Happy Wednesday witches! Today I am launching my Samhain special. If you would like a Samhain themed tarot reading from me please reach out to me at wiwitchycrow@gmail.com. This special will be running until October 28th. When you email me we can discuss what kind of guidance you would like.
I have been feeling a little off the last couple of weeks. It isn’t that I have been feeling bad it’s more that I have been feeling numb and stuck. Last night after doing my full moon work I started to feel a breakthrough coming. Spirit gave me a gentle reminder that when I tend to my spiritual practice I can make things happen and that I have more power to change my world than I sometimes believe I do. I tried my best to listen to my intuition and the messages coming from Morrighan and then suddenly it all bubbled up. For a long long time, I have been working to release scarcity and it feels like it is never totally gone. Facing another Samhain and contemplating what I want to let go of led me to think about scarcity again. Part of my process is to dig deeper and turn things over in my mind to see if I’m missing something. All this introspection led me to something that seems simple but also something I never considered. This thing bleeds over into so many parts of my life and in some pretty profound ways. I don’t trust myself. I’m worried about losing control. This all leads back to childhood as most roads do and I don’t intend to get into all of that today.
It isn’t scarcity that I fear, I fear that I might make stupid money choices leaving me without enough. This leads to hating money and never enjoying spending it. I’m always working to attract abundance and money but how can you attract something that you hate? This also impacts my body acceptance issues. I don’t trust myself to eat right or to know how often I should exercise. When my body tells me it needs rest in the afternoon my internal talk is always about how I shouldn’t need rest. All this needs to change. I’m going to work on letting go of the distrust I have concerning listening to my inner voice. I already know that deep self-love needs to happen next year so I’m going to let go of the voices that tell me that I do not deserve love. Lastly, I need to work on self-respect. I need to listen to and respect the needs that I often ignore. That is a lot but it is all-important work and it is all connected.
This bleeds over into the community work I want to do next year. I have to trust my inner wisdom and know that I will make good choices when it comes to connections. It is the people part of the Pagan community that I fear. That fear is a big hump to get over but I know I can do it with the help of Spirit.
What messages did the universe send your way for the full moon? Do you plan to let go of things for Samhain?
D
Last week my mind was brimming with ideas but I didn’t want to put them into action until the new moon. Now that we are past that everything is starting to move forward and take off! I have added all my social media info into the about page so please connect with me on Instagram and Twitter. I’m excited to announce I have also started a closed FB group with the same name as this blog. Please feel free to ask to be a member over there. I’m also taking the leap into tarot readings and online coaching. If you are interested in any of that you can find info on the services page. Whew!
Have I mentioned it is the first day of October?! Or as I like to call it the first day of Halloween! It’s my favorite month of the year and so I’m planning to celebrate a little today. I intend to put up my Day of the Dead/ancestor altar today and will leave it up through the first week of November. I will also spruce up my main working altar space in honor of the Crone. Something about this time of year really gets my blood pumping. Here in Wisconsin, it is gloomy and raining. I think we are supposed to get some thunderstorms which only adds to the mood.
I take Samhain and The Day of the Dead very seriously. My practice is pretty Celtic in nature and that fits well with my ancestry on my mother’s side. On my father’s side my ancestors are from Mexico, so celebrating The Day of the Dead helps me to connect with them. Halloween is something that brings me joy and I feel that in and of itself is sacred. Each of these things is a part of what I consider to be the most sacred month of my year. Each has its own meaning and each adds something different to my practice. Yes, I consider Halloween part of my practice! Winter is hard for me due to Seasonal Affective Disorder and so I try to store up as much joy as I can before that hits hard. Halloween makes me so happy.
I have been feeling the wheel turning me inward and I have already started to prepare myself for Samhain. Have you been feeling the pull to turn inward?
D
Discovering Habondia, Goddess of Abundance
Recently I’ve found myself struggling with serious financial challenges. Out-of-work-for-three-months-will-I-make-the-next-mortgage-payment challenges. I’ve been working hard on both the mundane and magickal fronts to find a job and to cobble together enough money to keep us afloat in the meantime.
On the magickal front this has mostly meant talking with the deities I commonly work with (Brigid and Lugh) and doing some rather elaborate candle magick. In spite of this, and in spite of consistently positive tarot readings that essentially said “good things are coming,” I still didn’t have a job offer and the point where we would have missed the first mortgage and car payments was less than a month away.
It was at this point that my lovely wife, priestess, and owner of this blog suggested I try searching for a deity to work with who specialized in wealth and plenty. As a starting point she handed me Edain McCoy’s Celtic Myth & Magick open to p. 379 which contains a list of 28 celtic deities and demigods associated with prosperity and abundance. Among the handful of names I recognized and the large number I didn’t, one name jumped out at me – Habondia. I have no mundane explanation for why I focused on that name other than that I liked the sound of it, but in hindsight I believe Dame Habondia was the one on that list who was seeking my attention.
Celtic Myth & Magick says that Habondia “was a Goddess of abundance and prosperity, demoted to a ‘mere witch’ in medieval English lore.” It further notes that she is descended from a Germanic goddess, that she was sometimes equated with the Deae Matres (a triple earth mother goddess worshiped in Gaul), and that her symbols were the cornucopia and wheat.
A bit of internet research revealed further details concerning Habondia:
Working from these bits of information and my own intuition, I composed a prayer/invocation that appealed to Her for help in meeting my financial needs:
Dame Habondia,
Queen of Abundance,
Matron of Witches,
Visit my home this night.
Shower Your gifts upon me
so that I may prosper tomorrow
and in all the years to come.
I honor You for Your graciousness
and generosity my Lady, and pray that
Your name may
once again be on the lips
of the wise and cunning
throughout the earth.
The next evening before bed I opened a window, lit a candle on the windowsill, and surrounded it with apple seeds as an offering. I spoke aloud my fears for our finances and recited the invocation above three times. As I did so I felt a presence watching from the trees outside the window which I took to be Habondia. I left the candle burning and the window open and went to bed.
The next morning, one of my small but regular sources of income deposited three weeks’ worth of payment instead of one week’s into our checking account.
Naturally, I called them to point out the error. They insisted there was no error and that they had only deposited a single week’s payment. Though I expected they would one day discover their mistake and require the money back, for now it was a god(dess) send.
I had heard of people having this kind of result from working with a deity or doing a spell for money, but I had neither seen nor experienced it. And yes, of course it could have been a coincidence. So I repeated the experiment, conducting the same ritual two days later before going to bed.
The next day an unexpected check arrived from a relative who knew I was struggling. A check large enough to buy me more time to find a job.
I’m continuing to work with Habondia, asking more specifically for aid in finding a job that will insure long-term abundance. While being very grateful for Her gifts that are keeping a roof over our heads right now.
And I’m spreading the word that Habondia, an all-but-forgotten celtic goddess, is alive and well and willing to aid anyone who calls upon Her name.
Shawn McNulty
It feels like autumn and I am thrilled about it. Autumn is when I feel the most alive and inspired. My hope is that I can really soak it all in this year and through that have enough energy to get me through the winter. The last couple of weeks have been so fruitful in the magick department. I created a ritual to reconnect and rededicate myself to my journey as a priestess. This seems to always happen this time of the year. I never plan it that way it just seems to be the right time. So once again I am faced with the question, “What are you willing to do in order to deepen your practice?” Along with this I have been thinking some about Mabon and what I want to harvest. In some ways I think I have that harvest already but who knows there might be more coming. I am also starting to think about my word of the year. I always chose a new word at Samhain so around this time I start writing down possibilities. Usually about three days before Samhain I feel pretty sure about what the word will be.
Last night I worked my full moon ritual and took a moonlit walk with my husband and dog. The ritual was lovely and personal. I talked so much over with Morrighan. We have been doing so much of that lately. Just talking and I have been making more time to be quiet and listen. Sometimes my practice is more about the magick and some times it is more about connection with the Goddess. Right now I’m in a very intense season of connection. I’m so grateful for this path that I’m on because the world can be a very harsh place and at time I feel so powerless. Morrighan reminds me of my ability to create change.
Did you do anything special to celebrate the full moon?
D
Back many many years ago I was lucky enough to harvest an enormous amount of apples with some friends. All of us gathered in my big kitchen and started to process this amazing bounty. We made apple beer, chutney, fruit roll-ups, apple butter, and sauce. Due to a malfunction with the apple press my ceiling, floor and walls were covered in apple. Weeks later I was still finding bits of apple that we missed in the cleaning process. It was a fun community experience and it was a mess. I was a little overwhelmed trying to find ways to use them all (I canned a lot)before they went bad. In the end, I had plenty for myself and tons to share!
My Lammas harvest unfolded much the same way. My community gathered around me to help during the process. The work was messy and time-consuming. The abundance of blessings was great but also overwhelming. I have been working towards this harvest for a very long time. I have put in long hours both working magick to manifest my desire but also just working hard in my mundane life. I planted the seeds of this harvest years ago and each year I would get a little closer to seeing my goal. Now it has arrived and it is magnificent! At the same time, all this bounty demands that I put it to good use, and share it with others. I also have to shore up my boundaries and make sure I am engaging in self-care, too much of a good thing can be bad.
I am saying all of this to say when you are working magick and hoping to harvest your desires it is a good idea to be prepared. I recommend doing everything you can to prepare for what your life might look like if you actually get what you want. Will you need support? Are you ready for success? When you get what you want how will you use it? Will you share it? For me, my success meant tons of phone calls, emails, public speaking, being vulnerable and having my life out there on display. I’m an introvert who displays as an extrovert, so all that talking and being seen is not easy for me. When I was working on manifesting my desire I visualized what it would look like so I could be prepared for what might be asked of me in exchange.
Since Lammas, I have had almost no time to process how amazing this harvest has been. Instead of blogging, I should be sleeping but my mind is wide awake. I’m enjoying the delicious quiet of my office and giving myself a moment to let the magick of it all really sink in. We have two more turns of the wheel dedicated to harvest, I can’t wait to see what is coming!
June is my birthday month! I am barely a Gemini having made it just under the wire in 1970. Soon I will be entering the last year of my 40’s and I have some big changes I want to manifest before I turn 50. One theme that has appeared over and over the last few years is Freedom and Liberation. Just when I think I’m done with that lesson it comes back around and goes deeper and deeper. Now I have a feeling of being at a brass tacks place. I’m at the edge of the deepest point with the toughest lessons. I’m being called to stretch to some pretty scary places and also to act whether or not anyone is by my side when I do it. Being a Gemini I prefer a partner to work with but sometimes that just isn’t possible.
I feel like the gods have been pulling out all of the stops. I have my primary gods and then others that I’ve worked with regarding certain issues. Lately, they have all been making an appearance and their voices are getting louder and louder. I’m trying to take it all in and process it all. I’ve had some things thrown in my path this year that have made everything feel harder. That being said I am ready to fight for what I want and keep moving. The lesson happening right now is that liberation doesn’t always come so easy, sometimes it isn’t just about untying your own hands and undoing your own chains, sometimes it is about busting out, drugging the jailor and taking a saw to the bars. Sometimes you gotta She-Hulk that bullsh*it!
Soon it will be Summer Solstice and then the wheel will turn towards harvest. I’ve got some work to do just regarding the things I planted at Imbolc. I know there are no short cuts so I should probably say goodbye for now and light up my cauldron.
Have you ever worked on Freedom or Liberation? What gods/goddesses did you find most helpful?
