Magic

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Endarkenment Ponderings and Experiences

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I decided to take a class taught by Anastacia Nutt, called Endarkenment, which explores the process of settling into the rhythms of winter, among other things. I thought I would share here my notes and observations. I’ve purposely kept this post separate from the elemental balancing work, because it is its own thing and I want to honor it as such.

12-16-2019 I got sick a couple days before the endarkenment class started and on the day before, I lay in my bed, in the dark, feverish and afraid of the dark and yet opening myself to it nonetheless and letting it fill me. It felt a lot like stillness, like a sense of timeless infinity that poured through the entirety of my being and reminded me of how small I am and yet how intricately woven I am into this thread of life.

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How I worked with 3 spirits to help me get back to health

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3 weeks ago I got sick with a fever and although I broke that fever, shortly after I came down with a cold. I normally recover from sickness fast, because I have a specific regime of activities I do which include Dragon and Tiger Medical Qi Gong, as well as Reiki, and mundane resources such as medicine, and expelling everything that needs to get out. But this time around, perhaps because I’m in peak season at work, nothing was really working, or rather it was mitigating the symptoms, but not resolving the illness. On Wednesday night of last week I decided it was time to draw upon some additional help.

I first started by invoking the Daemons Verrier and Verrine. I first learned about these spirits from S. Connolly’s The complete book of demonolatry (affiliate link), and I’ve worked with them a few times, for health magic, both in regards to myself and other people. I asked them if they could help me get to the source of the illness and heal and expunge it from my body and they agreed. Shortly after I started coughing a lot more, but this was good because it allowed me to clear out the infectious mucus that had been stuck in my respiratory system.

What do you need to design a magical working?

One of the questions I get asked is what does a person need, in order to be able to design their own magical working. It’s a good question to ask, because designing a magical working does have some requirements, which can make a difference in developing an effective magical working or system of magic that gets results. However the usual suspects of magical tools, spells, etc., that people think they need in order to design a magical working or a system aren’t necessarily what you need.

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How to embrace and work with the shadow aspects of yourself

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As I’ve been working with the Chesedic current this month, one of the elements of the work I’ve been encountered are the shadow aspects of that current, which have manifested in being more aware of my own selfishness and how that selfishness shows up in my life. I’ve also had this mirrored for me in a fiction series I’m reading, where the one character’s selfishness has really stood out to me more than it may have in the past. Yet what I’ve found most fascinating with all this is a very interesting approach to this work with the shadow aspect that’s being called forth.

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Magic by Design available for Pre-order

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DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN MAGICAL WORKINGS THAT GET YOU CONSISTENT RESULTS?

Of course you do…

But you can’t create a magical working if you don’t know how magic works or how to design a magical working from scratch.

In Magic by Design, I teach you how to create your own magical workings, instead of having to rely on magick spell books that may not provide the results you want.

I’ll show you how simplify or enhance an existing magical spell, to get better results.

I’ll walk you through how to apply the principles of magical design to create your own unique workings that get you results.

I’ll share multiple case studies where I show you how the principles of magical design were applied to create original magical workings that got results and explain why they got results.

And as a bonus you’ll also learn how to create long term magical workings and how to design your own magical systems.

This is a practical magic book that shows you how to create your own magical workings and get results with them.

Pre-order it now and get better results with your magical workings.

Pre-order the e-book

5 lessons you can learn from a fantasy book about magic

One of my favorite fantasy books is The Soulforge by Margaret Weis (affiliate link) and one of the reasons its one one of my favorite books is because it has some valuable lessons to offer about what it takes to practice magic. Now, you may read that and wonder why a fantasy book would have any valuable insights to offer about real magical practice, but as I’ve discovered time and again, some of the best lessons you can learn about magic come in the form of stories.

Just in case you’re not familiar with the book, it’s a story about how Raistlin Majere becomes a magician. In the story, Raistlin has to make some critical choices that test who he is and defines how he becomes a magician. I want to share some of the key lessons we can all learn from this story and discuss how they apply to the practice of magic.

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How pop culture spirits evolve

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I’m always fascinated by how pop culture spirits change with the times. Older spirits are more set by the context of the cultures they originated from, so although they may change somewhat through the lens of modern culture, pop culture spirits are more flexible and fluid in some ways. Yet they too can become fixed and set to some degree by the expectations of the fans that enjoy the pop culture they originate from. And yet sometimes a spirit can break out of the mold in unexpected ways.

Recently I went to see the new Joker movie. I saw it once and I went back and saw it again in the theater (something I normally don’t do). Why did I go back? Because the Joker movie isn’t really a movie. It’s an experience of a person becoming the Joker. The second time I saw the movie, I watched how Joaquin Phoenix used his face and eyes to convey the gradual evolution of Arthur into Joker, but what I also saw was a dynamic rewriting of the pop culture spirit of Joker, in a direction that no one else had taken him.

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Wu Wei and Magic

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One of the books I’m currently reading is Effortless Living by Jason Gregory (Affiliate link). In that book he shares the following: “When we fervently seek power or use force, we exhaust our system by swimming against the current of life instead of flowing with it. A sage or an artist allows life to present itself instead of dictating toward life…When you finally realize…that the whole universe is happening to you right now all at once, you will cease projecting yourself onto the world, because you will become receptive to the universe. This will align you with a real trust in life that confirms that you belong.”

Over the last couple of years my approach to magic has shifted toward a similar outlook. Instead of trying to control everything, I’ve surrendered myself to the experience and allowed the experience to speak through me and take me where I need to be. That kind of approach to magic can seem to be contrary what magical practice is, but I think that’s because a lot of how magical practice is discussed comes from a place of control (and I say that as someone who’s written about magic from that perspective and still does sometimes).