When I was a child.

When I was a child I refused to brush my hair and my clothes never matched. I’d dig up worms from the ground and pinch slugs until they exploded with a satisfying ‘pop.’ The sun bleached my unruly tresses and tanned my olive skin while I rolled through grass and around trees. I would lean over the wooden fence my parents had built to pull wild blackberries off the vine, reveling in their sweet juices running down my chin.

In class I barely spoke because I didn’t have words to articulate the myriad of images streaming through my mind. I thought in pictures and wrote stories where I was a cat living on my own in the tangled jungle of my backyard. I used fallen sticks to construct my own bow and arrows to shoot beasts hiding around my fort of trees and towels.

Recently I’ve found myself wondering what that girl in the mismatched clothes would think if she met me. Am I still that girl? There is a magic to children, both unruly and uninhibited. If we could only rediscover those unadulterated versions of ourselves that lurk savage eyed in our souls, what could we be capable of?

Freyja Invocations

My witches and I have been experimenting with casting a triangle rather than a circle for rites and rituals. Below is an original triangle invocation I wrote calling on the three aspects of Freyja- Lady of the Vanir, Chooser of the Slain, and Mistress of Seidr- for a Freyja possession rite we conducted last week. More on the possession rite later!

Daughter of the Vanir – White

Casting: Daughter of the Vanir! Lady clad in white! Your beauty is unrivaled and your wisdom has no equal.  You are leader of your people, mighty in peace and mightier in war.  Oh come and be our necklace.

Dismissing: Farewell, Daughter of the Vanir, our Lady of White. Mighty ruler and mightier warrior, the shining jewel of the proud Vanir. We thank you for your presence in our triangle tonight.

Chooser of the Slain – Red

Casting: Chooser of the battle slain! Lady clad in red! Like the  winged Valkyries we are yours to command. You are power and desire, you are strength and viciousness.  Oh come and be our chariot.

Dismissing: Farewell, Chooser of the battle slain, our Lady of Red. You who select the most honorable of the noble dead from the battlefield. We thank you for your presence in our triangle tonight.

Mistress of Siedr – Black

Casting: Mistress of Siedr! Lady clad in black! Sing to us your ancient secrets, teach us the dark mysteries of our souls. You are The Witch and The Oracle, The Weaver and The Web. Oh come and be our veil.

Dismissing: Farewell, Mistress of Siedr, our Lady of Black. You are darkness and power and where others turn away in fear, we turn towards you in reverence. We thank you for the presence in our triangle tonight.

The two witches I work closely with and I have been experimenting with red, white, and black imagery and associations. Each of us have taken on one of the colors and the associations we’ve assigned to it, thus the inclusion of the color imagery.

Feel free to use and adapt these invocations to your own needs or intentions.

 

Spirit Invocation

Spirits of Blood,
Spirits of Bone,
Spirits of Shadow
I call you home.

Beyond the Veil
and through the dark
come and heed;
the witch’s hark.

 

 

 

 

Blood and Bones and Ancestors

I was raised with aunts and cousins and grandparents living together under one roof. I was raised to be my brother and sister’s keeper. I was raised with a fierce knowledge that there is no bond more relentless than the bond of blood.

At holidays we would gather on chairs and couches and retell the same stories of hardship and hilarity, of the living and of the dead. We would remember their names, looking at photographs and home movies. At the time I didn’t realize it, but now I know that by remembering and celebrating we were venerating. We were keeping alive an ancient tradition that this new world has forgotten.

But I will not forget.

Modernity has forced us into isolation; many of us live without family in our homes. We’ve replaced the familial and ancestral bonds with technological conveniences, the wisdom of our elders has been usurped by the collective humming of the internet. In the past your family meant your survival or your destruction and the bonds you forged with them and the work of those who came before you were fundamental to your success.

In times of old we could turn to the wax masks of the ancients hung in our homes, we could look to their graves and tombs. Now we must seek them out on our own, devising both new and forgotten paths to the dead through bones, and blood, and shadow. Chanting, singing, dancing, screaming into darkness, beyond hedges, and through veils, I reach out to my ancestors, to my family, to the dead. I beat at my chest and stomp my feet not in mourning, but in celebration, for the dead speak and they have many secrets to tell.

When I die, burn my body and release my spirit so that I may fly across worlds on shadowy wings. Mix my ashes with the dirt and mud. When my children’s children dig through the earth and call for me, I will hear them and I will whisper to them. I will sing them twisted songs of curses and cures and I will not be forgotten.