What can I say? 2007 sucked more than any other year of my life...
Oh Fate what have ye in store for 2008? Dare I ask? Nevertheless, boldly I tread upon what is yet to come. Hopeful in that Fate will be gracious to me this year and give me peace of mind.
LA
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
New Year? Or just a continuation of Fate?
Well, seems that the dark season is teaching me plenty. Lots of introspection on myself and all that lies within this totally not-understood world.
This is the time of the year when I am spoken to on very subtle levels, and I am consistent in just being silent, alone, and thoughtful. Plenty is to come very soon. New ways to approach, and old ways to stubbornly let go of... even though I know they kick me in the ass every time.
I am indeed a Witch, but that doesn't mean I'm always wise when it comes to my own condition. I am in the place of counselor to many who come to me very regularly for advice, a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic, if not empathetic listener. But do I always know what's best for myself? HA!!!!!
New things I'm told are coming. I have to say enough is enough when it comes to spiritual "children" and come to know how to help the "children" grow to be more of the spiritual adult. Come on! We are not meek little spirits!!! We are POWERFUL entities known as the Witch race! Claimants of the Red Thread Lineage!!!
Know how to be Proud in not being prideful and boastful. Know what the meaning of our lives are and finding that meaning within ourselves. Know that truth be first, no matter the cost. Truth in all things. Truth to ourselves and others in all things, in all ways, at all times. And of course, this entails being true to self first!
May this season of darkness bring enlightenment, prosperity and truth.
LA
This is the time of the year when I am spoken to on very subtle levels, and I am consistent in just being silent, alone, and thoughtful. Plenty is to come very soon. New ways to approach, and old ways to stubbornly let go of... even though I know they kick me in the ass every time.
I am indeed a Witch, but that doesn't mean I'm always wise when it comes to my own condition. I am in the place of counselor to many who come to me very regularly for advice, a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic, if not empathetic listener. But do I always know what's best for myself? HA!!!!!
New things I'm told are coming. I have to say enough is enough when it comes to spiritual "children" and come to know how to help the "children" grow to be more of the spiritual adult. Come on! We are not meek little spirits!!! We are POWERFUL entities known as the Witch race! Claimants of the Red Thread Lineage!!!
Know how to be Proud in not being prideful and boastful. Know what the meaning of our lives are and finding that meaning within ourselves. Know that truth be first, no matter the cost. Truth in all things. Truth to ourselves and others in all things, in all ways, at all times. And of course, this entails being true to self first!
May this season of darkness bring enlightenment, prosperity and truth.
LA
Friday, December 21, 2007
We Suffer
It’s the same old thing.
Day after day.
All alone we suffer.
We suffer.
While the world steals our heart away.
It’s the same old theme.
Night after night.
All alone we suffer.
We’ll suffer.
While the world steals our love away.
It’s the same old pain.
Time after time.
All alone we suffer.
Still Suffer.
While the world steals our dream away.
When our light shines upon the world,
And it flies right by their eyes.
Then we find ourselves in the shadows,
‘Cause the world won’t find compromise.
We’ll find that again.
Year after year.
All alone we suffer.
We suffer.
While the world steals our light away.
LA
Day after day.
All alone we suffer.
We suffer.
While the world steals our heart away.
It’s the same old theme.
Night after night.
All alone we suffer.
We’ll suffer.
While the world steals our love away.
It’s the same old pain.
Time after time.
All alone we suffer.
Still Suffer.
While the world steals our dream away.
When our light shines upon the world,
And it flies right by their eyes.
Then we find ourselves in the shadows,
‘Cause the world won’t find compromise.
We’ll find that again.
Year after year.
All alone we suffer.
We suffer.
While the world steals our light away.
LA
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Quotable Quote!
"It would be counter intuitive to assume the deities would lose their attention so fast. That's (a) human characteristic. So long as the earth grows, shadows grow and fall, the wind moves and the waves wash, they exist. So long as humans are born remembering a connection beyond what our immediate senses tell us, there will be witches. As long as will produces change in objective physical reality, there will be magic."
Sapphire
Sapphire
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
A Spell (An excellent way to get a Fairy)
Gather, first in your left hand
(This must be at fall of day)
Forty grains of wild sea-sand
Where you think a mermaid lay.
I have heard that it is best
If you gather it, warm and sweet,
Out of the dint of her left breast
Where you see her heart has a beat.
Out of the dint of that sweet sand,
Gather forty grains, I say;
Yet-if it fails you-understand,
There remains a better way.
Out of this you melt your glass
While the veils of night are drawn,
Whipsering, till the shadows pass,
"Nixie-pixie-
Then you blow your magic vial,
Shape it like a crescent moon,
Set it up and make your trial,
Singing, "Elaby, ah, come soon!"
Round the cloudy crescent go,
On the hill-top, in the dawn,
Singing softly, on tip-toe,
"Elaby Gathon! Elaby Gathon!
Nixie-pixie-
Bring the blood of a white hen
Slaughtered at the break of day,
While the cock, in the fairy glen,
Thrusts his gold neck every way,
Over the brambles, peering, calling,
Under the ferns, with a sudden fear,
Far and wide-as dews are falling-
Clamoring, calling, everywhere.
Round the crimson vial go,
On the hill-top, in the dawn,
Singing softly, on tip-toe,
"Nixie-pixie-
If this fail at break of day,
I can show you a better way.
Bring the buds of the hazel-copse,
Where two lovers kissed at noon;
Bring the crushed red wild-thyme tops
Where they murmured under the moon.
Bring the four-leaved clover also,
One of the white, and one of the red,
Bring the flakes of the may that fall so
Lightly over their bridal bed.
Drop them into the vial-so-
On the hilltop, in the dawn,
Singing softly, on tiptoe
"Nixie-pixie-
And if once will not suffice,
Do it thrice!
If this fail at break of day,
There remains a better way.
Bring an old and crippled child
-Ah, tread softly, on tip-toe!-
Tattered, tearless, wonder-wild,
From that under-world below,
Bring a wizened child of seven
Reeking from the City slime,
Out of hell into your heaven,
Set her knee-deep in the thyme.
Feed her-clothe her, even so!
Set her on a fairy-throne.
When her eyes begin to glow
Leave her alone for an hour-alone.
You shall need no spells or charms,
On that hill-top, in that dawn.
When she lifts her wasted arms,
You shall see a veil withdrawn.
There shall be no veil between them,
Though her head be old and wise!
You shall know that she has seen them
By the glory in her eyes.
Round her irons on that hill
Earth has tossed a fairy fire:
Watch, and listen, and be still,
Lest you baulk your own desire.
When she sees four azure wings
Light upon her claw-like hand;
When she lifts her head and sings,
You shall hear and understand:
You shall hear a bugle calling
Wildly over the dew-dashed down;
And a sound as of the falling
Ramparts of a conquered town.
You shall hear a sound like thunder;
And a veil shall be withdrawn,
When her eyes grown wide with wonder
On that hill-top, in that dawn.
--Alfred Noyes
Friday, November 2, 2007
Remember
In times of trial may I remember, that all of my ill-taken fortunes will return to me ten-fold at the misfortune of those who had taken them or wished me ill-will.
LA
LA
Monday, October 29, 2007
Trust
“It takes much time to gain the love and trust of a person, but only a moment to lose it.”
This statement is so true, but I feel the need to examine this and put it in context of what really should lie within a relationship with another person.
I believe all too often that friendship and love are simply too fleeting these days. Importance of relationships is of little meaning to most.
Too easily we are willing to throw away a wonderful, close and loving relationship with a friend or other significant persons. To be a true friend to someone is to know that person. Not just know, but understand and sympathize with that person, even in tough and very troublesome times.
A friend is someone we trust and love. And in return, we are loved and trusted. Yes, indeed it may take some time; even years to grow that love and trust. And yes, that trust can be, and probably will be broken from time to time. But that is what being a friend is all about. Knowing that the other may break a trust, but, truly in their heart, didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, and are sorry for doing so.
So, do we throw away love and trust at the whim? Hopefully the answer is no. If friendship and love have any meaning at all, it extends the hand of forgiveness and embraces despite it all. This shows that you can be trusted to be a friend, no matter the circumstance.
Isn’t that the trust we are really looking for anyway? To have a relationship with someone who loves you, embraces you, and trusts you just as much as you do them, no matter what.
Something to think about? Indeed.
LA
This statement is so true, but I feel the need to examine this and put it in context of what really should lie within a relationship with another person.
I believe all too often that friendship and love are simply too fleeting these days. Importance of relationships is of little meaning to most.
Too easily we are willing to throw away a wonderful, close and loving relationship with a friend or other significant persons. To be a true friend to someone is to know that person. Not just know, but understand and sympathize with that person, even in tough and very troublesome times.
A friend is someone we trust and love. And in return, we are loved and trusted. Yes, indeed it may take some time; even years to grow that love and trust. And yes, that trust can be, and probably will be broken from time to time. But that is what being a friend is all about. Knowing that the other may break a trust, but, truly in their heart, didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, and are sorry for doing so.
So, do we throw away love and trust at the whim? Hopefully the answer is no. If friendship and love have any meaning at all, it extends the hand of forgiveness and embraces despite it all. This shows that you can be trusted to be a friend, no matter the circumstance.
Isn’t that the trust we are really looking for anyway? To have a relationship with someone who loves you, embraces you, and trusts you just as much as you do them, no matter what.
Something to think about? Indeed.
LA
Sunday, October 28, 2007
To know your future Companion...
Take a candle and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an apple before it, and some traditions say you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.
The Hag
The Hag is astride,
This night for to ride;
The Devill and shee together:
Through thick, and through thin,
Now out, and then in,
Though ne’r so foule be the weather.
A Thorn or a Burr
She takes for a Spurre:
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,
Through Brakes and through Bryars,
O’re Ditches, and Mires,
She followes the Spirit that guides now.
No Beast, for his food,
Dares now range the wood;
But husht in his laire he lies lurking:
While mischiefs, by these,
On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are working,
The storme will arise,
And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the Tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.
Robert Herrick (1648)
This night for to ride;
The Devill and shee together:
Through thick, and through thin,
Now out, and then in,
Though ne’r so foule be the weather.
A Thorn or a Burr
She takes for a Spurre:
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,
Through Brakes and through Bryars,
O’re Ditches, and Mires,
She followes the Spirit that guides now.
No Beast, for his food,
Dares now range the wood;
But husht in his laire he lies lurking:
While mischiefs, by these,
On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are working,
The storme will arise,
And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the Tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.
Robert Herrick (1648)
Walnut Boats Divination
Open English walnuts, remove meat, and in each half shell fasten short pieces of differently colored candles, each of which is to be named for a person and, after lighting, set afloat in large tub of water or pond. The behavior of these tiny boats reveals future of those for whom they are named. If two glide on together, their owners have a similar destiny; if they glide apart, so will their owners. Sometimes candles will huddle together as if talking to one another, while perchance one will be left alone, out in the cold, as it were. Again, two will start off and all the rest will closely follow. The one whose candle first goes out is destined to be an old bachelor or maid. These nut-shell boats may also be made by pouring melted wax into halves of walnut-shells in which are short strings for wicks.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Patriotism
Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Double, Double...
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add there to a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Macbeth (4.1.5-37)
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add there to a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Macbeth (4.1.5-37)
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Poetry
Poetry operates by hints and dark suggestions. It is full of secrets and hidden formulae, like a Witch's brew. - Anthony Hecht
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monkshood
Most beautiful of poisons, border-plant,
wearing your small green cowl,
little friar, little murderer,
aconitine flows from your roots to your deep purple flowers,
small deceiver, centerpiece for a poisonous feast.
A few leaves in the salad,
a few seeds in the soup,
a thick root to flavor the stock and it is all over.
Let the lover beware
who buys you for love philters.
The dose is deceptive.
One pinch leads to passion
but two will surely lead to death.
Yet you twinkle little blue bell at the edge of the garden,
wearing no warning about your slim green neck.
Wolfsbane, Friar's cap, Chariot of Venus -
how many may claim to be poisonous head to toe?
That honor - Friar Death - belongs to you.
wearing your small green cowl,
little friar, little murderer,
aconitine flows from your roots to your deep purple flowers,
small deceiver, centerpiece for a poisonous feast.
A few leaves in the salad,
a few seeds in the soup,
a thick root to flavor the stock and it is all over.
Let the lover beware
who buys you for love philters.
The dose is deceptive.
One pinch leads to passion
but two will surely lead to death.
Yet you twinkle little blue bell at the edge of the garden,
wearing no warning about your slim green neck.
Wolfsbane, Friar's cap, Chariot of Venus -
how many may claim to be poisonous head to toe?
That honor - Friar Death - belongs to you.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Black Magic
Sometimes a cliché just wears out. It loses meaning or, worse, begins to say things we never meant. I think it's time to retire the phrase "black magic." Magic is magic, be it bane or otherwise, it is all sacred, and it is the choice of the Witch for what purpose it is to be used.
I've heard much too often the terms "White" or "Black" magic, and I've heard "Grey" as well. Frankly this only shows me just how much most people, even witches, hold on to their past and what our "Christian" society has embedded in their minds from birth and on forward throughout their lives.Saying "black" when we mean "evil" is nasty nonsense. In the first place, it reinforces the racist stereotypes that corrupt our society.
And that's not all. Whenever we say "black" instead of "bad," we repeat again the big lie that darkness is wrong. It isn't, as people who profess to love Nature should know.
Darkness can mean the inside of the womb, and the seed germinating within the Earth, and the chaos that gives rise to all truly new beginnings. In our myths, the one who goes down to the underworld returns with the treasure. Even death, to the Witch's understanding, is well-earned rest and comfort, and a preparation for new birth.
Using "black" to mean "bad" is a blasphemy against the Crone and the Dark Lord. But even if we no longer speak of magic as "black" or "white," we still need to think and speak about the ethics of magic. Although black is not evil, some actions are evil. It simply is not true that anything a person is strong enough or skilled enough to do is OK, nor should doing what we "will" ever be the whole of the law for us. We need a clear and specific vocabulary that enables us to choose wisely what we will do.
We need to replace the word "black," not simply to drop it. Some Pagans have tried using "negative" as their substitute, but that turned out to be confusing. For some people, "negative" means any spell to diminish or banish anything. Some things - tumors, depression, and bigotry - are harmful. There's nothing wrong with a working to get rid of bad stuff. "Left-handed" is another common term for wrongful practice, very traditional, but just as ignorant, superstitious and potentially harmful as the phrase "black magic" itself. So instead we tried using the word "unethical." That's a lot better - free of extraneous and false implications - but still too vague.
Gradually, I began to wonder whether using any one word, "black"or "unethical" or whatever might just be too general and too subjective.
Now, before I continue, I need to make it very clear that "ethics" is clearly a word that is defined by the individual. What is ethical for me may not be to you, and vice verse. Therefore, take no measure from this for what is or is not ethical. YOU are the judge of what is ethical for YOU. And YOU take the responsibility for what YOU do.
I certainly pass no judgment to any witch for what they choose to do. It is indeed their choice to make, and not mine in any way. I do, of course, have my opinions, but they are simply that, opinions. You may or may not even agree with what is written here. And that is OK too. The God and Goddess will work in any way you ask. This is mainly concerned with the Witch's responsibility to think clearly with as many facts possible before acting. Acting responsibly is not unreasonable, sometimes inconvenient, yes, but nevertheless, it is proper.
I won't settle for blind obedience. If ethical principles are going to survive the twin tests of time and temptation, people need to understand just what to avoid, and why. Even more important, they need a basis for figuring out what to do instead, especially when it comes to projective magic.
Projective magic means active workings, the kind in which we project our will out into the world to make some kind of change. This is what most people think of when they use the word magic at all. Quite clearly, magic that may affect other people is magic that can harm. This is the basis of the proverb "a Witch who can't hex can't heal." Either you can raise and/or direct power or you can't. Your strength and skill can be used for blessing, or for bane. The choice is yours. Just as some people feel that strength and skill are their own justification, others feel that any projective magic is always wrong -that it is a distraction from our one true goal of union with the Divine or a willful avoidance of judgment. I think these attitudes are equally inconsistent with the Witch's philosophy.
We are taught that we will find the Lady and Lord within ourselves, or not at all, that the Witch Mother has been with us from the beginning. We can't now establish a union that was always there. All we can do, all we need to do, is become aware. Knowing what it feels like to heal and empower, again and again till you can't dismiss it as coincidence, is one of the most powerful methods for awakening that awareness. It makes no sense to say that the direct experience and exercise of our indwelling divinity distracts from the Great Work.
Indeed, it is this intimate connection between our magic and our self-realization that our ethics protect. Wrongful use of magic will choke the channel. No short term gain could ever compensate for that.
The "karmic" argument against practical workings seems to me to arise from a paranoid and defeatist world view. Even if we assume that the hardships in this life were put there by the Powers That Be for a reason, how can we be so sure that the reason was punishment? Perhaps instead of penance to be endured, our difficulties are challenges to be met. Coping and dealing with our problems, learning magical and mundane skills, changing ourselves and our world for the better - in short, growing up - is that not what the Gods of joy and freedom want from us?
We, as Witches, believe that we are chosen by or God and Goddess. Yet it is up to each of us individually to choose whether to recognize them or not, to listen to them, commune with them, and to work with and respect our Deities. One of the most radically different things about a Witch's belief system is that each one of us has the right, and the need, to choose the focus of our relationship with our Deities. We make these choices knowing that whatever energies we invoke most often in ritual will shape our own further growth.
Spiritual practices are a means of self-programming if you will. So we are responsible for what we worship in a way that people who take their One God as a given are not.
Think about this: what kind of Power actively wants us to submit and suffer, and objects when we develop skills to improve our own lives? Not a Being I'd want to invite around too often!
So it will not work for us to rule out projective magic; nor should we. Prohibitions are as thoughtless as total permissiveness or blind obedience. Ethical and spiritual Witches ought to be able to make distinctions and well-reasoned choices.
Not so much thought of as "Black", but because I've just talked about Projective Magic, It's probably appropriate to touch on Receptive Magic. Receptive magic can be thought of also as "passive" magic, although it is not at all passive. Carrying an amulet or gemstone charged to attract a lover, money, a job and such are examples of receptive magic. This energy is such that it attracts or is magnetic.
The amulet should not be confused with a talisman. Talismans are not receptive and generally are used as protection, illumination, personal power, increasing self-worth, luck, energy, positive outcomes. In talismans, it is the energy of these power objects that repel negative forces by sending out positive energy.
Projective - Fire - Protection, strength, will power, courage, energy, power, blood,birth, lust, sex, war, anger Carnelian, Garnet, Red Jasper, Ruby
Receptive - Water - Love, acceptance, peace, happiness, joy, laughter, calming, soothing,soothing, opening, de-stressing, Rose Quartz, Rhodonite, Rhodochrosite
Projective - Fire - Protection, illumination, personal power, increasing self-worth, luck, energy, positive outcomes Carnelian, Orange Calcite
Projective - Air - Communication, conscious mind, heightening visualization abilities,travel, digestion, nervous system, skin, energy, movement, mental awareness, Citrine, Yellow Zircon, Yellow Carnelian
Receptive - Water - Healing, fertility, life, plants, gardens, eyes, kidneys, stomach, money, riches, prosperity, luck, love, balance, Bloodstone, Aventurine, Green Moss Agate
Receptive - Water - Peace, calming emotions, sleep, healing, reduce fevers, remove ulcers, eliminating inflammations, remove pain, purification, Lapis Lazuli, Sapphire
Receptive - Earth - Spirituality, mysticism, purification, meditation, psychic work, subconscious mind, healing, peace, removing headache, mental illness, depression, Amethyst, some Fluorite
Receptive - Water/Earth - Sleep, Psychism, luck, protection, removing headache, substitute for any other stone, Snow Quartz, Opal
Receptive - Earth - Protection, grounding, self-control, resilience, quiet power, Obsidian, Jet, Apache Tears
In the example above, you'll notice that projective is associated with Air which could include rituals having to do with travel, instruction, study, freedom, knowledge, and searching. And Fire in which some rituals would include protection, courage, sex, energy,strength, authority, and banishing. Receptive is associated with Earth in which such rituals might include money, fertility, employment, stability, prosperity, and grounding. And Water in which such rituals would include love, purification, psychic abilities, dreams, sleep, peace, marriage, and friendship.
Noticing this will bring you also to the conclusion that projective is male, and receptive is female as Earth and Water are feminine. Fire and Air are Masculine.
Baneful magic is magic done for the explicit purpose of causing harm to another person. Usually the reason for it is revenge, and the rationalization is justice.
For Witches there is no rule without exceptions. If you think you would never torture somebody, consider this scenario: in just half an hour the bomb will go off, killing everybody in the city, and this terrorist knows where it is hidden....
I know, a bit extreme, but you get the point.
It's a bad mistake to base your ethics on wildly unlikely cases, since none of us honestly knows how we would react in that kind of extreme. Reasonable ethical statements are statements about the behaviors we expect of ourselves under normally predictable circumstances.We all get really angry on occasion, and sometimes with good cause.
Then revenge can seem like no more than simple justice. The anger is a normal, healthy human reaction, and should not be repressed. Most times there's no more need to act it out in magic than in physical violence. Instead of going for revenge - and invoking the consequences of baneful magic - identify what you really need first.
For example, if your anger comes from a feeling that you have been attacked or violated, what you may need first is protection and safe space. Work for the positive goal first, it can be both more effective and safer. If this proves to be ineffective, then perhaps the use of baneful magic would be appropriate.
The consequences of baneful magic are simply the logical, natural and inevitable psychological effects. Even in that rare and extreme situation when you may decide you really do have to use magic to give Hitler a heart attack, it means you are choosing by the same choice to accept the act's consequences. Magical attack hurts the attacker first. Let me explain…
The only way I know how to do magic is by use of my imagination, by visualizing or otherwise actively imagining the end I want, and then projecting that goal with the energy of emotional/physiological arousal. All the techniques I know either help me to imagine more specifically or to project more strongly. So the only way I can send out harm is by first experiencing that harm within my own imagination. Instant and absolute consequence - the natural, logical and inevitable outcomes of our own choices.
I would think also, that somebody dumb enough to do such workings too often would soon lose the ability to imagine specifically, as their sensitivity dulled in sheer self-defense. That callusing effect is the reality behind the pious proverb that says "if you abuse it, She'll take it away."
Of course, these effects or consequences can be and most times are minuscule when we act with clear conscience. The greatest consequence of all is to work baneful magic when you know in your heart that it is not the right thing to do and the target person does not truly deserve it.
But not every other magician is ethical. Psychic attacks do happen. Should we not defend ourselves? Of course we should. Leaving ourselves open to psychic attack is no good example of the autonomy and assertiveness our Gods expect. But first, how can we be sure what we are experiencing really is psychic attack?
The fantasy of psychic attack is often a convenient excuse that allows us to avoid looking at our own shortcomings. When lack of rest or improper nutrition is the cause of illness, or a project isn't completed on time because of distraction, it's a real temptation to put the blame outside ourselves. Doing this too easily betrays our autonomy just as badly as meek submission to attack does. Then, to compound matters, projected blame becomes an excuse for unjust revenge - and that is baneful magic without excuse.
Once in a while, some fool really does try to throw a whammy. It's hard to predict when you might be targeted. Passive shields are always a good idea. Like a mirror, these are totally inactive until somebody sends unwelcome energy. Then a shield will protect you completely and bounce back whatever is being thrown. You may not even know consciously when your shield is working, but the result is perfect justice.
Perfect justice is both elegant and efficient. You won't hurt anybody out of paranoia or by mistake. And perfect protection, even though we do not have perfect knowledge.
That being said, it is not the way of the Witch to suffer at the hand of another. And no Witch should allow him or herself to be a doormat! Protection for yourself and those dear to you is indeed reason enough to get "tough" with magic.
Always remember this rule. Once you cast spellwork, no matter what kind or for what reason, put it completely out of your mind. Once done and the circle is opened, it simply never happened. This is the best and only true way to protect yourself from the consequences of your spellwork.
Bindings, according to some, are completely defensive. They do not harm, only restrain. But imagine yourself being bound - perhaps by someone who believes themselves justified - and notice the feeling of impotence and frustration. Binding is bane from the viewpoint of the bound.
Even if restraint were truly not harmful, bindings can be poor protection. They target a particular person or group. What if you suspect the wrong person? Somebody harmless is bound and your actual attacker is not bound. Shields, which cover you, not your supposed enemy, will cover you against any enemy, known or unknown. This is not to say that binding is always improper and/or out of the realm of answers to defend against attack, just be sure you have the right person!
Coercive magic is magic that targets another person to make them give us something we want or need. When most people think of the "Magic Power of Witchcraft," this is for the most part, what they have in mind.
The spell to make the teacher give you a good grade, or the supervisor give you a good evaluation, the spell to make the personnel officer or renting agent choose you, the spell to attract that cute guy or girl, all are examples of coercive magic.
So, what's wrong with high grades, a good job, a raise, a nice apartment and a sexy, horny lover? There's nothing at all wrong with those goals. Go for it! There is certainly nothing wrong with using what you know and have at your disposal to get what you want or need.
But don't actively strive toward good ends by coercive means.Although there is no deliberate intent to do harm or cause pain in coercive workings, other people are treated as pawns. Their autonomy and their interests are ignored.
Forcing the will of another is not always harmless; controlling the independent judgment of another human being can be harmful.
One of the main reasons people fear and hate Witches is our reputation for controlling others.
Innocent people, who are connected to the situation, but invisible to us, may also be seriously hurt: the cute guy's fiancee', the other applicant for that job. What you think of as a working designed only to bring good to yourself can bring serious harm to innocent third parties. This is somewhat a weak argument, since almost always one can come up with third parties that could be affected. Even though this may or may not be the deciding factor in your choice to use magic, it may be wise at times to think of this. I, at times, choose to also ask for protection for innocent parties if I believe that they might be harmed otherwise. Children are most likely to get my attention on this.
That isn't the only way an incomplete view of the situation can backfire. There's a traditional saying that goes, "be careful about what you ask for, because that's exactly what you will get." What if he is gorgeous, but abusive? What if the apartment house is structurally unsound?
Finally, remember this: asking specifically limits us to what we now know or what we can now imagine. I remember a time when I could not have imagined being a Witch and Priest. What if the cute guy in the office is perfectly OK, but your absolutely perfect soul-mate will be in the local Kroger next Wednesday? The more specifically targeted your magic is, the more you chance limiting yourself to a life of missed chances.
This is not to say that you shouldn't be specific. Of course you should! My point here is make sure that you are very well educated and have all the facts before you ask. Patience can pay off if you look deeply into yourself to know for sure what it is you want or need, as well as looking further into the specific objects of your desires.
And beyond all the scenario spinning lies the instant natural, logical and inevitable consequence of the act. It's more subtle than in the case of baneful magic, since you are not trying to imagine and project pain, but the damage is still real. Here are some examples.
Every time you treat another human being as a thing to be pushed and pulled around for your convenience and pleasure, you are reinforcing your own alienation. The attitude of being removed from and superior to other people takes you out of community. As the attitude strengthens, so will the behavior it engenders. The long term result of coercive magic, as with mundane forms of coercion, is isolation and loneliness.
Did I just rule out all the good stuff? Love charms, job magic, spells for good grades? Not at all! It is not only ethical but good for you to do lots of magic to improve your own life. Whenever it works you will get more than you asked for - because along with whatever you asked for comes one more experience of your own effectiveness, your power from within.
Work on yourself and your own needs and desires without targeting other people whenever possible. You should feel free! Ask for what you want. Visualize it and raise power for it and act in accordance on the material plane. "I need a caring and horny lover with a goodsense of humor." "I want an affordable house near where my coven meets with a tree outside my window." "I need to be at my best when Itake that exam next week." Go ahead, fulfill your dreams, and sometimes let the Gods surprise you with gifts beyond your dreams.
Manipulative magic is magic that targets another person for what we think is "their own good," without regard for their opinions in the matter. In the general culture around us, this is normal. As you read this, you may have some friend or relative praying for you to be "saved" from your evil Pagan ways and returned to the fold of their preference. These people mean you well. By their own lights, they are attempting to heal you. We work from a very different theological base.
As Witches, we affirm the diversity of the divine and the divinity of diversity. If there is no one, true, right and only way in general, do we dare to assume that there is one obvious right choice for a person in any given situation? If more than one choice maybe "right," how can one person presume they know what another person would want without asking them first?
No life situation ever looks the same from outside as it does to the person who is experiencing it. Are you sure you even have all the facts? Are you fully aware of all the emotional entanglements involved? Perhaps that illness is the only way they have of getting rest or getting attention. Perhaps they stay in that dead end job because it leaves them more energy to concentrate on their music. How do you know till you ask?
And, to further complicate the analysis, it's possible that the person you are trying to help would agree with you about the most desirable outcome, but fears and hates the very idea of magic. They have as much of a right to keep magic out of their own life, as you have to make it part of yours!
Our craft teaches that the sacred lives within each person, that we can hear the Lady's voice for ourselves if we only learn to listen. "... If that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without." In behavioral terms, when you take another person's opinion about their own life seriously, you are reinforcing them in thinking and choosing for themselves. The more you do this, the more you encourage them to listen for the sacred inner voice.
Conversely, whenever you ignore or override a person's feelings about their own life, you are discounting those feelings and discouraging the kind of internal attention that can keep the channels to wisdom open. Although well-intentioned meddling may actually help somebody in the short run, in the longer run it trains them to dependency and indecision. Few intentional banes damage as severely. This is especially true because even the untrained and unaware will instinctively resist overt ill-will, but in our culture we are trained to receive "expert" interference with gratitude.
Check by asking yourself, "who's in charge here?" The answer to that will tell you whether you are basically empowering or undermining the person you intend to help.
And, as usual, the effects go both ways. The same uninvited intervention that fosters passivity in the recipient will foster arrogance in the "rescuer." Its control and ego-inflation masked as generosity. It's very seductive.
If you make this a habit, you will come to believe that other people are incompetent and powerless. Then what happens when you need help?
Your contempt will make it impossible for you to see what resources surround you. Manipulative magic is ultimately just as alienating ascoercive magic – and it's a much prettier trap!
The way to avoid the trap is to do no working on the behalf of another person without that person's explicit permission.You don't need to wait passively for the person to ask. It's perfectly all right to offer, as long as you are willing to sometimes accept "no" for your answer. For the person who believes s/he isunworthy or who is simply too shy, offering help is itself a gift.
Taking their opinion seriously is an even greater gift: respect.
The rule is that whenever it is in any way physically possible to ask, you must ask. If it's not important enough to pay long distance charges, it certainly isn't important enough to violate a friend's autonomy. If asking is literally not possible, then and only then, here are, of course, exceptions:
Sometimes an illness or injury happens very suddenly, and the person is unconscious or in a coma before you could possibly ask them. If you know that this person is generally comfortable with magic, you may do workings to keep their basic body systems working and allow the normal healing process the time it needs. If they are opposed to magic, for whatever reason, back off!
Traditionally, an unconscious person is understood to be temporarily out of their body. Maintaining their body in habitable condition is preserving their option, not choosing for them. Doing maintenance magic requires a lot of sensitivity. At some point, the time may come when you should stop and let the person go on. Be sure to use some kind of divination to help you stay aware.
This is a hard road. It may be your lover, your child, lying there helpless. Any normal human being would be tempted to drag them back,to force them to stay regardless of what is truly best for them, regardless of what they want. Don't repress these feelings; they do no harm, even though your actions might. It takes great strength and non-possessive love to recognize that your loved one knows their own need. You may be calling them back to a crippled body, to a life of pain. You may be calling them back from the ecstasy of the Goddess. And this is no more your right than it would be to murder them.
If a person is temporarily not reachable, you may charge up a physical object, such as an appropriate talisman or some incense.
When you present it to them, give them a full explanation. It is their choice whether to keep or use your gift. By interposing an object between the magic and the target in this way, you can work the magic in Circle, with the group's power to draw on, and still get the person's permission before the magic is triggered.
With all these rules about permission, perhaps it would be safer to work only on ourselves? Safer yes, but not nearly as good. If you have permission, you may do any working for another person that youmight do for yourself. Coercive magic is just as unacceptable when somebody else asks for it, and you may not do manipulative magic on your friend's mother, even at your friend's request. The permission must come from the magic's intended target and from nobody else. Done properly, working magic for others is good for all concerned.
Every act of magic has two effects. One is the direct effect, the healing or prosperity working or whatever was intended. The other is a minute change in the mind and the heart of the person who does the working. Everything we experience, and especially everything that we do in a wholehearted and focused way - the only way effective magic can be done - changes us. Each experience leaves its tiny trace, but the traces are cumulative. They mold the person we will become.
Logical, natural and inevitable consequences caused by our actions(magic) can be desirable. When you send out good, what you send it with is love. Love is the driving force. When you let love flow freely, the channel down to love's well spring stays clear and open.
When you send out good, you direct it along the web of person-to-person connection, and awareness of that web is reinforced. The totality of that web is the basis of community.
When you send out good it feels good. In the same way that sending out bane requires imagining pain, sending out blessing requires imagining pleasure, strongly and specifically. And, when you send out good, just the same as when you call it to yourself, you reinforce your sense of effectiveness in the world. Blessings grow in the fertile ground of mutuality, to the benefit of all.
So, perhaps there is a descriptive word that covers all wrongful magical workings after all. How about "non-consensual" magic?
Magic can be used for dominance, just the same as muscle or money. There is no difference, ethically, between the magical and the mundane. We are not obligated to tolerate power trippers among us. We are not obligated to run our own community by the slogans and ground rules of the dominator culture.
We need to get away from absolutes and to look in practical terms at the advantages or disadvantages of our choices. Once more, our craf titself shows us the way to steer between the false choices. What aperson does that affects only them - magical or mundane - is truly nobody's business but their own. But they would be wise to at least take a look to see the consequences of their actions and magic!
We have the right to protect ourselves individually and as a group. No ideology should turn us into passive victims when something we hold precious stands to be destroyed. So by this, if magic need be used, no matter what kind, by all means....go for it! As Witches, we do indeed believe in "an eye for an eye". When magic isused "justifiably", the "consequence" is inconsequential, or even, non-existent.
I've heard much too often the terms "White" or "Black" magic, and I've heard "Grey" as well. Frankly this only shows me just how much most people, even witches, hold on to their past and what our "Christian" society has embedded in their minds from birth and on forward throughout their lives.Saying "black" when we mean "evil" is nasty nonsense. In the first place, it reinforces the racist stereotypes that corrupt our society.
And that's not all. Whenever we say "black" instead of "bad," we repeat again the big lie that darkness is wrong. It isn't, as people who profess to love Nature should know.
Darkness can mean the inside of the womb, and the seed germinating within the Earth, and the chaos that gives rise to all truly new beginnings. In our myths, the one who goes down to the underworld returns with the treasure. Even death, to the Witch's understanding, is well-earned rest and comfort, and a preparation for new birth.
Using "black" to mean "bad" is a blasphemy against the Crone and the Dark Lord. But even if we no longer speak of magic as "black" or "white," we still need to think and speak about the ethics of magic. Although black is not evil, some actions are evil. It simply is not true that anything a person is strong enough or skilled enough to do is OK, nor should doing what we "will" ever be the whole of the law for us. We need a clear and specific vocabulary that enables us to choose wisely what we will do.
We need to replace the word "black," not simply to drop it. Some Pagans have tried using "negative" as their substitute, but that turned out to be confusing. For some people, "negative" means any spell to diminish or banish anything. Some things - tumors, depression, and bigotry - are harmful. There's nothing wrong with a working to get rid of bad stuff. "Left-handed" is another common term for wrongful practice, very traditional, but just as ignorant, superstitious and potentially harmful as the phrase "black magic" itself. So instead we tried using the word "unethical." That's a lot better - free of extraneous and false implications - but still too vague.
Gradually, I began to wonder whether using any one word, "black"or "unethical" or whatever might just be too general and too subjective.
Now, before I continue, I need to make it very clear that "ethics" is clearly a word that is defined by the individual. What is ethical for me may not be to you, and vice verse. Therefore, take no measure from this for what is or is not ethical. YOU are the judge of what is ethical for YOU. And YOU take the responsibility for what YOU do.
I certainly pass no judgment to any witch for what they choose to do. It is indeed their choice to make, and not mine in any way. I do, of course, have my opinions, but they are simply that, opinions. You may or may not even agree with what is written here. And that is OK too. The God and Goddess will work in any way you ask. This is mainly concerned with the Witch's responsibility to think clearly with as many facts possible before acting. Acting responsibly is not unreasonable, sometimes inconvenient, yes, but nevertheless, it is proper.
I won't settle for blind obedience. If ethical principles are going to survive the twin tests of time and temptation, people need to understand just what to avoid, and why. Even more important, they need a basis for figuring out what to do instead, especially when it comes to projective magic.
Projective magic means active workings, the kind in which we project our will out into the world to make some kind of change. This is what most people think of when they use the word magic at all. Quite clearly, magic that may affect other people is magic that can harm. This is the basis of the proverb "a Witch who can't hex can't heal." Either you can raise and/or direct power or you can't. Your strength and skill can be used for blessing, or for bane. The choice is yours. Just as some people feel that strength and skill are their own justification, others feel that any projective magic is always wrong -that it is a distraction from our one true goal of union with the Divine or a willful avoidance of judgment. I think these attitudes are equally inconsistent with the Witch's philosophy.
We are taught that we will find the Lady and Lord within ourselves, or not at all, that the Witch Mother has been with us from the beginning. We can't now establish a union that was always there. All we can do, all we need to do, is become aware. Knowing what it feels like to heal and empower, again and again till you can't dismiss it as coincidence, is one of the most powerful methods for awakening that awareness. It makes no sense to say that the direct experience and exercise of our indwelling divinity distracts from the Great Work.
Indeed, it is this intimate connection between our magic and our self-realization that our ethics protect. Wrongful use of magic will choke the channel. No short term gain could ever compensate for that.
The "karmic" argument against practical workings seems to me to arise from a paranoid and defeatist world view. Even if we assume that the hardships in this life were put there by the Powers That Be for a reason, how can we be so sure that the reason was punishment? Perhaps instead of penance to be endured, our difficulties are challenges to be met. Coping and dealing with our problems, learning magical and mundane skills, changing ourselves and our world for the better - in short, growing up - is that not what the Gods of joy and freedom want from us?
We, as Witches, believe that we are chosen by or God and Goddess. Yet it is up to each of us individually to choose whether to recognize them or not, to listen to them, commune with them, and to work with and respect our Deities. One of the most radically different things about a Witch's belief system is that each one of us has the right, and the need, to choose the focus of our relationship with our Deities. We make these choices knowing that whatever energies we invoke most often in ritual will shape our own further growth.
Spiritual practices are a means of self-programming if you will. So we are responsible for what we worship in a way that people who take their One God as a given are not.
Think about this: what kind of Power actively wants us to submit and suffer, and objects when we develop skills to improve our own lives? Not a Being I'd want to invite around too often!
So it will not work for us to rule out projective magic; nor should we. Prohibitions are as thoughtless as total permissiveness or blind obedience. Ethical and spiritual Witches ought to be able to make distinctions and well-reasoned choices.
Not so much thought of as "Black", but because I've just talked about Projective Magic, It's probably appropriate to touch on Receptive Magic. Receptive magic can be thought of also as "passive" magic, although it is not at all passive. Carrying an amulet or gemstone charged to attract a lover, money, a job and such are examples of receptive magic. This energy is such that it attracts or is magnetic.
The amulet should not be confused with a talisman. Talismans are not receptive and generally are used as protection, illumination, personal power, increasing self-worth, luck, energy, positive outcomes. In talismans, it is the energy of these power objects that repel negative forces by sending out positive energy.
Projective - Fire - Protection, strength, will power, courage, energy, power, blood,birth, lust, sex, war, anger Carnelian, Garnet, Red Jasper, Ruby
Receptive - Water - Love, acceptance, peace, happiness, joy, laughter, calming, soothing,soothing, opening, de-stressing, Rose Quartz, Rhodonite, Rhodochrosite
Projective - Fire - Protection, illumination, personal power, increasing self-worth, luck, energy, positive outcomes Carnelian, Orange Calcite
Projective - Air - Communication, conscious mind, heightening visualization abilities,travel, digestion, nervous system, skin, energy, movement, mental awareness, Citrine, Yellow Zircon, Yellow Carnelian
Receptive - Water - Healing, fertility, life, plants, gardens, eyes, kidneys, stomach, money, riches, prosperity, luck, love, balance, Bloodstone, Aventurine, Green Moss Agate
Receptive - Water - Peace, calming emotions, sleep, healing, reduce fevers, remove ulcers, eliminating inflammations, remove pain, purification, Lapis Lazuli, Sapphire
Receptive - Earth - Spirituality, mysticism, purification, meditation, psychic work, subconscious mind, healing, peace, removing headache, mental illness, depression, Amethyst, some Fluorite
Receptive - Water/Earth - Sleep, Psychism, luck, protection, removing headache, substitute for any other stone, Snow Quartz, Opal
Receptive - Earth - Protection, grounding, self-control, resilience, quiet power, Obsidian, Jet, Apache Tears
In the example above, you'll notice that projective is associated with Air which could include rituals having to do with travel, instruction, study, freedom, knowledge, and searching. And Fire in which some rituals would include protection, courage, sex, energy,strength, authority, and banishing. Receptive is associated with Earth in which such rituals might include money, fertility, employment, stability, prosperity, and grounding. And Water in which such rituals would include love, purification, psychic abilities, dreams, sleep, peace, marriage, and friendship.
Noticing this will bring you also to the conclusion that projective is male, and receptive is female as Earth and Water are feminine. Fire and Air are Masculine.
Baneful magic is magic done for the explicit purpose of causing harm to another person. Usually the reason for it is revenge, and the rationalization is justice.
For Witches there is no rule without exceptions. If you think you would never torture somebody, consider this scenario: in just half an hour the bomb will go off, killing everybody in the city, and this terrorist knows where it is hidden....
I know, a bit extreme, but you get the point.
It's a bad mistake to base your ethics on wildly unlikely cases, since none of us honestly knows how we would react in that kind of extreme. Reasonable ethical statements are statements about the behaviors we expect of ourselves under normally predictable circumstances.We all get really angry on occasion, and sometimes with good cause.
Then revenge can seem like no more than simple justice. The anger is a normal, healthy human reaction, and should not be repressed. Most times there's no more need to act it out in magic than in physical violence. Instead of going for revenge - and invoking the consequences of baneful magic - identify what you really need first.
For example, if your anger comes from a feeling that you have been attacked or violated, what you may need first is protection and safe space. Work for the positive goal first, it can be both more effective and safer. If this proves to be ineffective, then perhaps the use of baneful magic would be appropriate.
The consequences of baneful magic are simply the logical, natural and inevitable psychological effects. Even in that rare and extreme situation when you may decide you really do have to use magic to give Hitler a heart attack, it means you are choosing by the same choice to accept the act's consequences. Magical attack hurts the attacker first. Let me explain…
The only way I know how to do magic is by use of my imagination, by visualizing or otherwise actively imagining the end I want, and then projecting that goal with the energy of emotional/physiological arousal. All the techniques I know either help me to imagine more specifically or to project more strongly. So the only way I can send out harm is by first experiencing that harm within my own imagination. Instant and absolute consequence - the natural, logical and inevitable outcomes of our own choices.
I would think also, that somebody dumb enough to do such workings too often would soon lose the ability to imagine specifically, as their sensitivity dulled in sheer self-defense. That callusing effect is the reality behind the pious proverb that says "if you abuse it, She'll take it away."
Of course, these effects or consequences can be and most times are minuscule when we act with clear conscience. The greatest consequence of all is to work baneful magic when you know in your heart that it is not the right thing to do and the target person does not truly deserve it.
But not every other magician is ethical. Psychic attacks do happen. Should we not defend ourselves? Of course we should. Leaving ourselves open to psychic attack is no good example of the autonomy and assertiveness our Gods expect. But first, how can we be sure what we are experiencing really is psychic attack?
The fantasy of psychic attack is often a convenient excuse that allows us to avoid looking at our own shortcomings. When lack of rest or improper nutrition is the cause of illness, or a project isn't completed on time because of distraction, it's a real temptation to put the blame outside ourselves. Doing this too easily betrays our autonomy just as badly as meek submission to attack does. Then, to compound matters, projected blame becomes an excuse for unjust revenge - and that is baneful magic without excuse.
Once in a while, some fool really does try to throw a whammy. It's hard to predict when you might be targeted. Passive shields are always a good idea. Like a mirror, these are totally inactive until somebody sends unwelcome energy. Then a shield will protect you completely and bounce back whatever is being thrown. You may not even know consciously when your shield is working, but the result is perfect justice.
Perfect justice is both elegant and efficient. You won't hurt anybody out of paranoia or by mistake. And perfect protection, even though we do not have perfect knowledge.
That being said, it is not the way of the Witch to suffer at the hand of another. And no Witch should allow him or herself to be a doormat! Protection for yourself and those dear to you is indeed reason enough to get "tough" with magic.
Always remember this rule. Once you cast spellwork, no matter what kind or for what reason, put it completely out of your mind. Once done and the circle is opened, it simply never happened. This is the best and only true way to protect yourself from the consequences of your spellwork.
Bindings, according to some, are completely defensive. They do not harm, only restrain. But imagine yourself being bound - perhaps by someone who believes themselves justified - and notice the feeling of impotence and frustration. Binding is bane from the viewpoint of the bound.
Even if restraint were truly not harmful, bindings can be poor protection. They target a particular person or group. What if you suspect the wrong person? Somebody harmless is bound and your actual attacker is not bound. Shields, which cover you, not your supposed enemy, will cover you against any enemy, known or unknown. This is not to say that binding is always improper and/or out of the realm of answers to defend against attack, just be sure you have the right person!
Coercive magic is magic that targets another person to make them give us something we want or need. When most people think of the "Magic Power of Witchcraft," this is for the most part, what they have in mind.
The spell to make the teacher give you a good grade, or the supervisor give you a good evaluation, the spell to make the personnel officer or renting agent choose you, the spell to attract that cute guy or girl, all are examples of coercive magic.
So, what's wrong with high grades, a good job, a raise, a nice apartment and a sexy, horny lover? There's nothing at all wrong with those goals. Go for it! There is certainly nothing wrong with using what you know and have at your disposal to get what you want or need.
But don't actively strive toward good ends by coercive means.Although there is no deliberate intent to do harm or cause pain in coercive workings, other people are treated as pawns. Their autonomy and their interests are ignored.
Forcing the will of another is not always harmless; controlling the independent judgment of another human being can be harmful.
One of the main reasons people fear and hate Witches is our reputation for controlling others.
Innocent people, who are connected to the situation, but invisible to us, may also be seriously hurt: the cute guy's fiancee', the other applicant for that job. What you think of as a working designed only to bring good to yourself can bring serious harm to innocent third parties. This is somewhat a weak argument, since almost always one can come up with third parties that could be affected. Even though this may or may not be the deciding factor in your choice to use magic, it may be wise at times to think of this. I, at times, choose to also ask for protection for innocent parties if I believe that they might be harmed otherwise. Children are most likely to get my attention on this.
That isn't the only way an incomplete view of the situation can backfire. There's a traditional saying that goes, "be careful about what you ask for, because that's exactly what you will get." What if he is gorgeous, but abusive? What if the apartment house is structurally unsound?
Finally, remember this: asking specifically limits us to what we now know or what we can now imagine. I remember a time when I could not have imagined being a Witch and Priest. What if the cute guy in the office is perfectly OK, but your absolutely perfect soul-mate will be in the local Kroger next Wednesday? The more specifically targeted your magic is, the more you chance limiting yourself to a life of missed chances.
This is not to say that you shouldn't be specific. Of course you should! My point here is make sure that you are very well educated and have all the facts before you ask. Patience can pay off if you look deeply into yourself to know for sure what it is you want or need, as well as looking further into the specific objects of your desires.
And beyond all the scenario spinning lies the instant natural, logical and inevitable consequence of the act. It's more subtle than in the case of baneful magic, since you are not trying to imagine and project pain, but the damage is still real. Here are some examples.
Every time you treat another human being as a thing to be pushed and pulled around for your convenience and pleasure, you are reinforcing your own alienation. The attitude of being removed from and superior to other people takes you out of community. As the attitude strengthens, so will the behavior it engenders. The long term result of coercive magic, as with mundane forms of coercion, is isolation and loneliness.
Did I just rule out all the good stuff? Love charms, job magic, spells for good grades? Not at all! It is not only ethical but good for you to do lots of magic to improve your own life. Whenever it works you will get more than you asked for - because along with whatever you asked for comes one more experience of your own effectiveness, your power from within.
Work on yourself and your own needs and desires without targeting other people whenever possible. You should feel free! Ask for what you want. Visualize it and raise power for it and act in accordance on the material plane. "I need a caring and horny lover with a goodsense of humor." "I want an affordable house near where my coven meets with a tree outside my window." "I need to be at my best when Itake that exam next week." Go ahead, fulfill your dreams, and sometimes let the Gods surprise you with gifts beyond your dreams.
Manipulative magic is magic that targets another person for what we think is "their own good," without regard for their opinions in the matter. In the general culture around us, this is normal. As you read this, you may have some friend or relative praying for you to be "saved" from your evil Pagan ways and returned to the fold of their preference. These people mean you well. By their own lights, they are attempting to heal you. We work from a very different theological base.
As Witches, we affirm the diversity of the divine and the divinity of diversity. If there is no one, true, right and only way in general, do we dare to assume that there is one obvious right choice for a person in any given situation? If more than one choice maybe "right," how can one person presume they know what another person would want without asking them first?
No life situation ever looks the same from outside as it does to the person who is experiencing it. Are you sure you even have all the facts? Are you fully aware of all the emotional entanglements involved? Perhaps that illness is the only way they have of getting rest or getting attention. Perhaps they stay in that dead end job because it leaves them more energy to concentrate on their music. How do you know till you ask?
And, to further complicate the analysis, it's possible that the person you are trying to help would agree with you about the most desirable outcome, but fears and hates the very idea of magic. They have as much of a right to keep magic out of their own life, as you have to make it part of yours!
Our craft teaches that the sacred lives within each person, that we can hear the Lady's voice for ourselves if we only learn to listen. "... If that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without." In behavioral terms, when you take another person's opinion about their own life seriously, you are reinforcing them in thinking and choosing for themselves. The more you do this, the more you encourage them to listen for the sacred inner voice.
Conversely, whenever you ignore or override a person's feelings about their own life, you are discounting those feelings and discouraging the kind of internal attention that can keep the channels to wisdom open. Although well-intentioned meddling may actually help somebody in the short run, in the longer run it trains them to dependency and indecision. Few intentional banes damage as severely. This is especially true because even the untrained and unaware will instinctively resist overt ill-will, but in our culture we are trained to receive "expert" interference with gratitude.
Check by asking yourself, "who's in charge here?" The answer to that will tell you whether you are basically empowering or undermining the person you intend to help.
And, as usual, the effects go both ways. The same uninvited intervention that fosters passivity in the recipient will foster arrogance in the "rescuer." Its control and ego-inflation masked as generosity. It's very seductive.
If you make this a habit, you will come to believe that other people are incompetent and powerless. Then what happens when you need help?
Your contempt will make it impossible for you to see what resources surround you. Manipulative magic is ultimately just as alienating ascoercive magic – and it's a much prettier trap!
The way to avoid the trap is to do no working on the behalf of another person without that person's explicit permission.You don't need to wait passively for the person to ask. It's perfectly all right to offer, as long as you are willing to sometimes accept "no" for your answer. For the person who believes s/he isunworthy or who is simply too shy, offering help is itself a gift.
Taking their opinion seriously is an even greater gift: respect.
The rule is that whenever it is in any way physically possible to ask, you must ask. If it's not important enough to pay long distance charges, it certainly isn't important enough to violate a friend's autonomy. If asking is literally not possible, then and only then, here are, of course, exceptions:
Sometimes an illness or injury happens very suddenly, and the person is unconscious or in a coma before you could possibly ask them. If you know that this person is generally comfortable with magic, you may do workings to keep their basic body systems working and allow the normal healing process the time it needs. If they are opposed to magic, for whatever reason, back off!
Traditionally, an unconscious person is understood to be temporarily out of their body. Maintaining their body in habitable condition is preserving their option, not choosing for them. Doing maintenance magic requires a lot of sensitivity. At some point, the time may come when you should stop and let the person go on. Be sure to use some kind of divination to help you stay aware.
This is a hard road. It may be your lover, your child, lying there helpless. Any normal human being would be tempted to drag them back,to force them to stay regardless of what is truly best for them, regardless of what they want. Don't repress these feelings; they do no harm, even though your actions might. It takes great strength and non-possessive love to recognize that your loved one knows their own need. You may be calling them back to a crippled body, to a life of pain. You may be calling them back from the ecstasy of the Goddess. And this is no more your right than it would be to murder them.
If a person is temporarily not reachable, you may charge up a physical object, such as an appropriate talisman or some incense.
When you present it to them, give them a full explanation. It is their choice whether to keep or use your gift. By interposing an object between the magic and the target in this way, you can work the magic in Circle, with the group's power to draw on, and still get the person's permission before the magic is triggered.
With all these rules about permission, perhaps it would be safer to work only on ourselves? Safer yes, but not nearly as good. If you have permission, you may do any working for another person that youmight do for yourself. Coercive magic is just as unacceptable when somebody else asks for it, and you may not do manipulative magic on your friend's mother, even at your friend's request. The permission must come from the magic's intended target and from nobody else. Done properly, working magic for others is good for all concerned.
Every act of magic has two effects. One is the direct effect, the healing or prosperity working or whatever was intended. The other is a minute change in the mind and the heart of the person who does the working. Everything we experience, and especially everything that we do in a wholehearted and focused way - the only way effective magic can be done - changes us. Each experience leaves its tiny trace, but the traces are cumulative. They mold the person we will become.
Logical, natural and inevitable consequences caused by our actions(magic) can be desirable. When you send out good, what you send it with is love. Love is the driving force. When you let love flow freely, the channel down to love's well spring stays clear and open.
When you send out good, you direct it along the web of person-to-person connection, and awareness of that web is reinforced. The totality of that web is the basis of community.
When you send out good it feels good. In the same way that sending out bane requires imagining pain, sending out blessing requires imagining pleasure, strongly and specifically. And, when you send out good, just the same as when you call it to yourself, you reinforce your sense of effectiveness in the world. Blessings grow in the fertile ground of mutuality, to the benefit of all.
So, perhaps there is a descriptive word that covers all wrongful magical workings after all. How about "non-consensual" magic?
Magic can be used for dominance, just the same as muscle or money. There is no difference, ethically, between the magical and the mundane. We are not obligated to tolerate power trippers among us. We are not obligated to run our own community by the slogans and ground rules of the dominator culture.
We need to get away from absolutes and to look in practical terms at the advantages or disadvantages of our choices. Once more, our craf titself shows us the way to steer between the false choices. What aperson does that affects only them - magical or mundane - is truly nobody's business but their own. But they would be wise to at least take a look to see the consequences of their actions and magic!
We have the right to protect ourselves individually and as a group. No ideology should turn us into passive victims when something we hold precious stands to be destroyed. So by this, if magic need be used, no matter what kind, by all means....go for it! As Witches, we do indeed believe in "an eye for an eye". When magic isused "justifiably", the "consequence" is inconsequential, or even, non-existent.
LA
Tragic Injustice
People often fail to examine whether behavior, thoughts and feelings might be a normal response to stresses in a bipolar person’s life. Always calling these things the result of bipolar disorder is a tragic injustice. There's something grotesque and dehumanizing about immediately calling their behavior, thoughts and feelings the result of this biological mental disorder, because it's a denial of their fundamental reality.
LA
LA
Love You to Death
In her place one hundred candles burning,
As salty sweat drips from her breast.
Her hips move and I can feel what they're saying, swaying.
They say the beast inside of me is gonna get you.
Black lipstick stains her glass of red wine,
I am your servant, may I light your cigarette?
Those lips smooth, yeah I can feel what you're saying, praying.
They say the beast inside of me is gonna get you.
I beg to serve, your wish is my law,
Now close those eyes and let me love you to death.
Shall I prove I mean what I'm saying? Begging.
I say the beast inside of me's gonna get you...
Let me love you to death.
Another One Bites the Dust
VATICAN CITY - A Vatican official suspended after being caught on hidden camera making advances to a young man said in an interview published Sunday that he is not gay and was only pretending to be gay as part of his work.
In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst. He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity."
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
"It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work," La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said Saturday that the monsignor had been suspended pending a Vatican investigation. Stenico is a top official in the Vatican's Congregation of the Clergy.
The Vatican after acted Vatican officials recognized Stenico's office in the background of a television program on gay priests that was broadcast on Oct. 1 on La7, a private Italian TV network. Stenico was secretly filmed making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.
In the Repubblica interview, Stenico said he had met with the young man and pretended to talk about homosexuality "to better understand this mysterious and faraway world which, by the fault of a few people — among them some priests — is doing so much harm to the Church."
The Vatican after acted Vatican officials recognized Stenico's office in the background of a television program on gay priests that was broadcast on Oct. 1 on La7, a private Italian TV network. Stenico was secretly filmed making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.
In the Repubblica interview, Stenico said he had met with the young man and pretended to talk about homosexuality "to better understand this mysterious and faraway world which, by the fault of a few people — among them some priests — is doing so much harm to the Church."
He said he had never been gay and was heterosexual, but remained faithful to his vow of celibacy.
Italy's Sky TG24 said Stenico had written a letter to his superiors with a similar defense.
Calls to Stenico's home and Vatican office went unanswered Sunday.
Italy's Sky TG24 said Stenico had written a letter to his superiors with a similar defense.
Calls to Stenico's home and Vatican office went unanswered Sunday.
This guy is soooo busted! Why can't these guys get it right? Instead of running from being human and creating hypocrites of themselves, why can't they just accept that it is human to love and lust?
Instead, they hide themselves in the shadows in hopes that they will never be found, and when they do, they deny that which brings happiness and fulfillment and embrace a doctrine of condemnation and damnation.
Suckers.
Suckers.
LA
Affirmations Are Good For You!
You might think the whole business about "affirmations" these days is one of the ideas generated by those "new-age" folks. But affirmations are at least as old as mankind itself. The only thing new-age about them is the way we react, respond and recover from them.
Affirmations are the things you hear and consider correct, that relate to your worthiness, lovability, intelligence, etc. They are internal (things you tell yourself) and they are external (things others tell you). Affirmations are either spoken or unspoken; as much believability can be ascribed to a behavior as to the voiced interpretation of that behavior. The message you hear may not be the spoken message; you might be reading something else into the spoken message, or you may be combining the spoken message with the unspoken one to create another message entirely, and that is the one you "hear", believe and retain. Affirmations are either positive in nature, or negative.
All of this definition doesn't tell you the most important fact about affirmations...that they can directly affect your mental attitude, and thereby your behavior, over a period of time. Dick Sutphen, in his "Master of Life Manual", discusses the negative thinking we heap upon ourselves in our everyday lives. He says,
"Many people have no idea how frequently they think in a negative manner. If you climb out of bed cursing the alarm clock, grumble your way through breakfast, then dwell on how much you dislike the rain and the traffic during your commute to work, and brood unhappily about your job, and on throughout the day, you are literally creating a worse reality for yourself. Because you are thinking more negative thoughts than positive ones, there is simply no way you can be creating anything but a negative reality. With all that negative programming in your computer, how could it do anything but create the programmed result: more negativity?"
Sometimes, the manner in which we were raised is a clue to the kinds of affirmations we receive. Mixed signals become negative affirmations in the computers that are our minds; so a child raised with words of encouragement, and statements of positive approval, but also with a parental lack of interest in the successes or failures the child encounters, or with disapproving looks and actions for the child's errors and miscalculations becomes a child who believes the negative aspects of the message more than the positive. Think of positive affirmations as lovely, soft feathers, and negative affirmations as wooden croquet balls, you will see that if you are hit with one of each, you will remember the croquet ball much longer.
Sometimes, our environment is at fault; or our acquaintances; or, if our job seems to generate the bulk of our negativity, perhaps we should examine our real feelings about that job. "A sense of oneself as being small can, through physical tension, transform even a tall person into a stooped, slumped, cramped, "small" person. Likewise a sense of strength and power can cause a small person to move with such energy and expansiveness that his or her size becomes irrelevant and may even be unnoticed." (Meir Schneider, "Self Healing; My Life and Vision")
Your feelings about yourself truly determine how you present yourself to the world. We've all known people who were not physically attractive, yet were considered to be great beauties, incredibly handsome, models of human comeliness. They accomplished this feat, not by mass-hypnosis, but by behaving as if they were attractive. Their behavior then influenced the people around them to consider them to be attractive. They could not change how people felt about them, or what people thought of them, but they could change the way they perceived themselves, and thence to influence the way other people responded to the way they perceived themselves.
Nearly 100 years ago, James Allen wrote in "Become the Master of Your Own Destiny", "Out of a clean heart comes a clean life... Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life... Thought is the source of action, life and manifestation; make the source pure, and all will be pure." And Dick Sutphen concurs: "To become a Master of Life means to transform the way you experience your life. In so doing, you learn to let fear and negativity flow through you without affecting you, and to be direct and natural, in balance and harmony. Everyone has the potential to create their own reality, so if you are not happy with the way it is, what (your) mind has created, (your) mind can change (it).
"All of us have been processing affirmations all of our lives. From the moment you were born, messages have been taking root in the garden of your mind and have been flowering there all along. If you now find that your view of yourself is basically a negative one, then the messages you have nurtured all these years have been negative messages. You have only to decide that you want to change those messages, and the reversing process has begun. Of course, you will not change a lifetime of negativity with an hour, or even a day of positive thought. But it will happen.
Imagine a cup full of green-colored water. In order to clear the color of the water in the cup, without discarding it, it is necessary to input far more uncolored water than there is colored water. This will be a long process, but it will eventually prove out. Your negative input is the green-colored water, and the positive you will replace it with is the clear water. If you put in positive enough thought, often enough, over a long enough period of time, the negativity residing within will be forced to vacate.
The positive thoughts are the affirmations you present for absorption to your own mind. What affirmations should you present? How do you know which ones will make a difference? "The measure of an affirmation's success is whether or not it soon manifests in your world. You should be able to manifest almost anything you are affirming with 21 days.", says Marcus Allen, author of "Tantra for the West; A Guide to Personal Freedom". He goes on to say, "There are some exceptions to this, if the project is vast or complicated, or the goal is distant. But the results should become clearly evident to you in a short time. You should be able to feel the change. If the results aren't happening, it is only because you are affirming something else on deeper, perhaps less conscious, level which is creating something contradictory to what you are affirming consciously.
"Mr. Allen describes an affirmation worksheet that can be used to rid your mind of the negative aspects that your affirmation seems to give birth to. His book is, of course, the best source of information on the process, but to summarize the program, open a notebook so you have a clean sheet on either side. On one side you will write the positive affirmation, on the other side write the thoughts that pop into your mind that seem to resist the affirmation. For instance, if you affirm, "I am a unique individual", and your mind thinks "Weird is more like it!", both of those thoughts should be on the pages.
You are instructed to continue writing the positive thought on the one side, and keep writing whatever negative or resisting thoughts occur in your mind on the other. The negative page will be a true representation of the kinds of thoughts you must remove, in order for the positive thought to remain unchallenged. Sometimes, just seeing those negative ideas written down will help you to see their foolishness or inappropriateness. Some will dissolve as soon as you see them, as you write them. Others will be more deeply ingrained into your unconscious, and may require other, less sweeping, affirmations that attack that particular thought.
Chris Griscom, whose healing work was featured in Shirley MacLaine's "Dancing in the Light", concentrates on healing the emotional body in her book "Ecstasy Is a New Frequency: Teachings of the Light Institute". "We know scientifically that the mind does control the body. We can slow down our heartbeat. We can change almost anything.", Chris writes.
"I want to change, but I don't know how. I don't know where to start." If that's your complaint, try this exercise. Write down every negative thing you hear your mind say to you about yourself. This may take a while, but you will have a picture of the programming that currently exists in your computer. It is a verbal x-ray of your mind. You have before you a list of the things that need to be changed, the inappropriate thought sequence, the reason you feel less than exuberant about yourself. From this list of negatives, you can create a list of positives. No matter if you don't believe them at first. You probably didn't believe the negative thoughts the first few times you heard them, but repetition seems to carry acceptance on it's back. So, all you need to do is repeat the positives over and over, until the acceptance it carries comes to you.
Affirmations are the things you hear and consider correct, that relate to your worthiness, lovability, intelligence, etc. They are internal (things you tell yourself) and they are external (things others tell you). Affirmations are either spoken or unspoken; as much believability can be ascribed to a behavior as to the voiced interpretation of that behavior. The message you hear may not be the spoken message; you might be reading something else into the spoken message, or you may be combining the spoken message with the unspoken one to create another message entirely, and that is the one you "hear", believe and retain. Affirmations are either positive in nature, or negative.
All of this definition doesn't tell you the most important fact about affirmations...that they can directly affect your mental attitude, and thereby your behavior, over a period of time. Dick Sutphen, in his "Master of Life Manual", discusses the negative thinking we heap upon ourselves in our everyday lives. He says,
"Many people have no idea how frequently they think in a negative manner. If you climb out of bed cursing the alarm clock, grumble your way through breakfast, then dwell on how much you dislike the rain and the traffic during your commute to work, and brood unhappily about your job, and on throughout the day, you are literally creating a worse reality for yourself. Because you are thinking more negative thoughts than positive ones, there is simply no way you can be creating anything but a negative reality. With all that negative programming in your computer, how could it do anything but create the programmed result: more negativity?"
Sometimes, the manner in which we were raised is a clue to the kinds of affirmations we receive. Mixed signals become negative affirmations in the computers that are our minds; so a child raised with words of encouragement, and statements of positive approval, but also with a parental lack of interest in the successes or failures the child encounters, or with disapproving looks and actions for the child's errors and miscalculations becomes a child who believes the negative aspects of the message more than the positive. Think of positive affirmations as lovely, soft feathers, and negative affirmations as wooden croquet balls, you will see that if you are hit with one of each, you will remember the croquet ball much longer.
Sometimes, our environment is at fault; or our acquaintances; or, if our job seems to generate the bulk of our negativity, perhaps we should examine our real feelings about that job. "A sense of oneself as being small can, through physical tension, transform even a tall person into a stooped, slumped, cramped, "small" person. Likewise a sense of strength and power can cause a small person to move with such energy and expansiveness that his or her size becomes irrelevant and may even be unnoticed." (Meir Schneider, "Self Healing; My Life and Vision")
Your feelings about yourself truly determine how you present yourself to the world. We've all known people who were not physically attractive, yet were considered to be great beauties, incredibly handsome, models of human comeliness. They accomplished this feat, not by mass-hypnosis, but by behaving as if they were attractive. Their behavior then influenced the people around them to consider them to be attractive. They could not change how people felt about them, or what people thought of them, but they could change the way they perceived themselves, and thence to influence the way other people responded to the way they perceived themselves.
Nearly 100 years ago, James Allen wrote in "Become the Master of Your Own Destiny", "Out of a clean heart comes a clean life... Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life... Thought is the source of action, life and manifestation; make the source pure, and all will be pure." And Dick Sutphen concurs: "To become a Master of Life means to transform the way you experience your life. In so doing, you learn to let fear and negativity flow through you without affecting you, and to be direct and natural, in balance and harmony. Everyone has the potential to create their own reality, so if you are not happy with the way it is, what (your) mind has created, (your) mind can change (it).
"All of us have been processing affirmations all of our lives. From the moment you were born, messages have been taking root in the garden of your mind and have been flowering there all along. If you now find that your view of yourself is basically a negative one, then the messages you have nurtured all these years have been negative messages. You have only to decide that you want to change those messages, and the reversing process has begun. Of course, you will not change a lifetime of negativity with an hour, or even a day of positive thought. But it will happen.
Imagine a cup full of green-colored water. In order to clear the color of the water in the cup, without discarding it, it is necessary to input far more uncolored water than there is colored water. This will be a long process, but it will eventually prove out. Your negative input is the green-colored water, and the positive you will replace it with is the clear water. If you put in positive enough thought, often enough, over a long enough period of time, the negativity residing within will be forced to vacate.
The positive thoughts are the affirmations you present for absorption to your own mind. What affirmations should you present? How do you know which ones will make a difference? "The measure of an affirmation's success is whether or not it soon manifests in your world. You should be able to manifest almost anything you are affirming with 21 days.", says Marcus Allen, author of "Tantra for the West; A Guide to Personal Freedom". He goes on to say, "There are some exceptions to this, if the project is vast or complicated, or the goal is distant. But the results should become clearly evident to you in a short time. You should be able to feel the change. If the results aren't happening, it is only because you are affirming something else on deeper, perhaps less conscious, level which is creating something contradictory to what you are affirming consciously.
"Mr. Allen describes an affirmation worksheet that can be used to rid your mind of the negative aspects that your affirmation seems to give birth to. His book is, of course, the best source of information on the process, but to summarize the program, open a notebook so you have a clean sheet on either side. On one side you will write the positive affirmation, on the other side write the thoughts that pop into your mind that seem to resist the affirmation. For instance, if you affirm, "I am a unique individual", and your mind thinks "Weird is more like it!", both of those thoughts should be on the pages.
You are instructed to continue writing the positive thought on the one side, and keep writing whatever negative or resisting thoughts occur in your mind on the other. The negative page will be a true representation of the kinds of thoughts you must remove, in order for the positive thought to remain unchallenged. Sometimes, just seeing those negative ideas written down will help you to see their foolishness or inappropriateness. Some will dissolve as soon as you see them, as you write them. Others will be more deeply ingrained into your unconscious, and may require other, less sweeping, affirmations that attack that particular thought.
Chris Griscom, whose healing work was featured in Shirley MacLaine's "Dancing in the Light", concentrates on healing the emotional body in her book "Ecstasy Is a New Frequency: Teachings of the Light Institute". "We know scientifically that the mind does control the body. We can slow down our heartbeat. We can change almost anything.", Chris writes.
"I want to change, but I don't know how. I don't know where to start." If that's your complaint, try this exercise. Write down every negative thing you hear your mind say to you about yourself. This may take a while, but you will have a picture of the programming that currently exists in your computer. It is a verbal x-ray of your mind. You have before you a list of the things that need to be changed, the inappropriate thought sequence, the reason you feel less than exuberant about yourself. From this list of negatives, you can create a list of positives. No matter if you don't believe them at first. You probably didn't believe the negative thoughts the first few times you heard them, but repetition seems to carry acceptance on it's back. So, all you need to do is repeat the positives over and over, until the acceptance it carries comes to you.
LA
I believe that...
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge, myth is more potent than history, dreams are more powerful than facts, hope always triumphs over experience, laughter is the cure for grief, and love is stronger than death.
Love
Love is more than just a feeling: it's a process requiring continual attention.
Loving well takes laughter, loyalty, and wanting more to be able to say, "I understand" than to hear, "You're right."
Loving well takes laughter, loyalty, and wanting more to be able to say, "I understand" than to hear, "You're right."
Someone Else
When I fell from grace I never realized how deep the flood was around me.
A man whose life was toil.
Was like a kettle left to boil, and the water left scars on me.
I know now who I am.
If only for a while, I recognize the changes.
I feel like I did before the magic wore thin and the "baptism of stains" began.
They used to say I was nowhere.
Heading down was my destiny.
But yesterday, I swear, that was someone else not me.
Here I stand at the crossroads edge, afraid to reach out for eternity.
One step, when I look down, I see someone else not me.
Looking back and I see someone else.
All my life they said I was going down.
But I'm still standing, stronger, proud.
And today I know there's so much more I can be.
From where I stand at the crossroads edge, there's a path leading out to sea.
And from somewhere deep in my mind, sirens sing out loud.
Songs of doubt as only they know how.
But one glance back reminds, and I see, someone else not me.
I keep looking back At someone else... me?
A man whose life was toil.
Was like a kettle left to boil, and the water left scars on me.
I know now who I am.
If only for a while, I recognize the changes.
I feel like I did before the magic wore thin and the "baptism of stains" began.
They used to say I was nowhere.
Heading down was my destiny.
But yesterday, I swear, that was someone else not me.
Here I stand at the crossroads edge, afraid to reach out for eternity.
One step, when I look down, I see someone else not me.
Looking back and I see someone else.
All my life they said I was going down.
But I'm still standing, stronger, proud.
And today I know there's so much more I can be.
From where I stand at the crossroads edge, there's a path leading out to sea.
And from somewhere deep in my mind, sirens sing out loud.
Songs of doubt as only they know how.
But one glance back reminds, and I see, someone else not me.
I keep looking back At someone else... me?
Life
We walk through our lives one day after the next, but every once in a while, we stumble, completely unknowingly, into places and people that will forever alter our lives and until we blindly find our way to these people and places, life has not yet begun.
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