Jilli potters around the local media and overseas corners not normally in the pagan eye: UK magazines and newspapers, radio and the occasional foray into dangerous cupboards and heaving beach parties. This column is cheeky and definitely tongue in cheek.

Well, here we are again, 3 months older, a tad plumper and more gorgeous by the minute. We all agree, don't we, that both artists and pagans are allowed to grow older disgracefully.

In my garden I have a tall holly tree with three trunks, sitting in serene isolation facing the peppermint gum in its tumble of grapevine and cherry plum. Well, thought I, that's a perfect spot for my first hedge jumping trance (can't tie a good hedge witch down).
So, midnight finds me and my candle nicely sitting under the holly. Moon. Silence. Perfect. Cassia, my ancient black feline, joins me in her usual languid fashion - plonk. Start again. Nice.
Now what goes on in a cat's mind? All these years and she decides to climb her first tree. Flurry of squawks, feathers, mayhem, and a flock of sleepy, indignant birds (half the dawn chorus) exit the holly, leaving Cassia hanging by her toenails, all of two feet off the ground, contemplating her aberration and looking rather silly.

Warm up over….. now for the hard stuff…………………..

Herb lore Cor
(Guardian UK 5.11.04)

Little things you don't necessarily need to know...

Ancient Egyptians, like other old civilizations, knew an awful lot about herbs and herbal medicine. Egyptian medicine was, according to Professor Kent Weeks at the American University in Cairo, totally focussed on purgatives and enemas, for which the Egyptians had a passion. Figures! So much so that there was an ancient palace post called Overseer of the Royal Anus.
And I didn't know that modern followers of Ancient Egyptian Gods are called Kemetics. Maybe I should've put that sentence in a separate section.

Australian tea tree oil is a panacea for all sorts of things, but apparently it also cures toenail fungus. You have to keep putting it on till the whole nail grows out.

If you're a nursing mum and you need to administer prescribed herbal medicine to baby, drink it yourself and it will become disguised in your milk. The peak of medicinal effect occurs in the breasts in about 6-8 hours, and the effects remain in breast milk for 48 hours. Oh my, that's clever.

I now know that if my mint plants don't get at least half a day of sun, I will get rust. Well, the mint will. That excludes Corsican mint, which only grows well in permanent shade. Mind you, mint grows perfectly well in England and you only get 2 week's sun a year there. And Corsica is the Island of Sunshine. Somebody wasn't concentrating there.

Did you know there's a herb called yerba santa? American, of course. And that's about as christmassy as I'm going to get.
Eriodictyon californicum is also known as Sacred Herb, a 1m high shrub with lavender coloured flowers, with a balsamic smell. It is used for lung problems. And, as often happens, I was led to delightful new knowledge about Matthew Wood and his 'Seven Herbs: Plants as Teachers'. Matthew is an Amerindian healer and writes about the mythological and spiritual qualities of these herbs: Iris, Star Tulip (Cat's Ears), Sagebrush, Yerba Santa, Black Cohosh, Easter Lily and Lady's Slipper. Now there's a surprise list, and despite my subtitle way up above, this particular para proved quite interesting.

And while we're still thinking of the Ancient Egyptians and their phobias on expelling toxins from their rear ends, we have a bit of that in us, don't we - what have I said? So I looked up the herbs which might be thought mildly yucky to help with de-toxing. Mullein came up, that fluffy silver English giant that grows by Tasmanian highways, dandelion and chickweed (boring boring), shepherd's purse - but only if your lungs are bleeding. I'm not that decrepid. But I like best the front page story in yesterday's UK Guardian which swears blind that eating chocolate was better than anything you could get from the chemist for lungs and coughs. I know what I think.
What with the daily red wine for the heart chocolate for the lungs, I'm well set. Bugger Rescue Remedy.

Druids to the Rescue
(UK Telegraph, 3.11.04)

Roll over Inspector Rex, Vienna has got another Hero. The Austrian Government has hired a team of Druids to help them reduce the number of accidents on some of Austria's worst stretches of autobahn. Gerald Knobloch, an archdruid, used a divining rod to inspect a particular 300 metre stretch of the A9 to restore 'earth energy lines'. He says he located dangerous elements that had disrupted the energy flow. One of these was a river whose flow had been re-directed by human interference. He solved this by erecting 2 quartz stones, each weighting more than a ton, at the side of the road. The stones acted as acupuncture needles.
The trial was kept secret so no-one would laugh, however despite what the scientists have said (if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist) the motor authorities were happy to pay Gerald and his team about $6000 for each investigation. And, of course, there has been a sharp fall in the number of accidents at said black spots.

There is a strong movement towards an awareness of geomancy in Europe generally these days, not only in the pagan community, as we can see. It's a subject I have always been interested in and it's exciting to see new writing emerge from all those busy people doing research and practising on a grand scale. Europe's answer to Americanised feng shui in all it's glory. (Have you come across the Balinese version? Bliss!). It just needs a new name. Earth Magic is just so…… Anglo Saxon.

Bad Magic
(UK Guardian 27/10/04)

Well, slap my wrist and wash my mouth out - we don't curse anybody, do we. Whether you're a witch, pagan, druid, heathen or a kemetic, we are all White, right.

All a lot of balls really. No point in having a charm if there's no bad magic about. Stands to reason. There's me, don't believe in protection. Passionate about it. Don't wear amulets, charms, cross my fingers, call the Guardians. I don't think Black. Of course, it's out there, but I'm not opening the window and letting it in.

Well….. the Romans had a rather jolly way of warding off the evil eye. They used lamellas. And, no, they didn't have cute eyelashes and big teeth. A lamella is a tiny magical charm made of gold foil, about as big as a postage stamp. On the gold is scratched the charm. Only 5 found in England, 12 in the whole of Europe, and there's this chunky Norfolk gardener clonking about with his spade and fork when he sees this little sparkle in the soil. Cor!

Lamellas were used a lot in the first 6 centuries of our current era and the rolled gold sliver was worn round the neck. Sometimes they were to ward off illness or curse tablets (which were also a popular purchase from street vendors). Here's a couple:

'Free Juliana from all witchcraft (pharmaka) and all suffering and all magical influence and demon manifestations by night and day' .
Poor woman must've been close to a nervous breakdown.

'I bind Philonidas and Zenodicus… because they have given me headaches and other pains. May they be chatterless and voiceless and have no sex.'
Well, I've used a bit of binding myself. Works a treat. And I used the chatterless, voiceless and no sex bit too. The chap ended up in prison for murder, so I guess the no sex bit didn't work.

Illegal Witches and Silent Matches
(UK Telegraph, 12/10/04)

Without belabouring the point of the state of Queensland's laws, I am going to do just that. It puts the well known law about fortune telling and witchmongery in that state into perspective.
In October, the Queensland Government decided to overhaul more of its laws, apparently lifted from an 1824 English Bill in 1931 when the said English Bill had already been demolished in the mother country. So, they are currently debating other elements of this 1931 Bill (debating, mind, not laughing with glee or chorckling with mirth). No, they are not quite sure yet if it is wise to eradicate the following laws from the statute books - or not:

To be found at night with one's face masked or blackened
Allow a wife to declare her husband is a habitual drunkard
Walk outside the home at night wearing felt or other slippers
Be found in a stable or coach-house with a dark lantern, electric
torch or silent matches.

Mind you, Victoria still has a law that makes it illegal to :

Drive a goat harnessed to a vehicle in a public lace
Trade with pirates
Engage in unauthorised rain making operations.

Now that last one is a worry.

Kenneth Anger at the Modern Art Gallery London
(UK The Observer 12/10/04

Every so often I wish I were in London, again. It doesn't last long.
Kenneth Anger is an ex-European American occultist, disciple of Aleister Crowley, filmmaker extraordinaire, who's been around for decades. Known for his films in the 1960s: Babylon, Scorpio Rising, he began to incorporate pop music into his films a good 10 years before George Lucas and 'Graffiti'. In fact Anger was closely associated with The Rolling Stones at the time. (Are you still with me?)

Anger's occult tour de force was 'Lucifer Rising' released in 1981 after 12 years in the making, featuring Marianne Faithfull as Lilith, the kabbalistic goddess of destruction and a music score by Bobby Beausoleil, which was produced in prison where Beausoleil had managed to get himself while dabbling with the Manson family. (Still with me?)

Well….. if we were in London, you would be able to pop down to Viner St in London E2 and check out the exhibition of stills from Anger's films. But we're not, so we won't. Bet it would be spiffing, though.

Seeping into my consciousness.
It seems to me that paganism, wicca, witchcraft has become so mainstream, it's positively vegemite on toast.

· I was blithely watching a kid's programme on ABC Sunday morning, about Earth after a comet hit it, and like 3 years on there's these cool kids living underground with their own, new, trendy society, and they're all going round wearing pentagrams. Makes you think.

· More blithe cruising around the web garden sites, and what have we here: Pagan plants. Let's watch the TV garden gurus celebrate the mid-summer and add a bit of pagan magic and mystery to the smashing gardens of Berryfields Stately Home. We'll mow a labrynth in the lawn. (Duh!) And the plants they mentioned were: St Johns wort, ox eye daisy and devil's bit scabious. (I am in awe!)

· On UK TV they have a game program called "Deal or No Deal", a sort of betting game using psychics.

Want more? I think I'll just curl up in the foetal position and suck my pendulum.

No…. wait a minute: Channel 4, BBC, The Pagans: Sexy Beasts, Magic Moments, Band of Brothers, Sacred Landscape. Archaeological historians at it again.
Oh no! Oh dear!
Were the pagans of the past obsessed with sex, learn about modern followers of the faith.
Visit our pagan game zone.

Where's my pendulum?

The very latest latest in paganism BBC Channel 4, August 2004
Look, I know this clip is dated August, but trend is trend daaaarling, and it takes at least half a season for a European 'thing' to get here. So, if you're quick………

Pagan metal musicmakers Vintersorg from Sweden and Suidakra from Finland are emerging as THE background noise for Europe's Techno-pagans.

Right, I'm going in as a Discordian Pagan - Eris, the Goddess of Chaos. That's for me. According to the patter 'the Discordians follow a complicated path that is, by its own definition, very difficult to define'.
That's ME! I'm off……………………………

Bye………………….
Jilli the HedgeWitch