Appalachian Granny Magic

One of our members on the www.witchescackle.com, turned our eyes to an article posted in witchvox. Being of Scotch-Irish descent and living in the Appalachian mountains, I became intrigued immediately.

The Appalachian Granny Magic Tradition of Witchcraft is one that is only
recently being heard of. Though the tradition is a very old one, dating all the
way back to the first settlers of the magical Appalachian Mountains who came
over from Scotland and Ireland in the 1700's. They brought along their even
older Irish and Scottish Magical Traditions with them. Those two 'old world'
Traditions were then blended with a dash of the local tradition of the Tsalagi
(Now, called the Cherokee Indians.) The recipe for the Appalachian Granny Magic
Tradition was then complete, though this potion simmered on a low boil for many
generations before anyone dubbed it with the name, 'Appalachian Granny
Magic.'

For more of the article, please click on the link Appalachian Granny Magic

Birth Totems

Birth totems, unlike Power totems, are only with us in our present incarnation. They do not travel with us from one life to the next. They are the animals that we choose to be born under in order to learn a certain life lesson. The closer we align and integrate our life's lessons, the more we tend to exhibit the higher vibrations of that particular birth totem.

Birth totems are equivalent to the sun signs that we are born under in exoteric Astrology. And are easily broken down in month intervals. Unlike power totems which may take months or even years to discover through meditation and shamanic journeys; birth totems are as easy to figure out as reading the chart below, which I found at http://wolfs_moon.tripod.com/birthtotmain.html and highly recommend as a good totem reference.

Falcon March 21st - April 19th
Beaver April 20th - May 20th
Deer May 21st - June 20th
Woodpecker June 21st - July 21st
Salmon July 22nd - August 21st
Bear August 22nd - September 21st
Crow September 22nd - October 22nd
Snake October 23rd - November 23rd
Owl - November 24th - December 21st
Goose - December 22nd - January 19th
Otter - January 20th - February 18th
Wolf - February 19th - March 20th

My birth totem is the snake. It falls under the element water. Which is a heavy theme in my current incarnation being that I'm also a double scorpio.

Birth Totem Snake
Birth dates: October 23 - Novermber22
Birth Totem: Snake
Clan of: Frog (Water Chief)
Wind is: West
Directional Totem is: Bear
Conscious intent is: Physical Fulfillment
Motive of Higher Self is: Spiritual Union.
Plant/Flower: Thistle
Mineral: Amethyst

Keywords: Intense, Regenerative, Penetrating, Passionate, Scornful

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Birth Totem Snake is an individual whose outer personality is driven by desires of both the physical body and the emotional heart.In Nature, the snake is in a constant state of transformation, regeneration and renewal as he sheds his old skin, revealing a healthy, new skin to begin the next cycle of his Life.

Like their Birth Totem, individuals born under the Totem of Snake are souls compelled toward continual evolution and transformation, driven to discard the past and emerge with the new “flesh” and sight of the dawn now before them. Yet the process is often a challenging one as in order to step into the brilliant Light of Self Acknowledgment, these individuals must first face,
and then release, the painful moments of their ~past.~Many such lessons for Birth Totem Snake, will come in the guise of physical desires as they are very sensual individuals that consciously seek to bond with another on a physical level. These strong urges can be nearly overwhelming at times and may often lead one who has not integrated the Physical Self to the Spiritual, Mental and Emotional, into painful situations in which they may either unintentionally hurt
another, or become hurt themselves.

The reason for this often is because there is a deeper calling that arises from the Soul of Birth Snake, the call to Spiritual Union with another. Yet this call, when one is operating from
Personality, is heard as a call to join only in physical union. Those times when the Snake individual joins with another in an act of physical passion, yet the spiritual union is not achieved, is ultimately left with a sense of dissatisfaction. Whether verbally expressed to their partner or not, this dissatisfaction may ultimately lead to one or both partners becoming disillusioned and wanting “more” from the relationship.When Birth Totem Snake individual can understand the motives of the Higher Self and can attain true integration between the Physical, Emotional, Spiritual and Mental Self, then the Motive of the Higher Self for Spiritual Union will ultimately be attained, both in terms of Union with the Self, and the Union with an Other.

Messenger Totems

Messenger totems/animal spirits are messengers that come directly from the spirit world. Anytime the spirit world decides to send us a message it usually comes in the form of an animal. These animal spirits are not meant to walk with us throughout our life like a birth totem or a power totem. They are here to deliver a message. They may appear throughout a certain period of our life or they may come to drop one message. With these messengers we must be intune with nature as well as the animal that is bringing the message. If your intune - you will know which animals are here to send us a message and which ones are just frolicking. Listen to your own inner intution - you will know. Trust me - you will.

There are a few key things to note when you do come across a messenger, that may help in determining the message being sent. Noting the color, species, the direction it is traveling - are all helpful in figuring out what the animal is trying to forewarn or advise. For instance, the direction the animal is traveling will help the individual decide what direction to take in a current situation. The species of the animal points to the message being delivered from the spirit world and this is incorporated with the direction. There is an additional 'silent message' that the animal delivers. Listen to what your instincts are telling you and you will hear the message. Of course, with all messages from the spirit world we must also use common sense. While some may come with great wisdom, we have to remember that just because they are dead does not mean that they are right.

I have had a few messenger totems. Some have been with me for a period of time and some only a day. The crow has been with me for a couple of years. I know that when I see 2 crows it is time for me to do a reading. They make it painfully obvious that they are not 'frolicking'. They have dropped feathers in front of me. Dove in front of my car, etc... Coincidently, the crow is my spirit guide that helps me with my Oracle readings. And the crow represents 2 goddesses that I do honor. *Note honor, not worship. When I see 2 crows, I take this as a very serious sign. And I try to heed the warnings that come with the reading. I have failed with this before and it was a big mistake.

An animal that appeared only once was a rabbit. This past summer, I was on a walk when I looked up and saw a wild rabbit. When he saw me, he began hopping towards me at a quick pace. He came to the edge of the road and sat up. I looked at him and thought to myself - "Hmmm... I could touch him if I wanted." I talked to him for a couple of moments and then walked on. I took note that when I got home I would have to look up the meaning of the rabbit. About that moment, I looked up and another rabbit was sitting on the side of the road. She was watching me intently and didn't seem to be frightened of me. I thought "That's odd. Its definitely a message." I walked to the end of the dead end and started walking back down the other side of the road. I looked for her and she was gone and then I realised she was ahead of me and she had crossed the road to meet me on my path again. When I got home, I discovered that rabbits are definitely key messengers. They were definitely there with some sort of message. That's when a friend suggested that the rabbit brings news of fertility and birth. A couple of days later my best friend had her baby - early.

Non Wiccan, Pagan and Heathen Forum

Come join us at http://www.witchescackle.com/. We have a lot to offer for those on the Non Wiccan Witches, Pagan, and Heathen paths- spells, charms, divination, witchy parenting, readings, journals, politics, news, cooking, preparing herbs and potions, arts and crafts; you name it, we probably have it. If we don't, suggest it.

For full members we have a private section to make more complex witchy topics easier to discuss. Its not hard to become a full member. After you join, we want to see at least 10 posts and then we'll be able to tell if you are a serious practicioner. And don't worry, its not hard to impress us. We just want our full members to know that anything they share is secure and not accessible by all of the internet and its search engines.

So, come join us! We'd love to meet you and learn about your path.

The Nature People

While reading The Mist-Filled Path by Frank MacEowen, I came upon an interesting quote that I wanted everyone else to be able to read. The quote comes from The Healing Wisdom of Africa by the Dagara (West African) shaman, Malidoma Some, in which he states:

Different cultures represent the profound influence of certain elements.
Take Western culture, for instance. Western culture is a Fire
culture. Its emphasis has been on fire-power. It is a culture that
has harnessed fire in ways never seen before, and sometimes in very destructive
ways. But a problem arises when a culture becomes imbalanced and does not
have equal parts water, mineral and nature to balance out the fire.
Witches, for instance, are Nature people in Dagara cosmology. The nature
people preserve the knowledge of nature and teach the knowledge of nature.
They are often the holders of the knowledge involving the healing power of
plants. The time of the witch burnings in Europe and America represents
the beginning of the imbalance in Western culture. It was the time when
fire was used to overpower nature and it has been the same every since.

Shaman Some made a very powerful statement in very few sentences.

Longing and the Celtic Spirit

It is said that the Celtic Spirit is one of strong Longing. In fact, a lot of the old Celtic Poems and Verses spoke of longing. Longing became its on entity in these poems and verses, so much so that it was always capitalized as if Longing was an actual person.

Tell me, men of learning, what is Longing made from?

What cloth was put in it that it does not wear out with me?

Gold wears out, silver wears out, velvet wears out, silk wears out,

every ample garment wears out - yet Longing does not wear out.

Great Longing, cruel Longing is breaking my heart every day;

when I sleep most sound at night Longing comes and wakes me.

~Excerpt from an old Cymric (Welsh) poem

Everyone knows the three basics - food, shelter, and water. If we have all three of these, we then move to a deeper more sensual/want or longing. What do you long for? Think about this and take some time. This is important. Everyone has a longing deep inside that means much more than fame and money. Something that goes deeper than the materialistic. Some may long to help the needy and in doing so achieve a deeper satisfaction on a higher plane. Others may long for a relationship or union with nature. While others may want to birth and raise a family. No one person's longing is more important than another's.

I can laugh and say "I long for a clean house." But honestly, my motto has always been that when I am on my deathbed, the last thing on my mind is going to be "Gee, I wish I would have cleaned more." That's the difference between a wish and a longing. What are you going to long for on your deathbed? Will you have achieved this longing before that point? If you haven't moved towards achieving what you long for, what is blocking you?

Knowing what your longing is may be something that is on the tip of your tongue, while others may need to meditate and really think on what their longing is. God knows in today's society are deep wants and longings are sometimes suppressed. For me, I know exactly what it is. I've known for a long time. I have moved towards it only to have it paused to raise a family. Now, I'm back to yearning for that longing. I want it so bad I can taste it. When I'm on my deathbed, I want to be able to proudly say that I had achieved my longing and that I spent most of my life working with it and not against it. I will hold off on revealing my longing this time because I don't want this blog to be about me. I want to hear what everyone else has to say?

Soul Theory and the Spirit Flight, Native American Mythology

The following is from the book Mother Earth, Father Sky, which is on loan to me right now by a good friend who just joined our site. In any case, I find this theory interesting.

Within the Native American cosmos there is no seperation between the spiritual
world and material, between the natural and the human, between life and death,
or between body and soul. Any single body is likely to house a variety of
spirits or souls - one that emerges during dreams or sickness, one that dies
with the body, one that joins the afterlife, and one that manifests itself as a
delinquent ghost.

There was a debate that I was active in once upon a time in which the topic was Soul vs. Spirit and the difference. I unbelievable got lost in the concept because I have not studied in depth reincarnation and the different stages. I know the basics but the soul vs. spirit topic was among one of the more difficult topics for me to embrace. If I had to guess, I think the point was that the soul was the wondering ghost and the spirit moved on. Although, in my mind I cannot separate them and I'm not sure I buy this theory.



In any case, as such in the Native American beliefs was that the cosmos contained many souls - benign and malignant. Shamans were skilled individual who could direct the flow of souls and in some case tame them. Of course, this was limited to a more experienced Shaman or 'Soul Doctor'. An apprentice Shaman would have to retreat to a quiet and lonely area in which fasting would take the Shaman on a journey of psychic battles with more aggressive, invasive souls. Once the shaman was practiced enough in battling these souls, they could then take flight to other regions of earth or even the moon.



A shaman was also responsible for retrieving lost souls. Individuals who were attacked by mental illness where thought to have been possessed by a malignant spirit and were diagnosed with 'soul loss' (which is a bit different in Celtic mythology and Shamanism). The shaman would then have to journey to where the lost soul resided and battle the malignant spirit guarding it. If the shaman won the battle, he then brought the lost soul home.

Traditional Witchcraft Forum

Recently, we at the Witches Cackle, The Non-Wiccan, Pagan, and Heathen Forum updated our look and bought our domain name. We are now officially http://www.witchescackle.com./

Currently, at 2011 posts we have grown quite rapidly. Especially considering we started this forum on November 26, 2008 and we are not yet searchable by the internet search engines and crawlers. I expect, in a few short months we will be.

Current topics in the public section include :

herbal recipes
various shamanism practices
the Celtic and Nordic path
traditional correspondences
traditional practices
ghosts, myths, and legends
musical, movie and book entertainment
the gay witch and androgynous shamanism
a green witch section
how to's on crafts such as witchballs, dreampillows, besoms, corn dollies, kissing balls, etc...
divination, dowsing, and tarot
etc, etc, etc....

That's just a hint of what's in the public section. Once you are approved into the full member area - it is so much bigger.

So, if your on a tradition witchcraft path - come join us! We'd love to see you! Give us a little taste of your traditions. We are here to learn from everyone. In fact, my favorite quote is:

"To be a witch is to know everything and nothing at all"

www.witchescackle.com

Decluttering and The Mist-Filled Path

I started a book called The Mist-Filled Path, Celtic Wisdom For Exiles, Wanderers, and Seekers by Frank MacEowen about a year ago. I was trying to share the book with my mom, which never works because she doesn't share well , when I finally had to go get my own copy. In any case, in the beginning of the book MacEowen brings up a very important point that I would like to discuss. He begins by discussing the 'sleep walkers' who are people who walk from day to day without substance. Night fades into day, day into night becoming a large blur. Sleep walkers are people who aren't 'alive' in the sense of living life with a purpose. Sleep walkers feed on 30 second soundbites and quicksilver images that promise them a much better and fulfilled life if we just had a Slider Station or some other 'convience' contraption. We slowly fill our homes and our sacred spaces up with these devices until we drown in our own clutter. Eventually, the clutter is cleared out and placed in yard sales, taken to the dump, or to Goodwill - giving the person a good feeling and a few moments of peace from all the clutter. But its quickly replaced with more clutter, more technology to make life easier because after all that's the 'good life' right? In the end all it is, is clutter. All these 'conviences' and must haves are not life. They don't deepen our existence, purpose, or wonderment. These objects weigh us down, forcing us out of our homes, our sanctuaries, to seek areas that are more simplistic in nature - a vacation from all the clutter.

Of course, I'm not stating that a person should live in an empty home. Some objects are objects of comfort such as a bookshelf, plant stand, an antique desk, our favorite coffee mug, etc... But one must realize the difference between objects of beauty that make us comfortable and objects we think deepen our lives but only add to clutter. A person can go out and buy themselves a meditation pillow and the CD's to go with it but if that's as far as they go to deepen themselves, then in actuality all they have done is to create clutter. It then becomes something else to throw in a closet, under a bed, or into the trash.

Its odd how an introduction to a book can really make you think. I've always been a woman of simplisty. In fact, most ever corner in every room of my house is clean because I've always felt clutter begins in the corners. But then again my family lives on a fixed budget and I have not been able to buy modern gadgets and 'as seen on tv' products. After some pondering on the intro to this book, I am more cautious what I bring in the house. My home is my sanctuary and as such my goal is to make sure clutter does not rule it. And of course, another goal is to make sure that objects don't become an obsession or social status in my life.

Apple Tree Wassailing, An Old English Tradition

Apple Tree Wassailing is an Old English tradition, dated back to the early 1500's (on record), in which family and friends get together to ensure a healthy apple crop for the year. Traditionally, this takes place on January 17th or the old "Twelfth Night" and entails Wassailing or chanting and singing to the apple trees. Although this tradition was recorded in the early 1500's, it is thought to have had pagan roots.

An example of an Apple Tree Wassail chant is :

From the South Hams of Devon, recorded 1871

Here's to thee, old apple tree,

Whence thou mayst bud And whence thou mayst blow!

And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!

Hats full! Caps full! Bushel--bushel--sacks full,

And my pockets full too! Huzza!

This year my family and friends decided to revive this old tradition. We started at my mother in law's farm, in which the King and Queen of the night had to be chosen. Before hand my mother in law baked 2 platters of applesauce muffins. On each platter, one of the muffins on the King's platter had beans hidden inside; while the Queen's platter contained one muffin with green peas hidden inside. This tradition of picking the Queen and King was derived directly from Robert Herrick's Poem.

Twelfth Night

or King and Queen

Now, now the mirth comes

With the cake full of plums,

Where Bean’s the King of the sport here;

Beside we must know

The Pea also

must revel, as Queen, in the Court here.

Begin then to choose,

(This night as ye use)

Who shall for the present delight here.

Be a King by the lot

And who shall not

Be Twelfth-day Queen for the night here.

Which known, let us make

Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then be seen here,

Who unurg’d will not drink

To the base from the brink

A health to the King and the Queen here.

Next crown the bowl full

With gentle lambs-wool;

Add sugar, nutmeg and ginger,

With store of ale too;

And thus ye must do

To make the wassail a swinger.

Give then to the King

And Queen wassailing;

And though with ale ye be wet here;

Yet part ye from hence,

As free from offence

As when ye innocent met here.

~ Robert Herrick

After the King and Queen were chosen, the Wassailing began. The King and Queen were in charge of passing out the chants to a few chosen people at each farm. They also passed out song sheets to everyone. Each person was then given a small amount of apple cider in a cup. As the chants were read, a few people would walk up and toss their apple cider on the tree to help bless it. After all the chants were read, the whole group sang a few chosen verses from the song sheet.

We then moved on to 3 additional houses. Of course, each time we entered the person's house to socialize and warm up. It was definitely a chilly night. At the end of the night and the last house we all settled in with a warm bowl of beef stew and a bottle of hard cider and listened to a few members in the group sing folktale and Celtic songs, accompanied by a guitar or banjo. It was a fantastic night to say the least. And we all concurred that we believe the tradition was mainly created to get family and friends together during a cold, January evening and socialize. What else do you do during this season? Especially back then.