Urban Grimoire: Comfort in a Time of Strife

Goddess the western world is in a state isn't it. Therefore an uncharacteristically nice post about witchy self soothing.

I'm a great one for white noise. It's actually astounding what it can do for you up to and including fixing tinnitus and helping sleep.

But it's strange to listen to and it doesn't conjure up any emotions or happy places. For that I prefer the ambient sound - there's loads and loads on YouTube - that also brings up the association of an experience or place. For example I like being on a train, so if I want to go somewhere nice I quite often put on the sound of a train journey and go off into fantasy land. It sounds more like the lower-frequency brown noise.

I mentioned having a happy place and of course this is a technique used in mental health therapy. In a slightly different form this technique is also used in many traditions of witchcraft. Here it is often used to make a virtual temple where you can go to in your head. Mine is an altar in a forest clearing. In the virtual temple you also of course have access to virtual magic that you don't have on the earth plane.

I was introduced to this by the very first book I read on witchcraft which was by Laurie Cabot. Her tradition has a technique called counting down to alpha, and she encourages a visualisation aid to help with this. I'm not good at getting down to alpha waves but I discovered that I'm damn good at visualisations that attain their own reality. So I did practice counting down to alpha with a visualisation of a spiral staircase. So a simple technique for this is simply to picture a happy place or refuge in your head. Let it become real, wander round it and experience what is there with your senses.

Years ago I seriously considering applying to be a lighthouse keeper (when there were such things) and in fact lighthouses appear a lot in my visualisation of safety and refuge. I don't agree with the standard dream interpretation of the lighthouse that it's about being a beacon of hope to others, in my case my lighthouse thing is purely because I'm antisocial! My lighthouse thing will go away for a while and then grabs me again and I'll start watching films about them and stuff. And a dream lighthouse makes a perfect refuge.

I have been very conscious as I've been writing this post how Freudian the imagery all is - trains, spiral staircases and lighthouses - and am making a point of saying it before anyone says it!

Agony Hound: My teenage son won't listen to me when I try to talk to him about sex

Another glorious opportunity to sow conflict and ruin lives! Once again this one is a Coleen Nolan.

Dear Coleen

The other day I found a packet of condoms in my son’s sports bag, so I know he’s having sex.

He’s 17 and has been dating the daughter of some friends of ours, although he won’t say much about the relationship.

If I’ve ever tried to talk about sex in the past he’s literally curled up into a ball and covered his ears!

He hates me discussing anything like that and just says he’s not an idiot and knows what he’s doing.

I feel I need to talk to him, though, especially as this girl is only 16 and her parents are very protective over her.

She’s an only child and they have big plans for her.

They know our kids have been seeing each other, but maybe they assume it’s more as friends than lovers, as they’ve known each other since they were five and have grown up together.

It’s an awkward situation all round and I’d hate my son to be irresponsible or do anything to upset this girl, as we’d never hear the end of it. Am I panicking over nothing and how do I broach the subject with my son?

Coleen says:

OK, I think you are panicking a bit and also not really giving him credit for having the condoms and obviously practising safe sex with his girlfriend.

No kid likes to talk about sex with their parents, or be sat down and given a lecture about what they can do.

The way I’ve always approached it is to let my kids know that nothing is off limits when it comes to confiding in me and asking for advice.

And if I have wanted to say something important about sex, then I haven’t made it a big scary talk. I’ve dropped it into conversation during a quiet moment.

The thing is to normalise it and don’t make it a subject that’s taboo or awkward.

Maybe the way to start is to say you found the condoms when you were doing his washing and are glad he’s practising safe sex, then tell him you’re always willing to listen if he has any questions, worries or concerns when it comes to sex and relationships.

 Also, I think you need to ask yourself why you’re so worried about her parents.

Maybe this is more to do with your friendship with them and underlying tensions.

As far as I can see, your son is being responsible, and at 17, you have to expect sex to be on the agenda for many young people.

The Hound says:

I'm a bit conflicted over this one. My first instinct was to say that the reason the son won't talk to his mother about sex and relationships is because she is the sort of intrusive, nosy mother who goes through her son's bag and finds his johnnies. If it wasn't 2022 and he's got Pornhub on his phone she'd have been under his bed looking for his jazz mags.

I might be being a bit harsh, although on the other hand... The son and the girlfriend are both above the age of consent and I'm not hearing any reason this relationship should automatically be out of the question. You didn't seriously think he would talk to you when he started having sex did you? My first was a school friend and my mother thought he was a good influence on me. She was even happy to leave us alone in the house (she was a worrier) and we'd leave it ten minutes before being at it like rabbits. She had no idea this was going on and was shocked and outraged years later when I told her!

I try to give witchy answers here and I want to loud pedal autonomy here. His autonomy. I thought you were being intrusive going through his bag but you may have just never stopped doing it for years. Now is the time for him either to wash his own sports kit or put it for washing. Your eyes don't need to be in his private space because he's 17. Incidentally if all he's doing to worry you is shagging his girlfriend you haven't done a bad job.

Not gonna lie, the parents with big plans for their daughter worry me far more. The absolute worst she can get from your son (a disease, an unwanted pregnancy and life experience) can all be dealt with but controlling parents can't.

You also don't mention a dad involved here and I sense you've had a hard time parenting as a lone parent. He will thank you for both giving him some space while offering support if needed because it means you respecting what he wants and treating him as the young adult he is. Are there any family friends he has a good relationship with and would be more likely to open up to? Otherwise Coleen's advice is spot on.

Finally I'm going to let you in on a secret that men don't like telling women - a lot of men carry condoms because they give them a feeling that they could have sex. Some are even sensible and renew them when they go out of date. And even more sensible, they might practice putting them on before they have to do it in front of someone else. 

So I think the bottom line here is: mum is worried, probably influenced by lone parenting, however the son is the age where he gets to make his own decisions, so mum must step back. 

My Lent Book

In an act of absolutely shameless theft from the Christians (because why would a witch feel the need to keep Lent?), every year I take a book for Lent reading and unless I really don't get on with it try to read it all the way through. Probably now that my health has forced me to stay home the practice has less purpose because I now have the time to have a book to chew over on a daily basis.

This year's is Marcus Katz's Secrets of the Thoth Tarot. I actually have the three volumes which you need to go through the whole deck although I doubt I will finish all three in Lent.

It may seem strange to be reading about the Thoth tarot when you can tell from previous posts that I have been immersing myself for several years in the Golden Dawn tradition of tarot, which is sometimes seen as the opposite. It isn't really - Crowley met the tarot when he was a member of the order, much of the hatred for him was driven by him publishing the order's secret teachings, and he is definitely out of the Golden Dawn stable. I think at this stage I should be able to negotiate the changes he made in the deck -fingers crossed.

I'm not actually running out of Golden Dawn materials about the deck but I've reached the point where I'm feeling a bit full of it so it's time to change tack. Katz explains things so well - I also have Lon Milo Duquettes book about the Thoth tarot but I am afraid that while I love Duquette in person I have never got on so well with him on paper.

This is the exact opposite to the experience I had of reading through the blog of a well known writer of Dr Who books and falling head over heels in love with him. Then I saw him speak and didn't fancy him at all - I was in love on paper but not in person!

But I digress. I'm not done with the Golden Dawn tradition of tarot at all, because my studies have made some changes in me but I'm nowhere near proficient. Plus the forthcoming Golden Dawn Tarot from Aeon publishers keeps getting deferred which is annoying.

A Message from the President of Ukraine for Russian Readers