Letters From the Devil's Forest Part Two - On the Blackchair with Robin Artisson

Letters From the Devil's Forest Part One - On the Blackchair with Robin Artisson

Season's Greetings

Here's to the bright New Year

 And a fond farewell to the old;

 Here's to the things that are yet to come

 And to the memories that we hold.

image by Jane Brighton

Crossroad Conjure Craft Part Two

The crossroads, a place of power where Conjure Craft begins...

The most common form of a crossroad is the intersection of two, preferably dirt, roads forming an equal armed cross.  In Appalachian folklore The Man at the Crossroads, also known also as the Black Rider, orchestrates power at this location.  Medieval witches were known to 'Meet with the Devil' at crossroads by venturing to these unattended places in order to sell their soul for power.  The Dark Rider is not the devil, that's another religion's boogeyman.  Traveling to the crossroads is a form of self-initiation showing one's commitment to 'the work' in order to create a 'link'; selling one's soul is neither necessary nor part of this practice.

The Dark Rider

If you're interested in learning the art of conjure it's advised that you travel to the nearest crossroads where the Dark Rider rules the realm of communication between mortals and the Higher Powers, it's here that you can ask His aid.

Dark Rider Offerings

He appreciates a gift or two and has a fondness for rum, candy, palm oil, cigars, sweet black coffee, and/or sweet potatoes, and while you're at it, bring some humility with you, His power is much greater than yours will ever be, so lower your self-importance accordingly.

Crossroads' Keys

Keys have been used to symbolize the unknown, secrets and the sacred for centuries.  Hekate carries keys to the Gates to the Underworld. They clink gently as they hang from her hip.  She fondles them with a familiarity we could all imitate when it comes to entering mysterious places.  Keys unlock the qualities of the upper realms which consist of the practitioner's mind, body and spirit. Unlocking the potential of the crossroads is possible wherever you carry a skeleton key, that is, once you perform the rest of the rite. 

What to Bring

Bring two skeleton keys, as similar in design as possible that you have cleansed of mundane connections; a small bottle or jar or rum, a cigar and matches. Travel to the crossroads on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday night around midnight.

Upon arrival, pour some rum in the center of the crossroads, light the cigar and place it respectively on the ground.  Begin to sing or hum a tune that you know well or compose one on the spot as creatively is always appreciated. Understandably, this may take some time.  You know what they say about conjure craft; it's a 'practice'. 

"Listen', my teacher says, 'and with time you'll become aware of the sound of hooves on the night air pierced by the bay of a hound; with time it'll change, you'll hear 'em right on the road comin' up behind ya.  Wait.  Breathe.  Don't be tempted to turn around, it's rude and inadvisable. Now, when their approach ceases you'll feel His presence right behind ya, along with the snort and whinny of His mount.  The still night air will ring in your ears makin' ya deaf to all but your heartbeat.  Don't be surprised if the hair on the back of ya neck prickles an' ya stomach tightens....it's then ya'll know the times' upon ya." 

I can tell you this...take a long deep breath, then with clarity and strength of purpose ask Him to grant you a little Mojo for your talisman; ask that 'it' be imbued into the object you've brought with you to house that purpose. 

It's best to continue to stand quite still; seconds, even minutes, pass so very slowly at this point.  You've gotta 'sense' the Dark Rider's answer in your heart because He won't speak directly to you.  He weighs your request quite carefully and likes to sum up the situation in order to understand what it is you really desire; that hidden, unspoken intention down deep in the subconscious where it shields things so calculatedly.

Where does your desire come from?  Perhaps your ego?  Hmmmm, maybe.  What do you really want to accomplish? And is what you want good over all, or only good for you? Do you think that this 'self-initiation' protects you from the greater powers that affect your life?  It won't and He'll read you like a dime store novel, so fess up and be honest about this little exploration for power before you venture out on the road at night.

The Dark Rider's wise; He's a teacher who smiles and chuckles; He knows that you'll be taught a thing or two whether you like it or not.  That being said, most times the answer to this particular request of Him is 'yes.'  Be prepared for your hand to sweat as He permeates your talisman with a bit of His Mojo. Its okay to hold the keys in a death grip, that's all the better really, it'll mix a little of 'you' into them.  After you return home it's up to you; doing the work that is.  Strengthen your craft and build on what's been bestowed.  Conjure Craft is about 'doing,' not about asking for something and expecting it will be done for you.  That won't happen.  Be prepared to kneel in muck sometimes, get your hands dirty in a heady and visceral way.  There's no 'figuratively speaking' with this arte. 

Okay, now it's time to snuff out what's left of that cigar and skedaddle home.

On the next new moon finish what you started, or what The Dark Rider has started for you; it's waiting for you and remains to be done.

On that day, take a little olive oil; coat your keys with it letting your fingers feel their every detail.  Using a length of red yarn, measure from your left wrist to your heart while extending your left arm completely;  cut the yarn to length; carefully wind the it around the middle of the keys binding them together so that they're held together 'as one'.

Within this time-honored practice it's customary to wind some of your own hair in with the yarn, anointing them with a bodily fluid such as spittle, which is a powerful ingredient, also deepens the connection to you and them, making you partners.  Carry the key bundle on your person for one full cycle of the moon; let the magic build as the moon builds.  Personally, I like the idea of having them with me in this fashion for three turns of the lunar cycle; three is a magical number that I work with often with fruitful results.  Sleep with them; have them beside you when you eat your meals; handle them as often as possible, but always out of sight of questioning eyes.  When the time is right, and you'll 'know', revisit the crossroads on a full moon.

Bring with you:  a good sharp blade, your key bundle, some rum and a shovel or trowel. 

Do this after midnight, say around 3 am.  Upon reaching the center of the crossroad dig a hole where the roads intersect. Dig it down as deep as you can. Using the blade you've brought, cut the keys free of one another, save a short length of yarn, (enough to wind around one key about three times). Have one key and a bit of yarn in your left hand and drop the other key with the remaining yarn that once bound them together, with your right, into the hole.  Still using your right hand, fill in the hole using a tool and stamping on the surface to flatten and smooth it over as best you can. 

Now, take the small length of yarn that you've saved, and wind it 'round the center of the key you've retained, firmly tying it off.  This is your personal 'key to the crossroads', you will always be connected to this place because its twin rests secretly at its center.  Finally, close your eyes and thank the Dark Rider for His aid.  When you perform magic wear your key.

Your journey to the crossroads has been a moment of truth and the 'solo initiation of your intent' as a practitioner.  You'll return to the crossroads in the future as part of your practice.  The seed has been planted; but remember, the success of your conjure is up to you.

Another type of crossroads, often overlooked, is formed by a bridge crossing swift running water and this, like the crossroads, is a catalyst of otherworldly connection.  Through prayer, while facing the water, let the water carry to you what you desire, with your back to the flow, release that which no longer serves. 

Speaking to your ancestors while standing on a bridge can create a potent connection to them and their ability to send you aid in the form of dreams.

When need arises, you can create a crossroads in your home by simply casting a circle of power or compass 'round.  Using sea salt, mark the center with an X.  The X can be creatively changed using dots resembling a #5 gambling die pattern instead.

This quincunx symbol is used quite often in magical work. A cast circle symbolizes the microcosm; the space outside the circle, the macrocosm, where these two realms overlap ignites a magical current where change can take place in the physical realm.  Place your talisman in the center while you work.

Disposal of Tricks

Practitioners of the old ways tend to end up with bits of ash, candle stubs, charred paper, honey jar contents and other magical remnants from time to time from various spells and petitions.  Considered unwise and extremely unlucky to throw these bits and bobs into the trash, the crossroads become a perfect magical waste bin where the energies are separated by the four directions, and returned and to the elements of their creation.  When doing healing magic, the illness that you remove can be disposed of at the crossroads in order to keep it from returning to the client. 

The crossroads is a place where the frequency of travel, either on foot or in vehicles, is said to 'keep the mojo movin'.

With Heart and Without Harness

My practice has changed over the past five years.  I currently embrace a more visceral, intuitive practice.  The elements within Traditional Witchcraft which is my path, are referred to as The Craft walked by The People or the Pellar Current; and this is a spiritual journey that leads one into a different wood; one that has no manicured path on which to travel. I heartily welcome that perspective and reality.  It is also one that pre-dates the Gardnerian influence that most pagans are familiar with today and from which most traditions are birthed including that of the Chalice Well Tradition of which I am a founder.

 The devotional powers I'm drawn to now include the Wildwood Lord, the Ruby Mouthed Lady and the Grand Bucca also known as Bucca Gam.  Both the Wildwood Lord and the Bucca represent the light and dark elements of the cyclical landscape which include the powers of life and death. However, the Wildwood Lord has no androgynous quality about him as is referred to when dealing with the Sabbatic Goat of the Witches. 

Upon exploration of Cornish Witchcraft back in 2007, I was reluctant to dismiss the lord and lady whom I personally venerate. However after an introduction I meditated on the information surrounding the mysterious Bucca and realized that I could incorporate that relationship into my daily focus without relinquishing my gods.  I can report that after six years all is well. The Wildwood Lord, the Dark Lady, creators and inhabitants in the land, and the Bucca, initiator of the path and influencer of the seasonal tides are all honored on a regular and contented basis.  As if slipping my hands into an old pair of gardening gloves, veneration of the triple energies has deepened and heightened my devotional practice and allowed me greater ease in my work.

Now, for those who might not be familiar with the famous, or infamous, Bucca figure, the Cornish Folk Story "Duffy and the Bucca" also known as  'Duffy and the Devil' tells the tale. You can find it via this site: http://www.cornishwitchcraft.co.uk/duffy-and-devil.html but understand there is far more to this figure than can be captured in a story, poetry or song.

 Additional folklore surrounds the Cornish fisherman and their relationship, of sorts, with the Bucca, Bucca Dhu in particular.  Viewed more as a hobgoblin who demands three fish out of every catch, fisherman still leave payment on the shore without protest.  Here is a piece explaining the folklore concerning Buccas:

Here is William Bottrell's description in 1890 of this practice:

'It is uncertain whether Bucka can be regarded as one of the fairy tribe; old people, within my remembrance, spoke of a Bucka Gwidden and a Bucka Dhu - by the former they meant good spirit, and by the latter an evil one, now known as Bucka boo. I have been told, by persons of credit, that within the last forty years it was a usual practice with Newlyn and Mousehole fishermen to leave on the sand at night a portion of their catch for Bucka.'

Living near the ocean again after too many years away, I do feel the presence of this curious and supreme deity of oceanic pulse as well as through the weather, which here on the peninsula is varied and extremely fierce at times.  No bother, I have no regrets as to the intensity of living this far north. by the sea.  It suits me just fine.

No matter the story, the scare or the glory, today it is agreed by most practitioners of the Pellar Craft that observation of the opposing twin aspects/selves addressed within the Bucca as Bucca Gwidder and Bucca Dhu in particular is satisfying.  Bucca Dhu contains and expresses the ‘black spirit’ of energy, the storm surge, the rendering of that which was once whole.  Called the Dark God or Devil, Bucca Dhu influences spirit communication, dark moon revelry, defensive or otherwise known as dark magic which could involve blasting or defensive magic, the unconscious realms, and tides of the unseen.  It is this aspect that rules the dark half of the year from Allentide to May's Eve.   

Although many who know very little of this deity would presume that the darker side is the only character that witches would gather 'round or beckon audience but there is another side to his mysterious persona, that of Bucca Gwidder. also known as 'the fair'. 

Bucca Gwidder the 'white spirit' presiding over the light half of the year from May's Eve to Allentide is the benevolent side of nature.  Addressed as the 'fair one' it presides over fair weather, beneficial rains, regenerative magic, healing and protection and the power of the broad white moon shining across plowed fields at midnight.  It appears that Bucca Gwidder is indeed the more approachable side of the Bucca's nature.    

Bucca Gam, is the reflective polarities of the male and female gender and the mystery that bridges them; the ebb and the flow, the rise and the decent of the current of power.  As with all opposites Bucca Gam brings them together in a marriage that bestows balance, stability and clear vision, all necessary traits for one who walks the Crooked Path.   The Bucca is the Grand Initiator; the Leader on the Road; the Resolver of Opposites. Depicted by many including myself, by a goat skull with a candle affixed between the horns, this symbolically joins Dhu and Gwidder, the afore discussed opposites, thus creating magical equilibrium. The light Betwixt the Horns is a pure light shining in the darkness of ignorance bringing forth the light of wisdom.

 Comprehending the aspects of Bucca Gam, came rather easily to me given my reverence and understanding of the Wildwood Lord, the stag antlered god the ruler of the forest behind my home and all of the wild and untamed places throughout the natural landscape.  Some might compare his wild nature as untamed where the goat energy of the Bucca might be miscalculated as having a domesticated nature.  Nothing could be farther from the point.  In my experience I do not feel a harnessed power when I connect with the Bucca and its authority.  Never fear, there's no  castration of power here.

Understand, the Wildwood God is not the tame all father figure found in many new age circles by any means.  There is no polarity of the sexes coursing through his veins.  He is unto himself, all male, raw and the unfettered nature of blood, tooth and claw that I have written about elsewhere on this blog.  Given that his different aspects do have dual aspects, that of the Holly and the Oak or Summer and Winter Kings, the relinquishing and claiming actions at the light and dark halves of the year are carried out by energies one would not care to meet at the height of their rein.

 The Oak King is not unlike Bucca Gwidder with the season of expansion, regeneration and calmer seasonal weather.  The Holly, like Bucca Dhu, rides the harsher tides, ruling death and decay, the bleaker times within and without. 

As with all things to do with nature, the calm and the harsh, the path of the practitioner is not an easy path, hardly 'glitter strewn' or close cropped through a tidy wood.

 Traditional Witchcraft is therefore for those with heart and without harness.

Devoted

I am devoted to 'the Lady' and have been from a very early age and my attention is unwavering.  Although her form has changed as I have changed, the Lady as I see her in relation to traditional witchcraft has no man-inspired name or agreed upon garb. She does not fit into any given pantheon nor does she emerge from some convenient mold of tribe or continent.

She birthed me, sustains me through the elements and will receive my remains when I die.  I ask no more of her than this.  She is the nimbleness of my hands as they work her arte and the strength I draw on when I sit at the bedside of an ill or dying person.  She is the raw understanding of the reality of life that I receive through her tutelage as a witch and as a confidant to the Unseen Company.

Underneath all of the images that make the unknowable easier to comprehend is the inescapable current of life, death and rebirth.  She has taught me this through my life's experience.  I drink from the stream that is nature's grail and my nourishment.  I have come to admire her rhythm  for what she is, has always been and will continue to be long after my walk upon the landscape of her robe has ceased in its present form.  

Although both male and female in the procreation of life I sense this form of the goddess as formless motherhood; a mother who feeds, sustains, guides and receives; a mother with teeth.

Nature - the Gentlest Mother Is

Nature the gentlest mother is,

Impatient of no child,

The feeblest of the waywardest.

Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill

By traveller be heard,

Restraining rampant squirrel

Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation

A summer afternoon,

Her household her assembly;

And when the sun go down,

Her voice among the aisles

Incite the timid prayer

Of the minutest cricket,

The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep,

She turns as long away

As will suffice to light her lamps,

Then bending from the sky

With infinite affection

An infiniter care,

Her golden finger on her lip,

Wills silence everywhere.

by Emily Dickinson

Winter's Fist

The temperature is predicted to climb ever so slowly out of single digits. The week ahead may see it dance into the thirties. This forecast feels like a heat-wave wearing a jester's hat poking fun at us.  Anyone this far north knows that after the 'January thaw' comes the 'February freeze'.

Last night the wind howled a ballad of which we are all to familiar this time of year. It rushed across acres of land and our house could only brace itself.  Walls remarked in quick shrill sounds of protest against it's gusting weight.  Fey fingers found tiny openings in window frames and sketched the nights activities with icy thin fingers across the glass.  I huddled closer to the stove, posturing for space taken up by cats.

This morning the crows stepped lightly cross the snow in our yard like funeral directors with hands behind their backs in solemn reflection.  They pretended not to hear the noisy protests from an audience of turkeys stalking them from the woodland edge.  

I've noticed that the owls have gone quiet, I image they retreat into thicker sections of cedar, hemlock and pine this time of year.  They do not frequent the offerings we leave for other visitors, preferring, of course, game with a heartbeat.

My walk to the inlet brought the meaning of 'deep freeze' brilliantly into perspective.  The beauty of the frozen waterway, a white shroud thrown across the shore and winter's silence.  Against the curtain of cold I tried to console myself that this was a time of rest and renewal for all living things, that spring was not far behind.  The image of a green world was conjured from what felt like a distant memory.  

The Old Ones in this hinterland reach for anything warm. Their bone brittle fingers waiting to grow new skin when planting season comes.  Having petitioned the sun with customs losing favor in an technological world, I am like so many of my kind, heartened by the reassurance of what rituals can secure.

Rituals aside, spring will come, regardless, it always does.

Old Winter King

 

Up rose the wild old winter-king,

And shook his beard of snow;

"I hear the first young hard-bell ring,

 'Tis time for me to go!

Northward o'er the icy rocks,

 Northward o'er the sea,

My daughter comes with sunny locks:

This land's too warm for me!"

Charles Godfrey Leland

Wildwood Lord

The Wild-wood Lord is the energy of the land. Although antlered and animal-like, there is a human quality that startles and beckons the crafter into a different woodland glade.

The Wild-wood Lord is nature at it's core. There is no father-figure here. Standing off at a distance his gaze is fixed, eyes feral, his breath hot and rhythmic. Humbled, your heartbeat quickens, you dare not pull your gaze for fear he might leap beyond your comfortable boundary, to what end you cannot predict.

As witches, we understand this figure as the true and vital force of nature in the raw. No climbing into this All-Father's lap for comfort; for this is not the Hero of the Forest as told in popular myth. Dealings with this unvarnished aspect of the land can be dangerous for those who think that their relationship will be different, or safe. Caution is the action to keep foremost in ones' mind.

There are two cycles to his lordship outside of the guardian of the animals, field and stream.  They are similar in their title but not in aspect. Known as reign of the Winter and Summer Kings, their royal authority in this form does not change at the popular solstice celebrations marked by modern Wiccan calendars. As with the shifting of seasonal tides, they change as nature changes, in an authentic way, not light for dark or dark for light, but by a subtle shifting, a gradual integration called Tides.

Holly and the Oak are the mantles this aspect dons. The timing of this exchange is through the demonstration of the oak. Looking to the holly through the seasons of a given year we see it as unchanging, an evergreen whose subtle increase or decline of power is hidden from us. The oak on the other hand is a deciduous tree and this is the herald of the exchange of crowns.

Within the Old Ways many view this rulership beginning in the spring, when buds appear, and the summer half of the light-divided year begins anew. What better time than at this, known as Roodmas, to become a King and rule the land with vitality. His reign ends when leaves turn ruddy-brown, dropping to the ground and the first frost covers the fields.

With the arrival of summer's end he removes his oak circlet; standing stiff in sinew and bone, the Holly King rules the windswept field and leafless branch. Now, hollow-eyed,  breath, sharp, smelling of death and decay, his attention fixed on the purpose ahead; to gather up the wandering spirits of the passing year.  With a spectral group of huntsman by his side, phantasmal horses with wild mane and blowing steam shift their weight, hounds race forward in mad pursuit across the hardened ground.  This is the frenzied clamor and thunder hooves of The Wild Hunt of Souls.

My path as a witch is one trodden with eyes wide open, not impaired by a long ago child's innocence. There are no faery glittered glades with toadstool pixies whispering tidings of good cheer in the woods I wander.  No bother, I prefer the eldrich-kind of shadowy glen and weird forgotten hollow.

As a witch I touch, smell and taste life, unafraid knowing full well what the Wild-wood Lord embodies, and I accept it without objection.

The Lady

The Lady is Life, from birth through recycled remains.  As nature is her ensemble, all the aspects within nature are part of her train; they trail in her wake glistening with beauty and death.  The Lady is Youth, Maturity and Decay.The lessons we are taught are divulged through the stages of life; all life, not just the egocentric lives of man and woman-kind.  She is not maiden, mother and crone for these are figures neatly structured to meet our expectations which is clearly not her station.

Our education at her knee contains nurture and wrath; how we perceive this is ours alone,for life, full of the energy-force, merely 'is'.  She is the power of the seasons we call the 'Tides', not the dropping leaves of autumn, but the force that makes them fall.

We are the stumbling interpreters, arms and hands outstretched, fingers wiggling, tripping over obstacles until we learn how to navigate the darkened room which is her realm.  She is there, in the dark, watching; never fully revealed. The Lady is the faint aroma that fades the instant we think we can identify its source and the texture of something 'more' contained in the soil that slips through our eager fingers.

As a mother in the wild She can suckle us and devour us.... sometimes in the same moment. 

She waits patiently as the Lady of the Cauldron; helping us to descend into the cosmic ooze housed in Her Castle of Roses to live, love, and be reborn another day, in another way.  The Lady is the power of 'Will' and The Lord is that which 'Manifests'.

Although the world evolves and changes the Lady remains. She does not follow.  Her methods may reveal aspects and abilities that are not predictable ....... ones we are not comfortable witnessing or experiencing.  She will make you change whether you come to it through surrender or kicking and screaming.  For what is change really?  What is easy may not be what is best and what is best may not be easy. Change happens...

The Ruby-Mouthed Lady is the 'Unstoppable Continuation of Nature'.  With this understanding we never underestimate the power in Her hands.

" Beloved Blood-Mother of my especial breed, 

Welcome me at this moment with your willing womb.....

for no one has lifted your veil, seen your face...and lived"

Quote from Witchcraft a Tradition Renewed - Doreen Valiente & Evan John Jones