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This year, try writing your New Years resolutions in dragons blood ink on a square piece of parchment paper. This ink is traditionally used for spells involving strength and power. Then, upon the paper sprinkle a bit of dried mug wort, and roll it into a tube and secure it in the center with a red ribbon. Anoint a new white candle with bergamot oil as you state your resolutions aloud. Light the candle and then use its flame to set fire to the rolled-up parchment. Cast the parchment into a small cast iron cauldron (or other fireproof container) and recite three times the following incantation: "To the flames my words are spoken as the newborn year unfolds. Resolutions be not broken, promises be upheld.
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To ensure that your life is blessed with good luck through the next twelve months, perform this simple spell at midnight on New Year's Eve. First, open every door and window of your house to allow the spirit of the old year to depart. Go outside and light a green candle that has been anointed with a few drops of cinnamon, cypress, or lotus oil, and, without uttering a single word, reenter your house through the back door. Walk through every room with the candle in your hand, go back outside through the front door then in again by the back. Additionally, you may place a silver coin, a piece of coal, and a piece of bread on a windowsill or porch at midnight on New Year's Eve, and then bring them into the house after you rise from bed on New Year's morning.
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By John Van Auken
At present, the year 2012 is only of interest to those of us who believe in the wisdom of ancient cultures. But soon, very soon, everyone is going to be looking for more information about this Mayan prophesied year of destiny, which many believe to be the end of the Mayan calendar and thus the end of time, as we have known it. Let's look at this calendar and this specific date more closely.
The Long Count Calendar
Actually, it all began with a discovery that has been known for decades about the culture that invented what is known as the Long Count Calendar. On the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas, Mexico, a few miles from the Guatemala border, the astrological observatory of the Izapa civilization was located. Some believe that the Izapa were the transitional culture between the older Olmec civilization and the emerging Maya; others believe the Izapa were the Olmecs.
For almost a thousand years the Izapa recorded the Long Count Calendar on monuments and ceramic vessels. Most of the dates refer to local, mundane events, like the crowning of a specific king. However, some of the Long Count monuments refer to mythological events that occurred at the beginning of the current "World Age" that we are living in and which is soon coming to an end. The Maya adopted the Izapa calendar, creation myths, and time cycles counting method.
Time Cycles
Scholars have figured out how the Long Count Calendar correlates with our own Gregorian calendar (using a lot of arithmetic), so we know that the legendary time of the beginning of our present World Age-when all the values were set to zero-occurred on August 11, 3114 BC. And using a complex system of Mayan Baktuns (measurements of time), we can calculate when their calendar reaches a new zero point - basically, every 13 Baktuns, or every 5,125 years the Long Count resets to zero - the calculated time when our present World Age ends and a new cycle of time commences.
Creation, Fall, and Resurrection
Several Creation monuments describe events that occurred in 3114 BC. The texts associated with these Creation monuments reports that "creation happens at the Black Hole," at "the Crossroads," and "the image" will appear in the sky.
The renowned researcher and author Linda Schele (in Freidel, Schele, and Parker's Maya Cosmos) wrote: "I realized that every major image from Maya cosmic symbolism was probably a map of the sky. [The] patterns in the Milky Way and the constellations were directly The Milky Way is their major image in the sky. As we know, we live on the outskirts of our galaxy and the Milky Way is the dense cluster of stars when looking toward the center of our galaxy. It appears as a long strip of stars in the sky above us. For the Maya, the rising, passing, and descending of the Milky Way in the sky marked major points in the cycle of time. Also, parts of the Milky Way and other stars prominent in our sky have specific meaning to our lives and the history of humanity and the heavenly realms, the realms of the gods.
To the Maya, the Milky Way's major features and the changes in its position and shape during the night reveal our origin, passage, and destiny. They are the Tree of Life; the Celestial Crocodile that gnaws at the Tree of Life; the Cosmic Canoe of the "Paddler gods" that follows after the Crocodile; the "lying down sky," or Black Dream Place; and seven stars in the Big Dipper, representing the egocentric Seven Macaw, who attempted to take the place of the Sun.
Simplified, the heaven passage tells the story of the initial fall of life's goodness at sunset, followed by the rise of egoism and self-seeking, which brought the rise of dangerous lower urges that crawl on their belly (as the cursed serpent in the Garden of Eden) and attack the attempts of life to resurrect, to rise anew, reborn. Fortunately, these dark influences are driven off by the higher ideals and the will to do good again. Eventually life is reborn and rises on a new dawn. That new dawn begins December 21, 2012, the Winter Solstice.
Rebirth in 2012
On August 11, 3114 BC, a new Solar Age began and the Sun Lord was reborn from the out of the darkness that had overcome all life. The Creation Lord deities are often portrayed attending to the rebirth of the world, including one called Bolon Yokte K'u, who is closely associated with war, conflict, and the Underworld. Despite these associations, Bolon Yokte is a god that is often present during Creation events. He is portrayed on a ceramic called Vessel of the Seven Lords, which contains the date 3114 BC, the beginning of our present 13-Baktun cycle, the one that ends in 2012. This Age is called the Age of Movement, or Change. And there certainly has been much change during this period in the world and in individual lives.
Of course, the date that interests us is the beginning of the next 13-Baktun cycle. What follows the end of the Age of Movement? A recent translation of a text from Tortuguero, a Classic Maya site north of Palenque, explicitly points to the date December 21, 2012. Translated by Mayan epigrapher David Stuart, the legible part of the text reads: "At the end of 13 Baktuns, on 4 Ahau 3 Kankin, 13.0.0.0.0; something occurs when Bolon Yokte descends." The verb glyph describing what happens is effaced, so it is replaced with the word something, but the creation lord Bolon Yokte is depicted. Since we know what Bolon Yokte represents, we may assume that this means that 2012 was thought of by the Maya as a creation or recreation of the world, likely during a time of war, conflict, and dominance of the Underworld and the Lords of the Underworld. Bolon Yokte represents all of these qualities.
As we can see, the end of the Mayan Calendar and the Age of Movement is simply the end of an Age. And, important to us, it marks the beginning of the next cycle of rebirth, renewal, and resurrection to even higher levels of enlightenment and understanding.
The Sky Signs
There are no specific markings or statements about the year 2012 on the archaeological artifacts at Izapa, but there are numerous images at Izapa that portray a rare celestial alignment that appears in the skies in the years around 2012. This galactic alignment marks the rebirth of the December solstice and the rebirth of the Sun Lord over Seven Macaw's attempts to replace him. The Sun Lord rises through the Dark Rift in the Milky Way, located between Sagittarius and Scorpio. Scorpio is depicted near the base of the Tree of Life in Mayan illustrations. Souls on Earth experience a change of galactic seasons, a celestial time-cycle shift, with our Sun moving into rebirth at the "Black Hole" at the celestial base of the Tree of Life (a location in the great Milky Way). December 21, 2012, signals the end of this 5,125-year Age of Movement that we've been living in and the commencement of a new Earth Age.
What Follows the Age of Movement?
Some say that 2012 marks the end of the world, but many more say that it is a new beginning. Nostradamus wrote that he sees to the year 3797! The biblical Revelation sees a time when all evil will be banded from the world, and that period will last for a thousand years! And though the Mayan and Aztec artifacts do not tell of a time beyond the Age of Movement, their ancestors carry a tale of two more Ages to follow the Age of Movement. They are the "Age of the Spirit of All Living Things," followed by the "Age of the Return to Oneness." Indicating that there is much left to do and much soul growth to realize and make our own.
Edgar Cayce's View
When asked what the New Age means to humanity, Edgar Cayce replied: "the full consciousness of the ability to communicate with the Creative Forces and be aware of the relationships to the Creative Forces and the uses of same in material environs. This awareness during the era or age in the Age of Atlantis and Lemuria or Mu brought what? Destruction to man, and his beginning of the needs of the journey up through that of selfishness." (1602-3)
Cayce is informing us that in a previous time cycle, humanity had a level of consciousness and relationship with the Creative Forces that allowed us to live at higher levels of material, mental, and spiritual activity in the Earth and beyond. Unfortunately, we misused this consciousness and the power that came with the close relationship to the Forces. This misuse brought on the destruction of our great cultures and a long, karmic soul journey through the pain and confusion that resulted from our selfishness and self-centered focus on our will without regard for the will of the Creator and others. Now, as the cycles come around again, we are nearing a time when the level of consciousness and relationship with the Creative Forces will allow us once again to regain these powers. How will we use them this time?
Before we despair that humankind is going to misuse these again, let's remember that many, many souls and even the Logos, the Word, have come into materiality and continue to come to help prepare the way for rebirth and resurrection. We overestimate the power of the world and its leaders. The unseen, heavenly forces have greater power and will overcome the world's darkness and selfishness, breaking through with a light that will transform this realm for a thousand years, when all evil and temptation will be bound and a golden age will reign. The biblical book of the Revelation conveys this prophecy: "I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years." (Rev. 20:2)
Of course, souls in the world must help lift humanity to higher levels of understanding, love, and spirituality.
Is 2012 the beginning of the fulfillment of these wonderful prophecies of the Izapa, Maya, Aztecs, Edgar Cayce, and the Revelation? Or, is it just another step on the long journey toward such fulfillment? The answer depends on us. How many of us catch the vision and raise our vibrations and consciousness to contribute to a truly new age of enlightenment will determine what occurs in January 2013.
John Van Auken is a Director at the Association for Research and Enlightenment. He is considered an expert in spirituality, reincarnation, ancient mysteries, and rejuvenation of the body, dream work, meditation, prophecy, mysticism, and Edgar Cayce concepts.
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IMBOLG 1992
Julia Phillips
Temple in darkness, apart from the Yule log in the centre. Brigid in her bed on the small altar. Lots of unlit candles in sand pots around the room. All enter as usual, and the Circle is cast in the normal manner. After the central invocations, HP says:
Awake O Earth from your slumbers! Awake O Sun and restore the Earth! Mother - we are in darkness.
HPS picks up a jug of water, and pours it into the cauldron saying:
The waters are broken. The ice melting towards Candletime. Blood has been along the track, but now the ways are clear of death. Old and grey I was, but here in the mystery of the waters I am renewed. For I am the one you sought, but could not find. For I was singing to my child unseen, beneath the hills of birch and rowan.
HPS takes the asperge, and all circle around her chanting the Witches Rune. She asperges each person as they pass, and on the last round, hands each person a white candle. When everyone has a candle, the circling stops, and HPS lights the main candles and says:
The darkness of winter is passing: the Earth awakens once more from its slumbers; the Virgin walks among us again, and brings Her blessings upon the land and upon our lives.
Priest and Priestess step forward and remove the cover from Brigid's bed, revealing the Virgin. Everyone shouts:
Brigid is Come! Brigid is Welcome!HPS takes a light from the Yule log and says:
Let the inner light bear fruit in our own lives, even as the Earth bears the first flowers. I am Brigid: She of the Golden Hair; Queen of the White Hills, and rider of the White Swan. I bring three gifts of fire. The first is the flame of creation; of the poet and artist; of the lovers' passion for union with the beloved. The second is the flame of purification and testing, the flame of truth. With this flame all dross and weakness are made clear and cleansed from thee, so thou become like a true and tested sword. The third is the greatest of all, for it is the healing flame born out of the love that gives all, the maker of peace and harmony. But I do not give these gifts one by one; I give them as a whole in the form of the growing Sun.
Everyone then lights their candle from the Yule log, and starts to circle deosil, lighting the candles around the room as they go, chanting:
Thus we banish winter, thus we welcome spring;
Say farewell to what is dead, and greet each living thing.
When all the candles are lit, everyone places their candle in a sand pot, and the chanting ceases.
HPs and HP bless cakes and wine.
Reference: http://spells-and-chants.blogspot.com
The first Big Break of the year. Where I get to interrogate a debut author about their new book. This week I have had the pleasure of featuring Sarah Alderson, author of Hunting Lila and Fated. Sarah is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors and I was so happy she agreed to be questioned by me.
"Firstly, can I thank you for joining me today on my blog."Thank you so much for having me! I love your blog.
"What did you do for a living before writing became your chosen career?"
I spent a year after finishing university temping in the private sector in posh banks and got very quickly put off by the whole environment. I'm a hippy at heart and pretty rebellious when it comes to following orders. I got fired from a job at Accenture! At that point I thought I needed a change of sector so I entered the charity world.
I ended up working for about eight years at a charity in London, working my way up until I was Head of Projects. Which basically means I was very bossy, made up a lot of nonsense in order to get funding and had a lot of meetings with patronising men twice my age. It was great fun most of the time; I had a brilliant team and together we created a lot of very cool volunteering projects that helped thousands of people - refugees, elderly people, people suffering from mental health issues and kids who weren't in education or employment. It was an amazing thing to feel like I was making a real difference to people's lives rather than just making rich people richer.
"You and your family now live in heavenly Bali. Tell us about your journey to find the dream place to write?"
My husband and I decided that we wanted to live somewhere else - we'd had enough of commuting and juggling childcare in London - so we packed up our bags and took our then 3 year old daughter around the world for 9 months to look for somewhere else to live.
It was epic - the most amazing time. We started in India - Alula (our daughter) wore her pink tutu and went to school on the beach in Goa whilst we both worked on our laptops at beach bars! I was writing the sequel to Hunting Lila at the time.
After a few months in India we travelled through Singapore and on to Bali, which we totally fell in love with - it's such a magical place, with all the beauty and vibrancy of India only with better toilets. We spent another three months there checking it out, after which we carried on to Australia and then finally to the US. I have so many incredible memories of that trip. We returned to the UK for just a month to stock up on Marmite before we moved to Bali for good.
I blogged the whole trip, from the lows (Indian night trains on a cramped bunk with a three year old and a cockroach for company) through to the highs of finding home (canoeing with dolphins, daily massages, confronting a bear in Yosemite)...and I still write the blog, detailing our crazy but incredible lives www.canwelivehere.com
I can write anywhere, so long as I have my laptop and my music, but Bali is the perfect place to write. It's the most peaceful place in the world (once you learn to tune out the geckos, the frogs, the cockerels and the dogs) - I'm so relaxed there and without too much to do or worry about it's easier to focus on writing.
"How long did it take you to write your debut novel 'Hunting Lila'?"
It took about four and a half months. But it was ridiculously long. I had no idea how many words YA novels were supposed to be so I just wrote it. And then I spent a few weeks editing it (kind of). And then I sent it off to agents. Now I look back I wonder how on earth I got to where I am - but there's something to be said for na"ivete.
"Where did you get the idea for Hunting Lila?"
I was tired of reading about girls swooning after boys with supernatural powers and waiting to be rescued. I wanted to write about a girl with a super power who didn't need rescuing. And then I thought wouldn't it be cool if she was part of a conspiracy and what if her mother had died because of it and what if she'd been in love with this boy for as long as she could remember and I kept saying 'what if' and it just flowed from there.
"Was this your first finished manuscript, or are there others hidden away?"
No, Hunting Lila was my first ever attempt at writing a book. Haha - don't tell me that's obvious!
"How many times did you have to edit your book before the agent was happy to send it off to publishers?"
My agent told me I needed to cut out 40,000 words from the first half (I told you it was long!). Losing that number of words is easier said than done. It took me about a month. Originally Lila, Alex,
Sara and Jack go for a weekend jaunt to Catalina Island and there were a few Alex and Lila scenes on the beach, which did nothing to further the plot, only to further my fantasies of Alex with his top off. So I had to lose them (sigh).
Once I'd cut the words we did a quick line by line and it was ready. I got my agent in early March 2010. I think we sent out the book for submission at the start of June and I signed my contract with Simon ">What was your first reaction when you found out that your book was to be published?"
We were having a party at our house in Bali. It was a Friday night. I had spent the previous three weeks on tenterhooks as publishers came back to my agent with rejections and some interest. I knew that the editor at Simon ">How long has it taken for your book to reach publication after the initial agreement?"
I signed in July 2010 and Lila was published in August 2011. Fated was accepted in November 2010 and is being published in January 2012. It's a long wait - but I know that's actually quite short in comparison to some authors who wait years.
"What was happening to your manuscript during this time?"
For six months nothing much! Which is why I wrote Fated. Whilst I was waiting for Fated and Hunting Lila to be published I wrote two and a half more After the manuscript is sent back and forth between me and my editor it's sent to a copywriter who checks it for continuity and grammar errors and then they print the unproofed copies for review. I have to wait two weeks for those to arrive in the post to Bali. At first I couldn't bring myself to read the uncorrected proof for Hunting Lila. But then I did and was so glad, as I picked up a dozen or so errors. It's much easier to proof it as a book than on screen. The final changes are made at this point, signed off, and then it's sent to print with lots of prayers. It's usually at that point I remember I've forgotten to mention someone in the acknowledgements and / or discover a glaring continuity error half way through.
"How did you keep yourself occupied as you waited for publication day?"
With Hunting Lila I kept busy by writing three and a half more
Well Evie, the main character is seventeen like Lila, and like Hunting Lila this book has got a lot of action in it and the bonus of a very, very hot guy. It's also a thriller with plenty of page turning conspiracy moments. But whilst Hunting Lila was told through Lila's eyes, Fated is told from two perspectives - both Evie's and Lucas's (the half Shadow Warrior, half human sent to spy on her and then ordered to kill her). There's a cast of really cool secondary characters too - not all of whom are human.
Fated is a bit darker than Hunting Lila. It's about the concept of fate versus freewill - do we have choice in our lives or not? It's very difficult sometimes I think as a teenager, if you're being told certain things about who you are and what's expected of you, to break free and do what you want to do - be who you want to be - hell, it's hard even as an adult to shake off the weight of expectation. It takes real bravery to stand up and say 'No, I'm not going to be this person that society expects me to be. I'm going to think for myself and choose my own path.'
I wanted to explore that as an idea. I really do believe in fate too - that the people who come into your life come into it for a reason, as with Lucas and Evie. Actually, now I think about it, both I started writing Fated when I was in California, on the last stretch of our round the world trip. We were staying with friends and they have the most incredible house just north of LA. I was desperate to start writing as the idea for Fated had been in my head for a while bursting to get out, and then John took Alula to the beach for the day to give me some space. I sat at the table with my laptop and opened a new document. I can still remember writing the first line.
'Her name is Evie Tremain. She's seventeen years' old. She lives in Riverview, California. Now go and kill her.'
I finished Fated about two months later back in Bali.
"What other projects are you working on at the moment?"
I've just finished two sequels to Fated, which I wrote in very quick succession (the last one only took me 30 days). I loved the characters so much, and wanted to write about what happened to them next, even though I didn't have a book deal.
For the last couple of weeks I have been crazy busy promoting both
It's going to be sold as an e-book and all profits will be going to my friend's charity Girltank which supports young women around the world who are making social change happen. For me probably the most exciting part of getting a profile as a writer is being able to use it to promote the causes I feel strongly about, and empowering women is probably the most important one for me.
"Tell us what a typical writing day would be like?"
When I'm in Bali I wake up really early - around 6ish - and steal out onto the balcony to check my emails and start writing. I try to pack in as much as I can before my daughter wakes up but once
she does I'm on mummy duty until she goes to school. Around 8.30 I'm back at my desk and will work solidly for several hours. If I'm having a plotting day I'll always go for a swim - that's where I do most of my plotting and thinking. Ok, and sunbathing.
I'm a total social media addict so I'll stop every fifteen minutes or so to check email and Facebook and Twitter. I stop working most days at 2pm so I can pick my daughter up from her school in the middle of the rice paddies.
Normally if I'm in the throes of a book I can't think about anything else, so once Alula is in bed I'm back in front of my computer - though I'm a morning person, usually I'm brain dead and only ready for a G">What advice would you give to aspiring and unpublished authors?"
Keep writing and keep believing!
I keep hearing people scoffing at the idea of writers getting their first manuscript accepted. I got my first and my second! It is possible and I hope people draw inspiration from me rather than listening to the negative comments out there.
I would also say start building a following and a platform now because publishers don't have huge marketing budgets anymore - and they can only take on a few new authors. Simon ">
"Thank you Sarah for giving us fantastic answers. I am a little envious of your writing life. "
Both Hunting Lila and Fated are available to
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"by Salman Hameed"
I have written before about the futility of finding science in the Qu'ran and other scriptures. None of these efforts actually lead to any scientific developments (because this is as far away from science as you can get - and lacks a fundamental curiosity about the natural world), but instead are used by followers of each individual religions mostly for proselytization purposes. The same is true for seeking premonitions in sacred texts.
I'm currently listening to a fascinating "Teaching Company" course titled, The Apocalypse: Controversies and Meanings in Western History. It us taught by Professor Craig Koester, and is one of the best courses I have done there (One of my absolute favorites has been the series of three course on the Middle Ages by Philip Daileader). The first 12 lectures are spend on exploring the context in which the Book of Revelation was written and how people understood it in their own times. For example, the seven-headed dragon stood for the various aspects of the Roman Empire at the time of the writing of the book - and the infamous 666 stands, most likely, stood for the name of Emperor Nero (his name's numerical value adds up to 666). Koester calls the example of the dragon as a word-picture, and compares it to editorial cartoons in modern times (for example, a donkey and an elephant in political cartoon in the US would be interpreted by all to be the Democratic and Republican party, respectively).
But one of the fascinating bits in the lectures is about a particular change in the 12th century, where the Book of Revelation was interpreted by a reformer, Joachim of Fiore, to be a map of history. Apart from other things, for him, the seven heads of the dragon meant seven periods of history where the Christian Church was under a serious threat. Of course, he believed that he was living in a special time. And so he divided up the time periods from birth of Christ to the present. Some of the early Roman emperors represented couple of heads and early Islam was also included as one of the heads of the dragon. He assumed that the 6th and 7th heads were in his own time - and Saladin was considered as the 6th head, and his potential collaborator - the anti-christ - to be the 7th and final head.
Here is the relevant bit for this post: He also believed that the year 1260 was of paramount importance, as it will launch the final stage of history. Why 1260? He derived this from the Gospel of Matthews, that mentioned that there were 42 generations before Christ. Well, 42 times 30 years for each generation, leads to 1260 years. He assumed time to be symmetrical around Christ, and so he believed that the age of Jesus would last 1260 years after his death. Joachim of Fiore died in 1202, but some of his followers did believe in a drastic change in the world in the year 1260. Nothing major happened.
But this mapping of history onto the "Book of Revelation" then took hold, and it transformed the book from a purely spiritual document to providing a roadmap of history and future events. And of course, people see themselves - no matter in what century - as playing an important role in the ultimate history of the world. If Joachim and his followers saw apocalyptic events in the 13th century, then it is not much of a surprise that many see signs in the of end-of-times today.
Many Muslim interpreters have done the same with the Qur'an and the Hadith (For a recent example, you can check out this sensational Urdu TV special, "Hidden Truth" by Shahid Masood). The impulse comes from the drive to make one's existence more meaningful and to envision the ultimate triumph of one's own religion (be it Christianity or Islam) over all others.
This mining of clues in the sacred texts for premonitions reminds me of the search for modern science in the same
Reference: http://witchcraftforall.blogspot.com
