Grey School Newspaper 29

Crafting Your Own Wizard’s Staf f:

By Prof. Moonwriter, Journeyman Wizard

One of the questions that reappears on our fo-rums with some regularity is about the making of a wizard’s staff. Many students are excited to cre-ate staffs and ask about “the right time” to do so. Several chime in with “rules” that they’ve heard about the right time and place and reason and methods for crafting a staff. A few suggest that one “shouldn’t” make a staff until ____ (insert specific task, initiation, etc.) is completed. Others disagree, saying, “If the time feels right, do it!”

Given the wide disparity of thought on this, I found myself curious, and decided to delve into the magickal community’s “take” on creating a staff. (Note: In this piece, I will use the words “staff” and “stave” interchangeably.)

First of all, let’s consider our own Headmaster’s view. In the Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard, Headmaster Oberon says he believes the staff to be the wizard’s most important possession and adds, “The degree of commitment and energy re-quired to create a true Wizard’s staff cannot be expected at the apprentice stage of [one’s] train-ing.” He feels so strongly that the staff is an ad-vanced tool that he has intentionally not included instructions for stave-craft in the Grimoire.

Knowing that our Headmaster feels so strongly about this, my curiosity was piqued even more, and I began researching how other key Pagan fig-ures felt about stave-craft.

First, I turned to Wicca. In Raymond Buckland’s infamous “Blue Book,” The Complete Book of Witchcraft, Buckland reveals no preference about when, why, or how a staff should be created and sees a staff mainly as an energy conduit that works like a wand but is much larger. “Witch School” is even less definitive, making no specific statements at all about stave use. Gardnerian Wiccans may or may not choose to use the staff in circle ritual but seem to have no formal guide-lines for making or using staves. In contrast, Robert Cochrane, founder of the “Clan of Tubal Cain” and a rather outspoken opponent of Gard-nerian Wicca, counted the staff as a primary ritu-al tool that should part of each user’s repertoire. I couldn’t find anything at all about the position of Strega, Hedge, Reclaiming, or Dianic Wicca in terms of stave use.

Modern Druids have a wide range of opinions on stave-craft. Isaac Bonewits, a well-known mod-

ern Druid, used a staff in ritual and practice and typically carried one with him as well. The ADF, a Druid order that Bonewits founded, uses the staff as a ritual component, and the modern Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids likewise counts the Druid staff as a key implement. In contrast, many reconstructionist Druid orders—including my own Order of White Oak—don’t use or acknowledge the staff as a ritual (or even a daily) tool as there is no clear evidence that Druids ever used staves.

Adding even more complexity to the question is why the staff takes on different forms, whether arcane or modern. The “stang” is a staff with two prongs on one end, often formed by the addition of a forked antler, while the “spear” is a weap-onized variation of the staff often attributed to Norse or Roman traditions. The suit of “wands” in the Tarot actually resembles staves more than the modern version of wands. Some modern staves are fully accessorized, containing embed-ded compasses, rugged hiking tips, or even hid-den flasks, in addition to hollow cores in which magickal items have been hidden.

What can I deduce from these findings? While our Headmaster’s own tradition finds him feel-ing strongly about the importance and use of a staff, including limiting the creation of a staff to experienced wizards, it seems like most practi-tioners take a more laid-back approach. Person-ally, I think the most successful tools are those that call to the user. You know: When the user is ready, the tool will appear. If a magick user feels a strong desire or call to create a staff, I think it makes sense to do so. More specifically, I don’t see the point in not creating a desired tool just because one fears the time is not “right.”

In the end, whether making wand, stave, athame, panticle, or any sort of magickal implement, one must work with right motivations and strong in-tent, as well as respect for the material and the inspiration itself. If we follow these guidelines, I don’t believe we can go too wrong.

WORKS CITED:

“Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship.” 2011. <http://www.adf.org/core/>

Buckland, Raymond. The Complete Book of Witchcraft. Llewellyn, 2002.

Howard, Michael. “The Robert Cochrane Tradition.” 2009. <http://www.clanoftubalcain.org.uk/rctrad.html>

WHISPERING GREY MATTERS 2 ISSUE 29 WHISPERING GREY MATTERS 3 ISSUE 29

When? Why? How?

CREDITS CONTENTSCrafting your Own Wizard Staff .............................. 3NEWSBanned in Banning ................................................... 4Curse of the Fae .................................................. 4Holy Thorn Cut Down by Vandals .......................... 5 Secrets of Stonehenge ............................................ 6Druidism Recognized as Religion ............................. 7Of Cathedrals, Labyrinths & Chilean Miners ................. 8WIZARDRYA Quick Review of the GSW Regalia ...................... 9Personalizing Your Wizardly Regalia ..................... 10-11Altoid Altars & Mini-Spellbooks ....................... 12-13The Best Internet Resources for Wizards ................. 14The Art of Meditating & Visualizing .................... 16-17Court Cards & Ritual Magick ............................ 18-19Tarot & Psi Ability ........................................... 19-20SCIENCEiPhone App Reviews ............................................ 21Shamans & Healers -- Trial & Error? ................... 22-23OPINIONBreathing Easier with Magickal Tools ...................... 23Correspondences -- Says Who? ............................... 24Following Your Heart .............................................. 24REVIEWSRobin Hobbs’ Elderlings Stories ........................... 25-27Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 ............... 28-30FOODMagickal Tools for Cooking ....................................... 32Leek & Potato Soup ............................................... 33Chocolate -- Worth More than Its Weight in Gold ......... 33GSW NEWSA Real Live Grey School Hero, Drakonya ................... 312010 Pacific NorthWest Conclave ........................ 34-36Captain’s Report ..................................................... 37Lodge Reports ....................................................... 37The Earth Day Challenge ................................... 38-39GSW Clubs -- A Peek Inside .................................... 39GSW Journeymen ................................................... 40GSW Awards ........................................................ 41

Whispering Grey MattersLiteral Magic

FACULTY ADVISORS:Moonwriter, Jymi X/0

PUBLISHER: Jymi X/0

COPY EDITOR: silverlocke

GSW:Editor: Sapphire Soleil

NEWS:Editor: DrakonyaStaff Writers: Sapphire Soleil, silverlocke

WIZARDING:Editor: XimeraStaff Writers: RavenMage,Scarlet Flame Lion

SCIENCE:Editor: DrakonyaStaff Writers: Moonwriter,Drakonya, DolmaDraka

OPINION:Editor: Sapphire SoleilStaff Writer: Artemis Gryphon Snowhawk

ARTS, CULTURE & FOOD:Editor: MoonwriterStaff Writers: silverlocke, Colordancer

ART ROOM:Lead Artist: Jymi X/0Staff artist: Scarlet Flame Lion

CONTRIBUTORS:Fyrewing, Giovedi StormSinger

COVER ILLUSTRATION:Scarlet Flame Lion

Issue 29 February 2011

Whispering Grey Matters is a quarterly newsletter produced by and for the students and faculty of The Grey School of Wizard-ry (www.greyschool.com). All contents herein are © 2011 Grey School, except where otherwise noted. Copyrights revert to origi-nal authors and artists upon publication.

Bannings in Banningby Sapphire Soleil

The city of Banning, California has taken the first steps to zone all occult-oriented businesses and oth-er shops.

The proposed zone code amendment would curtail the development of tattoo and body-piercing par-lors, hookah and smoking lounges, fortunetelling or occult arts, and mobile vendors, keeping them away from all parks, schools, residential neighborhoods and any business that sells alcohol or adult mer-chandise. Such stores would also have their hours of operation greatly limited and would have to pay a conditional permit fee of nearly $4,800 and still pass through several city committees before such a permit would be granted.

Such a ban would, in essence, eliminate all such stores from operating in Banning as almost every-thing is near one of the areas where such stores would not be permitted.

All of this makes this reporter wonder-- will a book-store that sells our Grimoire be considered an occult shop?

The city will consider this amendment at their Janu-ary 25th meeting.

Source: Waldner, Eric, Press-Enterprise website. BANNING: City seeks to adopt new land-use regulations. December 8, 2010<http://www.pe.com/business/local/stories/PE_News_Local_D_eregulate03.492fc23.html>


Curse of the Faeby silverlocke

Are the current financial doldrums afflicting Ireland only the last in a long series of incidents connected to the destruction of the Fairy Forts (also known as raths or mounds or ringforts) the result of Fae re-venge for a new highway being constructed? Folklore claims it best not to disturb these earthworks known to be home to the Faeries--including Leprechauns, Banshees, Pooka, Merrows, and, most especially, the Dullahans.

Anti-highway activist Carmel Diviney asserts that a "modern day Curse of Tara" has been inflicted on Ireland by the construction of the new M3 motor-way and by an order signed by Dick Roche--Minister for the Environment--which destroyed the Lismul-lin Henge, a 4000 year old astronomical observa-tory and place or worship. Archeologist Joe Fenwick of the National University of Ireland described this structure as, "... Ireland's equivalent of Stonehenge or Egypt's Pyramids". No evidence of human habita-tion was found and it was most likely a ritual site.

According to Ms. Diviney, Seanmachai ('storyteller' or lore historian) Eddie Lennihan (one of the world's leading experts on Irish folklore and Leprechauns) warned against destroying the Fairy Forts in the his-toric Tara Skryne Valley-saying such actions would be cursed. As evidence of this curse, she points to some of the following occurrences:

• Minister Roche being mugged by an armed gang in the appropriately named Druids Glen Hotel and his subsequent demotion and loss of job

• Minister for Transport Martin Cullen nearly got sucked out of a helicopter when the door fell off

• The Chief Health and Safety Officer injured by a falling tree when clearing began in 2007

• A worker was killed when he became trapped at Fairyhouse

But most telling and worrisome of all, says Ms. Di-viney, is that the wasps have been stirred up. In Celtic Lore, the wasp was linked to the wrath of Mother Earth herself.

WORKS CITED"Ancient ‘Royal Temple’ Discovered in Path of Ireland Highway." National Geographic News. Web. 08 Jan. 2011.<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070515-ireland-tara.html>.

"Irish Fairies, The Good People." The Irish Path. Web. 08 Jan. 2011.<http://www.the-irish-path.com/irish-fairies.html>.

Thornton, Donal. "Ireland Suffering from Ancient Curse of Tara." Irish News. Web. 08 Jan. 2011.<http://www.irishcentral.com/news/>.

Holy Thorn Cut Down by Vandals By Prof. Moonwriter

England’s “Holy Thorn of Glastonbury,” a 2000-year old hawthorn believed to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, was chopped down on Dec. 9, 2010 in what most see as an act of spiritual ter-rorism.

The tree trunk was left intact, but all of the branches and superstructure were hacked away. The tree will probably put out sprouts in the coming spring and may be able to survive; however, decades will be needed before it recovers to anything of its former structure—assuming it is able to recover at all.

Legend says that the original tree took root grew 2000 years ago when Joseph of Arimathea set his staff into the ground. The staff sprouted, set roots, and grew into a healthy tree. Locals report that the tree has since flowered twice a year, at Christmas and Easter.

The tree was of great importance not only to Chris-tians but also to those who followed the Pagan and Arthurian traditions linked to Britain’s history. Thou-sands of pilgrims visited the tree each year and climbed the nearby Glastonbury Tor. Sprigs from the tree adorned the table at Buckingham palace each year and were often seen during the Queen’s annual

holiday radio address (Phillips).

This isn’t the first time that the tree has met with vio-lence. The holy thorn was chopped down once during the English civil wars, but secret cuttings were taken from the tree and replanted immediately. This type of hawthorn typically lives about 100 years; cuttings from the tree have been used to grow replacements for hundreds of years now, and locals hope to use cuttings to create new life from the now-damaged tree.

Although no one is certain who desecrated the tree—or why, one theory posits that the tree was dam-aged because of a vendetta against the landowner on whose land the tree stands. Sadly, although locals cared for the tree, it was not recognized as a heri-tage tree and was not under the auspices of govern-mental protection. Therefore, it is simply considered a wild tree. This means that even if the vandals are identified, it is unlikely they will be prosecuted.

For images of the tree before and after the episode, see this website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337159/Glastonburys-2000-year-old-Holy-Thorn-Tree-hacked-vandals.html

WORKS CITEDPhillips, Jack. “Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree Cut Down by Vandals.” The Epoch Times. 13 Dec. 2010. <http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/47430/>

Photo: Ken Grainger (via Wikimedia Creative Commons)

NEWS NEWS


Secrets of Stonehenge By silverlocke

Three questions nearly any curious person might have about Stonehenge: 1) who built it?, 2) how was it built? and, 3) why was it built? An episode of NOVA on PBS attempts to answer these questions using some new tools, unprecedented access and, in order to break loose some new theories, some outside-the-box thinking.

Despite the engineering genius that went into the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge was already standing when those structures were built and at least as many puzzles surround it. The 45-ton sandstone sarcen stones, despite being hard-er than granite, are carved like wood might be. The lintel stones, built with tongue-and-groove and hol-lowed at the bottom to fit into 'keys' in the vertical stones, make a near-perfect circle and, despite the slope, are level within inches. These sarcen stones were native to the area, but smaller bluestones were (ostensibly) transported from Wales - over 150 miles away.

Stonehenge was constructed in stages with the sur-rounding circular ditch and the bluestones being erected first around 3000BCE and the giant sarcens following 500 years later along with a walkway or processional that curved gently from or to the River Avon where another bluestone-only henge was found during this excavation project.

In the 20th century, nearly 60 cremation burials were discovered around the outer circle amongst the 56 Aubrey Holes, making Stonehenge the larg-est cremation burial site yet discovered. When these bones were recently dug up out of the #7 Aubrey Hole where they'd all been re-buried en masse af-ter their discovery in the 1920s, it was found that

they were predominately males in fairly good health between the ages of 25-40, indicating to some that they might be members of a royal family who had commissioned this particular henge.

Many theories have been put forward and tested as to how the stones were moved into place, but so far no proof of any of these theories has emerged. Despite this poor track record, researcher Andrew Young has yet another theory--carved stone balls as wheels or 'ball bearings'. Although he and his team had to use softer wood than would have been used at the time, they were successfully able to move the weight of one of the smaller sarcens using carved balls in wooden channels along wooden rails. Anoth-er theory, proposed in the Oxford Journal of Archae-ology, claims that the bluestones never originated at a quarry at all, but were transported by Ice Age glaciers.

According to Madagascar burial lore, stone is the realm of the dead and wood the realm of the living. Less than two miles from Stonehenge is the wood henge of Durrington Walls. And the river Avon runs near both of the henges—raising the intriguing pos-sibility that the builders considered that the symbolic route from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Another clue was that at Durrington Walls, where one entrance pointed to the rising sun of the winter solstice and the other to the setting sun of the summer solstice. This finding linked Stonehenge and Durrington Walls via the solstices.

Stonehenge appears to depict an end of an era - an era when stone and wood yielded to metal. And at the end, this NOVA special provided yet more ques-tions and few answers - only more theories.

Works Cited Gail, Willumsen. "Secrets of Stonehenge." NOVA. PBS. KERA, Dallas, TX, 19 Nov. 2010. Television.

" New Glacier Theory on Stonehenge." BBC News - Home. Web. 28 Dec. 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/5072664.stm>.

"Stonehenge." Britannia: British History and Travel. Web. 28 Dec. 2010. <http://www.britannia.com/history/h7.html>.

“Stonehenge's Mysterious Stones." EARTH Magazine. Web. 28 Dec. 2010. <http://www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/1a1-7d8-c-1f>.

Druidism Recognized as a Religion in BritainBy Prof. Moonwriter

Druids have long been linked with Britain and the Celtic nations, yet despite their historical and modern presence, their religion has never been formally recognized in Great Britain.

Until now.

Thanks to years-long efforts of the Druid Net-work, a group of 350 practicing Druids in the United Kingdom, Britain’s Charity Commission has now recognized Druidism as a fully-en-dowed religion in the UK. The Charity Commis-sion is the official British group that sanctions religious organizations in Britain.

What does this mean in real terms? It means that Druid “churches” (often called “groves”) will now have the same rights as other Brit-ish churches, including the Church of England. These rights include everything from the ability to conduct marriages and funerals to making hospital visitations to claiming tax exemptions.

According to "Huffington Post" writer Sylvia Hui, there are believed to be 10,000 or more practic-ing Druids in the United Kingdom. With the new recognition, these people will be able to practice more openly and fully benefit from their new status as an approved public religion.

Druidism is an Earth-based tradition. With Brit-ain’s new acknowledgement of its own Druids comes increased likelihood that Earth-based traditions worldwide will begin earning both new visibility and new respect.

Small steps….WORKS CITEDHui, Sylvia. “Druids Recognized as Religion for First Time in U.K.” Huffington Post. 2 Oct. 2010.<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/03/uk-druids-religion-recognized-for-first-time_n_748369.html>

Photo: Drakonya

NEWS NEWS

Of Cathedrals, Labyrinths and Chilean Miners By Drakônya

There are weavers in this world who work on pat-terns and come up with theories - or carpets. Such a weaver of theories is a French Chaos Magick wizard named Michel Fournier, not a relative of mine despite his name. Like millions of people, he saw the thirty-three Chilean miners come out of the mine where they had been trapped for more than two months. But unlike millions of people, he thought he recog-nized a pattern that had to do with the number 33, the womb of Mother Earth, labyrinths, the Christian faith and its cathedrals. Now you hold all the colour-ful threads.

Labyrinths are used in magick to walk to the core of your being in a medita-tion, to go into a deeper state of focus, to reach your intuitive self... There are several types of laby-rinths, the simplest and oldest form being the spi-ral, one of the most pow-erful patterns in Nature. Perhaps the most complex is the medieval labyrinth, which combines several patterns. In the Chartres cathedral (France), one such labyrinth was built in the twelfth century, and is still walked to its core everyday by hundreds of people, the idea behind it being that as men and women followed the pattern on the ground, they would finally reach the divine - in God, according to the interpretation of the time, but also in themselves, according to modern under-standing. Fournier walked the labyrinth and counted the stones that build it, which amounted to 273 - in days and months, this would make nine months... and nine months is the period of gestation for a woman. Since the cathedral was officially dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the labyrinth could be a symbol of the gestation and birth of her son Jesus, but is also for everyone who follows its pattern a new birth to the spiritual self.

However, this labyrinth is an exact copy of the Cretan labyrinth, even representing on a copper plate The-seus and the flesh-eating man with the bull's head, the Minotaur, except that at that time, the ancient Cretan labyrinth had not been rediscovered... You know the myth: every year the Minotaur living in the labyrinth had to eat human flesh, generally seven

young boys and seven young girls. Prince Theseus said he would kill the beast, and was helped by Ari-adne who gave him a ball of string so that he would not get lost in the labyrinth. Theseus succeeded. But why would a Greek mythological scene be repre-sented in a Christian cathedral, with a labyrinth that hints at rebirth and non-Christian practices? Fournier takes a leap and suggests that this early cathedral was in fact dedicated to Demeter, Goddess of the seasons, harvests and fertility whose name literal-ly means Mother Earth, and that the labyrinth was

a representation of her womb. Incidentally, and this is my own comment, there is also in Chartres cathedral a tiny hole in a stained glass window, and a nail buried in the ground a few metres away. The hole lights the nail once a year, at the summer sol-stice!

Are you still with me? En-ter the 33 Chilean miners, buried deep (seven hun-dred metres deep) into Mother Earth's - Deme-ter's - womb. I can see that now, you are weav-ing a theory. Or a carpet. According to the Christian

faith, Jesus Christ died at the age of 33 and resur-rected - was reborn - after three days in a cave... caves symbolizing Demeter's womb as well. Some modern (and controversial) interpretations of the resurrection of Jesus explain that the "death on the cross" was not necessarily a physical death. His re-birth would then have been a spiritual one... Fournier thinks that for the 33 miners to come out and be reborn after this short period of gestation is a very significant omen that recalls to mind other patterns and events such as the ones depicted in the Chartres cathedral and the Cretan labyrinth. He does not go further in his explanation, however.

So I will. Think about the millions of people who saw this miraculous rebirth. Think about what amount of positive energy was sent their way, building simul-taneously into a tremendous amount of power. Does it make you hopeful that this healing energy was in fact sent to Mother Earth, in response to Her subtle way of asking for more care by pulling the strings of an archetypal symbol?

SOURCES: - Fournier, Michel - "Le labyrinthe : du Minotaure à Dieu" 2011.<http://knol.google.com/k/le-labyrinthe-du-minotaure-%C3%A0-dieu#Le_labyrinthe>


A Quick Review of the GSW Regalia

By Prof. MoonwriterFor many of us, one of the most fun parts of practicing magick and wizard-ry is dressing the part. For some, this means dressing like

wizards of olde, while for others, it means displaying their Grey School accomplishments. Still others are anxious to show their school pride by sharing a com-mon “garb” that identifies them as GSW students.

The Grey School regalia was developed a couple of years ago in hopes of meeting all of these goals. In this article, I’m going to provide a quick summary of the official GSW regalia.

First of all, understand that the regalia is fully op-tional. Each student decides whether he or she will wear the regalia and which aspects will be devel-oped. But wearing it is absolutely not required under any circumstances.

The general regalia falls into three categories.

• “Casual” regalia is designed for active or outdoor events. It consists of the GSW T-shirt or T-shirts in primary colors matched to a student’s House or Lodge. The shirts are worn with slacks, skirt, jeans, etc. A cloak, cap, or other outerwear may be added. You might see GSW students wearing casual regalia at an outdoor Conclave.

• “Public” regalia is a step more formal and is aimed at presenting a consistent public face for the GSW. The standard element in the “pub-lic” category is a black polo shirt with a school, house, or lodge patch sewn on the left breast. This is worn with black pants, skirt, or shorts and other outerwear as desired. The public regalia is ideal for settings such as Pagan faires; we’ve also worn our black polos at Conclave when it was time for the group pictures.

• “Formal” regalia is what we tend to think of as traditional “wizard wear.” It’s a combination of robes, tabards, cloaks, cingulums, and other ar-cane garb, each color- or style-coded to indicate something about the wearer’s magickal interests or expertise. This category is intended mostly for ritual or ceremonial purposes.

Another important part of the GSW regalia is the academic stole. The stole is solid black and 5-6” wide. It is available to students who are Level 2 and above, and provides a place on which to document

one’s progress in the GSW. For example, department patches, majors, minors, level markers, Dean’s List stars, and special awards are all displayed on the ac-ademic stole, which may be worn with any category of GSW regalia. Again, the stole is only available to students who are at Level 2 or above; this is an in-centive to finish Level 1!

This is only a quick overview: the full regalia guide-lines appear on the Dean of Student’s forum. In ad-dition to full explanations of the regalia and how to wear each part, the guidelines also include informa-tion about making one’s own regalia as well as re-sources for buying regalia, insignia, etc.

NEWS WIZARDRY

Photo: Moonwriter

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Freedom of garb is one of the best things about magick. I feel that yes, the rules should be followed, but only within the context of ritual or ceremony and only as far as colors go. Outside of this I find that magick is something that opens the individual up to discover who they truly are and that what a person wears reflects this. Your regalia should definitely re-flect you as an individual. Be creative! Remember, experimenting is the name of the game. Borrow from whatever you wish to: your cultural background, eth-nic background, your favorite magickal traditions, or whatever you feel is right.

Try this experiment. Take the color of your depart-mental major or, if you don’t have one yet, your fa-vorite color. Now try playing with different shades of that color. Layering different shades of greens, reds, blues purples, etc. is a fun way to start.

There are of course a couple of things to remem-ber with regards to your regalia, especially when it comes to fabrics. First, set a budget, and then with-in that budget, try to pamper yourself. Sometimes, though, there’s a special fabric for your cloak or that robe that you’ve always wanted, but it’s a bit out of your budget to do the whole set of robes or the whole cloak in that fabric. Compromise by getting, say, a length of the fabric to trim the robes or cloak with and using a less expensive fabric for the main portion of the regalia. Consider allergies before you purchase the fabric. Wool is the best example of this because some people have a reaction to wearing wool against their skin.

Another thing to consider is if you can sew! I cannot due to coordination issues associated with my disor-der. Instead, I work with a local designer to create the robes I see in my head. If you can create the robes or other regalia yourself, that’s perfect, but if not, I find there is no shame in asking for help. In my case, I worked with a local designer who is wonder-ful and very skilled to craft my formal gown and my lodge robes.

To better explain what I mean about personalizing your regalia, let me give two examples drawn from my own regalia. I love soft luxurious fabrics, so I tend to go for silks, satins, and velvets. However, I also need to consider the weather as it goes from cold to hot, so cooler cotton fabrics such as batiks, etc. are a good choice.

One example of this is my formal regalia gown. In design it is unique, and in fabric it is stunning! I chose a pure white panne velvet fabric for the gown

and decided on a ¾ sleeve for it. The gown is slightly loose and has on-the-shoulder sleeves which means that if the sleeves started any further out it would be an off-the-shoulder set of robes. In this case the color was chosen to match the regalia guidelines but how the robes look was entirely up to me.

Another example is my lodge robes. An astounding set of just-on-the-shoulder long sleeved robes with multiple diamond-shaped keyholes down the sleeves and a slightly flaring cuff, which I often call a “Celt-ic” cuff, that goes slightly over the hand. The really


Personalizing Your Wizardly RegaliaArticle and photos by Scarlet Flame Lion

special detailing is on the front collar section of the dress. A double row of real stones…glowing 3mm rainbow moonstones glow softly against the dark green velour.

Your experimentation should not be limited to your robes, etc., but also to your accoutrements. Your wizard’s belt should also be special. Mine is a special cultural sash from Le Festival du Voyageur, a huge French-Canadian festival held in my hometown ev-ery winter. This belt comes in different patterns, but mine is a centure fleche, or an arrow, belt.

Other pieces of my regalia also reflect my cultural heritage. I own two aboriginal collars. One I made of bone beads with copper and jade spacers, and the other was crafted in Pancake Bay, Ontario. I also bead much of my own magickal jewelry.

From beads and buttons to frogs (Asian loop and knot closures) and fabrics in any color, type, or pat-tern you can imagine! These are all just parts of the regalia creation process. How you put them to-gether is entirely up to you. The process of creating regalia should be a fun and pleasurable one a place to truly show off your unique sense of style.

While we’re on the subject of Regalia... Magick Alley, the Grey School Store, is having a sale on the Large Style school rings!

$10.00 off for the first 10

new orders only. HURRY!

We have 8 orders remaining.

Visit the “Jewelry” section of Magick Alley today!

http://www.magickalley.com

GREY SCHOOL CLASS RINGS ON SALE!

LIMITED TIME ONLY!

WIZARDRY WIZARDRY

Article and photos by Prof. Moonwriter

It all started at the 2010 Pacific Northwest Conclave. Being a lover of miniature anything, I had been toy-ing with the idea of creating a miniature altar set that could be tucked into a tiny space and carried just about anywhere. This interest had sprung from three different directions. First, I’d become familiar with Prof. Rainmaker’s “Porta-Pagans,” small-scale collec-tions of ritual gear gathered into drawstring bags for easy transport and use. Second, at the 2009 Con-clave, Prof. Flamekeeper had given me a really cool prize of a Chinese take-out box filled with miniature altar items: a tiny chalice, small candles, miniature incense sticks, and more. And third, like I already said, I love tiny things.

I kept turning the ideas over in my mind. Prof. Rain-maker’s setup was great, but the soft-sided bag was a problem. I wanted something that was sturdy and un-squishable. I also wanted a way to carry water, oil, and other juicy items. Prof. Flamekeeper’s Chi-nese take-out box was interesting, but it was con-siderably bigger than what I’d had in mind and—al-though adorable—was still rather fragile.

Not long after that, I was cleaning out a drawer and came upon a collection of Altoid boxes that I’d saved in hopes of finding a future use for them. A light came on…. These would be perfect for miniature al-

tar boxes, I thought. They’re compact, strong, and sturdy enough to protect whatever’s inside. And they’re small enough to go from pocket to purse to glove box—anywhere!

Voila. The idea for the Altoid altar was born.

The next step was gathering more boxes. Now that I was attuned to the right shape and size for the box-es, I started seeing small boxes everywhere, wheth-er they held mints, gum, thumbtacks, gift cards, band aids, teabags, etc., if they were sturdy metal, I snapped them up. I soon had a growing collection of small tin boxes of all sizes, shapes, and colors—and some with interesting designs as well!

Once the boxes were in hand, it was time to move on to contents. My goal was that despite their small size, these Altoid altars would hold the materials needed to set up an altar or carry out simple ritual actions, like blessings, cleansings, wardings, etc., as well as magick charms and spells. I was challenged to find items that were small enough to fit into the altar but large enough to be usable. For instance, it would do no good to find a chalice that looked cute but wouldn’t hold water, or a candle too small to light.

The search for contents was lots of fun. Here are some of the ideas I came up with:

• Altar cloths: Small pieces of thin fabric in varying colors. The Altoid lid could also be “lined” with fabric or with any kind of image.

• Candles: I used standard birthday cake candles; I found that if you shaved a bit off the base, you could insert them into a standard “pony bead” holder; the candles would then stand up on a flat surface.

• Incense: A tiny abaolone shell became a perfect mini-thurible, perfect for bits of incense or dried herbs. I included a few strike-anywhere matches as well.

• Stones and crystals: Small stones and crystals—in chosen correspondences—fit perfectly into the tin.

• Cords: I included a 12” piece of string, useful for marking off dimensions as desired.

• Scrying: A flat, mirrored button became a scrying surface.

• Plates, cups, and tools: Small plastic pieces from a Playmobil set provided miniature plates, cups, chalices, pitchers, pails, swords, athames, and more.

• Divination: Tiny Tarot cards fit into some boxes.

A set of cube-shaped beads with letters on each side allowed creation of a mini-divination set us-ing Y, N, and M dice—for yes, no, and maybe. (This idea came from Stargazer at Conclave in 2010.)

• Deities and figurines: Tiny animal and deity fig-ures made excellent additions to the altar box-es. Some of these came from the Playmobil set; many others were small buttons or decorative beads.

• Herbs and salts: I bought a flat of tiny corked bottles from a science supply house (very in-expensive, but a vast number!). We filled these with salt, dried herbs, and tiny chips of minerals and crystals.

• Water and oils: Small screw-top vials—from the local rock and gem shop—were used to hold wa-ter and oils.

• Wands: Toothpicks and thick twigs were used to create wands.

• Chalk: A small piece of chalk could be used for chalking biodegradable marks on rocks, earth, etc.

We spent one class period at Conclave making these tiny Altoid altars. I wasn’t sure how the class would go over, but interestingly, this turned out to be one of the favorite moments of Conclave. Everyone rolled up their sleeves and had a blast building the altars—it was a great time: play time, actually!

It later occurred to me that the altars needed only one addition to be perfect. Namely, if you have a tiny altar, you also need a tiny spell book. Seems logi-cal yes? So at a moot during the autumn of 2010, we made little spell books. The easiest way to do

this is simply to cut several pieces of paper about 1.5 x 3 inches. Use lightweight paper as these are the pages of your book. Fold them in half to create the “book.” Cut a cover that is barely larger than the book pages; the cover should be of cardstock or stiffer material. Staple the book in the middle and, if desired, tie a thin cord around the middle as well. Use the pages of the tiny book to record blessings, prayers, or anything else you might want to have handy in a ritual. Tuck this into your Altoid altar and you’ll be ready to go!


WIZARDRY WIZARDRY

The BesT InTerneT resources for WIzardsBy Ximera

In the not-so-distant past, resources for a budding wizard were few and difficult to obtain. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st has seen an explosion of both the publication of new in-formation and widespread distribution of classic gri-moires and texts.

How do you find these texts and purchase them? Where do you go if you have questions or want to explore the concepts further? In the past, wizards ei-ther struggled through their studies alone or, if they were lucky enough to live in the right place, joined a magickal order. Today's wizards are much more fortunate. Wizards around the world can exchange ideas, books, and materials through the Internet.

The Internet is a vast universe of its own, and new wizards may need some help finding the best magick-al sites. I asked on the Grey School forums recently for favorite magickal resources on the Internet. Here are my top 10 favorites from the recommendations:

• Grey School and the Grey School forums (www.greyschool.com and forums.greyschool.com). Of course, you already know of these. Grey School is filled with knowledgeable, like-minded individ-uals, and the forums are great for discussions on a variety of magickal subjects.

• Check out Modern Herbal and Mountain Rose Herbs (botanical.com and mountainroseherbs.com) for herbs and herbal supplies, and Aroma Therapeutix (aromatherapeutix.com) for essen-tial oils.

• Fire Mountain Gems (firemountaingems.com) of-fers an extensive selection of beads and gems for those that love to craft their own magickal jewelry and tools.

• The Magick Moon (themagickmoon.com) is a ter-rific resource for general magick supplies of all types.

• Lucky Mojo (luckymojo.com) has a variety of general materials but focuses on supplies for hoodoo and rootwork. At their site you will also find an active forum and a respected rootwork correspondence course.

• Amazon.com is, of course, a terrific place to pur-

chase magickal texts, but if you’re looking for older, out-of-print books, check out the Internet Sacred Text Archive (sacred-texts.com). There you can find texts of many of the classic grimoires and historical texts on a variety of magickal sub-jects.

• If you’re not sure what magickal texts you should be looking for, check out the list of re-sources at home.earthlink.net/~delia5/pagan/otp/pagresorc1.htm.

• Omniglot (omniglot.com) is a great resource for magickal alphabets and symbols.

• Aeclectic Tarot (aeclectic.net/tarot/) is a great site for researching all-things Tarot, particularly new decks. The site features excellent reviews on decks and provides images of several cards, so you can get a feel for the art.

• Finally, Archangel Correspondences (www.arch-angels-and-angels.com/aa_pages/correspon-dences/archangels_corresp_index.html) is much more than its name implies. It includes not only information on angels, but also astrological, kab-balistic, and elemental correspondences.

These are but a smattering of the rich magickal resources available on the Internet. What is your favorite site? Discuss the topic in our Grey School forums.

Special thanks to Wynnd, Prof. Moonwriter, AidenWells, Scarlet Flame Lion, silverlocke, shimmertal, Prof. stonetalker, Earth Song, Godfrey Eagleheart, and CyberDemon08 for contributing their favorite resources!

WORKS CITED“Best Internet Resources.” Grey School Forums. 6 Jan 2011. <http://forums.greyschool.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20254>


Photo: Jymi X/0

WIZARDRY

face of experience.

Are you back? Good. Then let's talk about visualiza-tion. In literature, wizards who teleport must always be able to visualize precisely the place where they appear. I suppose it is so in real life as well, although I could not talk from personal experience. Being able to visualize helps perform spells and rituals, since it focuses our minds sharply on our goals.

What can you do if it does not come easily to you? As always, it is a matter of training. There are classes here at GSW and sections in the Grimoire that can help you improve your skills. Roughly, the idea is to begin by observing something. Make it a picture or a three-dimensional object. Then close your eyes, and see this object as if your eyes were open. In other words, train your mind to visualize. Start with an easy object to begin with, and as you progress, make the subject of your focus more difficult. If you are an expert, find the most mind-boggling object of focus you can rest your eyes on, and keep practicing!

This exercise concerns only what you can see. But the sense of smell triggers a rich, vast field of experi-ences and memories as well. How can you train your mind to smell those fragrances when they are not present? You need to learn to tap olfactory memory, and for this, you need to train it. Here is something

you can do: take your favorite incense with you, and sit in meditation. Once your mind is calm enough, smell the fragrance of the incense, and do your best to focus your whole mind on it. Or light the incense and meditate with its smell surrounding you. When you are able to recall this fragrance even if it is not present, then you can both visualize and smell at the same time.

All your senses can be involved in this way, trained and improved until when you perform a spell, you are able to focus your mind on the visualization of its results. Releasing energy towards your goal then be-comes an incredibly real experience, strengthening your will and the results of your spell simultaneous-ly. Not to mention how visualization and meditation change the way you perceive the worlds. . . .

WORKS CITED

Pigani, Eric. "Les bienfaits prouvés de l'entraînement mental." Psychologies.com. Jan-2004. 2-Jan-2011.<http://www.psychologies.com/Culture/Philosophie-et-spiritual-ite/Meditation/Articles-et-Dossiers/Mediter-le-meilleur-des-anti-stress/Les-bienfaits-prouves-de-l-entrainement-mental>

Rinpotche, Guendune. Mahamoudra. Paris: Pocket Publications, 1999.

Rinpotche, Jigme. La Méditation en Action. Saint Léon sur Vézère: Editions Dzambala, 1997.


The Art of Meditating and VisualizingPicture yourself walking at the top of a hill with your hair flowing in the wind, an animal companion walk-ing by your side. It is spring. Flowers are blooming. The sun, still shy, warms up your cold bones after a long, dark winter.

That's it. You are visualizing.

It is all in your head.

For me, magick is all about the power of the mind, the trust you put in Nature, and the deep under-standing of the interconnectedness of all things. Most of the time, however, our mind is cluttered with plenty of thoughts.

Pick up a pen and a piece of paper right now, close your eyes for a minute, and write down every single thing that pops up in your mind. If writing with your eyes closed perilously threatens the well-being of your desk, open them from time to time. See how fun it is to follow threads of thoughts until they asso-ciate with other ideas? This is exactly why we might find it difficult to focus our mind on a particular vi-sualization to manifest our desires and needs while performing a ritual. Meditation and visualization go together.

There are several types of meditation. One of those is meant to still the mind and let go of the clutter of thoughts; the others tend to be coupled with vi-sualization to bend the mind in a precise direction. Keeping the mind like a calm lake, to use a Buddhist comparison, is one of the hardest things to do. How-ever there are a few things that can help you do this, and all require focus and relaxation.

The idea is to use a single object of focus for your mind to rest upon, usually through one of your sens-es. Sit in a comfortable position. You can focus your eyes on a pen, a statue, or anything that inspires you a quiet state of mind; then let your vision blur, and remain absorbed in this contemplation for as long

as you can. If your thoughts wander, which they are very likely to do, gently bring them back to the pres-ent situation. Similarly, you can focus on the rhythm of your breath, the noises around you, the scent of incense, or a combination of all of those. The impor-tant thing is to keep this up for as long as you feel relaxed. If frustration and stress appear, you should stop right there and start over the following day. Even five minutes of this exercise is very beneficial.

A recent study led by American scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology involved spir-itual masters who dedicated their lives to medita-tion. All sorts of experiments were led to measure the impact of meditation on the brain. The scientists discovered that daily meditation relieves stress and emotions such as anger and aggressiveness and de-velops a serene behavior towards disagreeable is-sues in our lives.

Scientists could not manage to startle a Buddhist monk called Oeser even when they tried to trigger fear by making him listen to a woman's scream of terror. They observed instead that Oeser's brain was stimulated in the area that involves loving feelings, such as compassion. This crowned thirty years of re-search on the topic.

In the last two decades, the beneficial effect of medi-tation on health was also proven. A daily session re-inforces the immune system! As wizards who use the power of our minds to perform magick, meditation seems like a necessary practice to strengthen our knowledge of ourselves and improve our focus and psychic powers.

Ready? Get up and go to a quiet place in your house or outside where you usually feel relaxed and com-fortable. Go now. Once there, sit and try to find your favorite method to still your mind. Make it a daily practice for seven days. See how it improves your life or how it makes you feel. Theory is nothing in the

by Drakônya

Photo: Jymi X/0

WIZARDRY WIZARDRY

By RavenMage

Tarot can be used in both magick and ritual, as well as divination. You can use the court cards and their correspondences to create rituals for a variety of purposes.

Pages: Associated with Earth/North, stability, grounding, learning, foundations, seed growth, be-ginnings. (Note: Some school associate Pages with Air.)

If you want to start a new project or field of study and need to learn new methods, technology, termi-nology, etc., use Pages to invoke new foundations, stability and growth, opening up your mind to absorb the new information and experiences. Allow yourself to become a Page again, no matter what your age. Pages represent youth, and the ability to go back into the learning/experiencing phase of life again. We never lose that ability, and it can be easily in-voked by using the Tarot Pages.

If we want to increase our psychic ability or learn new skills, we can use the page associated with the element, for instance the Page of Cups to invoke our dreaming self or our ability to divine with water. Pag-es give us confidence to learn and try new things – to grow and expand.

Knights: Associated with Fire/South, movement, spirit, enthusiasm, vitality, energy, youth.

Surround yourself with the four Knights if you need to forge ahead with a project that will take a lot of mental, spiritual or physical energy. If you are con-templating dealing with the unknown, Knights offer protection and illumination. As a Dark Arts major, I would prepare myself by doing a ritual "vigil” with the four Knights before encountering any strange spiritual energies such as when ghost hunting or, in extreme cases, exorcism. I would create an altar to represent a Knight’s Chapel, and spend some time in deep meditation, asking for their guidance and pro-tection. Knights give us confidence to take risks and commit to action.

Queens: Associated with Water/West, emotions, dreams, intuition, empathy, healing, nurturing, ma-turity.

The Queens are wonderful guides for healing and entering the dream world. If you practice any kind of spiritual healing, such as Reiki, invoking the four Queens opens up healing energies in all four realms – Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. Asking the Queens for guidance gives a balanced healing. A person may present with a physical pain that has emotional or spiritual roots. Asking the Queens for their guidance

allows the energies to pour through you as a channel in accordance with what the recipient needs. Queens give us the confidence to act on our dreams and use our healing abilities.

Kings: Associated with Air/East, clarity, thought, wisdom, discipline, responsibility, maturity. (Note: Some schools associate Kings with Earth.)

The Kings offer clarity, resolve, discipline, and wis-dom. As Air, Kings can also bring refreshment and needed change, “clearing the air.” Use the Kings if you are taking a lead position on a project and need to exert authority and keep a clear head. Don’t shy away from this. Leadership is important—when something needs to be done, someone often needs to mobilize, motivate, and initiate the process. It is an incredible growth experience to take on that kind of responsibility, and it can lead to a greater sense of self worth and creativity. Kings give us the confi-dence to make things happen.

Designing your own ritual:Design your rituals according to your needs. Place the cards you have selected in the appropriate direc-tions (East, South, West, North), and invoke their energies and meditate with them. You may want to mix the suits for specific reasons or according to your own intuition. You may also want to include a Major Arcana card as a central focus.

Example:I created an altar for Knight’s Vigil on the Winter Sol-stice. My deepest desire was to pursue a career as a bard and writer in the Pagan Community.

I set up my altar with the four Knights placed in the four sacred directions: The Knight of Swords in the East, Knight of Wands in the South, Knight of Cups in the West, and Knight of Pentacles in the North. I placed the High Priestess in the center, designated as the Priestess of the Knight’s Chapel.

I dressed myself in a clean white robe and prepared some temple incense and lit a single white candle for the ritual. Then I did an invocation to the four quar-ters asking the energies of the Knights of the Tarot to be present, and I invoked the High Priestess asking for her guidance. I spent several hours on a cushion in front of the altar and just let the energies and vi-sions wash over me.

I saw myself as a fifth knight riding out with the oth-er four over a magical landscape of towns, forests, meadows, gardens, shorelines, and mountains. Ev-erywhere there were people, birds, and animals, go-ing about their business, living their lives. The magi-

cal landscape was full of wonderful stories, and I knew that I could return to the Knight’s Chapel whenever I needed inspiration.

Finally, I ended the rite by devoking the four quarters and thanking the four Knights and the High Priestess for their guidance. The experience gave me a feeling of optimism and tranquility in regards to my bardic career.

Tarot and Psi Ability By RavenMage

We are all psychic to some extent. It is like any hu-man ability—some people can see and hear better than others, and some of us have a more developed psychic ability than others. Most animals depend on their psychic ability, which is why they can often sense things before we do. Psychic ability is an im-portant part of our evolutionary package.

Psychic ability is our “sixth sense” and is not as ob-vious as the other five—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste—but it plays a major role in how we expe-rience the world. We are often guided by our feelings rather than facts, and we call it “intuition.” We some-times know something, with no explanation of how we know, like when someone is about to contact us or a dream comes true a few days later. Many psy-chic arts are realized through paranormal cognition or clairgnosis. Gnosis is knowing intuitively without direct information.

The Tarot reflects psychic abilities in many different ways. It is an oracle, like a seer’s mirror, reflecting patterns of reality back for the reader to interpret. Tarot can be used to enhance and clarify your psy-chic abilities. I use the cards in meditation, trance journey, and ritual to enhance my psi abilities. In a reading, the cards can also be a reminder to “tune in” to certain psi abilities that may give the reader further insights.

I’m suggesting in this article certain affinities or as-sociations between the cards and psi abilities, but please feel free to form and use your own associa-tions based on your intuition. Order your deck into five piles – Major Arcana, Swords, Wands, Cups and Pentacles. We will examine how each can enhance your psi ability.

The suit of Swords represents Air and is associ-ated with clairvoyance, which means the art of clear seeing. A precognitive person can see the future be-fore it actually occurs. Retrocognition is seeing the past, often hidden aspects not documented in his-tory. A clairvoyant can sometimes see energy—au-ras, ghosts, etc. Other ways to divine with Air are noting aerial omens such as the flight patterns of

bird, clouds, and smoke.

Randomly pick any of the Sword cards from your deck, and gaze into the environment. Close your eyes, and mentally walk into the card. Be acutely aware of any new visions you see beyond the frame of the card. These may be clairvoyant messages.

The suit of Wands represents Fire and is associ-ated with clairaudience, which means the art of clear hearing. Often psychics and mediums “hear” mes-sages from entities, whether otherworldly or the de-ceased spirits of humans or even animals. Another way to divine with Fire is pyromancy—or seeing into the flame.

Randomly pick any of the Wand cards from your deck, and gaze into the environment. Close your eyes, and mentally walk into the card. Be acutely aware of any sounds you hear within the card. These may be clai-raudient messages.

The suit of Cups represents Water and is associ-ated with empathy and telepathy. These individuals are often healers, as they can pick up on the feelings and emotions of others. Sometimes these individuals detect strong emotions left in the environment, such as “residual haunting,” where a place has a memory of a traumatic event. An alternative method of divi-nation with Water is gazing into bodies of water. This could vary from a lake illuminated by the light of the moon to a simple bowl of water.

Randomly pick any of the Cup cards from your deck, and gaze into the environment. Close your eyes, and mentally walk into the card. Be acutely aware of feel-ings you perceive. These may be empathetic mes-sages coming from someone who needs healing.

The suit of Pentacles represents Earth and is as-sociated with clairsentience, which means clear sensing. This would also include clairolfactory and clairgustatory—the abilities to pick up smells and tastes that aren’t there. Clairsentients can pick up on physical sensations, such as cold spots or residue of energy in material objects. Among their arts is Psy-chometry, the ability to read energies from objects.


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WIZARDRY WIZARDRY

Other methods for divining with Earth include crystal gazing, mir-ror gazing (or any shiny surface), and many of the physical divin-ing arts such as rune casting, palm reading, etc.

Randomly pick any of the Pentacle cards from your deck, and gaze into the environment. Close your eyes, and mentally walk into the card. Be acutely aware of any physical feelings you have within the card, including smell, taste, and touch. These may be clairsentient messages.

The Major Arcana represents the fifth element, Spirit, and is associated with divine archetypes. I associate these with divine inspiration or knowledge that comes to us through divinity or the Universe. This inspiration often appears as an intuitive flash, a cognitive leap, or gnosis, without any source of generation.

Randomly pick any of the Major Arcana cards from your deck, and gaze into the environment. Close your eyes, and mentally walk into the card. Be acutely aware of any insights or revelations you receive. These may be clairgnostic or divine messages from your own spiritual guides.

iPhone App Reviewby silverlocke

One day soon, and perhaps not so very long in the future as all that, the well-equipped wizard (and per-haps even the not-so-well-equipped wizared) might feel as naked without a smartphone as today they would be unable to cope without a wand or a staff or a pointy hat. I would find it hard to believe that a Wizard from an older time would not recognize and adapt and happily utilize the power afforded by mod-ern technology and communications infrastructure—a power that would surely seem almost supernatural to them, a layer on top of magick.

The Apple iPhone is, by all unbiased criteria and opinion, an innovative and indeed, beautiful piece of hardware--in a class by itself. Apple seems to be one of the very few technology companies who are able to meld form and function so perfectly in nearly ev-ery device they offer. Surely every wizard that hasn't been on retreat or closeted in his or her sanctum sanctorum for the last three years is familiar with this device--even if only by word-of-mouth--or has a friend or acquaintance who owns one.

But the real beauty of the iPhone (or the iPod and the iPad--devices without the phone mode, but with the same program-running capability) and what makes it the tool of choice for magick users is not the de-vice at all--it's the Apple iTunes app store. Apps are iPhone applications or programs, because, you see, the not-so-well-kept secret of the iPhone is that it is very close to a full-featured computer disguised as a phone and/or music player. At last inventory the app store had over 300,000 apps and there had been over 7 billion downloads. And the good news is that a great number of apps are free or only 99-cents so that you can try an unknown app at no or low risk. Apple has been running ads with the catch line “There’s an App for that” and, in many, or even in most cases, this is not misleading advertising.

The first app i'd like to review is one of the first ever apps to show up on the app store by searching for the word 'magic'. It is called 'iNitiator' and was ex-actly what I needed at the time as I was just entering the Grey School and beginning my study of magick.

The iTunes store description for iNitiator is quite grandiose, saying that: "iNitiator attempts to struc-ture the complexity of esoteric and mystical base knowledge", but I would sum it up as 'intelligent flash cards'.

The first hurdle for the Wizard-in-training is to learn the basic symbolic language of magick so that he or she may begin to read the material. iNitiator handily

provides the capability to learn the most prevalent of these symbols and associations while providing timely feedback which will help the student memo-rize these symbols and associations faster.

iNitiator covers the following categories: Kabbalah, Tarot, Planets, Zodiac, I-Ging, Alchemical Symbols, Greek and Hebrew Letters, and Roman Numbers. But there are also compound categories or categories which contain associations as well, including: Kab-balah Paths and Symbols, Kabbalah paths and Tarot, Kabbalah Sephirot Angels, Tarot and Hebrew Letters, Tarot and Symbols, Planets and Sephirot, Planets and Zodiac (i.e., Ruling Planets), Zodiac Dates, and others—in all I counted 29 categories and category/associations.

In actual use, the app is simplicity itself with three buttons (not counting About) at the bottom of the main screen. First, select a category from a rolling list scrolled by a finger, then choose Learn or Quiz. The Learn mode will let you page through the symbols in that category one screen and one item or symbol at a time in order for you to familiarize yourself with the meaning or association and memorize it.

Once you have built up enough confidence you can choose the Quiz mode which acts as a flash card dis-play with multiple-choice so that you may choose either the symbol meaning or the association, giv-ing you approximately five meanings or associa-tions to choose from for each symbol. As you tap your choice, the app moves to the next symbol, but, somewhat inexplicably, does not tell you if you were correct or not. After your choice has been recorded for the last symbol in the set, the results of the quiz are displayed, e.g., “Correct Answers given: 6 of 7”, but again does not tell which symbols you missed, pointing to either a bug, an oversight, or a very sub-tle training technique! This result is automatically recorded under the Scores button for later retrieval and review so that you can determine how well you are doing in each category.

Unfortunately, this app seems to be an orphan, aban-doned long ago at v1.0 by its developer. Although he (I think he is German, hence the i-Ging spelling) re-sponded to one of my emails long ago when the app was released, there has never been an update and the web support site seems to have disappeared. Luckily, it's not an app that is complicated in op-eration and hopefully will continue to work through many more operating system and hardware updates. And the risk is only 99-cents, a price it has earned a hundred times over for me.


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Screenshot from silverlocke’s iPhone

“Happy Color Wheel of Rainbow-y Screaming Death” -- Jymi X/0 (collage)

WIZARDRY SCIENCE

Shamans and Healers - Trial and Error? Incursion in the World of Plants by Drakônya

Suppose I were to ask you: how do you learn? Your first impulse might be to an-swer: by trial and error. But the alchemist in you might rebel and reply: by experiment-ing. This may, or may not, mean the same thing... In the world of plants, trial and error often meant that in ages past, when herbs were still being discovered and investigated for their medicinal and magickal purposes, you would collect a leaf, put it on your lip for a few minutes to see if it had a danger-ous tingle, then taste it and use it until you found its particularities. Experimenting, on the other hand, also meant that you were trying to transform and study the herb until you obtained a different product or the best possible effect, showing a curiosity and in-tuition that went beyond the leaf to lip pro-cess. Or so are the two concepts currently connoted.

Please allow me to guide you to extracts from my ethnobotany class ("Ethnobotany 501" - L5) and do not mind the human bill-board who is trying to convince you to sign up for it.

When European ethnobotanists started to travel the world in the sixteenth century, they brought back a dizzying amount of exotic, foreign herbs that they had never seen before. Those herbs were gathered and collected, but the people who had lived with them for centuries were dismissed as ignorant and uncivilized. Their deep knowl-edge of the plants in question was not even considered worth listening to, but for a few notable exceptions. The first real ethnobota-nists who travelled to those remote coun-tries found themselves in such foreign con-texts that there was probably too much to comprehend at once. Once John Ray and Carl von Linnaeus rediscovered Theophras-tus and developed a taxonomy of plants, ethnobotanists put the priority on classify-ing plants rather than seeing how they were part of local people's lives.

Only those who stayed realized that local shamans were much wiser than they looked. At a time when clothes showed your wealth and social position, men and women run-ning half naked had light credentials. The existence of such manuscripts as the Badia-nus showed that if there were Aztec schol-

ars, there could be wise men and women in other civilizations as well. The Badianus manuscript was so called because it was a Latin translation by a man named Juan Ba-diano of an Aztec medicinal herbal written in 1552. To some extent, it changed the way the European ethnobotanists saw the local healers, but they still believed that the lat-ter had reached their knowledge by leaf to lip process or sheer coincidence. And please bear in mind that meanwhile, the Chinese and Japanese thought Renaissance Europe a place of filthy, ignorant Barbarians.

Fortunately, we evolved. Suddenly we re-alized that the complex, elaborate herbal preparations made by shamans and witches all over the world could not be dismissively attributed to the happy result of "trial and error". We realized we had lost and despised what we now thrive for: the return to a har-monious, deep knowledge of Nature. Seri-ous ethnobotanists spent time with local shamans and healers, and were struck by the realization that most of the former eth-nobotanists had been narrow-minded, con-descending people by saying that traditional herbalists had accumulated their knowledge more or less by chance.

Take curare for instance. It is a poison used by Amazonian tribes who dip the tip of their arrows in it. The process required to turn the bark of a species of lianas into the poison is slow and extremely complicated. The bark is rasped, then a sort of infusion is made by slowly pouring cold water on it. Once the cold infusion is ready, it is boiled until it becomes a thick brown liquid. Do you think it ends here? It is left to cool down. After a while, it is boiled again. This time there is a thick layer that is cast aside, and the remaining viscous fluid is the final product... in which the arrow tips are dipped, before being dried in the fire. Now what, exactly, went through the heads of the first tribespeople who saw the harmless bark? As E. Wade Davis writes: "it reveals traditional healers for what they are - active scientific experimenters whose work reflects social needs and whose labo-ratory happens to be the rainforest." And my, did it take us centuries to understand this. Note, however, that this particular use of curare shows that human nature has a knack for putting a huge amount of energy

and effort into making weapons. In this context, this meant a better chance at survival.

As a parenthesis, European ethnobotanists who sought scientific research as a priority experimented as well and sometimes came up with surprising re-sults. A hundred and fifty years ago, William Perkin, for instance, thought he could try and synthesize quinine to cure malaria by experimenting on the herb. He invented the purple dye instead!

Contemporary ethnobotanists investigated the tra-ditional herbal preparations in Northern Peru and were amazed to come up with 49 recipes that were aimed at curing the same disease! The healers over there had experimented with 65% of the plants that grew around them, combining herbs, exploring techniques and effects until they obtained a suit-able result. In brief, our local healers and shamans had an objective and a postulate in mind when they gathered those herbs, and proceeded to experiment to prove their theories right. Their laboratories were the local equivalent of a cauldron, a fire, several pots and pans, and the memorizing capacity necessary to every oral tradition. They were scientists.

Let it be said!

SOURCES: BBC - "The Story of Science" - episode 2

Bussman, Glenn, Meyer, Kuhlman and Towsnesmith - "Herbal Mixtures in Traditional Medicine in Northern Peru" - Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2010<http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/6/1/10>

Magnin-Conze, Joëlle - Histoire de la botanique - Delachaux & Niestlé - 2009

Müller-Ebeling C., Rätsch C. & Storl W.-D. - Witchcraft Medicine - Inner Traditions 2003

Schultes, Richard Evans & von Reis, Siri - Ethnobotany - Evolu-tion of a Discipline - Timber Press 1995

As the human billboard turns his back, you read: "Want to know more? Sign up for the ethonobotany class!". Really. Shameful plug.


Breathing Easier with Magickal Toolsby Artemis Gryphon SnowHawk

This article started with my wondering if we really need magickal tools to conduct magick. Wands, a staff, and incense are all tools we use regularly, but why do we need to use them at all? We have taken the classes where we learn to use these tools. We learn how to make our own. We learn that focusing our energy has a lot to do with these tools. We learn when and how to use them in our ethics class. Still, do we need them at all?

I recently had some things happen in my home that convinced me that I needed to cleanse my space. The air was thick with … well, that’s another article.

Of course there is the school of thought that simply throwing back the curtains and letting in the sun, opening up the windows to let the air in is a great way to cleanse. Are these tools? What is the defini-tion of a tool? Well, according to our Grimoire, Ra-ven Grimassi believes that “magickal tools are “inde-pendent bridges to the inner mechanism of Nature;” while there is belief that magickal tools may just be “psychological props;” or, are these tools “reservoirs of magical energy that can be tapped into and used by the Wizard (Zell-Ravenheart. pg 103)?” My ques-tion was answered, because until the house needed to be cleansed, I was leaning toward no, we don’t really need them. I liked the belief that tools are psychological props because sometimes we do need those tools for focus, for the reserved power con-tained.

How do we cleanse our space? We need…tools: smudging sticks, incense and censure, perhaps a Grimoire, salt, lemon, a besom, or broom. All of these are tools and all are necessary. Which do we need and in what quantities or order? Ah, there is the rub in my initial question.

My opinion is that yes, we do indeed need magick-al tools if only for focusing our energies. The how, when and why are up to our determination, but then, that is my opinion. All I know is that now, we can breathe easier in my home because of my use of magickal tools.

REFERENCES:Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon. Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, 2004. P. 103.

Here’s something you probably don’t want to see in your herb garden... a little bug carrying lots of littler bugs! I took this photo last fall in one of Portland’s many community gardens. I just thought the bug was cute, and wanted to see how my camera would do with a close-up. Imagine my surprise when I loaded it on my computer and saw the full-size image with all the baby bugs! I’m no Beast Master, so I’m not sure what kind of bug this is, but I’m guessing aphid -- they’re known to carry their babies around, and the little ones here look like aphids I saw in a picture.-- Jymi X/0

SCIENCE OPINION

Correspondences:—Says Who?by Sapphire Soleil

When I first started down this path I was most in-trigued with the area of magickal practices, so much so I majored in it and am now facing my practicum in it. But one area of MP has always had me stop, scratch my head, and ponder “why?” So much so that I am considering writing a research report on them for my magickal practices practicum. I’m talk-ing about magickal correspondences!

Several wonderful GSW classes have certainly helped my understanding why certain things are as-sociated with certain needs/feelings/energy to the point that they become regular correspondences in the magickal community. Some associations I understand, others, not so much. Who decided on these things? We don’t have a bible or even a main figure to look to for answers in our magickal world. But too often I think we step blindly into what was written in a book and decide, “Well, it says so here, it must be true.” But, dear friends, that’s horse-pucky! Many magickal correspondences have no basis in history or even reality. Here is a classic ex-ample.

I was looking up Tanzanite, the beautiful purple gemstone. Could this have any magickal correspon-dences? Sure enough, one website (which will re-main nameless) declared with total conviction that Tanzanite was used by ancient Druids to help fo-cus their intent when they needed clear visions in choosing a new leader. Really? I don’t think so. I happen to know a bit about Tanzanite having been lucky enough to travel to Africa. It is a rare gem, rare because it is only found in one place in the world, Tanzania, East Africa. And, so far, only in one mountain in Tanzania! Are you telling me that an-cient Celtic Druids traveled from the British Isles and Brittany to Africa and discovered a gem hid-den in a mountain that was not found by modern humans until the late 1960’s? Seriously? Come on people! Unless they had a TARDIS and Doctor Who came and transported them to modern Africa, I’m fairly certain the Druids had no idea that Tanzanite existed.

Now, some correspondences do indeed have histori-cal backing and even scientific grounding (certain wavelengths of color do affect the brain in certain ways, for example.) but discover these for yourself, don’t grab blindly.

My point is to try to take the time to research your correspondence before you blindly accept someone else’s rule. Even more importantly, if the item you are using feels right to use for you and your particu-lar situation then you should go with it regardless of what a book says.

Following your heartby Scarlet Flame Lion

Many say that the highest law in magick is to use magick for the highest good of all. Be that as it may, this is not entirely true. There is a set of three laws that we must be able to unfailingly answer to before we can use magick for its highest purpose.

“The heart is the seat of all magick both from the below and above. For we find in its infi-nite wisdom that the greatest of all magick is love.” Scarlet Flame Lion

The highest laws in magick we can answer to is love…strong, deep and unconditional, it is impor-tant no matter how badly others may get angry or pissed off at you that you show them you love them. From personal experience, I have many I care for, few I trust and only two that I truly love. In the words of my good friend Katherine Diduch “Family is not just your flesh and blood, it’s those you give your love to.”

“If that which you seek you do not first find within yourself, you will never find it with-out.” Starhawk

The second highest law in magick that we must be able to answer to is forgiveness. No matter how badly or deeply someone has wounded us, it is im-portant that we forgive them. In doing this we show that they lack self worth where we do not. This may sound like bragging but it is not, it is very true.

The third highest law in magick that we must an-swer to is a combination of honor and loyalty. Honor and loyalty help to contribute to our sense of jus-tice as well as our integrity. When we lack a sense of honor and loyalty in our lives it shows in our thoughts and actions.

Before we can be accountable to others and stew-ards of our planet, we must first be able to be ac-countable to ourselves. What has been said here is only one person’s opinion. Some may argue that what is written here is incorrect. Only when we can answer to these three laws unfailingly, certainly, honestly and without any forethought can we then begin to truly use magick for its highest purpose.


Of Assassins, Sentient Ships, and Dragons:

By Prof. Drakônya

Back when I was living in Plymouth, England, for my first year in a foreign country, I discovered that I was no longer compelled by my foreign language studies to read classics, a Shakespeare play every two months, or one of the contemporary writers that was named on the long must-read university list. In brief, I walked into a bookshop, and went berserk. In the pile of books I bought that day was Assas-sin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb. It gathered dust for awhile on my shelf while I was discovering Harry Pot-ter. This was in 2000—I had some catching-up to do! And then, one day, I opened it. And fell into it. And then emerged to buy the rest of the trilogy and read it. Robin Hobb is one of the very rare authors who can make me totally deaf and dumb to the rest of the world for two days and a night, the time it generally takes me to read one of her books.

I loved her European medieval fantasy books, set in a world that has been nicknamed the world of the Elderlings. The first trilogy, The Farseer, tells the story of Fitzchivalry Farseer, who is abandoned by his mother at Buckkeep castle in the capital city of the realm and becomes hereby known as the bastard since he is the King's son. As he grows up, he discov-ers that he has an ability for two types of magick: one that is frowned upon as a corrupted form of power that involves bonding with an animal and be-coming a beast companion - the Wit - and one that is practiced by the highest magicians in the realm—the Skill. Soon Fitz is recruited by the king's assassin to be trained in secret, while the kingdom faces a threat from mysterious foreigners who attack and loot vil-lages on the coast and "forge" people, living them blank and emotionless. What made me dive into the book and only come up for air was the complexity of the plot and the excellent characterization of Fitz, topped with a great literary style. Without revealing too much, I must confess that as Fitz grows up and learns the sad secrets of his trade while his magick develops unchecked and even unwanted, I came to love his wolf more than any other character. Yes, his wolf. Are you hooked yet? If you think you know what a familiar is, Hobb's point of view on the ques-tion made me dream for months.

The complex world of the Six Duchies evolves in the Liveship Traders trilogy, where we discover anoth-er realm and a mysterious Wizardwood that makes ships sentient. Why is the wood sentient? If I told you, you would hate me for the spoiler. Let us just

say that suddenly Robin Hobb's genius at weaving a plot and creating a world unravels, bringing in new characters until it culminates and blooms into an-other trilogy, The Tawny Man, where we meet Fitz again. The link between these books becomes obvi-ous as the plot thickens and progresses. The Liveship Traders series might be my favourite one with the latest which only contains two books so far, the Rain Wild Chronicles, whose titles might enlighten you as to why I love them: Dragon Keeper and Dragon Ha-ven.

Let us not go too fast. The Liveship Traders are the inhabitants of a city called Bingtown, who inherit from parents to children the loyalty and love of their ships. The sentient Wizardwood comes from a region called the Rain Wilds, where the acid river makes all land sterile, and most of the people too. There-fore the Bingtwon traders pay a terrible price to get their wood—either in money or by marrying off their sons and daughters to the disfigured, misshapen Rain Wilders. Wizardwood needs to be quickened by three generations of a family's blood before becom-ing sentient and loyal, and we meet in this trilogy

A Review of Robin Hobbs’Elderlings Stories

Con’t next page

OPINION REVIEWS

the fourth generation of the Vestrit family. Upon the father's death, the family plunges in deep debt to the Rain Wilders who sold them the Wizardwood. And everything goes terribly wrong. Althea Vestrit, the best seafarer in the family, is denied the inheri-tance of her ship in favour of her sister Keffria who could not care less and leaves it to her husband, who is only interested in making profit. Since the family has no money left, they have to accept marrying the youngest sister, Malta, to a Rain Wild man whose face mirrors the poisonous effects of the acid river on everything alive. In three breathtaking volumes, we follow the progress of the two stubborn young women, Althea and Malta, and come to learn how the Wizardwood came to be. I could write pages about the plot, but think it best to let you discover it!

The Tawny Man trilogy brings us fifteen years later in Fitzchivalry's life. The Fool he met at the castle while he was training to become an assassin finds him again because he has a prophecy to reveal and a mission to give him. This brings us to a tortured hero's journey as Fitz has to take responsibility for his magick and his skills, trying to save the realm from chaos. This trilogy brings Fitz's story to an end, and the last trilogy, the Rain Wild Chronicles, takes us back to Bingtown and the first city of the Rain Wilds, where dragons have hatched. I loved the last two books so much that I almost went on a fifteen-

day mute retreat to re-read the previous nine!

Once I finish one of Hobbs’ books, at least a week goes by before I start reading a new one. The char-acters stick with me as if they were alive. Her world is almost palpable. The evolution of her characters is so crédible that I sometimes wanted to shake Malta Vestrit from her unsufferable immature behaviour or yell at Fitz for not seeing the obvious talent he had at magick. I had the impression I was walking beside the characters, witnessing their daily lives, and feel-ing their emotions. And even more so with the Drag-on Keeper and Dragon Haven books, where dragons are among the main characters.

Curiously enough, I have not read yet the books Hobb published under her other pen name, Megan Lind-holm. I read a few reviews here and there that said they were not as good as the Elderlings series, and as I did not want to tarnish the high pedestal onto which I settled her stories, I refrained from buying them. They are more centered around science fiction than medieval fantasy. The other medfan trilogy she published, The Soldier's Son, failed to fascinate me as much. I did not like her view of magick in those books, while I loved what she wrote about the Wit and the Skill and the dragons in the eleven books of the magickal Elderlings series.

Read them.

SOURCES :

- Hobb, Robin: The Farseer trilogy:Assassin's Apprentice - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 1996Royal Assassin - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 1997Assassin's Quest - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 1998

The Liveship Traders trilogy:Ship of Magic - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 1998The Mad Ship - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 1998Ship of Destiny - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books- London 2000

The Tawny Man trilogy:- Fool's Errand - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2002- Golden Fool - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2003- Fool's Fate - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2004

The Rain Wild Chronicles: - Dragon Keeper - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2009- Dragon Haven - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2010

The Soldier's Son trilogy:- Shaman's Crossing - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2005- Forest Mage - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2006- Renegade's Magic - Harper Collins Publishers - Voyager books - London 2008


a lost godis mouthinga word from agosound without voicelooming in peripheral thoughtdid you see it too?it felt like a...memory withoutjust a quiet relentless reminderof the always never knownof something found hiddena corewhere all roots wind

the centerspinningdeep spiralsaround the spine

some thinkmyth

is that it? is that what pushes tearswithout warning or reason?is that why the soul flies?is that why dreams reach outso real so true so alivehere here here in all around usthat life -- no matter -- blurs?

Is something coming?Is someone there?Are we all going home?

Then what?

Lost God-- Jymi X/.0

REVIEWS REVIEWS

Harry Potterand the

Deathly Hallows, Part I

THE REVIEWS ARE IN!

Have you seen the new film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I? It’s safe to say that this film is very different from the other six Harry Potter films that have come before. Gone is the safe magickal background of Hogwarts, the familiar (albeit nasty) banter between Harry and the Dursleys, the homi-ness of Hogsmeade, the bouncing groups of stu-dents in school robes, the Great Hall, the daily class-room routines….Everything has changed. This film isn't supposed to be lighthearted, happy, or lightly magickal: it's setting us up for the possible end of the world, and it does a superb job of conveying the bleakness, pessimism, and out-of-control-ness of Harry's darkening universe as it careens toward its final showdown.

The movie’s opening scenes are unsettling in their detachment. A grief-stricken Hermione obliviates her parents’ memories of her, attempting to safeguard them by making it seem she was never born. A sol-emn Harry watches as the Dursleys pack their car, strip the house bare, and drive away. A pensive Ron stands outside the family burrow, watching the hori-zon for something he knows is coming but can’t yet detect. We’re cast instantly into sensations of ten-sion and foreboding. By removing Harry, Hermione, and Ron from their accustomed Hogwarts backdrop and putting them in civvies, all comfort and ease and familiarity are removed from their (and our) world. Later scenes, far-shot on mountainsides or in deep forest or even lost among a city throng convey the "smallness" of the trio and the impossibility of their task, and echo the idea that they are truly "lost." They are alone, facing a Herculean ordeal, and noth-ing is safe. No one is safe. Nowhere is safe. Even those who've read the books and know how this all plays out are left feeling detached and on edge.

This film reminded me a lot of The Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars series. When that film (back then it was considered the second Star Wars film; now, hor-ribly, it’s considered the fifth, although that’s another story), viewers complained and moaned about it be-ing slow and boring and lacking excitement. It was only when the final film came out that people began to appreciate Empire for what it was: a penultimate installation in an epic story, and a carefully-wrought set-up that was, in fact, preparing viewers for what was to come. I’ve heard quite a few people make similar comments about HP 7.1, but in the end. I think they’ll realize that it’s much the same as Em-pire, this time with the pieces clicking into place as director David Yates leads us toward the “Battle of Hogwarts” in the final episode.

There are a number of memorable scenes in the film, and many of them focus on Harry, Ron, and Herm-ione’s blossoming adulthood. The hints of sexuality are still soft, but adulthood is just around the corner and hormones have arrived, leading to scenes both funny, poignant, and heart-wrenching. The teen stuff is juxtaposed against the film’s dark under-themes. Gone is any semblance of the lightheartedness in the earlier films. Now metaphors of evil, cruelty, fear, and death abound.

Harry Potter 7: “The Painful Inner Process of Maturing and Deciding”By Prof. Drakonya

I remember reading the last Harry Potter book in a single night, during my trip to Argentina. The mood at the beginning of the book was restless and quite dark, and I loved it. Suddenly the char-acters had to grow up fast, ponder big issues, and become responsible adults ready to fight evil. So I was expecting the same atmosphere for the first of the two last films in the series, knowing that nothing much happened but the painful inner pro-cess of maturing and deciding.... And I was not disappointed!

Respecting the dark and silent moods of the char-acters, their long period of hiding in the forest, and the slow deterioration of their relationships until they adjusted to a new balance and understood their feelings was a risky bet for a film director to

Harry Potter 7 Part 1 -- A Movie Review By silverlocke

Wands are unholstered and armed and the gloves are off. School's out forever. The wonder and excitement and anticipation of magic has all but disappeared into the grit and fog of battle. Magic no longer provides a thrill or is used for casual purposes but is now used only as a tool of survival and a weapon of war. Spells forbidden in school are the most useful now. We, the audience, are forced to accept that there are no easy answers and each of our three major players is de-pressed, angry, petty, selfish, tortured, jealous, and frustrated--at times simultaneously--and spend what seems like way too much time in the confines of a tent arguing and shouting all around those feelings without having a real conversation--ignoring the bank of trust they've all made huge deposits into over the years. Harry seems to feel the weight of responsibility the worst and is finding it impossible to let his closest friends share some of it.

The movie is beautifully shot--on a par with Lord of the Rings or The Golden Compass. The locations and the atmosphere echo the pain of the trio's self-im-posed isolation from both mundania and the magi-cal worlds. Enough of the substance, if not some of the details, of the book was followed so that even the most avid reader should not feel cheated of substance or plot. I do wish that somehow this could have been a more tightly edited 3 to 3-1/2 hour movie or that both parts could have been released simultaneously, but I do realize the Harry Potter readers have (rightly, in my opinion) insisted that the movie directors fol-low the books very closely indeed at the cost of visual creativity and pacing.

And speaking of death, it’s everywhere in HP 7.1. Hedwig and Mad-Eye die early and heroically, each trying to protect Harry. A Hogwarts teacher—who dared to speak favorably of Muggles—is murdered by Voldemort, as is the wandmaker Gregorovich. The Minister of Magick—a living (if slightly wig-gy) symbol of sanity and order in the Wizarding world—is killed as the Ministry falls to Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and in the Ministry foyer, a massive new wizard statue is raised on the backs of crushed masses of Muggle and Mudblood statu-ary. (Holocaust images, anyone?) Ron hovers by his wireless by night, trying to catch the rebel thread of wizarding news, which includes readings of the latest death tolls. One of the film’s most poignant scenes finds Harry and Hermione in a snowy churchyard on Christmas Eve as they stand in front of James and Lily Potter’s graves. Little Dobby’s death is perhaps the film’s saddest mo-ment, with the elf having saved Harry and friends only to be fatally stabbed by the evil Bellatrix. All of this is wrapped securely in a rich, dark film score that worked gorgeously—nothing light about this music, and rightfully so.

The overwhelming themes of mortality and despair foreshadow the movie’s closing scene: a grave robbery in which Voldemort breaks open Dumb-ledore’s tomb in order to steal the all-powerful Elder Wand. The film ends with this horrific vio-lation, made even more unspeakable as a joyful, ecstatic Voldemort uses the stolen wand to shoot fiery sparks into the sky. It’s one heck of an emo-tionally twisted cliffhanger.

Nothing is safe. No one is safe. Nowhere is safe. And the end is coming…..


from Prof. Moonwriter:

make. After all, if I—a high school teacher—found the books quite accurate regarding usual teenage behav-ior, the films had to be fast-paced enough to please the audience while respecting the evolution of the characters, something that was not always the case in the previous films. In Harry Potter and the Death-ly Hallows (part 1), director David Yates managed to reduce the usual pace of the films so as to respect the inner evolution of our three young wizards. I was caught in the mood and slow rhythm.

At the end of the film, I heard younger people criticize the lack of action, saying they had found it boring and were disappointed. Most of them seemed to have just discovered the plot and had not read the book. I wanted to tell them, “This is the calm before the storm; brace yourselves. The end will rock!”

REVIEWS REVIEWS

Skywatcher: “We just got back from seeing the new Harry Potter movie. Not exactly Earth shattering, but we did see it in an IMAX theater in Doha, Qatar in the mid-east. The place has a 12,000 watt sound system, huge screen and chairs that rival Lazy Boy recliners. I thought it was pretty good. Now we have to wait for the release of part 2!”

Kalight: “I saw the new Harry Potter movie. I was rather disappointed with it. Just had too much reality in it for a Harry Potter movie.”

Ximera: “I thought most of the book was slow. I liked the [film’s] beginning and the ending. Could have lived without all the running around the woods expressing teen angst.”

Ahastabel: “I have to admit, the movie played like an action film, not a fantasy film, save for instead of shooting with guns they were shooting with wands. I was disappointed they left the garden gnomes out. They were mentioned once, but not shown. I re-member laughing at that part in the book. But then again, they have frequently left good parts out for the sake of shortening the story for movie length's sake. And I found the soundtrack to be common, compared to the other films. Nothing much stood out to put on my iPod. The unfortunate same musical composer is being used for part 2. It all sounded like murky background music, nothing with much in the line of recognizable melodies, and they ignored using Hedwig's theme entirely.”

Wynnd: “It was okay. The cliffhanger was horrible though. Something I thought was annoying was what happened to the super-powerful Harry Potter? Hermione and Ron were performing all the spells and pretty much saving Harry... it was disappointing.”

Malachai: “The movie conclusively demonstrated either that Potter-universe magic doesn't follow Newtonian physics or that it has found a loophole. Otherwise, when Harry cast a spell powerful enough to flip Lucius Malfoy, a full-grown man, head over heels, the effect of Newton's third law of motion, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reac-tion," might well have broken Harry's arm. I can just imagine that happening on the movie's blooper reel.”

Shimmertal: “I thought it was just me, but it seemed to pointlessly drag on. I like all the Potters of course, but this one felt really slow; I kept waiting for the movie to get started and move on to some intensity.”

Lorewolf: “They were all alone in the world, with no idea what to do next, or where to go, as the world fell apart around them. I enjoyed it.”

Dragonlord Nathan: “It's about time someone said something good about the new Harry Potter movie. After all, even though it was slow going, it was true

to the books. The older ones, not so much. It was earth shattering for me. And I didn't even see it in 3D. So there.”

Belenus: “My experience with the latest HP movie was extra special fun, because my kids finally are getting to the phase of, "Harry Potter is pretty cool."”

Borkya: “I went to the movie theatre for the first time in China to see the Harry Potter movie. I thought the acting was much better from the three main characters, [but] I am in the "It was boring" camp. And the ending was sooooo lame. They should have had a REAL cliffhanger!”

Lorewolf: “I thought that it went pretty well, all things considering. However, the whole "wand shoot-ing thing" is something that annoys me. It doesn't seem to matter what spell they shoot out: The result will always be someone getting knocked down.”

Sapphire Soleil: “I liked the movie. It will not be my favorite, at least not as a stand alone, but I think all the Harry in the woods bit is important because it helps show that Harry just wants to "run away" and not get anyone else killed. But he can't in the end, can he? We can't run from destiny.”

More comments and reviews from the GSW student body…..

Most of you have heard the stories of last year’s Con-clave, where those of us from the Pacific Northwest had the joy and pleasure of a visit from Prof. Drak-onya and her husband, Ythogtha—all the way from their home village in the south of France. But there’s more to the story that you haven’t heard!

First you need to know that Drakonya and Ythogtha were newlyweds at the time—as in married two days before Conclave! Oddly, our PNW Conclave has a tra-dition of hosting newlyweds: Glanecia and Feriluce in 2009, Jymi and Corvin in 2009, and now Drakonya and Ythogtha in 2010, whose record of only being married for two days before the event will probably stand for a long time.

So…. Here were the two of them, fresh from a medieval-style wedding (they arrived at their vil-lage church richly robed and on horseback) in their French town and then from flying half-way around the world. But it gets better.

According to Drakonya, her and Ythogtha’s plane was about to take off from New York City—bound for Seattle—when a stewardess asked if there was a physician on board. No one moved or reacted, so the stewardess asked a second time, more loudly, this time specifically asking for a nurse or a paramedic.

Drakonya says, “Nobody was moving, but I was up on my feet at once, although I am neither a para-medic nor a nurse. As it happens, a nurse followed me, so we were two. There was a woman lying down between the seats. She had just collapsed, was un-conscious, and was not breathing.”

A flight steward produced a mask and a defibrilla-tor, while the nurse started doing CPR. Drakonya began trying to calm one of the stewardesses—who was panicking—as well as the husband of the un-conscious woman. After a few minutes, Drakonya switched places with the nurse and took over the CPR.

“The hardest part was when I broke two ribs,” Drak-onya remarked. Rib fractures are often a side effect of good CPR. If you depress the sternum enough to compress the heart and create circulation, some-times the ribs can’t take the stress.

“By then the woman had vomit coming out of her mouth,” continued Drakonya, “and she had lost con-trol of her bladder. The hardest part was that her hus-band was watching, and he was numbed by shock.”

After awhile, the nurse and Drak-onya switched places again. With the plane still on the ground, para-medics arrived and took over.

“She had been shocked three times already, and they shocked her a fourth time.” Drak-onya helped lift the woman onto a

stretcher. “They took her away and I’m not sure what happened, but my guess is that she was probably gone.”

After the woman was taken away, Drakonya and the nurse provided details to the crew and then returned to their seats.

Drakonya said, “In that kind of situation, the shock and tiredness only sink in after you've acted. I teach CPR classes and always talk about the possibility of ribs breaking during CPR, but my biggest shock was to actually feel them break. Plus, I had sent a tre-mendous amount of my energy to heal her and to soothe her husband. I was shaken and exhausted.”

Soon after, the plane took off, Drakonya and Ythogtha arrived in Seattle, and the next day, they drove to Conclave in their rental car. It was about 9:00 in the evening when we saw their car pull into camp, and we ran down the road and swarmed them. Later on, as we all sat around the fire, we asked more details about the trip. Imagine our shock and surprise when Drakonya told us about giving CPR on the airplane.

The most amazing thing, though, was Drakonya’s at-titude about her actions. She was casual and seemed to downplay her actions. “It’s just what you do,” she said. “I didn’t think about it. I knew what to do, so I jumped in.

For her heroic actions, Drakonya received a free “anywhere in the world” travel voucher from Ameri-can Airlines. She doesn’t know whether the woman was eventually saved, but she said she’d do the very same thing again in an instant if she had to.

I am proud and grateful that Drakonya is a mem-ber of the Grey School, where she’s sharing this kind of generosity and valiant spirit with students, staff, and faculty. What an amazing example to set for us all! We in the Pacific Northwest are hoping she and Ythogtha make it to Conclave again this year, but we wish them a slightly less exciting trip this time.

Well done, Drakonya! You rock!


Meet a Real-LiveGrey School Hero:Prof. Drakonya!

By Prof. Moonwriter

REVIEWS GSW NEWS

Magickal Tools for CookingBy Colordancer

Food plays a role throughout all sixteen departments of magick. One of my favorite departments is wiz-ardry for its toolcraft. We all use tools with food. We use forks, knives, and spoons, and we also use heat-ing and cooling tools. Without tools, food would not be as appetizing as it can be now. All food prepara-tion requires tools, and each tool requires energy. What would happen if we added magickal energy to the tools? Let’s find out!

Let’s start with the four biggest magickal tools: the wand, athame, chalice, and panticle. The wand could be a spoon, a fork, a spatula, or anything that you could direct energy through. A cooking athame could be the chef’s knife that you slice and dice with, a ta-ble knife that you cut your meat with, or your butter knife for slicing butter. You can drink any beverage through a chalice, so that could be your cup or glass. A panticle is a plate, so you could use a plate as one.

The last tools you use with food are your oven/stove, your fridge/freezer, your sink, and your table. When you think of it, each of these are altars. Each of these is related to an element. An oven and stove are fol-lowing the fire element, the fridge and freezer rep-resent the air element, the sink is definitely a water follower, and the table could be considered earth. These element relations make each of these “altars” more magick.

You can see now that everything that food touches can be magickal, especially you. If you want, you can decorate these tools to look like a magickal tool, but they are fine as is. You can add intent to each tool and altar and even do rituals with them, but don’t forget their purpose! You don’t believe me? Let’s test it!

I will start with the food. How about my recipe for ...

TORTELLINI SOUPWe will need:10-16 oz. tortellini (from the store’s refrigerated sec-tion)64 oz. vegetable broth1 cup carrot slices1 cup red pepper slices1/2 cup sliced green onion1/4 cup chopped vegetable of your choice

Step 1: Heat broth in saucepan at medium-high heat. Cover. Slice up all vegetables with a knife or athame. Don’t forget to add intent!

Step 2: When broth is at a boil, stir in tortellini with a spoon or wand. Focus on intent as you stir. Add vegetables.Step 3: Cook until tortellini is soft and cooked thor-oughly. Ladle out the soup into a soup bowl or a pan-ticle with highly raised edges. Enjoy!

This recipe is great for winter and whatever you put in intent for! If you do not have tortellini, you can substitute with other pastas or noodles. Have this with wine or water in your chalice or any other cup. This would make a great dinner after or before a ritual.

The magick in these kitchen tools is great, even though few people thing of them as such powerful tools. I hope that through these ideas, you can help aid in healing magick, ceremonial magick, or even just making food more appetizing. There are many open possibilities to using this concept, as long as you are open to exploration.

I cannot take credit for the whole idea. The concept of using a spoon as a wand was brought up by our very own Moonwriter in the Wizard Hearth Club. “I was thinking that perhaps a wooden spoon could be crafted into the perfect magick wand for a practi-tioner of kitchen magicks. What do you think? How would you go about this? Which end would you put the spoon portion on?” says Moonwriter’s post. After making one, I realized mine was not as different as any other stirring spoon, and I decided that all uten-sils and tools used in cooking, are magickal tools.

WORK CITEDMoonwriter. " A Special Wand." Grey School of Wizardry School Forums. 26 June 2010. Web. 4 Dec 2010. <http://forums.greyschool.com/viewtopic.php?f=137&t=17082>.

Leek and Potato SoupBy Prof. Moonwriter

With the winter holiday season wrapping up, many of us are looking for healthy meals to help us “detox” from the glut of rich foods, eggnog, and Christmas cook-ies. Here is a wonderful soup that contains only healthful, natural ingredients, is sim-ple to make, and is delicious as well!

Ingredients:

1 T. butterTwo or three fresh leeks2 C. Stock—chicken or vegetable work wellTwo medium russet potatoes—or 3-4 smaller Yukon goldsSalt and pepperOptional: 1/4 C. light cream (or nonfat cream)

Cut 1/2” off the bulb end of the leeks, then cut away the dark green ends, too. Cut the remaining leeks in half lengthwise. In a sink of cool water, separate the leeks, rinsing carefully—they tend to trap lots of dirt. Drain and slice cross-wise into 1/2” sections.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the sliced leeks until they are transparent and very fragrant—about 10 minutes. Do not brown.

Pour the stock and 2 C. water into the saucepan and bring to a near- boil. Wash, peel, and dice the potatoes, and add to the hot stock. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, until tender.

At this point, I use an immersion blend-er to puree the soup right in the sauce-pan. (Be careful: It is very hot!) You can also puree it in small batches in a blender or food processor. If you don’t have any of these, use a potato masher to smash the cooked potatoes—the soup won’t be smooth, but it will still be delicious.

Salt and pepper to taste. If desired, stir in a bit of cream to add more richness to the stock. I like to use the non-fat half-and-half: all the richness with the calories of skim milk.

Enjoy this wonderful soup in its delicious simplicity! Serve with a crusty bread and olive oil for dipping.

Note: For a vegetarian or vegan soup, use olive oil instead of butter and use vegetar-ian stock. Omit the addition of cream.

Chocolate -- Worth More than Its Weight in Gold!by Giovedi StormsingerNote from Jymi X0: One of the assignments in the Introduc-tion to Alchemhy class asks the student to consider why gold is such a valuable material, and if anything would be an ap-propriate replacement. Ms. Stormsinger answered thusly...

Gold is valuable because of its attractiveness, versatility of use, and rarity.

Gold is resistant to corrosion when exposed to either air or moisture, so it maintains its sheen and attractiveness.

Gold is soft enough to be easy to work with. It has the quali-ties of malleability (ability to be hammered or otherwise com-pressed) and ductility (ability to be stretched into wire). In fact, gold is the most malleable and ductile substance known to man. The extent of the malleability of gold is such that it can be hammered into translucent sheets. Owing to its ductil-ity, gold can be used as embroidery thread. The combination of its attractiveness with its facility as a medium, makes gold a great substance from which to create items of value, such as jewelry or coinage.

Gold has other practical characteristics such as the ability to conduct heat.

Pure gold is less chemically reactive than other metals. Chem-icals such as nitric acid, which will dissolve other metals in-cluding silver, will leave gold intact. This property may have contributed to its reputation for purity, as more base metals would be dissolved away when exposed to nitric acid. Also, gold has a low toxicity, which might also contribute to its repu-tation for purity. (It is an allergen, however.)

I can see why gold is considered a metaphor for the highest state of being, but I think in the future, gold as a symbol of spiritual attainment can be replaced with chocolate. Accord-ing to a recent article in the U.K.'s The Independent, afford-able chocolate could become a thing of the past within twenty years, as economic circumstances among chocolate producers could result in many of them discontinuing cocoa farming to the extent that demand will far exceed supply. Any sought-after limited resource has great value. Because chocolate, un-like gold, is consumable, once it's eaten the supply diminish-es even more. In comparison, gold, once manufactured into jewelry or coinage can still be resold as gold. Dark chocolate has a large amount of antioxidants which can be beneficial in cancer prevention, making chocolate a closer approximation to an elixir to prolong life. Chocolate contains the chemicals theobromine and phenethylamine which can effect serotonin levels in the brain, leading to feelings of well-being. Because this same substance, which has health benefits and euphoria producing chemicals for humans, is toxic to dogs and cats, it can be argued that a creature must be sufficiently evolved to enjoy its benefits. Also, the increase in brain and heart ac-tivity after consumption of chocolate has been shown to be greater than that following passionate kissing, an activity that some would equate with a religious experience. Perhaps the manufactures of Godiva chocolate, among others, will be the alchemists of the future.


FOOD FOOD

Photo: Colordancer

“Thanks For the Memories….” A Look Back at the 2010 Pacific Northwest ConclaveBy Profs. Drakonya and Moonwriter

Moonwriter: "Hey, Drakonya! I was just sitting and thinking about Conclave. Lewis and Clark State Park is such a great site, with all those huge old growth cedars and all. Of course, I adore camping, especially a chance to spend a week out in the woods with my Grey School friends. But this last year, I think we had an extra-fabulous time. Lots of people, great classes, good food, Butterbeer, and that wonderful Tuesday evening when you and Ythogtha arrived, fresh from France? Remember how we all went running down the hill to greet you?"

Drakonya: "Oh yes! There was this enthusiastic shout-- "Drakonya!"—and everybody converged to-wards us. We had just been married, and we got there three days after the wedding and after eigh-teen hours on the plane and two hours in the rental car... And we really felt welcome. We thought we would have a good time, otherwise we would not have travelled that far... But it wasn’t just good—it was fantastic! But really, Moonwriter—we were far from "fresh"! The park was a wonderfully peaceful place. I loved it from the start. Our first night around the fire put us straight into Conclavian mood, but we had yet to wait before being introduced to the great American Mysterious S'mores..."

MW: "Ahh....S'mores. You can just imagine the trepi-dation I felt in feeding you and Ythogtha the first S'mores of your lives .... You being French people, with all that cultural foodiness. But you guys not only

had one-- you asked for sec-onds! As I re-call, that wasn't the first "Weird American Food" you tried that week, was it?"

DK: "French people are going to say that all American food is weird anyway, but that is really not true. We had a great potluck on Wednes-day night, and another one with Rainmaker's recipe and all the leftovers from conclave on Friday. De-licious! Oh, but you meant marshmallows? This is something that we do not have in my country. The best food of all was magickal, however. We had great classes. I could not pick a favorite, but we did a lot of fascinating energy work. I loved magickal camou-flage as well - two classes that can only be taught during conclaves and moots! I was thrilled that there were so many teachers there as well. I felt I already knew everybody. Meanwhile you were sewing, with Jymi X/0's help."

MW: "Oh, yeah…. I sewed and sewed, having prom-ised to finish stoles for all the qualified Conclavians. I still have the fingertip calluses to prove it. :) It was a lot of work, but it was worth it to see everyone hap-pily wearing their regalia!

DK: “Here’s a great picture of you and I in our robes and stoles.” (Hands a photo to Moonwriter.)

MW: "Yeah, we look great, don’t we? I thought the classes were great, too. I loved Jymi's classes on quantum physics and the "golden calipers." That was a fun moment, with all of building our calipers and then using them to measure everything around us."

DK: "Ythogtha and I were lucky that we could still take the classes that had already been taught before our arrival. I think I'll be forever grateful to Roue and Kelmar for taking all of the material out of their car and setting up the entire candle workshop for just the two of us! Not to mention that we slept in Roue and Kelmar’s tent. We had a lot of fun talking around the fire at night, exchanging spooky stories—Kalla had some good ones up her sleeve!”

MW: “That’s what happens when your Dean of Dark Arts is also a Wellesley Girl!”

DK: “We stayed up late with the 'cool kids' once or twice. Stargazer, Rae, Calyxa, and Kalla sure loved

to huddle near the flames and whisper more sto-ries! But you—you were up at dawn. Talking about Flames, Jymi and I were surrounded by Stones! I had to hang on my green, spiraled-patterned jacket for dear life!"

MW: "I was really inspired by you and Ythogtha tak-ing the plunge in not only coming to Conclave as "Newbies" but as participants from another country half-way around the world. I think many GSW stu-dents are shy about going to Conclave. They're un-sure what to expect-- I know I was when we had our first Conclave, way back in 2006. What would you tell those first-timers who are thinking about going to their first Conclave but are feeling a little shy or uncertain?"

DK: "I’d say, ‘Just try.’ At some point, I thought that with all the energy I invested in GSW, I had to know if the people I had met online were just as wonderful for real. Virtual worlds are fantastic, and getting to know people on the forums gives us the feeling that we really belong where we are, but I wanted to see

WHISPERING GREY MATTERS 34 . WHISPERING GREY MATTERS 35 ISSUE 29

Back row: Jymi X/0, Catafreyja, Flamekeeper, Kelmar, Stargazer, Rae du Soleil, Ythogtha, Calyxa, Selkie. Front Row: Moonwriter, Roue, Rainmaker, Kalla, Drakonya.

Prof. Rainmaker relaxes with her prize hat. Photo by Drakonya

GSW NEWS GSW NEWS

how it felt putting faces, voices, vibes on the names. In brief, I wanted to experience a magickal event with people I felt at ease with, especially since I am quite an isolated practitioner. What happened when we all met? We belonged. It was a wonderful feel-ing. My husband had joined GSW the week before, and trusted my judgment by agreeing to come to Conclave on... our honeymoon! The days we spent all together motivated me even more in my magickal studies, allowed me to confirm certain skills I was not sure about, and gave me a chance to talk with people who were so much more experienced that I took a giant step on my own magickal path. Oh—and I joined faculty after teaching my first class at con-clave!"

MW: "That's fabulous—I hope some potential Con-clave participants read those words and take them to heart. We'd love to see new faces at this sum-mer’s Conclave. And by the way: It's being planned as we speak. Anyone who's interested can watch the "Pacific Northwest Conclave" thread on the forums. You and Ythogtha might come back again, right? And hey: What's this I hear about you hosting a Conclave in France in the summer of 2012?"

DK: "We are saving money for 2011. We would love to come back! And there will definitely be a conclave in France in 2012. Shameless plug: this will include a 'cheese magick' class, and since we have some amazing chocolate artists around here, chocolate will be part of the program. European places are also full of lore, magickal creatures, and mysterious places - it will be my privilege to talk about some of them. The Vercors area where we live has so many fas-cinating tales! And it is a paradise for wortcunning classes..."

MW: "I can't wait-- I'm already saving my money. I think that's another thing that people worry about: expense. The thing is, we've shown that anyone can get to a Conclave by simply planning ahead. Save a few dollars a week and the cost will take care of itself. I will absolutely make it to the French Conclave—I’m saving as we speak and getting a Passport, too.”

DK: “That’s great!”

MW: "Before we bring this to a close, how about reflecting on our most memorable Conclave mo-ments? I'm thinking of nights around the fire, shar-ing Butterbeer, Rae's spirit flags class, our wonderful potluck feast, and Rainmaker's dancing class. How about you?"

DK: "The cool shade of the tree under which I dis-appeared during the magickal camouflage class, the breakfast you cooked for everybody, the S’mores we shared around the campfire, the energy class when we all formed an unbreakable magickal circle and made the breeze rise..."

MW: "Good times.... good times. And made even bet-ter when shared with magickal friends of all stripes. Here's to Conclaves! If I could give a piece of ad-vice to every GSW student, I would say, "GET TO A CONCLAVE!" It makes sooooo much difference. It takes the already wonderful Grey School experience and puts a face to it. Thanks for the great memories, Drakonya!"


Captain’s Reportby Artemis Gryphon SnowHawk

Welcome back to all of our returning fellow students, as well as our new students. Poking around, I’ve seen that regardless of the challenges that are facing us: mundane school, work, home; that sometimes we get pulled away from our hallowed halls, only to eventually return. This school is truly home. No mat-ter how long we are gone, we are warmly welcomed back on our return. Nothing beats that! Now we are looking at a tuition increase. It is small, but in these difficult economic times, can we do it? You bet…es-pecially since we were told about it in advance; this should give us each time to save the extra dollar or two a month toward our GSW tuition. This is less per month than the cost of gasoline that is increasing per gallon and it’s worth it to go home whenever we want, isn’t it?

Lots of activity going on around school, too! The All-School Challenge forum has been active! What

a great way to earn some merits!

All of our clubs are so busy, conclaves are starting to post their 2011 information, studying for our classes, earn-ing merits on the side for our respective house or lodge, and mundane activities are usually enough to keep us all busy. We had the addition of the holiday season spanning be-tween October and December as well. Now we can look forward to the Earth Day Challenge and TWIGs and Teacups.

I think there was once a saying that busy hands are happy hands. If this is so, then we all definitely have happy hands!

LODGE REPORTScomplied by Sapphire Soleil

Winds—Giovedi StormsingerThe Winds Lodge is pleased to welcome returning student SilvaLuna and new members Zephyrus-Sil-verhawk and Tordenstorm (a member we acquired from the Stones Lodge).

Things have been slow in the Spire lately - it seems that everyone is very busy at this time of year, the Prefect included! On that note I'd like to thank Swirlsdancing for her amazing work in helping with our ongoing healing spell for our original Lodge Head, Crow Dragontree. Information on participat-ing in the spell is available under "General Chatter" in the forums. We hope everyone will find time to participate in some way.

Our current Lodge Head, Godfrey Eagleheart, is of-fering a new class "Introduction to Masks," available at Level 1, in the Department of Performance Magick. I encourage everyone to check it out.

We have been running neck and neck with the Stones Lodge in our race toward the Lodge Cup. The thing that amazes me the most is that we are low in mer-its compared to other lodges. While there's always room for improvement, I think that for us to be in the running without a great number of merits dem-onstrates that the Winds Lodge as a whole is very serious about our studies, and that's never a nega-tive trait for students to have!

Go Winds!

Stones—By FyrewingThe Stones lodge is doing well this term. I’m work-ing my way through Leadership 101 as quickly as possible, and we have 9 students who have already completed one class and two students who have fin-ished two already!! I’m still trying to find a good Lu-mos project hope to have news on that next time. We’ve had several challenges which the members have stepped up and answered and the Stones as always seem really enthusiastic about this term!!

Flames-By SapphireThe Flames are getting warmed up! Our prefect is temporarily away with computer and mundane is-sues, but by the time this is in print she should be back and running. In the meantime, several past prefects have taken the Ram or Lion or Centaur by the “horns” and have kept the lodge a lively place. We are enjoying monthly challenges, finishing class-es with extra effort to try to get 100% on finals and we currently have two of our number working on their practicum, Skywatcher and Sapphire Soleil! With any luck the next two GSW graduates will be from the Dragon’s Den!

We have an excellent Lodge project in the works that we hope will inspire the Flames to even greater goals and we welcome back former students returning to the Den, new students just getting to know us, and our own Drakonya for becoming GSW faculty and fin-ishing the Fabulous Faculty class and uploading her first class, Ethnobotany!

Race for the lodge cup is tight this time and we hope to be in the running.

Rae du Soleil resplendent in purple. That’s Calyxa behind her, then Moonwriter (sewing, no doubt) and Kelmar on the right. Photo by Drakonya.

GSW NEWS GSW NEWS

The Earth Day ChallengeAn Interview with Prof. Moonwriter—EDC leaderby Sapphire Soleil

Sapphire) How long ago did the EDC begin here at GSW?

Prof. Moonwriter) The first EDC was held in March 2005-- which means the next one will be the sixth annual EDC! It’s the longest-running challenge in the Grey School, and many students have called it the high point of their school experience.

2) What inspired you to create this mega-chal-lenge?

I’ve always been strongly attuned to the Earth, and I care very much about the Earth's health and well-being. I thought it seemed like an obvious tie-in that students of magick should also become stewards of their home planet and should have a sound under-standing of what they can do to help Earth thrive. As Dean of Students, I was also very interested in helping GSW students develop an increased sense of teamwork and camaraderie. The EDC served both of these aims: It helped make students conscious of their connections to Mother Gaia and also helped them get to know their fellow apprentices.

3) How has the EDC changed over the years?

In some ways, it hasn't changed much at all. Stu-dents are grouped into EDC teams, and each team is given an identical set of challenges that must be solved within a specific time. The challenges aren’t easy, and in order to succeed, team members must work together and pool their resources. Each team selects a Captain, and that person guides the action. This process has been the same since 2005.

But there have been some changes, too. The chal-lenges themselves are new each year, and each year I also like to toss in some fresh "wild card" activities. The way students present their results has evolved over the years. Originally, students returned a sim-ple Word document with their answers; now they're apt to set up web pages, create elaborate electronic documents, or even make podcasts or videos.

The composition of the teams has definitely changed. In the early years, teams were built around elemen-tal correspondences and thus all team members were from the same Houses and Lodges. But for the last two years, we've created mixed teams, giving students a chance to work with those from other Houses or Lodges. The response to this has been tremendously positive.

4) Was there one question/project that you were particularly proud to present to the stu-dents?

Not necessarily. I always try to develop questions that are relevant to what’s going on in the world news at that time. I want the students’ activities to be topical and current. I want them to feel like what they’re doing matters.

5) Was there one question that was a complete dud?

As best I can recall, the EDC has been dud-free. In fact, I’m always amazed at the incredible responses and projects that the students come up with. For me, that’s the best part of the challenge—seeing the stu-dents’ brilliance and creativity as they respond to the tasks. Each year dazzles me all over again. It makes me feel so proud of the school and the type of stu-dents it’s turning out.

6) What was the best “answer document” you have seen?

One group set their answers up like an electronic treasure chest. That was really cool! A couple have created websites or e-books. We’ve had some stun-ning pdf documents, too.

7) A potential first-timer might read this and get a little worried about his/her ability to do the challenge. What would you say to encour-age them to give it a go?

I’d say, “Don’t hesitate—dive right in!” Probably one-third of the EDC participants in a given year are first-timers, and they have a blast! When I build the teams, I work extra hard to make sure each one in-cludes a mixture of EDC veterans and newbies, and the team members do a phenomenal job of giving each other lots of support. It never fails that—fol-lowing a challenge—team members talk about how much they enjoyed the EDC. Most call it one of the greatest moments of their GSW experience, and many develop new friendships with other students as a result of the experience.

8) What changes, if any, does the EDC hold for this year’s challenge?

Ah, I’m afraid I can’t give away any secrets. That’s one of the exciting parts of the EDC: No details are

shared until it begins! But you can get an idea of some of the past activities by looking at the EDC materials in the “GSW Downloads” area.

9) When can students start to sign up?

Sign-up will begin around March 1: Watch the Gener-al Chatter area for the announcement. The challenge itself starts near the end of March and goes through Earth Day—April 22.

10) Isn’t there a GSW class associated with the EDC?

Yes—I’m glad you asked about that. A couple of years ago, it occurred to me that students were doing so much work during the EDC that they should be able to get credit for it. With the approval of the Dean of Stud-ies, I developed a 2-credit Earth Day Challenge class. The class is only available to students who participate in an EDC.

And… for those who love bling, there’s a gorgeous GSW “Earth Day Challenge” patch, which may be worn on the student’s regalia or academic stole. Like the EDC class, the patch is only available to students who take part in the EDC. The patch itself was designed by two GSW students a couple of years ago—as part of the EDC.

11) Any final words?

Yes—I’d like to address the students who are majoring in Nature Studies. Part of the NS Major includes com-pleting a number of service hours. Taking the EDC class meets two-thirds of the service requirement, and that in itself is a great reason to sign up for the EDC.


GSW Clubs--A Peek InsideBy Sapphire Soleil

The clubs of GSW are busy and fairly active dur-ing the winter months. Even D.I.R.T. (Diggers in Real Time) the gardening club is hatching plans for the spring and summer growing sea-son. Club President, Rue du Soleil, monthly leads the members in a check-in where they discuss how the garden is growing, or, at the moment, how it is sleeping! But new garden magazines, fresh ideas for mulch and new herbs to try are topics to be scanned during the colder season.

Also active is The Defense Against the Dark Arts Club: they’re busy making plans for Con-clave season with new protocols for Defensors as well as a code of ethics for this important job of keeping the circle safe during public or semi-public gatherings.

The Fellowship of the Magickal Arts and Wizards Craft Club is a bit quiet, but some new blood has recently joined and started an interesting conversation regarding how to make inks and incense which has yielded a flurry of experiments throughout the club. Thanks Uni-corn for starting that thread!

The Healer’s Tea Room is quiet, but those of us who pop in are bemoaning a lack of tea supplies and eagerly finding new ways of enjoy-ing tea and other healing herbs during the cold months when their healing qualities are most needed.

Equally quiet is the Wizard’s Hearth, although a few new recipes have appeared lately and January roll call was answered. Perhaps by the time this issue goes to press, the club will be more alive and cooking.

I hope to see lots of students sign up for this year’s challenge! It’ll be great fun—you’ll learn more about the Earth, make new friends, boost your school spirit, and have a chance to earn credits through the EDC class. Plus there’s the cool patch. What more could you ask for?

GSW NEWS GSW NEWS

Hit the Road, Jack!

GSW Journeymenby Sapphire Soleil

Seven years. The requirement to move from ap-prenticeship to journeyman took seven years in the days when many a young person was sent from their home to live with a master craftsman to learn their trade.

The apprentice would start as the lowest of the low in the workshop. Cleaning up, sweeping, cleaning tools, fetching and carrying for older apprentices and, of course, the master himself. But eventually they would learn and be given more and more re-sponsibilities.

Many think the term journeyman refers to the for-mer apprentice leaving the “nest” and journeying around getting jobs. While that isn’t untrue, many journeymen stayed in their own town, but now they were competent enough to charge a day’s wage for a day’s work. The word Journeymen actually comes from the French word journee, which means a day’s work or wages or a day’s travel. (It can also mean a battle, which, when one thinks of it, is also apropos.)

Journeymen were nicknamed “Jack” or knave giv-ing us the term. “Jack of all trades, master of none,” meaning the journeyman in question has many skills in many areas, but had yet to produce a masterpiece or masterwork to go to that final stage to master.

The medieval world is far removed in many ways from our modern life, but here at Grey School of Wiz-ardry, we have modeled our school after that ancient system of apprenticeship. Fortunately for our first year students, we don’t make them sweep up or scrub pots!—usually.

So far only two GSW students have actually reached the loft goal of journeyman. Both are also faculty members and Deans. Dean Moonwriter earned the privileged of being the first GSW apprentice to graduate to journeyman. She completed her de-gree in Wortcunning by creating a fantastic website formulary outline a number of herbs and their uses.

“I am very proud to be the school's first Journey-

man graduate!” said Journeyman Wizard, Moonwriter when asked about her accomplishments. “I worked quite hard to get there, with a Practicum project that took me the better part of five months. I'm a self-admitted Hermione type, i.e., rather driven when it comes to accomplishing things, and it felt good to get this done. It's also spurred me on to reach my next goal: Great Rainbow! I'm two classes away from doing that and hope to accomplish it by summer.”

Dean Kalla, our most recent graduate, did compre-hensive research regarding creatures of the Dark Arts and has parlayed her practicum into several new GSW classes and, rumor hath it, a book deal!

Three other students are on the brink of entering the journeyman status. Dragons Light has completed his practicum in Divination and is just working on finishing up a few other requirements before gradua-tion. Recently, Skywatcher and Sapphire Soleil have both started their practicum in Nature Studies and Magickal Practices respectively and have the long, exhilarating practicum project ahead of them.

Once the Journeyman status is reached, these gradu-ates take their knowledge out into the world to keep learning from others, just as the journeymen of old did. Hopefully GSW will eventually have a journey-man school, allowing our current and future jour-neymen to expand their magickal work and become masters.

SOURCES:Baker, Ernest A. (ed) Cassell’s French-English; English-French Dictionary, New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1951

“Knave” Blurtit.com 2007-2010. Accessed January 7, 2011 <http://www.blurtit.com/q927386.htm>

GSW AWARDScomplied from GSW forums by Sapphire Soleil

Youth Student of the Year – Paw-Cub

—Voted on by GSW faculty

Comments about Paw-Cub: “I was impressed with her maturity and understanding at Conclave. … From what I can tell, she was the most active student in the Gnome’s House, both academically and socially. … She is a fantastic student, active club member, and always has something useful and/or positive to contribute. … She seems to find real joy in her Grey School studies.”

Also nominated: Crystalfire, DragonstarFF, Mink Treewater, Raistlin Loreseeker, Samantha-Pax, and Tynk.

Adult Student of the Year –

Drakonya—Voted on by GSW faculty

Comments about Drakonya: “Her work is compre-hensive, detailed, and always fascinating to read. … In the last few years I have never seen a student produce work like hers. It’s complete, encyclopedic, and reflects her joy in the subject. … She has con-sistently done brilliant work in my classes. … A sharp student with infectious enthusiasm for everything. She’s a joy to work with. … I always learn something new when grading her papers! … Drakonya put so much effort into her personal retreat-- she dazzled me. I met her at Conclave and she’s just as brilliant and crazy in person as she is in class. And that’s a good thing!”

Also nominated: ANNACHENOA, Giovedi Stormsing-er, Mickbee184, Quiet Bear, Scarlet Flame Lion, Sil-verlocke, Skywatcher, Snork, and Swirlsdancing.

Mentor of the Year --Sapphire Soleil

—voted on by all faculty, staff and studentsComments about Sapphire Soleil: “She took over for Cala Gobraith as our temporary Lodgemistress and has done a great job. She has helped me quite a bit with my prefect duties. … She is very commit-ted and always helpful in her role as Lodge Head of the Flames. She sets a great example. … I’m happy that she joined Faculty because I think she will be - already is a great teacher. … She’s bright, bubbly, invariably cheerful, and always available to lend a hand where needed.”

Also nominated: Aamber Phoenix and Prof. Moon-writer.

Teacher of the Year—

Rainmaker—Voted on by the GSW student body

Comments about Rainmaker: “Where does she find the time to pay so much attention to every little thing here!? … We certainly wouldn’t get very far without her to provide direction and inspiration. … I have taken several classes with her and found her comments and thoughts enlightening, and her sug-gestions very useful. I particularly loved the “Odin’s gift” class. She manages to have charisma by email! … She’s fair, fast, smart and I know she reads ev-erything that I turn in closely and makes great com-ments. … The GSW is where it is today largely be-cause of Prof. Rainmaker. When Prof. Barrette left abruptly, Prof. Rainmaker picked up the academic side of the GSW and has turned it into a viable, chal-lenging environment with interesting classes, enthu-siastic Deans, and a growing list of Majors. Kudos!”

Also nominated: Profs. Earthdrum, Flamekeeper, Jymi X/0, and Roue.

CongratulationsEveryone!


My apologies for being late with reporting this wonderful achievement! Every year at the School’s birthday in August, we celebrate by handing out the annual awards of merit. This past year was no exception and we had some great winners and an equally stellar batch of nomina-tions. In case you missed it the winners were:

GSW NEWS GSW NEWS

Whispering Grey Mattersis published by and forthe students and faculty

of theGrey School of Wizardry.

Got your 1st-year core classes done?Like to write?

Draw?Do layouts?

Play with Zombies?WE NEED YOUR HELP!

JOIN OUR STAFF!Contact

Professor Moonwriter or Jymi X/0for more information!

Documents

Grey School Newspaper 29