Article

by Christopher Penczak, edited by Tina Whittle

The world appears broken. Our experience of our society is illness. Injustice reigns, and the cosmic order is in disarray. We tell ourselves, as practitioners, what we have been telling ourselves for years—these are the last vestiges of the Age of Pisces. We are ushering in a new world. And perhaps we are right. But it doesn’t feel like that, and after working personally and in community and seeing no end in sight, no light of Aquarius at the end of the tunnel, it is easy to succumb to despair. It is in these moments that we need to use our tools the most, engage our magick, and look to our maps and mandalas to reorient ourselves amid the chaos.

One of my primary tools for understanding consciousness is the Tree of Life. As a practitioner, I have found the Qabalistic Tree of Life to be a powerful map for me. At first I was a reluctant user of it. I disliked the geometry, the memorization, the pattern. I wanted something more symmetrical. I wanted something more organic. Then, due to great mentorship, I stopped whining about what I wanted it to be and just studied it as it was presented. Studying something didn’t mean I had to be married to it, and with that freedom to choose at the forefront of my studies, I found myself married to it. I now have difficulty imagining my interface with magick at least not referencing it obliquely.

What helps me in the Tree of Life is a review of the little-used set of correspondences. When everyone else is most focused on god names, planets, and letters, I found the concepts of the vision, virtue, vice, obligation, and illusion most helpful. Each level on the Tree, each sphere or emanation of the divine known as a sephira, has five points of consciousness that can help you figure out where you are on your own personal inner Tree of Life. With it, you can have a map of obvious ways to move onward and can easily see where such choices will lead you. The symbols can also help you devise rituals and meditation, but when you’re stuck, their main benefit is providing a focus and showing you some clear options. While there are additional options not on the map, when you are lost, it is helpful to find the obvious roads that are sometimes not-so-obvious during times of confusion.

Some confuse their inner personal Tree of Life with the cosmic tree. They can confuse the daily challenges of life with cosmic initiation and enlightenment. The progression is not linear, and what seems like enlightenment today can seem quite juvenile tomorrow. We must realize that there is a tree within a tree within a tree, and it’s all relative. Comparing yourself to anyone else doesn’t matter, as they are not on your tree, and there is no way to truly know if your tree is “higher” or “lower” than anyone else’s. There is no way to prove you are better or worse, so stop trying. Instead, use the tree like a lens to understand yourself and those you are having difficulty with, including the world in general.

I feel despair when I look at the world and see so much selfishness and unrepentant greed. I also see so much dishonesty, and the two form the roots of destruction. While there can be more detailed critique, I feel society (at least American society, but also society in a larger sense) is challenged by unregulated greed and dishonesty.

It’s awful to witness, but witness we must, for that is the first function of consciousness, before any action. The act of witnessing with consciousness can change the outcome, a fundamental teaching of alchemy and magick, though I’m a big believer in following up everything with real-world action to make change. And when we witness, as trite as it sounds, I think we are at a threshold of personal and societal initiation. Quite simply, we must choose to do the work on both of those levels.

In the Tree of Life, the lower four spheres of the tree are divided from the upper by a veil, acting as a magickal buffer between those who have achieved a level of spiritual adepthood and those who are cycling though human stuff. Many seekers have peak experiences that touch the first sphere of adepthood, Tiphereth, but not everyone anchors themselves there. And even when you do, you still cycle through all the human challenges “below,” but you have a new perspective on it all, and you root your identity there instead.

The two spheres just below this new sense of self are called Netzach and Hod, or Victory and Splendor. They are fancy names for the consciousness of Venus and Mercury respectively, planets close to the Sun, which is the “planet” of Tiphereth, meaning Beauty or Harmony.

The vice of Hod, Mercury, is dishonesty and falsehood, while the vice of Netzach is selfishness. There we have the corruption before us, so close to harmony, but inverted from their true purpose. One who embodies the virtue of Hod embodies truthfulness. Truthfulness is found through dedicated learning, which means studying not just of facts, but also the “why” behind them. With that learning, the illusion that everything is in order is released. The spiritual vision of Hod is the Vision of Splendor. It’s an experience of understanding the splendor of things, their perfect order, just as they are, which is often imperfect and unordered. In my struggles with dishonesty in our society, I must also look at myself and realize I cannot force my sense of order upon it. I must witness the unfolding and act from a place of truth, realizing the differences between objective truth, my truth, and another’s truth.

The vice of Netzach, Venus, is selfishness, but also traditionally included in it is “impurity” and “unchastity.” Though these conjure images of Puritanical sexuality, that isn’t the deeper meaning here, which has little to do with pleasure and more to do with the programming we carry. It is the impurity of shame, when we feel we are not worthy, and undoing this programming requires the ability to determine whether something is truly harmful or whether we’ve been told so to control us. The combined illusion of selfish greed and impurity generates projections. Rather than own our actions, we project them onto others. Don’t we see that daily? The liar tells us everyone else is lying. The cheater accuses others of cheating. The violent seek to regulate the other side from being violent, even when they are not. There are common “tells,” behaviors or phrases that indicate when such a projected lie is coming. Therefore, the projection and falsehood, the vices of Venus and Mercury, go hand-in-hand. Projection allows us to believe the falsehood as truth, as our truth, even when it is really false. It’s how people can live with the lie and truly believe in their own virtue.

Netzach’s obligation is responsibility. We must be responsible for our own thoughts, words, and deeds. We must be aware and correct our projections. When climbing the Tree, we usually reach Hod first, followed by Netzach, so we must take responsibility for the previous spheres, including the falsehood of Hod and other vices such as idleness and inertia. When we do, we learn the virtue of unselfishness and can find the Vision of Beauty Triumphant. I had a teacher who described this vision as “love wins.” We often talk about love, the power of love, all we need is love, love is everything, but it is only love triumphant when we learn to find love through responsibility and truthfulness, through trust in the greater process, and a disciplined effort to our conscious practice, be it meditation, magick, and/or the reformation of our current society through just action and engagement.

Sentimental and soporific love never wins. It just makes us feel good for a moment. Beauty triumphant is seeing the beauty in every moment and loving the beauty in every moment. After that, we can follow the serpent’s path, the lightning strike to the beauty and harmony of a new level of consciousness. The path between Venus and the Sun is represented by the Death card in Tarot. We must die to the old self, an initiatory process, to be reborn. We must let go of the part of us that still uses greed, dishonesty, mistrust, and laziness as our baseline operating system. Likewise, if we follow the opposite route via Hod, we find ourselves on the path of the Devil card. We will be confronted by the gatekeeper, the guardian of the threshold, and challenged to release our imposed and accepting bindings to become free. When we take the middle path, we are walking the path of Temperance, of not only balance, but union and integration between the two.

Collectively as a society, in our politics, government, and social lives, we are all facing Death, the Devil, and Temperance, being challenged to go deeper, climb higher, and reach a new level of consciousness. It will happen in large and small ways, personally and professionally. Recently I experienced a surprising conflict with now-former students. Perplexed by their behavior, in many ways the issues mirrored the larger conflict of our nation and world regarding clear communication, community, and privilege. It was only after reviewing ten years of correspondence leading to the crisis that I could see the growing pattern. The key word was responsibility, or lack thereof. The behaviors were projections believed to be the truth, but it was obvious to a larger group less attached to the situation that they were projections. With that, I understood how the students’ actions could have come so far, yet still be inappropriate in that moment. They were at the challenge of Netzach, the challenge of the veil where one must transition their identity and let go. Other changes in their lives were certainly challenging identity, and this intensified in the magickal community. While it didn’t solve the problem, as their choices left nothing to solve, understanding the mechanism behind the scenario that led us to such a situation did help me gain greater comfort. While I was tempted to write a letter explaining it, a few wise mentors all emphasized that if they are not asking for communication, they were not in a place to hear it, and if anything should occur, they must be the ones to open that door. In illusion, it is easy to frame it however you’d like it to make yourself the hero. And I must be aware of that myself, as I obviously have my own biases in such situations.

When I apply this teaching to the world, I likewise gain a measure of understanding and sympathy, even though it doesn’t solve the world’s problems. Seeking order, which is an illusion we impose upon our reality the way we wish it to be, creates falsehood. Those embodying the virtue of Hod can only continue to speak truth to power and encourage others to do the same. Those justifying selfishness will have difficulty seeing it as selfishness, and will therefore project onto others to avoid responsibility, distracting themselves and (they think) distracting others. Those holding the virtue of Netzach can only take responsibility for what is within their power to change, embodying responsible love, beauty triumphant, in all that they do. We must be vigilant to apply truth and responsibility to all aspects of our lives—personally, professionally, and in the greater society—and not just call out others without taking our own inventory.

Let us all work together in aiding the natural triumph of beauty, in all things, as we walk the paths of death, freedom, and balance together, to start a new paradigm of harmony in the world.

by Christopher Penczak, edited by Tina Whittle

“That was pretty passive-aggressive of you, don’t you think? You probably owe her an apology,” a High Priestess said to me. She was an initiate and former student from years past, and it was with those words, as hard as they were to hear, that I knew she should be in leadership. Not only did she possess the ability to speak truth to power, a vital concept, but she knew how to speak so that it could be heard. More importantly, she provided a true reflection to consciousness, the mirror of an adept. Her words were spoken by the tongue of sorcerers.

While popular Witchcraft and Paganism can be mired with gossip, drama, sniping, rumors, and lack of accountability, particularly these days due to the ease of online communication, I’ve always been enchanted by the sorcerers and mystics deeply immersed in the exploration of consciousness. The first aspect of consciousness to explore—and the last—is the self. We must witness our own patterns in the organic machinery of the mind and the ebb and flow of the soul. Perhaps it’s the fantasy image I have of the true adept, whatever that is, married to the yogic experience of the witness, but we really need to watch our deeds, words, and thoughts when we walk the path of magick.

I love the romantic notion of the Toltec sorcerers made famous in the work of Carlos Castaneda and his fellow author cohorts. Perhaps they are all a myth, as they venture too far into the bizarre and surreal to be literal and have been “disproven” by critics, but the idea of a kitchen of laughing sorcerers gathered together in fellowship and purpose—pointing out to each other self-importance, ego, and repeated patterns in a loving but fierce way—speaks to my soul as to how Witches seeking adepthood should talk and act around one another. I am fortunate enough to say I’ve been to a few of those dinner parties, and I have been to a few that have been the exact opposite.

Entering into this path truly, we make a trade. We gain something but we lose something else. If we don’t, we might still be struggling to get on the path itself, let alone attain some level of experience. We gain mystical knowledge, the ability to do things others do not know how to do to shape our lives. Power is a side effect. We truly start to gain an understanding of our responsibilities to our power and the vigilance we must have in training and transforming the consciousness. We lose the ability to forget we have this knowledge and the effect it has. Of course some do fall back into slumber, but they still dream of what they know, never quite satisfied again with their old life. We lose the ability to be “ordinary” and pretend the responsibility doesn’t exist on the path. We can’t be like everyone else for more than a moment. When we try for longer than that, we usually regret it.

Someone on the path recently described the complaints and commiseration, as well as the speculation, that most of us do as “just girlfriend talk.” In everyday society, it’s common. Sometimes it’s problematic, but commonplace nonetheless. Among Witches and sorcerers, it can become magnified. The tongue of sorcerers is not for such talk. We all vent steam and have problems, but the key is in understanding ourselves and our listener. Being on a similar level of awareness on the path can reflect back our own awareness to ourselves as a form of teaching. Aware adepts will call it out—you are being passive aggressive and owe that person and apology. “Yes, the situation sucks,” they will say, “and I see why you felt and acted that way, but that is the bottom line.” Sympathy can be held with awareness. The unaware will mirror and teach by acting out, often unconsciously, creating drama. In the drama comes the harder and less obvious lesson, but the lesson comes. Those not on the path might not be able to hold the hopes, fears, and dreams of the magician because they operate in different worlds. The sublime meaning of many experiences is just not relatable if one hasn’t walked it. Harder still is trying to relate to those those who talk the talk to you, but do not walk the walk.

The aware can speak in a way that truth can be heard, but you must be far enough along in your own evolution that you are willing to hear and take on hard words, and the giver of the hard words must be pretty unattached and impeccable in that specific situation. It’s both extremely personal and not personal at all. That paradox is at the heart of the mysteries. The unaware can agree wholeheartedly with you in empathy and turn around and break trust, often with good intent and often without. We must strive to be aware on both sides, direct and loving as we speak the words that are true for the sorcerer’s tongue. In deeper reflection, I’ve found the following points helpful to me:

• Surround yourself with people who will check you when you step too far off the path. True peers and mentors are ideal. You must also be a peer and mentor, when asked, for others on the path. Involve yourself with others on different paths as well. And realize one does not need to declare themselves magickal to offer friendship and insight. Some of my best peers on the path are Buddhist and Christian, but they possess a deep sense of knowing and wisdom.
• When receiving criticism, ask if it is true. And if your answer is yes, ask how you can do better. Understand what is—and what isn’t—your responsibility, always remembering that ministers, healers, and leaders often carry responsibility beyond their personal and immediate families into the community.
• Examine their motivations and yours. If you’ve chosen your peers and mentors well, ultimately they will remain motivated by love even if you are triggering their stuff too. If your motivation is to be “right” via argument or otherwise shut down examination of the self, what are you doing? Stop and observe your consciousness and check your self-importance.
• Don’t assume someone is a peer or that you are a mentor if you are not asked, or if natural rapport has not been built. We can spend a lot of time offering critique to others to distract ourselves from our own self-work. When offering feedback to another, frame it in a way that invites response rather than automatically triggering a defense. Determine what “hat” you are wearing when talking to someone—teacher, minister, friend, community member, or even antagonist. Make sure that role is clear to both of you.
• If disagreeing with someone in the context of greater community, in what might be considered rumor or gossip, ask to go to those involved together for clarity. If that person refuses to address the issue together, be direct about asking yourself.
• Ask for honest feedback. When giving feedback, speak from the heart and find ways to be truly heard. Remember “I” statements versus “you” statements. You can only know yourself, but even then, we often fool ourselves. We can’t hope to truly know another’s motivation.
• Don’t confuse loyalty with tribalism. Some equate loyalty with always agreeing and sticking with you against others no matter what. Some then seek to be rewarded by receiving the same behavior back. Loyalty is being able to stand up when the one to whom you are loyal is wrong and speaking out in an open-hearted and compassionate way. This conversation can be private, but it must be real. Blind loyalty is as bad for the occultist as blind faith and soon devolves the discourse and pulls you from the path.
• We seek the center and stillness, but acknowledge the extremes. On one level, our emotions will cycle like day and night, summer and winter, and that is normal. The aware will experience and witness and not necessarily make decisions from those places of extremes, but will instead explore them for the wisdom they show. Don’t try to create a completely implacable idea of enlightenment to emulate. The Witch is both wild and still, and you must embrace both.
• Be detached from the idea of reward. Seek reciprocal relationship among friends and peers for sure, but do not speak and act from a place of seeking the fruits of your actions. If speaking or doing is the right thing, all will unfold as it will. If you try to control the result and responses of others, particularly for your own gain to make it go where you believe it should, you can easily enter the realm of malignant manipulation.
• Is every thought, word, and deed motivated by Will? Guided by Love? Balanced by Wisdom? Probably not as we are all human, but how can you strive for your world to be more and more illuminated by these forces? Simple. You must choose them as much as you can in every moment of every day and strive each day to do a little better than before.

Remember, as Maxine Sanders wrote in her book Fire Child, “We sacrifice the ordinary in exchange for the extraordinary.” We have traded that world of school yard gossip for the world of the Witches. While some Witches do not realize this, if you seek to live in a subculture of healthy magickal practitioners versus the toxic, of the holy powers of the priesthood and healer versus the destructive ego, you must choose to be extraordinary. Act like it, and like any good magician, you will become it. You will live from the sorcerer’s world, speak with the sorcerer’s tongue, and create magick with every breath, every touch, and every word.

…and mail in the wrong mailbox

The waves of energy moving through the planet are intense right now and whether you consider yourself to be a “sensitive” person or not, you will probably feel this. It’s like everything is louder, stronger, faster, and more intense. If meditation and connecting to higher energy planes used to be a “relaxing and recharging space” this may not be the case anymore. So what is going on?

Spiritual Mail in the Wrong Mailbox

Neptune (intuition, ocean, Atlantis connection) is right now at 16 degrees in Pisces, just one degree away from Lilith black moon at 17 deg in Pisces. Lilith black moon is, among other things, our blind spot, that which we cannot see with our eyes. This means our intuition (Neptune) is behaving strangely, or differently at the moment. This could be good, as we have the possibility to learn things, but it makes it difficult with discernment and finding the energy source.

For example, if you work with house clearings or blessings it can be more difficult to find the source that needs healing. Where did the “hauntings” start? What is the original wounding?

To make things more complicated and interesting, Neptune and Lilith black moon are also in opposition to Juno (relationships) at 19 deg in Virgo. This means other people’s messages (feelings, spirits, omens) can go straight into your intuitive and psychic “mailbox.” You may find yourself dreaming about other people a lot, getting strange visions and other information. The connection with Lilith black moon is giving it all a darker twist, like an otherworldly filter. This could be great if you are writing dark fiction or like to dive deep into the collective psyche, but if you are sensitive or a vivid dreamer you can become quite exhausted. Now is the time to clean and energetically clear out your bedroom, clean and recharge your dreamcatcher, and make your bedroom up-to-date energetically.

What is the connection?

Now the “mail” is not totally random, even though it may seem so at first. If there was no connection at all, the psychic mail would not reach you. So the real question is: What can I learn from this information? What is the common thread? Neptune connections between people are often of a more spiritual nature, rather than personal.

You can live totally different lives but still have a connection that moves through time and space. It can be the lover you once had and never could live with, but you still dream about each other every time one of you reaches another level of awareness. Or a childhood friend you almost never talk to in you everyday life, but when one of you goes through a difficult passage, the other one shows up in one way or the other, in the dream world or by a text or phone call.

Incoming call from Atlantis

The asteroid Atlantis is right now at 14 degrees in Gemini (communication, messages) and is in opposition, challenging aspect to Ceres (nurturing) at 16 deg and Jupiter (expansion) at 19 in Sagittarius (higher awareness). If we are to be philosophical and a bit influenced by science fiction, we might consider if this is an “incoming call from Atlantis” (the legendary lost continent and civilization) to our time and space? If it is, then what might the message be? Personally I’m thinking about the climate changes and the climate strikes. Could this Atlantean influence help us to take action to help the planet?

The Atlantis asteroid makes a square to both Juno in Virgo and Lilith black moon and Neptune in Pisces (mentioned above) making it a grand cross with Ceres and Jupiter.

So here we are in the middle of everything, with spiritual messages coming to the wrong psychic mailbox and incoming calls from Atlantis. That is a lot of psychic energy moving through the ethers. No wonder that meditations and spirit work can be different right now!

If you feel or remember an incarnation from Atlantis you may right now be receiving a lot of memories, information, and energy from that time. Writing it down or expressing it through art can help to lessen the pressure as it creates a vessel for the spirits or healing energy to reside in.

So what else can you do? There are two things I consider important to remember when working with the element of water. One is to work with water, not against it. Flow with it, move through it. The other thing is to let go. We never have to be afraid that we will not remember a relationship or a happening if we are aligned with water. It will help us to do so naturally. But if we try to hold on too hard, or register everything mentally, it will not work. Water needs to flow and when it does it will help you to carry anything you need into the future, whether it be a memory, knowledge, or a relationship.

Healer’s Burnout

With so much transformation going on right now and the needs of others (Ceres conjunct Jupiter in Saggitarius, squaring Juno in Virgo) being so demanding there is a danger of being burned out as a healer or caretaker. The hunger for healing is strong. Remember that even the healer needs to be healed and to be able to help others you must stay strong and healthy yourself.

These themes will hang around for a while, but things will get easier to sort out around the 19th of October as Juno moves forward in Virgo and the “mail” should be landing in the right psychic mailbox again.

Blessings!

Karin Ugander is a spiritual channeler living in the south of Sweden. In Scandinavia she is known for the AstroNumerology and Psychic readings she’s been doing for over 20 years. Together with her husband Niklas, she runs KaniSkolan, a school of astrology, numerology, tarot, StarCode Healing, and natural medicine. They are also the founders of Alven Inner Ring tradition, a Scandinavian mystery school with roots in shamanism and magick. Karin loves to create magickal oils, flower essences and sigils she combines in her “Karin Victoria” sigil candles and flower sprays. In her spare time she likes to travel, walk in the forest with her dog, and spend time by the ocean. Karin is a high priestess and graduate of the Temple of Witchcraft’s seminary program.

You can find Karin Ugander at Instagram @flowerpowerwitch and @karinuganderofficial

We at the Temple of Witchcraft have been looking for ways to do outreach so our distant members can feel more connected to the greater work of the Temple. The Pisces ministry presents a full moon circle here at the Temple’s home in Salem, New Hampshire, every month. This year our focus for those moon circles is spell-work. We were inspired to produce some spells for the Temple full moons and to make them available to all our initiates and friends to join us. Each of spell has the intention of creating a better world for us all. You may feel free to join us as is appropriate for your own circumstances. You might join us for all of them or just a few. We hope you will take us up on this opportunity to join in on the Great Work.

Since we are doing spells, each one may require you to get supplies ready to cast the spell with us. All the necessary supplies for the next month are listed in the postscript of the month before to give you time to acquire them. We have attempted to make them as simple, but still effective, as possible to make these available to the most people.

We will also be working with the thirteen goals of the witch in person and in our journals throughout the lunar month. We will provide some journal prompts for you if you want to join in.

Register here to join us in person in Salem, NH!

Goal of the witch: Know Yourself

• Who are you?
• What are your strengths?
• What word or phrase best describes you?
• In this moment what do you need?
• In this moment who are you becoming?
• What is your wisdom to share?

Bottle Spell: Protection of Wildlife

A bottle spell is an act of both sympathetic and correspondence magic. All the things that go into the bottle are focused toward the intention. Usually something that represents, has been touched, or was a part of the subject of the spell is included in the bottle.

In this case of a spell for wildlife protection we are looking to add three of these kind of objects: one each for animals of the sky, land, and sea. For sky you could put a small feather, a picture of a bird, a butterfly wing, an origami crane, or anything that represents an animal of the sky to you. For land, you could put in some hair from a beast of the land, a picture of an animal of the land, or anything that represents a creature of the land. For sea you could put in a shell, a scale, a picture of a fish, or anything that says creature of the sea to you. These are your representations of the wildlife to be protected.

To bring protection, we place things that correspond to protection into the bottle. Any herbs of protection, iron nails, sharp objects like pins, thorns, broken pieces of glass, you could even put in stones of protection. Each one is to be charged before it gets put into the bottle for the intention of protecting wildlife from harm.

When you place the charged items into the bottle and it is ready you can close the bottle and say the charm over it. Seal the bottle, saying the charm again. When done take this bottle out to a place in nature and bury it, saying the charm one last time.

I conjure thee o’ bottle charm
To protect the wildlife from all harm
Wild ones be safe and strong
Grow and flourish where you belong
Animal siblings in sky, land, or sea
Be sheltered by this magic, blessed be!

Postscript: For the next moon you will need paper, pens, and scissors.

by Ashara Mayim

“I think I’d like to buy a house.”

It was a strange thing to hear coming out of my mother’s mouth, but there it was, her voice crackling over the air waves. I paced back and forth in the dog park, wrapping Ace’s red leash around my hand and bundling my jacket around me, folding one zippered edge over the other.

“Mom, why? You’ve rented your whole life. You love renting.”

I could almost hear her shrugging on the other end of the line. Were I there with her, face-to-face, she’d look at me in that melancholy way she often did, as though I were a little girl again and she had to simplify something very complicated in order to explain it to me.

“I just want something to leave to you and your brother. You know, when I’m gone.”

Silence hung between us, save for the static on the phone line. She got like this sometimes. Talking about her own death. Explaining to me how sick she was. She would break to me the news that she had been diagnosed with this-or-that, that she’d had a mini-stroke, that she had lupus, that she was never going to walk again. I’d heard it all. I dismissed it out of hand, reaching out to release the latch on the gate and walk back to my tiny apartment.

“Mom, you’re not even 57 years old. You’re so young. You have SO much time left.”

As I tended to Hecate’s altar that evening, the Goddess told me my mother was about to die.  I didn’t believe it until I got the phone call that I needed to come to the hospital because she was sick. I hung up the phone at 10:30 on Thursday night. By 7:30 on Friday evening, she had crossed the veil.

I saw her walk past me in the hospital, out of the corner of my vision. For months afterwards I heard her calling my name in the middle of the night. To this day, I smell smoke from the cigarettes I leave on her altar.

One of the greatest mysteries in Witchcraft is that of life, death, and rebirth. As witches, I find we often say that we honor these mysteries, celebrate the seasons, strive to understand the cycles of life. But do we really?

We stand in circle and revere the coming of spring, worship the Sun in His full glory at Litha, honor the processes of death as the harvests approach each year. We honor the sacrificed god in the face of Osiris, Lugh, and even Jesus. In the fall we drink apple cider, carve pumpkins, relish the crunch of leaves beneath our feet (unless we life in the South! Ha!), and celebrate the turning of the wheel. We love to witness the slowing of the earth to Her sacred sleep. Fall is the season of the Witch, after all! It all seems so poetic, doesn’t it? The circle of life moves us all! It’s necessary and beautiful.

Until we experience it firsthand.

There’s nothing quite like grief, is there? The feeling of emptiness and loss hits you cold and out of nowhere, sometimes stealing the very oxygen from your lungs and leaving you grasping for any small memory of what you took for granted only moments before. It’s all-consuming, like a white noise surrounding you where you expected there to be only silence. It’s just as meaningless but a hundred times more unbearable.

How easy it would be to say, “well, if you were in better balance with the cycles and seasons of life, you’d be able to handle this so much easier!” But the truth is, it’s never easy. Time does not, in fact, heal all wounds and the hole in your heart left there by the loss of the one you love will always be there. I am a witch of the Underworld. I’ve lost many people I love. I’ve helped many others through their grief. One thing I have never heard any witch say when stuck in the horrible abyss of ultimate sadness is “Isn’t this so beautiful? I love the cycles of life!”

I didn’t ask to become Hecate’s child. I didn’t want to be an Underworld witch. I wanted to work with Kwan Yin! But it was Hecate who called to me. I remember the first time I heard her whisper to me that someone would die. I was visiting my great-grandmother in the nursing home and it came to me as a tingle in the back of my neck, and in a vision of her aura’s light weakening, of the veils being lifted up from around her body. I knew, instinctively, it was the last time I would see her alive.

The next was my grandfather. He was doing fine and expected to be released from the hospital, but She whispered to me that morning. “Take my torch from the altar. Carry it with you. You’ll need it tonight.” I just… KNEW. I called the hospital and the nurses and my family kept assuring me with annoyance that he was fine and stable, that I should stay home. I knew better. I waited for the call, which came at about 5:30, that I needed to come be with him. I held is hand with Hecate’s torch placed between our palms, went into meditation while my family stood around him singing his favorite hymn, and ushered his spirit across the veil by the light of Her sacred flame.

After that was my mother, whose form I saw out of the corner of my eye as she left this world. A friend from St. Louis died in a car accident. I knew about his death the day before. Next was a friend from a spiritual circle I attend in Jackson every now and again. She passed from cancer. The list goes on and on… and I understand now that this is something that I am meant to understand and use. I hesitate to call it a gift, although it certainly has useful lessons, however harsh they may be.

I’ve learned that death isn’t the end and that birth isn’t necessarily the beginning.

“Dead” does not mean “gone” and the only way out of grief is through it. I’ve been taught to embrace pain and to relish the dark as we relish the light. I’ve come to understand that sometimes, death isn’t physical. Death is the irrevocable changes that take our lives and turn them upside-down. Without death, there is no life. These are not lessons I wanted to learn, but they are lessons I was thankful for.

Have you opened your mind and heart to the cycles of life, death, and rebirth—not only in idea or as reflected in nature, but in terms of your own life and how it has made an impact on you? What personal cycles of life and death have you experienced? How have you been reborn?

This Samhain, embrace the Dark. Embrace Death. Blessed be.

The Sun has just entered into the sign of Libra and it is time for Mabon and fall celebrations. Libra is often pictured as scales balancing right from wrong and determining justice. Right now we do not only have the Sun in Libra, but also Venus (romance, relationships) and Mercury (communication). Venus likes to be in Libra, as it is also the ruler of the sign. Some of the gifts of Venus in Libra are love, romance, poetry, and wonderful texts on the mobile. Did you know many Libras are sensitive to words whispered into their ears? But as always, there are some challenges as well.

Sometimes (not always) people born in the sign of Libra, and especially Venus in Libra, can have difficulty accepting what falls outside of their view of beauty and balance. Shoes not lined up in the hallway, dirty and messy towels in the bathroom, a partner not dressed for the occasion, the wrong use of words and simply not being civilized enough! In the world of Libra, you can tell someone they are an idiot, you just have to do it with wit and style. If you have a good hairstyle, a nice dress, and perfect nails while doing it, that doesn’t hurt.

I’m not making excuses for Venus in Libra, but they are probably the ones most disturbed by this behavior, because it takes a lot of energy to be perfect all the time, keeping things under constant control. If they do not understand the underlying energy causing this, it can become a real problem, especially in these Instagram times when everything is supposed to be so polished and picture perfect.

So let’s get back to it. Part of the sign Libra is about love, balance, and beauty—nothing wrong with that. The challenge is if you believe that can only be loved by being or behaving perfectly or, on a higher level, if you believe it is your duty to keep the whole universe in balance. That can translate to keeping balance in the family, at work, with friends and also keeping your makeup on and a perfect smile. Because, if that falls apart, then heaven knows, anything might happen.

We can help Libras by telling them that they are loved because of who they are, not what they do, or how they look. That it’s not up to them alone to keep things in balance, and that at times chaos (the opposite sign of rebellious Aries) is necessary to create order in a new way.

We can also assist them and everyone else being caught up in the “perfect-trap” by not being perfect all the time (I know, that’s a hard one, isn’t it?), messing up the order of the towels in the bathroom, saying no to rules that seem to originate from a need for unhealthy control, and wearing two different socks to work. The world will not end, and perhaps it may even make everyone more relaxed. Because the truth is that if we don’t, we risk becoming co-dependent, tipping on toes so as not to disturb the imagined balance, and that is not helping anyone in the long run.

As Mercury and Venus are joined together in Libra we will all get a chance to exercise being on both sides of this. They are making challenging aspects in a square to the north node in Cancer and south node in Capricorn together with Saturn and Pluto. This brings up old wounds of communication and control, especially in close relationships (Cancer) and with authorities (Capricorn) and they may even have their roots in past lives (south node, Saturn, Capricorn).

Questions to consider: How do I communicate with others? What are my expectations of perfect? In which areas do I expect perfect behaviour from myself and others? What is my limit for being civilized? And what happens if someone challenges me in this area?

Venus and Mercury are joined in Libra until the beginning of October, when Mercury enters into Scorpio. Venus stays a bit longer, but leaves Libra and moves into Scorpio around the 9th of October.

Words as Triggers

I guess we all have words that trigger us more than others. If we were teased in school for our clothes, any comment on how we dress as adults can make us nervous. If we always felt that we were not allowed to play with the bigger kids we can be sensitive on how exactly we are invited to a party, and so on.

With the transits mentioned, words will be extra-sensitive triggers. We will all be a bit more sensitive to communications and how we perceive things. What we can do, is breath an extra time before we respond. Do you have to answer right away? Perhaps you don’t even have to answer at all? And if we get upset with someone else’s way of speaking or writing, it can be a good thing to look within for a minute or two and think about why we are getting upset, and what it is inside of us that is triggered? Chances are that it is linked to something else in the past. If we dare to look within, we will find some interesting parts of ourselves wanting our attention so they can be healed.

This transit with words-as-triggers is until around the beginning of October.

A libra experiment: Where is your limit?

If you are up for a challenge, perhaps you would like to do a Libra experiment? Pick an area or situation where you usually step in to create order. It can be anything from the dinner table, where you correct you children (or partner) on how to sit and eat, to the laundry room, or the car, the coffee table at work, or a group of people. Perhaps you are the one in the coven who always sorts out differences and makes sure people make up again? Pick a situation or place where you rather fix it yourself than live with the mess.

Now the experiment is that for one week you do nothing to correct, fix or balance out what other people are doing or saying. You eat your food and make no comments on how others are behaving. You take your coffee cup away and leave the room like everybody else, and so on. You don’t argue or explain anyone else’s behavior. No balancing out any discomfort or tense situation. Leave it be.

In this experiment you may find out exactly how much energy you spend on creating and maintaining balance and order, and perhaps the people beside you will as well. You may also find out that some of the things you have been doing are not necessary at all. Perhaps someone else will step in and do them instead? Experience has showed that this experiment works best when no one get’s a warning before you start. You just pick your thing and do it (or, technically, stop doing it).

I can almost guarantee that there will be moments when you have to breathe deep not to intervene, or even sit on your hands. But if you go through with it, I can assure that you will have an interesting week with many insights.

Brightest blessings and best of luck!

Karin Ugander is a spiritual channeler living in the south of Sweden. In Scandinavia she is known for the AstroNumerology and Psychic readings she’s been doing for over 20 years. Together with her husband Niklas, she runs KaniSkolan, a school of astrology, numerology, tarot, StarCode Healing, and natural medicine. They are also the founders of Alven Inner Ring tradition, a Scandinavian mystery school with roots in shamanism and magick. Karin loves to create magickal oils, flower essences and sigils she combines in her “Karin Victoria” sigil candles and flower sprays. In her spare time she likes to travel, walk in the forest with her dog, and spend time by the ocean. Karin is a high priestess and graduate of the Temple of Witchcraft’s seminary program.

You can find Karin Ugander at Instagram @flowerpowerwitch and @karinuganderofficial

by J.T. Mouradian, High Priest

August 8, 2019:

I received a heartwarming email from Christopher Penczak, communicating to me that my ordination into the service of the Temple of Witchcraft as minister would be happening at Templefest 2019, during the Closing Ritual on Sunday August 25th!

I was supremely excited about all of this. The timing was great. I was thrilled to celebrate with my brothers and sisters. I felt ready for all of this. I was terrified about what I would wear!

I mean…

…Should I wear ritual robes?

…Should I wear a kilt?

…Maybe dress clothes and a cloak?

Yes, dress clothes and a cloak!

And barefoot! (obvious connection to the earth and all that)

Black pants for sure, and the beautiful cloak that my bride had commissioned for me from a dear friend and soulmate who was walking the witch’s path long before me.

But my shirt?

Black? – Very witchy…

White? – To contrast with the black and show balance between light and darkness?

Purple? – For wisdom and magick!

PURPLE it is!

Ironed my shirt perfectly and got all of my outfit ready for Templefest!

August 12, 2019:

Christopher sends an email clarifying that there has been a change: “Templefest Ordinations will now be happening at the Opening Ceremony, Thursday Night at 6:30 PM. Please be there and ready to go.”

I apparently forgot to use my eyes to read this important update…

August 22, 2019:

I am happily playing music for my brothers and sisters and writing lighting cues for Wendy Rule’s performance on Saturday night. I am dressed in my Temple Staff T-shirt and a lovely pair of camo green shorts. I notice people gathering for the Opening Ceremony (usually a very casual event) and join them.

Then I noticed that Christopher is wearing his ritual robes.

I think…odd.

I noticed that some others in the circle are wearing their ritual robes.

I think…odder.

Christopher announces that he is excited about the ordinations that are happening.

I think, cool so am I!

He calls the six of us forward and I realize that everyone but me is in ritual regalia.

I think, for an instant, “but what about my outfit?”

I clear, focus, and live in the moment.

I am blessed beyond what words can communicate at this honor.

Back on the porch I thank Christopher for this remarkable life event and apologize for being in shorts and a t-shirt. I wanted to let him know that I took this event very seriously and meant to dress appropriately. He smiled and let me know that it was not at all taken as disrespectful. I remember him saying something like, “we all know who you are, JT.”

I learned something very import through all of this. Something that I had learned a long time ago, but always need to be reminded of. It is not my clothes that define me as a witch. It is not my altars, nor my tools. These are all great parts of my path but are 100% extra.

I am a witch because I am a witch.

My power comes from my very being.

What about my outfit? I never needed it.

by Christopher Penczak, edited by Tina Whittle

The apocryphal ancient curse has come true! We are living in interesting times. Our current experience is chaotic, filled with upheaval and change with no plateau in sight, no way to stabilize a “new normal.” Technological advancements in electronic connection have changed our society, and the changes keep coming ever more rapidly. What does this mean for the Witch, the one ostensibly harkening back to more simple times, attuned to the pace of seasons and the rhythm of natural cycles?

I think many reach towards the world of Witchcraft to seek the solidness of a more ancient archetype, to access the personal power necessary to maintain a level of control over the chaos. I can’t disagree. Witches are called to chaos, not necessarily to stop it in any way, but to show us how to embrace and how to flow with whatever is on the path. While we are a middle way, we are not anchored to the center. We swing from side to side on the serpent’s trail of our crooked path, from light to dark and summer to winter. The balance is found in the flow, not the fixedness.

And in these days of social media, where all is shared, photographed and broadcast live as you are doing it, where is our ethos “to keep silent” found? I see a lot of knowledge being shared (or at least a lot of information being reshared). I see a lot of willfulness, both good and bad. I see much daring, sometimes into brilliance and sometimes into foolishness, but that is a risk in any age and time. Those are three of the four points to our pyramid of the Witch. But how can one keep silent?

In organizing and promoting community, we have not only the usual social behavior of posting and tweeting and streaming our activities, but the desire—in fact, the need—to be open and transparent in our community, making things as available as possible to our growing groups. Where there are many areas where we want to be as open, clear, and transparent as possible, there are quite a few where we don’t. We are an occult tradition. We do work in darkness. Not everything requires the light to grow. So how do we differentiate between openness and honesty, the attitude that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” to prevent abuses of power, while still honoring the magickal axiom of silence and the blessings of darkness?

As I was talking to some folks in the Temple of Witchcraft community at various points in their training, one said to me, “When you join a Witchcraft tradition, you have to assume there are all sorts of magickal things going on that you are not involved in.” I agree. There are various classes and students at different points of the training. There is magick involving the leadership for goals of the organization—community centers, land development, and other resource wish-list items. There is magick and visionary work done by the festival coordinating staff to make sure we receive inner world guidance and support for our yearly gathering. There are offerings to the allies of the land when we harvest from the garden. And yes, there are secret groups learning and exploring new concepts and teachings that might be restricted by level of experience, location, or knowledge that participants have already demonstrated in the community. Other things are open to all members, or even to the public.

Sometimes in trying to be both the Old World embodiment of “witchery” and the New World embodiment of “wokeness,” you get stuck trying to be all things to all people and don’t get to just “be.” That leads to being burnt-out and resentful of both our magick and our service to the community, the spirits, and the greater good. All things have their place. All things have their season. You don’t have to be the master of all things, let alone the jack of all trades, in magick. As I see it, as a Witch, you simply have to be what is Necessary, and that is with a capital N, referring to the force of Necessity as embodied by the Greek Goddess Ananke. We can relate it to True Will or Dharma on an individual level if you’d like. At any moment, ask yourself: is it most appropriate for the greater good to be open and transparent or to be silent, to be working with others or keeping to myself? In this moment should I take a more active role? Should I support? Should I go home as this one doesn’t require me at all? Should I give myself permission to rest, relax, or have frivolous fun? Often frivolity is quite Necessary.

In these chaotic times, we must discover ways of just being, even while we are doing whatever we feel we should be doing, and find the balance between the public and the private, the active and the quiet. We have to realize that balance is dynamic and not static. In walking that ebb and flow between the two, we find the center still point that is in the soul of the Witch, and that is the timeless quality we reach back to when we seek empowerment in these ways of the Craft. We are called to bring this work into the new, while honoring the old. Only we can do it.

We at the Temple of Witchcraft have been looking for ways to do outreach so our distant members can feel connected to the greater work of the Temple. The Pisces ministry presents a full moon circle here at the Temple’s home in Salem, New Hampshire, every month. This year our focus for those moon circles is spell work. We were inspired to produce some spells that will be used at the Temple full moons and make them available to all our initiates and friends to join us. Each spell has the intention of creating a better world for us all. You may feel free to join us as is appropriate for your own circumstances. You might join us for all of them or just a few. We hope you will take us up on the opportunity to join in on the Great Work.

Since we are doing spells, each one may require you to get supplies ready to cast the spell with us. All the supplies for the next month are listed in the postscript of the month before to give you time to acquire any necessary supplies. We have attempted to make them as simple, but still effective, as possible to make these available to the most people.

We will also be working with the thirteen goals of the witch in-person and also in our journals throughout the lunar month. We will provide some journal prompts for you if you want to join in.

Register here to join us in person in Salem, NH!

Goal of the Witch: Meditation

• How much of a part of your spiritual practice is meditation?
• When you have an issue or problem before you do you ever try to meditate on the issue?
• What is your favorite type of meditation? What does it do for you? Why is it favorite?
• What type of meditation do you dislike? Why?
• When meditation is difficult what makes you return to it?
• What are your personal benefits from meditation.

Astral Meditation Working: Dreams of Utopian Peace

This “spell” for a better world is a little different because we are going to do a meditative exercise. Since this is the Pisces moon we are going to stimulate dreams of a world of utopian peace by bringing the energy of utopia down from the divine plane. We will rise on the planes of being to the divine plane. While there we will call out to the energy of utopia and bring a bit of it down through the planes into the physical one.

I got the idea for this meditation from a Silva Ultra Mind meditation where you bring a problem up through the planes to the causal plane, dissolving it and reshaping it so it is no longer a problem, then bringing it back down into the physical. It is much like something made in a factory. If you find a flaw in something made in the factory you don’t start fixing it after it is made. You go back to the idea stage, the drawing board, the plans and then remanufacture with the new plan. So you take it back to the causal plane. I combined this idea with the Rising on the Planes exercise we teach in Witchcraft One. You could use this exercise to bring down from the divine level anything you want to create in this world.

Special thanks to Christopher Penczak for letting me use his wording for the first part of this meditation.

Pisces Full Moon: Dreams of Utopian Peace (mp3)

Assume a meditative position. Relax fully. Engage the entire self. Use the Countdown Meditation to enter a meditative state.

First, be aware of the physical world, and your physical body. Without losing your meditative state, be aware of your flesh and blood, breath and bone. Be still within your body, not disassociating from it. Be aware of the room, and any other people in the local vicinity. Be aware of all your physical senses other than sight: hearing, touch, smell and even taste. What do you perceive in the physical plane?

Extend your awareness beyond the physical world, to the etheric, the energetic support and framework of the world you know. Often truths are apparent in the etheric world that remain hidden in the physical. What do you perceive in the realm of etheric energy?

Expand your awareness, rising up and out of the physical and etheric world. Rise up to the astral plane, where the object and subject blend together. This is the realm of patterns, of dreams and images. This is the sea where all things take their shape. What do you perceive in the astral world?

Expand your awareness, rising up and out to the emotional plane. Enter the realm of emotion and feeling. What do you feel? You might feel your connections to people, to those who evoke a strong emotion within you, or to places where you feel a strong attachment. As you rise higher, you enter the realm of the “higher emotions” of compassion and unconditional love.

Expand your awareness again, rising up and out to the mental plane. Enter the realm of ideas, language and concept. Enter the realm of sacred geometry and the form behind all forms. What do you perceive? What thoughts and ideas are clear to you? What information do you remember or learn? The higher you rise, the more abstract the though process becomes.

Expand your awareness again, rising up and out to the psychic plane. Enter the realm beyond linear time, looking at the past, present and future from above. You might see visions of that was, is and what could be, for yourself, people you know and for those in the world beyond you.

Expand your awareness one final time, rising up and out to the divine plane, the level of the soul. Feel yourself in tune with divinity, the Divine Mind, the connecting force between all things. Feel your connection to all life, not only in the physical world, but in all seven worlds. Feel the part of you that is god- like and one with everything.

In this merging with the divine, call out to the divine energy of utopia. It might feel like peace, unity, cooperation, joy, or some other feeling. Connect fully with this divine energy of utopia and world peace. When you feel you have fully connected, draw that energy down with you into the psychic plane.

Allow yourself while in the psychic plane to see what utopia looks like. Any visions you might have of what utopia really means or things you can do to encourage it. Draw this vision of utopia down with you into the mental plane.
See the thoughts that are inspired in the mental plane about utopia. What language circles around it? What ideas about it become clear to you now?

Draw that thought form of utopia down into the realm of the emotional plane. Feel the emotions that are linked with utopia. Feel the unconditional love that can be if we accept utopia.

Draw that feeling down from the emotional plane to the astral plane. In this the plane of dreams and images let this feeling of utopia flow out to create dreams of utopia. A world where we are all working toward the success of the world. Let this energy you have brought down with you become planted here in this realm so it can be brought into being by those who catch this dream.

Come down from the astral plane to the etheric level, and from the etheric level to the realm of the physical. Feel your flesh and blood, breath and bone. Come back. Come back. Come back.

Count yourself up with the end of the Countdown Meditation. Give yourself clearance and balance. Ground yourself as needed.

Postscript: For next month you will need a bottle, small representations of animals of sky, land, and water, some protection herbs, and some small sharp objects like pins, broken glass, or small iron nails. Also choose a place in the wild where you will bury your bottle.