Developing Rituals for a 2^nd House Full Moon

(please remember that this ritual occurs on my calendar to fit with my second house – If you like what I wrote here simply adjust the timing to fit your own second house)

The second house is the house of money and moveable property. It is a time to reflect on both personal values and to examine ones relationship to material possessions. Do they serve your needs or do you serve theirs.

Based on the above I sat down and made a list of possible things I could do for a second house ritual. The first thing I asked myself is what a logical animal totem might be. The answer to that question was actually very obvious since in Celtic and Nordic society the cow was the unit of moveable property. The cow also has very strong ties as a goddess symbol and since Taurus the bull rules the second house on the solar calendar it seem clear that this was the right answer for me.

From here I  asked what else there might be with a more personal second house symbolism (ie the fact that my second house is in Pisces rather than the solar Taurus). Again cows were an immediate answer.  It turns out that according to Irish myth   fairy cows come from the sea and will return to the Ocean if they’re not well treated and Manannan the Irish sea God had a heard of fairy cows.

Once I had my starting point it was time to do some more free thinking about exactly what the ritual might entail. Invoking the fairy cows for help in obtaining/maintaining my material resources was the first thing that occurred to me. I had also seen a cow bank in the Hallmark store that also gave me the idea of buying it and using it as a place where I put spare change which I then used for a special charity purpose (note: I didn’t buy the bank but I did establish the precedent of saving my lose change for a special animal related charity fund)

Another thought was to get 7 small cows (the kind at are about dime size that you can sometimes find in novelty stores). Each one of the cows could represent one of the seven directions (east, west, north, south, above, below and center) and that each one of them could serve as a focal point to draw money from all possible directions. I also considered getting 3 slightly larger cows (one red, one black and one white to represent the 3 cows of Ireland) and they could be used to represent the source of funds, the circulation of funds (know that money you spend is circulating in the rhythm of divine prosperity) and the savings of funds.

My next thoughts were on what the altar should look like. A green altar cloth seemed right rather than gold. This lead me down the path of thinking about the difference between dragon money spells (which are gold) and cow money spells which are green. (please note that this symbolism makes sense to me and is not meant to be construed as revealed wisdom J . ) A cow money spell is very good for maintenance and the gradual increase of what you already have. Dragon money spells on the other hand are more active and dynamic (and require real gold to work well), while cows think plain old green backed dollars are just fine.

That last thought gave me another idea. Instead of 3 cows or 7 cows you could grow and manage your own personal herd. Assuming you can find small cheap cows, you could get a cow for each of your major investments ( you would then might have cows named Magellen and Vanguard or Chrysler and Intel ). You would then add a new cow everytime you bought a new stock, retire an old cow if you sold an investment, or welcome a new calf if an existing fund grows appreciably.

If this sounds silly you don’t have to do it but there are some sound reasons to try this ritual. The first is that your subconscious understands cows a lot better than it understands stocks and bonds. The second is that it might make money management more of an enjoyable game. The third is that it might actually objectify some of the mysteries of money management. (I wish I had paid more attention to this myself last November. A stock tripled, I knew it was time to sell but I talked myself out of it. The stock then sank like a stone. If I’d been viewing it as a cow I never would have thought twice about selling)

Now back to other ideas; as I said earlier my second house is in the sign of Pisces which is a water sign. I asked myself what symbolism seemed appropriate for combining money and water. The first thing was that "money flowed like water". This is great imagery as long as you never perceive yourself as the source of the money. What also occurred to me was how effective water is on a "drip irrigation" basis. That a small amount of money saved regularly could water my life style very nicely.

Spend some time brainstorming ideas, making a note of everything that occures to you.  An idea that doesn't seem quite right this year might be very appropriate at some time in the future (or you can write it up and send it to the working witch so the rest of us can benefit J Rituals are like clothing. Sometimes they’re scarves that you’ll keep forever and continue to wear and sometimes they’re simply an annual fashion statement.  It's important that any ritual you perform has immediate meaning to you or else you're just going through the motions.

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Šall original material copyright: Freya Owlsdottir, 1986-1998