Monthly Archives: April 2006

Generally speaking, how do you think others perceive you?

t all depends upon whom you ask, really. I am told that I am far too ambitious, far too arrogant, or far too beautiful to be of much use to anyone. I was once accused of being rather nice to look at, but with the added caveat that one should never turn their backs on such a woman. They would never know what exactly what to expect. People perceive shall perceive things as they will. Perceptions are not so easily changed and yet there is great power in being both underestimated as well as overestimated in the eyes of others. It keeps more than a few of them in a suspended state of terror. That, too, can be quite useful when the time comes.

To be completely honest, there are very few in the world whom I care about what they think of me. These individuals, of course, know who they are.

Everyone else can go hang.


Muse: Fanny Fae, &copy Ma’at Publishing 1995 -2007
Fandom: Original Fiction &copy / Folklore / Mythology
Word Count: 157
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Protected: Filtered to Athos & Mun Only (17th Century Timeframe)

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Archillea millefolium

Archillea millefolium

Common Names: Achi Uea, Achilles Wort, Achilles Herb, Arrowroot, Bad Man’s Plaything, Carpenter’s weed, Death Flower, Devil’s Nettle, Eerie, Field ops, Gearwe, Green Arrow, Herba Muilitaris, Hundred Leaved Grass, Knights Milfoil, Knyten, Milfoil, Militaris, Military Herb, Millefolium, Noble Yarrow, Nosebleed, Old Man’s Mustard, Old Man’s Pepper, Sanguinary, Seven Year’s Love, Squirrel Tail, Snake Grass, Soldier’s Woundwort, Stanch Grass, Stanch Griss, Stanch Weed, Tansy, Thousand seal, Wound Wort, Yaroway, Yerw

Astrological: Primary: Libra, Taurus, Cancer, Secondary, Pisces and Scorpio

Associated Deities: Heru-Wer (Horus the Elder), Eros, Eleggua, Sekhmet, Obatala, Oshun

Medicinal: Antihemorrahagic, Antiperiodic, Antispasmodic, Astringent, Carminative, Diaphoretic, Febrifuge, Nervine, Stimulant (aromatic), Tonic, Vulnerary

Parts Used: Flowers, young leaves, Secondary leaves, root, (stalks for divining sticks – China) Best gathered in August when in full bloom.

Yarrow has been used since antiquity for the healing of wounds. Wounds that are deep, even cuts to the bone are benefitted by Yarrow. Yarrow offers also mild relief from pain including headaches. It works to the third level of cuts and wounds, and addresses the fevers associated with cuts and deeper wounds. Yarrow it is said is dedicated to the “Evil One”, hence some of the names such as Devil’s Nettle, Devil’s Plaything, Bad Man’s Plaything. Yarrow was used for divination in spells and the stalks used in Divination sticks for the I Ching in China. In the Highlands of Scotland there is an ointment that is made from fresh herb. This is good for piles, and is also used against the scab in sheep. Fresh leaves are used to help stop toothache.

Yarrow has been used as the basis for a beer and is found to be more intoxicating than that which is made with hops.

Magickal Uses: Yarrow can be used in a magical bag or sachet as well as incense to bring courage. It is excellent in bringing back long lost family and friends. Infusions of Yarrow can be sued to banish all sorts of malevolent spirits from both person and home. It is used as a scent in essential oils to enhance friendships and mutual respect between people. Yarrow encourages intuition in all of its forms and helps instill common sense and good negotiations on all sides.


Resources:
Beyerl, Paul V. “Master Book of Herbalism”
Grieve, Maud A. A Modern Herbal, Dover Publications
Wood, Matthew, “The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines”, 1997, North Atlantic Books
And this Wytch’s own considerable notes and experiences about this herb.

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Protected: Journal Entry (set sometime during the 17th Century)

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Missing You…

Close your eyes and think about what you’ve been missing in your life lately. It could be a person, pet, place, thing, occasion, feeling. Anything at all that you miss dearly.

~*~*~*~
I lay my head against the cairn. It was just a pile of rocks, under an oak tree that was at least four hundred years old. The sharp edges of the limestone pressed uncomfortably into my tear-stained cheeks. I pulled the dusty folds of my veil about me and whispered into the evening, wondering if Sebastien’s spirit could hear me, and yet deep inside I didn’t care. My lamentations were as much a balm for my own soul as they were an entreatment to my dead husband.

I always told him how much I missed him. I whispered to him of the children I never bore to him. I knew he wanted them, as much as I ever did. I was certain in that otherwhere, somewhere in the Universe, he knew that we must have born them in that other place.

Of all of those in my life before, it was him that I missed the most. I think that I barely spoke for nearly a year after his death. Sebastien was to me not only my husband and consort but everything I had ever imagined in a way that a man would treat me. His face would light up the instant I entered the room, and I could feel my own face illuminate just as brightly when he approached me. Ours was the perfect relationship that could be considered the stuff of legend.

But my heart, on the other hand,on the day of his death, had been broken. I had worked the magic, entreated the gods, worked the spells to bring his once-immortal self back to where I was. I tried to stack the deck of the cards of Fate in my favour so that I would never have to be without him. Whether or not the magic succeeded, was immaterial. I was here, he was gone, his body resting under this pile of stone, entombed, and nothing could ever change that. In the whole of existence. I could never begin to find what it was that I had held so dearly again. In the depths of my heart, I knew that I could never replace what I had lost.

The Fae or the Wytch from the very beginning of his or her life, learns how to live between the Worlds. It is something that we have always done. From time to time, in the whisperings of the wind, I would hear what I could perceive to be Sebastien’s voice. At other times, even with no breeze, I would feel the slightest touch, as if his fingertips were brushing my face. I would lean into the perceived touch, and for a moment, just a fleeting fragment of a moment, I would feel that love that surrounded me so often before enfold me once more.

A single tear rolled down my face, and dropped onto a piece of limestone that jutted out further from the others.

“ I miss you, mon amour,” I whispered to the wind. I continued to tell him how every night I would light a candle in a shrine that I keep to him. Did he see from wherever that he was that I would lie awake at night and my body ached to feel that same warmth that I felt at my back all of those many years ago? If I could do it over, I would have never have left his side, no matter what anyone said. My tears flowed now, steadily and I bit back choked sobs.

“I’d have stayed by your side and taken out the first person who’d even remotely looked like a threat, “I whispered, “had I been there sooner, I know you would never have lost.”

And yet, my heart manages to whisper things which I do not want to believe. All that I want, have ever wanted in the whole of existence, was him.

I closed my eyes once more, and felt the softest caress, and with it a whisper, a whisper that I could have sworn, was saying my name. I wiped my eyes and drew myself up, re-arranging the folds of my sari.

I bent toward the tree by the grave, and pressed my lips to my fingertips, then to the base of the tree.

“Gráím thú,* I whispered in Scots Gaelic, knowing that if Sebastien’s Spirit could hear me, he would know this phrase that we had between us. It was the one phrase that I had taught to him in my own language.

* “I love you.”

Muse: Fanny Fae
Fandom: Original Character / Folklore/ Mythology / Meta
Word Count: 792
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O’ Fortuna

Fortune. Some people have it, some people seek it, some claim to predict it, and some say that it favours the brave. Write a ficlette inspired by the word ‘fortune.’

O Fortune,
like the moon, you are changeable,
ever waxing and waning;
hateful life. first oppresses
and then soothes, as fancy takes it;
poverty and power
it melts them like ice.

Fate – monstrous and empty,
you whirling wheel, you are malevolent,
well-being is vain and always fades to nothing,
shadowed and veiled, you plague me too;
now through the game I bring my bare back
to your villainy.

e are all slaves to fortune of one kind or another, whether we will or no. Some view it as fame, that magickal elixir that will insure immortality of a kind. From the great Greek warrior, Achilles, to the meanest scullery maid hoping to catch the notice, if not fleeting, of her Lord, fortune takes many forms. Fortuna, that fickle Goddess is ever changeable. Her insignia, the wheel, is like the spinning wheel of the Fates, and very much like the wheel of mediaeval torture. Sometimes it is torture to endure the turns that the wheel makes within our life. It is at the centre of the Wheel and in our life that balance is found. The Wheel of Fortune also can become like the wheel of a ship, whereby we make it to serve us – rather than being dictated by it and blown about by the winds of Fate.

All who knew Morgienne knew her to be intelligent as well as ruthless. It is perhaps to her that I owe my present position, for so often there is no glory for a woman unless she were to be far more ruthless than any man could ever be. It was I who took the Wheel of Fortune within my grasp and wrenched it free from the hands of the Fates and from Morgienne.

I face the same now as she did then. I know that Fortuna shall cast her gaze from me and affix it upon another. And for their time, they shall rise up and I shall be seemingly plunged down, cast from power, rent asunder. Unlike Morgienne, however, I will remain and rise up again. This I know. You see, I have one thing on my side. That one thing is the gift of incredible age, for even as my enemies who will rise to power, they too will fall and I will still yet live. Though the profane shall pass away, the spirit is constant. It is imperishable. The answer to the riddle of the Sphinx, also found within the symbology of the Tarot, is Time. Time is what I have plenty of. And so goes the cycle of life.

So spins the wheel of Fortuna.


Muse: Fanny Fae
Fandom: Original Character / Folklore / Mythology
Word Count: 369 (Not including the portion of translated lyrics of “O’ Fortuna” from “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff )

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