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.

philosophy

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What Stoicism is teaching me

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I’ve recently begun reading the collected works of Seneca. Before that I was reading the books of the modern day Stoic Ryan Holiday. I’m fascinated by what I’m reading, particularly because its providing another lens in which to view my actions, both magical and mundane. I think what I find most fascinating about Stoicism is that there is a profound recognition of the need to achieve a balance within ourselves where we acknowledge our emotions and feelings, but find balance by weighing them against rational perspectives and considerations.

I don’t always agree with the Stoic perspectives. For example, I read something by Seneca where he cautioned against reading on a wide variety of topics at the same time. I definitely could not take that advice because I like to entertain a multiplicity of perspectives and actually find it to be essential to my creative approach to life. Yet if I did not consider perspectives I disagreed with, I couldn’t appreciate why I approach my life the way I do, so even in reading Seneca it caused me to chuckle, disagree, and yet appreciate the perspective gifted to me.

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My inspiration for my magical systems

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I was recently asked where I got my inspiration for the Sigil web technique in Space/Time Magic. But the person who asked also noted that he felt my work was writing was far enough away from the sources I cited that he was curious in general. It's a good question to ask. Where do I get my ideas for my magical work? If you look at the bibliography of any of my books, you'll probably note that one third to one half of the titles cited have nothing to do with magic. Or rather, they only have something to do with magic, because I saw something in the material that I knew I could apply magic to. The rest of the sources are books on magic...some traditional, some less so, all interesting to me, only so much in how I can take the content and experiment with it, in order to adapt it to my needs and circumstances. That's really how I approach anything I read: "What's in this book that is insightful and useful and how can I take it and experiment with it, both for my own needs, and also for curiosity's sake?" But that's just the surface. I'm an insatiable reader. I'm usually working on about six books at a given time, and all of it is very interesting, but that's only part of my inspiration.

I'm really motivated by curiosity more than anything else. I'm insatiably curious. I want to know what I can do...I want to test my limits, and I want to know how I can take all of my interests and apply them to magic. There's no tradition for me, no specific way of doing things. I get that for some people, a lot of people, that works...but not me. I want to know and explore and try things out. I want to be on the edge.

I'm inspired by resistance as well. Every person who's told me, "You can't do that", or "It's reinventing the wheel" has inspired me. I can't thank enough those people.

And I'm creative. I've always looked at the world differently. I see how things fit together and I run with it and play with it, and experiment...and so on.

My inspiration for how I approach magic, how I approach everything I do comes down to this: "It's always better to play by your own rules than someone elses" That's why I do magic the way I do it...because anyone else's rules for doing magic only interest me insofar as I can take it apart and put it back into something that fits my style, life, and needs.