BOOK: SOLITARY WITCH THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF SHADOWS FOR THE NEW GENERATION BY SILVER RAVENWOLF
INDEED! This is the ULTIMATE book of shadows! This book has everything a teen Witch could want and need between two covers: a magickal cookbook, encyclopedia, dictionary, and grimoire. It relates specifically to today's young adults and their concerns, yet is grounded in the magickal work of centuries past. This is an encyclopedia/dictionary of terms, ideas, celebrations, rituals and Witchcraft in the Tradition of Silver Ravenwolf. She has put together a massive handbook for those who follow her path, and it is just a huge undertaking on her part.
The book is put together in five parts, covering '"Shadows of Religion & Mystery"', '"Shadows of Objects and Tools"', '"Shadows of Expertise & Proficiency"', '"Shadows of Magick & Enchantment"' and '"Shadows of Magick and Real Life"'. Each section covers elements of the craft and discusses them in modern terms.
Information is arranged alphabetically and divided into five distinct categories: (1) Shadows of Religion and Mystery, (2) Shadows of Objects, (3) Shadows of Expertise and Proficiency, (4) Shadows of Magick and Enchantment, and (5) Shadows of Daily Life. It is organized so readers can skip over the parts they already know, or read each section in alphabetical order.
This is Silver Ravenwolf's Tradition and her version of the Craft. "CAKES AND ALE" are described as "COMMUNION" and Angels are included in "SPIRIT GUIDES". All the material echoes her previous works and is meant for the individual who follows this particular path.
Her approach in this huge work is to provide the Solitary Practitioner with reference material to help them along on their spiritual journey. She has gone into great detail, amassing a huge volume of work. The work includes a good table of contents, a bibliography, and is indexed.
It is comprehensive, in depth and gives one profound insight into The Craft. Silver writes with her usual humor, sincerity and groundedness. As a purveyor of many different "BOOKS OF SHADOWS", and other Pagan and Wiccan authors, I give this one a A++. She goes into depth on many, mnay subjects related to the Craft. It is deep, yet understandable and not at all "WU-WU." The only thing I can't understand is why people think it's mainly for the younger generation. I'm 51 and very well read and I found this masterpiece truly enlightening!
Silver RavenWolf (PENNSYLVANIA) is a nationally recognized leader and elder of Wicca, and through her writing has been instrumental in guiding the future of one of the fastest-growing faiths in America today. The author of seventeen books, she has been interviewed by The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, and her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Bust Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Petersburg Times, the National Review, Publishers Weekly, Body ">Find Silver Ravenwolf's book in AMAZON.COM:
Solitary Witch The Ultimate Book Of Shadows For The New Generation
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Ayushya Havan
Siddha Ayushya Japa and havan
Helpful for Securance of Tot.
This Ayushya Japa and havan is done to worship the god of life (Ayur Devata ). By produce a result this Ayushya Japa and havan, one gets hope for life blessings from Ayur Devata. According to him, if a child is frequently ill, this Ayushya Japa and havan possibly will be performed on a periodical stand turnover the child attains good health. But in comprehensive, this is performed following a rendezvous on the day of the star in which the child is born. It is started on the day the child completes one rendezvous of age. In isolate one is incapable to perform it on this day, it neediness be done on the as the crow flies month. It may be done even on a periodical stand. You atmosphere work to perform this Ayushya Japa and havan on the Nakshatra, real rendezvous of the child. It is very considerable that you do it on the prime real day. Optionally, you can perform it on the other birthdays too. By interim the Ayushya Havan or Yagna, the evil equipment caused by tithi [day of the fortnightly], vara [day of the week], nakshatra [star] are eradicated. It bestows longevity, and good health. For Ayushya Japa and havan, we chant 11001 Japa and 1/10 havan.
"HTTP://WWW.DHYANSANJIVANI.COM/ "
RICK HANSON PHDJun 22, 2012
Getting caught up in wanting - wanting both to get what's pleasant and to avoid what's unpleasant - is a major source of suffering and harm for oneself and others.
First, a lot of what we want to get comes with a big price tag - such as that second cupcake, constant stimulation via TV and websites, lashing out in anger, intoxication, over-working, or manipulating others to get approval or love. On a larger scale, the consumer-based lifestyle widespread in Western nations leads them to eat up - often literally - a huge portion of the world's resources.
Similarly, much of what we want to avoid - like the discomfort of speaking out, some kinds of psychological or spiritual growth, standing up for others, exercising, being emotionally vulnerable, or really going after one's dreams - would actually be really good for oneself and others.
Second, some wants are certainly wholesome, such as wishing that you and others are safe, healthy, happy, and living with ease; it's natural to want to give and receive love, to express yourself creatively, to be OK financially, to be treated with respect, to make a big contribution, or to rise high in your career. And many things in life are pleasurable - some of my personal favorites are morning coffee with my wife, walking in wilderness, watching the SF Giants win the World Series last year, seeing kids flourish, writing these JOTs, and laughing with friends at dinner.
But even with wholesome wants and pleasures, trouble comes when we get driven about them - grasping after them, insisting that they continue, craving and clinging, taking it personally when there's a hitch, getting pushy, or staying in a tunnel with no cheese. The art is to pursue wholesome desires with enthusiasm, discipline, and skill without getting all hot and bothered about them - and to enjoy life's pleasures without getting attached to them.
For even the most enjoyable and fulfilling experiences always end. You are routinely separated from things you enjoy. And someday that separation will be permanotnent. Friends drift away, children leave home, careers end, and eventually your own final breath comes and goes. Everything that begins must also cease. Everything that comes together must also disperse.
Given this truth, grabbing after or clutching onto the things we want is hopeless and painful. To use an analogy from the Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah: if getting upset about something unpleasant is like being bitten by a snake, grasping for what's pleasant is like grabbing the snake's tail; sooner or later, it will still bite you.
Therefore, holding wants lightly is helpful in everyday life, bringing you more ease and less trouble from your desires, and creating less trouble for others - even across the world. And if you take it all the way to its end, holding wants lightly is a powerful vehicle for liberation from all of the suffering rooted in desire.
HOW?
For starters, be aware of wanting inside your own mind. Try to notice:
* The ways in which desiring itself feels subtly tense or uncomfortable.
* The emotional pain of not getting what you want. Including disappointment, frustration, discouragement-perhaps even hopelessness or despair.
* The frequent discrepancy between the rewards you expected to get from a want, and what it actually feels like to fulfill it.
Similarly, notice that the anticipated pain from the things you want to avoid - especially things that would be good for you to open to or go after - is usually worse than the discomfort you actually feel. In effect, your brain is routinely lying to you, promising more pleasure and more pain than you will actually experience. The reason is that the pleasure and pain circuits of the brain are ancient and primitive, and they manipulated our ancestors to do things for their survival by overselling them about apparent opportunities and over-frightening them about apparent risks.
* The costs of pursuing the things you want, and the costs of trying to avoid some of the actually beneficial things you don't want. What is the cost/benefit ratio, really?
* The ways that every pleasant experience must inevitably change and end.
Next, imagine you are observing your wants from a great distance, like seeing them from on top of a mountain as if they are down in a valley below. Let them and go like clouds in the vast sky of awareness.
They are just one more mental content, like sensations, thoughts, or memories. Don't give them special status. They are just wants. You don't need to act on them. Usually, they'll just pass away after awhile.
Then, on paper or in your mind, make a list of problematic wants:
* Things you've wanted to get but are either not good for you or others, or come with too high a price.
* Things you've wanted to avoid, but are actually good for you and others.
Live with this list. Stare at it. Listen to what it says to you. Perhaps talk about it with others (maybe a therapist). Then make a plan for what you are committing to do about it. Honor this plan; if possible, tell others about it.
Also list wholesome wants that you would like to pursue more. (Some of these may be suggested implicitly by the list above of what you've wanted to avoid.) Hang out with this list for awhile, perhaps discussing it with others. Then make a sincere plan for what you are committing to do about it. Your wholesome wants will help crowd out the unwholesome ones.
I know what I am suggesting here about these two lists is a big deal, much easier said than done. I've been grappling lately with a couple of my own items on these lists, and it's not easy. But we can be aware of our issues forever - even mindfully aware! - while still never doing anything about them.
After you've stared at the garden for awhile... it's time to pull weeds and plant flowers.
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/hold-your-wants-lightly
1. We practice rites to attune ourselves with the natural rhythm of life forces marked by the phases of the Moon and the seasonal quarters and cross-quarters.
2. We recognize that our intelligence gives us a unique responsibility toward our environment. We seek to live in harmony with nature, in ecological balance offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept.
3. We acknowledge a depth of power far greater than is apparent to the average person. Because it is far greater than ordinary, it is sometimes called "supernatural", but we see it as lying within that which is naturally potential to all.
4. We conceive of the Creative Power in the Universe as manifesting through polarity -- as masculine and feminine -- and that this same creative Power lives in all people, and functions through the interaction of the masculine and feminine. We value neither above the other, knowing each to be supportive of the other. We value sexuality as pleasure, as the symbol and embodiment of Life, and as one of the sources of energies used in magickal practice and religious worship.
5. We recognize both outer worlds and inner, or psychological worlds -- sometimes known as the Spiritual World, the Collective Unconscious, the Inner Planes, etc. -- and we see in the interaction of these two dimensions the basis for paranormal phenomena and magickal exercises. We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary for our fulfillment.
6. We do not recognize any authoritarian hierarchy, but do honor those who teach, respect those who share their greater knowledge and wisdom, and acknowledge those who have courageously given of themselves in leadership.
7. We see religion, magick, and wisdom-in-living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it -- a world view and philosophy of life, which we identify as Witchcraft or the Wiccan Way.
8. Calling oneself "Witch" does not make a Witch -- but neither does heredity itself, or the collecting of titles, degrees, and initiations. A Witch seeks to control the forces within him/herself that make life possible in order to live wisely and well, without harm to others, and in harmony with nature.
9. We acknowledge that it is the affirmation and fulfillment of life, in a continuation of evolution and development of consciousness, that gives meaning to the Universe we know, and to our personal role within it.
10. Our only animosity toward Christianity, or toward any other religion or philosophy-of-life, is to the extent that its institutions have claimed to be "the one true right and only way" and have sought to deny freedom to others and to suppress other ways of religious practices and belief.
11. As American Witches, we are not threatened by debates on the history of the Craft, the origins of various terms, the legitimacy of various aspects of different traditions. We are concerned with our present, and our future.
12. We do not accept the concept of "absolute evil," nor do we worship any entity known as "Satan" or "the Devil" as defined by Christian Tradition. We do not seek power through the suffering of others, nor do we accept the concept that personal benefits can only be derived by denial to another.
13. We work within nature for that which is contributory to our health and well-being.
-- These principles were adopted by The Council of American Witches in 1974.
*From Bewitching Ways*
"
Valkyrie by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1869)
In his Geographica" of 23 AD, the encyclopedia written in Greek by the Roman Strabo, the author writes of the priestesses of the Cimbri, a Germanic tribe located in what is now Denmark. "Their wives," he writes, "who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise."
There is further historical evidence of these ritual leaders. The Arab writer Ibn Fadlan described a viking funeral rite that he witnessed in 921 AD on the shore of the Volga River in Russia. He writes of the "Angel of Death" that presides over the proceedings, including the killing of a young slave girl who is burned with the dead chieftain. The older woman is "in charge of the whole ceremony, from the dressing of the cadaver to the execution of the slave." She was "a strapping woman, massively built and austere of countenance." When the final moments come, "the men began to beat their shields with wooden sticks, to stifle the cries of the slave girl, so that other girls would not take fright and refuse to die with their masters." This noise-making echoes that of the Cimbri priestesses almost a thousand years earlier. The grisly ritual reaches its climax when the men involved in the ceremony "made her lie at the side of her dead master. Two held her hands and two her feet, and the Angel of Death wound a noose around her neck ending in a knot at both ends which she placed in the hands of two men, for them to pull. She then advanced with a broad-bladed dagger which she plunged repeatedly between the ribs of the girl while the men strangled her until she was dead." The role of the Germanic priestess either changed over time, was different in different tribes, or had a complex makeup that included both prophecy from the high-seat and a leadership role in ritual sacrifice. Ibn Fadlan worked with an interpreter, and it seems clear that his "Angel of Death" is the same as the Norse "chooser of the slain."
In 1014, the Anglo-Saxon bishop named Wulfstan published his "Sermo Lupi ad Anglos" ("Sermon of the Wolf to the English"). In a time-honored tradition that continues to this day, he blamed a great calamity (in this case, thirty years of viking raids) on the his own country's lack of moral fiber. He lists a catalog of the most grievous types of sinners that surrounded him, including "wiccan and waelcyrian" - witches and valkyries. This is not a mystical list of devils, but a human list that includes murderers and robbers. Evidently, there were still active wise women and prophetesses at this late date.
These women were, for obvious reasons, bloody and terrifying. It is understandable that whispered tales would grow up around them, especially given the idea in Germanic society that women had mysterious powers to begin with. This gave rise to the mythological concept of the valkyrie as magical maiden that flies above the battlefield, choosing the slain in a mystic sense by marking certain warriors for death in battle. The earthly woman who chooses those who are to be sacrificed evolved into the heavenly war-maiden who magically marks those who are doomed to die on the battlefield. The physical appearance of the original human figures - cloaked, wearing a girdle of bronze, and carrying a sword - is replicated in the mythological descriptions of the warrior-goddesses. Freya in her falcon cloak can be seen as a super-valkyrie, as a primal version of the horse-riding warrior goddesses of the late mythology.
Hollywood's programming about exotic villains embrace never really altered. The studios further bad guys from countries everyplace they embrace no beneficial stake... or from Britain. They go to sky-scraping lengths not to compromise the capitalist projection of their movies by lawbreaker audiences in the countries everyplace they are individualistic away from home. Their graciousness has never unfolded to the Brits. They realise that we determination go and see their movies regardless, even if an Alan Rickman or a Basil Rathbone, a Claude Rains, a George Sanders or a Jeremy Shackles is cast as the contemporary imprint of the devil humanize.We Brits keep tough perennials in Hollywood's hit balance of torturers, bombers, kidnappers and widespread all-round troublemakers but the citizenship of the other villains of vote is in a lasting gain of shakiness. The Germans had the top villainous perception for total reasons in the mind part of the move along century. Russians in the Unsympathetic War were a careful fountain of antagonists. The French - "cheese-eating give up monkeys" as they were demonised modish the dark days of George W Flowering shrub - embrace flitted in and out of course. The Japanese were bad guys in the Second Construction War and for that reason anew in the 1980s and 1990s, being their car and electronics manufacturers were drubbing their American competitors.Gone the US studios pained to impose a curfew a storage in the fast budding Chinese manage, it is zealously a very bad icon to embrace too patronize movies with heavy Rambo types sack on Red Services crowd, opium smugglers or cyber hackers. The especially applies to the Meeting place Eastern and North African manage. India (point in the right direction the Part of an empire Group) is or else limit endorse big American movies. Distended Falsehood...Linked POSTS: * IRAN VS HOLLYWOOD: TEHRAN VOWS State of affairs V OSCAR-WINNING ARGO... * "PENTAGON INFLUENCES HOLLYWOOD AND HAS Finished AMERICANS Further WAR-LIKE..." * DAVID ICKE ON "JOHN WAYNE AMERICA" * ANGELINA JOLIE: Wolf IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING? * HOLLYWOOD AND OBAMA... * ARE Selected HOLLYWOOD STARS Secret CIA OPERATIVES? * NORTH KOREAN Skin BLASTS WESTERN Advertise AND State...
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