Friday, July 26, 2013

Because of Isis We give thanks! (Ritual to Isis included)



I rarely, if ever, do this; but I am going to jump out on a limb here and share one of my private group rituals with you (the public).  They are very easily duplicatable, and I feel pretty much full proof.  If your goal is to worship the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses and to "walk with the Gods" and to live in Ma-at then this is the ritual for you!  

I also hope that people will search Google and find this, because so many people nowadays use other people's group rituals or base on on them from something that someone else wrote on the internet.  I am embracing technology and offering you the opportunity to experience what we at the Temple of the Sacred Gift feel every other weekend.  Enjoy!  and Thank you Isis.


RITUAL TO ISIS for her BIRTHDAY
Bowl for water,  blessed water from the River (the closest body of water to you will do mine is the Mississippi),  two cloths one dry one wet, blue lotus oil, candle, confetti, beads on a safety pin to hand out (Looks like a friendship pin from the 80's)

Purify the space before starting any ritual!  Sage, sing, beat drum, sweep up the residue!
CLEANSE the worshippers
Have everyone wash their hands before entering washcloth, one wet , one dry, and blue lotus oil in the bowl…

Cast circle SONYA:  RA INTONED OVER AND OVER UNTIL CIRCLE IS RAISED
….
CALL IN ELEMENTS:  SONYA AND ANGELA TOGETHER Who walk to every quarter

TOGETHER (this is the HPS/HPor HPS and HPS): Before us is SHU
EAST:  (Evocation)  Shu, God of Air please bring a Gift to this circle  and join us in the circle tonight to honor your Grandaughter Isis.  Hail Shu!

To the right of us is SEKHMET

SOUTH:   (Evocation)Sekhmet, Goddess of Fire please bring a gift to this circle and join us in the circle tonight to honor your friend Isis.  Hail Sekhmet

Behind us is Neferet

WEST:  (Evocation) Neferet, Goddess of Water please bring a gift to this circle (keep it open and let her decide what to bring) and join us in the circle to night to honor your Sister Isis…Hail Neferet!

To the left of us is OSIRIS

NORTH:  (Evocation)  Osiris, God of Eternal Life please bring a gift to this circle (keep it open and let him decide what to bring) and join us as we celebrate your wife’s Birthday Isis…Hail Osiris!

Below is always our father GEB

THE EARTH POINT DOWN:  ( EVOCATION) Geb, Father, we feel you under our feet please bring a gift to this circle (keep it open) and join us as we celebrate your daughters birthday isis…Hail Geb!

 Above us is always NUT our Mother the Sky

THE SKY ABOVE YOU THINK ATMOSPHERE POINT UP:  …(Emily evocation)  Nut, Sky mother you stretch out above us smiling please bring a gift to to this circle (keep it open so she can bring what she wants) to celebrate your daughter’s birthday Isis…Hail Nut!

Now we will call in the Special guests…

Aspirant:  Horus, Golden one, will you please come and join this circle and bring a gift for your Mother Isis as we celebrate her day of birth today?  Hail Horus!

Aspirant:  Thoth, Scribe of the Ages, will you please come and join this circle and bring a gift for your friend Isis as we celebrate her day of birth today?  Hail Thoth!

Angela:  Hathor, will you please come and join this circle and bring a gift for your friend Isis as we celebrate her day of birth today?  Hail Hathor!

Sonya: Isis, Will you please make a grand entrance and join this circle because we are all gathered here today to celebrate your birthday!  Thank you for all you have done for me, and the Temple of the Sacred Gift!  Hail ISIS!

ANGELA:  I am pretty sure that you all know by now it is Isis birthday.  I think it is pretty awesome that out of all the Goddesses I have met that Isis has a birthday! She was born according to Historians on July 17th.  All Egyptian Goddesses have birthdays. Back in the day people from all over the world came to celebrate, party, dance, drink, laugh, and be happy that a Goddess had been born on that day!

SONYA:  Did you know that when Isis was born, she was not the ALL POWERFUL glorious Goddess she is now, she was not even in the top ten worshipped!  Hathor was the Top Goddess of Choice, along with Sekhmet and Wadjet, Bastet and many others including Neith!   But as time passed, she endured surpassing them all in popularity.  I know Osiris would say it was because she married him; but I would like to say it is because she is the most easily relatable.

Angela:  Isis was human like us, she was a child, she was a teenager, she fell in love, and she married.  She became a princess and lived in the palace and visited all of her fellow Goddesses who also had palaces, and then her husband was killed and she was dethroned.  Then she became…

SONYA:  Homeless, and poor.  She had to find a way to make a living.  She took up the art of hairdressing, she became a perfumer, a midwife, an herbalist, she worked as a maid, she became a Nanny, and apparently she wasn’t very good at any of these jobs…because every story entails her being fired by her employer.  Then she became …
Angela:  ANGRY and SAD, just like our modern day emos she cut herself with her nails until she bled, even her beautiful face, she pulled her hair out in clumps, to remove the pain that was inside herself.  It is said that she was depressed, and cried all the time, to the point where people stopped and asked what was wrong only for her to ignore them and not take solace from others.  She was so angry it is said her screams rivaled the lions, and the vultures, and her words were like poison and even the scorpions ran in her presence.  Then she became….

Sonya:  Focused and motivated, she devised a plan and went out searching and gathering every piece of her lost love Osiris and decided to re-construct him.  She approached the Gods and Goddesses and asked them to help her with her plan…they pointed her in the right directions, and her step son Anubis promised to sew him back together.  Then she

Angela:  Like us her plan fell apart, Anubis sewed him back together but nothing happened; he remained motionless.  Only Ra could bring the dead to life.  Not be undone…She unveiled her trickster aspect and got Serquet and Wadjet to give her poison so that she could trick the King of Gods into giving her his power.  She then places a thorn in his path, while he is doing his daily walk (which means she had to stalk him and do detective work hiding in the bushes) and he steps on it becoming poisoned…then she

Sonya:  Offers to heal him, because Ra calls her to his bedside to make him well.  She offers him a deal (becoming a business woman) I will do this in exchange for your powerful name.  He gives it to her, she returns only to find out that once again Set had scattered her husband….The bastard! THEN SHE….

Angela:  becomes tenacious and reassembles are the parts and finds that he is missing his penis, creates one from gold (yep she is a sculptor and artist) and then becomes the Queen of Magic raising the first person from the dead.  Thus it is stated that in this Act Isis the Human becomes Isis the Goddess, and is given the crown of the Sun disks (the first female Goddess ever to wear this crown)

Sonya:  Isis then loses her husband to the underworld, but gains the throne, only to wander for forty years, while gaining armies, allies, and friends as a Goddess protecting her child, then as a mother providing, and not as a princess or queen but as a savage warrior who slays anyone who approaches her child.  

ANGELA:  Isis is considered the best mother and is the epitome of all Mother Goddesses we study, she holds the child to her breast to feed it, just as she feeds us, she fights for her child, and she raises him to become a leader and to claim his destiny like all mothers do…

Sonya:  I know you are all thinking, yeah, well I don’t worhship isis…well you might

Angela:  If you worship:  Astarte, Aphrodite, Erishkagel, Innana, Ishtar, Ixchel, Fortuna, Thalia, Venus, Vesta, Neferet, Hathor (even) Athena, Artemis, Diana, Selena,  Demeter, Babao, Amaterusu, The Virgin Mary, Mother Goddess, you could be worshiping Isis.

Sonya:  As time progressed Isis was so popular that as other Goddesses temples fell, she came in and resurrected them adding her name and a hyphen to their name.  In the case of Venus and Aphrodite she saved their worship in an age where men could not stand the idea of Women being powerful. 

Angela:  She is also the first Goddess to travel the world, leaving her own continent and spreading her love and message to people of every race, color, caste, and sexuality (she had transsexuals priests in Persia!)  

Sonya:  In the year 300 ad it was written by the Historian Theolipius that it was a mystery as to who the people would worship…Isis or Jesus

Angela:  It seems the trinity of Male Gods only won, and Isis became sitting in the corner of every Temple with a shrine, at every Christian church… as the Virgin Mary.

So in her honor today, we are going to sing a little diddy I wrote to her…
Have people pass confetti around while singing this….

"Because of Isis, there is a heaven
Because of Isis, there is an earth.
Because of Isis, the river floods in springtime
Because of Isis, the trees bear fruit
Because of Isis, Because of Isis,  we give thanks
Because of Isis, Because of Isis, we are here
Because of Isis because of Isis because of Isis we give thanks
Because of Isis because of Isis because of isis we are here

Because of Isis
Because of Isis
Because of Isis we are here

Because of Isis 
Because of Isis
Because of Isis we give thanks..... "

SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY….throw the confetti, and blow the horns,
Light a birthday candle…….
Then have everyone get a bead from Isis as a party favor….

(TELL PEOPLE) These are from Egypt and are called Mummy beads or ubashi beads you wear them every day until you die, then they go with you to the underworld so that the spirits realize that you have spent time with the Goddess Isis.
Now it is time to party…I hope all the Gods want to join us…

Leave the circle open and feast or potluck with the Gods.  Then play dance music and shake a tailfeather! Then take down circle, clean up...and Sing Because of Isis all the way home!







Sunday, July 7, 2013

Why is it so hard to start a coven? OR is it really that hard to start one?

" Xwitch made a suggestion that it hard to get into a coven. I think this would be somewhat true and depends on where you live. e.g., I would love to be able to organise a study group/coven in my local area, I thought about doing flyers or a mail box drop advertising as such but then I feel that I would get phone calls or emails from negative people and/or a mole might get in, kinda like what we get in this group, and a heap of other factors that have turned me off it completely. Mind you though I have gotten a flyer in my mail box about a local churches bible study group so I see it as a huge unfairness on us as Wiccans that we still have to hide away even with all the laws protecting us."
I have decided to address one of these today on a public forum because I want there to be MORE Pagan/Wiccan/Witch groups not less. But for that to happen, I need to share in a bigger way how to start your own coven.  FIRST, let me state there are not "all of these laws out there" protecting you as a Wiccan unless you decided to get organized and get a Legal 501c3 Religious organization license.  For you to think that your coven will be protected is naive, study the law and all of the cases and you will see time and time again the odds are stacked against you.  You live in a world where people understand Church, Temple, Worship center but they do not understand "coven/circle/grove/backyard".  So if you think that forming a coven will protect you and your buddies from "discrimination" and that you can do anything you want and sue then think again...that is not the way the law or the world works.  This is why after years of leading covens my husband and I banded together and organized and formed a legal 501c3 Wiccan Church  with a whole bunch of other fabulous folks (Wicca is protected Pagan and Witch are not).
IF however, you want to form a coven with people because you have a sincere desire to learn, to grow, and to practice magick with people you enjoy then you have the RIGHT reason to form a coven.  So first I would advise you to sit still and figure out WHY you want to form a coven.  If it is for POWER POWER POWER or because you are Lonely then DO not form a coven those are not good reasons.  NEXT, what kind of coven do you want it to be?  Do you want it to be a women's only group?  Do you want it to study the Celtic path?  Is it eclectic?  Hellenistic? etc.  Do you know anything about these areas?  IF not, then be honest and say I want this to be a coven for people that are new to the path and want to learn together. DO NOT( and I repeat this do not) call yourself a Highpriestess if you have no experience on the path; give it time you will grow into that role the Goddess truly initiates her own and you will know when that "title" is right for you. Priest and Priestess we all are, but Highpriestess or Highpriest is earned.
This is the tricky part...are you starting the coven alone?  If you are then you have to decide are you going to be the leader?  Would you rather it be a leaderless group? If there is a leader will it be just you or are you going to share that responsibility oh and HOW WELL do you know them?  Where are you going to worship, a park or your back yard?  Do you want to have a bunch of people worshiping in your home but you have no control over what happens?  If not, then you do not want a leaderless group worshiping in your back yard.  (BTW I love how people say this alot because I do not believe in leaderless groups, whomever founded it and whomever home it is at is the leader and if who founded it and the house used to do it are owned and run by two different people there usually are issues that arise I am sharing this from alot of experience. Because truthfully we humans like boundaries, rules, leaders, and struggle with control all of us do.)  
What kind of rules do you want to have?  Yes, Covens have rules, like you have to study with us for three months before we decided whether we want to take you on or not.  OR you are only a first degree after a year and a day and we initiate you.  Oh yes, what kind of initiation will you have? What kind of mission will your coven have?  Or you all going to do things to help each other, help the library, what about the food bank, etc?  How will you dress?  Will you wear robes, wear street clothes, etc?
HOW many people do you want in your group?  Remember the more people it seems the merrier but if this is your first time the more people who share energy the more you have to get them to mesh, get along, and be in sync and this is so much harder than it looks on the surface.  WHO or HOW are you going to pay for all the rituals?  Cakes and ale, herbs, resins, stones, incense,  altars, altar cloths, God and Goddess statues, cauldrons, sage sticks, all of these things cost money...so how are you all going to pay for this?  When I first started we all rotated this together one week I provided candles the next the sage and incense, etc.  HOW often are you going to meet?  Every week thus every moon cycle, every new moon, every full moon, only dark moons, etc...THIS is important for if you do not meet enough the bonds are not there and the group falls apart.  IF you meet to soon you burn out and then the group also falls apart.
HOW long do you want the coven to work?  Would you like to re-address it every year?  Every three years?  How will you know when it is done...I am not saying you will have the answer to all of these going in, but if you think about all of this BEFORE you try to form a coven then you have a leg up and might be able to make it work.  Because, let it be stated here that leading, organizing, and running anything is hard work so if you work 40 plus hours and have many other obligations (like many children and a high maintenance marriage or full time college) starting and running a coven is NOT for you!  Being in one, now that might be more your speed and for Goddess sake if you cannot run one and know it please be nice to the person that is sacrificing their time, home, and energy it is a HARD job; respect them!
NOW after you have done all of these things, and have decided you have the time and energy and money to do this thing and know where you are going to meet then what?  Advertise.  Yep, you heard me, advertise.  Do it on Facebook say I am forming a group, and send me an email if interested.  PUT up flyers in the coffee shop, or occult store, or at the New age place, or at your local Wiccan church. Twitter it if you want! Once again have them email you if interested not call you. DO NOT advertise your phone number that is a mistake!
WHEN they email you send them back a list of questions that answers for you why they are interested, what their experience is, and if they have psychological issues, or drug and alcohol addictions (yes, please ask this sure they can lie but you will be surprised how many will be honest and you don't want to start off with people that might not benefit from this spiritual path due to psychological issues or addiction issues).  Read the emails, screen them, pick your favorite then call these people back and set up an appointment to meet them face to face!  Make sure it is in a open area like a coffee shop and go meet them and talk and see how you feel about them.  IF you like them set up a date for a future time and get together again, do this until you feel comfortable and add people as you go...and then VOILA!  You have the startings of a coven anything more than three is just that...!
NOW see it really is not as hard as you thought?  It really is more common sense than you realized?  Of course it is.  IF you feel a need or a calling to start a group, then please do so...if it does not work out then so what you tried.  If it does work then WOO HOO you are on your way to growing together!
GOOD LUCK, and GODDESS BLESS.  My email is revsonyamiller@gmail.com if you need any further advice or help in this area for that is what I am here for.