ARCHIVED CASSANDRA LETTERS#

March 2008

March is the fiercest month, named after Mars the Roman God of War for this was when war resumed after winter at the start of the Roman year.

Traditionally too it is a powerful time when magical practitioners cast spells for courage, action, passion, overcoming obstacles, new business ventures, for physical strength and independence. But in everyday life too the coming of spring was the occasion when everyone threw out the old rushes of winter; swept away the accumulated dirt of smoky fires and cold dark days huddled under blankets and welcomed the return of the light.

Cleansing festivals

In almost every culture physically cleaning the home was an important prelude to festivals at transition times of the year to mark a new beginning and the Spring Equinox in early calendars usually marked the beginning of the New Year. Some like the Scottish Hogmanay have now moved to January 1 but the principle is the same.

Spring cleaning is associated with the Spring Equinox around March 21 in the northern hemisphere that indicated the beginning of lighter days and warmer weather. This was a logical time for physically cleaning the home after the winter. Indeed the fortnight long Persian or Iranian New Year celebration or Nowruz that begins on the Spring Equinox is preceded by cleaning floors, drapery, furniture and ceilings and is called khooneh takouni which translates as shaking the house. Before the beginning of the annual Jewish Pesach or Passover which occurs in March or April each year, commemorating the freedom of the Israelites from the Egyptians, the home is likewise cleansed.

In contrast in the Southern hemisphere, the Autumn Equinox is fast approaching but some people still have an Equinox clear to avoid entering the winter with unwanted clutter. If wished they can adapt some of these ideas to incorporate the needs of the modern world to be productive and creative 24\7.

Cleaning negativity out of your home "Magical housework"

With increasingly busy lives and modern household appliances, we do not spend the hours our great-grandmothers and even older grandmothers did, working lavender polish into furniture, making soap or scrubbing floors with an herbal infusion. I can remember as a child in industrial Birmingham, pounding the washing and rubbing polish in increasing circles into tables, chairs and dresser, worn smooth with age, until I really could see my face in them.

I have no illusions about the hardships of earlier times. But in using the old ways along with our very necessary vacuum cleaners and shampooers and where possible buying more natural herbal products rather than chemically packed ones we can tune into the physical connection of purifying the home in a deep instinctive way.

Psychic Vacuuming

The modern equivalent of the broom of our ancestors is the vacuum cleaner.

Before you clean up, sprinkle fine lavender, dried rose petals or a flower scented talcum powder (even one of the floral floor freshening powders if you can get one with natural ingredients) on floors. Then vacuum up the petals and the floor first in anticlockwise and then clockwise circles to remove not only dust and dirt but any lingering unhelpful energies or lethargy. As you vacuum clockwise, picture light flowing into the floor and carpets and any furnishings you cleaned, being filled with fresh spring like energies.

Alban Eiler, Ostara or the Spring Equinox, from around 20th March till 22 March

Focus of the period: Fertility and positive life changes, new beginnings and opportunities, new flowering love, for initiating creative ventures, travel, house moves, clearing what is no longer needed in your life; anything to do with conception and pregnancy,  children and young people, mothers, healing, Spring cleaning, welcoming  the winds of change; rituals and empowerments to cleanse the seas and air of pollution, for new peace-making initiatives of all kinds, also to encourage major changes in attitude towards international, national, local and family issues.

Key words: Initiation, signs of growth

Emphasis of festival:  Rebirth/hatching (as of eggs or plans)

Energies of the season: Balanced, as day and night are equal on the Equinox day. Its alter ego festival is the Autumn Equinox around September 22

Symbols: Eggs, especially painted ones, feathers, spring flowers or leaves a sprouting pot of seeds, pottery rabbits and birds and anything made of dough or clay

Tree:  Birch

Incenses, flowers and herbs: Celandine, cinquefoil, crocus, daffodil, honeysuckle, hyacinth, lemon, primroses, sage, tansy and thyme and violets

Candle colours:  Yellow and green

Crystals: Sparkling yellow crystals, such as citrine, golden beryl and rutilated quartz, also lemon and apple green chrysoprase and aventurine

Festival Foods: Decorated boiled eggs, chocolate eggs and rabbits, hot cross buns or small cakes with pastry crosses on for the old astrological sign of the earth mother, lamb, Simnel (marzipan topped cakes)

Angel of the festival: Raphael, Archangel of the Dawn, the East, the spring and of healing. He carries a golden vial of medicine, with a traveller’s staff, food to nourish travellers and is dressed in the colours of early morning sunlight, with a beautiful green healing ray emanating from his halo

Goddess of the festival: The Norse goddess Ostara who opened the gates of spring on Equinox morning and whose magical animal the white hare dashed across the lingering snow in Northern climes promising Ostara was on her way. Her white magical hare led to the tradition in some lands of chocolate Easter rabbits and it was the hare that brought eggs for the children or hid them for them to find. Rabbits were also a symbol of fertility as they began to reproduce

Painted fresh eggs, again a sign of Spring when the hens began to lay in natural light are another ancient fertility symbol and were painted and placed on the shrines of Ostara

In the Christian tradition March 25 is the festival of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary when Gabriel appeared telling her she would bear Christ.

The Place on the Wheel of the Year  

Alban Eiler means in Gaelic the Light of the Earth that returns after the winter and the time of sowing begins in earnest. Young animals are thriving and the early spring flowers in bloom.

The Maiden Goddess in pre Christian tradition mates with the young virile triumphal Horned and wild woodland God to conceive the child of light who will be born on the Mid Winter Solstice the following December.

The Light and Dark brothers fight and the Light twin kills his brother, so henceforward the days will be longer than the night. The Dark twin descends to the Underworld or the womb of the mother, like the seeds planted in the earth, to await rebirth.

The Equinox on other traditions

The festival is also associated with the  resurrection of light and of Christ and in the pre Christian tradition gods such as the Greek Attis, indeed, in some myths, this is the birth of the Sun King. It is said on the Spring Equinox morning the sun dances in the water at sunrise, an association transferred to angels.

In the early Christian tradition, candles were extinguished on Easter Eve. The Paschal Candle was lit from the Nyd or festival fire which was kindled outside churches using an oaken spindle from nine different kinds of wood.

Sometimes the effigy of a Judas Man was burned. Charred sticks were taken from the fire and placed on newly kindled home fires or kept through the year as protection against thunderstorms.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem described the profusion of light on Easter Eve as being as bright as day, and Constantine the Great made the Easter Eve celebrations even more dazzling by placing lights not only in basilicas, but in streets and squares. Homes were also illuminated with candles in every window to welcome the resurrection.

Eggs were painted and dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Germany, Eastern and Western Europe, parts of the Mediterranean, Russia and in Mexico and South America. In Poland it is said that Mary painted eggs in bright colours to delight her infant and some Polish mothers continue the custom.

The Equinox comes to a supermarket near you

In the modern world the old and new have mixed. For example Hot Cross buns are still popular in England right through the Easter period or even earlier in supermarket bakeries. They predate Christianity by many centuries. The buns, marked with the cross symbolising the resurrection of Jesus, in earlier times signified the old astrological cross, symbol of the earth mother. They or similar special small cakes were eaten at the Spring Equinox around March 21 (in the northern hemisphere), so offering the protection of the Earth Mother and promising a summer of plentiful resources.

The Ancient Egyptians marked small round cakes with ox or cow horns, sacred to the mother goddesses Isis and Hathor at their springtime celebrations. The practice of eating special small cakes with crosses on them at the time of the spring festival may have started in Ancient Rome. Evidence comes in the form of two small loaves marked with crosses that were discovered preserved in lava in the ruins of the Herculaneum, a city in southwestern Italy that was destroyed by a volcano in 79 C.E.  The custom however probably came to England with the Anglo Saxons who made and ate small cakes on the Spring Equinox in honour of Eostre, the Goddess of spring who gave her name to Easter. When the Anglo Saxons were Christianised during the 7^th and 8^th centuries the custom was easily transferred to the new religion. In Christian tradition, hot cross buns made on Good Friday were hung in sailors’ homes and churches near the sea to keep sailors from drowning.

Ways of Marking the Festival in the Modern world

Work either on the Equinox or Easter Sunday which is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, the only surviving Christian lunar related festival 

• Boil eggs in pastel vegetable food colouring or after boiling decorate them with non toxic marker pens, with flowers, Mother Goddess spirals, birds and bees and offer them on a basket of spring flowers and leaves on the breakfast table. The family can help but of course with young children make sure the decorated eggs are peeled and well washed before eating

or

• For increasing your personal fertility if you wish to conceive a child or to launch a creative venture such as selling paintings or crafts or getting a book published prick an egg with a needle or large silver pin and take out all the white and yellow on the Equinox or Easter morning. Then carefully cut it in half and leave the shell halves open for the sun or light to shine on them

• Leave the egg shell on an indoor window ledge until the first night of the crescent moon after the Spring Equinox or the first crescent after Easter Sunday.

• Then split the shell and place a tiny moonstone or worry doll in one half, leaving it on the window ledge until the next Full Moon. Place the silver pin or needle in the other half and also leave it on the window ledge.

• On the night of the Full Moon, prick the moonstone very gently with the silver pin and rest the pin  on top of the moonstone in one half of the egg. Name what it is you need

• The next morning close the egg and wrap up egg, pin and moonstone until the moon leaves the sky. Then you should bury them and repeat the ritual with a new egg, moonstone and pin. This can help not only for conceiving babies but also for re-establishing the natural rhythms of your life to bring any new venture to birth.

or

• Spring clean your life as well as your home. Answer any correspondence that is piling up. Deal with unavoidable issues. Change your routine so that you rise half an hour earlier and can enjoy the growing light, perhaps walking to work or sitting in the spring sunshine on your balcony or in your garden. Initiate those projects you always meant to by first clearing out the clutter of old commitments or activities that you no longer enjoy.

• Visit a clear river or lake on Equinox morning or Easter Sunday and look at any light dancing or moving on the surface of the water. Throw a tiny crystal or white stone into the light place in the water and, as it splashes, blink and you will see externally or in your mind’s eye a momentary image framed in light that will help you to plan your future path.

• Make Spring Equinox or Easter morning energising and healing water by leaving it in a clear dish from dawn or when you wake until noon or when you break for lunch. Use this for revitalising office plants or sickly house plants; put a few drops in spaces, polluted water courses and on waste land or near abandoned buildings to encourage new growth in places that are no longer beautiful or useful. Put a small sealed bottle of the water near the front door if you are trying to sell your house and on top of job applications or manuscripts, legal or tax papers you are sending for a positive response.

• Plant in the ground the appropriate seedlings, naming the results you hope for within six months. Rename those plans every time you tend the plants. If they do not thrive, plant more naming again or adapting the earlier plans.

• Burn an ear of dried grass or corn in a candle set in a bucket of soil to symbolise the traditional Spring Equinox corn figure woven from the previous year’s harvest or the effigy of a straw Judas man in Christian times. The ashes were scattered on the field to ensure the successful growth of the seeds. You can scatter your soil containing the burned corn or grass on to your garden or use it for planting an indoor flower to ensure what you gained from the previous year grows even more in the year ahead

• As close to the Equinox or Easter Sunday as possible visit a place you have always wanted to go for a day near your home that perhaps you always drive past and say We must go there.’

• Make a cake and mark it with a diagonal cross for Mother Earth. Invite people you have been meaning to contact for ages or you know would welcome an invitation and share the abundance.

• Buy a new item of clothing (the traditional Easter bonnet) or organize a clothes exchange with friends.

With love and I hope you get lots of chocolate eggs. If not buy yourself one and enjoy it twice as much as I will.

Cassandra February 27, 2008

February 2008

Welcome to February the month of Rowan, the tree of protection, magical power and creativity. Welcome to Imbolc which means in the belly of the Mother, the first festival of spring traditionally held at the beginning of February, when the Celtic Brighid as the maiden goddess melts with her wand of fire the winter snows if global warming has left any.

In the Northern hemisphere, at dusk on January 31 in the pagan calendar according to Celtic tradition fiery torches and bonfires were lit to attract back the sun. A procession around the frozen fields with blazing torches was led it was said in pre-Christian times, by the maiden Goddess herself and in later periods by a huge Grain maiden pulled on a cart made from the last sheaf cut from the previous harvest.

This festival of early spring is celebrated when traditionally the land is still frozen, though now the spring flowers bloom earlier each year and on the Isle of Wight the first daffodils, primroses and crocus are already coming through in late January. Imbolc is a reminder that new life stirs within Mother Earth and within us. This was the all important time when sheep and cattle had their young and so fresh milk and dairy products were available to the community once more.

Though it is the time of the Maiden the other aspects of the Goddess also overshadow her, the newly delivered mother of the Sun King whose milk is mirrored by the milk of the ewes who gave this festival its alternative name of Oimelc or ewes’ milk. The Dark brother who rules the dark part of the year still holds sway but the young God of light is growing in power as he is nursed by the Goddess and according to myth will fight and defeat his brother at the Spring Equinox around March 21 in the ongoing between light and darkness

One of the Celtic names for the pagan festival was Brigantia, after Brighid, the Celtic Triple Goddess, here in her maiden aspect replacing the Old Hag of Winter’s rule. She was Christianised as St Bridget, Brigid or Brigit of Kildare or St Bride in Wales and Scotland and her feast day is February 1. Brigantia was also the name of a Gallic earth goddess.

Right through mediaeval times in folk custom a girl representing the young maiden of spring (the former goddess) arrived at the door of the main house or farmstead of a village on January 31 eve with cows and a cauldron, symbols of abundance. Here a straw bride bed would be created close to the fire, adorned with ribbons and blessed with honey and milk by the women of the household.

The local men would enter the circle of firelight and ask for help with their craft or agriculture and make a wish on the Bride Bed and claim a kiss from the maiden.

Bridget crosses, none of whose three or four arms are parallel, were woven from straw or wheat to hang around the house for protection. They are still a feature in Irish homes today.

The Anglo-Saxon Offering of Cakes ceremony to the deities at this time asked for a thaw in the weather so that the first ploughing might take place early.  In Scandinavia Disting, the festival of the family ancestors around this period was associated with future prosperity because it was a time the cattle and resources remaining after the winter’s forced inactivity were counted. In Iceland, Thorrablót was dedicated to Thor the thunder deity as god of winter. He was asked to drive back the Jotuns, the frost giants so that spring would come.

In the Christian tradition, on Candlemas Day, February 2 or the Sunday between January 28 and February 3, all the church candles that would be used for the coming liturgical year were blessed at High Mass. Blessed candles were also distributed to the congregation. Each person was given a blessed candle that acted as protector of the home against storms, fire and flood and protected cattle and crops against evil.

Traditionally a lighted candle was placed at each window of houses on January 31 (dating from Celtic times) or on Candlemas Eve, February 1 and left to burn through.

On the following day, the feast of St Blaise, the newly sanctified church candles were used by priests to bless the throats of parishioners, so that they would be free from all respiratory illness in the coming months.

In the Christian calendar the anniversary of the Purification of the Virgin Mary occurred forty days after the birth of Jesus, the occasion also when he was taken to the Temple on February 2 and was hailed as the light of the world.

Candlemas was also the day for predicting the weather for the coming weeks and the arrival of spring weather. The US Groundhog Day, February 2 follows this tradition.

In Ancient Rome, at the rites of Juno Februa, animals were brought out of their winter hibernation, candles were lit in homes to drive away evil spirits and blazing torches cast into the River Tiber.

In Rome, February 15, the love and fertility festival that gave rise to modern Valentine’s Day customs, Lupercalia, was dedicated to Lupa, the Goddess she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, the twins who founded Rome. Love and sex rites by young unmarried girls and men were performed in the Grotto of the She-Wolf to bring fertility to animals, land and people.

Riding the Wheel of the year from different viewpoints

However in the Southern hemisphere at the beginning of February pagans and witches will be celebrating Lughnassadh, the old first grain harvest when the grain king sacrificed himself to be cut down as the last sheaf of corn so that the people might be fed.

Since my son Bill has been in New Zealand, for three months now, I have become acutely aware that the Wheel of the Year truly is a wheel and we in the northern climes have our seats directly opposite those in the southern hemisphere who are starting to descend towards autumn as we rise slowly towards spring. This first became real to me when in early November on the cold rainy Isle of Wight, Bill and I grumpily tramped from shop to shop trying to buy a pair of summer shorts and open toe sandals because it was approaching high summer in Auckland where he was going. A week later I saw Bill on the web cam in the sunshine in his shorts and sandals as I huddled by the radiator drinking hot chocolate and now he is picking apples in the Bay of Plenty before becoming a llama farmer.

In late April and May I shall be joining Bill, as I am appearing at the Sydney Mind, Body, spirit festival for three days at the beginning of May and then visiting Lunation in Canberra, Adyar bookstore in Sydney and doing magic and psychic development workshops in Sydney and Brisbane (details of these and my other adventures will be on site when I have the times confirmed or you can contact www.spiritguide.com.au or www.spellcraft.com.au who are organising the events for me.)

Best of all I will have the chance to experience magick Australian style where my elemental earth will not be as now pointing northwards towards Scotland with several hundred miles of firm soil between me and John o’ Groats, but south towards Antarctica.

While I was walking by the sea this afternoon, looking due south at a vast expanse of water I realised that things are not as we always assume in theory.  Just as in the southern hemisphere, the four elemental directions can vary from region to region according to the location of land and water masses,  maybe wherever we practice magick even folk spells we should rethink the elemental directions to relate to the actual terrain. It would seem more in accord with nature if we assign the elements according to the immediate locality in which we live and work magically, regardless of which hemisphere of the world we currently inhabit. This is something I shall be teaching when we construct personal altars on my summer course in France, from the natural materials in the immediate vicinity. On the site will soon be images of a pentacle garden already being constructed on the course site with elemental herbs so it will be in bloom by July.

Celebrating Imbolc

Imbolc is a good festival to melt away any obstacles, opposition, inertia or coldness in your life. Though traditionally celebrated at the end of January and beginning of February, you can of course create your personal Imbolc rituals any time in February, perhaps with family and friends or alone as a private gesture of faith for a better tomorrow and to mend any quarrels and overcome indifference in others.  

• On January 31 after dark, make a tiny straw bed (you can use a small pack of animals’ straw from a pet store). Place a small doll wrapped in white to represent Brighid. Next to the doll set a small jug of milk in which you have stirred three drops of honey, making a wish for abundance for yourself or someone else.

• Surround the bed and jug with the first greenery or buds of spring. Place round it symbols of the blessings you would like in your life, whether tiny charms related to your craft (a pen, a small piece of wood or a computer jump drive) or connected with health and happiness in the home or for love. Add a coin asking that your home and those you love will not be short of money. Leave these until February 2 at sunset or three days after you start the ritual, near the family hearth or a source of warmth and each evening add another coin.

• On either January 31 after dark or early the next morning or whenever you choose to celebrate, walk three times around your external boundaries which might be indoors if you live in an apartment with a small lighted smudge stick or a lighted sage or lavender incense stick Spiral the smoke in all directions.

• Waken the energies of the returning spring with a simple chant spoken three times one after the other on each circuit such as:’ ‘Light return. Maiden melt the winter snows and in my life. Bless me, melt away any coldness or opposition and allow me to make the new beginnings I desire.’

• Finish by setting the incense in a deep pot to burn away and pour a little fresh milk on to the Earth or indoors in a pot of earth in which there are seeds planted, repeating the chant once more.

• After dusk on the night of February 1 or your chosen Imbolc date, place nightlights safely at every window of your home to welcome the goddess Brighid /St Bridget into your home. Light first a single white candle in the centre of your home from which you will light the window night lights and ask each family member or friend coming to light another small candle from the central flame and place it in a circle round the central flame.

• As they do so they should name someone who needs healing or strength. If alone light a small candle each hour or half hour till bedtime, naming someone for each and creating a complete circle of candles round the central flame. Burn them as long as possible and when you extinguish them at bedtime let go an old grievance as each flame goes out. If possible leave one still burning in a safe place.

• Following the old tradition you can invite friends or family round for a candle making session and they can take the results home. Candlemas candles traditionally protect against fire, storm and accidents and to protect against sore throats. It is very easy to make beeswax candles by rolling a sheet of beeswax round a wick and sealing the edges with a flame.

• Unless you live in a warm land, plant seeds indoors or under glass, naming for each handful what you wish to bring into your life in the months ahead. You can plant the seedlings on the Spring Equinox.

• Place a ring of unlighted candles one for each person present in the centre of your home around a magick circle

• Put a little ice into a small bowl and fill a jug with fresh milk. Each person present should sit in a circle round the candles.

• Each should sit facing a candle looking into the centre of the circle and light their candle in turn in silence, lighting one from the other.

• Then when the candle circle is alight in turn each person passes the ice bowl around, stirs it with a spoon and names a personal or global situation where cold feelings or indifference need to melt or a seemingly immovable obstacle to progress must be removed. You can alternatively name anyone from whom you are estranged you wish to be reconciled with.

• Set the bowl of ice and the jug of milk carefully in the centre of the circle.

• If you are working alone light a circle of eight candles to represent the Wheel of the Year and stir the bowl of ice eight times, making the same wish or different ones.

• While the ice is melting sing, chant or softly drum and give one another Tarot readings or if alone gaze into a crystal ball or lay out cards in answer to any questions you have.

• When the ice has melted tip it on the ground or if indoors into the soil round a plant.

• Afterwards drink the milk and eat seed bread and honey, traditional foods of the festival.

• The next day try to contact the estranged person or take a step to moving matters that have been blocked forwards.

Associations with Imbolc and the whole of February

Animal: Serpent, black cat

Tree: Willow

Incenses, flowers and herbs: Angelica, basil, benzoin, celandine, crocus, heather, myrrh, snowdrops and violets.

Candle colours:  Pale pink, green, blue and white.

Crystals: Dark gemstones such as garnet and bloodstone/heliotrope, also amethyst, rose quartz and moonstone.

January 2008

A very happy 2008 to you all from us all on the site. 2008 is going to be such a good year. So many people, myself included, will be glad to say goodbye to 2007 as its energies seem to have been working counterproductively to so many people’s intentions and needs.

However there is definitely an upturn coming with the turning of the year and almost every reading I have done for others looking at early 2008, has featured the Wheel of Destiny, in my Celtic pack a woman drawing her own wheel in the sand.

Once we have that cosmic upturn then we can push ahead to make our destiny more as we want it to be in 2008. How is this possible you may ask? A number of ancient cultures believed in both an individual and interconnected universal web of fate that was constantly being woven and rewoven according to the choices and actions of individuals, families, larger groups such as tribes and even nations. The three sisters of Fate were the spinners or weavers of the web of human destiny and even that of the deities according to ancient myth. But always within the cosmic loom the actions and reactions of the owners of the individual webs were paramount in determining the outcome. In Christian times the Fate goddesses were downgraded to fairy godmothers in folk lore, who would be present to assign a newborn his or her destiny as the earlier deities had done.

It is told in Norse legend that Yggdrasil, the World Tree, was fed by the Well of Urd, Wyrd or Fate, in whose waters each morning the three Norns, the sisters of Fate, gazed to give guidance to the deities. This well contained the cosmic knowledge from when the world began and the potential for the future. The three Sisters wove a web both of the fate of the world and the fate of individual beings.

The first Norn, Urdhr, the oldest of the sisters, looked always backwards and talked of the past which in Viking tradition influenced not only a person’s own present and future but that of his or her descendants both genetically and in the values and property/lifestyle transmitted from the ancestors.

The second Norn, Verdhandi, a young vibrant woman, looked straight ahead and talked of present deeds which strongly influenced the future.

Skuld, the third Norn, who tore up the web as the other two created it, was closely veiled and her head was turned in the opposite direction from Urdhr. She held a scroll which had not been unrolled, of what would pass, given the intricate connection with past and present interactions and most crucially the decisions of the individual about the opportunities and obstacles fate threw up.

Therefore even given the wider trends, the limitations of our present circumstances and the sometimes seemingly inexplicable actions of others, we still can make step by step and sometimes with the odd leap into the dark, our future more as we want it to be. In 2007 we were swimming against the tide but now the tide is turning in our favour.

New Year wishes

Whether you are celebrating with family and friends at New Year or alone as I have the last few years and enjoyed it thoroughly, try the following ritual as close to midnight as possible. If you go away or to a big party you can do this any time in the first days of 2008. You can also share the ritual with family and friends if present:

• You will need a small dark blue or purple candle in a holder on a heatproof tray and a larger white candle also in a holder

• A pot of soil

• A small dish of dark coloured pieces of wool

• Ten or fifteen minutes before midnight, start tying knots in the separate pieces of wool and as you do so for each knot name something that did not work out in 2007 or an event that made you sad or angry.

• After you have tied each knot, hold it carefully in the dark candle flame till it singes and then drop it in the pot of earth either to burn or remain there.

• Continue until you have named and got rid of as many knots as you wish.

• Now put the pot of wool and earth outside your back or main door to be buried or thrown away on January 2.

• Put a pinch of salt into the dark flame and say, ’I lay it all to rest with blessings’.

You may not want to forgive people who have really hurt you, nor should you, but you can release your own negativity towards them that is holding you back as a blessing.

• Just before midnight, light the white candle from the dark one saying,

Old year turn
Old year burn.
Bad luck, do not return.

•  At the last stroke of midnight, blow out the dark candle. You can throw it away on January 2

• Make wishes into the white candle as New Year begins and leave it to burn until you go to bed. Continue to burn the New Year candle in the days after New Year until it will light no more.

Good luck and love customs for the New Year

On January 1 you can follow one or two of the age old customs to ensure you have the right opportunities to make the future you want.

• The first water drawn from a well on New Year’s morning was said to bring great fortune and happiness. A modern version of this custom is to turn on the cold tap in the sink as soon as daylight breaks or before you leave the party whichever is earlier. Run the tap fast so that the water bubbles. Use a new glass if possible to drink a glass of water straight down and without speaking. This will bring you good luck and also ensure your words are wise and that others listen.

• In the morning or when you leave the New Year party, dance around the nearest tree or post twelve times clockwise, naming a month for each circuit. You will have happiness, luck and prosperity all the coming year.

• If you want to see your true love and have not found him or her, after midnight, light a small white candle from the New Year white candle and hold it up to a mirror in a dark room so you and the candle are reflected in the glass.

Say, ‘I call my love to me, willingly that we may be together in joy eternally. So shall it be.’

Blow out the candle and stare into the mirror and an image of or knowledge of who your love is and where you will find him or her will come into your mind or appear in the Afterglow.

December 2007

Thanks to everyone who has sent me good wishes and healing. I am now so much better and I am almost up to date with my emails and readings.

Happy Advent to you all. In Sweden on Advent Sunday the children of the family where I stay went out to gather moss from the forest. Their father made me a wooden holder for the four Advent candles, the first of which I lit this morning. The candles are set in the moss which has a lovely forest scent.

When I lit my first candle  I thought of the Russian story of Babouska who gave shelter and hospitality to the first wise man on his way to see baby Jesus on the very first Advent (he was a little off course geographically). When the wise man invited Babouska to go with him on his journey she said she had to clean her house first and do her washing. But she would catch him up when the chores were done.

The second wise man came and Babouska cared for him and gave his entourage food and provided bedding for the camels, yaks or whatever wise men on their way to Bethlehem via Moscow ride on. However when the second wise man invited Babouska along she said again she must sort her house out first her. The same happened with the third wise man, and Babouska promised once more she would catch them up and bring food for the journey and gifts for the baby. At last Babouska was ready with her basket packed with a picnic for the journey and presents for the infant Jesus.

But it was snowing and Babouska could not see the footprints of the travellers or follow the star because the sky was so cloudy. At last she gave up and sadly turned back home. But in the version I used to tell my children, on the way home Babouska, came across a poor family who had no food and so she gave them the contents of her basket and the toys she was taking to baby Jesus, to the little children because they had nothing to play with.

Every year on the first Sunday of Advent Babouska waits patiently with her basket at the roadside for the wise men to come. They never do and so every year she gives the food and toys in her basket to make another family happy.

As a mother of five, I actually have a lot of sympathy for Babouska frantically cleaning up single handed after the Wise men and their entourage while at the time trying to pack enough food to last for the journey and take into account everyone’s allergies and food fads!

There is always the struggle to balance responsibility and duty with fun and spontaneity and your desires with other people’s needs. Indeed some might argue that Babouska’s gifts did more good for the hungry family she helped than the newborn king who had all the treasures the wise men could offer and a host of angels to sing him to sleep. Like Babouska, you may spend five hours in a kitchen hotter than hell’s mouth creating totally symmetrical perfectly browned organic oatmeal cookies for your own mini Magis’ lunch boxes, only to have them whinge because they have not got jammie dodgers in red plastic like the other children.

From now on I intend to prioritise more as well as enjoying more moments all too brief yet wonderful of pleasure and leisure. As part of reprioritizing my time for 2008 I have great plans with Debbie for an improved web site in 2008, offering more courses and services as well as ever changing information and research.

I am planning a new Aura reading Online course later in December to accompany my first ever CD Aura Workshop (produced by Paradise Music) that is now for sale on the site (as well as in shops and on Amazon).

The Online course will focus on auras in everyday life so you can understand hidden but vital interactions among the family and at work and also aura protection and healing.

I am in addition creating a course on Past Lives based on some exciting work I have been doing in Sweden to draw strengths from past worlds to change things for the better in this life.

Debbie and I and another artist member of the team are also working on a very special Power Animal course, like no other on the market with special illustrations so that you can build up your own power animals’ image collection based on original paintings.

I also hope to write a series of short courses on such topics as psychometry, psychic protection, seeing and communicating with ghosts, communicating with and healing animals and pets, exploring pendulums and discovering nature spirits. These will contain original unpublished material and explore new techniques.

I have a second CD called Magic Workshop appearing in the New Year and I hope also later in 2008 to create magic courses that you can mix and match build up your skills. There is also the residential course on earth energies, nature spirits, dowsing and natural magic that Debbie and I and the rest of the team are hosting in Central France where you will live en-famille. So it is also ideal for people on their own where you will meet like minded friends. We have a few places left so let Debbie know if you want details.

So many new ventures and unlike Babouska I am getting ready now for the next stage - and feeding the family jammie dodgers!

Cassandra with love

November 8

November and its first seven days have proved a tumultuous beginning to the month. Last weekend I was at Witchfest in Croydon where for the first time I performed the opening blessing. I had always said no but this year decided to try though it was just me and the audience to help. I threatened to sing if the audience did not join in. They joined in! Then I did a talk on White Magic for dark moments and had a great response over the idea we could and should not necessarily forgive those who have done us harm, but that we should try to send them a blessing. Finally I held a psychic power workshop where we all crammed into a room that was far too small as usual and we worked with cards and crystals, read my daughter Miranda’s aura and tried astral projection. It was lovely to meet so many new friends.

When I came home I collapsed and had great drama with the ambulance arriving. I was allowed to stay home as long as I agreed to elephantine injections and one of the children stayed with me for four days and watched for various nasty symptoms that luckily did not far advance. I have never been so ill or in such constant pain.

I would like to apologise to the people coming to see me at Charlie’s Rock Shop on Wednesday. I would not have let you down for anything but I really was stuck in bed virtually the first time since childbirth (as my son Jack says my not working is rarer than rocking horse shit, a poetic boy). I am hoping to arrange an alternative date with Charlie before Christmas.

Today is my first day back at work and still on my elephant pills. I am trying to get all the readings done and answer the mails. So please be patient with me as I will get there.

Next Wednesday night my youngest son Bill goes to New Zealand for a year and so he is home for the week. We are giving him a grand send off at the airport even if I have to go in my pyjamas, granny slippers and woolly socks.

It was maybe significant last month I wrote about my plans to study Reiki, palmistry and the Kabballah. The latter two subjects have been temporarily postponed because a very dear friend of mine in Sweden was taken very ill in late October and I was determined to try sending her healing as best I could. Though I have practised healing for years I have huge gaps in my expertise and so I have been finding out everything I can about healing in all its forms. I do believe even people who are not so expert can effectively send healing to those they care for. I am going to continue my healing studies in the months ahead to try to discover common strands between different methods east and west.

When I became so acutely suddenly ill myself I realised that three months on the road or sitting hour after hour at the computer eating junk and not sleeping or relaxing was like filling a car with the wrong kind of petrol and driving it constantly at top speed. My body packing up temporarily was the only way to get me to listen. I have scared myself sufficiently to pay attention to my body’s needs that are not fulfilled by a diet of ongoing microwave sludge and stress. As I learn more about healing myself and listening to my body, using different traditions, I hope to be able to pass on some of the ideas, especially once I have been able to learn Reiki that I hope will act as a unifying force. Someone wrote to my site questioning the validity of Reiki and I certainly intend to reply and am very grateful for the advice given. However I believe any system ultimately depends on the integrity of the teachers and Jane who will guide me is shining star of purity as well as wise and sensible.  I want to know how Reiki works behind the scenes and how it fits with the numerous other systems so hopefully my wakeup call health wise has opened new doors of exploration for me. I will keep you posted.

Most amazingly of all when I was sick this week, it was the anniversary of my mother’s death and for the first time ever in the forty years since she died I felt her kiss my cheek. Usually it is a dark day for me but this year there was sudden long waited consolation and an assurance that all shall be well.

I wish you all happiness as we move towards the darkest time of the year. May the darkness be a lovely warm security blanket to enfold us as we draw back into ourselves and our homes to regain strength. Then when the Mid Winter Solstice comes we can light our lamp or candle and go striding optimistically into the new beginnings (even if I am still wearing my woolly socks and granny slippers).
With love

Cassandra, 'till next time x

October 3 2007

It is October and the paint box bright turning leaves are a reminder to cherish the last of the sun. The squirrels in the English garden were before I left for Sweden manically rushing around with the nuts I regularly put out, uncertain whether to eat or bury them -sometimes burying them and then digging them up to eat and then burying them again. Postponing the winter as long as possible is like having one more ride on the Wheel of the Year before it closes for the season like the rides on the local seafront, covered over with tarpaulin as the last holiday makers scurry along the windy seafront.

My daughter Miranda and I had one of our all too infrequent adventures last week when on impulse we caught the ferry to Portsmouth, went to the station, found a destination that looked interesting and ended up in Bath Spa on an unexpectedly gloriously sunny day. Of course we headed for the Roman baths to see and drink the healing waters of Sulis, the Celtic sun and healing waters goddess whom the Romans combined with their wise Minerva, the battle maiden. We cast our offerings into the well and made our wishes as people have done for thousands of years and then sat by the river in the autumn sunshine with a cream tea, holding on to every moment of the sunshine.

Now I am in Sweden again. This morning I found a bluetit perched on the top of the wardrobe inside my bedroom, surprising as there are only two very small windows in the bedroom in my apartment high in the eaves, that I keep closed. The bird did not seem worried so I caught it and put it out of the window only to see it five minutes later perched on the balcony railings outside the living room, ready to come in again. Birds are traditionally messengers of the deities. Maybe it is reminding me that though I have been a week in Sweden, apart from a visit to the local supermarket and two car journeys to a festival I was talking at, I have not put my feet outside the building. Though the forests are within touching distance and ten minutes down the road is an inland sea extending further than the eye can view, I am huddled indoors writing a book about the importance of living the natural way even in cities. Maybe the bird is pointing out instead of teaching people to scry in bowls of water and crystal balls on my clairvoyance course on Sunday as planned, we should go out and listen to the wind in the trees, watch the clouds overhead and look deep into the still water. Otherwise time will pass and I will be back on the plane looking down at the forests I never walked in and the autumn gold foliage leaves will be trodden underfoot.

In the modern world we have to be taught how to meditate rather than sitting in quiet reverie by running water or looking at late blooming flowers instead of burning floral incense and imagining the fragrant petals.

In Scandinavia as the dark nights come ever earlier, the windows are ablaze with lights and there are candles on every table, in stores and cafes. The Wheel may have made its final autumnal ride for me with my adventure to Bath but the candle light of the Winter Wheel promises adventures if its own. Since I cannot hold on to the sun, this is going to be the winter when I learn new things ready for the spring. My dear friend Jane is going to teach myself and Miranda Reiki and I am planning to improve my rudimentary palmistry skills and study the Kabballah in depth. But there is time for that walk in the forest before darkness and lighting the candles to welcome me home for the winter.

September 6th 2007

Firstly I would like to apologise for taking longer than usual to answer your mails. I have been totally snowed under with work and travelling. I always like to take as much time as possible and not send back a rushed reply. Be sure your mails are important and very precious to me and it is not lack of interest merely just not enough hours in the day and night. But I will reply as soon as humanly possible!

In spite of the current Indian summer in parts of the UK, I noticed how the autumn chill of early morning and evening were creeping in during my last week in Sweden; when I came home to the UK on Monday the leaves were starting to turn yellow or orange on some of the trees.

This autumn and the Autumn Equinox later in the month are of real significance to me this year for gathering my personal harvest. At nearly sixty with grown up children only now have I realised I can travel anywhere with just my computer and hand luggage and that a lot of the material security I thought essential for happiness are just trappings. As I clear the junk of twenty or more years in a house I must soon leave, the only lasting and necessary treasures I need are my children and my happy memories and how truly lucky I am to have those.

The wild geese from the local bird park are rehearsing their flight before migration as I have seen them do so many times.

The autumn of my life as well as the season is rapidly approaching and becoming sixty is not as frightening or old as I thought it would be. Indeed I have been invited to go to Australia to do workshops and attend the Sydney MBS festival in May next year and I am hoping to do some workshops in New Zealand as well, where my youngest son will be working for a year. I have never been so far in my life, but the time for my dress rehearsal for life is over and I have always said one day I will go to Australia and New Zealand when the children are grown up, a reassuringly long time ahead it seemed, but now they are. Ironically it is one of my children who is opening the door for me. 

The Autumn Equinox is September 23 this year and its energies speak about balancing what has been gained and what has been lost, the good harvest and what rotted or never grew and what we can take forward to the winter and to 2008 and what should be left behind and maybe given symbolically a gentle burial. I shall be at Melody’s Little Sanctuary store in Winchester on 22 and I hope to celebrate my personal Equinox in my garden by my magic tree lighting candles as the twilight falls and looking with excitement not trepidation at the approaching autumn of the year and my life.

If you have time on the Equinox light a candle with me whenever dusk falls where you live. Bury as I will do dead petals or a dark stone for what is lost or you want to shed and eat nuts or seasonal berries, naming for each fruit or nut what has been gained or learned and can be carried forward as experience or knowledge. Leave the rest of the nuts or berries for the birds and look into the future, maybe into a crystal ball, using your Tarot cards or runes or into a large glass bowl of water lit by the sunset or candles.

See as you peer into the future possibilities whether you are sixteen or sixty, the opportunities and openings that with courage and effort we can make happen, the doors we can walk through to make life more as we want it. Everything we do and say leaves a psychic footprint in the earth and the cosmos so every positive step we take and every time we laugh or say words of love they are imprinted in the aether of the places we live, work and visit to enrich future generations.

August 2nd, 2007

I am in Central Sweden writing this and we have escaped the worst of the rain. This month has gone by so quickly but I am trying to spend time in the forest which is filled with flowers and wild blueberries. It is a real fairy tale place and one time when I went though, there was no wind but a tree bent its lower leafy branches towards me and brushed my hand. I felt as though I was in the presence of some tree essence and I felt peaceful yet excited at the same time. The experience lasted less than a minute. I have been back to the same spot several times but the experience has never been repeated even when there in a breeze.

I have been running courses in Sweden, notably a new Tarot course where we worked with the actual card images and what they were saying about specific situations we asked about. People who had never read the Tarot before were, by this method, by the end of the  day, reading as expertly as those who were more experienced. When I have time I will try to pass this method on, maybe as a one or two part on line Tarot course. It was a fun day as people could go into my kitchen and make coffee and sandwiches when they wanted. I am so looking forward to my Central France course next July where we will have the same informal time together as friends as well as learning different forms of psychic development and visiting fey and earth energy spots.

The last few nights here the moon has been huge and very bright. I have been watching it from my balcony which is high up and so I have an unobstructed view. Every night I go out and light candles for people who have asked me for help and I have really felt the moon lady with me.

It is easy here in Sweden to imagine or maybe actually feel the presence of protective house elves, whether you believe house spirits are actual essences or the way our minds interpret the protective energies of a home that build up over the years. People over here ask the permission of the house elves if they do any DIY and in Iceland even the local road planners will not build where there is a sacred rock dedicated to the land spirits.

Recently I have become aware, when I go up to my silent dark apartment late at night after working in the offices downstairs, of little scurrying sounds and tiny shadows that stop as soon as I enter. I definitely do not have mice as the house cat sleeps all day on my bed and I also see little pinpoints of light at floor level just for a minute or two before all is silent and dark again. I researched what this might be and think I may be experiencing Vetters, very little people who are believed in local folk lore to live under the floorboards or doorstep. Locally you can buy very tiny crystal vetters that are said to bring good luck to the home.

What is more many Swedish people, even logical ones, believe that their homes are protected by a larger tomte or house elf. The Swedish name tomte means ‘homestead folk’, though now the tomte is as at home in a high rise apartment in Stockholm as in his traditional farm. Some people still leave out a bowl of rice pudding on Christmas Eve as a family custom or to please the children who assume it is for Santa Claus, himself a relatively modern creation. However many sensitive Swedish adults are aware they are honouring the spirit or spirits and guardians of the home in an age old way by the gesture. The household tomte is seen (sometimes out of the corner of the eye when the house is still and quiet) as a small elderly man spirit who lives in the store cupboard, behind the stove in houses and apartments or in stables, barns or grain stores on farms. He has been described  as wearing grey clothes and a red knitted cap and usually with a white beard.

Similar house elves are described in the folk lore of different lands, such as the English and Scottish brownie or the Welsh bwca (Welsh readers can maybe tell me more about this and if I have spelled it correctly).

Others who sense a benign presence in the home regard the house elf as a less specific guardian spirit, who protects their home and land, whether that land is several acres or a balcony in a high rise apartment.  In these more dangerous times even in rural areas, the concept of a protective spirit guarding your family is as sensible a concept as it was before people had cars and might not see a neighbour living miles away more than once a month at church. Especially for women living alone or with children the concept is comforting.

I am more and more collecting evidence that nature spirits are more than imagination and some day I will bring out a huge book on this fascinating subject.

On Monday I am going home in preparation for my day in Winchester on Saturday and catching up with the children. I am also looking forward to seeing my garden which has been cleared while I have been away. My herbs are now getting very established and the milk thistle that Miranda and I bought from the National Herb Centre near Banbury (well worth a  visit) two years ago is springing up everywhere. As the herb of the Virgin Mary and the old Mother Goddesses, it is one I have tried to grow for years. My fennel, lemon balm, lemon verbena, sage and lavender have also thrived this year and so I have a good supply when Miranda comes to stay next for making our festival incenses.

So I wish you all well. Debbie and I look forward to trying to answer your questions if you email us at the site. I send especially warm wishes to anyone affected by the floods.

Cassandra

August 2, 2007

July 2nd 2007

I would like to say hello to everyone from the very rainy and windy Isle of Wight. I am working hard on two new books for the Swedish market, one of them on past lives and another on everyday aura reading. I am also starting a book for the UK and worldwide market on a subject close to my heart, on the pagan way of life for which I am collecting experiences and tips from people who have always been pagans or city dwellers who decided on a simpler life. I get a lot of experiences of all kinds through my web site and these I treasure as I do believe that sharing people’s insights and experiences through my books is an important way of helping us all to make more sense of the wondrous and mystifying psychic world.

My garden is a mass of herbs and wildflowers (I am not sure the neighbours approve as they have neatly manicured lawns and well behaved flower beds). My eucalyptus and olive tees are doing well and I have a magick tree I hang offerings on. I try to sit outdoors whenever I can  and to go down to the sea for a walk, about ten minutes away. Otherwise I sit like a mole at my computer as day turns to night turns to day and another full moon has passed.

I have been spending a lot of time in Sweden this year. There are forests all round where I stay, an inland sea close by and a small town with wooden craft shops including a blacksmith who makes authentic Viking magical tools based on those found in old graves. I have a fabulous hammer of Thor and an Odin’s spear to start my collection. I am really struggling to learn Swedish but everyone’s English is so good by the time I have come out with my halting phrases the conversation has moved on to another topic. It is frustrating for me who normally talks a lot, to lose my personality when I speak Swedish because I can only say trivial though necessary things like saying I would like some more potatoes at dinner or asking how someone is and not knowing what to say next when they tell me. But I will persevere (a good excuse to sit in the garden with my Swedish tapes). Best of all the place I stay has a balcony which I have always wanted and I can wave like the late Queen Mum at passers by!

I have also been to Witchfest Wales in Cardiff where I met a lot of old friends and made some new ones and talked on Angel and Archangel magic and How to cast the practically perfect spell. In fact the spell talk got expanded at the last minute as the workshop leader on Traditional magic could not come and so I had to fit his audience into my topic. I  did a workshop at Charlie’s Rock Shop in Abbey Mills last week on scrying and we looked at herbs floating on water, ink and oil scrying, candles and even images in the river and clouds till the rain came down.

I am delighted that my good friend Melody has started up a new store "Little Sanctuary" in Winchester and I am going there on August 11 to do readings and hopefully run some half hour or hour long one-to-one classes on psychic development for individuals who want some extra private tuition. Winchester with its fabulous cathedral is one of my favourite cities - and the best cake cafes on the planet!

At last my online six part angel course is finished and next I am going to create some one part courses on psychic development that will slot together to form a bigger course so if you have any ideas of what topics you would like, let me know.

My only sorrow has been that my the floor of my beloved caravan on the east side of the island close to the cliffs finally dropped out and so my caravan has gone to the great caravan park in the sky. I have watched my children grow up there, fed the rabbits and birds and often sat on cold spring or autumn days looking out over the deserted site writing. There was a grove of trees opposite my caravan and I did moon or seasonal rituals there, sometimes in full Druidess robes if the site was quiet so as not to upset the holiday makers. On the Summer Solstice I would watch the sun go down in my grove and at dawn splash through the waves as the sun rose. My children are adult now but it was my little place of Paradise and I was lucky to have it so many years. I now have the contents of the caravan cupboards on my house living room floor and cannot imagine how I accumulated so many tins of bright green processed peas, pan scourers and Vesta Dried Chow Mein dinners for one over the years!

The second is called A Year and a Day in Magick. This has 52 parts and is basically a teaching course for solitary practitioners. Each section has information on different magical topics, practical exercises, magical activities, research and lists of optional additional reading and useful websites. You can however just work with sections that interest you and it may provide teaching material for covens and groups to supplement their own teaching. It is the culmination of years of work and is published by Foulsham/Quantum

I look forward to hearing from you all with your experiences and  questions which Debbie or I will do our best to answer as soon as we can. If you do see me at any festivals please come and say hello. Unless Miranda my daughter comes I tend to be a bit of a "Betty no mates" at these events so am always delighted to talk to you.

With every good wish,

Cassandra