Marian Green - A Witch Alone - Thirteen Moons To Master Natural Magic

In the dark evening of Hallowe’en deck the staff with periwinkles, flowers of death so often used to garland those who went to the scaffold, with branches of yew, and bright rowan berries, hips and haws, and the black fruits of sloes and elder if any yet remain. Look out through the open door to the North-west, watching for the visit of those who have travelled into otherworlds, through death, beyond birth, or those First Ancestors, our shared kindred, Old Ones, Great Ones, Parents of All.

So the circle of the year is completed. Within a house it is not so easy to sense the power which comes from each direction, and if you wish to hold elaborate rituals at each of the Old Feasts, do try to spend just a few moments in the garden, or out of doors, looking at the sun or stars, gathering with your own hands the flowers or greenery. Please don’t just buy cut flowers, they are so forced and artificially fed. Even a few flowering weeds have more life. If you don’t like cut flowers at all, why not plant a few suitable herbs, flowering plants or small trees in pots so that each can form the centrepiece of your celebration? Stood at the foot of the staff, itself set in a heavy base like a bucket of sand, and decorated with coloured ribbons chosen to suit the season, the flowers and leaves are so much more evocative than a box altar.

This really works best of all out of doors, even in somewhere as tame as your back garden. If you think you might be overlooked, just consider how often in the last six months you have noticed what your neighbours were doing. If you have never noticed them, I doubt if they would notice you. If you mentally make your circle one of invisibility then you will not be seen, as I have proved over the last 25 years. Being able to celebrate rituals or festivals in both private and public places, at dawn, noon or at night, I have never been interrupted, and when I have been in the company of others, we have not been disturbed, even if other people happen to be in the same area. Learn to trust the Great Ones, in whose honour you are meeting, and whose help you are seeking, and they will surely assist in your guardianship.

Another kind of circle you will need to become aware of is the great circle of the turning year and the four mighty tides which sweep through our lives, whether we are aware of them or not. These have been described by followers of High Magic as the Cleansing Tide, between Yule and the Spring Equinox, the Growing Tide from March to June, the Reaping Tide from Midsummer to the Autumnal Equinox, and the Resting Tide from September to Yule again. Broadly they follow the pattern of the agricultural year, but they work on both the inner psychic levels of the initiate or novice, and on his or her magical work.

It is often felt that the dark winter months immediately after the bright lights of Christmas are dull and dispiriting. It is a time of changes, often seemingly for the worst, when friendships falter and depression can set in. Scientists are now saying that a lack of Vitamin D caused by the diminution of natural sunlight at this time can affect people, but those who are wise see that there is a much more ancient reason than that. It was always a hard time; old folk might die, babies fail to thrive when food was scarce, and indeed, sunlight and vitamins available in fresh food would have been in short supply, but there is an inner current that flows through our lives, too.

Certainly the death rate in Britain does increase in January and February, and hearing of deaths through illness or poor conditions does not help if you are feeling ‘under the weather’ already. However, as it is the Cleansing Tide it is really time to take affairs into your own hands and be prepared to discard all those unsatisfactory relationships, those cluttered cupboards of the psyche full of unfinished work, those half-completed projects from a few years ago.

Be brave and firm and throw them out, recycling whatever can be saved. Things will end at this time, unbidden, but the more that you are able to recognise the unstoppable power of this Tide the more you can use it instead of allowing it to simply wash through your life like the February floods flowing

through the land. Be prepared for change, which, after the inevitable upheavals, will prove to be for the best, just as the newly cleaned house rewards you for the work required to make it spotless.

The Growing Tide brings expansion to all your magical plans, after they have been weeded and cleansed by the previous months of dissolution. New ideas should blossom, you should discover companionship, shared activities, and an outgoing sense of progress and success. This will run through March, April and May, right up to Midsummer, when again the great tides of the cosmos change.

The Midsummer Solstice brings the start of the Reaping or Harvesting Tide when those plans, skills, abilities and new directions which have flourished begin to pay off for the hard work required to make them successful. New talents will show their worth, whether it is the understanding of the Tarot cards, or a method of healing, or simply that your relationship with the Old Ones begins to pay dividends, and you gain self-confidence and support from these eternal sources of power and wisdom. Not only will you be able to benefit from these new-found abilities, but by using them as extra sources of

information you will see more clearly the life-path that lies before you. You will begin, quite literally, to reap the benefits of all your early efforts each year.

When that harvest is gathered in and Nature goes to rest, so your own pattern will enter a much more peaceful and reflective time. You will be able to assess your personal progress, and be more willing to allow the subtle inner skills and awarenesses to come to the surface. Although this may seem to be a fairly gentle Tide, it is both positive, like the Growing Tide, and powerful.

When you have gathered your wits at summer’s end, you will be able to acknowledge your triumphs, and failings, which will be safely cast away in the following Cleansing Tide, so the cycle will continue. Both success and failure are natural parts of the system of individual progress, within the Old Arts, whether those of the solo witch or of the ceremonial magician. You will gradually be testing your own powers, sometimes succeeding, and occasionally over-reaching yourself and making mistakes, from which you will learn valuable lessons.

Gradually you will discover how cyclic the nature of many parts of life really is. Relationships may follow similar paths, of development, stability and decline, just as the trees show little life, full summer green, and a gentle decay into rest. Similarly the stories of the Goddess and her Consort show how she changes, grows, develops and seems to fade away, as the bright moon in the clear sky.

You will understand that all life is concerned with change, and that both an upsurge of power and a slow descent into decay are natural and right. We cannot continue to surge forward without occasionally withdrawing, resting and casting away those things, ideas, relationships and experiences which are outworn or outgrown. To many people, such a recognition requires considerable courage, for casting away anything may seem an intolerable action, just as failing at anything is a great heartbreak. Yet it is being willing to dare, to reach further, think deeper, and travel beyond the limits of ordinary life, in the inner worlds of psychism and magic which makes following the Old Ways so fascinating.

Eventually you will learn that the circles which form so important an aspect of Green Magic are actually spirals, turning about a still centre, yet actually rising through different planes of existence. Within this magical cone of power you will discover all the talents you have for making magic, for healing, for divination, and here, in the quiet circle you will eventually come to meet the Goddess of the Land and her Lord of Life.