Pearls and Swine

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." –Attributed to the Nazarene

PORK

Aaah, the delicious pig. I'm sorry if you do not enjoy swine-flesh, I do not mean to offend. That being said I am going to defend the pig a bit, for I feel there is no better totem for earth as the pig. Both revered and feared, the pig has a rich history and a long association with magic, the underworld, and fertility of the land. Pigs are not what I want to talk about, but rather pork. Pork was always a meat of luxury, raising a pig was like raising a child and used about the same amount of resources. As a result of the expenditure incurred when one decided to raise a pig, its meat was reserved for special occasions; Seasonal Feasts, Holy Days, Celebrations, etc. Pig is an embodiment of the fertile Earth, Pork is communion. Ultimately that is my aim, communion.

I have felt very connected lately to a very international community of people dedicated to the various currents of the Craft as expressed by traditional methods. It pleases me that more and more often I am reading blog-posts and articles, listening to pod-casts, and participating in discussions stressing the importance of  Thaumaturgy. I feel very strongly that the Western Tradition has spent far too long venerating Theurgy and the Logos. Hoary praise for the PIG, meanwhile ignoring the pleasure of  bacon. I feel that some of the aforementioned conversations have been a bit one-sided, always a call to use physical components to ritual, but ignoring the actual thaumaturgic work that various members of the craft are manifesting. My earth work has deepened my appreciation of Sacred Artists, Hexenkrafters, Wort Cunners, and Rebel Saints. It is my intention during this Year of Knives, to highlight individuals and organizations that are making manifest their Sacred Vision. Yes honey, I'm bringing home the bacon.

 PEARLS

Prolonged Earth work has led me to new depths, and encounters with serpentine energies of a most primal nature. Strange thoughts have occupied my mind, I am indeed being educated by Tutelary Spirits. St. Cyprian opens the doors, makes the introductions, and offers suggestions for improved technique. I know this energy, it has worn many guises in my own life, this is what make me think. St Cyprian, Old Horny, Ganapati, Hekate, Santisima Muerte, and Babalon all overlap to some degree in their aspects. More like nodes on a spectrum rather than completely differentiated from one another. Again and again I find this to be true across traditions, techniques and religions. There are certain energy forms that manifest around humans across millennia that seem to exhibit the same strange and interesting properties.

The Snake or rather the Serpent, for instance, occupies many niches in folklore and spirituality, but

they all exhibit similar properties. Most interesting is that the part of our brain that is called reptilian, is where one will find Serpent Wisdom. One can also find the serpent Kundalini coiled at the base of the spine. Like wise in the depths of the underworld one can find the Cosmic Serpent that encircles All. These are Mysteries laid out in plain sight, much as the magic of dirt is often ignored, so too the Sacred Mundane is neglected. The Serpent Path is the Crooked Path and there is wisdom in this. The Way of the Witch is a meandering way, and sometimes there is no path at all, merely an exploration through the brambles and boggy creek bottoms. Just like the Serpent.

Cthonic Spirits and serpentine energies, these are my companions on the path through my Earth work. The treasures I gain are manifest as well as transcendent. I will soon begin introducing you to others who make the transcendent manifest, those who not only work the Materia Magica, but actually make the Magica Materia. 

Seeds of Possibility

Black Moon 23, Copyright 2013, Sasquatch Jones

Seeds. Genesis in a capsule. A seed contains everything to grow, bloom, and produce progeny. From humble beginnings, eh? Let it come to pass that this article will contains seeds with such power. That is my goal here to plant seeds, ideas, or memes, into as many fertile souls as I can. This is a working given to me, to set free into the world, whose full manifestation is beyond my imagination. Much in the same way as one cannot see a tree no matter how hard one stares at an acorn. But first let me tell you a story.

A Story of the Earth

Pom ov Possumbility, Copyright2014, Sasquatch Jones

I have been in the Earth. Deep into the Earth, die Unterwelt, at the roots of it all. I have been given gifts, seeds to share. Between meditations on death, Geist Arbeit, heart chakra openings, and a growing community of support, I have been blessed with a amazing gift. I present the Pomegranate of Possibility, infinitely filled with juicy kernels of wisdom, each containing a seed full of infinite possibility. From the fertile soil, which is the flesh of the Goddess herself, comes a gift from the Underworld, but be forewarned, once you eat of this fruit, you will never be the same.

I am tapping into roots. The first thing  to emerge from a seed  is the root. The roots provide sustenance to the emerging plant, that is how life begins, our roots sustain us. Working roots, whether vegetable or ancestral, always gives  sustenance to new work. I venerate the dead, as the song says, pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you. Some of them are personal, others are Elevated Ancestors, but all of them inform my work and provide me with sustenance, as all friends and allies do. As we pass through this Season of Earth, remember your roots, draw upon their strength.

Feast Upon Possibility

While tapping into my roots, I began remembering stories my Grandmother told me, and something started to stand out. When my Grandmother was a girl, most of the businesses in her hometown were owned by people who lived in her hometown. Think about it. A community supporting each other. That is what we are all seeking is it not? Most of us give far too much of our earnings to Corporations, large faceless and invested with far too much power. We have the power to change that and we are, every time you give your money to independent business people and artisans you are voting for a better world. Did I lose you?

Queen of the Crossroads, Copyright 2013, Sasquatch Jones

Consider for a moment our consumer culture as it goes through its Annual Orgy of Excess. Every dollar spent at a major retailer, gives more power to the lobbies that the owners of those companies give donations. So your dollars end up exerting influence in the true political system. When you buy from Independent Business People you subvert this system. I am not naive enough to believe that this is all it takes to save the world, but it could be the beginning of an alternative economy. You never know what will grow from a seed, but if you plant enough, you will always bear fruit. So vote for a better world by supporting superior craftsmanship, independence, and the reality you wish to manifest.

Share the Love

If you don't know where to start check out some of my favorites from around the way.

HOUSE OF ORPHEUS
LONE STAR BOTANICALS
WOLF & GOAT
NATURAL MAGICK SHOP
TVEIR HRAFNAR
THREE CATS AND A BROOM
CAULDRON CRAFT ODDITIES

Underneath the Snow a Seed Grows

Every seed is also a Snowflake. You might be planting beans or okra, but how each seed manifests will depend upon the experiences it has. No two are the same. Again I am planting seeds and waiting for manifestation. The fruits of past plantings are harvested, and being enjoyed. Others are only beginning to bear fruit. Return to the Pomegranate of Possibility as often as you need, its inspiration is infinite. Plant your seeds, and dig into your roots, good things await you.

Heathen Brujo, Copyright 2013, Sasquatch Jones

Breakdowns and Breakthroughs

About a week ago I crashed. I crashed hard, as if I fell thirty feet into an empty pool. This was just a precursor, the set up before the main act. In the depths of my fall, my wife, the most amazing intuitive healer I know, simply asked, "What do you need?" Without hesitation or thought applied I responded that I needed a shaman. She handed me a cigarette of tobacco and said, "This is shaman tobacco and it will heal you, because I say so." I smoked my first tobacco in many years and felt nauseous, sick, my head was spinning so hard I had to lie down. What happened next will change my life forever.

  

I awoke from a nap and I knew what had to happen. Into the bath I placed salt, damiana, and passion flower, everything seems to work better in threes. As I soaked in the bath I heard the words, "Audiam Vocem", speak out loud, give voice. This has been a recurring piece for me, but I had never really awakened to the power that resonates from the spoken word. Now I was talking to myself and all others who were in attendance, there were definitely spirits there, mostly ancestral, and then I broke down.

A wise man once told me that one must breakdown before they can breakthrough. On this morning I learned the full import of his words, I broke. I began talking to my Grandmother and I cried in a way that I have not cried in many years. I sobbed from the bottom of my soul for my loss, my shame, and my love. She is physically gone, never to return, no more hugs, her smell gone, LOSS. I did not visit her enough as an adult, and I cannot reverse that, SHAME. She will always be with me dispensing wisdom and guiding me, LOVE. Then my head cracked wide open.

I found myself in a quiet wisdom the likes of which I have never known. At that moment I knew the stomach issues have that plagued me since I found out she was departing, disappeared. I had been holding in so much it was making me sick. A bit of tobacco given to me with love and intention, shook me into Giving Voice to my inner turmoil and facilitated healing. Healed by Poison because of intention transforming it into Soul Medicine, the essence of the Poison Path, and all shamanic traditions worldwide.

Psychedelics and I have a long history, mostly as a vision questing tool, but this was shamanic healing, something I personally have never experienced. Strange because I have helped many others over the years, now I was being healed by an act of kindness, a medicine plant with intention and the power of speaking out. The closest experience I have to explain how profound this has all been is remembering how profoundly my first psychedelic experience was. That morning after when one knows that they will never look at the world the same way ever again. Like that but with a calm warm loving knowledge of how blessed I am to be here now.

Over the next few days so many wonderful things have been revealed to me, my path opens. I have much to say about the Plants and their medicine, but first I must plant my seeds. I have much to say about Santisima Muerte and San Cipriano, but first I must plant my seeds. There is a Magical Garden that will become my life's work, but first I must plant my seeds. I have begun a major recalibration of my energy and direction, soul sustenance that is manifesting all because of seeds that I have already planted.

High Mowing Ritual

The grass is high, about waist deep, the goldenrod is higher, and the ragweed tops out at 12 -15 feet. Time to mow. This is a ritual that must be done right, there are herbal allies to consult, post mowing libations to procure and chill. So I talk to Joe about the bean and then I eat a muffin with Mary Jane. Fully immersed in the world of the herb, das Krautwelt, if you will, I face the south and thank Fire for not ravaging my land, and offer to stand in his stead as the Harvester. I will also be Woodsman as I clear the understory from the wooded parts of my land and as Hunter I will try to create spaces for certain fowl and small game to be taken more easily. Finally the mowing begins in earnest, a dizzying array of light, sound, heat, and humidity, one is never at the finish as one was at the beginning. Plant resins fill the air and are inhaled by the Harvester. Small vines with thorns tear at the flesh of the Woodsman, releasing their resins, some poisonous into his bloodstream. By now the Hunter has begun to fully assimilate with the Land. He sees the contours, places where small pools of water will gather after the rains, protected spots in the grass where one could easily disappear into the wood, watches as Hawk uses this to his advantage. With resins of plants coursing through his veins and affecting his brain, this man, this being who has transformed himself into a stand in for fire, takes on the role and responsibility as Land husband, the Bodenehemann. In this role he must protect the homestead, and the wild, create a buffer space for them both to adjust to one another. It is this in between role that I love so much, neither fully wild nor fully domesticated, but able transverse both realms, this is where I truly thrive. The end of the day leaves tired, bruised, torn, and triumphant and exhilarated. This is my condition as I enter the family home, Friedengut, and am greeted by the elixir of the gods. A cold frosty fermented brew of grains, seeds, herbs, and resins, that with some help from yeast render a concoction that is the essence of the mown land itself. I shower and retire to hearth for the evening.

Spring Reading List

Here is my reading list for Spring, what are you reading?
1. Witchcraft Medicine by Dieter-Storl, Ebeling and Ratsch
2. Rereading Plants of the Gods by Schultes and Hoffman
3. Tubelos Green Fire by Shani Oates
4. Freedom is a Two Edged Sword  by Jack Parson
5. Still reading Triumph of the Moon  by Ronald Hutton

I am eagerly awaiting Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Can't wait to make some cunning worts from this book.