How to step into your power

I’m continuing to read Becoming a Supple Leopard (affiliate link) and try out the exercises in it. One of the key points the author emphasizes is how the torsion of your movements directs the overall experience. I relate this to my study of qi gong, which focuses on both the physical and energetic movement of the body. I’ve been combining what I’ve learned with the aforementioned book with my qi studies and I’m finding that this is subtly changing the way I stand and move, and in turn its allowing me to access more subtle experiences of qi.

In martial arts and qi gong, the subtle nuances become very important. The way you move shapes the experience of the qi as it flows through your body. The more you progress, the more you are shaped by the experience of the movement, as well as your understanding of that movement. The understanding isn’t an intellectual exercise. It a felt experience that embodies the depth of your work as you engage in it.

The cultivation of qi occurs through developing a deeper relationship with your body. For example, over the last few months I’ve been working on my posture. I’ve noticed that as I continue this work, my confidence has increased because of the way I hold myself in my stance and presence. I am getting to know my body through the repetition of exercising, the stretching I do each morning and evening and through the graceful strength of the movements.

Energy work is often depicted as something separate from the body, but the most effective energy work is a fusion of the body with the spirit and the qi. I am not just moving the physical body, but every other aspect of my being. And I am also being moved by the world around me, because I exist in a collaborative relationship with it, and this is made apparent by the physical and spiritual experiences I have through this work.

We step into our power when we embrace the natural state of being that looks beyond the artificial categorizations people are so fond of using to understand the world intellectually. We are more than the intellect and when we embody and embrace this, it enables us to discover a relationship with the world that draws on the experiential work that occurs through such activities as martial arts and qi gong.

My approach to magic has been changing a lot over the last few years. I’ve steadily been integrating a more embodied approach to my work as I feel it’s essential to connecting with the more subtle aspects of reality manifestation. Stepping into your power is a recognition of how potent you are, as yourself, in this work you engage in. Each movement presents a way to get outside of your head and discover the rooted relationship that awaits in the practice of movement.

Shadow mask work

Image courtesy of Taylor Ellwood 2023

I recently created a couple of masks to do some shadow work. The first shadow mask I created was for the shadow of co-dependency, which is something I have struggled with most of my life. The second shadow mask I created was for the shadow of the nice guy and all the passive aggressive behaviors the nice guy embodies. While the two masks are related, they are also distinctly different in some ways.

I created each shadow mask to embody the specific behavior I wanted to call forth. I painted the 'face' of each mask. On the inside of the face I created a collage where I glued the internal messages I tell myself. By externalizing the shadow into a mask I provide myself the opportunity to explore how that shadow shows up in my life and consciously make myself aware of it, so I can work with it in a way that doesn't allow it to sabotage my life.

Releasing Old Identities: How changes in appearance inform reality

picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2023

For the first time in over 30 years, I cut my hair short. I've had long hair since I was a pre-teen but I recently decided that I wanted to make a change. I felt like it was time to cut my hair and in the process shed old identities in favor of new ones. For me, getting a hair was a magical act of identity transformation. I had long hair for so long and in a very real sense it was an established part of my identity as a person and even as a magician.

Yet identity is fluid and malleable. What seems fixed can be changed. A lot of times what makes your identity seem fixed has more to do with your perspective and attachment to that identity than to the actual physical reality of it. I kept my hair long because I was attached to how I looked, and how I felt about having long hair.

The act of getting my hair cut may not seem overly magical, but for me it was the choice to let of attachment to appearance, to looking a specific way. It was the choice to let go of not just the physical appearance of long hair, but also all the attachments I had to that appearance and just as importantly it was an act of letting go of the weight of that hair, physically, but also metaphysically.

Fear as an Ally in Your Magical Practice

Fear, in all of its guises, can be a force in our lives that either stops us in our tracks or motivates us to make changes The relationship we cultivate with fear can either turn it into one of our greatest allies or one of your greatest enemies. In this video I explore both aspects.

How to Integrate Initiatory Experiences in your everyday life

This previous weekend I went away for a weekend retreat where I went through an initiation process. I can't really share any details about what happened there, as its part of a mystery tradition, but what I can share is that I came into the event as one person and came out of the event as a changed and more grounded person.

That is part of the purpose of initiation. We go into an experience, not knowing what will happen and we are changed by that experience in fundamental ways that we may not even fully understand but that nonetheless become part of our rooted being.

Over the years I've had the fortune to attend other events where I've experienced an initiatory change from who I was, wherein I felt a shift in my state of being. This happens any time you remove yourself from mainstream society and immerse yourself in a different environment physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Some experiences may be more intense and driven than others, but all experiences that take us out of the comfort zone will inevitably bring about change.

The question arises though: How do we integrate that change back into our everyday lives?

The nature of attachments and how to liberate yourself from them

image courtesy of unsplash

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of work around attachments, and my relationship with myself and those attachments. I’ve come to recognize something fundamental about attachments: They operate from a place of fear and scarcity and possession. You think you have something or someone (you don’t) or you want to have something or someone (you won’t) and all this comes from a place of fear that leads to attachment. Attachments operate from a place of control, a desire to make the world around you conform to your will, but they ultimately weigh you down.

Understanding the nature of an attachment can help you liberate yourself from it. An attachment is ultimately informed by a sense of scarcity, but also a limiting belief that if you don’t have something or someone in your life you won’t be happy. Ironically you give away the very control you seek when you are attachment, because you are basing your sense of happiness and well being on something or someone external to yourself. Even if you temporarily attain what you are attached to, it doesn’t provide happiness. You might feel a sense of pleasure, but pleasure is fleeting and immaterial and if you don’t attain the attachment it becomes a perceived source of unhappiness because you are holding on to a limiting belief that the desired object, event, person etc., has the key to your happiness, when in fact the opposite is true. If anything the struggle around attachment keeps you from truly appreciating and enjoying whatever experience you have as well as whoever you are with. Most importantly it keeps you from enjoying yourself.

So what do you to liberate yourself from an attachment?

First you need to recognize that the attachment won’t bring you happiness. Your attachment is to a sense of happiness originating from an external source. When you recognize that happiness comes from within and that no one or nothing else has that happiness then you can let go of trying to find that happiness somewhere else. You’re looking in the wrong places when you look for happiness from someone or something else.

How to start listening to your soul

Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels

When I look back at my life what I see is someone who has not been successful in the conventional sense of the word. I have not stuck with a career for an extended period of time nor have I struck it rich with a business or even multiple businesses. I've had some successes in writing books and I've accomplished some activities I've set myself to do, but I've also spent a lot of time wandering, trying to find my purpose.

Is my purpose just to write books on magic and the occult? I think that's one part of it along with other writings I've done or want to do but I've realized for a while that there's something else calling to me as well. I haven't always known what it was and sometimes like I've gone in multiple directions exploring different interests and coming away with richer experiences and more insights.

I know I'm also not alone in this journey. I've been reading a book called Soulsshaping by Jeff Brown (affiliate link) which has described his own journey toward discovering his purpose. Reading Choose Yourself by James Altucher (affiliate link) has provided a similar perspective. Reading both books and some others has helped me recognize how much societal, cultural, and familial pressure often has us buying into ideas of success that aren't always accurate or realistic and may not apply. Certainly they haven't applied to me.

Lessons I learned in 2022

I reflect on the lessons I learned in 2022 and share my vision for what I plan to manifest in 2023. I also discuss the false intimacy of social media and share why I’m making some changes in what I share on here and on social media in general.

How to cultivate silence in your life and spiritual practice

I'm laying in bed, the light is turned off and I'm staring up at the ceiling, taking in the darkness and listening to the silence.

My day starts this way and ends this way.

I didn't always appreciate the need for silence, the need to hold space with it, and allow it to take me into the mysteries of stillness while also allowing my thoughts to drift until all that is left is emptiness, but I'm appreciating this practice more and more because it allows me to begin and end my at peace, letting go of any attachments, emotions and events that might otherwise disturb the harmony of the moment.

How to get unstuck in your life

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sad-isolated-young-woman-looking-away-through-fence-with-hope-3808803/

There is nothing worse than feeling stuck in life.

You're going through your daily life and everything seems to be going swimmingly, but at your core you feel something...off. A deep feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense of feeling stuck somewhere in your life. Maybe it's with your job, maybe its with your relationship, maybe it's something else altogether.

At the core of that feeling of stuckness is an experience of anxiety that we often try to bury deep within ourselves. That feeling of anxiety could come from a desire for approval or a fear of abandonment or something else altogether, but it keeps us trapped in a cage of our own making.

Journey to Sacred Masculinity Part 1

I discuss my journey to sacred masculinity and share why I’ve started exploring it and how it is helping me with my overall spiritual path as well as healing the wounds I’ve experienced around being male. I also discuss the epic of Gilgamesh and my relationship with Inanna/Ishtar/Aphrodite and why that relationship is central to the sacred masculinity work I am doing…as well as a discussion of Saturn’s role in all of this work.

How to Apply Awareness to Magic

I discuss how to apply awareness to your magical practice in order to get better results, but also put together better magical workings. I discuss why awareness can help us with the process of letting go of the lust for results so that we can focus on the magical work we need to do.

How to flip the script in any situation

What role do we play in our lives? We don’t necessarily have control of everything or everyone around us, but what we do have is control over the role we play. I share a technique I’ve been using in the last couple months that has helped me change my perception about the role I am in and allowed me to flip the script on the situations I’m in.

How I'm applying Essentialism to my life

I have used Essentialism to help me transform the way I live my life. I share some of the ways I’ve been applying essentialism to my life and how this is translating over to my spiritual and magical practices. I also share why essentialism has really empowered me to let go of needless complexity in my life.

Manifestation is the realization of the imaginal

When we manifest the imagination into reality we turn the seed of potential into a new identity for ourselves and reality. I explain what this means and why it can change your approach to magic when you approach manifestation from your identity instead of from your scarcity.

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