for the Ancestors.

Although this is only my second time for the seven-day, intensive magical practice, some people have been attending this camp for nearly two decades. We eat delicious and healthy vegetarian food that is sustainably sourced and prepared by a professional cook staff of witches. They have published their own cookbook. I bought a copy this year and am going to try and coax my meat eating husband to try some of the recipes.

Witchcamp is part gathering, a large part ritual practice, but also so much learning. I got to sit and talk with people from all walks of life, from molecular biologist (he worked on the “clot buster” medicine for stroke victims, of special interest to this stroke survivor), to full-time ecstatic and spiritual workers, to school teachers and nurses, to recovering addicts. All of us were joined in working to make this planet better for our children and their descendants. No electronics to distract us, no outside obligations, just people sharing life experiences together. It was amazing. Eye opening. And humbling. I wished I had more time to become deeply, intimately involved with each of these 150 souls.

This year I camped apart from my AZ group, sharing a cabin with Janeen and Lari, two friends from the Palm Springs area that I met at my first camp. We all decided that the smoking table was its own Affinity group since we got together each night after ritual and between scheduled daytime activities. I don’t recall a single cross word between the three of us. What a blessing it is to have no drama, just companionship and interest in each other.

The week was exhausting, but it recharged my spiritual batteries. I came home with a deeper understanding of who I am. And who I can be.

Now that I’m back in my everyday world I can look back on my favorite events of this year’s camp. When you’re in the midst of the magic, it can be a little overwhelming, so a week of processing and reflection was needed.

Here are some of the moments that made deep impressions:

* The Headlands: Gateway to the Magic. I love you guys!

* Midnight full moon ritual in the ampetheater. “Sparks from the fire of the Queen of Death and Night.”

* The beautiful Creekside mandala.
Thank you Jeff!

* Numerous discussions on white privilege, cultural appropriation, and How Not to be a Racist at Camp. LOTS of processing going on still around this topic. Thank you, path teachers, campers, all of you, for your comments and insights.

* Raven’s path discussion on parts of the brain and how they inter-relate. Also the “shen birds” and soul retrieval.

* Thalia, our own firefly. “Deepening in this land, we gather power.”

* 50 witches in red. Red is power!

* So many interesting tattoos! Their origins made fascinating stories around the smoker’s table.

* The constant reminder that Nature is sacred. We are surrounded by it, and it soaks into your pores. Honor the spirits of the place where you are.

* Eye Gazing. “I SEE you.”

* Invocations in Spanish

* Participating in the Aradia story telling at the camper-run ritual.

Thank you Tarin. I would never have volunteered if you hadn’t given me that opportunity.

* Water and ink scrying. Beautiful and so deep. Thank you Scrying in the Dark teachers!

* Reading tea leaves. Path this year was fantastic.

* Discovering how much information my tea leaf scrying set gave me. Wow! I’ve had this set for four years and never used it. Now I’ll use it regularly.

* Getting to know my Path teachers Urania and Raven. I love you both. You put so much of yourselves into our group. Heart bumps.

* My fellow “Pathers” and your haunting messages from our exercises:
“A wound creates a voice, and the voice calls in what is needed to heal the wound.”

“Keep salt at the front door,
Twigs at the back.
Pebbles under the bed,
Water on the hearth,
And leave a window cracked.
Keep a flame going.”

*Time spent with Ancestors and Descendants in path and in ritual. Especially the messages I received from the Descendants during our Path meditation. It gives me hope for the future

* Word Witches. Beautiful Affinity Group ritual! Thank you Riyana for suggesting this group, and Star Singer for composing our song.

* “Liberation Song.” It's stuck in my head forever.

* Confirmation that howling at the moon is a perfectly reasonable option in this world gone mad.

* Making the flying ointment. Such a potent night!

* The reminder to work my magic. Always, and especially in the everyday world, where it is desperately needed. I didn’t spend all this time learning magic to impress my friends. I learned it for times like this. Go use it! Do what must be done.

Aradia. Thank you, my 2nd Degree patroness, for urging me to go to Witchcamp and GO DEEP with you. Finally, right? Now…what do you have planned next? I can’t wait to find out!

Blessed Be all.

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Hollow Bones

Happy Lughnasadh!

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