Lammas. Lughnasadh and Lleu Llaw Gyffes

As I’m getting ready to upload this video, I’m also getting ready to celebrate Lammas, or Lughnasadh, on August 2nd.  This is my altar from last year, and this year’s altar is going to look very much the same. 

August 2nd was my father’s birthday, and my husband passed just after Lammas in 2020, so last year was a bit emotional for me and I wanted to make a good job of the celebration.

I’m lucky enough to live near to a spiritual training centre, and I've found it very helpful to go to the clairvoyance and open development circles, especially in the first year after my husband passed.  A couple of weeks before Lammas, one of the mediums approached me and said, “I don’t know what this means, but I’ve just be shown a stalk of wheat with two ears placed in your lap”.  I thought “Well, that’s interesting!” because I was wondering where to find some wheat to place on my altar.  

I have to confess that I am not fond of gardening and don’t spend much time in my back garden (or should I say jungle!).  I'm actually rather ashamed of it, to tell the truth - but not sufficiently ashamed to do anything about it. However, the weather was nice and I ventured outside to hang my washing out to dry and to charge my crystals in the sunshine.  And I saw half-a-dozen stalks of wheat, growing right there, and two of the stalks were so close together that it looked like one stalk with two heads.

I didn't plant that wheat.  I had no idea it was there, and I hadn't noticed it before - and although I don't spend much time in the garden, I did go out there quite a bit when the weather was fine.  Since my husband passed, there have been so many strange things happened that I know he hasn’t gone far away from me, and this definitely felt like a gift from him.  

I did harvest the wheat in time for Lammas and it’s there on my altar, and I saved it so it’ll be there again this year.  

At Lammas of Lughnasadh, we celebrate Lugh, the Irish god of light,  However, his Welsh counterpart is Lleu Llaw Gyffes, and he is commemorated on August 1st.  I learned about Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Welsh classes when I was in school, and I’d like to share the story with you.

Thank you for staying with me and I hope you enjoyed the video.  Until next time, merry meet, merry part, and may you have a blessed day.

Through a glass, darkly

You've heard of scrying using a crystal ball, of course.  The intro for my YouTube channel is an animation of my Bitmoji avatar gazing into a crystal ball and materialising the channel name. And I have three (yes, three) crystal balls about the house - one that my husband gave me as a birthday present, a small one that I bought for him to decorate his desk at work, and one that I got recently as a subscriber gift from a magazine.  I'm somewhat ashamed to say, however, that I don't have the patience to use them

Scrying with a crystal takes time and persistence. However, a crystal is just one way of getting in touch with your psychic senses.  Many people prefer a black (or dark) mirror.

A dark mirror is a curved (concave) surface that is painted black.  To use it, you meditate while gazing into a point on the curve, allowing your eyes to become unfocused.  Eventually,  visions will appear before your third eye.

Black mirrors used to be made from the curved glass that covered the face of old-time clocks or large pocket watches - and if you can find a suitable inexpensive clock in a junk shop then you might want to give it a try.  The glass was blackened by holding it above a candle flame and allowing the soot to coat the convex side, then stored in a shallow box.  If you preferred, you could make a flat mirror by blackening a piece of glass from a picture frame in the same way.  In either case, you had to be careful not to dislodge the soot.  I kept an eye open for a suitable piece of glass for years...and then I had a moment of inspiration.

I've loved playing with paper crafting for as long as I can remember, and paper craft has become very popular.  This means that there are a lot of products designed to separate us from our money on sale - and among them are these - 

PERFECT!

If you want to see how I made my black mirrors using the domes (and also a version using a Christmas bauble) then please do visit my YouTube channel - and if you feel so inclined, give me a like and subscribe.  You can get there from here - 

Bright Blessings, all!

Keren

(The Neighbourhood Witch)

What I did on my holidays!

 I've just had two weeks off from my day job.  So what, I hear you ask, did you do (apart, of course, from having a nice restful time)?  I did some witch crafting, of course!

Full disclosure - I came across Magical Crafting, a wonderful YouTube channel (go and take a look, you won't regret it!) and was inspired to give some of  the projects a try.  As ever with me, one thing led to another and I ended up undertaking a number of projects, but the thing that took up most of my time was brewing spell oils.

I am, at heart, the sort of witch that loves to brew mysterious potions (you're my hero, Professor Snape!).  I enjoyed myself immensely sourcing herbs (including some from my very own jungle garden) and other ingredients, bottling them in oil and then "cooking" them in pans of simmering water for hours to extract the magical properties.  (It's called "maceration", I believe).  When the weather turned warm, I lined the bottles up on the windowsill to absorb the sun's rays, and left them there at night at full moon.

I now have a well-stocked supplies cupboard.  And when some friends needed a little bit of magickal support, I was able to oblige.  Packaged up in tiny bottles with the appropriate crystals and a bonus witchy charm, I think they look rather cute.

I love how it looks like the moon is enjoying a cigar!  I'm not making any claims here, you understand...but one friend has been offered the job she wanted after being told that it was being offered to someone else.  Just sayin' - but I have high hopes for the other two!

Merry meet and merry part,

Keren

(The Neighbourhood Witch)

What's in the box?

 

Now, look.  I'm the first to tell you that you don't need all the fancy-schmancy kit to make successful magick.  I love the simplicity of chaos magick and I run a pretty nifty sigil workshop, if I do say so myself.  You don't NEED the hand-crafted athame or the crystal chalice.  You can work effective spells without all the crystals and the spell oils.  You just need yourself and a clear intention.

BUT - I do love all the paraphernalia.  The pendulums and statuettes of the deities appeal to the magpie instinct.  Having a collection of essential oils or crystals to add to spell jars gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.  I like the idea of getting a boxful of witchy goodness through the post.  So after some thought, I gave in and subscribed to Witch Casket.

Witch Casket is a family-run business.  If you subscribe, you can cancel at any time - there's no minimum subscription.  I thought the UK subscription cost of £29 per box was reasonable - much less than I'd spend on a night out with the girls! When you sign up, you'll get the next available box - I just missed the deadline for the June box so I had to wait for the July casket.  Was it worth the wait?  Well, I was very happy with what I received - everything is beautifully presented and just oozes quality.  The theme for this month was Potions, which suited me just fine (We love you, Snape!) You can watch me unbox the casket here - 

I will definitely be attempting a potion with the herbs provided, and if you want to see how I get on, please subscribe to my channel to get updates.

Have a blessed day everyone,

Merry meet & merry part,

Keren 

(The Neighbourhood Witch)