I am currently locked in book-jail, writing away on my Lunar Witchcraft manuscript. Hot from my pen (er…keyboard) is a bit of poetry I’ve just composed as a charm of making. Since my formal training was in the art of poetry, I enjoy writing charms to raise power in magick.
There is just something deeply magickal about the poetic pulse, arcane language, and mythological metaphors that gets things started! The “Rede of the Wiccae” poem attributed to Lady Gwen Thompson, advises witches to that same effect:
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“To bind the spell every time,
let the spell be spake in rhyme.”
Beyond the imagery and rhyme-scheme, the meter of the Rede is also important. I feel witchy empowerment just coursing through me whenever I chant in iambic tetrameter. What does that mean?
Iambic Tetrameter: A Magickal Pulse
An Iamb is a unit of two syllables with stress on the second: da DUM, like the rhythm of a human heartbeat. Tetrameter means that there are four Iambs per line. da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM…This lends a pulse to the chanting of the words… what better way to channel Divine Love into a spell, than with a pulsing heartbeat!
The structure of a rhyming couplet means that two lines go together, and both end that final da DUM with words that rhyme.
I post today to share with the Witchery a new Lunar Goddess Charm of Making that I’ve just composed for the new book. It could be used to raise power during spells, or to invoke the Great Goddess into lunar formulary preparations.
The magick of these words attempts to weaves together many mysteries:
Waxing and waning tides for growth of intentions and removal of obstacles
NINE lunar phases: three phases each for Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable modalities.)
Cardinal: New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter
Fixed: Waxing Gibbous, Full, Waning Gibbous
Mutable: Third Quarter, Balsamic Sickle (aka waning crescent), Dark Moon
I see that three-part modality in the metaphor of the Wiccan Triple-Goddess. Though I realize that the “maiden, mother, crone” archetype…any Deity as an archetype…has fallen out of favor with the devotional polytheists. However, I’m a panentheist and I still appreciate the archetypal perspective!
The mystery of the mutable phase, is the transition hinge-point between two cycles, so it has two sides: integration of the old, and transmutation through rest in preparation for the new cycle. This mystery is mirrored in the seasons of autumn and winter, and reflects throughout the mythology of the gods.
If we apply that mutable mystery to the goddess archetypes, there is an implied FOURTH aspect that I name the Queen - like a fully sovereign, mature woman…the boss-lady within her sphere of influence.
My charm calls upon FOUR goddess archetypes: Maiden, Mother, Queen, and Crone.
As the spells I’m writing for this charm also employ planetary magick, I also mention specific goddesses related to the celestial spheres:
Maiden - Venus
Mother - Moon
Queen/Crone - Saturn
The Roman deity Saturn, Greek Chronos, was a Titan God, not a Goddess. For crone, elder-feminine, or underworld mysteries, I correlate the Titan Goddess Hekate in that sphere. Not because Hekate was ever envisioned like an elderly woman by the ancients, but because she is a goddess of magick and mystery, a psychopomp guide between the worlds as a torch-bearer and wise counselor.
In the myth of Persephone, a Spring, “maiden” Goddess, becomes the Dark Queen of the Underworld for a Winter reign each year - she shifts back and forth between two spheres…very mutable of her. Hekate guides Persephone’s way down with her flaming torches, and then stays to help her adminstrator the realms of death and rebirth. I consider Queen Persephone and Hekate working like a “mutable” team.
That is a LOT to cram into 9 couplets of poetry. The synthesis and reduction of such big ideas into sucinct wording to be chanted aloud is the key to successful Hermetic Witchcraft.
I’ve included an audio recording of my reading the charm above.
Can you feel the power in the pulse?
Lunar Goddess Charm of Making
Venus kiss to New Moon rise,
Maiden Goddess here resides.
Spoken needs are all received;
Waxing Crescent plants the seed!
By first quarter’s tidal flow,
Aphrodite’s roses grow!
Waxing Gibbous, pregnant moon,
Luna’s Garden now in bloom
Full Moon peaking, ocean swells,
Mother Goddess here indwells!
Waning Gibbous, verdant growth,
graciously fulfills her troth![1]
By darkness of third quarter’s wane,
the Queen descends, Hekate’s flame![2]
Balsamic Sickle sheers the grain,
for all must fall to rise again.
The Dark Moon cloaks the Goddess Crone,
whose magick reaps the harvest home!
[1] Troth is an arcane word meaning truth, loyalty, or the fulfillment of a promise.
[2] For the meter of this chant, Hekate is pronounced heh-KAH-tay, stressing the middle syllable.
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