August 25th 2010   (The Ogham wood for magic changed while I was away to Coll (Hazel) August 5th - 1st September)     
Home at last - and a little Bolivian magic:

Well, here I am, home again by the Faery Roads and never before so grateful for the green leaves and the rain of my little Kentish wood. After the brown and dust of so much of the high plains of Bolivia, before the rains arrive there in September, it's good just to sit under a hazel and breathe the fresh, damp air.

It didn't take long to find magic - my first stop was La Paz, the highest city of over a million in the world, clinging dizzyingly to the cliffs and sides of the Andes.

Just above the ancient Christian church "Iglesia San Fransisco", in the narrow cobbled streets of Calle Jiminez and Calle Linares you can find "El Mercado de las Brujas", The Witches' Market. Not that the sellers there are witches you understand - more healers, herbalists and fortune-tellers, carrying on the work of medicine-women from time immemorial.

The medicine woman on the right found me the most wonderful resins, you can see one of the packets in her hand - isn't she beautiful?

In the tiny shops, which spill their wares onto the pavements, you can find all manner of herbs and resins, feathers, dried frogs and insects, lotions and potions in ancient bottles. Each and every one of them fascinating and mostly completely baffling to an English Magic!

 

There are statuettes of the great Andean Earth Goddess Pachamama, talismen and charms for luck and prosperity and the dried foetuses of llama, looking like baby dragons, (see above) which are buried under new buildings (to protect the builders and residents) - or burned on great plates of brightly coloured sweets, herbs and soaps in rituals of the Aymaran people during August.
    So much to learn - so many places to see.

 

July 30th        
Travels, looking for magics in Bolivia:

The time has come round so quickly, and this faery is off travelling up and away to Bolivia for a week or three.
Hope I find you all well and safe when I get back - and I hope to be able to show you one or two magical things that as a Wood and Hedgerow Fae, I've never seen before!
I am making a new section here called "The Ogham Trees". Perhaps you'll have time to see what's been done so far - an 'Introduction to Ogham'  and the first two trees - well I chose to start with these because they are the ruling trees for June, July and a little of August - The Oak  and 
The Holly.
It could take quite some time to do them all!
Do you know the Ogham Tree which rules your birth date?

 Don't forget - it will be Lammas on Sunday (August 1st) - the cross-quarter day and wheel of the year sabbat to celebrate and ask protection for the early harvests.

This week too is Butterfly Week - learn more here - I'm sure they know - well of course they do - I have never seen so many around the wood and lanes!

 

July 23rd        
Woodland fae takes in a little London city culture:

       Well a faery can dream can't she?

Dave Willetts  is playing 'George'
in the beautiful revival of
Lloyd Webber's 'Aspects of Love'
until 26th September. Well let's see, we go back a little in a funny, friendly strange 'n flowery kinda way.
He doesn't believe he's a magic, but I know different
- he's a sorcerer most likely -
with that voice he has to be!     Would you like to hear?
This is Dave singing 'Music of the Night' from the Phantom of the Opera.

   Here's Dave - onstage as George at the Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre, and again outside Her Majesty's Theatre in the days when he played The Phantom.

 A lovely production in an intimate theatre and in an area of London so well worth exploring. It's all a bit strange for a country magic like me but still. Have a coffee and buy some cheese 'n fruit 'n chocolate in Borough Market for starters - isn't that just the kind of thing you villagers like to do?

 

 

July 19th        
The Colour Purple - mid-July flowers around Hurst Wood

Foxglove	Rosebay Willow Herb	Thistle	Mallow	Centaury

 
The colour of the month in the wild flower world is most definitely purple, with plenty of dark, cerise pink thrown in. The shady woods are quite bare of flowers at the moment - but in all the clearings, in the dappled shade or on the banks, these flowers have sprung up a-plenty.
The Foxglove, with its other names of Fairy Thimbles, Fairy Petticoats and Witches Bells, is much sort after by magics and bees alike. It's Gaelic name 'Lus na Mban Sídhe' literally means 'Plant of the Fairy Women'.

Colour correspondences for purposes of magic:
Pink - feminine. Used to strengthen love between family and friends, to settle arguments and bring peace.The colour of honour and strong morality, pink can bring more of the good things that you already possess.
Purple - masculine. Used when wishing the blessing of royal powers, The Lord and Lady of the Greenwood for example. In rituals for the healing of severe diseases. For heightening spirituality during meditation and to bring spiritual power.

I know where the Spotted Orchids can be found in my wood as you see from my flashes.

It's the leaves with their black splodges that give them their name.

They like Kent better than many other parts of the isle. In my Stella Fae exams (yawn! - somewhere around Level 87 I think) I have to make a concoction from the powdered, dried root to use in love incense (pffftt!!) and to sprinkle about the place and over the happy couple at a Handfasting.If you look really, really closely at each little floret you'll see that it's just like a tiny lady with her arms spread out in a dance - a bit like a doll from a cut-paper chain. We like to put one of these into the cradle of any fairysprig born in the month of July as a pretty play trinket.

July 13th        
Badger Cull will not go ahead:     Congratulations to The Badger Trust!

	From BBC News Online    July 13th 2010“A controversial cull of around 1,500 badgers in south-west Wales has been halted after protesters won their legal challenge to stop it. …Three judges announced the trust's appeal against a judicial review was successful and quashed the order.” For more about this story see my diaryblog page for June 15th here.
Picture from The Badger Trust

 

 

July 12th 2010         (The Ogham wood for magic has now changed to Tinne (Holly) July 8th - 4th August.)
   To a Wild Rose : Tonight is a black moon night - so tomorrow will be new moon.

Beauty and scent in the hedgerows in plenty, but you'll have to be quick now to catch them before they dry in the hot weather and the petals fall. I took these drax flashes about a week ago, where the roses grow in profusion along the edge of the wood, by the lane.

The queen of all the fairy flowers - The Dog Rose (Rosa Canina) is coloured from purest white to a deep, rich pink.
She's ruled by the planet Venus and many gods, including Adonis, Isis, Demeter & Hathor

 

Magical properties for the wild rose :
Love,   Love Divination,  Luck,   Protection,   Healing,   Psychic Powers.

Simply take some time to admire them as you walk up a country lane, or - you can use the petals in so many ways. For a spell or charm, strengthen your magical intention by using the colours - white for purity, pink for love, or a mixture of the two.

Make gently perfumed rose-water and add it to a basin of water to refresh face and hands or to cleanse objects to be used in any magic ritual. There's an excellent video on how to make good distilled rose-water here.

Make a rose bead talisman (simply petals rolled into tight bead-like balls, with a hole for stringing made before they are spread out to dry) - pop a string of three into a little pouch to carry with you for love and luck.


   Add petals and rose buds to a tisane (herbal tea) as a powerful cure for apathy.
Another cure for apathy - since music is a cure for all things - Julian Lloyd Webber and John Lenehan play "To a Wild Rose" by Edward Macdowell. Better still  - how about the tisane and the cello music together - double rosey magic!

 

July 6th 2010
A different kind of summer magic - Dylan magic!

So, this faery has been off visiting some music - but not so very far away.
Now who would have thought that Mister Bob Dylan would be down in Kent? But he WAS! Really he was!

He headlined on Saturday at The Hop Farm Festival, and gave us two solid hours of magick - laughingly inviting us thousands to join in with "Just Like a Woman" and finishing a perfect summer's weekend with "Forever Young". Quite made my wings quiver.

Here you can see what the villagers got up to - they're very good at something they call "queuing" for a start!  Roasting hot it was too. At the top of the picture is a band called "Stornoway" that I liked a lot. On the right, one of my favourite singer - songwriters of all time - Richard Thompson.   And above him - special - Bob's shadow!!
I also specially loved "Tunng" - just plain wonderful.

I know many-a-magic who would have loved this too if only they weren't so far away - a musical race we are, but we definitely don't understand this queuing thing.