The Magickal Cottage

Samhain or All Hallow’s Eve is often regarded as “The Witches’ New Year”. It’s a time to reflect on what has happened over the past year, and to figure out what has been working in your life and what hasn’t been working so well. You might say it is a good time to decide if you need any kind of an attitude adjustment. Facing your shadow side isn’t always easy, but to live a truly magickal life it is, from time to time, quite necessary. With the full moon on Nov. 6^th this is a great time to do some magickal closet cleaning.

I’ve spoken about cleansing and clearing energy. I’ve spoken about cleaning up your clutter and smudging and candle burning, so assuming you have done all that, let’s take a look at what you might want to put into your magickal toolbox. The toolbox I am speaking of is in this case an etheric one. You can’t touch it physically on the earth plane, but it exists, none the less. Everyone has this type of toolbox, by the way. Everyone does magick whether they choose to recognize the fact or not. Remember, your thoughts are things and like attracts like. Magickal people are just, hopefully, more aware that they are creating magick. So here is a list of some of the things that I believe should be in a magickal toolbox. The list is always growing so this is just what I would like to have in my toolbox so far:

1. The Right Attitude

I get a lot of people telling me that they would love to live a magickal life, but they need someone to “teach them how”.  I think what they are meaning is they want someone to give them some special words to say, maybe some herbs and a candle to light, so they can bring about the change they want to see in their lives.   They want love spells, money spells, healing spells, etc. and they only trust them to work if those spells came from someone else!

What we are seeing here is a lack of confidence. This would be a confidence in one’s own ability to perform magick of their own, and a belief that life really is magickally abundant in so many ways. Those positive affirmations you’ve heard tell about really do work! Surround yourself with people and things that make you feel excited and joyous inside. This doesn’t take money. It’s as simple as taking a walk outside and seeing the natural beauty all around you. I have known people who could go outside in a beautiful setting with blue skies, birds singing, butterflies, the whole bit, and all they can do is talk about how their life sucks! Unless they can open their magickal eyes they will never live a magickal life! I’ve been told, “You wouldn’t understand what I have gone through!  You have always lead a happy life!” Oh, really? You know everything about me? I just want to say, “SNAP OUT OF IT!”

Feel the joy and you will have magick in your life. A few negative thoughts can be easily canceled out by thinking one positive thought if you just make an attempt at believing. By the way, I am referring here to positive, helpful, “harm none” type of magick. People who do dark magick use the same principles in their magick except they take “joy” in causing harmful, “ego” centric, “manipulating others regardless of free will” events to occur.

2. Focus

In this case when I say focus I mean to know exactly what you want and BE SPECIFIC. I often put off doing any kind of spell until I am clear about what it is I want to achieve. You may think that it would be easy to know what you want. But wait a minute. What you want and what you need (or would be good for you) are not always the same thing. Many a young lady has manifested a George Clooney look-alike only to have her heart broken to pieces. Did her spell work? Sure it did! She just forgot to add a few important qualifications to “his” description. Also, remember that like attracts like. She may have some work to do on herself before she will attract someone who has the qualities she values. Nobody is perfect so how can anyone attract the perfect person? Be realistic. Just like Dorothy said, “Your heart’s desire might be right in your own backyard”. Pay attention. Often times the quality that makes for someone who is truly magickally adept is knowing when NOT to use magick, and that is always a personal choice. For me, this has been one of the most challenging aspects of doing magick. I am a “take charge” kind of person and sometimes tend to charge ahead before thinking things through. Yep, focus….

3. Energy

Anyone who has gone through Reiki training knows that they should never give up their own energy when doing a healing. Their body is just a channel for the Reiki energy to move through to do its healing work so giving any of their personal energy is not only unnecessary but not good for the practitioner. In general, giving up your own personal energy is hard on you. You need that energy to keep yourself in good health. That’s why people who steal your energy by their negativity and unfair demands make you feel so weakened and, well….crappy!

When doing magick decide on an energy source. Will you draw up energy from the Earth? Will you draw down energy from the moon? Will you ask deity, spirit, or elemental to lend you some of their energy? Will you use fire, water, air or all of the elements as an energy source? Remember to check your sources. Become familiar with the one you are asking to help. If you invite in some fairies or dragons to help out, be sure they are on your side and can be trusted. They might even think messing with you would be fun. Just saying! I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever ask these types of spirits for help. Just exercise care. I actually use Reiki energy in spells because I trust it.  During the spell be sure to focus on raising that energy and allowing it to grow as you invite it in. Let the energy merge with your intention for what you want to accomplish and you will be generating some powerful mojo!   

4. The Ability to Release and Walk Away

How often have we put out an intention or said a positive affirmation only to turn around and worry about whether or not our wish will come true? We are sending out an order to the universe to fill, only to grab the order back again. Imagine filling out a catalog order form with all kinds of great things listed on it that you are so anxious to get. You have paid for your order with a gift certificate that you received from the universe and placed the order form with the gift card payment in a stamped envelope. Then you fail to mail the envelope! Will you ever receive the stuff you ordered?? Nope. Not until you mail the envelope and walk away. If you go back to the post box and grab the envelop back it won’t get where it needs to go either. Only when you post the envelope and walk away, trusting that the postal service will deliver your order, can you have any hope of receiving what you want.

It’s like that with magick. We need to not only release the energy with our intention for the spell to work, but we need to also walk away. As you generate the energy for the magick you wish to create, intend that the energy be released. Then end your magickal session and walk away or forget about it until you see a sign that you are bringing about your desire. Then be joyful, say “thank you” and continue to “walk away”. You will be amazed at how effective this one “tool” can be. It takes practice but it is well worth the effort involved!

5. Humility

Know that you will sometimes goof up with your magick. I have plenty of times and probably will continue to do so. Hopefully I have learned a few lessons along the way. If you aren’t humble and can’t admit when something has gone wrong with a magickal work then you won’t grow as fast as a magickal practitioner. Exercise restraint, and when it comes to magick, “When in doubt, don’t!” No one can be all knowing, but taking the time to use your powers of discernment can keep you from making some big magickal mistakes. Sometimes you will be doing magick out of the goodness of your heart not realizing you have not been told the complete truth about a situation. I had that happen to me and I suffered a big karmic backlash! That’s just the way it works, so exercise restraint and have humility about what you are doing.

I love Terry Pratchett’s delightful magickal novels, and would like to close this post with an excerpt from The Wee Free Men. I feel this passage exemplifies what I have been touching on in this article.
The passage is a conversation between the witch, Miss Tick and the young girl, Tiffany. Unlike Miss Tick, I do believe magick has its place in life, but I agree with her attitude of exercising restraint. 

“Once you learn about magic, I mean really LEARN about magic, learn everything you CAN learn about magic, then you’ve got the most important lesson still to learn”, said Miss Tick.

“What’s that?”

“Not to use it. Witches don’t use magic unless they really have to. It’s hard work and difficult to controi. We do other things. A witch pays attention to everything that’s going on. A witch uses her head. A witch is sure of herself. A witch always has a piece of string –“

“I always do have a piece of string!” said Tiffany. “It’s always handy!”

And, yes, string is very handy to have around! That puts me to mind of another post to write…… lol . Coming soon! Witches’ Knots, Witches’ Ladders!

Blessings,

Sarina

Read Full Post »