{"id":8507,"date":"2017-04-23T16:52:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T22:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8507"},"modified":"2017-04-23T19:25:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T01:25:46","slug":"the-story-of-three-athames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8507","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Three Athames"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I have owned three athames in my life \u2014 or more precisely two athames plus a new knife that may well become one.<\/p>\n

There is a story in here of changing Craft practice.<\/p>\n

Actually, the first<\/em> athame was simply my wooden-handled Mora hunting knife, <\/a>not in the photo.((Those wooden (birch?) handle models are long gone, replaced with synthetics. Mora knives still give good value for the price.)) I cleaned the first deer that I ever killed with it, and it still rides in one of my daypacks.<\/p>\n

1 \u2014 Then one February 28th in my mid-twenties,<\/strong> I went rabbit hunting on the Pike National Forest west of my home in Manitou Springs, Colorado. I know it was February 28th because that is the last day of the season, and I wanted to get out one more time.<\/p>\n

As I recall, I saw no rabbits, but while walking through the woods I found an antler-handled knife.((Made in Spain by Muela.<\/a>)) Of course I picked it up. Of course (being a relatively new Pagan) I thought it was a sign.<\/em> Some god or daemon had given me a ritual knife \u2014 terrific!<\/p>\n

I walked on \u2014 and then I found a cup \u2014 an aluminum cup of the kind that come with campware cooking sets.<\/p>\n

“This is too much!” I thought. “Where is the pentacle?” (No need to ask about a wand; I was in the forest, after all.)<\/p>\n

No pentacle appeared, but I felt somehow honored all the same. The gods or simply the universe had tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’re in.”<\/p>\n

That knife was my athame for several years, and I will still use it sometimes; otherwise, since it takes an edge, it makes a good “white-handled knife.”<\/p>\n

2 \u2014 But a new teacher entered my life,<\/strong> and he had different ideas about how magic worked. He and some engineer buddies postulated that maybe magical energies were on the electromagnetic spectrum . . . somewhere. They experimented with psionic “machines” <\/a>that were said to amplify mental energies, psychic healing, fields of protection, and so on.<\/p>\n

He suggested removing all ferrous metal from the ritual circle, and \u2014 if you were indoors \u2014 turning off the electric power for the duration.<\/p>\n

So I had to replace the stainless steel (inox) athame. The high priest of my coven (a different person) found me a piece of very hard bronze. I took it to the HP of another coven, who was also an SCA<\/a> fighter and an armorer \u2014 I would put his articulated steel gauntlets, for example, up against any from the 14th or 15th centuries.<\/p>\n

He ground and polished this bronze billet into a full-tang leaf-shaped blade. The crystal in the hilt was my addition \u2014 it might help, who knows?<\/p>\n

I made some other changes in my practice, becoming more aware of bodily energy flows. And I just liked the idea of bronze<\/em>. Ah, the Bronze Age. Thuban<\/a> was the North Star, and those were Shining Times.<\/p>\n

\n

Ritual. Long memories,
\nhouses built on poles,
\nmountains, glaciers, trading parties
\nof tattooed men and women, faience beads,
\npacks filled with poppies, tin, and amber
\nthreading through a pass.
\nHammered bronze knives. Helen,
\nmixing her potions,
\nthe blue Aegean stretching
\nlike a storyteller’s breath.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dale Pendell, Pharmako\/Poeia, Revised and Updated:
\nPlant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft<\/a><\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n

Maybe that was not what my teacher had in mind, but it is where I drifted.<\/p>\n

3 \u2014 Last year at Yule M. gave me a flint knife.<\/strong> I know where she bought it, at a trade fair in Taos, New Mexico((Where, coincidentally, I am writing this blog post)), and it was made just down the road by Charlie Acu\u00f1a of The Stone Edge<\/a> (say it). For three months it has been sitting on my desk while I think about it.<\/p>\n

But where has my practice been heading? More and more to the local level. I have written a little about paying attention to Tlaloc<\/a>, our regional god of the hydrological cycle, for example. I’ve been working with volunteer crews to clear fallen logs and other debris from Hardscrabble Creek, before the run-off from a large burn scar upstream causes flooding in our communities, which gives me plenty of time to think about the spirit of the creek while adjusting the saw chain tension.<\/p>\n

Am I moving backwards from the Bronze Age now? It’s all just dreams and talking to the plants and animals. Doing certain feral things. Letting so much fall away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have owned three athames in my life \u2014 or more precisely two athames plus a new knife that may well become one. There is a story in here of changing Craft practice. Actually, the first athame was simply my wooden-handled Mora hunting knife, not in the photo.((Those wooden (birch?) handle models are long gone, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,270,32,29],"class_list":["post-8507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-hunting","tag-new-mexico","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2dd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13446,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13446","url_meta":{"origin":8507,"position":0},"title":"A Knife in the Woods","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"M. and I went yesterday to check our favorite mushroom grounds. The radar had shown thunderstorms up there earlier in the week , but whatever rain fell had soaked right in. Nothing was coming up yet, not even LBMs. ((The mushroom hunter's catch-all term: \"Little brown mushrooms.\" Like \"little gray\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"Large butcher knife on forest floor.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/found-knife-768x441.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/found-knife-768x441.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/found-knife-768x441.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9877,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9877","url_meta":{"origin":8507,"position":1},"title":"“The Importance of Rituals to the Hunt”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I have written a little about the intersection of hunting and ritual, but today I would ask you to read Jeremy Climer's blog post \"The Importance of Rituals to the Hunt.\" Before we go any further, we should define both \u201ctradition\u201d and \u201critual\u201d because people often use them interchangeably.\u00a0\u00a0Although traditions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13567,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13567","url_meta":{"origin":8507,"position":2},"title":"Imbolc on Ice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Look south from Bennett Avenue, the bi-level main street of Cripple Creek, Colorado, across Poverty Gulch (once lined by the saloons and brothels of Myers Avenue), and there it sits, like the citadel of the Ice King. At 9,494 feet (2,894 m.), the early February winds are still cutting and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6479,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6479","url_meta":{"origin":8507,"position":3},"title":"For Carolyn and Morning Glory","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"On the narrow bridge over Hardscrabble Creek I toast you both and pour a libation into spring's fast-rushing water, under the white face of the Moon. I will miss you both, I say to the creek, and the dog tugs at his leash. We continue up the rising road where\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6479#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":510,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=510","url_meta":{"origin":8507,"position":4},"title":"Animism, Disney, and MorelsIt started\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Animism, Disney, and MorelsIt started when someone passed on a quote from an article in the August 2005 issue of Vanity Fair about Disneyland:I thought about everything it was and it wasn't, the cornucopia of image, illusion, and icon, and realized, very much to my delight, that Disney is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7368,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7368","url_meta":{"origin":8507,"position":5},"title":"Lammas, Wild Harvest, and “the Notch”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Many of the Pagan bloggers are putting up their \"Happy Lammas\/Lughnasad\" posts. My archaeoastronomical friends who study mysterious ancient solar alignments point out that \"real\" Lammas is still six days away. But there is \"the notch.\" In 1986, when I moved to this part of Colorado, a friend told me,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"nibbled bolete","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nibbled-bolete.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nibbled-bolete.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nibbled-bolete.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8507"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8540,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507\/revisions\/8540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}