Land of the Northwest Wind

Dear ones in the house of the dead
Can you forgive 
An old woman who was your proud 
Daughter, who now too late 
Returns your love?
                   Kathleen Raine 

 

Direction Northwest	Wind Color Cron (dark brown)	Attributes The Wind of the Gates (that are shut upon) Effulgent Sunlight	Wind Name Pessima
Tools Dust and Ashes Soul Cakes	Stone Jet	Flute The Pipes	Flower Lily Thistles
Hosts Beansidhe Pipers	Guide/Master (F) Mother Maryam	Guide/Master (M) Father Weret	Scent lilies
Lessons Eaten by birds, desiccation Earth bound spirits Honoring the Ancestors	Bird Vulture	Owl Barn Owl	Season:  Late Autumn Nov - Samhain
Element Dust	Finger Magic left thumb, left index finger and left little finger touching	Common Roles Speaker for the Dead Soul Leader	Principle mortality
Goddess Hel	Festival Parentalia - February 13th	Rituals Prayers for the Dead  Soul Leading Memorial service	House Magic Ancestor Altar
Journey to Cron

 

The North West wind unfortunately carries with it the scent of death.  As with all the other winds the lessons here are numerous.  By working with this wind you can come to a better understanding of  the role of death in our world, this is the wind that can teach you about ghosts and earth bound spirits and finally you can learn techniques of soul leading if you are working with the dying and finally you can explore the realm of the "life between lives"

Make a soul-flight to a place where you and a relative who is now dead used to meet together.  Speak the words that you would have like to say before death intervened.  Listen to the words that your relative speaks to you.  Thank and bless your relative.

Beansidhe

One of the most dreaded and best known of the Irish faeries is the Banshee, properly named the Beansidhe literally, "woman fairy." The Irish have many names for her (perhaps they feared invocation of her true name may invoke her presence?). They included: Washer of the Shrouds, Washer at the Banks, Washer at the Ford and the Little Washer of Sorrow. The Scottish called her Cointeach, literally "one who keens." 

The Beansidhe is an extremely beautiful fairy, possessing long, flowing hair, red eyes (due to continuous weeping) and a light complexion. They typically don green dresses with gray cloaks. Their wailing foretells of a death nearby, though it never causes such a death (which is why they are wrongly feared). Some of Ireland's oldest aristocracy could boast of banshees dwelling nearby their ancestral homes.

If one heard the wailing of the beansidhe and discovered candles burned in a winding pattern (like a shroud) later that evening, they knew the death was to occur in their household. In Scotland she squats near the door of the one doomed and in Cornwall her figure flaps her wings against the glass of the window belonging to the one who would die.

As her other names might suggest, she frequently appears as a washerwoman at the banks of streams. In these cases, she is called the Bean Nighe (pronounced "ben-neeyah"). The clothing she washed takes different forms depending upon the legend. Sometimes it is burial shrouds, others it is the bloodstained clothing of those who will soon die.