For me, the more difficult stuff is the day-to-day. Which is why I consider my experiences with the dead, the very thing that scares me the most and that I often wish would just go away, what saved me from a half-life of living up to expectations.

There are living, and dead, that see the world as having two kinds of people: bullies, and victims. This is why ghosts who experienced terrible deaths then turn around and do terrible things to people that cross their paths. It’s why in life, so many women implicitly or explicitly involve themselves in the victimization of other women.

I do not see the world this way. We have other choices, options three, four and infinity. They are not the popular or easy choices, but alive or dead, we have them available to us.

It is not that we have no limits. It is that we ultimately have unlimited in choice in how we choose to behave.

There’s more than good or evil. You will probably have more than one true love in your lifetime, and at least half of those loves you will never have sex with and probably will never want to. Soulmates come in packs, and most are unpleasant. No two marriages, snowflakes, stars, or dogs are the same.

We all have choices, and the ultimate evil is the evil of taking another being’s choice away.

There is more to the world than bullies and victims. When you learn things that some might consider dangerous, unfeminine or frightening, you do not have to learn them for the sake of seeming more power-dominant. You can learn them to evolve, to have tools prepared for when the bullies and victim subscribers cross that line, to do the ultimate magic: make sure nothing happens.

Hoodoo scares the crap out of people. Just mentioning it to some friends causes them to visibly flinch.

I’ve reading about hoodoo, but not for the power. I have absolutely no need to seem more scary.

My involvement in Wicca was never about power-seeking and it actually nothing to do with my feminism. I have always had plenty of power.

Information really is power, and I’m good at getting it.

My wedding guests made it clear they planned to be themselves all the way through my ceremony, so as a preventative measure, I mixed up domination oil. I never used it, as the guardians I work with saw my making it as an indicator of how much I wanted their help. Still, I was advised to hang on to the oi, that I would know when to use it.

One strange evening, a woman who frequently asked me for my magical skills found the  domination oil in my repertoire. She saw it before, knew I had made it, but acted as though I hadn’t. This time, she immediately assumed the worst, because at the time she was looking for an excuse to cast me as a bully and to confirm her continued role as a victim.

It was also projection. To her mind, if she had domination oil, she would use it, and therefore that’s what I would do.

I suspect I’m keeping it around for the next woman who finds me when she needs to get out of an abusive relationship alive. Bullies and victims are quite real, after all, and the bullies and the victims that become bullies are forever fucking up life or frustrated that they aren’t for those of us who are choosing something else instead.

When you look at its cultural history, hoodoo is all about the bully or be bullied mentality. It has undeniable roots in African-American culture, and is one of the byproducts of American slavery.  Hoodoo developed, as did all magic, as a method of survival.

According to Judica Illes, most domination and compulsion work was extreme self-defense, to avoid getting raped, killed or accused of a crime you did not commit.((and sometimes to avoid consequences for crime you did darn well do yourself.))

I turned to Wicca because I was desperate to prevent other people from taking away my future. But I already had power, and I used it to find a way – the way I found was Wicca.

I’m interested in hoodoo because, after years of Wiccan magic, I want to become better at what I do. Hoodoo has follow up, discipline and a worldview of “use what is at hand” rather than “judge what is at hand,” that resonates with me. While I can never call myself a Conjure – my beliefs just won’t line up – I appreciate the artistry and discipline behind the practices that look raw and frightening.

Many hoodoo practitioners are on to options 4 – 1000 themselves and used their magic to make those options. What would a life with magic in it, that allows for possibilities beyond be the bully or be the victim, look like? My own vision isn’t a perfect world peace, more of a society where a lot of people wear “Work in Progress” T-shirts.

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A reviewer on FourSquare posted that “Marshall’s is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.” While I don’t think deities are overly concerned about the accessibility of heavily discounted name brand home and clothing items to North Americans suffering from a national stuff-glut, I do have to say that Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, and its lesser known offshoot Home Goods is freaking awesome.

Above, you see my latest seasonal find at Home Goods. I plan on buying a box a week for the duration of Halloween season, because – well hell, I’m a witch. There are SO many awesome, non-nefarious uses for tea-light sized black skull candles. In my case, it’s the international symbol of “I am putting an end to this bullshit.” I can also use it to honor the departed, stick a snake pellet in its head to represent or call forward a dramatic transformation (though I’m deeply disinclined towards drama) or just hang out, silently tolerating the relentless rounds of “Alas poor Yoric,” and “To be or not to be,” that makes me wonder what Daria Morgendorffer were say if it were her skull in Hamlet’s hand.

I’m getting ready for a big trip this week, which has led to me doing some heavy duty workings. While I can’t share the bulk of them for a long while, I can at least point to the techniques I’m using. For some reason, my poetry muse speaks loudest when I’m writing spells. Now if only we could negotiate a better schedule, as I do need my beauty sleep.

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I once nearly chewed out my own eyeball trying to figure out what energy is. In an ill-begotten essay rough draft, I used a scene a college professor flagged as pretentious where I shuffled around from my computer to my ex, using the kinetic use of the wheels on my chair as an illustration.

It really was a losing proposition: the professor was grading a rough draft I wrote in class, on the spot. It was an exercise designed to humiliate.  Indeed, the red scribbles on my page embarrassed me so much I dropped the subject altogether. Also, the essay was terrible.

He was right, I was being pretentious – and the problem on the page was that I didn’t know what in the hell I was talking about. I still consider the technique of grading free writing a dirty, low-down trick.

I also never did figure out what energy was. I still don’t know, and that makes me feel awkward when I talk about magic. We mention all this stuff about “energies’” and “spirits.” Sometimes we bring it into something a touch more concrete, by mentioning vibrations that revolve around light and sound.  I’m among those that prefer not to stray too far from physics – the laws of magic must follow the laws of nature, and that includes working with the laws of human nature. To force your will is to break something irreparably, but to work gently within to without invites what you work with to cooperate, to lend its energy, to work with you in the reshaping of reality. But if it’s lending that energy – what IS that energy, that star stuff, that random filler word that isn’t quite Chi and isn’t quite electric current?

If pulling from Encylopedia Britannica might do me any good, energy is defined as “the capacity for doing work.” This makes it sound like the alchemists, Hermeticists, and Thelemites then work right along the line with various collective pursuits of the Great Work. I do think of my own energy levels within the atomic physics definition – how much work can I do? How much am I physically and mentally able to accomplish? Grounding and centering is phrased as such to refer to a current, to the connection of energies that flow through us, and not just what we naturally contain.

What continues to make energy and its processes difficult for me is its ephemeral nature. I’m Wiccan with polytheist/animist leanings; abstractions and ambivalence give me trouble and that’s why I reframe them. I’m less invested in whether the God/ess(es) are any certain way or pantheon – I’m more concerned with getting it all into a framework I can direct the energy of my belief to in a given situation. It’s not about what is to me – it’s about what works. If energy is the capacity for work,  then I’ve just brought myself right back around in a circle again.

I’m suddenly gaining some empathy for my dear departed fox terrier chasing  his tail.

Energy, by being defined as a capacity, is a noun…for a verb. It’s an action – but it’s also a force of being. We can influence and change energy, but it can also sneak up and pounce on us with a lightning strike or a sudden impact when an asteroid comes careening out of the sky. It is, without exception, in absolutely everything, living, dead, never alive in the first place. If it’s still, it’s potential. If it’s active, it’s kinetic.  It lies within air (wind), sun (fire), water (hydro-power and emotional motivation) and earth (through sheer, impassive potential.)

It’s always, always, always THERE. It prevails beyond the power of death and taxes.

With energy, I don’t think anyone knows exactly what it is, and what pushes it into motion can differ from one moment to the next – and a force had to start that into motion, like endless dominoes tipping over into infinity.

So I don’t know what energy is, but I know it’s the single major element in absolutely everything I do from brushing my teeth to casting a spell. I know it’s not infinite, but it can be renewed. Renewal seems to work best by rotating and even staggering the sources I draw from, whether that’s variety in my diet or hugging a different tree every day.

But energy is something I can’t pinpoint to explain when it’s still, and when it’s in motion, it’s slipping past me too fast for me to grasp.

I just know it’s there, and it’s important, and we can measure it and feel it, even though we can only see, hear, smell, taste or touch its byproducts. When When I talk about energy, the above is what I mean – it’s all “sort of” until you come to your own intuitive understanding of how you experience it.

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I think that’s why I see one quibble after another by people who identify as practitioners about reasons not to perform magic. While an honest desire for change my bring a person to magical practice, at some point the fear of change sets in.  It’s a bit embarrassing, getting past the gates of fear marked “Occult’” only to find yourself two miles in and pissing your pants again. I still terrify myself on a regular basis.

Personally, I think that’s why people concoct one so-called magical ethic after another that essentially demands inaction.

“Don’t cast a spell for a job. That might give you an unfair advantage.”

“Don’t visualize an open parking space – what if someone needs it more than you?”

“If you map out good places for ritual around here, people will go and vandalize them!”

“You should avoid spells. They could have unforeseen consequences.”

“You might hurt yourself.”

That’s all true. Risks and unforeseen consequence are inherent in all change.  Just because it’s true, however, does not mean it’s a good reason.

Just to give you my full perspective: I consider Reiki a classic situations where specific energy workers are overly convinced of their rightness and sometimes make decisions for people in for exactly the reason people breed these hesitations about magic work;  I’ve been “treated” more than once without my permission, and every time it’s completely screwed up progress I’d made on healing work I’ve done for myself. I can guarantee you that when a practitioner asks me “higher self” for permission, S/he’s answering “For fuck’s sake, no!”  But therein lies the key difference: magic you work for a job or parking space is based on a decision you make for yourself. The uninvited reiki was some asshole making a decision for me.¹ Please note that I say uninvited reiki – I have no quarrel with people who have offered me help, and from whom I have accepted that help. It’s not their fault that the help did little if anything.

When you sit down, stand up, flip a switch or get a drink you at the very least squash an amoeba. A living thing dies every time you eat – not just furry animals. Plants are alive too. Life feeds on life, after all. You can sit on your ass flipping channels all day, and you still cause change in the world.

No matter how much you limit your footprint, you have an effect on the world around you. Rearranging it with magic is one more step into that effect.

Whenever the whatever tribe first came up with the idea of magic, the entire purpose was to get some kind of advantage. An advantage in the hunt, an advantage in crops – an advantage to help us survive. Magic served two purposes: to give us a sense of control over areas where we felt we had none, and – if you happen to believe magic is real and works – to give us a tool to ensure our survival.

What we need for survival differs these days, and whether or not comfort factors into survival depends on who you are. I personally see no shame in ensuring my comfort; I do more good and feel more generous when happy than when cranky.

So along with fear of change – magic is tricky in that we don’t always record or sort what we do – is a sort of denial. If the magic works, we have to admit responsibility. If the magic changes our lives, we have to acknowledge that we have a hand in it, that there is no one to blame and that there was something more that could have been done. If you use a moral “high ground” – “what if I have an unfair advantage?” it’s hiding from the possibility of failure, that possibility that even if you cast the spell, you’re not “good enough.”

This does not mean “ignore the consequences.” On the contrary – the more specific the working you want to do, the more closely you should look at your divination tools for the big picture. You can cast a spell for that certain job, but if you do a tarot reading and find the Devil, or the Hierophant, Emperor or Empress inverted, you will see a warning about a regrettable boss. That certain someone you want to aim your lusty energy could turn out to be a freak show that’s not on your level of kink, something you’ll find out the hard way once your head clears from the hormones and fantasy.

If you do think your spell affected someone, also pull out your divination tools. First, you might be wrong. Second, that person might have his or her own chain of events and choices that led to some karmic lesson and you just happened to walk up to the slot that person left open as a result. We are finite beings working with the tools we have – just because you have the power of magic on your side does not mean that unknown persons aren’t using their own tools, contacts and advantages.

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1. Reiki may be “universal life energy” but the method is not universally applicable. Most reiki practitioners I have met have a very difficult time accepting this, as it goes directly against what they’re taught/attuned to. I have tried it, with practitioners I trust and respect. It doesn’t work for me, and often does more damage. I do not think this is because I am built from some Qlipothic energy, and I don’t think an attunement would make a difference. I’m just, energetically something else not labeled or conceived of within reiki. Whatever that may be, I believe myself to be entirely human.

The seal above is from Heptameron, i.e. Magical Elements. It is in the manuscript used for assuming robes/ritual vestures. It might be applied also to assuming a magical/other persona or switching personas, as you might need to between work/home/family. At least, I think this is for persona assumption – it might call up the four archangels and compel them to order a pizza. I have a hard time with esoteric translations on the fly.

My best friend, Brenda, has worrying down to an art form. Honestly, I think if she’s not worried, she worries that she’s doing something wrong.

Right now, she’s worried about her other best friend. While I can’t disclose the details, there’s a whole lot of travel to foreign territories that don’t always give people back when they leave. So Brenda has commissioned me to create a way to protect her dear one.

I’m using the Anna Riva book – yes, that one – to pull out various seals for protection. I don’t think her friend owns a Smart Phone and it might not work where she’s going, so we’re making a “good trip” card for her to stick in her luggage or purse. It will actually be harmless – a piece of cardboard, words scribbled inside – and no person in the world will need to open a suitcase to look at it. She could just take the card as carry-on if she wants. It will contain a weaving of seals for protection; if you charge up the sigil, it works whether it’s on dead tree or dead goat.

It occurs to me, as I keep finding stuff for myself, that I could again use my Smartphone more for these magical applications. If I want a seal to work for me, I could snap a photo from my book or upload a file I’ve charged (by meditating at the computer screen) and setting it as my Droid screen background. I could, especially with the series of seals I wish to use, create a “Live wallpaper” that streams the seals like a slide show, flashing out influence whenever the phone is on.

Obviously, I couldn’t use it on a plane – the phone has to be off, and most of the time I get stuck behind a seat recliner that steals any possibility of working on my laptop when I do fly.

Oh, the possibilities!

Note: Since I am going to turn Magickal Realism into a botanica and open up a second perfumery for scent collectors, you may see an expansion on this soon.

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Unless you’re obsessed with entity contact, magic is really for the practical. Given how much of evolution revolves around all-important survival, that makes sense. If you read The Golden Bough
or any of the books by Charles Leland, you’ll see what I mean. Spells, from the beginning of history, address practical matters involving food, sex and eventually other resources. While we’ve complicated magic by adding layers of needs, and human nature causes us to always have additional wants after we’ve gratified one want – magic for most comes back down to what some might consider very aspiritual needs: safety, sex, money and love.

I see nothing wrong with this.

Over the past few years, I’ve added increasing layers of Ceremonial magic to my daily practice. It’s not uncommon for Wiccans to do this, although I hear the following schools of thought:
1. You shouldn’t do it unless you’re going to take up CM as your full path, otherwise you’re just a dabbler
2. CM is bad, it will expose you to devils/”conflicting energies”/assorted crap
3. Use this system instead, it’s my system/method and it’s better
4. (Relevant) To block yourself from spiritual entities is to block yourself from spiritual growth

I have decided that where I’m concerned, all of the above is total bullshit. I’ve found quite a lot to value in combining methods, especially given that if the body and spirit are indeed one, a program of specific geometric maintenance seems the most sensible, applicable and fast. I’ve meditated for years in order to achieve the basic clarity I can get from one simple LBPR.

I’ve also discovered a few misconceptions along the way.
1. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
It doesn’t banish entities. It banishes your blocks to seeing, sensing, perceiving. You’ll be able to sense things better as it gradually wears down your own blocks. If you do the entire ritual and call in the archangels they an apprehend a few things, but a lot of the time it really just draws even more attention. I realize, based on working with Joel, that not fully explaining a ritual can help the student come to the conclusions about what it’s for. That said, I really hate the practice in CM of never telling you what a ritual is supposed to do. Letting the student “figure it out” is cutesie bullshit that keeps magic and magical practice from genuinely evolving.

Also, most people really never go past this. I’ll assume it’s fear. Since the very next one most people learn actually shuts down the random crap that comes with spiritual opening, it’s really a shame. The Lesser Hexagram Banishing Ritual of Saturn? It’s effective. I call it the BS banishment. No scary side effects unless you count tripping over the furniture.

2. The Middle Pillar
Not so harmless. If you’ve been banishing blocks steadily, you can still release stuff stuck in your body that will fuck you up. At least mine did, and that’s taken a good year to clean up. Frankly, I’m afraid to try it again even if I feel great immediately after performing it.

3. The Rose Cross
Not only not advanced, incredibly useful. Where the hell was this off switch when I had a haunting preventing me from sleep last winter? Oh yes, on my bookshelf all along. I plan to test this ritual on a schizophrenic cat I know, as well. It’s not animal testing if it’s intended for the animal’s benefit…wait. Whatever, the cat can’t be harmed worse than it already has been.

I am really tempted to write something akin to a magical cheat sheet for people who do want to practice magic and then just get on with their lives. There’s so much chest pounding stuff out there about “not spoon feeding” that implies that those who ask for an explanation are automatically lazy. Yes, there are lazy people out there, and they won’t work the magic no matter how well it’s explained. For those that are fearful but could use the magic to reduce the fear, I think spelling it out is the best thing to do. The Gods know I’m willing to do the work, take the risks, go mad – and I’ve come to the conclusion, having gone down the darkest road that not only is it completely unnecessary, there’s no sin whatsoever in bringing or sharing a flashlight.

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See larger image Kabbalah, Magic & the Great Work of Self Transformation: A Complete Course (Paperback) By (author) Lyam Thomas Christopher List Price: $22.95 USD New From: $14.22 In Stock Used from: $7.50 In Stock

1. I would define my love life before Wicca as inappropriately long relationships for a teenager dotted by moments of absolutely nothing.

a brief note to Archangel Azrael

Azrael -

Throat gave me that sensation of closing off and I feared you and I might have an unscheduled visit. Doctor at the emergency room assures me it only feels like my throat is closing off, and while the hypersalivation is annoying and gross I’m not actually drooling. The general consensus, once they realized I’m a fat person minus the stereotyped fat diseases was, “Huh, that’s weird, but not life threatening.”

You seem like a good guy¹, and I just want you to know that I’m not afraid of you at all. I do maintain an ability to compartmentalize more than most, so should my death be of sucktastic circumstances I promise not to take it out on you. It seems, given these peculiar visits upon my body, that you are no more eager to take me than I am to go. I understand that – I have a feeling that upon my death, my life will get even more interesting, and my life as it is is about all I can handle right now.

In fact, it seems like these not-quite killing me incidents are a reminder that even you want me here for as long as possible. OK, I’ll work with that.

In Love,

Diana

Yes, I really did go to the ER last night. I’m fine now, but everyone from the nurse to the attending physician to the head doctor kind of poked at me, ruled out the usual fat person health assumptions, and went… “That’s weird.” The attending was also extremely impressed that I used the words “hypersalivation” and “expectorate” in a correct yet casual context.

“Are you in the medical profession?”

“No, I just did really well on the verbal portion of my SATs.”

My personal theory is that in addition to and separate from my corn syrup allergy, my body has a lower than normal starch tolerance. I can eat pasta, potatoes, whatever – but I can’t have too much of either in the same day. In fact, every time this happens it’s preceded by some sort of starch binge, although this “binge” was much smaller than the last ones.

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1. guy being gender neutral in this parlance

- Diana Rajchel

This came to me today, one of those whispered visions I get while making tea and minding my own business.

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It did not.

Instead I found the bus careening down 35W, and I found myself deposited at Roseville Mall. Roseville may boast expensive stores, but free wireless for a writer looking to work it does not. So I sucked it up, bought a ticket to the next movie I could tolerate the idea of seeing and then took myself for lunch at a restaurant where the waiters attempt to ply you with booze when there’s a pretty good chance you’re on your lunch hour.¹ Lunch was pleasant enough – read Proven Guilty from the Dresden Files, the waiter wasn’t excessively pushy for me to leave, and as it turned out lots of people must have taken the wrong bus because that was a fairly busy theater with a mature audience for a weekday afternoon.

It was totally worth it. Not only was it totally worth it, I am elated I got to see it by myself.

If you are in any way magically minded, you will want to see this movie. It explores layers of the conscious and subconscious, lucid dreaming, dream projection…all sorts of fantastic ideas we talk about but rarely try to express visually. While I know some old-school shamanic types get hung up on “well that’s not how it looks to me,” we can shove those aside into the Gallery of Point Missers and carry on with the exploration. There are certain TV shows and movies I bookmark as teaching tools, though I’ve yet to really use them: the tarot episode of Xena, What Dreams May Come, and now Inception.

Thank you spirit of G.O.D for sending me to that movie, and letting me enjoy it alone so I can process it wholly on my own terms.

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1. In the US drinking alcohol at lunch on weekdays is frowned on. We gossip about you Europeans and the beer in your workplace refrigerators with tones of scandal but looks of envy.