:: Beltane May Festivals!

Reproduced below is my Beltane Newsletter, posted to members of the Avalonia Newsletter group on eGroups. 

 

Dear All,

We hope you are having a fantastic Walpurgis Night!

Of course this is one of the oldest festivals in the British Isles, which was originally one of the great Druidic feast days. An idea we touched upon in our book “Wicca Magickal Beginnings” when we were looking into the origins for the eight festivals which are now usually referred to as “The Wheel of the Year”:-

“Although Murray attributed these Sabbaths to witches’ celebrations, in fact they were originally linked to druids. Robert and William Chambers recorded an early occurrence of the celebration of the four great festivals in their 1842 work, Chambers Information for the People:

“Cormac, bishop of Cashel in the tenth century, records that in his time four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the druids – namely in February, May, August, and November: probably Beltane and Lammas were two of these.”

This is an extremely significant reference which seems to have been largely overlooked. The text the Chambers are referring to is in fact the late ninth century Irish Psalter of Cashel, which contained reference to the four great Sabbats being celebrated by the druids as a cycle. This then gives us a clear precedent for celebration of the cycle of the four great Sabbats more than one thousand years ago by the Irish druids.”

[ Wicca Magickal Beginnings, Sorita d'Este & David Rankine, Avalonia, www.avaloniabooks.co.uk ]

So if you are doing something to mark this festival you are treading a path of celebration which is truly ancient. Many of the folk traditions were preserved through folk customs, such as beating the bounds, dancing the maypole, divinations for love, many stories of phantoms and faeries (hinting at the thinning of the veils at Beltane, as it does at Samhain. Many customs celebrate using greenery and flowers – such as the many Jack in the Green and Green Man festivals. This year (weather permitting as we have a toddler!) we will be making our way to the Green Man of Clun Festival – http://www.clungreenman.org.uk/ for details. It looks like it will be great fun and certainly we have heard great things about it from friends who have been.

I will also be going out in the morning to gather herbs and dew to use in magical workings during the coming year. Fingers crossed for a sunny morning as the fields around here are all very muddy with all this rain already!

This year the Ludlow Esoteric Conference is also taking place in May, albeit later in the month, it is essential for those of you haven’t yet booked tickets to do so now as it is all done the old fashioned way – ie. Sending in a letter and cheque. Details can be found at http://esotericconference.wordpress.com/ - This will be first year that I will be speaking at this great event – other speakers include both David Rankine and Stephen Skinner – so this is an event which is a must for those of you who are seriously interested in the grimoire traditions. Details of other speakers and the topics can be found on their site.

Speaking of websites, we have been very busy this month at Avalonia. Our latest title “Visions of the Cailleach” has been received with great excitement all around the world by lovers of Celtic Mythology and spirituality, as well as those who are wise to the wisdom and magic to be found in the stories of the Crone Goddess of the British Isles. Details of this book can be found at http://cailleach.avalonia.co.uk – including a couple of extracts from the book.

Some of you may remember us announcing the release of “Priestesses Pythonesses & Sibyls” back in December. This book which contains essays by more than twenty modern day priestesses of a variety of traditions is already being adopted as a standard text by many covens and groups who practice trance and mediumship. Someone made a comment to me earlier this week about the sheer quantity and quality of the experience contained in the book and inspired me to work out an estimate of the combined number of years the ladies who wrote for the book had between them. Its only an estimate as you never ask a lady her age of course (if you read Visions of the Cailleach you will know why!) …. but the total is an estimated 500 years! (YES FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!!! HALF A MILLENIUM, FIVE CENTURIES!) Maybe that is one way of expressing the sheer level of knowledge contained in this incredible anthology? Details of the contributors, with biographies can be found at http://pythoness.avalonia.co.uk

Of course we continue working hard at fulfilling our aims of “Expanding the Esoteric Horizons“. In the coming months we are releasing several exciting titles. This includes a very exciting book on the Goddess Hekate, entitled “HEKATE LIMINAL RITES”. This book brings together evidence for historical rituals, ceremonies, spells and devotional workings which were performed in Hekate’s name. As such it is unique amongst the books published to date about this popular Goddess of Crossroads and Sorcery. Details will soon be available.

We all love bargains – and just until the end of this weekend we are offering three of our titles at huge discounts in celebration of both Beltane and our fourth year of publishing – see http://www.avaloniabooks.co.uk/beltane09.htm for details. Its a good excuse to try something new that you may otherwise not have done – and Beltane is a great time for trying new things.

Well, its getting late and I have to get up early in the morning!

Enjoy yourselves in the coming days, and remember to honour the union of opposites in yourself, as well as in the world around you – through doing that you can manifest wisdom, harmony and love for yourself and your loved ones in the coming year!

Blessings,
Sorita d’Este

http://www.avaloniabooks.co.uk

 

Wiccan History – Ludlow Esoteric Conference

I am starting my preparation for a lecture I am giving at the Ludlow Esoteric Conference in late May.  My lecture is entitled “Gerald Gardner’s Book of Shadows” and will be based on the research David and I did for our book “Wicca Magickal Beginnings” as well as our research into the origins of the grimoire tradition, The Key of Solomon, Goetia and other such texts – which as we show in Wicca Magickal Beginnings is clearly the origins for some of the practices found in modern Wicca.  This controversially proves that the Wiccan tradition in fact does have its roots in an unbroken line of practice and knowledge going back to at least Ancient Egypt, maybe much earlier than that – not in the same way as it is today of course, and certainly not with any of the many later religious additions.

Our view does not sit comfortably with those who like to promote the idea that Gerald Gardner “invented” Wicca in the 1950′s – but our research approach was different as we focussed purely on the practices, rather than on the interperson relationships, clearly shows that all the key practices have older precedents – some just a few decades, others many thousands of years.   Our views on this is not fashionable, but they are exciting for people who are genuinely interested in the practices of the tradition – whether approached in its esoteric or exoteric form.

Its a difficult subject for me to speak about – especially given that I will have less than an hour!

Well if you are interested in finding out  more about the Ludlow Esoteric Conference go to http://esotericconference.wordpress.com/ -

Meditation to Stimulate the Base Chakra

I often get emails from individuals saying that they have a blocked base chakra or describe problems which relate to having a blockage at this chakra point.  This is a little meditation exercise from “Avalonia’s Book of Chakras” which I have found to be very effective at getting things moving again:

Meditation to Stimulate the Base Chakra

Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position (or half lotus or lotus if you can manage it) and breathe deeply.  Burn a scent that stimulates the base chakra, you can use either oil (patchouli, cedarwood or sandalwood) or incense (see recipes).  Close your eyes and meditate for a few minutes.  Feel your connection with the earth beneath you.  As you breathe in draw up energy from the earth below through your feet chakras, and feel it flow up your legs to your base chakra, stimulating it gently.

Mantra can also help:

Mantra

To calm the base chakra chant the root mantra Lam, in its corresponding musical note of C if possible.  The mantras on the four petals of the base chakra are Varn, Sarn, Sharn, Sxarn which may be chanted as a sequence to help clear blockages and/or stimulate the chakra.

Truth

“Paradise exists wherever you speak the truth, and do the right; Hell is present wherever you speak that which is false, or do that which is evil. Paradise and Hell are not localities, they are states.”

(Eliphas Levi)

Wicca, Witchcraft – “The Craft”?

A frequently discussed topic amongst modern practitioners of pagan witchcraft and the Wiccan Tradition is that of labelling.  What do we call ourselves and why?  Are terms like “Wicca” exclusively intended for those who are initiated?  Whilst many initiates argue that they prefer the term “The Craft” for their own practices, a term which has also been hijacked since the release of a film by the same name directed by Andrew Flemming in 1996.

So what is the origins of the term “The Craft” when applied to magical practices?  When we wrote our book “Wicca Magickal Beginnings” (Avalonia 2008) we delved deep into the origins of all the various terms used by Wiccans today, and for the term Craft we wrote the following:

The obvious connection between the name ‘The Craft’ and Wicca is that ‘Craft’ is a contraction of ‘Witchcraft’.  The use of the term also occurs on a regular basis in the grimoire tradition in which it is used as a general term to refer to art of performing magick.  To illustrate this, what follows is an extract from Sloane MS 3847, the earliest known Key of Solomon which dates to 1572:

“Heare begineth the prologue of ye Booke of Clavicles of Salomon contayninge the secrets of all secrets of all crafts magicall of Nigromancy, the which booke of craftes as, Ptolomeus the most wisest philosopher in Greece, doth testify…”

However, the term also enjoyed a long history of use in Freemasonry.  Taking into consideration that  there is much in Wicca that has been drawn from the rites and practices of Freemasonry this connection would also seem significant, providing us with yet  another possible source for its use.  Freemasonry too received its share of persecution and accusations similar to those levelled against witchcraft. For example, Freemasons were accused of dedicating their children to the Devil when receiving the Mason’s Word in their initiation ceremonies and continue to be accused of numerous occult affiliations to this day[1] The nineteenth century Masonic author and scholar Albert Mackey made an intriguing connection between the use of the words ‘Craft’ and ‘Mystery’ in the context of Freemasonry in his major work An Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry (1879), which could hint at a reason why the term Craft was applied to Wicca:

“In this secondary sense we speak of the ‘Mystery of the Stonemasons as equivalent to the ‘Craft of the Stonemasons.’”

---

[1] A Short History of Freemasonry to 1730, Knoop & Jones, 1940

Priestesses!

For those of you who have not yet discovered the amazing women who contributed to the anthology “Priestesses Pythonesses & Sibyls” which I had the pleasure of editing last year, you can now browse short biographies for each of them at http://pythoness.avalonia.co.uk

Enjoy!  And please pass the link on to friends who might be interested as this is a phenomenal work by phenomenal women from a wide spectrum of spiritual tradition.