Hello Friends,

Welcome to the Holly King’s rule. Where days get shorter and shorter and our nights get colder and longer! The solution to battling cold and global warming? Go Electric. During the time of Holly be like the Holly. Did you know Holly is a natural conductor and has small electric currents between the points of its leaves! Holly trees have been planted as lightning poles because they attract the strike! You are Electric!

We are also basking in the power and glory of Leo. This powerful sun time when life and light are at their fullest. Leo is about being in the light, being seen. Noble Leo exudes power. This time of year radiates abundance and light. It is such a positive extroverted moon. You are Radiant.

For this month, I wanted a stone that was powerful and yet still represented light. A stone that somehow expressed the darkness in light, and the light in darkness. A Stone of gods and creation itself. The Hawaiians referred to it as Pele’s hair, the druids called it Pitchstone, To the Meso-Americans it was: ITZTI, god of knives, and in 77AD Pliny the Elder called it OBSIDIAN.

Obsidian is a natural glass that forms in Magma. It gets the black color from iron oxide. It has been used to make mirrors, arrowheads, axes, scalpels, kitchen utensils, jewelry, talismans, and religious icons. Obsidian is worn for protection and used to bring forth the truth. The Mayans thought Obsidian more valuable than gold. A obsidian blade would injure but not kill an enemy, thus ensuring future sacrificed. The Aztec created scrying mirrors of obsidian to see into the future. Did they understand us any better than we understand them?

Itzti is the God of Knives, night, war, and sacrifice. There are many blades of obsidian whose handle is a cute happy wide eyed depiction of Itzti. He was a beloved god, a happy and popular guy with his big tooth smile which resembles the “teeth” that give obsidian blades their remarkable bite. (Obsidian is such a remarkable blade that it is still being used as scalpels in modern times.).

Why is the god of sacrifice so popular among these people? I kept asking myself this as I drew wide eyed happy god knives. When googling I found that Gods can bring forth life from darkness. So celebrating the dark gods is an act of faith and hope. It still wasn’t enough. I meditated on this (thank you plum village app). In the United States we have been mostly ready to run from sacrifice. The word leaves a dark stain when spoken. When I calmed my emotional response and actually saw sacrifice and reflected on it in my daily life…it was golden. Like a Leo Sun. Like the battle that the oak and holly king perform twice a year. Like the obsidian blades that enriched the earth with its blood sacrifice. Sacrifice is spice. It enhances life and our emotional responses. If you have worked hard the reward is more. If you labor over slow growing food, that food will have more nutrients and taste better, if you sacrifice and feel the knife’s blade then the pain is that much greater and remarkable for the sacrifice. Sacrifice it not good or bad it is what you choose to make of it. How you choose to enrich your life with it. Do you want a cosy winter? Then harvest your crops and cut your wood and process through time sacrifice so later you will have what you need. Often as a child I would stare into a summer sun and then have a black spot…that is the spot reminding us of the future and what we must do to provide and protect, ourselves and our environment. This is service to the cycle. So that in the darkness of winter we can open our berry jam and taste the sweetness and promise our sacrifice made possible.

You are sacrifice.
You are Electric
You are Radiant
You are sacrifice

NOBLE IS MAGIC
Blessed Be,

Dian Mali – Funky Fiber Witch