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.

creativity

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The latest podcast interviews I've been on

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I have been getting interviewed a lot lately, both solo, and with my magical mate Joanna Brook and I thought I would share them.

I was interviewed twice by Chaos Vibrations. In the first interview we discuss living a magical life and in the second interview we talk about my newest book Scrying the Divine.

Joanna and I were interviewed by Vic Hyland about creativity, divine inspiration, poetry and cutup magick.

Joanna and I were also interviewed by the Knights of the Nephilim about mediumship, spirit work and magick.

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.

What I am re-learning about creating magical tools

Over the years I’ve created some magical tools for myself. I first started creating magical tools as a teenager, first starting out with creating specific staffs and wands, and then in my early twenties exploring how to meld art and magic together to create magical tools with the paintings I created. However of late, I’ve been inspired to explore the creation of magical tools in further depth. Some of this inspiration has come about because of working with my magical partner, and some of it came about because of a recent interview I did on the Random Illusions podcast and some of it has been inspired by Alison Chicosky’s work on practical occult.

One of the challenges I’ve had with creating magical tools is not feeling like I have the requisite skills to do so, but I realized that’s a mental block on my part so I’ve begun challenging that mental block by considering what magical tools I could actually create. For the moment, I am creating those tools for myself, but I’ll probably make those tools for other people down the line.

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Magical Experiments Podcast: Creating Magical Art with Helena Domenic

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In this episode of Magical Experiments Podcast, I interview Helena Domenic about her work as a magical artist. We discuss how she's created books with illuminated art and explore the intersection between creativity, art and magic. Helena Domenic is an accomplished artist, writer, witch, and professor of art history and studio art. Helena maintains a studio in Phoenixville, PA under the name, The Artistic Mystic, where she offers classes, workshops, and readings. Helena spent thirty years as a member of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel and was also an Elder in that tradition. She left to carve out her own path, both as an artist and a witch. Currently, she leads the Exton Pagan Meetup and the Brandywine Kindred, a newly formed coven in Chester County.

Helena has a forthcoming book called An Illuminated Guide to Wicca, available from Schiffer Publishing (available for pre-order now) in January 2022.

Helena has also created a Tarot deck and book, The Fellowship of the Fool Tarot, as well as a Runic Oracle deck and a Lenormand deck.

Helena’s work may also be seen on her website: http:www.artofhelenadomenic.com

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Creativity, love, and magic

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One of the books I’m currently reading is Creativity by Robert Fritz (affiliate link). He provides a fascinating definition of love, within the first couple pages which has really stuck with me. He explains that love is at the center of creativity, but that in the context of creativity is an active force, instead of a passive experience. Love as a passive experience, is an experience where love happens to you and you get some type of benefit from it. In contrast, love as an active force is a form of generative process, where you are actively creating something.

This concept of love as an active force reminds me of another book I’m reading by Christopher Alexander which explores the process of generative creation in context to architecture. Both authors have a similar stance in that they opt for an iterative approach to what is created, recognizing that such an approach brings an organic awareness with it that informs how we appreciate the act of creation and the result.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 24

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9-22-2020 This is the last month I’m working with creativity as an element. When I look back over the last couple years, overall, I’m happy with the work I’ve done and how it changed my relationship with creativity. I think my biggest takeaway though was learned in the last couple months. I need to protect my creativity and I need to protect who and what helps protect my creativity. My creativity is what feeds my soul, but its also my livelihood and to let anything get in the way of that is to disrespect a fundamental part of myself that must be taken care of, so it can do the work its called to do.

9-23-2020 I’ve been processing some emotions the last couple days over recent events and how I feel toward certain people. And it’s helped re-reading The Slight Edge, where the author talks about the power of time and how the real power of time is the gradual changes that occur. They aren’t dramatic or loud, but they happen gradually, and if you apply the slight edge to time in a positive way, you make those changes work for you.

For me that slow gradual work is found in trying to find forgiveness in my heart for myself and other people as I slowly detangle and unwind from the recent drama of life. And its also found in coming to grips with my accountability for my actions and choices. The Slight Edge reminds me that it’s all a matter of time and that these moments will inevitably pass to new ones and what will be found in those moments will in part be informed by the work being done now.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 22

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7-22-2020 Today when I did my meditation the archangels told me that the next three months is all about an integration of everything I’ve done before with the Sphere of Art, as well as the Qi Gong I’m doing. “That’s more than enough work for you right there, especially with everything else you’ll be doing.” And they told me that all of this would continue to lay the ground work for transformation. So I accepted what they said and just focused on the integration. It is important to make time for the work you’ve done, to ground it and embody it in you and that time, for me, is right now.

7-23-2020 I’m rereading the Slight Edge and he makes an excellent point that changing how you think about what you do matters, because how you think about what you do dictates how you actually do it, and if you even do it. What makes a person successful at whatever they’re doing is the thought that seeds the actions and keeps them doing what needs to be done, even when the person is seeming to fail. It’s a good reminder for me.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 21

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6-23-2020 Yesterday I switched over to the supernal of Hod, Netzach, and Yesod. Appropriately enough as well I began learning more qi gong in relationship to the placement of the feet and how to move from the hell to the ball of the foot and back again and how that movement directs the chi. I think this is appropriate because this supernal is very much about the movement going back and forth.

When I did my qi gong exercises I felt the subtle movement of the qi moving up and down my body as I shifted my feet. It was fascinating to feel and it made me appreciate again how important it is to be in the body and be present with what you are experiencing in the body.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 20

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5-22-2020 I had some vivid dreams last night around some actions and behaviors that I feel a deep sense of shame about. And in the meditation today, the focus was around not just moving to the supernal of Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth but also around working with that feeling of shame and coming to a place of forgiveness for myself…coming to a place where I wasn’t beating myself for past actions and choices but instead simply acknowledging my responsibility while forgiving myself as well. And to be clear...It’s not that I want forgiveness from anyone else, but rather that I choose to forgive myself as a deliberate action to find healing around things that I did.

5-23-2020 I decided to sign up for the cloud hands qi gong class coming up in the early part of June. I feel like it will contribute to that deeper exploration of the internal work I’m currently undergoing. This deeper internal work is allowing me to encounter some deeper blockages around shame, rejection, and other issues that I haven’t fully dealt with. This morning I had a realization about my former relationships and how rejected I felt in most of them, which contributed to my reactionary behavior around them. If I was feeling rejected in the main relationship, I’d try and go elsewhere. That in turn would reinforce the behaviors on the part of the other person, creating a vicious loop that really hurt all involved.

Fortunately I’ve managed to change that with a lot of internal work on my part and lately because I’m going deeper its giving me to chance to work on these blockages around shame and rejection that are deeply embedded and begin undoing them and forgiving myself in the process. It’s not easy work, because it really does bring me face to face with judgement, but also with compassion, which makes the supernal work around all of this perfect. I need to find the right balance of accountability and responsibility with self-forgiveness. I think I can do that with this work.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 19

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4-24-2020 This month I switched over to working with Kether, Chockmah and Binah, with the associated archangels, planetary energies etc. The focus of the meditation has involved being present with all three sephiroth and the paths that connect them, while opening myself to the experience of all that being mediated through me. It builds off what I’ve previously done with an aim toward encompassing the entire experience.

Along with that, I’ve been continuing to do Gods play in the clouds Qi gong and the basic Bua Gua walk I’ve learned. What I’m noticing is a distinct change in my chi and ho the energy feels. It’s meshing with the sphere of art work as well. I feel like this is an integral part of the path forward with this work.

4-26-2020 Working with the supernals is different from working individually with the Sephiroth. You’re dealing with the interplay of energies, which can be its own thing, it can be tempting to sort it out, when in fact, it just needs to be experienced as its ow thing. It’s a good reminder to not control the experience, but instead simply be open to it.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 17

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2-23-2020 Yesterday I switched over to Kether/Uranus/Metatron. Modern quabalists associate Kether with Uranus and this makes sense to me because of the current of creativity and sacrifice that runs through Uranus. When I switched over to this month, the switch felt like a departure from the currents of Neptune to this place of being, gentler in a way, and yet also insistent on discovery the potential within the being.

In tonight’s meditation Metatron talked with me about creativity and how the sacrifices a person makes with creativity need to be chosen carefully. What are you willing to give? What are you willing to choose and what are you willing to give away? Creativity doesn’t happen in a void. Potential is boundless until a choice is made.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 16

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1-22-2020 Tonight I connected with Ratziel/Chockmah/Neptune. I know Neptune isn’t traditionally associated with Chockmah, but I actually think it makes a lot of sense, when you consider that Chockmah is both wisdom and pressure. Chockmah fine tunes everything and when I consider that seat salt is the alchemical substance associated with Chockmah as well as my previous experiences with the planetary energy of Neptune, it seems to make a lot of sense. Ironically, William G. Gray doesn’t set a lot of store by associating Neptune with Chockmah, though he notes its done by modern day quabalists. The irony is that his own explanation of Chockmah and Ratziel completely supports the connection, but it makes me wonder if ever worked with the planetary energy of Neptune.

Ratziel also showed up and what was interesting is that she made it a point to show me how Chockmah and Binah connect and work together. I felt suspended between the saturnic energy of Binah and the Neptunic energy of Chockmah and I felt how that balance played off each other and strengthened each other. It also gave me ideas about where to take this work next. Feeling balanced between both forces made me realize how essential this work is because in finding this balance, I’m also creating opportunities to deepen my connections with the powers and work with the more holistically. There’s a lot more to share, but I’ll do it once I’ve had more time to process the experience and research I’m doing for this month.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 15

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12-24-2019 Tonight as I mediated this energy, I was reminded how important it is to observe and be aware of my passions, without letting them take over. Saturn’s appropriate for that because of the boundaries and limitations. Here is where power is given away for form, where potential turns into reality.

12-26-2019 I’m finding myself experiencing a curious sense of stillness and quiet…a healthy sense of it and an awareness of the value of turning inward and focusing on rest and rejuvenation. At the same time I find myself focusing even further on the essential and what really matters. Sometimes we must necessarily get rid of the clamor of the world to discover what really matters.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 14

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11-23-2019 I started working with Tzadkiel/Jupiter/Chesed this month. It seems particularly appropriate that I work with them this month as I’m preparing to leave my job and go into full-time indiepreneurship. I was looking up information about Tzadkiel and I came across this passage in William G. Gray’s Ladder of Lights (Affiliate link)": “The greatest and most genuine benefit Jupiter can possibly give us on this Earth, is to fulfil our material necessities so that our minds and souls will be set free to seek nobler aims than drudging for a bare livelihood.” I read that on a day where I’ve been feeling stressed about leaving my work, because some unexpected expenses have come up. Kat has reassured me we’re fine and we can stay on course.

And on that same day, today, I was writing my newsletter on the topic of how to use magic to get through tough times and I read my advice, which among other things including letting go and trusting that the journey will take you where you need to go…and point made. I’ve been holding on, resisting the very change I want and I just need to let go, especially when its clear the means have been provided that I can do so.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 13

0-22-2019 I am creating a drawing of the archangel Khamael for this month’s work with Mars/Geburah and of course Khamael. I’m also watching one of my favorite movies, A Beautiful Mind, which is a biopic of sorts about John Nash, the eccentric mathematician. I like the movie because I can identify with the character, both in terms of his awkwardness with people and the unusual perspectives he used with his mathematic work. And I can appreciate his struggles, because of my own, though mine aren’t the same as his. I know what its like to be on the edge, to flirt with madness as you pursue genius, as you pursue the distinctive ideas that matter, going against the grain of conventional ideas to discover the potential that lies within the unconventional. I also know what its like to let my own arrogance delude me, and the subsequent fall that can happen with such delusions. At some point in the movie, his roommate tells him that his problem isn’t in the room he’s in, but in the world out there, that he has to discover the problem that other people have. It’s advice I resonate with. It’s what lead me to explore magic from a process perspective, because the problem I’ve found again and again is that magic isn’t approachable from an esoteric perspective. What point is there to practice magic if the work is harder than it has to be?

And I know the doubt all too well that one feels when what you’re trying to pursue doesn’t seem to work or come together. It’s taken me a long time to find what works, to discover the path forward. It’s involved failing and falling, and then climbing back up because I won’t give up on my ideas, on my work, and on the magic. It’s required discipline as well, finding the routines that work and sticking with them even when in the moment there has been despair. Now I am the phoenix rising from my own ashes, and from the hard earned and learned experiences that will always ground me by reminding me to stay humble, while pushing me to continue exploring the edge and embracing the unconventional.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 12

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9-22-2019 I switched over to Tiphareth/Michael/the Sun yesterday. What’s interesting is that as I go up the ladder, the transitions are less overt, but nonetheless experienced. It demonstrates again that you shouldn’t get caught up in an expectation of what an experience will be. Let the experience happen and let it speak to and through you.

I’m reading Sacred Economies, which explores the relationship people have with money. The author makes some really interesting points about how money depersonalizes are relationships with the things we buy, because those things become replaceable. He also links this to scarcity, specifically how we can never have enough of money because of how we use it to replace things, instead of treasuring what we have. I see some of my own habitual thoughts about money in what he shares and its eye-opening, because I see how in turn that has stopped me from perhaps appreciating what I have as much as I could or being a good caretaker. If its replaceable, do I really value it? Something to consider, though on the flipside, I also recognize that in fact I am careful with my things precisely because I recognize the value of them in terms of not just monetary cost, but also how I utilize them in my life.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 11

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8-24-2019 - I switched over to Venus/Netzach/Auriel the other day and its been interesting to note the energetic shift. I feel a bit more laid back and contemplative since shifting over, but I also still feel driven to write. In one sense, I am experiencing creativity in different phases and the Venus phase is distinct because it doesn’t feel as fast as Mercury, but it does feel a bit more grounded.

With the release of my first fiction book, I think its taken on the form of contemplating why I love what I’m doing, as well as what I’m willing to do to pursue that love. It seems appropriate to Auriel that I’m doing this because I’m starting my fiction writing career and it will take some work that I haven’t had to do in a long time as a non-fic writer.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 10

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7-22-2019 Today I shifted over to Hod/Air/Mercury/Raphael and its and interesting shift…a sharp, clear shift that feels like a papercut, especially when paired with creativity. Actually I’m finding this entire meta process to be intriguing because I’m bundling these correspondences together with creativity and of course the creative insights I’m getting and the paths that are opening are very helpful.

Today, for example, it was getting further clarity on how to launch my first fiction book and what can be done to help that fiction book stand out, while also dong some further writing on my next fiction book. In any case I’m just letting myself get carried into the air and the associations with it.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 9

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6-24-2018 I’ve started working with the Archangel Gabriel and the energy of Yesod/Moon for this month. Appropriately enough I think I’ve already set myself up for the work and not in a wonderful way. There are times I really I think all I’m good at doing is fucking up. This is one of those times. I made an impulsive decision (I’m good at those) instead of slowing down. I always learn after the fact, but when the damage is done, what good is the learning?

6-25-2018 Continued work with Gabriel today and I’m very much feeling the influence of the West and water, as well as a sense of tidal pulsing back and forth. Life comes and goes. The tides pull and push. Life continues.