Magical Practices – The Abysmal Witch

I’m teaching! And it’s free! Wait, what?

Yes, that’s right, I’ve–I was going to say ‘gone into the teaching business’ but since I’m already a teacher and I’m not doing this course (at least yet) as a business, that’s a bit misleading to say.

What is true is that I’ve setup an online practical magick school: TerraArcanum.org. And the first course offering is up, and it’s free to anyone and everyone who registers into it by March 15, 2017. It’s a 12 month course on the Qabala, more specifically on the Practical Qabala. It’s a basic, introductory course, focusing on experiencing the Qabala through meditation, energy work and discussion. The discussions are strongly encouraged, either online through a group devoted to it or in person. I’ll be hosting in person teas to accompany the course (okay, to be completely honest, I’m doing the course to accompany the teas!) and encourage anyone else who is inclined to do the same. What better reason to get together with like minded folk than to sit down over a hot (or cold) beverage to discuss mysticism and magick?

Seriously, this is a limited time opportunity. Go on over to the course page and sign up now, before it’s too late. Or at least before I make you pay for it (that would be on March 15, 2017). Go now.

Go here.

Are you still on this page? Silly person! Go to Terra Arcanum now and avoid FOMO.

In all honesty, and sincerely, I hope that anyone who will find this useful and of interest will join in on the process. It’s an offering I can make to the world. Happy New Year!

Healing is like cleaning house…woot?

It always needs to get done. Rarely get a break. Always need to do more.

I used to hate cleaning. I still often have days of less appreciation, but I’ve improved my relationship with it. I’ve come to feel the connection between the act of cleaning and the magic of cleaning. When every act of cleaning becomes a magical act, it has, for me, greater purpose, and thus a greater appeal for getting it done. Plus, I really love living in a clean home.

It’s actually a bit of a treat now rather than a relentless torture.

Even though I will need to do it again later today and tomorrow and next weekend. There are always more dishes. More dirty clothes. The floors get dirty. Dust falls on everything. Then there are the pets. Since they don’t have the wherewithal to eliminate into the toilet, there’s all that associated cleaning, too. And closets! Wow, closets are a dangerous zone. They get organized a time or two throughout the year, and if that organization is maintained, everything is good. But it’s sooooo tempting to just put that one thing back quickly rather than properly and before you know it, the whole closet has gone to shit and you’re looking at a major overhaul before it will be fully useful again.

But when I put the effort in to putting things away properly, in the closets, in the teeny, teeny kitchen. In my office area. When I use things and then complete their usage by putting them away, all becomes beautiful in the living. But the cleaning will always be there, behind everything I do, and an ongoing work on its own behalf.

That’s what healing is like. I’m thinking of emotional trauma and old physical trauma and habits healing. Things that have become embedded into us.

When I first started down my ‘oh shit, I have sexual trauma in my background, I’m going to need to do some work on this’ road, my original viewpoint was ‘let’s get this done and over with so we can go back to living a fun and worry free life’. (Yes, apparently I am referring to myself in the 3rd person.) And yes, I had this cheerful delusion that I could face it, deal with it, and have it all be over with in a year. Maybe two.

That was over 15 years ago.

Today I know that healing is an every day thing. Today I will do some healing for my nervous system. Some. And tomorrow will come some more. There will be big days, where I clear through a lot in one go; those epic healing days, like the epic cleaning days, that are intensely satisfying and make you feel like you’ve really accomplished something.

But just as with cleaning, it takes less effort, and life is generally easier to live, when the healing is done in small doses on a regular basis. Slipped on a rock and fell? Take that extra minute and let the nervous system work it out now instead of having more troubles later. Delivery company pissing you off? Have a healthy response of useful aggression (non-violent) instead of bottling up everything inside to eat at you later. As the day-to-day cleaning, ah, healing, settles in, then when there’s time for a deeper clean, we can actually go a bit deeper instead of just catching up on the little things. If the dishes are already done, things put away, then that extra time goes to washing floors or wiping down cabinets, instead of just catching up on the little things. (Called titration, btw.)

And the absolute, inescapable truth is that the healing is going to go on for the rest of our lives. We’ll get so good at it that the effort will go down. Then we’ll get so caught up on it that the effort will go down. (Or alternatively, we’ll just let it all pile up and ignore it – but I’m assuming we’re all in the ‘want to deal’ group.)

Some days we won’t bother with healing. And things will pile up a bit, and we’ll need to catch up on another day. And that’s okay. Because it will be waiting for us tomorrow.

When the healing is big and scary and overwhelming, the idea that it won’t end can seem like we’ve been sentenced to some level of hell. That we are doomed to suffer until the end of our days. Except not. Healing isn’t hell. It just needs to take us through things that can feel hellish in our systems until we’ve worked things out. Have you ever done physiotherapy? Not always fun. Sometimes downright torturous. But afterwards? If done well, afterwards is a veritable treat.

Healing our selves and our souls and our spirits is just what we do. So that we can live life to the fullest, in all our corners, bright and dark.

Leylines in the House!

You know I typed the title with that announcer/over the top party voice, right?

Have you ever gotten tipsy and contemplated magick? That’s what I thought. Well, during one of those moments for me I was contemplating leylines, you know, the flow of energy in the planet. Rather like veins of power running through the earth. Mostly thin, sometimes thick, sometimes clustering into a nexus which becomes a place of power.

Think Stonehenge. Or other old pagan sites. Or really any place where your hair stands on edge just because you set foot into it. Places of power. Places where power congregates. Like a river fed lake where the water pools in one particular place before moving out again. (Thinking of it as having water coming in and out regularly works better as esoteric energy not moving tends to get a bit thick and unwieldly.)

These veins tend to travel through natural channels for the planet. Like a well established river, they tend not to move around much in their path unless there is cause to do so. And like rivers, they flow, continually. Or perhaps electrical lines would be a better analogy. Regardless, you get the idea.

So there I am, a tad in my cups (I make mead, after all, so in my cups is a good, tasty, honey-rich thing) and thinking about the natural flow of energy. And then about the flow of energy in my home.

Leylines in the House!

C’mon, that time you surely heard it in that special announcey voice?

Okay, they aren’t leylines in the classical sense, but there are lines, flows of energy in our homes. Feng shui is, to my understanding as I have not studied it at all, in essence dealing with this flow. We are living beings moving repeatedly in spaces that have purpose. This leads to energy build up and energy grooves as in paths the energy likes to take.

Which leads to interesting thoughts and a way to evaluate, magically speaking, our homes. Where does the energy flow easily in my home? Where does it snag, caught up on shape or form or intention? Are there places that let the energy slip through to easily? If I’m creating defensive magicks, how do I use the setup of my things and my space to create distractions and disruptions for anything attempting to find me and/or come into my space?

Where don’t I like to be in my own home? What lingers in that space? Is it an item there or the flow itself that bothers me?

Can I feel the energy in my own home?

This is not an idle question. Just like we are the last ones to usually smell our own funk, it can be difficult to feel the energy in our home spaces precisely because they are home and thus, by definition and expectation, we spend a lot of time there. It is utterly and deeply familiar to us and so harder to feel. Yet surely, of all places, this is the energy we want to know best AND it’s the place energy we can most easily effect.

When we set our belongings in places we create effect, when we clean we create effect, when we move through and use our space we create effect. As in impact on the energy of our homes and how it moves.

I invite you to also think on that the next time you’re tipsy or even just plain upright and contemplative. Do you know the lines of energy in your own home? How they flow, where they pool, where they are clean and where they are clogged. From that place of knowledge you stand ready to change anything you will to.

The choice and thus the power is yours.

Violet
~The Abysmal Witch

Learning to Play: Cards

I’ve been very focused lately on what I “should” be doing, what “needs” to be done. To accomplish this, to do what’s appropriate with that. Not just with work things, but in my play as well.

In fact, I realized tonight that I haven’t been playing. I’ve been approaching all of my ‘fun’ things with a work ‘must get done’ attitude.

It’s not hard to see where this came from. During my two years of major transitions, I kept to my hobbies, my crafts, by determination and will alone it seemed somedays. I was exhausted through much of those days and I would have these litanies in my head such as “okay, you can rest, but right after you get that mead racked”. Taking care of my mead became another list on my list of things. It needed to or it would have stopped. And I was NOT going to be stopped from continuing to do something I love.

o,O

And let’s face another reality while I’m at it. I’m inherently lazy. I don’t want to do the things. I want to lie on my couch with a book in my hands, tea to my side, cat on my legs and while away my afternoons. Rain or shine doesn’t matter, they are both conducive to a lazy afternoon reading. Doing anything beyond that requires a certain level of determination from me. I feel like every hobby I pick up comes with the weight of fear and depression and childish whining of ‘it’s too hard’. I don’t know when these things crept onto and started to leech at my joys, but it has happened. Badly.

In a nutshell? I’ve forgotten how to play.

So I’m going to try something new. I hope. I’m going to try and find the play in my interests. Grins in my hobbies. Laughter in my crafts.

Tonight I played with my three favourite card decks. Joie de Vivre, Thoth and the Celtic Book of the Dead cards. Check out the spreads, my friend!:

Each one with a tale. Each one whispering of things to learn and to discover. Life has changed. My emotions will run strong and there will be storms and high seas. And therein too lies the joy and the fun. Living is going to feel good! Or, well intense. Intensity can be its own good sometimes. Any way, though, I hope to embrace and live and try to find the fun and the bounce. To do what I love because of love.

What is fed, grows.

Saturn,
the Abysmal Witch

An Invitation to a Great Working for the Planet

YOU are Invited

I and a few others have been challenged by our Ancestors and by our Gods to do what we can to stir up change in the world.

Our hope is that by breaking the current flow, the pattern of our cultures and societies that are destroying our food and our planet that is encouraging the worst in ourselves and towards others, by breaking this flow we hope that something better can arise.

We have started a Great Working towards change.

You are invited to join us in it. Join by doing ritual. Energizing, powerful ritual. Ritual to a purpose. Do it in your ritual space or in nature. Do it in your own style. Just join us in purpose.

The more of us who Act to create change, the greater the change will be.

If you are interested, all information including the first ritual outline is available at Dark Stars.

We have already begun the Magick. Join us if you so Will.

~Saturn

Gregorian Resolution 2013

A year ago, possibly today, I posted about my view on New Year’s resolutions. I like to focus on things I want to try out, something new to embrace as the new year (Gregorianly speaking) starts.

Last year, I vowed to attend one live event per month. Some of which even were blogged about here. It was a varied list, including: bellydance, plays, opera (first time ever), laser show, beluga and otter shows at the aquarium, restaurant band, friends playing with Fimo, classic plays and modern ones, parade, air show, and the list actually goes on from there.

This year, I vow to cook something new each and every month.

This should balance nicely between my holy-fuck-how-am-I-going-to-ever-survive-the-psychotic-busy-of-2013 and determination to learn something new this year for pure fun.

I’ve been edging into the land of cooking more anyway so this isn’t precisely a stretch.

THE SECRET

Did you notice it? I just gave away the secret to New Year’s resolution successes. I’m embracing something I already am interested and have already started working on. It’s a bit of a stretch to succeed, but not much of one, and it’s something I honestly want to do and already am doing. I’m just going to do more of it, and more consistently. A little push in my already direction.

And January is taken care of already! But as with last year’s resolution, the month only improves if I fulfill the resolution more than once. Or as many times as I feel like. It just doesn’t let me be so lazy that I let my desire drift off my awareness and the intention disappear into the void of the forgotten.

Oh, and what was it? A simple quesadilla. No recipe, just a simple adding of ingredients to make a nummy lunch. One that I could have easily done years before and just never got up the gumption/intention/nerve to do it (I’m a shy cook sometimes and hesitant to ‘wing’ it).

Do you have a New Year’s resolution? Is it going to be easy? hard?

Or do you live the land of ‘resolution is to have no resolutions’? A land I am familiar with and frequently enjoy. Though I’m finding I like the challenge of this newer methodology of mine.

Regardless of plans, I wish you all a 2013 filled with satisfaction of needs, exploration of dreams, and a movement towards your greater Path.

Blessings of the deep and wild to you all.

Saturn, the Abysmal Witch

(My) Eight Blisses of Yule: #4 Understanding

Yes, I know, Yule is fading quickly beneath the onslaught of the coming sun, but I still have my litany of 8 blisses to share! So I’ll try and get them out in the next several weeks (this is me setting a realistic timeframe rather than the one I wish I could make but deep down know that I meet).

Understanding. One of my favourite things to do at this time of year (we’re pretending it’s still Yule time as I type this) is to give the “perfect” gift. The perfect gift isn’t in the item.

It is in how it is received.

When the other person’s eyes, face, body light up. When they get that grin or laugh, get teary or just really solemn before they give you a great, big hug, that’s when I know I’ve given a perfect gift.

Because it was something special to them not necessarily to me.

Giving the perfect gift requires seeing the other person for who THEY are, and not getting sucked into seeing on them reflections of our own needs and wants.

It is so easy to assume fall victim to the “I like it so they’ll like it too” attitude. There has to be more to recommend something as a gift for a particular person than just that I or you like it.

Giving the perfect gift is allowing yourself insight into the who of someone else. At the deepest level, you let go of your own ego to let in the sense of the other person, to understand what it is that would bring them joy.

Yes, knowing the person, their likes/dislikes, whether or not they have the same sense of humour as you, their complete addiction to My Little Ponies, these are all tells. We pay attention to the person, know what they are like, what they’ve shown preference for in the past, or not. We apply that knowledge in picking out the gift.

Some might say that this isn’t any mystical experience, it’s just good social etiquette.

Well, and it is. And when done out of duty, that’s all it is. But when it’s done out of love? Then it is a gift of love.

Understanding the other person is the gift we receive when we give a perfect gift.

Love is the gift the other person receives when they receive from us the perfect gift.

I firmly believe that we experience love through attention. Without getting into any real specifics: We give attention to people we love. When someone pays attention to us, we feel loved (whether we want it or not, though it always feels nicest when it is mutual).

When we fully embrace understanding (or love) then we have reached a mystical experience.

And when they open the gift, and their face lights up, and I get to see that I was right, that I had connected with that person, understood them, given even just one person a perfect gift for that year, then I know I have understood, truly understood and joy is then mine, too.

~Abysmal Witch

Getting Quiet

My New Year’s resolution (yes, I dared to have one and no, it was not to be nicer to people-sorry, in-joke) is to be better at rest. Getting a full amount of sleep. Taking breaks from tasks to recover so that I can do more better in shorter times. Ideally.

To set the backdrop, I don’t spend a lot of time on my balcony. It’s nice. i keep it decorated and decently clean. But I’m rarely comfortable spending time out there.

Yesterday, I went to visit a friend. She and her partner regularly go outside for a smoke, they sit in their backyard, look at the trees and relax.

Today I realized that I avoid the balcony because I am bothered by the idea of simply relaxing. I should be DOING something, not just sitting on my ass.

Or so says the back part of my brain.

Tonight I went outside for my own nip of bud though more importantly to take a distinct break between tasks, between things I was working on. It felt good at their place, surely I could do something similar in my own home?

And it worked. Okay, yes, we have to ignore my twitchy, must move, must do something, must must must voice, but after that it was calm, it was peaceful, it allowed me to regroup, as it were, and settle comfortably back into myself.

I didn’t wait until I was too exhausted and then crash out from the exhaustion of pushing myself through the horror of doing what I “should” do. Instead, when that feeling came on, I went outside, took a break, gave myself just 15 minutes of relaxing and contemplating and BEING.

Then came back in and it was round two of doing…wait, I could do whatever I wanted. And I did do it. I did the things on my list but because I wanted them done not so that I wouldn’t feel guilty.

Recognizing and using the power of breaks and rest is my New Year’s resolution. Here’s planning towards it being a new habit and soon.

A night of fabulousness to all, and to all a fab night.

~Abysmal Witch

(My) Eight Blisses of Yule: #3, Receiving

It is good to enjoy receiving gifts.

It is great to enjoy receiving gifts without any emotional baggage. As in your own emotional baggage, not the gift’s.

To think, someone cared for you emotional state enough to get you something they thought you would enjoy.

And yes, again I am getting away from the requisite giving that is so typified in the media and our culture (and even more so in other cultures judging by recent conversations). This isn’t the required polite receiving of some polite gift that was given because it was expected and received with a polite smile because the amount of emotion on the receiving end equalled that of the giving end.

I’m talking about having a gift in your hands that as you look upon it your heart glows. It makes you laugh. Or it fulfills a need. Or it satisfies an itch you didn’t even know you had. It speaks to you. And it’s FOR YOU.

I’ve long believed that we experience love through attention. When we are on the receiving end of positive attention, we feel loved (having your birthday remembered, receiving a gift you really wanted and so clearly the other person had paid attention to you, being asked about your day and the examples could continue forever).

Receiving a gift is taking in love.

Without commitment or expectation.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

If there was a string attached then it wasn’t a fucking gift and it doesn’t belong in this conversation.

Wow, taking in love.

As I type, I think “hey, this is why Santa is such a strong, beloved archetype!”

What is this lunatic talking about?

Think about it. Santa is the ultimate gift giver, right? He gives to all he loves (generally portrayed as all who are “good”), freely, without any expectation of return, no strings at all.

Which means that when you receive a gift from Santa, all you have to do, ALL you have to do is receive it. Take it in. Take that freely given love into your heart. You get to enjoy the gift without any guilt or need to reciprocate. Something I think many people have a hard time doing when the gift is from someone known. But Santa? His gifts are safe to receive.

I received gifts this yule. And each one was unexpected and appreciated. And ZERO fretting over anyone who didn’t give a gift. Because there was no need for gifts to be given. No need = no requirement = no guilt. Gods, I love things that come without guilt.

This receiving isn’t the greedy grasping of a selfish child. This is the glorious receiving of the open and essentially hopeful child.

This Yule I let myself take in the gifts of my friends, from the physical to the spiritual, the joy of their company to their funny stories.

Yes, gifts range far beyond the physical, and many of them arrive when we’re not paying attention.

Time to wake up and take it in. Let it all in. Receive the gifts that are waiting for your hands to open to take them in.

~Abysmal Witch

(My) 8 Blisses of Yule: #2, Giving

I’m not talking about obligatory follow through. I’m not talking about the need to reciprocate. I’m not talking about fulfilling someone else’s expectations.

I’m talking about the sheer bliss of giving BECAUSE YOU WANT TO.

With no other lingering, hidden feeling lurking behind the giving.

There’s no expectation in it, no regret, no pressure, no feeling that you “had to”. The one and only reason for the giving is because in your heart of hearts you want to. What you want. To who you want. Without needing, without WANTING anything back.

That’s right. My bliss lies in doing it. Utterly and completely in the doing.

Full stop.

The only thing I hope for on the other end is to see a bit of my joy reflected in the receiver’s reaction. That’s my payoff.

And what a fucking awesome payoff it is.