Month 12 Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement: Focus

9-27-13 Since Eros brought up that we'd focus on focus in movement, I've been paying more attention to everything I'm doing from exercising and eating to writing and business. By consciously focusing on what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, I've been able to more consciously interact with the movements of everything I'm doing. I've also been continuing to study movement, especially the movements that occur in any given situation. What I've observed is that everything is in motion and yet the motion creates stillness as well. The stillness is the realization of movement, which nonetheless also leads into more movement, which is potential stillness.

9-28-13 I'm taking part 1 of the Oak, Ash, and Thorn workshop that R. J. Stewart offers. It's been a good experience so far, and one where I'm getting a lot from the workshop. I've been given two symbols that relate to my current work. I've also been mediating about tress and how the roots of a tree extend to the underworld, while the branches of the tree extend to the celestial world and the trunk mediates the mixture of under and over world energy in order to manifest reality. What's fascinating is that the meditations have given me some really interesting ideas about where to take some of the movement work. I'm looking forward to seeing what day 2 brings.

10-2-13 It's been a few days since the workshop with RJ wrapped up. Today I made an offering to Hawthorn. I drove out to a place where I'd found Hawthorn leaves and did a brief prayer of thanks and then made the appropriate offering. I felt a brief sense of acceptance and that was that. I'll start work with the next tree tomorrow in my meditations.

As for the second day of the workshop...I got an idea for pop culture magic 2.0 based on a discussion RJ had about iconotropism, which basically involves the understanding of how icons evolve as cultures bring new tropes to them. We also got into a discussion about mediation and its role in magic. Having RJ's works I felt like the discussion shed further light on what mediation is as a principle of magic and how important it is to be open to being moved by what you work with, while also being able to mediate that for other people and even yourself. I also ended up connecting with Puck as an entity, to the point that I ended up mediating him as well as connecting with another entity, of which I wrote a poem/invocation. What interests me the most about Puck is that he's a gatekeeper of the cross roads, a door opener, which is something I intimately relate to in my own work. I found it even more interesting to realize that all of the entities/deities I work with on a prolonged basis also mediate energies of the cross roads, and I've also thought of myself as an opener of the ways (as well as having others indicate that about me as well). I got a third symbol and I need to spend some time working with these symbols.

Beyond all that I've been contemplating focus and its place or lack thereof in my life. I actually recognize that in some ways I have been very unfocused. That might sound odd to some people, but when I consider the last decade of my life, I see a lot of wandering, a lot of drifting. I'm okay with that because I needed it, but I'm also ready for it to end, and I've been giving a lot of thought to what I can be great at and how that can focus my efforts in whatever I'm doing.

10-3-13 I finished reading Good to Great last night and I woke up early this morning with a profound realization: I need to be great at what I'm called to do and what I'm called to do isn't the business coaching. What I'm called to do is the spiritual work, the writing, the classes, the coaching that I can offer through that particular medium. I've felt so scattered, so unfocused because I've tried to do too many things at the same time and because I've bought into limiting beliefs and fears about being an occult author and pursuing this work full time. Some of those limiting beliefs are my own, formed when I first started writing and felt that as an occult writer I'd never be able to make a living from it (obviously there are writers who can and have done it by offering more than just writing). But some of it also comes from other people who applied their own fears to me or showed me in one form or another that they felt I was a burden or a drain and that they didn't really believe in what I could do. The thing is I've lurched from business to business, trying to find something that makes me want to get up and get started with my day, and as I've done this I've learned certain lessons. I've learned that I prefer to be self-employed. I've also learned that I love working with people. And now I'm really taking to heart something a coach of mine said to me: You can't two chase two rabbits at the same time. I've been chasing two rabbits at the same time for a while now. I've got a publishing business I help run, I've got my writing and spiritual work, and I've got the business coaching, but what I've also got is a split in focus with not much getting done at all. I haven't really given myself over to any one thing.

I can't give up my writing or the magic. It's what I live, love, breathe, etc. It's my life, my work, my everything. And the publishing is part of that work, part of the spiritual calling I have, part of something I need to do for the sake of what that publishing represents. But the business coaching is something else. I like it and I'm good at it, but it doesn't call to me in the same way. It never has. It's also a giant time commitment. The amount of networking I do alone eats up so much time that a lot of days I don't feel like writing. I'm peopled out and just want to recharge.

I woke up this morning and I answered this question of what I can be great at, what I know I''m great at. I told Kat about it, laying it all out, the fears, the realizations, everything and she said to me: I support you completely. I believe in you completely. I know you are called to do this and I'm willing to support what you want to do. Hearing that and knowing it's true, knowing that what I really feel called to do is supported and believed in. This made me feel good. I'm ready to really pursue what I am called to do.

10-6-13 In my meditation today Bune came to visit and we had a long discussion about money habits. He pointed out that I needed to make some changes in lifestyle and really focus in on the long term vision of where Kat and I want to be. It's easy to get so caught up in now, but he's got a really good point and it really struck home to me, especially as he reviewed how I've handled my business money and made some suggestions on things I could change. After my work with him, I went to the crossroads and discovered that the next tree I need to work with is Oak. There's some interesting ideas I'll share eventually in a separate once I've connected with all the trees.

10-7-13 I'm reading Make Magic of your Life by T. Thorn Coyle. She makes an interesting about obsession and how it consumes you. My own experiences with obsession certainly validate that perception of it, whereas she considers desire to be something that runs deeps and speaks to what we really want. Working with desire is uncovering what we really want and making it part of our lives, while obsession is running from what we want, getting lost in something, but not being honest about what we really want from it. When I apply this to myself, I see the obsession show up in my relationships and the driving need I've felt to fill up the emptiness within myself. I still feel that on occasion and I'm still figuring out as a result what my desires are and what my obsessions are, but as I've learned to mediate the emptiness and not run from it, its made it easier for me to focus in on doing this internal work and helping me uncover my desires, while also letting the obsessions go.

10-10-13 The past half week has really drawn my awareness to the fact that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to focus. While I manage to get a lot done, I can be fairly scattered in my approach to work and life. I think in some ways I've been scattered because I've been focused on several different directions. That and realizing how much networking I've been doing and how exhausted I am from it. I'm realizing how much of an introvert I am and this in turn has helped me see how much I need to focus my efforts toward my projects and writing over anything else.

10-16-13 Since I last wrote in this entry I've been examining my focus or lack thereof and come to a few conclusions. I've decided to cut back on networking events for the business coaching, and I've also decided to only check e-mail and social media twice a day. Implementing these actions has already made me feel better and more focused than I was before. I'm getting to some of the writing I've been wanting to do and even planning a class for some time in the future. It's funny how certain situations have to come to a flash point where the arrival at such a point forces you to evaluate what you're doing and how you're doing it and provides you a way to make changes that frees up some of the mental and emotional space you were investing elsewhere.

10-18-13 One of the most important lessons I've learned is that acting on impulse can create a lot of problems. Since the realization I had a few weeks ago about what I'm great at, I've really just focused on thinking about what actions to take, which I've written about above, but ultimately I came to the conclusions that tossing the baby out with the bathwater (i.e. stopping business coaching altogether) isn't a good idea. I do like business coaching, and what I realized I really needed was to evaluate my time and refocus on the writing, but still keep the business coaching, because it is a business that is continuing to grow.

I've always been an impulsive person and it has rarely served me in a good way. My impulsiveness has seen me make life decisions that I've ultimately regretted because they put me in situations where I ended up more miserable than anything else. So spending some time really thinking about my choices and what I want to do has been really helpful and a useful application of focus. I don't need to be scattered and floundering every which way. I've done enough of that already, but being focused and really being present with a given decision...that's something I'm going to keep doing.

10-19-13 Writing is its own magic, a feeling of flow and creative application that turns into manifestation and action on the part of writer and reader. When I write and I am really into it, it feels like the heart of the universe has opened up to me and revealed its secrets, allowing me to be a medium that in turn shares those secrets with anyone willing to read the words I share. Writing brings me to life in a way that almost nothing else does (only magic makes me feel the same). Writing is a reality in and of itself, an altered state of consciousness and identity that causes the rest of the world to fade away in the clatter of keys and the connection to the creative urge that speaks the words of the universe through me.

10-21-13 It's my birthday. I am 37 today, the age my parents were when I was born. That's a bit mind blowing in and of itself. This last weekend Kat took me to Astoria for as a birthday gift. We visited the Flavel House, Cultural Museum, and the Jail where they filmed the opening scenes of the Goonies. Each place was interesting in its own way. At the Flavel house, both Kat and I felt the presence of the ghosts on the property. The town itself is an interesting place with a lot of history.

On Sunday, when we got back, we went for a walk and made offerings to Oak, Ash, and Thorn, followed by the offering  make to Dragon. I felt a bit frustrated in regards to the trees, because I'd had trouble identifying them, so Kat pointed out that I just needed to let myself feel as opposed to think about them and she was quite right. I'd been too busy intellectualizing them. This morning, when I meditated, I let myself reach out to them and I connected to them. They told me the symbols I'd gotten during the weekend workshop were symbols I could use in the space/time magic work I'm doing, and were also meant to help me connect with them. I'm going to meditate on those symbols over the next couple of days.

Usually at this time of year, on this day of my birth I transition from one element to another. I've chosen this time around to stick with the element of movement for another year. There's a lot more for me to experience with that element and I'm open to discovering whatever it is I learn.

Happy Birthday to me!

Pop Culture Magic/Geekomancer survey

I came across the survey below via S. Rune Emerson's post on Pagansquare and thought I'd answer it as well. The idea was originally taken and adapted from asksecularwitch on Tumblr. I would guess that I'd be considered a geekomancer, given my interest in pop culture magic, so I'm answering the survey in that vein.

1. As a Geekomancer or Practitioner of Geekomancy/pop culture magic, where do your moral and ethics come from?

Primarily they come from my own experiences. It's fair to say that I take a situational approach to morals and ethics. I see situations as shades of gray and act accordingly. All that said, I do have some definite boundaries about what I won't do, and as I've continued to do a lot of meditation and internal work, I've found that the chaos in my life has diminished a lot, so I favor applying more proactive approaches to handling situations and recognizing my role in said situations so I can take appropriate responsibility.

2. Is it hard to interact with people who don't relate to the geekomantic/pop culture magic practices?

It can be when it comes to pop culture magic. While that's not the only type of magic I practice, and I have an extensive foundation in Western and Far Eastern spiritual practices, I find that with pop culture magic you either have people who love it and respond well to it (thankfully much more now) or you have people who get bent out of shape and feel it's a threat to their spiritual practices or try to put it down as something which isn't serious magic. For the most part, I avoid interacting with the latter type of people because they already figure they know everything (thus their dogmatism and need to attack something different) and any argument with me is just going to be an exercise in futility for all involved.

3. Have you had any problems with being a Geekomancer/pop culture magic [such as people being aggressive to you because you're a geek]?

On occasion, mainly when dealing with dogmatic people who think they know everything about magic. Otherwise, it hasn't been an issue. I did go trough a love/hate period with pop culture magic, due in large part to the hostile reactions I got toward it, but I've come to realize that what matters is that what I do works and that I'll find other people who want to share in it, if they feel called to it.

4. What is your opinion on what constitutes "magical orthodoxy?"

Hmmm...I think magic practice can be perceived as a process and if you understand the process, i.e. how magic works, you can apply it to anything you want to draw on. The key is to recognize that the props are merely window dressings, and the real process is what you actually do with magical work.

5. How do you interact [if at all] with more 'traditional' or culturally-accepted spirits and gods?

I have some interaction with a few such beings and we seem to get along fine. I treat them with respect, much as I'd like to be treated.

6. Where are the origins of your practice?

I wanted to practice magic since I was 7 or 8 and first began reading fantasy. Eventually I discovered magic was real and I started experimenting with it. My experiences form the basis of my practice, but they are also informed by my studies and interests. I'd have to say that Raistlin from Dragonlance is part of the origin of my practice. I always resonated with his character and what that character went through, and why magic is so important. I felt and feel the same way to this day.

7. What are the big items that you practice within your practice [example: Divination, Spellwork, Herbalism, Spirit Work, etc] and how do you deal with them on a fundamental level as a Geekomancer?

Meditation, practical magic (sorry I don't do spells), entity work. And ow I deal with them...I make it a part of my everyday life.

8. Have you met other magicians like you?

There's a couple of people I've met in person who have a similar interest in pop culture magic, and a larger amount online as well. That said, it's few and far between, and when you add in my other interests such as space/time magic or Inner alchemy, it becomes even smaller. I'm a pioneer of experimental magical practice, but its good to see more pop culture magicians.

9. Do you have any core doctrines, practices, or principles that you work through? [Such as: Using X gemstones because Y, for example]

I treat magic as a process, and I'd say that informs everything else I do. In that process can be found the principles of magic. My approach to magic is methodical, and that kind of thinking is what really makes my practice what it is.

10. How long have you been practicing Geekomancy, pop culture magic vs Any Other Type of Magic [assuming you've practiced more than Geekomancy]?

I've been practicing pop culture magic since 1995, which is just two years after I started practicing magic. I started sharing my work in 1997 and eventually wrote Pop Culture Magick in 2003 (published 2004).

11. How do you view concepts like the soul, ghosts, afterlife, etc?

I don't really care to be honest. I've had enough near death experiences that I know there's something on the other side, but I figure it'll be important when I'm dead.

12. Is there are particular location that you practice in and what are the reasonings for that?

I do magic anywhere, because it is everywhere.

13. Compared to others [either who have answered this survey or who you've met] what is your feelings on others who practice Geekomancy/pop culture magic? It makes me happy to see other people practicing pop culture magic and it makes me feel vindicated that i'm right that pop culture magic is a viable form of magical practice.

Bonus: What comes to mind when I say: "Balloon"?  Loud scrunchy noises, hot air, and bright colors. Pop!

How being great defines my spirituality

I recently finished reading Good to Great (review below). It's a book about what makes some businesses great, but as with anything else you can apply the principles in the book to your spiritual work. As I've been reading this book, I've been thinking a lot about what I'm great at, about what I can do that not just anyone else can do and I recommend reading the book and asking yourself the same question, because you may find that it changes your life, work, and spiritual practices...or it may just confirm something you already know, but give you a different perspective on it.

I think that asking yourself what you can be great at can define your spiritual work as well as your practical life. When you ask yourself what you can be great at spiritually what you are really doing is focusing on what brings you to life, when it comes to spiritual matters. For example if you identify as a reconstructionist, perhaps what you are great at is identifying with, researching, and implementing practices from a spiritual tradition that speaks to you with its values and practices. I'd argue that what you identify with, what you feel called to defines what you can be great at.

I feel called to experiment. I identify myself as an experimenter, and for me its what brings the greatest joy to my spiritual practice. It's what makes great as a magician, because I've recognized that my identification with experimentation makes me great. It's what makes my spiritual path thrive, and it provides me a deep seated sense of connection to magic because I recognize how it fits in with my passion and my curiosity. Reading Good to Great just helped me understand that even more because I recognize that what I am great at is experimenting with magic, experimenting with different perspectives, methodologies, etc. What makes you great with your spiritual practice?

Book Review: Good to Great by Jim Collins

This is a must read book that will change more tan just how you run your business. It will change your life, because it will ask you a tough question: What can you be great at? In this book the author explores what makes some businesses "good" and makes other businesses great. What he reveals is that businesses who know what they are great at and focus on that to the exclusion of everything else are the businesses that become great because they understand their core value and culture. They make themselves great because they are so focused on what they can be great at, that they make it the entire purpose of their work and lives. They define their core values and let those values inform everything they do. This is a book that will help you understand how to be great at your business or your life for that matter. The case studies and principles they explore show how some businesses become great and why they stay great. Buy this book and read it because it will change your perspective on business and life.

Some Thoughts about Oaths and Offerings

This last weekend I attended a weekend workshop by RJ Stewart and Anastacia Nutt which is the Oak, Ash, and Thorn workshop for Faery work. I highly recommend their classes if you are wanting to learn more about magic in general as well about working with the Faery. In any case, they made some interesting points about oaths and offerings, which I want to share, as well as my own considerations of what was said. I've included pictures of my finished dragon tattoo, which is an offering I made to Dragon to honor his role in my life.

In regards to oaths, RJ noted that the stereotypical treatment of oaths is that when an oath is made, if its broken dire consequences occur and that it's implied its entirely on you to honor the oath. However he offered a different perspective on oaths, wherein an oath should be made in good faith, but that both parties need to do their part to honor the oath. In other words, if I make an oath to a particular spirit or deity, it's both on me and the deity to honor the oath. He said that the effort should be 50% from both sides. Not only did I find this to be a much more sensible explanation of oaths, but I also think there's some value to approaching oaths in that way. If an oath is entirely on the head of the person giving the oath, then there is an imbalance already involved because who or whatever the oath is being made to is expecting everything and providing nothing. On the other hand if the deity is also contributing to the upholding of the oath, then what occurs is a genuine relationship. I don't think I've come across an explicit explanation such as what RJ offers, but I find his explanation to make the most sense and certainly to be a better one than the stereotypical definition offered about oaths.

In regards to offerings, RJ noted that the reason spirits want food is because they get something back from our process of manifestation. The spirits can't cook food, are responsible for the initial growing process. However when we cook food we are doing something they can't do and changing the nature of the food, and this provides them a kind of sustenance or energy as a result. He recommends making an offering a week, and suggests moderation in this practice. Again this is something which makes sense to me and I like his approach to this particular practice. I have been integrating offerings into my daily work via the form of a prayer of thanks, but his suggestions about offerings are ones I'm also going to integrate.

I recognize that other people have their own perspectives on offerings and oaths, but I find that RJ's perspectives are what resonate with me, and I think it is important to discover and recognize how a given principle of magic manifests in your life. It may manifest differently for you than it would for others, or you may find that one definition makes more sense than another. Different people will have different perspectives on what works and why it works...the key is to find your own and understand and implement it.

Definitions and sense of self as intersections of identity

I'm reading Thinking in New Boxes.  It's a good book, and I know this because it's gotten me thinking along some interesting vectors. In Thinking in New Boxes, the author explains how there's no such thing as thinking outside the box. He claims we all think in boxes and even if we get outside of one box, we're still thinking in another box, because of we use "boxes" to define and explain the world around us. Essentially, boxes are labels, definitions, models, etc., for helping us navigate and understand our experiences. He makes an interesting point when he notes, "To make sense of all these disparate inputs (stimuli, elements, events, etc.,) your mind either relies on preexisting categories that it has already created or, if none of those categories fits the present reality, it generates new ones." And what this prompted me to realize is that categorizations also can apply to a person's sense of self, and thus create intersections of identity.

Part of this realization also comes from something else the author said, namely that in order to deal with complicated aspects of real life we need to use "boxes" in order to compartmentalize those aspects. This compartmentalization creates an intersection of identity, where the "box" is used to shape an identity that handles what's in the box. So for example, you have a job identity, which is different from your romance identity. Both of these identities exist in you and can even come to the fore at the same time, but typically one will be more prevalent than another based on the environment you are in, as well as whatever stimuli you're dealing with at the time. The reason we come up with different identities is to handle the boxes, but also because it allows us to switch off when we go into another situation which calls for another identity to come to the fore.

So this is taking me in some interesting directions, because I'm also thinking about definitions and how they are used to define a perceived reality according to the agenda of the definer. When we add in the above idea, what we come up with as well is that definitions don't just define a perceived reality, but also the identity of the person using the definition. In other words, definitions define the person as much as they define whatever is being defined. This might seem like a bit of a stretch, but consider that part of the agenda for a definition is that it not only defines something, but also defines a person's interaction with that thing, and by extension the identity of the person. In this sense then a definition becomes an intersection of identity, both the identity of the definer, and the identity of the people who use the definition, as well as the definition in and of itself.

For magical work, this intersection of identity and definition can be useful for exploring how particular identities are formed and sustained as well as how they can be modified. If we can consider that definitions are a categorization of not only ideas, but also identity, then whatever definitions we use need to be chose carefully, and in fact this may be why it's better to develop our own definitions. At the same time, we can also explore the identity of the person or people who developed the definitions and better understand why they chose to define something in the way they did. This understanding can help us in the formation of our own identities as well as the definitions we use, and make the magical work more meaningful.

Why Service to your community is an integral part of spiritual work

When we talk about magic and spiritual work, most of the time the focus is on a person's journey into his/her spirituality, but I think that another component of a person's spiritual work is the service you engage in with the community around you. That service can involve the Pagan community you are apart of, but I also think it should include service to the larger community that you are apart of. Service to the community is an integral part of your spiritual work because it provides you a way to give to the community. And service doesn't need to be complicated. It could involve working at a soup kitchen or donating some time to a nonprofit that you believe in, but regardless of what you, why you are doing it is because you feel a call to serve your community.

I also think that this call to be of service can be applied to your profession. As the managing non fiction editor of Immanion Press, one of the things I've focused on is how I can use the press to serve the community. One of the missions that I've set for Immanion Press is that we publish books on issues that need to be addressed in the Pagan community, but aren't being addressed overtly. For example Women's Voices in Magic was published because I felt it important to have an anthology that strictly represented what women had to offer on magic. Similarly Shades of Faith is anthology which focuses on Pagans of color speaking about their experiences in the Pagan community. Immanion Press will be publishing  new anthology called Rooted in the Body, Seeking the Spirit later this year which focuses on people with disabilities sharing their experiences in the Pagan community. Each of these anthologies were put together because I saw a need to focus on these topics.

In each case, I found someone to edit the anthology who was qualified to edit it and could do an excellent job of reaching out to their respective communities. I recognized as a white male that while I saw a need for each of these anthologies and could hep them get published, I wasn't the one to edit them. Instead as part of my service to the community I needed to find the right person who could edit the anthology and who would feel a similar passion for the anthology that I felt. I also recognized that I could help set up the circumstances, but I needed to step away, provide enough support to help each editor, but also let them run the project their way. This showed them that I respected their work and the work with the people they were working with. I think that Brandy Williams, Crystal Blanton, and Tara Masery Miller all demonstrate that passion in their respective anthologies.

What I love the most is hearing how each of these anthologies empowered the people who wrote for them and helped to facilitate and promote much needed conversations in the Pagan community. The anthologies are a way that Immanion Press can serve the community, and it has even helped to get some of the people to continue writing and sharing. To me, while Immanion Press is a publisher that publishes books, it's also a publisher willing to publish work that might be edgy and controversial because it gets conversations to happen and raises awareness about issues that the Pagan community needs to address to continue to evolve.

Publishing is a passion of mine, but part of that passion is informed by my desire to serve the community I am apart of. For me, one the best ways I can serve the Pagan community is no only publish my own work, but empower other people to write their books, in their voice, to their audience. And what really excites me is helping to publish the anthologies and other works that promote discussion about issues in our community that might otherwise not be focused on as overtly. Publishing is part of my spiritual work, because the books we publish are for the Pagan community, and so I see it as a form of service. I don't make a salary for the work I do for Immanion Press, and what little I do get paid amounts to pennies for hours of work, but why I'm doing isn't for the pay, but rather for the opportunity to help people share their words with the audience that needs to read them. In doing so I serve a part of my spiritual calling. And I think that informs a lot of my approach to magic as a result, because it's not just about my journey, but other people's journeys.

Why doubt can be healthy for our spiritual work

Peter Dybing shared an intriguing post about Doubt and True Belief the other day. I think he makes a good point about doubt, namely that doubt is a healthy feeling to cultivate. I've always believed in cultivating doubt in my own practice, because I recognize that doubt can provide me the necessary skepticism needed to take apart whatever process I'm engaged in, to discover if that process is working or if I need to adjust it and improve on it.

When we don't cultivate doubt, but instead believe without question, what we lose is an awareness of the world around us. We become tunnel visioned, and embrace a very filtered reality, one which conforms to what we wish reality would be. The question is, is such a filtered reality good for us, and in my experience it isn't. The reason is because a filtered reality causes you to only see what you want to see, instead of truly being aware of what's around you.

It could be argued that magic presents person with a filtered reality, but I think that only applies when the magician is so fixated on the result that s/he fails to really examine what s/he is doing with critical awareness. Critical awareness is the ability to examine what you are doing or anything else and ask why. When we don't ask why, we are allowing ourselves to buy into with blind faith. With doubt, you can still have faith, but be able to critically examine it and acknowledge whether it is really working for you or against you. Cultivate doubt as a tool that keeps you sharp and focused with your magical work.

Book Review: Magical Knowledge Book 1 Foundations by Josephine McCarthy

This is a solid 101 book which provides sound advice about the realities of magic and some of the dangers that can occur whether you are new to magic or have been practicing it for years. While I occasionally disagreed with the author about experimentation or other such topics, I did agree overall with her points and cautions. The book has a few practical exercises in it, which are useful to practice, especially in terms of making contact with inner connections, but I'd really recommend this book as a must read before you even practice magic. If you still want to practice after you read this book and do the exercises in it, then at least you are forewarned and armed accordingly.

Why a regular practice trumps occasional reactive magic

Jason Miller recently shared a post about a taxonomy of his magical practice and made the point that regular magical practice is better than doing occasional magic. I agree with him, and find that if anything the occasional use of magic tends to be more reactive, done as a response to a situation, whereas a regular practice is a recognition that magic is lived, not just done for convenience. Magic is lived when you make it a regular part of your life. Jason's also correct in noting that a daily practice can remove a lot of the need for doing reactive magic. From my own experiences, the need to do reactive magic has significantly decreased because a daily practice has helped me recognize my own role in those situations and allowed me to work on those issue and fix so that problems don't arise as frequently.

Like Jason, I'd have to say that meditation is the foundation of my daily practice, and is essential for smoothing my life out, because meditation is what allows me to do the internal work that is used to grind the dross of my life into something better. I do meditation every day because it makes life better, focuses me, and allows me to recognize and work on the issues and baggage I bring to the table. By doing such work, the chaos in my life has decreased because I'm facing the root causes on my own end. Meditation has all been useful for strengthening connections with inner contacts and spirits that I work with.

However meditation may not be what you want to do. There's other practices you can do that can still be part of a daily practice. For example, you could recite a mantra or burn a candle and do some kind of magic with that. Or you could do a magical working like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram each day. When I first started practicing I did magical workings, where I vocalized the names of God and later did energy work with the chakras. Jason also has some good suggestions for daily practice on his blog post.

You can also do more than one practice. I do meditation, but I also do energy work each day. The point is that you are doing something which focuses your magical work and opens you to experiencing the spiritual world each day as a regular part of your practice. By making magic a part of your everyday life you are making it a part of your life, as opposed to just doing it when you really need something. The problem with doing it when you really need something is that sometimes it won't work the way you hoped, because you don't necessarily have the spiritual oomph to make it happen. Daily practice, much like daily exercise is a building up and toning of your spiritual power and it teaches you how to focus it so that when you really need it, the magic comes through for you.

Vanity as a form of pop culture magic

One of the aspects of social media which really fascinates me is how much it appeals to the vanity that many people have. Facebook is a prime example, wherein people will post a variety of pictures of themselves, as well as various things associated with themselves such as pictures of the food they are eating, activities they are doing, etc., often for an audience of people who they don't even know in person. You see similar variants on sites such as Google + and Twitter. And what you'll also see is that a lot of people will end up feeding the vanity of a given person by liking the photos and/or commenting on them. You see this vanity occur also when people share text updates about activities they are doing. Other people will like the update and sometimes comment. And all of this activity creates a kind of vanity magic in my mind, where what people are interacting with is an idealized version of the person who's updates and pictures they are liking and commenting on. I say idealized because whatever is presented to people is purposely chosen and creates a filter. What we see and read is presented to us and craft's a particular image, which may not be "real" but nonetheless becomes a reality in and of itself, and an entity in its own right.

I've seen this principle of vanity employed over the years with celebrities and other authors. For that matter, in my own way I've used this principle as well, because the truth is that no matter what I present on here or else where, it will always be filtered and biased. Social media may offer an illusory belief that we can share an unfiltered perspectives of ourselves, but think carefully about your own social media interactions. What are you really presenting?

This principle of vanity has been in effect for far longer than social media, but social media makes it blatant. And consequently the magician can also experiment with such vanity. For example, I've purposely chosen to write fictitious status updates on my Facebook timeline for the purposes of creating a vanity narrative about myself. Recently I've observed someone else who has chosen to take pictures from her list of friends and use a picture of a friend as her Facebook avatar, again as a way of experimenting with the vanity principle.

I think you can take it even further. You can purposely create this persona of yourself with specific pictures chosen and text written that creates an alterego of sorts. It could be the creation of the person you wish you could be, or it could be something else altogether, with the comments and likes received used to not only fuel the existence of this alterego, but also it's connection with you and how you become it and vice versa. Then this vanity becomes an identity magic used to establish a new identity for yourself. In fact, I'd argue that what social media really presents to people is an opportunity to re-create their own identity within in an environment of participation, where other people's interactions help to shape the new identity being formed through social media actions. I see this kind of vanity as a form of pop culture magic, where technology and audience participation and interaction is used to create the social identity and reality of the person.

The picture I've included in this post is a picture of me circa 1998, at State College. I present it with a sense of amusement, as much of my image has changed and yet hasn't changed. The past presents its own vanity, its own persona, all of which feeds into this social identity/reality. In fact, when you think about it, what social media has really done is allowed us to connect our past and present images and commentary to the internet and injected all of that into the superconsciousness of humanity, in a much more conscious way than had previously occurred. The reality of our identities are mediated now as much by the audience all of us have as by our own attempts.

Why I'm an idea generator

Every so often I look at the reviews people leave about my books. One of the comments that I see on occasion is that my work is great for idea generation. The reviewers, I think, wish my work wasn't so oriented toward idea generation, because I get the sense that the comment is not a compliment, so much as a criticism. Regardless of what the comment really is or isn't, I actually take it as a compliment. I've never wanted to write spellbooks or anything else that smacks of me holding the hand of someone else and walking them through how to do something. I didn't learn magic in that way. I learned it by reading, practicing what I learned, and then generating ideas about what I could do, and it's my hope that my work provides the same inspiration.

Now I realize some people want something different. They want someone to hold their hands and help them understand how to do something. And that's an expectation that readers should have for a 101 book on magic or Paganism. But when it comes to an intermediate to advanced book on magic (which I consider all of my work to be) the expectation should naturally change to one where its understood that the reader is reading the book to get ideas about where they can take their magical practice. While I always include exercises in my books for a person to do (and I hope they do them), what I'm really presenting is where my own work has taken me and providing suggestions on how someone can take my work and extend it further. I want to help people generate ideas, which is why I also emphasize the importance of experimenting with magic and being your own authority.

Even in classes I teach, while I certainly teach a technique, I want people to come away with ideas of their own about what they could do or how they could do something. Generating ideas for people allows them to make what they're learning something that becomes personalized. It becomes their own magical technique, instead of something taught to them by someone else. When you make something your own, you understand it in a way that is distinct from whatever you were taught. You learn it from your own experience, and without the filters and biases bring into whatever they are teaching.

I never had a magical teacher, beyond two very brief stints that didn't work out. I read books, but I was always reading them with an eye toward how I could take the concepts and make them my own. Perhaps if I'd been taught by someone my books would be less oriented toward idea generation, but I think my readers would be poorer for it. Idea generation is a good thing because it indicates that the real value you are finding in the writing is the ideas you are getting from it, as opposed to whatever instruction is provided. I say read to teach yourself. The writing is just a platform to bounce ideas off of.

My latest article on Pagansquare explains why the question of why is so important in magical work.

Why I'm careful about what I read

 

I've become very selective about what I read, both in terms of enjoyment and in more practical terms of inspiration. I was thinking that the other day as I was looking at a variety of blog posts from other people on the web. To be honest, I don't read many of the other blogs of other magicians, and even the few I do read, I read infrequently, because I'm selective about what I'm putting into my head. At a certain point, I think that if you oversaturate yourself with the thoughts and ideas of other people you cut yourself off from a very vital part of yourself, which is your own imagination and creativity.  Your imagination and creativity need some access to other material as a way of inspiring them, but too much ends up dulling them. That's true not just of books, but any form of media. At a certain point too much exposure dulls you because it fits you with preconceived ideas of how something ought to be done, as handed down by various "authorities."

One of the criticisms I received about Pop Culture Magick was that the examples I drew on didn't include any of Grant Morrison's works or Neal Gaiman's works. I thought it was a rather odd criticism, until I realized that the critics were applying their expectations of pop culture onto me. What they didn't realize is that I had never read any of Morrison's or Gaiman's work and I had no interest in reading their works. Yes, those works are popular to a good number of occultists, but for me they weren't of any interest. I've since read a bit of both authors' works and even now I don't find it that interesting for me to explore further because it's not where I draw my inspiration from. I recognize that other people are inspired by those authors, but what inspires me is different and that's fine by me.

Your inspiration is something which has to be cultivated carefully. A few years back I killed my inspiration, in part due to life situations, but also because I was reading far too much information and not giving myself time to process it or really appreciate its relevance. Eventually I did get that time and afterwards my inspiration came back, but it was because I took a break from reading the books I was reading. Even now I regularly take breaks from whatever I'm reading so that I can process what's already been read and consider its relevance in my life, particularly by applying it.

Feed your mind carefully with what really interests you, but don't let it get distracted by the minutiae of other people's ideas or approaches to that interest. They have their inspiration, and it's worthy of respect, but respect your own as well and choose carefully what you'll read. You want to draw on what's meaningful to you, but you also want to give yourself time to savor it and apply it. By giving yourself that gift you will better appreciate what you do read and you'll be more selective because whatever you draw on has to be something that is relevant to those interests. By extension, this same caveat also applies to what you do, specifically in terms of other people approaching you about participating in their projects. I get a fair amount of people who want me to weigh in on their ideas or participate in their projects and I tend to not get involved because I'm working on my own projects and have enough to do their, but also because I want to cultivate my own creativity and inspiration by focusing on what my own interests and projects are.

The value of irrational thinking

I've been playing the re-mastered version of Ducktales lately. It's a game which brings back fond memories of my childhood. On one of the levels, the miners are afraid of sounds coming from the mine, so they leave. Scrooge insists that there is a rational explanation and eventually gets to the bottom of the mine, where he discovers a race of underground dwellers who've been causing the noise. Afterwards he tells his nephews how there was a rational explanation for everything, at which point one of them dryly observes that a race of people in the Earth who don't like diamonds is a perfectly explanation. I thought it was an interesting point to make, especially as I'm currently reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, which explores just how prevalent irrational behavior is.

Rational thinking is a bit overblown in my opinion. We use rational thinking to explain why we've chosen to undertake a particular action or made a decision, and conveniently ignore the emotional, irrational factors that play a role in our decision making process. And while there might be a rational explanation for everything, it doesn't necessarily mean that explanation is the best explanation out there. There's a presumption that being irrational is bad or that it makes you less in control of a given situation, but I'd argue that what irrationality can provide are alternative explanations that may not overtly make sense, but nonetheless provide a different way to view a given situation and can actually help you find solutions to your problems. It may not be a rational solution, but why stick with rationality?

In one sense, I think the reason rationality is so prized is because it's perceived as a negation of everything that doesn't conform to a neat little package of the universe. Rational thinking has an explanation for everything, or promises that it will, and those explanations will be packaged in a nice safe way that makes sense to everyone. Irrationality isn't necessarily safe. It embraces the unknown and explores the possibilities that the answers may not be known or may not fit conventional thinking. Irrational thinking embraces the validity of believing in spirits as being a reasonable (if not rational) explanation.

I'm not much for rational thinking because I've never found it to be as useful as some people portray it. A lot of my work has come from being deliberately irrational and using the irrational perspectives to gain insight into what I'm working on. I think rational thinking has its time and place, but so does irrational thinking! Embrace irrationality for the possibility of unusual perspectives and non-rational solutions. And explore irrational thinking so that you can understand how you already engage in it, and thus can makes changes in that thinking, if you so desire.

Month 10 Elemental Balancing Ritual - Movement grains of sand

7-25-2013 I had a realization this morning, as I was driving to a business meeting. I felt this profound sense of being loved by Kat, and allowing myself to feel comfortable with being loved by Kat. I realized I'd never been comfortable with being loved. Being loved was a surrender of control, a surrender to being vulnerable, a surrender to allowing someone else to touch me deeply. It's not something I've ever been comfortable with from anyone, but today as I drove to this meeting, I felt comfortable with being loved, and accepting that someone could love me as deeply as Kat does. It was so moving and yet so still. I am loved and I can accept that love.

7-30-2013 Something I've always struggled with is expressing what I'm feeling. Early on, I learned to keep what I felt to myself, because if I expressed it, I got punished for it. By keeping it to myself, I shut myself off from my emotions, and even though I've gotten better about expressing what I'm feeling, it's still a challenge, especially if I'm expressing something which I know will make someone unhappy. I've learned though that it's better to express myself and deal with the emotions, instead of pretending that they aren't there. While the immediate response may not be one where the person is thrilled with me, if they are willing to communicate with me, eventually will reach a place of resolution. Reminding myself of that is what gives me the courage to open up and express myself instead of continuing to keep myself locked down.

7-31-13 I saw the film Kon Tiki tonight, which is a biographical film about the Kon Tiki expedition. I was inspired, touched, motivated by this film, by this simple truth that just because something is controversial doesn't mean you should give up or stop believing in what you are doing. Too often people are willing to settle for mediocrity, for whatever is taken for granted and not challenged. And yet it is only when we are willing to challenge what is established that we can determine if it even still has value or is just dragging us back. I suppose this is one reason I've always bucked dogma, because if you hold to dogma and never question it, it becomes rote doctrine, which leads to close minded fanaticism. Such fanaticism does little to benefit the world, and much more to harm it.

8-2-13 I'm seeing a lot of clearing away in my business coaching practice. Clients are wrapping up and I'm getting some movement, time, etc., just cleared away for me. Part of me worries. The rest of me sees it as an opportunity to work on the writing, while also training myself to be better at what I love to do.

8-6-13 With internal work you go through cycles and cycles of work. You have realizations about yourself or the world only to cycle down further into the mental strata and have deeper realizations that nonetheless are the same. This is part of doing the work and part of realizing that such work isn't automatically done, but instead is experienced as a recurring process that gradually leads you to a place of greater awareness and conscious change. You can have the same realization several times over and yet it can be something which speaks to you in a different way each time.

8-8-13 Lately I've been having some memories come up, sensations really, but ones that are triggering in an unpleasant way. I've been doing some internal work around these sensations. It's not that I necessarily want to feel the sensations, but rather that I want to understand why they are even coming up in the first place. The answer, so far, is that likely I'm experiencing a partially blocked memory from my early childhood (I think) of possible molestation. I'm continuing to work with it, because while it might be easier to just let it remained block, it also ends up creating an energetic blockage that I don't want to sustain. It's hard work because what I'm facing as a result are sensations and experiences that I don't think anyone would want to experience, and yet I feel it is essential for true healing to occur. Part of me doesn't want to face whatever is behind that block, so I'm going slow and carefully with the work and I may stop if I feel its too much, but I would like to dissolve the blockage associated with the sensations, as I think it would help me immensely.

8-11-13 I had this dream last night where I had signed up to go to this space station and mine an asteroid for a couple years, and then I'd come back with money (I'm sure this will be a reality some day). However what happened was that I was stuck in this program, and there was a robot double being created that would go back after two years and then die within a year, while they kept using my body for whatever they wanted to use it for. And so I started to rebel against the system I was in, and eventually found a way to disconnect myself from the virtual world, as did the other people and we started to disconnecting other people and fighting the administrators who were maintaining the system. Then I became someone else, this dying woman that this virtual world had been created for and she was a princess in this virtual world, but she also found out how it was sustained and started helping the rebellion from the inside.

8-12-13 Today's meditation work has been hard for me, and I've had a low level of functionality as a result. During my meditation I ended up flashing back to that sensation of being molested. When I have these flashbacks, its not visual. Instead it is tactile, which makes it worse, because I can't really distance myself from what I'm feeling. It's a very raw experience, and I feel fragile today because of processing those feelings. I could feel, as I meditated, that the level of distress my body felt continued to rise as I meditated on and dissolved the blockage. It's hard work because it's calling on me to remember and face something that I'm only recalling now at the age of 36. Clearly it was a traumatic experience then, and it certainly is now. As a result I haven't felt very productive today. I've been in a funk and that has bothered me as well, because I certainly have enough to do, but whether I'm capable of doing it is something else altogether.

Kat and I've also finished reading After the Affair, which has been a good read for me because it has helped me explore my history with infidelity, both in my family and in my own actions. I'm not proud of my past actions in my previous relationships and I've felt a deeper level of recognition, responsibility, and empathy toward people I've hurt in the past due to my own baggage. I can't change what's happened, but I see how much that behavior has impacted my life and how it has hurt other people and I am glad that I am continuing to change my standards of behavior, to become a better person. I don't want to leave the wake of chaos and pain that I have left in the past through my actions. I see now as well how the polyamory label allowed me to justify a lot of behaviors without examining them, though that's no fault of the label, but rather my own fault for not digging deeper and really examining what I wanted or needed. It's hard to sit with all of that, but I know that I can't genuinely change if I don't recognize the past and really understand where I've been, so that I can know where I can go.

8-15-2013 The other day, in my meditation on movement, I reached out to Eros and asked him why he hadn't shown up all that much and he said he didn't feel the need to show up if I was moving in the right direction. When I'm going someplace different, then he'll show up as a guide. I think also that as I've continued to do these elemental balancing workings, it's been easier for me to connect directly with the element. When I first started having a guide that mediated the element was helpful for conceptualization purposes, but now working with an elemental force directly isn't such a stretch.

8-17-13 There are occasions where I feel outside any and everything, where I feel like I don't belong. I think this is a feeling many people experience. I think of how that feeling can move a person in both positive and negative directions. That feeling has moved in both directions, and even now I feel it on occasion. It's a powerful feeling which speaks as much to the inadequate feelings a person has about him/herself as well as the longing to belong to something larger or bigger. The key, when you feel this way, isn't to try and fill yourself up with whatever or whoever you find, but rather to be present with the emotion and work through it.

8-21-13 The website has a different look because someone hacked the theme I was using and had some javascript running. I came up with a solution of sorts. I liked the old theme, and at some point I am going to get a different design made, but this will have to do for the meantime.

In other news, the last two days my meditation on the element of movement has taken a deeper turn. Yesterday as I as meditating Eros came to visit and he showed me a perspective of movement and myself where I felt like a tiny grain of sand among many, many other grains of sand, and what movement I could do was just a tiny movement, that might cause a ripple in the immediate area, but wasn't significant beyond that. I felt how small I really am in all that movement, recognizing in the process that everything else is also that small. Everything is moving or trying to move, but all of those movements, individually are small...yet put together you can find patterns and those patterns are created by the movement of each person, ting, etc., not because of one person, but because there is a agreement of some type when it comes to movement.

Today's meditation was a deep one, but in a similar vein of expression. I was a mote of light moving with other motes of light. My expressions of movement weren't original per se, but all part of this greater pattern that I'm a part of. I moved as part of a movement. Both experiences were humbling, but also beautiful and terrible at the same time. I'm not sure where its all going, but I'm going with it and I'm open to it because I know that I am moved as much if not more than what I move.

Some Thoughts on Possibilities, Space, and Time

Two of the current books I'm reading are the Dimensional Structure of Consciousness by Samuel Avery and Wonders of the Natural Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. In Avery's book he explores the definition of consciousness, arguing that everything, material or otherwise, is a manifestation of conscious experience, and that dimensions are internal structures of consciousness used to organize the various experiences we have. It's an interesting definition of consciousness and I see some merit for it, though I question the concept of conscious experience, as it seems to create a solipsistic perspective of the world. He argues that space and time are dimensions, which doesn't fall that far outside current conceptions of space and time. In the midst of all this, he also discusses images, which he defines as a concept, thought, thing, feeling or object, and which he argues are the sole content of consciousness. He goes onto explain that conscious activity is a constant arrangement of images into other images, but he doesn't really explain how that activity factors into dimensions, though I suspect he'd argue that the manipulation of images allows the person to access and work different dimensional structures of consciousness.

In Tenzin's book the author takes a more novel approach to space, arguing that space isn't limited to external or internal space, but rather that space is defined by the objects or forms in it. In other words, the forms define the parameters of space, as opposed to space, in and of itself. He also notes the distinctions we create are really attachments to defining space, but not experiencing it. Space is always present, always something that we are apart of, and yet also something that we try to quantify.

What I find fascinating about both books and the perspectives contained within them is how the authors approach a concept such as space. I'm more inclined to agree with Tenzin's perspective, and I find that if anything Avery's perspective is too caught up in trying to define the concepts without providing practical examples that illustrate what he is trying to define. Nonetheless I see value in utilizing the concepts of both books in my own work with space/time magic. Fundamentally when you deal with concepts such as space and time, what you are really dealing with is trying to place them into context within your life. It's as if by defining them we suddenly have a sense of control over them.

There is something to be said for defining a concept, but also something to be said for simply experiencing it. When I wander into a room, I am intimately aware of how the space of the room is defined by the objects within the room, but I am also aware of the space in and of itself. The space is potential waiting for action to occur, which seems to really happen when time is applied to that space. The application of time occurs through a fairly subjective filter, namely our sense of consciousness motivating us to do something, to act. Does time even exist if no one exists is to comprehend it? And this is where I could see time as a dimension of consciousness used to explain, categorize, and organize experiences that occur in space, but also used to turn possibilities into reality by providing a projection and action in which to achieve that projection.

Books like the ones I mentioned above, and my own for that matter, are useful in providing ideas about space and time and how to work with them, but I think that ultimately to really experience space and time is to simply work with them as elements of our lives. We experience space and time everyday, in the living of our lives, but if we want to work with space and time, we need to consciously apply ourselves to working with the experience of space and time so that we can discover more than just the surface level exposure most people typically get. That means we actively work with the experience and perception of space and time, defining it, but also playing with those definitions, because we recognize that any experience is ultimately subjective. Yes everyone experiences a 24 hour day, but 24 hours is a subjective unit used to describe the rotation of the Earth around the sun. 24 hours just gives a sense of control and direction, a rhythmic and cyclical experience to quantify our lives. When you recognize its subjective, then you don't take space, time, or anything else for granted, because you recognize that when such subjectivity is passed off as objectivity, someone else is benefiting from your believe in the objectivity of space and time. You experience that benefit when you go to work for someone else and exchange a subjective sense of time for money that quantifies what that unit of time is worth. Test everything that is qualified as objective, because objectivity is more of an illusion than anything else.

Why Magical Efficacy doesn't happen fast (most of the time)

The other day, Jason made a post about why magic isn't a race of doing a given magical activity as fast as you can. He notes that people get fixated on doing a given magical ritual as fast as possible, and makes the point that the efficacy of a working can be lost when you try to do something as fast as possible. I agree with him, and I also agree that there is a fixation on doing magical work as fast as possible. I think some of that is a result of living in a world where the technology is speeding up the pace of life. Consequently people have an expectation that everything else will be faster as well. I also think that sometimes people want spirituality to be something that is condensed and experienced in as short a time as possible.

My own magical work is an activity I take a lot of time on. I have a post I'm planning to write n some of my latest space/time magical experiments, but I haven't written it yet, because I'm taking my time on the experiment and fine tuning the work. I don't want to just do something and then share it as quickly as possible. I want to put the time and effort into the magical working in order to effectively understand and implement it. The problem with doing a magical activity as fast as you can is that it leaves you no time to really consider or integrate what you are doing into your magical work. Instead it just becomes an activity you do for the sake of getting done with it as soon as possible.

My own magical work is rarely done as fast as possible. When I do my daily work, I don't have a specific time frame in mind for when it'll be done. I do it and it lasts for as long as I need to do it. For other magical work I take a methodical approach to the work, which allows for a given activity to occur over longer periods of time. My elemental balancing work, which typically lasts a year is an example of such a work. I take a year to work with a given element in order to really allow it to imprint meaningfully on my life. Doing a quick ritual to an element wouldn't mean much, because I really wouldn't get to know that element.

My other magical work is similar. I take as much time as needed, because it's not about getting it done as quickly as possible. It's about experiencing the magic and the experiences it provides and allowing yourself to fully feel it and know it. That kind of experience doesn't happen if you rush your magical work. So take your time and don't make it a race. Make it an experience that genuinely changes your life.

Book Review: Working with the Dreaming Body by Arnold Mindell

In this book, the author explores the concept of the dreaming body in conjunction with how a person expresses his/her psychological dysfunctions through everyday behavior, as well as the dreaming body. What I like about this book is that the author builds on previous work and shows how various physical symptoms can be related to psychological disturbances as well as how to use those symptoms to uncover and work with those disturbances. He also explains how a personal can use the symptoms that s/he experiences to come to an understanding and make with him/herself. The case studies that he provides also demonstrate the techniques he uses and provide further insight into working with the body holistically. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn how to work more with your body and your mind as a unified unit.

How to use the energy of a holiday in your magical workings

I always find holidays to be interesting, not only for the dynamics of human behavior that come forth, but also for the presence of the holiday, the energy that courses through it and builds to a quiet but steady hum of tension. The 4th of July is no exception. The tension starts the day before as people get out of work early and start driving to visit family or to buy food or to get fire works. The day of the holiday the tension rises through the day until people celebrate the fourth with firecrackers, with parties, with all the excesses people bring to such matters. And then there is what the day means. For the 4th of July, it's a day of creation, the celebration of the birth of the U.S. It's also a celebration of the concepts of Freedom, liberation, and other assorted values that a person might associate with this holiday. And to me it makes everything that happens a ritual of sorts, not necessarily religious, but holy nonetheless to the people who celebrate it.

Typically when we think of holiday magic, we think of magic associated with religious holidays, but I don't think we should limit ourselves to any given holiday and I also think that if you are doing magic on a given holiday you can tap into the energy of that holiday. Going back to the example of the 4th of July, there is a lot of energy that goes into that holiday, a lot of emotions, a lot of tradition, in a way and so why not tap into that, if it's something you feel inclined to tap into? You could tap into the 4th of July for creative or healing magic. Alternately you could also tap into it for more destructive magic. It really depends on what you want to do with it, but the point is that the holiday brings with it something that can be tapped into.

Each holiday we celebrate has its own energy, it's own tension and associations as well. Valentine's day is a holiday about love and lust, while Christmas is a holiday of both greed and giving. Thanksgiving is a day of thanks and a day of gluttony, while Memorial day is a day of remembrance and honoring the dead. Labor day honors work and people who work, and those are just the major secular holidays. But although those major holidays are secular there is something to be drawn on. So if you want to draw on the energy of a particular holiday look to what the holiday represents, both to yourself, and to people in general. Then plan your ritual for the day of the holiday. If you were to use the 4th of July, for example, you might time the ritual to begin when the fireworks began, using the sounds of the people and the fireworks going off as part of a ritual accompaniment. With Thanksgiving, you could use both the food preparation and the serving of the meal as part of your ritual. If you want to draw on a holiday, you want to  tap into the energy of the day by integrating the actual rituals of that day into your own rituals.

I think that with specific holidays you may want to use specific types of magic. Sex magic would be useful on the 4th and Valentine's day, while candle magic might be useful on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Memorial day. Think about what practical magic techniques you might use for a given day and ask yourself if those techniques are in character with the holiday. That can help you determine if what you'll do will help you draw on the energy of the holiday or if it'll distract from the energy of the holiday. After all if you want to draw on the energy of a holiday then you want to do activities that complement the holiday.

The Process of Magic Class starts this Wednesday

  Round 6 of the Process of Magic class starts this Wednesday. I apply a process methodology to magic in order to understand how magic works and what can be done to make it work better. This class explores how the process approach to magic works and shows you how to apply it to your own magical practice. Previous students who have taken the class have found that it has benefited their approach to magical work, because it teaches how to analyze what you are doing and break it down into a process that can be examined and changed as needed. If you've ever wanted to improve your magical practice or just develop a better understanding of how magic works, contact me to learn more about the class. This is a correspondence course, with 24 lessons, one sent each week. A bi-monthly teleconference is also included, as is a free e-book. The cost of the class is $100.

The Power of Limitation in Magic

In the Process of Magic course I discuss the principle of limitation to some extent in a way that challenges the perceptions of limitation as an obstacle or something is containing you. In my experience limitation is actually a very useful magical tool that can lead to many breakthroughs in your life if you know how to use it. And the fact is that you can use any limitation you encounter, because as much as it may seem to limit you, the limitation also effects other people, and it can provide you with opportunities to think and act on novel methods for dealing with the limitation. I favor using limitation in a few different ways in magical work.

1. Use Limitation against itself. Limitations are usually imposed by authorities as a way of constraining what people can do, but those same limitations can also have a similar effect on the authorities that enforce them. So why not use the limitation to your favor? For example if you choose to go to trial for a ticket, try delaying the trial for as long as possible. Aside from the fact that such delays keep the ticket in a limbo it also can work in your favor against the memory of the person who gave you the ticket. Thus you use the limitations of the legal system against it as a way of gaining leverage. You use the limitation in your favor to achieve a more favorable result.

2. Recognize that limitation defines the situation. Limitations define the parameters of situation, at least on the surface. But actually if you examine limitations you'll find that what they really do is only define the obvious parameters. A limitation is very distinct in what it define as well as what it doesn't define and you can use what isn't defined to get a different perspective or discover a way to work around the limitation.

3. Focus on discovering possibilities. Similar to number 2, recognize that limitations actually provide possibilities for you to explore. While a limitation limits you it also provides possibilities that occur as a result of having the limitation. If you cultivate the right attitude you can discover a lot of positive possibilities that come from limitations. The Book The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz is an excellent example of how to use limitations to discover possibilities of empowerment. A good example that comes to my mind about this principle is from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. In one episode the character is formless, able to change into anything, but unable to do anything. A horizontal line ( a limit) is provided and suddenly the character the can walk. The point is made that while the limitation limits the character's ability to be anything s/he wants, it also provides him possibilities. He can now walk, when he could not do anything before. In our own lives limitations perform a similar function, enabling us to do a lot as a result of the limitation, even as the limitation limits us in a specific way.

In magical work limitations are a useful part of your process because they help you understand what will or won't work but also challenge you to discover how to use those limitations in your favor. Additionally limitations provide you definitions for what you are doing and what you are effecting. Everything is limited but those limitations provide you empowerment because something can be changed. Without limitations no effective change could occur because we'd live in a constant entropic state. So I think limitations should be embraced as useful tools that when applied correctly can make life easier instead of harder.

Round 6 of the Process of Magic Class starts on July 3rd

 

Round 6 of the Process of Magic class starts on July 3rd. The class costs $100, but you get the following:

• Access to an e-list that is specifically for this class, with feedback from other students (Value $5 a month).
• 24 written lessons sent out each week on Wednesday which includes exercises to help you develop and refine your process of magic (Value $400).
• Free Teleconferences every other month to discuss the material directly with me! (Value $45 per teleconference)
• Free MP3 Recordings of previous conferences (Value $45 per recording)
• A Free E-book copy of Creating Magical Entities (Value $20).
• The value of this course is around $800, but you’ll get it for the low cost of $100.
• To sign up for the class, contact me.

Whether you are just learning about magic or have been practicing for years the Process of Magic course focuses on what really matters: Learning how to use magic to proactively improve your life. This course will teach you a different perspective and approach to magic that will help you evaluate it and apply it to improve the quality of your life. Don’t take my word for it though. Below are several testimonials from one of my students:

By describing the process of magic(k) rituals, Taylor Ellwood taught me how to enhance my work. He taught me how to analyze and improve some rituals I had made, how to apply proved techniques to experimental rituals for internal magic and how pop culture can also be useful for creating pantheons more in relation to oneself. After this class my rituals have been really effective, and I started to think of magic as a means for transforming myself to get the best out of my environment. Highly recommendable class, I’m really happy I took it.

Testimonial from Ivan Marquez

I decided to take Taylor Ellwood’s Process of Magic class after many years of magical practice and study as a way to reboot my work. I’ve been involved with a few traditions but have generally been very eclectic in my approach. In my view eclecticism is a strength if you can find a way to synthesize all of those disparate takes on the magical path. Taylor has stripped away most of the window dressings associated with magic. Instead of focusing on style and aesthetics he focuses on the roots of practice and the processes underlying them. For those who are already involved in magic but are wondering how to weave together the rich variety of strands available to us in the 21st century, examining the processes that underly all magic, no matter the flavor, is an excellent place to start. For newcomers and beginners this course will help you quickly move beyond the 101 stage and help you start getting your hands dirty with practical magic.

Testimonial from Justin Patrick Moore

If you have questions or want to sign up for the class contact me.

The Ontological Reality of Deities, Spirits, and otherworld beings

 

Thanks to the polytheism vs pop culture magic debate that has been going on I've been thinking a lot about my own interactions with deities, demons, spirits, etc. Galina Krassakova posts her own views about her experiences and why she doesn't need theories to define her relationships with her deities on Pagan Square and though it might surprise her and the other polythiests, I'm actually in agreement with her argument that theory ultimately distracts from doing the actual work. Theories are at best tools, but even as tools they should be used carefully lest they overshadow the actual work.  My latest article on Pagansquare discusses theory and its role in magic further, but for this post I thought I'd focus on my experiences with Deity, spirits, and other assorted spiritual beings I've worked with. That phrase "work with" is likely where I and the polytheists differ and we'll get to why that is later.

My journey with the spirits has taken me on some interesting paths, and some of those paths have been theory oriented.  I've explored archetypal theory for example and applied it to my practice. My book Pop Culture Magick is a prime example of the application of archetypes to magical work and to be honest I still use some of that in my practice, particularly with identity magic. And working with the concepts of archetypes has lead me to some interesting conclusions about deities, demons, etc., based less on theory and moreso on observation, practice, and experience with said beings. I don't feel that these realizations take away from the reality of the spirits, so much as provide some additional forms of engagement that ultimately can lead to a more primal experience of spirit. I liken it removing a mask and uncovering what's really underneath the mask, and realizing that the mask was used in order to provide a particular space where spirit and human could meet for the comfort of the human.

Yet the removal of the mask was also the removal of theory. Instead of focusing on the attributes and behaviors, the trappings as it were, I encountered the deeper ontological reality of the spiritual beings I was and do connect with. And instead of trying to get them to fit my agenda or needs, I allowed and do allow myself to be moved by them, to fully experience them as they are instead of through an interpretation based on theory. The irony is, that by allowing myself to be so moved, I've been moved as well by the pop culture spirits I've worked with, the ones that are supposedly not real. In my article on pop culture on pagan square I mentioned how I had a long relationship with Thiede. Thiede is a character in Storm Constantine's Wraeththu series, a fantasy series, and yet for me Thiede has been and is real. Thiede is the guardian of Space, the revealer of the ley lines between planets and stars, a dehara, and so much more to me. Reading about him in a book was only the start of my connection to him, and it was a connection, from the start, that moved me deeply.

When I say the phrase "move me" I'm not talking about being emotionally moved to tears. I'm talking about encountering a spiritual force that has deeply affected me, changed me and pointed my life and spiritual practice in a different direction than it might have gone otherwise. And that experience isn't something you can just slap a theory on. It defies theory because theory is ultimately an intellectual process used to categorize and define something into a neat little box that you can store away until you need it. I've had an encounter with something fundamentally different from me and that experience has changed who I am. It has changed my identity.

And this is not an isolated incident. Each year I work with a different elemental force and part of that process involves working with a spirit guide that provides a "face" through which I can interact with that elemental force. The elemental balancing work is an intense process of change that is brought by interacting with the element. There is no theory for it, but simply the engagement of practice and the recognition that I need to work with a given elemental force in my life. The various entities I've worked with during the balancing rituals haven't been archetypes...far from it. They are collection of beings that even today are in my life. They are not something I believe in...they are something I experience. That's an important distinction to make because in my opinion belief is just another theory, another tool. The experience of them in my life is something else. To me, the spirits I work with, traditional or pop culture, are real. There is an ontological essence of being, of identity that is objective, beyond any categorization I could give it, and it is sustained not merely by my own experience, but also by the experiences of others, independent of my own.

My work with my spirits has some form of devotion and offering attached to it. Some of the tattoos on my body, for example, are devotional offerings of my skin made to a particular element as a way of recognizing the significant role the element has played in my life. I also make offerings to particular spirits in the form of writing or through painting. But the work I do with them is nonetheless geared more toward the advancement of my work with magic than anything else. They play an important role in my life, but they are not central to it, so much as they help me focus on what is central. Thus I work with them, and this likely is different from how the polytheists approach such matters.

Just because some of my spirits aren't tied to a particular religion or culture of old doesn't invalidate their existence. And while it might be said that such spirits were created by an author or artist, I'd argue that perhaps they weren't created, so much as channeled and experienced. Whether anyone agrees with me or not on that issue isn't important. What's important in the end is that I am doing the work I am called to do. I'm getting out of my own way and letting it happen, letting myself be moved and inspired, so that I can do what I need to do. And really, isn't that the point?