A Day in the Life of an Appalachian Witch 19-20 February 2015 – A Trip to Wapwallopen and some Weird Synchronocities with the Living and the Dead

After no sleep at 4am I spontaneously drove north to the Berwick / Nescopeck / Wapwallopen area. I stopped half way up that two hour trip and took an hour long cat nap in a parking lot of an abandoned business distribution center.

Unfortunately i was not able to meet with two of the High Priestesses in the Coven d/t their schedules. I did meet with an old coven member for awhile before she had her son, whom i had never met before, take her to a doctor’s appointment to have her new pacemaker checked out, something i did of course for 11 years. Her home health aid was there and Lady Persephone and I were able to talk Witchcraft openly in from of the aid and the son for a short time, then i moved on.

So i decided to visit Council Cup mountain again after a trip to Dr Santee’s grave. Its a weird angle backing into the driveway to the gate of the graveyard especially with two hills on the road and people driving 55mph there, so i drove past to find a turn around for a safer back in a pull out.

Well on a road i have never gone that far down before I saw a sign for a campground, so i drove down it to check it out in case it had a supply store with some local history booklets or whatever. There was no one there but a guy drove by who does maintenance there and contacted the campground owner who shortly arrived and let me in. Wow, did i find the “mother load” of information on the area. Not only did he know and doctor with ole Doc Santee, but he knew all his nurses and librarians. AND he was a collector of not only local AmerIndian artifacts but native artifacts from around the world. He graciously took me to his house which was right across the street from someone i knew in town mentioned above.

Yes i am being rather obscure here because i want to protect his privacy and the privacy of all involved because as mentioned in previous posts there are still plenty of “Santee tourists” up there who have broken into and stolen stuff from the old Bookhouse, which is getting a new roof and i assume mostly gutted and being turning into i do not know what. Santee’s house, from what the owner and his wife told me, has been mostly refurbished already. There were workers on the roof when i was there, rebuilding it in the single digit temperatures with a wind chill of in the minus signs amazingly. I missed the owner twice as when i drove by twice he was away getting more wood at the lumberyard. It is what it is.

So, this new friend and his wife as i said invited me into their house, let me rest, served me tea and food, let me wash up in their bathroom, etc. They trusted me as i had already at the campground told him i was the spiritual son of Santee and High Priest of the Coven of the Catta which did still exist. It turns out he wanted to buy the Santee property and turn it into a museum to Santee, but Bill the former cop got it first somehow.

Bottom line – and i am keeping this close to the cuff. I would estimate a collection of 300000 pieces worth 3 million. Most is in his museum which is Heavy Secured so don’t even thing about it because he is an ex special op and if you would step one millimeter within his door uninvited you would be dead in less than a second.

So, i have met the most amazing friend, who does not want anything from me except the money for what i bought and have on hold, and i can trade Tibetan Buddhist educates for that. Weather is sunny and above freezing Monday so will text him Sunday to confirm meeting up.

That’s my life.

 

 

The Duties of a Witch High Priestess and High Priest for a Wiccan Rite of Passage even for someone you do not know, but who Is a Witch

i have been dwelling for days trying to write the words to this blog post, because there are so many profound angles and synchronicitys to it all. So i am just going to ramble on and tell it.

To supplement my meager SSD and pension incomes i am in the buy-sell-trade business and run it out of the back of my jeep. I dumpster dive, stop at places with lots of “junk” in the yard, meet a lot of interesting people that way, go to yard sales, go to store front buy-sell-trade stores, find stuff along the road, dig up stuff in old forgotten dumps, etc etc etc. I make a little extra money that way, but also find some treasures i cannot part with and make some Incredible deals. My specialties are old iron tools, antiques furniture, and religious iconography. It keeps me busy and distracted and gives me something to do. I have also found that the “common man/woman” usually has more integrity than many “witches” i have met over the decades, though there are a handful of wonderful, truth telling, incredibly beautiful and serious witches i know too. I am blessed by their friendship.

A couple months ago i stopped at an open garage in an alley and met TJ, and we almost immediately took a liking to each other. I picked his garage and cellar and he made some money, he being unemployed d/t breaking his arm and being let go of his job. He knows how to do electrical, plumbing, carpentry, etc etc etc skills and he is my handyman now for jobs here and at the red lodge that i do not have the skill or strength to do.

The first time i met TJ something in his garage prompted me to admit to being a Witch and he said his sister Teala was a witch, and her sister, and his late godmother were also Witches, not book learned witches, but Real Witches, solitaries with BOSs and deeply into Nature. Teala was only 28 years old and very very ill with some mysterious illness and had been transferred to various specialty hospitals to figure out what was wrong with her. She grew weaker and eventually went into respiratory arrest and was soon brain dead. They decides wisely to pull her off the ventilator and expected her to pass soon, but it took about a day and a half, as these things often do. You know i have worked in medicine all my life, and in the emergency department, and critical care, and run ALS etc etc so i know the patterns. Now anyone who regularly reads this and the BSSS blog knows that i am a Witch who also practices Tibetan Buddhism and have empowerments into Chod and Powa (Wiki them) and the Rite of Passage in Witchcraft, and initiation into the Cult of Anubis, so i know how to work with the dying and dead (no, i am Not a necromancer nor do i evoke the dead). I also am being trained into PA Dutch German Powwow by my fellow COC HPT “Dutch Jeff” and i have learned to work with the Bible in this healing and working so have lots of old Bibles. Whilst picking his garage the first day i found a red Bible, not old, but well used, dog eared, with passages underlined and circled and pages bookmarked. I asked for it and he had to ask a relative it belonged to.

So one day i drove by and his garage was open and he was working on a vehicle replacing the engine. He said i could have the Bible. He handed it to me. Immediately he received a phone call that Teala had passed. He went into the corner and talked and cried on the phone. I respectfully stepped out of the garage to give his privacy whilst i cried too, holding that Bible. Now in Powwow one often just opens it to whatever page opens to skry a passage of relevance that G_d has for me today. When he was off the phone i opened the Bible on a table and it opened to the 23rd Psalm. Read it. I read it to me holding him and we both cried and i substituted her name into the passage. “Yea though i walk through the shadow of death, i shall fear no evil, and i shall dwell in the house of the (Goddess) forever.” We both cried and cried over a young woman whom i had never met. Then he had to walk up the alley to tell her mum that she had died. I left with that Bible after offering what i could to help him and her and their family.

Later my brother found the obituary in my mum’s newspaper, photographed it and emailed it to me. Her funeral was to be in about a week after her cremation at the local VFW instead of a church of course.

Edited for privacy

I arrived at the service and talked to her sister Sasha, also a Witch, and offered to do the Rite of Passage from my hand copied Book of Shadows which i copied from my teacher, Lady Phoebe Athene Nimue’s, BOS. She negotiated with relatives who all knew Teala was a witch though some were nominal Christians as i did not want to push my way in and offend anyone. They all said yes let that stranger (the only person i knew there was TJ) High Priest do the ritual a Witch has done when she passed over to the next world and reincarnation. I did not dress in a robe but was well dressed in what i call my black wedding and funeral suit. They had set up a table with her pictures as a shrine to remember her as she was, the pictures being below.

I did the opening blessing of salt and water and blessed myself, Teala who helped me by slowing ringing a bell the whole time, and the maybe 50 relatives there. The bar tender of the room rented at the VFW made me put my athame away because of course one cannot display a gun or knife in a bar in PA, so i used my index and middle finger in a mudra instead. I borrowed a salt shaker and water in a plastic cup. Witches make due. I did not have a black and astral colour candle, so used a black lighter and silver lighter. The ritual is only one page long and i read it out loud and i Immediately felt Teala’s spirit right there at the table shrine. I also felt Dr Santee and Anubis behind me.

Mission accomplished. I did my duty as an elder Witch High Priest and helped a Witch i never met, doing a ritual in front of mostly strangers.One last profound moment. After the ritual whilst having a beer a relative bought me i noticed a guy sitting along at the bar looking rather forlorn. I went over and talked with him and found out he was her boyfriend and he did not know many of the relative there too. He was nursing a rum and coke. I had already asked for some of the table centerpiece purple and white flowers for my shrine, and asked for a red flower to give him. He refused but i tucked it into his shirt. Later i saw him smelling that flower like it was his Teala and tears come to my eyes even now seeing that moment.

A Witch friend asked why i would publish this on the COC blog since it is not about the COC i assume, but it is, as this blog post in entitled – The Duties of a Witch High Priestess and High Priest for a Wiccan Rite of Passage even for someone you do not know, but who Is a Witch. 

Teala in a photo shoot by her sister Sasha

A shrine i set up in my Witch Temple with a Picture Sasha gave me.

This long cold winter many relatives of friends have passed on, or are circling the drain as we used to say in the ICU. We are all going to die some day, whether young or old, peacefully or in pain, ready or not. Like Carlos Castaneda said once, and i paraphrase, go through life aware that Death is always there on your left shoulder. Live one day, one hour at a time.

One thing i forgot. Because of the state of her body she could not donate organs, but did donate her lily white skin, so many many burn victims and skin cancer victims are benefiting. Thank you Teala

May the Goddess and God of our Faith Bless the woman and witch Teala on her journey to the Summerlands or wherever she wants to go before she is reincarnated into a country and family where our Faith is tolerated. So Mote It Be. SMSBFZ 3rd* HPT COC.

All photographs copyright GLHoke and Sasha 2015 except for the Tumblr image above, and Please, do Not try to use FB facial recognition to probe farther into this private affair!

Lone Winter Candlemass Rituals and Pictures

White Candlemas Cat in Candlelight – Copyright LRHollen 2015

Members of the Coven of the Catta celebrated Candlemas and the almost Full Moon as solitaries due to the weather and circumstances but from what i see and hear the Rituals went well. I, Shawnus, did a simple ritual mostly working and praying for all my fellow coveners, family and friends who have been trough and are still in the middle of some tough times of late. A couple friends have had deaths in their families and one who is a handyman for me just had his sister, who practiced Witchcraft, die of a long strange illness. May Teala rest in peace and reincarnate into a healthy body and happier life. So Mote It Be.

White Mare of Candlemas – Copyright LRHollen 2015

Along the frozen Juniata River near sunset – Copyright GLHoke 2015

Strange Sun and Sky Phenomenon through a car window – Copyright LRHollen 2015

Apprentice Aren’s beautiful Candlemas Altar – Copyright JWJones 2015

Relevant Quote from a Tumblr page for those who have recently had to make hard decisions regarding poisonous relationships they have had to walk away from.

Blessed Be to All the Coveners of the Coven of the Catta as we move back into the increasing Sunlight in hopes of a soon-to-come Spring weather as we move towards the Spring Equinox.

SMSBFZ 3*HPT COC

A: Archetypes of the Hunt- The Pagan Experience

Blau Stern Schwarz Schlonge:

I don’t think i have reblogged a post to this COC blog before, usually to the BSSS blog, but this one is worthy of a true path of Druidic Bardic Witchcraft. Blessed be and thank you Brenna Adaira.

Originally posted on The Raven and The Oak:

The Pagan Experience’s fourth weekly topic is any topic beginning with the letter A or B. I’ve chosen to use this post to describe my personal system of archetypes I acknowledge within the Wylde Hunt. First, I suppose what I mean by archetypes. The word, ‘archetype’ comes from the Greek words ‘arkhe’ and ‘tupos’ and means an ancient, or primitive mould or image of something. I use this term in the sense that the archetypes I focus upon are centuries and centuries old images that I feel have a vital role to play within the Hunt itself, but also act as models for self-improvement and actualization.

I focus on nine main archetypes; these are roles that would be played by the human participants within the Hunt. They are: The Bard, The Hearth-Keeper, The Healer, The Consort, The Craftsman, The Warrior, The Hunter, The Shaman / Wizard, and The King /…

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The Red Lodge Covenstead of the Blau Stern Schwarz Schlange Hexenzirkel of HPT/Frater SMSBFZ

Across the run from me and back against the mountain is a dark wood cabin which maybe 50 years ago was owned by a Doctor and his wife. Then the property changed hands until DP and his gf bought it. They used to come up on their Harleys every couple months and stay over to get away from work in the suburbs south of here. After about 8 years they came less and less. They did recently have a green tin roof installed, which is nice. The rich man who owns almost the entire end of this mountain wanted to buy it from DP, but he would not sell. Finally one spring night, after a long hiatus in them coming up, i had an hour long talk with him and he checked with his gf and they decided to sell, as is. I took a big financial hit and bought the property adjourning mine with that black cabin on it.

The place was so overgrown one could barely get into any doors as the trees and shrubs had encased the place. The entire yard was overgrown with white pine saplings from the many big old white pines back there. I hacked my way in and had to sacrifice lots of saplings, many of which i replanted, and finally got to work. It was and is good work as i need to keep busy to distract myself from being ill and bored now that i am prematurely retired.

I had an idea back then that this cabin would become the Coven of the Catta’s Covenstead since the one up north is pretty much dismantled. I cleaned and cleaned and tossed and tossed and burned and burned, even stuff i should have not environmentally burned, but i cleaned all that up recently. When i started the Blau Stern Schwarz Schlonge blog it was meant to be the start of an offshoot of the Coven of the Catta, including many more western and eastern magickal systems. You can read about that at this blog and at the BSSS blog. But it was not to be. Coveners due to circumstances beyond their control, and because of age, came less and less and the rituals became just us individual witches doing our rituals in our own homes. One has to adjust to one’s energies and one’s life situation.

I kept at work fixing it up anyway, eventually it becoming a kinda “man cave” away from technology (except for my smart phone) and i hired some guys to do some work but only about 80% of what needs done is done and i cannot do the rest myself, but i will. I had painted the old cracked concrete floor bright red as a base for the COC circles i was going to paint, but i did not feel the need to paint those circles since who was going to come here for ritual? But it still looked good against the white walls and brown wood cabinets. Now this cabin is in the swamp land and the water pressure under the concrete over decades took its toll. In the middle of the floor the concrete had burned up and cracked because the demon under the house wanted out, i mean the Naga of the valley wanted in, i mean the hydrostatic pressure of the water cracked the floor, LOL, gotcha.

And as summer and autumn came and went i did a lot of clearing outside, made a fire pit, made an outside aniconic altar of stones in the parts of an old heavy concrete bird bath i found in the woods, and just enjoyed the nightly adventure of traveling there and back to my main house in the dark with flashlight and firearm because of the cougar and two black panthers i had seen in the same time frame. Hmmm, HPT of the Coven of the Catta aka Cat attracts the rare local panthers…..

The spirits took notice of me immediately, first because of the minor destruction i was making, but also because they knew i honoured them and was building altars and doing fire pujas and water offerings and offerings of coins and stones to the land to bring it back to the Sacred Place it once was, but in reality always was. I just stopped the previous owners bad environmental practices, like throwing all their glass trash on a pile, from which i harvested many a fine old blue, green and amber glass piece.

The AmerIndians started coming down, armed with bow and arrow, club and hatchet, but they soon became less leery and benignly aggressive. One week in a few days i realized All the animal spirits at the Hex Haus wanted to get away from the road, which was most of their demises, and move back to the black cabin far away from a road, up against the mountain, with plenty of food and water. So, i dragged All the animal bones etc from the HH to the BC.

I started setting up a large altar which has taken almost 4 months to get right for them and for me.

Full altar on red dyed calf skin.

Native American Spirits (I originally had Injun spirits but was corrected on that term which is a pejorative amongst The People and will explain in a footnote the etymology of the  word Injun).

Side view of the Altar

Lots of deer antlers a guy gave me in exchange for a walking stick with a tine upon it, in the works.

Austrian crystal skull vodka decanter, wand and blade, goat skull, my grandpa’s arrowhead collection and two center pieces from the graveyard archeology dig up at Wapwallopen, gifted from the Santee Memorial Library by Lady PAN.

Sage incense and turtle shells.

The central bone, wood, ceramic throwing wood table for skrying, with fox penis bones, a native clay skull pipe, malachite skull, twisted copper, copper ball, deer ribs and old ceramic insulators from the cabin.

Well now that all the animal and AmerIndian spirits had come on over to the mountain side of the run, now the animal deities and lwa from my main house and temples wanted to come over ! So, thus came about this altar of the goat headed one, the jackal headed one, the Ram headed one (yes, that an old hood ornament off a Dodge Ram) and Pan himself. I would not call this a Satanicke altar since there is no high religious philosophy over here, just pure Shamanism, and these gods and goddess Are shamanic.

And finally some selfies, one in the lodge showing the red floor and one over at the Hex Haus wit me in a mirror bundled against the cold.

So, the black cabin has become the Red Lodge of the BSSSH, even though it is a Hexenzirkel / Coven of one, moi…..

Note – All photographs and text Copyright GLHoke 2015

Etymological  Footnote on the term “Injun” – As you know when Columbus and other European explorers ran their boats into the Americas they thought they were in India, thus they called the natives Indians, a mistaken term which was misapplied for a few decades until they figured it out that it was not so. For a few hundred years the Native Americans were referred to as “Indians” by the English and as “Injuns” by the French who made much more early contact with the native tribes in northern North America than the English who landed in eastern NA and the Spanish who landed in southeastern NA. It was just the way the French spoke, and to be honest i think they had a more equal relationship with the Native Americans than the rest, wanting to just trade furs, not conquer for gold or convert to Christianity. I don’t think it was until the final “Great Migration” of blancs across the continent that the word “Indian” changed to mean ” those dirty primitive stubborn animals (early theologians considered them as less than human) who fight for their land against us superior Caucasian races from Europe under the banner of GOD, etc etc”. So I know the names Indian and Injun as from the same period 400-500 years ago, but nowadays it is not pc as explained to me by a Native American friend and HPS in the COC, so, i will not use that term again because it is offensive to some or many.

Addendum 11 January 2015 – I apologize to whomever is reading this, and judging by the lack of commentary i assume no one (or this is just too weird for people to comment upon) for interjecting my own personal Gnosis into the Coven’s blog, even though i am the writer of this blog. And BTW i have deleted some photos and inserted some others from today. In the future i will confine such ramblings to my BSSS blog. The COC lineage continues onwards in those who are third degrees within it, though i may have grown too weary to be much more than a teacher and adviser on the sidelines. This is not a large Coven, but it is an old one, and what is important is Quality, not quantity of Initiates, and i can tell you there are some wonderful wise witches in this Coven. It is, and is going to be, one long cold lonely winter. This is the time of year when we all withdraw and contemplate and regroup both physically, psychologically and spiritually. May the Goddess carry us with her as she sleeps in the cave of winter, and may she hold our hand as she slowly comes out of that cave at Blessed Candlemas. So Mote It Be and Blessed Be to you all.

1 January 2015 – Transcending and Hiving off from the Coven of the Catta

A quick 1 January 2015 post. I am hiving off, or rather transcending my coven lineage into the

Blau Stern Schwarz Schlange Hexenzirkel (in German)

Coven de la Colouve Noire (in French)

Blue Star Black Snake Coven (in English)

The Coven of he Catta will continue as long as Lady Alsace and Magister Shawnus are alive. We remain elders in the COC. The coven will continue in northern PA and eastern NC in the third degree High Priestesses we have initiated. I will continue to teach the Apprentices I now have. If asked to Priest a ritual in northern PA i will do so.

But i am starting a new branch of this coven, much more complex, much more inclusive of various eastern, western, gnostic, and shamanic  lineages, just like Dr Frederick LaMotte Santee aka Merlin did in his day collecting initiations from all over Europe, North Africa and America.

I realize this is a coven of one, just me in my UPG, but we shall see where it goes in 2015 and beyond….

 

Honi Soi qui Mal y Pense. Finis.

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m Back Early from my Short Sabbatical as HPT of the CoC

Due to my burn out of trying to herd cats for 33 years i tried to take a Sabbatical recently from my role as Elder High Priest 3rd* of the Coven of the Catta.

I tried to line up some leader north and south, but to no avail. Both HPSs were too busy with life and survival and in their own virtual worlds, so no communication from them.

Elder Lady AIB has never wanted to lead a coven so she refused the responsibility, but at least she told me by telephone.

So i give up on trying to have a short Sabbatical. Obviously this group needs a strong organized leader who has the time to herd the cats of the Catta. Everyone else is justifiably to busy with legitimately urgent affairs in their lives. I on the other hand have plenty of time in between renovations to three houses and two acres of property which are winding down now, finally, as winter approaches.

Yule will be held in one of my inside or outside temples at 1400 hours Sunday 21 December New Moon. Let me know if any of you will be attending. I hope to have a part time job at the retail end of the s_x industry by then and may be in full time training but will let you know when i know. My boss lady knows i am a Witch and HPT and will most likely let me off that day. If no one shows up then Galatea will stand in as my HPS for the ritual. 

Blessed Be!

Shawnus Merlin Santee Belarion Ferrisstar ZAXON 3* Coven of the Catta

All Photographs Copyright GLHoke 2014

A Few Weeks in the life of an Appalachian Witch early to mid November 2014

Originally posted on Blau Stern Schwarz Schlonge:

A few weeks in the life of an Appalachian Witch.

Ran into a worker at the local hardware who had this tat which in Korean means i think “the crazy life”. Loved it. LOL  

Got zero sleep, drove north to visit several people, arrived at dawn at Lady EWH’s place and she had this cool fake flame of paper waving upwards in a cauldron hanging in the dawn window and thought it pretty cool.

Still having no sleep i ventured on to Council Cup, the large mountain overlooking Wapwallopen where the Covenstead was. I had not been up there for decades when Lady Phoebe took me and our Priestess up to teach us how to draw the wind. It is a beautiful cold windy day with quite the view and directly across from the nuclear power plant so i got my glow on LOL. I tried to nap there unsuccessfully.

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While I am on Sabbatical as HPT of the Coven of the Catta….

 

I have decided that while i am on Sabbatical as the oldest living male HPT of this coven, whether for a month or half a year or who knows how long, that Lady Ember Willow Hawk and Lady Alsace Isa Brie, 3rd* High Priestesses of the COC will lead and organize the rituals and activities of the Coven of the Catta. It made more sense to me to have people who live in the original area of the covenstead to take on these roles. Lady AIB does not have email and i will not give out her phone number, but you can contact Lady EWH at Spiritember@gmail.com or through her Witchvox page.

Of course if they ask me to HPT at a ritual i will do so, but they will do the rest. Like i said in a previous post i just need to stand back, regroup, get my head on straight and figure out what is most important to me right now.

I will also continue to teach my Apprentices and maybe even take on a few more, though my experience of some guys up north who wanted it and i gave it to them just like to text and email and not talk on the phone or visit (not talking about you CB), well those people went into the X-Apprentices file.

I will change some things here and more especially at Witchvox which seems to be the way most people find our coven, unless they watch some old episode of “The Haunted”.

I will also continue to write on this CoC blog but anyone in the coven who wants to write a guest post, like Apprentice Aren did earlier, you are welcome to do so.

Blessed Be!

Shawnus Merlin Santee Belarion Ferrisstar ZAXON 3*HPT COC