Charge of the Goddess

This is an adaptation of Charge of the Star Goddess by Starhawk: Listen to the words of the Great Mother, Who of old was called Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid, and by many other names:

Celtic Mother Goddess Brigid Statue

designed by artist, Maxine Miller

Whenever you have need of anything,
once a month, and better it be when the moon is full,
you shall assemble in some secret place
and adore the spirit of Me Who is Queen of all the Wise.

You shall be free from slavery,
and as a sign that you be free
you shall be naked in your rites.

Sing, feast, dance, make music and love,
all in My Presence, for Mine is the ecstasy of the spirit
and Mine also is joy on earth.

For My law is love is unto all beings.
Mine is the secret that opens the door of youth,
and Mine is the cup of wine of life that is the cauldron of Cerridwen,
that is the holy grail of immortality.

I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal,
and beyond death I give peace and freedom and reunion
with those that have gone before.

Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for behold,
I am the Mother of all things and
My love is poured out upon the earth.

Hear the words of the Star Goddess,
the dust of Whose feet are the hosts of Heaven,
whose body encircles the universe:

I Who am the beauty of the green earth
and the white moon among the stars
and the mysteries of the waters,

I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.
From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.

Let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion,
honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.

And you who seek to know Me,
know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not,
unless you know the Mystery:
for if that which you seek,
you find not within yourself,
you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning,
and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.

Petition Magic & Other Prayers

I recently attended a class - actually it is the first class in a monthly series, to help me get back on my Spiritual path and to the basics of wicca. (If anyone is interested it is being presented by Rev. Edward Christian at the Atlantis store in Johnson City, TN.)

Being a sole practitioner for many years, I read hundreds of books from various traditions, and in those books there were tons of contradictions in even the most rudimentary things like casting a circle, or creating your altar space. This class is designed to sweep away all the BS, and get down to the nuts and bolts of wicca. Once you have them, then YOU can make your own determination of what you would like to add to make your magical experience personal to YOU.

Anyway, I thought I would share some of the ideas that I took away with me from this first class.

Did you know that Petition Magic is just a witchy word for Prayers? Yup! I know many people who do not like using the word "Pray", instead they will say, "I'll send you healing energy" or "I'll light a candle..." Guess what! That is praying!

Prayers can be formal, such as the famous "Charge of the Goddess" by Starhawk, a feminist Neopagan writer (born Miriam Simos, 1951). I included it in a separate post.

Some other forms of Petition Magic, prayers, that might be familiar to you are:

• writing your prayer (or spell) on paper and then setting it on fire
• writing your prayer in wet sand and let the waves take it out to sea
• writing your wish in bird seed, and let the animals and birds carry it away

I have used the fire ritual many times, but only because that was what "the book" said to do, but they all have one thing in common: Writing down what is in your heart, (bringing your prayer into the physical realm, and allowing them to be carried away, either by the elements such as the first two, fire or water, or by the animals as in the last one.

By doing these things with purity of heart - speaking from the heart - you are developing a relationship with the Divine. 

One of my questions was, which Divine do I pray to? Hecate? Isis? Athena? Brigid? or maybe one of the gods? Zeus? Thoth? Thor?

Rev. Edward's answer was Work with the Divine in a way that makes sense to you. It is perfectly acceptable to call upon the "Lord and Lady" or the "God and Goddess". He also said that, because we live in America and it is a melting pot of cultures, we are not limited to cultural Deities. In other words, I do not have to chose Brigid simply because I am part Irish. Nor is my husband limited to Norse gods and goddesses because of his ancestry. We can choose! 

A good way to do that is to research the different mythologies, and choose a god or goddess who has the qualities that you wish to have but perhaps are lacking. And write a prayer - preferably with rhyme and rhythm - repeat it over and over. This will usually bring you into an altered state of mind, which is where you want to be for your magical works. Like the chants from monks. 

One of the easiest ways to reach this state of mind is with 4/4/4 breathing, It was developed by the Golden Down out of western psychology. 

Sit up straight with you feet flat on the floor, and your hands placed just above your knee caps on each leg.

Close your eyes and focus them on the "Third Eye" spot, just above where your eyebrows would meet at your nose. Put your tongue to the roof of your mouth, behind your front teeth, and then slide it back until you feel a flat ridge. Rev. Robert did not name this spot, but I have heard it called The Bagha technique.

Now, practice rhythmic breathing at the count of 4.

• breath in to the count of 4
• hold it to the count of 4
• exhale to the count of 4 
• repeat 

The exercise that we did for this class was a guided meditation. Rev Edward walked us though a grounding and clearing meditation where we imagined roots growing out from the bottom of our feet, through the floor, and the basement, into the earth, deep into the earth's mantel. Then we envisioned the empowering earth energy being sucked into those roots and up into us, pushing all the negative/toxic/sludge out of us and then we brushed it off of our body and imagined that it was absorbed by the earth and neutralized.

After that clearing exercise, while still 4/4/4 breathing, he asked us to picture our living room in our head making it as "real" as we could, visualizing every detail. 

Then he counted us awake from 5. 

It was a pretty intense experience. Even for someone like myself, who has done some meditation work before.

Apparently this is the state of mind that we should be in when we do our MAGIC! 

I hope you got a little insight out of this post, and I will post more as I attend each class. 

Blessed Be.