6/29/2007 - Urban Witch

5/10/2007 - The Urban Witch

Unfortunately today things are not quite what they use to be, the world has changed, and with that the enviroment has changed or more acutataly has been changed around us, and yet equally unfornatuately it does not seem as if a lot of writings, reguardins, spells, rituals and the like both old and new have accounted for that change, which can seem to make things difficult for the majority of us.

That is to say there are countless spells and rituals which seem to require the use of a grove, or some otherwise isolatated space in the midist of nature which is such a thing not many of us today have accesses too. So what is one to do?

Well when one is prohbitied from from physcialy going to the required envrioment for a particular ritual or spell, then one must find a way to symbolialy represent that in the space they do have to work with, and what is avilable to them readily and easily.

I think the best way to do that, is by use of a garden, if one has thier own yard, you can make it as elaboarte of simple, as you like depending upon what you want, and how much space you have to work with. Make the garden specicaly ritulaistic use, and you may even wish to give it some blessing while you are working on it, and just visuslize what you wish it to respresent as you tend to it.

Another thing that can be done, if you have a faveortie tree in your yard, you can use this tree to be symbolic of the ancitent groves of the past, and you can condut your rituals just beneath the tree and if you like you can concetcate the tree, by pouring some libation around the base of it, or giving it a blessing.

Of course living in an apartment one might now have the luxury of having thier own yard, or a space to create a garden of thier own, and more then likely you do not have any empty rooms just sitting around your apartment, so you can make a temporary space for yourself to work in. If you are conducting a ritual that does require you to be in a certain envrioment that you are unable to conviently do so, you can deocate a room to represresent that envrioment maybe play some nature sounds, and place some plants around the room, burn some incense or candels that have free cool natural scents, you can even hang picutres up that have nature scenes to use.

3/30/2007 - Atlantis

There is much mystery and spculation revolving around the lost city of Atlantis, and magick is very much tied into this mystical city, as well it is an important point within Pagan beleif to some degree I think regaurdless of what ones stance or beleif upon the city is, as well the ideas of the city have penetrated the minds of people from all backgrounds and varrying beleifs, though common speculation of the city is that it was in fact a highly magickal place, of course this could relate to its complete and mysterious dissaperence, the use of crystals are commonly tied into the city as well, along with sepeculation of technelogical advances, with all this being said I thought I would give some of my personal thoughts upon Atlantis.

I do not expect nor ask that everyone beleives what I say nor am I trying to nessciarly convince anyone of anything or trying to prove anything, what I say I hold true for myself and leave others to take it as they will, the only thing I will give, is my word that though there are those that my choose to be skeptic of my words, and all are free to think what they wish, I am not speaking falesly, that is to say, I am not trying to emblesh anything for the sake of intrest, all that I say, I say from the heart and firmly hold true in my own mind and soul.

I have complete faith that Atalantis was true and real, that it did at one time exisit and that it was truely a marvelous and fascinating place, and it was strong in magick and power, and a place of mystics, the reason for my firm belief in this, is the fact that I have distinct and vivid memories and visions of Atlantis. I beleive that I was indeed an Atlantian in a past life, thought I have only segements and flashes of these memories, and do not have the whole picture, and I cannot say I know what had happend to Atalantis, or where it is now, I have no doubts that these recollations were indeed of Atlantis, and from what I have seen, I would say that I was likely a priestess.

One thing I do have a very clear memory of, was of walking down a hallway, a glorious hallway which had tall glamarous walls which caught and reflected the light, they were almost prism like, and perhaps could have been made of crystal, and I remeber the ocean, the vast blue ocean which was so clear. I was in some sort of robe like garment, of white, which in part lends to the beleif that I was a priestess and the style of the clothing seemed almost to mix elements of both the Greeks and the Egyptians.

12/6/2006 - The Law of Attraction

I decided to do some looking into and reading up upon the subject of this whole Law of Attraction thing, becasue I noticed one of the new blogs here seems focused around the idea, and then I happend upon the phrase elsewhere, and so I thought this must be some new thing, or I am just out of touch, which would not surprise me in the least, but point in fact, it caught my attention becasue I was seeing it around and had not previously heard of it, so I looked it up, and I found it quite intresting that it seemed many of the ideals and concepts behind this whole Law of Attraction thing bump up against very closely to the concepts, ideas, and workings of magick, and yet as far as I can tell the Law of Attraction is not intended to be spiritual in anyway, nor is it aimed at those of a spiritual nature nesscairly. But all the same it deals with the ideas of energy, the energy of the individual being, and the interconectedness of the energy of the world around us, and the way in which we have effect upon that energy by no more then the act of thinking we impose ourself upon it, and the power of the will and mind and so forth. A lot of it reminded me of the Reiki phrase I wish such and so to happen.

I am not entierly sure how I feel about this or what I think of it, on the hand a part of me does find it a bit intresting that they ideals and concepts are being used in the mainstream you might say and perhaps being accepted by those very same people that would not think twice about Paganism and perhaps even consider Paganism a dead relgion and that those whom continue to practice it to be a bit loony as I am sure many of us Pagans have encountered such sentiment from time to time.

But on the other hand it is not altogether a pleasent feeling or thought to have the things which are a part of my spiritualty stripped away from its meaning and put purely to some materail and mundane use as well as the thought that whomever first began this whole Laws of Attraction thin trying to take some sort of cridit for what are really very ancient ideas that are deeply ingrained in a powerful beleif system and has links to varrious different cultures.

11/6/2006 - Ethics and Morals in Magick

I thought I would take the time to speak a little to the place of morals and ethics when it comes to the use of magick. Now most people who are practicioners of magick usually come from some spiritual background, typcially that being of Pagan or Wiccan relation. So for the most part I am sure many people have thier own vaule set that they are taught within thier choosen path which would apply to the use of magick as well, but it is not strictly requiered that you are a Pagan or nessciarly of any spiritual beleif to practice magick. Even today there are some magicians or mages that practice magick without any real beleif.

Now as far as I am concenred regaurdless of what your spiritual or lack there of background is, when it comes to the practice of magick there is some personal responseablity that must be upheld and practiced though of course nothing can be done to stop that precentage of people that are of a sociopathic nature whom will use magick for purely thier own selfish gain with little reguard to the effects on others. But I personally cannot take responseablility for the choosen actions of others, and I do not think that knowlege should be withheld from those whom are deserserving becasue of what some ignorant jack ass might choose to do.

It does put me in a difficult posistion at times though, for what I am attempting to do with my Book of Shadows is to post a vast arrary of different knowlege that others might find useful, not simply to just preach to my specific individual beleif, but to allow people to fit what I give into any choosen path, and to use it to form thier own paths, not simply to follow me. So some of the things I post are not all things that I nessciarily use myself, but some of it are things that I take to heart and do make a part of my practice, but because of this I do have to find that balance between positng things which might be outside of my personal beleif without crossing any boundries.

I do make evuluation of the things I post, and read over them carefully, for I will not post anything which I would not condone, though some of you may have noticed that I have posted some things before, and will again in the future, that do infact instruct and aide people to bring harm to others, but in these cases it is always justified at least from my prespective for I never support the harming of animals or the harming of innocence, but it is within my beleif that one does have the just right to retailiate against another whom has wronged them, as you can read about in my post about an eye for an eye. http://www.journalhome.com/silverwynd2/26575/

And so ulitmately when it comes down to it, it is up to each individual person to shoe some responseablity and common sense when using magick, and you should never use magick as some sort of free for all or think that magick some how absolves obligation to morals and etihcis, as a genreal rule you should not use magick to do anything which you would not do or not be willing to do without the use of magick, you should not be using magick as something you are hiding behind, but as a tool to further extend your ability.

10/13/2006 - Magick vs Magic

As you have all noticed I am given to use the word Magick opposed to Magic, now most of those of you who are Pagan or famillair wigh Paganisim probaly already understand this, but those who might be new to it, or who perhaps are not of the Pagan beleif but just happend to glance upon my Book of Shadows might be confussed or just think that I am given to make the smae mispessing repetedly so I thought I would take some time to talk about the very word itself.

Pagans have adopted the use of the word Magick to distinct themselves and what they practice from the more common understanding of Magic and the usual images and ideas that go along with that word.

As magic is commonly understood in this day and age to be the trick of hand an eye. To be illusuon used mostly for the sake of enterainemnt.

This is not what Magick is. Maigck is not a con, or an act, or parlor tricks, it comes from within, and it is viewed as genuine by those who practice it, there is a spirituality conected to Magick.

And so though your spell checkers and dictionaries might not acknolege or recgonize the word Magick, it has become you might say cultueraly and socially acceptiable and correct for it comes with its own meaning and understanding and it put to rather common use in many books reguarding Pagansim and Wiccan practices and beleifs, as well it is the word that is used by the marjority of people in Pagan circles.

10/8/2006 - The Sabbath

Here is a little story that I had once posted on my other blog and that I rather enjoy and I find it to be relvenet here. As it concerns the Sabbath, and the Sabbats can be very inportant days of ritual and celebration to many Witchs and Wiccans.

The day of the full moon, when the moon is neither inceasing nor decressing, the Babylonians called Sa-bat, meaning "heart-rest." It was belived that on this day, the woman in the moon, Ishtar, as the moon goddess was known in Babylon, was menstarting, for in Babylon as in virtually every ancient society, there had been for years a taboo against a woman working, preparing food, or traveling when she was passing her monthly blood. On Sa-bat from which comes our Sabbath men as well as women were comanded to rest, for when  the moon is menstrating the taboo was on everyone, orginally, (and naturally) obsereved once a month. The Sabbath was later to be incooperated by the Christans into thier creation myth, and made convenietly weekly, so nowadays hard-minded men with hard muscles and hard hats are releaved from thier jobs on Sundays, becasue of an archtyple physchological response to menstration.

9/30/2006 - Elements of Life

Though this does not quite fit in with the traditional book of shadows, and it will not be a common theme to post poetry and other such writings here, this is a speical case. A poet wrote this for me, because they were inspiered by my writings and by my pagan spirtuality, and the nature of the poem is suiting so I thought I would do it proper justice.

Elements of Life

Mother Earth, she gives us birth.
Then the fire lends Desire.
The Wind, the Air; it’s always there.
And Water is our loving daughter.

9/25/2006 - Why hasn't magick worked for me?

To those of you who might be relitively new to magick or just discovering it, or simply currious about it and uncertain, and perhaps you have attempted a spell or ritual and found that it did not work, or that perhaps the results were not instant and you wonder why, or are begening to doubt either yourself or the art itself, I have a few words to address this question which many might have.

Why hasn't magick worked for me?

First of all magick like anything, any skill, are or talent, might take time to develop and perfect and you cannot exepct to be a master of it just overnight or trying something once. You must dedicate yourself to it and you must not let one failure rule over all your future actions, though like anything there might be those that are more naturally talanted to it then others and seem to pick up on it and use it with ease, if this is not the case in reguards to you, that dosen't mean you cannot develop the ability within yourself. You must just give it time and a big part of magick is having faith and confidiance within yourself, if you exepct to fail it is almost a gaurntee that you will.

This goes into another point I wanted to make to address the question. If you go into it a skeptic and perhaps simply mean to cast a spell or attempt some other ceremony either to validate your opinion that maigck does not or cannot work, or to prove to yourself that it does work, then that is almost a gaurntee to fail. You cannot go into any sort of magick with any part of yourself closed. Your mind most be fully open and receptive to what you are doing. If you attempt it simply becasue you want proof of it then you are not putting any of yourself into it and so there is no meaning to what you are doing. In truth magick cannot just be pulled out of the air. It must come from within you, magick is not for those that need to see it to belive it, but for those that already feel it and know its truth and reality.

Now, say you do belive in it, and you go into it with your full heart and an open mind, but you do not see imditate restuls from what you have done. Do not be put off by this, there are a couple of explinations which can be applied here. For one thing magick dose not always act instantly and directly after it is applied, sometimes it takes time to see the restults of what you have done, as well sometimes with magick it might work in a form or a way which you have not exepcted. You may be looking for one thing, and miss the signs of what you really have done. It should not be too surprinsing to discover that magick does work in mysterious ways.

Another thing to keep in mind is that no matter what you skill level is or how much experince you have working with magick, it is a skill and ability as anything, and so it does to at least some degree play by the same rules as anything else, that is to say profressional atheletes do not catch the ball every single time, or hit home runs every single time. Famous and talanted artists do not produce a masterpice with thier every peice of work. Thiere are many mistakes, and throw aways along the way, there is no reason to view magick any differently, it is not gaurenteed to hit its mark at ever single turn, and for the very same reasons as one is not always perfect with thier every attempt, becasue you are still people and becasue you are imperfect you are bound to have a few flops here and there, and becasue magick is concenring the use of energy and because it comes so much from within yourself it is subject to sometimes being affected by your own emotions, thoughts and mind, and if you are not completely clear at the time of the preformace it can have an affect upon the results you produce.

You must belive in yourself and have faith and confidence with what you are doing, and if you do fail, your only choice is to try again for you just might be surprsied at what the results are of doing so.

8/28/2006 - Eye For An Eye

An Eye For An Eye, many of us are familler with this phase and it is commonly assocaited with the bible, but here is something you might not be aware of, before the bible came along An Eye For An Eye as a Summerian phrase. I wanted to speak upon this idea becasue of the fact that it is a part of traditional Paganisim. You might have noticed that some of the entires I have posted here have provided methods of brigning harm against others, though not without cause.

Generally in the Neo-Pagan movement and Wiccan beleif system they do not practice the Eye For An Eye ideology, but they have adopted what is known as the Three Fold Law, which basicaly states all that you do will thrice come back to you. But an Eye for an Eye was very much a part of tridtional Paganisim and still practiced by more traditional oriented Pagans.

So just what is an Eye For An Eye, it basicaly means that if one has wronged you, you are premitted to reteliate against them in a way that is just and realtive to what they have done to you. Which basicaly means if you are avenging a rival you are not premittied to bring greater harm to your enemey then what they have brought to you.

8/20/2006 - Note to my readers

I just wanted to give this little message to all my readers out there. First of all I would like you to know that if you have questions about anything you see here, anything I have posted, about where I have aquired the information used here, or my sources, or if you have any questions about the links I have provided selected to hopefully give extra helpful and useful information to your studies and practices, and any of the mattiarl there within, or any questions about my own experince and studies then feel free to ask.

Also if you can relate to anything of the things I have posted if anything appears familler to you or if you have found something new here and attemepted it you are welcome to share your own personal expencies if you wish to do so. This is a place for people to learn and hopefully feel weclome.

Last but not least I wanted to say, that though this is a Book of Shadows and desisnged to give some gudidence and help to a particular audience, the doors are closed to no one. I welcome all comments and all readers from every walk of life, and it is my hope that at least some of the information and experinces, and stories I share here can be useful, benifical, and adaptable to everyone reguardless of where they come from or what they might beleive.

The only thing that I ask is that knowing that though no one is excluded this is a Book of Shadows, so you know what you can expect to find here, if you do have any problems with the content here and feel the need to discuss or remark, as I want my readers to feel safe and comftrable to express themselves, do not post anything negative in public comment, send me a private message.

8/18/2006 - A Message

Greetings and Goddess Bless, I know some of you might find the mattieral which is posted here in this blog to be strange and unsual, you may even be doubtful of it, or laugh at it, and think it questions your sense of logic and reason. Some of you might be accepting and currious or intrested. I can understand whatever feelings good or bad you may have. I have wanted for a long time now to have an online Book of Shadows based on my own practice and personal experince and studies to aide and help others, particuarly those that might be in a situation where it is diffcult for them to get information on the ways of magick and Pagan relating mattieral. And because I am comftrable with JournalHome, and find it easy to use, and because of my limited skill with putting together websites, and being in a posistion of not really being able to pay for a host right now, well this just seemed the best oppertunity for me to put this together. Becasue I have decidied to use my name, the name many of you already know me by instead of hiding behind some sort of allias as I could have done, whatever one thinks of the content here I hope it dose not effect thier thoughts of me whatever they might be or thier apperciation and enjoyment of my origional blog.

I do not ask that you belive any of this or accept it I only ask that you do not loose faith in me and alter your opinons of me and abanoned the readings of my origional blog, for it will continue as it always has with the content and matieral you all know and enjoy.

Thank you!

8/17/2006 - Greetings

As some of you might have noticed from the name, it is me Silver Wind from the Labyrinth of the Mind blog, I have started a new Blog of sorts though it will be much different then the first. As the first one I cover a wide array of topcis and bits of personal information and such of the like this blog is deisnged for a specific purpose.

This will be my Book of Shadows, now I know there are at least of few pagans at JournalHome whom might already be familler with the term, but for those who do not know, I shall explain. A Book of Shadows is bascialy like a spell book, ones colletion of spells, rituals, and accounts of phnomonal experincs and such of the like and so that is what you will find here. I hope you enjoy.