I’ve hinted for a while about creating a new website for my art and writing and I’m happy to say that after almost two years in the making the new site is up and running! It is a professional portfolio for my art and writing and both the blog and shop have also been moved there. You can now find me here:

Sarahannelawless.com

The Witch of Forest Grove blog will be left untouched like a shrine, but will no longer be updated. New blog posts will be on the new website. If you previously subscribed to new posts by email in the past year you should have received an email asking to confirm subscription to the new blog location. If you are a WordPress user, you will need to go to the new blog and click “follow” on the right hand blog menu to receive new posts via email: http://sarahannelawless.com/2013/04/17/feast-of-liber-al-vel-legis/

I’ve also added a personal profile to Facebook to replace my Witch of Forest Grove page. It’s more interactive and allows me to get to know you all better. You can friend me here: http://www.facebook.com/sarahanne.lawless

The Poisoner’s Apothecary is now Black Arts Foundry. This gives me more freedom to sell non-poison related illustrations, talismans, and ritual tools as well as (hopefully) no longer attracting persons looking for a head shop rather than aids for serious magic and ritual.

For shop updates and to find out when new releases of artwork, flying ointments, talismans, and carvings will be available for sale you can follow the new shop Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/blackartsfoundry

Flying Ointments are now back in stock and available for purchase from the new apothecary. Forest Spirit Ointment and Soma Flying Ointment were so popular with the last run that they’ve made a comeback! I’ve also made two limited edition ointments in half-size 15 ml tins. The first is a pure Belladonna Flying Ointment crafted with organic belladonna leaf infused into high quality rendered pig fat and naturally preserved with balm of gilead and beeswax. The second limited edition unguent is the Berserker Flying Ointment: high quality rendered bear fat triple infused with European mandrake root, naturally preserved with balm of gilead and pure filtered beeswax. An excellent unguent for your rites of transformation and reconnecting to your animal nature in magic and rituals.

Thank you for continuing to follow me on this adventurous journey of life through all my incarnations over the years – this should be my final transformation!

“For he is ever a sun, and she a moon. But to him is the winged secret flame, and to her the stooping starlight.” Liber Al vel Legis 1:16

“Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam! Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.” Liber Al vel Legis 1:51

Day two of the feast of Liber Al vel Legis. Towering conifer mountains dusted with snow and shrouded with smoke loom in the North. The lush verdant greenmantle pushes up from the black earth, erect and pollen-covered. Fat juicy rain drops fall despoiling virginal flower petals with sky-god semen. The air is heavy with the sticky, sweet, amber smell of balm of gilead, redolent and thick like incense burning in a courtesan’s bed chamber. We come together again, right before the setting of the sun. We speak of the troubles of growing belladonna and the stone carver shows his pipes of dragons and serpents in hard stone leaving us wide-eyed. There are sacraments of cinnamon liqueur and wines with a savoury feast of peppered chicken, hummus, salt and crunch, ginger cookies and cake. The smoke of tobacco and herbs curls around us. The words of the second chapter are read by Holly this night in her singsong voice. Sloan shuffles the Thoth cards, places them before me, and I cut to reveal the five of disks.

“I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all. It is a lie, this folly against self. The exposure of innocence is a lie. Be strong, o man! lust, enjoy all things of sense and rapture: fear not that any God shall deny thee for this.” ~ Liber Al vel Legis 2:22

Who am I to deny the words of the Book of the Law? The Poisoner comes home with me. The moon is dark and the spirits are restless and hungry. Sometimes they crave something more primal and the offerings of sweet incense, liqueurs, honey, and sticky tobacco aren’t enough to sate them. The deep rhythms of Wardruna play softly. Rose incense burns. Anointed with oils of amber and sandalwood I recline in front of the altar and the silver words of Valiente’s invocation pour off my tongue. “Thee we invoke by the moon-led sea, by the standing stone and twisted tree. Thee we invoke where gather thine own, by the nameless shrine forgotten and lone…” And there he is at my feet with a satyr’s debaucherous grin. His voice of growl and smoke recites Crowley’s hymn of Pan to Artemis in reply. He kisses me for each stanza, starting at my feet, sliding between my legs to kiss my thighs and breasts, and then lastly a full kiss on the lips. We take our fill of pleasure with each other until we are sated, exhausted, and the hungry spirits too are silent.

“By the force of the fashion
Of love, when I broke
Through the shroud, through the cloud,
Through the storm, through the smoke,
To the mountain of passion
Volcanic that woke —
By the rage of the mage
I invoke, I invoke!

By the midnight of madness: —
The lone-lying sea,
The swoon of the moon,
Your swoon into me,
The sentinel sadness
Of cliff-clinging pine,
That night of delight
You were mine, you were mine!”

On day three of the feast of Liber Al vel Legis we share sacraments of smoke, mead, and wine. My senses are a swirl of rose mead and vetiver, ambrosia and dark chocolate. The Book of the Law is read by Sloan, loud and fearsome.  After, he draws us each a third and final tarot card from the Thoth deck. He interprets them all for us as we feast. The last card I draw is Art. His reading is blunt and dead on though he couldn’t have seen inside my head. The advice is good and I will take it. I was sad when the feast was ended – it is a joyful thing to see your friends and eat and drink with them for days in a row. We all stayed a bit later on the last night I think, saying our farewells until Beltuinn is upon us and we meet again for magic and mischief in the wild wood.

“For perfume mix meal & honey & thick leavings of red wine: then oil of Abramelin and olive oil, and afterward soften & smooth down with rich fresh blood. The best blood is of the moon, monthly: then the fresh blood of a child, or dropping from the host of heaven: then of enemies; then of the priest or of the worshippers: last of some beast, no matter what. This burn: of this make cakes & eat unto me. This hath also another use; let it be laid before me, and kept thick with perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping things sacred unto me. These slay, naming your enemies; & they shall fall before you. Also these shall breed lust & power of lust in you at the eating thereof.“ ~ Liber Al vel Legis 3:23-27

I go into a trance-like state when the book is read. Some parts stand out more than others. The third chapter stood out the most for me like a raven’s call in a forest.  It is dark with the voice of a heartless warrior mingled with wafts of Babalon’s perfume.

“But let her raise herself in pride! Let her follow me in my way! Let her work the work of wickedness! Let her kill her heart! Let her be loud and adulterous! Let her be covered with jewels, and rich garments, and let her be shameless before all men!” Liber Al vel Legis 3:44

Did you burn your first copy like throwing spilled salt over your shoulder to avert a curse, black heretical ashes staining your fingers?

There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.

I experimented with new recipes: a pure belladonna ointment with a menstruum of pig fat and an ointment of fly agaric mushroom caps and mandrake root with a menstruum of bear fat. The belladonna ointment is still undergoing testing to see if it is safe for use, but the second one is now available in the Poisoner’s Apothecary as Soma Flying Ointment. It is excellent for ecstatic rites of intoxication, drumming, and dance. Use for sacred ceremonies and spirit work or to work with the World Tree.

I filled a big order for Ixaxaar who requested flying ointment samples to go with the forthcoming issue five of Clavicula Nox which will be focused on experiential witchcraft. It will include an article I wrote on seership, intoxication, and ecstatic ritual along with my original illustrations.

I crafted a new batch of Forest Spirit Ointment for the first time in a year. A dark fairy ointment of toadstools, enchanter’s nightshade, oak ash & thorn, fern seed, the herb of Robin Goodfellow, rowan berries, and other folkloric herbs of seeing and working with spirits. Many customers have had success using this ointment to the aid of searching for bones, plants for specimens or foraging, and seeing wild creatures and otherworldly spirits normally unseen.

Porta’s ointment has been renamed as Sabbat Flying Ointment to reflect the folkloric nature of its solanaceous herbs for flying out of body to an otherworldly witches’ sabbat. It is available in two sizes: the usual 30 ml tin and a smaller 15 ml tin. Witches’ Ointment is also back in stock – our most beginner friendly ointment excellent for use with divination practices such as tarot, runes, scrying, bone throwing, or seidr. It is also an excellent choice for hedgecrossing, protecting your body in this world and your spirit in the otherworld.

Now to finish a double-strength mandrake and bear fat unguent for the Shaman to incorporate into a men’s mystery ritual, and to finish testing the belladonna ointment and perhaps consider creating a pure datura ointment as well…

Wild violets taste like green and purple; clean and fresh, they are like clover, budding leaves, and sunlight. The sun came out for a brief, warm flash and brought spring with it, suddenly, everything blooming like an unexpected orgasm. I found an expansive patch of viola adunca a short walk from my home and buried my face in the sweet purple fragrance. I picked every flower I could reach finding bright red lady bugs hugging the leaves and watching honey bees make love to pollen-covered stamens.

“All flowers growing in untrodden dells and shady nooks, uncontaminated by the tread of man, more especially belonged” to Venus and Diana. — Thiselton-Dyer

It is no surprise that violets belong to Venus and the water element. They are so sweet and delicately feminine, their shy purple heads hiding in shady, moist places under trees and near water.  Peaceful, healing, and soothing, when carried or eaten violets will protect from wicked spirits and help to heal wounds physical or spiritual. Mixed with lavender they create a powerful potion of love and lust. Make a wish on the first violet you see and it will be granted. Eat violets to change your luck for the better. To dream of violets means your fortunes are about to change for the good. To see violets bloom in autumn means disaster and misfortune.

I took home my treasure of delicate purple beauty and researched how to make a violet syrup. I was disappointed in what I found. Most syrup recipes aren’t meant for something as delicate and fresh as a flower and the boiling process in the recipes would destroy the colour and the flavour… so I made up my own recipe and I’m happy to say it was a success! For the best results, pick your flowers in the morning just after they’ve opened but before the sun burns away the fragrance and work with them right away.

WILD VIOLET SYRUP

• Pack a 1 litre canning jar with fresh violet flowers
• Add 4 cups of distilled water and 2 tbsp of spirits (40% or more)
• Seal jar and infuse for 24-48 hours – shaking a few times each day
• Strain, squeeze remaining liquid from petals and discard petal pulp
• Measure resulting infusion
• Heat until just boiling and add 1 part sugar per 1 part violet infusion
• Remove from heat as soon as sugar melts completely
• Cool and add 1 tbsp of spirits per 1 cup of liquid
• Strain through cheese cloth
• Store in the fridge

Pick as many violet flowers as you can and really pack them in – the more you have to work with the stronger in taste your syrup will be. By only heating the infusion long enough to melt the sugar, you preserve the strong violet colour, taste, and smell.

Now that you have violet syrup, what to do with it? You can pour it as is over top of vanilla or coconut ice cream or have it for breakfast with pancakes, waffles, or crepes. Brush the layers of a white cake with it, letting it soak in well, and ice with a white butter cream and garnish with candied violets for a gorgeous and simple violet cake. Pour it over wild flower pound cake crumbled in a bowl and add booze, custard, and whipped cream to make a violet trifle.

WILDFLOWER POUND CAKE

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cup pastry flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 5 eggs, separated
• 1 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup edible flowers (violets, roses, pansies)

Cream butter. Sift flour and baking soda and gradually add to butter. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon coloured and add sugar to them gradually. Combine the two mixtures. Beat egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the mixture, not stirring. Fold in the fresh flowers – the more colourful the better. Pour batter into a greased loaf or cake pan and bake for 1 hour at 350°F. Cool for one hour before eating. Serve plain with butter or eat with ice cream.

Add 1 tbsp of violet syrup per 1 cup of soda water to make home made violet soda. Diluted it is a pale lavender colour and tastes divine. Use it to mix drinks as the violet syrup would pair well with a plain mead, vodka, white rum, gin, or brandy to make your own creme de violette. Mix a Blue Moon cocktail by combining gin, lemon juice, and violet syrup or a Moonlight cocktail with gin, lime juice, cointreau, and violet syrup.

Give it away as gifts or hoard it for yourself. Violets and dandelions are the earliest spring flowers here alongside Japanese cherry blossoms and oemleria, but soon there will be more to come. Try making other flower syrups to celebrate the blooming of spring: magnolia, hawthorn flower, elderflower, Oregon grape flower… With summer will come the wild roses, fireweed, clovers, honeysuckle, and yarrow.

I think next year a small batch of violet mead may be in order…

There have been late nights of infusing flying ointments in the stove, my home redolent with the scent of sticky sweet poplar buds and the fresh spring air pouring through the open windows. There have been trips to suppliers on sunny days to gather new ointment tins, fragrant beeswax, and papers as black as night. There have been long evenings spent designing and printing labels and prints of my black and white artwork full of skulls and poisons.

The results of these days and nights were new batches of flying ointments in lovely tins featuring my artwork matching the poisons within each unguent – belladonna for the aves ointment, mandragora roots for mandrake ointment, and henbane for the traditional flying ointment. The ointments sold out quickly with their new pretty black and white feathers. I will be able to make more in about a week. I still have some Witches’ Ointment left in the original green glass jars for any beginners or lightweights who want to incorporate ritual entheogens into their magical practice.

I made two collections of cards and prints with my artwork, one featuring poisonous plants and one with the theme of skulls. Though they have sold out in the shop before I could write this post, I still have supplies and will be making more collections after the long weekend. There are still things to carve and more art to create. With the sun has returned my inspiration and drive to create. And now to enjoy this beautiful, warm spring day with loved ones and a feast. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends!

I have been busy plotting, working on new illustrations, and making plans for my art. I want to make my occult drawings available as prints, cards, talismanic ephemera, and locally screen-printed t-shirts. I will be moving away from colour and be working purely in black and white (…maybe with the exception of red sigils now and then).

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was able to turn some of my pyrography into high quality illustrations to add to my body of work and the products I plan on making. I do a lot of one-of-a-kind woodwork and usually only one person gets to take it home to enjoy. This will be an excellent way for lovers of my art to be able to own their favourite piece in a different incarnation.

In other news I’m working on a new professional website for myself to act as portfolio for all of my art and writing and an online shop full of the new goodies I’m plotting. With luck, and a lot of hard work, it will be ready to unveil in the not-too-distant future.

This week I pulled out my leather, my sewing kit, and my specimens of poisons and bone to craft fetishes used to aid in working with the dark goddess Hekate. I cut up squares of raw black silk, laid them upon the pelt of a black wolf, and filled each square with specimens of mandrake, monkshood, yew, and snake skin and bones. I cleansed them with the fragrant smoke of palo santo and then tied them up into little bundles with black cotton thread.

I’d been playing with creating sigils this past week and chose a simple crossroad and key sigil to include in the bundles. I pulled out my magical inks and my calligraphy dip pens and set to work. The symbol is meant to open doors between the worlds and to access the World Tree.

I stitched up pouches of softest black leather, folding the corners into the center and sewing them with black silk. I stitched a leather tie onto the corner of the flap to wrap up the bundle with. I cut slits into the pouches and laced more ties through them, adding bone skull beads to the ends and used the ties to bind antique keys to the bundles. I made the keys removable so they can be used in ritual.

Now that the pouches and their contents were ready, I carefully tucked all the sacred specimens and the folded sigil inside and then carefully and tightly wrapped up each bundle, tucking the end of the tie back into itself.

And the bundles were ready, simple and elegant. They can be carried during ritual, whether it is for Hekate, the dark moon, or the ancestors and the underworld. They can be used to open a door between the worlds by laying out the the sigil with the key on top – in the woods, a graveyard, or on your altar. They can be carried, tucked in a pocket, or laid on an altar to aid in working with the dead. Whether these Hekate bundles are used for necromancy, transvection, or rites of the dark goddess, they will well serve the witch who keeps them with care and employs them often. I hope I’ve inspired you to create your own fetishes for your arts of Witchcraft. May the flame between the horns guide your hands in the forging.

TO HEKATE

by Yakov Rabinovich from The Rotting Goddess

Pre-Christian, pre-Olympian, pre-Titanic Hecate
world-tree planted in Asia Minor
gate-guard of the worlds,
keyholder to the three reams,
gross seated mother, lions at your sides,
fostering nurse of all that’s young,
female heap of big fat attributes,
cruel, non-rational mistress
of slain corn-kings, sacrificed children,
castrated temple-males;

you glide into Greece after Troy’s fall,
Hecate-Enodia riding down from Thessaly,
leading the angry horde of ghosts,
planted yourself at the crossroads;
your torch began to smoke, then flared up,
making night noon –
world-tree Hecate, your roots reach Hell’s
downmost altitude to suck the power
of the buried dead. Eater of filth,
goddess of darkness, grimly silently
munching on corpses, Hecate,
regaled with incense of goat-fat, baboon-shit,
garlic; honored with gutted puppies
and rubbish rites;

Hecate, in your oakleaf crown shaking reptile dreadlocks,
around you hellhounds yowling sharp and shrill,
so meadows tremble, river-nymphs scream,
their waters rush backwards up the stream-bed
and dive affrighted down their own fountains;

with witches I dance around you,
naked, snake necklaced,
hair in the wind, gashing blood from arms:
sex-crazed hags with false teeth and hair,
young girls, gloriously pornographic,
stir the cauldron of ugly oddities,
throw in magic salads gathered in the graveyard–
a brew with power to draw babes screaming
into existence, or hurl them howling hence.
The witches lay hold of you, Hecate, World-tree,
shake, make tremble on your branches
the planets suspended
like rare and fragile fruit.

It has been a year and a half since life as I knew it ended and I was reborn anew. Many things have changed since then and perhaps I have the most. My philosophy for my new life is to always choose adventure: to say yes when fear and my reclusive nature tell me to say no. One of my magical tenets is “if you’re not scared, you’re not doing it right.” In this past year I’ve done a lot of things that have taken me outside of my comfort zone: I’ve loosed my heart to lust and love, I’ve done more public speaking and public rituals than ever before, I’ve written articles and posts that I was terrified to publish, I submitted art and writing to beloved publishers when I’d once been too shy to do so, I travelled more than I had in the past seven years, and I more deeply committed myself to the path of magic.

In this new life I have discovered that life is for adventure and adventure is the point of living. We are all The Fool standing on the edge of the precipice and we should always jump hoping for love, laughter, kinship, adventure, and joy no matter how many times we fell and hurt ourselves before. If we follow our hearts with the innocence of pure intent and ignorance of expectation it will take us to deep and wondrous places in the soul, revealing to us sights and experiences we cannot yet fathom. If you have been feeling stuck and stagnant, trapped and scared, I plead with you to choose adventure and to say yes when you’ve always said no. Kiss the girl, go on the trip, work for yourself, write the book, go to the party, the festival, the ritual, the concert…

It was last-minute, unplanned, unexpected, but I said yes and drove down through Washington, Oregon, and California to Pantheacon in San José in February. My good friends and road trip companions Jan and Grant twisted my arms and the lovely Morpheus‘ hospitality cinched the deal. The waxing moon was a cheshire cat grin in the night sky and foretold all the mischief we would get into. We met with friends on the drive there and back: a group of shape-shifting mystics eating a centuries old feast at the Bors Hede Inne, visiting a mandrake witch and her elderberry wine, consorting with shamans, and having beers at a pub in Berkeley with warrior priests, staying with a family of archers and orchards and delicious home-cooked meals, feasting in lavish Moroccan fashion in Portland, and resting in a hidden cabin, cozy by its wood stove, in the forests of Washington on the way home.

Pantheacon was a labyrinth and mosaic of people, paths, costumes, rituals, teachings, and chaos. Three thousand Pagans in one place is a lot of Pagans. We stayed with the Coru Cathubodua. We hung tapestries on the walls while they set up the altar to the Morrigan with black and red and weapons and wings. We warded the room with holy water and whispers and shields. We helped in their rituals where we could, chanting and drumming, my fingers painting spirals of blue woad onto warriors’ skin. The Coru’s kinship ritual was the highlight for me, bringing tears to my eyes and strength to my heart. “As long as I draw breath, I will take my stand. The heart is the only nation.” The Coru truly live what they teach and I’d only ever felt such a sense of kinship and hospitality with close family before meeting the amazing members of the priesthood. I am so very happy they are coming to The Gathering Festival this year to host our main rituals.

I will forever remember the power of two fierce-eyed warrior maidens dressed in blue shifts and painted with woad dancing with sword and spear inside a circle of hundreds, the sound of hammers striking an anvil in Brìghde’s forge to heal the wounds of many,  the sight of a raven named Gimble nuzzling his human father’s nose with his beak, the taste of homebrewed chocolate beer while beautiful fairy women sing, and the profound sense of comfort and kinship I felt with those who surrounded me. At Pantheacon I healed old wounds, made new friends, talked beautiful women into arm wrestling, conversed deeply on ancestor worship, seership and love, and truly had an adventure. I returned home changed for the better, but still myself. There’s nothing like an adventure, stepping outside and away from your life for a time, to show you your path from the eagle eye view and to set your feet back upon it knowing you are walking in the right direction. I came home with a bursting, grateful heart and the confidence to go on the other adventures I have planned for the coming year.

What adventures are you plotting?

It is hard to forget to honour the full moon when it is tattooed on your wrist and shines down on you from a foggy night sky. I poured more water over the holey stone in the little clay bowl I keep ever-filled for Old Woman. It’s polite to always have a drink for her. My mother brought it back from Ireland, raw on the outside and the bright clear blue of glaze on the inside. I dropped in my silver ring and anointed myself with water from head to toe. I poured whiskey in the goblet, slàinte Carline! I lit the beeswax candles, burned the incense, and set fire to some tobacco, blowing the smoke on my spirit fetiches. I switched the tarot card on the altar to the Queen of Swords for Aquarius. I dreamt often of this card last winter and know it holds hints of the future for me. In the Circle of Life Tarot it is an elven queen brandishing a sword astride a snowy owl flying over a snowy landscape.

I lit a candle for a very sick friend, it dissolved into a puddle aflame like tears of fire, the candle unburnt. In my dream we were together and a woolly bear caterpillar crawled across my hand. Its hairs were so long. “It will be a very cold winter,” I told her. She disappeared and suddenly I was leaving a bowl of pomegranate seeds as an offering in a graveyard.  I dreamed someone asked me to write down a list of the most beautiful people I know. I had no trouble writing down my friends’ names, but when it came to writing my own, I tried over and over, failing and having to erase it each time. I dreamed I argued with a friend. I dreamed of a beach by the sea, tangled with debris from a massive storm. I dreamed my home had a hidden room I’d never known about before and I turned it into a temple, painted green and covered in woodcarvings. I have gotten better at marking my dreams and what phase the moon is in when I dream them.

I beat my bear hide drum with yew. I read the cards for myself. Conflict, the empress, and the beloved showed their faces to me. I blow out the candles. I paint poisonous plants in black and white and I write about blood and bones. Another full moon comes and goes.