Solaria Divina

Tag: spirit work

  • My holiday season

    In many Pagan and folk traditions, the end of April and early May is almost like a second Halloween, a threshold season. I’ve never really been into the hype around Halloween and the cultural wave of witchy kitsch that rolls through. I mean the pumpkin spice and the chocolate is nice, but I’ve always been frustrated by everyone wanting to pretend to be a magic practitioner or an entity from folklore, and then mocking people who believe in these things the rest of the year. I feel like I’m the only one who identifies this way, but I have this intense need for celebration. Very akin to how I feel going from Halloween, which I have mixed views on, to Thanksgiving, and then into winter solstice season. The drag for me when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas is that I am usually mostly on my own. But the transitional period we are in right now heading towards summer solstice doesn’t carry the same weight. It does however carry a parallel celebratory energy. And the fact that I’ve been feeling it lately in my bones tells me one thing. It’s time to lean into this. If only there were summer solstice decor widely available.

  • Sacred service Pt 2: civic responsibility

    I touched on this a little in my peace about sharing beauty with the world around us. We create that beauty through supporting libraries and museums, patronizing small businesses in our areas, participating in neighborhood cleanup projects and public art. We have in my mind a moral responsibility, without regarding those we are assisting as lesser, without seeking attention for our good works, and without burning ourselves out screaming about issues, to make our little corners of the world better places. That energy flows outward. We can do this as acts of devotion to our gods. Life is interconnected, even our planet has body, mind, and spirit just like we do. from the sun to the gods to the spirits that inhabit blades of grass, down to Adams with their electrical currents, everything is sentient.

    We can witness the social trials of the world without dissolving into them. We don’t need to exist in a constant state of burden and burnout. Instead, we can have space for our own happiness and exercise our agency in a real way that counts on a local level.  If the first part of the series was about nourishing our inner flame, this is about taking that warmth into the world around us physically. 

    I sat on the front steps of an old house many years ago, listening to the story of one blended family across multiple generations, hearing about the compounding circumstances they had had, the challenges they had faced. I was with a group that was engaged in cleanup in the neighborhood of Evergreen bottom in Birmingham Alabama.  We were sweeping sidewalks, cleaning up overgrown brush, removing trash. When I compare this moment to the performed distress online, I feel like we give ourselves emotional exhaustion without really changing anything these days. Another moment that gave me immense joy was working in a high school in Leland Mississippi. We washed windows, dusted books, repainted movable stage walls, and talked with the students who were there participating in the work. One moment I remember clearly was cleaning up an old water fountain that no one believed worked, and it actually did.   I think seeing their school renewed maybe gave those kids some hope, some sense that the world could actually be a better place. What we got in return, as college kids from a nice school in Illinois, was a different perspective on life. Things weren’t easy for them, but they knew how to connect with each other in positive ways. And they wanted the world to be a better place for everyone.  Despite their own difficulties they were willing to step up and work to better their own community.  I feel like now, we spend so much time being angry, burning ourselves out, and maybe that communication gets more of us thinking in the right direction, but how does it actually turn into real world change on a micro level? Because that kind of change comes from small acts with consistency. There were many other projects but another that hits close to home for me philosophically is working in a cemetery, where the last burial took place in 1984, on the side of a steep hill in Weston West Virginia. I could feel many individual energies of people who were there. So cleaning off their gravestones, getting rid of old brush, washing the steps that climbed the hill, felt like honoring them.  We should honor the places we live in, and the people we share those places with, as we are all divine. 

    I feel we could step back from the cycles of performed distress, and instead create cumulative change through small consistent actions that honor ourselves, the Earth, humanity and our gods. They’re absolutely must be spaces for anger, empathy, grief and joy. We do not have to sacrifice who we are, doing what we love, or taking care of ourselves. We just have to step up.

  • Sacred Service pt1: rituals of self-care and love

    Many traditions contend that we have divinity within ourselves and I fully agree. These rituals are comforting, indulgent, and personally devotional, and for nourishing our inner flame. Nature and the gods live within us, and through them we have inherited a divine spark.

    Keeping a small altar to self, and incorporating elements of who you are into a larger spiritual shrine are good ways to get started. On my altar there are candleholders, offering cups, and crystal plates assigned to the divine feminine side, on the left, and divine masculine side, on the right. But the elements that are there for me are a third centered candleholder, a small heart shaped jewelry box for love manifestation, and another rectangular small box for money manifestation. The overall color scheme is warm and inviting. I chose materials like bone, crystal, ceramic, cut glass to fit my aesthetic. Then my nightstand is somewhat of the altar to self. You can put a favorite scented candle here, a photograph of yourself from a moment that makes you proud. Mine currently has my favorite hand lotion, a vintage glass dish in a warm amber color, and a jewelry box where I keep my spiritual pieces. The glass dish frequently holds crystals I’m working with, a few pieces of chocolate, lip treatment.

    Taking care of your body is an ongoing act of devotion. Working out releases hormones that make us feel good. Even just a meditative walk can do this. Consuming foods that nourish our bodies, as well as those that help us emotionally regulate, or just enjoy the day, is also part of this. Bath products with fragrances you enjoy for your shower, daily skin and hair care, fragrant body lotion, even your initial morning cup of coffee, are ways to physically nourish that internal divine spark. Sing in private to your favorite music. Dance for fun.

    Ritual baths, with relaxing music, scented candles, fragrant bath products, water safe crystals for energy work, and a lack of distracting phone notifications, are one of my favorite ways to work on myself. this is about giving yourself a safe space focused on nothing but your sensory indulgence.. some people bring in a glass of wine. I like a bottle of Perrier mineral water or a thermos of hot chocolate. I will often play an instrumental harp or piano playlist on my phone, which has been set on do not disturb so no one bothers me. The candles or wax melts I choose are usually scented with things like oak, cedar, suede, and musk. My bath products usually have things like sandalwood, Amber, vanilla, sugar and caramel. I turn off the lights and distractions, use the stones I’ve brought with, which are personal favorites, to do cleansing and recharging work in the water, and just enjoy the ambience.

    Another specific thing you can do for yourself every morning is a glamour ritual. This doesn’t have to mean makeup although for me it does. I want to encourage you to read into color psychology and color theory, how it has been observed that colors affect the mind, and how colors are actually scientifically defined. The thing is, you should wear colors based on how they affect you. I tend to choose softer or more mellow colors when I’m in a cozy but functional mood. Deeper more vibrant shades and black come out when I have bigger social engagement to deal with. Your wardrobe choices should first, be physically comfortable for you to wear. Second, they should suit your aesthetic mood and how you want to project yourself to the world around you. You build from the baseline outfit with jewelry, bags, favorite perfume or cologne, and makeup if you wear it. This is emotion based dressing, with an eye toward the kind of power and influence you would like to have that day.

    Let’s talk about your morning coffee ritual. More often than not for me this is a cup of hot chocolate, or a cup of cold sweet tea. Take your time with this. Sit by a sunny window, acknowledge the positive things that you look forward to in your day, maybe give thanks to your God or gods for what you have been given. Even just that moment of peace is valuable. If you are inclined to Journal, this is when to do that. If you want music, it doesn’t have to be the soothing reset music you used for your bath, it should be something that reflects your current mood in a stabilizing way. I really like acoustic singer songwriter type music for this, which I often find on unplugged rock albums. Depending on my energy and the atmosphere of the day, this can shift from thoughtful melancholy to warm and relaxing.

    We forget to love ourselves. That’s how the world is designed. But we can reincorporate this in everything we do. That’s why self-care becomes sacred service.

  • The Solar Feminine

    The sun is a source of feminine power. She is a source of life, of courage, of warmth, of joy, of generosity. She does not need to be the receiving vessel or the reflection of the masculine. She is her own force. And the power of the sun is also cyclical I would point out. The cycle of day to night and back to day. The solar cycle of year over year.

    Feminine identity is lived in and not performative. The light side of femininity is warm, inviting, elevated, nurturing, and generous. I invest in this side of her power, my power, through self care rituals and style. Through how I decorate my home, and how I interact with others. The dark feminine is strong, protective, creative, indulgent, and wild. I invest in this through community service, being honest even if it’s not pretty or sugarcoated, being there for people I love, allowing my anger to exist, and my magical practice.

    Both the sun and the moon can be viewed as either feminine or masculine. I find the masculine in cool restful energy. Which is why my system is inverse of what is currently popular. I’m not here to justify this. Only to open the door to this possibility.

    You can connect with this power using a piece of citrine. When I did this working I dressed it with a drop of my blood. go outside on a warm sunny day. Hold the stone up to the sun and ask her to fill you with her power. It should feel as though a ray of light flows through the stone to you. You should feel calm, warmed from the inside and empowered. If it is a safe space to do so lay down in the grass and place the stone over your heart. Just live in stillness with her. Note, the blood I used in this working is for creating a physical link but you do not have to do this. You can visualize filling the stone with a deep crimson energy instead. When you are done and return inside, place the stone on a windowsill the sun regularly hits and allow it to continue to charge, and then use it anywhere you engage in self-care or creative rituals.

  • 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.

  • Sunrise working on the summer solstice

    I’d like to wish everyone a happy summer solstice. I made it a point to be outside for the sunrise this morning. I wanted to do something to honor her power, to draw on that strength for myself, and to connect with the Earth.

    For the first part of my working I aligned 3 favorite stones I always carry with me for specific purposes. One of my core beliefs is that the fulfillment of desire and the active choosing of contentment our spiritual acts you can do in-service to the gods you work with. The first stone I worked with was Rose Calcedony, to remind me of the beauty of the summer solstice and that things will always change for the better. We are always evolving and progressing. This was connected with the energy of Lakshmi, who is a goddess I work with. One of many. She is said in lore to have the luster of the sun. The second stone I brought was a piece of Chevron smoky quartz. In order to truly feel the incredible ups and downs of life, I think a lot of us as adults have to reconnect with ourselves. This involves shadow work and soul retrieval so that is how I programmed this stone.

    For the second part of this working I had a piece of white jade. This I used to connect with angelic energies, reaching out to align with feminine angelic spirits of a fiery nature. The darker spirits I work with are often aligned with water so it’s a balance. Three came to me And channeled their names. I think I will keep those private. But their energies flowed together and through me. But the element of fire was significant to them. All three had a similar build, long red hair and white gowns. They did not show wings.

    The third segment of this working was to connect with the Earth, the sun, and the wind, to recharge and heal my body. The currents of energy from the Earth and the wind were especially strong and I could physically feel them.

    The last part went a little sideways. There is a large tree behind my apartment building. I attempted to work with its energy and discovered that it contains a parasitic spirit who attempted to feed me toxic energy. I was going to invite several spirits I work with to a further part of this ritual but ended up having to go back inside.

    I did not want technology involved in this ritual so I have no pictures of the sunrise which was in any case blocked by another building and the trees. But the wave of power that came with the light this morning was truly spectacular.

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