Tag: witch life

When It’s Mundane, Work With The Moon

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The Moon helps me remember. It’s my secret weapon to get all things mundane done. 

Dear Luna helps me remember to soak my ultra sensitive skin (something new since menopause) in a salt bath. It reminds me to sew my mending. It tells me it’s time to make another loaf of bread. It reminds me to clean my broom (more on that on my Patreon, if you’re interested). It reminds me to check in with my goals. It helps the energies within and around me to accomplish what I need to do to be my truest self and live my best life. 

Whatever her phase, there is a task that I have learned to do depending on where she is. As I’ve deepened into my Crone Life, more and more tasks are filed under either Dark, New, Quarters and Full Moons. 

For instance, on the week before the full moon, as mentioned above, I tend to any mending that needs to be done. Sewing for sure. But that can also be fences – as a Permie Witch, fences are uber important, otherwise you lose half your broccoli crop to runaway geese. But it’s also a time to look at mending or strengthening relationships. Additionally, I make a journey to the water’s edge. I’m fortunate that I live just a hop to the ocean or the mountains, so a body of water is never far away (and that was one of the reasons we chose Villa Westwyk). 

Because this full moon on Sunday is in Aries, there’s other things to consider. Aries rules the head, teeth, tongue, striated muscles, penis, gallbladder, arteries, and blood. So what of these body areas need some extra attention? If I was one to regularly cut my hair, I might plan to get a haircut this weekend. This week I’ll be making an appointment with my dentist for my next cleaning and check up. If I was on maintenance meds that required regular blood work, I might look at scheduling that work. 

Lastly, because this full moon falls in the midst of the hefty harvest season, I will likely be putting food by heavily this weekend. That full moon in Aries is all about firing up the cauldron. 

Understanding and learning how to work with the energies of the Moon has deepened my connection to the Universe and allowed me to be easily led through the mundane tasks of life to an existence that is way more Magical. 

How about you? Do you move with the moon? Do you design not just spell work and ritual around the moon, but more mundane things like cooking, cleaning, sewing, and other maintenance? If so, please let me know below.  

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Personal Harvest Day Reflection

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This week, in the astrology of my life, I reach the end of my 9th house and arrive to my Harvest Day and then my 10th house. I am transitioning from the House of Fruition to the House of Harvest, as laid out in The Book of Houses by Robert Cole and Paul Williams. In this great guide to the harvest cycle as it applies to your personal astrology, they recommend that you pause on your Harvest Day and reflect. To look back on what the seeds you chose in the 11th house and how you manifested. Reflection is often the seed of epiphany, so it’s a good practice, and one that Witches weave into their lives constantly. The Wheel of the Year — Lunar & Solar Cycles — bring us such opportunities in monthly and quarterly and biannual cycles. But to focus solely on your astrological harvest cycle is a new thing for me, but very fertile all the same. Allow me to share in summary that reflection and its harvest.*

At the end of May 2020 we had just moved into Villa Westwyk. Our nomadic life of travel had come to a screeching halt with the persistence of a global pandemic, and we needed a place to hunker down and be safe until we figured out our next move. We came to realize fairly quickly that a nomadic life no longer appealed to us given the state of the world and it was going to be a very long road to get back to a place where a life of constant travel was copasetic. That realization coincided with my 11th house, and we knew that making a home that we didn’t need a vacation from and which was self-sustaining was our path forward. But with the addition of a mortgage payment again on top of our other responsibilities, we were going to have to get creative in how we lived. I recall doing a pretty powerful spell right around Beltane 2020 to help me find my path forward.

It was then that I imagined an online marketplace to present the magical gifts I have to offer others and the magical tools and specialty items I find so endearing. My Magical Flea Market was born. It took a bit of time to get it moving forward, living among boxes and not having anyplace to sit to eat meals and the like was quite the distraction. That seed choosing also found me desiring a Crone Crowning Ritual, which many of you were privy to via Instagram. And that status has allowed me to embrace a role as wise woman and mentor to a choice few and its been such a circle of blessing. We also made put our sailboat up for sale and are taking some time to explore our new community, including the wilderness surrounding Komo Kulshan (the big mountain we can see from our property).

It was no accident that the home we landed in has plenty of space to host friends and family, as well would allow us to return to the micro-farming and permaculture efforts that we undertook in our last sticks-and-bricks home. I quickly carved out a small space and planted greens and herbs — because it’s something we eat daily and you can continually harvest. We were blessed with bumper crops of all the berries and fruit trees that already called Villa Westwyk home and we slowly made this place spark with spirit that is inside me and my partner, lovingly dubbed The Viking. We cleared away trash, overgrown brush and weeds, and lots of negative energy that was allowed to fester whilst the former residents’ energies were elsewhere.

A year later now and the house is mostly furnished, save a few odds-and-ends, and we’re in planting mode, enlarging the kitchen garden and establishing a perennial bed and market garden. We’ve brought home a small flock of chickens and a trio of goslings. Ducks should be here in a month or so. The Magical Flea Market is building slowly and my craft has helped a many people clarify and illuminate paths, understand ancestral and divine messages, and untangle the confusion of dreams. I am comfortable in my Crone skin and status. My home is filling again with jars of dried herbs and tinctures; the larder is full of cherries, black currants, apples, peaches, pears, and all the things to make One Spooky Witch and her Handsome Devil healthy again. My studio allows me to be creative, spiritual, and meditate regularly, as well as host Solitary Shenanigans on Wednesday mornings. The dogs love being able to explore without leashes and are learning the command “take cover” since we have a healthy population of Bald Eagles in the neighborhood, not to mention coyote and fox. We are gifted with mountain views and some spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

That is quite the harvest, yes? And contemplating those blessings and the appreciation of all the hard work that went into reaping this harvest will help me decide what seeds we will choose in a a few weeks when I reach my 11th house again. I’ll be spending a good chunk of the month of May trying to figure out what seeds for my personal harvest cycle I need to choose. But for right now I’m fairly content with what I have and am feeling blessed to have found my way here to Villa Westwyk and a life that allows me such time to heal a small plot of land, as well as myself.

Where are you in the harvest cycle of your natal chart? Did you celebrate your Harvest Day? If so, how and what did you learn? If you’re celebrating your harvest day soon, take advice from Granny Shadow below and take some time to rest and reflect.

*A big shout-out to The Astrologic Lab for inviting me to learn more about myself via Astrology. If you want to learn Astrology, you need to join the Lab!

I would like to acknowledge that Villa Westwyk resides on the ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish Peoples, who have lived in the Salish Sea basin, throughout the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades watershed, from time immemorial. I hold the deepest respect and gratitude for our Indigenous neighbors, the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Tribe, for their enduring care and protection of our shared lands and waterways.

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Dreams & Deities

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Using Your Dreams To Connect With Your Favorite Deity

Lucid Dreaming can be brought on by you or by a deity who wants to work with you.

Throughout my witch life my craft practice has not brought me to working with many deities. I would occasionally work with a deity as part of a moon circle or other gathered ritual, of which I have done sporadically over the past 40-ish years. There have been times when I’ve been respectful of deities, and provided an occasional offering (e.g. whiskey to Ran & Njord whilst living on my boat). Again, none of this is a regular thing. As you have likely realized and for which I’ve stated previously, I just prefer working my magic alone. Additionally, Nature Spirits and the larger Divinity of the Universe have always been more my jam when it comes to calling in some added magical energy. I’ve always been close to nature in everything I do, and it felt like I was working with my kindred there. It aligned with my own energy. But nothing in this realm ever stays the same, does it?

In that knowledge, I found myself wanting, not just considering, but like this sudden craving, to connect with more complete and powerful energies found often in deities. In short, I was being called. I have always been someone who appreciates the energies representative of certain goddesses and gods but didn’t feel called or the need to work with them.

But since becoming a more public witch, I’ve received many nudges and signs and dreams about working with deities, as well as the seeming involuntary urge mentioned above. As much as dream work, interpretation, dream recall, and astral projection have been a part of my craft and life, working with deities in it hasn’t been a thing. Now suddenly, they are intertwining and I’m finding myself feeling excited, charged-up, and at once, a bit of a nervous wreck. Yet, whenever you go out of your comfort zone those doubts and fears can percolate and swirl up. Basically, these deities are teaching this crone new tricks.

I wanted to share details with you; but, upon meditation was feeling like these deities wanted to keep things quiet between us and I agreed to just share aspects of the experience, including the spell work I did to open up the communications channels, and that working with them in dreams, not just in your magic work, is quite illuminating and satisfying. Standing in power together with them is validating and working with them through dreams can be quite the lucid experience. They are another way to learn more about your personal magic. Want to walk with a goddess and gods? Lucid dreaming is an excellent path to do so. Be prepared for some intense dreams. Not bad, just vivid and ethereal.

One deity that I’ve recently been called towards, sprinkled my dream walk with him with the scent of coconuts and tropical fruit. The journey to the realm we walked together in the visit via my dream was like walking in space without needing protection. We drank mead and ate fresh grilled fish whilst watching the natural activity of the lands between the oceans and mountains, where I currently reside. Another dream was an entirely different deity whom brought messages regarding my public practice and work I need to do to help others stand in their power and live their truest and best life. We weaved magic together and we walked in an ancient forest where I danced with upright cat-like creatures and then got down to the work of crafting spells and rituals. I’m still birthing the items in the Magical Flea Market that they showed me. My gratitude for this is endless and now altars to both these deities reside here at Villa Westwyk.

The beauty and messages were, in short, life affirming and almost professorial or parental. They do have things to teach us and are a resource at the ready if you approach them respectfully or accept their invitation. There is no demanding when it comes to deities, I have learned through my dreams, and any witch will tell you the same: You are called or they answer your polite petition.

Given these testimonies, you may want to open your dreams up to walks with certain deities. This is good magic for any Waxing Quarter Moon, like the one coming in a few days. But honestly doing lucid dreaming work with deities can happen any time.  However, don’t feel like you have to do this. Working with deity energy is a personal choice.

Within the coming week, you will find a new spell bag in my Magical Flea Market that will assist you in opening up your craft to such lucid dreaming and deity walks. It is a new-and-improved version, including instructions, of what I’ve used for my own lucid dreaming to walk with the deities I have been called to work with these days; it sits charging on my altar through the waxing quarter moon, then it will be in the shop. It was something that has helped engage me with deities while providing protection and additional magic and energy to connect us.

Whether you decide to work with a deity or not, as always I wish you the courage to be your truest self and live your best life.

Blessed Be,

~Runa

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Personal Guiding Principles

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A journey to what I hold dear

My principles ended up with nine; yours may be more or fewer. What number did you arrive at when you thought about it?

Right around my solar return in November, a question was posed to me — and honestly, I don’t recall where it came from — I mean, obviously, Source. But what vehicle for which the message was delivered, I’m unsure of, and does it really matter? Not really, except to understand that we can get messages from Source or our Spirit Guides in just about any manner. We need to allow ourselves to be open to receive it.

This particular message was regarding my Personal Guiding Principles, my own witch’s creed if you will. It was then it occurred to me that I may not necessarily be able to spout out something succinct. But in the complicated world we live in, can such things be succinct? Perhaps. Regardless, I had my mission and set out over the last months to detail exactly what they are.

I set about by meditating, first. I imagine if you had been a dragonfly on the window sill of my studio I would have looked quite the stereotypical new-age westerner. Lotus position. Lights dimmed. Candles lit. Incense wafting. But, hey, it worked. I saw words flash into my mind’s eye. I saw little vignettes when in my life I had exhibited the words in my head. It was almost like a beat as I breathed in and out and focused solely on the things I hold dear. 

Following meditation I did some automatic writing. This is when I just let things flow out from my hand to the pen and paper (or keyboard, if appropriate). What followed was a bit of a mess, which it normally is and requires much interpretation and revision. After the follow-on editing, I produced my personal guiding principles. They are not in any kind of order, just as they came out of my head. All nine are important regardless of order. I do find it interesting that there are 9, as that is an important number to me, but that exploration is for another day. However, what I did notice is that there’s a bit of a mnemonic to it. I call it my WiTCH D-REPS. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out why.

My personal guiding principles:

Worth:  Know your worth; understand you are a survivor. Prioritize your well being. You are worthy.

Truth: Is it true? Truth in speaking; truth in writing; truth in expression; what does your gut say? Do not dismiss your truth meter, your gut.

Courage: To do the hard work, even when it pushes me physically, mentally, emotionally (out of my comfort zone). Kill your fear, witch.

Honor: To do the honorable thing even when no one is looking; to honor the planet and its creatures.

Discipline:  Take small steps each day; even if you don’t finish, showing up is half the battle. One step forward every day (even if it’s just taking a shower); this includes practicing patience.

Respect: Self, Others, Earth

Energy: It is in us; all around us; we must be cognizant of how it is connected and used.

Perseverance:  Never Give Up!

Self Reliance:  Take care of yourself as much as possible and as independently as possible so you are able to help others with ease.

As the new calendar year unfolded, it may have seemed very basic to be examining such things, but honestly, in my more than half century alive, I haven’t sat down and said, here’s what guides my life. So, as our nation faces great threat from right inside its own borders, and a deadly virus rages without containment, it seemed as good a time as any. I mean, #Ronalife, right?

Now I imagine this will be what is called a “living document” and I’ll add and adjust as I focus even more on it. But these words basically could be tattooed on me and they wouldn’t change. Therefore, at present, I feel like these are a solid foundation to move forward for the next half century of my life.

Do you have a personal creed or guiding principles? Have you attempted to write or author your own? I’d love to know how you approach this if you call yourself a witch, pagan, or a mystic.

In truth,

~Runa

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