Tudorbeth - Spirit in the City: The Angels and Elementals of Wicca

Title Page

SPIRIT IN THE CITY

The angels and elementals of Wicca

Tudorbeth

Publisher Information

Published by Local Legend

www.local-legend.co.uk

Digital edition converted and distributed in 2013 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

2013 Tudorbeth

All rights reserved

No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design by Titanium Design Ltd

www.titaniumdesign.co.uk

Cover images by Nigel Peace

Dedication

Dedicated to my father, whose love of legends and our history brought him home and sent me on a life-long journey of discovery of our ancient knowledge.

Blessed Be, Dad, may you be at peace

forever in the Summerlands.

Love, light and peace to all in spirit.

Thank you for your grace.

Blessed Be to all.

About the author

Tudorbeth is a hereditary practitioner of the Craft. The rules and gifts of herb lore, scrying, healing, tasseomancy, numerology and candle magic have been passed down to her through several Celtic and English generations. Born in Wiltshire, she has an Honours degree in Religious Studies and has lived and worked in California and Italy, before returning to live in north London.

Introduction

Dear Reader,

Witches work with the spirit and the elementals of nature all the time in our different festivals and rituals, to show our gratitude and to seek help with healing and with spells. The elementals referred to here are ones that we most often work with and ones that our family members may know of or have seen. So there is a personal connection with them in one form or another.

These elementals of spirit would have been accepted without question many years ago. The last century saw huge belief in fairies and angels, for example, and the atrocities of World War I especially brought many belief systems to the fore. There were many cases around those times, such as the Cottingley fairy photographs of 1917, which had the support and backing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was a firm believer in the existence of fairies.

But the early twenty-first century is very different and the way of life is vastly changed from a hundred years ago. Rapid urbanisation and the almost total destruction of the old ways of life has brought change to such an extent that the past and its belief systems seem completely alien to us now. In those days people had no television, no computers or Internet, even little electricity to speak of. The cinematic age was just in its infancy, as was the idea of flight let alone space travel and landing on the moon. People still travelled by horse and cart as the motor car was a luxury only the elite could afford. Many people grew their own food in their gardens and women still fought for the vote. People simply could not imagine how different the world would become.

Look how far we have travelled in a hundred years. Many of the common superstitions and beliefs of those times would be scoffed at now as science has dismissed many of them.

Yet the existence of the elementals, beings of energy, prevails in our technologically pioneering world. Those of us who work in the realm of spirit are aware of these elementals. Further, we welcome them into our lives and work with them wherever we can for the benefit of all. To work with spirit and to be a part of the world of magic, you need to let the elementals in and allow yourself to believe...

In many of the forthcoming letters, a number of semi-precious stones and crystals will be mentioned. However, please do not go to great expense to practise magic or to connect with spirit. The only important resource that is ever really needed is YOU. The stones and crystals can help us manifest spirit within the physical world; the two that are all-rounders and perfect for anything in this work are clear quartz and amethyst.

One of my favourite sayings regarding gem stones is from the Lakota Sioux: The outside of the stone is round; the power of the stone is endless.

And so are you. The power, the magic and the spirit that resides in you is endless. Through this series of letters we shall look at other aspects of spirit. We shall learn to acknowledge, harness and respect their energies in our own work. Enjoy these letters and embrace spirit.

Blessed Be

Cottingley is near Bradford in England. Cousins Elsie Wright, aged 16, and Frances Griffiths, aged 9, published five photographs apparently showing fairies. In the 1980s they finally admitted that four of them were faked, but still claimed that the fifth was genuine.

Angels

Dear Reader,

As long as humans have been walking on this planet, we have had spiritual beings that have walked beside us since the beginning of time. These beings show up in cave paintings, their faces etched on monuments and even in deserts in one form or another. They are spirit made whole. However they come about or whatever belief system you adhere to, no matter what time or culture, the spiritual beings of light - or angels - have walked beside us from infancy through our ages and will journey with us on to our next adventure of existence.

It may be difficult for some readers to understand, but though we are witches and work in the realm of magic and the Craft we do work with angels too. Angels are beings of spirit just as all humans are. Furthermore, spirit has no boundaries, colour lines, prejudices or preferences. Spirit simply just IS. No one religion has ownership of angels; if that were the case then you might as well say that the rainbow or the sunset belongs to you.

Angels can appear in many different forms though traditionally people depict them as human-like with flowing wings. However, they can also appear just as a being of light, a light as bright as the sun (though it does not hurt your eyes to look upon it). Angels can send us signs that they are around such as coins, flowers, feathers and other little signs that may be personal to you and that you would recognise, found in unusual places at significant times. Thats what I love about angels, the personal touch!

In the last couple of years the idea of angels has become fashionable but for workers in the Craft and those who work with spirit, angels have always been in. Many of us have in our homes an altar bearing symbols or ornaments of angels. This is for a number of reasons, such as to know that angels are physically around us at all times, to let others know that we work in light, or simply to show that we believe. They are a constant physical reminder of our faith and also to show the angels themselves how grateful we are to have them in our lives and that we welcome them into our homes and hearts.

If you would like to make an angel altar it is very simple. Just begin by collecting angelic statuettes. Look round the house as you may have some already. You may have angelic pictures on the wall. You may even have a pair of angel wings as an ornament. You will be surprised by what you may already have; the angels could have been in your life a lot longer than your conscious mind is aware.

Also on your altar keep the gifts that the angels leave you, like feathers or coins. For many years, wherever I would go I would find a two pence coin. Think about the symbols and signs that you always see or find. You could keep your communication with angels written in a separate book. Most of us write everything down in our Book of Shadows, but for angels you could create a separate book and call it your Book of Angel Shadows.

As for feathers, they do not always have to be white but can be various colours each with a different meaning. Generally the colours have the same meanings as with everything to do with magic. For example, green means healing or stop worrying about money. But when it comes to finding feathers from angels it is a gift for you and you alone, so these following meanings are just examples and not absolute.