Angels and the Craft

Merry Meet!

As a Christian Witch, I use the heavenly energies that come from the blessed angels of heaven. God placed us in the protection of the angels just as he placed people in the Bible under their care. People like Job, Jesus, Joseph and Mary, Lot and Abraham.

During many of my protective spells and rituals, I call upon the four archangels. Michael, the guardian of the south, and help of soldiers and police officers and firemen. Uriel, the guardian of the north and help of doctors and healers and herbalists and pharmacists. There is Gabriel, the guardian of the east and the help of speakers and communicators and teachers and lawyers and all those who seek peaceful justice. And Raphael, the guardian of the west and the aid of mystics and seers and philosophers. They create a heavenly shield around me and sanctify my sacred space and hear my spells and send me the help I need.

I also call upon the guardian angels. Since so many of us do not know the name of our guardian angels, I simply call out to the guardian of _____and name the person for whom I am working. Padre Pio, who is a saint and served God with humility and the pain of the stigmata, wrote that often if he needed to speak to someone there in the monastery or even in the town, he would speak to his guardian angel and tell this angel to speak to the guardian angel of the person with whom he wanted to speak. That person would feel an overwhelming desire to see Padre Pio. It was from him that I got the notion of inter-angel communication.

So, if you have never worked with angels (and for my Pagan and Wiccan friends, you may call upon angels or devas or djinn or faerie folk) give these sweet servants a try. You will find a lot of comfort and help from them.

Brightest Blessings Be,
Aslinn Dhan Dragonhawk

Is the Blessed Virgin Mary the Christian Goddess?

This topic is a lively one because witchcraft is a feminine centered practice and the Wiccan religion is a Goddess religion. But what about the Christian witch? What if you simply cannot integrate a Goddess into your practice, just as you may not be able to incorporate the Gods and Goddesses of other pantheons?

Some open minded Wiccans and eclectic witches see the Blessed Mother as a Goddess for Christian witches. Some see Mary Magdeline, particularly if you are a gnostic Christian who believes that Jesus actually lived an ordinary man's life before his ministry and married and had children, as a Goddess. But what if you can't see that as a part if your work in the Craft, or it rubs uncomfortably against your faith system?

Well, this is the conundrum that many of us feel in our Craft work. This is how I deal with it. Not all of us who practice Christian Craft are Catholics, and for those of you who aren't, I can tell you that though it is helpful for energy balance to acknowledge a sacred feminine, it is not neccesary. For Catholics who practice craft, the issue of sacred feminine is answered with Mary, the Mother of God.

Notice I call her sacred feminine. To me, she is not Goddess, but a sacred woman who serves the will of the Lord, who ministers to her Son, Jesus, the God made man, and our mother in salvation and our source of hope. She is "blessed among women" and "full of grace" she is the woman "caught up in the heavens with the moon under her feet and the crown of twelve stars". She is the female archetype for Christian Crafters, beloved and trusted.

For the mater of simple observation, it is a shame that Protestants and Wiccans alike ignore her nobility and the power in her sexual virginity. Mary is discarded as a simply a vessel, an incubator for the Son of the Living God. If we follow that train of thought, then that means that God abandons the woman he chose from the moment of her conception, who bore the brunt of human scrutiny and derision and risked quite possibly her own life to be pregnant and bear the Son of God.

No, God blessed her for her holiness and humility, protected and loved her, and when her time came, made her the Queen of heaven, the co-redemtrix and the handmaid of the Lord

Brightest Blesings Be
Aslinn Dhan Dragonhawk