Rose Ariadne's Chitchcraft Blog

Dear Friends,

This week we delve more deeply into the 13 goals of a Witch. As I stated last time, these goals were printed by Scott Cunningham in his book “Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner” but the commentary is all my own. If you don’t have Cunningham’s work, I highly recommend this book and his others as well. They will provide you with a good foundation for the Craft especially if you are in an area where you don’t have access to a coven.The sixth goal for a Witch is to keep your words in good order. What does this mean exactly? Have you ever hear the phrase that a person is “only as good as their word”? A person’s word used to be their bond, and that’s something we’ve lost in modern society. Lying and ‘stretching the truth’ is widely accepted and sometimes encouraged! (Think of a used car salesmen). Its important that you keep your words in good order not only as a person but as a Witch. If your word is your bond, then your magickal word will be just as powerful. Words have power, and if they didn’t they wouldn’t be recognized by religions around the world. Mantras, prayers and spells are all displays of the power of our words.

Similarly, you must also keep your thoughts in good order. The origin of our very existence is in thought. What you think about, you become. If you are constantly expecting and worrying about a “rainy day”, you will undoubtedly manifest it in your life. Positive thinking is not just for self-help books, it is a magickal fact. Pay close attention to the thoughts that occupy your life and change them as need be.

A Witch must also celebrate life! So much of our Pagan path is about celebration, after all, what other religion has a holiday just about every month? In all seriousness, Witches love the earth and life, and celebrate it accordingly. You are alive, just like the earth, and that is something to celebrate. Enjoy your senses and seek out ways to thrill them with new sights, tastes, smells and experiences.

In accordance with celebrating life, we need to get to know how life works here on this planet. A witch must be attuned with the cycles of the earth. Learn the seasons and the phases of the Moon and be aware of them at all times. This is made an easy task when you observe the Esbats and Sabbats. When you understand how the earth works, you can better understand how life works. Timing is important in magick and in life. When you know the Earth’s cycles, you won’t be trying to work against them.

Breathing and eating correctly are also important to your life and your magick. This is vital to not only energy raising but to your health as well. You should practice and master breathing deeply from your diaphragm. Breathing through the nose and out through the mouth is important to control your energy and your consciousness. With regard to eating, you should eat to live and not live to eat. When you eat a proper diet, you’ll feel full and not stuffed. Eating incorrect foods and eating until you feel you are about to pop will lower your energy and inhibit anything else you try to do, magickal or otherwise.

Exercise is vital. You’ve heard it from your doctor, and now you’re hearing it from me! Witchcraft requires a healthy and balanced body. Exercise relieves stress, tones your muscles, burns fat and adds enjoyment to life. It also helps release any pent up negative energy that you’ve accumulated along the way.

Witches must also take part in using meditation. While this practice is normally associated with Eastern religions, it is an important spiritual principle that applies to everyone. There are many “correct” ways to meditate. When I meditate, I sit in a comfortable position and concentrate on my own breath. I sometimes use guided meditation to take me on a spiritual journey and experience important insights. There is a method of meditation to suit everyone, even walking and certain forms of exercise can be considered meditation.

Finally, as Witch you need to honor the God and Goddess. When we honor them, we are honoring ourselves and others. We all have the God and Goddess within ourselves. View everyone, even yourself, with innate deity within. We are all divine, and as such, we must treat each other with respect and love.

Use these goals to guide your practice of Witchcraft and deepen your connection with deity.
Love And Light,

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

Dear Friends,

Other organized religions have definite goals and benchmarks along the way. Take, for example, Catholicism. There is a very formal path that one follows, including baptism, first communion, confirmation, marriage etc. However, with our “unorganized” pagan religion, the goals are sometimes not as clear. This can be especially true if you are engaging in a solitary Wiccan practice. One of the great things about Paganism is that the “rules” are not clear. But for those of us who have come from a religion with rules and regulations, this may be an uneasy feeling.I’ve found comfort in a list of 13 goals that Scott Cunningham provided in his landmark “Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner.” I’ve outlined the goals here, and the comments are my own.

The first goal is to “know thyself.” While other religions focus on knowing deity and knowing things outside yourself (such as rules), Wicca is intensely personal. I’ve found most Pagans to be extremely well-balanced and self-aware individuals. Our own bodies and minds are a conduit for the power of the God and Goddess, so we need to know ourselves in order to empower ourselves. Knowing yourself also means acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses. None of us are perfect, but if we know ourselves well, we can become the best that we can be.

You also need to “know your craft”. An important part of being a Witch is having mastery over witchcraft and all that it entails. I cannot emphasize enough that this is not something you pick up over night, or even during the course of a year! Studying the craft and getting to know it intimately is a lifelong pursuit. Also, knowing your craft is not something you can do by simply reading about it. If this were true, any 13 year old with a library card and inspiration from watching ‘the Craft’ could be a powerful Witch. Witchcraft is something that you learn about and then you LIVE. You become in tune with magickal cycle of the world around you, and you get to know how you personally use that power.

This leads into the next goal of Witches, which is to learn. Learn, learn and learn some more. Let me tell you, I’ve been at this for a loooooong time, and there are still things that I learn each and everyday. For me, this goal applies not only to witchcraft specific topics but about anything else that interests me. When you learn, you exercise your brain, deepen your spirit and grow to enjoy life more fully.

As a witch, you must also apply your knowledge with wisdom. Knowledge alone is not enough. don’t accept everything you read at face value. Apply your own personal wisdom to it and check it against what you know to be right. Everyone has differences in opinions, and what may be true for someone else is not necessarily true for you. It is true that knowledge is power. But wisdom is the guidance that controls that power and allows you to use it with guidance.

The next goal is to achieve balance. This is a spiritual pursuit of many religions around the world, and for a good reason. We are meant to be balanced. We are of nature and nature is inherently balanced. If you look at things from a broad enough perspective everything is in balance. Winter’s chill is followed by the warmth of spring, and so on. When you apply this to your own life, you need to pay attention to where the energy of your life goes. Your life cannot be all about one thing and one pursuit. While it is fine to be driven, you also need to take time to honor the other parts of your life. My religion is a large part of my life, but I don’t spend 24 hours a day teaching Wiccan principles. I see movies, I walk my dogs, I have fun with my family, etc.

In my next message, I’ll cover the remaining 13 principles. Until then, think about how you can bring these 5 into your life more completely.
Brightest Blessing,

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

Dear Friends,

Have you ever had a day, or a week, or a few weeks where nothing seemed to go right? I recently went through one of these episodes. First, I went to pay my car registration, and noticed that I needed to get it smogged several weeks prior to mailing my registration. I rushed over to get it done before I had to send in my paperwork, and it didn’t pass smog. I took it to the auto mechanic shop, and the problem ended up being two tiny wires that test oxygen levels. Of course, these two tiny wires came at a high price, $500!! Meanwhile, my desktop computer’s monitor burned out and the power cord for my laptop died. The monitor was easily replaced but I ended up having to wait over a week to get my laptop cord because it was under warranty. During this time several little things also went wrong that wouldn’t have been a huge deal if I hadn’t been going through all of the car and computer related stress!I felt like I had made someone in the heavens mad, until I looked at the calendar. All of this happened smack dab in the middle of a Mercury retrograde. This astrological phenomenon happens three times per year, unfortunately, and effects us all.

Just as we are connected to the earth, we are connected to the skies as well. Astrology is an important ‘subject’ in Paganism and using it to time rituals and spellwork is important in the effectiveness of your magickal work. That’s why I always recommend consulting an ephemeris before planning a ritual. An ephemeris is a record of the movement of the planets through the astrological signs. Ephemeris, can tell you what sign a planet will be occupying for the next 50 to 100 years. They make it simple to see what will be going on astrologically. Using planetary power to aid your magickal working will make it all the more powerful.

A Mercury retrograde is a unique astrological time. Most planets enter a retrograde period, but the further out a planet is, the longer time the retrograde takes. But since Mercury is closer to us and to the Sun, its effects are very powerful. Venus and Mars retrogrades also have a powerful effect but they fortunately don’t happen with the frequency of Mercury retrogrades. A retrograde describes a period where the planet in question appears to be moving backward from our standpoint here on earth. Astrologically, the energies that the planet normally controls turn inward instead of outward. Mercury controls communication, travel, though and technology. As a result, Mercury makes our thoughts, transportation and electronics go haywire! It can be a frustrating time, and definitely not a time to try to get a lot accomplished.

When I first learned of Mercury retrograde, I started to dread them. Everything seemed to go wrong, as it did this most recent time. However, despite all of the setbacks and missteps that seem to happen during this period, I’ve found that Mercury retrograde has its good points (just like everything in this universe). What could possibly be good about Mercury retrograde you ask? Well, mental energies may be confused, but they are also turned inward. I have found that Mercury retrograde is an ideal time for looking inside yourself, and taking a break from our fast paced lives. If we try to continue at the pace we’ve been going during this time, we will undoubtedly get caught up in the web of Mercury. Instead, if we approach this time with a more reserved stance and introspective nature, we’ll get much more out of the period and be much less frustrated.
Love And Light,

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

Dear Friends,

You’re no doubt associated with the pentagram, or five pointed star, that is the key symbol in Wicca. I’ve had pentagrams displayed in my home, and sometimes in my car or on my person, throughout most of my walk on this path. And believe me, it is one of the most misunderstood religious symbols. Although you and I know it to represent a religion of nature worship and love, the entertainment industry has perverted into a negative symbol. I’ve seen it used as a symbol for Satanists, ritual murderers, and on one episode of CSI vampires! I wish these writers would do a little research.The pentagram is not evil, just as practitioners of Wicca and witchcraft are not evil. The pentagram is an ancient symbol of protection from evil. It is also called ‘the endless knot’ referring to the overlapping qualities of the five lines. In ancient times, the pentagram was often displayed on doors, in windows and on the hearths of homes across Pre-Christian Europe. The symbol can even be traced back to Egyptian and Sumerian culture. Believe it or not, there is evidence of the pentagram on Native American medicine tools.

The pentagram has five points and five lines that make up the star. (As opposed to the Star of David which is a six-pointed star made up from two triangles). The pentagram is a symbol of our faith , the lower four points represent the essential elements of earth, air, fire and water. The fifth point, which crowns the other four, represents the spirit (sometimes referred to as the fifth element, not to be confused with the Bruce Willis movie!). Together the five points of the pentagram represent the wholeness of the universe and points out the interconnectedness between ourselves and the world around us.

Although the above interpretation is the one that I think of most often when considering the symbology of the pentagram, I have also heard other analysis of its meaning. Some people have said that there is not one point upward, but three (including the two “arms” of the star). In numerology, three is the number of harmony. The middle point harmonizes the outer points, which face opposite directions. It is a reminder that no matter how many contradictions we see in life, there is a unifying force that harmonizes all. If you look at the Celtic love of triads, you can see repetition of the emphasis of ‘three’? This is also present in the Catholic model of ‘three Gods in one’ (and they claim to be monotheistic!). Yet another aspect that the ancient Christian church modeled after paganism, in my opinion!

Another interpretation of the pentagram symbol is that it represents the deities in Witchcraft, the Triple Goddess and the Horned God. The top three points of the pentagram are symbols for the Goddess in her three states of Maiden, Mother and Crone. The bottom points are symbolic of the Horned God and his twin aspects of God of Light and God of Darkness. it’s also notable that all of the points are connected, symbolizing the union between all aspects of the Goddess and all aspects of the God. They are part of the same whole.

Keep in mind that the word pentacle is sometimes used in place of the word pentagram, albeit incorrectly. If you want to be technical about things, a pentacle is a shallow dish used on the altar that is normally inscribed with a pentacle. It is used to burn incense and do other spell related work. But I find myself using the two interchangeably, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

Taking anyone of these interpretations into account when you view the pentagram will deepen your understanding of the symbol. Far from a simple symbol, it is layered with meaning. Think about it next time you view a pentagram, and remember what it means.
Brightest Blessing,

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