Happy Earth Day

H is for Herbalism

Herbalism or Herbology is a passion of mine.
I am currently studying to be an Herbalist with the Herbal Healer Academy.

For me, Herbalism is a calling. I've learned so much about the world, my body, medicine, sustainable living, my health and the health of my family since I started studying herbs, their properties, and how to use them. Its an on-going study that can be started at so many different directions - local herbs, herbs for women, herbs for family, herbal first-aid, herbs for prevention or treatment of dis-ease and cancer, herbs for children, cooking, cleaning, relaxing, colds, flus, viruses, headaches...the list goes on and on. And learning about it can be strangely addictive, making my own herbal remedies is wholly gratifying, and being able to have an herbal remedy on hand when a friend or the child of a friend has a problem makes me feel like I've done something useful and am truly on the right path in life.

Herbalism in witchcraft?
For some this is a fine line. The creation of a lavender infused balm for the sun burns on my nieces and nephews can look a lot like the witch of old stirring magical ingredients collected from mountain and glen to give to those who dare to ask for a remedy.
For me, what makes the difference is faith and belief and desire. I can make a simple tea to relieve stress or I could call upon the soothing blessing of Mother Goddess or cast a cleansing circle as I blend the herbs, heat the water, create the infusion and chant before I take the first sip. The first, simply making tea, isn't witchcraft...so what's the difference? The ritual, the spellcraft, the intent, the actions taken in the creation.

Even still, herbalism walks well on the path of witchery. Witches have long used herbs and natural medicines in their works. Herbs are Mother Nature's children just as much as we are and we can work very well together.

H is for Hoodoo

What is the difference between VooDoo and HooDoo?
Well, Voodoo is a religion and Hoodoo is a practice.
I like to think of it as Voodoo is to Hoodoo like Wicca is to Witchcraft. It's probably over simplified but...that's how I see it.
Those of the Voodoo faith believe in 1 God and a pantheon of Loas or spirits. In this it is very similar to Santeria only instead of spirits they use saints (again this is over simplified).

Hoodoo Conjure, Rootwork, and similar terms refer to the practice of African American folk magic. It is a practice of folk beliefs that is derived from the Southern US and has its roots from the Congo region of Africa. Other African tribes such as the Ashanti and Senegalese have greatly influenced Hoodoo.
Hoodoo is an American term, originating in the 19th century or earlier - In the mid 19th century, ships that had suffered a series of ill-fated voyages and mishaps were said to have been hoodoo'd. The problems onboard these vessels were attributed to an evil spirit or presence. Those who attribute the word hoodoo to Irish seamen say that is is a phonetic transliteration of the Irish-Gaelic words Uath Dubh (pronounnced hooh dooh), which means dark phantom, evil entity, or spiky ghost.
Although most of its adherents are black, it has always been practiced by both whites and blacks in America.

Popular names in Hoodoo culture and history include Marie LeVeau the Queen of Voodoo,

Hoodoo was popularized through such movies as The Skeleton Key, The Princess and the Frog, The Serpent and the Rainbow, and even voodoo and zombie films.

How did I get into Hoodoo?


I've always had an interest in hoodoo ever since some people around me when I was in High School started calling me Nina Bruja when it got out that I practiced witchcraft. I looked into Brujeria then Santeria then Voodoo then Hoodoo.
My interest increased after I went to New Orleans for the first time at 15. I was intrigued by the magical practices of the people there and couldn't learn enough.
When I graduated high school and went to college, I did meet a few hoodoo ladies (the owners of Three of Cups, which is no longer open). This stirred my interest even more though, being a solitary practitioner, I wasn't very willing to join their coven in order to learn from them (which is good since they have since dispersed).

How do I learn Hoodoo?

Hoodoo is not necessarily an initiatory system of practice. One can apprentice themselves to another practitioner but one can also learn directly from the Spirits themselves if they're inclined to teach you.
Another way is to learn on your own by studying the history of Hoodoo, where it comes from, the ideas and concepts, the spells and tools, etc.
And still another way is to take a class or workshop. One of the online correspondence courses I've been recommended to again and again is Cat Yronwood's through her website LuckyMojo.

Hoodoo Shops and Resources

Cat Yronwood's website has a lot of interesting information about hoodoo and voodoo as well as a large variety of materials and curios.

Another shop I recommend highly is ConjuredCardea, owned by Moma Sarah. Her blog also has a lot of information available.

A book I recommend is Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo & Conjuring with Herbsby Stephanie Rose Bird. It was the first compendium of hoodoo I ever read and it was amazing. I have recommended it to a few people who have come to me asking about rootworking and hoodoo and they too have liked it and gleaned a good deal of information from its pages.

Dream...

Just had a dream that
I was at some sort of fair or conference
and a belly dance instructor
that I think I've seen before on youtube or something like that
was telling me that I was too much in my head
that I needed to start thinking with my heart
to be more inside of my heart or heart chakra
that she didn't know how my head had not exploded yet!

Good advice strange belly dancer lady...

Mayan Astrology

I was so impressed by the Mayan Astrology Reading I just received and read for myself, my husband and my mom-in-law today I just had to share the website with you, Dear Reader!

Simply log in, click on the "Dreamspell Calculator" - this will open a pop-up window so make sure your pop-up blocker allows it - and put your birthday in the calculator. The pop-up will give you your zodiac and a little tidbit about it.
With that information go back to the previous page and look up the zodiac on the listings given and read the further information provided there.

Why do I like the Mayan Astrology?
It seems like most astrology such as the Eastern Zodiac and Chinese Zodiac focuses on your personality while the Mayan focuses on your LIFE PATH!

I'll go ahead and share some of my own astrology reading here:

I am

White Cosmic World-bringer

I endure in order to equalize

Transcending opportunity

I seal the store of death

With the cosmic tone of presence

I am guided by the power of heart

In this life-time you are being asked to release and surrender. Surrender is the opposite of giving up. It is freeing yourself from the desire to be in control, letting go of how you think things should be. Surrender is freedom. You are being invited to release yourself from the bondage of preconceived action, to let everything be all right as it is, so that you can live a more inspired life in the moment!

You are being asked to take action in the process of surrender and release. You are requested to die a symbolic death, to surrender your limiting beliefs. Symbolic death unveils the self by cutting away the outgrown parts of yourself that no longer serve you. In such death, ego structures fall away to reveal the garden of the true self.

White Dog is your Higher Self & Guide.

One of the gifts of White Dog is the calling in and recognition of other companions of destiny. 

White Dog can be seen as an access point for developing relationships with guides, totems, allies and guardians. There are many ways to work with these spiritual guides, including guided visualizations, shamanic journeys, and meditation. A useful construct is viewing them as aspects of yourself, part of your life stream that is asking to be integrated. Remember, there is no 'other'. In this grand adventure, you are being asked to embody all that you are.

Profound insights are garnered through shared purpose and relationship with others who are willing to be in their truth and integrity about the light and shadow aspects they perceive in themselves.

White Dog signals a breakthrough in your life: new beginnings, new perceptions, new allies and friends. As you express more authentically who you are, you draw your true family closer to you.With your guides and companions, you have the ability to manifest your inspired visions and dreams. Recognize the eyes and hearts that spark the remembrance of a sacred trust.

The Harmonic Wisdom of White Dog is affinity, the attraction of like vibrations or substances for one another.

Blue Eagle is your Subconscious Self and Hidden Helper.

Blue Eagle reminds you to step powerfully into your commitment as a planetary server! Your assignment includes whatever furthers your personal evolution and the evolution of global mind. You are an awakener, a transformer, an empowered gloal visionary. In your vision, you have compassion for others, and your decisions are made in the light of global consciousness.

Imagine the profound impact your loving thoughts have on planetary mind. You do make a difference! As you connect individually with the larger crystal grid network, your power is multiplied exponentially. This galactic grid is also known as the Mayan cobweb.

The greatest gift you can offer to the planet is to simply be the love.

Yellow Warrior represents your Challenge and Gift. 

With maturity and awareness this challenge will turn into a Focus. This is what you desire to learn in this lifetime.

A major shadow of Yellow Warrior is a lack of trust in your inner voice. Oftentimes, in listening for the roar of a lion, you may not perceive the more subtle messages given by Spirit. Divine communication directs transformations on a cellular level, outside the realm of cognition. Self-doubt and fear are blocks to such trust. By creating electrochemical charges and holographic residue in your system, they can block access to cosmic communication. Your true self is always in direct contact with cosmic consciousness. Trust in your ability to receive clear inner teaching.

You know when something rings true and when it does not.

Attune yourself to the vibration of love, and your clear intent will attract the cosmic consciousness you seek.

Red Skywalker is your Compliment - something that comes naturally to you.

Red Skywalker is the skywalker, the time/space traveller who can jump dimensions to assist you in realizing heaven on Earth. RS is unlimited in form but often chooses the form of the angelic messenger.

(I wanted to share that Damon's Mayan Zodiac is the Red Overtone Skywalker and his compliment is the White World-bringer - strange that this is the only astrology reading that puts us together as complimentary instead of being conflicting opposites)

Your Tone is Tone 13 - Cosmic

Wild card, unseen forces, unexpected change, open system, touch of destiny, interdimensional shift.

Thirteen is the ray of universal movement, the foundation of self within the foundation of Essence Self combined with the rhythm of the trinity. The Cosmic Tone of 13 touches you with the hand of unseen forces and radical change. It will catalyze into movement whatever resists change or is unexamined or stationary. You are being touched by fate, moved through identifications of self into open consciousness.

Olin, the Mayan goddess of movement, asks you to surrender to the perfection of the larger pattern of your Essence Self. From the perspective of surrender and trust, what movement is being called for? Pay attention to synchronicities and seeming coincidences that jump into your awareness. Thirteen provides the possibility of a radical "frequency shift," offering you limitless new openings.

Become a skywalker.

Be open and flexible, allowing changing reference points to become dynamic allies. Open to the workings of destiny offered by universal movement.

I hope my reading inspires you to find your own Mayan zodiac and learn how it can aid your Life Path. 

Love and Light,

Dawn

Reiki 1 Experiences

I recently self-attuned to Reiki 1 and it was quite an experience, but rather focus on what happened in the 7 or so minutes it took to receive the attunement from my Higher Self, I would like to tell you a little about what happened after that and why it has been such an important event for me.

After receiving Reiki 1 attunement I followed the exercises expressed in my Reiki Manual. One was for total self-healing. I practice this 14 minute Reiki healing every morning and feel amazing. The morning or two I didn't practice it, I certainly felt the difference.

I also Reiki specific issues I have such as my terrible gum dis-ease that I've had for many many years now and am very embarrassed about and have a lot of issues with. In 24 hours of my Reiki on my gums the swelling went down, the bleeding lessened, the redness went down. I was very much impressed. If I ever needed any proof that self-Reiki worked, this was it!
I've had painful cleanings, specialized toothpastes and toothbrushes, mouthwashes, etc all for my gum dis-ease but it wasn't until I did this simple 3 minute Reiki treatment on my gums that I saw results!

The next thing I did was a little more abstract in being able to see results.
I had to go and visit my mom to inform her that I was going to move to Alaska and was very stressed about it. My mother and I have a volatile relationship and my moving was going to cause conflict.
Two days before going I began to Reiki the Karmic Bond Between Myself and My Mother. I did this every evening for those 2 days and the morning as I was riding to my mother's town.

We met in public for lunch, I told her immediately about the move, and it went surprisingly well. Yes, she was very upset but we didn't fight, we didn't bicker or argue. I stated the reasons for the move, how we were moving, our plans once we got there. She was visually upset but didn't make any overly negative statements about my decision or my husband, who was decidedly not present. She merely made it clear she wasn't happy about it but she knew there wasn't much she could do to change my mind so she only wanted communication from me before, during and after the move.
Did my Reiki help?
I'd like to think so. The meeting certainly could have went worse.

So that is my experience so far.
Along with this little blog post I am also offering the manuals I used to receive my Reiki 1 attunement for FREE as the limited time attunement offering I'm doing for you, Dear Reader.
All the Manuals, along with the Order of the LightWorker's attunement manual, are available in the top right listing with downloadable links through Scribd.
Feel free to download them, share them freely, and use the information in them to help you along your path.

Love and Light,
Dawn

My Moon Time

Its that time of the month again and if you're a male reader who isn't comfortable with women talking about their menstruation...you should 1. get over it and 2. prolly ignore this post

I am writing about my period because I think it is a form of female magick that is ignored by so many women.
So often, a woman's period is called a Curse. What I think we need to consider is that a period is a very powerful time for women.

Back in times of tribal units and nomadic life and magickal shamanism, etc - the fact that women would bleed for 5-7 days without injury and they lived was a very magical and spiritual and mysterious process. This was celebrated and when girls started their periods they were put through a rite of passage to celebrate this and invite them into womanhood.

We don't see this in Modern Western culture today and its a shame. TOday we see it as a curse, as something painful to be supressed, as a process of punishment in the Christian idea of Eve and the serpent and the apple.
I say eat the apple, celebrate the knowledge and the womanly act of mestruating!

Don't dread the coming of Aunt Flo but accted GodMama Flow and embrace her and ask her to teach you more about what it means to be female.

Menstruation is a time to be still, look within, relax.
Grab a cup of red raspberry leaf tea with some valerian root or chamomile to relax those muscles. Meditate on Divine Feminine and how this part of life relates to that. Reflect on another month of the Childbearing Years that your fertility could be used on something else other than creating another human.
Release the pain of menses and with it any pain you have suffered physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually in the past month.
Celebrate yourself, your health, your blood, your body this time of the month.

Feminine Blessings Upon You
Dawn

Preparing for 2012?

Attunements Part 2

In the next month or so I will be offering FREE Attunement manuals through my new Scribd account.
These attunements will be loaded periodically and only available for free for a limited amount of time so be sure to check back with me here at this blog regularly to receive these manuals.

All the manuals I am offering were given to me free by friends or loving people online. Some of them I am required to offer for free to at least one other person, others I was given with no requirement at all and still others I have paid for in some form of energy (money, favor, or otherwise) and am offering it to you, my reader, for free for a limited time.

You will see the download link to these free manuals to the right of this post, at the top ------>
These downloads are through the file manager Scribd and are PDF files, so be sure you have an updated version of Abobe reader or other PDF reader.

Much love to you dear leader and I can only hope these manuals help you in reaching your goals of becoming an enlightened loving light being!

Love and light,
Dawn

Attunements

There has been a lot of talk in many metaphysical circles lately about ATTUNEMENTS -

Witches, Lightworkers, Sorcerors, Buddhists and more are offering so many attunements today from Reiki 1 2 and 3 to Dolphin Healing Ray.
There is just so much out there that we have to consider what is real for us and what belongs in our sphere of reality; what we need to help us on our path in life.

First - What is an Attunement?
Attunement: (attune) adjust or accustom to; bring into harmony with
An attunement, in the metaphysical sense, is to bring a certain energy into yourself from your higher self, from the Universe, or even another metaphysician (this last one is usually also from the Universe but it simply an energy they have uniquely tapped into)

Many, I'd say most, attunements are based on a template set by Reiki, founded by Mikao Usui. At each stage of Reiki mastery the practitioner is attuned with certain energies and symbols they will use to heal and teach Reiki for the benefit of themselves and people around them.

Other forms of Reiki later came into being such as Kundalini Reiki, which uses the Kundalini energy that rises up from the Base Chakra through all the Chakras to erupt through the Crown Chakra. Another form is Dragon Reiki created by the Order of the Drakontas, which adds a new Blue Dragon symbol to the traditional Reiki symbols.

Then more and more attunements came out and are offered for different levels of magic workers at different price ranges from free to hundreds of dollars.

I will say that before you decide to obtain an attunement, free or otherwise, be sure to check wiht your higher self, your guides, by dowsing or meditation or whatever that this is something that will AID your LIFEPATH. Always question whether it is beneficial.

Love and Light,
Dawn

Earth Day: Take Action

This month is Earth Day - April 22
Get started today by Taking Action! The Earth Day Network has tons of examples including ways to donate and share the word. Celebrating our beautiful planet and Mother Nature shouldn't just happen 1 day a year, but every day!