What Saturn is teaching me about Truth, Connection and Boundaries

I share my experiences with my Saturn work and how it is effecting my understanding and work with the elements of truth and connection as well as where boundaries fits into all of this.

Memory Resonance technique

I recently saw the movie The Green Knight. It was a fascinating movie to see because of how it evoked specific experiences during the watching of the movie. Whether this was intentional or simply a byproduct of my own spiritual sensitivity, I couldn't tell you. But what I can tell you is that any such experience can be stored away and used as a way to help you sync up with related experiences.

I call this the memory resonance technique and the way it works is that you use the experiences you are having to connect with the memory of other experiences, and in turn you use those memories to enhance the current experience and open you further to liminal reality.

Rediscovering my Identity part 4

Rediscovering your identity can be a process of trying things and discovering what works and what doesn’t work, as well as being open to the opportunities that present themselves to you. As I also share in this video, it is important to be in touch with what brings you meaning and satisfaction.

Rediscovering my Identity Part 2

Rediscovering your identity sometimes means reclaiming your identity. I share my own reclamation process and also reflect on Father’s day and how my identity has changed around fatherhood. I also share some ideas for how you can reclaim your own identity as part of rediscovering who you are.

Rediscovering my Identity part 1

When your identity has been constructed around a relationship, a job, or other structures in your life and something changes, you have the opportunity to rediscover your identity and find out who you are. You also get the opportunity to discover the evolution of your identity. I share my own experiences around identity work and how it’s been transformative for me.

The power of being humble

There is power in being humble. It seems a contradiction until you realize how it opens you to the world and to being curious and discovering wonder I share my own experiences around becoming humble and why this has transformed my life for the better.

Magical Experiments podcast: Identity Magic with Julian Crane

I interview Julian Crane about his work with identity magic. He walks us through how he's used magic to change his life and shares examples of how he changed his identity with magical work in order to effect the changes he was looking for.

Check Out Julian's books:

Interview with the Magus

Kaocentric Sorcery

A Labyrinth of Dreams

How to let changes in your life settle

Whether you've done magical work to make change happen or just had some mundane changes come up in your life, its important to make space for those changes to settle and to give yourself a way to fully process the change and consequences that come with those changes.

7 surprising realizations I experienced when I took a 30 Day Spiritual Retreat from my Businesses

A month ago, I was feeling burned out with my businesses, and in particular my writing. I felt frustrated because my writing didn't seem to really grab my readers and get them to do something such as commenting, sharing etc., and yet I realized that the problem wasn't my audience. The problem was me and the writing I was doing. So I decided to take a 30 day spiritual retreat from my regular routine of writing for other people, and in some ways from my businesses. The resulting realizations that occurred in the last month were liberating. 1. It helps to have an accountability guide to make sure you stay on your retreat. In my case, my guide was Eligos, a Goetic Daimon of Time and Writing. Both of those aspects were appropriate for what I needed to stay on my retreat. There were a number of times, especially in the first week that Eligos would call me out and remind me that I needed to stay on retreat and not write for other people.

2. The first week is hard. So is the second week, but it gets easier after that. We live in a workaholic society and when your retreat involves you not working it can be hard to not work. I sometimes felt like my fingers and hands were itching to write and yet I could write because I'd made the commitment not to write. There were so many times I wanted to write and yet I just had to step back and honor my agreement not to write for other people during the month of November. It probably helped that I could still do some writing...

3. Always allow yourself some expression of what you are giving yourself a retreat from, but only for yourself. In some ways a retreat is really about being selfish, in a healthy way, for you and your relationship with what you are taking a retreat from. I could still write, but I couldn't write for other people and I realized I really needed that break from writing for other people. So I journaled about my experiences during the retreat instead and revised my website copy to reflect who I truly know myself to be.

4. A Retreat is a journey of self-discovery and identity. One of my complaints about my writing is that I didn't feel like my identity was really showing up. It felt really cerebral and granted I can be a cerebral guy, but people don't connect with writing like that...not in a way that moves them anyway, so this retreat was really about rediscovering my identity as a writer and allowing my identity to shine through in my writing. Whether that really moves someone to do something is anyone's guess, but I'll admit that I liked reinventing myself as a writer. Sometimes you have to challenge who you are in order to discover who you can be and a retreat from an activity can help you do that.

5. I have to respect myself as a writer, if I want people to respect my writing. During this retreat the theme of shame came up a lot. I was surprised at first, but as I did meditation and internal work on that theme of shame I discovered just how much it influenced my writing and business practices. Turns out it influenced them a lot. Whether it was shame from being called a disappointment in my childhood and not measuring up to standards set by other people or shame I felt for not being a good enough writer, I had that shame in spades and I needed to work through it. That shame also showed up in my identity and so in some ways I wasn't letting my identity come through my writing, not as much as it could be. I'm still working through a lot of this, but one decision I've made is that I'm not going to write for exposure, unless that exposure actually helps me. I'm limiting my writing to each of my sites to two articles a month. If my readers choose to patronize my writing that may change, but otherwise I'm going to focus on projects that will bring in tangible results. In other words I want to get paid for my writing and I don't think that's unrealistic.

6. A retreat lets you ground yourself in what really matters. I spent a lot of my retreat reading books, having conversations with people I admire and respect, and spending time with family and friends. All of that really grounded me and helped me see that just how appreciated I am. Also in taking this retreat, it helped me discover an opportunity to challenge myself as a writer. I'm taking a class starting in January on how to write for the social web because even though I know how to write, I also know I can always improve and I figure taking a class would be an excellent way to do just that.

7. A retreat helps you re-ignite your creativity. It certainly has for me. I was initially hesitant to do this retreat, worried that I'd be less inspired to write by the end of it, but if anything I'm ready to write and I've got lots of projects I want to work on and share with readers.

Today my retreat is finished. My thanks to Eligos for keeping me on track. Now I'm ready to get back in the saddle, but I'm also ready to do things differently.

Did you like my writing? Put some money in my tip jar at Patreon.

Magical Experiments Radio: Interview with Heather Greene from the Wild Hunt

Magical Experiments Radio: Pop Culture Magic Panel

Breathing practices and movement work

I've been learning some moving meditation from a book I've been reading on Dzogchen, as well as some suggested breathing exercises. It's meshed nicely with what I already do for my daily work, but I've also noticed some interesting effects. The exercises I do don't involve any leg movement (you sit in the full lotus position). You move your neck, torso, your arms, and your pelvis, as well as the perineal muscles. There's a series of exercises you do and each of them is to help you with an elemental energy. What I noticed when I did the exercises is that I felt connected to my body more closely, both during the meditation and afterwards. I also felt that I connected with my internal energy and that doing the exercises circulated the energy.

One night after doing these exercises I did go through a bout of insomnia where I intimately felt connected to my body to the point that I felt every sensation and couldn't do anything to get the sensations to stop. Every itch, ache, and other feeling stood out in sharp relief. This lasted for a few hours. Eventually it subsided and I was able to sleep but it stood out to me and I realized doing the meditation was probably what caused the experience. This didn't stop me from doing it the next day, but I made sure to cycle the energy down a bit when I went to sleep.

Another thing I've been working on is a breathing exercise. With the breathing exercise, when you inhale, you pause and then inhale again. After that you exhale. the inhale, pause, inhale is done in order to use your lungs to their full capacity. I'd never come across this particular breathing technique before, but I've been doing it as I do the exercises and that also seems to contribute to the intimate experience of body awareness that I felt.

From Healing with Form, Energy and Light

"Realizing the nature of mind, we find that what we are in the inseparable state of awareness and emptiness. When we realize that, we realize the essence of space. If we abide in the nature of mind, merged with space rather than identified with what arises in space, there is an effect in life. There is nothing to defend no self that needs protecting because our own nature is spacious and can accommodate everything...Space is the ground of everything, the fundamental reality. We generally think of earth as representing groundedness, and it does as long as we believe ourselves to be one thing separate from everything else. In duality, earth is the ground, space is the absence of ground. But in Dzogchen, space is the ground. The practitioner merged with space is more grounded than earth because he or she is the space in which earth exists"

This saying, to me, fits what I've experienced doing the meditations. It's a feeling of clarity, a feeling of emptiness and awareness, a realization of space. I feel like I am everywhere and nowhere. I experience my body and its place in the world differently than before. I'm going to continue pursuing this meditation and seeing where it takes me as I feel it'll be useful for both the internal work I'm doing and some of my experiments.

Book Review: Healing with Form, Energy and Light by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This is a fascinating book which explores the elemental principles of spiritual work done in Dzogchen and Tibetan Shamanism. The author shares how to work with elements and provides practical exercises that can be done by the reader, provided s/he is willing to put the time and effort in. I like this book because I feel that it provides further insight into Tibetan spiritual practices and how they work, as well as how they can be integrated into your practice. The author does an excellent job of explaining the concepts and practices. If you are interested in Tibetan spiritual practices, read this book, as well as the other books by the author.

Definitions and sense of self as intersections of identity

I'm reading Thinking in New Boxes.  It's a good book, and I know this because it's gotten me thinking along some interesting vectors. In Thinking in New Boxes, the author explains how there's no such thing as thinking outside the box. He claims we all think in boxes and even if we get outside of one box, we're still thinking in another box, because of we use "boxes" to define and explain the world around us. Essentially, boxes are labels, definitions, models, etc., for helping us navigate and understand our experiences. He makes an interesting point when he notes, "To make sense of all these disparate inputs (stimuli, elements, events, etc.,) your mind either relies on preexisting categories that it has already created or, if none of those categories fits the present reality, it generates new ones." And what this prompted me to realize is that categorizations also can apply to a person's sense of self, and thus create intersections of identity.

Part of this realization also comes from something else the author said, namely that in order to deal with complicated aspects of real life we need to use "boxes" in order to compartmentalize those aspects. This compartmentalization creates an intersection of identity, where the "box" is used to shape an identity that handles what's in the box. So for example, you have a job identity, which is different from your romance identity. Both of these identities exist in you and can even come to the fore at the same time, but typically one will be more prevalent than another based on the environment you are in, as well as whatever stimuli you're dealing with at the time. The reason we come up with different identities is to handle the boxes, but also because it allows us to switch off when we go into another situation which calls for another identity to come to the fore.

So this is taking me in some interesting directions, because I'm also thinking about definitions and how they are used to define a perceived reality according to the agenda of the definer. When we add in the above idea, what we come up with as well is that definitions don't just define a perceived reality, but also the identity of the person using the definition. In other words, definitions define the person as much as they define whatever is being defined. This might seem like a bit of a stretch, but consider that part of the agenda for a definition is that it not only defines something, but also defines a person's interaction with that thing, and by extension the identity of the person. In this sense then a definition becomes an intersection of identity, both the identity of the definer, and the identity of the people who use the definition, as well as the definition in and of itself.

For magical work, this intersection of identity and definition can be useful for exploring how particular identities are formed and sustained as well as how they can be modified. If we can consider that definitions are a categorization of not only ideas, but also identity, then whatever definitions we use need to be chose carefully, and in fact this may be why it's better to develop our own definitions. At the same time, we can also explore the identity of the person or people who developed the definitions and better understand why they chose to define something in the way they did. This understanding can help us in the formation of our own identities as well as the definitions we use, and make the magical work more meaningful.

When everything falls apart, pick yourself back up and start again

 

There are moments in your life where some part of your life, or perhaps all of your life seems to fall apart. Sometimes it may even seem to occur over a prolonged period of your life. Right now, I'm in the midst of a dark night of the soul, according to my astrological chart, and I've certainly experienced some of that feeling over the last few months. I've felt helpless, frustrated, and like parts of my life have fallen apart. I'm even feeling it right now, where I'm suddenly facing in my coaching business, a lack of clients, as all of them finished up all at once. It's a little terrifying when you feel like the bottom of your life or profession has dropped out from underneath you. And you can feel tempted to just give up when you experience those moments where everything seems to fall apart.

I'll admit that sometimes I've given up. I gave up when I left the Ph.D program at Kent State. There are times when giving up IS the best course of action you can take. When I left the Ph.d program I left it because I wasn't happy with what I was doing, and the future academic career looked like it would be even less fun and more oppressive than what I was already doing. It simply wasn't for me. So I gave up and walked away.

Other times you have to keep picking yourself up and pursuing what you know is right for you to be doing. My choices to be self-published and self-employed are examples of those particular decisions. Neither choice has always been easy to follow through on. It's tempting to just give up and find a job, or to stop writing because you wonder if it'll really find that audience that responds to your writing. Yet if you really want it, you have to keep going for it.

For me, magic and everything else I want is as much about persistence as anything else. Do you have the persistence to continue following through on what you want? Are you willing to pick yourself back up and keep trying because what you want is worth the effort. Magic, despite, how it's sometimes talked up is not really about cutting corners or getting to the fast track of what you want. Magic can help you get what you want, but there is a persistence and effort factor tat needs to be accounted for. Nothing ever just comes to you. You've got to be willing to give in order to get. And what you give is your effort, your sweat, your blood, but also what you give is your willingness to learn, to get smarter and wiser, and do whatever you are doing better than how you did it before.

I've had so much fall apart at different times in my life and yet in those down moments, what's kept me going has been this realization that at the end of the day the only thing that will pick me up is myself. Not the magic, not some deity, and not even some other person. What keeps me going is my choice to move forward, learn from my mistakes, and get better at what I'm doing. What helps me are the people who believe in me, the resources I can employ to help me resolve a given situation, and of course my own determination to not give up, unless its actually smarter to do so. Everything falls apart...pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep striving toward what you want. You'll get it right eventually or die trying.

Why you can't do that isn't a valid excuse for magicians

I was watching the film Kon Tiki the other night. It's a biographical film about Thor Heyerdahl, an anthropologist, who had some interesting and controversial ideas about how Polynesia came to be inhabited. He argued that South Americans had sailed the Pacific ocean to Polynesia 1,500 years or so ago, but no one believed him, and they argued that it couldn't be done with the technology of the time. He decided to prove his critics wrong, by building a boat in the fashion of how it was likely built 1,500 years ago, and then he sailed that boat to Polynesia, without much in the way of modern equipment or technology. What he proved was that it was possible for people to migrate from South America to Polynesia (Whether they actually did or not is still debated). What I admire about the film and about the actual person Thor Heyerdahl was that he didn't let other people tell him what he could or couldn't do. He decided what he could or couldn't do and then proceeded to do it.

When I first started practicing magic, I had this romantic belief that people who practiced magic were people who were open-minded, willing to experiment, and willing to try new things. I suppose I held this belief, because having been a born again Christian and seeing the close-minded fanaticism that such belief creates, I wanted to believe that occultists and Pagans were better than that. I wanted to belong to something where the focus was to explore, test, and challenge the dogma and established view of things. Eventually I was disabused of such romantic beliefs and came to realize that there are pagans and occultists who can be just as close-minded, established, and fanatical as anyone else. It's part of human nature, and there is no special group of people exempted from that nature.

Nonetheless, what I have never been disabused of is my own belief that what's established and held to be true should be challenged, and that if you believe something controversial you should try it out, explore it, etc., to determine for yourself the truth of the matter. When I first started experimenting with pop culture magic (back in the late 1990's), I was told by a person I considered a mentor that what I was doing wasn't "true" magic. He tried to discourage me, but instead encouraged me, because I felt that he didn't have the authority to determine if pop culture magic was or wasn't real magic (ironically enough he was a chaos magician). I didn't buy his statement that I couldn't do pop culture magic. He was't the only person to discourage me. I was told by a number of other magicians that I was reinventing the wheel or that I was a flake or a fluffy bunny or a heretic, or whatever else. All that discouragement ever did was encourage me to continue striking out on my own, as much to prove them wrong as to prove myself right. I never let anyone tell me what I couldn't do and I never bought into their arguments about why they were right and I was wrong (and a good thing to or otherwise I'd have never written any of my books!).

I've never gotten as much flak for the work I've done with space/time magic, identity magic, or working with one's body as a living universe in its own right, but I've still gotten some resistance, some people who think they know better than me about magic and how it oughta be done. And I won't pretend that it hasn't been hard at times to face such resistance and not feel a bit discouraged because someone feels a need to lord their beliefs and values over what you are doing. It is hard on occasion, because there will always be detractors, always be people who think the best way to prove their point is try and take you down and tell you why what you do is wrong and why what they do is right. But what they forget is that what's right for one person isn't right for another. What's right for you isn't right for me, and it doesn't have to be.

Likewise what's right for me may not be right for you, nor does it have to be. I don't subscribe to some of the beliefs that my fellow Pagans hold, but I accept that those beliefs are valid and meaningful to them, and so I don't tell them that what they believe is wrong or that they are doing it wrong. It's not for me to judge them. What I will never accept is intolerance, the attempt to discourage other people from discovering for themselves what their spirituality ( or anything else for that matter) manifests for them. I won't accept the excuse of "you can't do that" from anyone because no one can tell me what I can or can't do. I'm the only authority on that matter, and I have to live with the consequences of my choices, but I also will make those choices because in doing so I am creating my reality, instead of buying into the reality that someone else holds to. And likewise I won't tell anyone else what they can or can't do. I'll encourage them, as I always have, to find out for themselves. In the end the ultimate authority of your life is you...only you can discover those answers. What you have to accept is that what is right for you may not be right for others. That's the real test of authority: Can you accept that you aren't the authority of everyone else, and never will be?

I still experiment with magic (I likely always will) because I am driven to discover my own truth. It makes for a difficult road on occasion, but it also makes for a lot of adventure. And I don't accept the excuse of "you can't do that" because that excuse is lame, and is offered by people too afraid to handle a challenge to their own perspectives. What they'd realize if they did accept that challenge is that at most it might open their minds to some new perspectives and broaden their horizons. At the least it might just make them realize that what works for them does work for them and that should be good enough, without needing to obstruct someone else.

Here's a simple truth: No one else (or deity) is the authority on how you live your life or what you choose to do or believe. You are the only authority of your life. You can choose to let a deity or some other person have authority over your life, but YOU are still making that choice and you are still responsible for the choices that you make after that initial choice is made. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to make those choices. You are responsible for your choices. You are the ultimate authority in your life, even if you have chosen to hand that authority off to someone or some thing else.

The latest issue of Portal Magazine just came out, and includes an article by me.

Book Review: The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness by Samuel Avery

This is intriguing book that explores Modern Physics from a perspectives of dimensions. The author provides some compelling and thought provoking arguments about consciousness and the idea that physical reality is an experience of immaterial dimensions that are combined by consciousness into an experience that people can understand. I also like that the author includes mass as a dimension that impacts the space and time dimensions. The author does, on occasion, provide some fuzzy definition, such as what he uses to explain image, but he is dealing with some complex ideas and he does his best to present those ideas soundly. He does his best to make the book accessible to a layperson, while also providing enough depth to do the material justice.

Further Thoughts on Body Enhancement via magic

I read an interesting post by Chirotus Infinitum that was a response to my recent post about body enhancement via magic. He made reference to the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and much like him I have found that particular series of books to be foundational both in my body modification work and in other magical work I've done. In fact, it's fair to say that reading that series inspired at least some of my thoughts on how I might modify my body with magic as well as how to use those modifications to enhance my magical work.

Something I didn't mention in my previous post was how I've used my tattoos in my body enhancement work. While one of the purposes of my tattoos is devotional, used as an offering to the various elements I've worked with, another purpose is also to enhance my channeling of that elemental energy. The act of getting the tattoo allows me to fully embed the energy into my essence. Each tattoo represents a different energy (or energies) that I can access. For example the the hourglass - web tattoo is connected to the elemental energies of space and time, while my blue dragon is connected to the elemental energies of water. The current tattoo I'm getting, another dragon, is being used to connect with the elemental energies of fire and movement. I have plans to get more tattoos down the line, but undoubtedly some of that will also be influenced by what I work with and how I want to dedicate myself to that energy.

There's not a lot of work written about working with the body. My book Inner Alchemy discusses some of my work and I am continuing in some of those directions, but I think that the body is an untapped resource, especially in Western Culture. Eastern cultures emphasize a connection and cultivation of the body's resources that simply isn't found in Western culture because of the spiritual disconnect from the body that both Christianity and Western Science are responsible for. That spiritual disconnect has fostered perspectives about the body that are unhealthy and don't fully enable people to feel empowered to embrace or work with their bodies. Sadly Western occultism continues to foster similar perspectives. For example, Robert Anton Wilson refers to the body as a robot and seems intent on trying to escape it (not surprising given his encounter with Polio).

I was fortunate to avoid a lot of such limiting beliefs in regards to my body because I wasn't raised in overly religious household and had a natural curiosity about my body that I chose to explore so I could better understand it. I grew up sleeping naked in bed instead of having pajamas on (and I can't understand why anyone would want to wear pajamas) and I have always loved my body and appreciated its curves and the various sensations I can feel. I've also had my own experiences of body hate, such as when I was anorexic, but overall I was fortunate to embrace my body in a way that I observe many people don't. I honestly feel that one of the reasons people are so dysfunctional about sex comes right to the fact that Western culture overall has such a dysfunctional relationship with the body.

There is a lot to be explored in terms of enhancing the body with magic, but also in really understanding the body as a universe of its own, with hidden wonders to experience and explore if we are willing to set aside our all too limited perspectives and cultural biases about the body. This work can only occur if more people are willing to explore the body as a universe and allow themselves to be open to whatever experiences are encountered. Certainly I will keep writing about my own work because I realize more than ever how important it is to continue cultivating perspectives and experiences that run counter to the dysfunctional values that mainstream culture embodies.

The Ontological Reality of Deities, Spirits, and otherworld beings

 

Thanks to the polytheism vs pop culture magic debate that has been going on I've been thinking a lot about my own interactions with deities, demons, spirits, etc. Galina Krassakova posts her own views about her experiences and why she doesn't need theories to define her relationships with her deities on Pagan Square and though it might surprise her and the other polythiests, I'm actually in agreement with her argument that theory ultimately distracts from doing the actual work. Theories are at best tools, but even as tools they should be used carefully lest they overshadow the actual work.  My latest article on Pagansquare discusses theory and its role in magic further, but for this post I thought I'd focus on my experiences with Deity, spirits, and other assorted spiritual beings I've worked with. That phrase "work with" is likely where I and the polytheists differ and we'll get to why that is later.

My journey with the spirits has taken me on some interesting paths, and some of those paths have been theory oriented.  I've explored archetypal theory for example and applied it to my practice. My book Pop Culture Magick is a prime example of the application of archetypes to magical work and to be honest I still use some of that in my practice, particularly with identity magic. And working with the concepts of archetypes has lead me to some interesting conclusions about deities, demons, etc., based less on theory and moreso on observation, practice, and experience with said beings. I don't feel that these realizations take away from the reality of the spirits, so much as provide some additional forms of engagement that ultimately can lead to a more primal experience of spirit. I liken it removing a mask and uncovering what's really underneath the mask, and realizing that the mask was used in order to provide a particular space where spirit and human could meet for the comfort of the human.

Yet the removal of the mask was also the removal of theory. Instead of focusing on the attributes and behaviors, the trappings as it were, I encountered the deeper ontological reality of the spiritual beings I was and do connect with. And instead of trying to get them to fit my agenda or needs, I allowed and do allow myself to be moved by them, to fully experience them as they are instead of through an interpretation based on theory. The irony is, that by allowing myself to be so moved, I've been moved as well by the pop culture spirits I've worked with, the ones that are supposedly not real. In my article on pop culture on pagan square I mentioned how I had a long relationship with Thiede. Thiede is a character in Storm Constantine's Wraeththu series, a fantasy series, and yet for me Thiede has been and is real. Thiede is the guardian of Space, the revealer of the ley lines between planets and stars, a dehara, and so much more to me. Reading about him in a book was only the start of my connection to him, and it was a connection, from the start, that moved me deeply.

When I say the phrase "move me" I'm not talking about being emotionally moved to tears. I'm talking about encountering a spiritual force that has deeply affected me, changed me and pointed my life and spiritual practice in a different direction than it might have gone otherwise. And that experience isn't something you can just slap a theory on. It defies theory because theory is ultimately an intellectual process used to categorize and define something into a neat little box that you can store away until you need it. I've had an encounter with something fundamentally different from me and that experience has changed who I am. It has changed my identity.

And this is not an isolated incident. Each year I work with a different elemental force and part of that process involves working with a spirit guide that provides a "face" through which I can interact with that elemental force. The elemental balancing work is an intense process of change that is brought by interacting with the element. There is no theory for it, but simply the engagement of practice and the recognition that I need to work with a given elemental force in my life. The various entities I've worked with during the balancing rituals haven't been archetypes...far from it. They are collection of beings that even today are in my life. They are not something I believe in...they are something I experience. That's an important distinction to make because in my opinion belief is just another theory, another tool. The experience of them in my life is something else. To me, the spirits I work with, traditional or pop culture, are real. There is an ontological essence of being, of identity that is objective, beyond any categorization I could give it, and it is sustained not merely by my own experience, but also by the experiences of others, independent of my own.

My work with my spirits has some form of devotion and offering attached to it. Some of the tattoos on my body, for example, are devotional offerings of my skin made to a particular element as a way of recognizing the significant role the element has played in my life. I also make offerings to particular spirits in the form of writing or through painting. But the work I do with them is nonetheless geared more toward the advancement of my work with magic than anything else. They play an important role in my life, but they are not central to it, so much as they help me focus on what is central. Thus I work with them, and this likely is different from how the polytheists approach such matters.

Just because some of my spirits aren't tied to a particular religion or culture of old doesn't invalidate their existence. And while it might be said that such spirits were created by an author or artist, I'd argue that perhaps they weren't created, so much as channeled and experienced. Whether anyone agrees with me or not on that issue isn't important. What's important in the end is that I am doing the work I am called to do. I'm getting out of my own way and letting it happen, letting myself be moved and inspired, so that I can do what I need to do. And really, isn't that the point?

Magical Enhancements of your body

The other day I read an interesting post by Mr. Black on human enhancement. I've always been fascinated by how a person can enhance his/her body using magic since I first started practicing magic. In my book Inner Alchemy, I described some of my work toward that purpose, but there's a lot I also haven't shared, so below is some of the other enhancement work I've done with my body and thoughts on how you can apply this to your own work.

1. Enhance your muscles. When I was in college, one of the jobs I worked at was a package factory (similar to UPS). You'd work for four hours packing boxes (50 - 100 Ibs) onto trucks. It's hard work and you get sore quickly. It's a job that has high turn over as well, with up to 50% quitting in the first 2 weeks. When I worked there, one of my solutions was to temporarily enhance my muscles, both in terms of strength and healing. What I did before the shift was to run my hands over my legs and arms, putting energy into the muscles so that I could warm them up ahead of time, as well as help them heal. This allowed me to condition my muscles during the first couple of weeks so that I wasn't as sore as I would've been otherwise. Additionally, the work was easier because I'd enhanced my strength during that time. To this day I still use this working when I need to do physical labor. All you need to do is your own energy to your muscles. Basically you are using your chi to enhance your muscles.

2. Enhance healing by communicating with cells. When I get tattoos, I tend to heal fairly quick because what I do is communicate with my cells and direct energy toward the metabolism functions in order to improve the speed of healing. I've also used this for other injuries. While it doesn't provide instantaneous healing, I have noticed that healing occurs quicker than it normally would. With tattoos the healing time usually takes 3 weeks to a month, but I've been able to heal in a week. To do this kind of work you need to learn how to communicate with your cells, which I've covered in Inner Alchemy.

3. Eye sight enhancement. I have 20/20 vision. Neither of my parents or their parents had 20/20 vision, but I've always had it. One of the activities I do on a regular basis are eye exercises, which include bringing my sight into and out of focus as well as rolling my eyes and looking up or down or to the side for more than a second. Doing these exercises help to enhance my sight, but I've also done some inner alchemical work with the rods and cones as well as the natural chemicals in my eyes, focusing on cell regeneration, so that I can keep my eyesight at its current performance. Thus far it seems to have worked, but time will tell if what I'm doing is working.

These are just a few examples of how I've experimented with enhancement of the human body. I am continuing my exploration of the body, because I feel that learning how to work with the body is an integral key to enhancing and even prolonging life.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement month 7

4-24-13 I had a dream this morning. I was on a road trip with Jim Nadenicek, a friend I knew in my State College days. We were driving through Pittsburgh and just happened to be going by my old elementary school, so I asked him if we could stop in. We did stop and I saw a few teachers I vaguely recognized and read into a woman I knew as a kid. She gave me advice about how to conduct myself around other people. Then I went outside and Jim had this jeep. My car had broken down and we needed to go to the auto repair shop to see what was wrong. An interesting dream that I'm still processing, but I see certain themes in it that are consistent with internal work I'm doing right now. My dreams have become more vivid since I've been doing Zhine meditation regularly.

4-26-13 20 years ago in April I started practicing magic. It's hard to believe that 20 years have passed. I feel proud of myself as a magician when I look at those years and everything I've done and explored and I feel excited about the rest of my journey and I'm grateful that barring anything unexpected, I should have a long time to explore my spiritual journey and implement it in this life. How fortunate I am...

4-27-13 I've been doing some further reading of the Post Infidelity Stress Disorder book and one of the realizations I've had is that until I really explored these problems they would have continued to show up in my relationships. The author makes a good point that a person is attracted to someone who reminds them of their parents or themselves. I see that in my relationship choices. Most of the women I've been attracted to have in one way or another reminded me of the strictness of my step mom. Kat's pretty much the exception and who she is similar to is me. Recognizing these patterns of attraction helps me also see how the behavior has been set up to undermine the relationships. I feel sad about it, but in a weird kind of way also relieved because I have a much better understanding of my issues. And through understanding comes change.

4-30-13 There are days I really don't want to meditate or exercise. I feel extremely busy or like I have too much on my plate. And yet I know that if I don't exercise or meditate I am cheating myself of so much. So today was one of those days and I made myself exercise. I feel better for doing it, and I also know it reinforces the discipline I believe is essential. Keeping yourself on track isn't easy all the time, but the true test is to choose and do something when you don't feel like doing it, but know you need to.

5-01-13 I got an email from Weiser books today about the Wealth Magic book. They want to look at more chapters of the book. I'm not sure how I feel. Part of me feels happy,  vindicated, acknowledged, but another part of me isn't sure if I really want to go with a big publisher. I have mixed feelings on all of this. I feel conflicted, not sure what choice I'll make, but Kat and I will discuss it together and then I'll make a decision about where to go next.

5-02-13 I sent the rest of the manuscript in. I figure I owe myself the opportunity to see what will come of this particular opportunity. Worst they can say is no and if they do say yes, then it's bargaining time, because I definitely want some say in what happens with the book and how I can use it to promote myself to a larger audience.

5-07-13 Something I've come to recognize about myself is that I can be brittle. Kat says I like order, and there is truth in that. I like things in my life and universe to be orderly, to follow certain conventions and to be easy to find. And this is where it can lead to brittleness because sometimes I cling so much to the order that I don't adapt to what really needs to be changed. My work with movement is helping me realize this brittleness about my personality, and with some work I think I can be more flexible even when my sense of order isn't as I'd like it to be.

5-15-13 Sometimes I go through periods where I have little to write. This is one of those periods. I've learned to accept these moments when they occur as I figure it is just a period of gestation and deeper thought. You can't rush magic and you can't rush writing.

5-19-13 Movement is about boundaries as much as anything else. Today I had to tell someone my boundaries around a specific topic. It wasn't easy to do it, but I realized that I didn't need to be moved to the head space that I felt moved to when discussing the topic with that person. So setting up that boundary was really a healthy action taken. There are some memories you don't want to revisit, especially if you are an abuse survivor of any type. Those memories can put you in a space of being a victim and while it is important to work through those memories, it should be done in a way that is empowering to the person.

I've been thinking lately about my role in my household. I am not the chief bread winner. Kat is the chief bread winner of the house hold and I am comfortable with that. Nonetheless I also contribute in my own way. I clean and cook, I take care of the cats and the kids as needed. I take care of Kat and support her in what she is doing. And I do bring in some income with my businesses and that income is increasing. We both work hard to make sure our household is a stable one. I feel lucky to be with such a wonderful person who is dedicated to me and to the spiritual work we do.

5-21-13 Kat and  I got a Synastry reading over the weekend, basically an astrological comparison of her and I's chart. It was helpful and confirmed certain patterns of behavior and ongoing life changes for both of us, as well as showing each of us how we could support each other through those changes. One of the issues it reminded me of was the importance of letting go of needing to be in control and instead continuing to accept that I don't have control over everything, but I do have control over how I work with it. In April I started a particular Pluto conjunction, which is a dark night of the soul and I'd have to say that I've certainly seen evidence of it in my life in little ways, but instead of letting it control me or feeling helpless, I've chosen to roll with it, accept that I don't have control over everything, but also ask myself what I do have control over. And what I've found is that by letting go in some cases and acknowledging that I don't have control, I can actually discover choices that provide me a way to resolve the situation in my favor. And there's a key realization about movement here: Choosing to move with something you can't control allows you to find control through the movement. You accept you can't control the situation as it is, but you learn to move with the situation until you discover the options that provide opportunities for you.