Witchvox Article

Author: Orion Foxwood
Posted: December 16th. 2001
Times Viewed: 10,072

I share with you some of the insights of my tradition with hopes that it kindles your inner flame during these cold, dark winter months and wartime hours of emotional midnight.

"Do you see what I see? A star, a star wandering in the fará..". Though this song is Christian in origin, it hints of the older mystery of the Holy Child who is the mystery of the season. Season's greetings to all of you as we contemplate the return of the Lord of Light who dwells beneath the cold earth in the fertile bosom of the Dark Mother. As we approach the longest night and call him back through the Festival of Lights, let us look within and truly see the inner light of "what we would become". This "inner light" is the ever-young Child of Promise. The old ways remind us that there is life after death; spring after winter; hope after despair; and that light is kindled in the fertile darkness of the night sky withináand without. Know this, the star of the Holy Child is only as far way as your mirror. I invite you to look deep within the face of the Lord/Lady who peers back at you in the mirror and behold the wonder of the Child of Promise who wears your flesh as a robe and peers into the world of humanity through the windows of your eyes. For many of you, you are more sacred than you can imagine. May the Holiday Season lead your awareness inward to contemplate the point of deity within and birth it into the world of man, by your thoughts and deeds.

In my spiritual tradition, Celtic/Traditional Witchcraft (CTW), there is a concept called "the Child of Promise" sometimes referred to as "the Child of Light". This concept forms the crux of our longing and is the "pearl of great price" which we seek. The Child of Promise is the indwelling spirit, the first essence within all things. The Child of Promise is in some ways what the New Agers call "the higher self". The Yuletide and Christmas festivals are all centered on the birth of the Child of Promise who redeems humanity of its sin (i.e. vices, flaws and disparity between him/herself and God/dess) and brings hope and promised renewal to the world. In the Old Religion, this sacred child is both the Lord of the Returning Light (the Springtime Sun) and the pure essence of deity within each one of us. Therefore to call the Great Lord of Light, we must call from the inner Child of Promise. We are taught that we, as Old Religionists, must align ourselves through ceremony, customs, lore and meditation to the passing of our life star (the sun) through the ring of the seasons that forms the regenerative womb of the Great Mother. The passages of the sun are parallel with the Child of Promise which dwells within us and its passages through the initiatory chambers of physical form, social relationships, pain, love and joy and others. These chambers are the vises of creation that press the "diamonds of thy potential into the diamond of thy becoming" and births the Child of Promise. Each of us are born to do this and thus, redeem humanity and bring is back into attunement with deity or the "Creative Life Force".

As surely as King Arthur and his Merrie (Blessed) Men hallowed the ancient halls of Anwnn (the ancestral and spectral realms of the Cymry) in quest of the Mabon Child locked with a pillar; each of us journey the dark pathways of inner and ancestral power to find the indwelling Child of Promise locked in the pillar of form which is our bodies. The CP is ever young and thus Fay, living in the realms of enchantment, timelessness and dreams. It is the potent power of the star-child that extends from the heavens into matter to explore the farthest realms of its being.

The Child of Promise falls into form (our birth) to raise it back to the heavens. You and I and all of creation are partaking in this holy epoch. Within each of us is the blessed redeeming Child of Promise who partakes of the very essence of the divine parentage, God(ddess) and is the Son (or Sun) of the God(dess). The old Welsh teachings of the young Gwion Bach who tastes of wisdom from the cauldron of the Great Cerridwen Coriadwen (cerridwen of the coracle) and is pursued by the regenerative powers of the dark Goddess and is consumed by her only to emerge as Taliesin of the Golden Brow (the Child of Promise). Each of us will make that journey and become anointed into the deepest mysteries of our inner templeáthe Child of Promise. Deep in the darkness of the longest day of the year, our Lady and her Lord consummate the Child of Promise. Deep in the darkest depths of your yearning and inner work is born the Child of Promise within you.

Only when the seeming opposites are reconciled within us is the Child of Promise incarnated into this world. This reconciliation is the marriage of the Lady and Lord (for in truth they are one) within us that brings forth the balanced progeny, the Child of Promise. Only when we realize that the object of our spiritual quest is within us can we regain the crown of spiritual sovereignty. In the season of Yule, we celebrate the life in death and the star in the darkness. May you know where that humble manger of your savior really isáwithin yourself. As a child of the light I greet you with light and may you bring forth the light of the world. Blessed Yule! May you find your place in the sacred circle.

Orion Foxwood

Bio: Orion Foxwood is the founder of the Foxwood Temple of the Old Religion and the Co-Director of the Moonridge Center in Maryland. He received a Master of Human Services Degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and Doctor of Divinity from Ravenwood Church and Seminary of the Old Religion Inc, in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a High Priest in Celtic/ Traditional Old Religion and Alexandrian Wicca as well as a Priest in the Welsh Cymry Tradition. He is a practicing Cunningman in the Faery Seership Tradition. He has taught Faery Seership, Traditional Witchcraft, Psychic and Magical Development and other magical arts around the country for over 17 years.

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