Litha Blessings!

The eve of Litha is upon us, and although I'm excited to celebrate it this year, it's also a bitter sweet celebration.

It marks a month since Akura, one of our beloved cats passed away. It was a sudden and unexpected death, and it still hurts. She wasn't just any cat, and even though we saw her as our "fur child" - she was so much more than that... she was also my wife's Familiar.

It's hard to explain to muggles, and many people what this means exactly. Out of the 11 four legged, fluffy furkids in our home, only two have had this title. My boy Jinx is my Familiar, and Akura was my wife's. A familiar is not just another furry family member, but for us witches there exists a very special, spiritual bond with the animal.

During Litha, it's traditional to have an animal blessing rite, as a result every time I've thought of coming up with celebrations, or creating any rituals for the day, my mind turns to our beloved Akura, my heart hurts (sometimes I cry), and I struggle to move forward.

As a result, I thought it best that maybe we make it a more casual get together for the day. In true South African style we will be having a braai with seasonal salads. But I still want to do something to celebrate the day, so I will be having a small bowl to burn offerings in, and we will do a traditional jumping over of the fire for prosperity and abundance, and we will leave out some milk and honey for the Faye Folk.

I also still very much want to do something that includes an animal blessing, as my pets are such an important part of my life. Besides our loss, the other biggest hurdle we are facing is that there will be no less then twenty pets to be represented over three households, the logistics of getting everyone together for a quick blessing would prove to be quite difficult. Instead I've gone for a candle blessing, where I will be blessing a candle, which in turn when burned in the homes of the furry family members and will impart the blessing onto them. Here's the blessing I came up with, and hopefully you can use it too.

Animal Blessings Candle - blessing ritual

You will need a candle, preferably plain white

Dried chamomile flowers (or chamomile tea would work) – this is the flower for harmony (especially in homes with multiple pets), peace, healing and happiness.

Dried basil leaves – for protection

Dried cloves – for protection and healing.

You can place these herbs in a blessing oil to steep for a few hours (or for a day or two at room temperature), before using it to anoint your candle, or you can melt down some candle wax and place the herbs in the wax, to dip your pet protection candle in. Just make sure the wax isn’t too hot, or you might create a fire when you add the dried herbs.

Have your plain white candle and the oil or wax with the herbs in ready on your altar to be blessed. Set up your sacred space as you normally would, call on the quarters and invoke your deity.

When you are ready to bless the candle, place your hands over the candle and oil / wax herbal mix and say the following incantation:

Artemis, with your arrow straight and true

Bless this candle I bring to you

Imbue it with peace, harmony and love

And protection from you hereof

Bless this candle and its flame

So that all animals, wild and tame

Within the home where it may burn

Will your love and protection earn

Dip the white candle into the oil or wax, and then place it back onto your altar. Place your hands over it once again and repeat the above incantation.

When the candle is blessed, light it’s flame, and visualise the light extending out over your home, and keeping all the animals within happy, safe and living together in harmony.

If you are going to be gifting it to friends or your coven, as I am. Include a copy of the incantation, and a description of visualising the light extending out and over their furry loved ones, so that they can perform the visualisation when they burn the candle in their own homes.

To end today's post I want to finish off by sharing with you some Summer Solstice Facts. I wish you and your family an Blessed Litha, and for our friends in the North a Blessed Yule, and I wish you only the best for the year to come

Thousands of FREE meditations

As you know, I am a HUGE fan of a good daily meditation, what a lot of you might not now is that I actually create my own meditation music too.

That’s right, and believe it or not, but it’s one of the reasons I actually started The Wicca Series, some 11 years ago. 

My goal was to originally create a series of Wiccan and Pagan based meditations, and so The Wicca Series was born.

However, eleven years later and most of my meditations have evolved into music based meditations. A large majority of them contain binaural beats (Theta or alpha waves) to help you to truly focus your intentions as you meditate.

Would you like to listen to them? For FREE? Of course you do... they’re available to listen to on an app called Insight Timer. I’ve already had almost 60,000 listens to my tracks... and of course you’re welcome to leave me a “tip” if you like my music to thank me for all the hard work that went into creating it.

I know that my type of meditation music isn’t “everyone’s cuppa tea”, but there is good news. There are literally hundreds of other teachers available on the app with thousands of meditations to suit everybody’s taste.

So if one of your goals for the upcoming year is to meditate more, to find healing and to become more in-tune with yourself, then this app is a really fantastic place to start.

In fact it has officially become the most downloaded and used meditation app across the world, give it a try and you will see why. It even allows you to keep track of how often you meditate (and you score points too), you can meet fellow meditators and make new friends, and follow your favourite teachers that you would like to hear more of. 

Download it today, it has free version (which still has loads of features), and before you know it, you will find completing your daily meditations a breeze.

Summer is Coming

Summer is coming! It has been an unusually cool spring season for us here in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the occasional bouts of heat waves in between, which is why I'm looking forward to this Summer Solstice. 

That and for the first time in more than a decade (that's right, 10 years) I'm inviting guests over to celebrate it with me. Naturally I'm a little nervous, and when I start to worry about what I'm going to do and how the day should go, I remind myself that "I got this".

I'm planning a small feast and blessing, and pretty much a relaxed day all round, but I'm quite excited to be making it a special occasion with good friends. Of course I will be throwing in some milk and honey as offerings to the Faye, as well as a blessing for all animals and beloved pets (one of my favourite parts of the Summer Solstice rituals), and to finish it off I am setting up a small summer feast. My summer harvest is starting to grow in my garden, so it will no doubt be a really good "homemade with love feast".

I have also started to dry out a few smudge sticks as gifts for everyone, with the new year around the corner, it's a really great time to burn these to cleanse away the old dusty cobwebs of 2018 as we welcome the new energy of 2019. 

The only thing I have left to do is work out the day's schedule and how to go through the day, and although I might go about fussing about these things on the day, I have to say that I am really feeling good about it, because let's face it, the Summer Solstice is always best when spent with friends as we celebrate the Sun and the God on the longest day of the year, I can think of no better way of spending it. 

To finish I would like to quote this exert from Every Day Magic by Cassandra Carter

Litha - Summer Solstice - is the festival of the Sun's power, the longest day of the year. After this point, however, the year begins to wane. A good time to look at what brings light to your life and to think how you can nurture it, and yourself, as the darkness approaches.

Spoil yourself with Freyja Natural

I'm not a huge fan of actually leaving my house much, I try to do it as little as possible, however during the months of September to November, it appears that almost everyone I know seems to have a birthday or celebration of some sort. This usually means dreaded trips down to shopping malls to find the perfect gift.

I love to give natural, good for the environment, type of gifts, and I much rather prefer shopping online, this means that coming across a brand like Freyja Natural, has all my boxes "ticked" and so much more...

I have completely fallen in love with this site. Not only did they communicate with me throughout the entire order process, but I had the absolutely most beautiful package hand delivered to my home, with a smile. And to top it off the products are absolutely amazing!

When you buy from a small business an actual person does a little happy dance

First of all, receiving a beautiful package like this... well who wouldn't feel special. I think this part alone brightened up my day!

So what did I order? I suffer from terrible dry skin, especially in winter. So I decided to give their "Whipped Cream" body cream and lip balm a try. Not only did these goodies smell really good - I will admit to sniffing them from time to time during the day, as I just couldn't get enough of how good they smelled, but they also feel really good. They're not oily, and are most definitely very moisturizing... oh and did I mention they smell really good.

My delicious goodies unpacked

To top it all off, not only did I get fast delivery, brilliant communication, amazing products... but I also received a personal hand written note and a small thank you gift. I was completely blown away.

My thank you gift

When it comes to gift shopping over the next year (especially gifts for myself), I am most definitely going to go to this site first. I think everyone should get a "taste" of these amazing products, and I will most definitely be recommending this brand to all my friends and family too. 

Why not give them a try yourself? I can guarantee you are going to fall in love with this brand too. Click on the image below and go view their product range NOW!

Art for Pagans

Displate.com is changing how art is being created and sold! 

It's a website focused on saving trees and helping artists, how wonderful is that? I wanted to share with you some of the beautiful Pagan inspired art pieces available on the site. If you are interested in any of these pieces, simply click on the image and it will take you to the artist's page.

 

 

  

The Boho Tree Gallery

The place to shop for Free Spirits, Bohemians, Hippies, Unique Thinkers, Lovers of Life, Colour & Goats.

Something exciting is on the way... here are all the details  for you in the words of Charmaine Morris, inspired founder:

Around January this year I came up with the idea to start a website for things that will add value to the lives of people. As many of you know, I am the hands behind the product ranges sold by some Holistic/Esoteric shops (and the mind behind many of the copies of my products). I also help and work on spiritual healing and teaching with many people. I decided I need to start something new that is simply about beauty and joy. I started looking around for the things I love and after my wedding in May could finally put some energy into getting my ideas onto paper.

I bought the website domain then, a little later reserved the facebook name for a page and slowly started blending and experimenting with new recipes. The Boho Tree is starting to shape into something with substance.

Where do you as an artist/artisan/craftsperson fit in?

I know many creative people… and most of them hates marketing, promoting themselves, tooting their own horn about their talents and doing admin… They would not know where to start in creating a website or market their work. For many the production of their works is a labour that takes weeks or months and paying the costs and time involved in an online business (security certificates, domain registrations, courier accounts, business bank account clearances amongst others) is just too much if they only produce one or two items a month.

I want to open a window of opportunity where all the amazing artistic people can sell without investing any money. A platform is needed where their beautiful creations are not drowned out by all the mass-produced China made items like on the current ‘auction’ or mass shopping websites. A place where unique thinkers are celebrated…

What will I offer?

On the website I will create a separate category for artists and creators.
- Each artist will have a sub-category of his/her own.
- You will get a short blurb - who you are, what you love, what motivates you and a little bit of your story with a picture.
- Your items will be listed in your own section - whether it is 1 product or a 100. You will not get lost in the masses and if you want to refer someone to your category, a direct link can be given to them to go directly to your own little section.
- I will handle the monthly payments for the hosting and yearly payments of the domain including the payments to keep the security certificates up to date.
- I will handle the courier pick-ups and deliveries.
- I will load your items and keep the website updated.
- I will market the website through Facebook ads and other avenues (competitions etc) at no costs to you.
- You will get paid for your item/s each Friday of the week in which delivery to the client is confirmed.
- If you are a charity organisation or non-profit that has people making lovely things that needs to be marketed - chat to me.

What will I expect from you?

- You will have to calculate a price for your product. Please work out a proper price. I am not someone who believes an artist needs to price his/her creations to only survive on bread and water. Price your products at their worth - your time, love, dedication, talent and often tears went into it. Price should
reflect that the buyer is acquiring something precious.
- You will need to provide me with your short story, your photo for your category and also your photos of the works you wish to sell.
- You will need to measure and weigh (roughly) each item and send me that as well. This is for information I need to provide to the couriers as well as clients. People want to know the size, height, width etc of what they buy.
- Every artwork or creation needs a description. You can name it, tell the story of its inspiration and/creation. Good descriptions that stirs the soul sells your art. I will edit descriptions.
- You must be able to package your item well enough for safe transportation.
- If you should sell an item out of hand that you had listed on The Boho Tree, you must let me know immediately please. I must remove the item in time so that nobody buys it again. If it is something you have many of like similar painted vases or knitted scarves, this becomes less urgent.
- You will not pay anything to me ever. I will add a 35% mark-up to your price. Payment providers most often charge between 5 and 10% transaction fees which will be deducted from my 35% not yours. I will also pay all other expenses like marketing. The buyer will pay the courier costs. You will therefore get your full amount
- no deductions will be made.
- The type of items I require for the art section will be anything you make yourself. This can be anything from knitting, crocheted or sewn items, unique clothing or shoes you create or design, artworks, sculptures, blocked or framed photography, paintings, decorative items like lamps etc. Basically anything you can
create, make or build.
- I will not take your items into custody. I have an agreement with my courier that they will pick a sold item up from you and deliver it to the buyer. You have the security to know you can ask me to remove something at any time.
- I finally ask that you invite friends and family to like our page on Facebook as soon as the website is up. (Still constructing and must still buy the final template - experimenting with many at the moment.) I will inform you when it is up but you can get all the photos and stock ready so long.
- I am hoping to launch no later than the last week in November. I will need all who are interested in joining in this venture to try have everything ready for me by latest end of the first week in November.

Just please take note I will not be joining The Boho Tree in any Black Friday madness or promotions this year or ever. The online shop will be about art, beauty and grace, not about blatant mass sale consumerism.

Please know I prefer e-mail communications for a written record but you are welcome to call me during office hours if you need to ask anything.

earthcharm@icloud.com.

I really hope we can distribute happiness together,
Many Blessings,
Charmaine
Feel free to mail me any questions that I did not answer in this post. xxx

Fun Pagan Items

The pentacle is a symbol of protection, proudly wear it wherever you go...

Here's some fun clothing items for you to look at, Click on the image to get a better view

5 Must Read Books on Paganism

I highly recommend reading these five books....

 

The Forest Pentacle Gifts for Protection

When I first saw this range, I completely fell in love with it. This unique pentacle design comes on an assortment of printed goodies and gifts, perfect for taking this symbol of protection with you wherever you go.

My personal favourite are this little black dress, and travel mug (of course, now I can sip my magic coffee bean juice in style when I leave the house).

This designer has many fun prints available in her range, this dragonfly range was also one of my favourites (Click on the image to view the full range) I know that the dragon fly represents gaining wisdom, which is why I'm considering investing in this journal for my daily thoughts

I'm New To Wicca

I'm New to Wicca - Tools For Spiritual Guidance

The author wrote this book to help those who are new to the Pagan Path to find their "foothold" so to speak. It is packed full of practical exercises to help the new practitioner in the discovery of their spiritual self.

This book is not:

·         A course on Wicca or any form of Paganism or esoteric practices

·         A book on the history of Wicca or Paganism

·         A spell book

What this book is:

·         A spiritual guide – helping you to understand yourself on a spiritual level

·         A study guide that you can use as you start on your new path

·         Or you can use it as a guide to work through to help you to decide whether or not Wicca is the path for you.

Use this book and it’s exercises to help you to develop and grow as you discover your spiritual self.

The book is available for kindle and as a paperback on amazon.com