Magical Moment - Dance of the Trees

The leaves are starting to turn.  I think that's my favorite part of fall.

When my son was little, I made up our own little myth about why the leaves change color in the fall.

Dance of the Trees

Before the trees take their winter rest 

They get dressed in their very best 

With a curtsy to the wind they take this chance 

To dance 

Down the street, across the lawn 

They dance until their leaves are gone 

Leaving us to rake their messes 

The traces of their lovely dresses 

The apple dons a cheerful yellow 

With pleasing fruit she flirts with fellows 

She’s as light as a sprite 

Her dance a delight 

But beware 

Do take care 

She might have a sour bite 

Sassafras prefers hers pink 

She’ll turn your head with a sassy wink 

Her steps are sharp and precise 

Her twirls will entice 

There she goes 

Tickling your nose 

But it’s so nice your let her do it twice 

Before the trees take their winter rest 

They get dressed in their very best 

With a curtsy to the wind they take this chance 

To dance 

Down the street, across the lawn 

They dance until their leaves are gone 

Leaving us to rake their messes 

The traces of their lovely dresses 

Maple’s choice, a pretty coral 

She claims her space with her ample laurel 

She a sight to be seen 

With her lovely careen 

I believe She’ll be the last to leave 

Not keen to convene the scene 

The Oak’s gown, a majestic scarlet 

She’s the most adored, a regal starlet 

She’s the belle of the ball 

The Queen of them all 

Let her dreams be sweet 

When the dance completes

She'll enthrall us all next fall

Before the trees take their winter rest 

They get dressed in their very best 

With a curtsy to the wind they take this chance 

To dance Down the street, across the lawn 

They dance until their leaves are gone 

Leaving us to rake their messes 

The traces of their lovely dresses

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Magical Moment - The Goddess of Agriculture and Industry

Magical Moment - Crowley Cat

Divination with Runes - Uruz

While Geomancy is my preferred method of divination, I still am quite drawn to the Scandinavian Runes.   They really resonate with me because I feel like they connect me to my heritage.

I'm starting a new position at my day job, so I was curious to see if the energy associated with my ancestors had any images of wisdom to impart to me.  I did a one rune draw and was presented with Uruz. 

I allowed myself to meditate on this symbol.  The first thing that came to mind was the weights I use on my canopy when I attend events for my other business outside of my day job.  In my meditation I was transported back to Fort Wayne, Indiana just a few weeks ago from this post when I used these weights for the first time.  It was raining and the winds were strong, but the weights on my canopy made everything so stable.  I remember feeling really secure with those weights on my tent.  I was so proud of myself for purchasing them.  Uruz is associated with strength, and to me stability is a quality associated with strength.

As I was meditating my son was chatting with me from his room.  I noted that I did not have to completely abandon what I was trying to do to address his question. 

In a similar vein of distraction, Crowley Cat touched my arm.  Without opening my eyes I knew it was her, and not one of my other cats.  I observed the gentleness of her touch and the calming affect it had on me.  It occurred to me that the rune symbol of Uruz is associated with the once powerful wild oxen - the aurochs.  In my meditation it occurred to me that wildness does not have to be violent, it can also be gentle.

I did drift off topic and my thoughts started running on a divination class that I want to write and teach.  But when I redirected my focus back to Uruz, I felt like the message it was trying to convey to me concerning this new position I'm going into at work, was tied to redirection and regaining focus.  I need to remember not to abandon what I'm working towards.  I need to remember not to give up just because things get chaotic.  I also think Uruz was suggesting that I will be able to bring some stability to this position at my work.  I may be a gentle and calming element.

I have been rather anxious about this change at work.  But this divination helped me see some possibilities and gives me some hope.  That is precisely why I love the practice of divination. 

If you like this post you may enjoy some of my other divinations:

Divination is Art

Weekly Divination - August 27, 2018

Weekly Divination - August 13, 2018

Deluxe Geomancy Reading

Book Spotlight - Psychic Protection by Ted Andrews

I have read other books on the topic of psychic defense, but Ted Andrews' work, in my opinion is one of the very best.

What Drew Me In

1. Ted Andrews has the intention of making the spiritual pragmatic and more importantly obtainable.  He doesn't cloud everything in secrecy.  He wants you to clearly understand how the psychic works.
2. Instead of mystically ruminating about the reader's gifts being tested, he instead offers that it is the student who should test their teachers.  He points out that a true teacher will not be offended, because a true teacher understands the need for confirmation and validation.
3. Exercises like the Cleansing Fire Vortex were laid out in an easy step by step process.

How I Think I Can Apply This Magically

1. The Cleansing Fire Vortex has become one of my favorite meditation practices.
2. Sheltering my own energy was something I took for granted.  This book helped me be more aware of how the people I associate with and my environment affect me.
3. This book suggested that psychic and magical abilities are skills that can be improved and practiced.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy some of my other Book Spotlights

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Art and Practice of Geomancy by John Michael Greer

Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin

Are you on GoodReads?  Let's be friends!

Financial Fiasco + Fundamental Needs = Money Magic Part 2

I am finally able to continue my story about my journey from financial ruin towards a money magic.  If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

The Great and Powerful Witch

I am very flattered by my friends and others in the magical community. I am often told that I am a powerful witch. My spells do work, and largely the way I intended. The only unexpected results from my spells usually are added bonuses that continue to pay forward after the spell has come to fruition. I know, because I track the results. I meticulously track the results; and I would attribute my magical success largely to my particular attention to the tiniest of details.

I keep a detailed grimore, but unlike the witches of old, my grimore is digital. My spells are all written in Microsoft Word. And my spell template (yes, I have a spell template) is four pages long. Once I complete writing a spell, it can easily be over six pages and will continue to grow as I track its progress. It usually takes me more than one day to compose a spell before I cast it and it is not unusual for me to spend a week designing. It is a lot of work, but if I am the powerful witch that my friends proport me to be, it is probably due to my meticulous planning.

Learning from Magical Mayhem

Of course, I have had spell malfunctions and failures. They are great learning tools which in turn helped me fine tune my spell template to consider as many probabilities as possible. One of my most malignant magical mayhems I dealt with was another money spell. So, I wanted to make sure that this spell with the Fundamental Needs did not go as haywire as that one did. That meant that I would have to do some serious research into my personal habits before I even so much as looked at a wand or cauldron.

The first thing I did was open up my bill spreadsheet (yes, I have a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet where I list my current bills – I’m noticing a distinctly anal-retentive theme here). If I truly didn’t have expenses to be cut, but Fundamental Needs I had to figure out how to pay for; then it was time to figure out what Fundamental Need I was buying with each of my bills.

My son's Fundamental Needs chart from his Montessori Education

Under the first half of the month I had listed my two mortgages, my car insurance, the babysitter, a few of my credit cards, my loan from my mother, and the electric bill. Under the second half of the month I had listed my internet provider, the gas company, more credit cards, and my cell phone.

Shelter

The mortgages were an easy fit – shelter, of course. After thinking a few moments, it was easy to place the electric bill and gas under shelter too as they both provided power to keep my son and me warm and dry. This is pretty easy! I thought, and I merrily continued down the bill spreadsheet.

Defense

Next was the car insurance and because it had the word “car” in front of it, I started to list the insurance under transportation. But then I stopped. Insurance really had nothing to do with getting somewhere. I wasn’t purchasing transportation with that, so what was I actually buying? I decided that I was buying peace of mind. If I was in an accident, financially, I’d be okay. With that in mind I placed my car insurance under the heading of defense. It dawned on me that my internet access was less about entertainment, and also more about defense. I paid my bills online, communicated with my babysitter service through the internet, and it was my lifeline to information. That spiraled my thought process. My babysitter was also defense, because she protected and cared for my child when I was unable to do so. And my cell phone was my connection to her and my child when I was not with them; that meant the cell phone bill was also purchasing defense.

Religion

That left the loan from my mother and all of my credit cards. What the heck were those? What was I buying when I paid those bills? Were they actually needs? Well, I couldn’t stop paying them, that was going to add to my financial problems. I decided that if I needed to pay them, then they had to some kind of need and not an expense I could just cut from my expenditures. I remembered when I had gone to see a financial counselor at my credit union. I felt utterly hopeless when she told me to declare bankruptcy. I felt like she just wanted me to give up. I didn’t want to give up. I had already bought things with that money, I felt it was morally my responsibility to pay back my debts. Morality sounded an awful lot like to Religion to me, so I put my loans in that category.

Considering the Fundamental Needs

As I was looking at my actual bills they seemed so small. My monthly bills – those checks I sent out every month only covered shelter, defense, and religion. I realized that there were quite a number of things not on my bill spreadsheet. The water bill was irregular and medical bills were too, hence they were missing from my monthly spreadsheet. The gas I purchased for transportation, clothes I needed to buy, and the groceries that caused my anxiety to soar like no other expenditure, were not on my bill spreadsheet. And what about culture and vanity? I decided that if they were Fundamental Needs, they could not be ignored or cut out of my life.

I went back to the fundamental needs. Using my son’s homework assignment as a template, I created my own chart. Gasoline obviously fell under transportation. Were there other expenses that fell under this category? How about car maintenance (also not on the bill spreadsheet)? What else belonged under defense? After thinking about it I decided that Medical bills belonged under defense. I was protecting my son’s and my body with routine checkups and was healing illnesses with medication. Likewise, pet care fell here too. I had cats, and I was responsible for these creatures’ well-being. 

Shelter was pretty straightforward, but I added the utilities and then after some consideration, I added cleaning supplies and office supplies. Yes, those were things I usually bought at the grocery store, but they weren’t food. I often tried to sacrifice them, but I couldn’t. I needed stamps to mail bills, and pens to write checks and I certainly wasn’t going to live in a filthy house.

Vanity

I made a change from my son’s chart when it came to clothing. I made the decision to file the expenditures for the costumes I made under Vanity. This was because I was very proud of those one-of-a-kind costumes and the process of making them brought a lot of joy into my life which was otherwise full of financial anxiety. I also filed under Vanity the gifts I gave to my son and other people in my life. When I did that, placing the charitable donations I tried to make into the category of Vanity made sense too. It went back to that day I watched my son attach that picture of his chess trophy to his Fundamental Needs homework assignment and then watching him proudly carry the project into school. For me, selecting gifts for people I cared about and giving to those less fortunate than myself had that element of passionate effort that I had so admired when I watched my son with his project. This led to a bit of an epiphany of compassion. Because when I added makeup and personal care to the category of Vanity I realized that getting my haircut and making the occasional purchase of a tube of mascara was not something to berate myself for or to be ashamed of. The giving of gifts, even to oneself, was not a frivolous want, it was a part of being human.

Material Needs
Transportation	Defense	Shelter	Clothing	Food
Auto Fuel	Medical	Water Bill	Child Clothing	Groceries
Car Maintenance	Pet care	Mortgage	Personal Clothing	Dining out
I-pass and Tolls	Child care	Home Maintenance	Work Uniforms
Parking fees	Cell Phone	Electric
Alternate transportation	Internet	Gas
Registration	Insurance	Cleaning Supplies
	Gym Membership	Office Supplies

Spiritual Needs
Culture	Religion	Vanity
Outings	Debt repayment	Kid’s Activities
Vacation	Education	Costumes
Mementos	Fees	Gifts
	Taxes	Donations
		Makeup
		Personal Care

This was a start.  This was certainly some much needed perspective on my financial situation.  But this wasn't quite magic, not yet.  I will be back with the magic in another article.

If you like this post, you may also enjoy:

Financial Fiasco + Fundamental Needs = Money Magic Part 1

It Is Easier To Get What You Want Than To Know What You Want

Magical Moment - The Goddesses of Agriculture and Industry

I had the opportunity to be walking downtown in my home city of Chicago just recently.  Although I've been a resident for two decades now, I was struck that day, with awe and appreciation for the beauty of my city. 

My attention was captured by the statues devoted to Agriculture and Industry which hold vigil near the Chicago Board of Trade.

The statues demonstrated so aptly for me that the Goddesses of old never left humanity.  They continue to guard us and care for us even if we fail to recognize Their divinity.  They are content to live as stories and as art.  Our belief is of less importance than Their presence. 

Magical Moments - Crowley Cat

I am a near hysterical fan of the TV Show Supernatural.  I had originally turned my nose up at the 13 season show, so arrogantly sure that it had all the occult lore wrong.  But my son talked me into watching it on Netflix and...we binged it... Lore aside (although they weren't that far off actually), it was a great piece of television.

This show gave me hope when I thought I had lost it.  I had the opportunity to tell Jared Padelecki, (the actor who plays my favorite character Sam Winchester) just that at a fan convention in the summer of 2017. 

The next day after that convention, I came across a little being who needed me to be her hero.  But I think I might have needed her even more than she needed me.  She helped me discover even more hope and reminded me of the things I really felt were important.

And, one of my Animal Spirit Guides is a black spirit cat named Trickster.  I wanted his partner in my physical world - a black cat to be my...cliche.  Crowley is all black, except for a small tuft of white fur on her chest.  That incidentally is the description of the Cait Sith a fairy cat from Ireland.  Even better, a fairy cat for a fairy woman. 

If you liked this post you may enjoy:

Magical Moment - Deer in Daylight

Animal Spirit Guides of the Chakras

Divination is Art

I was very excited to learn the practice of Geomancy Divination from John Michael Greer.  At his class, I sheepishly presented by already battered copy of The Art and Practice of Geomancy for him to sign.  When I showed embarrassment over the dog-eared pages he told me he was thrilled to see it in its condition because clearly, I was using his book.  He signed it and I was thrilled.

Then I promptly lost the book.  I was devastated. 

If you bring up my image of the Geomancy chart I calculated to find that book, you can see that I was still struggling with the art and practice of Geomancy.  But let me tell you the results. 

The book came back to me.  A co-worker (actually the term we use in policing is "partner") found it in a squad car and brought it directly to my home.  The book came to me. 

So now that I have more experience, I would interpret this chart differently.  Look at the bottom square - this is called a House Chart.  The figure in the triangle marked number 1, is Fortuna Minor.  This figure represents success but unstable.  This position in this first triangle is representing me - a perfect figure because I lost the book, no one else was to blame for that.  So yep, unstable - I lost it, no one took it.  But this figure also suggests the book may return.  Now my original notes say that my answer should be in the second triangle or ninth triangle.  Ideally Fortuna Minor should repeat in that triangle to give me a definite YES! But it didn't.  This was not entirely hopeless, in Geomancy, there are a few ways a yes can be indicated.  Fortuna Minor did repeat in the fifth triangle.  But at first I was confused because that had nothing to do with my question, "Will I find my Geomancy Book?"

Fortuna Minor repeats again in the sixth triangle.  John Micheal Greer called this pattern a "walking figure" and the symbol in the triangle it "walks" to is also very important.  Conjunctio (the 'X' like symbol in the 7th triangle) is a figure known to be favorable for finding lost things.  In addition to that, another figure, the one in that 9th triangle as a matter of fact, also walked back to Conjunctio in that 7th triangle.  That seventh triangle actually represents the astrological House of Marriage.

And what pray tell, do we often call spouses?  How about "partner?"

Also interesting to note is that Fortune Major, which means assured success, appears in triangle 10.  This represents the astrological House of Career. 

The figure in that ninth house that went "walking" is called Albus, a figure of passivity. 

The chart was trying to tell me that I had lost the book at work (I didn't know that when I made this chart incidentally) but not to worry.  I did not have to do anything, the book would find it's way back to me through my partner. 

Which is exactly what happened.  I happily use that autographed copy of the Art and Practice of Geomancy to this day.  I was so delighted to have it back.  This chart taught me a great deal about divination interpretation.  Divination has rules, but interpretation is more than just following the rules.  You have to allow the symbols to tell you a story - you have to allow for creativity in your interpretation. 

So if you want to learn a divination.  Practice.  Track results.  Keep learning. 

If you liked this post you might also enjoy:  

Deluxe Geomancy Reading

Book Spotlight - The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I am aware that The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a work of fiction, but fiction is the the imagination made manifest and if that's not magic, then I don't know what is.

What Drew Me In

1. Not only is this a fictional tale, it is almost a fantasy for adults.  There are mysterious kings, frightening bandits, and of course, the Alchemist.
2. The flow of this tale is so powerful, you simply are swept away.  However, within the fantasy, I felt the connections to the mundane.  The boy, the hero, gets comfortable and I could see how it would be so easy to succumb to the seductive normalcy in his life.
3. But the boy does not succumb however, he lives his personal legend.  I loved that concept - the idea of a plain sheep herder living a personal legend.

How I Think I Can Apply It Magically

1.  I like comfort a little too much.  This book reminded me that everyone has the potential to be extraordinary.  
2.  I started thinking about my life purpose.  What would my epic personal legend be?
3.  Mistakes are difficult, particularly magical ones.  It's so easy to dismiss magic as fake when my spell go wrong.  Dreams can be misleading but it doesn't mean that they don't possess truth.

If You Liked This Post You Might Enjoy Some Other Book Spotlights

The Art and Practice of Geomancy 

Your Money or Your Life

Conscious Dreaming

Are you on GoodReads?  Let's be friends!