Sometimes the blockages that we deal with are ancestral. In this video I share how to identify an ancestral blockage and start dissolving and working through it so that it no longer haunts your life and breaks the cycle that is inherited from your ancestors.
Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 12
9-21-2021 Today I’ll be switching over to Ouranos (Uranus). This morning my magical partner and I collected dew from the bottles and afterwards we talked about partnerships and feasts and I note this only because it happened while we were collecting and distilling the dew for the archaeus work and since such conversations are happening its worth noting as a relevant and related to the energy and efforts of the work we are doing.
I meditated on plate 12 of The Mutus Liber. It’s almost the same as plate 9 though there are subtle differences. I didn’t get any specific insights beyond what I’ve already gotten, but I noticed the triangle shape again and the offering to Mercury.
Also I did switch over to Ouranos (Uranus)/Metatron and felt a sense of welcome. Last year, the creativity work was ended in such a weird way, because of events. It felt like this month is actually a redemption tour of sorts and I got the cover of my newest book today, so that felt significant as well.
Magical Experiments Podcast: Balancing the Magic with the Mundane, with Soviet Mercedes
Soviet Mercedes and I get together and have a fun conversation around the importance of balancing your magical work with mundane activities. We discuss why it can be good to take a break from your magical practice and how that can help you create a baseline for your magical work, as well as sharing examples from our own experiences about how we’ve balanced the magic with the mundane.
How to balance what you want with having enough
Knowing what you want and following through on what you want must be balanced with knowing what your enough looks like. I share the pitfalls that can happen when you don’t recognize what is enough and share why its so important to build a strong foundation around what you’ve manifested in your life.
How to figure out what you want
When you know what you want, you can manifest it. But figuring out what you want isn’t always easy and there can be a lot of distractions along the way that lure you from what you want. You have to apply the discipline of essentialism to keep you focused on what matters, but you also need to explore what you might want to narrow down what truly matters and then focus on pursuing it. In this video I share my thoughts around this process and what I’ve learned over the years.
Lucid Dreaming patreon post
This month’s patreon post is all about lucid dreaming and how to do it.
I was recently asked by one of my patrons about how one could do lucid dreaming. This month's Patreon article is all about lucid dreaming and how to do it and use it in your magical practice.
What is Lucid Dreaming?
Lucid Dreaming is an altered state of consciousness you cultivate that allows you to become conscious within your dreams, but can also be used to cultivate an altered state of awareness in waking life.
Learning how to do leads to why
I was recently watching a qi gong training video and the instructor made a really interesting point: Learning How to Do leads to why. The point he was making is that if you want to know the why behind an activity you are doing, you first must necessarily learn how to do the activity. It’s a salient point to make and one often missed when people get caught up in trying to understand the why, without doing anything experiential first.
I will, on occasion, have people ask me questions about a given practice, which is very reasonable to do, but at a certain point the answer becomes, “Do the work,” if the work hasn’t already been done. The reason is simple: A conceptual framework of the actual work can only take you so far. Until you apply the concepts into actual practice, you don’t know the concepts. Theory without practice can only take you so far, especially if theory becomes a crutch that keeps you away from the practice.
I apply this to my own practice by making the choice to do qi gong everyday. Learning the practice allows me to experientially open myself to the concepts and turn them into felt experiences that shape my understanding of the concepts. Each movement I perform and learn leads me deeper into the mysteries I’m exploring, allowing me to discover how to deepen my practice but also illustrating the why behind the practice.
Learning how to do something will naturally create more questions, but it will also answer a lot of your questions. The new questions can lead you deeper into the practice, and while the insights someone else offers can be valuable, the real work begins when you answer your own questions through the engagement in your practice and discover the why through the embodiment of your practice. The whys’ you discover will lead you on to richer and deeper insights, providing clarity and focus around the work.
How to get out of your tunnel vision
One of the challenges a person faces is their own tunnel vision about what they know and what they experience. I share some thoughts on how to recognize your own blind spots in your life and practice and share why I think this is essential, because it is very easy to get in our own ways and limit ourselves with the perspectives we don’t cultivate.
Integrating Qi Gong into Magical Workings
One of the activities I’ve lately been doing, while performing the Sphere of Art, has involved doing some of the Qi gong movements I’ve learned. I was inspired to do this one day, just for the sake of seeing what if anything would happen if I started integrating qi gong into the SOA. I did this with two different Qi Gong movements, Cloud Hands (affiliate link) and Heaven and Earth Qi Gong (affiliate link) and what I found is that with one of those moments it seamlessly integrated into the SOA work, while the other did not.
Pop culture magic and wintering
I am finally coming out of my wintering. Its been a year long process, but in the last few weeks I’ve felt something within me switch. While there is still grief over recent life changes, I felt like the winter snow and ice is melting and the seeds of Spring are beginning to sprout, with the promise of possibilities turning into realities. Still in order to even get to that place, I had to go through the experience of wintering. This proved to be a transformative experience and one of the allies I drew on what Johnny Lawrence from Cobra Kai.
At the beginning of Cobra Kai, Johnny is going through a wintering experience of his own. He’s washed up, just going through the motions, and he has to embark on a hero’s journey to discover himself, but also to help his students. Of course, as with any such journey, Johnny inevitably encounters his share of troubles some of which are created by his own actions. A lot of the times Johnny trips himself up and I could relate to that, because I’ve done the same. It was easy, as a result, to work with him during my own wintering experience.
A Magical Creativity is now available
A Magical Creativity is the collected magical journals of Taylor Ellwood from 2018 to 2020. In these magical journals he shares his ongoing works with practical magic, but also shares how to connect with the spiritual forces of stability and creativity. In this collection you'll find discussions of Taylor's work with the archangels, the sphere of art, identity work, and the ongoing development of cutting edge magical techniques. Taylor shares how real magic can change your life and shape the results you obtain, as well as exploring the ongoing necessity of internal work.
Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 11
8-22-2021 Last night I switched over to the Neptune current and worked with Ratziel, the archangel of the book and key. I did the ritual under the full moon, which is conjunct with Saturn and Jupiter. It felt appropriate because I had wrapped up the work with Saturn. What was nice is that I got to do the Sphere of Art in Eugene finally. I felt like doing that work, down here, really sealed me to this new space I am living in. I feel this deep sense of contentedness and peace, something I haven’t felt in a while, if ever. It surprises me to feel it, but I know I’m home. I know this is where I belong, at least for the forseeable future.
Today I’m continuing to unpack my home. It feels off to finally be putting art up that I haven’t seen in a year, and to be unpacking books, but mostly it makes me happy to be in an environment where I feel wanted and welcomed, even if its just by myself. I finally have a space of my own, and I didn’t realize how much I needed it. I feel welcomed in other ways as well and this has helped me feel at peace with my move, because I know I belong here.
Magical Experiments Podcast: Elemental Magic with Ivo Dominguez Jr
For the second episode of Magical Experiments Podcast, I have the great pleasure of hosting Ivo Dominguez Jr and we discuss elemental magic and how to incorporate it in your life. We also discuss the problem with categorizations and Ivo shares a couple exercises you can do with elemental magic.
Watch the video on Patreon (Note this interview will be available to the public for a week and then after that only available to people who subscribe to the podcast Tier or above on my patreon.
How to keep track of your magical projects
Keeping track of your magical projects is essential to staying on top of the work, knowing the results, and tracking the successes and failures. I share some ideas on how you can track your work, whether you are solitary or working with partners.
Identity as the compilation of the past
In the last week and a half I’ve been engaged in an experiment around how I frame my past, in relationship to my present. This experiment came about as a result of reading The Courage to be Happy (affiliate link) In that book the author makes the point that people often use the past to define the present, justifying their current circumstances because of what previously happened. Certainly, this has been my own experience and I found myself in a place where I was feeling on edge because of events that had happened over the course of the last year.
The author makes the point that an alternate perspective can be adapted, where we consider what meaning a person’s present identity is giving to the past. He also argues that the past doesn’t exist, because its something that can’t be regained It is simply gone. Instead what happens is that people compile their past experiences and use them to justify their current sense of identity. Anything that runs counter to the present experience they want to cultivate is conveniently forgotten and ignored. Consequently what ought to be considered is that a person’s now defines their past as opposed to the past defining the present.
An Elemental Magic Exercise
Note: this article is available in full on Patreon. Become my patron to access the article.
I'm getting ready to write my next magical book, which is going to be about my work with magical elementals. One of the ways I've taken to working with the classic elemental spirits has involved going for walks. When I go outside for a walk, it allows me to open myself to their energy and experiences, but its not simply a matter of going for a walk. There is a precise state of being that is involved, as well.
Divination, the observer effect, and results
One of the fascinating aspects of divination is the observer effect, where the act of observation, or in this case divination has an impact on the magical work a person does, or for that matter the mundane realities of a person’s life. In this video I share some of my thoughts on this aspect of divination and share why I use divination as an active form of magical work, instead of for the purposes of getting information.
How to apply tension-resolution systems to magic
In the book Creating (Affiliate link) the author shares an exercise where throughout the day of a workshop he and his partner randomly pour 7 glasses of water, but don’t explain why they are doing it to the workshop attendees. At the end of the day they ask the attendees to tell them why they are doing this activity and various people share their theories as to why. In the end, it turns out the teachers were doing this activity to illustrate the principle of tension-resolution.
What is the principle of tension-resolution?
It is this: Where there is tension, people will naturally seek to find a resolution for that tension. The author points out that often what is accomplished is NOT a resolution, because people attempt to resolve tension out of a need to control that tension, without fully considering where that need is coming from. It’s a useful lesson that demonstrates the limitations of what we know and control, because it also reveals that in making the choice to act upon tension, we may end up speculating and trying to fill in the gaps instead of being truly open and curious.
Knowing, not-knowing, and power
I discuss a realization I had around tension, knowing, and not-knowing and how all of this relates to power or the experience of not having power, and why this is important to us as magicians and creatives.
Building a foundation in magic
What does it mean to build a foundation in your magical practice and in your life? I share my thoughts and experiences around this concept of a foundation and how it can change your life if you approach it in the right way. I get philosophical and talk about what it really means to live a magical life and why that isn’t always as easy as one thinks, and I read an introduction Storm Constantine wrote in one of my magical journals.