Continuing My Book of Shadows

Hello brothers and sisters!

It has been too long since I have last posted, life has been super busy and unexpected these last few months! I will try my best to catch you all up within one post!

As you may have guessed by the title, I have been doing a lot of work on my Book of Shadows. I am pleased to say that it is looking quite nice! I have also purchased my own cauldron and some more reading material.

As for my Book of Shadows, I have added quite a few pages in these last few months. I would like to share a few of them with you! I must admit that it is a lot more hard work than it seems. When creating a Book of Shadows, it’s not just a “craft”; it’s a life long project that you put your soul into. Yes, you can buy an already completed BOS, but the magick isn’t there, at all. If you make your own BOS, the effort and time that you put in makes it personal. By doing so, you add magick to it, and lots of it. A BOS is like a Bible, it’s sacred and can be passed down for generations.

I have done 14 pages and each page has taken me a few hours. Even though my BOS is very simple and not overly elegant, I want to make sure that it is worthy of my craft. Every page has magick embedded in the pages, because of all the hard work and time that I put into each page.

 

 

As you can see, my BOS isn’t very fancy/elegant. It is simple, much like myself. Yes there are typed portions, but that is only because (as you can see) my hand writing is awful. I still put it in because it adds even more magick to its pages than the glue alone does.

 

Alas, that is all the time I have for now. If you have any questions, or ideas of your own, please feel free to add them in the comments below!

 

Blessed be )O(

White Tiger

Creating My Book of Shadows

Recently, I have finally started creating my own Book of Shadows (BOS). I have talked in a previous post about what a Book of Shadows is. For more information, see the post “Book of Shadows”.

It has taken me almost two years to find my BOS, and it was definitely worth the wait. I found this leather-bound book with linen parchment pages at my favourite sore: The Magic Box in Stratford. It consists of 100 linen parchment pages, and is bound in genuine leather, and closes with a brass clasp. I had previously seen this book, and it had been calling to me for some time, but it was not the time to get it. At last, a couple weeks ago, I felt that it was time. I had become more mature on my path, and I am much more knowledgable than I was almost two years ago.

On the front page, I have written “Book of Shadows” and it is surrounded by a string of runes. Each of these runes has a special meaning to me, and to my Wiccan journey. Below that, you will see more runes. This is my Wiccan name spelled in runes (White Tiger). As you can see, I have done quite a bit of research to make sure that my BOS can be the best that it can be. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have even thought about inserting runes!

Every BOS has a prayer/blessing near the front of the book, I found one online that was perfect. A blessing/prayer is to protect your BOS from people who may come across it and do not want to use “good magic”, but instead wish to cause harm. It is also to insure that you yourself do not cause harm to others. It keeps the negative spirits at bay from it, and all around protects you BOS.

I am extremely excited to continue these pages with my journey down my Wiccan path.  Remember, this is my BOS, and is not THE BOS to use. Every BOS is unique to its owner, as it creates a stronger connection, and helps with your magick.

Thanks for reading!

Blessed Be,

White Tiger )O(

Past Life Meditation

Wow, all I can say is “wow”.

This evening I tried a past life meditation with a friend. I guided him, and then he guided me. What happened, I was definitely not expecting. If you are wanting to do this yourself, you don’t need much, but what you need, is important.

You’re going to want incense, your favourite preferably, as well as flame; whether it be a fire-pot or a candle. You are also going to want an amethyst, or some kind of psychic stone.

My friend made sure that I got comfortable. So i laid down and relaxed, putting the amethyst on my Third Eye.

This is the setup I had for my Past Life meditation.

I started in a room, an entrance way of some sort. There were paintings on the wall of my current life. As I walked past them, I see what I know of my life in them. I then walk to a door at the end of the entrance way, and open it. I walk into a hallway from my high school. I was guided to the first door and walked into it. Pure, white, blinding light engulfed me. I let the light settle and the first thing I saw was a bar. I felt like it was at home, in my basement. I walked around and saw antlers on the wall, a photograph of a man and a boy, probably myself and my son. I was holding a gun, and my son was smiling. I felt very proud looking at this photograph. Across from that was a fireplace with a mantle. My wedding photograph was there, but I had the sense that it wasn’t my first wedding, but my second. I then decided to sit back down and in front of me was a coffee table with an ashtray on it. Inside the ashtray was a burning cigar. I was guided to take a few drags, and I felt relaxed. Then I left the basement and went up the stairs. Feeling out of breath and shaky, I had the feeling that I was very elderly. When I get to the top, I went down the hallway into what I found out was my study. I felt out of breath (literally) so I sat down to catch my breath. [At this point in the mediation, I felt myself getting farther away from my physical body]. I looked around, and there was an elegant desk in front of me, and walls lined with bookshelves. There was a lamp on the desk, the kind with a drawstring and a green top. I couldn’t make out what was on the front page of the paper, but I know that it wasn’t a recent paper. All I could make out was a date: April 3rd, 1978. I then left the study to explore more. As I was heading to the next room, I felt that I knew what the paper was. A car crash, with a pickup truck, and I was the only survivor. Myself and my wife were in the car. I walked into the next room, my bedroom. It was massive, with a four-poster bed made of oak, dark stain, like the rest of the room. There was a painting across from the bed, but I couldn’t make it out. At this point, I feel like I have a lot of money, but I feel very lonely, and very bitter. Beside the table were a pair of glasses on a book; Sherlock Holmes. Also there was a glass with a liquid in it, probably for my teeth at night. I open the book and the bookmark was a wedding invite. I believe that it was my daughters, but the wedding had passed, and I don’t think I went. It was shortly after the accident (the wedding). At this point, I felt that I blamed my daughter for the accident because I was on my way to her house for some reason. Her name was Sarah Jane (first and middle name, not last). I felt very bitter and when my friend asked me if I wanted to continue, I said no, picked up a very old key that was on the table and put in my pocket and returned to the present.

When I returned, I felt heavy, and drained; physically and emotionally. The emotions of the meditation came back with me, so I drank some cranberry juice from my chalice. At first, the present was what felt like a dream, and not the meditation. It took some time for me to return to the present.

So, a word to the wise, if you are wanting to do this kind of meditation, please be warned that you will return with the emotions and memories of your meditation, and you may not like it. Please try to focus on the present to get away from your past life.

I believe that the key I obtained was for the next past life, and eventually, I would like to explore it.

Thank you for reading, and please, if you have any thoughts on this, please leave them in the comments below. I would very much like to hear your thoughts, and if you have done this yourself.

Blessed Be!

White Tiger )O(

Oracle Cards

Another great tool that you can have in your utility belt are Oracle cards. You have more than likely heard of Tarot cards, which are used for the same purpose. If you are just beginning to tone your psychic muscle, Oracle cards are the way to go. Tarot cards are complex, and follow a certain set of rules, and pattern in order to read them properly. Oracle cards are the opposite. They are vey easy to read, and they are bound no rules or patterns. For more information on the difference, go to http://www.daily-tarot-girl.com/2013/08/31/whats-the-difference-between-tarot-oracle-cards/ (this is where I got my information).

I recently got my first deck of Oracle cards. The deck is “Angels of Atlantis” Oracle, by Stewart Pearce, and illustrated by Richard Crookes. I went to The Magic Box in Stratford to get a Book of Shadow’s, but it was sold out, so I decided to start looking for my own Oracle deck. I didn’t know what deck I wanted, but this particular deck was calling me, so I purchased it. When I opened the deck, I was confused as to why this deck called me, so I asked my partner what she thought. She said that I  shouldn’t completely let go of my Catholic upbringing because there may be some aspects that I should incorporate it into my Wiccan life. To me, this makes sense.

The cards are absolutely gorgeous, I have a few samples to share with you as well:

The cover of my Oracle Card deck. Written by Stewart Pearce Illustrated by Richard Crookes.

I have done several readings since, and this seems to be a good deck to start with. Remember, if you’re looking for a deck, let the deck jump out at you, don’t pick it just because they look cool, or they’re “pretty”. Choose a deck that calls out to you.

Thanks for reading!

Blessed Be

White Tiger )O(

Yule

Yule is one of the simplest, yet most important Sabbats. It is essentially Wiccan Christmas. Fun fact, Christmas day is actually derived from Pagan tradition. Constatine, in order to keep the peace between Pagan’s and Christians, combined the holidays. Christmas would be around Yule, and Easter would be around Ostara or Beltane. Traditions were also derived from the Pagan’s. The Christmas tree, and the wreath, for example are Pagan traditions that the Christian’s adopted. This meeting was called the First Council of Nicaea, which took place on the first Easter (as we know it today). But more on that later.

Personally, I have never celebrated a Sabbat with others, because I have tried to keep my religious life separate from my social life. I have found out that one of my friends is also Wiccan. So, for Yule, I invited him over to celebrate with me. This is one of the best Sabbats to celebrate with others, as it celebrates the return of the God. So it is a very uplifting Sabbat.

This was also my first Yule that I have celebrated, so I would like to break it down for those who don’t know how to celebrate, or are just curious on how we had done it.

We setup our altar as we normally would, instead we combined aspects of each others altars’ and created one altar. We lit a fire as well as our candles, and recited the following when we lit the incense:

I sorrow not, though the world is wrapped in sleep

I sorrow not, though the icy winds blast

I sorrow not,  though the snow falls hard and deep

I sorrow not; this soon shall soon be past.

Then when we lit the fire we recited this passage from my Book of Shadows:

I light this fire in your honour; Mother Goddess.

You have created life from death; warm from cold;

the sun lives once again;the time of light is waxing.

Welcome, ever returning God of the sun!

Hail mother of all!

We used a fire pot from Green Earth, because it is a smokeless flame, so it is safe to use indoors. I follow up with this saying that the fire is still hot, and can still spread if you are not careful. Please use indoor fire pots at your own discretion.

While walking around our altar we walked around with the fire pot chanting:

The wheel turns;the power burns

I must say, while walking around the altar, chanting with the fire pot, I could feel an incredible increase in energy in my apartment. it was quite exciting.

We welcomed the return of the God and gazed again upon our flame and recited:

Great God of the sun,

I welcome your return.

May you shine brightly upon the Goddess;

may you shine brightly upon the earth,

scattering seeds and fertilizing the land.

All blessings upon you,

reborn one of the sun!

We then worked some magic, and he also gave me a gift of two necklaces which I only take off to shower.

The one that is closer to my neck, is the God and Goddess symbol combined into one pendant. The other is the classic Pentagram with a Celtic knot tracing the one side, and on the flip side, is a fine that traces the outside.

On a personal note; this is one of the most, exciting Sabbats that I have yet to experience. The energy that came into the room was just absolutely incredible! I have not felt so much energy in my Wiccan journey yet, and I am hoping to continue to feel energy like this. Let’s say, I should have drawn a circle, because about halfway through our ritual, my son woke up and was extremely energetic. Words cannot even describe the things that I felt that night. We worked with a pendulum, which again, there was a lot of energy and when my friend asked a certain question, the pendulum went wild! I had never seen anything like it!

I hope you all enjoyed your own personal Yule, and if you would like to share what you did, please do so in the comments below. I am very curious as to others had celebrated as well.

Until next time, thank you for reading!

Blessed Be!

White Tiger

Samhain

Last night, the veil was the most thin between our world and the spirit world. This is the holiday where we celebrate the life of the God, and we also are able to contact loved ones who have passed. A new God is almost born, with the coming of Yule, and the coming weeks, we prepare for that.

But, this is Samhain, which is what I wish to talk about. Samhain (pronounced SA-WEEN) is more of a solitary holiday than the others; due to the fact that you are summoning spirits. Those that are harmless to you, could not be harmless to others. We had company over last night and drew a protective circle for only positive spirits to join us. I called upon my grandmother and friend/mentor who had passed yesterday as well. Once I was done calling and communicating, I opened the circle for anyone else who wished to contact family/friends who have passed on.

Later in the evening, I felt something close to me, I whipped around to see if I could see what was there, I didn’t see anything, but I felt a very strong, and loving presence. I have a photo of my altar from last night, which is here, and you can decipher for yourself what you see in the flames/smoke.

We celebrated good friendship last night with plenty of alcohol, and lots of laughs. Even a few oracle readings to top everything off.

For those who have been feeling a little down over the last week, this is normal during the time leading up to and away from Samhain. Because the veil is at its thinnest, emotions “leak” from the other side to ours, which causes mood swings. For those who are deeply connected to the other side, you will feel this even stronger. The opposite can also be true; you can also feel a great high of feelings from the other side. For myself, I felt particularly down over the past week, more than likely because I could feel my grandma’s presence a lot more than normal.

However you spend your Samhain, I hope that it was joyful and blessed.

Thanks for reading, and Blessed Be!

White Tiger  )O(

Crystal Magic

Blessed be my friends!

I apologize for the gap between posts, but work has kept me exceptionally busy.

I have recently bought “Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem & Metal Magic”. I have just started reading it, and I can already tell that I am going to enjoy this sector of magic in my life. There is such history with crystal magic it is crazy! It dates to early civilization, where people used rocks to warm things instead of fire. Crystal and gem magic is extremely powerful down to the core of our own DNA. The magic of rock resonates within ourselves.

Do you have a “lucky rock”? Or do you wear your gemstone because it represents something? Or have you even stumbled across a stone at the beach that just captures your attention? That is the power of crystal and gem magic. It gets us to our very core.

I am looking forward to posting about my experiments and experiences with stone magic. If you have any advice or suggestions, please feel free to write in the comments below.

Thanks for reading, and blessed be!

White Tiger

)O(

Suicide

I have to be honest; I spent a long time staring at an empty text box… trying to figure out what I was going to say.

Once upon a time, I was in high school. When I was in there, I believed that suicide was for “attention seekers” and the “emo kids”. Little did I know that it was linked with such a treacherous illness known as depression. When I was young, I didn’t think it was a mental illness. but an excuse that people used to dress darkly and “cut themselves”. I was young and naive, and looking back, I should have asked more questions.

I now know how serious these issues are, and I would like to weigh in:

Having suffered from depression, and known people very close to me who have suffered from depression, I have learned so much. People say to you “get over it”, “it’s just a bad day, things will get better tomorrow” or my favourite “stop being an attention seeker”. it’s not something that you can just get over and it’s not just a bad day, no, it’s much bigger than that. People who are depressed don’t live that way; they live with a constant shroud over them, and a storm cloud overtop. If you think that they should just get over it don’t you think that they would? It’s much more complicated than that. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that forces them to think this way. 

DEPRESSION IS EVIL!

When people say “Robin Williams died of suffocation” no… Robin Williams passed after a long battle with depression. You don’t say ” So-and-so died of [insert a cancer complication here]” you say “after a long battle with Cancer… So-and-so passed away”. There is no difference.

Suicide is an extreme out for those with depression. A human’s natural instinct is to do whatever they can to preserve their own life. Those with severe depression don’t have that instinct, depression robs them from that basic human right. DEPRESSION ROBS YOU OF THAT RIGHT… YOU CANNOT CONTROL THAT URGE!

For those with moderate and mild cases of depression, this is not necessarily so, this is only extreme cases. 1/10 American’s are diagnosed with depression, and that number increases by 20% every year. 80% of those diagnosed, do not seek treatment (source: http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/statistics-infographic). Those are scary facts.

I could say so much more, but I think I have made my point. Just one more thought though: It sickens me that  it takes a death from a great man and comedian to raise global awareness for depression on a completely different level.

 

Blessed Be

White Tiger

My Son

I’ve spoken so much about my religion, and talked about my wife-to-be, but I have not talked about my son at all.

My son will be two on December 7th of this year. I don’t know where I would be without him today.

My son came into this world after only 6 hours of making his way here, and the first words I ever said about him were ” he’s perfect”. Now, I know that sounds cheesy, but I said this because there were problems right before he was born, and his heart rate was dropping rapidly. My fiancée was scared, so she looked at me for comfort, and found it.

He is a challenge, I will give you that, but it’s a good challenge. Not only do I teach him about manners, eating, and blowing kisses, but he teaches me patience, and unconditional love. All things considering, I think I have learned more than he has. When he was born, I still wasn’t in “Parent Mode”, it honestly took my several months for that to click in, that I wasn’t just babysitting, but that he was mine, and I needed to man up and start doing shit around the house.

My godfather told me

“Being a parent is the hardest job in the world, but it’s the most rewarding”

 

He couldn’t have been more right. Being a father to this package of awesomeness is very hard, but I consider myself one of the luckiest men alive to have a son as great as mine. He may not be the next Einstein, but he’s my pal, and I love him more than I can even put into words. 

My son has made me a better man. I used to be completely irresponsible and staying up all night watching TV or playing video games just because I could. I used to spend money so foolishly (I bought a $200 sword once because I had the money). If it wasn’t for him, I’d be broke and probably quite lonely. 

I love you little buddy, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you.

 

Blessed be,

White Tiger

Wicca and Abortion

Before I go into details, I urge you to remember that this isn’t the way of all Wiccan’s, but only this Wiccan (at the very least).

As someone who is a believer of the protection of life, and the sanctity of said life, the idea of abortion completely, and utterly repels me. I am aware that this particular post could very possibly receive some hateful words, but I am prepared to face them peacefully. As a forewarning, any insulting comments will be removed, only those looking for a good-natured debate, or positive comments, will remain.

Wiccan’s (as I have said on multiple occasions) live by one very important rule:

HARM NONE

That rule not only applies to people who have exited the womb, but also to any animal, born, or in utero. Whether he/she has harmed you, bullied you, stole from you, or ruined your life in any way shape or form. We. Harm. None. Period. That means physical harm, emotional harm, mental harm, and most importantly, magical harm.

I had a discussion with a young college girl on a Facebook post in a witches group. A guy there was teasing her, over and over and over and over again, until finally one day she threatened him with a curse. She followed through with said curse. I read the comments and mentioned that it was against our beliefs to curse someone who has wronged you, and that it will come back ten-fold.

Yes, there are witches who are not Wiccan’s, but I was definitely not pleased with how this lady handled the situation. If you are truly Wiccan, you meditate on the situation, ask the Goddess and God for guidance, and pray that they will lead him/her down the right path.

Now, back to the topic on hand. An unborn fetus is still considered life. It breathes, it has a heartbeat, and it thinks, dreams, moves it’s flanges, etc. That is life! Whether or not he/she is not in this world, drinking from his/her mothers breast, walking this planet or soaking in its sun, it IS life, and we do not terminate said life under any circumstances.

 

If you are a rape victim and get pregnant, on what grounds are you in the position to  end life? Yes, I can understand that being raped is a traumatizing experience that you would rather forget, but the unborn child does not know any better. For all you know, that child could be the next Einstein, or the person who cures cancer, or the next Leonardo DaVinci. Would you end that life before he/she had the chance to even enter this world and find out for his/herself? That child will be the light of your life, and even if you don’t want the “constant reminder”, then adoption is always an option. Ending life, is never an option.

I am very pro-life, as being pro life has never harmed anyone (golden rule), but pro-choice has definitely harmed others, as everything is this life that we live is a choice. Being pro-choice gives us the chance to harm others, whereas being pro-life gives us the chance to harm none, and start new life.

Imagine your parents decided to get an abortion with you. You wouldn’t be here reading this. You wouldn’t have become the person that you have worked so hard to be. Being pro-life, and anti-abortion saves more lives than does pro-choice.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share. If you have a derogatory statement, or an insult, I encourage you to keep it to yourself.

Thank you, and blessed be!

White Tiger