Jaywick Bands Of 1993, Plus Possible Twinning Jaywick, Essex, With St Ives In Cornwall?

St Ives, Cornwall, wealthy holiday seaside town, buffeted by Atlantic winds, artists on each corner and cliff top, selling work to tourists from galleries and exhibitions at every opportunity. A little gem of a place - a barnacled brush stroke, attracting property developers from other counties, buying up holiday lets around the area and rented at high prices through comfortable looking sunny companies - their properties displaying sun, sea and sun decks in vast quantities. Last year there was a proposition that only residents of St Ives should be allowed to buy property there as so many people from other areas were buying up holiday homes in the vicinity.

 Cornwall has also been popularised by the re-emergence of the Poldark series on TV. Yet I was reading that at the other end of the scale,there is heavy unemployment in Cornwall and that some children living on landlocked social housing estates in northern Cornwall have never even seen the sea as their parents cannot afford bus fare to the nearby coast!

At the other end of the scale Jaywick, in Essex, featured on TV in various 'real life' fly on the wall shows, portrayed  how a town of  holiday chalets built in the earlier Art Deco part of the 20th century,
had fallen in to a town of slums, albeit slums with a great deal of character, after the demise of the holiday industry in the 1970's.

I came across this 1993 fanzine featuring bands from Jaywick and nearby Clacton-On-Sea, last year. I thought it complimented the St Ives tourist tea towel. The Pippins (also featured) loved the idea.

Calling Up A Mermaid

There are various rituals for calling up mer people. Some are very simple. One (not shown here) just involves using three cups of water. This is not such a ritual.

The pictures show sea themed workings which are always done in good faith and for helpful purposes and as a celebration of the earth as a whole.

Pagan Pride, Little Dolls, Austin Osman Spare And More Ritual Work

We are supporters of Pagan Pride and we take time with out rituals and spell crafting. We like to work outside whenever possible' but sometimes this is not practical. We used to give clients video spells which they could watch over and over to build up power, but because that is very time consuming we now tend to provide photos. The two dolls above are made and put together (by consent) to perform an astral marriage.

Austin Osman Spare is credited with bringing sigillation, as shown in the top picture, in to main use in magick. However, it is true that forms of sigillation have been employed for centuries in one way or another in magickal craftings.

The Pippins,Baskerville And Misty Play Guitar

The doggies just love playing guitar - they find it incredibly relaxing. Baskerville enjoys howling along in accompaniment. The Pippins take a slightly more laid back approach and Misty takes music quite seriously. She wags her tail to keep time.

We actually do musical spells for clients. Music is a powerful connector to the Otherworld and the spirits. .

The Black Flame Of Truth And Wisdom

Black candles are useful for burning away negativity. they are best used on a Saturday, working with Saturn, the lead planet. Saturn works in a non rushed way so he slows things down.

Black candles can also be used in protection rituals. Far from being sinister, their uses are actually quite benign - for most of the time anyway!

The photos show a black candle brining. Oils can be used to dress the candle and other items can be used with the candle also.

If rituals are done outside - ants love to run off with bits of herb, so this is helping the eco system too!

Baskerville And Misty - Two New Dogs Joining The Crew

Baskerville was myself and my then partner's dog when we lived in a flat in Manningham in Bradford, back in the late 80's.  Manningham was, at that time, full of arty people - musicians, magicians, artists and weird and wonderful folk of all kinds. It was a dangerous place, essentially very near to a red light district, but still it was always possible to meet or talk to someone interesting who was contributing to the beauty of the world in general. This was prior to the Manningham riots, when many pubs, including one I used to work in, were burned out.

Baskerville was half Alsatian and half rottweiler, but looked exactly like a Doberman. In fact, everyone thought she was a Doberman. She was a present from my mother for safety when walking around Manningham. In fact, people really took to her and even wrote her name on a park bench.

One day when I came home from work, she wasn't there. My then partner said he had let her out and some men bundled her in to a van and stole her. To this day I don't know whether that is true or not.

Misty, a bearded collie, was my late brother's dog. She lived at his family home in Baildon, Shipley West Yorkshire, together with his wife and young daughter. Sometimes my brother would bring Misty round and I would take my little niece (in a rather cumbersome three wheeled, one handled pushchair) and Misty the dog out for a walk, so that my brother could have a good chat to our mom, undisturbed by child and dog!

These two are a new Baskerville and a new Misty who are joining the crew of the Pippins who appear in this blog.

Little Boodge - David Hockney Calendar

With David Hockey's 80th birthday coming up soon, or so I read in the paper, there will be special events taking place in Lister Park, Bradford, West Yorkshire, the city where David Hockney was born. A new Hockney Gallery has opened in Cartwright Hall in the middle of Lister Park, to mark the event.

However there has been a Hockney Gallery in Salt's Mill, Saltaire, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is literally only a few miles from Lister Park, for over 20 years.

Last December 2016, when I visited the Salt's Gallery, one of the assistants suggested I might like to buy this 1995 David Hockney calendar where the days are the same as the ones in 2017. Because it featured Hockney's dog 'Little Boodge' which he got in 1993, I purchased a copy of the calendar which is shown here. I don't use it though. It would seem weird putting up a 1995 calendar in 2017.