Post by Fallen on Sept 12, 2006 15:38:00 GMT -5
I first came across the word Ogham a few years ago while reading a book (I cannot remember which book I first saw it in). Although the book mentioned Oghams, and explained that they were a type of divination that was all the information it gave. I right away began trying to find out what they were and how they were used. I had no idea when I began my search how hard it was going to be. Today, you can type the word Ogham into a search agent on the internet and you will find quite a bit of imformation about them, but a few years ago I found nothing. I started to question everyone I knew who were fellow witches, and although many had heard of them no one could explain them to me. It wasn't until about a year and a half later when I was reading one of Ann Moura's books on Green Witchcraft that I actually found out what Oghams were.
Now I'm going to go off on a little tangent here and talk about Green Witchcraft by Ann Moura. Her books are very informative, and if you find that you are interested in learning about the uses of herbs and you tend to focus alot on nature and natural magick then I strongly recomend her books. She writes for what she calls the Kitchen Witch, the everyday witch who uses everyday natural elements for studies and spellwork. Of all the different branches that have developed under the title of paganism, this is probably the one that calls to me the most, and if I ever leave my particular path it will be to Green Witchcraft that I turn. Amazon sells her books, so if you are interested go there and look them up, at the very least you can read a little bit of some of her books and decide for yourself if you are interested.
Anyway, back to Oghams. Oghams are named after the Celtic Deity named Ogma, the god of eloquence and learning. They are a very old form of divination and today are often grouped together with runes as they share a lot of the same qualities. Although their designs are now used as a type of alphabet, they were originally meant to represent sounds.
Okay, so Oghams are carved onto pieces of wood. It is actually very easy to make a set for yourself (though I'm sure you can purchase them online somewhere). They are engraved on small disks of wood. I recomend taking a branch from a tree that you find (find NOT cut) laying on the ground somewhere and sawing it into small disks. You will need at least 20 of them (I say at least because if you were to go out and purchase a set that's what it would contain, and they represet the twenty "letters" involved in ogham. But the link that I am going to provide will show five additional letters known as forfedha. They were added to the system at a later date, and not everyone uses them, you can make your own choice about how many you want). Next you are going to engrave the symbols for the Ogham alphabet (again I'll provide a link at the bottom of this that contains the alphabet) onto one side of the disk. Obviously if you have an engraver this task becomes much easier, but if you don't you can make do with a knife or other sharp object. Simple huh? When you have all twenty discs engraved I recomend you purify them, as you would with any magical tool (if you are a beginner and don't know how to purify something send me a message and I'll explain).
Ok, now each symbol corresponds to a tree. Remember this form of divination was used mainly by celts and druids so of course nature plays an important role. Okay to give you an example I'm going to use the website I will provide to give you the name of one of the symbols, which tree it corresponds to and what it's meanings are. You'll be able to look it up for yourself later.
Tinne (this is what I was talking about when I said they were first based on sound. the symbol itself is a line across, with three lines meeting it on a right angle on top of the line. Tinne is the sound it represents)
Tree-Holly
Month-June
Color-Dark Grey (not the color of the symbol as they are natural, just the color it is associated with)
Letter- T
Animal-War horse
and then it will give three meanings it represents in a reading.....mental, physical, and spiritual. Like Tarot cards, these can represent challenges you face, things you may need to work on, solutions to problems, and what not, depending on the reading you are doing.
Before you do a reading the most important step is to clear your mind. The best way to do this of course is to meditate. Use whatever form of meditation works best for you, but only when your mind is completely clear and free of your everyday problems do you throw, or cast the oghams. Now, for storing the oghams you are going to want to get a pouch. Like tarot cards the pouch is important to the set, so try to find one you will use specifically for the set. While you are meditating to clear your mind keep the oghams in the pouch, and when you are ready to do a casting (general at first, and then when you become more acquainted with the set you can focus on specific problems or questions) reach into the pouch and randomly chose three oghams. (anyone notice anything about the number three here? Each ogham represents three parts of yourself.....mental, spiritual, and physical, and now we are pulling out three oghams. There is a reason for this. The oghams are supposed to be working with your three types of consciousness, so everything you do with them involves threes. I could go deeper into this, but I'm trying to keep these short so I won't go into it here. Hopefully you all have worked a little bit with this, and if not maybe I'll do something about it at a later date.) Anyway, once you have your three oghams you can do one of two things. I've never actually had to describe this in writting so bear with me I'll do the best I can. You can either make a choice and drop them on the ground......having maybe the left-most one representing physical, the right-most one as mental, and middle as spiritual, or whatever you decide, and read only the mental interpretation for the ogham in that postion and so on.....or you can just drop them and read all the interpretations for each ogham and take out of it what you can. This will become easier for you the more you work with and get to know the oghams.
Like tarot cards there is no exact science behind a reading. You become better at reading them the more you work with them. And each person will tweak the readings according to what works best for them. While learning them (this is the same method I use to learn tarot cards) I will have them easily accessable, so that whenever I have a quiet moment I will reach into the pouch and pull one out and study it and it's meanings for a moment.
Besides readings I know that people will often use oghams to interpret dreams, and even as a kind of daily horiscope.....randomly chosing one in the morning and using it to guide them on their day, more specifically what they should be focusing or working on that day. I know I didn't really go into what each ogham represents or how to interpret that into a reading.....the link I will provide will cover what each one means, and as to interpretting them, I'm not going into that cause I think it is important for each person to come up with their own technique. If you get frustrated try to take a step back and let your subconscious guide you. Remember how important meditation is before you use the oghams, and if you get stuck close your eyes and focus on the symbol and see what you come up with.
Anyway, I could have gone into a lot more detail, but I tried to keep this short so as not to bore anyone. If you find you still have questions feel free to ask me, or try to find your answers on the web. I know there is some good information out there. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my little "lesson". Either way, please leave some feedback for me, and if you didn't like it let me know what you didn't like so I know what to work on next time. Thanks. ~Fallen~
Link to the meanings of each ogham.
members.tripod.com/~onespiritx/ogham00.htm
Link to a set of oghams you can buy is you don't feel like making your own.
www.celticart.com/rhune.html
My next blog will be about Parlor Tricks. Types of divination that are easy, quick, and a lot of fun if you want to liven up a party.
Now I'm going to go off on a little tangent here and talk about Green Witchcraft by Ann Moura. Her books are very informative, and if you find that you are interested in learning about the uses of herbs and you tend to focus alot on nature and natural magick then I strongly recomend her books. She writes for what she calls the Kitchen Witch, the everyday witch who uses everyday natural elements for studies and spellwork. Of all the different branches that have developed under the title of paganism, this is probably the one that calls to me the most, and if I ever leave my particular path it will be to Green Witchcraft that I turn. Amazon sells her books, so if you are interested go there and look them up, at the very least you can read a little bit of some of her books and decide for yourself if you are interested.
Anyway, back to Oghams. Oghams are named after the Celtic Deity named Ogma, the god of eloquence and learning. They are a very old form of divination and today are often grouped together with runes as they share a lot of the same qualities. Although their designs are now used as a type of alphabet, they were originally meant to represent sounds.
Okay, so Oghams are carved onto pieces of wood. It is actually very easy to make a set for yourself (though I'm sure you can purchase them online somewhere). They are engraved on small disks of wood. I recomend taking a branch from a tree that you find (find NOT cut) laying on the ground somewhere and sawing it into small disks. You will need at least 20 of them (I say at least because if you were to go out and purchase a set that's what it would contain, and they represet the twenty "letters" involved in ogham. But the link that I am going to provide will show five additional letters known as forfedha. They were added to the system at a later date, and not everyone uses them, you can make your own choice about how many you want). Next you are going to engrave the symbols for the Ogham alphabet (again I'll provide a link at the bottom of this that contains the alphabet) onto one side of the disk. Obviously if you have an engraver this task becomes much easier, but if you don't you can make do with a knife or other sharp object. Simple huh? When you have all twenty discs engraved I recomend you purify them, as you would with any magical tool (if you are a beginner and don't know how to purify something send me a message and I'll explain).
Ok, now each symbol corresponds to a tree. Remember this form of divination was used mainly by celts and druids so of course nature plays an important role. Okay to give you an example I'm going to use the website I will provide to give you the name of one of the symbols, which tree it corresponds to and what it's meanings are. You'll be able to look it up for yourself later.
Tinne (this is what I was talking about when I said they were first based on sound. the symbol itself is a line across, with three lines meeting it on a right angle on top of the line. Tinne is the sound it represents)
Tree-Holly
Month-June
Color-Dark Grey (not the color of the symbol as they are natural, just the color it is associated with)
Letter- T
Animal-War horse
and then it will give three meanings it represents in a reading.....mental, physical, and spiritual. Like Tarot cards, these can represent challenges you face, things you may need to work on, solutions to problems, and what not, depending on the reading you are doing.
Before you do a reading the most important step is to clear your mind. The best way to do this of course is to meditate. Use whatever form of meditation works best for you, but only when your mind is completely clear and free of your everyday problems do you throw, or cast the oghams. Now, for storing the oghams you are going to want to get a pouch. Like tarot cards the pouch is important to the set, so try to find one you will use specifically for the set. While you are meditating to clear your mind keep the oghams in the pouch, and when you are ready to do a casting (general at first, and then when you become more acquainted with the set you can focus on specific problems or questions) reach into the pouch and randomly chose three oghams. (anyone notice anything about the number three here? Each ogham represents three parts of yourself.....mental, spiritual, and physical, and now we are pulling out three oghams. There is a reason for this. The oghams are supposed to be working with your three types of consciousness, so everything you do with them involves threes. I could go deeper into this, but I'm trying to keep these short so I won't go into it here. Hopefully you all have worked a little bit with this, and if not maybe I'll do something about it at a later date.) Anyway, once you have your three oghams you can do one of two things. I've never actually had to describe this in writting so bear with me I'll do the best I can. You can either make a choice and drop them on the ground......having maybe the left-most one representing physical, the right-most one as mental, and middle as spiritual, or whatever you decide, and read only the mental interpretation for the ogham in that postion and so on.....or you can just drop them and read all the interpretations for each ogham and take out of it what you can. This will become easier for you the more you work with and get to know the oghams.
Like tarot cards there is no exact science behind a reading. You become better at reading them the more you work with them. And each person will tweak the readings according to what works best for them. While learning them (this is the same method I use to learn tarot cards) I will have them easily accessable, so that whenever I have a quiet moment I will reach into the pouch and pull one out and study it and it's meanings for a moment.
Besides readings I know that people will often use oghams to interpret dreams, and even as a kind of daily horiscope.....randomly chosing one in the morning and using it to guide them on their day, more specifically what they should be focusing or working on that day. I know I didn't really go into what each ogham represents or how to interpret that into a reading.....the link I will provide will cover what each one means, and as to interpretting them, I'm not going into that cause I think it is important for each person to come up with their own technique. If you get frustrated try to take a step back and let your subconscious guide you. Remember how important meditation is before you use the oghams, and if you get stuck close your eyes and focus on the symbol and see what you come up with.
Anyway, I could have gone into a lot more detail, but I tried to keep this short so as not to bore anyone. If you find you still have questions feel free to ask me, or try to find your answers on the web. I know there is some good information out there. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my little "lesson". Either way, please leave some feedback for me, and if you didn't like it let me know what you didn't like so I know what to work on next time. Thanks. ~Fallen~
Link to the meanings of each ogham.
members.tripod.com/~onespiritx/ogham00.htm
Link to a set of oghams you can buy is you don't feel like making your own.
www.celticart.com/rhune.html
My next blog will be about Parlor Tricks. Types of divination that are easy, quick, and a lot of fun if you want to liven up a party.
