I love my mother.
I hate my mother.
It’s nothing new. Everyone who has ever had a mother has had mother/offspring problems with her before. Just the same as every mother who has ever born a child has silently wished that weren’t so. Fights, arguments, some last longer than others. I’ve gone through many years of being at odds with my mother. Many of my friends can attest to that, many of them bore witness to it. I hated my mother for a very long time.
Not until I finally saw her in a different light did my bond with her changed. I don’t know exactly how the change came about. Maybe it was my finally finding a job that could kick start a career after four months of being laid off. Maybe it was her meeting a boyfriend of mine she could finally approve of. Either way, I learned something new about her.
My mother is a witch.
She won’t admit it to herself, she would never use that term. My Pagan studies both of religion and Witchcraft were often (and still are) deemed as that “thing I do”, “Sam’s religion” which all sums up to “that thing she doesn’t trust”. I’m fine with that, 13 years have passed of me passing off Pagan gatherings, ritual and other requirements of my time as “socializing with friends in that thing I do.” Don’t ask, don’ tell, right ma? Come to think of it, it almost makes me sound like I’m in the mob…just not as exciting.
My family is Mahayana Buddhist. This goes back many generations reaching back to my roots in China. My mother is very religious…and old school in many ways. It’s not uncommon to hear her indisposed during the middle of the day, indisposed by the family Buddhist altar, chanting away in Cantonese for hours on end. I don’t know the chants, I never asked and she won’t tell me. Her reasons.
But that’s besides the point. The point really is belief, intent and will. It’s the first thing I learned as a witch. Spells, rituals are nothing more than prayer with words, symbols and tools to focus intent and will into the right place. Put everything you have into a singular focus and goal and influence change in the universe. It’s the fundamental basic of magic. It’s the reason why Christian prayers work just as well as any spell. We know it as intuning with the divine within us and creating change in the universe, Christians know it as the will of God.
And the same can be said about Buddhist prayers. My mother made it clear to me. Every so often, she’ll bestow upon me little pearls of information that pertain to my past before I was old enough to maintain a memory. When I was born, my mother dedicated my soul to Kwan Yin (this tradition, I’ve learned, is not an entirely new concept as I’m not the only one who was dedicated to her. And this guy’s also from Toronto!). She informed me of such only a few years ago and all that did was confirm the name of the being, in all her many guises, that I’ve always known was watching over me.
When I was laid off from the job I held for two years right after I graduated from college, my mother got to work. Day in and day out (she retired early, she has a lot of time on her hands…), she’d kneel there at that altar, talking to Kwan Yin, asking her to grant me another job soon. It took months of trial and error before I landed my current position at Just-Eat.ca and only a week and a half after to be promoted to social media manager (it’s a nice way of saying that I spend a lot of time on Facebook for work).
It’s the equivalent of a job search spell I could’ve cast only my mother did it for me…consistently. Belief, will and intent, right? All focused towards the same goal and change manifested. Thank you, ma. She didn’t do it the same way I would’ve, she didn’t need candles and tools to cast this spell, just a family altar and the belief that the Buddhisatva Kwan Yin, Lady of Compassion and Mercy, watched and guided her and her children.
Buddhism teaches not to view the Buddha as divine for he, himself, was a human that had reached enlightenment. Praying to Kwan Yin maintains the focus on praying to what she represents to mankind. In essence, my mother was praying to the divine inside herself to create a change in my favor. It’s what I do as a witch under a different name.
Considering the promotion I received only after a week and a half of my being hired, her prayers delivered many times over.
Xie xie, mama.
During this past Mabon, I was asked during ritual to call on someone in my life that has made sacrifices in their life in order to help me in mine. I called on my mother and my grandmother before her and my great grandmother before her, all down the line. Proud and resourceful Chinese women who learned from the lands of the rural farming villages in China. Mothers who taught their daughters the properties and benefits of herbs, roots, berries, flowers and even…petrified worms. Healing properties mostly, ones that range from Cancer prevention, retaining blood iron levels for menstruating women, even to remedy the common cold.
My mother learned from her mother and…eventually…I’m sure I’ll learn the same. Odd ingredients with different properties boiled into teas to be drunk (and they often taste very vile), stood in (a tea to draw toxins out of the body, boil and pour into a basin, now stand in it for a while), bathed in (same thing, pour in the bath), and eaten as a dessert (swallow’s nest soup is really good and very expensive) all will bring improved health and vitality into your life.
It’s the one thing I have a right to call “ancient Chinese secrets” around here. My mother’s potions. Potions that will one day be passed down to me.
Including the one that uses the petrified worms. “Look, you can even see their little feet!” Really, thanks ma.
The Journey of Mei QingTing 