Anti-Racism Resources

Dear Everyone, really, but especially white people,

We all have a lot of work to do in the fight against systemic oppression, racism being one of the big systems of abuse and discrimination that is currently on everyone's minds, especially where police brutality against BIPOC (black indigenous people of color) communities is concerned. I have been posting some things on my Instagram, sharing MANY things from other people in my story there to amplify other voices, and I'm working on a video that will go up on my YouTube channel tonight (31 May 2020).

I wanted to put together a post here with links to some of the anti-racism resources for white people that I've been finding thanks to other people sharing them, so I can link people to all of these more easily and have them handy for my own future reference, as well as everyone else's. I will continue updating this occasionally as I collect more. Please share any more resources you have.

~

Anti-Racism Resources for White People: bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES

This document includes resources for parents to teach anti-racism to children, podcasts to listen to, movies or videos to watch, articles and books to read, social media of organizations to follow, and more. There is a LOT here and I recommend starting here and going through it a bit at a time.

One of the articles I found via the large compiled document above: "75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice". #38 is decolonize your bookshelf, which is one thing I've been doing -- looking up all the authors whose books I own so I can see how many are white men, as opposed to women, POC, queer, trans*, gender non-conforming authors, and so on.

---

7 Days a Week, Pt. 2: Magic & the Planets

Hello again, Readers,

Welcome to Part 2 of this two-part blog mini-series! It's taken much, MUCH longer than I thought to get this second post together, and multiple people have asked me about daily magic and related things since I started working on it, so I'm excited to finally have it posted for everyone!

If you haven't yet, go back and read Part 1, Planets & Deity Names, which focused on explaining how the English names for the days of the week came about, and how they are related to the planets and various Deities. In this post, we will be taking the information from Part 1 and using it to determine the best magical timing for certain types of spells or other workings, to set intentions that align with the planets and/or Deities, and so on.

Image by me, symbol images from solarsystem.nasa.gov

The days of the week as we know them in English are as follows:
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.


These names are associated with the following "planets", respectively:
The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn.


In magic, we talk about a concept known as magical timing, which is the process of choosing the "best time", according to various correspondences, to do a magical working. Timing can include one, or a layering of many time-based associations, from the Moon phase, to the day of the week, even down to the hour of the day should you choose to delve that deep. In this post, we're focusing on the magic of the Days of the Week.

7 Days a Week, Pt. 1: Planets & Deity Names

Hello, Readers,

As I've been reading through some beginner-Witch material again lately, I've started thinking again about basics--building blocks of magic, timing, simple things we can do everyday--and one of the things that came to my mind was timing and intention based on the day of the week. Many people know where our English names for the weekdays came from, but many people also still do not. I remember years ago, when I was first studying Paganism and Witchcraft, mentioning the origin of the days of the week to my mother, who had no idea! So I figure in 2019, maybe some other people still haven't had this come up for them, either. And even if you do know this naming origin stuff, a Part 2 of this post will be going up next, talking about using the planetary and/or Deity associations with the days of the week for deciding what kinds of magic to do on what days. If that is a sort of magical timing you're interested in, look out for that post next.

Image by me, using symbol images from solarsystem.nasa.gov

Days of the Week: Planets & Deities

There are seven days in our calendar weeks, and this has been the case for centuries although it was not always that way. The Roman Empire was responsible for the shift sometime between the 1st and 3rd centuries, according to the Wiki article which I will link below with other sources. There were also seven "classical planets", or moving celestial bodies that, at the time, could be seen with the naked eye and were known to the astronomers of classical antiquity. We would not use the term "planet" for all of them today, as the definition has changed over the years. One of them is our Sun, which we know as a star. The other is our Moon, which we consider a "satellite" today because a planet would have to be orbiting the Sun directly, whereas our Moon orbits Earth.

These seven classical planetary bodies were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Earth was not included because, well, we live here. It was all about what we could see up in space from where we were.

Naming the Full Moons (in 2019)

Moon sticker on my mini laptop, which is also the
header photo in my Moon Magic group.

Hey, Readers & Moon lovers!

This was originally going to be a post in my Moon Magic group on Facebook (edit from the future: which no longer exists as I do not use FB anymore), but it quickly turned into FAR too long of a post for that. It is, however, a fairly normal length (for me) long blog post. So here we are!

Earlier this year in the Moon Magic group, I shared two tables with the Full and New Moons for 2019. The original tables were generated from moontracks.com and the Full Moon one also includes some of the most commonly known "Full Moon names".

Reading in 2014 (Jan.-July)

Hey, Readers,

This year I decided to try and beat the number of books I read last year, setting myself a goal of about 20-25 books this year. It's now July, a little more than halfway through the year, and I'm nearly to that goal now! Last year I had some busy times when I really didn't read much, but this year I've gotten back into the habit (and started visiting the local library on a weekly basis!) and have been reading almost constantly through the hours I'm not working, driving, or sleeping.

Since we're about halfway through the year, I wanted to go back through the things I've read so far in 2014 and just make a few notes about each one. Because I read a lot, I tend to forget details of the things I read once enough time has passed, so this is both a way to touch base with what I've read and to hopefully stir my memory in the future. Without further adieu, here is what I've read so far in 2014 (mostly in order, so you'll see I try to alternate types of books when it makes sense to--but as I'm separating the books and plays, as well as separating the books I've re-read from the new books read, it's not entirely chronological).

Colorful Magick

Hey, Readers,

I'm actually about to head out the door and become busy for the next few hours, and probably just retire to shower and bed upon my return home. But I wanted to post a quick, quick little thing. It's something I've said probably dozens of times now, between my videos, Pagan Perspective videos, messages to people, conversations, and Tweets.

"White" and "black" magick. *shudder*

Those terms, used seriously, make my eyes roll instantly. This is one of the things that continues to bother me under the surface. While I know it doesn't truly make any difference in the long run, it irks me, still.

Magick is magick.

When we do magick (or magic, however you choose to spell it is fine), we often use color. Or colour. =) I love using color symbolism in my workings, and often, the energy I'm working with will take on a color. So yes, magick involves color. But I simply do not buy that there is such a thing as "white magick" and a thing such as "black magick." Magick is itself, colorless and all colors, beyond categorization like that of a box of crayons. It is a tool, and as such can be used any way the practitioner desires. Magick has the capability of doing good, and of being used for less than good.

I understand that this is what most people mean when they say "white" and "black" magick, but I think some people are still using the terms as though they mean separate things. People will say things like "I practice white magick, I would never do black magick." But that doesn't have anything to do with the magick. The magick you're using can do both. It's YOU that makes the decision. YOU that has the flavor for good or otherwise. I will not say "bad" or "evil" because I don't think that's proper, either. Not in this case. Not all which is not light is bad.

Anyway, I think we could all get a lot more out of life and our practice by doing away with such "black and white" imagery as putting magick, something profound and encompassing of many possibilities, into a box of crayons. The colors in this case are symbols, no more. Visual aids.

Magick is the box the colors are in, and the hammer and nails or clay or stone used to create it, and the carpenter or sculptor or some such creator. Magick is so much more.

Blessings~
-C-

P.S. There is a video on my channel about this, which I'll link later on. Or search it for yourself, YouTube username cutewitch772, video name "What is Magick?" I think. Cheers.