THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR - LITHA

Merry Meet to All of You!

Nearly Midsummer, where is the year gone?!

With the Summer Solstice and corresponding Litha celebrations (21st June) coming up fast, Lisa and me are mapping out ideas what we could do for Litha, something meaningful but also fun, so our kids will enjoy it too.

Litha (Summer Solstice, St John's Eve, Alban Hefin) is one of the lesser Sabbats in the Wheel of the Year and marks the shortest night of the year, after which the hours of darkness will slowly start to increase again and the convergence of the Sun and the Moon, with the Sun being at its zenith but the Zodiac entering the water-sign of Cancer, the only sign ruled by the Moon.

Midsummer is a Fire and Water festival, traditionally marked by bonfires and ritual baths.

Midsummer's Eve is also known as the most magickal night of the year, again traditionally used for divination and to gather magickal and /or healing herbs and plants (fern seeds, for example, to be used in invisibility spells/potions, were gathered on this night and this night only). It is believed that plants are to be ideally picked at midnight or when the first dew forms.

The greeting of the sunrise is a major part on Midsummer's Day, so with Midsummer's Eve conveniently falling on a Saturday this year, why not stay out all night to celebrate, greet the sun in the morning and then roll into bed?!

This is certainly something Lisa and me have in mind (we're sure the kids will love it!) so we will be going out for a picnic or barbecue on the evening and then make merry through the night with games, music and magickal/divination activities.

As the colours of Litha are golden yellows and oranges, together with gold for the God and red for the Goddess, you could theme any food and drink you bring along these lines, for example colourful salads with carrots, oranges or sweet potatoes, washed down with a nice glass of golden Mead. For the kids you could make your own home-made lemonade or ice creams, which are really easy to make and so much nicer than shop-bought ones (for lovely recipes see: http://theherbalchalice.blogspot.com/2009/06/recipe-of-week-midsummer-goodies.html ).

Fun activities could include a tug-of-war game (symbolising the battle of the Oak and Holly Kings). You could get everybody involved to find natural materials, like twigs or pebbles and flowers) to build a face of the Sun, or make their own Midsummer flower-wreaths to wear.

Midsummer is also the perfect time to open the doors to the Faerie realm, so go out and find yourselves an elder tree (see: http://theherbalchalice.blogspot.com/2009/06/tip-of-week-magick-elder.html )!

If you want to do divination work on Midsummer Nights Eve, why not try a love-oracle:

1. On Midsummer's Eve, place a piece of wax in an unwashed sock and sleep with it under your pillow.

2. In the morning, remove and melt the wax.

3. Pour into a dish of cold water - the shape the wax takes as it cools will reveal something about your future love life.

(from: The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, Judika Illes, 2004, p.319)

Whatever you plan to do to celebrate Midsummer, have fun and enjoy yourselves as this really is one of the most joyous, happy festivals about!

For official midsummer celebrations go to the bottom of:http://theherbalchalice.blogspot.com/2009/06/midsummer-nights-dream.html

Summer Blessings,

Ilona

THE FULL MOON SPREAD

Merry Meet to All of You!

As the Full Moon is here, Lisa and me thought about what we could do to harness its power magickally (our first ever proper ritual - exiting!).

I also devised a new Tarot spread for the night of the full moon, hence 'The Full Moon Spread'.

The aim of this spread is to see what you would like to manifest in your life and how you can go about it physically and spiritually. It also pays attention to the long term effects of such manifestation.

This is a sixteen card spread, which goes as followed:

1. The current Inner You - where you are right now in yourself

2. The current Outer You - how you are perceived by and project yourself onto the world

3. Desired outcome - what you would like to manifest in your life

4. The South Node - roots in the past, how your current status came about

5. Inner Influences - your own contributions

6. Outer Influences - contributors/-ions from the outside world

7. Western Shores - physical manifestation

8. Outer Influences - what you can harness from the outside world in order to physically

manifest your desired outcome

9. Inner Influences - what you can do in yourself to achieve manifestation

10. Wisdom of the East - spiritual manifestation

11. Higher Pathways - positive steps toward manifestation

12. Lower Pathways - inner blocks to overcome

13. North Node - the projected outcome

14. Manifestation in yourself - how the outcome affects you on the inside

15. Manifestation in the world - how the outcome affects the world around you

16. The North Star - how this manifestation may affect your further life path / long term future

The layout goes as followed:

*****************************************************16*

************************************** *13*

***********************************14*******15*

******************************8******************11*

***************************7**********(1)3(2)********10*

******************************9******************12*

**********************************5**********6**

****************************************4*

Lisa and me tested the spread for each of us and it worked really well, both of us didn't even ask a specific question, so you may use it for general guidance as well as specific needs.

So if you like to celebrate the Full Moon, feel free to use this spread and have as much fun with it as we had (feedback on how you got on with it would be very welcome!)!!!

Full Moon Blessings,

Ilona

TIP OF THE DAY - PSYCHIC PARTY GAMES

Having a party? Not sure what theme to go with? Well here is the good news - you don't have to wait for Halloween to have a metaphysical theme or to do some psychic party games!

Here's a link to a website that has a few simple games that you might like to try: http://carrieanddanielle.com/improve-your-intuition-psychic-games-for-parties-and-groups/

If you're looking for more variation as well as games that go with specific types of celebration or the major sabbats of the year, you might want to check out Cassandra Eason's book Psychic Party Games.

You may also consider enlisting the help of one of your psychic friends to do mini readings for each of the guests, or hiring a professional psychic tarot reader (can be expensive!).

The bottom line is that we are all psychic and it's easier to bring this out in a fun and relaxed atmosphere. It's important that everyone is at ease with what is going on, so check and make sure that none of your guests have any hang-ups about psychic activities before you get started. Besides, being psychic yourself, you probably know which guests to invite and which ones to leave out until you have a more conventionally themed party ;)

TIP OF THE DAY - WORKING WITH SYMBOLS

Magick and divination are both heavily reliant on symbols. Learning to work with symbols is like learning a foreign language, or perhaps the analogy of getting to know new friends from faraway places is a better fit... One thing is certain: once you've achieved an understanding of the true meaning of a symbol, the world has changed forever.

For symbols to be meaningful we have to work with them and really pay attention to them over a period of time. Each symbol has many layers of meaning. It takes time and patience to uncover them all.

As with the Moon cycles it is essential to keep a journal or to enter the observations into your Book of Shadows.

The first step is to decide on a symbol that you would like to get to know better. But don't be surprised if the symbol chooses you.

Let's say I want to understand the true meaning of rainbows. For many years, I might have just thought of them as pretty colours in the sky. Then one of them appears on the day that I receive news of a miraculous healing. The rainbow has my attention. What else can it communicate?

As I work with the rainbow symbol and enter the observations into my BoS, I start noting subtle differences like the size and brightness of the rainbow, what the sky around it looks like... if it's a double or even triple rainbow... where it's located... what time of the day it appears etc. etc. For these differences to have any meaning, I need to relate them to what is going on in my own life.

The different types of rainbows may be more related to thought processes and emotions than to things that happen in the world, or it could be a bit of both. As any person who spends time reflecting on internal process will know, the outside world often reflects that which is within.

Working with symbols in this way is the path to becoming the kind of oracle who can read anything, anywhere at any time. If you use any kind of man-made divination tool, like the Tarot or the I-Ching, your experiental database of symbols will take your divination skills to the next level as you'll start seeing correspondences that you weren't aware of before.

As a Tarot reader, I might pull a card one day and feel my eyes drawn to one of the details in the card. Let's say I truly notice the white dove in the Empress card for the first time. This might be the beginning of a very exciting journey that culminates in a deep understanding of the relationship between various aspects of Spirit and the Divine Feminine... I could read hundreds of books on the topic and never reach as deep an understanding of these aspects as I would by internalising them through observation and connecting them with my own experiences and emotions.

Learning to see with magickal eyes is fun and doing it together with others is even more fun! The moments of the penny dropping in group path working are priceless because we get so much further together than we can on our own.

I hope to see as many of you as possible at our next Richmond Chalice Meeting!

Bright Blessings

Lisa

http:://tarothealingbylisa.blogspot.com