Sussistinnako is another name for Thought Woman or Spider Woman. She is a creator for the pueblo tribes, spinning the web-of-life from the four directions.
Weaving magical charms and dream catchers, she traps visions in her web. She can create life and influence fate with her pure thought.
SUGGESTED MANTRA: EMPOWERMENT
Spider Woman, creator and weaver of life, is the great teacher,
protector and Mother of all creation to many southwestern Native
American cultures. She manifests as a sacred guardian, overseeing thewelfare of all those in need.
SUGGESTED AFFIRMATIONS:
~ My life is full of purpose
~ I deserve to be treated right
~ I am a success in all that I do
~ My goals are becoming manifest
~ Every choice I make is the right one and for the truly intuitive… ~ Answers that present themselves to me in dreams are correct. Related gemstones: Turquoise, Coral
According to mythology, Spider Woman spun two silver strands, oneconnecting east to west, the other north to south. This connected the four corners of the earth, with Spider Woman as the centre. (The strands created the Road of Life in the Hopi tradition, which has as its symbol the equal-armed cross).
HER MODERN ENERGY
In her aspect as Creator and Mother, Spider Woman affirms that women are essential and central to the life process. She reminds us that people of all races were created from the same source, with equal rights and responsibilities. She created her own children, twin daughters and twin sons, who brought forth the sun, moon and stars. She created all vegetation, birds, animals and red, black, yellow and white people.
As a sustainer, Spider Woman is always urging us to reconnect to our own spiritual source of higher power.
She tells us that our natural role is to live in peace and harmony, with reverence toward the earth and it’s beings. She imparts her sacred wisdom to people as they sleep, connecting them to her spiritual wisdom through a filament spun from her body and attached to her crown.
She empowers women to keep the dream of life alive and encourages them to continue weaving their dreams, even in times of despair and unknowing.
DO THIS
If Spider Woman is speaking to you today, take the time to visualize your dream of life. Purify your intentions and sacred space by smudging yourself with Sage and Cedar.
Gather 8 lengths of dried sage, cedar and/or sweetgrass and tie securely with strands of red, yellow, black and white twine. Smudge sticks should be between 3 to 5cm in diameter at widest point. Tie off loose ends of twine. Light until smudge stick thoroughly ignites. When the flame burns out, purify yourself and your space with the fragrant smoke. Mediate with a mantra or affirmation knowing that Spider Woman is helping you manifest your life dream.
Yours in love and light ~Anita~
Thought Woman ~Spins and Life is Created www.goddess. com.au
by Ownen Waters ~ Author of "The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness"
In the mid-1960s, the attention of young people took a sudden turn inwards. It was as if a light switch had turned on. They suddenly awoke and said, "Oh, yes, I remember now. The answers are to be found within."
The mid-1960s through the mid-1970s were times of inner searching. The outside world came to be seen as materially-obsessed and insincere. If there was meaning in life, it was to be found within.
The spiritual revolution in human consciousness had begun. In the United States, the 'Baby Boomer' generation refers to people born between 1946 and 1962. Today, 'boomers' form one-third of the U.S. population, 14% of which are metaphysical believers and seekers.
These leading-edge thinkers emphasize inner spirituality and self-expansiveness. Their sense of self is that of a real, inner self rather than an outwardly-focused, ego type of self.
The true, inner self is found in silence. The inner self is who you are. It is your soul. Your inner self is your personal link to the universe and to its source, Infinite Being. It is in this silence that you come to realize that everything in the universe is focused upon the demands of the outside world. Their spiritual awakening appeared to have been put on hold. Instead, in reality, their spiritual awareness was building strength while it waited to find expression in the outer world.
By the 1990s, boomers were seeking to express that spirituality within their lives. In the period 1990-2003, for example, 25% of British adults in the 30-59 age group deliberately downshifted. This means that they made voluntary choices to better their health and family lives, even though such choices meant earning less money.
The 1990s saw the holistic lifestyle blossom and grow to include three times more people than before. Mind, body and spirit became the new mantra of holistic living. If something is good for your mind, body and spirit, then it is, by definition, good for the whole you.
The New Awareness today focuses upon gaining inner knowing through self-realization and self-development. It fosters spiritual self-reliance without the imposition of standards or duties by an external authority. With the New Awareness, your true, inner self is your authority. Your sense of responsibility becomes powered by love rather than fear. You do no harm to others because you love your fellow human beings, not because you fear judgment and punishment. Your spiritual awareness grows into spiritual adulthood. You no longer need to be told what to do, how to think, or what your place in life 'should' be.
Each person's inner self is cultivated and treasured for its uniqueness. There is always potential for self-improvement, always potential for creating a better life. Along with inner development, comes a clearer sense of intuition or insight. Suddenly, with better insight, a person's options in life become crystal clear. With insight, you easily identify the best course of action to successfully meet any challenge.
With insight, also comes synchronicity. Life begins to fold around your envisioned plan of action, supporting it by providing opportunities and resources just when they are needed the most.
'Quality of life' is the new standard replacing the old 'standard of living.' Wellbeing of the whole self is paramount. Helping other people, being of real service to the world, is a natural desire which unfolds as your sense of inner connection strengthens.
Your self-esteem is boosted and healed in the knowledge that every person has a unique gift to offer the world, the knowledge that you're going to deliver that gift, and that you're going to love doing it!
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In magickal work, Intention is a priority to consider before beginning action. It is a way of focusing the mind and having a sense of purpose that leads to action.
Intention is a determination to act in a certain way, a resolve to achieve something. It helps to be deliberate about our plans in order to organize the energy and actions that will bring about our desired results.
Much of creating Sacred Space is in Intention. Since we are performing a symbolic cleansing of an area, our Intention is very important to the process. If we are to reverentially set aside a location, a time or an action, we must be clear about what we want to accomplish, and how we plan to do that. In this kind of work, it matters how we do things, but it matters just as much why we are doing them and what attitude we bring to the situation.
Approaching a magickal working with full attention and an open heart is making use of Intention to guide our actions and focus our energies.
When we come To stand in a Circle with “Perfect Love and Perfect Trust”, we have begun an Intention of working together cooperatively. This magnifies the energy even more than the increased number of participants raises the vibration.
Live your life with Intention and you will see that every act becomes a sacred ritual, every thought a blessing.
I read and own a lot of New Age books covering almost every subject from dragons to kitchen magic. I love reading books because they give me ideas to try and modify on my own. I can’t always do a particular spell the way an author writes it because sometimes it is way too complicated with super long verses and tons of spell components. One of my favorite magical tools is my broom—it’s easy to use and it’s right there when I need it.
I was in college when I tried using a broom for the first time. I had read in a book that people in Appalachia used brooms as a magical defense. Ideally, you want to put a broom down for a person to walk over when they step into your house. If they are entering your space to do you harm or shouldn’t be there, they will leave immediately. It sounded pretty cool, so I thought that I would try it. I couldn’t have a real broom in my doorway, so I drew a picture and taped it down so that you had to walk on it to enter my room. I lived in the no-man’s land of the quads and a lot of crazy drunk people were everywhere, so I thought why not? It’s always good to have an extra layer of protection around yourself.
A couple of days later, Tiffany, the girl across the hall from me, came into my room to talk to me. She had a cigarette in her hand and she jumped up from my sofa and ran out of the room when she realized that she was smoking in my room. Normally, she wouldn’t have thought anything about it but she had heard about my broom. She was mad about it because she thought that she was a bad person. Tiffany wasn’t evil, but she wasn’t the best person for me to be around either. The question for you is, did Tiffany jump up because I was a non-smoker or did she jump up because of an internal response to my broom? Probably a little of both, but I’d like to believe that the picture of a broom was working for me just like my broom does now.
I use my broom to sweep out my house to cleanse out the psychic clutter that collects, I use my broom to guard my house, and I use my broom in spells whenever an idea occurs to me where I can fit it into a casting. Sure, it looks pretty ordinary, but a broom like everything else is what you make of it.
Good Intentions Spiritual Crone 2005
My Witches Broom
By Dandelion Nose
The Chaotic Kitchen Witch
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Representing a gift From Faerie to humans to bridge the understanding between the Mortal Human realm and that of Faerie land. The 7 pointed star is known as a Gateway symbol, a Gate or entrance between our world and that of Faery, The Otherworld.
Each point on the star represents a gateway or path of The Higher Self to prepare one for entrance into Faery.
1. Power, Personal Will, Determination, Prosperity, Justice, the Gate.
5. Powers of Mind and Science, Balance, Dexterity. 6. Devotion
What is an Elvenstar?
There is much meaning behind the septagram, or seven-pointed star, also known as the elven Star or faerie Star. For us it represents a belief in fairies, and we use it as a band symbol to signify that we believe. Over the past few years, the elven star has gained much popularity among those who believe in faeries, and for us it's a symbol of magic, childhood and whimsy. Each point of the star has a meaning, and stories about the meanings vary depending on the storyteller. Seven has long been a magical or lucky number, so many like the elven star for it's seven points. There are seven world, seven visible colors in a rainbow, seven notes to a musical scale (do, re, MI, fa, so, la, it), and seven levels of heaven. Additionally, there are seven chakras, or energy centers in the body, and seven days of the week. Seven represents universal balance. This is illustrated by the symbol for earth, a square with four sides, combined with the trinity, representing heaven. These are bound together in harmony, forming a seven-pointed star. In an elven star, this balance is symbolized by three over four, or heaven over earth. For some, the points represent the seven directions: north, south, east, west, above, below, and within. For others, it's the seven magical elements:earth, air, fire, water, life, light, & magic. Still others say it's inner and outer elements: earth, air, fire, water, heaven, earth and self.
The elven star has inspired us for many songs, including 111. Rhythms have their own meanings in culture. Four beats, especially with a driving down beat, represents rain in many Native American cultures. In ancient Mayan cultures, five beats were war beats, as illustrated in Holst's 'Mars from The Planets'. Six has traditionally been a female pattern, representing the joining of threes. This pattern is rumored to be beneficial in calming storms.
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Every summer, in the south of England, grand and mysterious works of art silently appear in the crop fields.
Some crop circles have depicted formations such as galaxies, ancient Sanskrit letters, DNA-like double-helixes, asteroid belts, spiral nebulae, eclipses and even the human charka system. Other crop formations are not so obvious to the left-sided, logical part of the brain, and yet hold tremendous right-brain symbolism relating to the shift of human consciousness.
These symbols remind the inner consciousness of what it once knew but had forgotten. They are wake-up calls to a humanity in transformation.
To view a selection of particularly inspiring crop circle photographs, click on these links:
http://www.infinitebeing.com/ 0507/fields.htm
www.temporarytemples.co.uk
Crop Circles ~Friends in the Fields
We live in a world that loves the number one. In this country, we’re supposed to look out for number one and make sure that our needs are met before we think about other people. We love the rush of being winners, the thrill of being first in any competition. We are somebody when we embrace the number one. But what about the people that embrace a different number? What about the people that turn from the ego of the self and search out other priorities in life? I’d say that they are on the path of “0”.
A “1” has a definite beginning and end but a “0” has endless possibilities. When you choose to define yourself with a label such as Aries, Druid, singer, cook, you are locking yourself into a notion of what you should be and what you should be doing. When you let go of labels and perceptions, you are free to be anything you want to be. I had a friend of mine say to me that now since she is 52, she is in the Crone stage of her life. Really? The Goddess does not stop reinventing herself, why do we? Why do you have to be a Crone if you have passed a certain age? Why can’t you be Maiden, Mother, and Crone all at once or the appropriate aspect when you need to be?
The power of zero is that by choosing to not lock yourself into labels and meaningless material competitions, you are open to the possibilities the universe is whispering to you. Zero is scary because when you let go of an idea of yourself, you are letting go of your comfort zone of the good old number one. Zero is a symbol of the sacred circle, the turning of the wheel. Zero is the striping away of the stuff that doesn’t matter which gets us to the stuff that does—communing with the Goddess, listening to our inner voices, working magic for the benefit of the land and people around us. Putting zero first means that you are willing to take the time to reach out to the world around you instead of working magic that solely benefits you. It’s not wrong to want a little extra money or to find love, but if we never take a step back and use the power of zero, we are just as lost as the people who are not aware of the Goddess or of the sacred path we walk on during our journey.
We can never completely get rid of the number one in our lives and we shouldn’t. If we can’t love or honor ourselves, we will have trouble reaching the essence of zero where we can be our true magical selves.
The struggle is to try to be a zero when the world around us compels us to be a one and to use the power of nothingness to achieve limitless spiritual growth.
I am the deep stillness of night where all things are possible
I am the eternal seeker-wise and still stumbling for truths
I harvest the bounty of the earth as the wheel turns
I stir the caldron and tend the sacred flame
I guard the hidden path and keep a beacon lit for other seekers
I work spells and rituals of the old ways because it is my way
I reach for understanding of the magic around me and inside of me
I laugh and dance along the spiral path as I meet kindred spirits
I dream things that will come to pass as they are whispered to me
I heal land which has been neglected and spoiled by man….
A circle gathered round a roaring pit
All joining hands to bask within it's glow
And under Moon crowned sky all starry lit
We sing and praise the Power's shadowed flow.
For some the flames form dancing Dragon's wing
And other smoke wrought visions climb the air
For all a caring closeness will this bring
And psychic current bonding hearts to share.
We charge this timeless place between the worlds
To call the Goddess' love within our hearts
And join with her our joyous souls unfurled
Our spirits dance with her by ancient arts.
This night forever captured in this glade
To see old souls re-met and friendships made.
- J.A. Bordeaux (S.R.) -
To The Bonfires Staeorra Rokraven
A favorite plant to wild craft and harvest is Lamb’s Quarter (Chenopodium album).
It grows prolifically as a weed in my gardens and well, practically everywhere on the farm. As with many weeds, Lamb’s Quarter is actually one of the most nutritious plants. It is loaded with vitamins and minerals, especially calcium and potassium.
We pull the entire plant and throw to our penned up laying chickens. They pick the stock clean of all leaves and seeds.
When harvesting for yourself, pick young leaves from the top portion of the plant. Wash and add them to a salad or a stir-fry. They cook up much like spinach but with a much milder taste.
A recipe incorporating lamb’s quarter is this casserole from Billy Joe Tatum’s Wild Foods Field Guide and Cookbook. It can be modified to suite your taste with other ingredients available from your garden.
Lamb’s Quarter with Wild Rice
5 cups chopped lambs quarters leaves ¼ cup melted butter 4 eggs beaten until frothy 2 cups cooked wild rice (you may substitute with brown rice) 1 cup milk 6 green onions
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1 tablespoon Tamari
½ tsp. dried thyme, oregano, and rosemary (or 1 ½ tsp. fresh)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Bake approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Wild Crafting ~ Lamb’s Quarter
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This is the basic recipe and method for Jewish Rosehip Soup. It is also popular in Iceland and parts of Scandinavia, where, because of the cold temperatures, it’s often used for colds and sore throats.
1 litre fresh rosehips
2 litres water
For each litre, 1 liquid quart of rosehip pulp 1 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoon potato flour
1/4 Cup almonds
Rinse rosehips. Crush dried hips. Boil in water till soft. Press through a colander. Strain the pulp again through fine muslin or coffee filter. Measure the pulp and dilute with water if necessary.
Bring the pulp to a boil and add sugar if it is too tart.
Mix potato flour with some cold water. Thicken the soup while you stir and bring to a boil. Add blanched and shredded almonds.
Hot soup is often served with vanilla ice cream and/or macaroons. Cold soup can be diluted to make a nice thirst-quencher.
The Icelandic recipe differs in that cornstarch is used to thicken it, not potato flour.
The wild rose, or ‘dog rose’, is a common shrub and can be found in woods, hedges and scrub land. Flowering from June to July the tiny fruits appear from late August to November. The fruits should not be picked until they have been softened by the first frost, but do not leave them past October. The seeds are covered with tiny hairs (children split open the rosehips and put them straight down other children’s backs—or grind them up into itching powder!) and care should be taken to strain the cooked hips through fine muslin, as rosehip hairs are dangerous to consume. Rosehips are reputed to contain four times as much vitamin C as blackcurrant juice and twenty times as much as oranges.!
Rosehip Soup
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Cat Tales
www.whimsy.org.uk/superstitions.html
A Norse legend tells of the chariot of Freya, the witch, that was pulled by black cats that became black horses. They were exceedingly swift and surely possessed by the Devil. After serving Freya for seven years, the cats were rewarded by being turned into witches, disguised as black cats. This seems to have led to the belief in the Middle Ages that black cats were familiars of witches, and after seven years, became witches themselves. They believed if a black cat crossed your path, Satan was taking notice of you.
*A black cat is lucky or unlucky, depending on where you live.
*Cats were sacred to the goddess, Isis in Egyptian mythology.
*Bast or Pasht, the daughter of Isis, was represented with the face of a cat. Anyone who killed a cat was put to death. *Archaeologists in Egypt found cat cemeteries from which a shipment of embalmed cats was taken to England. In Egypt it was believed that a black cat crossing one's path brought good luck.
*In East Anglia, England, they used to mummify cats and place them in the walls of their homes to ward off evil spirits. *If a black cat walks towards you, it brings good fortune, but if it walks away, it takes the good luck with it. Source:Old Wives Tales
*Keep cats away from babies because they "suck the breath" of the child. Source:Old Wives Tales
*A cat onboard a ship is considered to bring luck. Source:Old Wives Tales
*Cats are looked upon as an infallible weather forecaster: if one sneezes then rain is on the way; a cat sitting with its back to the fire indicates a storm; while one sharpening its claws on a table leg is a sign of a change in the weather, usually for the better.
