Magic as a Way of Life

I hear some of my witchy friends deploring the fact that they don't actually do much any more to express their spirituality. No elaborate rituals, no particular observances.... I'm the same. 

For us magic is synonymous with our personal spiritual paths, so it can seem like a terrible failure of integrity if we're not actually doing any.

I tell my friends, 'You've probably integrated it into your life in ways you don't even notice any more.' 

I'm now more sure than ever that this is true. I've recently realised how very much it's the case with me. I realised it by contrast with the many people for whom it is not true because magic is no part of their lives. 

Some poetic experiences brought it home – some poems overtly about living a magical and other-worldly life as a matter of course – which my non-magical friends read as being metaphorical or about dreams or wishful thinking. I know this from comments people leave at my poetry blog on those particular poems. It's as if they can't quite hear what I'm really saying; it's too far out of their interpretation of the world.

That's no fault of their own – and in any case, they are there primarily to appreciate the poem and to comment on the poetics. But it interests me very much as witch rather than poet.

Working with Light

There's the poem I mentioned in my previous post here (this poem) which turned into instructions for working with light – real energy work with real results. I think only one commenter got it. Others were very appreciative, but more with the sense (nay, assumption) that it was a nice idea and that's all – something, perhaps, that could make me feel better, an imaginary remedy against imaginary evils. 

I link to my poems on facebook. My friends there include people I know in 'real life', some of whom are highly spiritual themselves in ways that include the esoteric, so there it was sometimes received as saying what it was indeed saying. One friend said she would immediately start teaching her very young grand-daughter how to use light in that way. Good! When I share these handy hints for free, it's nice to know someone finds them useful. How wonderful if all young children could be so taught.

Apart from that, the whole experience reminded me how often I myself use light energy in the ways I described in the poem. Often, I don't even think about it; when a situation comes up where it could be useful, I just do it. After all, it doesn't need any physical tools or great preparation, only intention and visualisation. 

At other times, such as in situations where healing is needed, I might be more deliberate in choosing to use this method, as I have a number of healing tools at my disposal. It can be a case of deciding which, or which combination, best suits the particular need in the particular circumstances. But anyway, it's a thing I do quite often, without perceiving it as a special magical practice, though it actually is.

Everyday Magic

The next poem is called Understand That This Is A Dream, so it's perhaps not surprising that some readers thought I was describing an actual dream, or a series of them. I was in fact writing to the idea that 'life is but a dream' (as it says in the old children's round, 'Row, row, row your boat...'). 

I took my title from an Allen Ginsberg poem, which might have made it clear – if everyone knew that poem, but of course not everyone does. (These days, no-one can know all the poems there are, even by famous poets.)

What my poem does is describe the events of the day on which I wrote it, some of them very mundane indeed and the rest quite commonplace for me, e.g. being 'inspired to wear / around my neck a silver dragon'. This one (not real silver so much as silver in colour):

Nearly all my jewellery carries energy, either by virtue of holding a particular crystal or by being in the shape of a symbol with power (e.g. a pentacle or a triquetra). I do get intuitive feelings as to which piece to wear on a particular day. Often I tune in on purpose when getting dressed for the day, but sometimes one piece or another will 'call' to me even before I tune in. I take such a call to be guidance as to what I need that day. (It might be protection, or extra insight, or the ability to communicate clearly and be heard ... whatever the particular crystal or symbol is empowered for.) 

This is such second nature to me, I forget that most people probably don't do it – just as I forget that it is one of the ways in which magic is incorporated into my everyday life. 

I forget too that many people (probably most) would think it sheer nonsense to believe that crystals etc, could have any power whatsoever. Others might credit it to the placebo effect, where the belief itself has results (giving the person extra confidence, for instance) which can show up in actual experiences. Some might, like me, realise that crystals have their own specific chemical compositions, and further suppose they can cause specific effects. Others would say the second part of that sentence is pseudo-science.

The point is, I take it for granted and it's an everyday part of my life. Most readers of the poem seemed to regard it as part of a dream – and not in the sense that life itself is a dream. (I would have thought that utterances such as, 'I seem to exist, along with a world / that feels real, firm to the touch' might have been a clue. But I guess I wasn't spelling it right out.)

Other things in the poem – such as 9 being a magical number, or a friend who wanted 'a jar with a red-checked lid' being given one almost immediately by 'someone who didn't know this' – are also commonplace to me.  

Spirit Visitations

People were kind and sympathetic about my poem, I Scarcely Realised, describing the turning point from when I longed for my late cat Selene to visit me in spirit, to the moment when I realised she already did – in her own way, which was always, even when she was alive, to use telepathy and plant images and ideas into my mind.

Then I went on to describe how, having finally understood that and thereby removed a block, I was able to feel it physically when she came and settled on my legs when I lay down, just as she used to in life. 

Some readers appeared to get it; others seemed to suppose it was wishful thinking or deliberate fantasy or something. (Hard to know what they were thinking; I am so far removed from a world where such manifestations as I describe can't be 'real'.)

So, in conclusion

1) I was surprised by the 'non-believer' response to these poems – and how general it was, even though there were some exceptions. Even people of a very spiritual orientation seem to prefer to think that the spirit world cannot be perceived by the senses in this dimension.

2) In showing me how different my own viewpoint is from the general one, I was able to see how much magic and the unseen are integrated into my life, not a separate thing tagged on or overlaid, or trotted out on special occasions, but just natural and normal and always there – as much there as the components of the physical world and all the behaviours which serve me well in the physical. In fact I don't generally distinguish them.

3) I do like the practice of ritual etc, too, and participate when more formal group ceremonies are on offer. I even sometimes create them for my own solitary practice. But I have also learned they are not absolutely essential and I am not necessarily failing at witchcraft if I don't do them.

4) What applies to me must surely apply to my witchy friends too. They are probably magical all the time, and don't need to beat themselves up for not doing more formal stuff. 

I think we're all simply living it.


Note: Light image is credited as Public Domain. 
The photo of the dragon pendant is mine Copyright © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2019 and must not be re-used without my written permission.

How to Use Light

... to overcome your fears, and in many other ways.

I was asked to write a poem on what would have scared my childhood fears – and found myself writing an instruction manual!

But it's still a poem, so you'll find it here.

WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING DEAD?

Recently at dVerse Poets Pub, an online community, we were asked to write from the point of view of a dead man or woman.

My poem was a fantasy which did not draw on my work as a psychic medium, but rather on past selves I've been in this lifetime, welling up from the subconscious.

However some readers asked what I had learned from that work. I struggled to answer succinctly — but then I read someone else's poem which perfectly expresses much of what I have learned about being on 'the other side'.

You may read it here.

Here Be Dragons: 1

In 1993 I was living with (third husband) Andrew in a small flat in Melbourne, and bemoaning to my friend Janet the fact that we weren't allowed pets. 'Why don't you have psychic pets?' she asked. (She and I were quite used to being able to manifest things on non-physical levels.) I decided to have dragons. I didn't do any summoning rituals or anything. I just reached out into the Universe with my mind — working, as always, in the energy of Love — and asked for a couple of dragons. And they came.

I received impressions that one was red and male, slightly larger than the deep blue female. I also got quite clearly their respective names. I 'saw' them hovering slightly above the roof of the unit we lived in at the time. My vivid imagination? I decided to suspend disbelief and at least behave as if I thought them real. You can get used to anything! After a while I became almost blasé about their presence. These poems ensued:

DEAR Janet,

How are the unicorns?

I haven’t patted or said hullo to

the dragons for such a long time.

I forget them, like plants unwatered.

I hope they feed themselves

and don’t depend on spasmodic rains

or the crumbs we leave for birds.

I wonder what they do up there all day.

Are they bored? If it was me.

I’d copulate constantly — but dragons,

I think, have a different kind of season.

I see they have moved

to a low, convenient cloud. The roof

was awkwardly shaped, uncomfortable.

They swathe their massive tails

in coils around each other.

They look bored but cosy;

lazy and cosy, curling up for warmth.

The blue one is Agyar, known as Betsy.

The red is male. His name is Aragon.

They are faithful dragons to me

and dutiful. I must treat them better.

Janet, how are your unicorns?

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 1993

DEAR ROSEMARY

The unicorns

look silly in the laundry beside the washing machine

Nathan is combing Jennifer’s tail with his teeth

I woke up at 3 o’clock last night

because someone was nuzzling my cheek

They love music

Nathan’s a Beatles freak

Jennifer prefers Debussy

They don’t look bored

I don’t think unicorns do that

and they’ve got the cat to talk to

I asked them what they think about

they said ‘LOVE’   and the space beyond the black stump

There’s a black stump where they come from too

They look cramped in the laundry

Perhaps I’ll take my psychic paint-brush and

create for them a daisy-covered meadow

and in the lounge-room a pond

It’s wonderful living with unicorns

© Janet Gregory 1993

Both poems first published in Feet First: poems by the Aardvarkers

 Also in Rosemary Nissen-Wade's Secret Leopard: new and selected poems
 1974-2005 (Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005)

Then came the day when Janet phoned to ask if I could send one of the dragons over to her place for a while. She was feeling in need of some protection. I sent Betsy. Janet lived on the other side of the city, so I gave Betsy street directions plus a telepathic impression of my friend's energy, and duly noted her absence from above the roof. A couple of weeks later I walked outside one morning and detected a difference in the energy. 'I do believe Betsy's back,' I said to Andrew. Later that day Janet phoned. 'Did she get back OK?' She explained that she'd sent Betsy back on a passing truck so that she wouldn't have to fly the whole way, and thought it would have taken her about that long to reach home. That little exercise made it harder to suspect that the dragons were 'just my imagination'.

I liked the idea of having dragons around, and requested two more, one to keep Andrew company and protect him, the other to do the same for me, so that Betsy and Aragon could focus on guarding our home. They duly arrived too. Andrew's turned out to be white and mine black, both male. I noticed they would keep pace with our cars, and were one each side when we travelled in the same vehicle. I forget why, at some point, I decided I needed a chaos dragon with me too. That one is female, deep midnight blue and particularly powerful. 

Some years later, five friends were under psychic attack. I asked if they would like some dragons to protect them, and when they agreed, I put out the call. I was shown the dragons' colours and told their names and genders and which person each one would look after. One man in the group was fairly sceptical — until one night, as he was doing the dishes, he felt his dragon blow gently on his cheek at the same time as appearing to him in mental image.

I say 'his' dragon, and I referred earlier to psychic pets — but in fact they are not pets, much less servants or possessions. I felt this strongly from the first. Nor am I their servant in any way. What we are is friends and equals. They come at my request in a spirit of graciousness, and I appreciate this. 

The names bear a certain family resemblance, with many of the same letters included: A, G, R, sometimes Z.... (And no, I am not going to make any more names public. I sense that, while the first two had no objections, the rest wish to keep that information private.)

By now, most of the time I am not much aware of these companions. It is as if they withdraw into the background unless needed, though I know they are in fact always present. Betsy and Aragon have accompanied us to all our homes — quite a few, as we have moved around a bit.

Recently a friend asked if Andrew's white dragon was still here now that Andrew has died. I was shocked to realise I had not thought to check. I wondered if perhaps he had accompanied Andrew to the spirit world, or had just quietly gone home. Neither. When I did check, I found he was still here, waiting politely for me to tell him he was free to go. I told him he had always been free to do so, and asked if he would like to go home now. He would. I said goodbye with grateful thanks, and he left.

How do I converse with them? Telepathically, sometimes using a pendulum to make certain of 'yes' or 'no' answers to specific questions.

I own books on dragon magick by various authors, all of which seem to agree that elaborate, precise rituals are necessary. I have never done that. I just give my friends a call and they turn up. Of course they are not in physical form. I guess they are in the astral. But that blowing on my friend's cheek was certainly something he felt physically! I know that fairies (nature spirits) can flit between dimensions — another topic for another time — so it seems to me that dragons have some of that ability too. Perhaps they have it 100%; perhaps that is the source of old stories about dragons on earth, and they don't choose to manifest fully into our physical dimension now. But there I'm only guessing.

It took a few years before I started wondering why they would come to me so readily and be so obliging.

The Feast of Beltane

See poem

Say Her Name

© Michele Vassal (from her MySace blog, with permission) 

I heard her calling from folds of dreamt 

stones

cupped for solstices and fossilized stars

saw

the cairns of her nubile breasts

erect

and the flece of her mound welcoming

curlews

I heard her roar rivers and hurricanes

lilt

soft saplings and pebbled beaches

teacher of dancing heresies

guardian of dark bestiaries

where she-wolf and seal mate

with the sins of men

witch of wrens and frosted sloes

sassy whore giving herself

to the impotent and the poor

nurturer of bog blackened bodies

feel her rip

feel her burn

feel her veins

poisoned

her flesh

her blood

dark harvests

and say her name

like you mean it

Mother

The Silent Prayer

Found on the Wild Women page on facebook and reposted with permission:


In my heart, I accept my perfect Being.
I accept that the joy that I have intended is already in my life.
I accept that love I have prayed for is already within me.
I accept that the peace I have asked for is already my reality.
I accept that the abundance I have sought already fills my life...

In my truth, I accept my perfect Being.
I take responsibility for my own creations,
And all things that are within my life.
I acknowledge the power of Spirit that is within me,
And know that all things are as they should be.

In my wisdom, I accept my perfect Being.
My lessons have been carefully chosen by my Self,
And now I walk through them in full experience.
My path takes me on a sacred journey with divine purpose.
My experiences become part of All That Is.

In my knowingness, I accept my perfect Being.
In this moment, I sit in my golden chair
And know that I Am an angel of light.
I look upon the golden tray - the gift of Spirit -
And know that all of my desires already have been fufilled.

In love for my Self, I accept my perfect Being.
I cast no judgment or burdens upon my Self.
I accept that everything in my past was given in love.
I accept that everything in this moment comes from love.
I accept that everything in my future will result in greater love.

In my Being, I accept my perfection.
And so it is.

Rewriting the Bible

byThom Moon 10

(Reposted with Thom's permission, because I like the sentiments!)

Every generation does-apocryrfpha to King James
to GOOD NEWS FOR MODERN MAN
Now a Conservative Thinktank is purging liberalism
from the flesh of bones of belief
LABOR is replaced by VOLUNTEER
That parable about the rich getting in to Heaven
like a camel getting through the eye of a needle?
That has been explained as a geographical gate
one that merchants used upon entering Jerusalem
Purging liberalism has always required scholars-
"enhanced interrogation techniques"replaced torture
"burning the village to save the village"(Vietnamdoublespeak
"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"(Iraq invasion doublespeak)
By such language-all who respond to invasive techniques
become "militants"-and if they resist='Terrorists!"
(unless Americans firghting a War Of Independence-
they (when the war was won)become PATRIOTS
Language has always been a slave of masters
Censorship and editing of William Shakespeare
to delete the bawdy and massage Press Releases
Now we have FAUX NEWS and bully pulpits
Bishops who deny communion to those who disagree
We resort to poetry when prose is dull as politics
Spark art uncensored and deemed irrelevant
until Bibles become Korans and cartoonists stabbed
May there be no Holy Texts to proscribe our disobedience!
FOR SALMAN RUSHDIE's FATWA Dec 5,2009