Knowing what you are getting yourself into with spells

I'm not going to name names, but I was contacted by a friend who has been hurt by love with the appearance of a third party who showed up to cause trouble. Now my friend looked into getting a "Witch" to do a couple of spells for them, the "Witch" has charges quite the fee it appears, but the friend doesn't know exactly what type spells are being used so not 100% sure of the outcome & what it would mean for them in the long run. To me this sounds incredibly suspect/dangerous, seriously when delving into the realms of spellcasting there are some rules I would seriously consider following.

• You don't have to be a Witch to cast a spell, it tends to work better if the person who needs/wants the spell to do it as it is more likely to have an effect as you are actually involved & not a third party who may have missed a detail in your case & who may have their own agenda, which could just be a make money fast scheme. If the spell fails or goes wrong they probly won't claim responsibilty for it.
• Be clear about exactly what it is you want & what you want the outcome to be. 
• Be able to deal with the consequences if it doesn't turn out how you exactly planned it.
• Make sure in the right state of mind when you do things, when passions are high you could end up biting off more than you can chew with what you are sending out there. Be level headed about these things.
• Think it through first, is there something you can do on a physical level before hitting the spell books?

I do hope my friend will be OK for their own sake & that things turn out to how they wanted to & not something completely distorted or unwelcome.

Alternative medicine & conventional medicine

A couple of weeks ago I had an upset stomach, not sure what caused it whether it is as I suspect food poisoning (self inflicted by not cleaning the microwave after making sure some chicken wasn't undercooked, it has since been sterilised) or whether it was the bug that was going around, I'm less likely to go with that as I was not vomiting like everyone else was. I started out drinking some fennel tea as that usually stops such things, but it didn't, I then took some loperimide (immodium for those who do brands) that didn't work either but by this time it was the weekend & the doctors would be open until Monday, so I bit the bullet, if neither were working on their own work them together, I also upped the dose on the herbal remedies too & it seemed to do the trick. Moral of the story is do not dismiss one for the other, if neither are working, as long as it is safe to do so use them combined. I know too many people who would dismiss the validity of herbal medicine but also those who think that conventional medicine is more harmful than good, neither approaches I think are helpful as you could end up missing out on something that could better treat your condition.

Sometimes logic can be quicker than the internet

Yesterday I almost went into what is now habitual, if I don't immediately know something & I know I don't have the answer in a book, to look it up on the internet. Yesterday  for the first time I was making a cake using duck eggs which are bigger than hens eggs & richer, but I lacked a specific duck egg cake recipe so getting the consistency right would mean different weights & measures. I was about to fire up the computer when all of a sudden my problem solving part of my brain perked up, weigh the eggs & then measure out the ingredients to scale, this did save me time & the cake turned out delicious, but it has now got me wondering how much do I turn to the computer for answers rather than thinking solutions to a problem myself? Have I just become to reliant on letting a machine do my thinking for me? One thing I do still use my intuition & problem solving with are my faith practices as I feel that as a Witch my workings of that nature are fluid & find that it is the most practical way of doing things. If I can do it with that then why do I turn to a machine for almost everything else? I'm a sensible if somewhat strange human being, logic should come & usually does come easily to me. Has the computer just made me become lazy in my thought processes? I think that that is something to I need meditate on.

My view on Thatcher

With the funeral rehearsal in the early hours of this morning I thought I'd write this. I have been delayed in writing this predominantly because I wanted to get my views on this is in a slightly more respectful way. I was not a fan of Maggie predominantly due to the way she rode rough shod over the working classes & promoted the greed is good movement. But thing that she did that affected me the most was Section 28, when I was a teenager coming to terms with your sexuality & trying to get over the trauma of being a victim of an attack of a sexual nature from a member of the opposite sex, I found it hard, being told that it is just a phase because of the attack & all will be fine in the end when I resolve my trust issues did not help. I needed information, but with section 28 it was hard to come by when you don't where to turn to. It made me feel like a second class citizen, that people like me didn't matter, she may have done good things but I have difficulties remembering them, maybe it was because of her major failing in my life clouds my judgement of her & with the recent findings of the Hillsborough disaster & reminding myself of her orders at Beanfield I tend to find it hard to have respect for her. I am not mourning her death, though I'm not going to dance on her grave either, but I do feel that the state money that is going on her funeral, seeing as though her family are not short of money is unfair on the taxpayer at such times when the economic climate is struggling, that the £8 million that was a projected figure would have been more useful in going to the NHS or into service provision elsewhere. As to whether she was a feminist icon or not I would side on the not, her cabinet did not contain women other than herself & she seemed to do little to promote women's rights except put her face in the news frequently to say I make the political decisions around here. Her triumph was more a individual rights rather than mass rights of those whose rights still weren't properly being noticed & she favoured the upper classes in her campaigns as she was trying to move up the social scale herself, forgetting her working class roots. I got the feeling she was the pull the ladder up Jack I'm OK kind of person, full of self righteousness & full of her sense of infallibility. My thoughts go to her family as it must be a difficult time for them & I hope the loss will ease for you, but please do not ask me to mourn for her.

The economic question of benefits & tax cuts

I'm probably not the most attuned to all the intricate details of economics in this country but I am willing to put my views on this topic into the public forum. I myself receive no benefits but I am a low income earner & less tax on me would mean I would have more disposable income with which I could spend, I would be able to afford to use public transport to go to my main job instead of walking four & a half miles to work on a route that becomes treacherous in bad weather or afford more uniform instead of waiting for it to go into holes before I replace it. I know many people who rely on their benefits to scrape by as single parents, disabled or have difficulties with their skill sets to get jobs. Many who work part time need the tax credits they get so they don't have be on full benefits & not working but can't work full time because of the needs of their children. Their are some people who I now who never be able to work again through disability & it seems to be us who are having to feel the brunt of things, if you are middle class or downwards we are being punished for those in power who frittered away the money in coffers, but rather than the money coming out of their pockets it comes out of ours. The banks were nigh on unregulated & those with the gambling power took great advantage of that, many of them still get their bonuses with their million odd pound a year wages which are now enjoying a tax cut so they can squander even more of their money. The rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer. There is a theory that would spend more, in uncertain times even the rich will be holding on to their money so it really doesn't work out, plus are the government really expecting that the extra spending the richest 10% would do with a tax cut would out way the money that poorer in the society now can't spend even though their is a far greater percentage of people living below the poverty line of course it won't. Though I don't agree with living of the state all your life without contributing to it, you do need to support those who need a bit of extra help on the lower end of the monetary scale who are working their damned hardest to keep their necks above water. I dare say if this keeps up their will be another peasant's revolt type incident happening only this time it won't be royalty in the line of fire & we do have rights now grrrrr