Level II Oghams

These particular Oghams deal with manifesting various things. As per the CR system, the first two, Oak and Ash, are to be used each and every time any manifesting work is to be done. I feel that using just these two trees as a gateway to anything energetic is incomplete. According to the lore of the cultures who hailed from what is now the UK and Ireland, Oak, Ash, and Thorn formed the gateway. Do what you want, because that’s what we’ll all end up doing anyway, but do try using the three trees at least once. I suspect you’ll notice a difference.

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Heather/Ur

This isn’t a tree, but it is part of the Ogham. It is steeped in the lore of the Scottish Highlands. Heather connects us to the spirit of the land, wherever we are at the time. It acts as a gateway to the Otherworld of Gaelic lore, and it allows us to access pertinent info from that realm.

Heather operates in a subtle way. It eases barriers slowly. It is useful in dealing with bereavement. Heather manifests subtly without trumpets. One day it seems to have appeared as if by magic, blanketing a hillside where it hadn’t been before – it was growing there all along but we didn’t see it until the time was just right and all the blooms showed themselves.

Heather also helps with dreams and astral travel. If your ancestry can be traced back to the places where heather grows then this can be a powerful Ogham to work with. Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

White Poplar/Eadha

Call on the Poplar when you need assistance in maintaining your resolve. Poplar helps in coping with overwhelming burdens and pressure, especially when it seems like you are being hit from many different angles. The Poplar will not relieve you of your stress or burdens, though. That is your responsibility. Think of the Poplar as a leafy hand to hold when things are tough.

This tree will help you to overcome fear. It is useful for fear of the future. When you invite the Poplar into your life you can not shirk your obligations or skive off. The Poplar will hold you to a thing or person until your work is done. Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Beech/Phagos

The energy of the Beech tree connects us to the wisdom of our ancestors. It helps us to see the importance of tradition and continuity. It does this with a little twist, though. Beech not only helps us to appreciate and understand the wisdom of the past, it helps us to synthesize that knowledge and make it relevant to our present time.

Use Beech to transform everyday situations into more meaningful exchanges. It is useful in those times when one is trying to make reconstructed religion relevant to this time, place, and culture. Draw on the wisdom of this tree when you are stuck on how to modernise something so that it remains meaningful but has context to those of us today.

Because it helps to access old wisdom, the Beech can be used to bring past memories forward to be released. Use this tree in your past life regression to deal with things that you keep carrying from one life to the next.

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Morning Brunch

Preheat oven to 350F. Rough chop 4 or 5 cleaned Yukon Gold potatoes. Place in a large bowl and add sea salt, chili powder, thyme, and sage to taste. Add half an ounce of olive oil and use your hands to mix well. Spread out on a baking stone or cookie sheet and put in the oven for 30 minutes or so.

Lick your fingers; those herbs taste pretty good, eh? Mmmmm. Now clean your bowl and add 1.5 cups of flour to it, alond with 2 tsp alum-free baking powder, 1 tsp sea salt, 2 tbsp sugar. Mix well. In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of milk with 3 tbsp oil and one egg. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, stirring with a fork just until it is combined. Let it set for a bit while you oil up a cast iron frying pan and heat it.

Now I know that lots of folk in the pagan community get wirey about iron, “Ooooooh, iron. It’ll make the faeries angry!!!”

Whatever.

Teflon frying pans cause a whole host of health problems. Cancer or miffed otherwordly beings? Losing the occasional set of keys vs chemotherapy? Talk to your house folk and explain it to them. Cast iron is EXCELLENT for cooking. It holds heat longer at a lower temperature. I’m sure your house folk are reasonable beings.

Ladle half a cup of batter in the pan and cover for a minute. I usually keep my burner between 3 and 5 when its heated, I adjust as I make the pancakes. When side one is done, flip and cover again to do side two. Your pancakes should be nice and fluffy, not flat like the ones we get from packaged mixes.

When you are done, turn the burner down to 3 and cook some bacon. If I have to blog instructions for that then something ain’t right:D

To make butterscotch sauce, mix 1 cup of brown sugar, a quarter cup of cream or half and half, 2 tbsp butter, and 2 tbsp maple or other sweet syrup in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally until it boils. Remove from heat and spoon over pancakes.

Grab your pancreas and say Mmmmmm!!!
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Hawthorn/Huathe

Hawthorn provides strong support to other oghams. Used with birch, it provides drastic cleansing, the magical equivalent of a colonic treatment. It is especially recommended in situations where you are dealing with something that puttered along quietly, spreading out roots, and gaining a foothold before rearing its ugly head.

This tree also bestows patience to those who need it, and helps when waiting has become a tedious necessity. Under the influence of hawthorn, the nature of certain processes can be more easily understood, thus alleviating some of the fidgeting exhibited by those new to the magical fold.

Use this symbol with silver fir to light the way, especially if you are entering into something with trepidation. When your efforts to see into something are clouded, hawthorn shows a clearer picture of the future.

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Birch/Beth

Birch is a motivator for quick burst of energy. The wood of this tree burns fast and hot, but not long. Birch will get events in motion, but lacks the longevity to keep things up.

If you want to let go of something, call on birch to help you move on quickly. Birch is an excellent cleanser, and it sweeps away negativity with lightning swiftness. This makes the birch ogham especially useful in matters of the heart. Nothing good can come of hanging on to false hope when Mr. Forever suddenly becomes an asshole and dumps you for the check-out girl at Walgreen’s. Use birch to aid in turning your heart and thoughts away from the one who has wronged you. If you are truly ready to let go of something that no longer serves you, whether it be a relationship, idea, job – anything at all – the use of this ogham alone or with others can have an effect that is as immediate as flicking a lightswitch.

Use this anywhere that you need speed, a big burst of energy, and/or a need to release the old, clear the past, and sprint on to bigger and better things.

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Silver Fir/Ailim

Graphics will have to wait as I am blogging by phone. Sorry!!!

This Ogham allows you to “see” the way. Whether it is the way out of a present situation or a long look into the future, this tree opens the door to your ability to extend your vision where needed. The silver fir can also open the doors of the universe to allow possibilities to present themselves when you are ready to see them. Sometimes when we are hip deep in horseshit, not only can we not see the forest for the trees, we may not be ready to. Sometimes we do benefit from rotting in our own pissed off little worlds.

If you are using CR or another energy system, and not getting anywhere in your work, consider sending yourself an energy ball with silver fir in it. Send it to the future, with the intent that it activate when you are ready.

Silver fir can also be used to bring wisdom forward, out of the dark corners of your memory or some other forgotten repository. Use this symbol to help aid your memory if you’ve lost or forgotten something. Use it in tandem with the other Oghams for other sorts of remembering: cellular memory, to remember past lives, to access ancestral knowledge.

This symbol can also help you to see barriers, in order that they might be overcome. Get a bird’s eye view of the overall situation; birds do perch in trees and see everything. Look deep into a situation or barrier and see the weaknesses in the dynamic.

Lastly, use this symbol as a modifier of the others to affect past, present, and future events as per the Ogham that you choose. Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Some housekeeping before I get right into the swing of things

First off, please note that this system does not follow the Ogham alphabet as it is laid out. I’ll go through them one by one as the system gives them. You will get what I was taught about them, but you’ll also get what I already knew and what I’ve learned since. After that, I’ll give you what I hold to be true about the rest.

Secondly, know that in all reality we can only speculate about the Ogham. Unlike the runes of Northern Europe, which were well codified in lore and in physical structures still around today, little was preserved about the Oghams. Some scholars assert that there were widespread esoteric uses and others point to mundane things such as property markers. There is the very real possibility that any mystical meaning connected to them at all is only as recent as the modern Druidic revival, circa the mid 1700s. I’m just saying, is all. If they work for you as symbols that help you to access an ancestral folk consciousness, great. If they don’t, carry on.

Also note that I will refer to the Oghams by their English names. It’s utterly spine-curving to hear modern Pagans of all stripes massacre ancient languages that they don’t speak in an effort to sound “authentic”. Your ancestors (if your ancestors came from what is now Great Britain, Ireland, and Brittany and they spoke a Celtic language from those parts) may have called a silver fir by the name of “ailim” because that was the name found in a language spoken at the time. Of course, there were lots of languages and dialects in use in these areas so it’s likely that your ancestors had an entirely different word to describe a fir tree. It is still a fir tree, though, and its essence and energy are not changed, nor are the lessons to be learned from it. Trying to sound Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, etc., when you are not a speaker of that language doesn’t sound cool. It sounds hilarious. Your words have just as much power when spoken by you in your own language as your ancestors’ words did for them.  They didn’t try to speak in other languages to impress all the girlies at the Maypole. Remember the one about the witch who cast the spell to get all her bills paid and ended up taking out a loan? Be careful in your choice of words; what you say and how you say it.

Lastly, if you’re going to “work with trees”, get out and meet them!!!
It never ceases to amaze me how many Pagans wouldn’t know a dandelion from a tulip. It isn’t enough to read a book or this blog and then proclaim yourself the high muckety muck of [insert ridiculous tradition here]. You have to actually get out and do things. Being a city dweller does not excuse you, either. Go to a park, get a little herb garden for your window, but do something.  The thing is, you are working with the TREES. The Oghams themselves as they are currently used by the modern pagan community are just symbols meant to represent the essence of the trees. You don’t need to know the symbol if you know the bloody tree. Start in a bookstore. Bypass the neopagan and Wiccan sections. You don’t need another lousy spellbook telling you to roll candles in crushed herbs. You need a field guide to the the trees of Great Britain. You also need a field guide to the trees of your own area because the European settlers quite frequently, though unintentionally, brought spores and seeds with them, and so sowed the plantlife from their homes here in the “New World”, so many Old World plant species have been living here now for a few centuries, but North American varieties of the Ogham trees did exist on their own before colonization, anway.

Once you’ve settled down nicely to read your book, study the tree and what it does. This is what your ancestors did, after all. They studied the world around them. The book will save you time, a luxury that your ancestors did not have. Learn about the soil, climate, and elevation that the tree likes. Is it the first to populate an area? The last? The fastest to grow? The longest? What uses does it wood have? Furniture? Housing? Timbers? Tunnels? Is it poisonous? Does it help or hinder the other plants around it? Do animals make their home in it or do they avoid it like the plague? Studying the trees themselves and becoming a bit of a scientist will help you to understand where many of the cross-cultural mystical meanings come from, because in all reality, they weren’t pulled out of someone’s arse.

Get out and meet your trees, too. It isn’t enough to have an intellectual appreciation for a tree whose rootspan mirrors its branches (which is what an Oak is like….hence it is damned difficult to to knock one over), you should really get outside and see nature in action. Find a nice spot in a park or out in the woods, and take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your surroundings. Whip out your little picture book and start identifying the trees. If you get right into it, start learning about their companion plants and animals, too. You’ll develop a greater appreciation for the overall ecological connectedness around  you, and perhaps you’ll find your own little cog on the wheel.

As you get to know the trees, you may find that some become more interesting than others. Learn as much as you can about them. Quite possibly, they are making themselves known to you. Over the years my interest in certain trees has never changed, while others have waxed and waned. When I need the lessons that a particular plant can provide, it becomes evident in some way. It might work this way for you.

You need to form a relationship with the natural world around you. Once the plant kingdom gets to know you, then they will start to share. THEN go out and buy yourself a nice little tree magic book and read what the author has to say. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that there is much you agree with, but also that which you do not. The point is, that you arrive to these conclusions yourself.

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Celtic Reiki, the Ogham, and my take on it

I have been working with this system for nearly two years now. I have been a Reiki practitioner for nine years now. After some careful thought, I have come to the conclusion that Celtic Reiki is not Reiki. It is a totally valid system of accessing the Ogham symbols for magical uses that can include healing, but it is not Reiki. I love using it, but I feel that it is a stand-alone system that does not need to be associated with anything else. I’m pretty sure my ancestors didn’t call it Reiki and weren’t studying any Japanese or Tibetan energy healing systems when (and IF) they ever used the Oghams for any sort of folk magic. I also don’t get the requirement that interested parties need to be Reiki practitioners. This system does not use Reiki symbols and instead of drawing on the nameless “universal energy” that Reiki does, the draw is quite specific. It draws on earth energy. When you also use the energy of the plants and symbols that make up the Ogham script, you are also accessing ancestral knowledge from the ancient cultures related to the time, place, and worldview that the Oghams represent. This is powerful magic.

Celtic Reiki channels “Neart”, an old Welsh word for strength and power. It is similar in mind to ki, the Japanese word for life force, so perhaps that makes it easier for people to understand because, sadly, we are quite used to Eastern concepts of energy, but not those of our own blood. As a sideline, it is interesting to note that the Welsh “Neart” and Germanic “Nerthus” (ancient Germanic earth goddess) are similar.

As a Reiki system, Celtic Reiki is incomplete. Not all of the Oghams were channeled by the system’s founder, Martyn Pentecost. I’ve been working with the whole script quite happily, though. In fact, lots of people have been working with the Oghams without any attunement at all. In fact, when I flipped through my papers, my first thought was, “I knew this stuff already……” lol….lesson learned!!! I’m not trying to be picky or start anything, but I find it mighty ODD that he channeled information that has been publicly available at least since the New Age explosion of the 1980s.

Reiki is generally thought of as a healing energy, although over the last few years many books have been published as experimental practitioners explore other uses for it. Celtic Reiki symbols get broken up into three groups:

Level One symbols concern themselves with healing and making oneself open to change and growth.

Level Two symbols deal with manifesting various things.

Level Three symbols are mainly concerned with endings and transitions.

Two of the Level Two symbols, Oak and Ash, are used to begin each session. I find it odd that Thorn would not be mentioned, since anyone who has ever picked up anything to do with Celtica in general knows the importance of oak, ash, and thorn. To my mind, trying to open a channel or gate, or start anything remotely magical with only two out of three is like trying to make an omelette with just egg whites. It’s just not quite the same and it falls a little flat.

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