Familiars and how I understand them

 

This is the second week of the letter F for the Pagan Blog Project. I’ve considered a few different subjects. I finally settled on Familiar and what a familiar is to me.

The common definition of a familiar is an animal, often a cat, that is a witch’s helper in magickal workings.  I have come to the conclusion that the term familiar is something that started out to be a completely different relationship altogether. 

Miriam-Webster defines Familiar like this:

Definition of FAMILIAR

1: a member of the household of a high official

2: one who is often seen and well known; especially : an intimate associate : companion

3: a spirit often embodied in an animal and held to attend and serve or guard a person

4 a: one who is well acquainted with something

   b: one who frequents a place

Both 1 and 2 seem to be a pretty good place to start with an understanding of what a familiar is. 

I believe the term familiar originates with wise men and women working with animal spirits, and “others” (clergy, conquering tribes or those not of the practice or area) describing this practice in a way that sounds like the wise person is working with a living animal.

A witch and her familiar spirits.

In the past it was thought that witches could shape shift into the form of a cat, particularly a black cat. I’m sure this is because cats were common place in Europe; they helped to kept pestilence down. There is also some thought that places frogs and other small creatures as the familiar spirits of witches.

You also have this notion that witches are flying around on brooms at night and cats and many other creatures associated with witches are nocturnal creatures, so it would make sense to link these from a superstitions standpoint or from a place of condemnation.

So, back to the working with animal spirits…. Many healers, wise men and women, shamans, medicine men and women; from many different cultures have worked with them. Sometimes they are thought to be totem animals, animal spirit helpers, or representative of clan affiliations.  

Witches and their familiars

I believe the term, familiar, became associated with magickal workings with living animals, based on a misinterpretation or misdirection about working with animal spirits. I’m not saying that working with a living animal is not possible, nor am I suggesting that they cannot be representative of the spirit of a particular species in a broad sense. I am saying that often traditions from the past are told by people on the outside of the particular belief system, and there is misunderstanding and misrepresentation when an outsider of any community or belief system retells the practices or beliefs.

I grew up with a variety of animals on the farm and in the wild areas around the farm, and of them all, the cat and I never hit it off. I’ve had several cats in my life on and off and I will admit... I am not a fan of cats… so for me the idea that familiars are primarily feline, just doesn’t work.

I have worked with living animals in my magickal practices, but I do not include them in my workings unless they have made it very clear they wish to be included. I more often work with the broader understanding of the animal species.  I tend to think of these animals spirits as partners and sometimes as extensions of myself. 

I know my understanding of familiars is not the same as most people have, but it is how I work with my familiar, totem or partner animal spirits.

Have a Wicked Good Day!

Molly

Elementals and Elements

 

So, what’s the difference? Aren’t they both the same thing? These are the questions I get from people who have not worked with Elementals, or just assumed Elemental means Elements.

I know… this will cause some people to get there hackles up. They might even actually believe the word Elemental is another word for the Elements. In MY understanding and my magickal work, they are NOT the same thing. They are associated with each other, but not interchangeable terms.

Let’s start with what the Elements are:

In my workings there are four earthly elements I work with. I say earthly elements, because these are the elements of Water, Fire, Air, and Earth. These are the basic building blocks of life on an energetic level.

Water is the element I associate with the West. When working with this element I am working with emotions, birth and death. This is also the element I associate feminine energy, and the moon.  I am also working with the actual element of water.  I also associate the mountains with the west. Two animal associations I work with in the West are Bear and Whale.  I associate the colors Black and Blue with this Element.

Fire is the element I associate with the south. When working with this element I am working with trickster energy. Here is where I find myself working with Coyote and sometimes raven and crow work with me from the south, I am also working with the element of fire. I also associate the fire and the desert with the south. The colors I associate with the south are Reds and red/oranges.  

Air is the element I associate with the East. When I’m working with this element, I am working with a masculine energy. Though this is a male energy,  I associate it with birth and rebirth.  I find myself working with eagle or hawk in the east as well as the actual element of air. I associate prairies with the East and Air.  I also associate the Sun and the color yellow with the East.

Earth is the element I associate with the north. When working with earth energy I am actually working with the earth itself. I do this through crystals, minerals, wood, and clays. Often I work with the energy of buffalo and this is where I most deeply connect with Horse energy. This is where I will make connections with ancestors and ancient knowledge.  I associate earth with the woods and forests of the north. The color I most often associate with earth is white or a clear crystalline color.

When working with others I sometimes find they may have different colors and energies associated with the elements. I’ve also encountered others who add a fifth element of spirit or ether to their workings. I am not going to expand on this element because I do not include it in my practices unless I am working with others who do.

Now on to my understanding of Elementals:

In my experience the elementals are spiritual or mythological entities that are associated with particular elements.  These tend to be lower in vibration and are often representations of the actual construct of the elements they are associated with. 

Water elementals I work with often take the form of mermaid like water spirits. These spirits are at home in the water and tend to take on forms that resemble our common idea of what a mermaid looks like, but only to the basic degrees. I have not encountered one who resembles the Little Mermaid.

Fire elementals I work with tend to be spirits who are built of the element fire. Unlike the mermaid like elementals who are most comfortable in the environment water, but are not constructed of water.

Air elementals I work with are fairy like spirits. They always have wings and are most comfortable flying, but they do not always look like the common depictions of fairies. These are not your Tinkerbell variety.

Earth elementals are my favorite, and they often appear as brownies, elves, trolls, and other small human like “little people”. I have encountered some who appear to be made from mud, rocks or other earth elements.

Offering of coffee for Household Brownies (Earth Elemental)

All of the elementals I have worked with and still working with have their own unique personalities and prefer to be interacted with as individuals.  Elementals can take many different forms and there are other traditions which work with specific types of elementals associated with the different elements.  My affinity with the elementals is one that is personal and I have learned a lot from these “little people”. The fact they are composed of natures basic constructs within the element they are from, gives them a closer or deeper perspective of the very nature of Nature. Take the time to get to know these folks. Don’t be surprised if they come in forms that may not be so nice, they are not always pleasant, but they are always there to show you the way, or teach you something new.

Have a Wicked Good Day!

Molly

Dadźbóg

 

This week I had a couple D words I thought I wanted to write about for the Pagan Blog Project (PBP).

I spent a while researching Didgeridoos, and finally came to the conclusion I was not the right person to tell that story. I love the music and the information was fascinating, but something within me keep niggling at me… when I finally stopped to listen to what was going on in the background, I got the message loud and clear… I just am not supposed to tell the story of the Didgeridoo. Traditionally it is a male instrument and females do not play it… it just feels like I would have been dishonoring something were I to talk at length about it.

So, on to the D word that was actually calling me this whole week, even though I got sidetracked Down Under for a day or so…  

In an earlier post I talked about being of Polish ancestry and this week on and off I kept returning to the thought that I wanted to know more about the pre-Christian practices of my ancestors. I found myself looking for anything I could find about the Gods and Goddess that were worshiped, the days that were celebrated, and anything else I could find. 

I finally settled on Dadźbóg. After reading much information it became very clear that the gods and goddess of my Polish ancestors were often the same gods and goddesses of other Slavic speaking peoples in the region. There was some regionalization and yet Dadźbóg, was a universal god in that region. There are several pronunciations and spellings for this particular god, which I am not going to go into at this time. I am going to focus on the essence of this particular god; as that is what I feel is important. 

Because I’m not a linguist,  I’ve included some information detailing the entomology of this god’s name. 

Most scholars agree the root dažd- or daj- is derived from root of the verb dati "to give". Thus, according to Dubenskij, Ognovskij and Niderle, Dažbog would be "giving god", "god-giver, "god-donor". The close related word to slavic Dažd is in Avestian or east-Iranian language - dazdâ, dazda "gifts".^[1] This is particularly interesting since the Proto-Slavic word for god, *bagu (> Common Slavic *bogъ), the suffix of Dažbog's name, is argued either to be of Iranian origin (being related to Indo-Iranian etymons such as Old Persian baga, Sanskrit bhaga), or being semantically influenced by Iranian source, both being ultimately derived from PIE root *bʰag-, whose reflexes in both Slavic and Indo-Iranian came to mean both "deity" and "wealth, share".^[2] Thus, translated literally, Dažbog would be "giver of fortune". This echoes the ancient Indo-European concept that deity is, in essence, an entity which gives wealth and abundance, an indication, perhaps, that Dažbog is a relic from common Proto-Indo-European religion, or even that this was not a name for any particular Slavic god, but a general epithet of a deity. (Dažbog)

 

The idea, expressed above, indicates this particular god may not be an individual god, but instead may be a conceptualized understanding of deity in general, which feels right to me. 

The story of Dadźbóg, is often associated with wolves and sometimes is referred to as the lame shepard of wolves. He is also thought to be a Sun god who rises in the East as a golden infant who travels through his twelve kingdoms ( possibly the signs of the zodiac) in his chariot pulled by either three or twelve horses (depending on the legend),  he ultimately dies at the end of the day as an old man. Many of the stories I found on the internet shared similarities, but the details were sometimes different. This is common when trying to resurrect the old stories or reconstruct the old practices of most pre-Christian religions. 

Rather than regurgitate the information I found about this god, I have shared the information I thought was the most insightful for me. I have also decided to take the time to get to know this god and other gods and goddesses from this particular region. I really appreciate the work that went into the sites I reviewed to find out more about the Polish pantheon and Dadźbóg, in particular, but I know the information is primarily derived from stores or accounts, told by outsiders. Often when another culture tells the stories of another cultures deities and spiritual practices, the stories get distorted and often are told in an unforgiving or incomplete light.

I encourage you to take the time to read the information provided at the websites below. These are probably pretty good basic legends and a great place to get started on my path to knowing these deities and possibly building relationship with them. 

References:

beling.net. 17 02 2012 http://beling.net/articles/about/Da%C5%BEbog

Care erau zeii slavilor? 17 02 2012 http://www.frontpress.ro/?p=21443

Dazbog. 13 02 2012 http://www.fact-index.com/d/da/dazbog.html

Dažbog. 15 02 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da%C5%BEbog

Deities of pre-Christian Poland. 16 02 2012 http://sourceryforge.org/index.php/Polish_Pantheon

Polish Paganism. 12 02 2012 http://polishtoledo.com/pagan/index.htm

Slavic Deities and The Unclean Force. 16 02 2012 http://www.slavpaganism.com/#!__deities/a---da

SLAVIC GODS. 17 02 2012 http://slavialand.org/slavicgods.htm

Slavic Myth and Religion. 14 02 2012 http://www.winterscapes.com/slavic.htm

Slavic mythology. 17 02 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_mythology

Have a Wicked Good Day!
Molly

Baba Yaga

 

I was first exposed to Baba Yaga as a somewhat watered down character in the story of Hansel and Gretel. The next time I found myself face to face with the Baba Yaga was while going through a divorce. I had decided it was time to remove myself from a marriage that had nothing to do with me. I had no idea who I was, and happened to come across a book titled, Women Who RunWith the Wolves, written by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. 

http://intothehermitage.blogspot.com/2010/11/marvels-and-tales.html

I immediately resonated with the author and found the stories she retold to speak to me in a much deeper way than I had ever expected. The first point of resonance for me was that this woman is Polish and Hispanic. I am Polish on my mother’s side and had been married into a Hispanic family for 13 years. I was able to identify with the feeling of cultural confusion and then personal emptiness.

 As a young person I was raised with every derogatory comment or joke being told around me, focused towards “Pollocks”… I learned that part of who I am is stupid, bumbling, foolish, and someone to be disrespected. As a young adult, married into a Hispanic family I learned “my place”… women were to serve, you were expected to be “fiery”, and yet you better shut the hell up and do what is expected. The role of woman in this culture was confusing to me, especially since it was the women who treated me the worst.  I had no idea who I was or what I was doing here on this planet. 

While reading Women Who run with the Wolves, I found the story of Vasalisa and the Baba Yaga.  I have read this story over and over many times. Each time I read the story or see images of Baba Yaga, I immediately remember being really small and going to my mother’s grandmother’s house to visit. When we got there Busha (Grandmother in Americanized Polish pronounced BOO-shah) would be there at the table. She was old… I mean OLD… she looked like the witch in the fairy tales my dad would read to me at night.

She always wore a heavy black dress, with heavy grandma shoes. To top things off she was always wearing a babushka (scarf tied on her head, it is actually a Russian word for grandmother).  Looking back at my memories of Busha, she definitely could have been Baba Yaga, flying through the air in her mortar, using a pestle as a rudder and dragging a broom behind her to sweep up and move the clouds.

  

http://debratski.deviantart.com/art/Baba-Yaga-123629862

The story of Baba Yaga is a story that reflects the transition from naivety or innocent youth to the wise crone. Now that I am a grandmother and moving towards menopause, I am struggling with the identity of the old woman… I don’t want to be the scary, witch figure, Busha represented to me as a child. 

The common story girls and women are raised on in today’s world is a story of beautiful, slender, youth ruling and being the desired prize of men and is in direct conflict with our image of a wizened up old woman who is ugly, fat/thin, dependent, and mean; something to be cast aside like yesterdays wilted and rotten dinner salad. The Baba Yaga challenges us to look deeper at ourselves as women.

I originally was going to tell the story of Baba Yaga for this post, but instead, I decided to tell the story of how she has influenced my life, through my Busha, who incidentally, happened to be a witch. My mother will never admit her grandmother was anything but Catholic, but the stories Mom tells of Busha’s "wives tales", tells me Busha was a wise woman. she made a huge impression on me and has returned to me in the story of Baba Yaga. 

I encourage you to read Women Who Run With the Wolves. You can also read an excellent essay on Baba Yaga at http://www.mythinglinks.org/BabaYaga.html  and you can find more info by checking out the links in the text.

 

Have a Wicked Good Day!

Molly