Book Review – Cunningham’s Book of Shadows

Cunningham’s Book of Shadows by Scott Cunningham

Published posthumously, this is a compilation of Scott Cunningham’s personal Book of Shadows material supplemented with verbiage from his published works. It is charming in its simplicity and feels, to me, like it comes from a wide eyed, honest, feeling, trusting perspective. It is refreshingly direct, as all of his works are and incredibly useful. I will be referring back to this book for its sections on signs & symbols, and may actually copy much of it out into my own BOS. The Appendixes at the end of the book are personal reminiscences of Scott by a few of his friends. They give insight into who he was, and are a nice supplement to his biography ‘Whispers of the Moon’ by Harrington. I would recommend this book as a supplement to his other works. For a newbie, I’d still suggest starting with his ‘Wicca: a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner’.

Chintz & China

Just finished the first four of a total of five books in the series. It is written by Yasmine Galenorn. Check out her website about the books here: http://www.galenorn.com/Mysteries/.

The series is set in a small town outside of Bellingham Washington. She must live nearby because the plants, animals, weather, environs all ring true.  So the setting is very well done.  These books fit within the cozy genre, in that nothing truly horrific occurs, though scary things do happen.  There’s romance, mystery, ghosts, and spells.  While the heroine is a tarot reader, she rarely does readings in the books.    The characters are admirable and make mistakes and are human. I’d love to meet them.  Magic, relationships, the spirit world, and compassion are real themes in the book. A spell or charm is included at the  end of each novel.  I really enjoyed the series so far and look forward to the fifth and last book.

Spell Bottles

Bottles

Last year at Lammas, we did an open working using spell bottles.  Here are the basics…

1. Determine your goal or objective for the bottle. This is good for something that will manifest itself over a period of time. i.e. new job, overcoming writers block, helping job issues…

2. Find a bottle that you think is appropriate, any size, shape, color etc…

3. Fill the bottle with things that you associate with your goal, add water/oil, charge with intent/energy/prayer, and seal with wax.

• Rocks, minerals, crystals, shards, glass, beads, jewelry bits, herbs, flowers, petals, leaves, nails, tacks, string, coins, fruit, veggies, shells, anything that you associate with your goal
• Water from streams, oceans, ponds, faucets, mineral water, sparkling water, rosewater, flavored water, or go with an oil such as almond or mineral, again associate the liquid with your goal
• As you are filling the bottle keep in mind the goal you are trying to achieve and the whys of every ingredient you add. After it is filled, but before being capped be sure to charge with intent/energy/prayer.
  Seal the edges of the lid with sealing wax or candle wax.
• Decorate exterior of bottle as you feel appropriate.

4. Place the bottle in a place where you can see it on a regular basis and shake it and remember what you are trying to achieve.

5. After a certain amount of time has passed (add the timing part to your energy work when you create the bottle) you will need to empty it. This may or may not be after you have achieved your goal. The two ways of emptying that I recommend is either onto the earth/ground, maybe in your garden or along your fence line, or in a stream as long as you didn’t put anything toxic into the bottle. Alternately, if you charged the bottle with something that doesn’t have a end date, you could keep it forever as a reminder of something such as being nicer, or happier, or more creative…

In our working we had access to a variety of waters because of the research of one of our group. He had brought geyser water, and spring water, and sulfer water and several other gallons of water from other sources. Another member brought a bunch of dried herbs and I contributed a pile of small quartz crystals, obsidian shards and other pieces of small rock.  An old crockpot served as a wax warmer for sealing the bottles.  It was a great deal of fun to spend time together talking about correspondences and creating the bottles. Books about magic and herbs, rocks, ingredients were available for perusal. Since this was an open working we did not create a circle.

The geyser water was a particular favorite since we believed it would create sudden and abrupt change unlike the pure drinkable spring water…  I know of one instance (not my own, I refused to use the geyser water) where the change of state occurred within the week. She literally moved to another state and another job.

A quick search on Google turned up some other interesting spell bottle resources/ideas.

Other forms of spell bottle magic

http://www.luckymojo.com/bottlespells.html

Concrete recipes for various spell bottles

http://whisperingwood.homestead.com/Spellbottles.html

Spell bottle recipe for protection

http://www.everythingunderthemoon.net/spells/house-protection-spell.htm

Spell bottle pendants for sale

http://www.paganpretties.com/SpellBottlePendants.htm

P.S. Make your own it will work better than the ones you buy.

Spellwork – Financial Improvement

Coins in Jar

On Friday I twittered: Tonight a little spellwork with friends. Everyone has fiscal needs: sell house, get job, write and get raise, unblock financial aid… And this is what we did…

We got together with the goal of improving our financial situations. Each person took the time to write out his or her goal on a piece of paper.

It is useful to be as precise as possible when writing out a goal or objective for spell work. Exact amounts, time etc.. can help you focus on what it is you are really expecting. If you only need 20 dollars, only ask for 20 dollars. Just asking for general improvement can result in only a small improvement. Asking for the moon or the lottery will usually result in failure. It is my opinion and experiences that the universe works and will easily grant the achievable. For instance a new job in a field you are qualified for, a specific amount of money to achieve an exact goal. If the need for money is to buy an object such as a car, then it is better to do the working for the car, not money. Let the universe and powers-that-be get you the car you need; it’ll be easier than trying to get the money, trust me.

It is easier for me to manifest a bed, a video cabinet, 20 dollars, or a book – things that I have already done/achieved, than it is for me to manifest an unspecific amount of money, i.e.. “More money”. My guess is that it will be easier for you too. One morning I woke up thinking that I really needed a new videotape cabinet. My house was overflowing with movies and I needed to control the mess. So I got up, found my husband and headed out looking for garage sales. He noticed a sign and impulsively turned in the direction of that sale. It was not on our list. We walked up to the sale and there was a videotape cabinet for five dollars. Exactly what we were looking for in our price range.

We were feeling very lucky so I asked him what else we needed. He said a double bed for our guest room. So I said out loud, “Now, I want a double bed” in my head I visualized both the mattress and box springs. We drove around the corner to the garage sale on the list and there it was, a barely used set for one dollar. Wishing can work, be specific, think small and necessary, and then do the work/looking.

Back to the ritual… After writing our goals on paper we then had our firestarter (she can’t help but play with fire) light a candle for each of us. Actually, I had brought out my entire collection of green and yellow jar candles (both are good colors for money/gold). She easily lit 7 of them but the 8th wouldn’t light. She stopped trying saying that it wasn’t cooperating. I don’t remember who noticed it, but there was one for each of us, we didn’t need the 8th. Instead of using them to create a circle around us, we each took one lit candle outside.

Along with the candles we took the cakes (cookies) in their holy serving containers (ziplock bags) and the wine (sparkling cider and wine and paper cups).

We assembled in a rough circle, called the quarters and then each of us read our piece of paper, lit it with our candle and put it in the waiting cast iron cauldron to let it finish burning, releasing our wishes to the universe.

After each of us had gone, it was suggested that we take a moment and visualize the wish coming true and then placing that visualization into the cauldron. We sealed our wishes with cakes ‘may you never hunger’ and ale ‘may you never thirst’.

The next morning I took the ashes from the cauldron and placed them in a bag to take with us to the mountains. In Montana we spent the day digging for quartz crystals. Once the rest of our non-pagan party had departed we stood together, each taking a pinch of ash from the bag, we formed a line and let the ashes go in the wind. It was a great moment at 8,000 feet up in the quiet, with the wind shushing though the pine trees. We cast our wishes out to the universe.

It is now up to all of us to do the rest of the work on the physical plane to get what we wished for. The thing is, you have to act as if the wish is either true or will be true momentarily.

Caveat, the powers-that-be and the universe work at their own pace, time, and way. If it doesn’t work there is a reason, and you must figure that out. The larger the wish the more work you must do on the physical plane and them more time/effort needed. I probably don’t need to say that you should be careful what you wish for.

Once I wished for a more interesting/challenging job. Instead of a new job I got new employees that were definitely challenging. I grew and became a better manager but it sure was a tough time.

Wishing or wishcraft is the core of most spells just remember to be  careful, be specific, and do the physical work.