Archive for May, 2007

Mini Ritual Kits

Published by Ketzirah Carly קצירה on May 23, 2007 in News & Announcements and Spiritual Practices. 2 Comments

I wanted to let you all know that I’ve posted a new mini-ritual bag to my Etsy shop. There are now three mini-bags ritual bags, and a hand-decorated tea tin. Each bag is hand embroidered with one of my original designs, which is intended to evoke an emotional response. The bags are filled with crystals, herbs, and other tokens to provide you with a tiny ritual-in-a-bag.

simplicity.jpg emotions.jpg love.jpg tea tin

As the inspiration strikes, I’ll create more of the mini ritual kits — so let me know if you like them! I also expect there will be more tea tins to come, as I drink a lot of tea! The tea tins are just fun, so my decoration of them ranges from saucy to silly to spectacular.


Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Tarot Decks and Techniques at Ma.gnolia!

Published by Ketzirah Carly קצירה on May 22, 2007 in News & Announcements. 0 Comments

I started a decks and techniques group over on Ma.gnolia. If you don’t know about Ma.gnolia yet — go check it out. All my bookmarks are stored there now and it’s way more interesting than del.icio.us. It’s certainly more useful than having bookmarks stored in a browser!

View Tarot Decks and Techniques on Ma.gnolia


Technorati Tags: , ,

What is Storyworking?

Published by Ketzirah Carly קצירה on May 17, 2007 in Spiritual Practices. 3 Comments

I throw this term that I made up around like you all know what it means! Occasionally, someone emails me and asks, but I keep forgetting to post the explanation to the site.

Storyworking is my term for a specific way of using tarot cards for storytelling as part of a magickal practice or ritual working. I use it as a ritual working and magickal tool, so I wanted to have a more descriptive name. Hence the creation of the term — storyworking.

In a nutshell, you use your deck of cards with a group of people and each successively takes a card and then continues the story. It’s very organic, and can create a very exciting and intimate bond as the story unfolds. I usually let it go twice around and then have people look at their cards. One is a message for them, and the other is for someone else. they have to decide who the other one is for and give it to them.

The overall idea is that the story created is exactly what we need to hear and learn at that moment.

You can also just do it for fun around a campfire — but I’d just call that tarot storytelling! When I look at decks, sometimes I don’t think they’d be good for readings, but I can see they’d be great for storyworking. I find that using well known decks, like the Rider Waite, doesn’t work well for storyworking because people get caught up in what the card is “supposed to mean” and stop seeing how it continues the story.

If you want to see some of the decks I think would work well for this, search this site for “tarot review.” I don’t publish these too regularly, but there are a few.

If you try this out yourself, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it worked for you and the group. FYI — leading this is more difficult than you think. The leader usually has to start and end the story, but you can’t force an ending without really throwing the magick out the window.


Technorati Tags: , , ,

What if HaShem is Really HaSham?

Published by Ketzirah Carly קצירה on May 13, 2007 in Go(d)dess(s)(es). 3 Comments

I’m reading “In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language” by Joel Hoffman, and it’s a really fascinating book. What of the things that it’s really made me think about are the many stories that there is a letter, traditionally the four-pronged shin, that is missing from the Torah. The idea is that when the moshiach comes, the final letter will be added and the Torah will become new again. I always loved this story, because it leaves open the open not only that we can interpret the Torah, but that we should and must, and if it’s going to change — there’s never one “right” interpretation.

The book brought to my consciousness something rather obvious, but that I’d never really thought about. Since the Torah was written without any vowels — are we REALLY sure we’re getting it right? There certainly aren’t any recordings from 3,000 years ago. And as the book has illuminated for me how the modern Torah came to be, it opens all kinds of fascinating possibilities.

One of the things that keeps going through my mind is that written in Hebrew, without vowels, HaShem (the name) and HaSham (the there) look identical. Come to think of it — the same is true in English. HShm and HShm look exactly alike. Based on the context you can decide which I would mean. HaSham isn’t a known name of the Divine in a Jewish context that I know of, but I’ve come to believe that it’s a lost name, and here’s why.

HaMakom (the place) is a well known name of the Divine. I believe it comes from the what Jacob says the the night becomes Israel. “And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: ‘Surely the YHVH is in this place (makom); and I knew it not.” (Genesis 28:16 - JPS 1917). There’s a great book by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know, that really digs into this story and its meanings, which I highly recommend.

עקב משנתו ויאמר אכן יש יהוה במקום הזה ואנכי לא ידעתי

This line from Genesis, talks about the “thereness” of the Divine. The Shekhniah when you feel her presence. This is why I’ve started to think of HaSham as a Divine name. It’s speaks of the presence of the Divine in all things. It’s speaks of the immanence. It speaks of the thereness. The Divine is not just a transcendent, incomprehensible thing as when considering the Ayn Sof, but also something we can see, feel, touch, taste, hear, and experience every day and in everything.

Imagine what happens to the idea of the common phrase, “Baruch HaShem” when you turn it into “Baruch HaSham.” Now you are not blessing an ineffable name, but the presence of the Divine. Think about how the meaning of “BeEzrat Hashem,” with the help of the Name, when you turn it into “BeEzrat Hasham.”

Baruch HaSham

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Good Shabbos

Published by Ketzirah Carly קצירה on May 11, 2007 in B'Chesed. 2 Comments

Be Happy

Good Shabbos all. I just felt like sharing this bit fuzzy bunny joy.