Lord Ganesha

When I was growing up, I was taught that wishing for money was evil. My parents read me the story "The Monkey's Paw" as an illustration that if you wish for money, God will punish you for money is the root of all evil. Such a wish is a selfish wish and anyone brazen enough to wish for something so selfish as money would be granted sorrow.

When I discovered metaphysics, it seemed logical to me that wishing for money was not in itself evil, but I could never bring myself to try and attract money because of my earlier training, although I would be very generous with my money. I still felt very uncomfortable doing spell work to bring more money into my life.

Tonight, I had the rare and beautiful occurrence of a spontaneous manifestation from the benevolent Lord Ganesha, the Vedic God of plenty. This is not to say that I saw a 20 foot tall human-elephant hybrid standing before me, but I did see the benevolent deity very clearly in my mind's eye and I felt his kindness and knew that if I wished for what I needed through him, it could never manifest in a negative way. Lord Ganesha is a merciful deity and would never play a wicked trick on those who turn to him in their time of need. Nor would he punish the innocent for the wicked deeds of one family member or associate.

I often become too wrapped up in doing things perfectly. I had a couple of very "heavy" days of meditation, worship and spirit contact. Lord Ganesha asked me to make this day an easy and fun day, to perform but a few spells and to ask for and allow his help. He knows the heart of those who petition him and he knows that my intentions are good. I feel honored that he manifested to me without my asking and gave me his blessing. I know I can always turn to Lord Ganesha and while this isn't a "genie in the bottle" sort of thing where all I wish is instantaneously dropped on my doorstep I know that he will never punish me or those I love and if he sees error in my ways, he will find a method of getting the message across kindly, for he is all benevolence. Blessed be Lord Ganesha and great is my thanks to him for his blessings.

Lily Rowena Iridescent Leaf

Fundamentalist Foolishness

Things like this are why I can't abide fundamentalist Christians.

The guy was gay. So the megachurch that was going to do the funeral service canceled.

This is the original article.

There's some love for you. Dude was gay. He wasn't hurting anybody. He wasn't a murderer or a rapist or a child molester. Just a guy who happened to be in love with another guy.

I dislike megachurches too. I do not think they were in the spirit that Jesus intendend.

Jesus cared for and healed outcasts. I think he would have had some kind words to say for the spirit of this guy.

I dislike the Christian church. But I have the highest regard for Jesus, the enlightened healer.

Fortunately my heathen present is no secret

You Are a Yule Log

While you do have holiday spirit, you have a secret, heathen past.

What Holiday Food Are You?

Strange Days

I step outside for a smoke and hear a collective psychic scream all around my neighborhood.

"This isn't what I planned! This isn't what I would have chosen! Why?"
I wonder why all of us are here. Is it just our bad choices, or just bad luck? There aren't any "bad" people living around here. Just a bunch of "trailer trash." People who have given up or were never cut a break in life.
Why are we here?
Why did those people die on that bridge in Missouri?
My son's best friend had a dream the night before the bridge collapsed. He dreamed of an old, rickety wooden bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi river and cars fell in. Many people were killed.
The bridge that collapsed had structural damage. He must have been perceiving that.
I astral projected while being worked on at the chiropractor's office today. Kind of freaked me out. I slammed back into my body and almost had a panic attack.
Strange days indeed.

Amazing song! Love the Doors!























Read the story of the Jim Morrison spirit photo.

The truth

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits. Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle. Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?

Finally perhaps a good explanation.

Doug wrote this on his blog:
WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

2007 Update: A sorceress responsible for, among other things, men turning into apes; enchantments that cause obsession, indifference or distraction in the victim; the levitation of owls; the nocturnal rituals of cats; and, in many cases, profligate drinking, foolish voting and debt.

And I replied:
Then there's the boring kind of witch, like me, who is simply someone who didn't get along with the accepted religion of the society and so reverted to a previous one. Neither hideously ugly nor in any way beautiful, I zig-zag or sleepwalk in my own odd way through life, annoying those who lack a sense of humor and frightening those who are devoted to the accepted religion.

The Crystal Cavern

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So What Happened in this life?

You Were a Cougar

You are a great leader who has dominance without ego. You are wickedly cunning and off the scale confident.

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

Which Goddess of Death are you?

My top result for the SelectSmart.com selector, Which Goddess of Death are You?, is ?????

My top result for the SelectSmart.com selector, Which Goddess of Death are You?, is Eriskegal - The Sumerian Goddess of the Underworld. This Sumerian Goddess of Death is naked and asleep. She weeps for all those who die, yet when her sister tried to take over her realm, she turned her into a chunk of rotting meat... When provoked, you have one hell of a temper!

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Blessing of Bast for dead or dying cat

I also placed this on my Animal Anarchy Blog.
The Blessing of Bast


Blessing to the Dead (For Bast)
(NOTE: This is a quote taken from Michael Poe’s e-text.)

"Bast is a goddess for the Sun and the Moon, but for the dead Sunset is
the best time; Night comes second, sunrise third, and daylight comes in
fourth for ritual for this.

Face the West, setting sun (or if not at sunset, either the moon or the
sun depending on you doing it in the day or night time. If you have an
oil lamp lit it; if not use white candles, and a little votive candle. Bless
the two white ones to Bast, the votive to the dead cat. Meditate upon the
cats attributes; able to see at night, intelligent, quick, independent, very
maternal, luxury minded and sensual. (if you have a cat, invite her in
your circle).

Bast nefer dy ankh
Beautiful Bast giving Life,

A Bast, shu asenu
Hail Bast, in visible form, casting light into the darkness

sesept em kekui,
I have come before you,

i kua ser-ten, uat sesh-tha, ta em hetep.
the path is opened, the earth is at peace.

(Egyptian pronunciation is optional, but in ancient Egypt was imperative to speak the language to create the sounds to get the response.)

O Great goddess, Bast,
Soul of Isis,
Heart of the Sun-hear my call.
Enter now this consecrated shrine (or circle)
Make Thy presence known to me.

(envision the dead cat)

Aid thy servant in reaching the source of all things,
Guide thy servant's steps on the true path
Answer your physical manifestation's soul's desire for Thou.
Blessed be Bast,
Who gathers her children into life everlasting.
Blessed be Bast,
The Beloved of Bast has gone to the Horizon,
Your physical manifestation lives now only in the sunset.
May it's ka endure and it's shadow seek the light.
The power of Bast protects her,
Shut en Bast sau."

If THAT is unsatisfying or baffling, do not worry. Here is a simpler prayer:

"Mau Bast! Mau Bast! A Basti, per em setat, erta-na chu em asui
neter sentra semu hena net'emmit, hetep ab em asui tau heqt.

Translation: Hail Bast! Hail Bast! Hail Bast, coming forth from the secret place, may there
be given to me splendor in the place of incense, herbs, and love-joys, peace of heart in the
place of bread and beer."

A Question of Belief

Sometimes when I am receiving input from my co-author or another spirit, I fear I may just be a lonely lunatic imagining the whole thing. But then later I'll find out that things I had no way of knowing are absolutely true.
My psychic abilities are very raw. I have never honed them. I have good abilities in divination skills such as reading tarot cards. I do not normally pick up on things like names or initials. I likely can't tell a person what their dearly beloved Nana's pet name for them was in childhood. I do not see spirits, I feel them. I feel their emotions and, from my co-author, sensations of warmth, for instance when he puts his hand on my back. He/they (the soul in question suffered from dissociative personality disorder, which is not common knowledge) discovered that they possess an innate healing ability. It is also obvious to me that they possessed empathic abilities and a rather powerful ability to contact the spirit realm.
It confuses me at times why the deities and angels don't intervene more strongly to save an individual such as this. Sadly in this case, the negative energies surrounding him were too strong, I think. But he reminds me that while his life may have been lost, his soul was not.
There is still much for me to learn and when I begin to question the reality of it, I am reminded of this fact. Since being befriended by this invisible but very real spirit, I have never again been plagued by demons attempting to possess me, which is something that used to happen quite frequently when I slept. It is nice to have a "guard spook." We are learning a lot together and truly do enjoy one another's company.
People also often have the mistaken impression that ghosts are omniscient. They are the same people they were in life. They do have access to more channels of information but are not omniscient just because they shed their bodies. So it's no good being angry with Uncle Grant because he can't tell you the winning lottery numbers or Aunt Sally because she doesn't know who you should marry. But it might be well to listen if you sense Uncle Grant tapping you on the shoulder when you're reading the classifieds looking for a better job or Aunt Sally warning you that the new guy you have such strong feelings for is a bad deal. Spirits are energy and they sense energies. Not being bound by the solid confines of a body, they can do so more freely than we can.
Expert psychics are adept at sensing these same energies. We can all develop them. It takes time and patience like anything else. And it is real.

Here are some psychic exercises to try.

Reading regarding my business venture

Greetings Cie,

Greetings Cara this is Lady Joy. I am currently filling in for Lydia due to time constraints. My Spirit Guide says: What you should do is seek new funding if at all possible. Most new businesses cannot support themselves on little funds. Try to get investors or work through networking and profit sharing. You will need at least to get a part time job to try to help support this venture. It will take at least a year more to be more supportive and have money coming in. Make sure the part time job is supportive and it is money coming to you not just speculative. This will require a lot of endurance on your part. If however you just choose to wait things out the new business will flounder. It is not yet strong enough to stand on its own two feet. The book will do moderately well but it needs a good marketing team to set it in the lime light. This will help with extra cash but not right immediately. Make sure you have a good contract with the publisher and get your just du e. Profits at first will seem skimpy but they will improve especially in August. You have a lot of operations going perhaps spread a little thin. You need more time or the ability to delegate. The adult store is the most viable since you have invested in it more than the dollar store. Save the dollar store for a bit later in two years when all else is moving along smoothly. Blessings Lady Joy

LadyJoy of Psychic Realm




You Wrote:

Hello Lydia To get the basic stuff out of the way first my name is Cara Hartley or Cie and my email address is clhproducts@gmail.com I have just started working in e-commerce. All the ideas seem good but I have become quite overwhelmed. The $2000 I borrowed from my family is nearly gone. I have this sense that "good things are just around the corner" if only I stick with it. But as I have bipolar disorder I tend to have too many thoughts and to diversify too much. Also I have just written a book that is being set for publication as we speak. I got into e-commerce to make money to promote the book and also to pay for the publishing as major publishers won t touch unknowns. The websites I have are an adult store that is already set up and has thousands of products. It is very classy not some sort of sleazy operation. The other is a general store and the third is a discount "dollar store." My feeling is that the adult business has the most potential and I should work on pro moting and advertising that. I know this is a lot of info so the basic question is how should I best go about succeeding at my new business ventures? Thank you so much for your time. Cie

Cie

Senseless

I really don't get people who commit massacres because they're miserable.

I've thought about taking myself out many a time. The thought usually crosses my mind several times a month.

I was very unpopular when I was in school, especially junior high. There was one girl who seemed to live to make me miserable. One time she passed around this note alleging that the teacher's assistant in art and I were having a "thing." The note was very graphic and very disgusting, and I was horrified. She said the ugliest things about me. And I actually came up with a plan to kill her.

I had a knife under my jacket and was going to follow her into the girls' bathroom and stab her.

I had no other targets although there were others that picked on me. This girl made my life hell, however, and I had reached a breaking point.

Something, I have no idea what, a spirit guide, an angel, my higher (and I don't mean having smoked more pot, something that I did a lot of back in the day) self said to me:

"Don't do it. Put the knife back. You don't want to ruin your entire life over this bitch."

It wasn't a namby pamby goody goody "love thy enemy" schpiel. It wasn't asking me to consider what Jesus would do, in spite of the fact that at the time I was a devout Catholic. Whatever was guiding me acknowledged that this girl was a mean-spirited bitch. It told me that I was above doing something that barbaric and deserved better than to spend the remainder of my youth incarcerated for killing her, and probably having to change my identity as an adult. This guidance was loud and clear (in my mind, not in my ears) and it was very real and honest.

I've often wondered where the guiding voice was for people like this recent mass murderer, for people like the guy at the Amish school, for people like Harris and Klebold.

Is the voice there but they block it out?

Or are they listening a voice that encourages them to kill?

I wonder if I'll ever know.

I don't think I'll ever understand.

Standing Up For What I Believe

For many years I have done my ceremonies seated. I was raised in the Catholic church and we sat or kneeled, sometimes stood. Even when I turned to my particular blend of Wicca, Buddhism and Gnosticism, I have tended to remain seated during my ceremonies. But when I did the Ostara ceremony yesterday, I felt the power when I performed most of the work STANDING!

In yesterday's post I mentioned calling on Balder, who is a benevolent god of power. Not the kind of power that tramples over the rights of others, but the kind that invites one to be true to oneself and one's beliefs. Balder only fights when necessary. He is strong enough that he doesn't have to fight to prove himself.

It was as if Balder said to me "stand up, Sister, and join me!" And when I felt the power that went into that ceremony, I truly felt at one with the Ancient Deities.

Sometimes being seated is right. When doing the Buddhist meditations, one is in a relaxed seated or kneeling position, according to their level of comfort. Relaxing the body allows the mind to relax, helping the enlightenment to reach through the mind to the soul. But when doing a full afternoon of meditation, we are sometimes called to get up and walk, strolling slowly through the temple, to bring ourselves back to earthly reality. This helps integrate the new enlightenment into our physical minds.

Sometimes meditation is done lying down, as with the exercises I do to increase my astral projection proficiency. This is a very relaxed way to learn new things and new ideas. Hypnotism is usually perfomed on a subject who is lying down.

And sometimes kneeling in deference to one's beloved deities is correct as well.

But the thing I like about the Pagan and Buddhist deities is that they don't command you admit your inferiorty. They only ask your respect.

It is much more an apprentice/adept relationship than a master/slave relationship.

And that feels more RIGHT to me.

I give gratitude to Balder, Freya, Brigit, and all the other mighty deities who joined in our ceremony of blessing for the growing year and for the book yesterday.

Blessed be!

Lily

and the Ghost Writer

Why Ostara Today

We didn't do it as a protest against the Christian Easter. We did it because we are celebrating new beginnings.
The book that I initially started in 1992 and my spectral co-author joined me in writing and helped me change radically for the better in 2005 is finished! We did our Ostara ceremony before submitting it. We invoked Brigid and Freya, who we had invoked and asked to bless our work when we discovered each other and knew we wanted to work together. We invoked Balder, a beloved Deity of my co-author's people, and any other benevolent deity that wished to be present. We then did a ceremony to the God and Goddess. When done, the circle was filled with benevolent energy and blessing, and I plugged the portable drive into the computer and off went the story to its destination.
I was so nervous I was ready to piss my pants! Luckily I did not humiliate myself thusly in front of my co-author and the deities. I was actually happy because I have not been that excited about anything in literally years.
When we began working together, we felt that doing so would be beneficial to both of us.
It has been.
Now we must work to achieve our greater goals from the book. Raising awareness about mental illness, and bringing to light certain truths that he wants the world to know about him.
The site for the book is live, but as of this writing, is still in its very skeletal stages. By the end of the month it should start looking like something.
Here is the link for anyone who is interested in looking at a cyber-skeleton!
May you achieve your goals this year as well!
Blessed Be
Cie and Ghost

I am Love

Which Positive Quality Are You? Your Result: Love You are Love. Love is the glue that binds us all together. The love of family, the love of friends, the love between husbands and their wives--these things form the foundation of our happiness, our security, and our comfort. "All you need is love."
Courage
Friendship
Charity
Faith
Peace
Which Positive Quality Are You?

I think this refers more to benevolent love and trying to treat people decently than to romantic love, or I think the results would have been way different because I'm a pretty big cynic when it comes to romantic love. I'm actually kind of a cynic about how much good the humanitarian kind of love does, but I still believe its the right thing to do.

To Hell (Hel) With Me?

People are multifaceted. While I try to be a nice person, and I usually am until someone gives me reason to be pissed off, I can also be the meanest fucking bitch you ever met! Generally this goes against what I believe to be proper action. Even if I don't like someone, usually I'll ignore them. But what about the kind of people that come looking for it? You warn them and they insist on pissing you off! How much bad karma is it giving me that I kind of enjoy allegorically kicking the living shit out of some asshole that truly deserves it when they come a-knocking and ASKING FOR IT??? They could just stay away! I wouldn't follow them.

Maybe I'm giving into temptation sent by some devil or other to heap bad karma atop my already questionable karma. On the other hand, maybe I'm just emulating the Norse Goddess Hel, pictured above.

Hel rules over the Norse underworld, or Niflheim. This realm has three levels. On the first level, deities and warriors celebrate together with Hel. On the second level, those who died infirm and weak roam until they are released for rebirth. On the third and worst level are the truly evil.

While Hel is generally seen as a harsh deity, she can also be benevolent. She assists magicians who call upon her respectfully.

Read more about the Norse spiritual realms here.

Love, Hate and Betherell

It is said that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and most people take this to mean that first you love someone and then are betrayed by them so the intensity of emotion that was once directed into love is now directed into hate. In truth, I have recently discovered that this simply means that love and hate are both intense emotions which are the polar opposites of one another. Both require energy but love is positive energy and hate is negative energy.

You don't in fact have to love someone enough to feel betrayed by them to end up hating them. You can go from feeling charitable towards someone to disliking them because they display a consistently hateful attitude towards you. You can go from tolerating a person that you find it difficult to get along with in any case to fully hating them because they become openly hostile towards you.

In a recent personal experience my feelings towards a given individual went from thinking of them as odd but basically ok to general annoyance at nearly everything they said, to feeling disrespected by them, to feeling totally creeped out by them. When I finally made it known that I would no longer tolerate their unacceptable behavior, this individual became downright hostile. On the cosmic scale of things this individual means nothing to me, but I have a lifetime of issues and this attack, which was about a 1 on the cosmic richter scale with a mouse fart being a 1, a nuclear blast being about a 5, and a supernova being a 10, made me react in ways that are inexplicable to people who have developed decent skills for coping with life's problems, especially the myriad of crappy little stuff.

I have banished the attacker through comment moderation. If I see their name in the list of comments, I delete it without reading it. Now this individual is going around slamming me on other people's blogs. They really are the most ridiculous thing, and I really don't care but something inside me does.
I was watching this program about people with addictive or destructive behaviors. There was a young woman who was musically talented, had a definite borderline personality. She had been molested as a child. She was standing outside a nightclub when some jerk walked by her and called her a whore. This upset her so much that when she went home that night she started cutting herself all over. She said that she knew it was stupid to get so upset over this but she always did, whenever someone who didn't know her said something bad about her like that it would send her into a spiral of self-hate. This is what happens to me and this is why people like my verbal assailant are poison to me. I should never have been nice to him. My first impression of him was that he was "strange, but basically an ok guy." Then I started finding him annoying, then creepy. The more I ignored him the more he started harrassing me. Then he eventually started making hostile comments when I made it clear that I wasn't going to put up with any more of his shit. He isn't getting to me now, but I knew exactly what that poor girl was talking about. Her cutting was far worse than any I've done. I would cut on my arms, legs and abdomen but immediately try to hide it most times. She smeared the blood all over herself. She also saw her image in a mirror and smashed her fist through the mirror. I wanted to reach out and hug her and say "It's ok, my sister, I understand." Its horrible knowing your actions are strange and wrong and not being able to stop yourself, feeling dead inside and wanting to be dead. And most of the time it is good people that these feelings afflict.

What does this have to do with love and hate?

I was walking along pondering my reaction to this fool when a kind spirit said to me that I was smart enough to know that such an individual wasn't worthy of my love, so why couldn't I see that he wasn't worthy of my hate? The spirit told me that hate involves a great expenditure of energy and in the end only tires out the person who is doing the hating. So this is far from being some namby-pamby new-agey "love thy enemy" sort of speech. It is far more a "ignore your enemy because they aren't worth your energy" speech. I will not purport to lecture anyone that has deep-seated hate for an individual who killed a loved one or other such heinous acts. But for your run of the mill detractors or even your cheating ass boyfriend or girlfriend, eating yourself up with hate does you not one bit of good. And this leads to the concept of Betherell.

In the wonderful science fiction pictorial book Aliens in Space by Stephen Caldwell, the inhabited world which circles Proxima Centauri is home to a peaceful, advanced civilization. There are no jails and there is no capital punishment. But the worst criminals are subject to a fearsome sentence known as Betherell. Those doomed to Betherell must wear special clothing so everyone in society knows their fate, and they are henceforth ignored by the entire population. They have in essence ceased to exist. One can see where this would be psychologically distressing, but as Caldwell points out, to be completely ignored can also be deadly. If one upon whom Betherell is imposed walks in front of a planetary transport, for instance, the transport driver is not going to slow down for them because they, in essence, do not exist. If such an individual is drowning, no-one is going to rescue them because they, for all intents and purposes, do not exist.

While this fictional sentence imposed upon criminals on a fictional world may seem extreme and preposterous, consider the merit of in essence imposing Betherell upon those who repeatedly offend us and violate our personal comfort levels. Of course it would be illegal to run someone down who walked in front of your car because you had chosen to see that person as not existing, and of course if one of these people is actually dangerous, you can't ignore them. But any vile words coming from them are the words of a troubled mind. One must ask oneself, why am I troubled by these imaginary voices? As it would be detrimental to sanity to acknowledge these voices, said voices do not exist.

In most situations, psychological/psychic Betherell is far more effective than hate. It is placid neutrality and the attacker can't gain any kind of psychic or psychological stimulation from the fact that one is expending energy on hating him or her.

You need not love your enemy. But except in extreme circumstances, the most healthy course of action would seem to be to ignore, rather than hate them.

Warning

How dangerous is my current level of exhaustion?

I have fibromyalgia and my exhaustion heightens my pain and my pain heightens my exhaustion. My adrenals are fried right now. I find myself being paranoid and having very disturbing thoughts, filled with worry about those I care for. I feel hated, even by those that are supposed to love me. Although I have been under some attack from certain quarters for real and I am so sensitive to emotions, especially love and hate. Sensing strong hate actually hurts me physically.

Tonight as I was getting out of the car to bring in the fast food to feed the family as I was too burned out and exhausted to cook, I turned to see a dark, shadowy shape about six feet behind me. I sensed cold and although this being was eerie it wasn't evil. I felt warning from it. If I continue on as I am, I will be departing from the physical world.

That would be ok with me right now. I'm too tired to fight any more.

Modern Tools of Worship

I became concerned about the relatively low but nonetheless plausible danger of fire from burning jar candles near my Buddha and Tara statues on my makeshift altar at work. Today while shopping at the local natural foods and goods store, I found a truly fine item--a Himalayan salt lamp. It is beautiful and the material comes straight from the Earth, so it seemed a perfect solution.

The Wiccan part of my belief system includes acknowledging the Elementals. The four Earthly elements are Earth, Fire, Water and Air. The fifth element is Aether or Heaven.

The Earth elementals will like the lamp because salt is representative of Earth.

The Fire elementals will appreciate the light and the electricity that generates it.

However, it lacks the air and water elements.

I always have a glass of some sort of liquid around the altar area, either water or tea, occasionally juice, for the water elementals.

I will need to get an aroma diffuser to appeal to the air elementals since I am no longer using scented candles. Traditionally incense is used to invoke the air elementals, but it was entirely impractical to use incense in my situation, so I have never done so.

Thus, if you are concerned about the danger of fire or simply want to try something different in your worship, a salt lamp may be a new tool for you to consider.

Peace,

Lily