The Magic of Meditation

As openly pagan, and now that I’m embracing the title of “witch,” I get a lot of curious questioners asking about magic and my spells. I do cast spells, but I’m one that takes a great deal of time designing them, so it really has to be for something I consider very important. That usually does not involve turning a particularly nasty co-worker into a toad. If she already is a slimy mud slinger how would I transform anything by giving her green skin? Though people seem disappointed that I’m not interested in seeing if that might be possible. Spell work is more akin to goal planning than Harry Potter. What I am interested in pursuing, is not precisely what may be possible, but what I can make probable. 

Imagination is the cornerstone of magic. You have to be able to imagine what you wish to accomplish. Once you can see the possibilities, it’s much easier, if not simplistic, to move on to what is probable. I think it is the possibilities that magic offers that pulls people towards a magical path, whether it is interest in witchcraft or the pursuit of ceremonial magic. Those new to it want to dive straight in – let’s cast a spell! I know from experience that it is a huge let down when instead of being trained how to use a wand, one is told to meditate. How can there be any possibility in something that sounds so dismally boring?

I certainly can appreciate that. I have yet to find enlightenment by monitoring my breathing. I am also decidedly not an advocate for spending hours on end chanting “om” in uncomfortable positions while sniffing headache inducing incense. If I were only to describe mediation as simply “quieting” or “focusing” the mind, or counting breaths I can easily see how this might be seen as boring. The point of meditation is to clear all of the mundane noise out of my head so that I can actually see the possibilities. Meditation is used to explore the possibilities to find the probability - which is exactly what fuels magic.

 

The Mantra 

When I first moved to Chicago in 1998, I was very fortunate to see an advertisement for a class on magic being offered by the late and great Karen Jackson. It was the first formal magical classwork of which I had ever been a part and I have never forgotten what she taught me. Karen explained that meditation was important ground work for the magical process but she also said that it certainly did not need to be painful! She explained that clearing one’s mind of all thought was a highly advanced technique that Eastern Monks practice their entire lives with varying degrees of success. Since I’m certainly not living in a monastery, and have to contend with the mundane pressures of bills, parent/teacher conferences and rush hour traffic, I don’t have to aim that high in order to work some magic.

“Set a timer for ten minutes,” Karen said. “See if you can make it that long. Try to do it once a day. See if you can. If you can’t, that’s fine. See if you can work up to it.”

She also explained that getting your mind to focus is much harder than one might think -as the brain is constantly thinking about a hundred different things in a fraction of a second. She had a brilliant plan to redirect all of those thoughts in a more cohesive direction: the mantra. A mantra can be the cliché phrase “om” or it can be any repeated word. Karen Jackson gave me a phrase. I have never forgotten it and I still use this meditation to help me focus, calm down, or just because it makes me feel good.

Karen’s suggested phrase is: I am (my name). I am a part of the earth. I am a part of the unmanifest. I am alive in a universe that is alive. I am here and it is now. 

Naming myself calls me to focus on myself. I am the most important person in these 10 minutes that I’ve set aside for myself. The focus is me.

Focusing briefly on the earth reminds me of the physical world, and the significance of being a member of the flora and fauna that together is the planet earth.

But I am more than physicality. I am also a part of something that is unknown and unknowable. The mantra calls my attention to my life and the role that I play with the living earth which is both physical and tangible and yet vast and mysterious.

The present moment is the focus. Where am I really? The answer is here. What time is it? The answer is now. I cannot process the past nor plan for the future if I am not present in the moment.

Karen Jackson founded the Temple of the Four Winds, an inclusive group of pagan women and men based in Evanston, Illinois. Sadly, it passed into the ether with her. She was a teacher, writer and publisher. I am grateful that I knew her.

The Cleansing White Fire Vortex 

The Cleansing White Fire Vortex meditation is one of the many reasons I loved Ted Andrew’s excellent book Psychic Protection.

This is a visualization to cleanse and revitalize the aura and the main energy vortexes of the energetic body commonly known as chakras.

In this meditation, I visualize a ball of cleansing white energy which ignites the power center above my head (crown chakra). As I exhale, the ball of light travels down to the front of my forehead. When I next inhale it enters the power center within (the chakra associated with “the third eye”). On the exhale it exits the back of my head and travels back to the top of my head. On the next exhale, it then goes to my throat (throat chakra), in that same triangle fashion. This cycling continues for each power center – heart, solar plexus, womb, below the genitals, knees, and feet. The final point is below my feet, at this point, I visualize the ball of energy splitting in two. One ball shoots deep down into the earth, like an anchor, the second returns to the crown chakra traveling up all of the chakras on route. Once it returns to the top it starts circling around my body. I like to imagine it increasing in speed and magnitude as it passes each chakra. I imagine it cleansing and pulling out any stuck “debris” whirling it into the vortex which is now pulsating with all this bright energy. Then, I imagine it spinning itself out, scattering anything it has picked up down into the earth. Ted Andrew says this is good psychic fertilizer for the earth and I love that imagery.

I find that this is especially a good meditation when I am worn out from over stimulus, but I like to engage this meditation for really no particular reason other than it feels like a terrific hot shower after a long or even satisfying day.

Discursive Meditation 

This method was not only described in John Michael Greer’s excellent book, The Art and Practice of Geomancy, but I was also fortunate to hear him speak about it in person.

The word discursive is used to describe an inner discourse. This meditation technique is particularly useful regarding magical symbols. I use it to further my understanding of the 16 divination symbols of Geomancy, a Renaissance and mathematical divination system I absolutely love (and of which John Michael Greer is the leading expert).

The geomantic symbols are simple and easy to hold in my mind, but if I’m working with a more complex symbol, such as a tarot card, then I place the card where I can comfortably see it. Then I just allow my mind to flow. Sometimes characters come alive from the symbol to tell me more about their meaning. Sometimes it’s a series of thoughts and emotions. Either way, I come out of it with a profound understanding of an element of that symbol.

I also use discursive meditation to explore abstract concepts. I have explored what courage, commitment, connection and a host of other topic mean to me on a uniquely personal level.

John Michael Greer suggested that when I catch my mind wandering off topic, not to simply refocus, but retrace the steps that got me off track. The reason for this is to further my development by studying the individual workings of my own mind.

 

The Tree of Life Meditation 

Geda Parma is a young man with an ancient soul. I was fortunate enough to meet him and was truly in awe of the power and the peace that radiates from him. He describes the Tree of Life Mediation in his book By Land, Sky and Sea.

In this meditation I focus on my feet and I imagine that my toes become roots. They start to grow down, burrowing into the carpet under them and piercing the cement foundations of my home until they find the reddish clay earth under my Illinois home. These toe roots continue to push through each layer of the earth’s core until they reach the fire of the earth itself. But as powerful and heated as this life force energy is, it doesn’t burn me, instead that energy fills each of these long and powerful roots with its pulsating heat. This energy travels back up those long roots, through each layer, back to the clay and cement and carpet and back into my feet. My body then continues to drink in the energy, alighting each part of it with the life force energy of the earth until it reaches my head. Then much like my toes became roots, I imagine branches growing from my head until they touch the stars.

This is incredibly healing to me, I absolutely love the feeling of being literally grounded to the earth. Once, I experienced what I can only describe as being as one with the universe. For a fraction of a second I had a glimpse into what was everything. But I collapsed quickly into awe, and it was gone. I have never been able to reach celestial heights since, but if that is not magic in its full magnitude, then I don’t know what is.

 

Witch Sight 

I found Robin Artisson to be a very difficult author to follow while reading his book Witching Way of Hollow Hill. I really had to press through the dream like pattern of his thought process, but he does have some really beautiful gems of knowledge to offer.

One of those is his Witch Sight Meditation. The first step is to allow myself to feel everything - to hone in on every sensation of touch from the very basic of temperature, to the easy to ignore, like the touch of fabric on my skin. Next, without letting my awareness of all those sensations fade, I then open myself up to sound – again from the overt - like the ticking of the clock in the room - to the faded distant sounds of the wind blowing through the trees in the park several blocks away. I don’t imagine what I hear, I just open myself up to everything that I can hear. It can be pretty surprising and it makes me wonder at the living universe that I am living in.

Artisson goes straight to sight next, but I think it is important to go through the senses of taste and smell. Particularly if I have incense burning, I like to explore the different scent notes in the air and how something so removed can affect the palate while I do nothing but sit and take it within.

The final sense to explore is sight. However the goal is something more than just seeing a clock, some fabric – it’s about a deep awareness. The first time I did this exercise I was actually hopping with anxiety! I think it was the intensity of it all. Away from meditation, it is so easy to filter what I experience. It’s a natural process to let some things fade into the background in order to better focus on something more specific. The goal of this mediation is to get me to achieve heightened focus with all of my senses engaged equally.

I keep a journal of all my meditation sessions. I find that if I write them down they are etched better in my memory. And if I still forget them, there is a record to peruse later. There is no doubt that I am more focused and grounded when I am keeping up with daily meditation. Truth be told I’m much calmer, more patient and generally a much nicer person. It helps me to see the possibilities in others around me, I experience deeper empathy, but in a calm way that does not overwhelm me. I am better able to help others if I am grounded in the present and open to the nuances of varied experience.

More than that, mediation shows me paths to try when I am feeling like I have lost options. It shows me possibility and probability.

My meditation is where my magic begins.