We got a wardrobe! Huge thing with plenty of room for every piece of clothing and accessory we own. Huge thing needs room, and that prompted the big moving and rearranging of the rest of the apartment. I was surprised how the changes, the cleaning, the sorting and the moving affected me. I was excited, nervous, then cranky, tired, and in the evening ridiculously happy. When we went to sleep at 1 am, the world was beautiful and my man was the best. I haven't slept so well in years. I woke up motivated and ready to tackle the tasks of the day. I'm in love with our wardrobe!
Now that I have the wardrobe as a physical reason to really sort out things and clean and organize, I'm unstoppable. My man is asking if I'm okay, because he has apparently never seen me so invested in the household! I can feel the energy of our living space moving, changing, waking up and paying attention. I'll be done with the big tasks by the end of the week. Then the magical cleaning and working can begin!
I cleared a surface for my first ever altar, found a beautiful scarf and today came across big wide candles in ceramic bowls that I knew belong there. I'll see how my man reacts, and whether I can prevent him from putting his cell phone and hand lotion there, as it is in our bedroom...
As for magic and enchanting, here's my response to the prompt.
I'm still keeping it small, focusing on getting my place clean, shiny and ready. I'll be making a honey pot or two as soon as I can, many people are talking/writing about them and I haven't heard of them before! I'm learning tarot, though I have a hard time coming up with questions for myself.
I'm not a fan of doing magic or reading for every single thing. I make decisions and I carry the consequences. I have to act in real life to get any results, and right now I see magic as a way to get to know myself , and a "power kick" in addition to physical action. I'd do magic to focus on my intent, get clarity about what I want and then have a remainder of that clear intent and act towards it. I see this kind of magic everywhere, a "lucky necklace" here, a vision board there, somebody looks at their list of goals every morning and imagine they already achieved them, I have a picture of the phone I really really want hanging on the wall above my desk... I also often see people throwing all the responsibility on the circumstances, or the spirits, the cards, the energy, etc. They ask everything and everyone for signs, unable or unwilling to make a decision, and by default ignoring the signs they are given. This is why I'm careful and slow with magic. I'll celebrate the holidays and I'll do rituals and I'll read cards, but I'm wary of giving up the control over my own decisions and actions. Thoughts?
(Also, I REALLY REALLY want to take the Strategic Sorcery Course that starts on 2nd February! A lot of what Jason Miller writes resonates with my understanding of magic , the course gets brilliant reviews by newbies as well as experienced practitioners, everyone seems to be talking about it, and my birthday is on the 6th February! I'm just gonna wish for it really hard. And strategise.)
I've also been paying more attention to my dreams and my intuition. Since the pomegranate-seeds-ritual and then the solstice ritual, the little voice in my head wouldn't shut up, and sometimes it takes over and talks out loud. I invited it in, opened up for it, I said "for a year and a day, you're welcome" ... and it still surprises me anyway. It's been telling me pretty often to light a candle, burn incense and acknowledge the presence of the other worlds. I think it's a practice of daily offering slowly taking form.
I also started having peculiar revelations, encounters and conversations... A few days ago, I went to my neighbor, who is also a good friend, to borrow some tools, and ended up talking with him for two hours about his life, advising him on decisions and telling him some brutal things (he then admitted that he already sort of knew all that to be true, but noone ever said it outloud and directly to his face, and then he thanked me for it). I got home, shaky and cold, didn't really remember half of the conversation, bee-lined for the candles and incense sticks, lit them, then loaded a plate with lunch and spent an hour grounding, calming down and warming up. I'd say WTF?!? but then again, I opened the door to magical, mysterious, weird and scary, so I guess the invitation has been accepted. Anyone else had ever happen that to them? Was it my crazy talking or is something happening there?
I love reading everyone's responses to the prompts! I'm following every single blog that's participating and glad to see I'm not the only one who's behind (muhahahahah)!
Clean surfaces and tiny voices
Too cool for school.
Something I've been putting off: School.
After looking directly at this prompt, it showed itself in its whole ugly truth. School is a big part of my goals for this year, but now I see it is the one I would put off again. I'm ashamed every time someone asks me how long till I finish school, and I deflect, change the topic, make something up, I don't even want to look at it and answer it honestly.
So I'm going to find the enthusiasm and the high of being a student and learning, and I'm going to finish school. Make it a priority. Something I do every day.
Exams in two weeks, here I come!
My goal: DO stuff!
I'm soooo behind on the prompts, and writing about the prompts.... but I'm catching up and accepting that it won't be perfect, and it's not a reason for giving up. This is the answer to Goals Prompt.
Last year, instead of just setting goals, I chose a word. One word to infuse everything I did in 2011. That word was DISCIPLINE. It was the thing I felt I needed to master in order to move up and on, to achieve the goals I would set for myself. As the year went, I often thought that I lost the word, I didn't learn discipline and that nothing has changed. Until the dark and the cold came, and with it the spirits demanding attention, and I suddenly saw the changes, the little steps that were adding up over the year... and finally on the solstice night, my mom who I was doing my first ever ritual with, and who had no idea about my word, said:
"You changed a lot this year. It's like you learned discipline."
I could cry and squee and hug her for those words. I know it is nowhere near perfect, but it is now my friend instead of being a scary lifted finger from everyone better than me. I learned discipline, its importance and its rewards, and I'll keep working on mastering it my whole life.
It's a week into 2012 now, and it's been great so far! My word for 2012 is DO. You can imagine how funny it is to people when they ask what my goals are for this year and I seriously answer:
"To DO stuff."
I feel it really is my word. I know what I want to do, what I wish to do, what I dream of doing, what I put off doing, what I talk about doing, .... but now I'm going to DO it already!
I did a lovely ritual with one of my spiritual sisters and her circle - we planted our goals in form of pomegranate seeds in a pot and said them out loud in front of the circle. Then we gave them water, and took them home. That was late november. Just a few days ago, first of my seeds sprouted! I can see two little green leaves, and as I have no idea which of the goals it is, it can be any of them!
I did a ritual on the solstice night, intuitively and without reading any instructions, and told my intents to the night, to the spirits who were listening and to myself. I did an extensive write - up of all the things I'm doing this year. As this experiment goes till Valentine's day, I have nice 5 weeks to plan the baby steps!
I dance. I dance when I'm awake and I dance when I'm asleep. I learn dance from others, I teach dance to others. As of last three months, dance is what feeds me and clothes me and gives me roof over my head. This makes me ridiculously happy, but it also makes me feel terribly responsible .... and sometimes unworthy. I am still a student myself, there is so much I don't know, and I need to practice more, to learn more, to DO more before I'll be good enough to teach. Also, there is the whole "my own secretary" thing. The not so fun stuff of marketing, e-mails, replying, dealing with sometimes unpleasant people. So this is what I'm DOING:
I'm practicing dance every day. Hello my dear instructional DVD collection!
I'm reading and trying out two chapters of dance anatomy a week.
I'm preparing for teaching classes as well as I can.
I'm preparing for performances and dancing the pieces in their entirety a few times before the day of the performance.
I'm cross-training to become a better dancer. Pilates, yoga, strengthening are my favorites.
I'm doing more active marketing (putting fliers everywhere on my list of places!)
I study. Or I'm trying to. But anything with a deadline turns an ugly shade for me, and exams and papers tend to have a deadline, or a date... I love to learn, but the school's pace is so fast that any very interesting topic I'd like to know more about gets 10 minutes in the lecture and then it's done. Not fun. Also, I had to work a job and the hours weren't always tolerant of my studies. I failed many courses just because I didn't show up, instead making sure I could pay my rent and buy some food month after month.
No excuses now. I set my own working hours, I pay for school and I better finish it, dammit!
I'm studying for exams, starting tomorrow with registering for at least 4 exams that I'm taking at the end of the month.
I'm organizing my school stuff, throwing out everything I don't need anymore.
I'm putting attending classes high on my priority list.
I'm looking for a study group for each of the exams.
Next term I'm taking classes from other topics that interest me. Psychology! Religions! Archaeology! Because I can learn everything I want.
I'm in debt. Who isn't, right? Well I won't be at the end of this year. This goal is continuing from the last year of discipline when I found a budgeting tool I love, and managed to record my income and expenses for two last months.
So I'm continuing to work on my loving relationship with money.
I'm keeping track of my earning and spending.
I'm reducing my debt and paying back regular installments as big as I can afford.
I'm buying only stuff I need.
I'm eating out only once a week.
Experience is worth more that potential clutter.
I'm earning more than I'm spending.
I'm attracting great clients who love what I do and pay happily for it.
I'm finding other ways of generating income.
The spirits have found me again. Every year when the nights get longer and the air gets colder, they come and try to get my attention. But never have I felt it so strongly. They want to talk. They want to listen. They want to show. They will hold me accountable. I gave an oath, for a year and a day I will hear what they want to say, what they want me to do, I will study, I will practice, I will do magic instead of just reading about it, I will travel to other worlds instead of just remembering it, I will try and find my path instead of standing undecided at the crossroads and wanting it all at once.
These next 5 weeks:
I'm cleaning my apartment, physically and magically. Clutter out, air and light in.
I'm meditating every day if possible. I'd like to have the apartment empty to not be disturbed, but I can't have that always. With time, being able to meditate with others in the house would be awesome.
I'm writing everything down. I have a personal journal, and recently I found a perfect magical journal that made my hands shake and my heart beat faster with how perfect it is. It wants to know everything about this year.
I'm celebrating holidays. Either alone, with a friend, or with a group. Ritual, or just lighting a candle and acknowledging that something is happening. Anything will be much more than what I've been doing past years.
I'm joining the local core shamanism drumming circle. Take part at least once in the next 5 weeks and see if I can stand the people.
I'm finding my ancestors. Asking my grandparents from my mom's side to identify the old family pictures. Asking my cousins from my father's side if I can have some of the old family pictures.
I'm learning tarot. Handle the cards every day. If it's a reading, or just looking and getting to know them, doesn't matter.
I'm reading the books about magic, shamanism, card reading, meditation and self-knowledge I accumulated over the past few years. They show up when you're ready, and I now have a tabletop full of them.
I'm making my spiritual practice as important as the other goals, not just something to do on the side, when I have some time left (which I never have). I'm making time for it, and using it well.
How can I support my goals magically? I'm going to be more aware of my thoughts and language first. It's how I create my reality, and anything I do, I have to think it first. Being aware is very important for me. Being aware of how I think, how I feel, how I act, and being able to take a step back and change it. It applies to everything.
I don't feel I should do magic to achieve my goals yet. I still feel like a student and I swore first and foremost to study and practice. I'm sure I'll find more magical means along the way, now just being held accountable is a huge help! I invite the spirits, the few readers of this blog, and all you fellow charmers, to watch and prod and cheer, and be aware. We can make it :)