Rose Ariadne's Chitchcraft Blog

Dear Friends,

Over the next several posts, I want to take time to look at each of the heavenly bodies and ways that you can bring a little astrological knowledge into your magickal practice. Although I know many astrologers who want nothing to do with paganism, and many pagans who don’t delve into astrology, I believe that the two are deeply entwined. The sun and planets are creations of the God and Goddess, just as we are, and it’s important to recognize their place in our lives.

The first on our list is the most important body, the Sun. The Sun is the brightest star in our sky and it gives the Earth and its people energy and light. It represents life force. In the astrological chart it represents the energy that guides your personality and your actions. It can also represent your father’s tole in your life.

The Sun is often associated with the God. As the consort of the Moon/Goddess, he represents strength, energy, career and other “outward” influences in your life. The Sun makes plants grow and warms you skin. But it’s power should not be underestimated. The same force that provides warmth can also start fires, cause drought and burn your skin.

Honoring the Sun is important in your day to day life, and there are several different ways that you can use the Sun in your magickal practice. As you probably know, Sunday is the day of the Sun so any magick concerning the Sun or using the Sun’s power should be done on this day.

There are certain types of magick that are associated with the Sun and Sunday in particular. All magick having to do with power are appropriate for this day as is spells and rituals having to do with prosperity, health and growth. The Sun also rules over leadership, money, performing arts, self confidence and new ventures. All of these types of magick and rituals are perfect focusing the power of the Sun and honoring the Sun God.

Here’s a perfect Sun ritual for raising your personal power. This ritual is perfect to do when you are experiencing a challenging time in your life when you know that you’ll need extra power and strength.

The following spell requires a yellow candle as well as an appropriate incense associated with the Sun or power. Myrrh and cedar are good options, but you can use anything that you have on hand. Ground and center yourself, and cast your circle. Make sure to include a candle representing the God if you don’t regularly use one. Use white or yellow to present the God.

Light your yellow spell candle and feel the energy from the Earth pulsing up from the ground. Recognize that this energy has come from the Sun. The Sun shines down on the Earth, and the Earth stores that energy for you to use and distribute throughout your life. Picture yourself being enveloped in warm, golden light and feel your strength grow like the flame on the yellow candle.

Once you feel like you’ve gathered up the energy of the Sun, being chanting the following words:

Burning flame,
Cooling wind,
Summon courage from within,
I call on all my strength and love,
Send me power from above.

Keep repeating the above chant until you feel the Sun’s power rising from within you out into the world. Release it and know that your confidence, power and courage have risen. Close the ritual as you normally would.

You can also use the Sun’s power by performing a ritual to honor one of the many Sun gods from mythologies around the world. Pick the God that speaks the most to you. For example, if you are drawn to the Egyptian pantheon, you could create a ritual that honors and reverse the God Ra.

Research the Sun God you are interested in, based on the pantheon that you are drawn to and then place images of him on your altar. There are many rituals that have been created for specific Gods and you can find a bit about them by searching online.

Here is a short list of some of the most famous Sun Gods where you can begin your research process:

Apollo – The Greco-Roman Sun God is said to have ridden a chariot of fire across the sky each day to move the sun from sunrise to sunset.

Freyr – The Norse God of the Sun. Legends say that he was the Sun of the God of the Sea and a Giantess.

Garuda – The Hindu diety that is associated with the Sun. Garuda is the king of the birds and is the charger of the God Vishnu.

Lugh – The Celtic Sun God. His name means “the shining one” in Gaelic and he carried a long spear on his travels.

No matter which version of the Sun god you choose, it’s important to honor this part of your spirituality.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne, Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”

Dear Friends,

Joining with others in your pagan practice is an important step in your spiritual practice. Group work in a coven isn’t for everyone, but if you crave some connection with local witches you should know that coven work isn’t without it’s drama and difficulties. Anytime you get a group of people together, even if they are like-minded individuals, there are bound to be troubles.

The first thing you can do to avoid coven troubles is to not start one yourself. Starting a coven and running one successfully is a massive undertaking. A lot of people start their own group thinking that things will be easy to run. People start their own groups for a variety of reasons. Some are drawn to the power. Running a coven can definitely give you a position of power. There are people who are attracted to the influence they can hold over other people. Of course, these motivations aren’t entirely pure but they do occur on occasion.

The other main reason that people start their own coven is because they like to play hostess. Some people are naturally good at entertaining and want their home to be “the place to be.” A coven should not be founded on the desire to be around friends. Covens are for serious group magickal work. They aren’t party time or play time. You can start an informal gathering for that type of interaction.

But whatever a person’s reasons for starting a coven or other type of spiritual group, more often than not they don’t have the experience, wisdom or patience to successfully run a group of people. This results in coven growing pains or fractures, which normally lead to the end of the coven. And then the cycle starts all over again.

While this isn’t fair to the seekers, or the people who started the group to begin with, it does happen. I urge you strongly to avoid starting your own group until you’ve had many years of experience under your belt and are firmly rooted in your pagan path. If you try to do it too soon, you’ll end up in a situation where your students end up knowing more than you do and the coven will begin to become stagnant. Only start teaching when you truly, truly have something to give.

However, many of you may already be members of groups that are showing cracks or are on the verge of collapse. For the benefit of your spiritual walk, I offer these tips on preventing and weathering coven growing pains.

The first rule of coven work is to be kind and courteous to your fellow members. Many groups seem to have someone who thinks that they “know it all.” They use a condescending tone and correct others on their perceived mistakes. This makes for an uncomfortable coven that no one wants to take part in. Keep yourself out of this position by remaining friendly to all members of your coven. If you think that someone is understanding a concept incorrectly, or has missed the mark in some way, gently guide them toward the right answer in a way that is respectful and mindful of their self-esteem.

In a similar vein, avoid any polarization within a group. Once you get more than four or five people together, there are small camps that sometimes develop. They talk behind one another’s back and create drama in the group environment. This is unhealthy to the life of the coven, and you should avoid taking sides in this silly mind games.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t legitimate grievances in a coven environment. If you do encounter a problem with one of your other group members, you should be open and honest with that person. Talk with them about the trouble with an open heart and mind so you can resolve the problem as quickly as possible. If you find that your issue can’t be fixed by yourselves, have your leader mediate it. Normally it’s very small incidences that get blown out of proportion that lead to the break down of a coven. Nip them in the bud when you encounter them, and don’t try to get other people on your side.

Help your coven grow by growing your own knowledge base. Don’t expect other people to hand you your spiritual education just because you attended a few meetings. Do research and reading apart from your meetings so you’ll have something to contribute to the group.

Being part of a group can be a wonderful part of your spiritual growth, and if you have the opportunity to join an existing group, you should definitely try one out. The experiences you have in a group setting can enrich your magickal life. Despite the sometimes rocky path, being part of one is definitely well worth it.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne

Dear Friends,

Nothing bothers me more than seeing a witch, new or old, forget half of the deity coupling. What I’m referring here to in the honoring of the God or the Goddess, without reverence or acknowledgment of the other. A lot of people make this mistake when they first come into this path, and I’m taking a stand against it. Balance is part of life…and it should be part of your path.

Our religion, and indeed this entire world, is based on duality. Light and dark. Day and night. Left and right. Men and women. The earth speaks to duality, and so should your personal relationship with the earth in the form of your religion.

I may be ruffling a few feathers out there, but I’m tired of seeing the Goddess get all the limelight when clearly there should be a balance between both. The God and the Goddess deserve equal attention. They are halves of the same whole. It’s that simple.

When I started thinking about this topic, I wondered where this one-sided focus came from. It happens mostly with Goddess worship. There are even some sects of Wicca that are entirely devoted to the Goddess and ignore the God all together. To me, this never made any sense at all, but I can understand where it comes from.

Most of the worlds major religions focus on the God figure. All representations of female divinity are suppressed and ignored entirely. Strong female figures are all but ignored in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When people discover the pagan path, they are drawn immediately to the idea that divinity is more than just some white bearded guy sitting on a throne up in heaven. Paganism allows for an exploration of figureheads from many cultures, both male and female. The divine manifests itself in many different ways.

Sometimes when someone comes into paganism, the idea of having a feminine deity is so freeing and so inviting that they worship the Goddess to the detriment of the God. It’s understandable. The divine feminine is so undervalued in other religions, Goddess worship feels very comforting at first. In an attempt to dissociate from your old religion and embrace your new one, you might reject a God figure entirely. God is associated with the God of other religions – the controlling God, the punishing God, the God who demands that he must be the only God. It’s only natural that some people want to devote their entire spiritual practice to the Goddess alone.

Focusing on the Goddess along isn’t only wrong, it’s unwise as well. Think about your spiritual life like a boat that needs to get to shore. If you have only one oar, you’re going to go in circles. You can only make progress when you use both oars – the God and the Goddess.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some times in your practice when you’ll focus on one specific aspect of the God and Goddess. There are even times you may focus on one particular deity from a pantheon. But you must always honor the other aspect of the diety when you do. Even if it’s just in the form of having a candle lit during your ritual for the God, or an item on your altar representing the Goddess.

Balancing the God and Goddess is easy when you take the time to represent them each on your altar and in your ritual. Any two pairs of items can serve as a reminder of the duality of nature. Some people like to use candles to represent the deities. A gold candle for the God and a silver candle for the Goddess is traditional, but you can use anything you like to represent the deities.

Make sure to choose something that speaks to you on a deep level. If candles aren’t working for you, a representation of the God and Goddess in picture form is a good option. There are many images you can find online, or in books, that can be used to represent the God and Goddess on your altar and in your life.

Even if your particular ritual calls for focus on the God or the Goddess, make sure to acknowledge the other form of deity in your workings. Place a representation of them on your altar. Call to him or her at the start of your ritual and invite them into your space. Although they might not be a central part of that particular ritual, they still need “ringside seats” so to speak.

The point is, don’t block out one aspect of the deity unnecessarily. If you have to identify with one more than another, so be it. But make sure that your practice acknowledges and respects the fact that deity comes in two flavors.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne, Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”

Dear Friends,

As much as I would love for the God and Goddess to grant me days of everlasting peace, every once in a while I encounter a period of overwhelming stress. I’m sure you experience the same. Whether it’s conflict in personal relationships, legal matters, money troubles or health issues, stress effects us all. The impact of stress can be disastrous to your emotions and even your spiritual life. I hope that this doesn’t describe your life right now, but if it does, there are magickal solutions to your problems.

I must emphasize that the solutions to stress often lie within instead of without. For example, a lot of new pagans automatically assume that a binding spell or other charm that effects the other person should be the first order of business if they are having trouble with someone. I urge them to first look within and try to find something within themselves that they can change and effect through meditation or magick. It is always better to find an internal solution, rather than risk harming someone else or violating the Rede.

With this in mind, the rituals in this article are geared toward personal transformation, rather than effecting the outer world. You’ll find that the inner changes you experience will have a powerful impact upon the world that you experience. Don’t strike out before you look within.

The first spell to use during times of stress isn’t really a spell per se, but an activity. Meditation is a process that many people over many different religious backgrounds use, and pagans do as well. In fact, the grounding and centering exercises that you do at the beginning of each ritual is a form of meditation. You don’t have to do a full ritual in order to ground and center. Grounding and centering when you feel stressed or completely overwhelmed is a terrific way to fill yourself with positive energy so that you can tackle the problem at hand guided by divine energy.

While you are sitting in stillness, visualize yourself being filled with golden light and overcoming the obstacles that lay in your path, whatever they may be. Instead of focusing on blasting through the stress, picture the golden light enveloping it and dissolving away. The emphasis isn’t on forcefully pushing it out of your life. You should picture it being eliminated as easily as sugar dissolves into water.

As you visualize your problems dissolving away, feel yourself continuing to be filled with the golden light. If you are feeling stressed in the future, after you complete the meditation, just remember that you filled yourself with light and that your problems are gone.

This simple meditation exercise may be all you need to help yourself feel calm and content. But sometimes stress comes from external forces that can be hard to deal with. As I already mentioned, it’s better to work on yourself than harm or limit others. If you are feeling threatened it’s best to focus on strengthening and protecting yourself.

This first spell can help you gain the strength that you need to overcome stressful or difficult situations.

You need to gather orange oil (or a commerically made Sun oil), a red candle and a white candle. Before the ritual begins, dress the candles with the oil. If you desire, you can carve power symbols into the candles. Cast your circle, light your white candle first and then your red candle and then say the following:

Strength Spell

North, East, South, West
Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Give Me Strength

The gift of power to move the mountains
The gift of strength to move the wind
The gift of determination from the bright burning fire within me
The gift of energy from the rushing river.

I thank the God and the Goddess for these incredible gifts.
I thank you for the power that you have given me
I thank you for the strength and determination
And finally I thank you for the energy that you filled me with
So mote it be!

This spell will make you feel strong and empowered. You’ll be able to overcome the difficulty that you are facing. The next spell should be used just in case someone is trying to cause you harm. It focuses on protection, and not the binding of someone else.

Protection Spell

This protection spell only requires a red candle and an herb for protection. You can use vervain, yarrow or anything else you feel comfortable with. Cast your circle as you normally would and then light your candle. Concentrate on its energetic flame for a moment and then say the following:

For protection, I now pray,
Let all evil turn away.
Protect me night,
Protect me day,
And keep misfortune well at bay.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne

Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”