Tag: Pagan

Blessing Cord

Industry

Adam Sartwell

The thirty-fifth bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of industry. It is the blessing of earth in Malkuth. In this blessing we take the power of Geburah and apply it to the earthly plane. Industry is the passion for work and creation. Industry is what we do to get all the things we need done done.

When I think of industry I start to think about some of the people I know who do craft-fairs. They personally produce a great deal of product with their many talents. They pack in as much crafting time before the fair as they can. There is a sort of furious fire of creation fueled by this deadline. Industry like this can bring stress because of the intensity of its energy, but it is this power that can help us achieve so much.

One of the things that can hold us back from the blessing of industry is the slowing effect of procrastination. We all avoid that which we feel is annoying or unpleasant, putting it off to the last minute, even though we know it is necessary or good for us. This makes changes more and more difficult. At times when I find myself doing this I make a list of all the things I know I should do and then rearrange the list for what I don’t want to do the most to be at the top. Then I take a day and just do everything I can on the list. I am always amazed how much less times it takes me to get things done then I thought once I just get started.

Another way I stoke the fires of my industry is using the Pomodoro technique developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. Basically you make a list of all the things you need to do. Then you choose one to work on for traditionally 25 minutes which is called a “pomodoro.” They are called pomodoros because the timer Francesco used was tomato-shaped and pomodoro is tomato in italian. During this pomodoro you focus only on the task at hand. Any time you think of something or want to do something else you write it down on your list and get back to the task you were focusing your pomodoro on. When the timer goes off, you take a three to five minute break and then start a new pomodoro on either the same subject or a new one from your list. After you have done four pomodoro sesions with breaks you take a longer break that is 15 to 30 minutes. If you finish before the pomodoro is up it is suggested that you focus on over learning. Over learning to study something to refresh you memory about it. I just clean if I have extra time in the pomodoro, there always is more cleaning to do.

In this meditation we take some of the energy and power of Geburah and send it to future moments and times where we need to have the fire of industry. You might want to make a list of the things you need to get a move on about and prioritize them so you are ready with a few instances where you are going to need the blessings of industry. Don’t choose more then three things for this meditation because with the get-it-done energy of Geburah we can also invoke the stress and anger of Geburah and unbalance ourselves. Stress and anger directed toward a positive end can be useful but too much can be unbalancing. Industry can also be turned into overwork if we aren’t careful. Use moderation and your good sense.

Meditation of Industry

Hold the thirty-fifth bead, the bead of the blessing of Industry, the blessing of Earth in Geburah. Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand to create a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as the sphere fills with a red light. Vibrate the god name of Geburah: El-oh-heem Gi-boor

The red light around you begins to fade and become a red sphere of light above you. At any time you can access the energy of Geburah by calling it down from this sphere. Before you conjure a picture of yourself doing the work that is on your list. See it in as much detail as you can. Ask the image of you doing this work what the reason is that you haven’t finished this project. Clear your mind and be open to any answers. It may be that the image changes or begins to talk to you to tell you why. You may get a feeling of knowing. Whatever the reason, forgive yourself for it. You may have a person show up as the reason you have issues getting this done. Forgive this person and embrace them.

Bring your attention back to the image of you doing the work you have put off. Draw down the red energy of Geburah with a breath in and with your exhale send it into the image of your work. See your image self surrounded in the red light. As you do, they begin to work harder on getting this project done. Time seems to speed up in the image until you are at the finish of the project. Breath in more light and send it to the image of the completed project. Begin to feel what it is like to have the project done. Use all your senses. Know that this project will be completed in the proper time. Release the image knowing that as it fades it goes into manifestation.

You may repeat this process with two other projects or continue to your return with the rest of this meditation.

The red light again fills your view obscuring all else. You feel a gentle decent as the red light fades. Your sphere returns to the shape and size of the screen of the mind.

Count your self up into waking consciousness and ground and center yourself.

Contemplation

What are you procrastinating on? How do you feel about what you are procrastinating on? What are your reasons why you don’t want to do it? What actions will move you forward on your path? Can you change the way you think about your task so that you enjoy it or at least are relieved when it is done?

Blessing Cord

Patience

Adam Sartwell

The thirty-third bead on the blessing cord is the blessing of Patience. It is the blessing of earth in Binah. There are three elements that must be invested into any manifestation: space, energy, and time. When we work on creating something we make space for it to exist, we devote our energy and focus to its creation, and we give it time to form. This last one has the blessing of patience ingrained within it. It can also be the most difficult of the three.

We can start to have unrealistic expectations of manifestation. Not every process is as quick as our Amazon order with overnight shipping. This desire for instant gratification of our desires has lead us as a people to become more demanding and entitled.

We not only put this expectation onto our manifestation but also to ourselves. My partner Steve likes to use the example from the movie Young Sherlock Holmes, where Watson comes in to an angry Sherlock cussing out himself for not being able to master the violin. Watson asks “How long have you been playing it?” Sherlock answers something like “Two days! Can you believe I haven’t mastered it yet?”

This is a fictional account, of course, but a great example of how unrealistic expectations lead us away from the patient creation of a truly magical manifestation. Some things take longer to manifest. We have to sometimes devote ourselves and our patience to the goal and keep working on each step along the way. The road can be winding and we sometimes can loose focus and hope. We will never see the outcome if we don’t continue down the path. This takes patience.

I spent years helping kids in group homes, training them to become better people. To adopt strategies that would help them through life. I knew their success could be a reality and would patiently correct behaviors until they reached a modicum of success. I found over the years that it was okay to loose patience every once and a while. To lose our faith in the manifestation, as long as we could return to that patience and hope and begin again. Much like the practices of mindful meditation. Sometimes we get distracted or thrown off, and that is okay as long as we return to our focus. That’s not a failure to meditate, it’s part of the process and the practice of meditation.

Jason Augustus Newcomb, in his book The New Hermetics, gives a mudra trigger exercise to program during your meditation so you can access more patience and tranquility in any situation. The mudra of tranquility and patience is to connect your thumb and middle finger at the tips while the rest of your fingers are relaxed and open. The middle finger is the finger of Saturn and the element of earth, both are very patient energies. In this meditation we make this mudra even stronger by making it a trigger for patience and tranquility. You can use this mudra to gain patience in any situation and invoke your tranquility.

Meditation of Patience

Hold the thirty-third bead of the blessing cord, the bead of the earth of Binah, the bead of Patience.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand to create a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as the sphere begins to lose all illumination, until you are surrounded by a black endless void. Resonate the god name of Binah: Yod Heh Vauv Heh El-oh-heem.

In this black endless void conjure up a time where you were not patient. Observe this memory like a watcher from the outside. What was your posture? What were your hopes in that moment? Did you think that they could become true? Had you lost faith in your ability to manifest? Were you bored with what was going on? Were you frustrated? Reacting to a stimulus? Why do you think you lost patience and tranquility in this moment?

Rewind time to the beginning of the scene. Imagine what would have happened if you had been patient. Imagine yourself filled with patience and tranquility. Doing what needed to be done in that moment and feeling peace that all will happen as it needs to happen. All your needs manifest.

When you are finished with this scene, release it. Go to a time where you felt like you had a great amount of patience. Observe how you felt. What was different then the first scene? How is it better and more tranquil?

Really feel the energy of patience and begin to hold your hands in the patience and tranquility mudra. Imagine your patience and tranquility multiplying a thousand times its usual strength.

Charge this mudra with the following statement.

“I program this hand position as my patience and tranquility trigger. When I hold my hands like this, I will instantly feel patient and tranquil. I will do my work of the moment with faith that all my needs are met for the highest good, harming none.”

Feel the patience and tranquility. Release your mudra. Know that this feeling is always there when you need it. Your screen returns to its normal shape and size.

Count yourself back up to waking consciousness.

Give yourself clearance and balance. Ground if necessary. Write down your experience.

Contemplation

What throws you out of patience and tranquility? Why do you choose to let it get to you? Are you  continuing with all the steps you need to do to get to your goal while being patient?

The Real Magick of Charmed

Pilot: “Something Wicca This Way Comes” – Part 2

Adam Sartwell

images

After the credits the three sisters come back together in their ancestral home, the Mabon night stormy with a full moon.  The sisters play with their mother’s spirit board. The spirit board gives them the message “attic” and the lights go out. Pheobe goes to the attic and finds the Book of Shadows and begins to read the spell to unleash their powers. After this initiation the witches find their powers in normal everyday circumstances. Phoebe, having read the book, informs her sisters that evil will now be attracted to them so that they can use there powers to fight evil. They fight the warlock Jeremy by casting a spell on him, only to have an altercation with him in the manor.

This episode has some vocabulary for us to talk about.  The Spirit Board or Ouija board is a board with letters, salutations, and answers, that is used to comunicate with the spirits using a pointer or plachette.

A Book of Shadows is a witch’s journal and notebook where they record their spells and rituals and anything that they feel is necessary to pass on or remember. In the Charmed universe the book of shadows seems like a living connection to their ancestors.

The sisters have unleashed their powers in this episode. In the real world, not many witches come from an unbroken witchcraft line that goes back as far as in this show. The Charmed Ones come from a Family Tradition, which is when a family practises witchcraft and passes on what they know to their decendants. This is rare, because most magickal traditions are shunned in our world. Hopefully as time goes on and magickal traditions are more accepted this kind of family tradition will become less rare. 

Most witches don’t have a tradition handed to them. We have to forge our own way by learning from books, teachers, and our own experience. Though some of the lucky ones have family members that do pass on interesting magickal facts and talents. Like in my own family, my grandmother uses my grandfather’s ring to dowse for answers from the spirit world. My father and grandfather used dowsing to find electrical lines, wells’ and water under the ground. These are just a few of the things they passed to me. I have used my own dowsing skill to find my keys in the bottom of a lake.

What happens when Phoebe reads from the Book of Shadows would be what we call an initiation in the real world. An Initiation is a ritual to induct someone into witchcraft. It can also pass along a current of the tradition and connect you to all the energies of that tradition. Initiations can be done as a solitary witch on your own. Much like an attunement in Reiki, they can open up powers and skills the witch may have not had before, or enhance the ones they already have.

There is a saying in the Craft that “witches are born not made.” This saying is a way to say that witchcraft is in the blood of the witch and is hereditary. Psychic powers are reported to travel in families and sometimes skip generations; this is true with witch powers as well. It is not the only way a witch gains their power and abilities, however. Witches can get abilities from past lives, teachers, and their own work.  In the Charmed universe the witches enherit their powers by blood, in real life we have to work to gain reliable abilities. The initiation is sometimes believed to make you a witch, but it is really doing the work of the witch that makes you a witch.  Initiations can help to help us be reborn as a witch thus making us a witch through symbolic and ritual rebirth. Initiations can happen through life experiences as well and our ritual initiations are designed to give us that experiance.

Whether you’re born, apprenticed, or self-made anyone can be a witch, it takes talent, work, and experience to get good at it.