Frances Billinghurst's Blog, page 9

Free Talk on Witchcraft - 21 November

On Sunday, 21 November 2021 I will be at the  Adelaide Wellness Fair  that will be held at the Burragh Recreation Centr, Kelly Road, Modbury from 10am to 3pm.
You will be able to find me at the  LunaNoire Creations  stall where I will have a number of items from my etsy stall including copies of my books.
I will also be offering a free talk on The Magick of Witchcraft and how to start your own practice at 11am.
Witchcraft is like baking a cake. You need to know what ingredients you need, how to mix them, and how to bake them. Whether you cast spells or not, perform reactionary or protective magick, there are a number of simple, yet effective, foundational techniques that will aid your magick and enhance your life and wellbeing.

With much of the information about witchcraft based in the Northern Hemisphere, join witchcraft initiate and author, Frances Billinghurst, as she discusses how to commence your own practice of witchcraft that aligns to the Southern Hemisphere.

Register your free place here at the  Adelaide Wellness Fair  if you would like to join me.

Review of Encountering the Dark Goddess by Musing Mystical

The following is part of a review by Sarrah October Young from Musing Mystical.  Please visit their web site to read to review in its entirety.

" .... One of the most fascinating elements of human psychology is the penchant we have for self-reflection. In some form or another, we often delve deep within ourselves to try and find answers that we know lie deep within us. In her book Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey Into Shadow Realms, Frances Billinghurst has carved a path for us to tread in our personal search for the answers we need in order to evolve and become better versions of ourselves.

An experienced writer on this topic, Billinghurst is an initiated witch, ritualist and healer, and runs workshops on metaphysics, mythology, and the occult. Billinghurst thoughtfully divides the book into three parts which make perfect sense if you are new to the idea of Shadow Work and the Dark Goddess Herself. Bundling information together in this way is extremely helpful if you are familiar with the work and want to jump past the background information.

Personally, no matter the topic, I almost always read the intro sections provided because I feel they form the basis or foundation of what the writer is actually trying to get across. Knowing where Billinghurst sits in terms of who she feels the Dark Goddess is and how she perceives Her is valuable information to me and helps me to expand my own knowledge. No matter your knowledge level, I highly recommend reading the introduction section to ensure you gain the same insight. ...

...

The section titled “Meeting the Dark Goddess” caught my eye straightaway, with Billinghurst delving into thirteen different representations of the Dark Goddess. She weaves together aspects of the Dark Goddess from across a variety of practices and belief systems, something that is often attempted but poorly executed.

Here, Billinghurst respectfully offers her views on 13 different representations of the Dark Goddess and offers ways in which to work with them. There is a sense of reverence that is felt through her writing about the various aspects and she alludes to deeper works that might be of interest to those wishing to go even further down the rabbit hole of history, myth, and folklore in connection with the Dark Goddess. 

The final section is about working with the Dark Goddess and there is no shortage of caution expressed by Billinghurst. She doesn’t shrink back from exploring the enormity of working within the Shadows of ourselves nor does she try and pretty up the process to make it more palatable. Shadow Work is intense, uncomfortable, and life-changing and just because you’ve dipped your toe into this work one or twice does not mean you are free from the gaze of the Dark Goddess. ..."

MusingMystical.com

Free Talk on Witchcraft at the Blackwood Psychic Fair

On Sunday, 10 October 2021 I will be at the  Queen of Wands Psychic Fair - Blackwood that will be held at the Blackwood Memorial Hall.
You will be able to find me at the LunaNoire Creations stall where I will have a number of items from my etsy stall including copies of my books.
I will also be offering a free talk on witchcraft from a Southern Hemispheric perspective at 1pm.
Witchcraft. A spiritual practice that weaves magick with the ebbing tides of the moon, and seeks the mysticism found within the seasonal cycles.

With much of the information about witchcraft based in the Northern Hemisphere, join witchcraft initiate and author, Frances Billinghurst, as she discusses how to follow witchcraft in the Southern Hemisphere.

Register your place here at the Queen of Wands Psychic Fair - Blackwood if you would like to join me.

A Devotional for Athena and Minerva

It has been a long time coming but finally the devotional anthology to Athena and Minerva was released by Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Shield of Wisdom: A Devotional for Athena and Minerva is a huge book of over 400 pages and consisting of invocations, prayers, offerings, mythology interpretations, photographs and artwork all dedicated to and depicting these goddesses. I also have an essay - The Wrath of a Goddess included in this anthology.
Known to the Greeks as Athena, and to the Romans as Minerva, the Goddess leapt fully grown from the skull of the Lord of Thunder. Frighteningly intelligent, quick-witted and fiercely loyal, she is a Goddess who watches over heroes, warriors, and artisans alike. A Goddess of the mind, she admires and rewards cleverness and creativity. 
And, while she inspires intense devotion in ancient and modern polytheists, she also inspires passionate debate. :: Is she a friend to women, or does she always favor the father?:: When she transformed Medusa into a gorgon and Arachne into a spider, was she motivated by compassion or something else? :: And what of her relationships with her fellow deities, such as Hephaistos, Ares, and Aphrodite? Are they adversarial, antithetical, or complementary?
Within these pages, you will find poems of praise and rites in her honor. You will also find essays and personal reflections that question the Goddess, that challenge her, that analyze the myths around her and what they mean to us, and what they reveal about the Goddess herself. All of these are offered to her with an open heart, and a sincere questioning mind — which we hope she will find as pleasing as any reverent hymn.
You can order your copy of  Shield of Wisdom: A Devotional for Athena and Minerva  here. 

Spring Equinox: The Time of Balance

The word equinox comes from the Latin meaning “equal night”, and are the two times of the year when the hours of light and dark are said to be equal as the run rises due east and sets due west. As it is also one of the few days when the earth’s axis is straight as a door post and suggests to us a time of balance has arrived (or almost).

At the spring equinox, the sun crosses the celestial equator from the northern to the southern sky. This will take place on 23 September at 5:21am here in Adelaide and is considered to be the first day of the “astronomical spring” as from this point onwards, the hours of daylight will increase as the hours of darkness decrease as the sun rises and sets further north each day. The warmth of the sun will also increase as we head towards the summer, occurs.

Nature echoes the increasing warmth as blossoms burst forth and new growth makes its presence felt. As the sun’s strength increases, so do the visible signs of activity upon the earth’s surface. It is as if, were you to close your eyes for a moment, you would miss the experience of another aspect of creation being reborn all over again.

As the sun moves into the sign of Libra, and in the skies above us, a lot is happening. Firstly, Virgo,the Maiden is very low in the western sky. This is the second largest constellation and one of the two in which the ecliptic and celestial equator cross. Scorpius is high in the western sky, and in Greek mythology, the scorpion plays a role in many stories, however it is best known for its pursuit of Orion through the night sky. 
To the east of Scorpius is Sagittarius the Archer. In Greek mythology, the archer is a centaur, pointing his arrow toward the heart of Scorpius. And finally, Crux, better known as the ironic Southern Cross, with the pointers of Alpha and Beta Centauri appears very low in the south west.
As I mention in my book, Dancing the Sacred Wheel , an alternate name for the Spring Equinox is Ostara, or Eostre, after an Anglo-Saxon Goddess.  Around 730 CE English Benedictine monk Bede (bead) recoded that the Anglo-Saxons worshipped a goddess by the name “Eostre”.  While there is actually little evidence to support his statement, modern historian, Ronald Hutton, means that Bede declared that the name of the Christian festival of Easter was derived from the Goddess Eostre as the month in which Easter fell was originally known as Eostur-month, after the Goddess Eostre, meaning “month of opening” or the “month of beginnings”.  
The spring equinox is also a great time for getting rid of rubbish that has accumulated over the past year.  It is also the time to shake off the winter blues, as well as the stagnation and lethargic attitudes that may have crept in along with the cold winter nights.  Spring cleaning is not limited to the physical cleaning of the house and cupboards and wardrobes. It is also for getting rid of outdated view points; even emotional attachments to items and people that have not been positive to our personal spiritual growth.  When we do this, we are also making room for the new and fresh to come into our lives. 

Beyond the Light: Embracing the Wisdom of the Dark Goddess

It is hard to believe that we are over half way through September already, that spring has well and truly arrived and that the end of calendar year is drawing increasingly closer.  Am I alone in feeling as if I appear to have missed a couple of months?

As I am catching up on news, I am absolutely delighted to announce that my interview with the wonderful Lucy Cavendish was released on The Witchcast With Lucy Cavendish on 26 August 2021 and is now available for your listening pleasure.  Having been recorded back in April, my chat with Lucy occurred just after my Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms had been released.

I was very humbled to chat with Lucy as she was the initial driving force behind the Australian Witchcraft magazine back in the early 1990s and since that time has gone on to write a number of books as well as producing a endless collection of oracle cards.  I have had a great pleasure of circling with her at an Australian Goddess conference as well as attending one of her workshops when she journeyed to Adelaide.  I also contributed to her 2012 anthology Witchy Magic that she co-edited with the wonderful Serene Conneeley.

In my chat with Lucy we discuss the darker aspects of not only the Goddess but also ourselves, delving into the shadow realms, sharing our passion for mythology and the sacred, as well as stories of the Goddesses that are often misunderstood, feared and even avoided.  Yet, when we truly become aware of these Goddesses, when we take the time to get to know them, we discover that within their sacred stories are great tools and teachings, and most of all, true wisdom - the kind of wisdom that can bring to light to these current times of much chaos and yoyoing uncertainty.
You can listen to Lucy's witch cast here.

Extract from "Contemporary Witchcraft: Foundational Practices for a Magical Life"

The following is an extract that I prepared for A Bad Witch's Blog that appeared back in July 2021

It was in the early 1990s that I took my first steps into the world of contemporary witchcraft (then generally mispronouncing the Anglo-Saxon word as “Wicca”).  Back then, the neophyte (beginner) was expected to learn how to render the “veils” between this world and the mystical one by applying themselves to the work in order to understand these mysteries. My initial instruction not only focused on the practical application of ritual and magick, but also the “behind the scenes” information, providing an insight into the psychological changes, as well as what is actually happening on the astral level, the inner planes. It was this understanding that enabled me to gain a stronger belief in the magical work that I was undertaking – a belief that also proved to be most beneficial during dark nights of the soul, the times of doubt when the logical mind saw me questioning what I had been dedicating much of my adult life to. 

These days Wicca has almost become a generalised term for a religious form of neo-paganism, which often also includes an assortment of New Age practices, as opposed to focusing on the initiatory teachings that stem from the vision that the man who instigated the revival of witchcraft, Gerald Gardner, and later, Alex Sanders, had. There are also internet platforms that if you mention that you are a “religious witch”, ie believing in a God and a Goddess as both Gardner and Sanders did, it won’t take long before someone asserts that you are not.  “Real” witchcraft today seems to include a fetish for skulls, jar candles and moon water, none of these things were mentioned to me back in the 1990s, and without any hint of worshipping “the Other”.

Watching these changes occur, it seems that what is often depicted today as “Wicca”, bears little resemblance to what I was trained in and what my practice involves today.  While there are traditional “Wiccans” who continue to classify themselves as such, the term I personally prefer to use to describe what I do is “contemporary witchcraft”.  I have to confess that there are times where what is referred to as “witchcraft” has also sent my eyes rolling as well.

I am the first to admit that I don’t own the word “witch”, “witchcraft” or even “Wicca”. What I do know is that the training that I undertook some nearly 30 years ago, still holds me in good stead today.  I am somewhat saddened that despite what seems to be a copious amount of information available today, much tends to be the same material regurgitated without any real instruction as to why or even how certain techniques are done, let alone any form of acknowledgment as to where the information was originally obtained.  The social media influencers seem to merely encourage their followers to simply smudge away all their issues and problems, which has resulted in California and Black Sage becoming listed as endangered plant species.  

There also seems to be an increasing belief of “anything goes” and “do what you feel”, resulting very much in a self-styled form of witchcraft with an emphasis on aesthetics using one’s own intuition, as opposed to older practice of establishing foundational work and being aware of any pending reaction or consequences to your magick.

It is for these reasons that I decided to write Contemporary Witchcraft: Foundational Practices for a Magical Life.  I wanted to cover the foundational practices that appear to be missing in a lot of modern books that focus mainly on spellcasting.  While you do not need to cast circle and honour the Gods in order to create spells and perform magick, the teachings found within contemporary witchcraft can take your own interpretation of the Craft to a deeper level.

Frances Billinghurst is the also author of Dancing the Sacred Wheel, In Her Sacred Name: Writings on the Divine Feminine, Call of the God: An Anthology Exploring the Divine Masculine within Modern Paganism and Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms. When she is not writing, Frances is the founder of the Temple of the Dark Moon (Adelaide, Australia), principal healer for the Isian Centre of Metaphysics and designs devotional beads and sources other products for her Esty store, LunaNoire Creations. She can be contacted through the Temple of the Dark Moon’s website (www.templedarkmoon.com) or her writer’s blog (http://francesbillinghurst.blogspot.com.au).

You can view Contemporary Witchcraft on Amazon and at publisher Moon Books' website.

The Faces of the Goddess

I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front as I have been working on finalising the manuscript for my next book.  I am delighted to announce that it is "mission accomplished" as  it is now with the proofreader.

Now I can focus on other things like getting back into blogging.

This morning I received notification that I have an article in The Faces of the Goddess ezine, that was produced as a companion to the Scottish Goddess Conference.

While I missed out on presenting at this conference which was held last weekend (10 to 12 September) as I was away undertaking a charity trek in the Flinders Ranges, north of Adelaide, I had submitted an article on the Dark Goddess.  My article can be found on pages 86 to 90 of this huge 123 paged ezine.

You can download you free copy of this magazine here.

With any luck, I am hoping to be able to present at this wonderful sounding conference at a later date.

Book Launch Sunday Evening

My online book launch of Contemporary Witchcraft: Foundational Practices for a Magical Life will be taking place on my Facebook author's page tomorrow evening, Sunday, 1 August 2921, at 7pm (ACST).  This book is my second to published by Moon Books, my earlier one was Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms .

In an era of Instagram influencers with an "anything goes" attitude, Contemporary Witchcraft offers an alternative for the seeker who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of a more traditional approach to the Craft.  It provides the reader with invaluable tools and techniques that will enable them to set a foundation upon which to build their ongoing magical and spiritual practice.  Regardless of whether the seeker is interested in joining a coven or not, this book shows the seeker that through dedication and devotion the greater mysteries will be revealed.

If you would to join me for my book launch whereby you could win yourself am autographed copy, then the link to the Facebook live event is here.

Online Book Launch - 1 August

What better way to mark Imbolc here in the Southern Hemisphere, the festival that marks the return of spring, than to announce the official launch of my seventh book, and second published through Moon Books, Contemporary Witchcraft: Foundational Practices for a Magical Life. Join me on Sunday, 1 August, from 7.00 pm (Adelaide time) on my Facebook Author Page as I share readings from the book as well as talk about what I mean by "contemporary witchcraft" and why I still consider it relevant in this modern world.If you would like to win yourself am autographed copy of the book, like this page and tag yourself and a friend in the discussion on the Facebook page to go into the draw.You can also order yourself a signed copy from my Etsy store, LunaNoire Creations, where you will find copies of my other books, together with my handcrafted beaded bracelets, malas and devotional beads, and other products.