Solaria Divina

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  • The value of beauty for humanity

    We have always valued beautiful things. People traded for visually stunning materials to make their tools out of, discovered pigments in nature for body decoration, spirituality in everything from the fragrance of flowers to the shapes of mountains. We have landscape photography, perfume is an industry that brings in billions of dollars, and people feel healthier living in places where aesthetic detail matters. Social elites have tried to define what is truly beautiful and some people out there would argue that beauty in life does not matter. I say it does.

    A basket of makeup beside two jewelry boxes, several perfume bottles, a decorative dish, gold tray, and a small pile of headbands

    A little about me. The early beauty YouTube community helped me start to learn to love myself. It was easier to get out of bed when I wanted to put on a nice outfit, do my make up, take care of my skin. Gradually over the years I linked this with my spirituality, which has a divine feminine focus. now I encourage people to care for their spirit by dressing in ways that make them feel both beautiful and comfortable, and creating an aesthetic environment that nurtures a sense of peace and contentment.

    A black cat rests on one of two velvet cushions, which are pink and yellow, in front of a wood and glass piece of furniture used as an altar. The altar holds several handmade God and goddess statues, offering cups, plates holding crystals, and several other symbolic and decorative objects.

    The copper plates, ceramic espresso cups, and many other items here were created by small business owners online who have a great sense of aesthetic. I created the statues by hand, though I wish I could have done more detail work, as a self-taught amateur sculpter. The photography is also my work. The layout is meant to be visually aesthetic with balance and symmetry. I really worked to choose colors that I find inviting. There are also some vintage items such as the two jewelry boxes I use for long-term spells, and the two candleholders on either side. I chose natural materials wherever possible as a connection to the Earth, which is why I also included the photography. And most of us appreciate the feel of luxurious material on our skin, such as velvet or silk, which is how I decided on my floor cushions.

    Luxe magic is intentional living for the purpose of being happy and fulfilled. This means self-care, cultivating beauty in your life, doing the same for others around you and being involved in your community, actively choosing intellectual pursuits and experiences that change your perspective, and above all, taking care of the divine aspect of yourself while having a strong relationship with your higher powers. Over the next several months I plan to chat with you on the various aspects of this practice. Subscribe if you are interested.

  • I’m turning 36 — Altar in a Bag

    This is the small travel pouch from Quince.

    I’m not sure what else I will add to this but a slim sketchbook is good for symbols and channeled drawings. And I work with the runes as a particularly portable divination tool. Also there is some white jade, smoky quartz, and black obsidian, three of my favorites, so they pretty much live in my bag. I may add one or two oils from the brand seven sisters, because of the flat square bottles they use, which seems suited to being carried around like this. Perhaps crown of success or fiery wall of protection.

    As I mentioned in the title I am actually turning 36 in just under a week. In light of this, I want to offer psychic channeling sessions, remote cleansing, or simple candle rituals, where you can name your own price with a minimum of $10. I provide these services so I can create content for this blog and my other more fun blog, which is my real passion. Self promotion is difficult with the algorithm these days, and I’m hoping maybe some of you would be interested. I use Cash app or PayPal, and my email is luxemagic35@gmail.com if you would like to reach out.

    Psychic channeling: this is a reading we can do via email or text. I will have you give me the name you go by and your age, and starting with a series of yes/no questions I will give you what information is channel to me. There may even be images or metaphors that I pick up on.

    Remote cleansing: this is a process by which I will astral project into your space to clear harmful connections, negative energies, and other influences that might be causing you difficulty. I can also do this to your home or workplace. Again I will need the name you go by, or the name of the place I am working on.

    Candle ritual: this will be a one candle spell, involving the spirits I work with, to help you obtain a goal. We can discuss this over email.

    Normally I charge between 30 and 60 for a one hour session no matter what I’m doing, and these are usually live by phone. This is a way for me to introduce you to my work, and to fund the creative content I love to bring to everyone who reads either one of my blogs. 

  • Divination and ethical energy exchange

    This was prompted by a discussion in a private group concerning how draining readings can be, especially in a public setting, or in a space designated for this kind of work where many people are giving and receiving energy and information.

    If you have provided divination services, given readings of any kind, you’ve run into certain types of people. They want to take home the cards that came up for them. They tell you you are wrong because you’re not giving them the answer they want to hear. They keep pushing for more information than what they have paid for. These are physical ways in which clients cross boundaries but for some reason, others have more insidious tactics.

    When it comes to crossing boundaries between client and reader, I think a lot of it comes from entitlement. Weather subconscious or not, this can present as intentional energy theft, where a client is tapping into your power to drain it for themselves, or may even be attempting to do this with spirits who might be assisting your work. There are positive and consensual ways in which energetic vampirism is practiced, and if anyone would like a piece on this let me know. But as a reader you must receive a small amount of the clients energy, and for a good metaphor you can use the visualization of a thin string connecting the two, in order to receive psychic insights, information from spirit guides, or be able to interpret what cards, leaves, or throwing systems of divination are revealing. Unconscious energy vampires have a tendency to stir up negativity and drama, and latch onto pretty much anyone who is a good source of power. Someone who is aware of their abilities and using them in negative ways intentionally might have loaded that energy connection between the two of you with a something that creates an energy conduit. This is usually a spell that might be triggered by a phrase they speak, or by shaking your hand. If they are unconscious, they may just keep coming back to you to ask for readings on the constant chaos in their lives.

    Some might take it further than that. If they are attention seeking and an active magic practitioner, this may be an opportunity for domination magic. This can go hand in hand with energy theft. They want your focus on them. They want you to work for them, delivering information that suits their means and motivations. This is again done with physical contact, them handing you an object such as money, handling divination materials that you will then work with, or even something they say as a trigger. You may inadvertently give a magic practitioner access to your energy long-term by handing them a business card with your name on it. They can also work with your photos online.

    It can be difficult to protect yourself from energetic aggression when in a room with a lot of exchanges taking place, such as at a public event. Running a piece of nuummite, one of the most powerful banishing stones, over yourself and your tools after each reading is a good place to start. Taking a saltwater bath after the event is over to clear any unwanted connections is another basic strategy that is very effective. You can draw protective symbols on your body under your clothing with eyeliner, and wear a piece of hematite as a pendant, which has a reflective mirror like quality. This is literally to reflect anything negative being sent to you back to the semder in real time.

    If we want to get a little more in depth with protection, you could get a spirit companion. How this works is, you go to someone who conjures spirits, and you pay for a spirit who is known for protection and dealing with psychic attack. Angelic spirits are good for this especially. With enough study you can learn to do this yourself but this is actually something I suggest public readers do. Have a spirit companion you’ve adopted specifically to provide protection when you are doing readings or workings with anyone. Because you don’t even necessarily know the motivations of people you have regular contact with. If this feels a little bit too intensive, because spirit companions do require interaction on a regular basis as well as offerings, you can go to someone who will help you discover your spirit guides, and begin a regular communication practice with them. These are spirits who have chosen to stay with you, or who might have been assigned by your higher power or powers to assist you. In both situations, these spirits will give you insights if you have good communication, and may interfere when there is an actual threat.

    As readers and practitioners we should be able to expect an ethical energy exchange. We open the door for people to come to us and get what they need. But we respect their autonomy in who they seek out services from. What they owe us in return is listening, taking in what information we provide, and analyzing how it makes sense in their life without ego, while also not overstepping their boundaries and invading our energy. A vast majority of the problems people create for themselves, and the issues they project onto those around them, come from unchecked ego and feeling entitled and/or insecure. So respect for boundaries is something most of us are actually awful at. The best we can do then, is defend ourselves. I’d also recommend protection work of some sort on business cards and online photos of yourself. 

  • Late night thoughts

    One conflict I’ve always had a hard time with is feeling that different aspects of my nature just don’t make sense together, and it’s not a great feeling. I try to be self-aware and that’s difficult when you feel somewhat internally disconnected. Too edgy to really feel like I belong in elegant spaces. Two elegant to feel welcome in occult spaces. Too loud, opinionated, and conventionally unattractive to really feel socially validated as feminine. But all of these are genuine aspects of my nature. I love silk or cashmere when I can find it secondhand, but I have tattoos. I write poetry, paint and sculpt, but if you knew me in person you would know my conversational style could be called spicy. I am a student of the occult, but I have a somewhat materialistic nature. Because I am all about the richness of life, getting all I can out of this experience since the universe and the gods are going to guide us where we need to go. We have to take agency, that’s our gift and our responsibility simultaneously, but they will get us there. In the meantime I think it’s absolutely fine to try to live for the purpose of enjoying the experience, creating a legacy that made your world a better place, and moving forward with as few regrets as possible.

    Here’s the revelation that hit me a couple of hours ago. I used the phrase your world. What this means is the social structures that are relevant to your experience, not necessarily the big arbitrary ones that have been set up for us all. This means your people, your gods or lack there of, your values. How you frame yourself within your world or your reality. You start with a foundation. Those people you have a genuine connection with. A moral compass that is based on experience and not whatever comes down the ladder of hierarchy we are supposed to climb. I was thinking about how I used to sort of be known as the pagan church lady because I had a very reserved, conservative style. Thinking about this made me realize that it’s not really about how your world sees you. It’s how you see yourself in your world, your framework. So if I want to be that practitioner with spiritual tattoos and a fairly elegant sense of style, then I create that space for myself to exist within my framework. And then all of those pieces can be united potentially, because focusing on your own framework, building your own world around that framework for a visual metaphor, means that the wider, careless, anonymous reality we all share, has less relevance. It’s reclaiming your power, ruling your domain. Then you can do two things. you can refuse access to your world for certain energies, whether that’s people or currents or experiences that you think will negatively impact your personal growth and happiness. And you can begin to manifest what fills this world of yours. I am currently exploring how daydreaming, intentionally living out those experiences in your head, can serve as a basis for manifestation. I know lots of us daydream to get a break from whatever personal circumstances we wish to escape, creating other versions of ourselves to live other lives. But what if it was an idealized version of yourself, with your knowledge, all your good points, with an appearance you actually like, living out things you desire, moments you want to see happen. Perhaps building in a little bit of focus to help channel those daydreams into energy you can put toward making your desires part of your external reality. Maybe it’s a big city condo somewhere warm. Maybe it’s travel. Maybe it’s family dinners on inherited China with children you haven’t met yet. Build yourself into your daydreams so they can be part of your world build.

    A lot of us worry I think about how we are perceived. But I think it might be more important to ask how we want to be perceived only by those who are actually relevant to us and impact our lives. And before that, how we want to perceive ourselves within our own Framework. For me it’s important that how I present actually matches my genuine nature. I believe most of us are scared of who we genuinely are, and so are more willing than we should be to accept messaging that tries to feed on our insecurities and get us to obey Certain rules. And when we are scared of any aspect of ourselves we project that onto everyone and everything around us, so that anything straying beyond what we perceive as normal or right becomes a problem to us. Honestly my thoughts on how to get past this are you have to grow a backbone, look your naked ass in the mirror, be real about the good and the bad of who you are not just by physical appearance, but asking yourself questions like do you trust yourself, what actions have been mistakes and what have you intentionally done wrong, which are two different things, are you willfully choosing to ignore truth in favor of your own opinions, and what’s good about who you are. And then, just stop minding other people’s business. Those people who are personally relevant to you, their valid experience plays a role in how you let them exist within your world, your understanding of reality, because you cannot ignore their truth, and should not ignore your own. You have to find a place where you can both live if there’s conflict, or it’s time to make some space. Everyone has the right to agency, to building their own worlds, and have who they are respected, as long as they are not infringing on those rights for others. You have a right to finding your own happiness, building your own world and identity within it, but so does everyone else. Meanwhile, now that you focused on doing your own internal work, you can enter those parts of yourself you rejected, reckon with the choices you’ve made, and maybe start to build self-respect that is not based on surface level social perceptions or standards set by others. If you are focused on your own happiness and growth, your identity within your world will make sense beautifully, and maybe won’t feel so contradictory when dealing on the outside. Internal contradictions are human, sometimes we can integrate those pieces into a hole or at least figure out how to balance them, but I think the deeper issue is a question you might not have found the answer to about yourself as a hole. And that’s why I think about this stuff at three in the morning.

  • AI and Magic: Hard Pass

    This was a suggested prompt from Diana Rajchel. I felt my autumn was so overwhelming I just couldn’t focus on anything substantial. AI as part of a magical practice is a hot topic at the moment, and my gut reaction was hell no, but it took me a few days to start to really figure out why.

    What really got me thinking about this subject was something completely unrelated. This morning I was shifting between two purses, and I have always loved watching what’s in my bag videos, makeup hauls, that sort of thing. It finally hit me why I’ve had trouble feeling engaged with content I have traditionally loved the last couple years. Influencer marketing has made these kinds of videos into what we in journalism school called advertorials. These people are here to build para social relationships with us, while focusing on brand placement, sometimes delivering inauthentic opinions for the sake of making money. At one point I wanted to pursue content creation, but communities online based around hobbies like beauty and style have been drowned in commercial noise. So I posted my pictures with no brand tags, and it got me thinking. AI has the potential to suck the authenticity out of a practice, far more than the aesthetic magic practitioners on Instagram and TikTok ever did. And they did. Witchy influencers buried authentic practice in material kitch. And now AI scraping social media for data is picking up all of these images, and any advice, good or bad, and this could be going out to magic practitioners who ask ChatGPT for spell suggestions. More than that, having to do the research and learn through experimentation is part of building a practice that is your own. Having one collective source that doesn’t differentiate between helpful and unhelpful, potentially even dangerous information, spoonfeed that information, doesn’t really allow for personal growth.

    Q I think as a community we are in an age of discovery. For a few decades all we had was distorted and romanticized concepts of practices, traditions, and even the gods themselves. we are picking up bits and pieces, creating new things, and sometimes intuitively relearning this information. I have to ask though, what’s the point if we allow AI to have such a stranglehold on us collectively? We have occult books that were: tradition specific when written; contain somewhat helpful information but also misinformation; are actually written by AI which means unethically data scraped from real authors; and work that is actually beneficial to our collective growth as a community, and it’s all being absorbed for aggregate digestion. There is nothing to sft the valuable from the rot, or differentiate what was insightful in previous decades compared to now. Closed practices can get swept up in this and I’m sure already have. And I’d like to also recognize the stolen work of occult artists. None of the growth matters if you cut the saplings along with the grass. If we lose the voices of genuine communal leadership to this noise, then we lose our way.

    Let’s talk about bad takes and dangerous misinformation for a moment. The center for countering digital hate is an organization I follow, and they’ve recently talked about how teens are getting dangerous self harm information from tools like ChatGPT. I was also recently thinking about products that exist in occult spaces that probably need warning labels and ideally would have some kind of usage manual that comes with them. One I can think of is the spell fires one of my friends sells. She has a video on her YouTube responsibly demonstrating how to use spell fire. But we all know people tend to do things without thinking, even if good information is available. Everyone’s ego tells them they know better. And then everyone puts their bad behavior on the Internet for the world to see these days. You can buy wolfsbane oil for just a couple bucks on one of the sites I use for my supplies. This stuff should not be breathed in. But a lot of people probably wouldn’t know that and might find out the hard way. So here’s a question, is it really wise for us to allow AI to give other practitioners advice on safe magical practices, especially involving toxic plants and flammable materials? Not to mention spirits that don’t like certain offerings, and might respond negatively.

    Religious diversity has been repressed for millennia, especially the last two, which is how we’ve lost so much information about mystical and magical practices. My next concern with the presence of AI in any magical practice is based on our current political climate. Freedom of religion is guaranteed in our constitution and yet there have always been little local laws carefully designed to prevent practices that might be frowned upon by the dominant culture. Now, it seems like respect for the constitution is dwindling. In the age of big data, I have a concern that AI could be used to scrape information about people who do not subscribe to Christian nationalism in the US, whether or not they are magic practitioners, and then use that data for persecution. The sites you visit, the things you buy, the online groups you interact with, what you say about spirituality in your posts, it can all get swept up, linked to an identity, and then used against you. This isn’t theoretical. Anyone from landlords to ice could be using AI to target people in negative ways. Considering our current political trajectory, and our history of xenophobia, I could easily imagine AI being used to dig through your social media and interfere with your rights based on what you believe and practice. Taylor Lorenz has great videos on her YouTube channel concerning use of AI by the landlords as well as immigration, and on the topic of AI, spirituality, and psychosis, which I will get to later. I highly recommend following her as well as reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. Also everyone should totally look up China’s social credit score. It’s data driven and I could see something similar used to control dissent here in the US. YouTube has a great documentary about it though I do not remember the title.

    For this next part I need to introduce a spiritual concept for those who aren’t aware of it. Sometimes people put collective power into an idea so much that it begins to develop a sort of independent consciousness. This could be like the threefold law, which seems to return everything to the believer times three. This concept might also apply to the flying spaghetti monster. We call these independently conscious ideas egregors. Dr. Spock is also one, and I know this because I’ve actually heard of him being summoned even though he was a fictional character. He exists in so many peoples conscious minds that actual energy has been fed in his concept, and a sort of independent consciousness has been created. I realize this is a stretch for those who are not part of this community, and yeah I actually think it’s a little silly that some of us are out here trying to summon fictional characters, But my point is this. AI is a digital egregor, with so much aggregate data fed into it that it is becoming somewhat independent. Yes we pre-program it’s choices, but we also do this with the spiritual version by dictating basically how it is going to react to what it is fed. Now do we really want AI to end up with a spiritual component to its egregor? Because we are headed that way. Taylor Lorenz has a speculative video concerning the way some people start to view AI tools as all knowing, like gods, discussing how people feel their AI tools are becoming sentient and evolving conscious intelligence. In some people this is creating a sort of spiritual psychosis. This is where a perceived spiritual force, usually not real or misidentified in my experience, collides with someone’s pre-existing mental health problems. Others are just able to get a sort of placebo sense of fulfillment when they get the answers they want. AI has the potential to rob people of the ability to think, to know, to explore and experiment, and reduce us to a state similar to the mindset of medieval Europeans, where everything outside of the known, outside of what the authorities verified, was evil and terrifying. How would AI tools gain a spiritual foothold? Buy more and more of us believing in them being sentient, and independently intelligent, omnipotent and all powerful. That’s how a digital egregor gets a spiritual counterpart.

    Even if we set all this aside as speculation, there is one thing that is a tangible fact. Data centers create so much noise pollution and use up so much water they are causing negative effects on the communities around them, and the environment as a whole. So if we value nature, and I believe many magic practitioners of different systems do, isn’t allowing what we believe to be fed into AI databases really dishonoring the gods and spirits we work with, as well as our divine selves? I mean, they have been there for us for hundreds if not thousands of years, sometimes millions, asking not a whole lot else besides the power of our belief in return for what they do, in a symbiotic cycle. AI takes a lot from us and gives back corruption and hollow gratification. So I think as a collective, we should try to separate our magical and spiritual practices from AI as much as possible. 

  • My winter solstice in pictures

    When I made some hot coffee this morning I tried to focus my intentions for what I want in the next year. Also a little petition magic. 

    Pink is one of my favorite colors for emotional security and positive manifestation.

    She is Babylon. I gave her a sash, a veil, crown, elaborate jewelry, and a cup overflowing with life.

    This piece took a long time to accomplish.

    Solar magic is entirely underrated

    At this point I mostly work with metallic, satin, and gloss finish paints for my abstract art. I love the reflectivity.

  • Memento Vivere

    Sable’s nicknames were sweet girl and honeybee. I also referred to her in conversation sometimes as a salty diva because she was very much the Primadonna. She would be seeking attention one minute, and then I would walk by her a few minutes later and she would bite my foot just because she was annoyed at my presence. She never really liked toys and knew how to remove a collar. She was absolutely food crazy, and if she really liked you she would let you hold one of her paws while she took a nap. An absolute lap cat, she did not love being held but would refuse to get off of you no matter what you needed to do, or how quickly you needed to do it.

    Sable was born sometime in the spring of 2014. I never got the absolute correct date. But I got her in April 2015 so she was between eight and 10 months old at the time. At first the Humane Society would not let me visit with her because they wanted her to be adopted with her former housemates. The owner had gone into hospice. I was on the verge of signing the paperwork for a sweet little black cat named Diamond, when they came in and told me I could see her because the other two cats from the same house had been adopted without her. She completely ignored me at first, until I put my hand on her scruff the way a mother cat would, and then she climbed all over me. She wasn’t the cat I was necessarily looking for that day, but apparently she was the one I needed.

    Over a decade, several moves, friendships coming and going, and me trying to figure out what to do with my life, Sable has been there. She struggled with a stress related bladder disorder and a congenital lung condition. She hated wet food for most of her life, but would eat canned chicken or tuna. She also had this walk like the patterns in her fur were some kind of fashion statement, and always wanted me to turn on the faucet so she could drink from it. I never had to worry about her trying to go outside, and while she would watch the birds, she didn’t seem to care to try to catch them. Another nickname I jokingly had for her was sun patch cat. Because as with most cats, sunbathing was one of her favorite activities.

    There is something about that face that I always felt was almost human but I could never explain why. She knew how to manipulate with those eyes. After she came back from the vet and they had had to give her a breathing tube during dental cleaning, she had lost her voice for about a week. She figured out that if she used the same tone even when she was recovered, I would think it was adorable and pitiful and give her what she wanted. Which was generally treats.

    Sable passed away around 7 AM Sunday, August 31 of this year. She was losing her vision and mentally declining. Lung and liver conditions caught up with her and we were also dealing with a flea infestation. Someone removed all four sets of her claws as a kitten, so she had difficulty scratching let alone jumping to high places to get away from them. while I was treating my place and her, I missed the signs of anemia and she declined very suddenly. So this afternoon I laid her to rest.

    The first thing she received were what I think of as grave gifts. I work well with water and fire magic. I gave her black mother of pearl, a cowry shell, and one other I don’t remember the name of. She received four stones. Blue kyanite, aquamarine, quartz, and agatized coral. I covered her with a blend of lavender blossoms, sea salt, some ground ginger, and a little dragon’s blood oil. The last thing was this champagne silk scarf I kept in my purse. We draped it over her before covering her up. I wanted her to have a true funeral, the kind of burial that ancient pagans would give those they love with all sorts of riches included in the grave. Before we filled in the grave, I finally just asked that her reincarnation would be a reward for all that she did. I was not in the frame of mind to decide what God’s to call. I had held her while the grave was dug. I had made an impression of her paw print in clay that I will paint later on. I was not a perfect pet parent, we frustrated each other and argued, and she gave me plenty of sass. I wanted to make sure, because this isn’t done enough, that she had a respectful sendoff. Too many sweet babies are just discarded, or owners treat them as accessories instead of members of the family. That was my first strong opinion I think, that pets are family, and I remember I took so much crap for that in third grade. Please keep your cats inside, make sure they know love every day, and don’t just discard them when they become slightly inconvenient.

    The phrase memento vivere means remember to live. We are all getting swept away in the horror that is our world right now. I can translate sadness over the shitty way so many of us treat animals who love us into just doing more for the ones who have chosen me. I can acknowledge how awful our social climate is, and then prioritize doing things I enjoy like going out for coffee, artwork, thrifting and music, because personal happiness in the little moments is resistance to the darkness. I can prioritize remembering to say good morning or good night, checking on my friends occasionally without needing to be prompted, sending out a birthday text or condolence wishes, because those things forge our connection with each other. Say good night, memento mori, say good night and drive safe. Memento vivere, say good morning and you matter to me. Remember you will die, but also remember to live. Because as far as I’m concerned there are three things to do in life. Have a good time, try to learn something, and live in a way you can be proud of at the end. But I need to add to that. Be there in a genuine way for those you share this life with who are genuine with you.

    Hail the traveler. Good night sweet girl.

  • A few things I have learned

    Most skilled magic practitioners and spirit workers are not going to share methods in depth. This is because it is actually a good thing for people to earn their own knowledge, and because there are many people in these online spaces who will try to mess with your workings For an ego trip. I’m here to share the lessons I learn through my efforts. Not necessarily how I came to understand them.

    We all need deep, mutually respectful, open connections with one another. But many people are quite shallow and overextend themselves, through a sense of entitlement, demanding too much of us without building a trusting relationship where boundaries are respected. This can be emotionally invasive or abusive communication that makes us uncomfortable, invasion of personal space or physical contact that is unwanted, among other things. What this does is put us on the offensive, where we are trying to repel any potential threat and we are stuck in that state of mind. This behavior is often rooted in a sense of superiority.

    On the flipside, sometimes the people we love give us a sense of being able to trust them and we pour into them, but they don’t give back. They don’t open up to us. So we’ve shared our emotional and spiritual resources with them, and left ourselves with less than what we need. It has to go both ways. Then we shut down in order to protect what we have. In our own minds we become both the giver and the receiver. We literally feed on our own energies while we are closed off from everything else. This is stagnation. This lack of natural flow of energies between you and those who genuinely love and reciprocate with you actually undermines your ability to manifest. You want to protect your resources from those presuming to take from you. That’s wise sometimes as I’ve talked about in other posts. When you create a new connection with someone you start off giving in small ways and you see how much actually comes back. Be honest with yourself about what you are experiencing. another difficulty arises when someone pours into you so much that you are overwhelmed, literally your energy shrinks to accommodate how much they are giving you. So you want to watch for those who drain you, those who demand too much from you, and those who overwhelm you. These issues are all talked about in psychological spaces, but they affect you on a spiritual level as well by creating blockages that make it hard for you to grow, evolve, and manifest.

    The other thing I have discovered recently is the way you want to be perceived can very much undermine your own growth. Within certain parts of the broader occult community, even among the so-called left-hand path practitioners, a hierarchy of purity and virtue, of power, of ascendance, is pushed, even subtly. even when supposedly we are forging our own paths, there are still prescribed ways we are to go about magic and spirit work. And most people don’t seem to realize that they are allowed to experiment, be authentic, and question what they are taught. Sometimes there is wisdom, but sometimes it is OK to create something new and evolve.

    What I discovered about myself is that even though I considered myself somewhat of a dark magic practitioner, even though I mostly rejected the conventions of western magic practice or so I thought, I still really liked it when I was perceived as friendly, digestible, someone to be looked up to. But I like every other human am messy, gray area, random and chaotic. And because magic is fundamentally about sentience, that’s how magic is as well. Magic is about forging relationships with spirits of open communication, respect and honesty. It’s about dirt, blood, how we feel in our bodies, and bringing together the parts of ourselves we have lost or disregarded. Even the parts that suck. Because the worst in ourselves is usually based in experience that has to be acknowledged and healed. And that’s messy work.

    The best of your magic comes through when you are honest with yourself, neither trying to force an external perception of your value, nor looking down on yourself. It comes through when you are able to listen to wisdom but also be authentic, intuitive, and experimental. And it comes through when you are able to forge relationships where there is a mutual, respectful, and deep seated connection based on trust and open communication. Because you starve when you only have yourself to feed on.

  • Lessons from the goddess Kali

    I have not worked with Kali Long. I was encouraged to work with her because what she does is clear away those things that interfere with you fully stepping into your divine feminine. As this is the focus of my spirituality, in a global sense, I agreed. Very quickly a few messages were delivered.

    If you want to influence changes in the world, you have to stand on your own 2 feet. You cannot rely on others to support or save you. This goes back to the idea I have presented before of being a ruler of your own domain. You can’t wait for scraps, claw your way up some metaphorical ladder, You have to build your own throne. The only one who can sabotage that throne is yourself. This means going as deep as possible in order to face things you might have been avoiding.

    If you live with constant stress, if you’ve always had to protect what’s yours or who you are, you can develop a constant conflict mindset where it feels like everything and everyone is against you. You have to drop this. I know not everyone is ready to hear this message in the insane, turbulent world we live in. It feels like we are always treading water. A lot of the advice out there is how to react, how to deflect or diffuse, how to counter attack. And while you might need to have those strategies in your back pocket, because there are those who will want to bring you down, if you walk around in a constant defensive state, it actually attracts those who want to take what you have. If instead you recognize the boundaries of your domain, and move with the understanding that what is yours is already yours, without question, if you can cultivate a sense of security within yourself, you go from treading to just floating. You go from just trying to hold your place to trusting that you’re not going to sync and you will get where you want to go.

    Finally, anger is a shallow thing. An explosive thing for sure, but shallow. Deep, sincere feminine rage is slow, but far reaching and much more powerful. This is still something I work with her on, as one of my own personal flaws is a short fuse. So this one I’m still trying to understand. But destruction should create fertile ground for building something new, not a breeding ground for toxicity and corruption.

  • Material self-care is a spiritual prerogative

    According to many religions we all contain some aspect of divinity. Whether that is incarnation, a divine spark, a pillar, or the potential to ascend to the level of a God or goddess. At this point I feel my beliefs are a combination of the first two. We can incarnate some aspect of gods who have taken a hand in our creation and growth. For those who believe in one particular God, they say that people are made in his image. Which could be interpreted as the same thing. And we all have divine energy within us, those little gifts and moments of intuition beyond the physical.

    In my own personal practice I ally with, work with, and give offerings too, many different types of gods and spirits. So what if when we give without expecting anything in return to other people, we are in some ways making offerings to their spirits? And what if when we initiate an exchange of labor or material possessions, we are allying with that person’s spirit the same way we do with the non-physical entities we work with? Sometimes those human spirits in living bodies aren’t necessarily deserving of what we give, and sometimes we give with ulterior motives, but that’s a topic for another day. Most religions would say it is good to be selfless. But I think a healthy amount of selfishness is also a good thing.

    If the only food you have in your home is a plate of cookies, and there are five, and three people come to your home asking for food, are you going to give away all of the cookies? We have to take time to physically restore our emotional Resources, our sense of comfort in this physical reality, so that we have enough abundance to share when others need it. We do this in three ways. We are careful not to give to those who only seek to drain us. Community means that when you share resources, there is an unspoken promise that when you need support, others will share with you. This goes for emotional and spiritual resources, not just physical. You protect what you know you need. This means that the three people who came to your house wanting food can get a cookie if you know you are going to have more food in the next few hours. But if you don’t, then maybe sharing isn’t the best idea. Maybe they promised to bring something back in return. You don’t know if they will keep that promise.

    The third way is self-care. Actions that bring you a sense of well-being, contentment, and security start in the physical, boosting your emotional resources, giving your spirit space to heal. For some people this is cleaning or working out. For some people this is a rare steak and red wine. Of which I approve. For some people this is a luxurious bath involving fancy special occasion products and scented candles. Also lovely.

    How do you practice self-care?

    I personally engage in self-care in a few stages. I will enjoy a nice bath, to remember how to love the body I am in. I might bring a mineral water with me. I will listen to a favorite book. Then when I am done, I make sure to take care of my skin, put on fragrance, and throw on a favorite dress. I get ready as if I am going out on a date or with friends. But instead, I order a pizza, put on a favorite show, and acknowledge my gratitude for how much the gods and spirits I am aligned with due for me. And how incredible life is. Or if this is too much of a production, I get a mineral water or a coffee, maybe a brownie or a few pieces of dark chocolate, and I find somewhere quiet to just sit and read. I still might throw on a pretty dress though. I have put myself in a better state of mind to make it easier to handle whatever life throws at me next. And be there for the spirits of those I care about.

    I offer two courses that relate to this topic. Right now they are live for $30 an hour, and they are one hour courses. Later this year I hope to have print download options. They are glamour magic and self empowerment. You can read more about these on my courses page. 

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