Blue Fire Meditation Adapted from Traditional Bloodrosian Material by Storm Faerywolf

Perform a relaxation exercise prior to this working. Sit in a comfortable position with your eyes fixed upon a candle flame. Softly stare into the flame, clearing your thoughts and concentrating on nothing other than the flame before you. Become aware of your body, feeling yourself relax. Notice your breathing. Feel your body becoming warm and relaxed. Allow all of your residual tension to flow into the Earth. With each breath you become more and more relaxed. Close your eyes. Feel yourself floating in darkness on the waves of your breath. Continue to breathe in a slow, deep rhythm. Imagine that the air all around you is beginning to glow electric blue, becoming like an electrically-charged mist or fire so that now you are floating in a sea of electric blue radiance. Know that this electric blue energy is that which powers the natural universe. As you inhale, feel this light and power enter you through your nostrils. Feel how it flows down your throat and into your lungs. As you exhale you retain the blue fire but allow the air to be released. With every inhale you are able to absorb more and more of this energy that flows out into the rest of your body. Continue to do this until your entire body is completely enveloped and saturated with electric blue fire. Practice filling yourself up and then emptying yourself completely with your breath.

Pore Breathing

A slight variation from the above. Begin with relaxation and rhythmic breathing. Now, when you are about to absorb the blue-fire, instead of absorbing it through your nostrils and into your lungs, your breath moves through the pores in your skin, filling your entire body with every breath. Continue as above.

Directing the Blue Fire

Charge yourself with the Blue Fire as directed above. Allow your hands to rest together in your lap. Imagine that the Blue Fire is gathering from your body and into a bright, glowing ball of vibrational energy at the space where your head meets your neck. As you exhale, move the ball down your left arm to your left hand. As you inhale, feel it move to your right hand and back up your right arm to its starting place. Continue this process until you have established a steady rhythm, and then begin to slowly accelerate the ball while maintaining the slow speed and rhythm of your breath. With every breath the ball moves faster, and faster, until it blurs altogether and becomes a shining bar of electric blue light. Maintain this acceleration without changing your breathing. When you feel the bar is at its strongest. Open your eyes and look at the space between your hands. Slowly move your hands farther and farther apart, noticing if you can perceive the blue fire moving between them. Slow the energy down by focusing on your breathing and by visualizing the band of light slowing down, becoming once again a ball, and then finally coming to rest where your head meets your neck. As you continue to breathe, allow this ball of power to dissolve and be absorbed into your body. Once this exercise has been mastered, try sending the blue fire to different parts of your body, and even outward and into objects that you may be holding, and later objects that are in your line of sight.

The Kala Rite A Feri Ritual of Purification Adapted from the Traditional by Storm Faerywolf
The Kala rite is arguably one of the most important pieces of Feri tradition practice. From the Hawaiian word meaning to loosen, untie, or absolve this simple ritual provides us with an opportunity to transform negative energies and blockages within ourselves, as well as to reclaim the power that these blocks have tied up within our energy bodies. What follows is a simplified version of the rite suitable for use by anyone.

Items needed:

A glass of clear, fresh water Ground and Center. Perform a Three Souls alignment. Recall something that you wish to be free of a bad habit, negative trait, a fear, a bad relationship, etc. Allow yourself to really feel the presence of this thing, along with any emotions that may be attached to it. As you continue your meditative breathing allow these sensations to build within you. When you feel that these feelings are at their peak, breathe three deep breaths of power, and will this negative energy out of your energy-body and into the glass of water, which now appears to your minds eye as thick, black, heavy, and toxic. Begin to charge yourself up by breathing the Blue Fire. When you have a good charge built up place both hands palms downward over the surface of the water and will some of the charge into it. Sense how the negativity in the water is now being transformed what was toxic and dark, is now beneficial and light. See the water shining with a crystalline luminescence, humming and singing with sheer and pure power. When you feel that the transformation is complete, drink the entire glass of water feeling how the light is now merging with your bodys fluids and spreading out to every part of you. Feel how this power your power now transformed and purified is breaking down all blocks within you spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental and is making you strong, whole, and healthy.

The Candle Prayer A Traditional Feri Opening Prayer Adapted by Storm Faerywolf
The Candle Rite is a traditional Feri opening ritual in which we invoke the presence of the Star Goddess that primal origin of all creation by associating symbolically with the creation of the universe. It marks the beginning of every Feri ritual, and is the first step (and in some cases the only step) in the creation of a sacred space. Each ritual in Feri begins with the lighting of the Star Goddess candle, and ends when it is extinguished. Take your time with this exercise. It may seem overly simple at first, but it is an important step toward the development of your personal power. When you feel comfortable with it, then you may extend it by adding other ritual elements afterward, but in the beginning make sure that you take you time to focus just on the shifting of energy as you light, and then extinguish, the candle.

The Prayer

Begin by performing a relaxation and grounding rite. Feeling the presence of power within you, light your altar candle (traditionally black) and imagine that some of your power is being sent into the flame where it will radiate back to you with the power of Divinity. Gaze softly at the flame and imagine that this flame is one and the same as the fire of Divine presence that burns within you. Take your time with this. When you feel that you have achieved this sensation, cross your arms over your chest (left over right) and say:

"Holy Mother, In You we live, move, and have our being. From You all things emerge. And unto You all things return."
Bow in reverence to the candle flame, knowing that it not only represents the first light that divided the primal dark, but that it is this very light. Continue to breathe slowly feeling this presence for awhile. You may then perform whatever other ritual or meditative activities you wish, or you may move on to the next step. When you are ready, give silent thanks to the Star Goddess for Her presence. Imagine that you are calling back into yourself that power from the candle which you gave to it at its lighting... Feel it enter you on your inhale and feel that you are absorbing it fully, making you strong and whole. Blow out the candle and breathe in silence for the span of at least three breaths.

From sex to pride, from pride to self, from self to power, from power to passion from passion to sex, the gate is formed. By my will the gate is opened. Blessed be.
Considered to be a foundational exercise of the Feri, the Iron Pentacle has proven to be a powerful symbol of the inner-work that is stressed so strongly in our tradition. Usually taught to students at or near the beginning of their training in order to provide a symbolic container for the work to come, the pentacle quickly becomes a personal mandala for the student, an energetic map that can lend important clues as to where we are wasting our energy, and provide us opportunities to heal imbalances in our inner selves. It is a talisman of great power. Briefly, the points can be understood as follows: The point of Sex conceptually represents the creative power of the Universe. It is both polarity and resonance within the current of Divine energy. It is that point of orgasm in which we open to the Universal dance and participate in its creation and in its destruction within each moment. The point of Pride is our recognition of our own self-worth and the ability to live fully without reservation, allowing our true nature to shine outward while not giving in to the ego's temptation to compare ourselves to others. It is complete innocence, living fully and unabashedly in the moment. Self represents our full knowledge of our own potential as well as our limitations along with the knowledge of who we are in relation to others and the Universe at large. Power is the balanced outpouring of our whole being; the focused harmony of all five points in the pentacle which allows us greater access to our own deep potential. It is the projection of ourselves into the world that causes change, that makes magick. It is never manipulative, for true power exists in its own right and finds revelry in cooperative relationships with other beings and points of view. Passion is our ability to be open to the fullest experience of feeling, whether that be of the highest bliss, or of the deepest depression. It is the true embodiment of ecstasy. Taken individually, the points on our pentacle represent important aspects of our consciousness that are normally interpreted in a negative light from the standpoint of mainstream society. Even in those times when an energetic relationship to the conceptual point on the pentacle is one that is encouraged by the mainstream, we find the relationship is usually an unhealthy one. One needs only look to the prevalence of sexual imagery in modern advertising, and the unrealistic expectations that it encourages, for an example of this. Our negative relationships are formed and reinforced each time we compare our bodies to those we see in a magazine, each time we feel selfish for accepting a compliment or taking pride in our work, and each time we automatically equate power with corruption. By restructuring our relationships to these concepts we can begin to balance our world-view through the removal of the negative preconceptions already firmly in place within our psyches. This allows us deeper access to our authentic selves unhindered by cultural conditioning, a state poetically referred to in our tradition as The Black Heart of Innocence. It is from this space, this magnificent state of being, that magick is made. Only when we are free from our irrational fears can we begin to truly live, and it is precisely this that the Gods call for us to do. In order to mediate real power into the world (the true function of any priest or priestess) we must first be made pure; we must come to terms with ourselves for exactly who and what we are, and in the face of this truth, begin to live it fully. Easier said than done. Each point on the pentacle represents a particular wavelength of consciousness that, even when in isolation from the others, is an invaluable aid to the cleansing and development of the psyche. By connecting meditatively to each point, we can begin to discern how its conceptual power flows through us individually, giving us

opportunities to notice how we are affected. When I experience the conceptual energy of Pride, for example, I am faced with the possibility of an unhindered boundless wave of self acceptance and love, an experience that, when taken in the greater context of everyday awareness leaves me with the experiential understanding of how well I am or am not actualizing such acceptance within my own life. If I am living from my heart center, then I am validated in that experience. If I am not, then I am reminded of that center, and encouraged, by example, to allow my energies to flow freely, thus cultivating that sense of pride that I am connecting to. When used early on in training, it is common to meditate on each point in succession, gaining speed with each pass until the conscious mind can no longer attach itself to any one particular concept, blurring them into one flow of power. From Sex, to Pride, to Self, to Power, to Passion, and back to Sex, the points themselves become energetic markers, like bands of color in the spectrum, that stand out in the midst of the greater force, and yet are a necessary part of that force, lending to the experience rather than distracting from it. When taken together, the points on the Iron Pentacle create a kind of harmony not unlike the voices in a choir that is greater than the sum of its parts. The five conceptual points of our pentacle interlock to create a kind of psychic gateway that leads us deeper into the realms of Faery, and into our own power. When we have actualized each point within ourselves, and are able to maintain a simultaneous connection to each of them and their relationships to each other within our consciousness, then we have embarked upon the remarkable journey: We have made the decision to abandon those negative traits forced upon us by the larger society in favor of a healthy relationship to ourselves, and have taken the first real step towards claiming our Divine birthright: We have decided to become more fully human. But the question must be posed: Why in a shamanic tradition must we focus on tools and tricks that are obviously centered around affecting the psychological well-being of the student? Why not simply have the student enter into therapy and leave the psyche to the psychologists and the witchcraft to the witches? It would be unwise to think that the realms of the psychological, the spiritual, and the magickal do not, at the very least, intersect. Much of the training work utilized in many of the branches that teach Feri today bear a striking resemblance to deep therapeutic techniques. Breathing exercises, controlled relaxation, and guided introspection are all techniques that are utilized in both therapy and in modern witchcraft, so what, if anything, makes them different? One difference is the deep spiritual connection of the community at large. In the presence of a teacher the Iron Pentacle becomes a connection point the student has to the greater Feri community, a symbol of how our diverse energies are interconnected and how they can flow together to form a unified working whole. Even if we each have a different understanding of the conceptual points, we have the work itself in common which leads us to a greater kinship with each other, as witches of the Feri clan. The fact that we each may have been taught differently on the subject merely reinforces the significance of the work to the individual; for the power to remain authentic it must, by definition, change from person to person to reflect the psychic make-up of the individual. When confronted with real power, real results occur. The Iron Pentacle, as a working tool, is a beginning point for understanding the Feri reality. For years practitioners of Feri have used these techniques, with much success, and have revised them to suit their individual needs as practicality demands. When I practice the Iron Pentacle I am filled with the knowledge that this is a path that other practitioners have embarked upon; other Feri have used these signposts in order to better understand their relationship to our Gods, the Universe, and themselves. When I practice, I am in good company. Another major difference is in the very nature of the powers that we, as Feri, are dealing with. The Gods, Goddesses, Guardians, spirits, and powers that we are working with are real and not simply in a metaphorical sense as is seen in many modern traditions of the Craft. When I call upon the Gods they show up, providing me with perspectives that I was previously unaware of, or even leading me into situations where I have opportunity to claim and refine my power, my perceptual relationship to the universe. In my opinion the exercises utilized in the Feri training are (for the right individual) much more powerful in effect than the standard therapeutic model. In addition to being a more direct way to deal with issues and complexes within the psyche, the magickal model enables the student to develop control of their relationship to their environment, and more importantly, provides an experiential understanding of how the world really works. Instead of just reinforcing the old paradigm of separateness, the magickal model does away with such nonsense and instills the understanding of interconnectedness as an experiential reality.

In light of all of this, the Iron Pentacle is, in one sense, a reminder of how that interconnectedness works on a personal level, thus bringing that understanding out into the world at large. For many modern witches the symbol of the pentagram with it's five interlocking points has come to represent the interconnected forces of the five natural elemental principals of the Universe working in harmony. It is a reminder that these forces exist in relation to each other, each serving a unique purpose and yet are interdependent with each other, each relying on the next for holistic balance to be achieved. The shape of the pentacle with one point upwards is roughly in the shape of the human body with arms and legs outstretched. With this in mind we are reminded of the holographic nature of reality, the microcosm/macrocosm: the idea that the very big is contained within the very small. In each of us exists an energetic map for the entire universe.

The Iron Pentacle takes full advantage of this symbolism providing a framework for grounding the conceptual energy into the human body. While focusing on the points in succession, the energy is generally felt within the body beginning with the point of Sex at the center of the forehead, Pride at the right foot, Self at the left hand, Power at the right hand, and finally Passion at the left foot. By running energy between these points we are able to bring the power of the Pentacle into our bodies in an attempt to free ourselves of blocks that we may possess that serve to hinder our growth. The pentacle is a way to begin to understand the universe in a personal way, as well as a means to understand ourselves, opening the gate to the Mystery and giving us access to the Star Goddess, the Primordial state of being. Like the iron in our blood, it is the foundation of our lives as well as our magick. As witches of the Feri Craft we are the holders of a sacred key which unlocks nothing less than our true potential, not only as witches but as fully realized human beings. With every breath we learn more about what that may be for each of us.

The Personal Trinity: Notes on the Three Souls of F(a)eri(e) by Storm Faerywolf
Many cultures have recognized the multiplicity of the human being. Ancient Egyptians recognized seven souls, each having their own unique position and role within the community of the self. Many cultures illustrate the concept of a Divine trinity. Ancient Egyptians honored a sacred triad in the worship of Isis, Osiris, and Horus. Ancient Celts were very fond of the number three, recognizing three seasons, three elements, and numerous manifestations of a triple Goddess. Christianity recognizes the sacred power of the number three with its idea of the Holy Trinity. Representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this esoteric concept describes the dynamic relationship between three interrelated Divine forces that have been recognized and variously named throughout history. Having characterized Divinity as existing in triune aspects, it is not a small step to then describe humans in the same way? If man is made in Gods image, then why not? The Feri/Faery Tradition of Witchcraft recognizes three selves or souls in a manner similar to that of the Polynesian Huna, amongst other spiritual cultures. Shamanic practitioners have long worked with a practice that some call soul retrieval in which part of a persons soul or vital energy is re-claimed and brought back into alignment with the totality of the human being. This is a common healing technique amongst tribal healers and is something that can be used just as easily today. A commonality in these systems is that each soul has its own language or method of communication, as well as its own type of energy. By familiarizing ones self with each of these enables us to more easily access our fullest potential.

Talker (Talking Self, Middle-Self, Ego*)

This is the energetic interface through which we engage the world; it is that layer of ourselves that is concerned with exchanging energy and connecting with others, and also in defining our separateness from them. It is analytical, logical, verbal, and self-aware. It is that part usually described as the ego, and so is the part of ourselves that we are generally most familiar with.

Fetch (Younger Self, Child Self, Lower Self, Animal spirit, aka body, wraith, sub-conscious*)
Called by the Kahuna Unihipili, and Nephesh by Jewish mystics, the Lower Self, Younger Self, Child Self, bush soul, or the fetch is often perceived by psychics to extend about 1 from the physical body, and is in charge of gathering and storing mana, or life force. It is also concerned with maintaining the functionality of the physical body. It is emotional, pre-verbal, childlike, innocent, and sexual. It is that part of ourselves that is primal, and animal-like, while still being uniquely us. It tells us when it needs or wants something by the means of subconscious impulses. These can come to us as symbols in dreams or visions, or simply as a hunch, or an intense feeling. When the fetch speaks it is important for the talker to know how to listen properly, lest the message gets lost in the confusion. This is why an understanding of basic symbolism is necessary for the practitioner of the magickal arts. When we are aware of how symbols impact our consciousness then we are better able to decipher the messages from the fetch, and just as important, be able to respond. It is this form of pre-verbal direct communication to a deeper layer of our being that is a critical aspect in

learning to wield magickal power, as the fetch is the only part of ourselves that is in direct communication with the third and highest of our three souls: the holy daemon.

Holy Daemon (God Self, Deep Self, Higher Self, Personal God, Bird Spirit, Super Ego*)
It has been referred to by many names by many different cultures. Deep Self, Higher Self, God(dess) Self, Divine Self, Personal God, Aumakua, Neshemah, Holy Guardian Angel, Dian y Glas, Christ-within, Bird-Spirit all are terms used to describe that part of our soul structure that is our personal link to the Divine Source. This is that part of ourselves that is perfect and complete and endless. It is eternal, and survives physical death. It is this part of ourselves that performs miracles, and to mediate its power into the world is a major goal of any spiritual practitioner. It is sometimes taught that this spirit can be visualized variously as a bird, a star, or sphere of light, that hovers about 6-8 above the head. Ones holy daemon is, quite literally, their guiding light; it is that part of ourselves that steers us towards those life lessons that we need to experience while we are incarnate. It is through the daemonthat we may commune with the Gods and other higher powers, and so it is to this spirit we must first direct our prayer and attention.

ALIGNING THE THREE SOULS

Ground and Center. Feel your consciousness as being rooted in your head. Focus your awareness on a point in the center of your forehead. This is an anchor point for the talker. Breathe slow and deep while you contemplate the talker your logic, reason, and your language are all in the domain of the talker. Take three deep breaths of power, feeling your talker energized and purified. Now allow your awareness to slowly sink down inside your body, coming to a rest in a point about 2-3 beneath your navel. This is an anchor point for the fetch. Contemplate your fetch as you continue to breathe in a rhythm. Your emotions, your dreams, your memories, and your body functions are all in the domain of the fetch. Take three deep breaths of power, feeling your fetch energized and purified. Become aware of your Divine Spirit hovering above your body. You may wish to visualize it as a sphere of blue light, a star, a flower, or alternatively as a bird. Feel your holy daemon shining about 6-8 above your head. Know that this is that part of you that is Divine, holy, and has your best interests at heart. Raise your hands above your head so that you might touch the light above you. Begin to see a pearlescent light emanating from your daemon. Feel this light shining down onto and through you feel it flow slowly down into your fetch, and then slowly up into your talker. Feel how this holy light is permeating every cell and now spills out into your aura, making you a bright and shining being. With your attention focused on your holy daemon say:

"All Three Souls aligned within me All Three Souls aligned within me All Three Souls aligned within me We are the Three who speak as One."

The Pearl Pentacle: Community, Macrocosm, and Transpersonal Reality by Storm Faerywolf
God is Self And Self is God And God is a person like myself. Victor Anderson Every man and woman is a star. Alistair Crowley From apex point of sex doth flow The gifts of love that we would know That lures us ever toward our pride Which shines as law and does provide Awareness of our selfs domain; And knowledge of all things arcane. A move toward power stirs within Power shared with other kin. As waves of passion fill our souls We grow with wisdom; lifes true goal. By the Iron and by the Pearl I claim my being; I claim my world. 1
Like its Iron counterpart, the Pearl Pentacle is a major teaching tool utilized by most lines of the F(a)eri(e) tradition. Whereas the Iron can be said to represent qualities pertaining to the self 2, the Pearl is often thought of as extending these concepts outward and into the transpersonal realm of community, complimenting the Iron with a type of comparative polarity. When taken together, the Iron and the Pearl embody the divine union that is necessary to fully awaken the awareness of our divine natures. Where the Iron can sometimes be felt as being sharp, frantic, and hot (much as the red hot iron in the blacksmiths forge) the Pearl is often described as being soft, calm, and cool; a much needed balance to the Irons sometimes overwhelming severity. This is, of course, only a generalization; it should be understood that there are as many ways to experience the pentacles as there are people who work with them. In the style in which I was originally taught Feri, a great deal of time was spent working first with the Iron before the Pearl was even mentioned. On one level this makes perfect sense... if the Iron is about refining ones personal relationship with the Self, then it seems a sound practice to allow that work to serve as a foundation before jumping outward into the work of building community, a particular lesson that the Pearl has to offer. While this does make sense, it is certainly not the only valid way to approach these tools. In fact it is reported that on several occasions the late Victor Anderson 3 himself would teach these two pentacles together, sometimes combined into one symbol known as the Copper Decagram 4. Here we see yet another example of how fluid our traditional methods really are; a perfect reminder that ours is a living tradition based on shamanic principals, and not a one-size-fits-all system of spiritual instruction. Feri loves paradoxes, and when considering the Iron and the Pearl pentacles we can contemplate one of the biggest of them all: There is only one pentacle. The Iron and the Pearl are not separate, but are instead the same pentacle as seen from different angles. When we are focused on working internally with the self, we see the Iron in all its fiery glory; its five points representing those qualities that all so often need to be healed in order to claim our personal power. Modern society perpetuates some very unhealthy attitudes toward certain natural qualities and behaviors, and because we are products of that society we often need to un-learn or re-align ourselves in a balanced and conscious way. Take for example the Iron Pentacles point of Pride. It exists in opposition to a larger societal standard that would teach us either to completely subjugate the ego (Dont be too proud, Pride is a sin) or to exalt it above all else (Youre the most important person in the world, Every man for himself). The Iron Pentacle is a method to allow ourselves to achieve a true and personal balance between these two unhealthy extremes; helping us find our own way... our own truth.

Love
When our focus is about taking our own energy and sharing it outward with others, then the usefulness of the Pearl Pentacle comes into play. For example, consider how the Iron point of Sex becomes the Pearl point of Love. Sex, much more than simply the physical act, is the generation of a current of life-force energy. It is the experience of opening up to accept outside forces within ourselves so that we might merge with them in ecstasy, becoming more than we were before. It is both physical sex as well as non it is the enlivening of the senses so that we may experience on a deeper level that which is all around us. In this view, even breathing consciously can be an act of sex. Love is the force of attraction that keeps that current flowing; the state of deep emotional attraction that leads us ever onward to return again and again to that state of sexual union.

Knowledge
The Self of Iron becomes the Knowledge of Pearl. If Self is the fullest awareness of ones own limits and potentials, then Knowledge is that on a universal scale. When sharing our own fully-realized selves with one another, we are able to learn exponentially. We act as mirrors for those around us so that they may then see themselves in a new light, gaining new perspectives along the way. And in turn we too gain new vantage points from which we may view ourselves (an Iron experience) and the world around us (a Pearl perspective).

Wisdom
The point of Iron named Passion becomes that of Wisdom when viewed on the Pearl. Passion is the complete opening to lifes experience, so that we may engage the fullest spectrum of human emotions. Passion can be felt in any number of human emotions from love... to hate to joy to fear and everything in between. The lovers whose awareness of the outside world falls away so that they see only the object of their desires The artist whose obsession leads them to create their masterpiece or onward to madness The parent, whos all encompassing love for their child leads them to experiences that they had never previously considered Passion is a moving force toward new experiences and the cumulative integration of these experiences our own and those shared with others is the embodiment of Wisdom.

Law
Irons Pride becomes the Pearl point of Law; Pride being the unrestrained and natural shining forth of the innocent self... Law is quite simply the same phenomena only on a larger scale. It is literally the way in which the universe works; the natural order of all things. The journey of the earth through its orbit the effects of gravity the turning of the seasons these are manifestations of Law that we are all familiar with. Simple, natural, and to the point. When we embody Law it is the adoption of a personal ethical code, not based on the expectations of those around us (for we have purified ourselves of the egos impulse to compare ourselves to others by working with the point of Pride) but based on our own true and balanced will.

Power/Liberty
Much controversy has been wrought over this next station on our beloved pearlescent pentacle and to this I must make some observations. In one way of viewing these pentacles 5 it is said that the Iron point of Power (representing ones power-from-within; our own ability to extend ourselves outward to cause change) morphs into the Pearl-version, also named Power, only now representing the concept of power-with; that is to say, power shared with others in concert without restriction or oppressive hierarchy. While this certainly follows the previous pattern of taking the individual concepts expressed in the Iron and moving them outward into the world via the Pearl, there are other nuances of interpretation for this point which also have traditional validity. In some lines of Feri this point on the Pearl Pentacle is named Liberty 6, and represents freedom from restraint, especially (though not exclusively) that put upon us by outside forces wielding power-over, or coercive control. It is actually not difficult to see how these two interpretations actually reflect the same core understanding. They are both concerned with a release from restriction and the fostering of a healthy and uninhibited personal authority; a state that is necessary when striving toward the realization of ones personal divinity. So why the controversy? Surely in a path such as Feri where much has been said of the fiercely individual

methods of working within our tradition, there is room for different interpretations of even core materials? Part of the issue, in my opinion, comes from the (perfectly reasonable) desire to preserve what is traditionally handed-down, as opposed to the (perfectly valid) innovations that have been introduced later on. While this might be seen as a practical stance from a somewhat anthropological point of view, when taken in the context of actually working within the tradition it begins to break-down as there are several traditional methods for working with this material, even going back as far as Victor himself, as mentioned previously. Many of the practitioners who worked early on with him have reported that he tailored his teachings to them individually, which would account for some people being taught the Iron Pentacle before even mentioning the Pearl, while others were introduced to them for the first time together as one, sometimes as the aforementioned decagram. This revelation should put to rest once and for all that one method is more traditional than another, as both have a definite precedent. There are many valid methods of working with these symbols, and many more yet to be discovered. That there has been controversy over the issue should be a clear indicator that more work with the Pearl Pentacle is in order. While working with the Iron we become strong personalities, but strength of ones personality does not necessarily mean that we are able to function well with others. In fact, the type of strength usually achieved by working exclusively with the Iron Pentacle, while important, is only the beginning. On the path toward claiming our divinity, there are many challenges that we are called to face. We must be prepared to share the world with others if we are to be worthy of the powers that we would claim. None of us exists in a vacuum. It is relatively easy for the spiritual master to become enlightened up on a mountain in solitude. The real challenge is to do it and still be a part of the world. The Pearl has much to teach us in that regard. The ideals of working with others should not imply that it is necessary to suffer unhealthy interactions with people should they arise. Part of building any healthy community is learning when to establish definite boundaries; when to say no. Certainly the lessons of the Iron Pentacle teach us to be powerful and to never surrender that power to anyone or to anything. When combined with the insights of the Pearl, an alchemical transformation is allowed to take place; one that strives to allow our Black Hearts to shine in harmony with others. What follows is a basic exercise to connect with the Pearl Pentacle. Feel free to adapt it for your own use.

Invoking the Pearl Pentacle

Ground and center. Perform a Three Souls alignment. Invoke the Iron Pentacle before you. Feel the red fiery energy moving between each of the points, merging and blurring with each pass between them. Take your time with this. You may wish to perform whatever Iron cleansing/balancing exercises you are accustomed to. When you are ready, focus on the point of Sex and feel that the red energy is becoming a soft white pearlescence feel how Sex has become Love. Feel how the point is now different than it was, but how it is also the same. Take your time. Now allow this soft white glow to travel along the lines toward the Iron point of Pride where it becomes Law. Follow the same pattern until the whole pentacle has been transmuted into the Pearl. Feel how it is the same pentacle as the Iron, only seen from a different perspective. Feel how the energy overall seems different, and yet is the same. Be open to the subtlety of the experience. Now, focusing on the uppermost point, call out three times:

I invoke Love!
Imagine the point growing larger than all the others shining its healing light deep within you. Feel your own ability to feel deep compassion attraction love. Remember a time in your life when you were in love with someone or something and recall how that felt. Know that it is your birthright as a human being to feel love. Say:

In the name of Love!

Feel yourself permeated with Love, raised to the power of Divinity.

Focus on the point at your right foot and call out three times:

I invoke Law!
Imagine the point growing larger than all the others shining its healing light deep within you. Feel how the natural laws of the universe affect you and how they are no different than those laws that govern your own life. Become aware of how other peoples laws have tried to sway you and what the consequences have been for either following or abandoning them. Say:

In the name of Law!

Feel yourself permeated with Law, raised to the power of Divinity. Focus on the point at your left hand and call out three times:

I invoke Knowledge!
Imagine the point growing larger than all the others shining deep within you. Feel how true knowledge begins with the self and how we are all mirrors for each other; revealing the blind spots that when left on our own we might not notice. Feel how true Knowledge is something that continually grows through sharing, but also must be nurtured and respected. Say:

In the name of Knowledge!

Feel yourself filled with Knowledge, raised to Divinity. Focus now on the point at your right hand and call out three times:

I invoke Power/Liberty! (try mixing it up for different sessions, but at least in the beginning try to stick to one or the other for awhile to get a feel for it.)
Imagine the point growing larger than the others shining deep within you. Feel how Power shared freely frees you from the bonds of expectation of always having to be right or in control. When you feel powerless, you can accept help from another and when you are powerful, you can assist those who need it. Feel how liberating this experience is. Say:

In the name of Power/Liberty!

Feel yourself filled with Power/Liberty raised to Divinity. Focus now on the point at your left foot and cal out three times:

I invoke Wisdom!
Imagine the point growing larger than all the others shining within you. Feel how the depths of your emotions have led you into life experiences that have made you who you are. Feel how because of those experiences you are a unique individual with a unique point of view. Feel how the integration of these experiences makes you strong and powerful. Say:

In the name of Wisdom!

Feel yourself filled with Wisdom raised to Divinity. Now, allow your awareness to flow from point, to point, in the order invoked as you focus on the energies of each while calling out their names: In the name of Love in the name of Law etc. Remember to keep your breathing slow and deep while you allow the energy to get faster and faster. Eventually shorten your chant to just the names of the points, Love, Law, Knowledge, Power, Wisdom! and then even abandon those and just breathe as the power moves fluidly between each of the points. Notice the quality of the energy if there are

any blockages between any of the points. Notice if any of the points seem dim or overly bright take note of them and notice how they feel. After awhile you might experiment with consciously directing any excess energy into the areas that seem to need it, balancing your pentacle. When you have done this for at least several minutes, take three deep breaths while focusing on the entire pentacle as a whole. Then with another three, absorb the pentacle into your body, allowing it to inform and heal each cell. Feel it move into each of your Three Souls. End by saying:

By the Iron and by the Pearl, I claim my being; I claim my world!

*** In addition to the varied working methods already discussed, another interesting permutation of these pentacles has emerged, although at the time of this writing its origin is still unclear to me. 7 When arranging the points of the two pentacles into a single geometry, and combining the two points of Power into one, a nine-pointed star can be used to represent the Iron and Pearl as a combined force. Further meditations on this particular symbol have yielded some interesting bits of lore, including a peculiar visualization [see image below] of the ninerayed star with the gap between the two bottommost points slightly widened (as in a decagram with the bottommost point missing) and the addition of a small green dot in a blue circle (called the stone of fire) which represents Liberty & Freedom. This particular symbol is said to be a gateway (called the way of night) and reportedly can be used in meditation as a portal into the dark, or night-realm, of Faery. Yet before the pentacles can be safely used to traverse into other realms, it is wise to use them to discover more about our inner landscapes and both the powers and the poisons that reside there. The pentacles of Feri tend to first be used as a sort of psychic diagnostic tool that enables us to see more of where we are directing our energies so that we may make informed decisions about the use of our personal power. Between strengthening our individual selves with the processes of the Iron Pentacle, and the community building gifts of the Pearl, we have a tremendous opportunity to claim our human birthright of recognizing our own Godhood.

1. A reworking of a poem published in my book The Stars Within the Earth, 2003 Storm Faerywolf. Available from www.FeriTradition.org. 2. For more information on the Iron Pentacle, see my article The Iron Pentacle: Understanding the Harmonics of Consciousness, www.faerywolf.com/essay_ironpentacle.htm 2000 Storm Faerywolf. 3. Victor Anderson (1917-2001) was the original Grandmaster of Feri, and is generally regarded as the founding member of the tradition, although he would not have agreed with that description, seeing himself as simply the then current mouthpiece for the survival of an ancient form of working magick. All initiates of the Feri tradition can trace their lineage through him. 4. Not much is generally known about the Copper Decagram outside of the Feri lineage known as Vicia; the lineage that worked directly with Victor prior to his passing. I have mentioned it here based on personal conversations that I have had with Vicia members. 5. This was true of how I was initially taught, but not all lines of the tradition work in this fashion. As stated before, there are many ways of working Feri authentically. 6. It is my understanding that when working with the Copper Decagram the Pearl point of Liberty is used to distinguish it from the Iron point of Power, as they are used together as part of the same symbol. 7. This particular bit of lore was presented to me as a part of my Feri training and so I have assumed that it finds its origins somewhere in the Bloodrose lineage of our tradition. I would be most interested to hear about the experiences of other practitioners who decide to use this.

Claiming the Blue Cord: A Feri Self-Dedication Rite By Chas Bogan and Storm Faerywolf
Feri can be described as a modern mystery tradition of witchcraft. Among its varied practices is a rite of initiation in which certain mysteries are passed, along with what is often described as a current of magical energy that distinguishes our particular craft. Because of the emphasis on initiation, it has sometimes been expressed that those individuals who have not undergone such a rite are not Feri and have no right to call themselves such. At one time this position was the majority one; when the tradition was quite small and largely self-involved. Feri, however, is changing, becoming a path not solely trod by initiates, but by increasing numbers of dedicated practitioners who identify with the Feri faith but have not sought or had access to a traditional initiation rite. The community currently struggles with this change, seeking to be inclusive of every individual who has a spiritual relationship to Feri, while continuing to honor the sacred rite of initiation and those who have undergone it. Among uninitiated practitioners responses vary; some are secure in their recognition of their path and proudly claim the name Feri. Others are conflicted, feeling that their relationship to Feri is incomplete, or even invalid, without undergoing an initiation. With the rite presented in this article we hope to provide a means for individuals to dedicate themselves to our tradition and to claim in name and in spirit their identity as Feri practitioners. Feri teaches us to cultivate our own divine authority, thus conflict arises when individuals feel that they cannot rightly associate themselves with being Feri even though they know it to be their path. To help reconcile these issues we propose magic. The rite which we will present is a way to impress upon your fetch that you have passed a necessary threshold; it is a means to formally state that you dwell in the realm of Feri and that Feri dwells in you. By performing this ritual you are casting a spell upon yourself; you are aligning your inner energies with those of the symbols and powers of the Feri Craft, and opening yourself to the guidance of the Feri Power and the various beings that associate with it. Among the symbols we will engage is the blue cord. In traditional craft rites of passage are often marked by the passing of particular cords. For this rite we have chosen a blue cord to represent the blue fire that so many Feri utilize to fuel their magic. Before undertaking this ritual it is extremely important that you have first been consistently practicing some form of the Feri tradition and are comfortable with all of the_exercises_referenced_in_this text. If you have not been consistently working with all of this material for at least a full cycle of the moon then this rite is not intended for you. You will also need to construct a personal sigil, based on your name, magical or mundane, whichever you prefer.

Self-Dedication Rite
Materials needed:
3 candles: black, white, and red A glass or cup of water A small bowl of water Some sea salt Anointing oil A cup of whole milk Honey A piece of parchment paper Dragons blood ink A quill or pen Incense A ritual knife or blade An apple A simple robe A length of blue cord Your personal sigil A small shovel

A small ash pot A plate Begin by gathering your materials and then aligning your Three Souls. Perform the Water Cleansing (Kala rite). Light the incense and smudge the parchment with the smoke, feeling that you are cleansing and charging it with the magical purpose of the rite. Take your time with this as you meditate on what you are about to enter into. Take your pen & ink and write out the following statement. It may be in your own words, if you prefer. By the aligned will of my three souls, I (Your Name) dedicate myself to the Feri craft. As the path toward my Black Heart is lit by the stars of Iron and Pearl, I swear to embrace my own power and my own godhood. By the flower above me I will allow nothing to hinder the work of this god, and by these statements and signs and in the presence of the Star God/dess, the elements, powers, and spirits here assembled do I declare myself a Feri witch/warlock! As I will, so must it be! IO Evohe! Put the parchment aside and prepare a ritual bath. Take a small handful of sea salt and pray over it, feeling how it brings purity and healing. Breathe blue fire into it and see it glow with ethereal light. Throw this into the water and know that it has become a healing bath. Stir some honey and several drops of your anointing oil into the cup of milk and then pour this mixture into the bath. As you bathe, meditate on the rite you are about to perform and the statement that you have written. At midnight during a full moon go to some place where you can see it unobstructed and where you will be undisturbed. Build an altar facing North. Upon it place your candles, red on the left, white on the right, and black in the middle. Before the black candle place the parchment. To the left (west) of the paper place the bowl of water. Place your knife on the southernmost part of the altar, while the plate is placed at the far north. Upon the plate place the apple. Place the pen and ink to the right (east) of the paper. Perform another Three Souls Alignment. Ground and center, orienting yourself to each of the directions and their associated elemental powers. Take some time to charge yourself by breathing the Blue Fire. When you feel powerful, breathe some of this fire into the blue cord and then lay it out in a circle around you. Feel it crackling and vibrating with power. After a moment, breathe even more of your power outward and into the black candle as you light it, saying:

Holy Mother, You we live, move, and have our being. From You all things emerge... And unto You all things return. By your power do I call: Sugmaad! Quakoralina! Dryghtyn! Mari! Nime! Ana! Lilith! Starry Mother on your Throne, Shine your silver light upon my path And lead me to the secret door That leads beyond the middle world.
Feel how the light of the candle is the same light of divinity that burns within you, as well as all around you in the blue cord circle. Facing North, begin to cast a circle clockwise by connecting to the power in the cord circle and willing it to rise upward and downward simultaneously. See it as a smoke or vapor that swirls and moves and you invoke, seeing it finally completely envelope you in a sphere or egg of swirling power as your finish creating your ritual space.

By the Earth, Her fertile body, By the Air, Her vital breath, By the Fire, Her quickening spirit, By the Water, Her abyssal womb, By the Heavens, Her starry mind,

By the Core, Her beating heart, And by the Center, the circumference of All, Is the circle made.
Feel how the energy of your ritual space is being constantly charged by the light of the full moon. If you work with the various Guardian spirits of our tradition, then feel free to invoke them now in whichever method you are most comfortable with. If you have not been introduced to them, and have no formal working relationship with them, then omit this step. Strip off your robe so that you are skyclad. Open yourself up to the presence of the moon. Feel its light not only charging your circle-space, but permeating your skin and flowing through you. Imagine that you are breathing in the lunar light with every breath. Ask the Goddess of the Bright Heavens to guide you... to illuminate the path that you are to follow. Take some time (probably at least several minutes) to commune with this power. Now focus on the darkness around you. Feel it as a conscious force and know that it is a part of the natural order. Ask the God of the Dark Earth to guide you, so that you become comfortable with the unknown secrets that lie within. Again, take some time to feel this power. Light the red candle, feeling how its color calls forth the properties of the iron in your blood. With the candle, trace in the air before you a five pointed star, feeling each of the points come alive as you call them out in turn: Sex, Pride, Self, Power, and Passion. Now, stand with your arms and legs outstretched so that your physical body resembles the five-pointed star. Open yourself up to it. Feel each point on the pentacle before you glowing strong and clear, and feel how the power flows easily and unobstructed between each point as you call out their names. Feel how the Iron Pentacle purifies and strengthens your personal power. Say,

I invoke the Iron!

Feel its power continue to grow. When you feel that the power of the pentacle has reached its peak, light the white candle from the red and then trace another five-pointed star in the air before you, calling out the names in turn: Love, Law, Knowledge, Power (or Liberty), and Wisdom. Feel how the energy of the Iron Pentacle is still there, but is now expressed outward becoming the Pearl Pentacle. Allow the energies to continue moving between each point as you call out their names. Feel how the Pearl Pentacle purifies and strengthens your relationships with others; your connection to the outside world. Say:

I invoke the Pearl!

Feel its power continue to grow. When you feel that it has reached its peak, see both the Iron and the Pearl as one pentacle, shining brightly in the space before you. Say:

By Sex and Love, By Pride and Law, By Self and Knowledge, By Power and Power (or Liberty), By Passion and Wisdom, By the Iron and by the Pearl, I claim my being, I claim my world.
Take three deep breaths of power and absorb the pentacle into your body and your three souls. Feeling charged, take out your parchment. Meditate on this pact you are entering into, and know that it is not to be taken lightly. This spell you perform on yourself will propel you further down the path, meaning more inner work, and likely more difficult as well. If you choose not to enter at this time, simply burn the paper from your black candle allowing the power to be released from its forms while you reabsorb it into your fetch. If you

decide to enter into this pact, speak aloud that which is written upon the parchment as a definitive statement of the direction for your spiritual life. Feel how you are making a pact with the Gods, and most importantly, with your daemon. When you are finished, take your pen & ink and sign the paper with your name and your sigil, feeling the act of putting them on this paper is sealing the power therein. Meditate on your sigil. Imagine it glowing with power. Feel those powers around you... the darkness of the night... and the brightness of the moon... feel how they shift their genders...they are lovers... and they arouse you. Sexually stimulate yourself, feeling all those powers rushing through you... imagine that you can mediate all these powers into your sigil on the parchment. Feel how your sexual arousal is flowing like a current of electricity and into that sigil, and how your energy field is becoming larger with every breath. Visualize the sigil being drawn in your talker and then send it down into your fetch. Feed the sigil here until you reach a point of climax (or are satisfied) at which point you send the sigil up from fetch and up into your daemon in a rush of power and pleasure. See your sigil explode with crystalline light that cascades down all around you, soaking into your skin, charging you with power. In this open state reach out with your awareness and call out silently to the Star Goddess; God Herself, and ask Hir for Hir name that you may use to call on Hir in a deeper way. After a time, if you received a name, chant it softly until it becomes a long low drone. Intone the name and feel it aligning you with Hir presence. If you receive no name, simply intone the AUM with the same intent. Feel the power fill you like a light and anoint first your third eye and then the paper with some of your bodys fluid (sexual fluid, saliva, etc.) allowing your inner eye to be opened while some of the light is transferred to the paper. Take some time to commune with the presence of the God/dess, and ask that S/he guide you on your path leading you to those lessons that you need to learn. Feel Hir presence flow into you through the medium of your own daemon. Take some time with this. Fold the paper into thirds so that the writing is concealed inside and so that the top and bottom of the paper overlap in the middle. Taking the white and red candles both, and recalling the powers they hold/represent, pour some of the melted wax upon the parchment on the left and right, so as to seal the folded paper closed, and keeping the center free of wax. Feel the Iron and Pearl Pentacles sealing your pact and giving it power. Now take the black candle and do the same, allowing the wax to seal the center of the paper. Feel how the God/ dess is sealing your pact, giving you a blessing. Hold up the apple. Know that it is a traditional food of the Mighty Dead and feeds the ancestors. With it in your hands, call out to you own ancestors, both physical and spiritual and ask for their blessing. Say:

From your waiting houses, come, Through the dread gate of the west, Old Ones! Mothers and Fathers of the Craft! Keepers of the secrets of the Fey! I am your child! Come to me! And celebrate with me my chosen path This mad road in between .
Feel them coming from a space from the west and imagine a doorway opening in your circle that allows them through. Call them by name if you desire. When you feel their presence slice open the apple horizontally through its middle, revealing the pentacle of seeds within. Choose the half that shows the pentacle best and then offer the other half to the ancestors by placing it upon the plate on the altar, feeling how it nourishes their spirits, giving them vitality. Begin eating your half in complete silence, eating around the seed pentacle. Savor the flavor... the texture. Feel how it is becoming a part of you, nourishing you. You may receive messages from loved ones who have passed as you do this... just notice how you feel as you continue in silence. When you are finished you will have a pentacle charm that has been formed from apple seeds. Place this upon the altar on top of your knife. If you are performing this rite outdoors then use your shovel and dig a small hole in your circle, big enough to completely bury the remaining half of the apple and the parchment. If you are indoors then take your shovel, the bowl of water, the remaining apple, the parchment, and the cord, and go outdoors where you can bury the apple and paper, spreading the cord around you once more in the circle, feeling how you have brought its

power with you intact. As you bury the items, feel how it is like a seed that will grow as you nurture it with your studies and devotion. Take a sip from the bowl of water and then pour some over the spot where you buried them while intoning the name that you received (again using the AUM if you did not receive one.) Trace a pentacle over the spot with your fingers and make a silent prayer to God Hirself. Take the cord and tie it around your waist, feeling how it is sealing the power within you, and bringing you spiritually and energetically into the fold of the Feri tradition. Say:

I declare myself a witch/warlock and claim Feri as my path. Let all the powers between the worlds rise up and assist me in my growth. As I do will, so must it be!
Give thanks to all the powers present. Extinguish the white and then the red candles. Take three deep breaths of power and reabsorb all the power that you lent to lighting the black candle, and then extinguish it. Breathe three deep breaths in silence. It is done. 2007 Chas Bogan and Storm Faerywolf www.FeriTradition.org To properly utilize this rite you should be proficient in the following core Feri exercises: Aligning the Three Souls Blue Fire (breathing and directing) Water Cleansing (the Kala Rite) The Iron Pentacle The Pearl Pentacle In addition, you should be skilled in basic exercises such as relaxation, grounding, and creating a ritual space (casting a circle). This can be done with whatever method you wish. One of my favorites is to take the letters in the name or I am starting from and then omitting every repeated letter, so that I am left with only unique letters. Then I arrange and combine them in any way that I wish, often concealing the letters in a stylized glyph that speaks now to the fetch as a piece of art, rather than to the talker as a bunch of letters. For an example, see http://faerywolf.com/ art_MelekTaus.htm which contains a sigil for the god Melek Taus, which was created using stylized letters of that name.

From "Feri Tradition Wikipedia" (2011)

The Star Goddess is the central deity of Feri. Sometimes referred to as "God Herself", She is the androgynous point of all creation, the primal darkness of deep space, the intelligence of the great Void. She can be seen as an ecstatic feminine form of what is called in some theologies "the Absolute" and as such can be seen as cognate with the Star Goddess Nuit of Thelema. In the Bloodrose tradition of Faery she was visualized as having the head of a black lion, her mane containing stars. She has wings that span infinity. She sits on the onyx throne, a silver egg in her lap. A halo of flames surrounds her. She is also recognized as the Oroboros, a serpent devouring its own tail, the Manifest encompassing Itself. The Star Goddesses many names include:

Quakoralina Sugmad or Sugma'ad Dryghtyn or Drychtyn Sugmati The Great Infinite Darkness The Black Virgin of the Outer Dark Mother Night The Womb of the Universe

From "Feri Crossroads" (expired website) by anonymous author

So that we may get to know Her better, visualize Her as: a completely black lionness-headed woman with great wings, her hair sprinkled with a million stars. She is seated on a throne of onyx with a silver egg in her lap. She is surrounded by a halo of blue flames.

Meet the Star Goddess

Close your eyes. Slow your breathing to a steady and comfortable rhythm and perform your basic relaxation exercise. You are in a vast cavern, whose walls of polished black stone glow with a bluish radiance, and whose farthest limits are lost in the distance. At the center of the wall you are facing, nine steps carved of the black stone surround a dais. On the dais, carved from the wall, stands a great empty throne. Repeat three times:

I invoke Dryghtyn, the ancient providence, which was from the beginning and is for all time, one, androgynous, the source of all things: all-knowing, all-pervading, all-powerful, changeless, eternal, forever unending.
--derived from Gardnerian Wicca

The throne is no longer empty. On it sits the Star Goddess appearing as a lioness-headed woman with great wings. Her whole body is jet black. Her hair is sprinkled with a million stars. On Her lap is a silver egg, and She is surrounded by a halo of black flames. All around you, great divine figures dance, singing and whirling in eternal ecstasy. Join in their dance and feel yourself filled with the power She radiates.

From "Feri FAQ" by Valerie Walker

The Star Goddess is God Herself, the source of everything in the universe. "In one sense, all the other deities are but aspects or reflections of Her. And in one sense, She is not female, but, rather, pansexual." Victor called her "the clitorophallic God Herself." She is variously known as Quakoralina, Sugmad, Sugma'ad, Sugmati, Dryghtyn, Drychtyn, The Great Infinite Darkness, The Black Virgin of the Outer Dark, Mother Night, The Womb of the Universe. One of the prayers to the Star Goddess is an inheritance from the Gardnerian tradition, originally written by Patricia Crowther: "In the name of Dryghtyn, the Ancient Providence, Who was from the beginning and is for eternity, Male and Female, the Original Source of all things; all-knowing, all-pervading, all-powerful; changeless, eternal." This has been adapted and added to by various Feri writers, but the fragment gives a sense of the mighty power of the Great Goddess, reverence for whom is held in common by almost all traditions of the Craft.

From The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

Alone, awesome, complete within Herself, the Goddess, She whose name cannot be spoken, floated in the abyss of the outer darkness, before the beginning of all things. As She looked into the curved mirror of black space, She saw by her own light her radiant reflection, and fell in love with it. She drew it forth by the power that was in Her and made love to Herself, and called Her "Miria, the Wonderful". Their ecstacy burst forth in the single song of all that is, was, or ever shall be, and with the song came motion, waves that poured outward and became all the spheres and circles of the worlds. The Goddess became filled with love, swollen with love, and She gave birth to a rain of bright spirits that filled the worlds and became all beings. But in that great movement, Miria was swept away, and as She moved out from the Goddess She became more masculine. First She became the Blue God, the gentle, laughing god of love. Then She became the Green One, vine-covered, rooted in the earth, the spirit of all growing things. At last She became the Horned God, the Hunter whose face is the ruddy sun and yet dark as Death. But always desire draws Him back toward the Goddess, so that He circles Her eternally, seekintg to return in love. All began in love; all seeks to return to love. Love is the law, the teacher or wisdom, and the great revealer of mysteries.

From "Be A Goddess" by Francesca De Grandis

The Mother Before Creation is walking in the outer darkness. Her steps touch nothing. Her steps touch Herself, who is all things. She uses space as a mirror. This mirror is known as the Mirror of Darkness. In it, the Mother Before Creation is as vast as a starless universe, like sleep without dreams, like sleep in which all dreams re-

side. She draws the image from the mirror into space and calls her "Miriel", which means "Beautiful One from God". Each is virgin: unspoiled sexuality in all its freshness. Yet old beyond time, each kissing the other with all the ripeness and experience of a dying courtesan. They make love, each desiring the other as much as they desire the Self. Then Miriel moves away from the Mother Before Creation so dark emptiness lightens to cobalt blue as she becomes Dian-Y-Glas, The Blue God. The Great Mother says to Him, "They shall never take you from me. Whatever from you take, because you are my word, my hammer, and my seal, you shall return to me in your present form. And this our love shall be forever. And through our sexual union all things shall be created and are created, all things which were and are not, and are yet to be. ... One mystery revealed in this myth is the true nature of darkness, embodied in the universe as the Mother's mirror. In the Christian creation myth, God looked into the darkness, into the void, and decided to make something to fill it. And henceforth He remained separate from that which He created, outside of nature and humanity. The theological implication is that God is too good to be a part of nature, and thinks the material world evil. How much more sense it makes that the Goddess saw Herself as that void, that darkness, and from that loving, vital, dark womb all things were created. Instead of condemning the material world, She not only saw it as Herself, but loved and embraced it, just as She embraces us whenever we call on Her. The belief that the Goddess is within us and all of nature is called immanence, and implies that nature is good and sacred

From "Currents in the Ocean: Exploring the Fluid Nature of Divinity" by Storm Faerywolf
One of the distinguishing marks of the Feri tradition for me has been in the recognition of the ambiguous nature of the Universe. Far from being a system that seeks to impose limits and definitions onto experiential realities, Feri seems to revel in the blurring of boundaries, taking sheer pleasure in the paradoxical, the anomalous, the Weird. The unfathomable power of chaos is at its very core, that primal churning of energy that is the beginning point for everything known, and unknown. The Star Goddess moves outward from Herself, taking several forms, blurring one into the next, taking on new aspects, becoming more focused, yet retaining the essential quality of what has gone before. All beings flow back into the ultimate source of all things. This implies that the underlying nature is a unified one, however this doesn't mean that any being will be just as useful for a particular purpose as any other. All goddesses are one Goddess, but this doesn't mean that I would find it useful to invoke Kali for a love spell, or Aphrodite for the destruction of an oppressive pattern. We find different points of focus along the spectrum that are aligned to different energies. We "tune into" varying frequencies in the waves of Divinity at different times, as we deem appropriate. I can understand mentally that the Blue God is, in one sense, a manifestation of the Star Goddess, but I also recognize that they feel quite different, and because of this possess different powers. Recently I had a dream. In this vision I was shown a window into the nature of the Star Goddess, specifically Her relationship to other Deities of the Feri tradition, and by extension to the Universe at large. In the dreamtime I see a light. The light from a black candle breaking across the darkness of the room, as my teacher and myself sit, breathing in a rhythm, calling down the trance upon ourselves. We breathe, and the white flame becomes surrounded by a rainbow band, a prismatic nimbus that hints at the hidden powers within the light. I inhale, and the power moves outward from that light, becoming now something different; moving into a new form. Where there was one power, there are now two: Nimue and Dian y Glas, birthed from the white fire womb of the Cosmic Mother. It continues, riding on the waves of my breath, these two powers move outward still, changing from these child-like beings and maturing into the Great Mother, and the Harvest Lord, then finally into the Crone, and the Winter King. A point of stillness at the end of my breath, and then it returns on my exhale, these powers collapsing back into that from which they came, flowing backward into that point of light which contains them all: the white fire of the Star Goddess, flickering softly in the darkness of the Void. I awoke with a sense of purpose, determined to actualize what I had seen.

Introduction to the Divine Twins

While most branches of Wicca understand the Goddess to have one Consort, in Feri She has two: the Divine Twins. These Twins can be seen as brother and sister, two male lovers, two female lovers, a heterosexual pair, two enemies, or any number of combinations. If the Star Goddess is the great Unity, than the Twins can be seen as representing all Duality.

From "Containing Beauty and Darkness: Twinned Pentacles of Power Exchange" by Miriam Green (excerpt) Originally published in "Witch Eye" Volume 13
The Star Goddess looks into the mirror of space, sees her opposite mirrored back, and falls in love. Through her ecstasy, she births twins: brothers and lovers, tumbling in cosmic play. These divine twins circle and dance, spinning out universes of possibility and transformation, generating transformative energy through the cycling of their difference, and the axis of their common birth. The twins dance through us when we are entwined with our lovers, spinning threads of difference and birthing beautiful paradox:

Light and darkness. Beauty and terror. Pain and ecstasy.

From "The Winged Serpent: Seeing the Divine Twins" By Anaar (except) Originally published in "Witch Eye" Volume 10
All the Gods are Feri Gods, so we say. But in order to begin to understand this, we must look to their origins. The Feri Gods are not separate entities but are unified into one center, the Star Goddess who gave birth to all living matter. The Star Goddess took unto Herself Two Bright Spirits and perfected them into God with Her birth. They are the Son, Lover and Dual Consort of the Mother. The Goddess is the Divine Twin to the God. Typically, one Twin is described as the Blue Bird. This Bird is the loci of the heavenly plane, and is generally pleasant and easy-going. His personality characteristics are those that we humans value highly. The other Twin is seen as a Black Serpent, who may or may not be His Lover. This Serpent is the loci of the earthly plane, and is generally unpleasant and acerbic. His personality characteristics are those that we humans fear most, though He is not evil. Both beings are sacred in their own right. Together, they are most often visualized as a peacock with a serpent twined around his ankle. He is the Winged Serpent, the Blue God, Living Rainbow. The God of Feri are twins but they are one, not separate entities. They are identical, either one or both can occupy the place of God. The Divine Twins can function alone or as a pair. Alone, they may function as a male, but are actually both male and female in each entity. The Twins may also be both female, or a male and a female. To place further confusion on the matter, the Divine twins represent a polarity. The polarity may be great or small, and are often in opposition. In fact, The Divine Twins as represented in other cultures are often seen to be rivals or adversaries. The Divine Twins are central to the myths and magic of the Feri tradition. In one myth it is said that the Star Goddess took two bright spirits into her womb and perfected them into God this God is Melek Taus the Peacock Angel, but prior to being birthed he manifests in dual form, sometimes as the serpent and the dove; brothers and lovers. The red serpent hails from below and is the power of primal lust and life force, while the blue dove hails from above and is the presence of unconditional love and aspiration. Together they form the holism that is our human potential and our infinite capacity for both beauty and darkness.

"Nimue" by Diana Walker

From "On Nimue" by Storm Faerywolf
She is sometimes said to be he wild spirit of youth and potency; the arouser of life; the embodiment of the Black Heart of Innocence. A crescent moon rests on her brow as primal snakes writhe in her hair. Childlike exuberance exudes from her toothy grin, but watch out! For all of her cute-ness there is also something disturbing about her... a danger and even a sexuality that is not comfortable when witnessed in a creature so young. She is the first aspect of the Star Goddess, and as such embodies all of creation. The universe in the hands of a child... In one of my earliest experiences with her (after first being exposed to a pretty white-washed version in my earliest Feri training) she appeared to me in a field of flowers, playing with her toes. She turned to smile at me and then ALL AT ONCE became what appeared to be a child's crayon drawing of a bear... teeth in a snarl, eyes wild and outrageous. As quickly as this transformation occurred she was back to her child's form, playing with her toes in the sunlit meadow. I learned that --while cute and innocent-- that she can turn on you pretty quick. So respect her. Or get bitten. How do you work with her? How does she come to you? And perhaps most importantly, have you been bitten?

From "The Spiral Dance" Chapter 5: The Goddess, Exercise 39: Waxing Moon Meditation by Starhawk
Visualize a silver crescent moon, curving to the right. She is the beginning of power, of growth, of generation. She is wild and untamed, like ideas and plans before they are tempered with reality. She is the blank page, the unplowed field. Feel your own hidden possibilities and lantent potentials, your power to begin and grow. See her as a silver haired girl running freely through the forest under the slim moon. She is Virgin, eternally unpenetrated, belonging to no one but herself. Call her name, "Nimu!" and feel her power within you.

From "The Gods of Infinity" by Storm Faerywolf

Nime can represent the spring, especially the new growth of both plants and animals. Her emblem is that of a 6-day old crescent moon, connecting this sphere of our model with predominately lunar symbolism. She is the wild spirit of youth and potency; the arouser of life; the embodiment of the Black Heart of Innocence. A crescent moon rests on her brow as primal snakes writhe in her hair. Childlike exuberance exudes from her toothy grin, but watch out! For all of her playfulness there is also something disturbing about her... a danger and even a sexuality that is not comfortable when witnessed in a creature so young. The influence of Nime can be easily felt at this time of year and through the summer solstice, at which time She plays an important role in the working mythos of the Feri sabbat. When the Goddess sees Her reflection it is first as Nime, the young maiden, who then grows and becomes Mari, the mother, and finally as Anna, or Anysa, the aged crone, before returning back to the center. In these three major points of definition we can easily see the seasonal cycles played out.

From "Feri FAQ" by Valerie Walker

Nimue: Also known as the Kymari or the Sun Maiden, she is the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. The Faery Roads website says: "because of her youth, she is somewhat androgynous. Nonetheless, she still embodies the energy which brings all into being, which in humans is sexual energy, a great Passion. Imagine all the

power of the Cosmos in the hands of a six-year-old..." Victor [Anderson] regarded Nimue as the Black Heart of Innocence incarnate. As the prepubescent girl, first emanation of the Star Goddess... Nimue is the Holy Child, embodiment of forbidden passion. She is the protectress and avenger of abused and mistreated children everywhere, fierce, wild, and innocent. Her priestesses wore two green snakes in their hair, and she was accorded a sacrifice of four red pigs, four white pigs, and one black pig, showing her connection to the love and death aspects of the Star Goddess.

"Dian Y Glas" by Diana Walker

"Introduction To The Blue God of Faery"
The Peacock God is born from the reunion of the Divine Twins back into one Deity. He is seen as holding all duality within Himself, so He is both deeply erotic and seductive, but also destructive and frightening. Many Feri practitioners call Him by the name Melek Taus, the central deity of the Yazidi. In some lines of Feri, the two deities are, in fact, understood as the same being. The Blue God of Faery has many names, such as the following:

Lord of the Painted Fan Living Rainbow Winged Serpent True Bird of Paradise Flower King Nine Spotted Serpent in the Well Singer in the Wood Dian Y Glas, variously spelled Dia-na-Glas; Dian-na-Glas; Dia-ny-Glas Light of the World Self Fire Soul of Humanity God Self Peacock Angel He shares certain characteristics and iconography with deities from various pantheons, and so is sometimes also called: Malik Taus; Melek Ta'us (Yezidi) Vishnu (Hindu) Krishna (Hindu) Hyakinthos (Greek) Okin Oba Aye (Yoruba) Lemba; Lembe; Green Boy; Gentle One (Voodoo) Shaitan (Muslim) Archangel Michael (Christian)

Lucifer (Roman)

From "The Gods of Infinity" by Storm Faerywolf

Traditionally the Blue God is said to appear as an androgynous youth with an erect phallus and the breasts of a young girl, though he does not appear to me in that guise. To me his "androgyny" is expressed solely in his softness, and indeed at times he appears to me naked and swathed in lavender silks, smiling and dancing seductively amongst the stars. In some teachings He is said to represent our own personal Divinity; our "Higher Selves" to which we pray in order to hasten our own evolution. We are reminded by His iconography that the power that manifests as spirituality is sexual in nature: a serpent coils around His neck, and in fact one of His titles is "the serpent in the well", who is seen rising in the springtime, an obvious phallic reference and may also represent what some practitioners of Tantric mysticism know as kundalini energy. Peacock feathers adorn His hair connecting Him to Melek Ta'us, the Peacock Angel of the Yezidis who, despite outsiders misrepresenting Him as "the devil", regard Him as the true God of this world.

From "Feri FAQ" by Valerie Walker

The Blue God/Melek Taus/Dian y Glas The firstborn of the goddess is the Blue God, also known as the Peacock Angel, Lord of the Painted Fan, and by some as Melek Taus. The Blue God is regarded by some lines of Feri as the particular patron deity of Feri. The Dian y Glas is usually pictured as a young, blue-skinned, ithyphallic, yet somewhat androgynous god with a serpent. As Melek Taus, the Blue God is the twin of Lemba, the Lord of the Green Flame, also known as the Living Serpent. He is the main deity of the Yezidi people...

From "Feri Crossroads" (expired website) by anonymous author

You are in a forest at dawn. It is spring. The trees are a tender green, rustling gently with new leaves. Birds are beginning to sing and fly about the tree tops. You smell the fresh scent of the young plants. Before you is a gently trickling spring, surrounded by delicate flowers. Hyacinths, narcissus, and lilies nod their heads over the pool. Breathe deeply of their sweet hypnotic fragrance. Gaze into the rippling waters and chant repeatedly, until the presence of the Dia-na-glas manifests:

Blue God Winged Serpent, Living Rainbow, Lord of the Painted Fan

From "The Blue God: excerpts from Blue Rose class material" By Storm Faerywolf
The Blue God is known by many names: the Peacock Lord, Dian y Glas, Melek Taus, Lemba, Eros, the Christos, and Lucifer, to name but a few. He is one of our central Gods, but in some myths he is an angel, while in others his origins as a djinn or faery are subtly revealed. He is a shapeshifter; a trickster, and a great teacher. He is paradox: the highest spirit, but also the most primal and low. He is sexual, as well as spiritual, and is the embodiment of both beauty and darkness. The Blue God is that spark of divinity that resides within us all; the hidden spirit within matter. According to lore attributed to Victor, the Blue God sometimes appears as a winged serpent underneath the left hand of the

Goddess. Here, it is said, he is the most beautiful and beneficial of all spirits. But outside of her influence he becomes the most terrible and wrathful. To me this represents the divine masculine balanced by the divine feminine, and the terrible price that is paid when the god force is no longer balanced by the goddess. ... As Dian y Glas he appears to us as a beautifully alluring blue-skinned youth. Traditional lore depicts him with an erect phallus, the soft breasts of a young girl, a serpent around his neck, and peacock feathers in his hair. He is sometimes shown playing a silver flute. He is the initiating principal of life-force, and the spiritual nature of love, beauty, and sexual passion. He is associated with springtime as well as with the nourishing waters of rains and of springs. He is the starry-eyed wonder of the world; how a child sees the beauty of the world through eyes that have not been corrupted. ... When he comes to us as Melek Taus our attentions are drawn to the Middle East; most specifically to those people of Kurdish descent in the general area of Northern Iraq known as the Yezidi. To them, Melek Taus, known as the Peacock Angel, is the first emanation of the light of God whose special color is blue; blue being considered the most powerful color and the origin for all the others, as all light comes from the sky. Beyond this signature color he is said to embody all the colors of the rainbow which is his special symbol. He is the first (and ruler) of the Seven Archangels, containing the other six within himself (just as white light contains all the colors of the spectrum). To the Yezidi he is the Soul of the World; the collective divine presence of humanity. They also believe that he belongs to the whole world, not just to the Yezidi themselves. According to Islamic myth, the Iblis (Melek Taus) was created by God out of smokeless fire; a detail that would suggest that his origin is actually as a djinn; as he is quite clearly described as having been created from this particular substance. Angels, by contrast are depicted as being created from light, while mankind from earth, dust, or clay. This detail is seemingly contradictory since Melek Taus is quite clearly referred to as an angel in the traditional myths. But our Blue God is not always what he seems. Just as we have seen how he exists in a space of liminality in terms of the male/female and terrestrial/celestial discussed previously, he also would appear to occupy a space between that of faery (or djinn), angel, and god. ... Whether he comes as the youthful Dian y Glas, or as the virile Melek Taus his iconography represents a union of complimentary forces that individually we can understand as the Divine Twins; the two bright spirits that the Goddess took into Her womb and perfected into God.

"A Brief Introduction to Mari" by Chas Bogan

The world is her body, and she is our mother. Often she is visualized as tall, her hair long and black, her skin silver. Similar to Catholic imagery of Mary, Mari may be pictured haloed with stars (variously six or seven or twelve in number), and standing upon a crescent moon. The full moon may also serve as her symbol. She is especially honored around the time of Autumn harvest. Her fertility is expressed through her swollen belly and breasts. She shares certain characteristics and iconography with deities from various pantheons, and so is sometimes also called:

Andre Mari (Basque) Astarte (Greek) Ashtaroth / Ashtoreth (Hebrew) Ashtart (Phoenician) Diana (Roman) Mari (Basque) Parvati, Devi (Hindu) Tiamat (Mesopotamian) Yoni Gorri (Romani Gypsy)
Some sects of Feri recognize Mari as having three (or more) distinct aspects, the most common of these being associated with the colors white, green and red. White Mari keeps her mysteries behind her veiled face, but her sight is sharp, seeing the needs of her human children and mounting a course on her broom to intercede. Green Mari expresses the spirit of Mother Nature, and her mysteries influence such earthly matters as alchemy, rootwork, and the healing arts. Red Mari is naked and passionate, a warrior, fiercely protective of her human kin; her mysteries are contained deep within her where only the most skilled of lovers can touch.

From "The Gods of Infinity" by Storm Faerywolf

She {Mari} is the spirit of the earth, sky, and sea, and is that aspect of the Goddess that even casual practitioners of the modern Craft are most familiar with. She wears a crown of a dozen stars, Her black hair veiling her shining silver body as she stands upon the ocean. Because She is archetypically the height of strength and power, She is associated (however marginally) with the height of summer, but also with the slow decline of autumn, not because Her powers are fading, but because She represents the ultimate harvest, for She carries within her fully-pregnant womb the Divine Child, who shall be born when this cycle is repeated next spring. The full moon is her emblem, continuing the lunar symbolism.

From: Mari (Goddess) Wikipedia (2011)

Mari is the main character of Basque mythology, having, unlike other creatures that share the same spiritual environment, a god-like nature. Mari is often witnessed as a woman dressed in red. She is also seen as woman of fire, woman-tree and as thunderbolt. Additionally she is identified with red animals (cow, ram, horse) and with the black he-goat. Mari was associated with various forces of nature, including thunder and wind. As the personification of the Earth her worship may have been associated with that of Lurbira. Mari's consort was Maju; their children included the benign spirit Atarrabi and the evil spirit Mikelats.She is depicted as riding through the sky in a chariot pulled by horses or rams. Her idols usually feature a full moon behind her head. Santa Marina, a saint revered in the Basque Country, is believed by some to be a Christianized version of Mari. Basque women still invoke Santa Marina's protection against curses and for aid in childbirth. Nevertheless the most accepted synchretism is that with Virgin Mary, which is widely venerated by modern Christian Basques.

From "Feri FAQ" by Valerie Walker

The Mother aspect of the Triple Goddess, and the closest form to the Goddess familiar to mainstream Wicca, who mates with /mothers/slays the familiar Horned God. A reflection/ subdivision of the Star Goddess, she can further subdivide into different aspects: "Each of these primary deities show different aspects to the devotee at different times, for example the fecund Green Mari or the fierce protectress Red Mari, etc."

From "The Spiral Dance" Chapter 5: The Goddess, Exercise 40: Full Moon Meditation by Starhawk
Visualize a round full moon. She is the Mother, the power of fruition. She nourishes what the New Moon has begun. See her open arms, her full breasts, her womb burgeoning with life. Feel your own power to nurture, to give, the make manifest what is possible. She is the sexual woman; her pleasure in union is the moving force that sustains all life. Feel the power in your own pleasure, in orgasm. Her color is the red of blood, which is life. Call her name "Mari!" and feel your own ability to love. From "Mari: Mother Goddess of the F(a)eri(e) Tradition" by Storm Faerywolf Andre Mari is also found in the ancient Basque culture where She was regarded as a primary deity of life as expressed through the changing weather and her role as bestower of law. She was an androgynous figure and as such stood as a basis for gender equality. Her consort was Sugaar, a serpent-deity whom we relate to the Blue God. She is the mother of twins, one good and the other evil and her followers were persecuted as witches. Build an altar to Her adorned with objects and symbols appropriate to the aspect with which you are intending to work, perhaps images of the moon, the earth, of mothers and female power. Chant or sing to Her. Make offerings to Her.

Silver moonlight Earthly bounty Mother Mari Holy Mari.

From "Introduction to the Summer King" by Chas Bogan

The Summer King of Feri Tradition has many names and aspects through which a Faerie magician may access fertile, mature, masculine energy. Some of his many recognized names include: Antlered One, Chrom (or Krom), Crainonis, Crown King, Green One (or Green King), Horned God, Hu the Mighty (or Hu Gadam, Hugh Guairy), Jesus Christ, Kupalo of the Summer Solstice, Lord of the Sun, Lugh, Many Colored One, Osiris, Twr, Zeus. When the red candle is lit for a Feri circle a series of names for the masculine aspect of God Herself are chanted:

Karayos, Keranos, Cernunnos, Krana, Kronos

This deity stands halfway between the adolescent Blue God and the deceased Winter King, and can represent masculine energy as a whole. This masculinity, having an opposite in the form of femininity, serves to embody an aspect of the Divine Twins, as does the red candle.

From "Crossroads Faery" (expired website) by anonymous author

He is the Spirit of Light and Heat, the ripeness of Summer, and the fullness of Manhood. There is nothing androgynous about him. He is often considered the consort of and parallel of the goddess Mari. At the same time, He, too, is a reflection in a dark mirror of the Star Goddess. *** He is visualized as a man with the head of a horned stag, although he may also have the head of an antelope or another horned animal common to one's region. He is entirely golden, in shades of gold, his body, his hair, his horns. About his neck is a garland of beautiful colored flowers and fresh green leaves.

From "Krom: Horned God of the F(a)eri(e) Tradition" by Storm Faerywolf

Krom (or Crom), or Twr (Welsh, meaning Tower); also called the Harvest Lord and the Summer King, is the Horned God of the F(a)eri(e) tradition and as such may be aligned with Cernunnos and Pan. He is the radiance of the sun (especially as it nourishes and energizes life), and the life giving powers of virility. In a common form His skin shines with the golden light of the summers sun, and his neck is adorned with a swathe of summer flowers and green leaves. He has the head of a stag a reminder that He is primal in nature. He is both the son and lover of the Great Mother. Like most Horned Gods he is overtly sexual, but is also a nurturer... he is the God in His aspect as 'Father' and 'Lover', and as such may be prayed to for guidance, and even as a surrogate for those aforementioned roles if need be. His emblem is the golden sun.

From "The Spiral Dance" by Starhawk

Then She became the Green One, vine-covered, rooted in the earth, the spirit of all growing things. *** The Green aspect is the vegetation God--the corn spirit, the grain that is cut and then replanted; the seed that dies with every harvest and is eternally reborn each spring.

From "Krom: Horned God of the F(a)eri(e) Tradition" by Storm Faerywolf

Though there is much crossover, he is sometimes divided into four main aspects: Gold the Sun God. The spirit of light and heat and the powers of the Sun. He radiates in all of the colors of the spectrum and here we see his power as that of light. He is Lucifer, the bringer of light and awareness; the bearer of the seed of divinity. Green the Green Man. The spirit of plant-life who mates with the Red Man at Midsummer. He is the active principal of vegetation; that which transforms the light of the sun into the cycle of food and plenty. Red the Red Man. The spirit of animal-life. He is the power of the blood; the lifeforce of all animals including humans. He may appear with the hairy torso of a man, and with the legs, head, and horns of a goat or bull. As he dies and enters the ground he sacrifices himself to the Green Man to be constantly reborn. Black the Black Man. A deity of the Crossroads and a window into the Arddu. He attends the Witches Sabbat and mates with the initiate bestowing his mysteries. He is a magical teacher and guide and is the sacred Blacksmith, Tubal-Cain. Together we might take both the Gold & Green as the Oak King and the Red & Black as the Holly King of British Pagan lore; the principal embodiments of the light and dark sides of masculine divinity as expressed in the Wheel of the Year.

From "The Gods Of Infinity" by Storm Faerywolf

Father/Lover ...we encounter the Horned God, Krom, sometimes called the Harvest Lord. He is the perfect twin of the Goddess Mari, and in Him the solar associations are quite evident. His emblem is the golden sun and he is the power of its peak in summer. He sometimes appears as a strong stag-headed man with shining golden skin, His neck adorned with spring and summer flowers. He is naked and appears with an erect phallus and so His powers of sexuality and virility are quite evident in themselves. He is at once both "lover" and "father" depending on what it is that we need from Him at the time, regardless of what we may feel that it is that we need. He is the most blatantly masculine of the Infinitum 6, and like his female counterpart is most likely to be recognized as the archetypal God of Witchcraft.

Ana, the crone of Feri Tradition, has many names through which she is known:
Anu, Ana, Annys, Anysa, Arianrhod of the Silver Wheel, Baba Yaga, Black Ana of the Forbidden Mysteries, Black Annis, Cailleach, Cerridwen, Dark Goddess, Grandmother Spider, Hecate, Kali, Lilith, the Morrigu, Queen of the Dead, Santa Muerta, Spirit of Night, Winter Queen

From "Crone" on Wikipedia (2013)

The Crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman. In some stories, she is disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. The Crone is also an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle, and her proximity to death places her in contact with occult wisdom. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag. The word "crone" is a less common synonym for "old woman," and is more likely to appear in reference to traditional narratives than in contemporary everyday usage. The word became further specialized as the third aspect of the Triple Goddess popularized by Robert Graves and subsequently in some forms of neopaganism, particularly Wicca in which she symbolizes the Dark Goddess, the dark of the moon, the end of a cycle.

From "Ana: Crone Goddess of the F(a)eri(e) Tradition" by Storm Faerywolf

Though She most often appears in Her Black form, there are other ways to connect to this most powerful of Goddesses: Blue Grandmother. Healer. Wise-woman. Story teller. Midwife. Giver of rest. She is the Star Goddess in Her matronly aspect, and She is Grandmother Spider who tells the stories and passes them down to the next generation. She is Uli, the Breast of Spirit, the Hawaiian Goddess of life-force (mana) to which in F(a)eri(e) we connect as the Blue Fire. She may appear robed in royal blue, offering rest and solace or otherwise telling stories and offering healing and wisdom. Black Annis; the Morrigu; Hecate; Lilith; Cerridwen; Baba Yaga. This is the most common form that She takes. She is the Death Goddess as well as a Goddess of Sorcery and Black Magic. She is the keeper of the Old Ways and the archetypal witch. She is the primordial Priestess, often called Black Ana of the Forbidden Mysteries referring to the forbidden knowledge of witchcraft. White The Cailleach. The Veiled One. The Winter Queen. She is the stark white emptiness of the Void. She may appear as an old blue-faced woman wearing white. She is often silent. It is She who brings us to the presence of the Void; of the Abyss.

From "The Spiral Dance" by Starhawk

Visualize a waning crescent, curving to the left, surrounded by a black sky. She is the Old Woman, the Crone, who has passed menopause, the power of ending, of death. All things must end to fulfill their beginnings. The grain that was planted must be cut down. The blank page must be destroyed for the work to be written. Life feeds on death - death leads on to life, and in that knowledge lies wisdom. The Crone is the Wise Woman, infinitely old. Feel your own age, the widsom of evolution stored in every cell of your body. Know your own power to end, to

lose as well as to gain, to destroy what is stagnant and decayed. See the Crone, cloaked in black, under the waning moon. Call her name, "Anu!" and feel her power in your own death. From "Faery Crossroads" (expired website) by unknown author She is the Spirit of Night, the sleeping body of the Earth in Winter. Because She is no longer fertile, there is something androgynous about Her. Her partner is the androgynous Winter King. She is visualized most often as an old woman in a black hooded cloak with pure white hair and skin. She carries a silver sickle and She is crowned with nine blue stars. She has a second form, called Ulli, a sweet old grandmother whose color is royal blue. Her symbol is the Crow or Raven, in some cases the Vulture.

From "The Gods Of Infinity" by Storm Faerywolf

Anna, the hag, who is the dread power of winter and of death. It is She who has accumulated the wisdom of the forbidden knowledge of Witchcraft (and indeed one of her titles, "Black Anna of the Forbidden Mysteries" leaves little room for debate on this matter) as well as direct knowledge of death and of healing. She wears a crown of nine stars and is sometimes accompanied by a raven or vulture, which is also Her emblem. The lunar symbolism continues with her traditional garb in that she holds a silver sickle, the crescent-shaped scythe that resembles the form of a waning moon.

From "Feri FAQ" by Valerie Walker

According to Barbara Walker, editor of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, the name appears in a great many cultures, some widely separated by time and/or space. Thus, there is Anna-Nin, Nana or Inanna, Queen of Heaven in Sumeria (An means Heaven in Sumerian, according to Graves), Anatha, (Syria), Anat (Canaan), Ana or Anah (Old Testament), Di-Ana (Semitic) or Dinah (from the Syriac version of the Old Testament, referring to the goddess of the Dinaite tribes in Sumeria), both uses of "Di" referring to divinity or godhead, Anna (Pelasgian Greek), Nanna (the incarnation of the Danish Goddess Freya as the mother-bride of Baldur), Anu (early Danaan Goddess in Ireland), Ana or Anan, which Robert Graves says are names for the Goddess Danu, who had two aspects, one nurturant, the other maleficent, as which she was sometimes known as Morgana to the Irish ("Death Ana," one third of the triple Goddess known as The Morrigan, ("Great Queen"); Anna Perenna (Roman), Black Annis of Leicester to medieval Christians, who lived on "Dane Hill" (Danaan?) and used to devour children -- ending with St. Anne, mother of the virgin Mary, grandmother of God. This long history seems to me too ubiquitous to be reduced to an abstraction! It goes even further: Graves cites the view of a Mr. E.M. Parr that Athene was another Anna namely, Ath-enna, which occurs in inverted form in Libya as Anatha. Graves' verdict on the subject is "...if one needs a single, simple, inclusive name for the Great Goddess, Anna is the best choice."

The Royal Darkness of Feri Tradition has many names aspecting his role as psychopomp:
Ankou, Arddu, Baphomet, Baron Samedi, Black One, Death, Dark Lord, Great Teacher, Grim Reaper, Guardian of the Crossroads (also "Gates" and "Mysteries"), King of the Dead, Myrddin, Merlin, Royal Darkness, Shepherd of Souls, Shiva the Destroyer, Winter King

From "The Gods of Infinity" by Storm Faerywolf

Sage/Teacher/Guardian Moving still through our cycles of the seasons we can see a subtle shift as we approach autumn. Our beloved Horned God, once the epitome of strength and virility, begins his slow decline as the sun makes its journey into the dark half of the year. Reaching winter, our God is now the dread God of death, the Arddu 7, or "Royal Darkness". Another Horned God figure, He is usually depicted with the black wings of a bat, red eyes, a single red jewel upon his forehead, and a flaming torch between his horns. Traditionally he has the head of a goat, and the breasts of an old woman, but He has never appeared to me in that guise. I almost consistently see Him with the head of a bull; a symbol that I feel better reflects His mighty power and primal nature. His sexuality is at once more internalized than his previous counterparts, while at the same time still most definitely present. He is the Guardian of the Crossroads, and because He brings the knowledge and wisdom of death, is the great teacher. His emblem is the skull and crossbones for reasons that should need little elaboration. All who would pass through the dread gate must first confront Him. He can represent our own fears, and the ecstasy that we can experience when we face them

From "Feri FAQ" by Valerie Walker

The Winter King: the male (though somewhat androgynous due to his age) crone aspect of the God. The Arddhu (pronounced "ar-thee", Old Welsh for "the Dark One," also sometimes spelled Atho) is the Opener of the Gates of Life and Death, and thus is not to be invoked lightly. The Arddhu and the Ana are the "natural gods of nature" according to Victor.

From "Faery Crossroads" (expired website) by unknown author

He is the Spirit of Winter and Death. He may well embody what we fear. He is the Guardian of the Crossroads of the Path of the Living and the Path of the Spirits. All devils are derived from Him. His partner or parallel is The Crone. Once again, the divine moves toward androgyny. This god is visualized with the drooping breasts of an old woman on a human torso. He has a goat's head and lower body, and big black bat wings. On his forehead glows a large red jewel and between his horns is a flaming torch. His symbol is the Skull and Crossbones.

From "The Arddu: God of the Dead in the F(a)eri(e) Tradition"

by Storm Faerywolf Traditionally He may appear as androgynous and very old, with the black wings of a bat, the drooping breasts of an old woman, and the head, horns, and legs of a goat. Between His horns rises a flaming torch, and on His forehead there is a large red jewel. His emblem is the skull and crossbones. He is the Baphomet, the Old Wizard. The Necromancer.

In addition to His more common androgynous aspect He can appear as fiercely masculine as well. In this aspect He has most often come to me with the head of a bull, a symbol that I feel better reflects His mighty power and primal nature. Here He is often fiercely sexual, but in a way that is somewhat disturbing in that it is not human; it is a primal sexuality that is animalistic and even chthonic. Part of the lore that is sometimes attached to this deity is that He is less of a singular being and more of a role which is said to be filled by the last soul to die before Samhain.

From "Arkou" on Wikipedia (2012)

Ankou (Breton: Anko) is a personification of death in Breton mythology as well as in Cornish and Norman French folklore. This character is reported by Anatole Le Braz, writer and legends collector of the 19th century. Here is what he wrote about the Ankou in his best-seller "The Legend of Death" "The Ankou is the henchman of Death (oberour ar maro) and he is also known as the grave yard watcher, they said that he protects the graveyard and the souls around it for some unknown reason and he collects the lost souls on his land. The last dead of the year, in each parish, becomes the Ankou of his parish for all of the following year. When there has been, in a year, more deaths than usual, one says about the Ankou "war ma f, heman zo eun Anko drouk," (on my faith, this one is a nasty Ankou)." There are many tales involving Ankou, who appears as a man or skeleton wearing a cloak and wielding a scythe and in some stories he is described as a shadow that looks like a man with an old hat and a scythe, often atop a cart for collecting the dead. He is said to wear a black robe with a large hat which conceals his face. Legend holds that he was the first child of Adam and Eve. Other versions have it that the Ankou is the first dead person of the year (though he is always depicted as adult, and male), charged with collecting the others' soul before he can go to the afterlife. He is said to drive a large, black coach pulled by four black horses, accompanied by two ghostly figures on foot. In the Celtic folklore of Brittany it is said that the Ankou appears as a death omen who collects the souls of the deceased. They describe the Ankou as a tall, haggard figure with long white hair. It is also perceived as a skeleton with a revolving head able to see everything everywhere. The Ankou is said to drive a cart and stops at the house of someone who is about to die. It knocks on the door, this sound is sometimes heard by the living, or it could give out a mournful wail like the Irish Banshee.

The Gods Of Infinity By Storm Faerywolf

In the Bloodrose-derived lines of the F(a)eri(e)1 tradition, in which I was initially trained, there is in use a major theological icon that attempts to capture the endless essence of our cosmology. When considering the eternal nature of Divinity, the lemniscate (commonly referred to as the infinity symbol) represents the constant and morphing flow of energy as it emanates from the central point; what we know as the Star Goddess; that primal point of all creation. Flowing first to the bottom left and moving upward, we can see this power take on the traditional feminine forms of maiden, mother, and crone before flowing back and down through the center. Continuing to the right, this power embodies the masculine youth, father, and sage, only to continue this journey ad infinitum. These stations on our symbol (as seen in the image above) are represented at first by lunar glyphs to represent the Goddess: a waxing crescent, a full moon disk, and a waning crescent. Solar imagery is then employed to represent the God by way of rising sun, sun-at-zenith, and setting sun. Thus both a monthly and daily cycle are represented by way of the lemniscate. This cosmology can also be symbolically visualized in terms of the vesica pisces, which consists of two circles intersecting so that they overlap each other. The central almond shape that results from this overlap has sometimes been described as the yoni or womb of the Great Goddess, and so is equal (at least in terms of theological definition) to our lemniscate's central point.

"Holy Mother, In You we live, move, and have our being. From You all things emerge And unto You all things return." 2

When considering one of the many creation myths that are present in the Feri tradition we can see certain parallels with our lemniscate model. According to Starhawk, after the Goddess makes love with Her own reflection, the image before Her moves outward, becoming more masculine along the way, becoming the Blue God, the Green One, and finally the Horned God. 3 Here we see the mutable nature of Divinity and when taken in conjunction with the poetic teaching of the prayer above, we can begin to see this model in action. The Star Goddess (also referred to as God Herself) is the ultimate Deity, She-who-emerges-from-nothingness, as well as She-who-cannot-be-(at least fully)-understood. She (who is also He) is that single unifying point within the great Void in which time and space are meaningless. This is the great womb of the Goddess, pregnant with all possibility. Like the mathematical singularity, the laws of physics do not apply here and so there are no limitations, making this the most magickal (and potential) place in the universe. We see this point as being the central point of the infinity symbol; it is that moment before creation occurs in which all choices are equally valid. Only when this power moves outward from the Goddess of All Potential do we see limitations being created and adhered to. It is these limitations that allow form to arise and cause the natural laws of the Universe to function.

Seasonal Manifestations
One way to see these forms is to witness them in the cycles of nature. Our lemniscate illustrates the seasonal changes along its serpentine pathway, demonstrating an entire lifecycle on each of its two lobes. When the Goddess sees Her reflection it is first as Nime, the young maiden, who then grows and becomes Mari, the mother, and finally as Anna, or Anysa, the aged crone, before returning back to the center. In these three major points of definition we can easily see the seasonal cycles played out.

Maiden
Nime can represent the spring, especially the new growth of both plants and animals. Her emblem is that of a 6-day old crescent moon, connecting this sphere of our model with predominately lunar symbolism. She is the wild spirit of youth and potency; the arouser of life; the embodiment of the Black Heart of Innocence. A crescent moon rests on her brow as primal snakes writhe in her hair. Childlike exuberance exudes from her toothy grin, but watch out! For all of her playfulness there is also something disturbing about her... a danger and even

a sexuality that is not comfortable when witnessed in a creature so young. The influence of Nime can be easily felt at this time of year and through the summer solstice, at which time She plays an important role in the working mythos of the Feri sabbat.

Mother
Also at this time the presence of the goddess Mari is strongly felt. She is the spirit of the earth, sky, and sea, and is that aspect of the Goddess that even casual practitioners of the modern Craft are most familiar with. She wears a crown of a dozen stars, Her black hair veiling her shining silver body as she stands upon the ocean. Because She is archetypically the height of strength and power, She is associated (however marginally) with the height of summer, but also with the slow decline of autumn, not because Her powers are fading, but because She represents the ultimate harvest, for She carries within her fully-pregnant womb the Divine Child, who shall be born when this cycle is repeated next spring. The full moon is her emblem, continuing the lunar symbolism.

Crone
The final station that we encounter upon this lobe of our glyph is that of Anna, the hag, who is the dread power of winter and of death. It is She who has accumulated the wisdom of the forbidden knowledge of Witchcraft (and indeed one of her titles, "Black Anna of the Forbidden Mysteries" leaves little room for debate on this matter) as well as direct knowledge of death and of healing. She wears a crown of nine stars 4 and is sometimes accompanied by a raven or vulture, which is also Her emblem. The lunar symbolism continues with her traditional garb in that she holds a silver sickle, the crescent-shaped scythe that resembles the form of a waning moon.

Youth
With the cycles representing the Divine Feminine now complete, we can follow the progression of the Star Goddess' power once more as She manifests this time in masculine form. Again we can see the power manifest in the cycles of spring, this time as the young Blue God, also called the Dian y Glas. 5 Traditionally the Blue God is said to appear as an androgynous youth with an erect phallus and the breasts of a young girl, though he does not appear to me in that guise. To me his "androgyny" is expressed solely in his softness, and indeed at times he appears to me naked and swathed in lavender silks, smiling and dancing seductively amongst the stars. In some teachings He is said to represent our own personal Divinity; our "Higher Selves" to which we pray in order to hasten our own evolution. We are reminded by His iconography that the power that manifests as spirituality is sexual in nature: a serpent coils around His neck, and in fact one of His titles is "the serpent in the well", who is seen rising in the springtime, an obvious phallic reference and may also represent what some practitioners of Tantric mysticism know as kundalini energy. Peacock feathers adorn His hair connecting Him to Melek Ta'us, the Peacock Angel of the Yezidis who, despite outsiders misrepresenting Him as "the devil", regard Him as the true God of this world.

Father/Lover
As we continue to move on our model and into the furthest point outward, we encounter the Horned God, Krom, sometimes called the Harvest Lord. He is the perfect twin of the Goddess Mari, and in Him the solar associations are quite evident. His emblem is the golden sun and he is the power of its peak in summer. He sometimes appears as a strong stag-headed man with shining golden skin, His neck adorned with spring and summer flowers. He is naked and appears with an erect phallus and so His powers of sexuality and virility are quite evident in themselves. He is at once both "lover" and "father" depending on what it is that we need from Him at the time, regardless of what we may feel that it is that we need. He is the most blatantly masculine of the Infinitum 6, and like his female counterpart is most likely to be recognized as the archetypal God of Witchcraft.

Sage/Teacher/Guardian
Moving still through our cycles of the seasons we can see a subtle shift as we approach autumn. Our beloved Horned God, once the epitome of strength and virility, begins his slow decline as the sun makes its journey into the dark half of the year. Reaching winter, our God is now the dread God of death, the Arddu 7, or "Royal Darkness". Another Horned God figure, He is usually depicted with the black wings of a bat, red eyes, a single

red jewel upon his forehead, and a flaming torch between his horns. Traditionally he has the head of a goat, and the breasts of an old woman, but He has never appeared to me in that guise. I almost consistently see Him with the head of a bull; a symbol that I feel better reflects His mighty power and primal nature. His sexuality is at once more internalized than his previous counterparts, while at the same time still most definitely present. He is the Guardian of the Crossroads, and because He brings the knowledge and wisdom of death, is the great teacher. His emblem is the skull and crossbones for reasons that should need little elaboration. All who would pass through the dread gate must first confront Him. He can represent our own fears, and the ecstasy that we can experience when we face them and in ecstasy we return once more to our central point, having traversed completely the cycles of the lemniscate, returning to the Goddess; to God Herself. "And to You all things return"

All Gods are Feri Gods

While it is true that most often these particular deities8 seem to align themselves to this glyph in Feri almost exclusively, it is precisely the symbol's inclusive nature that makes it so appealing. In Bloodrosian9 Feri it is taught that it is not simply these particular seven deities that find their home on our beloved symbol, but in fact all deities.10 According to Willow Moon, a Feri initiate and teacher in the NightHares line, the trinities on each side of our lemniscate represent points of convenience in which we are more easily able to see the fullest characteristics of the aspects of Deity.11 With this in mind it becomes quite a useful tool when considering the nature of God(dess)hood. Deities such as Hecate or Brighid can be placed upon the paths of the symbol in order to reflect upon certain of their qualities. As we have seen, however, the nature of Divinity is mutable and so we do not place these beings upon this model in order to "pin them down", so to speak, but instead to attempt to grasp their essence just a little bit more than we have previously.

Tools of Circumstance
When used as a tool for the talker it may prove useful to be able to examine the attributes of the Gods from an intellectual perspective, comparing and contrasting them and seeing how they might fit in with each other in an overall cosmology. For instance, we can see from our model how Nime, and how Persephone, for example, might compare to each other, noticing how they both have strong associations with innocence, and with the spring. We must keep in mind, however, that just as we place a God on one station, so this Deity may also appear on another. Both are equally true; another example of how Feri seems to revel in the paradoxical. For example, many Feries with whom I have spoken with share an intuitive understanding of a particular Deity that we can cite in our exploration of this intellectual model. When considering the Blue God in His forms of Dian y Glas and of Melek Ta'us we can see how they share many qualities and attributes. But often the young Dian y Glas is differentiated from Melek Ta'us in such a way that we may feel confident placing the latter in a space in between the spring and summer stations on our model. Melek Ta'us appears to me in an older, somewhat darker, more severe form. His sexuality is still present, but does not express itself in nearly as soft a manner as does his more youthful counterpart. So where we were once able to see just one God, we can now distinguish specific aspects within the larger Deity-spectrum, like individual bands of colored light differentiated by a prism. Now we are able to perceive the larger "Divinity complex"12 , knowing that while separate beings in their own right, they are also a part of a larger holism. When used as a tool for the fetch, we can meditate upon the motions and changing nature of Deity, letting go of our rational assumptions that would seek to define things in either/or classifications. What may be a helpful way to approach a thing at one time may prove to be a hindrance under different circumstances.

Conflict and Clarity

Much confusion has been wrought over the use of this symbolic teaching in Feri, the majority of which centers upon the use of other cosmologies which, on the surface, appear to be contradictory. While the lemniscate model appears to describe Deity in terms of two trinities of each sex emerging from the Star Goddess, the cosmology espoused by the late Victor Anderson reflects that of a triple Goddess and a duel God.

If we are forced to think only in literal terms, then we are immediately confronted with what appears to be a serious divergence from traditional material. If the teachings of Victor are assumed to represent a "core mythology" of the Feri tradition13 , then this newer model is seemingly incorrect. It has been argued that the lemniscate is not truly a part of the Feri tradition precisely because of this divergence, pointing out that the mythology of the God in triple form is the result of forcing an overlaying model over traditional mythos. But a deeper look at both cosmologies reveals their underlying equivalence. Of great importance to both models is the idea of the Goddess and Her two consorts, known in Feri as the Divine Twins. It is said that the Goddess took two bright spirits into Her womb and perfected them into God.14 They are both Her divine son and lover. According to Cora Anderson, though they both "are male in function they are like all Gods, both male and female in one." She goes on to illustrate how they can pair themselves in either opposite or same-sex relationships, both sexually active and not.15 This is of tremendous importance because it gives us a much needed insight into the nature of the Twins. It is not difficult to now perceive our lemniscate model with new eyes and see each lobe as a possible manifestation of one of the Twins, each one circling the Star Goddess out of love. With this in mind we can begin to understand the mutable nature of Feri even deeper; for even this seemingly all-inclusive model now reveals its own limitations, useful though it may be. An alternate but similar model might describe the Twins as both being either male or female. It is really a minor detail when taken in consideration the sheer vastness of the Infinitum. Another important insight in the nature of the Twins comes from the teachings of Victor and Cora Anderson which state, "Either one or both of the Divine Twins can fulfill the function separately or together like two candle flames blended into one."16 This opens up whole new possibilities, enabling the practitioner a deeper perspective on not just the Twins, but of what we have previously thought of as the individual Gods. Not only are the Twins seen to manifest separately on each lobe of our model, but the individual Gods themselves are understood to have Twin aspects as well. For example, the Blue God can be seen as both Dian y Glas, but also as Melek Ta'us, among other combinations. Krom has other aspects that include what has come to be called the Red Man and the Green Man, who are the forces of animal life and vegetable life, respectively. These manifestations of the Divine Twins are sometimes seen as being lovers, but not exclusively so. Mari too has similarly colored aspects denoting specific attributes and powers. These symbolic understandings do not exist in conflict with our other models, but in harmony with them. Krom might be Twins in Himself, but individually He is also the Twin to Mari, who exists opposite him on our cosmological glyph. One perspective need not be wrong for another to also be correct. As long as Feri is being practiced then there will continue to be innovations, creations, and evolutions. Exercises, myths, and even Deities are all being constantly revealed to us in new and different ways. When we connect to the Power, and to the Star Goddess, we are inviting Her to move through us, changing us forever. It is only to be expected that She will manifest in new ways as She is mediated into the world by Her priest/esses. New models will arise to reveal their usefulness, allowing us an opportunity to try and experience Deity in new ways. When we are able to look beyond the present forms to perceive the truths that lay beyond them, then we are well on our way toward wisdom. 2005 Storm Faerywolf www.faerywolf.com

ENDNOTES:
1. I sometimes use this spelling in order to both illustrate the mutable nature of our tradition, as well as to attempt to include those lines that were formed before Victor Anderson began using the spelling "Feri", sometime in the 1990's. Being, for the most part, an oral tradition, there is no "correct" spelling, a further testament to the individual nature of our religion. 2. Traditional Feri prayer based upon the Cretica by the poet and seer Epimenides of Knossos (6th century BCE) in which he addresses the God Zeus: "They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one-

The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever, For in thee we live and move and have our being." (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides) Later this would be quoted by Paul and make it's way into a passage in the Bible, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.", Acts 17:28, King James Version. 3. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (HarperSanFrancisco, 1979, 1989, 1999), p.41. 4. Some accounts say "Nine plus stars", indicating that she has at least nine upon Her crown. 5. Pronounced "D'JOHN-uh-gloss". This name is usually misinterpreted as being Welsh in origin but is more likely an intuitive reconstruction of ancient Pictish. See http://www.pictdom.org/WhatIs.html for a brief mention of this. 6. This is the term that my group uses to represent the Deities of the lemniscate as a whole. 7. Pronounced, "Ar-THEE". A Welsh term for "Dark One". 8. These may appear with different names or spellings, but the same basic characteristics are almost always present. 9. I use this term to refer to those practices of the F(a)eri(e) tradition that stem from the original teachings of what became the Bloodrose school (now disbanded), which took its own inspiration and initiatory lineage from Victor Anderson, and was later developed by other initiates, most notably Caradoc ap Cador, and Steve Hewell. While other schools and covens continued to develop the material under new banners, I continue to use this term because each of its successors have continued to use the basic symbols and practices of the Mother-school and thus now constitute a definite recognizable branch of the tradition in their own right. 10. I recall a story that I have heard several times in Feri circles. One day Victor was asked, "What Gods do the Feri worship?" to which he reportedly replied, "All of them." 11. See Valerie Walker's Feri FAQ version 7.0 (8/25/03), pg. 11 at http://www.wiggage.com/witch/FFAQsannotated.v.7.0.pdf 12. My Feri teacher Mitchell Houston first used this term to reference that collection of resonate Deities whose various aspects collectively comprise what we call the Blue God. The same theory is true of any of our archetypal stations in the discussed model. 13. It has been pointed out however, that Victor taught different things to different people at different times, preferring to work intuitively with an individual and thus keeping the tradition "authentic". Remember what they say about assuming 14. Anaar, "The Winged Serpent: Seeing the Divine Twins", Witch Eye #10, March 2005. 15. Anderson, Cora, Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition (privately printed, 1994), p. 8. 16. Ibid, 8.

Drawing from the Wells of Creation: The F(a)eri(e) Goddesses of the Primal Elements By Storm Faerywolf
From the underworld they come... Beyond the world of space and time Deep they are, to the very depth of the universe And madness is their name. 1
The F(a)eri(e) tradition works with a veritable multitude of deities and otherworldly spirits. The beginning student is usually familiarized early-on with a particular group of celestial beings variously called the Guardians or Watchers, whose elemental associations are explained to be a convenient point of reference, but that comes nowhere close to summing up their own unique existence2. The Guardians are said to be capable of invoking that which we cannot3, and it is only after working with them for some time and in particular in relation to the goddesses of the primal elements- do we truly begin to see the scope and breadth of such a statement. We are taught that in order to commune with spirits we must do so via the holy daemon.4 One of the principal functions of the daemon is to provide a vital link between ourselves and those external spirits and powers that we wish to commune with. By attuning to our own higher selves, we can then petition the Guardians to assist us in connecting to deeper powers; powers that are normally beyond the grasp of our perceptual ability. Some of the most strange and potent beings that are worked with in our tradition are the Goddesses of the Elements. These are beings of primal power that are quite beyond what is normally thought of when one considers the elemental powers invoked in the modern Craft. These deities are said to be older than matter itself, and provide the energetic blueprint for all of creation. While much of the modern Craft works with elemental beings and Watchtowers as the elemental powers extant, our primal Goddesses exist first and foremost in a state of pre-manifestation and as such are understood to reside in a particular vibrational realm of that place known as the Underworld. They are the raw presence of the elemental powers that rise up from below and into to manifestation in the Middle World. As such they are quite beyond what we would normally associate with the physical elements, mainly because their physicality is merely one small facet of their existence as a continuum. For example, the Goddess of Air is not only the physical atmosphere of the planet and all atmospheric phenomena (including winds, storms, and interconnected processes) but she is also metaphoric Air: the very powers of inspiration, lifes breath, and intelligent awareness. She is Air beyond the boundaries of our planet; the solar winds and those that flow between the stars, as well as the secret knowledge that is kept hidden there. In some of the lore passed down regarding these otherworldly-yet-immanent beings it is said that they are the wells of creation; entry points into vast store-houses of primal elemental power. In this they comprise not only the intelligence of their being, but also of the realm in which they inhabit, for in reality the two are one and the same.5 During my training I worked to form a personal relationship with these beings and at once found them to be quite different than other deities that I had worked with up until that point. It is sometimes said that we cannot invoke them directly as they are too vast, and so it is usually by way of the Guardians that we invoke them into our presence. By approaching them in this manner I have come to see an interesting pattern in how the three sets of elemental beings invoked in various lines of Feri seem also to bear some relationship to the Three Worlds of folkloric faery tradition, as well as the Three Souls of our own Fae path. The Guardians, as we are taught, are angels; celestial/Overworld beings that serve to oversee various spiritual processes with an intelligence and perspective that is deeper than our own. This transpersonal association can be personally applied using the hermetic law of correspondence, as above, so below; bringing the Guardians into the realm of our own holy daemon. They can then, effectively, be seen as the guiding intelligence that

directs the flow of power from their respective realms. One who was familiar with the Tarot may see a resemblance in the relationship of the Emperor to the Empress; the Empress is the Goddess power, vast, untapped, abundant while the Emperor, like our Guardian being, taps into that power and directs it in a useable way. The Goddesses are primal beings; vast collectives of raw life-force, relating them individually to fetch and collectively to the Underworld. Their power rises from below, potentially bringing with it a wave of subconscious complexes and debris. This power impacts us on our most primal of levels and if we are not clean then we may suffer discomfort or even psychic harm if we attempt working with them too early. For the seasoned practitioner who has made a habit of Cleansing work, such issues will still present themselves but should not pose a threat to the stability of ones psyche. As with all deep work, move slowly and remember your foundation. Now that we have placed our elemental beings into nice little boxes let us remember that Feri is a wild tradition and not one that likes to pinned down, at least not in any constant way. Let us remember that one of the great powers of faery is that liminal state of being in-between. It was said that the faery folk could come and steal one away if the unfortunate soul should happen upon one of these such faery-gates which included beaches (where land meets sea), crossroads (where many worlds meet), and during twilight (between day and night). Our own beings enjoy such a queer status when we remember that the angelic class that forms our beloved Guardians are those that are fallen; they have transmuted their Overworld/angelic presence into the Middleworld. Let us also consider how the primal/Underworld nature of the Goddesses is likewise mediated into the Middleworld through the process of physical manifestation. So both of our elemental beings are shape-shifters, and walkers between the worlds. The Primal Goddesses, like the Guardians before them, are beings of great power that often cause great change in those who dare to work with them directly. For some this change will manifest as a strengthening of ones personal power and will, while in others it may bring to light issues and aspects of ones psyche that would be easier or even kinder to leave alone. Herein lies a major motivation of some to keep this information from those who would seek it casually. My own experience with these beings, however, has clearly indicated to me that there is benefit in sharing them with a larger audience and as it violates no oath I am solemnly pleased to do so here. Years ago my husband, Chas Bogan, a fellow Feri initiate, artist, and teacher, was inspired to create works of art in honor of these beings. While not secret in our line, I felt at that time that to share them widely had no real purpose and so I had declined Chas offer to help him with his aforementioned project. A few months later I participated in a ritual that would change my mind. Standing in a meadow with a gathering of long-term students, a group of teachers invoked these Goddesses and sang their names into the night. They appeared with voracity, and inspired us to create create create with an urgency I had rarely felt prior. Their powers combined and caused the very changes that they sought as we each took from the experience what we needed and were forever changed. The next day I knew what I had to do. When I returned I began writing about them for a public audience so that others who were genuinely inspired might gain insight from my experience in the hopes that it may help them along their way. When I first spoke of writing about these beings I was met with some opposition; the argument being that since some held these beings secret6, then we should all hold them secret as a means to show respect for those who were trained in this way. While on the surface this might seem reasonable to some, in practice this would curtail discussion about any aspect of the Feri tradition, a stance that I feel stunts the growth that is engendered by being able to discuss these things openly. Some consider secrecy to be paramount in Feri tradition, but others, like myself, see the act of writing about our ways to be exactly what the tradition is about; we are a bardic tradition and as such we must express ourselves as our divine authority dictates. To do less dishonors the very powers that we serve. Since this lore is not passed as secret in BloodRose Feri (and indeed was not one of the very few things that Cora Anderson expressed as being an initiatory secret) I have made the decision to present it here in order to potentially inspire those who may have a desire to work with these beings. In my opinion the formation of a relationship with the Elemental Goddesses may be attempted with relative safety, provided you have previously mastered the Feri techniques of Soul Alignment, Elemental Balancing, Cleansing, and Communion with the Guardians. If you have not yet mastered these practices then it is advisable that you do not attempt to work with the goddesses. This is in part for your own mental, emotional and

psychic safety, but mainly because your chances of gaining deep insight from the experiences prior to doing so will be greatly reduced without the previous work backing you up. After creating an altar or working area with appropriate elemental symbols and tools befitting working with such beings, perform a Soul Alignment and attune yourself to the Elemental power that you wish to work with. Coming into physical contact with natural objects that depict or carry the energetic qualities of the element will serve as entry points into the elemental power. Invoking the Guardian and working with the appropriate ritual tool will provide the necessary addition of skill and discernment into the process. The Tool of the Guardian is used to wield (or focus) the raw elemental power of the Goddess. By the end of a full set of workings these objects will be attuned and charged by the elemental powers, and can serve as keys that allow you deeper access to the elemental realms when used as meditative devices. When working with the Primal Goddesses of the Elements (as when working with any new Otherworldly contact) it is important to take ones time to really observe and relish the experience. Dont rush through your experiences with them. I would suggest that for someone who had not worked with them before that it would be wise to begin in the east with Air and take some time (at least a month, if not more) consistently working with just that Goddess alone before immersing yourself in the space of another. In practical terms, after having first attuned yourself to the Guardian, simply call or sing out their names and ask them to reveal themselves to you. Surround yourself with the symbols and trappings of their element. Build altars to them. Play music befitting their individual moods and energies. Ask them to teach you about their deeper magic. And, as always, remember to honor your own boundaries and to journal your experiences. Treat them with respect and they will have much to teach you. Do otherwise at your own peril. What follows are some visual keys that have come to me in my own work with these beings, along with original sigils and invocations that you may use in order to deepen your experience. You may, of course, write your own. Better still to allow their primal power to instruct you directly that you may be their Voice. East/Air:Arida She often appears to me as the silhouette of a hawk made of morning sunlight, flying from the east amongst the clouds. Hers is the raw power of inspiration, the first breath we take upon being born... and the final breath we take in this life. She is the power of the gentle breeze, the scent of wildflowers, the churning clouds, the hurricane, the cyclone, and the eternal whirlwind that strips away all illusion and grants the power of sight and true knowledge. She shines up from the darkness below (as the sun rises from the darkness beneath the horizon each morning) and embodies the presence of earthly (and otherworldly) knowledge. Air in the east is the first station of our circle of progression, as it is the least tangible of all the physical elemental forms. Since air is also the realm of thoughts and ideas it makes sense to begin here, as things begin as a thought before achieving manifestation.

I conjure open the Well of Sunrise! And peer into the Whirlwind! Hail Arida! Rising Sun! Hawk of the Day! You who shine with the breath of light In the palaces of pleasure Birthing day from night! We salute thee, IAO! South/Fire: Tana
She has appeared to me as liquid fire, sometimes molten magma, but at others simply plasma in a liquid-like form. Sometimes she appears as lightning, arcing from the sky and into the earth. She is often dancing wild, ecstatic, sparks and flames jumping from her burning aura as she moves. She is the explosive power of all fire,

whether that be in the smallest candle flame, or in a raging inferno, or the nuclear processes in the heart of every star. She is the geo-thermal power in the center of the earth, as well as the heat and adrenaline in our bodies. She brings both change, and destruction, as heat can cause chemical changes in objects (as in food being cooked, or stones changing characteristics when exposed to higher temperatures while forming) or even completely obliterate them (a forest or building burning to the ground in a raging fire).

I conjure open the Well of Plasma! And peer into the Eternal Flames! Hail Tana! Liquid Flame! Scarlet Lust! You who burn with growth and destruction In the Passion of Life and Death Reveal now your grand seduction! We salute thee, IAO! West/Water: Heva Leviathan Tiamat
She often appears to me as a breaking of primal waters... opening up from the darkness below the waves and rising up to the surface. Sometimes she is the kraken itself; many tentacles stretching from the dark unknown waters below. She is the primal waters of birth; that which gave life to this planet and in fact sustains all life. But she is also the terrible unforgiving waves that lead to destruction.

I conjure open the Well of the Watery Abyss! And peer into the Whirlpool! Heva Leviathan Tiamat! Ancient Serpent! World-Birther! You who flow with primal waters As the kraken rises from below From the Deep come your sons and daughters! We salute thee, IAO! North/Earth: Verr Avna
This strange Goddess often appears to me as a decomposing corpse wearing a black wedding dress! She often will perform feats of physical prowess unattainable by the human form, such as walking on walls or the ceiling, as if to demonstrate that physical laws do not bind her, as she is physical law. She is the presence of earthly matter and space, and the processes of energy coalescing into a tangible form.

I conjure open the Well of Space! And peer into the Outer Dark! Hail, Verr-Avna! Black Veiled bride of death and renewal! Cavernous tomb and womb in one! You who stand with the strength of stone Shining dark in The Crown of the North! Reveal the truth of flesh and bone! We salute thee, IAO! Above, Below & Center/Ether: Sugmaad
Beyond even the pre-extant elemental forms lies the conscious possibility of them. This consciousness is the Sugmaad; the Star Goddess. She appears in a multitude of forms, most notably a woman with jet-black skin with the head of a lioness and great wings of a bat. She sits on a throne of polished onyx with the silver egg of creation resting in her lap. She is the primal Goddess of creation; the great cosmic womb from which all things

emerge and into which all things return. She is life and oblivion all in one; the beautiful and terrible explosion of chaos and possibility.

I conjure open the Well of Stars! To peer into the Black Hearted Vault of Heaven within the Earth! Hail, Sugmaad! Infinite Darkness! Infinite Light! Womb of the Universe! From You all things emerge And unto You all things return. Reveal your starlight in my breath! We salute thee, IAO!
When working with these beings it will be important to notice how your own perceptions change over time, not just in the moment of the trance experience itself, but in day to day life. When working with Arida how do you find your inspiration? Are you able to work with the Guardian to translate (i.e. communicate) that power into a useful area of your life? When working with Tana how do you perceive your determination and Will to be impacted? In the time you spend communing with Water, how does Tiamat factor in to how you experience your emotions? What does Verr Avna have to teach you about living in a physical form? Keeping a journal is vital to being able to get the fullest benefit from this type of working. The Goddesses of the Primal Elements have the potential to be among the most powerful of transformative relationships that you will ever enter into. Whether this quickens your evolution, reveals your own blocks or complexes, or provides you with a spiritual or emotional challenge is entirely up to you and what you bring to the experience. It is a worthy journey, and I wish you the best on yours. 1 From my own Book of Shadows. 2 See my article, The Lords of the Outer Dark, Witch Eye #14. http://www.FeriTradition.com/witcheye/essay_ LOTOD.htm 3 Oral teaching attributed to the late Victor Anderson. 4 A term used in BlueRose Feri to represent the GodSoul, Higher Self, or aumakua. 5 While this concept is not universal among the Feri, it can be understood in much the same way as in Neil Gaimans Sandman series (Vertigo comics), in which the character Morpheus (Dream) is not only the primal being (or ruler) of the Dreaming (the realm in which all dreams are born and reside), but is actually the embodiment of the Dreaming realm as well. He (and our aforementioned Goddesses) are the very embodiment of those powers that they are said to represent. 6 The names of these Goddesses were previously published in 1979 in the pages of Starhawks famous work The Spiral Dance.

Currents in the Ocean: Exploring the Fluid Nature of Divinity By Storm Faerywolf
"All gods are one god, and all goddesses are one goddess, and there is one initiator." -Dione Fortune
From the still and primal Darkness, floating in the realm of possibility emerges S/he who is the first emanation. From the Void S/he comes. A point of light that separates Being from the Cosmic Womb moves outward on the sheer joy of the manifest. Moving outward on the breath, blurring, taking form and taking shape, changing, merging, eternal. A myriad of color; a spectral force, moving through my body as I breathe and I know that I am not alone. Alive in my cells the Gods sing to me. I hear their tune and I answer with the pulsing of my heart. Moving inward on my breath, collapsing, changing, returning. A single point of light in the Universe, calling forth the Unity of all things. When I first began to seriously study the Craft I was troubled by certain modalities of thought that sought to explain the Universe in terms of a structured hierarchy, usually one that supported whatever power structures were in place within the organizational body of that particular religious tradition. My intuitive sense, even at that tender and awkward age, was that reality was in a constant state of flux, always changing, always yearning to create new forms. I believed then as I do now: that all of Creation strives to express itself in new and interesting ways. I remember my thoughts on gods and goddesses at the time, how inconceivable it was that these beings could somehow be separate from each other, if indeed we were all part of one being; one cosmic being experiencing itself through ourselves. My intuition called me to explore the idea of an ultimate Divinity, a Divine Source from which all else proceeded. I remember no book that I read on the Craft at that time speaking of such a concept, preferring to explain things in terms of interactions between the Goddess and the God, (explained as being separate powers) the mythological Lord and Lady reigning supreme from their celestial throne. When asked about a conceptual power behind these two beings, perhaps even a unifying force, I would be met with wide-eyed astonishment, or more usually, simply arrogant superiority. To focus on a singular Divine power or source was monotheism, I was told, and had no place in a polytheistic religion such as witchcraft. Many a religious tradition has fallen prey to this trap of fixation, this idea that the Divine is somehow limited to certain qualities, aspects, faces, political affiliations, etc. By supposing that one has the only viable connection to Divinity (and that all others are therefore invalid) dangerously invokes a religious fanaticism that, by its nature of serving the ego and reinforcing whatever power structures are already in place, encourages the suppression of differing points of view, the destruction of indigenous peoples (who's traditional lifestyles are invariably in conflict with big business and the ideals of a religious structured hierarchy) and, by extension, the squandering of the earth's natural resources. It is a mindset that we are all far too familiar with. One of the distinguishing marks of the Feri tradition for me has been in the recognition of the ambiguous nature of the Universe. Far from being a system that seeks to impose limits and definitions onto experiential realities, Feri seems to revel in the blurring of boundaries, taking sheer pleasure in the paradoxical, the anomalous, the Weird. The unfathomable power of chaos is at its very core, that primal churning of energy that is the beginning point for everything known, and unknown. The Star Goddess moves outward from Herself, taking several forms, blurring one into the next, taking on new aspects, becoming more focused, yet retaining the essential quality of what has gone before. All beings flow back into the ultimate source of all things. This implies that the underlying nature is a unified one, however this doesn't mean that any being will be just as useful for a particular purpose as any other. All goddesses are one Goddess, but this doesn't mean that I would find it useful to invoke Kali for a love spell, or Aphrodite for the destruction of an oppressive pattern. We find different points of focus along the spectrum that are aligned to different energies. We "tune into" varying frequencies in the waves of Divinity at different times, as we deem appropriate. I can understand mentally that the Blue God is, in one sense, a manifestation of the Star Goddess, but I also recognize that they feel quite different, and because of this possess different powers. Recently I had a dream. In this vision I was shown a window into the nature of the Star Goddess, specifically

Her relationship to other Deities of the Feri tradition, and by extension to the Universe at large. In the dreamtime I see a light. The light from a black candle breaking across the darkness of the room, as my teacher and myself sit, breathing in a rhythm, calling down the trance upon ourselves. We breathe, and the white flame becomes surrounded by a rainbow band, a prismatic nimbus that hints at the hidden powers within the light. I inhale, and the power moves outward from that light, becoming now something different; moving into a new form. Where there was one power, there are now two: Nimue and Dian y Glas, birthed from the white fire womb of the Cosmic Mother. It continues, riding on the waves of my breath, these two powers move outward still, changing from these child-like beings and maturing into the Great Mother, and the Harvest Lord, then finally into the Crone, and the Winter King. A point of stillness at the end of my breath, and then it returns on my exhale, these powers collapsing back into that from which they came, flowing backward into that point of light which contains them all: the white fire of the Star Goddess, flickering softly in the darkness of the Void. I awoke with a sense of purpose, determined to actualize what I had seen. I began to perform the exercise from my dream, slowly at first, following the pattern as laid out in my vision. It wasn't long, however, before the flow of power began to take on a life of its own, emerging into new configurations, new patterns that challenged the seemingly structured order that was present in the dream. I began to experience the interactions of specific Deities I had not associated with each other before. The Blue God flowing into the Winter King, forming a specific energetic vibration, a frequency that, in one sense, represented the revelation of a Deity previously unknown to me; a hybrid, a seeming paradox if I were to retain the rigid thinking that would force them to remain separate. I began to contemplate this being, allowing Him to show me his secrets, feeling His flow of power, listening to His whispers. Then I promptly forgot all about it. That is until quite recently. Working extensively with the Star Goddess as of late, I found myself bathed in Her fire. Resting in my heart in the form of an idol I created for Her, she pulsed with white flame as elemental fire raged into my body from the four directions. I awoke with a fever, drifting in and out of consciousness but always returning to the idol in my chest and the fire in my body. I felt as if my blocks to power were being, quite literally, burned away, leaving me pure and open. My fever grew and for a short time I was no longer able to make the distinction between this world and the next, being comforted by the singing of unseen children, and the constancy of my vision. Then the being came. He emerged from the darkness to rest before my closed eyes. He was beautiful, appearing as if in his early twenties, triangular features, pale skin, jet black hair. His eyes were the blue of the star-lit sky infused with the still cool light of morning. He looked into me and aroused my desire for Him. He had a playful wickedness to Him, a sense of almost punkish sensuality that both allured and frightened. I wanted Him and found myself relaxing into Him. After a brief silence He told me that, now in my fever, I could come with Him if I chose to; I could leave my physical body and wander the Outer Darkness with Him as my shining guide. There was a definite sense of temptation, as if He, the Pied Piper of my dreamtime, were attempting to seduce me into choosing my own death and for a time I was indeed tempted. To look upon His face was to be filled with desire for Him. But to stand in His presence was also to be reminded of the importance of this reality, a sharpness that cut to the heart of the matter at hand. I looked into His eyes and gave Him my answer, that there was still more that I wanted to do here and thank you anyway. He responded by opening his cloak (Why had I not noticed it before?) made entirely from feathers. He had no body, but this was of no concern to me, as the focus of the vision was on the feathers: iridescent black but interspersed with those of a peacock, revealing a secret into the being's identity. He danced. In circles He danced, whirling like a dervish silently off into the Outer Dark. Then he was gone. By the next day my fever had broken and I was left to ponder my encounter with the nameless being. It was obvious to me that I had encountered, in vision, a Deity who had only previously been hinted at by the dream exercise; a blend of energies that produced a focal point where two different currents of power could flow into each other. This being, this amalgamation is, quite literally, the offspring, the Divine Child of Dian y Glas and the Winter King, merged together in Holy Bliss. The implications of this realization, especially for me as a gay man, were

tremendous. No longer would I be able to impose onto the realm of spirit the limitations of the physical. Sex, gender, reproduction; we have definite ideas as to what these terms mean for the human animal. But moving into the areas of the spiritual these ideas reflect different, more core truths. No longer limited by the density of the manifest we are left to contemplate their energetic essence and begin to understand these forces as mutable, flowing into each other, dancing together, making new forms, expressing to their fullest the possibilities of the erotic. To do so is to begin to touch the ecstatic.

In my body I understand the fluid nature of the Gods and so I need no one else to validate, or categorize my experiences for me. In communion with the Divine I require no outside authority. I stand as a Sacred Gateway for spirit to flow into the world, however strange it may seem at times. With this experience comes the realization that we are all such a gateway, just waiting to be open and allow the Divine, and our true selves, to flow into the world. In this psychedelic realm we know that what we dream is real, and that in this sea of energy we call the Universe, we are all just swirls, temporary patterns that arise for a time and then are gone, returning to that from which we came. A current flows here under the waves, seemingly going against the tide, challenging what is known, revealing new possibilities. In this ocean of experience we swim, feeling our way through to the depths of our own being, and beyond. In this state we can hold on to nothing, our judgments and egos would just weight us down, and so we choose the only other path: to be open, and to allow ourselves to be led by the current of the Divine into bliss. To do this is to do nothing less than to choose our own liberation.

What is the Feri tradition?

http://www.witchvox.com/trads/trad_feri.html is a short article by Stephen Hewell which describes the trad, with a brief history and a few links. Anna Korn's article for CoG is at http://www.cog.org/wicca/trads/faery.html: All Feris are part of the same initiatory lineage and share knowledge of certain secret Names after initiation. ... I think we probably share an emphasis on direct personal interaction with deities/spirits/powers and other realms of being; an emphasis on the development of the Self; an emphasis on ecstasy and the fluidly sexual nature of, well...everything! There's often a high level of creativity and a love of things wild, beautiful, and poetic. I think there's a shared willingness to face the darkness along with the light within ourselves and our gods. Also a comfort-zone with Lucifer not found among most neo-Pagans and Wiccans. --Phoenix Willow (PW), email [I am told that this comfort-zone is not universal among Feris.--vw] The Feri Tradition reveres the Goddess and the Divine Twins (who are Her son, brother and lover) as the primary Creative forces. The Gods are seen as real spirit beings like ourselves, not merely aspects of our psyche.-Soul Fire(SF) For more of the Vicia point of view as represented by Soul Fire, Phoenix Willow, and their associates, see their website at http://www.lilithslantern.com It is an ecstatic, rather than fertility tradition, emphasizing polytheism, practical magic, self-development and theurgy. Strong emphasis is placed on sensual experience and awareness, including sexual mysticism, which is not limited to heterosexual expression. This is a mystery tradition of power, mystery, danger, ecstasy, and direct communication with divinity --Anna Korn, http://www.cog.org/wicca/trads/faery.html

Who created Feri?

Victor Anderson (1917-2001) is credited with being the main advocate of a Feri approach, but I don't think he'd admit to being the creator, but rather the transmitter of knowledge that he'd received himself. Victor was perpetuating an approach, but was not dogmatic about specific lore he was taught.-- Niklas Gander (TJ), phone conversation There has been much discussion about where Feri originated. Several versions of the story have been circulated: 1. that Victor was initiated individually by an old woman of either Gypsy or African stock. This happened in 1926 or 1927 when Victor was living in either New Mexico, Ashland, Oregon or Bend, Oregon (accounts differ); 2. that Victor was initiated and given the Mysteries in 1929 by Harpy Coven in Oregon, and that this coven was formed by migrants from Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama. Accounts of Victor's original teachers differ. Gwydion Pendderwen describes some of Victor's teachers in the first (hardback) edition of Thorns of the Bloodrose: In the Oregon of his youth were many strange and wonderful persons who became his teachers. An Indian who barely spoke English, a band of gypsies who seemed never to grow old, and the ever-present crone who lived in a decrepit hovel on the edge of town.... Cora Anderson mentioned that Victor had a Hawaiian girlfriend when he was in his early teens (to whom one of the poems in Thorns was dedicated), and was presumably exposed to Huna at that time.

In an open letter that Victor wrote to Llewellyn publishers [in 1991], Victor Anderson stated [his spellings and punctuation are retained]: (letter courtesy of SF) August 21, 1991... I don't consider myself the founder of the "fairy" tradition, but I am a Grand Master and a fairy chief. I am the founder of the chapter of my faith on the West Coast of the United States.... I was initiated in 1926, not 1932, by a priestess from Africa. The names of the members of Harpy Coven were not to be made public. The name of our coven should have revealed ... something of the nature of our religion and practice: Harpy is a Greek word for a kind of feminine nature spirit that appears like a bird with a woman's head and a woman's arms and hands for its legs and feet. The name means "snatcher."... The worship of the Goddess was the very heart of our religion and magic. Lilith was one of the names used in our ritual worship of the Lady. Her name is derived from Lilitu, meaning a storm or tornado. We did not think of her as merely the Goddess, but as God Herself. We worshipped the Consort of the Goddess. We did not worship him because it was necessary but because she brought him forth out of her divine lust. Our worship of him was an act of love. Although the Goddess tells us that away from the sweet influence of her love, he is the most terrible of all spirits, he is not the fallen angel or "Satan" of Christianity or Islam. The name Setan (the vowels pronounced as in Italian) is one of his names but has nothing to do with the Christians' name of their fallen angel: It means soul fire. He is the same God as Ja or El. The statement that "the coven was quite eclectic, mixing Huna with folk magic" is incorrect for the following reasons: I am a Kahuna. This is a fact of my racial heritage, personal experience and training. The word Kahuna means "the secret," and is the same in the fairy tradition and the Polynesian religion and magic. Although we were willing to learn new things, we already had a definite and coherent body of knowledge and tradition of our own. So we were not mainly eclectic. The fairy tradition has much in common with Voudon and Santeria. Our celebrations of the Sabat, moons and other rituals, and seasonal observations were much the same as in other traditions. We were ritualistic and devotional, and we were concerned with theology, worship and ethics. Our simple meal of bread and wine occurred only after completing the work and worship in the circle. Ashe. It is not my purpose to lift up self righteous skirts and kick Satanist, but for reasons I believe to be quite obvious I resent [being linked] with Satanism. I could care less what a religion calls their God, so long as they adhere to constructive and ethical beliefs and practices. Phoenix Willow says: Victor taught that that Feri was a religion/magical science dating back to a primordial "small slender dark people" who came out of Africa many thousands of years ago. These are the original "fairies" and they turn up in the legends of many cultures under different names.

What's the history of Feri? What are some of the lineages?

Victor Anderson: Started creating the Feri trad more-or-less as we know it in the 1940s. He began initiating people on an individual basis into the tradition before the 1950's. According to Cora, Victor received a letter in 1960 [other accounts say it was a phone call] from several witches in Italy, among them Leo Martello, asking him to form a coven in California.

Gwydion Pendderwen/Watchmaker:During the 1950's and 60's, Victor's Craft "foster-son," Gwydion Pendderwen (Tom deLong) worked with him, and helped to edit and publish Victor's book, Thorns of the Blood Rose. Gwydion emphasized Celtic origins almost exclusively in his own practice, with a smattering of Voudoun; other teachers have emphasized the Hawaiian, the African-diaspora, or even traced the lineage back to the Attacotti, who were small dark possibly southern European settlers in Scotland thousands of years ago. Gwydion later moved north to Annwfn (Witch-owned land in Mendocino county), and worked psychedelic group shamanic and Voudon rituals. Gwydion produced a large number of articles, rituals, poems, and songs before his death in 1982. There is a line of Feri descended from Gwydion, known as Watchmaker. Not much is known about this line, as its practitioners are quite reclusive. Vanthi: The late Alison Harlow, initiated by Victor Anderson and Gwydion Pendderwen in the early 1970s, brought in a taste of Gardnerianism to her coven/lineage, Vanthi. She was made 3rd degree Gardnerian many years after her Feri initiation and training. Some descendants of Vanthi still teach as a coven. Other descendants teach as individuals. Some of the Vanthi line lore is quite different from the lines of Feri that descend from the Bloodrose line. --J'te, August 2008 Bloodrose: Eldri Littlewolf met Victor and Cora in 1969 but didn't get initiated into Feri until five years later; she, Gabriel Carillo, Tony Spurlock, and Stephen Hewell were the basis of coven Silver Wheel, [later Korythalia, and finally Bloodrose]. Silver Wheel was formed in the Winter of 1975-76, and ceased in 1980. ...Gabriel taught his first classes under the name of Bloodrose.... (Stephen Hewell, email) Gabriel's line became known as Bloodrose, and has many descendants who are still teaching, as is Gabriel. Compost Feri: Compost Coven was formed in the early 1970s.... The founding High Priestess, Starhawk, had been initiated into the Faery tradition; but strands of many traditions, learned both from personal contact with Witches and from books, added to the archetypal materials which arose from dreams and group trancework, were woven by the original Composters to form a web of unique design, unlike that of any other group. --vw The rest of the story can be found at http://www.compostcoven.org/compost/comphist.html. (Note that the teachings on the compostcoven site range from Feri to purest Eclectic, depending on the author.) The Compost Tradition lives on in the DustBunny group, my ongoing class, and in the newly-formed coven of its Feri initiates, GoldenThread. Over the years, I had passed the Faery Mysteries to several Composters, Willow Moon among them. Willow (with his partner Niklas Gander) later adopted me into their NightHares line, downline from BloodRose, while still considering my earlier initiation to be valid. At first highly influenced by NightHares practice and lore, I have gradually departed from their way of doing Feri, seeking a more streamlined version of ritual practice. Under the influence of Cora Anderson, the people of her Vicia line, and my own researches into Feri, I am developing a set of my own teaching and devotional materials, and teach them both online and in person to the DustBunnies group and its initiates. Thus the Feri stream in Compost resurfaces as a Feri lineage. Mandorla/Vicia: Mandorla Coven, to which Phoenix Willow belongs, was founded by initiates of Victor and Cora Anderson, and practices a form of Feri known as Vicia. This line uses material taught by the Andersons in the 1980s and '90s and differs somewhat from the majority of Feri being taught today. They trace their lineage directly to Victor and Cora. They tend to initiate first and teach afterward, and are more improvisational and less scripted than Bloodrose-descended lines. Their website and bookstore, through which works by Victor and Cora can be ordered, is at http://www.lilithslantern.com. Phoenix says, My primary teachers are initiates of Victor and Cora. What I'm learning are initiatory teachings from Victor and Cora, plus my teachers' personal experiences and approaches. When asked what makes Vicia different from the other Feri lineages, she said: I'd say that we're more improvisational and less scripted. Definitely more kitchenwitchy and less high church in ritual than folks downline from Bloodrose..... We don't work with a closed pantheon. If anything, I'd say the emphasis is probably on the Star Goddess and the Twins (different from the Twins found in other branches)... We don't do Empowerment/Quickening. Instead there's a single initiation that includes a passing of power. We don't do the 'demon work' that originated with Bloodrose, nor do we use their Lead pentacle. ... Initiation usually comes near the beginning of training, rather than after

many years of study. We don't charge money for Feri training, just as the Andersons never did. On the other hand, training is normally in a coven/apprenticeship setting--so there's a lot less opportunity for folks to do it. We tend to be very reclusive.

Breakaway and branching lines:

Draconian Pictish-Elven Witchcraft: Among the breakaway lines which depart considerably from the mainstream of Feri are Brian Dragon's Draconian Pictish-Elven Witchcraft at http://www.pictdom.org/ Brian (Tony Spurlock) says: "Pictish-Elven" is meant to signify a subset or offshoot of the so-called Feri or Fairy Tradition as adumbrated by Victor Anderson and represented by the late Gwydion Pendderwen, Starhawk (especially in the first book), and Francesca De Grandis, author of the recent Be a Goddess. ... The "Pictish" element is meant to bring back to the fore one central thread of the Tradition -- as taught by Victor -- .... I refer to the legend that the Feri Tradition carries on and embodies the legacy and lineage of the pre-Christian mystery cult of the Picts (the pre-Scottish inhabitants of what is now Scotland). Third Road: Another breakaway line is the Third Road school, led and taught by Francesca Dubie/De Grandis. The Third Road Tradition is regarded as a Feri-derived trad, as is Pictish-Elven Witchcraft. Reclaiming: Reclaiming was formed in the 1970s by Starhawk, who had been initiated after a brief course of study by Victor some years before. Starhawk had previously been one of the founders of Compost Coven, which is my own tradition. She (with others) formed Reclaiming as a collective with political action as a major focus. Many of the Reclaiming people were not and are not Feri, but there is a Feri initiation available for those in Reclaiming who wish to follow that path. Web references to Reclaiming are numerous; their official site is at http://www.reclaiming.org/

Which other Pagan traditions seem most compatible with Feri? Which don't seem to mix well?
Many Feris hold dual membership in both Feri and other religions such as Unitarian Universalist, Buddhist, Vodoun, Hindu, Santeria, Subud, Ifa, and many others. There are Feris who have no problem being both Feri and Gardnerian, Feri and Eclectic, Feri and Sabbatic, Feri and Thelemic, and so on. Each individual Feri is responsible for hir own path, since Feri is not merely a set of doctrines, but a way of being. Traditions that don't mix well would be any tradition which does not allow the practitioner the freedom to disagree. I suppose there are Pagan trads like this, but the worst examples are generally found among the fundamentalist branches of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions. However, there is still some overlap possible even in these sects. For example, Cora's family was quite Christian, but she was able to remain a sincere churchgoer and still be a vital force in Feri, or "the Craft", as she calls it.

Why is it called Feri rather than Faery or Fairy?

According to Phoenix Willow: Cora says the name Faerie became attached to the tradition "by accident." Later on, Victor began using the spelling Feri in order to distinguish our tradition from other groups using the terms fairy or faerie (R.J. Stewart, Kisma Stepanich, etc.). Various other names were used over time--including Vicia and possibly Pictish. FWIW, I've never heard either Victor or Cora using the word Feri in casual conversation, it's always just "the Craft." According to Niklas Gander, Victor explained the word "Feri" as "Fe-Ri", meaning "workers of the Fey (power)."

Which traditions called "Faery" or "Fairy" have no connection with Feri tradition?
--Kisma Stepanich's "Celtic Faery Wicca" --R. J. Stewart's Faerie tradition

--Radical Faeries --several Wiccan traditions with the word Fairy or Faery in their coven names

How is Feri different from other forms of the Craft?

Niklas Gander wrote an article for Witch Eye magazine that summed it up pretty neatly, at least from the point of view of the Bloodrose lines. Salient points, with my comments: -- A number of variously sexual gods as opposed to a divine male-female dyad. -- Non-subscription to the Wiccan Rede and Law of Threefold Return; instead, individual responsibility for the consequences of one's actions is accepted. -- "the essence of Feri is not found in a shared liturgy as much as in a shared approach to magic and the Craft" [although some lines are much more "high-church" than others, with more set liturgy--vw]. -- Emphasis on spiritosexual ecstasy leading to personal development rather thanmale-female sexual polarity leading to fertility or healing. [also, there is an emphasis on bringing energy used in magickal workings back into the practitioner,rather than "grounding"--vw] -- Oral tradition rather than dependent on a written tradition kept in a Book of Shadows. [Each practitioner is expected to add hir own material, so a practitioner downline from any particular teacher will have branched out into new directions.--vw] -- Single initiation rather than two- or three-degree system. [This, however, has been somewhat diluted in some lines by the addition of empowerment/quickening ceremonies at the beginning of training. Different lines vary widely in the timenecessary before an individual can be initiated, some lines initiating first and training later, and other taking years to train before initiation.--vw]. -- "Feri initiations vary widely... as long as certain core lore is passed during the course of initiation. In this way, rites of initiation are often tailored to the specific individual being initiated." Another view is available at http://www.compostcoven.org/compost/andraste.html in which Leah Samul interviewed Anna Korn and which appeared in the Compost NewsLetter.

Is Feri a Wiccan tradition?

Feri does not subscribe to the Wiccan Rede, which is an important criterion for inclusion under the Wiccan classification. The word "Wiccan" has become a pejorative in recent years, mainly because of the proliferation of "fluff-bunny" groups who are self-taught from such watered-down sources as the Llewellyn books. However, these groups do not comprise the entirety of Wicca: aside from eclectic/inclusive groups such as Compost, there are many other traditions in the greater Craft community which share beliefs, lore, and even practice with Feri, among them 1734 (Robert Cochrane), Church and School of Wicca (Gavin and Yvonne Frost), sabbatic witchcraft (Andrew Chumbley), and others.

Does Feri tie to an ethnic heritage? Or focus on a specific cultural identity?

Victor, who saw Feri as a universal current and borrowed shamelessly from here, there and everywhere, was in the habit of emphasizing the cultural connections of each individual student, and having them "ask their ancestors." But he wasn't hidebound about it; although he felt that Magick is in the blood, and one must follow one's own genetic heritage, he was realistic enough to know that many people either may not know much about their blood ancestors or may want nothing to do with them; so he sensibly went with the student's individual leanings.

What do Feris believe?

According to an article by Anna Korn: The Faery Tradition, in common with initiatory lineages of the Craft which practice possession, is a mystery tradition of power, mystery, danger, ecstasy, and direct communication with divinity. This is in contrast to traditions which practicepsychodrama or psychotherapy through ritual. [The complete article is at http://www.cog.org/wicca/trads/faery.html, and it answers many of the questions asked here.--vw]

Feri is distinguished by some specific beliefs and practices; some of the core concepts are the Black Heart of Innocence, the warrior ethic, the Three Souls (derived from Huna), and the Feri deities. There are particular deities, who are each regarded as discrete individuals who are not interchangeable with similar deities from other pantheons; simultaneously, the Star Goddess, the source of all, is all of these, and all of us. (Anna did say it's a mystery religion!!;)

What deities do Feris worship?

-- The Star Goddess -- The lemniscate gods (not all lines) -- The Guardians -- Other deities

The Star Goddess

The Star Goddess is God Herself, the source of everything in the universe. According to the largely bloodrose-influenced Faery Roads website at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/5569, "In one sense, all the other deities are but aspects or reflections of Her. And in one sense, She is not female, but, rather, pansexual." Victor called her "the clitorophallic God Herself." She is variously known as Quakoralina, Sugmad, Sugma'ad, Sugmati, Dryghtyn, Drychtyn, The Great Infinite Darkness, The Black Virgin of the Outer Dark, Mother Night, The Womb of the Universe. One of the prayers to the Star Goddess is an inheritance from the Gardnerian tradition, originally written by Patricia Crowther: "In the name of Dryghtyn, the Ancient Providence, Who was from the beginning and is for eternity, Male and Female, the Original Source of all things; all-knowing, all-pervading, all-powerful; changeless, eternal." This has been adapted and added to by various Feri writers, but the fragment gives a sense of the mighty power of the Great Goddess, reverence for whom is held in common by almost all traditions of the Craft.

The lemniscate gods

The children/reflections/ other selves of the Star Goddess include the lemniscate gods, so called because they are generally illustrated in the form of a lemniscate (the figure eight on its side, Latin for "a pendant ribbon"). As they emerge from and return to the Star Goddess, Dian y Glas and Nimue, the young forms of the gods, are at the bottom of the diagram above. Furthest out from the center are the fertility deities, Krom and Mari; and returning to the center are the Crone and Winter King, Anna and the Arddhu.

The Twins

The concept of the Divine Twins as consorts to the Star Goddess was very important to Victor, and much of the confusion about the relationships among the Feri deities is due to the attempt to superimpose a system based on the triple goddess twinned with a triple god (the lemniscate) upon the twin nature of each of the deities. So we have simultaneous descriptions of Krom, for example, being twinned with his opposite number on the lemniscate, Mari, and also being a set of twins himself, the Red God of the animal kingdom and the Green God of the vegetal. Both are simultaneously true, which yet another example of Feri paradox. Placement on the lemniscate is not precise, either. Some would separate the Dian y Glas from Melek Taus, even though many Feris conflate the two; Melek and his twin Lemba can be placed on the lemniscate somewhere between the youthful Dian y Glas and the full-grown, adamantly masculine Krom (who Victor declared "is the same person as the Holy Goddess herself.") Each lobe of the lemniscate is actually a full life-cycle, from birth through maturity to old age and death, and an infinity of gods and goddesses can be placed along these paths. Willow told me that the Nimue/Mari/Anna and Dian y Glas/Krom/Arddhu points are convenient "stopping places" at which we can see the characteristics of the deity full-blown. In her book, Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition, Cora says: "In most traditions of the present time the Goddess is pictured as having one single consort. In what is now called Fairy Tradition She is known to have two consorts. These divine Twins are exactly alike and can function as a pair or both at once. They are both Her son and lover.... We could put it this way and say the bright and dark Godhood are the two sides of a chess board with the

Divine Twins at play while Mother makes the rules."

The Blue God/Melek Taus/Dian y Glas

The firstborn of the goddess is the Blue God, also known as the Peacock Angel, Lord of the Painted Fan, and by some as Melek Taus. The Blue God is regarded by some lines of Feri as the particular patron deity of Feri. The Dian y Glas is usually pictured as a young, blue-skinned, ithyphallic, yet somewhat androgynous god with a serpent. A beautiful picture of the Blue God can be found at Storm Faerywolf's website at http://www.faerywolf. com/art_presencebluegod.htm As Melek Taus, the Blue God is the twin of Lemba, the Lord of the Green Flame, also known as the Living Serpent. He is the main deity of the Yezidi people; an excellent picture of him by Paul Rucker can be found at http://www.ziarah.net/melek.jpg. Comparing Storm Faerywolf's picture of the Dian y Glas with the Rucker picture of Melek Taus will give some idea of the difference between the two which words are inadequate to describe. There is a wealth of information about Melek online, including: http://www.semjaaza.com/azazel.html http://echoes.devin.com/watchers/melek.html http://www.semjaaza.com/peacock.html [update 02/01/06... I'd love it if you included the detail of Krishna (in his baby/flute-playing boy sense) also being very much Dian Y Glas:). He's decorated with peacock feathers and this particular practitioner (amongst several others) finds him her favourite depiction of the young Blue God:). --Snowgrouse(:>) (Feri student), 02/01/06 ] How's Lucifer connected to the Blue God? What's the meaning of Lucifer in Feri tradition? By happydog, via email: The connection with Lucifer and Melek Taus (who some see as the Blue God of Feri, others not) seems to come from western views of Yezidism, which identifies Melek Taus with Lucifer, according to alleged versions of the Yezidis' holy texts, "Mishaf Resh" and "Al Yalvah." The following link leads to one partial rendition of these texts: http://www.angelfire.com/md3/thelema/texts/vasti.html [update 02/01/06:This link is dead. try http://home. c2i.net/blinge/Essays/mishaf.html] However, English translations of both the "Mishaf Resh" and the "Al Yalvah" (also known as the Kitab al-Jilwah) are reportedly viewed with some dismay by modern Yezidi groups. According to various authorities, these texts are regarded as at worst fiction, and at best compilations of certain aspects of Yezidi belief, some accurate and some not. These alleged holy texts may or may not also be influenced by Islamic views of Yezidism...The above link is a transcription of a book from the late 1800's, and the translation is of suspicious authority; I offer it for reference *ONLY.* Anton Szandor LaVey had no compunction about identifying Melek Taus with Lucifer/Satan, and in his "The Satanic Rituals" there is a chapter on an alleged Yezidi homage to Satan, which has been called an outright fraud in scholarly articles in Denge Ezidyan, the official (German language only, unfortunately) publication of the Yezidi religion. However, LaVey's depiction of Yezidism as Satan worship (therefore Luciferian in his view) has made the rounds and been highly accepted in some circles, especially in the "left-hand-path" groups. It is also true that the Islamic peoples of the region are openly hostile toward the Yezidis, to the extent of persecuting them in some cases. Some of their hostility has taken the form of denigrating their religion by referring to Melek Taus as "Shaitan," or Satan, which is a forbidden word among the Yezidi. I am not sure, from my research, if the word is forbidden because it is sacred, or if it is forbidden because it is an insult to Melek Taus to compare MT to Satan. Sources have it both ways. The identification of Melek Taus with Lucifer is also questionable, because that identification is drawn from texts of the 1800's, when the Yezidis were first discovered by Western travelers. Their view was that MT = Lucifer = Satan, which may not be the case.

Most Western travelers in the Middle East in that period were there either as missionaries or as agents of the British Empire, and both were emphatically and explicitly Christian. As a result they were trying to convert the Yezidis to Christianity, and so it would be to their benefit to portray Melek Taus as Lucifer/Devil/Satan. Complicating things here is the fact that Yezidism is an orally-transmitted, highly mystical religion and has been a "minority religion" in some of the least-travelled and least-understood regions of the Middle East for quite some time. As a result there is a great deal of misinformation floating around about the Yezidis. For example, one recent online source states that "Yezidis are not reluctant to proselytize," and that they accept converts. However, in a news article I have read, the reporter interviewed a Yezidi religious teacher who stated definitively that the Yezidi do NOT proselytize and do NOT accept converts. Add this to the fact that there are separate sects within Yezidism itself and it makes misinformation a surety... So it seems, at least to me, that the identification of Melek Taus with Lucifer is questionable. I'm not saying that it's invalid, I am simply saying that there is some question, from the research that I have done, whether or not identifying Melek Taus with Lucifer and/or Satan is accurate according to Yezidi teachings. --happydog

Nimue

source: FRW source: TJ/WM, phone conversation Nimue: Also known as the Kymari or the Sun Maiden, she is the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. The Faery Roads website says: "because of her youth, she is somewhat androgynous. Nonetheless, she still embodies the energy which brings all into being, which in humans is sexual energy, a great Passion. Imagine all the power of the Cosmos in the hands of a six-year-old..." Victor regarded Nimue as the Black Heart of Innocence incarnate. As the prepubescent girl, first emanation of the Star Goddess (cf. Starhawk's creation story), Nimue is the Holy Child, embodiment of forbidden passion. She is the protectress and avenger of abused and mistreated children everywhere, fierce, wild, and innocent. Her priestesses wore two green snakes in their hair, and she was accorded a sacrifice of four red pigs, four white pigs, and one black pig, showing her connection to the love and death aspects of the Star Goddess.

Krom

source: FRW Also known as Cernunnos, he is the Horned God with whom Witches in general are familiar. "The Harvest Lord: He is the Spirit of Light and Heat, the ripeness of Summer, and the fullness of Manhood. There is nothing androgynous about him. He is often considered the consort of and parallel of the goddess Mari. At the same time, He, too, is a reflection in a dark mirror of the Star Goddess." --Faery Roads

Mari

source: TJ article The Mother aspect of the Triple Goddess, and the closest form to the Goddess familiar to mainstream Wicca, who mates with /mothers/slays the familiar Horned God. A reflection/ subdivision of the Star Goddess, she can further subdivide into different aspects: "Each of these primary deities show different aspects to the devotee at different times, for example the fecund Green Mari or the fierce protectress Red Mari, etc." --Niklas Gander

The Arddhu

source: Victor Anderson, quoted by TJ/WM The Winter King: the male (though somewhat androgynous due to his age) crone aspect of the God. The Arddhu (pronounced "ar-thee", Old Welsh for "the Dark One," also sometimes spelled Atho) is the Opener of the Gates of Life and Death, and thus is not to be invoked lightly. The Arddhu and the Ana are the "natural gods of nature" according to Victor.

Anna/The Ana

source: FRW The Crone. "She represents old age or death, winter, the end of all things, the waning moon, post-menstrual phases of women's lives. All destruction that precedes regeneration through her cauldron of rebirth. Also known as: Anu, Ana, Annys, Anysa (Celtic), Black Ana of the Forbidden Mysteries, Cerridwen (Welsh), Arian-

rhod of the Silver Wheel (Welsh), the Morrigu (Irish), Kali (Hindu)". source: The Ancient British Goddess, http://www.kathyjones.co.uk/local/hpages/kathyj/apbritgoddess.html "The next great recorded arrival in the British Isles was that of the Tuatha de Danann or the People of the Goddess Dana, Danu, Anu, Anu Dana, Ana or Amma. She is the first of the three Fates, a Goddess of Rebirth. She is the Mother of all the Gods and some say She is also Domnu, the Goddess of the Fomoire. Near Killarney two mountains are still called the 'Paps' (breasts) or 'Paps of Anu'. Her people were said to have arrived from the sky, landing on a mountain in Ireland. Danu was masculinized in later Welsh myth to become Don and the stories of the Tuatha de Danann are equated with the People of the Don in the parallel Welsh mythological cycle of the Mabinogion. In Saxon tales Anu became Black Annis. She was also Ana Our Mother, Morg-Ana the Virgin/Crone and Anna the Grand Mother Goddess." Anna is the Cailleach, the Crone who becomes the Maiden once more at Imbolc, completing the cycle of the year. [update 02/01/06: The preceding link is dead. For online info on the Ana or Anna, try http://www.spinninglobe.net/goddessnames.htm ...Cohane believes Ana to be primarily the personification of an abstract quality -- "blessed" from the Semitic tongue - and sees the distribution of place-names with the "Ana" element in them primarily as designations for "Blessed Awa." Robert Graves says the name means "queen." According to Barbara Walker, editor of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, the name appears in a great many cultures, some widely separated by time and/or space. Thus, there is Anna-Nin, Nana or Inanna, Queen of Heaven in Sumeria (An means Heaven in Sumerian, according to Graves), Anatha, (Syria), Anat (Canaan), Ana or Anah (Old Testament), Di-Ana (Semitic) or Dinah (from the Syriac version of the Old Testament, referring to the goddess of the Dinaite tribes in Sumeria), both uses of "Di" referring to divinity or godhead, Anna (Pelasgian Greek), Nanna (the incarnation of the Danish Goddess Freya as the mother-bride of Baldur), Anu (early Danaan Goddess in Ireland), Ana or Anan, which Robert Graves says are names for the Goddess Danu, who had two aspects, one nurturant, the other maleficent, as which she was sometimes known as Morgana to the Irish ("Death Ana," one third of the triple Goddess known as The Morrigan, ("Great Queen"); Anna Perenna (Roman), Black Annis of Leicester to medieval Christians, who lived on "Dane Hill" (Danaan?) and used to devour children -- ending with St. Anne, mother of the virgin Mary, grandmother of God. This long history seems to me too ubiquitous to be reduced to an abstraction! It goes even further: Graves cites the view of a Mr. E.M. Parr that Athene was another Anna namely, Ath-enna, which occurs in inverted form in Libya as Anatha. Graves' verdict on the subject is "...if one needs a single, simple, inclusive name for the Great Goddess, Anna is the best choice."... Upcoming soon: my page on Anat/Tanit/Neith (currently in work). Apparently Anatha, as she is known in the Feri Candle chant, is another of those Great Goddesses once known in triple aspect as Maiden-Mother-Crone but subsequently relegated to strictly Crone status. Hekate underwent a similar process. -- vw]

The Guardians

source: TJ source: FRW The Guardians, also known as the Nephilim, the Watchtowers, the Korylan, or the Grigori, are not so much deities as they are segments of the universe which might include deities. They exist at one and the same time here on earth at the periphery of the circle, and in the vast depths of space. To call them "means to focus their energies in a particular place."--Niklas Gander The attribution of the elements and ritual tools to each direction is a subject of much discussion. The consensus is that the elements take the directions which seem right depending on where you are. Thus in California, Water would rightly be in the West, and Fire in the South. On the East coast, Water would more correctly be in the East. Not to mention the total reversals required in the southern hemisphere! (There is an interesting article on directional attributions by a Welsh Traditionalist, Mike Nichols, who gives reasons for putting Air in the

North, at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7280/rethink.html). Feri tools are generally held to be Wand for Air and Knife for Fire, which is the reverse of the way many people are used to regarding them. The slight disconnect involved in using an unfamiliar attribution is interesting and probably salutary. The English names of the Guardians are: Air: Star Finder, who represents the power of Knowledge. Fire: Shining Flame, who represents the power of Truth. Water: Water Maker, who represents the power of Love. Earth: Black Mother, who represents the power of Wisdom. The Guardian of the Zenith (above) is Heaven Shiner, The Guardian of the Nadir (below) is Fire in the Earth, and they represent the power of Pure Consciousness. The Guardian of the Center is regarded by Reclaiming as the same as the Guardian of the Gates, but by other Feri lines as the Witch Hirself. The Guardian of the Gates is called when invoking the Mighty Dead. The preceding are now regarded as more-or-less public names; this was not always so. Eldri Littlewolf tells me that these names were kept quite secret in the early days of Feri, as was the Iron Pentacle.

Other deities:
The Elemental Goddesses: (These are regarded as the feminine aspect of each Guardian.)
sources: Spiral Dance/FRW/WM and websites indicated East: Arida http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/5569/FaeDirectionGoddesses.html gives the name of the Eastern elemental goddess as Arida, which is also found in Starhawk's The Spiral Dance. http://www.dame-mehri.com/lorraine/fullmoon-99.htm gives this version of the name as one of the names of the full moon and also invokes her for air. It was also a secret Gardnerian name for the Great Godddess. This name closely resembles "Aradia," familiar as the title of Charles Leland's 1899 work, subtitled The Gospel of the Witches. Leland claims this to be a true account of nineteenth-century Italian witchery, aka Stregheria or La Veccia Religione (online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/aradia/index.htm.) Aradia is the daughter of the goddess Diana by her brother Lucifer, who she seduced in the form of a black cat. Doreen Valiente says about variants on this name in Where Witchcraft Lives, "The Italian Aradia is evidently Herodias, and an Italian writer Pipernus writing about the witch cult in 1647 conjectured that the name did not refer to the character in the New Testament, but was much older. The nineteenth-century American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland agreed with this, and states his belief that the name Herodias was originally a title of Lilith, the weird Sumerian goddess of witchcraft and the Other World."

South: Tana, Tanit[h]/Anat[ha]

source: Serpent of Wisdom, http://www.songsouponsea.com/Promenade/IslandsE.html#Tanit Source: http://wald.heim.at/sherwood/530383/anat.html "The Sumerian word for god is dingir, which became tengir, then tani. Tan means serpent. Asherah was also identified with the Sumerian goddess Inanna and the Babylonian Ishtar, whose symbol was the eight-pointed star and crescent preserved by the Sumerians as an old shamanistic symbol for the godhead. Ishtar became Astarte to the Semitic Phoenicians, and later Tanith, the serpent goddess. As Tanith, Asherah's symbolic pole was represented as a pole with two serpents twisted around it (the caduceus). In the Garden of Asherah, the Serpent of Wisdom taught men how to become immortal like the gods (Aleim, one of the Children of the Gods, which the Jews wrote as Elohim)." According to Leland's Aradia, Tana was the old Etruscan name for Diana, which is still preserved in the Romagna Toscana. The "Anat" form of this name was fused linguistically with those of Astarte, Isis, Neith, and several other goddesses in ancient Egypt. According to Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess, Anath was an importation from the Canaanites who was worshiped by the Jews in early times. Curiously enough, the version "Anatanta" was found at at Tanis in Egypt, during the period of Ramses II.

West: Tiamat

Tiamat is the well-known Babylonian deep-sea serpent mother goddess thought to be the daughter of Chaos. According to the Enuma Elish (c. 2000 BCE), Marduk slew the sea goddess and cut her body in two. With one half he formed the sky, and with the other he formed the earth. For more info on the Enuma Elish, see http:// www.theologywebsite.com/etext/enuma/eintro.shtml.

North: Belili/ Verr-Avna

source: Lunar Cycles and Goddess Energies, http://homestar.org/bryannan/moons.html Sumerian White Goddess. Beli "white," bellus "beautiful," bile "sacred tree." Originally, every tree was hers, but above all she was known as a willow goddess, and also of wells, springs, love, and the underworld. She was the predecessor of Ishtar, and the sister/lover of Tammuz. She was later transmuted into Beli/Zeus/Jupiter, the "supreme god of light," who became known as the "father" to Arianrhod and all goddesses. I have been unable to find any references to Verr-Avna (but see Tony Spurlock's explanation below.)

More (and more accurate) Info on the Directional Goddesses: From the Witch Eye e-list:
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:28:49 -0800 From: "Dragon Morn, Rex Pictorum"[Tony Spurlock] Subject: Re: Goddesses of the Directions By way of warning, let me say that I'm going to proceed as if thesethings can be discussed openly. I see no point in trying to delicately edge around these Goddess names just on the possibility that some ... might not be familiar with them. Therefore, I'll just run down my "take" on these names and the whole institution of these names, that is, their place in Feri praxis as I see it. Firstly, -- and I certainly don't mean to offend anyone by this assessment -- these names and their use have been a small thing, used only during the initiation. And, I think, it was just a "Victor-ism". While it's always possible that they did this in the Harpy Coven, I think it was added by Victor at a later time. I'm one of the few people who has any particular qualification to speak on this, in that I am the person who rendered the "cassette of initiation" into a written form. It is my rendition that forms the basis of most Feri initiation texts. It was in 1977, not long after my own initiation, while I was living at Caradoc's (Gabriel's) house in Berkeley, that Caradoc and Steven (Hewell) succeeded in convincing Victor to put down everything he could think of about the initiation onto audio cassette. This resulted in a lengthy tape, I think 90 minutes. As you can imagine, Victor alone with a microphone and a 90 minute tape resulted in a meandering exposition that went in and out of focus. At certain places Victor would imagine himself in the midst of the ritual, giving imagined improptu "lessons" or instruction to the imaginary initiate. Since I had recently been initiated and since I was a scholar of Wicca (I had been able to recite a standard Wicca initiation from memory for years), I was eagerly and minutely studying the tape as soon as it came into the house, and therefore it fell to me to transform the meandering tape into a written initiation ceremony. As is typical of this sort of ceremony, after the 'crisis' of the Oaths and, in our case, the sequence that culminates in the passing of the Names of the Goddess and God, there is presentation of the new brother or sister to the four directions. But, because Feri has special names and signs for the Lords of the Outer Spaces, this first circumambulation becomes an extension of the passing of the Names: the inititiate is still being given revelation of secret information. And, because this first circuit is instructional (being shown how to make the Signs, etc.), Victor felt the "proclamation" or "presentation" of the new initiate to the four corners of the world had yet to take place. Therefore he immediately adds a second circuit for the Presentation. Now, in Gardnerian type initiations, this presentation would be to unnamed guardians, spirits, or Lords of the Watchtowers of the directions. Well, having just spent so much time teaching about our own peculiarly Feri Lords of the Outer Spaces, such a presentation would be redundant and a cause of confusion as regards the zenith and nadir. Hence the source of Victor's solution: Goddess names for the four directions/elements, to be used in the Presentation of the new brother/sister of the Craft; also serving to remind the initiate that this is a Goddess-worshipping cult, a subject that hadn't been addressed for the last many minutes of the ceremony.

Arida: East/Air -- Why this name for Air? Although I risk sounding silly, I should point out that the first three letters of this name are exactly those used to spell A-I-R, which would not be true if the name Aradia were used. Moving to the named Aradia, however, I think I see a more satisfying clue. Most people, misguided by the the utterly irrelevant Biblical namesake mother of Salome, aren't aware that Aradia is just Leland's prefered ALTERNATE SPELLING of Herodias, the Italians (like the French) prefering not to pronounce initial 'h' or final 's'. Why should that be important to the present discussion? Because -- Salome's mother being irrelevant -- what is the single most important connection between Herodias and Witchcraft? It is that early Catholic Church document denouncing those women, deluded by Satan, who claim to FLY THROUGH THE AIR with Herodias! Tana: South/Fire -- ... I'm unfamiliar with the legend of Tana that connects her with fire. But the 'accident' of her name punning with the Celtic words for fire is a happy one. If my guess that Tana is Etruscan is right, maybe it is more than an accident of language. This reminds me of my researches into "Saint Kentigern" as a Pictish remnant of the cult of Lugh in North Britain. Kentigern's earliest miracles are all concerned with lightning and fire and his mother's name is Thaney or Teniu or Tanuuetis, which name I suspect of being based on Tan/Fire. Heva Leviathan Tiamat: West/Water -- Contrary to what some webpages say, the original tape had Victor saying this name as three. This is typical of Victor's phase of studying Mesopotamian mythology and the Pagan roots of the Bible (see also the Goddess Candle-lighting chant). Tiamat was the primordial sea serpent of Sumer/Babylon's creation myth. She was chaos and filled the pre-creation limitless sea of space. From the remains of her carcass, all the rest of the universe was made, reminiscent of Ymir, the Norse Frost Giant. Because of Victor's fascination with astrophysics, he could expand at length on how this original mother serpent resembles the pre-Big Bang universe. Leviathan (which he pronounced with all short vowels, stress on the first syllable. Thus: LEVee-ahthahn) is an Old Testament gigantic sea serpent, as well. In Antiquity, it was widely thought that all solid land was clumped toward the center of an enormous great sea that encompassed everything. This sea was, in turn, personified by the idea of an immense serpent that filled it, sometimes called the World Serpent. HEVA is just a rendering of the Genesis spelling of the mother of mankind, EVE. The definite article is indicated by an attached 'h'. They did likewise with Adam, yielding The Adam and The Eve: H-adam and H-eva. Heva also being Hebrew for 'womb.' (H-adam is understood as meaning The Red, as in the color of clay.) Thus, for West, Victor is saying "The great sea-serpent womb of the sea, our mother." Heva Leviathan Tiamat. Verr-Avna: North/Earth -- Corresponding to and resembling no name I can think of (nor Google), I think Victor got this name from his astral travel, which he ardently practiced and from which I think many of his more astonishing flat statements derived (though he usually referred to these as past life memories). He probably was taught this name by the Goddess, or some goddess, perhaps Verr-Avna. It is likely that he considered it to be in the language of the small dark folk. Regarding the complex called North/Earth in esoteric Witchcraft, Victor was perfectly aware that in the ancient world-conception Earth, as well as the Sea, equates with infinity. That is why he also linked the North with the Well of Space when treating of the Lords of the Outer Spaces. The Earth, or the esoteric Earth, is infinite and black, like space, because not only is unexplored wilderness (which is in the North) infinite, but because we magaically travel underground/under Earth, and that is a limitless expanse. The Seventy-Two Bright Spirits: also known as the Shem-Ham-Forasch. Seventy-two is a magickal number in many traditions, being the number of the so-called "Genii" of the Mercury sphere. These beings are known in the original Hebrew Kabbalah as the 72 Genii or "Names of God" or as the 72 lettered Name of God. For much more on this, see Franz Bardon's online book "Buchman-Naga: Talismanic Theomagic" at http://www.geocities. com/franzbardon/buchnaga_e.html; Dr. Joshua DavidStone's lists of the 72 names at http://www.drjoshuadavidstone.com/compilednames.htm and Jim Cornwell's excerpt from his The Alpha and the Omega at http://www. mazzaroth.com/Introduction/TheNamesOfGod.htm Other deities common to Feri and other traditions include Hekate, Cerridwen, Kali, and many others, depending on the devotional practices and preferences of the individual. One's personal deity is the deity that the individual practitioner feels most drawn to contact/ pray to/ interact with/ aspect as part of Godself, the interface between the human and the divine. In some other occult traditions this is known as the Holy Guardian Angel. Goddesses and Gods of the Candle Chants:The candle chant is used in some lines as an invocation when the candle for the Star Goddess is lit during the casting of a Feri circle (actually, a sphere): "Ashtaroth, Ashtoreth,

Belili, Belkoreth, Lilith-Alure, Anatha, Tiamat!" These names have been explained to me as corresponding to the concepts of Fertility, Beauty, Power, Darkness, Above/Below, and the Ultimate. There is a corresponding chant for the god which goes: "Keraillos, Keranos, Kernunnos, Krana, Kronos" and which apparently is composed of titles of the God in different stages of his life-cycle. Not all lines use these candle chants. Patai explains Ashtaroth as being the plural form of Ashtoreth, which was the Hebrew version of Astarte. For Anatha and Tiamat, see notes on the directional goddesses, above. The "Alure" title of Lilith-Alure is unexplained, and may be another Victorism.

What are the basic Feri practices? [Update 02/03/06]

[Versions of some of the core practices of Feri are located on this site. Click HERE for more info. - Storm] Some specifically Feri tools used to accomplish self-development work are: [VeeDub's material, offsite links] a.) Alignment of the Three Souls b.) The Pentacles c.) Elemental Balancing d.) Energy Work (Blue Fire in some lines) e.) Kala Rite f.) Deity work g.) Shadow Lover/Frevachi (Demon work in some lines, not used in all lines) [Note: links are to my own open-source Compost Tradition practice and may not correspond at all with the praxtices of other lines of Feri.]

The Three Souls

source: Thorn Coyle's website at http://www.thorncoyle.com/ source: PW, email, SF, personal conversations Soul Color Position Hawaiian name Hebrew name Egyptian name African name Fetch, ChildSelf red(VA) Pelvis Unihipili Nefesh Ka Vivi Talker yellow(VA) Chest Uhane Ruach Ba Emi Godself blue(VA) Skull Aumakua Neshana Za Ori We are a trinity. We have a soul that stores the life-force and speaks in symbols and through play. We have a soul that communicates through speech and listening, through words and energy. We have a soul that is Divine, that is ancestor and teacher.--Thorn Coyle In Feri, each of the three souls is thought to use a different type of energy. (This is pretty much identical to traditional Huna teachings.) The Fetch/Unihipili uses a basic form of energy called mana. In Sanskrit this energy is referred to as prana, in Chinese it's called chi. Both Feri and Huna agree that mana is the fundamental energy of life present in everything. Our Fetch gathers mana from food, air, etc. to create and maintain our material existence. The Talker/Uhane amplifies mana into mana-mana. Mana-mana is used to create and maintain our conscious thought and ability to reason. The God-Self/ Aumakua uses an exponentially more powerful form of energy known as mana-loa. Through practices like the Ha Prayer, we can gather up and send mana to our God-Self through the Fetch. The God-Self then converts it into mana-loa and uses it to create/heal/etc. on our behalf. In Huna it is said that the kahunas could instantly heal major injuries and perform other miraculous feats through the power of mana-loa. --Phoenix Willow The Pentacles of Feri: are a set of meditational devices which are characteristic of, but not exclusively confined to, Feri. All pentacles below are listed in order deosil from the top around the points, though they can all be worked through the pentacle (i.e., Sex, Pride, Self, Power, Passion for the IP). There are many different ways of running the Pentacles. Starhawk taught the roundways method, but many Feris use the throughway method primarily. Some good links to further study include: http://www.faerywolf.com/essay_ironpentacle.htm, an article by Storm

Faerywolf http://www.reclaiming.org/newsletter/67/pentacle.html The Iron Pentacle as a meditative tool, by Hilary Valentine of Reclaiming http://www.tejasweb.org/html/writings/epistepentacle.html Epistemology and the Pentacles of Feri, an article by Mike Rock Iron Sex Self Passion Pride Power

(Some Feri practitioners use the Iron Pentacle with the Self and Passion points at the practitioner's right and the Power and Pride points at the left; others reverse this with Power/Pride at the right and Self/Passion at the left.) Pearl Love Knowledge Wisdom Law Liberty

(There is some disagreement about the position and naming of several of the Pearl Pentacle points. Some Feri place Wisdom at the left hand and Knowledge at the left foot; and some place Power rather than Liberty at the right hand.) Other Pentacles (see footnotes for sources): Elemental 1 Ether Air Fire Water Earth Lead (Bloodrose)2 Greed/Lust Egotism Obsession Arrogance Force Lead (Victor)3 Discernment Realization Control Density Stability Life Birth Initiation Ripening Reflection Death Rust Self-abnegation Indifference Ignorance Guilt Sloth Chivalric4 Generosity Courtesy Chastity Chivalry Piety Dance of Shiva5 Creation Veiling Manifestation Destruction Release Tuatha6 Poetry Music Dance Healing Agriculture Underworld7 Opening Judgement Rebirth Letting Go Death Magus8 To Weave To Dare To Will To Keep Silence To Know Notes: 1. There is a great deal of variation in the attribution of elements to pentacle points. The Bloodrose-derived lines follow Gabriel's lead in attributing the element of Water to the Passion point and Fire to the Pride point on the Iron Pentacle. Victor, however did not attribute elements to the pentacles or to the tools. 2. and 3.: Gabriel's version of the Lead Pentacle is for dealing with imbalances, while Victor's Lead Pentacle is for manifesting and healing. 4. According to Macha NightMare, this is the set of qualities which Sir Gawain had on his (pentacle) shield, and which are the qualities of the true knight. 5. email communication from Reya Mellicker. 6., 7., 8. From the Pagan Universalist site at http://members.tripod.com/~kalimountain/pentacle.html There are many more Pentacles. One interesting one is the Amethyst Pentacle by Storm Faerywolf and Chas Bogan, which appears in Witch Eye #7. This also names the paths between the points as well as the points.

Energy Work

source: PW, email About the use of Blue Fire in Feri.

Many years ago, Gabriel introduced a series of exercises for working with "Blue Fire" into Feri. These exercises were based on prana yoga techniques. This form of Blue Fire is synonymous with mana. So when someone of Bloodrose-derived lineage talks about "Blue Fire," they are usually referring to prana/mana/chi. The same is true of Reclaiming, as many Reclaiming folks have trained off-and-on in Bloodrose-derived Feri. These groups have many excellent exercises for perceiving and working with this energy. Victor, however, used the term "Blue Fire" to refer to mana-loa, the "fire of the gods." This is how the term is used in Cora's book (Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition, pages 39- 40). The Bloodrose lineages usually recognize a mana-loa type of energy as well, but refer to it as "White Fire" or sometimes "Baraka"--an Arabic term of roughly similar meaning to mana-loa. (There may be other terms in use as well.) --Phoenix Willow There are many ways of raising energy; some specifically Feri methods are the Ka-Ba-Za meditation of Nighthares and the Ladder of Hestia in my own practice, in both of which the energy of each soul is envisioned while chanting; the Ha Prayer, which sends energy to the Godself by way of the Fetch; energy purifications such as the Kala rite, and others. The Pentacles are another category of energy work.

The Kala Rite

This is a method using a cup of water for purifying energy and reclaiming bound-up life force. Kala is Hawaiian for "to loosen, untie, free; to forgive, pardon, excuse; to proclaim," and to be kala is to be pure, clean, focused, and clear in intent.

The Shadow Lover/Frevachi/Demon work

Not all lines of Feri practice demon work or frevachi. The concept was originated by Gabriel Carrillo, and his descendants have become accustomed to using several varieties of work with one's personal demons or with actual demonic spirits. Rhea Shemazi has an excellent article on the subject in Witch Eye #5. The Feri "toolbox" contains a number of techniques excellent for dealing with core personal issues, or "complexes," as Victor used to call them.

Why does the training involve secrets and oaths?

source: CA Some of the secrets are unbreakable because they involve concepts and experiences which are not expressible in words. A few are secret because Feri is a mystery religion, and publishing them would destroy the mystery. Remarkably little is actually oathbound material, according to Cora Anderson: the Names of the Feri deities and Guardians, and the inexpressible current of energy which is passed from teacher to student at initiation. However, there has been a tendency in recent years to regard more and more information as oathbound, at least in some lines. And some material which was formerly quite secret, such as the Iron Pentacle, is widely disseminated these days. Initiatory oaths are optional, according to Cora Anderson. At the same time, she says that initiation like getting married to the gods -- there's no taking it back. Once a Feri initiate, always a Feri. For more of Cora's comments on this, see the question on GrandMastership below.

What does it take to be a Feri?

source: Thorn Coyle's website -- Black Heart of Innocence: "the innocent, sexual state found in the child before her force was constrained and perverted, and in the animal still roaming in the wild"--Thorn Coyle. -- Warrior ethic: since Feris do not subscribe to the Wiccan Rede, they each have to work out a code of ethics for themselves, one which takes personal responsibility for every act and judges what is correct action by each situation individually. A lot of discipline is necessary in order to overcome the temptation to regard one's wants and needs as paramount, superceding those of anyone else. -- Ability to face one's own personal demons and come to terms with them -- Ability to "cross over" into the Faerie realm -- Ability to work with the Feri "current" -- Psychological strength and flexibility

-- Initiation by a Feri initiate during which the Mysteries are passed -- Ability to develop actual personal relationships with the Gods, up to and occasionally including actual possession -- Courage enough to go into the wild places of the heart

What is a Grandmaster? Who can be a Grandmaster?

source: CA, Tests of a GrandMaster Cora Anderson, GrandMaster since Victor's death, stated the qualifications for Grandmastership thus: Once an individual is brought into the Craft no mortal may take that individual out. When an individual strays he must be brought gently back into the fold. An initiation cannot be undone as it would be like divorcing oneself from the Gods, and that is ridiculous. A disharmonious individual must be dealt with as best as possible. In the very beginning of our practice in the Craft, there were very few individuals involved. Yet arguments and dissension among us soon broke out. Victor created the GrandMaster position to settle important matters and maintain harmony within the circle. The power of the GrandMaster is great, so is the responsibility. One must prove these tests first and let their actions through time be the final judge. There can be more than one GM, but it is not appropriate for every coven to have their own. I pass on the tests and requirements for Grand Mastership. As can beseen, these requirements are very difficult, as they should be. 1. One must be an initiate for at least two years. 2. One must have command of the Black Wand by demonstrating mastery in the techniques of magic. Possession of the black wand does not make one a GM. It signifies a Master who possesses all the powers of sorcery and mastery in magic. 3. One must demonstrate astral travel. The candidate must be able to enter a circle and observe, keeping the rest of the circle unaware. Permission from the HP should be given before any such test and an open circle should be chosen for the test site. The HP gives a sign, significant enough to be seen, yet subtle so as not to break the normal workings of a circle. The candidate must be able to relate this sign to the circle. 4. One must be able to define the duties of a GrandMaster. 5. One must possess the Black Heart of Innocence. 6. One must have seeded at least six covens. 7. One must be trained in possession. On August 23, 2003, a new Black Wand/Grandmaster, Anaar, was inducted by Cora Anderson in the presence of a few Feris. This is Anaar's message to the Feri community: It is my reluctant duty to inform the Feri community that Cora Anderson has given me the rite of passage into the Grandmastership. I use the term "reluctant", for I am feeling reluctant, but this occasion is not without some pleasure. I am proud that Cora has such faith in my abilities, it is an achievement of a lifetime. I can only hope and do fervently pray that I am able to live up to the Andersons' expectations. I am grateful to my friends for their continuing support. There are many misconceptions about the Grandmastership which I would like to clear up. These misconceptions have led many highly trained priests to give up their personal power. Once it is given, it is far too painful and horrifying to retrieve it. I do not and will not accept this. There is no priestly hierarchy in Feri, and the Grandmaster holds no greater importance than any other respected priest and elder. Here are the duties of the Grandmaster: to oversee the covens, to act as a mediator and settle tradition related disputes within a coven, and between covens to be a keeper of Feri lore and secrets, the Grandmaster cannot put anyone out of a coven, the Grandmaster cannot undo an initiation, the Grandmaster cannot break a coven or cause it to break. The only right and privilege of the Grandmaster is that I am free to visit any coven in the astral, not as a participant but as an observer so that I may learn. Needless to say, this experiment will never be undertaken without the express permission of the entire coven. Many honorable members of the community have pressed me to join one of the many Feri lists available in

order to fulfill my duties; however, I must decline. I find these lists to be toxic to my serenity and am therefore disinterested. Should a conflict arise concerning Feri principles (and not Feri personalities) it is my duty to mediate. I do say "mediate" and not "dictate." However, the principles were set down long ago, at the dawn of man's consciousness, and I trust that I have received them well. Despite our tradition of creativity (and on this point I must be clear, creativity is inherent in Feri) these ancient core principles leave little room for deviation. I am by nature a somewhat private person, but I remain open to honest seekers of the faith. To that end, I may be indirectly reached through my closest friends, or directly through my web site. Please be careful in the subject heading, if I do not recognize your address I will not even open the file. I ask all who know how to reach me to understand my position and not give out my personal information. Nothing pains me more than the realization that this may cause some rift and indignation in the community. This is a large undertaking and I need some time to adjust. I am reminded that I am still Cora's student. Given time, my feelings regarding my private nature may change. I am leaving for Hawaii and will return the 6th of September. Hawaii will give me the space and time to meditate on this matter. Thank you for your understanding and thanks to those who support my decision. Evohe! Blessed Be. --Anaar

What is the wand system?

source: SF, email source: CA, personal conversations The wand system is a series of three grades: the white wand is granted at first initiation (in some lines, on first meeting), the green after mastery of Feri lore and practice (in some lines, at or just before initiation), and the black wand on being recognized a true master of magick. Not all lines use the wand system. The Black Lotus line has a different arrangement of wands and different meanings for each: Victor taught some of his initiates in Black Lotus and Nostos covens a slight variation on the wands. He gave the order as green first, and then white, and finally black, and this is what we currently practice: Green for new, growing things; white for the flowering or blooming stage; and black for true power and wisdom that comes with maturity. In addition, the different wands represent specialities. Green Wands, V taught Black Lotus, are healers and herbalists. White Wands are poets and artist Witches. The Black Wand for Feri elders trained in powerful sorcery: e.g. conscious astral travel, possession by the lwa, and the death prayer.--Soul Fire Cora explains the purpose of the black wand as being somewhat akin to the institution of the Talking Stick. The wand-holder would raise it aloft, and nobody could speak, thus stopping disputes in their tracks and enforcing silence. The green wand could do this in hir own coven; the black wand had the authority to do this in a gathering of several covens.

Everything You Know is Wrong: a personal vision of the Craft by valerie walker 2008

A personal vision of the Craft: Over the last thirty years, whenever I have spoken about "the Craft," I have frequently used the term as a shorthand description of Witchcraft in general. More recently, however, I have come to think of it specifically in reference to the Faery/Feri Tradition. This is due to the influence of Cora Anderson, widow of its founder, Victor Anderson, and retired Grandmaster. I was Cora's weekend caregiver for five of the nine years she has been disabled physically by a stroke, and have found her to be not only a delightful person, but also a mine of information about the Tradition. She has been the primary influence on me in both writing about Feri, and in my progress in the Craft. There are those who think of Feri primarily as a faith or an art; but Feri to me is a tool-kit for dealing with paradox... and I am doing my best to deal with the paradoxes that come with the tool-kit. It is not easy to express much of what I have learned, because most of the secrets of Feri are secrets in that they are inexpressible. However, there are enough pieces of lore that can be passed on in words and pictures that I do not simply shrug and give up trying to pass them on to the interested student or inquirer. I think that honest questions deserve answers, as much as it is within my ability to give them. And, as Serge Kahili King said, "Knowledge held secret is about as useful as money under a miser's mattress." What do Feris believe? is often the first question I hear, and the answer is not at all simple. We human beings get too hung up in our metaphors, forgetting that the map is not the territory. Reality and belief also have their own gradations: -- Ultimate reality: unknowable. You just have to trust that things are. This is the area of Mystery. I don't talk much about this, because it's really not a subject that the English language is constructed to talk about. -- Memetic/consensus reality: there are memes which have become very powerful over time and with increased numbers of believers, so that they have assumed an almost physical reality (this level of reality is where I see the gods living; Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods takes this view and expresses it very well). -- Physical reality: If I bang my head into the wall, I will get a headache and establish that the wall exists. However, for a quantum physicist that wall is made up of teeny little packets of something which may or may not be there, so in theory it might be possible to walk through the wall. Perhaps physical reality is also faithbased. -- Personal reality: my own particular mishmash of beliefs in memes, things, objects, states of being, and so on. I can't communicate it to anyone else except through metaphor. And I can never be quite sure that they are getting it in the same way I get it. As Buddha said in the Shurangama Sutra, "a person pointing his finger at the moon... should see the moon. If he looks at the finger instead and mistakes it for the moon, he loses not only the moon but the finger also." This is where we all run into trouble, because it's so easy to forget that personal reality is not necessarily physical reality is not necessarily memetic reality, even though all are subsumed under ultimate reality. It's all true. It's all lies. It's all sacred. It's all bullshit. It's all based on where you stand. "Your doubt is your faith if necessary in your particular case perhaps," as the Morgan Tarot puts it. And since it's all based on where you stand, you can take that hypothetical wall of physical reality and paint it, decorate it, knock it down, find windows and doors in it, sit in its shade, jump over it, tunnel under it, go around it, walk along the top of it if your balance is good and you happen to be headed in that direction... or even walk right through it. So. Here's my take on the core Feri beliefs.

What is the Feri Tradition? In the (nonexistent until some fortunate future date) Encyclopedia of Paganism, my entry for Feri would read something like this:
Feri (also spelled Faery, and occasionally Fairy) is a non-Gardnerian tradition of Witchcraft which derives some of its tone and teachings from such widely-scattered origins as Hawaiian Huna, Haitian Voudon, Qabala, and British Traditional Witchcraft, among others; there are also some apparent Thelemic influences as well. Victor Anderson (1917-2001) is credited with being the main advocate of a Feri approach, but he apparently did not admit to being the creator of the tradition, but rather the transmitter of knowledge that he'd received himself. Victor was an autodidact, a shaman and a charismatic teacher whose influence is still felt. His private library contains many books on occult subjects by authors ranging from Max Freedom Long to R. J. Stewart, Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey, and Robert Graves (just to name a few), with several of whom he corresponded, and whose influence can be seen in his teachings. In an open letter that he wrote to Llewellyn publishers over 10 years ago, Victor Anderson stated [his spellings and punctuation are retained]: August 21, 1991... I don't consider myself the founder of the "fairy" tradition, but I am a Grand Master and a fairy chief. I am the founder of the chapter of my faith on the West Coast of the United States.... I was initiated in 1926... by a priestess from Africa.... The worship of the Goddess was the very heart of our religion and magic.... I am a Kahuna. This is a fact of my racial heritage, personal experience and training. The word Kahuna means "the secret," and is the same in the fairy tradition and the Polynesian religion and magic. Although we were willing to learn new things, we already had a definite and coherent body of knowledge and tradition of our own. So we were not mainly eclectic. The fairy tradition has much in common with Voudon and Santeria. .... Ashe.... "Some people have been driven mad by this": Years ago, I went to Death Valley as part of a group vision quest, during which the members of the group each went off by themselves for three days and three nights alone in the desert, fasting. I was warned during the many preliminary meetings that many people found this experience highly traumatic. But when I got out there, I had several significant dreams, collected a lot of rocks, wrote in my journal, chanted, made prayer-sticks, and had a good time making a stone circle (which may yet be out there) and watching the stars all night. It was fun. Just like doing the daily practice is fun. Just like casting a circle and doing magick and hanging out with the gods is fun. Was there something wrong with me? Shouldn't I have been more scared? Or is it rather that there are more than one, or two, or a dozen ways of being with oneself and ones' gods? That it's different for each person? Similarly, many people over the years have told me that there is something in the unique "current" passed during Feri initiation which can drive the initiate mad, that it's dark and dangerous, and "not for everyone." Victor Anderson expressed the opinion that Feri initiation was something which would alter the initiate's DNA, both figuratively and literally, in order to make him akin to the little dark people who were the original Fae. A Feri friend told me: "I remember hearing that years ago. I don't know if I believe it or not, but I can tell you what I do believe: Victor rewired your brain!!!" Now, THAT I can believe. Victor was a shaman, a trickster, and an extremely opinionated man. It's probably just as well that I never met him, because I feel sure that we would have butted heads a lot. But I have been a close associate of his widow Cora for several years, and have asked her many, many questions about Feri, Faery, and "the Craft." And I feel that if the Feri Tradition of Witchcraft is to be more than simply a cult around the memory of one man, it should be made clear that we each rewire our brains as we go along (with a little help from our friends, of course). Mine is completely different than it was even ten years ago, and not all of that is due to the Feri Tradition. As a matter of fact, I would say that finding different ways in which to rewire my brain is a continuing hobby with me.

"Everything you know is wrong...": When I was eighteen and in my first year of college, I came across a book called The White Goddess, by Robert Graves. I was instantly captured by the idea that everything I had ever been taught about history and religion was false, and that there had been goddess-worshiping religions long before the Greek Olympians. With a mounting sense of having been betrayed in some vital way, I paged quickly through the book, and when I had finished it, began it again.... Segue (imagine, if you will, the movie cliche of the calendar flipping and losing pages like leaves in the wind... appropriate, if over-used) to my late thirties. I had gone through three marriages and three divorces, with three children to show for it. It had not been very many years since I had left Chicago for San Francisco. The last shreds of the hippie movement were still floating in the air; the ambiance was moving from the Summer of Love to Tales of the City, but there were still plenty of free or cheap things to do before the seventies really took hold. In an issue of a free newspaper I found an announcement of a class on "The White Goddess," taught by someone called Starhawk. "Oh, Graves, cool, gotta take that class," I said, and sallied off to Cole Valley. Little did I know that the class was really Wicca 101, and that it would change my life...again. I took the class; I went to the coven meetings; I got initiated; the coven broke up, as covens do; I became a teacher of Witchcraft; I became a Faery initiate without quite realizing that that was what I had become. I initiated others, both into Witchcraft and into Feri. And then I was initiated into Feri again, in a completely different style. Finally, I became a teacher of Feri. A long strange trip, indeed... But back to going crazy: Having been initiated once into the Craft and twice specifically into Faery/Feri, I am in the unique position of being able to compare and contrast the nature of the "current" as expressed in different styles of initiation used by at least two different lineages of Feri. My first, Wiccan, initiation was performed by the whole first generation of Compost Coven. Plenty of energy was passed to me, but I didn't feel that it was "dangerous" at all. This was a peak experience for me, but I never for one moment felt threatened. My second, Feri (Faery, as it was spelled then), initiation was with my high priestess alone, and while the energy passed was intense, I again didn't feel threatened in any way by it. Years later, my second Feri initiation was just as energy-filled, and certainly gave me a great rush which put me in an exalted space for several days. But despite one of my initiators' warning beforehand that "some people have been driven mad by this," I felt just fine, and was able to bathe and bask in the energies evoked. I have felt doubts about specific pieces of lore and beliefs that have been passed to me since then, but none whatsoever about the current of energy. In fact, either I'm very much at home in it or I didn't get it at all, because I really don't know why anyone would be driven mad. I must say this, however: it did change my life, yet again. I made decisions and started projects which I might not have done without the boot in the rear which this jolt of Feri current gave me. And I can see where someone who has a lot of unresolved issues and other baggage can be jolted into divorcing, changing cities, job loss, physical illness, and other seemingly unrelated life changes which have been brought about by the new energies running around in her psyche. From the outside, this may look as if the person has gone mad; but there is a difference between a deep reconstruction of one's life (no matter how inconvenient it might be to one's nearest and dearest), and insanity. Perhaps it didn't drive me crazy because I tended to change my life radically every so often anyway, and radical change was familiar enough that it didn't faze me... much. So, no, we are not crazy. Initiation is intended to be a milestone, not a millstone. As Cora says, initiation is like getting married to the gods--there's no taking it back. Once a Feri initiate, always a Feri. It's my considered opinion that when we all mature and get serious about Feri, that it will only serve to illuminate whatever our personal core beliefs have been during our lifetimes. And this illumination will help us shed those things which are neither useful nor beautiful, and keep those things that are. Oathbound material: Remarkably little is actually oathbound material, according to Cora Anderson, Victor's earliest initiate: the Names of the Feri deities and Guardians, and the inexpressible current of energy which is passed from teacher to student at initiation. However, as Victor's initiates initiated others, and these others initiated still others, the practices, lore, theology, and viewpoints of the various branches departed farther and farther from Victor's original teachings, although his pronouncements were still taken very seriously. (And, of course, as Victor's own way of thinking evolved, it changed somewhat -- although not in the essentials.) As in other religious groups, the interpretations and reinterpretations of the founder's statements became more

and more baroque, giving rise to a veritable Midrash of often-conflicting views. Adding to this trend was the habit of most initiators to regard the proprietary lore of their particular line as "oathbound material," i.e., not to be passed to anyone except initiates into that particular line of initiation descended from Victor Anderson. And since the lines talked to each other less and less as the years passed, the result was a tendency in recent years to regard more and more information as oathbound. Ironically, some material which was originally quite secret, such as the Iron Pentacle, is now widely disseminated. Naturally, in such a secretive, brilliant, cranky group of people, the revealing of information was looked on as a supreme evil, even in cases where this information had been spread all over the Internet for years. The politics of Feri is much like the politics of any occult group; one has only to look at the squabbles among Aleister Crowley and his fellow-Thelemics to get a sense of the intensity of the fireworks which greeted the appearance of every piece of writing from an acknowledged Feri. What I am trying to do in Feri: I have been attempting to take the incredibly baroque version of ritual and lore given to me by my second Feri initiators and others, and simplify it, while still keeping the flavor, the important things, and not denying the truths that I have painstakingly garnered in the years since my first Faery initiation. I think it's possible, like reducing a sauce in cooking -- you don't have to add a lot of ingredients, but you have to cook it slowly and with care and patient attention for a long time. And given that time and care, there's a transformation of what may have been simple ingredients into something wonderful. It's like inner alchemy, or any of the really important bits from the Western magickal tradition. You don't need to keep adding and adding. And that's the mistake I think people have been making with it. Cora Anderson has told me repeatedly that "it's really simple." The reader should understand that my version of Feri is not quite like anyone else's... which makes me just like every other Feri. We are all cranky, highly individual, fiercely devoted to our own personal vision; the difference is merely that I don't claim to have all the truth, and have never stopped asking embarrassing questions at "inappropriate" moments.

Three Souls, Three Pentacles by valerie walker

text and illustrations 2004-2005 The Iron and Pearl Pentacles are a set of meditational devices originating in and characteristic of, but no longer exclusively confined to, Feri. Victor Anderson's original teachings combined the Iron and Pearl Pentacles (then known as Pentagrams) into one Decagram, whose points were read around the figure, Pearl first, thus: Love, Wisdom, Knowledge, Law, Liberty, Sex, Self, Passion, Pride, and Power. Victor also taught the Iron and Pearl Pentagrams separately, along with the Decagram. At times Victor also taught a nine-pointed Enneagram (using Power at the same point on both the Iron and Pearl Pentagrams), but not consistently. Victor's Iron Pentagram (worked around the circle rather than through it) was Sex-Self-Passion-Pride-Power. His Pearl Pentagram was Love-Wisdom-Knowledge-Law-Power. When the two Pentagrams are combined as a Decagram however, Liberty is used for the fifth point of the Pearl instead of Power. Since then, the two Pentacles have been taught separately and the order and names of some of the points have changed in various lines of Feri, although Victor taught the Decagram consistently throughout his lifetime. By the time Starhawk's The Spiral Dance came out in 1979, the two Pentacles were already being used separately. The practice of running the energy point-to-point through the pentacle rather than around the edges was brought in fairly early in Feri, possibly by Gwydion Pendderwen, a close associate of Victor's who is looked on by some as a co-founder of the Faery Tradition. Eventually, a virtual cottage industry of pentacle-making came into being among Feris. Some of the published variants include the Rust, Gilded, Shadow of Iron, Shadow of Pearl, three different Lead Pentacles (one of which is Victor's, although I have been told both that he abandoned it in later years and that he was still teaching and refining it when he died), Source, Character, Amethyst, Aloha, and many more. The Blessing Pentacle is my own contribution to this effort, and came about when I realized the connections between Vivi / Iron and Emi / Pearl Pentacles. The schema seemed to demand a Pentacle for Ori, and extrapolating from the meanings of the points of the other two, the points of Blessing seemed to be intuitively obvious to me. Your mileage, as I have said before, may vary. If your mileage, in fact, does not vary, there may be something wrong. This is important enough that it bears repeating. To me this is an example of the true spirit of Feri: that each Feri initiate is free to create and teach what and how his or her own inspiration has envisioned, rather than merely parroting what has been taught and only half-understood. Mindless acceptance of "revealed knowledge" is completely opposite to the Feri expression of one's own true Self. In Victor's words, "God is Self and Self is God, and God is a person like myself." The three Pentacles discussed here may all be worked through the pentacle (i.e., Sex, Pride, Self, Power, Passion for the Iron), deosil (clockwise) around the points, (i.e., Sex, Self, Passion, Pride, Power for the Iron) or widdershins (counterclockwise, i.e., Sex, Power, Pride, Passion, Self for the Iron) for certain kinds of workings. There are as many different ways of running energy through the Pentacles as there are Feris to do it.

Elements And Pentacle Points

The pentacle is simply the pentagram (five pointed star) with the circle around it. Magickal practitioners of many kinds have worked with pentacles and pentagrams through the ages. The pentagram is an ancient symbol; according to the symbols.com online encyclopedia, Isolated pentagrams have been found on broken fragments of burned clay in Palestine, in layers dating from around 4000 B.C. It was a common sign among the Sumerians around 2700 B.C. Some of those who have conducted research of symbols believe [the pentagram] was used by the Sumerians as a cosmic symbol representing the four corners of the earth and the vault of the heavens. Many versions of elemental attributions have been used for the pentagram/pentacle. Fig. 1 shows two of the many possible elemental attributions of the Iron and Pearl pentacles. Elemental I and II are both ways of using the elements in the order lightest (spirit/aether) to heaviest (earth), but the first shows the energy running around the outside, and II running through the pentagram itself. There has been much heated discussion among Feris, both online and off, on the subject of elemental attributions to the Pentacles, but there seems to be little agreement. However, since Victor Anderson never used elemental attributions, the individual Feri practitioner is free to use whatever system works.

Figure 1: Some Elemental Attributions of the Pentacles Fig. 2 shows that the figure of a pentacle may be regarded as a two-dimensional map of a three-dimensional object. Interestingly, when I made an Internet search of the elemental attributions made to pentacle points in many different religious traditions, I found that the one thing all had in common was that the top point always represented aether, spirit, akasha, the quintessence, the "fifth element," and that the other four points were arranged in many different combinations. This filtered through my intuition as a sign that, consciously or unconsciously, all these traditions recognized that the top point was actually a vertical to the other points' horizontal, and that the Magick circle which I had so often cast was actually a sphere (consistent with the Feri custom of calling six Guardians plus the Center--the Witch hirself). Figure 2: The Elements, Guardians, and Pentacle Points It also meant that the center point, the crossroads where the four directions meet, was also where the fifth and sixth directions (above and below) met. Which led further to the thought that the directions are actually the dimensions: front/back, side/side, and up/down. There are three roads to the crossways where Hekate traditionally lives, and they are the three dimensions. The Triple Goddess is triple not only in Time (the three life-stages of Maiden, Mother, and Crone), but in Space. So the Pentacle, five-pointed, is actually a map of triplicities. Further, the vertical element at the center, based in the Black Heart of Innocence, and progressing up through Sex and Love to Devotion, is the center whose circumference is everywhere, which lives in the individual Witch. This is the path of the Ladder of Hestia, up and down which we bring energy from the earth to the sky and back. This energy is the Blue Fire of Feri.

Iron

Exercise 1: Running The Iron Pentacle The simplest full Iron Pentacle exercise is to run energy through the points of the Iron Pentacles, thus: Stand up or lie down on the floor with feet apart and arms out, so that your body forms a pentacle. As you chant each phrase, feel the energy which is generated by the individual concepts of Sex, Pride, and so on, focusing in the area of the body next to each point:

In the names of those things which trouble me: In the name of Sex [head] In the name of Pride [right foot] In the name of Self [left hand] In the name of Power [right hand] In the name of Passion [left foot] In the names of those things which trouble me: I claim them, I own them, They shield me. They are mine.
Notes On Running The Iron Pentacle I have added "In the names of those things which trouble me/ I claim them, I own them, they shield me, they are mine" when invoking the names of the points, because the points of the Iron Pentacle are things which, while natural to the human being, have been disowned in our names by society, so that they become problematic. It isn't enough to say that you are sexual or prideful or powerful, you have to feel it. And some kind of ritual claiming of these things, their dark sides as well as their bright, is necessary. If we are being honest with ourselves, we each have to admit that Sex or Power or any of the other points is an area in which we feel (or have felt earlier in our lives) nervous. There are parallel (but not identical) processes to go through with each of the other pentacles, since the idea of the whole practice is self-transformation.

As you do the pentacle exercise for the first time, pay attention to the thoughts that come into your mind at each point, the emotions which are evoked, and the physical sensations which come up for you. Feel free to run energy through any one of the Pentacles individually, or all of them at one session. Compare and contrast the resulting changes over time as you repeat these exercises daily. There will likely be changes in your energy, attitudes, thinking, feeling, and even what is happening in your life. Often, these life-changes are subconsciously engineered by our Fetch in order to pry us away from something to which we have been clinging too long, or to push us in new directions. This is where keeping a journal can be extremely useful. Obviously, you will need to know each of the individual points much better than you do initially in order to make the exercise meaningful. I suggest working through the points with the exercises I provide below, or with your own choice of exercises. By the time you have spent some time with each point, running the Pentacles will have become a complex web of emotional, spiritual, and physical associations which will be completely unique to you, based as it is in your own needs and desires. Figure 3: How the Pentacles Progress Some Feri practitioners use the Iron Pentacle with the Self and Passion points at the practitioner's right and the Power and Pride points at the left; others reverse this with Power/Pride at the right and Self/Passion at the right. There is no absolute rule about these things. What's fun to do is run the Iron Pentacle ambidextrously. First run the energy around the pentacle points: Sex, Self, Passion, Pride, Power. Then run it through: Sex, Pride, Self, Power, Passion. THEN you do a Left Hand Pentacle -- so you're running (around) Sex, Power, Pride, Passion, Self. And then through: Sex, Passion, Power, Self, Pride. Each of the points will assumes a different aspect when taken as different order along different paths. And, of course, you can mess around with them in lots of other ways, e.g., doing the Iron Pentacle as a horizontal wheel which rises up your body and goes out like a ninja star. I'll talk about this specific exercise later.

Pearl

Exercise 2: Running the Pearl Pentacle

In the names of those things to which I aspire: In the name of Love [head] In the name of Law [right foot] In the name of Knowledge [left hand] In the name of Liberty [right hand] In the name of Wisdom [left foot] In the names of those things to which I aspire: I affirm them, I become them, They shield me. They are mine.
Notes On Working The Pearl Pentacle In recent years, the Iron Pentacle has been taught before the Pearl, and it has even been stated that one cannot run energy properly through the Pearl unless the points of the Iron are balanced. However, Victor originally taught the Iron and Pearl together as a decagram, going around the points of Pearl first, then Iron. This was called the Copper Decagram, and to the best of my knowledge has died out in Feri except within the Vicia, a line which was very close to Victor in his later years. (The outlook of the Vicia can be found on their website, http://www.lilithslantern.com/.) One of Victor's earliest initiates has affirmed that he was also taught the Decagram. This is an example of the drift which is extremely common in Feri. As lines become further and further separated from the source, and people add and subtract lore, drift happens in practices, in theology, and in attitudes. And the less and less the different lines communicate with each other, the more drift happens, until you end up with practices which have almost nothing to do with each other. The main reason for learning Iron and Pearl together is that they are actually different aspects of the same thing, which may also be described as different octaves of the same note in the musical scale. Those lessons we learn about ourselves and the issues which trouble us from the Iron Pentacle are equivalent to those lessons we

learn and those issues we wish to solve about relating to other people in the Pearl, and about those inner gifts which allow us to relate to the gods in the Blessing Pentacle. There are resonances from Pentacle to Pentacle which are as much a part of the significance of the Pentacles as their points or the paths between the points. Exercise 3: Running the Decagram

In the names of those things to which I aspire: In the name of Sex-Love [head] In the name of Pride-Law [right foot] In the name of Self-Knowledge [left hand] In the name of Power-Liberty [right hand] In the name of Passion-Wisdom [left fooot] In the names of those things to which I aspire: I claim them, I own them, I affirm them, I become them, They shield me. They are mine.
This second version uses the Iron and the Pearl points, and shows how one evolves into another. Also, those things which trouble us are transformed into those things to which we aspire by being seen as the roots of those things to which we aspire, and therefore part of them. This is very important. If the Iron points are only seen as things which trouble us, or only as things which we are defiantly glad of, their twofold nature is not made clear. And the idea here is not to only be troubled or defiant about those things we have always thought of as sinful, or aspiring to virtue without acknowledging the necessary presence of its shadow. The idea is to balance on that teetering point where we can admit and own and claim and become all of ourselves, whether society has taught us to approve of it or not. There is some disagreement about the position and naming of several of the Pearl Pentacle points. Some Feri place Wisdom at the left hand and Knowledge at the left foot; and some place Power rather than Liberty at the right hand. The Blessing Pentacle is original with me. If you feel you do not wish to work with it, or you would prefer to construct a pentacle of your own for the Godself, by all means do so.

Blessing

Exercise 4: Running The Blessing Pentacle

In the names of those things I am given: In the name of Devotion [head] In the name of Truth [right foot] In the name of Radiance [left hand] In the name of Grace [right hand] In the name of Blessing [left foot] In the names of those things I am given: I accept them with thanks, They shield me. They are mine.
Exercise 5: Running The Pentadecagram

In the names of those things I am given: In the name of Sex-Love-Devotion [head] In the name of Pride-Law-Truth [right foot] In the name of Self-Knowledge-Radiance [left hand] In the name of power-Liberty-Grace [right hand] In the name of Passion-Wisdom-Blessing [left foot] In the names of those things I am given: I claim them, I own them, I affirm them, I become them,

I accept them with thanks, They shield me. They are mine.
Here we see the results of the progressions of the Iron and Pearl Pentacle points, where what troubles us (Iron) is transmuted into those things to which we aspire (Pearl), and the ultimate realization is that all these things, along with the points of the Blessing Pentacle, are gifts from the gods. The living, breathing Universe gives us these things, and our acceptance is with thanks, knowing that they are our birthright as sentient creatures.

A Faery Circle, Compost Style adapted and simplified by valerie walker, 2003
I cleanse you by water and earth.

[All Candles are lit, including working candles for reading. Dip athame into the water, stirring 3 times deosil. Then dip the moistened blade into earth/soil/salt, and put three measures of it into the water. Say:]

[Hold blade over SG candle and then over burning incense (if used), and say:]

I charge you by fire and air.

[Blow four breaths of Blue Fire into the blade, and draw the Iron Pentacle to the N silently, after which you pierce it, seeing the IP grow pearlescent white, and through which you aim the Blue Fire. Draw a line of Blue Fire in a circle around you, saying at each of the Quarters:]

[N] By the Earth that is her fertile body [E] By the Air that is her vital breath [S] By the Fire that is her quickening spirit [W] By the living Waters of her teeming womb [N] Is this circle made!

[Salt-water purification ad lib: pass bowl from person to person, each saying aloud or silently what they wish to cast into the ocean and have purified.] [In silence, take incense or candle around circle deosil, Then take athame and hold aloft over your head, and look through your arms facing South as you say:]

My knife has drawn the circle round, My feet have walked the sacred ground, Let those within the airy wheel Bear witness to the magick seal, And those without be turned about, and never hear my fatal shout: [Step forward with warding-off gesture of knife, flat side of blade turned forward] Power stay in, world stay out! As above,

[Lift knife to zenith, grabbing the blue line, and seeing it expand up and down to create a sphere about you.] [Point knife to nadir]

So below, What is between the worlds concerns not the worlds, Yet will change the worlds! So mote it be!
[Lay athame down. Pick up wand, go to the East, and extend a thread of your consciousness out to an infinite point before you, sending your energy in a stream to the realm of the Guardian to "waken" it, drawing the thread back to connect to your heart. With your arms raised, call out to the Guardian:]

Starfinder [ad lib invocation of Air] We invoke you and call you! Come to us, come to us, come to us! Be here NOW!

[Bring your arms down and cross them once again over your chest, and bow in salutation. Repeat for each of the four Quarters, using these words:]

[South]Shining Flame [ad lib invocation of Fire] We invoke you and call you! Come to us, come to us, come to us! Be here NOW! [West]Water Bearer [ad lib invocation of Water] We invoke you and call you! Come to us, come to us, come to us! Be here NOW!

[North]Black Mother [ad lib invocation of Earth] We invoke you and call you! Come to us, come to us, come to us! Be here NOW!
[Then stand facing the center of the circle and raise your arms above your head, and draw a pentacle in violet, saying:]

All four stars are one, By the Goddess Above we invoke the Heaven Shiner! All four stars are one, By the Goddess Below we invoke Fire in the Earth!

[Lower your arms and draw a pentacle in violet point downwards, saying:]

[Bring both hands up to about chest height, palms flat together, seeing all the lines of connection (aka threads) between you and each Guardian converging at your heart, and say:]

And by the Center, which is the circumference of all! So mote it be!

[Fold your hands over your chest (aware of the converging aka threads) and bow forward, saying:] [Invoke Star Goddess:]

Holy Mother, In you we live, move, and have our being. From you all things emerge and unto you all things return. Mother of all the gods and mortals, We are your children! We are yourself! We invoke you and call you! Come to us, come to us, come to us! Be here NOW!
[Invoke other Goddesses and Gods appropriate to occasion, ad lib. Then any working would follow.] [For cakes and wine, fill chalice with wine, dip athame into it, saying:]

As the Athame is to the Sky, So the cup is to the Earth, And from their union worlds are born.

[Pour a small libation into the salt water bowl and then each drinks, making a toast. Cakes are blessed with the wand; putting the wand first over the cakes, say:]

Body of the God

[then all say:]

[then under the cakes, say:]

Gift of the Goddess Blessed Be!

[put a piece of the cake in the salt-water bowl as a libation, then do the Toads' blessing here, each feeding the next with a wish for them. Sacred bullshit time.] [Dismissals: Thank all Goddesses and Gods invoked in whatever words seem appropriate at the time, and extinguish the God and Goddess candles after you say:]

Go if you must, stay if you will, But if you must go, we bid you Hail and Farewell!

[Thank the Guardians in reverse order to invocation, saying:]

Guardians of [Below, Above] /the elements of [Earth, Water, Fire, Air] We thank you for being with us! [ad lib] We ask your blessing ere ye depart to your lovely realms

And may the peace of the Goddess be between us, now and forever. Go if you must, stay if you will, But if you must go, we bid you Hail and Farewell! [Lift the Circle, facing S] Robin Hood, Robin Good, Son of the Art, Heart of the Art, All from Air, into Air. [Turn N and cut from apex to waist length in N] Now let the misty curtain part! [widdershins to W]All is over, all is done, [to S]What has been must now begone, [to E]What was done by ancient art [to N]Now merry meet and merry part!
[Aim to apex and shoot energy up to create a great star, which gives energy to all and then fades. Extinguish all other candles.]

Beginning A Daily Practice: a practical prescription for those new to Feri by valerie walker
Part 1, 2005

How I Use The Practice

My overall purpose in daily practice is to take the energy of the earth and run it through each of the chakras, each doing its own particular job as it flows through, then going to the crown and adding energy from God Herself and the gods, mixing the energies and letting them flow downward again, filling me and clearing out all the pipes, (so to speak.) I think of the element of fire throughout the exercise, because I feel the individual goddesses at each chakra burning away what I want to get rid of, and replacing it with their individual qualities of healing, creative force, courage, love, clear communication, mental clarity, and grace. If you will take these exercises, do them daily, and make them your own (rewriting them if you feel called to do so), you will learn the inner alchemy from the inside out, which is really the only way to make it anything but another academic subject. I recommend keeping a journal in which you write your experiences with and reactions to doing this work regularly. To begin, here is the first exercise.

Exercise: The Flower Prayer

Who is this flower above me? And what is the work of this God? I would know myself in all my parts.
The Flower Prayer is specifically aimed at aligning the three souls. By itself it does little, but combined with the Ha Prayer technique it becomes a powerful spell to create a clear, open connection between the souls...I don't know the Flower Prayer's origin, but have learned several Hawaiian-language versions of it -- so perhaps it was originally Hawaiian.-- Phoenix Willow[1] This is the first prayer to do in any daily practice. According to Victor Anderson, it is derived from Huna, and it is the first step in defining what we wish to accomplish, and to what end. If you look at it closely, it is a paraphrase of the Grail question which Perceval failed to ask, and which delayed his finding of the Grail for so long: "What do these things mean? And who do they serve?" This is significant because it means that every daily practice is a microcosm of the Vision Quest, the search for our own personal Holy Grail, (as above, so below) and that only continued attention to our own self-work will keep us on the path of our True Will. The "flower above me" is the beautiful vision of your own Godself. If you can truly see that there is a part of you which is also a part of the Goddess, that you are partly divine, it will lead you to live a life which is respectful of yourself--and others, because you aren't the only god in the room. And knowing that you are also partly human and mortal, you will not be carried away with your own wonderfulness and begin believing your own PR, as has happened to all too many on the spiritual path. "What is the work of this God?" Well, that's the question, isn't it? Constant self-examination, constant attention, constant nurturing of yourself in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms, leads to... what? Not merely a healthy, well-fed, well-exercised, happily-sexed body, an interested and interesting mind, and finely-honed talents (though these are good things), but a means by which the Goddess can do her work on earth. This phrase reminds me of Victor's saying that "God is Self and Self is God and God is a person like myself." The work of this God is the work of this human being, whatever that might be, yet another reminder of the transcendent nature of the ordinary. If I clean a floor, and do it for Hestia, more than the floor gets cleaned in the process. As Cora once said when someone saw her chopping vegetables with the same knife used in ritual, "I'm not deconsecrating the knife; I'm consecrating the vegetables." The Black Heart Of Innocence In Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition, Cora Anderson says about the Black Heart of Innocence: This sign was worn by young men and women during religious festivals in Dahomey in the days of the Songe empire. It is defined by this saying which comes from Africa. "How beautiful is the black lascivious purity in the hearts of children and wild animals." The meaning of this symbol has been misinterpreted to mean other things than its real significance, which is purely sexual. As an ornamental sacred object, this may have been the first ornament shaped like the Valentine day heart. We are all born sexual beings and unless your heart is

still black and innocent do not look too deeply into the meaning of this most holy symbol.[2] The emphasis on the sexual as sacred is all-important to Feri. The gods are sexual beings, and the initial creation of the Universe was due to the orgasm of the Star Goddess. It is due to the filter of the patristic religions which have infested the world for the last several thousand years that sex is seen as dirty, and the color black is seen as unclean. Black is the color of night, and the night is beautiful and pure. To have the purity of the black night in one's heart is to accept oneself as a sexual being -- in fact, to rejoice in it. Sexual purity has almost disappeared from conscious thought in the modern world under subjection to the gynophobic longing for sexless, colorless angelic purity. But what is subjugated still lives, and rises to the surface, willy-nilly, in the transgressive, the Left-Hand Path, the satanic. Only when the Left-Hand Path and the transgressive urge are looked at in the clear light of self-knowledge can they be seen as the frustrated impulse of the living Black Heart. Is Feri a Left- or a RightHand Path? Truly, I believe, if we are pure in our intent, such terms become meaningless. The impulses toward transgressive rule-breaking and toward obsessive obedience to rules become equally meaningless, and are seen as mere human impulses. Feri is ambidextrous, heading off on a Path all its own which is the path of one's own Truth. "I would know myself in all my parts." This brings us to the next stage of inquiry: looking at our three souls. We are not single beings, but triple, like the Triple Goddess. In most religious traditions, the ultimate reality, the ground of our being, the Ain Soph, what Feri know as the Star Goddess, is un-measurable and unknowable to the intellect. But this reality can be sensed by the intuition as energy, manifesting in galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets, and in living beings across the multiverse, including every one of us. Read on.

The Three Souls[3]

In many traditions worldwide as well as in several schools of psychological thought (notably those following the thinking of C. G. Jung), the universal energy previously mentioned is seen as being embodied in human beings as three individual yet interdependent selves or souls, together within one individual body. These Three Souls have different functions and different points of view, and work individually within and around the physical body (all too often at cross-purposes, producing what Victor called "complexes" and others designate as sin, weakness, imbalance, or neurosis, depending on how judgmental you want to get.) Only when all four are working together in alignment, which state is referred to in Feri as being kala[4] or having all three souls straight within one (body), can we experience the Self entire. The main object of Feri thought and practice is to attain and maintain this state of kala.

Vivi, The Fetch: Claiming Those Things That Trouble You

A person pointing his finger at the moon... should see the moon. If he looks at the finger instead and mistakes it for the moon, he loses not only the moon but the finger also. -- Buddha, Shurangama Sutra The lower torso below the diaphragm is seen among Feri to be filled with a force known both in Huna and Feri as mana. Victor Anderson said about mana: This is the life force. It comes from us as living creatures. Just to call it energy is not enough. It's got to be understood as a definite thing, a definite substance[5] Mana, present in everything from galaxies to microbes, is collected as basic energy from the Earth during the process of meeting the body's needs, and transmuted into our own particular flavor of life force by the Fetch. According to Victor Anderson, it forms an envelope that clings to the body like a force-field to a distance of from two to 2.54 centimeters [one inch] out from the body. Different Feri practitioners see this energy as different colors. Victor always envisioned it as red, others as blue. In my particular practice, I use a combination of blood-red shading through orange into yellow. Also called the Fetch, Child Self, Nephesh, Younger Self, Unihipili, or Sticky One, Vivi is concerned with the functions of the physical body. Vivi's energy is sticky, adhering to everything with which we come in contact, and leaving traces wherever we go. These energy traces form a network of psychic (aka in Huna) threads, which connect us with everything we have ever experienced, and which carry all our physical memories. Victor Anderson said about this:

...Unihipili ...means the sticky one. It is called that because it imparts mana to everything you touch. For example when you shake hands with a person the mana from the Unihipili forms fine etheric threads connecting you with that person.[6] I think it is interesting to see that Vivi is the active agent in giving mana to other people or objects, not merely receiving mana from them. When it comes to other people, of course, this implies that there is a mutual exchange of mana. This is why it is important that the aka threads formed in this way should never be cut forcibly; undesired connections should simply have the energy removed from them little by little until the aka threads wither away on their own. The problem in letting aka threads wither away is that these threads are bi-directional. Mana has been given, and this giving may be stopped; but the mana received from another may keep on coming due to that other's reluctance to end the relationship. Only when two people agree to part can these aka threads wither away. At this point, if you are the person who wants to part, and your partner in this aka thread is reluctant, your Vivi will need to have the help of both your Emi and your Ori to deal with the situation. We see horrible examples every day of one-sided relationships, obsession, domestic violence, and even multiple murders, due to the failure to deal with leftover etheric connections in a healthy, adult, and kala way. Vivi experiences the world through sensations, emotions, and wordless images, as does a very young child. This Child Self acts as the liaison between Emi/the Talker and Ori/the Godself, and feels emotions directly in various parts of the body. This is scientific fact: there is a bi-directional communication between the immune and neuro-endocrine systems which is well known to the practitioners of psychoneuroimmunology and which makes the expression "gut feelings" more than symbolic: Neurotransmitters send signals throughout the nervous system. We used to think these chemicals, such as dopamine and serotonin, resided in the brain at the end of nerve cells. We now know that they can be found in many other organs -- the heart, the gut, the immune system -- and that they can diffuse out into the tissues and the blood. This is why so much of what happens to us shows up in many different parts of the body; why depression, associated with low serotonin levels in the brain, also causes decreased immune function and decreased bowel function, and why anti-depressants can have gastrointestinal side effects. Why do we have a "gut feeling" about something? Because the neurotransmitters in our gut can be a mirror reflection of what's going on in our head. Every day more neurotransmitters, cytokines, lymphokines, peptides and hormones and their interrelationships are being discovered, as well as how these factors are affected by events in our lives, and how we choose to respond to those events. [7][emphases mine] The points of the Iron Pentacle, Sex, Self, Passion, Pride, and Power, all have their home in Vivi and are expressed through her. The expression most characteristic of Vivi is "I feel," and its primary impulse is the creative -- physical creation, as in making art or having children, expressing itself as being, surviving through its creations. This is the realm of Nimue and the Blue God in Feri, as it is the realm of childhood. Vivi holds our creative impulse. It is also the dwelling-place of those things which are problematic in every human society, no matter how enlightened, those things which are closest to the Shadow in ourselves. I use the term in the Jungian sense quite deliberately. Although most Feris like to believe that they are able to live free of the preconceptions, habits, taboos, fears, and all the other baggage with which Sex, Pride, Self, Power and Passion have been loaded by human society, there is always something which each person is unwilling to face. The work, then, is to own these things in ourselves in both their bright and dark aspects; not only proudly parading our sexuality or pride, but also being willing to admit how these things drive or distort our actions and ways of being in the world. The first three chakras are under the purview of the Fetch: the root chakra (the Vivi of Vivi) being concerned with basic physical survival, the navel chakra (the Emi of Vivi) with creative and sexual expression, and the solar plexus chakra (the Ori of Vivi) with courage and the ability to begin looking beyond individual concerns. (I'll talk more about these subdivisions in another article; for now, simply be aware that the Three Souls each have their own divisions.)

Exercise: Making Kala

This is a practice which is common to almost all lines of Feri. Different practitioners have varied it in the de-

tails, making it more or less complicated, but this is the basic method. To begin with, center yourself, using the Ha Prayer or any other simple method of your choice. Take a small cup or goblet and fill it with fresh cold water, the colder the better. Put the cup where you can easily reach it. (If you are doing this as part of a group, each person should have her own individual cup.) Breathe your intention for purification into an egg shape[8] between the palms of your hands, breathing four breaths into the "egg" and visualizing it turning darker and more muddy with each breath. One chant I use while doing this is:

Hekate, Kali Ma, Lady of the Three Roads and of the Spaces Between, Take my sorrows and turn them into coals for Hestia's fire.
Drop the "egg" into the cup when you feel that it is full of the things you need purified. See the "egg" dissolve into the water, turning it dark and muddy; then visualize that the water becomes filled with rainbow light, which dissolves the impurities. Empty the lungs completely of all air, and then breathe in deeply, completely filling them. Hold your breath. While holding your breath, drink the rainbow water, making sure to drain your cup completely. Swallow the water down in one gulp. Now, exhale. Feel the water going down your throat and accept its blessing. Rub your belly while saying positive things about yourself, praising yourself, comforting yourself, giving yourself strokes. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself as you would your own child, gently and with love. At the first urination after doing the rite, remember that this is also part of the rite. Your body is releasing the impurities cleansed by doing the kala rite. Thus every act of excretion is also a sacred act, as is eating or sex. Your body is sacred.

Shower Kala

Cleansing Kala in the shower; this is my own variation on the regular Kala rite, and one I use daily. You may combine it with any other shower cleansing rite you like. In the shower, after your entire body and your hair is cleansed, and before turning off the water, turn and face the water. From hands crossed over your chest, open them into the shape of a heart, letting the water pour through the heart while breathing your intention for purification into the water. Form an egg shape between the palms of your hands, cupping them horizontally under the shower spray, breathing four breaths into the "egg," and visualizing it turning darker and more muddy with each breath. The chant I use while doing this is:

Hekate, Kali Ma, Lady of the Three Roads and of the Spaces Between, Purify me in spirit. Purify me in thought. Purify me in feeling. Purify me in action.
As you chant, see the water in your hands being cleansed and filled with rainbow light as the fresh water flows through and lets the "muddy" water fall to the floor and go down the drain, along with whatever is troubling or blocking you. Envision the water proceeding down through the sewers and eventually being cleansed, with the impurities returned to the Earth and the water being returned to the Sea. Empty the lungs completely of all air, and then breathe in deeply, completely filling them. Hold your breath. While holding your breath, open your mouth and fill it with the rainbow water from your cupped hands. Swallow the water (rainbow light) down. Now, exhale. Let the water pour all over you and accept its blessing. Rub your belly, while saying positive things about yourself, praising yourself, comforting yourself, giving yourself strokes. Be kind to yourself. After your shower, dry yourself off as if you were drying the body of your own child, gently and with love.

As in the version above, at the first urination after doing the rite, remember that this is also part of the rite. Your body is releasing the impurities cleansed by doing the kala rite. Thus every act of excretion is also a sacred act, as is eating or sex. Your body is sacred.

Emi, The Talker: Becoming Those Things To Which You Aspire

"Now I a fourfold vision see And a fourfold vision is given to me Tis fourfold in my supreme delight And three fold in soft Beulahs night And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newtons sleep" -- William Blake[9]

The energy of the conscious mind fills the body from just above the diaphragm all the way up to the third eye. This energy is called mana-mana in Huna. Produced by Emi's bringing Vivi's mana up into Emi's realm and amplifying it, and surrounding each individual as an egg of light, it is the medium through which we communicate with the rest of the world. Also known as Talker, Talking Self, Ruach, Uhane, or Shining Body, Emi is colored by momentary moods and emotions, and appears multicolored; Victor Anderson saw it as yellow, other practitioners as red. In my practice I focus on it as green shading into blue. Victor said about the word Uhane that U means a conscious entity and hane means to make yourself known.[10] This is the part that we tend to think of as "me." Emi is most concerned with keeping in touch with consensus reality and communicating with -- making itself known to -- the world of other conscious entities. Its habits of linear thought and reasoning with cause and effect, like Blake's "single vision," help us understand the world, but can also limit us to only understanding it in one dimension while ignoring others as irrelevant or too disturbing to deal with. The paradox which Emi faces is that the more defined the information, the less likely Emi will be to know where it's going or what to do with it, so that an over-reliance on Talker alone can mislead even the deepest thinkers. Where Vivi's weakness is being easily overwhelmed by emotion, Emi's is getting so hung up in details that its overall purpose disappears. Emi relates to the world with words, and defines the sensory impressions of Vivi. It contains our verbal memory, analytical mind, and the social instinct to identify with and relate to the Other. The points of the Pearl Pentacle, Love, Knowledge, Wisdom, Law, and Liberty, have their home and finest expression in Emi. The most characteristic phrase of Emi is "I am," and its primary impulse is to preserve -- to preserve the status quo, to objectify it, to organize it, to make it easy to search, and to keep it consistent with the way it has always been. Mari and Krom are the Feri gods we associate with this life-stage, that of the adult. Emi is concerned with maintaining that which Vivi has created. The second three chakras belong to Emi: the heart chakra (the Vivi of Emi) concerned with the heart-energy of relating to other people; the throat chakra (the Emi of Emi) with the expression of this energy in communication, and the third eye chakra (the Ori of Emi) with the intellectual courage to know and face one's own Truth and to go beyond the everyday "me" (or even "us") to the realm of the spirit, Godself. Just as the points of the Iron Pentacle can be sources of either strength or trouble to us, so the Points of the Pearl are those things to which we aspire -- but don't always manage to reach. The work here is to keep from beating ourselves up for our inadequacies as we follow our path, and also to have compassion for other striving human beings, because we're all equally bad at it in the beginning. In order to become that which we admire, we must keep disciplined while being merciful to ourselves. Merciful discipline is a delicate balance to walk. The challenge of dealing with our Talker is to be able to rein it in without trying to get rid of it altogether. It's there for a reason. Emi is dismissed by Feris much of the time as "mere ego," because everyone is trying to get down-to-earth and "real" with Vivi and/or be exalted by Ori. This is, I believe, a misreading of the Buddhist search for an end to the cycle of existence via discarding the ego. Feris are not trying to "get off the Wheel." If Vivi is "I feel" and Ori "I know", I think (and feel, and know) that Emi's "I am" is the instrument with which I feel and know, and it's one of my most important life-tasks to learn how to play it as well as I can.

Exercise: KA-BA-ZA[11]

This is a short form of calling on the Three Souls, using the "Egyptian" monosyllabic names, which can be

used in daily practice. Assume a comfortable position, either standing or seated. Breathe deeply from the solar plexus, filling and emptying your lungs completely at least three times. Take a deep breath from your belly, breathing in a feeling of pleasure. Breathe out with hands on your belly, breathing out a feeling of safety. Think, or say aloud if you wish, "Thus I awaken the Fetch." Feel your pelvic bones vibrate as you chant KA to bring energy up from the Earth to waken and stir Vivi (the Child Self), in the region of the pelvis. Envision the colors from deep red shading through orange to yellow glowing and circulating around your spine from your root chakra through your navel chakra up to your solar plexus chakra. Feel that you are touching everything in your environment, extending a net of shadow-threads, fine and sticky, like a spider web. Know that you are at home and in touch with yourself wherever you are, at the center of your web. Take another deep breath, breathing in a feeling of clarity. Breathe out with hands on your heart, breathing out a feeling of mental calm. Think, or say aloud if you wish, "Thus I focus the Talker." Feel your ribcage vibrate as you chant BA, bringing the Vivi energy up to stir Emi, in the region of the ribcage. Envision the colors from green through turquoise to indigo blue glowing and circulating around your spine up from your heart chakra through your throat chakra to your third eye chakra. Feel that you are touching all living beings in your environment, extending a net of calm. Know that you are the being you need to be, communicating peacefully with all other beings. Take a third deep breath, breathing in a feeling of divine blessing. Breathe out with hands on the top of your head, breathing out a feeling of connection with the Sacred. Think, or say aloud if you wish, "Thus I enlist the aid of the Godself." Feel your skull vibrate as you chant ZA, extending the Emi energy up from the skull to a violet-colored star above your head, and opening up to receive the blessings of your God-self in an exchange of energies. Feel that you are touching the Gods and Spirits in your environment, extending a net of connection. Know that you are a child of the Goddess, connected to the entire universe. See yourself surrounded in this light from the star above your head. Imagine that all doubts and fears are held away by the light radiating from this star. The KA-BA-ZA chant may be performed once, three times, six times, or nine times. If you are doing it only once, then at this point the Ladder of Hestia may be performed. Or if you are short on time, do the KA-BAZA instead of the Ladder of Hestia. This chant is not used by many initiatory lines of Feri, but I have found it extremely helpful as a warm-up exercise for the Ladder. It is advisable to do some kind of preface to the Ladder rather than simply jumping into it cold, and this particular practice seems to clear the channels which will be needed for the Ladder.

Ori, The Godself: Accepting The Gifts of The Gods

The skull is filled with an exponentially more powerful form of energy known as mana-loa, the blue "fire of the Gods." This energy is extremely dangerous, and Victor Anderson warned against working with it directly. During a talk at Pantheacon several years ago, he declared: The blue fire is within us at all times. Use it to heal. Blue fire is sacred. .... It can heal or it can kill. Naive people think that they can sustain eating this fire, but it will harm them. You cannot store the Blue Fire within you. It comes from the Great Deity and returns to it. It is not ours to keep. It is tremendously powerful.[12] People have always had a fondness for sticking their metaphorical fingers in power outlets and getting themselves shocked. But these days the population who is aware of where those power outlets are located is much larger, because of the vast proliferation of do-it-yourself literature, the Internet, and the wider availability of Magickal information. So there is that much more need for caution in dealing with this energy. Of course, the whole question of what to do with excess energy depends on the individual's idea of excess. Some people have much larger capacities and can carry a huge charge, to continue the metaphor. But others are more sensitively tuned and need to send it out or put it back for recycling at much lower levels. And if you are in a group that habitually hangs on to however much energy is raised, there will be some people who can handle it and others who can't. It has nothing to do with their fitness for doing sacred self-work or being in the Feri Tradition, but it seems almost to have become a macho game of psychic "chicken" among some Feri to see how much one can take and not be driven crazy. It is both simpler and more considerate to use some common

sense and have some concern for the people around you, especially those in circle. If you are going to spend the next six hours drooling and gazing at the linoleum or bouncing off walls like a kid who's eaten too much sugar, do it where it won't bother anyone, and do it on your own turf rather than messing up someone else's home. This is simply good manners. Rather than keeping it for yourself, a healthy and useful thing to do with excess energy is to send it up to the gods using the "HA" prayer (below). And if there is still too much for you to handle, you can always give it back to the Earth, not in the spirit of disposing of waste, but in the spirit of reverence and a sense of connection between Above and Below. Above is holy; Below is equally holy. The Gods live under our feet as well as over our heads. Don't be fooled by the directional metaphor into seeing any direction as unequal. Some see the energy of the Godself as pearly-white in color with rainbow hues, much like mother-of-pearl. Victor always declared that blue was the God-color. In my own practice I envision it as violet shading into ultra-violet and the unseen frequencies beyond. According to Victor's model of etheric anatomy[13], the physical support of the Godself, also called the Sacred Dove, Aumakua, or Neshamah, dwells in a "body of light" at the top of the aura, often seen during meditation as a silvery, blue, or violet star over the head. It is the part of us that is most intimately linked to the outer universe, and represents our connection to the Divine, or what most people call the Soul or the Holy Guardian Angel. According to Thelemic writer Bill Heidreck, The Nephesh and the Ruach can be kept alive, but they will pass away if not deliberately kept alive. They depend on physical things or people still living. The Neshamah doesn't. The Neshamah is immortal by itself. It always existed. It always will exist. In a sense it is divine. That's where the idea of a Holy Guardian Angel comes in.[14] The points of the Blessing Pentacle, Devotion, Radiance, Blessing, Truth, and Grace, are expressions of Ori. The most characteristic phrase of Ori is "I know." The Godself is that part of us which destroys the status quo, which dissolves the old in order that the new may exist. This is a key to understanding why the Ori does not communicate directly with the Emi (which maintains), but only through the Vivi (which creates). The Feri gods here are the Anna and the Arddhu, the old, wise gods who lead us on into whatever awaits us beyond this life. This is the realm of those who have attained the wisdom of age. The work here is to accept the gifts of the gods with thanks and without undue humility. We are all children of the Goddess, and her gifts of Devotion, Truth, Radiance, Grace, and Blessing are our birthright. The three chakras belonging to Ori are partly our own, and partly transpersonal: the crown chakra (the Vivi of Ori) is that in us which listens to the voice of the gods (the "flower above me" of the Flower Prayer); the auric transpersonal chakra (the Emi of Ori) is the gods speaking to us as we envision them, giving us our missions in life; and the surrounding transpersonal chakra (the Ori of Ori) is the ground of our being, God Herself, the center which is the circumference of all, the ineffable, that which cannot be described and yet which holds us in Her mighty arms. "One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so."

Exercise: The HA Prayer

(Cora says that this is the essential exercise to do as daily practice, even if you do nothing else.) Directing the attention to the Godself, say:

I affirm in the here and now That we are three souls in one body, And that you are the highest, best, and most perfect part of me. Give me each day that which I need: Keep me from evil, though it be the very thing I pray for, And bring me to the good, even though from ignorance I don't know enough to ask for it. Chant: ALL THREE SOULS ARE STRAIGHT WITHIN ME!
Breathe from the centers of the pelvis, the ribcage, and the skull in turn, breathing in mana from the Earth below you and breathing out HA. Then breathe in from your entire body, and breathe out HA, sending the energy

as an offering to the Gods above you. Notes On The HA Prayer Phoenix Willow states: The Ha Prayer actually originates in Huna, where it (in several variations) is known as the "Ha Rite." "Ha" is Hawaiian for "four" and also for "breath." Breathing in sets of four is a traditional technique in Huna. The breath is not the whole of the prayer, however. It's a method for gathering a surplus of mana that is offered to the Aumakua (Godself) along with a prayer-request. This technique can be used to pray for anything. In Huna it is said that the kahunas could instantly heal major injuries and perform other miraculous feats through the power of mana-loa. The Godself converts the mana into mana-loa and uses it to create/heal/etc. on our behalf. There's a very strong thread of Hawaiian magic woven through Feri. Victor studied Huna, where the concept of the three souls can also be found. He was a member of Huna Research Associates, and knew Max Freedom Long -- the "inventor" of Huna. Victor also had Hawaiian friends and correspondents, and many past-life memories of being Hawaiian.[15] Cora says, very wisely, that it's the simple things that matter the most; this is especially true when first developing a daily practice. Of course, people do tend to over-analyze, especially in the beginning. But once Talker has become satisfied with the logical explanation each person thinks up (which is totally individual), they can begin to approach Fetch, and through Fetch Godself, and develop their own position on the Three Souls material, their own ways of relating to it, the creative solutions they have had to come up with to make it acceptable, and all the other idiosyncratic things which make a practice personal. Notes On The Names Of The Three Souls The "Vivi, Emi, Ori" names are African, according to Victor Anderson. However, there does not seem to be an exact correspondence of the meanings of the African terms with the way they are used in Feri. "Vivi," for instance, is Ewe for "delicious."[16] According to an anonymous article at http://www.agallery.de/docs/mythology. htm (no longer available, unfortunately): The Yoruba believe that there is a god, Ori, who supervises people's choices in heaven. Literally, ori means 'head' or 'mind', because that is what one chooses before birth. If someone chooses a wise head, i.e. intelligence, wisdom, he will walk easily through life, but if someone chooses a fool's head, he will never succeed anywhere. Ori could be considered as a personal god, a sort of guardian angel who will accompany each of us for life, once chosen. Even the gods have their Ori which directs their personal lives. ...The Yoruba (Nigeria) believe that each person has at least three spiritual beings. Firstly there is the spirit, emi, literally 'breath', which resides in the lungs and heart and is fed by the wind through the nostrils, just as the fire is fed through the twin openings in the blacksmith's bellows. This emi is the vital force which makes a man live, that is, breathe, rise up, walk, be aware, be active, work, speak, see, hear and make love. There is also the shadow or shade, ojiji, which follows its owner like a dog. When he dies, it awaits his return in heaven. The third is the eleda 'spirit' or ori 'head', also translated as 'guardian soul'; from time to time it has to be 'fed' by sacrifices. At death these spiritual aspects of a person leave the body and wait for him or her in heaven. An individual is expected to return to his clan as a newborn baby.[17] The terms KA, BA, and ZA were taught to me by my later initiators, who received them from Victor. I have also been told that Victor gave Ka,Ba, and Sa as a possible interpretation for the parts of the self in Egyptian. He also said it was a simplification of a more complex system. According to Victor, "Sa" could also be pronounced "Za," and that is how he sometimes pronounced it.[18] ....the spirits of the ...Ka, the astral body; principle of the body and protective genius... Higher up, the Ba, soul, sublime, and multi-leveled. Next comes the Sahu, part of the spiritual self and is the spiritual body otherwise called the spiritual body. ... There is also the Sa, the higher force, essential energy of all.[19] The KA-BA-ZA sequence, which is not in universal use among Feris, does have the advantage of being easier to chant. My personal preference for writing or talking about the Three Souls is to alternate the Vivi-Emi-Ori sequence with the English phrases, but when chanting, I use the KA-BA-ZA.

Footnotes [1] Personal communication from Phoenix Willow of the Vicia line of Feri [2] Anderson, Cora, Fifty Years In The Feri Tradition, 1994, privately printed; reprinted Albany, CA, 2004, Acorn Guild Press and available at http://www.lilithslantern.com [3] Portions of this section are inspired by "The Three Souls Of Night Hares," an article by Willow Moon based on written and oral material from many sources, in Witch Eye: A Zine Of Feri Uprising #3, 2000. [4] Kala: from a Huna term. The way this word is used in Feri encompasses the concepts of purification, reclaiming energy that is bound up in obsessions, getting clear of spiritual obstacles, getting all three souls aligned and open to each other, and so on. I will be writing more on this subject. [5] In Baruch, Inni, "Speaking With Victor Anderson," Connections magazine, Winter 2001, vol. 9, no. 4, p. 6 [6] Ibid. [7] "Neurotransmitters," in Women's Center for Mind-Body Health, Mind-Body Science online at http://womensmindbodyhealth.info/science32.htm. The work of Candace Pert on neuropeptides as free-floating physical bases for emotions is seminal in this field. [8] In the early years of Faery, an actual raw egg was used, but since the health risks of eating raw eggs have since been established, an imaginal egg works just as well. [9] Blake, William, in a letter to Thomas Butts, Nov. 22, 1802 [10] Baruch, op.cit., p. 45 [11] Adapted from material passed to me by Willow Moon and others. [12] Anderson, Victor, unpublished manuscript. [13] Anderson, Victor and Cora, Etheric Anatomy: The Three Selves And Astral Travel, Albany, CA, 2004, Acorn Guild Press [14] Heidreck, Bill, "An Abramelin Ramble," online article at http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/abramel. htm [15] Personal communication from Phoenix Willow. [16] According to Phoenix Willow: Vivi is also an infrequently used Creole word for "child," with the possible additional meaning of "life." Also in Creole, we find vi, meaning "life, child," vivan, meaning "alive, living," and viv, meaning "live." They are all probably in the same constellation of meaning with vivi -- and all seem to be derived from the French vie, "life," and/or vivre, "to live." In modern Fon, we also find vi, meaning "child," and vivi, meaning "sweet, pleasant, to one's liking." Fon is the native tongue of Benin, a west African nation formerly known as Dahomey. As with Creole, modern Fon has been significantly influenced by the French language [17] "Every human being has been given a 'head,' or destiny, prior to birth that can only be foreseen and arbitrated through divination. However, each person also has the ability to tap the power of this 'inner head' (ori inu) to achieve their full potential in life. One's character and personality are said to emanate from this inner head." -- http://www.africans-art.com/index.php3?action=page&id_art=628 [18] Personal communication from Phoenix Willow. [19] http://www.sibyllinewicca.org/history/hist_egypt6.htm. Reference thanks to Phoenix Willow.

Beginning A Daily Practice: a practical prescription for those new to Feri by valerie walker Part 2, 2005
The Ladder of Hestia, a meditation
As I said in Part One of these practices, my overall purpose in daily practice is to take the energy of the earth and run it through each of the chakras, each doing its own particular job as it flows through, then going to the crown and adding energy from God Herself and the gods, mixing the energies and letting them flow downward again, filling me and clearing out all the pipes, (so to speak.) I think of the element of fire throughout the exercise, because I feel the individual goddesses at each chakra burning away what I want to get rid of, and replacing it with their individual qualities of healing, creative force, courage, love, clear communication, mental clarity, and grace. If you will take these exercises, do them daily, and make them your own (rewriting them if you feel called to do so), you will learn the inner alchemy from the inside out, which is really the only way to make it anything but another academic subject. For this particular exercise, if you will attempt to place your hands in the appropriate mudras shown in the illustration below, it will help your body remember what you are doing; repeated performances of this meditation will help it become a dance, even while you sit. Assume a comfortable position, either standing or seated. Breathe deeply from the solar plexus, filling and emptying your lungs completely at least three times. Feel the energy in your body, and pull it in from your extremities into the center of your body. Let all the tension, aches and pains, and other distractions both positive and negative coalesce into a ball of energy. Locate that ball of energy a little below your navel, at the point called in tai chi the dan tien. Bring in as much of your energy into this ball as you can, and then send the ball down your spine, dividing at the base of the spine and sending the energy down each of your legs to the floor. Feel the energy reaching out, sending tendrils, roots, into the floor, down through the structure of the house. Feel the energy roots tunnel into the earth, go down past the layer of earth and into the rocks beneath. Send the energy down through the rocks, deep into the center of the planet, deep into the place where the rocks are molten, where the hearth-fire of Hestia plays at the center. Join your energy with that fire in the earth. Let it become one with the fire at the heart of the earth, let it become purified by that fire. [Pause as long as you need to.] Now begin to take back your individual energy, burnt clean and purified by Hestia's fire. Bring the energy back up the roots you put down, pulling the roots after you as you let the energy rise up through the cooled rocks, up through the layers of rock, earth, floor, and back into your body again. Pull the energy up into the base of your spine, and join it with any lingering distractions left in your body. Bring it into the root chakra, envisioning it as deep red, the color of blood, of the interior of your body. Spiral the energy around your spine from front to right, back, left, then center and up to the next chakra, chanting with each direction: GULA (pronounced "goo-lah"). Feel the power of Gula, the Queen of Physicians, to heal you of physical blockages and help you to survive and meet your bodily needs. Send it up to the navel chakra, changing its color as you move up from deep red to orange, the color of fire, of anger and of creativity. Spiral the energy front, right, back, left, up, chanting with each direction: ANAT ("ahnaht"). Feel the power of the Warrior Queen Anat to take your anger and turn it into creative force, innocent sexuality, and pleasurable fruitfulness. Continue upward to the solar plexus chakra, changing the color of the energy to yellow, and dissolving all your doubts, fears, anxiety, guilt, and shame in the pure light of courage. Spiral the energy front, right, back, left, up, chanting with each direction: TANIT ("tah-neet"). Feel the power of Tanit, Serpent of Wisdom, to give you courage: courage to be who you are, and courage to take the leap to the next stage. Send the energy up yet again to the heart chakra, changing the color to green. Spiral the energy front, right,

back, left, up, chanting with each direction: ISIS ("ee-sees"). Feel the power of Isis, Queen of Heaven, to melt your heart and take away mental blockages which get in the way of your ability to give and receive love. Continue to the throat chakra, changing the color to turquoise. Spiral the energy front, right, back, left, up, chanting with each direction: NEITH ("neeth"), and feel the power of Neith, the Goddess of the unseen and limitless sky, to bring you clarity and freedom in telling your own Truth, whether in speech or writing or whatever medium She inspires you to use, and banishing misunderstanding and confusion. Let your consciousness rise yet again to the third eye chakra, changing the energy's color to indigo. Spiral the energy front, right, back, left, up, chanting with each direction: PSYCHE ("sigh-key"), and feel the clean clear power of the concentrated mind which lets you know your own Truth. Banish ignorance and welcome knowledge, and welcome, also, the mental courage to take the leap from being human to being part of the divine. Keep the energy flowing up to the crown chakra, changing its color to violet. Spiral the energy front, right, back, left, up, chanting with each direction: KORE ("kor-ay"), letting the violet light spiral around your head and up out the top. Let the goddess Kore, the Nameless Maiden, serve as the link between that which is below and that which is above. Let her breathe the violet energy up to the gods in devotion and receive it back from them, circulating it throughout your body. Allow her to dissolve and banish all obsessions and bring you blessing. As you do this, sense that Kore is sending the energy up to Hestia, she who represents the voice of the gods as you envision them. Feel the energy go up to the outer confines of your aura, and chant HESTIA. Hestia will give you your mission; all you need to do is listen. Finally, ask Hestia to send the energy up and out to the Star Goddess, the Lady of the Three Roads and the Spaces Between, the Circumference which is the Center of all, the unknowable, illimitable Ground of Being. Chant: HECATE ("heck-ah-tay"), and feel your offering raining back down through you as divine grace. Feel yourself at this particular place, at this particular instant of time. Rest in this knowledge: be here now.

Exercise: The Descent Of Inanna

Energy sent upward along the Ladder of Hestia in order to evoke the positive qualities of the Goddess and chakras may also be used in a downward direction to dispel blockages and bindings. The image I like to use is the descent of Inanna into the underworld, where she has to give something up at each stage: her crown, her robes, her jewels, and so on, and enter into the Underworld naked and suppliant. To work the Ladder downways, first work upward and become energized with a short KA-BA-ZA and HA Prayer. Then beginning with Kore, work down, saying five times each:

In Kore's name, I release myself of all obsession In Psyche's name, I release myself of all confusion In Neith's name, I release myself of all misunderstanding In Isis' name, I release myself of all apathy In Tanit's name, I release myself of all guilt and shame In Anat's name, I release myself of all fear In Gula's name, I release myself of all those things which bind me Then take the things you have released and send them into the fire of Hestia at the center of the earth. Say: May my feet find the path, May the path find my feet, And may I always follow the golden thread. In Hestia's name, so mote it be.
Then bring the purified energy back up into your body and do the Ladder as described previously, make kala, or both.

The Lemniscate Gods, the Ladder, and the Tree of Life

The schematic above is complicated, but a careful scan of it will help make sense of some interconnected concept. Each Ladder goddess is equated with one of the Feri Gods of the Lemniscate; simultaneously, the Ladder is mapped to the Qabalistic Tree of Life, with the traps on the paths between each two sephiroth representing the attitudes which keep us from progressing from one rung of the Ladder to the next. (You will notice that the path of the Ladder is only one of many diffeent paths used to get from Malkuth to Kether, each with its own sets of traps, blocks, and pitfalls; there are many spiritual ways to enlightenment, and all of them work for some people. This is the way I have chosen, or which has chosen me. Your mileage, as ever, may vary.) Please refer to my article on The Pentacles and the Tree and my diagrams of Blocks and Shadows for more on thse subjects. What i want to talk about here is the relationship of each of the Ladder goddesses to the Lemniscate gods.

Script for the Complete Daily Practice by valerie walker

2005-06. Some parts of this rite draw from other sources, including R.J. Stewart, Victor Anderson, and others. See the full discussion of this practice in Daily Practice I and II. Sit on a cushion on the floor. Take a deep breath and let it out. Look upward and say:

Who is this flower above me? And what is the work of this God? I would know myself in all my parts.

Touch the floor, taking a breath and letting it out. Touch your genital area, saying:

KA -- thus I awaken the Fetch. Touch your heart, saying: BA -- thus I focus the Talker. Touch your forehead, saying: ZA -- thus I entreat the aid of the Godself.

Touch the floor again, breathing in and then out. Assume the mudra and visualize the color for the appropriate goddess as you progress through this series. Chant:

[Mudra at genital area] Gula before me, Gula at my right hand, Gula behind me, Gula at my left hand. Gula within me, Gula heal me. [Mudra at dan tien area,three finger-widths below navel] Anat before me, Anat at my right hand, Anat behind me, Anat at my left hand. Anat within me, Anat bring me creative force. [Mudra at solar plexus] Tanit before me, Tanit at my right hand, Tanit behind me, Tanit at my left hand. Tanit within me, Tanit give me courage. [Mudra at heart, left hand on left knee] Isis before me, Isis at my right hand, Isis behind me, Isis at my left hand. Isis within me, Isis open my heart. [Mudra at throat] Neith before me,

Neith at my right hand, Neith behind me, Neith at my left hand. Neith within me, Neith help me speak my truth. [Mudra at forehead] Psyche before me, Psyche at my right hand, Psyche behind me, Psyche at my left hand. Psyche within me, Psyche give me clear sight. [Mudra at top of head] Kore before me, Kore at my right hand, Kore behind me, Kore at my left hand. Kore within me, Kore let me understand. [Mudra at heart level; whisper] Hestia before me, Hestia at my right hand, Hestia behind me, Hestia at my left hand. Hestia within me, Hestia center and still me.
[Mudra: reach hands and look upward]

Hekate, Kali-Ma, Holy Mother, Lady of the Three Roads and of all the spaces between, Before me, At my right hand, Behind me, At my left hand, Above me, Below me, Within me, Holy Mother, in you we live and move and have our being, From you all things emerge, and unto you all things return, Mother of all the gods and mortals, I am your child, I am your self. I affirm in the here and now That we are three souls in one body, And that you are the highest, best, and most perfect part of me. Give me each day that which I need: Keep me from evil, though it be the very thing I pray for, And bring me to the good, even though from ignorance I don't know enough to ask for it.

Take a deep breath and exhale sharply, touching the floor and saying:

HA! from the root: my feet are on the Earth.

Take a second deep breath and exhale sharply, touching your genital area and saying:

HA! from the stem: my loins are in the Moon. HA! from the leaves: my heart is in the Sun. HA! to the flower: my head is in the Stars.

Take a third deep breath and exhale sharply, touching your heart and saying: Take a fourth deep breath and exhale sharply toward your Godself, looking upward, raising your arms up and saying: Intone the following, holding one fist stacked on the other. When you say the syllable TET! pull your fists sharply apart, one up and one down, as if stretching something out vertically.

All three souls are straight within me.....TET!

Take a cup of clear water and breathe into it four times, saying the following:

Mother, purify me in spirit, Mother, purify me in thought. Mother, purify me in feeling. Mother, purify me in action. Drink it down in one continuous draught.

Say or chant, concentrating the energy at the body part indicated:

In the names of those things which trouble me: In the name of Sex [head] In the name of Pride [right foot] In the name of Self [left hand] In the name of Power [right hand] In the name of Passion [left foot] In the names of those things which trouble me: I claim them, I own them, They shield me. They are mine. In the names of those things to which I aspire: In the name of Love [head] In the name of Law [right foot] In the name of Knowledge [left hand] In the name of Liberty [right hand] In the name of Wisdom [left foot] In the names of those things to which I aspire: I affirm them, I become them, They shield me. They are mine. In the names of those things I am given: In the name of Devotion [head] In the name of Truth [right foot] In the name of Radiance [left hand] In the name of Grace [right hand] In the name of Blessing [left foot] In the names of those things I am given: I accept them with thanks, They shield me. They are mine.

Meditate in silence for a moment. Then take the energy you have generated and received, and give it back to

the world:

May peace prevail in the universe. May peace prevail on Earth and all planets. May peace prevail in the United States [or your own country] and all nations. May all being be at peace. May our missions be accomplished. We thank the universe, through our spiritual protectors, for its guidance and protection.
Dedicate the merit to whomever you choose:

I dedicate the merit of this practice to_________ May our feet find the path, May the path find our feet, And may we always follow the Golden Thread. In Hestia's name, so mote it be. Ashe.

Practical Magick for the Feri Practitioner by valerie walker 2005

Using the Iron Pentacle for healing
The roundways[1] method of working the Pentacles, especially the Iron, is particularly useful in generating energy to send out for healing spells. Surprisingly, while this and other techniques are excellent for sending energy, many Feri are not in the habit of using them for anything save self-work, as opposed to eclectic Wiccans, who are given to doing healing spells more frequently than any other kind. This is all the more strange, considering how much emphasis Victor Anderson put on healing work.

Psychic Dragonstar[2]

This exercise is done standing and facing in the direction of the person you wish to affect, whether s/he is in the room with you or not. Envision yourself as standing on a round platform, and that the Iron Pentacle is repeatedly produced at your feet, spinning in a clockwise direction and rising up your body, one Pentacle after another (somewhat like the electrical charges in those vertical spark generators seen in almost every monster movie known). Feel the Pentacles spinning around you horizontally, gaining momentum as they rise upward, one after another, and then being released like dragonstars, spinning off in the designated direction with a quick flicking motion. Really feel the energy being released in a sharp burst as each Pentacle is launched. Continue with this process as long as you feel moved to do so, without worrying about the reactions of your patient. Often a sick or hurt person will absorb the energy thus given or sent, but may not show any difference until some time later, when he has had a chance to absorb it and use it. And, of course, some people are too guarded to accept energy from another, even healing energy. There is nothing you can do for these people; but it is always good to try, just to see if they can be persuaded to let down their guard for a moment.

Ill-wishing, Cursing, And Banishing

Of course, if you wish ill to someone, you could do the same exercise, only spinning the pentacles widdershins; but I don't advise this. Feris are well known for disbelief in the Wiccan Rede or the Law of Threefold Return. However, one of my fellow-Composters told me once that your soul/mind/heart is your cauldron, and if you are always using your cauldron to brew poison, there will come a day when you won't be able to do anything else with it, even for yourself. So enlightened self-interest would dictate that the worst you do to anyone is make a shield of your own against him -- a spiritual spam-filter, if you will. And if you believe with Victor that aka threads go both ways, that you get as well as give mana to whomever or whatever you touch, it would be prudent to do no more than shield yourself. Which brings me to binding spells, much less bad for you, but as effective as you might desire. These concentrate on speeding up the process of letting the aka threads between you and the object of your spell wither away naturally.

CyberBinding

My method of choice is thoroughly modern: I take a digital picture of the offender (or a copy of hir signature, or, failing that, type out hir name and use that as the object-link) and put it in PhotoShop, then overlay the picture with a picture of ice cubes, at a percentage of opaqueness such that it is just possible to see the person beneath the ice. I merge layers, save the picture as a .jpeg file, then upload it somewhere on the Internet where it is not likely to be viewed (a photobucket.com archive is a good place to keep this kind of thing.) If you have Flash capability, you can import this picture and cause it to whirl about continuously, as fast or slowly as you choose, and thus confuse your victim and deflect any energy s/he is sending out. (This Flash animation method is good for turning a sigil into a little virtual prayer-wheel, as it will go on spinning forever with no further action from you. Use a deosil spin for beneficent spells, and a widdershins spin for those of ill intent, of course.) While working on this spell, I repeat "now you freeze as long as I please," generating the feeling that the aka threads which connect me to this person are freezing, becoming brittle, and withering away, and that the person himself is losing his ability to gain any of my energy or send me any ill-wishing of his own. If I feel that I have already been affected in any important way by this person, I print this picture out, put it between two mirrors facing inward, bind it with string, and crazy-glue the whole thing together. Then I store this in my freezer, with the same incantation. If you intend any operations of ill-wishing or banishment, be sure that you make kala first, and think hard about whether this is the best thing to do in the situation. Operations of this sort should be a method of last resort.

And of course, you have to actually let your grudge go, usually the most difficult part of the spell to achieve. If you have been nursing a grudge against someone because secretly it gives you something you need, perhaps it's time to look at the way you typically react to people. [1] Roundways: going around the points of the pentacle rather than through. In Iron, that would be Sex, Self, Passion, Pride, Power, which is, incidentally, the way Victor originally taught it. [2] Dragonstar: a (usually) four-, five-, or six-pointed metal star with sharpened blades, used in martial arts as a throwing weapon. These are made of steel, and come in many designs.

Vivi Exercises for the Points of the Iron Pentacle by valerie walker

2005 parental advisory: contains sexual material Here are a set of hands-on exercises for working with the points of the Iron Pentacle in ways that involve the Fetch directly and, hopefully, keep intellectualizing to a minimum.

Working With The Sex Point

You will need: -- a piece of paper -- a pen or pencil -- a large mirror, big enough to see your entire body in -- privacy Sit cross-legged in front of the mirror, naked. Look at yourself as if you were looking at a stranger. Ask yourself, "Who is this person? What does s/he want sexually? What can I do for him/her?" Imagine yourself making love to the person in the mirror. See how real you can make the experience without actually touching yourself, just imagining the touch of your own hands on your skin, tenderly caressing yourself in imagination. Feel the mental and emotional blockages that come into place as you attempt this. Don't fight them, just acknowledge them. When you feel that you have acknowledged all the blocks and difficulties you are feeling about your sexuality, take the pen and paper and draw a self-portrait from your mirror image. It doesn't have to be a perfect likeness, or even a realistic portrait at all. Just try to capture your impression of your sexual self. Include the blocks and feelings as well. Do they sit over you like clouds? Do they pierce you like daggers? Are they solid or fragmented? Where in your body do you feel their effects? Put all this into your drawing. You may wish to color your work. Do so without thinking about its meaning or significance, just color as you might have done when you were a child. It's not even necessary to stay inside the lines, either. Now sit in front of the mirror again and make love to yourself, all shame and fears forgotten.

Working With The Pride Point

Making a statue to yourself. You will need: -- Paper and pencils/pens in different colors -- Modeling clay, Sculpy, or any easy-to-use sculpting material -- Sculpting tools (available at http://www.diandolls.com/sculpting_supplies.htm or at any art supply store) What kind of monument would you like? Draw it or sculpt a model of it: Do you want to be remembered as riding a horse or a dragon? Standing on a heap of conquered enemies? Being worshipped by others? Heroic or helpful? Being more beautiful, more athletic, more powerful physically than you actually are? Who's your action figure? Making a movie of your life. You will need: -- Paper and pen/s -- Music paper -- Movie magazines to cut up -- Blank CDs / CD recording capability on your computer -- Costumes and props for fairytale enactments Who would you pick to play you in the movie about your life? Find pictures of the actors you want and cut them out for a collage or paper dolls you can move around and play out your movie.

What songs would you have on your soundtrack? Make a CD of your playlist. Dance to it. What would the plot be? Which fairy-tale would you have enacted as representing your life most closely? Are you feeling like Cinderella or the Brave Little Tailor? Jack and the Beanstalk? Vasilissa the Beautiful? Are you an Orphan, a Pirate, a Wizard, Baba Yaga, a Frog Prince, or the wounded Fisher King? Are you Lancelot, or Galahad? Are you Robin Hood? What is your connection with the stories you were told as a child, and which story resonates deepest within you and tells the truth about you? Dress as your character/s and play out your story as if you were on a stage.

Working With The Self Point

Make a life mask. You will need: -- Plaster-gauze, gauze bandaging impregnated with plaster of Paris. (One roll of 3-inch gauze should be enough for an adult face.) -- Scissors, to cut the plaster-gauze into strips; -- Bowl of water, to dip the gauze into before applying; -- Vaseline, to coat the skin with before putting the gauze on; -- Old towels or other cloths to use as drop-cloths and to drape your shoulders; -- A mirror. Cut the gauze into strips of one inch by two inches. Put some gauze aside to be cut up even smaller for detail work. If you have long hair, tie it back out of the way; then Vaseline your face liberally, paying particular attention to your eyebrows and other facial hair. Since you are making this mask on yourself rather than someone else, Vaseline around your eyes but don't do your eyelashes, as you will be leaving eyeholes. (doing an entire head using the wrap method) Dip the gauze pieces into the water and then apply them to your face, starting at the top and working your way around the perimeter. Be sure to smooth the pieces on your face with your fingers so that the plaster fills in the texture of the gauze. Fill in the face, leaving spaces for your nostrils and your eyes. You don't have to worry about making the eyeholes exactly the right shape, as you can trim the mask with a scissors when it's done. Use at least three layers of gauze all over the mask area. If you like, you can use more to build up areas such as cheekbones or nose, or simply to make the mask stronger. When you are finished, sit quietly in front of the mirror and wait for the mask to dry. It should take perhaps 3545 minutes, depending on how thick you have built it. When you are able to wiggle your features without the mask sticking to your face, it's dry enough to remove. It should come off easily. If it doesn't, leave it on longer until it does. This period of time can be used to meditate on who you are, and your way of being in the world, and whether it works as well as it could. Would you rather be someone else? What about them do you envy? Do you think anyone envies you? You can dry the mask completely in an oven set at 125 degrees for about a half-hour. Once again, this may vary depending on how thickly built up the mask is. When you take it out of the oven, let it dry for another day or so. Trim it with sharp scissors, and then coat it with Elmer's glue, inside and out. When the glue dries, your mask is ready to paint or decorate. Decorating the mask: Do this as a ritual. You might want to do the decoration after you have gone through the entire Iron Pentacle and let your Vivi play with all the points in turn. Or alternatively, you can do it as part of your Power work.

Working With Your Power

Divination from the landscape This is a variation on exercises recommended by Jan Fries in his excellent work, Visual Magick. I believe that Lon Milo Duquette also has a book about making divinatory tools from everyday objects, but what I'm talking about is actually taking random found objects and "reading" them like Tarot cards. Simply go for a walk and pick up stuff. What does it tell you?

Decorating your mask You can paint your mask, glue fabric or beads, attach feathers, decoupage pictures, add three-dimensional elements made of clay or Sculpy to it-- use your imagination. If you have small magickal objects of significance, you might wish to attach them to the mask.To differentiate this from an ordinary arts-and-crafts project, cast a circle first, and find which of your powers are exemplified in each of these decorative additions. Which elements do you want to bring forth? If you are ambitious, you can make a mask for each direction, to serve as your personal guardians, and decorate each as the element of your choice. Or they can be the seasons, or different deities. Whatever you decide to do, do it with intent -- the intent that this mask should be the outward expression of your inner power.

Working With Your Passion

Your passion is that thing or those things you are passionate about. What are you really trying to say, to do, to accomplish? When you have discovered these things, this is the point at which you are perfectly poised to do operant Magick/ Spellcraft. Find the intent, then the method of your choice. The interface between Magick and Art is as close as the nearest set of tools to inspire and tweak your senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell. Specific spells There are a series of Hex-spells originated by the late Jo Steen of Compost coven. I like to open these in Adobe Illustrator and fill them with colors, patterns, and gradients which feel appropriate at the moment for the task at hand. Jo always colored hers by hand, working clockwise. (hex spell for insight, inspiration and creativity in the preparation of this class material)

-- Simple instructions for making a mojo were written by me back in the 1970's. Cat Yronwode's book on hoodoo and rootwork is online at http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html. This is an invaluable resource!

-- Sigil magick is also a fun thing to do electronically. Please note the interesting views of the chaos magick guys based on the work of A.O.Spare, in which you are recommended to put as much energy into the sigil as you can (usually sexual), and then forget completely about it in order to avoid "lust for results". (I rather like this approach, as I have a horrible memory and tend to forget everything if I haven't written it down.) (sigil for Fotamecus, time compression/expansion servitor) -- Magickal oils, candle magick, and herbal spells have an extensive literature -- if you don't have at least one book on the subject in your library, shame on you! Run, do not walk, to your closest bookstore. Or if you are lazy, simply Google. -- Make an altar to the object of your passion. More about my particular altar-making practice can be found here and here. There are a number of good books on the subject, including * Altars and Icons: Sacred Spaces in Everyday Life by Jean McMann (Editor) * Altars Made Easy : A Complete Guide To Creating Your Own Sacred Space by Peg Streep * In a Spiritual Style: The Home as Sanctuary by Laura Cerwinske * A Book of Women's Altars: How to Create Sacred Spaces for Art, Worship, Solace, Celebration by Nancy Brady Cunningham * Living Shrines: Home Altars of New Mexico by Marie Romero Cash * Fearless Creating (Inner Workbook.) by Eric Maisel and many more, most available at Amazon.com.

Elemental Balancing by valerie walker

2006 Q: For about the span of seven months I've been studying Feri...Although, try as I might, I am uninformed on the subject of elemental balancing as self-development that was mentioned on Feri FAQ. I've tried to research as much as I could on the internet with no success. It would be highly appreciated if you would give me some information on elemental balancing. A: There are several different techniques in Feri which are called "elemental balancing", most of which I was never taught by my initiators. However, since Feri practice is a toolkit for building a personal belief-system (at least in my view), you are quite free to take whatever you know or can find out from other sources and incorporate them into your own practices. And, of course, you can always engage in creating your own from what your own dreams and intuitions tell you. Think about it: the classical elements of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit/akasha are dealt with during such things as casting the circle/calling the Guardians, pentacle work, and so on. Try this: Google "elemental pentacle" in image search and see how very many different placements on the pentacle you get for the elements--with the exception of the fifth element (spirit/akasha), which is univerally found at the top. And take a look at the following schematic. The horizontal elements of earth, air, fire, and water seem to spin around the vertical of spirit, making this a sphere rather than a circle. Then take a look at the things in your life which correspond to earth (physical, action, the body), air (intellectual speculation, mentation, Talker), fire (spirit, Kundalini, Godself), and water (emotion, Fetch). See which ones seem to dominate your life, and which seem to have almost no action at all, which indicates they need more attention. and take particular note of the paths between the points to see where the blockages occur. Then do what seems necessary in your life to achieve a balance. I know this is pretty vague, but it's so very personal that I can't predict what techniques will work for you. Many people find working the Iron and Pearl Pentacles does it for them. To this I would add a third pentacle, the Devotion Pentacle--see my article on the three souls and three pentacles, which contains the above illustration (among others) and gives a few specific exercises to do. Let me know if this works for you, and if you come up with any original practices that might work for other people--I'm always excited to know about new discoveries and creations, especially if they're spun off from something I came up with. Makes me feel like I'm actually doing some good in the world.

In the two diagrams above, I have shown the problems I see with blockages in flow of the energies of the Iron and Pearl Pentacles respectively. Consistently blocked, these energies will give rise to the unfortunate psychological characteristics depicted. Conversely, the diagrams can be used as a diagnostic tool. If someone is needy, feels inadequate, competitive, and prone to attacks of rage or shame, it is fairly clear that he is blocked in expressing his Pride appropriately, or even of admitting that it belongs to him and is a perfectly natural attribute rather than one of the seven deadly sins. Likewise, realizing that he has consistently unrealistic expectations of relationships will hopefully lead to his working to keep the Law and Love points in proper balance, through meditation and other exercises on these points.

Where To Put The Elements

I happen to live in a place where West is water, because I can see the Pacific Ocean out my western windows. And since there are mountains directly to the East and the North of uswe are perched on a mountain, actually, so either would work for earth, and our fireplace is on the South wall of the house, not to mention the deserts being south of us ... I am able to use the directions which I learned originally from Starhawk, which are based on traditional attributions which work in western Europe. If I were living on the east coast, I might wish to switch Air and Water to correspond with my actual location. And a friend of mine who lives in the middle of Canada feels that she could use just about any element for any direction, since there is prairie on all sides of

her for miles and miles. So go with what you feel works in your specific location. I like to think of East as air because that's the direction I fly when I'm going to visit people; it's the whole breadth of the country with the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, the flatlands, cornfields, and so on. It's "back east," land of memory, beyond the mountains. And further back, my childhood in England, and even further back in time, Egypt and the ancient lands, the mysterious East. The scarab beetle rolls the rising sun over our hill, and, exhausted, lets it roll by itself down the sky to the ocean in the west, the realm of night. ....Maybe that's why I like living here in California.