Other Places you can find me on the web

 

Did you know you can find me on some other places on the web? For instance I have an authors facebook page. If you haven't liked it, please consider liking it and if you feel comfortable doing it, please share it with your friends as well.

I'm also on Twitter and if you follow me, chances are good I'll follow you back.

I also have a guest blog on Pagansquare, where I post the occasional article which doesn't end up on here.

And I'm restarting my Radio show with a co-host, Erik Roth. Our first show will be on September 19th and I'll actually be interviewing him about Shamanic Astrology.

I also have a website focused on business, so if you own a business stop by and visit it for articles.

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 Musings on 0 and 1

Dyslexicon 8, which features an article I wrote on my work with the spider goddess of time is now available. Check it out! Speaking of time magic, the other day I began thinking about 0 and 1 which I associate with possibility and reality respectively in a similar manner which builds off the existing associations. 0 = transformation while 1 = manifestation.

In 0 there is endless possibilities and with that comes transformation. Transformation is integral to possibility, and could be argued to also be what bridges possibility and reality. For possibility to become reality, transformation needs to occur. Transformation is part of change. When we change something we are transforming it, connecting it with possibility in order to determine what it could be and how it could manifest.

In 1 there is focused and shaped action, which in turn creates reality. Action is a form of manifestation, which is fueled by transformation. Transformation provides the drive for possibility to turn into reality manifestation. Manifestation is the reduction of possibility into a reality of your choice. Manifestation is an expression of transformation that moves the chaos of endless possibility into the order of constructed reality.

Reality is a construct, a thin veneer of order that provides some level of stability to possibility, which nonetheless can be undone by the manifestation of other possibilities into reality. At the same time reality is only malleable to a point. There is consensus experience of reality that provides the baseline by which we experience reality that provides enough limitations to provide a specific type of experience. The more real a possibility becomes the more it conforms to the limitations of reality, which providing some variation on those same limitations.

0 and 1 are numbers with associations applied to them. The associations are only as meaningful as you allow them to be. What makes them useful is you apply those associations to your experiences of 0 and 1 as spiritual forces and make meaningful contact with something the speaks to the experience you are having...or if you practically use them to create change in your life. The practical application is the key...There's no reality without application.

When everything falls apart, pick yourself back up and start again

 

There are moments in your life where some part of your life, or perhaps all of your life seems to fall apart. Sometimes it may even seem to occur over a prolonged period of your life. Right now, I'm in the midst of a dark night of the soul, according to my astrological chart, and I've certainly experienced some of that feeling over the last few months. I've felt helpless, frustrated, and like parts of my life have fallen apart. I'm even feeling it right now, where I'm suddenly facing in my coaching business, a lack of clients, as all of them finished up all at once. It's a little terrifying when you feel like the bottom of your life or profession has dropped out from underneath you. And you can feel tempted to just give up when you experience those moments where everything seems to fall apart.

I'll admit that sometimes I've given up. I gave up when I left the Ph.D program at Kent State. There are times when giving up IS the best course of action you can take. When I left the Ph.d program I left it because I wasn't happy with what I was doing, and the future academic career looked like it would be even less fun and more oppressive than what I was already doing. It simply wasn't for me. So I gave up and walked away.

Other times you have to keep picking yourself up and pursuing what you know is right for you to be doing. My choices to be self-published and self-employed are examples of those particular decisions. Neither choice has always been easy to follow through on. It's tempting to just give up and find a job, or to stop writing because you wonder if it'll really find that audience that responds to your writing. Yet if you really want it, you have to keep going for it.

For me, magic and everything else I want is as much about persistence as anything else. Do you have the persistence to continue following through on what you want? Are you willing to pick yourself back up and keep trying because what you want is worth the effort. Magic, despite, how it's sometimes talked up is not really about cutting corners or getting to the fast track of what you want. Magic can help you get what you want, but there is a persistence and effort factor tat needs to be accounted for. Nothing ever just comes to you. You've got to be willing to give in order to get. And what you give is your effort, your sweat, your blood, but also what you give is your willingness to learn, to get smarter and wiser, and do whatever you are doing better than how you did it before.

I've had so much fall apart at different times in my life and yet in those down moments, what's kept me going has been this realization that at the end of the day the only thing that will pick me up is myself. Not the magic, not some deity, and not even some other person. What keeps me going is my choice to move forward, learn from my mistakes, and get better at what I'm doing. What helps me are the people who believe in me, the resources I can employ to help me resolve a given situation, and of course my own determination to not give up, unless its actually smarter to do so. Everything falls apart...pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep striving toward what you want. You'll get it right eventually or die trying.

Why you can't do that isn't a valid excuse for magicians

I was watching the film Kon Tiki the other night. It's a biographical film about Thor Heyerdahl, an anthropologist, who had some interesting and controversial ideas about how Polynesia came to be inhabited. He argued that South Americans had sailed the Pacific ocean to Polynesia 1,500 years or so ago, but no one believed him, and they argued that it couldn't be done with the technology of the time. He decided to prove his critics wrong, by building a boat in the fashion of how it was likely built 1,500 years ago, and then he sailed that boat to Polynesia, without much in the way of modern equipment or technology. What he proved was that it was possible for people to migrate from South America to Polynesia (Whether they actually did or not is still debated). What I admire about the film and about the actual person Thor Heyerdahl was that he didn't let other people tell him what he could or couldn't do. He decided what he could or couldn't do and then proceeded to do it.

When I first started practicing magic, I had this romantic belief that people who practiced magic were people who were open-minded, willing to experiment, and willing to try new things. I suppose I held this belief, because having been a born again Christian and seeing the close-minded fanaticism that such belief creates, I wanted to believe that occultists and Pagans were better than that. I wanted to belong to something where the focus was to explore, test, and challenge the dogma and established view of things. Eventually I was disabused of such romantic beliefs and came to realize that there are pagans and occultists who can be just as close-minded, established, and fanatical as anyone else. It's part of human nature, and there is no special group of people exempted from that nature.

Nonetheless, what I have never been disabused of is my own belief that what's established and held to be true should be challenged, and that if you believe something controversial you should try it out, explore it, etc., to determine for yourself the truth of the matter. When I first started experimenting with pop culture magic (back in the late 1990's), I was told by a person I considered a mentor that what I was doing wasn't "true" magic. He tried to discourage me, but instead encouraged me, because I felt that he didn't have the authority to determine if pop culture magic was or wasn't real magic (ironically enough he was a chaos magician). I didn't buy his statement that I couldn't do pop culture magic. He was't the only person to discourage me. I was told by a number of other magicians that I was reinventing the wheel or that I was a flake or a fluffy bunny or a heretic, or whatever else. All that discouragement ever did was encourage me to continue striking out on my own, as much to prove them wrong as to prove myself right. I never let anyone tell me what I couldn't do and I never bought into their arguments about why they were right and I was wrong (and a good thing to or otherwise I'd have never written any of my books!).

I've never gotten as much flak for the work I've done with space/time magic, identity magic, or working with one's body as a living universe in its own right, but I've still gotten some resistance, some people who think they know better than me about magic and how it oughta be done. And I won't pretend that it hasn't been hard at times to face such resistance and not feel a bit discouraged because someone feels a need to lord their beliefs and values over what you are doing. It is hard on occasion, because there will always be detractors, always be people who think the best way to prove their point is try and take you down and tell you why what you do is wrong and why what they do is right. But what they forget is that what's right for one person isn't right for another. What's right for you isn't right for me, and it doesn't have to be.

Likewise what's right for me may not be right for you, nor does it have to be. I don't subscribe to some of the beliefs that my fellow Pagans hold, but I accept that those beliefs are valid and meaningful to them, and so I don't tell them that what they believe is wrong or that they are doing it wrong. It's not for me to judge them. What I will never accept is intolerance, the attempt to discourage other people from discovering for themselves what their spirituality ( or anything else for that matter) manifests for them. I won't accept the excuse of "you can't do that" from anyone because no one can tell me what I can or can't do. I'm the only authority on that matter, and I have to live with the consequences of my choices, but I also will make those choices because in doing so I am creating my reality, instead of buying into the reality that someone else holds to. And likewise I won't tell anyone else what they can or can't do. I'll encourage them, as I always have, to find out for themselves. In the end the ultimate authority of your life is you...only you can discover those answers. What you have to accept is that what is right for you may not be right for others. That's the real test of authority: Can you accept that you aren't the authority of everyone else, and never will be?

I still experiment with magic (I likely always will) because I am driven to discover my own truth. It makes for a difficult road on occasion, but it also makes for a lot of adventure. And I don't accept the excuse of "you can't do that" because that excuse is lame, and is offered by people too afraid to handle a challenge to their own perspectives. What they'd realize if they did accept that challenge is that at most it might open their minds to some new perspectives and broaden their horizons. At the least it might just make them realize that what works for them does work for them and that should be good enough, without needing to obstruct someone else.

Here's a simple truth: No one else (or deity) is the authority on how you live your life or what you choose to do or believe. You are the only authority of your life. You can choose to let a deity or some other person have authority over your life, but YOU are still making that choice and you are still responsible for the choices that you make after that initial choice is made. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to make those choices. You are responsible for your choices. You are the ultimate authority in your life, even if you have chosen to hand that authority off to someone or some thing else.

The latest issue of Portal Magazine just came out, and includes an article by me.

Book Review: The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness by Samuel Avery

This is intriguing book that explores Modern Physics from a perspectives of dimensions. The author provides some compelling and thought provoking arguments about consciousness and the idea that physical reality is an experience of immaterial dimensions that are combined by consciousness into an experience that people can understand. I also like that the author includes mass as a dimension that impacts the space and time dimensions. The author does, on occasion, provide some fuzzy definition, such as what he uses to explain image, but he is dealing with some complex ideas and he does his best to present those ideas soundly. He does his best to make the book accessible to a layperson, while also providing enough depth to do the material justice.

Update on the latest space/time magic experiment

I was recently interviewed on Disinfo about some of my current space/time magic work. In that interview I shared some of my ideas about how movement and stillness can play a role in space/time work.  I want to share some more information here on my continued modification of the space/time web tool I've been using. I've continued using the memory box, which is a tool  developed for working with space and time as a web, though I'll also note that with this experiment I've been doing some of it as a purely meditative, mental experience of that same construct. The reason I've chosen to do the latter action is because I feel that while a tool is useful, it serves mainly as a way of providing structure, which once you get that structure, makes the tool obsolete.

My focus in this experiment has been integrating stillness and movement into the technique. I feel that both of these elements are intrinsic to our experiences of space and time and as such can be useful for space/time magic we are working on. I've integrated stillness in as a means capturing a snapshot of a given space, wile also discovering the possibilities that exist in imaginary time around that space. Time, which is the flow of activity through a given space, and what is used to actually change the space is aided by movement, which is used to move a possibility into space as a form of reality. Movement allows for the assumption of form, which is used to define what is occurring in a given space.

I've been using these modifications on a couple of situations in my life, and I don't have results yet, because these situations are long term, but what I've been doing is going to the section in the web that represents the space of the given situation and then going into a place of stillness, which I use to examine the space and discover the possibilities around it. The possibilities I don't want are popped, and their essence is put int the possibility I do want to manifest in order to provide it momentum. Movement is used to place the possibility into the space, while time is used to activate the possibility as a reality of the space that moves the person to a new space, which becomes the new reality.

That's what I'm currently working on. I'm still tweaking the new version of this technique, especially as it applies to the concepts of movement and stillness, but I think I'm onto something, and if nothing else its giving me a project to work on, which is always fun. I'll report further as I continue to work with stillness and movement in the context of space/time magic.

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.

Month 9 Elemental Balancing Ritual with Movement

6-30-2013 I've been contemplating the astrological cycle of Pluto in conjunct with my natal chart. It's become a part of my work with the element of movement, an underworld experience of sorts, but more so with movement in my life, and movement around my life and how I handle it. It's interesting how working with an element to find balance with it in your life and really to balance your life can itself be shaped by other variables. I don't know that I would really be aware of this conjunction if not for the fact that a friend told me about it, and the question that comes to mind is: If I wasn't aware of it, would it still impact me? I don't know. The conjunction is ultimately just another pattern and while I think my awareness of that pattern is a factor, I also know that awareness or lack thereof doesn't guarantee anything so much as it demonstrates what you know or don't know about a given situation. My drive to know is part of what informs the movement in my life. I want to know, and I want to share, and that inspires me toward these experiences, which can be both painful and enlightening in terms of what I learn.

7-3-13 I'm feeling off today. There's been a bit of a family crisis of late and I'm doing what I can to support the relevant people, but I also feel some fear for the people involved, a knot of anxiousness and a recognition that what I can do is limited. I'm dealing with another situation right now, where I've brought in a consultant to help me solve a problem. The consultant called me the other day and his advice wasn't promising. I felt anxious about it, but then I chanted the name of an entity I've created to help me deal with this situation and the entity told me to call him back and have him double check the information he'd given me. So I call him back, have him double check the information, and we are back on course, all because I chanted an entity's name and focused all the anxiety I was feeling toward it. And yes I get that it doesn't make rational sense, but I don't need it to make rational sense. I need it to make sense enough to achieve a different outcome and that's what it's doing. Movement isn't always about going the provincial route, but rather about finding the best route even in the most non-obvious places.

7-8-13 I've been thinking a bit about relationships because of a book I was reading which made the point that the romantic relationships we are drawn to are ones that relate to the relationships that were modeled to us as children. And I think there's truth to that. When I look at who I've been attracted to in the past as well as actual relationships I've gotten involved in, I can see certain behavioral characteristics I've been drawn to in the past, and I see how it's replicated certain cycles of behavior as a result. And until I worked through some of those cycles, I wasn't able to break out of the relationships I was getting into. Now I'm in a different relationship than I've ever been in and it's been very healthy for me and has continued to allow me to break out of those cycles, but it amazes me how until you really examine who and what you are drawn to, how easy it can be to essentially be in a similar relationship to the one your parents modeled for you.

7-9-13 Giving up trying to control something that you have limited control over can be incredibly freeing, especially when you feel the tension in your body relax as a result of choosing to let go instead of trying to hold on so hard. Repeatedly I see this lesson illustrated in the lives of people around me, but also in my own life and although it can be hard to give up that sense of control, I also find it helpful, because then I'm not worrying about it or stressing over it. I see now how my stress has really been my feeling of trying to control something and feeling that the only control I could have was to be stressed about whatever. I know this something I'll continually work on, but I also know that continuing to do it will gradually make it easier for me to let go of the pretense of control, which in turn will lead to less stress.

7-10-13 My dad's visiting for a few days. We went to the Mummy exhibit at OMSI, and then got into a discussion about history, including the family history. He's got a civil war rifle and sword that my great-great grandfather used. I'm hoping that'll he donate those weapons and the logbook to a museum. I feel that history such as that should belong to the people, and that if we contribute it to a museum then everyone can learn from it. The visit has been good so far, but I see such a difference in him. I know that at some point it will be the last time I see him. I can accept it, but still feel an odd sense of mortality, recognizing that my time with this person is very limited. I'm glad we are going to the ocean on Friday so he can see it, makes me feel good to make sure he an I have that experience together.

7-17-13 My dad headed back to South Dakota. It was a good visit, but since then I've been playing catch up and there is nothing so frustrating as if feeling that time is slipping away, especially when you feel this need to get things done. Maybe at a different time of my life I'll feel different, but there's so much I want to do.

7-20-13 I haven't been doing much lately, other than reading through the Dragonrealms series and playing the Last of Us. I spend so much time working on projects or writing that taking the occasional break to feed myself brain candy is good as a way of renewing myself. Yes it means I'm not reading or doing anything truly stupendous, but it also means I'm giving myself some down time, which isn't something I've always been good at. I am always aware of the projects I want to work on, but I also know that giving myself over to those projects requires that I also provide myself time to just...be.

Reading Dragonrealms has been interesting, because I see this gradual evolution of the writing, the characters, and the world. It's not the best fantasy writing out there, but the author does an excellent job of bringing you into the writing. I've had this series of books since it came out in the eighties and I'm glad he's writing more books in the series. As for the Last of Us...It's like a movie, wrapped up in a game that hits you with the terror of living in a post apocalyptic world, while also hitting on the relationships people have with each other and how essential those relationships are to maintaining your connection to a sense of self.

7-23-13 Something I've realized about movement, stillness, and control is that the best thing you can do is just let go and stop trying to be in control. I know I've mentioned it above, but it can't be emphasized enough, in my opinion. There are certain experiences where you just won't have that sense of control you think you have, and if you can accept that, be okay with it, you can actually discover possibilities and experiences you never would've thought of because you were so invested in a particular view of the world and your expression in it.

A Cycle of Stillness and Movement

The blood of life and death anoints me as I surge in like the incoming ocean tide connecting you and I in an embrace of the Earth and Ocean. I flow out like the outgoing ocean tide but never so far out that we lose contact. I am poised, still, silent for a moment, held back but still touching then I surge in again penetrating the deepness of your red caves allowing the salt of my life to mingle with the power of your blood My waves roll over your fertile lands and then when I can go no further, I hold for a moment, still, silent, intense in this embrace and flow back out withdrawing, but never completely separated. I surge back in, movement incarnate and then stop, stillness profound. 0 and 1 Stillness and Movement Space and Time The rhythmic interaction between us is the mysteries of movement and stillness, space and time The mingling of us is possibility manifesting into reality through the plunging of the athame into the cauldron of creation. You and I become one, become zero, become one again. We are all things and none, reality and possibility merging into a confluence. I surge in and I withdraw, but I am never completely apart from you. You and I are a rhythm, a cycle, a dance of space and time, stillness and movement. You and I are 0 and 1. The doors of perception and possibility open to us and our cycle brings us to the heart of the universe the tao of stillness and movement each feeding into the other, an eternal cycle of possibility and reality that you and I play a small part in.

Process of magic round 6 charity special

 

For each round of the Process of Magic course, I do a charity special, where half the proceeds are donated to a charity, if people sign up for the class. If you sign up for the process of magic class from today until Sunday July 21st I will donate half the signup fee to the Lady Liberty League, in support of the work they are doing for the Pagan community overall. Want to learn more about the class or sign up? Contact me.

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.

Movement, Stillness, and the Web of Space/Time

In Magical Identity I shared a technique I use for working with Space and Time, which is is the web if Space and Time. In this model the web is comprised of elements of space and time conjunctively connecting to manifest possibilities into reality. The strands of the web are elements of Time, while the nodes where the strands intersect each other are elements of Space. The strands of time represent possibilities and actions. I think of them as verbs. The nodes of space represent people, places, events, and things, nouns. I'm always open to improving on my techniques and my work with the element of movement gave me an insight in this technique that could be useful for developing it further.

While the strands of time denote possibilities and actions, it occurs to me that movement (and as I write this Stillness) are intrinsic elements of space and time that are not overtly recognized but that nonetheless play a role in our experience of space and time. I don't think of movement and stillness as being one and the same as time and space. And my experiences of both movement and stillness seem to bear this out. If anything it feels like stillness and movement act upon and are acted upon by space and time. For example, you might be tempted to associate stillness with space, but I'd argue that stillness isn't space. Stillness is a form of presence and awareness. It's potential and in some ways that makes it more related to time, but it isn't time either. It's a state of experience and being that can allow you to become aware of and experience space and time in different ways. When I do my practice of Zhine meditation, I am working with stillness and one of the experiences it can provide is an awareness of space and time that is different than what is experienced during the everyday experience of life. With Stillness, when I am focusing my awareness on myself and a particular object, I experience not just the object as it is, but also the possibilities for that object. I experience the space of the object, as well as the time of the object. You also might be inclined to associate movement with time, and certainly experience of time can be that of a sense one moment passing into another, but again you can also experience time via stillness.

So all that said, what I'm really interested in is how I can factor stillness and movement into the work I do with the web of space and time. I don't want to associate stillness or movement with specific aspects of the web, and I don't think I need to, but I think working with them could allow me to enhance the technique as well as integrate these elements into my life. I decided to pull out my memory box, which is the physical representation of the web and when I worked with it this time, I approached the work in terms of movement. What did I need to move to put everything into the right space and maximize the right potential of time needed. Movement wasn't just about working with the strands of time, but rather working with the web as a whole, in terms of positioning the web and the respective nodes and time strands into an alignment that would be useful for better realizing the activation of a possibility into a reality. I didn't integrate stillness into this work, so when I experiment with it again, I'll work with both stillness and movement and see how they fit together with space and time.

What I've shared above is rough and I'll work on refining it, but I'm excited to be working on something new, or in this case a variation of something else I developed.

Book Review: The Slow Fix by Carl Honore

In this book the author explores the value of the slow fix, which involves learning how to solve problems from a process perspective instead of just trying to use a quick fix. The author explores a variety of elements that are integral to the slow fix process and uses case studies to demonstrate how those elements work together to bring about useful solutions to problems. I got a lot of value from this book by applying its principles to my business and my clients. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to improve how problems are solved in general and in their organization, because what you will learn is how to examine your problem solving processes and introduce the right elements of the slow fix to help you improve on what you are already doing.

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.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement Month 8

5-24-13 There's been this big uproar about pop culture magic going through the blogosphere. The polytheists, reconstructionists, and spirit workers feel threatened by the idea of pop culture magic and so the usual criticisms and attempts to devalue pop culture magic have begun. Fortunately there are a lot of people actually exploring and writing about pop culture magic now. I've actually come late into this particular debate, but it makes me happy to see that other people are writing about and exploring pop culture as a a means of working with magic. And I kind of find it ironic that my name really hasn't come up, because even a few years ago all that people seemed to know of me was related to pop culture magic. I'm glad other people have it made their own...I just wish the detractors would get over it instead of trying to prove why their beliefs are more valid than mine or someone else's. Compensation much?

5-30-13 The uproar has died down which is good since it wasn't very constructive. I see those kinds of arguments as being fairly futile. Neither side wants to budge, and it becomes an exercise in rhetoric as opposed to anything really meaningful. Yesterday my latest book arrived. There is, in my opinion, a very magical moment when you open a book you've written for the first time. There it is, manifest into material form, a concrete reality of the ideas you've written. Feels good to have the book written and it feels even better to see the final result.

I also got my latest tattoo today. And again there's an experience that is so unique. You are allowing someone to paint on your skin, on the canvas of your body and embody it with whatever is painted. In my case a dragon to honor the work I've done with Dragon. Not too sure how many more tats I'll get. I have a few ideas of what I might get, but at a certain point I'll be ready to leave it at that. Anything I do get is done either to mark a life change or a significant magical working with an entity and as such anything I get has to be significant enough to warrant the ink, the experience, and the recognition that the canvas has gotten smaller.

6-3-13 I presented at the first Northwest Conference of Alchemy over the weekend. I also learned quite a lot about the topic and it makes me want to get involved in practical alchemy even more than before. I also had an interesting realization. I wrote Pop Culture Magick nine years ago, and I've noticed that now it's become fairly prevalent in some practices. I've also noticed more and more interest in space/time magic, which tells me that I'm about a decade ahead of what is really interesting to people. A good place to be, because I can actually see what interests people in this lifetime and still continue pushing to the edges.

6-6-13 Since I got the dragon tattoo I've noticed more energy in my life and businesses. There's a direction, with activities happening and I feel really good about the direction of movement. I've also come up with a new experiment, which involves linking several daily workings I do together. I won't share more about it now, because it'll likely become the core of a new system, but its so exciting to feel creative to have projects to work on and to otherwise be engaged. When I was at the alchemy conference people commented on the number of books I've written and how prolific I am (a dozen books in ten years is pretty good), and when I told them that I'd actually had a few years where not much writing happened they were surprised. I'm grateful to have the writing back and to be sharing it with the people who like my work.

6-9-13 Over on Pagan Square several more of the polytheists have posted articles which have taken a somewhat militant approach to the whole pop culture magic issue. I've debated whether I should respond any further and was even in the process of writing a comment to one post, when I stopped myself and asked: "What am I really trying to get from this interaction?" The answer I got was control and I realized then that posting the comment wouldn't provide that sense of control or validation or anything else useful. I realized there was no control to be had in this situation and so I just stopped writing the comment and surrendered the needs to feel control and validation. I asked myself: "Could these people really stop me from practicing what I practice?" And the answer is no. They can state their own perspectives, but they can't really stop me or others from practicing what we practice. And the best thing we can do is to continue to practice what we practice and share it so that people who are receptive can choose to learn and experiment. Knowing how to move, when to move, where to move all of that is essential to any situation where some kind of movement is necessary. And sometimes the best move to make is to recognize what your motive is for posting something and then decide is this really worth the effort I'm making or could I put that effort somewhere else to better effect? I know I can put my efforts to better effect elsewhere.

6-14-13 I think that one of the frustrations I feel with working with movement, especially as it applies to the planetary energies is how aware I've become of how much control I don't have over situations and how vulnerable I feel at realizing this at times when I really want to have control over those situations. As someone who has bought into the illusion of control at times, its hard when that illusion is stripped away and you realize just how little control you really have. Then you must face yourself and truly see what you are and aren't. I felt that way last night when I realized how much I let my dearest one down.

6-17-13 Over the weekend Kat and I did a murder mystery party for her birthday. It was our best one yet, and perhaps what helped it was how much people were willing to step into their roles and get into the humor of the situation. I think that moving into a given role requires a suspension of disbelief but also an assumption of identity. I become the character and in that act of becoming I breathe life into the character, but the character, in turn also breathes life into me. I feel the character move me to become that character and also to take away something intangible yet powerful which speaks to the identity of the character and its impact on my own sense of self (at least for the time I am the character). I have similar experiences with a good book or a video game, where I'm drawn into the reality of the character and for a time become that character...and when I come out, I take something away, marked by the character as much as I've marked him/her. What's really marked me is the experience itself, the experience of being something else and allowing it to move me enough to have the experience.

On a different front, I got some advice about a situation today and what's interesting is how much movement fits into that advice, and how the movement shapes itself around the limitations of the situations and turns those limitations into something that can favor me as much as it seems to favor the institution. There's a lesson there...we are only as constrained as we perceive ourselves to be. How we use our limitations speaks just as much as the limitations in and of themselves.

6-20-13 The other night I had a dream, where this was tree growing from my upper left arm, where my birthmark is. The tree was abruptly cut or pulled or something, I was left with this bloody wound. I physically felt the pain of the removal of the tree from my arm to the point that I woke up and felt the pain on my arm. Eventually it faded, but when I meditated on the issue, I didn't get any answers. Then today I meditated, and the image of the tree on my arm came up again, but I ended up being directed to the area of my right kidney and as I began doing dissolving work, I felt these memories of the drive to Seattle and when I lived there come up, so I allowed myself to feel and be in those memories because I realized something needed to happen. What I felt was a recognition that 'd blocked those memories out because of what I associated with them, and so as I continued the dissolving work I left myself feel the emotions associated with those memories. I ended up crying for a bit, but I felt better afterwards. I'll continue doing the dissolving work to see what else comes up and if there's any relation to the tree.

6-21-13 In discussing the dream and dissolving meditation with Kat, she suggested that it might involve a feeling of being unrooted. So I did some further meditation and that seems to be the case, especially as it relates to the move to Seattle and the year I lived there. I felt like I did lose my roots and that I couldn't really find a place up there to settle in. And even though I later found Portland, it's really only been in the last few years that I've begun to feel rooted and to have a connection to community. Before that I felt very isolated and alone a lot of the time. I'm ready to process those emotions and I suppose my dream is a good indication of that.

6-24-13 I sometimes feel I can't escape my past and that I'm doomed to become the one person I don't want to be like. I know that feeling isn't true, but there are occasions where I feel weighed down by my past, weighed down by the example set for me by my father. There are times when all the dissolving work in the world can't undo the shame and disappointment I feel toward myself for failing the people I am closest to, as well as failing myself. I have to look carefully at what really moves me and why it moves me. Am I moving the way I really need to be moving? At the same time, I feel keenly aware of the cycles that Erik pointed out to me, cycles of influence that certainly seem to be showing up in my life in a variety of ways that are really causing me to come up against my own limits and helping me recognize those limits. It's simultaneously frustrating and enlightening, but with all of this I still have the choice to make of it whatever I can.

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.

Further Thoughts on Body Enhancement via magic

I read an interesting post by Chirotus Infinitum that was a response to my recent post about body enhancement via magic. He made reference to the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and much like him I have found that particular series of books to be foundational both in my body modification work and in other magical work I've done. In fact, it's fair to say that reading that series inspired at least some of my thoughts on how I might modify my body with magic as well as how to use those modifications to enhance my magical work.

Something I didn't mention in my previous post was how I've used my tattoos in my body enhancement work. While one of the purposes of my tattoos is devotional, used as an offering to the various elements I've worked with, another purpose is also to enhance my channeling of that elemental energy. The act of getting the tattoo allows me to fully embed the energy into my essence. Each tattoo represents a different energy (or energies) that I can access. For example the the hourglass - web tattoo is connected to the elemental energies of space and time, while my blue dragon is connected to the elemental energies of water. The current tattoo I'm getting, another dragon, is being used to connect with the elemental energies of fire and movement. I have plans to get more tattoos down the line, but undoubtedly some of that will also be influenced by what I work with and how I want to dedicate myself to that energy.

There's not a lot of work written about working with the body. My book Inner Alchemy discusses some of my work and I am continuing in some of those directions, but I think that the body is an untapped resource, especially in Western Culture. Eastern cultures emphasize a connection and cultivation of the body's resources that simply isn't found in Western culture because of the spiritual disconnect from the body that both Christianity and Western Science are responsible for. That spiritual disconnect has fostered perspectives about the body that are unhealthy and don't fully enable people to feel empowered to embrace or work with their bodies. Sadly Western occultism continues to foster similar perspectives. For example, Robert Anton Wilson refers to the body as a robot and seems intent on trying to escape it (not surprising given his encounter with Polio).

I was fortunate to avoid a lot of such limiting beliefs in regards to my body because I wasn't raised in overly religious household and had a natural curiosity about my body that I chose to explore so I could better understand it. I grew up sleeping naked in bed instead of having pajamas on (and I can't understand why anyone would want to wear pajamas) and I have always loved my body and appreciated its curves and the various sensations I can feel. I've also had my own experiences of body hate, such as when I was anorexic, but overall I was fortunate to embrace my body in a way that I observe many people don't. I honestly feel that one of the reasons people are so dysfunctional about sex comes right to the fact that Western culture overall has such a dysfunctional relationship with the body.

There is a lot to be explored in terms of enhancing the body with magic, but also in really understanding the body as a universe of its own, with hidden wonders to experience and explore if we are willing to set aside our all too limited perspectives and cultural biases about the body. This work can only occur if more people are willing to explore the body as a universe and allow themselves to be open to whatever experiences are encountered. Certainly I will keep writing about my own work because I realize more than ever how important it is to continue cultivating perspectives and experiences that run counter to the dysfunctional values that mainstream culture embodies.

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.