PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Keywords: Self-Awareness, Introspection, Duality, Meditation, Inner Wisdom


Reflection represents the still and calm waters of introspection, inviting us to gaze into the mirror of our own soul. This feature of water embodies the power of self-awareness, urging us to turn our attention inward and explore the depths of our own consciousness, and our subconscious.

Like the serene surface of a lake, reflection offers a calm space for meditation, allowing us to quiet the mind and tune into our inner wisdom. This modern world has a tendency to cut us off from our true selves and our wisdom. But we must be willing to slow, stop, be still and observe ourselves, see how we are reflected in the world and in others around us. This is how we come to know ourselves, which we must before we can really know and understand others.

Reflections can reveal more than just what is seen on the surface. Scrying into water, glass, and other reflective objects is an ancient art that is an especially potent way to tap into our inner knowing. Different things may be revealed when in a trance state or altered state of consciousness, when we can see beneath the surface literally and figuratively.

Reflection represents the duality of our nature, highlighting the tension between the conscious and subconscious, the rational and intuitive, and the light and shadow aspects of our being. Just as water can reflect our physical image, so too can these reflections reveal our inner truths, desires, and fears. By embracing this duality, we can integrate our conflicting aspects and discover a more harmonious and balanced state of being. But we can’t know or integrate what we can’t see or accept.

When Reflection appears, it may indicate a need to slow down, quiet the mind, and listen to our inner voice. It can signal a period of introspection, self-reflection, and meditation, guiding us to explore our thoughts, emotions, and desires. By embracing the stillness and calm of reflection, we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us, and better determine who we want to be and where we want to go.




Copyright © 2024 Meredith Everwhite – All Rights Reserved

Many of our full moon names come from medieval books of hours or from Native American spirit-ways. Here is a list of rare names from these two branches of traditions that you may want to use in your lunar rituals.

January: Old Moon, Chaste Moon; this fierce Wolf Moon is the time to recognize your strength of spirit

I was wearing my teasing little red shorts,

you were following me through the woods.

I kind of thought you were after me.

So did she, apparently, but you ended up

with her that night instead. So we didn't.

Decades later, I message you at Samhain,

wishing happy new year. I don't text,

you text back, call. But I don't call,

knowing the overwhelming torrent of words

would drown me. So we don't.

Now, if anywhere, you walk the flowering plains

of the Land of Youth, piping among the apple trees.

This spell can be used to meet someone new or to bring on a new phase in an existing relationship. On a Monday morning before dawn, light one pink and one blue candle. Touch each candle with rose or jasmine oil. Lay a red rose before the candle and a glass of water atop a mirror. Chant:

Healing starts with new beginnings.

The deer was lying in the middle of the road. There was no way he was going to avoid hitting it.

My friend and a buddy were on long haul to a heathen gathering. Flying down the Interstate in the early October dusk, they'd been driving all day; his companion was asleep in the passenger seat. In retrospect, my friend thinks that he'd been on the verge of drifting off himself, when suddenly the deer—as it were—materialized right in front of him.

My friend swerves to avoid it, but it's too late. With an explosive boom, the driver's side wheel ricochets off the deer, and the truck actually rears up on its two side tires. A rollover seems inevitable.

Somehow, my friend manages to wrestle the truck, now careening for the ditch, back down onto all fours. He hauls hard on the wheel, spraying gravel. When he finally regains control, he pulls over and stops, and—his friend now rudely awake—the two of them sit there a long while just breathing, badly shaken.

“I've got to go move that carcass,” my friend says, finally. You don't go leaving dead deer laying in the middle of the road for someone else to hit.

My friend gets out. He checks the front of the vehicle. Oddly, the impact doesn't seem to have done any damage. He checks underneath, where he'd heard the buck's body bouncing; no damage there, either. Looking skyward, eyes closed against the sudden gentle rain, he murmurs a prayer of thanks and kisses the truck full on the hood. Then he goes around back to get a tool to help move the body.

They're on their way to a heathen gathering. The only tool they have with them that could possibly be of any use is a reproduction Viking Age ax.

My friend takes the ax and starts walking. On the way he thinks: A big guy with a big beard in a leather biker jacket, walking down the side of the road, hefting an ax. This is gonna look really good.

He walks for maybe a quarter of a mile before he gets to the deer: once a 300-pound lord of the prairie, now a mess of tangled legs and blood. With the help of the ax, he manages to drag it off of the road.

Saying a few words to send the deer on its way, he spots a broken antler laying in a pool of blood. He picks it up and pockets it.

He walks back to the truck and gets in. That's when the state trooper pulls up.

He leans into the open window. “We had a report of a big guy walking along the side of the road with an ax,” he says.

“That would be me,” my friend tells him. “I hit a deer about a quarter mile back, and didn't want to leave it in the middle of the road.”

“Oh,” says the cop. “Did you boys want the meat?”

No, they didn't. They drive off, and eventually arrive safely at the gathering.

Unpacking, they find that one of the two bottles of killer home-brewed mead that they've brought with them has broken.

His buddy chafes at the loss, but my friend is content.

“When we reared up on two tires, I prayed: Get me out of this, and I'll pour you out a bottle of mead,” he said.

The truck could have been totaled. They could both have been injured, or killed. Instead, the only casualties were a deer, and a bottle of mead.

My friend finishes his story. We both take a sip of beer.

They say there are thirteen—thirteen, count 'em—Green Men down at Merlin's Rest.

Can you find them all?

How Merlin's Rest became the pagan pub in town, I'm not sure.

(Because it's British, and pagans tend toward the Celtophilic? Because you can kilt up there, and any self-respecting pagan guy will happily don his nine yards at the drop of an athame? Because it's adjacent to the pagan neighborhood?)

For whatever reason, it's been the local pagan pub for years, which here in Paganistan is saying something. Go there, and you'll pretty much always see other pagans.

Actually, pagans being pagans, you'll probably hear us first.

For a long time, the local Druids met-up there weekly. (In fact, modern Druidry got its start at a public house in London, in 1781. Draw your own conclusions.) Whether or not they still gather there post-covid, I don't know.

Heathens, witches, Druids: Merlin's serves them all.

(No, not that Merlin: this is merlin the falcon.)

If pubs have secret Craft names, Merlin's must be The Green Man.

Chanting the Wedding Blessings

Hereabouts, just before a couple jumps the broom, it's customary to chant over them the Threefold Wedding Blessing.

Thirty-two years ago, I chanted them over two dear friends; today, in honor of thirty-two years together (and wishing them thirty-two more) I'll chant them again.

As one would expect for a wedding, the blessings are paired. (Read closely: the pairings are not random.) After each pair of blessings, assembled family and friends will respond: So mote it be.

(We have it from the ancestors that, when you respond So mote it be to a blessing, it is considered as if you had pronounced the blessing yourself.)

Then they'll jump the broom.

The Wedding Blessings

Grace of form, grace of voice be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of charity, grace of wisdom be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of beauty, grace of health be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of sea, grace of land be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of music, grace of guidance be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of battle-triumph, grace of victory be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of life, grace of praise be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of love, grace of dancing be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of pipe, grace of harp be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of sense, grace of reason be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of speech, grace of story be thine.

So mote it be.

Grace of peace, grace of all be thine.

So mote it be.