Spring Has Officially Sprung

Blue speedwell is blooming (so pretty and dainty, but I keep it outside; old folks say it's bad luck to bring it in the house), and I have a new pot of hairy bittercress in a pot on the deck (keep your potted hairy bittercress outside; those things can shoot their seeds three feet if you accidentally brush up against them when they're ready to pop), and today, I found some Viola bicolor (field pansies) all over the meadow behind my house.

I'm especially excited about the bittercress. It's one of the nine herbs used in the 10th century Old English Nine Herbs Charm against poison. It's supposed to do very well in a pot, so we'll see how it goes.

The ornamental pears are in flower (and stinking up the place), the forsythia is on its way to full bloom, and soon the Japanese pink cherries (my favorite) will be out.

I'm going to try and get some good pictures tomorrow if the rain holds off.

Thundersnow

I live in the mid-Atlantic area, and we are getting a ton of snow from winter storm Pax, about 8 inches so far. I was just out walking my dogs and was astonished to see a flash of lightning bolt across the sky accompanied by a rumble of thunder. "Thundersnow," as such an occurrence is called, is exceedingly rare here, and I aim to take advantage.

This was particularly meaningful for me as just a few hours ago, I began work on a hymn to Jupiter Tonans, a thank-you for a gift he gave me earlier this year during a mean  rainstorm.

I think I will split up the melt and use some of it as an offering on the next Ides and some of it in a war water I'm working on.

Modeling Works Both Ways: Beware the Broken

If you do what someone does, you'll get what they have and you'll become what they are. Modeling works. It's powerful, and it can lead both to success and failure. Remember that when you wonder if it would be a good idea to emulate the practices of someone (whether those practices are magical or mundane.) If someone promises you that their advice will make you successful, don't listen to their words. Look at what they are. Examine their lives, their thinking, their results.

It bothers me to see so many messed up, dysfunctional occultists, witches, and other magical practitioners handing out advice to their followers and readers. If someone's magical practice has turned them into a credulous wreck, you would be wise to look elsewhere for advice. If you believe that spending long years drug-addled, gullible, and paranoid is a necessary step to "enlightenment," then by all means, go ahead and do it. But if you want to become successful in the real world, you may want to rethink your strategy and adjust accordingly.

I have had the opportunity to meet people who are incredibly successful by just about every metric -- personally, physically, financially, romantically -- and none of them, NOT ONE, has been a magic user in the way that most people think of it. They have all been extremely efficient at using psychology to get their way (whether intentionally or not), but none of them got where they are by firing off sigilis while they masturbate in their bedrooms. And if they DID use some sort of magic to get where they are, they don't talk about it.

Now, there are a lot of ways to measure success, and, certainly, some people desire the kinds of trippy, synchronicity-filled experiences that so many occultists end up living through, but a lot of them come out of it broken because they are modeling what broken people do instead of modeling success. The Work is dangerous, yes, and many people will be broken simply by virtue of attempting to attain it, but you will up your chances for success considerably by carefully assessing who it is that you choose to call "teacher."

If your desire to do magic is driven by a desire to succeed on a mundane level, do not seek out someone who is attempting to rewire their reality for internal peak experiences. Seek out someone who is successful on a mundane level. Of course, the danger of that is you might not hear what you want to hear. You might hear that instead of sigils and grimoires and spells, you're going to have to go out and get a real career and network with boring people and go to the gym and do the mundane, tedious WORK that creates the foundation for success. And nobody wants that, right?

The "magical" path as it is usually presented online is littered with the fractured psyches of those who employed nonsense to get nowhere. Watch your step.

Curse Tablet Found in Jerusalem

Ancient Magic Curse Tablet Found in Jerusalem : Discovery News

"I strike and strike down and nail down the tongue, the eyes, the wrath, the ire, the anger, the procrastination, the opposition of Iennys," part of the curse reads in translation. Kyrilla asks the gods to ensure that "he in no way oppose, so that he say or perform nothing adverse to Kyrilla … but rather that Iennys, whom the womb bore, be subject to her…"

To obtain her goal Kyrilla combined elements from four religions, Robert Walter Daniel, of the Institut für Altertumskunde at the University of Cologne, told LiveScience in an email. Of six gods invoked, four of them are Greek (Hermes, Persephone, Pluto and Hecate), one is Babylonian (Ereschigal) and one, Abrasax, is Gnostic, a religion connected to early Christianity. Additionally, the text contains magic words such as "Iaoth" that have a Hebrew/Judaism origin.

Archaeologists have found a curse tablet dating from the 3rd century C.E. in the ruins of a mansion in Jerusalem. The tablet was probably made by a magician for someone named Kyrilla and was directed at a man named Iennys. It invoked the assistance of six gods from three pantheons, and contained an plea to Underworld daimons:

come to me, you who are in the earth, chthonic daemon, you who rule and bind…

The mansion itself was destroyed in an earthquake that hit the area 1,700 years ago, and other priceless artifacts were found along with the tablet. I would love to see the box detailed below. What were the carved bone fragments for, and why were they in a box dedicated to Dionysos. Was it religious? Magical? Or was it just a bit of decoration?

Archaeologists Doron Ben Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, both with the Israel Antiquities Authority, told LiveScience in an email they discovered the remains of mosaics and frescos that contain geometric and floral motifs near the tablet. They also found carved bone fragments from a box that depict the "Triumph of Dionysus," a Greek god, along with maritime imagery such as seahorses.

Here is a picture of some of the magical symbols used in the tablet, enhanced by me:

And here they are traced over:

Finally, a picture of a gem cameo depicting cupid, also found in the remains of the mansion:

Sources:

http://www.livescience.com/40637-ancient-curse-photos.html

http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/ancient-magic-curse-tablet-discovered-in-jerusalem-131023.htmhttp://paganwiccan.about.com/b/2013/10/24/ancient-curse-tablet-found-in-jerusalem.htm?r=twt

And, finally, my thanks to the About Pagan/Wiccan Twitter feed for posting the news.