Month: July 2019

Working with the elements

The Northern Witch 1969Leave a comment

Today, the weather is arguing with itself about whether it should be like summer or like a touch of autumn. As the Wheel of the Year turns, we also turn ourselves.

I´m a bit tired, but still happy and full of inner peace. I feel rich, because I´m pretty okay, both in the mundane world and here with you, dear reader. It is a major success to me, because I´m still recovering from the roller coaster of life. Everybody gets hurt, everybody gets inner scars. With a positive outlook it can be turned into something beautiful and useful.

Life experience does not have to be counted in physical years alone. What matters is what the experience means to you in your daily life. And how you act on it.

My physical, mental and spiritual health is very important to me. As a Crone, feeling grounded is alfa and omega. Because if that part is okay, then the rest of me is too.

And I prefer at any time kindness as my way of greeting the world and Mother Earth.

Today and the next couple of days, you will get to know my interpretation of the elements and spirit. I believe in four elements and in spirit or Akasha, as I prefer to call it.

Feeling grounded resonates of Earth. But today I´m going to focus on the element of Air.

I began this post by mentioning the typical Danish summer weather. Sometimes beautiful. Sometimes unpredictable. It´s a bit windy today as well, and I´m pondering about making a spell including a little bit of weather magic.

On my Pinterest profile ( https://www.pinterest.dk/thenorthernwitch/ ) , go to the board The Northern Witch´s Den, section 59, Weather Magick. There you´ll find some related pins from like-minded people.

Perhaps catching the wind in a rope, which has very old roots…

But since I´m a witch living in a mundane world, there are certain to do´s so I´ll be back with some reflections on the element of Air, which to me is mighty power, fiery rage, sweet cooling breeze and dry hazy summer days. And corresponding to the East (Northern Hemisphere), where the Sun rises in the morning.

Tonight´s ritual

The Northern Witch 1969Leave a comment

The candles are snuffed. The room is darkening, and my cats are now playing and sitting in the windowsill. Listening to whatever cats may listen to, but looking so philosophical as only cats can do.

The ritual is long gone, but my last reflections for the day will contain a quote that I read some time ago (author unknown to me at present moment). which ever since has been and is a daily inspiration to me, my family and my friends. So here we go, enjoy :

“Happiness is the new rich. Inner peace is the new success. Health is the new wealth. Kindness is the new cool”.

Beautiful words in a world of stress and everyday its own trouble. To me happiness is to live in the present moment, since the past is already gone, and we can´t promise each other a tomorrow. Inner peace is a state of calm and a relaxed breath. Health is wealth, because without it we would soon acknowledge how precious life is. And kindness is a necessary tool in order to be able to live with other people and everything else on Earth.

I have these feelings right now. After a ritual I feel as reborn. I´m completely relaxed, and I feel an inner peace that is difficult to express in words alone.

I hope that you have enjoyed this guided tour around a New Moon ritual. And in order to share some of the experience, I have this picture for you. See you for more tomorrow. For today, I´m grateful. For this life I´m grateful. Let tomorrow begin, where this night ends. So Mote It Be.

My cat Milo

Meditation time…

The Northern Witch 1969Leave a comment

Now, as we are getting closer to the time, when my New Moon ritual kicks off, I’m preparing for it by meditating on what I need to release in order to be able to work from intention to reality with this new projekt, my new blog.

Soon, I’ll take my ritual bath and dress for the ritual. Then I use to light all the candles on my daily and ritual altars. And simply sit for a couple of minutes before inviting my husband inside my “den”, my room for magick.

Below, you see pictures of my personal notes and my daily altar, when it is fully set up for ritual. I like to keep things simple and easy to handle during ritual.

Therefore, I prefer small and short rituals, where the intensity often is much more tangible than many long rituals with complicated setups and a lot of reading.

I’ll return in a few hours to tell you how everything went. But already I’m feeling happy and relaxed, because I’m about to begin something I love, practicing magick. So, now I draw the curtains, take a last look to see, if I have missed something, and make my salt blend for my ritual bath.

Preparing New Moon ritual

The Northern Witch 1969Leave a comment

As promised yesterday, I´ll take you by the hand for a closer look on how I prepare myself and my altars, when I´m having a ritual. Tonight it is New Moon in Cancer, and with both my Sun sign and my Moon sign in Cancer, Rising in Leo, I believe it´s going to be a magickal experience.

On the pictures today, you can see my work station and my altars being prepared for the ritual. I will also show you my personal notes that I´ll be using during the ritual in the next post that will be written just before the ritual begins.

I´ve carved the following inscription on the candles for my ritual altar : Blog Success and Prosperity, Health and Love. These are my intentions for this New Moon. As well as are my written intentions of letting go of the past. They will will be burned while I read a prayer of release.

I´ll do a Tarot reading as well, and I will ask the Universe to aid me in my intentions of making this a pagan blog with the sole purpose of sharing my knowledge and hopefully learning even more in time.

As you can see, I use crystals and essential oils for my ritual as well as sage and orange flower incense in order to attract a pleasant atmosphere and prosperity for my blog and my profile on Pinterest (The Northern Witch).

As I´ve been writing this, I´m mentally preparing myself for tonight´s ritual. I always use at least half an hour to clear my thoughts and think of my intentions for my magickal workings. Then I take a ritual bath where I use bath salt (dried sage leaves, lemon or eucalyptus oil and Himalaya salt mixed together with mortar and pestle) to get me in the right mood for having a ritual.

But this is it for now, the mundane world also needs to be taken care of, and I need to prepare my notes for the ritual and think of the content of the next post. I will be back in a few hours.

First day on a witch´s blog…

The Northern Witch 1969Leave a comment

Good evening, dear reader. Tonight I´m going to present myself as a witch. My name is Henriette Pedersen, and I´m nearly 50 years old. I live in a small town in the Southern part of Denmark with my husband, a funny little dog and 3 philosophical cats.

My journey as a witch has been life long, but it was not until about 3 years ago that I felt that it was the right path for me. I´ve always searched for an alternative way of life, because I do not believe in any sort of conformity whatsoever. And there has been many occasions where I felt that I almost got it.

Now, witchcraft is in everything I do. I have the possibility to do so, because I´m early retired because of stuff like arthritis, bipolar disorder and anxiety. All very mundane things to consider on a daily basis too, but possible, if you take good care of yourself with the right prescription medicine, cognitive therapy and a positive attitude towards concentration on getting better every day.

At Samhain 2016 I found my inner witch and dedicated myself with a small simple ritual consisting of holding a pentagram and gazing into the flames of 2 lit candles. I was alone, my husband was asleep, and there was only me to experience what this new something felt like.

2 weeks earlier my world was tumbled over by a major incident that hit me straight in the heart. My beautiful classic car, 31 years old, was stolen and burnt to ashes. Luckily, no people got hurt that night.

Life was chaotic with many, many hours trying to get back in the saddle. In witchcraft I found inner healing, inner peace, inner happiness.

Because magick is everywhere, if you only dare to believe it.

In the beginning, I was very insecure about what witchcraft was to me. Today, there are many ways to learn about witchcraft. But as well as I encourage thorough research with a critical outlook, I also recommend that your own path truly is yours. Don´t be afraid to write your own spells and perform your own rituals. Do immerse yourself in whatever niche that speaks to you.

The common ground, however, is the wealth of positivity that witchcraft can generate, if we do know how to communicate together, dare to share the joy and pure life force, will respect the old ways and keep silent about the most beautiful moment of all in witchcraft, in my opinion, the personal experience that cannot be reborn quite in the same way as we felt it, when it happened.

I call myself an eclectic, cottage with, because I do quite a lot of research in many different directions, I do not follow any other path than my own, and I do use herbs and crystals in my magick workings.

Tomorrow is a New Moon, and it´s time for new intentions, new beginnings, new projects etc. I´m going to take you by the hand and show your how my day before a ritual is.

Right up to the part where I draw the curtains into my witch´s den, where I perform the bigger rituals with all the good stuff put on the altars, only lit candles, only a cellphone, because I often use music in my workings…

So I hope you begin to feel at home here. That´s my intention for the atmosphere on this blog.

See you tomorrow, now a long day behind the laptop, dancing with technology and practical matters is about to be ended with some reflection on tomorrow´s New Moon ritual.

Blessed Be.

My permanent decorative altar

Invitation – follow the daily life of a witch

The Northern Witch 1969Leave a comment

Good morning, dear reader.

Today I give you the opportunity to follow me in my daily practice as a witch. To me witchcraft is sacred knowledge that must be handled with great care.

By that I mean with passion and with common sense. Witchcraft is also to dare to actually try it out. It takes time, so patience and thorough research will get you very far. And sometimes witchcraft needs to be silent, because learning and sharing is not the same as telling everything.

If I told you every single detail about my life as a witch, you would be bored and disappointed. Bored, because my path and your path are unique, and disappointed, because it would be my experience only.

My intention here is to give you my version of what being a witch can be. To me it is a way of life, from early morning to late evening. In my home there is witchcraft everywhere.

One of my small morning rituals is to walk or sit in my den to gather my thoughts and take a deep breath before any chores, creative or witchcraft related purposes.

Just for a couple of minutes, and even the worst of days have begun with a positive outlook. If you know how to do it, dare to do it, will your Craft and keep silent about your inner experience. Do go and tell that it makes you happy, calm and relaxed. But please allow yourself the pleasure of having unique experiences of that special moment that cannot be described, but only be experienced in person.

As you have read these lines, I´ve also worked with the Four Powers of the Magus. On my Pinterest profile The Northern Witch ( https://www.pinterest.dk/thenorthernwitch/ ) you will find a related pin in Board 1-8 The Book of Shadows, section 4 Harm Ye None.

Above you see my daily altar, where I meditate, use my Tarot cards, perfom my rituals/other decorative purposes etc.

I will be back with more in a couple of hours, life isn´t waiting, and there are chores to be done, so Blessed Be for now and thank you for being here.

The Northern Witch.