Granny, Green Man and Guides

Week 14 - as I can't decide which one, I shall discuss these three =o))

Paul Kidby - love his work! Just how you imagine the characters to look.

Granny Weatherwax
I love the Discworld novels, I've read them all countless times. My favourite ones are the ones with the witches in.  If you want to know about witchcraft, real witchcraft - read these books. I met 'Grandad' a few years back, he runs the Hitchhikers fan club and was telling me about how he knows Terry and apparently the witches are based on real people.  I love the fact that there's actually people out there like this.

Granny: “I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult. Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.”
Nanny Ogg: “But all them things exist.”
Granny: “That’s no call to go around believing in them.  It only encourages ’em.”

“There’s magic, and then again, there’s magic. The important thing, my girl, is to know what magic is for and what it isn’t for. And you can take it from me, it was never intended for lighting fires, you can be absolutely certain of that."

I don't read craft books. I like Granny's attitude to 'Boffo' and I agree, you don't need a special knife to cut air with for ritual, you don't need coloured candles, you don't need trinkets and triple goddess pendants to be a witch....... but if that's your thing, more power to you... we all need something to make it 'real'.  I don't but that's me lol

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Green Man

I love going into old churches and going Green Man hunting.  You can guarantee that if it's an old Norman church or from around that time, there will be a Green Man, on the ceiling.  The picture above is one that I took in St.Mary's church in Hitchin, nearly 1000 years old.  Just because they are churches, doesn't mean that the craftsmen that built them were Christian.  In the really early churches, you can also find Sheela-na-gigs - sometimes described as 'imps' in the church logs but these are often a female figure pulling open their lady parts and some have their tongues lolling out... there's lots of stories about them and no one can agree on their meaning.  It's the meaning you give it, I suppose, as with all things. Also another Green Man spot, is sometimes you find the old lecterns have what looks like Jesus with leaves and vines coming out of his mouth, which is actually very early Green Man carvings. 

When I'm gazing, I have seen the outline of a big green face in trees before. I feel that he is the spirit of the nature, of trees and things that grow. I have no thesis behind my attraction to the Green Man, nor have I read up on it to form an educated opinion. I just feel connected to him.  As always, I like to provide links to sources of information and I found a good one I think you'll enjoy, there's also a regular podcast. 

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Owl - one of my animal guides

Guides

I work with spirit. I have been made aware of several guides over the years. Each guide will come to work with you depending on what help you need.  It seems that everyone has a red Indian guide... no seriously, how many people have you heard speaking about their guides, haven't boasted about their Native American? Been in a spiritualist church lately? Seen the Indian pictures and then there's all those books on people channeling an Indian guide.  It's a bit of a phenominononononon lol

Just because you don't know they are there or who they are, doesn't mean they aren't there and helping you.

When I was sitting in development circle, I became more aware of my guides. I'm afraid to say that I lost the way a bit and didn't do much spirit work for a few years and lost touch with my guides. They are still with me though, I'm just not aware of them all the time.

There's a bit of a craze with people claiming to have animal guides.  Everyone always purports to have eagle, wolf or some power animal as a guide.  What's wrong with the other animals? I have been doing the Medicine Wheel cards for 20 years and there's a wide spectrum of creatures, all with stories from Native American cultures.  The nature of the creature, it's mannerisms and character, depicts those within yourself or ones you need to akin to.  We already met Rabbit in my Fear blog.  

You cannot always be eagle or wolf or some other noble creature... you have to learn the ways of all the animals, for they all have a lesson to teach about ourselves.  Claiming to be just the one, isn't a guide, it's your fantasy.  Fantasy has it's place but it's not spiritual growth to deny yourself these lessons. 

I've encountered a nun as a guide before. It surprised me at the time because I don't have any love for dogma or the confines of church.  But Cara (the name she gave me) was a carer, a healer and helped me understand the journey I was making as a healer.  There was four that I knew of at this time... all had something to teach me, not that I was fully aware of those lessons. Doesn't make them any less valid, knowledge can be glimpsed in dreams and the world around.  

Hope that makes sense... it's nearly 5am, my eye is twitching and telling me it's time for bed.

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts x