It's been a while from my last post. New job, started classes, blah-blah work-life balance fail. Anyway.
Taun-taun has, twice now, brought a podcast to my attention that I should have immediately started following (second fail!), but is now firmly in my catcher-feed. I've only listened to two, plus a co-host/interview on Inciting a Riot, but I love it - New World Witchery, and it's made of hearts and magic. :)
An interesting question was posited by a listener in the most recent one, of whether or not story-telling and writing (as opposed to straight-up ritual and prayer writing) have a place in ritual and spellwork. I found it interesting in part because my answer was the precise opposite of the lovely host. He talked about publishing and readers as a way to spread the ripples, etc.
I have used writing, stories and poems, as well as art in pictures and scenes, in spell-work before, but not like that. For me, they have served the purpose of sacrifice. In this day and age (and place, for me), it is not always or generally possible to observe the traditional ways of sacrifice - chickens or cows, slicing yourself across the palm, etc; at worst, you get arrested and create a public incident that has the rest of us moaning, "Seriously, WHY?! This press SUCKS!", at best you're still covering for an injury that's not easily explained. (Moon-blood is the only blood I'd term as "freely given", and it has it's place in ritual as well. But that's a different post.)
Creative outlet, though, if you're already prone to it - the pain of burning a story you're proud of, a picture, a poem, is a sacrifice in and of itself. A story written for the ritual, with no copies, never read by another soul, and then consigned to the flames or the water with no recourse - this is a sacrifice for the gods and for no mortal eye.
It hurts. Really. Writing something, pouring your soul into something, and then destroying it to send it into the Beyond, feels the same or worse as getting dumped (Depends on the dumper. This is not the "I dodged a bullet" feeling. It's the "Oh gods, I can't fix this" feeling.) This is what I use as sacrifice, when I'm doing a ritual that is important, when I really want to get Someone's attention. And, it works. I don't do it often, and it's based in no research or historical record, but there it is.
What I'd love to hear is stories of the other way - the published, the passed around, the stories that were told and retold to gain their effect. I love writing, but I'd never think I could write something good enough, entertaining enough, that it could create the ripple effect of passing on and passing down. Now that it's been mentioned though, the idea is fascinating!
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
