Quiz

What color is your soul painted? Grey Your soul is painted the color grey, which embodies the characteristics of elegance, humility, respect, reverence, stability, subtlety, wisdom, strong emotions, balance, and cancellation. Grey falls under the element of Water, and symbolizes the moon, tide, ebb and flow. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Happy Birthday Greetings...

Happy 792nd Birthday to Habeas Corpus!

Though you've been missing since October... I wish you well, wherever you are!

I'm in an art show!

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Black Heart Poem

I've been busily writing down all these exercises that have been dancing around in my brain for years now, as I am finally getting to a place with some of my students where I need to have them written down.

This is a portion of a Black Heart invocatory exercise that I recently wrote. Enjoy, or be reviled. Your choice. ;)

Black Heart Thrum
©2007 Storm Faerywolf

Black Heart
Primal Drum
Child’s song
Feral thrum
Passion’s kiss
Shining light
Wild bliss
Starlit night
Serpent’s skin
Second sight
Dark abyss
Shining bright
Black Heart
Pulsing free
Innocent!
Ecstasy!

New England Feri Camp

I am happy to announce that I will be participating in the following event:

Feri Intensive Camp
Exploring the Mysteries
of Poetry, Madness & Death
With Anaar, Storm Faerywolf, Michele and Karina

 

October 4 - 8, 2007
Camp Nawaka, East Otis, MA

Early Registration (before August 15) $300 per person
Late Registration (after August 15) $315 per person

Registration includes Intensive, Lodging and Meals.
Must be received via internet or mail no later than midnight September 19, 2007. No exceptions.

More information and registration available here (51K PDF).

We also created a LiveJournal Community for the Camp, , along with a MySpace Profile

A Circle Casting

I've recently been working on an alternative to the Bloodrose Feri circle that I was taught and so decided to incorporate this poem that I originally wrote back in 1998.  One of the verses borrows heavily (like three out of the four lines!) from a poem by Doreen Valiente, but it was just so perfect I couldn't help it. I have been revising this casting ever since I first wrote it, and just this past week added a new verse (so now there's seven... I love sevens), changed a couple of lines, and reordered it. Chas recently posted a previous version in his LJ when posting about the faery hounds. In the circle script I will pass on it is listed as an alternative to the (somewhat altered) Bloodrosian version that I received, and has a list of "stage directions" including different energetic instructions/visualizations for the participants to perform at different parts, but here is just the poetic invocation for your amusement. 

Invocation of the Circle
©1998-2007 Storm Faerywolf

By Forest dark and standing stone,
By rushing wind and life's first breath,
By flame that burns the flesh to bone,
By ancient sea, the land of death...

By the Mother and Her Son
Is the circle made and done
Descend the light of Moon and Sun
Our Holy Rite has now begun.

My blade has cast the circle round,
with razor's edge and bluest flame,
from earth to heavens, sky to ground,
the power comes that has no name.

We summon forth the faery hounds,
From Outer Darkness now draw near,
to prowl beyond the circle's bounds,
And put intruder's hearts in fear.

Between the worlds of flesh and Fae,
we touch the Source and form the weave,
a ward to keep the worlds at bay,
that none may enter; none may leave.

This holy ground now lies between
The realm of Gods and mortal men,
By human eye cannot be seen
the faery sight alive within.

As above and so below,
enveloped in a cobalt flame,
the stars that shine, the stones that know,
within we speak Her sacred name.

Our newest family member...

Everyone please welcome the newest member of our little family...  We've decided to call her 'Shaylee'. She's a 3 month old Labrador/Pit Bull mix. We rescued her from the pound and she came home to us today. She's a real love.



I think I'm in love.

Witch Eye #15: Call for Submissions

I think it can be agreed by all of us that Feri witches are a creative, opinionated bunch. So you'd think that we'd have *hundreds* of submissions for the next Witch Eye, right?

Well... we have a few... but it's not coming together yet, so here's what we want you to do...

Send us something. A ritual. A review. A piece of art. A story. Humor! Send us your really cool experience in trance that you feel like sharing... tell us what the Gods are inspiring in you. We're still interested in cool poetry, but keep in mind that we get mostly poetry as it is. But an essay... an article... a well mannered rant... Bring 'em on! Whatever little Feri thing you'd like to address, do it and send it in!

Or... if you just can't think of where to start, how about pondering some of these?

• The Mighty Dead: Ancestral Reverence and Practice in Feri Magic
• Love and the Craft: How has Feri impacted your relationships?
• The Dangers of Feri. What exactly are they? And why does it sound so cool?
• Art & Feri. Has Feri impacted your creative life? Are you dancing more? Making music? Are you suddenly creating art for the first time? Tell us!
• You may have aligned your Three Souls, but you still can't use the car-pool lane.
• Initiation. What it is. What it isn't. And why you may never need one. Or want one.
• Dreams... We've collected dreams from folks that involve the late Victor Anderson. Do you have one?
• Cursing. C'mon... you know you want to.
• Ethics. Lost teachings of the tradition found!
• Seeking the Black Heart. Exercises and Stories on the search for Feri's Holy Grail
• Outside Looking In: Feri from a non-Feri Perspective
• Witch Eye: The Swimsuit Issue. Send us your pictures! No, I'm not kidding...
• The Divine Twins. Cornerstone of the Feri mythos and I still can't tell them apart.
• Kala and the Pearl Pentacle: Is the community doing enough?
• Classroom vs. the Coven, or why you are wrong to practice as you do

Our next theme, if we have one, will depend on what I get a lot of. But I love diversity, so send us whatever you want to write about! You can do it. We want material from all aspects of the Feri community: initiates, teachers, students, practitioners, and even educated seekers. You have over three months. Deadline isn't until September 1st! No excuses! Flex those Pride points!

Guidelines can be found here: http://www.feritradition.org/witcheye/submissions.htm
Send all submissions and questions to: witcheye@feritradition.org

A Poem... a Spell... a Teaching... a Prayer

The Sacred Fire
©2007 Storm Faerywolf

Like a fire so it shines
Bright against the empty dark
Dividing into perfect two
And with light, so then color
A splendid texture rich with hue.

This flame it burns against the cold
Against the snapping madness of the unknown
It warms the blood and stills the mind
And calls the trance upon our kind.

A dance... around the fire
Sweat slick thick upon my skin
I take a torch and place it in.

Taking fire from the gods
I hold aloft the sacred flame
A lantern in the velvet night
And so I learn the ancient dark terrain.

Triple Will my compass true
My life a vessel for Your power
Descend with heart of coal aflame
And let me come to know this flower.

High above it blooms so bright
Like a beacon in the night
To hold at bay all shade and fright
And grant the power of the sight.

Beyond the Outer Darkness comes,
the wraith, like curled gray smoke appears
into the mirror of midnight
I scry what lies beyond our fears.

And now I dance again around
This growing fire of which we tend
That seeds a hundred little flames
As next they come with torch in hand.

And soon one day they dance away,
With lanterns set against the night
To carry then their precious flame
To share their sacred light.

And though they’ve come, and though they’ve gone
A hundred times upon and more
And though they’ve lit their darkened homes
Still we tend this sacred fire.

Wash once, rinse twice...

This is a very filtered post, only for Feri initiates, and certainly not all of them.

I just had the weirdest interaction with another Feri student/practitioner. He asked me to not "go public" with it, but dude... this is just too weird to pass up.

Last night on the Witch Eye list a certain someone who has been espousing the Tribal/Family model of Feri cryptically posted that someone very close to me was an example of someone not right for the tradition being officially a part of it. I racked my brains... Could they be talking about a student of mine? We were talking about charging money for classes, and the like, and I had mentioned having to let some students go because of their lack of work. Certainly I have a couple of students who I am currently "on the fence" about and waiting to see if I will let them go, or not, but I couldn't figure out who and so I asked them privately.

Well, I got the response today and it was... (drum roll, please)...  Chas! Apparently because Chas doesn't automatically equate the Feri priesthood with a family that means (according to this person) that Chas' initiation didn't "take". Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo-stick! I laughed out loud!

Chas is very reserved about whom he shares his most intimate insights on Feri with, so I can understand that this person might have no clue as to what Chas is really about... but it's extra weird because this person has never met Chas... And a little weirder because this person is not an initiate, although his wife is, but that's a whole other story.

I just shake my head. I know that Chas is a powerful Feri witch who has an amazing grasp of the Gods who speak to him directly. It's just weird to have my husband maligned in such a way, and then to hear that there's an entire group that apparently holds this idea to be true as well. **EDIT: In a suprising positive development I am now told that his group told him he was off base with his accusation. That's good news, right? ;)

I'm off to make Kala... not because I'm angry (I was briefly, but that moved through me) but more because I am sad; sad that this person's view of Feri is so limited that other ways of practicing/believing seem to threaten their practice, and that as such it translates into judgment, a distraction from the larger Work, I feel.

Instead of washing once, or twice, or even rinsing at all, I sometimes feel I'd rather just hold their heads under the water.

More Kala! :)

Back from Camp...

I've been back from teaching at Feri Camp for a few days now. It's taken me awhile to get back into the routine of my daily life, and thankfully Chas has been very supportive in that area. I've actually gotten a lot of work done since I returned, but I have also had a lot of my attention on all things Feri, making plans, talking to friends, and contemplating what I think is a very healthy future for the tradition.

Camp this year was an incredible experience. I was impressed by the level of sincere commitment to this path, and by the fierce openheartedness of the participants. A lot of energy was raised, and when that happens our complexes tend to arise into view. The result was a lot of cleansing work, and whole lot of sharing... of joy, of pain, of fear, and of laughter. I felt truly blessed to have the opportunity to be in such an environment where we could come together as friends, as lovers, as family, to face both our beauty and our darkness, seeing both as holy.

I learned a lot during this trip. From the beginning I felt that this was about claiming more fully my own power, and I walk away feeling powerful; alive, charged, and changed. More of who I already am. A tremendous amount of energy was raised during our few days there, through trance... through ritual... through drumming... through dance... A common theme being the quest for the Black Heart that really did shine brightly in the eyes and smiles of those present. We did serious work! But also did we laugh... sometimes to the point of tears; the kind of laughter that hurts your cheeks and your belly and reminds you just how wonderful it is to be alive. That we were able to share that, and so much more with each other, is a blessing into itself.

I led some trance work with the Guardians, which always leaves me buzzing, but it was my session with the Amethyst Pentacle that really surprised me. When Chas and I wrote it back in '02 we knew that it was powerful, but going into trance with it and running its power with the participants at camp was nothing short of astounding. I was impressed by the willingness of those present to look into the face of their own pain and --still feeling it-- claim back their power from its clutches. Certainly this is work that will need to be done repeatedly, but that first step is most often the most frightful and that so many looked into that dark mirror of the self and met its gaze so evenly, is an inspiring sight to behold. All this along with reverence, determination, and laughter made the atmosphere both casual and relaxing, as well as focused and filled with deep purpose. As I said in another forum, if this is the future of Feri, then it is something that we can all be proud of. I know I certainly am.

I am also proud to have worked with so many fabulous teachers. This was my first time working with Karina of the BlackHeart line, and it was a tremendously satisfying experience. She really knows her stuff, and has a great command of the Faery current. I am proud to call her a sister of the Craft. Anaar I worked with last year, but it was this year that showed me another facet of her own commitment to the Gods; her connection to them is deep, real, and above all, personal. You show me a Witch who can yell in anger at the Goddess, and I'll show you one who walks the walk. And finally Michele. Her attention is like a surgical instrument, cutting right to the heart of the matter. She doesn't waste time with her words, but lest you might think her harsh because of it let me tell you she is one of the kindest people I know. And one of the funniest. That final night there she and I stayed up all night long just talking about life, about Feri, and just telling each other silly stories. We finally had to leave to try and let Anaar and Karina sleep. We paid for it that final day... in the form of dropped shields and no filters at all... but it was worth it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Now I am home and my life is shifting. People are contacting me and asking if I might travel to their area to teach. It comes at a good time because it is something that I have contemplated for awhile, so I find myself looking into how it might work both in terms of finances, but also in terms of energy; my time here at home is important, as Chas needs to take care of his mom when I am away. But he is also very supportive of me following my bliss, so it looks like I will be traveling at least some in the future. It's a great feeling: to be exactly where you are supposed to be.

With that in mind I shall end this with a blessing to all of you reading this: May you find yourself exactly where you need to be. And may you have the presence of mind to recognize it.

Getting ready...

First off... Happy Birthday to my beautiful Chas! I love you more and more each day... you are the love of my life and I feel nothing short of divinely fortunate to call you my husband.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Feri Camp where I will be teaching about the Feri Guardians, as well as giving some other workshops including one on the Amethyst Pentacle. I've spent today making sure that I am all packed and prepped. There's been so much to do! I just barely was able to get my luggage stuffed and weighed and I'm just under the restricted weight limit. (I'll be selling some books and such there and have to schlep them there myself, so I've been packing, and arranging, and taking inventory, blah, blah, blah.) I'm exhausted, but if it's half as good as last year then it will all be worth it.

I wont have cell phone coverage or access to the internet while I am there (gasp! sputter!) but I am looking forward to my time "off the grid" so to speak. It really is beautiful land there. I promise to come home with pictures.

Wish me luck...

Quiz Stuff

If you want, go here to take a short quiz to decide if my Golden Compass Daemon is correct for me, or not:

http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/?37451

Initially I got a Lion. (Actually, the first time I took it, I got a Crow, but I thought I answered something wrong so I went back and took it again.) I have 12 days before is becomes permanent, so check it out soon! :)

258-year-old gay rights text documented

The lost book Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified was written in 1749 by Thomas Cannon, and was partially preserved in handwritten court documents used to suppress its publication.

"This must be the first substantial treatment of homosexuality ever in English," says Dr Hal Gladfelder, who discovered the references in a box of uncatalogued legal documents from the time.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/po/20070425/co_po/258yearoldgayrightstextdocumented

Take that! :)

I love these...

From Free Will Astrology: 

Pisces Horoscope for week of March 29, 2007

Henry Rollins Love Letter to Ann Coulter

Shamlessly stolen from the journal of

suedeheadspike

:

(If you watch this at work be careful of the F-bomb.)  ;)

The Wisdom of Carl Sagan

Yanked from http://www.smart-kit.com/s225/:

If you look carefully at the NASA photo below, you will see a little white dot. This minute speck is Earth seen from the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it exits the solar system, nearly 4 billion miles away. The photo was taken back in 1990.



Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Witch Eye Auctions on eBay to help Cora Anderson!

OK... I have posted this practically everywhere, and so I apologize to those of you who have seen this a bunch already.

Happy Spring Equinox, everyone! To help celebrate this astrological event we are now offering a rare opportunity to get your hands on the first three issues of Witch Eye, now out-of-print, via auctions on eBay!

Each are in brand new condition. Starting bids are $20 each, and all proceeds will go to the care of Cora Anderson. You get to complete your collection while at the same time you will be helping out our Feri Grandmother with her in-home care.

For more information about each issue, please visit their individual eBay listings:

Witch Eye #1
Witch Eye #2
Witch Eye #3

Or, you can go to our eBay store at: http://stores.ebay.com/Carnivalia to see our other items for sale.

These were recently found in a box of original Witch Eye materials that Max gave me when she turned the magazine over to me back in 2003. These are the final copies of these out of print issues, so once they're gone... they're gone.

For more information about Cora, as well as updates and information on how you can contribute to her in-home care, visit:
http://community.livejournal.com/victor_cora/

If anyone has any questions please let me know! Happy bidding!

Practicing safe Blue God...

I was alerted to this by a good friend of mine. It appears in the current (March 07) issue of Instinct magazine.