Silver Chalice Wicca 'Zine #45

The Pros & Cons of Mercury Retrograde
and
Opening Your Third Eye

June / July 2015

Editor's Note

Have you ever noticed... Sometimes life seems to keep bashing you down, and the only thing you can do about it is, keep on limping back to your feet. Again and again and again....

A weird opening sentence, for which I apologise.

I've been having a month or two like that. Every time I start to recover and begin to find my balance, it seems, along comes another catastrophe.

I kept trying to find an upbeat opening for this 'Zine, but what's real is that I'm struggling. And I know a lot of people go through this; everyone does at some point.

So maybe — my idea goes — maybe what I should do is speak to that.

Sometimes hope and faith in a future that's worth sticking around for is hard to forge. Sometimes it's dogged work, dredging up just enough hope and faith to get up one more time and keep going.

What often makes the difference for me is spending time in Nature...

The smell of new-mown grass and trees and flowers

The songs of the birds and the whisper of breezes through the summer leaves

The many visual delights as the day progresses

The warmth of the sun on my back

For right now, all I can say is: when I'm not even sure I want to get up again, or how to do it, I just go outside and be quiet and let the beauty of the Earth seep into me, drop by drop.

And somehow it fills me with something... something that lifts me up when I can no longer lift myself.

One of the subtle blessings of this Earth.

I hope you find time to enjoy it, during the all-too-short, sweet, Summer season.

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Table of Contents

What's New on the Site	A Peak Into A New Paradigm
Events & Announcements	Training for Southern Hemisphere Wiccans
Wicca Students Speak Out	Safe Oasis of Spiritual Understanding and Love
Website Highlights	Peak: Who Are You In The New Paradigm?
Feature Article	The Real Story About Mercury Retrograde
Ask The Priestess	Opening Your Third Eye
Fave Quotes	Inspirations for Merc Rx
Word on the Street	Our Playground With Our Divine Mother
Energy Field Barometer	Subconscious Healing Dreams
Silver Chalice Details

What's New On The Site

What's new on the site since the last issue of the Silver Chalice Wiccan 'Zine?

Actually, there's one thing that just couldn't wait any longer, so I've created one new page:

So this article describes what that really looks like: what to expect in the beautiful future that's possible for our planet.

	Ethics
	Integrity
	Intuition
	Kindness
	Personal Empowerment
	Respect and Responsibility
	Honouring the Divinity of the Feminine

Events & Announcements

Training For Southern Hemisphere Wiccans

If you live south of the equator, you're coming up to Imbolc (aka Brighid) on August 1st.

So if you've been waiting
to start your Wiccan training
to coincide with your seasons,
late June or early July is the perfect time
to start your year-and-a-day!

Wicca Students Speak Out

Want to hear what our students are saying about A Year And A Day: 53 Weeks to Becoming a Wiccan?

I just wanted to let you know how wonderful the course has been for me so far.

Reading each lesson is like stepping into a little safe oasis of spiritual understanding and love.

~ Jessica W., USA

*   *   *  

Have I mentioned lately how much I Love, Love, Love this course?! Well I do!

Thank you so much for all of the time you obviously spent and still spend on this course. It is perfect! It is changing my life!

It is exactly what I was looking for, and what I needed. I look forward to each new lesson with excitement I haven't felt in years!

I find it exceptionally validating, and amusing, when I discover that I have been doing a few things you are teaching, already on my own. Not with the polish I am learning, but still the seed was planted and is now growing. (does that make any sense to you? Hope so.)

I can not thank you enough for this gift you have given me. May the Goddess bless you with abundance, health, and happiness always!

Blessed Be!!!

~ Lisa K, USA

Website Highlights

Spotlighting some of the Wicca Spirituality articles you may not have seen yet!

Co-Creator of Reality

No longer do God and Nature call all the shots -- humanity gets to play out its own, elevated dreams.

Some call this hubris, to imagine ourselves as peers (though not equals) of God.

And it probably is.

But it's the most natural thing in the world to become peers of the Goddess!

Wicca -- A Guilt-Free Morality

There is no jealous, vindictive god in Wicca, no judgemental and punishing Father. In Wicca the Mother Goddess is primary: loving, nurturing, generous, wise. And the Gods are protective, playful, and strong without violence.

No guilt, no shame, no violence, no judgement... Wicca is a religion of life, freedom, celebration, responsibility, and growth.

Oddly enough, this worries people!

Remorse: A Process for Healing

It's the 21st Century alternative to feeling bad about yourself, and making others around you feel bad too.

It not only feels better and helps you move forward in your life, but it is healing for the Earth... and as we ride the 2012 Transition, Mother Earth needs all the help we can give her!

This article explains how it works, and why you are worthy of forgiveness.

Feature Article

The Real Story About Mercury Retrograde

Co-authored with Nicole Bosserman

The Mercury Retrograde (Merc Rx) is fast approaching, which means a lot of us Witchy people are battening down the hatches!

. . .   Continue...

Ask The Priestess:

Opening The Third Eye

Dear Priestess,

I am a healer and want to progress on my road. I do practice yoga too. I will appreciate to get your input how to gain psychic abilities and open my Third Eye.

What kind of meditations and exercises are recommended to be more open to cosmic signals so i could be more helpful to the needy people?

love and light,

H., Australia

Please note: I don't recommend forcing open any one chakra, or even strongly encouraging it. That can throw your whole system out of balance -- physical, emotional, and mental. The chakras must be in balance... if you seek to open one, seek to open all.

That being said, there are hundreds if not thousands of different methods. But any good basic meditation will go a long way. All you really need to do, to open a chakra, is to clear the ego-gunk that's in the way. That's what meditation does.

A wonderful, easy practice is the Divine Light Invocation. It's also extremely potent. Like any spiritual practice, you must keep it up though. The more you do, the faster the results. (Find out how to do that here.)

I also highly recommend mantra. It's easy for beginners and powerful for those with experience. Mantra is one of the most powerful meditation tools, because you physically set the vibrations in your body to divine energy. You can send the mantra into each chakra, one by one, to clear and charge them as well. ( You can read about Mantra here.)

Whatever meditation practice works for you, though, will be useful.

One caveat: Sometimes the easiest meditations are the least helpful. It's the ones that really challenge us that hold the most power.

Seek to find a balance between a meditation that is challenging, but easy and satisfying enough that you keep doing it.

That's the key!! If you don't keep doing it, it doesn't matter how good it may be! Find one that you want to keep doing.

Opening the third eye is a bit different from developing psychic abilities. But the third eye does help psychic perception.

You can develop psychic abilities mainly by practicing them. Like everything else, skill comes from practice! I particularly recommend divination tools as a great way to learn and develop psychic abilities. (If you're not familiar with it, these articles offer an introduction to divination.)

Meditation helps with this too, because the main reason psychic abilities don’t seem to work is the same reason the chakras seem "closed"... because the ego-gunk gets in the way. It makes it very hard for us to hear the psychic messages. And it makes it even harder to determine what's divine messages and what's mental jabber. It confuses things.

One warning note: Everyone thinks they want psychic abilities and open chakras, but it is possible to get those things too soon.

If you aren't ready for it, it can make your life more difficult. So if you start to find yourself getting too "floaty" or spacey, uncomfortable, even "addicted" to the sensations, back off and work on developing the other aspects of your Sacred Chalice. (see first link.)

Those are clues that you are getting in over your head, that some level of you is not on par with the work you are doing. In the Sacred Chalice article, these are called Strength, Flexibility, Wholeness, and Purity. Upgrade the weak level before continuing with your practices.

That should get you started!

With Blessings,

erin

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Do you have a question you'd like answered? Email the Priestess and your question could be answered in a future issue.

(Note: questions may be edited for brevity or clarity. No real names will be disclosed. For reasons of legality, all questions become the property of Wicca-Spirituality.com.)

Fave Quotes

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast — you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

~ Eddie Cantor

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Remember, cream eventually rises to the top because it is rich. Cream will also get lost, diluted, and homogenized with lots of stirring and agitation. You must be still for the cream in you to surface.

~ Eden Maxwell

Instead of learning to organize my priorities I’ve become comfortable with panic.

~ Mark Litzler

I celebrate myself, and sing myself / I loafe and invite my soul . . .

~ Walt Whitman

Don't just do something, stand there!

~ Martha Graham

Word on the Street

What People Are Saying About Wicca-Spirituality.com:

GRATITUDE!

Hey there. Just thought I'll tell you how awesome this website is!

The whole time, Wicca is our relationship with our Mother Goddess. Nowadays, religion is focused on worshipping and bowing down to idols.

Wicca is our playground with our Divine Mother. It's fun and inviting.

If only Mankind can see the benefits of being grateful and giving to our Mother Nature. She gave us so much yet we believe she will always be alive.

Thank you Erin Dragonsong for clarifying Wicca, and for helping us to remember our Mother needs us to love her and ourselves.

Let's see what 2015 unfolds. We are here to experience the Human experience! Let's be merry and full of mirth day by day :)

For the Mother Goddess!

— J.H. in Canada

Energy-Field Barometer

Well, the big news in the Energy Field is, of course, Mercury Retrograde, which goes til June 11th, gradually tapering off over the course of a few weeks.

And MercRx is up to all the usual tricks, messing with technology, communications, relationships, plans, and goals. I hope you've seen the Feature Article this month, though, which explains the benefits of Mercury Retrograde.

After all, if you have to suffer through the down side, you should at least get to enjoy the good side too!

Earlier, in the beginning of May, you might have noticed a kick-butt Energy Field when the Full Moon was in Scorpio: amazingly intense emotions flying everywhere, and really primal issues flaring up like rockets! A lot of negativity coming up, but thankfully passing fairly quickly.

Other than that, what I've noticed in the last couple weeks, is a lot of healing work happening, on subconscious levels. For example, dreams that represent the reversal of old wounds, healing of old patterns, increasing love and self-acceptance.

There also seems to be this kind of back-and-forth energy: one minute maximum ego-type stress (and there can be a lot of stress, as MercRx grinds us to a halt), next minute relaxing into the flow. Like both options are equally available, and we get to choose from moment to moment which we want to go with.

Which I guess is exactly how life works, right? But lately, it seems the choice point is much more available and just a step away.

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Notice or suspect an energy field going around? Can you confirm this reading, or shed more light on it?

I'd love to hear what's happening for you! Please let me know.

What to do about being caught in an unpleasant energy field? Click here for tips.

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© erin Dragonsong 2015. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinting any of this is forbidden unless you obtain my written permission: karma and the law agree on this one. And Copyscape is keeping an eye on these things.