Any Witches Here?- Part 17.

[speakout]

Or Wiccans. or Pagans? Or anyone who is interested in a magical path or feels some magical stirrings.
A place for support, learning, swapping ideas and magical inspiration..
This is the 17th thread- anyone looking for a deep dive into juicy magical topics may like to browse previous threads.....

It is a long list!!

Part 1 //www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3241689-Any-witches-here?pg=1
Part 2
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3338025-Any-Witches-Here-Part-2?pg=1
Part 3
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3366411-Any-Witches-Here-Part-3?pg=1
Part 4
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3404406-Any-Witches-Here-Part-4-Edited-by-MNHQ?pg=1
Part5
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3437092-Any-Witches-Here-Part-5?pg=1
Part 6 //www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3482023-Any-Witches-Here-Part-6?pg=1
Part 7 //www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3520269-Any-Witches-Here-Part-7?pg=1
Part 8 //www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/a3568622-Any-Witches-Here-Part-8?pg=1
Part 9 //www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3637696-Any-Witches-Here-Part-9?pg=1
Part 10
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3726266-Any-Witches-Here-Part-10
Part 11
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3850635-Any-Witches-Here-Part-11
Part 12
//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/3997761-Any-Witches-Here-Part-12
Part 13 //www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/4116107-Any-Witches-here-Part-13
Part 14www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/4213962-Any-Witches-Here-Part-14
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/4328830-Any-Witches-Here-Part-15?msgid=113505801
www.mumsnet.com/talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/4435233-Any-Witches-Here-Part-16?page=40&reply=118807589

"A chance to put down our burdens, calm and feed the soul, just have a pause from the chaos and demands of a busy life."
I wish this wasn't through the form of being bone achingly unwell. Not showing up as covid, but i either have the energy to make something to eat or i have the energy to eat it. not both. I can confirm that the ceiling is white and the walls still an off white colour. I have spent enough time staring at them vacantly the last 2 weeks. Doc throwing another round of meds at this. So fingers cross that helps shift it.
Not feeling witchy, not feeling magical. just exhausted with life and rather done. But this will pass and i will appreciate feeling better.

I hope all of you who are doing something to mark the celestrial events are about to mark them in the manner that you wish.

mariel nice to meet you, i hope that recovering continues smoothly and that the mental/emotional impact not too adverse.

Emma glad the blockage has lifted/proven to be of benefit and that you are now able to accept this.

I have really enjoyed seeing the mushroom pictures, especially has i have no ability to disappear out into the hills atm. Virtual appreciation of nature still makes me smile.

Dark moon blessings to all.

@HillsBesideTheSea, good to meet you, too, and I'm sorry you are feeling so unwell at present. I relate completely to how you feel in not being able to summon much energy and have also had to accept this as something of a lay period. It will pass.

@EmmaH2022 - glad you are unblocked! I've been indulging in some peaceful, third-eye meditation to try to speed the process.

@speakout, your surroundings sound beautiful.

And I will never not be thrilled to see a fly agaric! 🍄

Energy feels much calmer here too. We had a huge storm yesterday afternoon, thunder, lightening and rain of biblical proportions, it was magnificent! Slept much better and today everything seems to have settled down. I love the dark moon too, such a quiet and restful time. I'm just back from my yoga class and looking forward to snuggling on the sofa.

Hills sorry to hear you've been so unwell...sounds like flu? I had flu for the first time 4 years ago, it had me bed bound for nearly two weeks, it was awful. I hope the meds give you some relief and you start to feel better soon. I will light a candle for you this evening and send some healing energy your way.

Mariel wise decision to take a bit more time to recover before returning to work. It sounds like you've been through a horrible ordeal and you need time to recover, emotionally and mentally, as well as physically.

EmmaH I'm glad you've worked out the reason you've been feeling blocked, I know it was bugging you! Now you know what it is, you can relax and gone with the flow, and let the universe work things out 😊

Does anyone have any plans for Samhain? When my boys were small, I used to love celebrating Halloween, getting them all dressed up to go trick or treating, carving pumpkins, apple bobbing, etc. In more recent years, I've marked it in a low key way, usually just lighting a candle and remembering those who came before me, so will probably do similar this year.

I am glad you are feeling the relaxed energy too VioletCharlotte, today's new moon should brighten things up a bit.
Like you Halloween was a huge thing in my house when the kids were young. decorations inside and in the garden ( same ones every year would come down from the attic). We lived in a small village in deep countryside and it felt that the whole village was out having fun. I hosted a few parties too for adults and kids early evening, and make pumkin soup and hot chocolate to hand out to cold hands.
We still get a huge amount of trick or treaters - we call them guisers in my parts- last year about 40 kids at the door, so I still put out a lit pumkin and buy sweets.
I am planning a small solo ceremony this year, I have been working a lot recently with generational trauma and healing my own inner child, I would like to invoke some healing energy for my wounded ancestors that they may feel healing too.
Yesterday didn't go completely to plan, OH is quite unwell- flu like symptoms, so although had a day off work was unable to help or join in fun. He is taking covid tests- but two negatives so far.
I fell asleep with my curtains open last night bathing in the reflected light from Jupiter- I am using my new iphone app Nightsky- regularly to track constellations and planets.
At the moment I can see Ursa Major up above in the dark sky before dawn.
I hope everyone feeling ills and chills are better soon.

I am a long-term user of Nightsky, which I love. As to Samhain, DH will be carving pumpkins with DC this year. I am avoiding knives until I'm off the anti-coagulants: don't want another setback and you can't be too careful! I'll do my bit by roasting the pumpkin seeds and making soup out of the interior.

DC and I will be making an autumnal wreath. I have leaves, acorns, decorative pumpkins and witch bells to hang on it. I've developed a bond with Hecate, and will honour both her and my ancestors with offerings.

I used to dread this time of the year. The onset of the dark nights made me really depressed. Since changing my spiritual direction, and moving to a different location (I live in a small, narrow lane with farmland and beautiful views down to the river) I've learned to love it as I should. But I shall always be a spring person at heart!

Also rallying here from the calmer new moon energy, and looking forward to feeling more rested and recovered.

MarieIVanArkleStinks your Halloween sounds lovely- including te plans for thr wreath. I have a wreath too, a bare one with dried herbs and fruits- I freshen it up every year with some foraged items.
I also have my huge besom in the porch at the moment.
It is interesting to hear how you have come to accept the darker months.
I used to struggle too, worked for a Swedish company for a while, I think some of the coping ideas brushed off.
Modern living demands as much effort and energy as the light months, which can be hard to achieve in the winter. Our bodies and spirit naturally slow down at this time, but if demands stay high we are left with a discord.
I have learned to love the darkness, playing in the shadows, allowing time to turn inwards, become a little introspective and play gently in the shadows.
Winter is a time to tend to our roots, to be mindful of our core, and nurture our inner world.
Our ancestors would have known this, they would gather close in the winter, sleep more, share stories, explore the dark, expose their fears, sing around fires.
Accepting this natural shift has allowed me to cope with the winter quiet that creeps in.
I know that for many SAD is very hard, and I appreciate that not all can be solved by curling up with a book.
It is good to talk about though, knowing how winter affects us needs to be shared.

Hi everyone just bookmarking as I follow a Pagan/solitary practitioner path, also just to mention for those of you who don’t already know about it, that the Pagan Federation have a Facebook group
m.facebook.com/groups/140714935953360/
sorry if this has already been posted previously I am working my way through the threads !
There are also regional groups under Pagan fed too on Facebook.

Welcome 667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast, glad you have joined us.
Thanks for the facebook link, I have noticed that group- facebook is a great resource isn't it.
In fact the internet is the most amazing tool for connection and information.
I remember as a young witch pre internet days having to travel to eclectic bookshops to find books about the craft, or order books from my local library which always seemed to raise eyebrows.
Even finding materials - herbs and equipment was difficult, all can be done in the "twinkling of an eye".
Just a little warm glow on the horizon with the promise of dawn soon, giving myself a warm blast of a fan heater for 10 minutes to warm up my room before getting up without putting on the central heating.
Luckily my bedroom is small so heats up quickly.
I am warming to pumpkin, never been a huge fan, but this year I have been using it in savoury dishes, curries and stews. It marries well with spices and I notice my family never leave any pumpkin on their plates.
I have two large pumpkins in my garage for carving I need one to put outside on Halloween to indicate we are a house with sweets!
It's quite odd having no children at home for things like Halloween. Even as older teenagers my kids loved to decorate the house, cook and bake, the house feel empty without children's giggles. It takes a long time to raise children - at the time it feels permanent, but it isn't
Of course there are massive benefits too- much less housework, peace and quiet, uninterrupted sleep, time to myself, which I love, but at times I do feel nostalgic for the crazy days of having little ones charging around the house like wild moneys. And having relationships with adult children takes that bond to a whole new level.
No pulling the wool over the eyes of an adult child. You are there as two adults, bare under a bright glare, them having the adult perspective and knowing the parent intimately.
Can't do that "Mummy's fine" thing while holding back a tear that a 5 year old will buy!
Mercury is square to Pluto this morning, which can throw a spanner into comunication and cause tension. A time to hold back and think twice about forcing out views on others. But that will ease in the afternoon.
OH is on holiday today and we will take a trip out, but perhaps leave it till the afternoon! I have candles to make this morning, a nice solo activity.
Have a magical day sisters.

Hi @speakout thank you for the warm welcome 😊
I am in the same position as you I have no children at home anymore since last year. My only one at university now so is back and forth now and again . I’ve got pumpkins in the garage ready to carve and we still do this, my husband is an atheist but never discourages me and he has a few friends from years ago that are Pagan. I’m very secretive, I’m a Scorpio so no surprises there!
In real life I have never met a fellow practitioner but this maybe as I don’t speak about it myself ! I have only just joined the Pagan federation during lockdown after years of occasionally buying the magazine Pagan Dawn. I was hoping to meet up with likeminded people but everything seems to be online now and in person moots don’t seem to have got up and running again sadly. My interest in witchcraft started in earnest about 30 years ago when I saw an interview with Doreen Valiente on a channel 4 documentary and as you say it was very hard to get books etc. so much easier now ! I drifted in and out but something always seems to pull me back. I believe my mother was psychic and had other gifts but she was terrified of it because of being brought up Catholic. Everyone in the family used to joke that my mother was a witch as she would know people were going to call her or visit. I wasn’t raised in any religion as my mother was “lapsed” and my father was an atheist. Anyway looking forward to reading through the many posts on here 😊

Some recent fungi photos, I’m very lucky to live near an old forest. I’ve not seen any fly agaric this year, I think the white one is porcelain fungus but I’m not terribly up on it perhaps someone could tell me ?

Speakout I often miss having little ones around, especially at times like Halloween or Christmas. However I have colleagues with young children, who have been tearing their out this week, trying to work and juggle childcare throughout half term. They've reminded me of how hard having small children was! I think we all tend to look back with rose tinted glasses and remember the lovely bits, but we forget the exhaustion and that feeling of never having a minute to yourself!

I'll be 'home alone' this weekend as DS2 is off to Amsterdam with friends today until Monday. We get along very well, but I'm looking forward to the house being tidy for a few days and having the place to myself!

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast welcome to the thread. Thank you for the Facebook line, I'll take a look. I'm a member of a number of witchy groups online, some more active than others. I've got lots of witchy friends in real life, most of whom I've met through yoga or spiritual groups rather than moots. It's quite surprising how many of us there are out there!

@VioletCharlotte I think you’re right we look back and only remember the good bits!
I think that’s the problem I don’t get out much due to chronic illness, so it’s hard to mix with people. I get out to the forest with my husband and our dog but that’s it. I’m in a very small conservative town too. Although I am very near the place where Gerald Gardener started Wicca. I’ve noticed some of the groups on Facebook hardly anyone posts on them. Obviously the Pagan fed one is a much wider range of people Druids Pagans Wiccans etc and no doubt others that I’m not aware of!

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast warm welcome from me, too. I love your neck of the woods. Burley is a magical place I'm eager to go back to: one of my closest friends lives in Dorset and I like to visit those places with her, as she also has some similar leanings to mine. All she doesn't know is the extent of mine!

On the point of locations I'm close to the Yorkshire Wolds, a place which has a real resonance with the old ways for better or worse. The last witch burning in England is said to have taken place in the little market town of Pocklington, back in 1630. And the tallest standing stone in England is in a tiny, little-known churchyard near-ish the very atmospheric and beautiful chalk headland of Flamborough. It's at one of the few major meeting places of ley lines in the north of England.

I'll take a look at the Facebook links at some point. The finding of a community of Pagans is a new thing to me. A solitary path brings useful freedoms, but there is so much to be learned from the knowledge of others. On that point @speakout you sound very knowledgeable on celestial matters, and I'm really starting to look forward to your updates!

Welcome new posters - merry meet!

I’ve had a new Tarot deck arrive and it’s lovely! I ordered it some time back on Kickstarter. Look at the Ace of Pentacles! ❤️ And it’s so interesting to see different details picked out with the colour.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks thank you 😊
Yes Burley is great but much nicer in the winter as not as crowded. Interestingly as some of you may know, the last “village witch” in Burley, Sybil Leek, met with some hostility from the locals in the 60s, they thought it bought the village into disrepute ! But a whole tourist industry is built on it now. I think one of the problems they had with her was she was “loud and proud” about being a witch but thankfully things have changed a lot since then.
I’ve seen evidence of magical practice in the woods nearby, and the other week I saw a lady walking very briskly on her own away from
the area and had a very strong feeling she was a witch but what do you say lol. I don’t think she saw me as I was sitting very still behind a tree ,as you do!
@Trenzalor those cards are beautiful I have never owned a set although often thought about it as it fascinates me.

Hello everyone and hello to all the new names.

Sorry well behind on things as usual! I have been busy though with collecting and drying mushrooms and carving swedes for Friday night's ritual and I was coaxed into giving a talk for a local esoteric training group. I am really out of practice with that sort of thing so it has occupied way too much headspace over the last few weeks. Still it's done now but I've been asked to train a couple of students myself. Not sure I have the will at the moment but we'll see.

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast That does look like porcelain fungus to me as far as I can tell. It's not common around my area but I have seen it once or twice. Once it was infected with some sort of bacteria which created a lovely pink design on it. Apparently that can happen!

The fly agaric appeared a few weeks ago and is one of the ones I've been busy picking and drying. Such a pretty mushroom. The flushes are quite small but there were quite a few patches of them. Not many edibles other than a few well over ripe shaggy inkcaps and a few rather badly insect nibbled boletes. Those I left.

@Elphame love those decorations. Wow so many fly agaric, they are just so amazing and bring back so many childhood memories of fairy tales etc. Someone I met recently told me that young lads in the area had been picking them to eat ! Which is a bit worrying.
Do you mind me asking what you will use them for? Ritual purposes or decoration ? sorry I’m quite nosey 😊

Well I guess they will only do it once - they will make themselves feel very very ill unless they prepare them properly. Luckily, despite its reputation, it isn't a deadly member of the amanita family (unlike A. Virosa and A. Phalloides ) and there are few reports of fatalities from Amanita Muscaria and in the few that have been reported there were other contributing factors.

Some of these will go to the friends I was collecting them with and mine will end up in oils and tinctures for various ointments.

Yes I agree it’s not going to be pleasant for them. The lady I met on the forest told me they weren’t usually fatal, but even so!
I’m not confident about fungi so I don’t use them, I’m just sticking with herbs for the time being. I believe the fly agaric are useful for pain applied locally? My daughter who’s at uni studying science is fascinated by fungi as they have been used to successfully treat types of Dementia.

Micro dosing is an interesting technique. I lost track of the research on synthetically constructing / extraction of the active ingrediants. One thing medicine loves is dosage consistency. One thing nature does badly is dosage consistency. After all often the difference between medicinal and poisonous is the dosage and application (eg paracetamol)

So much fascinating information about selective breeding on active ingrediants that needs delving back into when the professional studies are done.

Take tomatos.
Italians have long removed the seeds and skin rather than include in foods due to active components which can be aggravating to human systems.
They used to be a good source of vitamins and minerals but selective breeding for high yield means that they can no longer be relied on for high potassium etc for those who tend to lower levels of this mineral (and other minerals)
Scientists are now using genetic techniques to re-introduce these traits back into the high yield varieties.

It is definitely an interesting field to wormhole if inclined, especially all the angles herbs vs veg vs mushrooms etc.

Welcome to the thread.

I did wonder if it could have been flu, but it seems that it has just been a persistent bug and the current dosage of more anti-biotics and steroids is making an impact even if there are some fun side effects. It is nice to be able to breathe better again. Its not perfect but it is progress.

The glorious inconsistency of Mother Nature is why I tend to use a lot of tinctures and oils. Once I know how strong a batch is I can adjust how much I use accordingly

@667TheNeighbourOfTheBeast Have you looked outside the Pagan Fed for moots? They made themselves so unpopular around here that none of the moots (of which there are several) are affiliated. We all use FB groups and pages instead.

@Elphame I agree about tinctures they are so useful and keep for such a long time. Regarding moots no I haven’t tried outside of Pagan fed, do you mean around your area they made themselves unpopular or on mumsnet? I’m a member of Traditional Witchcraft ( think that’s the right name, this group doesn’t have a lot of posts ) and Traditional witchcraft international groups on Facebook. I heard mention of a witchcraft group in Southampton which is quite a way from me. Do you mind me asking what was going on to make them unpopular?

Locally. They tried to impose so many rules on the local moot that they made themselves very unpopular. We couldn't meet the requirements so were "delisted" - not that it made any real difference (grin). This was years ago now and they've backed off on most of them I believe. However we have long memories 'round 'ere. I doubt we're the only area either.

I'm also on both those groups but don't spend anytime there, Try looking for Dorset pagans and there are a couple of groups set up for moots to advertise their presence. You may well find some around you.

@Elphame thank you 😊
oh dear that doesn’t sound good. Some people get a bit power mad don’t they “delisted” 😅 honestly!

I’m also on New Forest Pagans I forgot about them.
There is apparently a moot in Southampton once a month but it’s a bit of a trek.

Neighbour meant to ask but is the forest still working with the policy of clearing the rhododendrons as an invasive species?