In faery lore we find a whole host of faery washers at the ford connected to prophecy, most likely inspired by Badb and her habit of washing bloody armor at river fords. If you approached them with kindness, at times these faeries would grant you a wish. Other times they drowned those who ventured too near.
Mourning
What strikes most people about Badb as the Washer at the Ford is that while she can at times be quite terrifying, when we approach her with an honest desire to release our burdens, she can be quite comforting. She allows us to release pain and trauma; her waters wash away the blood and renew us so that we may fight on.
If you are starting down the path of transformation, chances are there was some kind of catalyst that brought you here. A painful event or realization, or just a vague feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Or perhaps you know you have to start down the path but don’t want to face the things you need to confront in order to change.
Before we can start down the path that leads into the underworld, it’s vital that we understand why we are taking the journey in the first place. When I was confronted by the Washerwoman and knew I had to end a long-term relationship that had become unhealthy and dissatisfying, it was her capacity to mourn with me that struck me. There were so many things I had to let go of and release into her waters. I had to mourn the loss of the people both he and I were ten years ago and accept we were different people now. I had to mourn a future I thought I could have and the sense that I knew the direction my life was heading. Without fully feeling and mourning these things and accepting them for what they were, I’m not sure I could have taken the next step.
Mourning is an essential part of change; we need that opportunity to grieve, to rage and shriek anger and sadness, to release those feelings before we can do the work that is to come. We are always changing. Sometimes it happens slowly. Sometimes it is quick and cutting. A tragic event changes us, a difficult situation teaches us something about ourselves we never realized, or it’s a slow change, almost unnoticeable, but then we stop and realize the person we once were is gone. Think about how you changed from kindergarten to high school, from high school through college or your early twenties, from your twenties to your thirties, and so on. Think about the major events that have shaped you, including those that are more recent. How have you changed? What parts of you are gone? What parts are you trying to cling to that are really no more? Write them down. This can be a list or a paragraph written out, whatever you like.
Spend the next few days or as long as you like mourning the person you were. It can be something simple. A few moments of silence and recognition in front of your altar will do. Decide what the best way of doing this is for yourself and go with what feels right.
Devotional Work and Offerings for Badb
Let me first say that gods can get pissed with you. It happens, trust me. Even through your best intentions, things can get messy or go sideways on you. Badb has certainly helped reshape my life, but there have also been times when I have made a few missteps. Once such case was a public ritual in her honor. The ritual was sound on paper but in practice quickly spiraled out of control. A few people didn’t fully understand what they were going to do in the ritual, and another accidently in the heat of the moment called on an aspect of her that we had not anticipated drawing in. In the end it was a mess, and I cut the ritual short, wrapping up in the best way I could in a bad situation. The next day all hell seemed to break loose; people’s energies were off, one person’s protective talisman disappeared, and another felt someone running fingers through her hair in the middle of the night when no one was there. We also noted that usually in all our other previous rituals, one of the priestesses involved had been cut, by accident and blaming it on clumsiness, and offered the blood to Badb on the day of the ritual. That had not happened this time. The day after the ritual everyone in the ritual went back to the ritual area and left offerings in the river that stood nearby. And a few of us specifically left offerings of our own blood.
Since that experience, offering blood has been a regular part of my devotional work to Badb. Blood offerings have a kind of stigma, and some view it as taboo. Using blood as an offering differs from both blood sacrifice and blood magick, although using blood for either of those purposes has been stigmatized as well.
If you do choose to offer blood as an offering, whether to Badb or another deity, before you go running to sharpen your athame, there are some considerations to keep in mind. For safety reasons I personally prefer to use a lancing device. These can easily be found in the diabetic supply section of any pharmacy. While I have used a knife in the past, most of the time a ritual blade or pocket knife is not sanitary, nor is it sharp enough to easily pierce skin. Using a dull or semisharp knife can be more dangerous than using a razor-sharp one. If you have to really push hard to cut yourself, you are more likely to do more damage to yourself, cut too deeply, or cut a vital place you don’t want to cut. A lancet is safe, sanitary, and disposable. Offering a few drops suffices for my own practices; you really shouldn’t need to offer more than that.
Another safety concern to keep in mind is your comfort level with piercing your skin. If you are not comfortable with this idea or if you have had any issues that involve self-harm, you should not be engaging in this kind of offering. There are plenty of other things to offer.
Before offering blood, I spend a few moments thinking about the reason I am making the offering. My blood carries my life force, my essence, and that is what I am offering to the deity in question. I am offering a very personal part of myself to them, in service, as gratitude. There is also the element that I understand that things have a cost, sometimes a painful one. And making this kind of offering is a way for me to express that I understand that cost.
Another more intense way to offer blood would be by getting a tattoo. This is obviously something you probably are not going to do very often though. The pieces I have are devotional pieces for certain deities. Before going under the needle, I leave an offering at their altar and offer both the pain and blood of the experience to the deity in question.
Leaving a Blood Offering to Badb
This is only an example of one way you could go about leaving a personal offering of this nature. Feel free to alter it or find what works best for you. Again, this is something you should be completely comfortable with. If not, you can easily substitute the line “I offer the essence of myself” with “I offer (whatever it is you are offering instead)” when leaving an offering to Badb.
Badb
Battle Crow, Banshee
Washerwoman wailing at the ford
I offer the essence of myself to you
For ____________
If you are not making an offering for a specific purpose, such as “for helping me overcome XYZ battle,” you could say “in service to you” or “in gratitude to you.”
Evocation to Badb
by Karen Storminger
Smoke rises and the darkness falls
Hear the drumbeats pounding, our hearts beating in our tightened chests
We call to you, Badb! Phantom queen!
You enter on rushing wings and breath leaves
The connection is made, concussion, collapsing, gasping!
Fear! No!
Hooded one, you who will not abide an atmosphere filled with weak-kneed trepidation
We know the choice is always ours to make
Stepping forward, we approach the red-stained waters
White Lady, Washer Woman, Crimson-Taloned Queen!
You who circles ’round, red-rimmed eyes piercing through the darkness
Badb, your clawed hands reach out and anchor our unsteadiness
Each of us makes the choice today to accept your gifts, release our fears, and make an oath to you, to ourselves
In your presence, breath returns, uncertainty flees, the pain subsides
Badb, we call to you in the darkness,
in the flickering firelight!
Badb, we call to you whose wings whisper in the cool, black night!
Badb, we call to you as the blood trickles from your clawed hands
Badb, we stand in the water, pools of ruby liquid
Prophetess, come show us the way!
Waters of Badb Cleansing
This is something I do quite often and sometimes use as a type of morning devotional when I wish to connect to Badb. It can be used as a daily cleansing ritual and a way to connect more deeply with Badb and her energies.
In the morning (before a ritual or whenever you choose) anoint yourself with some salt. I usually anoint my brow and my heart. Using salt is not strictly necessary, but I like to use it to add an extra cleansing level. I use salt for cleansing in general and even carry the salt packs you’d find in fast-food restaurants in my purse for times when I need to ground quickly and for those unforeseen magickal emergencies when you need some protection or cleansing. For this cleansing I like to use bath salts that have been mixed with a few drops of essential oils. They tend to have a kind of sticky quality to them and allow the mixture to stick to the skin easily as you anoint yourself. If you choose, you can easily draw a sigil or symbol on your skin with the salt and oil mixture. Alternatively, you can put some table salt in a bowl and add a few drops of water to it, stirring it around to get the same consistency.
Once you have anointed yourself, go into the shower, washing yourself with the salt and whatever else you choose. Alternatively, you can do this in the bathtub if you like, although I like the feeling of the running water of the shower to replicate the sensation of rushing river water. See yourself standing in Badb’s river, the river that holds all life. See the waters washing over you. Let them take away the things you wish to cleanse yourself of until you see yourself glowing with light, cleansed and full of energy. Thank Badb or say any words you wish to say to her.
A Ritual of Release
You Will Need:
Large bowl
Water
Cranberry juice or wine (optional)
Pen and pieces of paper
Place a bowl of water on your altar. Hold your hands over it and see it as the river of the Washerwoman. You could even put a few drops of wine or cranberry juice in it to make it red tinged. On a piece of paper write the aspects of your life that you want to let go of, or simply “the parts of me that are no more.” If it’s more than one thing, tear off each thing as you write it and place the pieces of paper in the bowl of water. Say whatever feels appropriate, in these or other words:
Badb, Lady of Prophecy
Lady of the river of life and death
Red-mouth Badb who weaves the fates of heroes
Washer at the Ford who guards our deaths
I recognize the parts of myself that are gone, that are no more
I mourn
I honor what I have been
And I let it go
When you are done, pour the water outside. Dispose of the paper, or let it dry out and then burn it.
Badb’s Ritual Bath
by Ellie Heffernan
You Will Need:
1 tablespoon dried juniper berries
1 cup dried hibiscus flowers
1 tablespoon dried mugwort
1 tablespoon dried wormwood
1 gallon purified water
1 tablespoon black salt
¼ cup white salt (or Celtic gray salt)
5 drops sandalwood essential oil
¼ cup lemon juice
I find that bathing can be used as an effective mode of ritual preparation. It is a good chance to shed everything that is not essential to the ritual or anything that is not meant to be brought into sacred space. We enter sacred space as all aspects of our complete selves; however, we also sometimes carry residual energy or heaviness from other stressors in life, other people, and so on. It’s important to clear that away before we can fully bring all that we are, and only what we are, to where we must be bare. Bathing can also be relaxing and meditative and help prepare the appropriate headspace for ceremony.
Using a large pot, combine the juniper, hibiscus, mugwort, and wormwood with a gallon of purified water. Bring the herbs to a boil and then remove the brew from the heat. Cover the pot and let the herbs steep until they are warm to the touch. Filter out all of the larger particles. Draw a bath and add the filtered tea, salts, essential oil, and lemon juice. Before bathing, visualize the black river, Badb’s healing waters. Hear the stream rushing, smell the aquatics and herbs mingled with otherworldly greenery, and then slowly step into the bath, feeling yourself step into a gurgling river to be cleansed.
Badb’s Protective Amulet
by Ellie Heffernan
You Will Need:
1 small wooden disk, about 2 inches in diameter (a disk cut from a thick tree branch and sanded smooth is preferable)
Wood burner, rotary tool, or fine-point permanent black marker
Clear epoxy or hot glue
1 small tumbled jet stone
1 small rough garnet
1 small tumbled smoky quartz
Acrylic art sealant (optional)
On one side of the wooden disk, draw or otherwise inscribe a symbol that you most associate with Badb above the ogham for protection, luis (rowan) or ngetal (broom) . Otherwise, a sigil of your own creation would also work if you so desire. Draw a triskele on the other side of the disk and glue the three stones onto the three points of formation. Optionally, seal the wood to make it moisture resistant.
The amulet can be wrapped and strung into a necklace to be worn, or simply keep it on your person or hidden somewhere in your home for protection.
[contents]
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7. Daithi O’Hogain, The Sacred Isle: Pre-Christian Religions in Ireland (Suffolk: Boydell Brewer Ltd, 1999), p. 66.
8. Arthur Herbert Leahy, trans., The Courtship of Ferb: An Old Irish Romance Transcribed in the Twelfth Century into the Book of Leinster (London: David Nutt, 1902. Facsimile by BiblioLife, 2009), p. 78.
9 . Elizabeth Gray, Cath Maige Tuired: Second Battle of Mag Tuired (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1983), p. 71.
10. Angelique-Gulermovich Epstein, War Goddess: The Morrígan and Her Germano-Celtic Counterparts (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), p. 141.
6
Akhilandeshvari
You find yourself on the shores of wide, sprawling river. It is warm, and the sun reflects off the water as it lazily flows by. The sound of the water is calming, and you walk the shore, enjoying the sound and the warmth of the sun.
Soon you come to a sandy embankment where the river has washed up a large amount of silt and fine sand from the riverbed. You wonder if it was perhaps caused by a storm, and as you walk along the area, you soon see there are stones and other objects partially buried in the washed-up silt. One looks familiar to you, though you are unsure how it could have ended up here in this place. On your knees, you use your hands to brush away the dirt and sand. And slowly, the object comes into focus. Take a moment to look at it. It is something precious to you from the past, something you treasure. Perhaps you thought you had discarded it, or perhaps you are so afraid of losing it that you have held it close to you for some time. You hold the object in your hands, remembering why it has value to you.
Behind you there is a sound, splashing in the otherwise quiet river. Startled, you turn around to see a giant crocodile heaving itself out of the river just a few feet from where you kneel in the sand. Frightened, you drop the object and hear it shatter as you scramble to get away from the shore and the gaping maw of teeth that is looking at you with far too much interest. But as soon as it is on the shore, the crocodile turns its head and regards you with a large reptilian eye. It makes no move to attack, but instead seems to be waiting for you to do something. S
till paralyzed with fear, you feel unable to move. The crocodile nods its head toward the now-broken object you found and remains in place on the shore. With a little trepidation, you walk slowly back to where the shattered pieces lay in the sand. You look at your treasured item with a sinking heart, pick up a few of the pieces, and attempt to fit the jigsaw back together again.
And then you hear a sound. At first it sounds like a breeze moving through the trees, but then it grows louder and you see a swirling whirlwind of golden light hovering just above the river’s water. The crocodile moves back into the water and swims just under the swirling light. A moment later the light solidifies, and you see a woman standing on top of the crocodile. You blink several times as you look at her. Her rich mahogany skin glows with a soft light, but she seems to change position every few seconds; her clothes, her hairstyle, and even the color of her eyes change as well. It is as if the light that makes up her form is constantly changing and rearranging the way the pieces of her form are put together.
She gestures a hand toward the broken treasure you hold, and you find that it is suddenly whole again. You hold it up to inspect it in awe. It is in one piece, yet it is also very apparent where it has been broken. Long lines of gold crisscross the item, as if it were fused together along the broken edges with liquid gold. And somehow that makes it more beautiful.
“Nothing can remain frozen in time forever. You try so hard to prevent change. But the universe is ever moving, ever changing, and it will not let you stand still. You fear being broken, yet you forget it is the only way you can move the pieces of your life into new shapes. You are no different from the item you hold. There is beauty in breaking, only to be remade more splendid again. Only then do we know what we are made of.”
Dark Goddess Craft Page 7
