spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

banishing

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Shunning as Banishment

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I've been thinking a bit about shunning as a form of magical banishment. In my own experience, when I've decided to cut a person out of my life, I essentially end up shunning them, but shunning for me works on a magical level as well, because part of that process involves systematically getting rid of everything that connects me to the person and using the process of destroying such connections to build the banishment up and create a field of shun (as it were) that keeps the person from connecting with me as much as possible. I use a shunning banishment when I recognize that I will still encounter the person in my life, but I want to minimize those encounters to as few and far between as possible. The field of shunning essentially keeps the person away and interactions to a minimum.

My reasons for taking this kind of action is based on a fundamental recognition that a person brings with him/her a level of chaos and dysfunction that is no longer considered acceptable, or considered to match up with where I'm at. The person and I no longer fit and the relationship has become toxic enough that its no longer sustainable. Under such circumstances, creating a banishment of shunning can be useful for insuring that the person's presence intersects with you only on rare occasions if at all. It insures that you can move on with your life, without having to put energy or effort into a relationship that you no longer want to have. Such relationships take up more time and energy than you want, and you may find, as I have, that the best way to move on and heal is to simply move on, and see as little of the person as possible.

Some might argue that shunning seems a bit extreme, but to my mind, why allow more drama and toxicity in your life than you need? It's as simple as that: I value my sense of well-being and happiness over putting up with people I'd rather have nothing to do with. Instead of trying to sustain a relationship with those people, I feel its better to focus on the relationships which do matter to me, with people that I have confidence in.

It is possible to keep certain things that you might associate with the person and still set up a shunning field. While I normally will get rid of everything I have that connects me to a person, I have on occasion kept a couple things, after disassociating the person from those things. This can be accomplished through purification workings.

I don't recommend doing shunning for every situation in life. You have to be willing to invest in the relationships you have in your life, instead of giving them up at the first sign of trouble, but shunning works in cases where such a relationship has become unsustainable because the amount of toxic interaction exceeds any positives the relationship might bring with it.

Book Review: Rhythms of the Brain (Affiliate Link) by Gyorgy Buzsaki

This book was a hard read. Thanks to reading a variety of other books on neuroscience, I was able to understand what the author was explaining, but I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who hasn't read any books on neuroscience. The author discusses oscillation theory and although he does his best to make the concept approachable, it still ends up being fairly esoteric in content because of the technical information he provides. It is a good book, and one I'd recommend. Just make sure you've grounded yourself in other books on neuroscience.

4 out of 5

Book Review: Buddha's Brain (affiliate link) by Rick Hanson

This is a good 101 introduction to your brain and how it works, as well as providing instructions on how you can consciously work with your brain through meditation. I'd recommend this book to someone that wants to do inner alchemical work or internal work with their body, as it provides some well-rounded information on the brain and how changes can effect you. The authors provide some useful stories and metaphors to explain their concepts and I like the exercises because it provides a practical component to the book.

5 out of 5

How to get out of the Funk

I've been feeling a bit funky, a bit depressed lately. Nothing I can't handle, but sometimes circumstances will get you down, and of course, in the end you need to pick yourself up. I found my answer for getting out of the funk from a somewhat unlikely but rather useful source. I've been watching episodes of Ally McBeal on Netflix (It was a lawyer dramedy from 1997 to 2002). It's a quirky, funny show, for the most part, but there was something I found relevant for getting out of my funk. The main character Ally is told she needs a musical theme, something she can draw inspiration from when she's feeling unhappy. And you know...that's actually a useful idea to play with. She certainly did, dancing to it, singing it, etc. She used a song to set the tone of her emotions.

I've actually used music quite a bit, both for setting up the mood in magical rituals, but also for inspiring emotions. The right song, the right words, can do a lot to get you out of a funk or put you into a particular mood. So when I watched the show, it didn't surprise me, so much as it reminded me of how I can use music to get out of a funk. I think it's a kind of magic (pun intended).

Seriously, though, I have used music to to create specific moods and used that to charge sigils, or used it to create a persona for a situation. Music moves us, and so its wise to use it as a magical tool to move us to the spaces we want to embody in our lives.