Fairy Cat Return Spell

I’ve been missing my cat, Pie, for nine days now. Angel was kind enough to give me a cat spell from Ellen Dugan’s book, The Enchanted Cat, so I can call to Pie magickally and hopefully bring him home soon.

The spell itself left me tingly and crying, because I really do ant my baby back in my loving arms, it also left me with a sense of calm, to the point where I didn’t feel the need to call on the Ouija board. Thank goddess because I don’t think it’s safe to work one alone.

Yes, I have done all the mundane I could do, putting up posters, calling all the local shelters in the area, posting on craigslist and http://www.missingpetads.com It was especially stressful when we thought our beloved Pie was dead, but that changed quickly because I discover that the date of disappearance for Pie and mystery cat, did not match. Also it was just too weird for Pie to have been taken to a Willow Glen clinic, about ten miles from my house. So I thank the god and goddess immensely for revealing that information to me.

Now I’m in action, but I have to do my school work. Luckily I have a lot of free time because I’ve been off work because of an injured hip and knee. I’m feeling better though, so yay, I can go back to work soon.

I feel so much better after doing the spell. I do not believe it would have felt half as good if I had not done everything mundane I could, because I would have felt a little pre-executed if I called to the gods for help before trying something on my own. I’m so thankful, I hope my baby will some home soon.

The Dragon in the Middle

The only dragons I've ever felt fully depicted my fantasy of what an actual dragon should look like is Draco from "Dragonheart" and Sean Connery's voice didn't hurt either. "Eragon" was a great book but it was a POS on the movie screen because they blasted through the story and altered it to where it didn't seem to entrance me any more. One example is when Brom died in the book, I cried, but in the movie it was glazed over like a Krispy Cream doughnut. It disappointed me, enraged me and is one of the many reasons why my family will not see movies with me anymore.

Also, I couldn't get though the second book "Eldest" because the it felt like I was grinding in WOW. It was annoying, because it felt like it had to be a bigger book because Harry Potter always progressed to a larger page number, until it became as large as the whole Lord of the Ring series in book 7. I didn't care about the deserts between locations, I just wanted to read about the epic dragon battles and add some kick ass imagination, but no, I couldn't drag myself through the first 200 pages before I returned it to the library.

You could say I'm obsessed with dragons, I even wrote a poem about one of my fantasies, nothing too sexual, considering it was published in my Christian private schools literary magazine. I've always seen dragons as intelligent creatures who are the ultimate balance between the four elements and since I've been an whacked out Libra all my life I needed a magickal example because my life was only filled with horrible unrealistic ones, like "God works in mysterious ways".

Sadly, with real life, I've paid little attention to writing stories, drawing or just imagining my draconic companions, but I'm on the road to recovery because I've been drawing, crappily, again. I've always wanted to transform myself into a dragon and scarf down my bitch-mother, even if it did cause indigestion and draconic diabetes. It was a little sick fantasy and I used to protect myself from the bewildering hatred spewing out of my mother's mouth.

In short, I like dragons because I think they are a symbol of balance and they can eat annoying people whenever they want because they are teeth, claws, flight and fire. I don't like making them too bestial or too magic-preppie because there is just this charm of watching an intelligent creature who has no shame in ripping a flock of sheep to shreds. It's the bestial vs intelligence/magick factor I think becomes a huge barrier in most fantasy minds about dragons, much like the moral stance in video games like Fable, you can be either Satan or Jesus, but there is no middle man.

This is why I like "Dragonheart", it fits in the middle, has one of the sexiest voices ever, other than when David Kaye when he voiced Megaton in "Beast Wars" and I could imagine myself in the story easily. I hate movies like "Dragon Slayer", "Harry Potter" and "Rein of Fire", not only because they were wyverns advertised as dragons and very stupid. "D-War" was another disappointment mainly because the story was absolute crap. Shallow characters following a 2-D form of reincarnation in order to bring peace to the world while sacrificing their love just sucks.

The only other movie I can stand is "Flight of Dragons" which was based on a book by Peter Dickinson and the novel "The Dragon and the George" by Gordon R. Dickson. Good storytelling, epic characters, a little choppy on the background of some, but I can still watch it today and laugh my pants off when the dragons, Gorbash and Smrgol wake up from a drinking binge and the inn is destroyed. Watch it. Anyway, I think I'm just sick and tired of the extremism of dragons in stories, bestiality has it's place, but you loose the magic and it just becomes another hormone moister to kill. Also, when it becomes a magical best, they are just a little dry, especially when they suffer from battle retardation.

"Eragon", the book, did a decent job of obtaining the middle ground also, which is why I like it, even if I couldn't ground my body through the jagged writing of "Eldest". The relationship between the boy and his dragon was charming, sweet and it touched my fantasy button and rendered me almost helpless, even with the frakkin elves invading with there arrogant attitude, as with every fantasy nowadays.

I guess I like to see dragons as fallible creatures with wants beyond shiny-virgin and magic-crap, because they are my symbol in a way, or at least my desired symbol. I want to be balanced but also realize I have wants and needs that are rather complex, except when it comes to food.

Even stranger, my totem dragons seems to be a Lung, my rain dragon, so to speak, even though I seem to visually appeal to more western dragons. However, I do like their fluid shape and think they are gorgeous to look at. Mine is a silvery/white dragon with blue undertones with a simply elegant long body shape. I'll have to try and draw a picture of it sometime.

Who am I?

My magickal name is Shadow Moon and I'm going to tell you about my new found practice of Wicca. If you don't know what Wicca is there are plenty of websites you can go to, one of them is Wicca:For the Rest of Us at http://wicca.timerift.net/ . It has some down to earth articles about what Wicca is and isn't.

Some of you may have been taught that Wicca is a byproduct of Satanism, this is simply not true. It is a religion created about fifty years ago by a man named Gerald Gardner when he published a book titled Witchcraft Today in 1954. He supposedly met some witches in Dorset, England, and they called themselves the New Forest Coven. He wanted to preserve their tradition and wrote the book based on their practice.

Wicca maybe an ancient idea, but it isn't an unbroken chain, mainly because information was destroyed during the Burning Times. During this time witches, mostly women, and other outcasts like the Jews, were tortured in the name of the Christian God. This happened all over Europe and even in America at the famous Salem Witch Trials.

Christianity was used to gain money, power and control over the many Pagan cultures still practicing in 18th century Europe. They often used Pagan gods and goddesses in efforts to convert also. For example the Celtic poetry muse goddess, Brigid, is also the Saint Brigid in Catholicism. Also Saint Patrick did not cast out snakes in Ireland, in fact there never were any, it was a direct symbol of the Druids, another nature based Pagan practice, being chased out of their native home. So you can see Christians had to make Pagans Satan worshipers because they were a threat to the Catholic Church.

In Wicca there is no Satan, instead there is a god and goddess, Lord and Lady, who are symbolized through nature and ritual, giving life and birth to the universe. Everything contains these sacred energies, including you and me, and with these energies we can preform magick and ritual with the god and goddess.

The god and goddess themselves have many faces: Luna, Isis, Selene, Freya, Brigid, Athena, Diana, Zeus, Hades, Saturn, Horas...and thousands more, but they are all of the god and goddess. Some just follow a a general form of the god or goddess and others take god and goddess' who reflect on them, empower them and inspire them. I keep it simple and follow a very organic form of the god or goddess, using their basic energies to aid me.

Wiccans do have a moral code, the simplest form is "Do what ye will, but harm ye none." The actual Rede is longer, but this is the gist. It's important that you understand Wicca is not a free for all practice full of angry teenagers hexing each other during study hall. This is a Hollywood version of the Craft, not the real version, which it true for almost any television show. So instead of looking to television you should read up on the Craft and go to places like panganspace.net to communicate with Wiccans and other Pagans.

Some Wiccans are solitary and others join a coven. There is some controversy about this, but I honestly beleive the god and goddess don't care as long as your intentions are pure. Covens are groups of people, usually men and women, who practice rituals and some spells together, which is awesome because when so many are focused on a goal it's truly a spiritual power trip. When in a Coven a newly dedicated will go through a year and a day of study, as reference to the time it took Cerridwen, a Welsh legendary witch, to make her potion, after which they will be officially apart of the Coven and can continue through two more years of study to eventually become a Priest/Priestess of the god and goddess.

In the solitary, you are the motivation for the study, you are the Priest/Priestess for the rituals, it still takes alot of work and even if you do work hard you are often not recognized by an official Coven, despite your knowledge of the Craft.

There are also many tools and practices attributed to Wicca, but I'm going to let you look those up for yourself, because I'm in no way qualified and you should never trust what anyone tells you. Do your own research, teach yourself, and follow your own path.

As to why I became a Wiccan, or at least studying to be, I played in nature as a child and felt content with my Christian faith, but this was before I completely understood how twisted people can make a religion. I saw Christianity as a suppressing religion to women of intelligence and my personal views just twisted the arms of Christians at times. I tried to conform, but despite my research into the Bible through Valley Christian High School, I discovered the Christian God was not my god.

So I spent my teenage years searching for something unobtainable and began to progress into role-playing-games like Werewolf: the Apocalypse which focused on a goddess named Luna. It may sound a little weird, but I beleive the goddess reached out to me thought a RPG. After a while I met some Wiccans and realized how similar our thoughts were: we wanted equality of the sexes, were liberal, environmentally conscious, every idea just clicked together.

I read their books, like Solitary Witch, and discovered what Wicca offered to me was everything I was searching for. I gladly took up every book on Wicca I could find and began to study. The library is a great resource for books on the cheap. I'll give you a list of Wicca 101 suggestion at th end.

It wasn't until about my fifth month of study where I decided to do my first esbat , a ritual you preform for each full moon, sabbats are rituals concerning the equinox and such, more on that later, or just look it up. Anyway, I snuck out of my room around midnight with my candles and other tools in hand and began my ritual to honor the god and goddess under the moonlight. I cast a circle of protection and asked the four directions, South-fire, East-air, West-water and North-earth to assist and witness my rite.

Luckily it wasn't too cold as I sat awkwardly in my flower garden I chanted for the goddess to endow me with wisdom, peace, harmony... as the fire burned atop candles, and the ensence billowed out of the small cauldron. I was scared my parents were going to find out and throw me to the Christian wolves, but finally I relaxed and I left my body in a trance.

I floated about my large backyard and saw a silver and black Asian dragon circle around the full moon in a misty dance and then Luna came down to see me. She was beautiful, white silvery hair waving weightlessly as her pregnant form glided to me. Her silver robes sparkled and her eyes were a bright as diamonds. She asked me to come with her and she told me everything on this planet consisted of both male and female energies, and I mustn't forget that. She treated me like her long lost child, calling me little one and I asked her to bestow a magickal name.

A magickal name, or Craft name, is a name you can choose to personify your self in rituals or spells. It can be public or private and should be chosen carefully. There is nothing wrong with changing your magickal name, because everyone grows, but switching from this to that is silly and disrespectful. My name is Shadow Moon and it was given to me by the goddess in the form of Luna and she said herself it would change and grow, but for now, because I have to hide, Shadow Moon is my name.

Books I recommend:

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

Wicca: A Guide For the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

Animal Magick by D.J. Conway

Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler

The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews Scott Cunningham

Book of Shadows by Phyllis Curott

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain

The Everything Paganism Book

Pagans & Christians : the personal spiritual experience by Gus diZerega.

The complete idiot's guide to Wicca and Witchcraft

Wicca for beginners : fundamentals of philosophy & practice by Thea Sabin

21st century Wicca : a young witch's guide to living the magical life by Jennifer Hunter

If you have any questions please e-mail me at shadowmoonofluna@gmail.com

Blessed be.