Focus on hold

Legend has is among the charismatics that just when you are about too turn in the right direction, ole Satan throws a wrench in your pipeworks.
Or, as the Witches say....when the seeker needs one, the teacher would come.
But are you teacher, or distraction?
How do you know when a thing is in your best interest, especially when it feels so good.
Especially when it gives you encouragement to raise beyond your self and push your own boundries. And especially when the world seemslike your Genie is waiting to hear your wishes, and snap everyone of them into being.?
Whatever the purpose, there is no doubt in my mind that Fates are smilining on this chance encounter. That my mind was enriched by such a happening.
Every once in a while, you need to broaden your focus to see where to zoom in on next.........
broadening may be a good thing for now.

Love Bytes

The pictures says it all. I shall have to experiment in Astral travelling to go any further.

The last three days were mind changing. I felt more alive than I have felt in ages.

I feel a new direction coming on, one that is full of possibilty. One that has All Potential surrounding it.

I will never be the same.

..and I am glad.

My Magick is better than yours!

Right….so Young Lady White Magician keeps sending messages to my Facebook persona with the tenacity of a little child who has a secret to tell.
“I practice Magick” She confides.
“Oh”, I retort….”
“White Magick, not black Magick”, she responds.

Little does she know that this is dead giveaway number one that she has not been practising for long. Magick, being a tool, cannot be good or bad. It just is. Your use of it is the “good / bad” issue. Like using a knife to cut the food to feed your family, or using same knife to kill a person.

“I am in a lodge” she confides again.

Dead giveaway number two. Lodge members are not supposed to divulge that they are lodge members. Only newly recruited neophytes with egos all out of wack will let loose such information.

At this point I feign surprise that there are still lodges here. But then my ego gets the better of me as her whole conversational direction screams that somehow she things she is better than others in the group.

So like the mischevious devil that I am, I respond “Perhaps then, you could give me more information on the “Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram?”

The silence that is there for a while is punctuated by the blipping cursor on the chat screen.

“Heavy stuff there.” She answers. “Don’t you have any books to read about it?”

“Been there done that.” I respond…. “ Really though, have they began any classes on the local plant associations?”

“Oh, we don’t do that.” She replies “ Our magick is much higher than that.”

Dead giveaway number three. Lodges teach magick slowly, grade run from 0=0 then proceed slowly to 1=9, 2=8, and continue. No one has ever reached the end. At some point the instruction switches from the psychopomp rituals that the neophytes experience, to real magick which involves learning associations from Crowley’s Liber 777, and combining it which Enochian Magick, which I was never partial too. This she obviously did not know.
There was more to the conversation, but lets leave it here.

I logged off and left it at that. One of the things they warn you about when you begin Magick is exactly what Young Lady White Witch is experiencing. The Ego Trip. The “I am better than you because I practice Magick and you don’t know what you are doing” behaviour.

Ms. YLWW better check her swelling ego, or she will never go from Neophyte to Zelator level, at least not if the Lodge Master are even worth their 5=5 grades.

Blessed Be Guys, Blessed Be.

Crafting a BOS

These Books of Shadows are absolutely beautiful. I would rather love one for myself. I was checking around the craft stores the other day for little trinkets that would fit into a Book of Shadows for me. I loved the Green and Blue metallic Leatherette at Samaroo's, and began to envision an embossed metallic Dragon on my cover. Haven't bought it yet.

It got me thinking? How come our Carnival crafts have not trickled down into our everyday creativity. I mean, enough with the bikini and beads, but can we flourish

our homes, everyday things with the same creativity that you find at Carnival.

Why do we box in everything? ... Carnival should be this! Homes should be this! People should behave like this! Worship like this!
Maybe one night I shall drag my Altar and Candles into the little park in our neighbourhood, light a witchy bonfire and shock the be-bumbums out of the neighbours........
Who will probably call the police.... or leave a little note on my gate about worshipping eveil spirits. I know for sure that all the Jehovah Witnesses will find themselves at my door!
He he he..... definately will put the pentacle on the front door now..... "Come get me my pretties!"

Information Needed

What we need in this country is reliable Religious information source. This would squelch all the stoopid rumours about Pagan Faiths, and the dumb things people send around about Wicca. A Wiccapedia is a great idea...... how do we start one?

The World Tarot Card

Mental blocks

I am too psychicly open, if there is such a thing. I practically bounce off the metal limitations people put on the world here. Yeaterday, a gentleman came into the office where I work, a sort of chiropactor/ new age massage therapist. You should have seen the crowd around him...like to guy was giving out money. Anyways people came away from him after having their back "cracked" swearing it was the best thing ever. One woman wondered how to keep it feeling this way. I suggested Yoga. Immediately the walls sprang up " Nah..I hear dat does bring spirits into yuh body." I wanted to comment,"That's a Catholic conspiracy." but I kept my mouth shut. Yes it brings spirits. Spirits of Peace, Spirits of alignment etc.......... good spirits.... spirits that will keep your energies flowing.

Of course the conversation ended there. There is no use arguing with people, since any spiritaul investigation on their part will lead them to "Spirits"

I wonder what will happen if I told them that you can catch a "spirit" just by shaking someones hand, or standing too close to someone. Everyone must have felt the power of Laughter...of sadness. There are more subtle ones which people don't realize like hope, encouragement, suggestion etc......they are just as catching.

I, though will rather face and feel than hide in fear............after all, I am Master of my Soul.

Magick as a tool for Self Transcending Self

In an attempt to transcend yourself/ mind, a practice of magick can be adopted, which would rewire the brain and create a different paradigm to the one previously held. (in your mind).

Our current mental flux, which emanates around this island, creates a “net of consciousness” which has the capability of trapping other individuals who seek to transcend the “net” and their individual minds.

Each Self here is bound by thought patterns and programs, which create the paradigm by which we operate. This is passed on from generation to generation. Our core beliefs about what is, or what is not possible have been stamped and sealed in our minds; and almost nothing that we have learnt speaks to ourselves. We have been programmed in our behaviour and our beliefs. We have been programmed into the “we culture” and “ we ting.”

A friend of mine pointed this out recently. Being from another country, he is not bound by the paradigm placed on us Trinidadians. The reaction and behaviour of Trinidadians is often perplexing to others. The inability to rise above their mental limits is a curious thing. Conversations and behaviour most often have a scripted quality.

In all countries, there are cliques and stereotypes. Individuals attempt to conform to a group, which is closest to their purpose. However, the difference on a small island is that there are a limited number of cliques, limiting the number of choices, which can create a local relative meaning (local to the Self) for an individual. The cliques create their own conscious net, and only very few strong willed individuals can pull away. Almost none of these strong willed individuals are successful in creating a completely new paradigm or clique.

That being said, magick is a useful tool, which allows the individual to rewire his/her brain to transcend personal paradigm/ reality.
According to the author of the blog “Exemplum Stupendous”, magick allows for a new operating system to be introduced into the mind. This system challenges all the previously held beliefs, which the Self held as “Truth.”

It is important though, that the individual recognises those things, which his/her mind responds to, and use them to create a believable dogma or system for the purpose of achieving Self’s goals.

The Self needs to recognise the statements which held them from belief. For example, if the goal is to get a car, and the goal is not forthcoming, then there is a negative belief at the core preventing the flow of energy in Self’s observer created Universe. It is a difficult thing to realize; to purposely change your own beliefs. But it can be done. More on this will be discussed later.

It is absolutely possible, that all the associations, tools listed in Magick to shift belief (paradigm) do not register as “truth” for the individual.
Many of us, in searching for Magick do not ever sift through the wrappings of ceremony and associations to realize that we need to create our own associations. Many practioners and Wiccans would tell you that intuition is more valuable to your mind than regurgitated readings. Intuition; is the thin Golden Thread of thought, which has the beginnings of real belief.

Austin Spare said many times that the system of Magick he created was valid only to his Self. This does not mean that we throw out things and lessons practiced by those gone before. Rather, we absorb, experiment, learn the thing well, and then break all the rules and make our own. Magick needs to speak to you, not to be believed by anyone else. Be as silly and as creative as you wish to be. If you wish to wear a pair of pink fairy wings to create the belief in transcendence, then so be it.

You can find whatever tools are needed.
Listen to your Self.

Staying in the Broom Closet- for good

Yes I blog anonamously. For good reason. This country is the first to leagaaly recognize the African Based religion called Orisha. Other wise known as the Shouter Baptiste Religion, its practitioners had been fighting for years to have the law against practicing repealed. It eventualy did, and now we even have a public holiday for the group.

So on the books its legal, but its still okay to throw out a tenant from your property on the basis of religion......

happened to a friend of a friend. Also, another artist friend of mine put up an art piece flag display in a public space, and it was destroyed several times, each time she put it up again. Come on, you think I could convince these people that what I practice isn't evil....they are still debating whether to pass the Gender Equality act! I don't want to get kicked out of my apartment, or have my work thrown out of a public space.... I shall stay in the closet where it is safe and warm and cosy. Me and the broom bristles have a good thing going...and we are happy with our arrangement.

"My father is a christian, My Mother is a nothing"

So my son goes to a private Catholic School, with nuns and the like, right next to a chapel none the less. The issue of First Communion came up. He absolutely refused to do the ceremony. Says he a christian...... I let him be. The nun corners me in the school car park to protest that I was not doing my parental duty by insisting that he do the First Communion thing. She asked " Your son says that his father is a born again Christian and his mother is a nothing. What does he mean by that?"

Funny, the convent upbringing just hit me right in the face and I went into Pavlov mode. "Sidestep the question." says the good me.. "Tell her you are a witch!" says the bad me.

I shrugged and made some lame excuse about following his father's (ex-husband actually) wishes.

I couldn't understand Maddonna. Guy Ritchies complained that she didn't allow her kids to celebrate Christmas. In my house we celebrate darn near everything. The island we live on is multi-ethnic, and there are holidays for every religious or ethnic group. That helps. My household has one witch/neo pagan whatever; two born again Christians, one sort-of-Catholic; one who is too young to decide and one nothing. My Catholic baptised son is experimenting with Dragon Magick.....although he doesn't know it.....he was born in the year of The Dragon and that has stuck in his head. He believes he has powers......he knows more than he realises.

My point is that if I, or any parent for that matter wish to follow a spiritual path, then we should understand that our children too may not wish to follow that same path. We should respect that, just as much as we wanted people to respect our choices. We make the excuse that our children are too young to know better. They are not. They have been given the same tools to make that decision as we have, and that's spirit. Their desire to experience something, stems from their desire to have growth of that spirit. Desires and experience take one down a path of spiritual growth. Even if it leads to a decision to change paths, or continue. Its Growth, and this is needed for learning about yourself truly.

So we celebrate Christmas, because Santa encourages them to wish for their hearts desires. This may transalate in later life to set goals...and keep life alive. (Even though I was sorely tempted by the black Christmas Tree balls this year) I think life on this island is too limited for me to limit them from their hearts.............

Blessed Yule, Merry Christmas, Happy Eid, Happy Kwaanza, and all the other festivities we celebrate.

Just Shoot Me.

Its been about two years since I have been in the Wicca movement and I would really like to get a peice of jewelry or something to be a symbolic protection device. So I have narrowed my choices down to three patterns which I like, that represent the forces I feel drawn to.

There they are; all nice and pretty pictured together.

I have two basic problems, getting any one of them, and wearing any one of them....and I shall explain.

To obtain one, I would have two options. One - Order them from overseas. and Two - Have a jeweller make one.

Option one is more feasible, if only I could be assured that it would get to me, as somehow anything other than a letter seems to dissapear from the Postal Service in our little Banana Republic. And option two, being more difficult, as I can imagine the look I would get, just asking the people here to make one. Since gossip spreads faster than melting butter on a car parked in the blazing hot sun... I could imaging the looks and refusals of the superstitious jewellers. I may get away with the triple moon pendant, but don't even think about approaching with a pentacle!

As for wearing the thing....well I would have to keep it hidden always unless I go to an art festival or a rock session.....the former which never happens here, and the latter which I am too old for.

Even though our watch words for the country are "Discipline, Tolerance and Production", I don't think that any jeweler would have enough tolerance to produce it, and the Post office workers don't have enough discipline not to steal.......

Sigh......could I make it myself I wonder.........where is my book on jewelry making?

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewilederd

One new online acquaintance asked me the other day if I was Wiccan, Witch or Pagan. EEErk!? The lines are not so clearly defined for me. It got me wondering though about this thing that I practice which has no label. I do not follow all the ritual rules that are given. I find it hard to relate to anything else other than the All, the God and The Goddess. I understand and feel the Masculine and Feminine elements. I feel the All or quintessence flowing through everything, I do practice Magick, but I write my rituals in a way that appeals to me, and each time is completely different. I "wing it" as well if something comes to me. The way I see it, is that Magick focuses on the force that is within all, using it to implant a wish or thought, and allowing it to resonate in the Astral sphere until it becomes manifest by whatever means it can......... To me, getting caught up in which Goddess is right for the ritual, and which tool or prop to use is quite unnessary...... I resond to pictures and runes...and thats about all I use..and a few candles thrown in for good measure. The more I read about Wicca...the more I realise that it is a combination of Golden Dawn High Magick rituals, Celtic practices and Pagan beliefs. To me its almost as if a religion was made up by some.....no wonder there is no Wicca 102 or further than beginning practice....because it never got further than that for the creators. Since there is nothing wrong with creating, and being Spiritually creative...then I shall do just that...and follow my spirit to the drum I hear. Magick, to me must come from the heart. It is a special gift given by the All, and only you know how to wield your tool. For this, you must learn yourself, you must know what you respond to. So can I call this thing I do, Wicca? I don't know any more......but I know the Magick is in me, and I know I must use it. Yule Blessings to all...... and Merry Christmas, cuz if Santa doesn't come in my house, my kids will be dpressed.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewilederd

One new online acquaintance asked me the other day if I was Wiccan, Witch or Pagan. EEErk!?
The lines are not so clearly defined for me. It got me wondering though about this thing that I practice which has no label.
I do not follow all the ritual rules that are given. I find it hard to relate to anything else other than the All, the God and The Goddess. I understand and feel the Masculine and Feminine elements. I feel the All or quintessence flowing through everything, I do practice Magick, but I write my rituals in a way that appeals to me, and each time is completely different. I "wing it" as well if something comes to me. The way I see it, is that Magick focuses on the force that is within all, using it to implant a wish or thought, and allowing it to resonate in the Astral sphere until it becomes manifest by whatever means it can.........
To me, getting caught up in which Goddess is right for the ritual, and which tool or prop to use is quite unnessary...... I resond to pictures and runes...and thats about all I use..and a few candles thrown in for good measure.
The more I read about Wicca...the more I realise that it is a combination of Golden Dawn High Magick rituals, Celtic practices and Pagan beliefs. To me its almost as if a religion was made up by some.....no wonder there is no Wicca 102 or further than beginning practice....because it never got further than that for the creators.
Since there is nothing wrong with creating, and being Spiritually creative...then I shall do just that...and follow my spirit to the drum I hear.
Magick, to me must come from the heart. It is a special gift given by the All, and only you know how to wield your tool. For this, you must learn yourself, you must know what you respond to.
So can I call this thing I do, Wicca? I don't know any more......but I know the Magick is in me, and I know I must use it.
Yule Blessings to all...... and Merry Christmas, cuz if Santa doesn't come in my house, my kids will be dpressed.