These are not uncommon questions, so I figured I’d repost my comment here as a separate post to encourage some dialogue and give others the chance to ask follow-up questions if needed.

“First of all, let me put your mind to rest on something — getting it “just right” isn’t something you need to worry about unless it’s something you need to worry about.  I’m not trying to be droll, here.  If you attached a great deal of importance to being EXACT, then you need to get it exact.  Your mind needs that prop.  If you’re okay with it being non-exact, then don’t worry so much about it.  The best way to judge whether or not you’re going to think that way is to imagine that you WEREN’T exact with it… would you immediately doubt yourself??  If the answer is yes, that you would doubt your spellwork, then you need to be exact.  The truth is, the Gods answer with an equal amount of attraction and power and belief with which they were called.  Some of us need a lot of extra bells and whistles, and some of us don’t.  I happen to like them because they require me to “give up” something to make the magick happen — whether it’s my time in researching or simply my time in ordering my life around an important “hour”.

“Now, as to figuring true midnight… here’s how.  Find out what time the sun sets on the 15th.  Find out what time the sun rises on the 16th.  Now, count backwards from both sunset and sunrise to the middle hour and minute between them.  Easiest way is to take the total number of minutes between sunset and sunrise, divide it by two (halving it), then divide that number up into hours and minutes.  Take what you have and add it to the time of sunset, and you’ll have true midnight.

“For example, if sunset is 7:15 pm and sunrise is 6:50 am, then there are 11 hours and 35 minutes in the night (695 minutes).  Half of that would be approximately 347 minutes.  Divided into hours, that is 5 hours and 47 minutes.  5 hours and 47 minutes after 7:15 pm is 1:02 a.m.  This is the hour of true midnight in this example.

“Use the time of sunset and sunrise for where you live.  The Weather Channel online can give this to you very easily.  You can also get this information from iPhone programs such as Fourth Day or a regional Farmer’s Almanac.

It’s a somewhat tricky little calculation, but worth the working.  I find that spells work far better at TRUE midnight than the old clock midnight when you’re trying to gauge the timing of things.  A little sidenote that you might find interesting — when you calculate true midnight this way, you often end up with midnight as being somewhere in the hour between 12:00am and 1:00am… the 13th hour.  The time that is not a time, if you catch my meaning.”

I really look forward to hearing about your experiences making this talisman.  Feel free to send me a snapshot of your key once it’s finished, and I’ll even post them here online with a little blurb about what you experienced if you’d like to write something up and email it to me.

May your keys unlock many spiritual doors as you journey through life!

Photo by KimonoMania (via Flickr).

This is actually a follow-up post to an earlier Q & A posted this week.  In addition to being asked if one can work magick when sick, I’ve also been asked if one can work healing magick for themselves when sick and how this process would potentially work.  It’s a common enough question that I felt it should be addressed as well.

Healing when you are sick yourself can be a tricky process.  However, the plus side of this conversation is that healing magick has a high success rate.  After all, look at your body’s ability to heal — when you get a wound or an illness, your body’s tendency is to fight the illness, heal the wound.  In other words, your body’s protocol is to mend and restore.  There are conditions that fall outside this parameter, such as autoimmune disorders, but we’re going to stick to straightaway healing here.

The best way I can see to go about answering this question is to point out a standard technique/method and then to point out what could go wrong (where you might not want to use that method).  Then I’ll finish up with things that are (a) least taxing on you physically and (b) still allow you to do the working.

GETTING THE ENERGY TO HEAL.  All magick takes energy to work.  When you work a spell, you are grounded and centered and drawing on the limitless energy of the Universe (or at least, you’d better be or we need to have a talk).  When you are sick, grounding can be difficult.  The body’s way of dealing with illness is to sideline us, usually with fatigue, so that we back off and redirect all our energy to healing.  Grounding when tired can take more concentration than we have the patience to muster.  But for argument’s sake, let’s say you get grounded and you have access to that extra energy.  Alright, good.  Now your body has extra energy with which to work.

So what are you going to do with it now that you have it?  Energy in spellwork has to be directed.  Are you a doctor or well-versed in anatomy and physiology?  99% of us aren’t.  (I have a whole beef about people who claim to be healers but who can’t tell me where the femur is in a body or detail the process of digestion and its vital fluids and what organs make those fluids, etc.  I’ll save that rant for later.  For the record, I don’t count myself as a Healer-With-A-Capital-H.  I have the skills of an Emergency Field Medic, maybe more if you count my herbal work, but that’s it.)  I don’t like the idea of letting a whole lot of energy loose into a system and then just expecting it to do what it’s supposed to do.  That’s the difference between setting off a charge of dynamite to remove a specific chunk of rock versus just setting off a charge of dynamite on the side of a mountain and expecting it to just magickally not blow up anything else but what you want.  Not highly likely.

Then there’s also the problem of whether that extra energy is going to fix the problem or compound it, or if the cure is going to fix or compound it.  For example, comfrey is a wonderful component of a healing salve.  It causes cell reproduction which is vital for tissues mending.  However, let’s say you have cancer, which is a cellular growth.  Do you want THOSE cells growing and multiplying unchecked?  I’d say not.  So taking comfrey internally when you have a precancerous or cancerous situation isn’t what you’d call a “good cure”.  Likewise, that extra energy you’re pumping in is there for your whole system to use.  That means whatever is making you ill could equally draw on that energy.  Not a good situation.  Also, having that extra energy may amp you up, cause you to get up and do work or other physical tasks that tire you — this can set you back in your healing by tiring you out.  The minute you then let go of the energy, you crash hard and often cause a total relapse in your own natural healing that sets you farther back than you were before.

If you’re going to ground and bring in energy, you would be best off doing it through a filter of intent.  My favorite way is to select a Deity or Angelic presence that is known for Healing (I work with Sekhmet, personally, for Healing and Ma’at to restore Balance) and ask them to weave the energy for you as is necessary.  The Universal knowledge of what is wrong with you and how that energetic imbalance needs to be corrected is easily within Their understanding.  You can imagine them standing between you and your energy source, or you can utilize an amulet dedicated to them as a “filter”, charging it to allow only the energy you need to come through and that the energy goes DIRECTLY to what is needed to bring about your healing and no more.  This allows you to work around your own ignorance but still remain open to what can best be done for you.  Be sure to ask your spirit guides for help here or your own personal Guardian Angel.

MAGICKAL VERSUS ‘MUGGLICAL’.  So you’re a Witch and you think you should be able to do something about being sick… something more than a non-magickal person would be able to do.  Back up there, buddy!  Being a Witch doesn’t mean you are superhuman, entitled to the special Magickal Monopoly card that gets you out of Sickie Jail for free, or anything else.  Remember you are a human being with a physical form and that means you have to interface the mundane world — germs and all.

Magick is not a short-cut for getting well by replacing common sense with woo-nderful cures.  If you’re sick, check off your To-Do List of Muggle Mending:  plenty of fluids, plenty of rest, healthy food, more rest, more fluids, take prescriptions as ordered, know when you need to go to the doctor, wash your hands and avoid cross-contamination, peace and quiet, more rest.  And once you’re well, don’t tax yourself too hard too fast.  Respect your body and its limits, give it a hand with every common sense thing you can think of.  This is the solid foundation upon which your magick can rest.  If you don’t do these things, all your magickal handiwork will very likely unravel.

GET A HEALTHY HEALER — YOU! Who says you have to work a healing spell when you’re sick?  Why don’t you be a clever Witch and prepare healing spells when you’re healthy!  You’ll be at peak energy, not in the throes of illness, and able to concentrate.  Here are some ideas to get you started for pre-illness magickal work:

• Healing Candle. Ok, obvious!  Make yourself a candle with healing herbs that focus on relaxation, rejuvenation and healing.  Color it a healing color.  carve the names of Healer Deities or healing symbols (make sure you know how they’re used first, please).  Once the candle is ready, anoint and bless it and wrap it up in parchment paper.  Label it and seal it.  If you have a special prayer, even better!  Write it on the parchment and say it when you light the candle.

• Do Double Duty. When you’re making that candle and you get to the point of charging and anointing the candle, go ahead and charge a healing crystal with the same energy that you can hold while you’re ill.  Some stones will draw out illness (Hematite, Lodestone).  Some stones strengthen the immune system (Malachite, Amethyst).  Others, like  Turquoise, are good all around healers.  If you have a recurrent problem, be proactive and find a stone that works well for that specific thing.  IMPORTANT:  Once you have to use the stone you charged, you  need to cleanse it before re-empowering it.  This can be easily done by placing the stone in salt for a few days in the hard wane of the moon, or placing it in running water, etc.

• Charge That Powdery Drink Stuff. Ok, this is totally not an ancient technique (at least, it’s not in that the ancients didn’t have Crystal Light), but it serves double purpose — it holds the spell and it gets you to drink those darn fluids.  Open up a container of powdered drink mix — I’m not even sure flavor matters since everything tastes wonky when you’re sick.  Pour the contents out into a cleansed bowl.  Bless the powder, charge it with healing energy, draw sigils with glowing light (in a healing color) into the surface of the powder and visualize the energy dispersing through the individual grains of drink mix.  Call upon your Deities to bless your mixture.  Store it away in a special glass bottle — get fancy and write words of healing on the outside of the glass container AND on the glass you’ll be drinking from — and when you get sick, VOILA!  Instant healing tonic!  Tastes better than water and packs a real healing punch!

• Make A Healing Blankie. Get yourself a patchwork quilt.  If you make it, so much the better, but a bought one will work nicely.  Make sure it’s colors that represent health to you.  Things that you, when you look at it, you feel an energy lift (but not too much… you don’t want to be overstimulated, just warmed).  Don’t make it too complicated a quilt.  Simple square blocks work the best.  If you can’t find that, then go for a solid pale color on which you can write/draw things (I’m all about White for this project… here’s why).  Now go get yourself a huge pack of those multi-colored Sharpie permanent markers.  Sit down with your blankie spread out on the table and start drawing pictures and symbols that represent health to you.  Have your friends and family sit down and write blessings and prayers for your health — Get Well Soon, Feel Better, Here’s To Your Good Health, etc. — all over that blanket.  Do NOT be a critic here… it’s about the energy going in.  Once it’s all done, bless it, ask your Gods to bless it for the purpose of healing, that whomever that blanket is wrapped around will be surrounded in the care of the Gods and the healing energy will overflow.  Never underestimate the power of a blankie!  Kids have it right!

If you’re doing magick for someone else when you are sick yourself, you can adapt the techniques above to help them, but I really recommend waiting until you are well.  When doing magick for someone else, you run the risk of bleedover from you to them, exacerbating their condition and weakening yourself.  There is also the tricky work of filtering between you and the sick person to prevent from picking up THEIR illness — this can be quite dangerous depending on what you’re trying to heal.  But feel free to make a few candles, drink mixes, charge some stones in order to have them on hand for someone else.

And since someone is bound to ask, the shelf-life for the powder, stones, and candles are a year and a day.  You won’t need to necessarily throw them out, but you will want to renew the spell.  Be sure to save your spell so you can repeat it exactly to “re-charge” it.  The blanket will just take a smudge, and reconsecration prayer.  Because the words are written and writing takes so much Will, the effects linger longer.  To renew the blanket, just read all the words aloud as part of the reconsecration and remember the power of those who helped you make the blanket.

Here’s To Your Health!

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

Is it possible, through either meditation, astral travel, or ritual to contact those who have passed on? There are two people I’m interested in contacting; one, a member of my family and another a personal idol who I have never met but would love to express my eternal gratitude to for helping shape me as the person I am.  Thank you much in advance! At this point I am not so sure if I’d like to see this published, as it is of a personal nature — perhaps in the future, though, it might be a valuable thing for other folks to read.  Brightest blessings!  ~S.H.

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Yes, it is possible.  However, there is a certain amount of division that is occurring in your mind because you are limited by your human body and its finite and linear perceptions.  All energy is connected, and so those you wish to speak with are really not separate f rom you.  However, I do understand the need to put the process of contact in a meaningful form so that your physical human self can experience that Oneness and find comfort and communication in it.

The easiest time to reach across the Veil or call through it is coming at Samhaine.  I also find the waning moon (when the moon is in hard wane — three days before New Moon through New Moon) works well, too.  At Samhaine, you can set a Dumb Feast for the person you wish to attract.  This is especially potent for someone you’ve known and with whom you have distinct memories that involve the senses.  To set a Dumb Feast, you prepare the foods that the person loved and set it forth with the intention that they are served alongside you at your table.  I typically have a special blessing where I begin the dinner by casting circle at twilight (dinner is served at twilight).  As the light fades and darkness descends, I call to each direction in the Darkness and proclaim that I light the fire of my hearth that my family might be gathered together again on this night that stands between days, between times, and between worlds.  I hold an item that belonged to that person (the more personal the item, the better) and I hold it up high and call their name nine times, once for each of the Nine Worlds.  The effect is pretty pronounced.  I’ll often catch a whiff of perfume or cologne, hear their voice, the wind will blow through… once the chair at their place setting actually moved backwards.

Once they’ve arrived, you need to proceed with your dinner INCLUDING THEM.  In other words, include them in conversation, tell stories about them, glance at their place and include them in your sight — because they are there.  During or after dinner, feel free to take the time to tell them what you long to tell them.  You can also wait until after dinner and do it privately as long as you remain in circle.  Be sure that once you’ve said what you need to say that you don’t just “throw them out”.  Give them leave to stay peacefully and welcomingly.  Tell them at sunrise the circle will dissolve and they will once again have to move beyond the Veil.  Be sure to clean up your own energy afterwards by smudging or sweeping the area clean.

This isn’t the kind of thing you want to do if you’re not comfortable casting circle, so make sure you have that skill down first.  It’s not hard to learn, but you want to make sure that the only things coming through are the things you’ve called… not any and all sundry.  I did a similar ritual when my grandfather passed not too long after I started studying.  I noticed that the specificity of using my grandfather’s name and his favorite foods (and the fact it was MY blood and thus HIS genetic code in my veins calling to his energy) kept most extraneous other stuff out.  I did see other shadowy bits of this and that poke up their heads, though, when I started the rite.  So, get that circle up and be prepared!

I will warn you about one thing — do NOT force the calling.  You are ASKING them to join you.  Don’t use hair or items that contained their physical essence as a way to force them to join you.  You are INVITING them, not SUMMONING them.  There is a big difference between the two.  One allows them to politely decline your request.  The latter gives them no choice and is a sure way to end up with something-grumpy-this-way-comes.  You know what it feels like to be told what to do — imagine what it feels like to be MADE to do something.  It’s not a good thing to do, IMO.

As for the other request… the person you don’t know… that’s harder to do.  More dangerous, less likely to succeed in the way you might want, more to consider.  After all, you have to ask, has the person already reincarnated again (you might have to ask the same thing in regards to your family member depending on how long ago they died)?  You don’t want to call up a soul already in someone else’s body!  That might make for an interesting little “tug” for the person being called up!  Because they aren’t of your bloodline, it will be harder to connect mentally for you.  Even the baser techniques of using food to lure the Dead back won’t really work for you… you might know how to cook okra but you might not know how THEIR grandmother cooked their favorite okra, if you catch my drift.

To do this kind of contact, I suggest making a veneration altar (again, Samhaine seems a good time).  Put up pictures of the person, light candles, make it pretty.  And once it’s set up, speak a prayer into the Infinite, that your words of gratitude might reach the soul of the person of whom you’re speaking, so that no matter if they’ve reincarnated or not, your gratitude can find its way to their soul.  This kind of tender honoring CAN be felt even if the person has come into another body already.  This also doesn’t entail any “summoning” on your part.  It doesn’t force the contact.  It is an outflow from you into a brother/sister soul in this Universe, and very benign.

I hope this gives you a couple of ideas to use in your quest to give thanks to those who have been meaningful in your life.  You can do either or both or neither of these.  However, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that all things and people are connected, and simply by focusing on the person to whom you want to speak, you can speak and they will feel/hear/know what you wish to say.  The ritual trappings are more for US than them, usually.  It’s beautiful, it’s real, but speaking with a sincere heart to the Ether is equally as real and beautiful when the time is right.

Blessings!

Author’s Footnote: This post was originally answered privately, but later permission was given to post the question and response here.  My thanks to S.H. for permission to post this question — I’m sure others wonder similar things!

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

I’m wondering what your thoughts are about preforming magical operations, or spells when a person’s health is compromised. Can health issues negatively affect magic? And if so, should a person refrain from preforming spells until their health is better, or are there some techniques someone could use to get around this?  ~ C.

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Performing magick when ill can be tricky for a number of reasons.  It requires the careful monitoring of your energy to ensure you don’t overtax your already weakened system.  It can violate the natural give and take that occurs when you’re sick — you’re supposed to take time for yourself when you’re sick, so what are you doing still trying to give more to someone else?  And if you’re doing a healing spell, you also have to concern yourself with bleedover to them (from you) and bleedover to you (from them) — you don’t want to be passing illnesses magickally.

By the fact that you asked me if there were ways around it, I will point out that (a) you already intuitively knew the best answer and (b) also recognize that it’s not going to be feasible for you to resist doing a working every time you’re ill.  That’s the way of any middle path — knowing the best answer “as a rule”, and also knowing and preparing for the times when you have to break that rule.

My first suggestion is to remember that the Gods are more powerful than any one of us.  Call for reinforcements.  Ask the Gods to work a miracle.  Ask your Angels for assistance.  Need is a powerful attractive force.  If you truly NEED to do a spell, then NEED can supply that extra energy that you’re lacking.  Obviously, I’m saying here that you shouldn’t do whimmy “Just Cause I Want It” magick when you’re sick.  That’s like saying you’re going to drive to your favorite restaurant across town when you have the flu for a sit-down meal just ’cause you feel like it.  Makes no sense right?  Well, doing magick for stuff you just “want” when you’re sick makes NO BLOODY SENSE!  If it’s a NEED, the magick will draw from a different energy core.  It will still drain you, though, but there are times that working the magick and releasing the Need also releases the Stress and sometimes that alone can relieve the illness.  However, when you turn something over to the Gods and ask them to intervene, you are calling upon a Source — the SOURCE — and this doesn’t drain you, doesn’t tax you, and doesn’t require you to guide the magick to its necessary conclusion.  It does require you to surrender though, and since some people have trouble with surrender, there’s also…

Spellwork.  My suggestion is to do spellwork when you’re feeling good, healthy, vibrant.  You can make spells up in advance for protection, healing, peace, stress-relief, and many other things.  Concoct the spell completely except for the final step of naming the person for whom the spell is being worked.  Charge it, wrap it, set it aside.  When you need to pull it out to do the spell, it’s ready to go except for the final “aiming” part.  Think of it like you making a bow, an arrow, a bowstring, and having them all on hand.  When the time comes to fire the arrow (ie, you have a target), you’ll have everything ready to go and all you’ll need to do is set up the bow, nock the arrow, draw, aim, and release.  That’s a lot easier than a to-do list of make bow, make arrow, make bowstring, then all the aiming and firing stuff, don’t you think?

Health issues can negatively affect magick — mostly in the terms of how much energy you are able to put forth into a working and then the after-effects upon you from the exertion.  Being grounded helps, calling for reinforcements (the Gods, etc) helps, working when you’re healthy and being pro-active helps.  There are ways around it.  But think of it like dealing with any long-term illness or permanent injury.  Most people with a mitigating circumstance or condition can find ways to do what they want to do and need to do regardless of any limitation.  It’s about modification, planning, and sheer willpower.

But then, we’re Witches, right?  We can handle that!  *smile*

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

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I came to this problem from the opposite direction!  It was damn easy for me to get grounded, but freeing up my mind to stop all my second-guessing and just LET GO DAMMIT! was much more difficult.   So congrats on being able to achieve that magickal mind-space!

The easiest ways I’ve found to get grounded again are to partake in the mundane world.  This means involving your physical body on some level.  These are the things I have found that work for me when I need to ground and ground hard:

• Eat something heavy, such as steak or other dense protein.

• Sex.  I prefer the raw and passionate kind for grounding purposes, but pick your flavor.  *smile*

• Do chores around the house.

• Take a bit of salt under the tongue.  It’s a jolt, but it reminds you of your physical self.  Good in emergencies when you need to ground fast, but can have the equivalent effect/feel of being dropped back into your body from a height.

• Lie on the ground and let your backside “root” until you come fully down.

• Hold a grounding stone in your receptive hand for 5-10 minutes.  I have a hematite sphere I use.

• Do some yoga poses that focus on “rooting” the body.  Mountain, Five-Pointed Star, Corpse Pose work well.

• Have someone give you a foot massage or massage your own feet.  This will stimulate the reflexology points for your entire body and create good body balance and a good physical feeling.  It helps to bring your energy all the way back down into your feet (especially good because magick requires us to use our upper chakras as opposed to our lower ones — awareness-wise anyway).

• Mentally visualize your chakras balancing out and “closing” or becoming filtered.  Western chakra training differs from Eastern chakra training in that for Westerners, there is a huge focus on having “open” chakras (as in “not blocked”).  But Eastern chakra training emphasizes “closed chakras” (as in “protected and enclosed system unto itself”).  Make sure your chakras aren’t flung wide open post-ritual by allowing the chakra “blossoms” to close slightly, as though the flowers were closing up for the night.  The energy will still be there, still unblocked, but the petals of the chakra flowers will be a gentle filter to allowing further energy in.  I tend to visualize my chakras spinning slightly and the petals nesting closed, but I can still see the light of the energy filtering through the petal edges.  This helps to both ground and to keep you from remaining bombarded by energy coming and going post-ritual.

Let me know if some of these help out.  I tend to make it a priority that everyone eats immediately after ritual and to do a quick energetic check to make sure folks aren’t running around too much on an energy high after circle.  When you’re working alone, it is VITAL that you check yourself.

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

Quite often when I meditate, ground and center, or do rituals, I will experience a very strange sensation in the area of my forehead where my third eye would be.  It usually quickly escalates to headache proportions, sometimes severe enough to stop my meditative efforts, and will linger for a little while after I finish.  I’ve noticed that the feeling of pressure in my forehead/third eye increases when I breathe in and decreases (relatively) when I breathe out.  I have been working on my intuition/psychic senses since I started on this path (several years ago), and that might have something to do with this.  I’ve been experiencing this on and off since I started on this path.  Do you have any idea what is going on?  I’ve never heard of this and I’m at a loss of how to improve the situation so I can deal with this.  Thank you for your time.  Blessings, Katie Bond

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This is actually not uncommon.  If you do a search on “Third Eye pain meditation”, I would hazard a guess that you’ll find you’re not the only one experiencing headaches, pressure, and burning sensations when meditating.  I can also say that in my years of teaching, I’ve had more than a few students express the same complaint.  Here are some things you can try to alleviate the problems you are experiencing.

DEHYDRATION

Be sure that you are well-hydrated.  Headaches are common enough due to dehydration as it is.  However, modern humans, as a rule, do not breathe the deep and steady breath of a child or sleeping mammal.  Most of the time we only get to this point when we’re concentrating on it — namely, when we’re meditating and TRYING to breathe deeply.  Considering many of us breathe air-conditioned air (which is notoriously dry), it’s not long before we are depleting our own moisture levels.  I’m not saying that dehydration causes Third Eye headaches, however, lack of moisture can exacerbate a twinge into a take-down headache.

CHAKRA COLUMN EXPANSION

The Third Eye chakra is like a muscle and muscles take time and effort to build up.  Meditation uses the Third Eye very heavily.  When we meditate for a long period of time or with intense focus, the Third Eye can get “tired”.  Happens to me occasionally, too.  One of the tricks to helping with Third Eye tiredness involves focusing on other chakras as well as the Third Eye so that the entire chakra column grows proportionally.  Let me explain.

All of your Chakras are connected in a column.  Each takes in energy and releases energy.  There is a primary vertical flow upwards and a primary vertical flow downwards.  The Root (the perineum/anal region) is the gateway for the flow going up (and releasing the flow going down) while the Crown (top of your head) is the gateway for the flow going down (and releasing the flow going up).

Chakras self-regulate.  If your Root chakra, which has to do with Trust, Basic Needs Being Met, the Right to Have is not very open, then there is a limited amount of energy that this chakra can take in and allow to flow upward through your other chakras.  Blocked or “lazy” chakras weaken the entire chakra system.  Think of it like teaching — a teacher can only go so fast as the slowest person in the class.  Likewise, your chakra development can only progress as fast as your most blocked chakra.

Headaches or other physical problems can manifest if we are trying to expand a chakra independently of having the other chakras in equal strength and development.  One way to work with this is to spend time on the OTHER chakras over the course of the day.  For example, healthy eating and sufficient sleep the day of a meditation can help the Root chakra.  Gentle exercise helps the Sacral chakra, so exercise a bit the day of your meditation/ritual.  Doing something that requires willpower or energy can help open the Solar Plexus chakra while spending some time with loved ones activates the Heart chakra (as does volunteer work).  Singing or chanting or journalling or creative work opens the Throat chakra.  Prayer can help open the Crown chakra.  When you learn to heal and strengthen all the chakras, it makes it less likely that your Third Eye will react due to the sudden focus on it.

BUILD SLOWLY

Most of us were told as children that the things we saw were not real, that we were making things up, that we were lying, or that such-and-such didn’t exist.  Sometimes we might have had an experience we couldn’t explain where we saw something that was going to happen and it came true, or we saw a ghost and it scared us so badly, we shut down this intuitive sense of second Sight.  When an ability is shut down (or worse, is shamed or condemned by others), the sense is not simply put “on hold”.  It’s locked.  The gates begin to rust shut, and it’s hard to pry them open.  When we do manage to get them open, they make sounds as though the world is tearing apart.

One of the best things to help with Third Eye work is to think back in your mind to the times when your intuition or Sight was questioned, belittled, doubted, or made you afraid.  Explore those situations and use affirmations to help you reclaim those parts of your Sight.  You might say:  I easily find myself able to sense things others cannot see, or I reclaim faith in my abilities to use my psychic abilities, or I easily release my fears of using my Third Eye.

This is the equivalent step of chipping the rust off the gate before trying to open it.  After all, if you were to try to open a gate rusted shut, the metal would scream and screech or remain utterly silent as you potentially tore your shoulder or back out trying to get it open.  Deal with the rust — the oxidized growth of others’ opinions and your own fears — and THEN try to open the gate.

Once you begin actually trying to open your Third Eye, spend no more than 15 minutes a couple of times a week on meditation.  Just as you shouldn’t lift weights every day, you also shouldn’t tax your Third Eye with too much meditation.  When your Third Eye starts to feel tired, a little burning, or achey, STOP.

Most importantly, DO NOT FORGET TO “SHUT” YOUR THIRD EYE.  Not completely, as you don’t want your intuition to be completely gone.  But see the lid of the eye closing slightly, blocking out some of the incoming energy and information, leaving only a slit of the Eye open, as though the Eye were sleepy, nodding off.  Using this visualization of slowly lowering the lid of the Third Eye can help stave off the headache.  It’s an instant cue to the Third Eye that it is time to rest, that you aren’t demanding more from it right now.

Once the Third Eye is closed, take a moment in your meditative state to wash cool and clear energy down through your chakras.  Let it soothe away any discomfort or pain.  Use this time to also release any blocks that may have been broken through during your meditation.  Be sure to repeat your grounding and centering at the end of your meditation.

Give these things a try.  The fact that you’re feeling the pressure and headache let’s me know that what you are doing is having some effect, but there may be blocks or you’re trying to do too much, too soon.  Take care of the other chakras, too, and work on releasing the blocks before throwing your Third Eye wide open.  It can take months to years to fully effect an open Third Eye, so don’t feel like there is anything wrong with you, either.  There’s not.  It’s just growing pains!

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

By now, if you’ve wandered around on my site, you may have figured out that I have a very distinct voice.  My dear friend, Autumn Heartsong, regularly comments on this voice — like usual, because I hear it every day, it’s nothing special to me, but when I hear someone quote something I’ve said, I get the same weird look on my face like I just heard a recording of myself.  That’s me?  Wow!

I’m working to apply this voice in a very specific way.  I’m an incurable optimist and believe that it is possible to be an optimist without being a fluff-head — I hope my articles have proved that point!  I’m also a person that wants to stir up positive discussion among tomorrow’s pagan leaders — that’s YOU!  We are nearing the point for the changing of the guard, and all of the work that our Pagan Elders have done for us is going to be passed into our hands for continuance into the future.  That means, we need to develop dialogue, communication, get topics going and open and talk about them so we can better handle ourselves and those looking to us as guiding lights in the days to come.  Even if you think you’re not a leader, I’ll bet you SOMEONE looks up to your example.

I’m also a very practical Witch.  My writing is down-to-earth for a reason.  Like a Witch should, I walk between the worlds every day.  Most days, I walk the line between middle-class America and my Pagan utopia.  I have a 9-to-5  job, am primary guardian to my daughter for 26 days out of every month, fret over my vanishing retirement fund, and I have to change the oil in my car and get toilet paper on the way home.  I believe that the Craft is a faith that sustains all walks of life, that some of its beauty lies in its ability to imbue the mundane with magick, to make life an enchanted experience.

These are the things I’m working to bring to the table  for my Craft brothers and sisters, just a little something more to add to the feast.  So when someone says “What can I do to help you?”, it’s hard to say.  Read me?  Comment?  Enjoy?  I get such wonderful ideas for articles and things that are pressing on folks’ minds from discussion either via email or blogs.  Still, I gave it some thought and the whole “Tell The Universe What You Need” thing came to mind.  So here goes.

• If something particularly touches you, let me know.  That tells me the topic is a viable modern discussion point that may need further revisiting.

• If you have a question about how our faith approaches a topic, ask.  I will weigh in with what I think/feel/know — hopefully, I’ll be of help!

• If you have a comment to make, speak up and let others hear your wisdom.  We all learn from each other and you’ll make new connections with others sharing as well.

• If you like an article, share it with your friends.  Use things you read as discussion points for your own local groups to build community and conversation.

• If you really like an article, link to it on your blog, social networking site (like FB or Myspace), or Tweet it to the world.  Electronic word-of-mouth is the lightning of our Age — so fast!

• If you like my website, share it on other pagan networking platforms and tell them about the work we’re doing together here in this circle of conscious Craft connection.

So, that’s what you can do.  In the meantime, I’m going to go back to what I can do and keep writing.  I would write whether or not anyone ever read the words I strung together.  What continues to make me feel blessed and humble is the resonance I have found with so many people I have yet to meet.

You are a magick in my life all your own.  I thank you.

Blessed be,

S.H.

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

METHODS AND DIFFERENCES

There is a difference between performing an invocation upon yourself and having another person of the opposite sex perform the invocation.  I will say that in my personal practice, I use all three of the above levels of energetic connection.

I embody when I am poking fun at things, when I am being deliberately irreverent, or when I am acting for casual performances.

I evoke most often when I am doing personal work, when I am seeing my own living self as One and the Same with the Goddess and thus the power of the All extends through my hands and my words and my heart.  This imbues my work with a higher level of sacredness.  I strive ever more dilgently to live in this evoked state, remembering that I am an Avatar of the Gods I serve in this world, that my hands are Their hands, my voice is Their voice.  My personal lower self (ego) still gets in the way because I’m imperfect, however evocation helps me move beyond my human limits.  When I evoke, I become timeless.  Because the Goddess is one with me, I am more in the Now because the Now is all that the Goddess knows.  Time is nothing to Her.

I invoke (a) when I am having to do something that I do not know how to do but still have to do it, or (b) when I must do something that involves some kind of risk of harm to my person but would not harm Goddess, or (c) when I mentally feel I am unequal to the task due to my humanity (ie. when the evoked state doesn’t feel powerful enough for the working).

For example, I can heal on the physical level, however it is not one of my forefront talents.  One of the Goddesses to whom I am vowed is Sekhmet.  There are several ways that Sekhmet heals ailments, and one is through devouring that which is causing the illness.  When I have to do physical healing, I will invoke Sekhmet for the protection She gives to me and my physical form while I work the healing and also because She was traditionally the patroness of doctors.  She was the defender and restorer of Ma’at, the order of things, and thus rights all imbalances, whether those be societal (things that cause wars) or physical (things that cause illness).  When I invoke Sekhmet, I call to Her energy, literally envision Her above me coalescing and becoming that solid “flow” of what will fill my cup.  I draw Her down, and “watch” my face change to the head of a lioness.  I can feel the intense heat of the corona of my crown chakra and the uraeus serpent merging the earthly with the divine realm.  I find that I can then “smell” the illness.  It is a very strange sensation and from that moment on, I can really take no credit for the work being done.  I’m just a cup, and no one ever remarks how good the cup is — the focus is on what’s inside (in this case, Sekhmet).  To Sekhmet be the honor!

I will say upfront that learning to Draw Down for one’s self is difficult.  A good bit of the time, you’re going to end up with an Evocation instead of an Invocation.  Why?  Because it is damn hard to be the receptive cup and the pitcher pouring at the same time.  That’s where partners come in — our Priests.  It is far easier to just be a cup.  You can be both at once — after all, you are male and female in one — it just takes a lot of work to divide out the Shiva and the Devi and assign them to two different tasks without feeling like you have given yourself split personalities.  Before you try Drawing Down on yourself, you need to spend some serious time working with your Male Self, known as your animus (for men, work with your Female Self, known as your anima). Part of the vital training of a Priest or Priestess of the Craft is encountering, embracing and integrating this “opposite” half.  This is the inner Great Rite that we must all experience.  Until you have that down, being the cup and the pitcher at the same time is going to be extremely difficult.  You will still be able to experience some of the effects — after all, I suppose technically, a pitcher could start pouring and morph into a cup while the liquid is in mid-air.  You’ll get some of the experience, but what you can draw will be immediately limited because of how long you were able to spend pouring before you had to switch gears and become the cup.

NOTE:  This self-invoking catch-22 is an automatic limiter for people learning this Mystery.  It takes WORK to separately use one’s Male and Female halves, and those looking for the “quick power result” don’t tend to spend the time necessary to get to the point of achieving squat.  Even once you get to the point of being able to be the pitcher and the cup at once, there is a built-in limit on how much you can really draw at a time.  And the only way to increase your ability to draw is to practice and learn how to manipulate the moment and space between being the pitcher and being the cup.  We are fortunate that our faith shelters our Mysteries — it prevents harm from occurring.  As with anything in the Craft, remember that if it’s worth having, it’s worth working for, and immediate results “the way you want them” might be more than you can mentally and energetically and ethically handle.

When you have a partner assisting, the results (in my experience) are much better, much greater, and there is a power to it unlike self-generated invocations.  For one, it’s sexual.  When a Priest calls to the Goddess, it is though he is calling to a Lover, his DIVINE lover to be precise.  There is an energetic polarity that begs to be answered.  The magnetic force of a Priest’s call to the Goddess is an incredible thing to watch and witness (and vice verse when a Priestess calls to the God).  I know that when I Draw Down upon a Priest and I reach out to the God, I am extremely aware of my own Female-ness.  I am aware of my body, my receptivity, that I am created differently from a Male and for what purpose I was created differently.  There is a sexual current that zips through my body and my call to the God is one of Desire.  When Desire powers an invocation, Desire ANSWERS an invocation.  The God comes to me as one Desirous of me.  My call is that of a Lover to my Beloved.  That is the force that descends into the body of my Priest.  It is also why, when the Goddess is drawn down upon me, as I experience the presence of the Goddess within me from my receptive state, I can feel Desire thrum through my body for the Priest who performed the invocation.  It has nothing to do with the social mores of being unfaithful or not, of intending to have sex or not… it is simply that the Goddess heard the call of her Other Half — of Her animus — and She comes.  Sometimes, literally.  I have had orgasm as a side effect of a strong Drawing Down.  I have had Priests tell me that an erection is often a side effect for them.

If you want to attempt Drawing Down The Moon with a partner, it needs to be someone you trust or it won’t work.  Remember everything I said above about “letting go” and being receptive?  You can’t fill a cup if you have a force field of mistrust lying over the opening to the cup like a piece of Saran Wrap.  It’s an extremely intimate experience to participate in this with a Priest.  There is an energy blending that is intoxicating.  If you aren’t stable and grounded, experiencing it can lead to mundane problems such as infatuation on one end and outright infidelity and obsession on the other (seen it happen, not pretty).

FINAL THOUGHTS AND ADVICE

The final warning on Drawing Down that I will give you is about effects of the rite and what you need to do in follow-up.  It is not uncommon to find yourself unable to remember things you did and said during a time of being filled by the Goddess.  You will have people come up to you, sometimes years later, and tell you that what you said to them in a moment of “cup-ness” was exactly what they needed to hear at the time.  You won’t remember it.  You’ll be amazed that anything that came out of your mouth could be so wise.  It’s okay… this happens.  Go with the flow and remember to give credit to the Goddess because it wasn’t YOU.  This last thing is very important in preventing your ego from latching on to the experience like a drug.  If you get too tangled up in this ego-aspect, you will start “performing” during the Drawing Down, and you will have ceased to be a cup.  You will be a cheap, imitation knock-off of a cup… one that says “Made in” some foreign place and that has “Not safe for food consumption” written on it.  Take that to heart:  when you start performing, your ego has taken over, and anything you say isn’t safe for anyone to swallow.

Be sure when you’re done with the ritual that you ground and center and get something to eat soon afterwards.  It takes energy to maintain the focus necessary to just “be a cup” when you have the power of the Universe singing through your limbs and tissues.  It also can make you feel a little depressed to let go of that energy when you’re done.  Eating something can restore chemical balance to your system and boost your energy.  It also makes your mind more alert, more here-and-now focused due to the rush of glucose to the brain.  These things are all important.

If for some reason you need to hold on to the Deity energy for a long period of time (say, for a vigil or an all evening event), please do the advance preparation of appointing a person to be your Guardian for the night.  Have them check in on you regularly and monitor your state.  They don’t have to bother you… they just need to make sure the cup isn’t leaking, so to speak.  Make them also responsible for knowing exactly when you want to release the energy so they’re sure to hunt you down and feed you when you’re done.  The longer the energies are held, the more tiring it can be.  The worst part is, as the cup, you won’t really recognize it while you’re holding the Goddess inside you.  You will actually feel extremely good, powerful, energetic more often than not.  The Goddess may not have limits, but your body does.  Allow someone who loves you tend to you.  The Oracles at Delphi had preparatory help and after-care when doing their work.  You need it, too.

I suggest keeping a journal of your Drawing Down experiences.  It’s helpful for creating your own practice for readying yourself.  It is also a wonderful place for recording the things you learn from being filled with Deity.  It can create profound shifts in insight for you.  Don’t let these moments pass by without noting them.  They are priceless.

One Final and ABSOLUTELY MUST HEED Warning:

DO NOT INVOKE A DEITY THAT YOU HAVE NOT RESEARCHED WELL UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES.

Goddesses have their own energy, their own vibration, and their own interests/alignments.  I have seen Drawing Down moments in ritual where someone invoked a Goddess deeply aligned with sexual Mysteries and fertility into someone who, I later discover, had very little sexual experience.  The person was ill-prepared, there was bleed-over after the Goddess was “released” (meaning, a good bit of the energy stuck around because the Priestess “liked it” and wanted to ride around on the high).  For the remainder of the evening, she certainly acted like a sex Goddess, morphing from a fairly reserved, straight, young woman to running around in the nude and being more than a little — shall we say — inviting to the other men (and women!) of the gathering.  Know who is going to be “in your house” before you give them the key, I say.

I know this has been a long answer to your question.  However, hopefully it covers all the bases you wanted covered as well as the preparatory and experiential bases you might not have known were even there.  Again, if you are Priest, these things apply to you as well.  I will say, dear Priests, that you have the additional challenge of learning a energy pattern not usually associated with your gender.  Males are naturally more PROJECTIVE instead of RECEPTIVE, so you’ll have to focus very hard on learning that opposite-gender skill.  Priestesses, don’t think that means you’re better at this naturally just because you have a vagina.  Females are receptive by nature to most everything, which means our main stumbling block comes in the form of walls we build and controls we establish in reaction to issues of receptivity in our pasts (such as heartbreak, subjugation, abuse, molestation, rape, etc).  I have seen more than a few cases where Priestesses had more work to do than the Priests of a group just to restore their ability to naturally receive from a place devoid of Fear and Mistrust.

From here, learning to Draw Down is a process of doing.  There is a reason it is said that we “practice a Craft”.  Practice, practice, practice… success is in your hands.

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

In a lot of the reading and researching I’ve been doing, many authors discuss drawing down the moon into the body of the Goddess.  I’ve been practicing for a while, so this concept is not new to me.  However, as my curiosity has grown with time, I have not been able to find a good description of the preparation for such a process, how one knows when it is time to try it, etc.  My previous teacher seemed to have a different view and approach to this than the more standard “the Goddess enters the Priest/ess’s body and speaks through her” idea.  I suppose what I’m trying to ask for, in my own roundabout way, is information about learning to Draw Down and Aspect, with more than a description of what it is.  Things like practice, exercises, preparation… something.  Thank you very much for your time.  ~K.B.

* * * * * * * * *

I’ll begin by saying that learning to Draw Down The Moon is not beginner level work.  Men, you can read what I have written below and make the necessary gender changes and apply it to your own work with the God as well.  I was taught how to do this with a male student of equal rank and skill.  We were led through the process first learning to embody the energy ourselves, and then, we learned the invocational aspect of Drawing Down into each other.  There are a few definitions we need to get out here because they directly relate to not only semantical understanding but also skill level understanding.  Some people may use these words differently, however, this is how I use them.

DISTINCTIONS IN LEVELS OF ONENESS

The first term:  EMBODY.  Everyone can embody.  I was just at a SciFi Con tonight and saw plenty of people embodying fairies, characters from movies, pirates.  To embody something is to give an idea or abstraction a bodily form.  If you are attracted to a thing and you choose to dress up or act like that thing, you are giving the abstract idea of it a physical shape.  When we play a part in a Sacred Drama (but do not have a Deity drawn down into our form), we are embodying that part whether it be a Deity, an Animal, or some other.  I learned to embody in my Theatre Arts classes.  Was I channeling the Goddess?  No.  Was I fully present and consciously willing the manifestation of my character?  Yes.  I was in control, and I was projecting the abstract.  This is very important stipulation and easy to remember:  EMbody means that the “body” in control is “ME” (‘em’ spelled backwards).

The second and third terms will get you debate.  Both terms, when consulting Webster’s dictionary share a core definition:  to conjure.  In other words, the focus on the act is no longer active projection (which is what you do when you embody).  Now the focus is on passive reception through command or supplication.  Additionally, the realm from which you summon is different in each case.

When you evoke, you call forth… you draw out.  In other words, that which you are calling lies within you, is part of you.  You can tap its presence and draw it forth.  It’s not like embodying where you put on garb.  An evocation transforms you from the inside out, beyond any mere clothing facade.  When you invoke, you also call forth, but the emphasis is on requesting from a higher power, something outside you.  These are two different sides of the same coin.  For if the Divinity within is the same as and part of the Divinity without, then do evocation and invocation achieve the same ends?  Yes and no.

When I learned Drawing Down in my training, I was first taught to evoke my Goddess.  I did this by going inside my Center and finding the Goddess I wanted to evoke (at that point in my training, I was working with Bride).  I did this through a quick visualization of finding the Goddess waiting for me in my Center, taking Her hand, stepping “into” Her, and then allowing our Oneness to expand again until it pushed out and to the edges of my own body and energy field.  I was still there, but She was “with” me.  This is a different experience than embodying.  In embodying, remember, you are in control.  In evoking, you share the helm:  you did the summoning and She is One with you.  Evoking the Goddess empowers you, yokes your personal spiritual energy to that of a Deity form.

Invoking is different.  Invoking is done by pulling that energy “down” from outside you.  Where evoking conjures from within (ie. “draws out”), invoking conjures from outside of you (ie. “draws down”).  When you are evoking, you set the limits for that deity with your own mind, your own visualization, your own surrender to shared physical space.  When you are having the Goddess INVOKED down into you, what is being drawn down is larger than the limits of your perspective.  It’s as though you got the panoramic full-circle shot instead of the Polaroid picture.  Since you aren’t confining the Deity through your own visualization, the Deity has the opportunity to manifest in whatever way is needed.  Your job is no longer to find Deity, to embrace and expand Deity into the furthest reaches of your being.  No, your job now is to get out of the way (while staying in your body, that is).

PREPARATION FOR EACH STAGE

These three levels of Deity work graduate one from another.  Embodying is the simplest, involving our minds controlling and our bodies expressing what we think we want to express.  When we embody, we have full control.  Evoking is the middle level step, tapping into what is already within us and drawing it out to assist us by sharing control and sharing the empowerment of the state.  When we evoke, we share our space and our control, allowing the Deity to empower the work we do.  Invoking is the furthest step, drawing down something beyond our own visualizations, beyond our perspectives.  When Deity is invoked and asked to descend into us, we surrender and step aside, relinquishing our control and also (very important here!!) relinquishing our mental limitations — after all, the Gods have no limitations.

Embodying and Evoking you can do yourself with relatively little trouble.  Learning to Embody is learning to act, to play a part, to transform yourself into that Other.  Costuming, theatre classes, improvisational acting, dancing… anything that helps you generate that abstraction is good preparation.  Remember, you control Embodiments.

Learning to Evoke is learning to do your work with another voice inside your head — a very INSISTENT voice, at that.  One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is through a mental exercise called What Would Goddess Do? I perform my evocation as listed above, and then I listen for Her voice as I work through the problem at hand.  Her voice is unmistakable when you are Evoking.  I allow her to speak through me and my work, and I ask myself “What Would You Have Me Do, Lady?” each day.  The conscious control by the person handling the God/dess energy is what divorces it from the Invoking.

In Invoking, you must learn to surrender control.  This is the hardest part of the process.  There are ways to work on it, but first you have to admit you have a control problem (and in this society, I have yet to meet anyone who didn’t have a control problem of some sort).  Learning to deal with your control issues can be fun, and develops six necessary inner skills related to holding the open state needed in Drawing Down:

• LET GO OF MICROMANAGING. Ask a family member to plan a dinner or date  for you without ANY contributions or suggestions on your part.  When it’s time to participate, go along for the ride.  No criticisms are allowed.  FLOW with it.   For a more advanced version of this exercise, give over the planning and direction and execution of something you want to see done to another person (the more important to you the task, the more difficult it will be, so you can gauge your own level of readiness to learn “releasing” and pick tasks of graduated importance in order to learn to let go).  Again, they’re in charge.  Flow.  No judging.  This is a bitch, I’ll warn you now, but it works to develop this area.  Part of improving your openness is relinquishing your own tendency to order and direct the things in which you participate.

• LET GO OF BLOCKS. When things occur in your life, feel what you need to feel situationally and then let go.  See your cares floating down the river away from you.  Or down the toilet if that seems more suitable.  Part of improving your openness is ensuring you can let go of things that are blocking the invocation, such as daily stressors.

• LET GO OF THE DESTINATION/OUTCOME. On a day you don’t have to be anywhere at a particular time, go for a drive in a car without a map and somewhere you’ve never been.  Make sure your cell phone is charged, that you have gas in the car and cash in the wallet for emergencies, and have a map in the glove compartment (just vow not to use it for the duration of the exercise).  Get yourself lost.  Turn yourself around.  Allow yourself to just go with the flow and see where you end up and what you find.  For this exercise, have a dedicated friend on standby.  For safety reasons, call them when you leave, tell them the direction you are headed.  Have them call you at specific times so you can give them updates about your whereabouts (at the very least, the cell phone call records your last location based on call origin).  Aside from being my favorite way to discover amazing things, this also allows you to be “led” and to experience lack of control in a way that improves your receptivity.  Part of improving your receptivity is lessening the sense of panic that sets in when things are unfamiliar to you.

• LET GO OF CONTROLLED EXPRESSION. As part of a coven activity or party, play a version of Whose Line Is It, Anyway? or some other improvisational game.  These games force you to act/think/respond quickly.  People who are truly good at this kind of game are not just quick on the draw mentally — they are wide open for information and inspiration to bubble up and through with no filter.  It is difficult to play any kind of improv game using the tactic of “overthinking”.  It stalls it out, makes it stilted.  Another good way to practice this is to “filk” songs on the radio — in other words, change the lyrics of the song on the fly.  Let an idea and words and phrasings bubble up and totally rewrite the song off the cuff.  This is another method of improv that’s easy to do and needs no partners to practice.  Part of improving your clarity involves improving your ability to let the generative (and oft chaotic) force of creativity have more input and expression than your logical and ordered mind.

• LET GO OF BEING THE ONE WHO KNOWS SO YOU CAN OPEN TO THE ONE WHO DOES. If you have not already, begin working with a divination tool (such as Tarot) that allows you to practice being open and letting information flow through you without conscious mental effort.  Part of improving your ability to channel is repeated opportunities to develop the skill for yourself and others.

• LET GO OF THE FEAR AND THE NEED TO BE IN MOTION. Practice, practice, practice the art of meditation.  Practice the kind of meditation where you let slip away from your mind any distraction.  Good examples are imagining each thought as drop of water in a pool, then allowing the thought to ripple out and return the pool to stillness.  Or that thoughts appear as writing on a blackboard, which you erase into blackness again.  The point is to teach your ego and your mental chatter to become “still”, leaving a blank slate/calm pool of readiness and immediate awareness.   The other kind of meditation to practice is journeying.  Practice going into meditation in which you go to your sacred center.  Visualize a door being there or a portal through which you can step.  As you step through, begin walking and let the meditation take you where you need to go.  The point is not to control this with your conscious mind (as in, I’m going to go through this door and into the temple of Isis).  It is fine to set the “scene” or to hold an intention in your heart of what it is you are seeking, but ONLY if you can hold it lightly in your mind.  I think about the description of using the aleithiometer in The Golden Compass.  You can’t strangle the thought without strangling the outcome of the thought also.  Learning to journey and “be led” in your meditations opens the door to being able to “go with the flow” when the Goddess is invoked to descend into you.   Part of improving your ability to hold on to the invocation is your ability to maintain the blank slate/calm pool resting state so that the Deity comes through clearly and your conscious self remains “at peace”.

LEARNING HOW TO BE A CUP

Drawing Down the Moon is an act of complete receptivity.  Controlling this experience is a sure way to get your ego (your “little Goddess”) back involved and this can, and often does, overpower and outshout the presence and voice of the “Big Goddess” trying to come through.

Imagine a cup of water.  The cup holds the water based on the preparation of its shape.  If the cup is shallow, it won’t hold much.  If the sides are thick or it’s filled with something else on the bottom, it won’t hold much.  You are like that cup.  If the cup is all sides-and-bottom and doesn’t contain a natural open space, then there’s no place to hold anything — the cup is all filled with just being itself.  I guess you can still call it “cup-SHAPED”, but it ceases to be able to do the work of a cup if it can’t hold anything.  Lesson:  Prepare yourself to be receptive (see exercises above).

The cup also holds water based on its orientation.  If the cup is flipped on its side, upside down, or any other direction than upright, the contents will spill out.  Likewise, if you are not grounded and open to your Higher Self (upward), the contents of an invocation can spill right out and leave others with just you, potentially empty or partially full of what is desired for the working. Lesson:  Be grounded and open to the Higher vibrations and influences for the work.

The cup also holds water based on its integrity.  Cracks allow the water (in this case, the energy flowing into you) to leak.  This can sometimes causes the cup to break.  Thus my warning:  DO NOT ATTEMPT DRAWING DOWN IF YOU ARE NOT IN A MENTALLY STABLE PLACE.  There may be occasions where a Drawing Down can assist in healing the body of the vessel, however, it puts stress on the vessel.  Lesson:  Ensure your mental, emotional, and vibrational integrity is healthy as part of pre-Invocation preparation.

Finally, the cup isn’t trying to be a cup.  It simply is a cup.  This is the hardest part of this metaphor as it is paradoxical on the surface.  Part of learning any new skill is the act of trying to learn the new skill.  When we learn a new skill, we are attaching our expectations to what we perceive would represent a successful outcome.  And thus, the cup worries about whether or not it can successfully be a cup, whether it can hold all that’s given, whether it will topple over, whether or not anyone will like what it offers.  CUPS DO NOT DO THESE THINGS!!!  Neither should you.  Practice with the intent of achieving a desired result is going to involve your mind teaching yourself to learn a new skill.  However, remember that as you tighten down on the skills, the goal is actually letting go.  At some point, you will reach a point via practice that you will care less about whether or not you’re a good “cup” and will feel less self-conscious about the worries and woes of “cup-ness”.  Until you reach the point where you simply ARE the cup and you’re doing what cups do, you still have practice to do.  Sadly, I cannot explain this better… it is a realization that comes with practice.  One day, after you’ve tried this many times, you will realize that this last time you “forgot” to be concerned with your cup duties and you just “did it”.  When that happens, smile, pat yourself on the back, and then try to remember everything you did that helped you get to that point.  You might realize that you hadn’t eaten since breakfast that day — well, for some people, abstaining from food for 12 hours makes Drawing Down much easier.  This was one of the tricks I was taught to use when I was learning the skill.  The plus side is you are less “weighted” in the physical world and thus far more open on other vibrational levels, plus your mind is somewhat slower from the lack of recent glucose in your system.  The down side is that your mind has less control, which can be scary for you, and when you release the contents of your cup (the Deity invoked), you will very likely eat anything that isn’t nailed down.  But this process of trial and error can show you what physical steps or mental preps worked for you to achieve “ultimate cup-ness”.  It won’t be the same for everyone.  Lesson:  Learn how to let go of the ego as connected with the role — simply be.

Continue on to Part 2 of this article…

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).

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And here I expected my first questions to be about Wicca!  That’s perfectly fine, though.  I happen to love this particular book of the Bible, and it actually has quite a bit to do with some of the Mysteries we practice in the Craft.  Let me give my standard disclaimer here:  these are my own interpretations and opinions.  Consider what I tell you as stepping stones across the river of your question.  I’ll point out what I see, the rocks that look good to me.  In the end, it will be up to you to test these rocks for their stability and to cross the waters yourself through experience.

The Song of Songs (the actual name for the book commonly called Song of Solomon) is a text about the sacred marriage between masculine and feminine.  We see this metaphor of sexual courtship and union throughout the world’s spiritual traditions.  It’s here in the Song of Songs, in the metaphor of Christ and the Church as Bridegroom and Bride, in the Tantric texts describing the “love talk” between Shiva and Devi.  We see it in paganism and our Craft in our work with polarity of God and Goddess (see my article on Polarity here on this site), their sexual union (the Great Rite) being one type of joining on the earth plane and death being another type of union as our spirits again become one with the energy of the All.

The Holy Spirit or Feminine energy (called Sheckinah) being a beautiful black woman… all I can say is, how appropriate!  This is the Daughter Malkuth, fallen from her place in the Tree.  As I study it, her fall (literally, THE Fall of Mankind) left a “hole” in the tree.  This hole is called Da’ath.  Without going into serious Qabalistic discussion, there is a beautiful story of “restoring Malkuth” to her place in the tree, of making the Godhead whole again and no longer separated by Da’ath.  On the tree, the color of the Feminine principle of Binah (the pillar of Severity) is black.  Feminine is black, Masculine White.  Where else have we seen this?  Yin and Yang ring a bell?  Ding!  So, I find the color of the woman in the Song of Songs being black-skinned to be very fitting.  However, if you read the passage where she is describing herself, she actually goes into a wealth of description about her color, the colors of the fields and the earth.  The sphere of Malkuth is not merely black, but also russet, and citrine, and olive — the colors of harvest field.

The things I love most about the Song of Songs are the desire expressed for consummation and the certainty of consummation.  There is no doubt.  The beloved is made for the beloved.  The desire is equal and shared.  There is no “please be sure I’m the one you want”… there is merely the repeated celebrations of “belonging together”.  Likewise, there is no uncertainty in the path of Tantra, in the union of masculine and feminine.  But more plainly, there is no uncertainty in the desire of the human soul to know God.  It is a universal calling deep within us to reach up the Tree, to aspire towards the Abyss and beyond, to seek that union.

There is a great deal of Judeo-Christian symbolism and mystery based on earlier pagan traditions and cultural myths and practices.  That doesn’t invalidate the Judeo-Christian path… it simply means that a new expression of the same Mystery has evolved.  What I find amazing is that this same erotic Mystery can be told in so many different ways.  In Egypt, there was emphasis on “pairings” of Gods and Goddesses:  Geb/Nut, Osiris/Isis, Osiris/Nephthys, Horus/Hathor, Thoth/Ma’at, Ptah/Sekhmet, and others.  From these unions, divine children were formed.  It is the sacred union that brings forth the full potential of the All.

In additional comparisons, you will find remarkable parallels between the stories of Jesus’ birth and the stories of Horus’ birth.  Do the descriptions of the Ark of the Covenant’s angels “with wings forward swept” sound like angels to you, or are they the figures of Isis and her sister Nephthys, standing at each end of the funeral bier of Osiris, wingtip to wingtip?  What about the golden calf?  When Moses came down the mountain from his communion with I Am, were the Israelites taking part in a worship rite of Hathor?  It would certainly explain the golden calf idol, the drunkenness and dancing and revelry taking place that were Hathor’s sacred rites.

So, yes… there is immense overlap.  The biggest word of caution I would give is to take what overlaps and similarities you find as validation of the central nature of ALL spiritual paths.  It is very easy (especially coming out of an oppressive religion) to find these more ancient traditions and get what I call the “proprietary feeling” — you know, that bit of pride when you see Christmas trees and Easter eggs and Maypoles and even the Sacrificial King known as Christ, and you think to yourself, “Yep, our idea first!  Ha!” Please try to avoid that little jab, even mentally.  Most people of mainstream faith operate out of ignorance of pagan customs and influence while others try to back-engineer the pagan right out of things in order give a custom more “validity in modern practice” (kind of like the way pagans get uppity with each other over who is doing an invocation right or making up a family tradition you don’t have so you have some kind of pedigree to flash at the Fam-Trad Witch judges booth).

Here is what I like to remember as I find more puzzle pieces to put together:  The important thing is not that we have the same answers, it’s that we recognize that we all have the same questions.  It is that longing, that desire for the Godhead, and all the questions and seeking and wonder at its beauty that goes with it… these are the things we share with all humans.  Just as there are as many visualizations for the Shulamite daughter and her beloved in the Song of Songs, there are equally as many different ways to express and understand and pursue our longing to walk a spiritual path.  What is beautiful is that we are assured of being One with our beloved, with the Divine.    When we spiritually seek with all our heart’s desire, we cannot fail to find. And even more, our desires are not unrequited.  How is there anything more beautiful to stir the soul than to know that in all our longing for God/dess, we are loved and longed for in return.  We do not reach out without the All reaching back for us.

It brings tears to my eyes.

Photo by Vermin Inc (via Flickr).