An Experiment in Ink

For those of you that don't know I currently reside out in the country side within site of the beautiful Mt. Diablo. The property was once a walnut farm but is now a horse ranch, but still is littered with Black English Walnut trees. Last fall when we moved in ther ground was literal covered with them, you had to step very carefully at night for fear of tripping on them.

Being the naturally witchy person that I am (and a bit of a pack rat) I simply could not let the walnuts go to waste and collected a good basket full that I have yet to use through. More recently I noticed there were still pods left, decaying in the dirt, and I was struck with a notion.

Walnut Ink.

Now granted I wish the notion had struck me earlier when the pods weren't in such an advanced state of decay but oh well. On the night of the new moon I stole out in the chilled weather with my flashlight to collect them. It seemed the best time to collect decayed walnuts, at least magically anyway.

Walnuts, have a long loved history as food. Archeological excavations can trace the roasting of walnuts back to the neolithic period. The Roman's regaled is as the Royal Nut of Jove, a name which has long stood and influenced it to this day Juglans regia being it's scientific name. So it is no surprise at all that the tree and nut also have a history with witches and magic.

"Worthy of mention also, in Leland's Book [Charles Leland, Magic and Occult Remedies, 1892] is the story about the walnut witches. Manuscripts from old witch trials in Italy speak of this walnut tree which (it is said) had always been there and was in leaf all year long. For centuries, legends were told of the great witch gatherings in the town of Benevento, at the site of an ancient walnut tree. In the year 662 A.D., Saint Barbato converted the Duke of Benevento (a pagan) to Christianity and had the tree cut down. The witches replanted the walnut tree from seed, and legend says it still stands in Benevento. Bottles of Strega Liguore, manufactured in Benevento today, bear labels upon which appears the old walnut tree with a group of witches and satyrs dancing around it." This activity was associated with the worship of the Goddess Diana.
- Raven Grimassi, Ways of the Strega, 1995, p. 11

In general Walnuts (and it's woods), have associations with both male and female deities and energies (Diana, Jove, Aphrodite, Thor, Vashaan, Vishu) Making it's energy more spiritual and earth based. The tree and many of it's parts are know for healing properties (the leaves used in skin treatments as an antiseptic etc.) The Walnut is about energy, it's about transitions (from nut to tree, tree to decay), it is about wealth and death (the brain like shape of the nut did not go unnoticed)

With all that in mind it seemed like an excellent candidate for making spell ink. Dark Moon Spell ink, imbued with the powers of transformation, binding, and what lay beyond.

So after the fun of stalking through the dark moon night collecting rotting brain shaped nuts, what's next?

Next is putting them in a jar covering them with water and sealing the lid. Just let it stew in the sun and the growing moon energies on your altar, or your porch for at least 2 days (Or so I read.)



I let mine sit for a week on my porch in site of the tree from whence it's nuts came. Then brought it inside to sit on my sill in the sight of the owl, beside my skull with a big chunk of onxy inside for potency.

Then I poured it all into a pot. A pot that I didn't mind if it ya know was stained horribly and what not. Put it on my stove and added a 100 year old nail. Apparently the tannins which ionic iron combines with to make iron tannate compounds, which is what make nice black stainable ink.



Bring that to a boil and let simmer. For a long time. Pretty much till almost all your liquid is gone. Oddly enough you'll smell the faint aroma of cinnamon, very odd, but true.

Once it's good and simmered, you then strain it. I used cheese cloth first just one layer to get the big pieces out, then doubled to get the smaller debris out. And pour it into a nice jar or bottle.



Now do I have walnut ink or stain? I'm not entirely sure. You see, for honesty's sake between my readers and I ( I'm going to be grandiose and say I have readers lol.), this is the first time I've attempted this. To my untrained inexperienced eye what came out of my pot seems too watery to be true ink. I suspect it is mostly due to the pods I collected being in too much a state of decay to have enough materials to properly boil away. So in future this next experiment will have to be done in the middle of the harvest time not waaaay at the end.

HOWEVER, I am sure I at least have a good stain. It certainly stained the chopstick I was using to stir with. Which can be used for all kinds of fun and magical things, I'm thinking I may hand it over to a papermaking witch I know to color some of her paper.

In any event it was a fun experiment, I hope you all enjoyed it too!

Some more links to Walnut Ink Making:
Making Walnut Ink - SCA Approved
Magpie Making Walnut Ink
Wiki Walnut Ink

The Gods Blessing on you all,

Branwen

Fierce Femininity

Over the past couple of years my spiritual life has become more and more involved and just better. With that being said it is my intention to update this blog on a regular basis of once every two weeks at the least.

Last year I went through Initiation into The Lady Yeshe Rabbit's Amazon Dianic Lineage. I had entered into that process with the mindset of getting in touch with my Femininity and to become comfortable with it. I felt as that there was something missing from me because I wasn't as comfortable in pink and lace as I am in leather and black. So I spent a good portion of my beginning intitation playing the opposite game with myself, wherein do the opposite of whatever my instinctual answer would be. Instead of choosing a blood covered war goddess, I tried working with the a healer and elegant lady.

Needless to say this did not bring about the change I had thought I was looking for. You will not see me suddenly the epitome of Victorian womanly elegance (unless I happen to be in costume for that at the time) frills and soft subtle grace are still things that do not come so very easily to me. No at the end of it all, I came out fully embracing the wild fierce side of me that is my femininity. Praises to the Morrighhan and her ass kicking lessons.

Why am I bringing this up? Why do I feel like sharing this?

Consider it a proclamation, my firmly placing a flag in the ground to defend and bring forth that fierce energy for women to feel safe in and revel in even for just a short while.

It seems in my humble opinion that after one goes through the trail by fire and does the work to become a High Priestess, she then has to decide what sort of High Priestess she's going to be. Every one's skills and talents are different, and from them come that special flavor of magic that only she can craft and bring to the table. And it's a process in itself and may change over time, but for the here and now I know this is what I want to cultivate for myself to give to my community whenever needed.

This last Saturday, we had our Full Moon Women's Circle Grove of Artemis this year we are going through The Women's Wheel of Life by Elizabeth Davis and Carol Leonard for each of our full moon rituals. This last ritual was of the Blood Sister and was amazing and could be a whole post to itself, but the part that is important was the last activity.

It involved all the women chanting, and going up to the Priestess who invoked the Goddess and getting painted with war paint "blood". The war paint was made from lipstick and olive oil and really had a slick feel to it. Needless to say I took the opportunity have my face bathed in blood.

There is something primal and oh so real about rituals like this for me. I really feel like they bring out my true self, my real power and potential. Dancing a chanting around the circle face covered in red blood, it was so enthralling to see everyone and move through that wealth of energy. To see some of my sisters meet me eye to eye with shock and a bit of fear, others to feed off the energy and delve deeper into their own primal need to be savage and untamed. Seeing the surprise of those who didn't expect themselves to enjoy it so much. And ultimately that's what I want to nurture and bring out.

Society overall is too restricting on everyone, and certainly on women. How often do we get the chance as grown women, to run down forested hills bare foot, to let our hair dance and tangle in the wind and not care who sees it. To cover ourselves in muck and blood and be unafraid if mother sees? Not often if at all. It is in ritual that we can access this side of ourselves, the parts of us that still remember the lifetimes when we cut down our enemies, when dirt, blood, and dyes where badges of honor.

This is my pledge as a High Priestess to bring those opportunities to the women of my community, and to the men of my community. So that we do not have to go so long without unlocked the door to our primal fierce self.

Blessings of the Gods on you all,

Chieftain Branwen
High Priestess of Warrior Bardic Wisdoms

Inner Sanctum

It's been a long time since I've wrtten anything on this blog. Mostly for the fact of being completely enraptured with actually doing ritual/magic/coven business. A lot has happened in the meanwhile. I've been Ordained a High Priestess in The Lady Yeshe Rabbit's Amazon Dianic Lineage. Which has just been a gateway to so much that it really deserves it's own post. I've moved out of the City, thus making the title of this blog somewhat obsolete, but may be moving back lol. Went to Pantheacon, which was a crazy whirlwind learning experience in itself (also another post lol). Done spell work out the wazoo for various things, stumbled across my new favorite way to make warding charms (nother post).

But for this post I think I'll focus on something small, and something I haven't shared before. My altar.



I have two main altars (not counting the little ones that spring up unknowningly), my large home altar that is in my kitchen window sill. It's the one everyone sees, where most the spells sit, and really is the center of my home. It's a great altar that currently has at least two very large spider webs, and two friendly spiders living in it.

The altar above however is my bedroom altar, the one that not a lot of people have seen. It's dedicated to my patrons, it's my power base. If the kitchen altar is the throne room, then this altar is the inner closture.

I'm dedicated to the Dagda and the Morrighan, in my public priestessing and in my personal practice. As such there is a lot of red in my life lol, and it's at this altar that I pay the most homage to them. There is my icon of the Dagda's club I made from redwood, wildcrafted crow feathers, altar cloths of linen woven by my Grandmother, my spell bowl, and all manner of other sacred tools.

I don't follow any pattern to how I put altars together, it's just what I feel is needed in the moment. Oddly enough all the skulls are on my main altar not this one lol.



Every morning I light my candles, I ground, center and shield. I give my devotions to my Gods, ask for wisdom and thank my Ancetors, and do whatever spell work I need to do for the day.

I don't know how others view their altar, I know many people who set up individual altars for their Gods, and all different ways of doing things. But for me, here at this place, it's were I go to put on my game face. It's the place I can let all the gaurds and walls down, take a deep breath, connect with the essence that sparks my life and gets my heart pounding, and arrange my thoughts/emotions to what they need to be for time and situations. I think it helps that my altar is also my jewlery box lol. Because it is like dressing and acessorizing the soul for the day.

All and all I think it's a lovely set up.

Blessing of the Gods upon you all.

Branwen