Hello there folks,

For those of you in the United States, I hope you've had a pleasant Thanksgiving weekend. 

Continuing on with the process of empowering women through the discussion of helpful & powerful female deities, today I'd like to talk about the Taras. 

Now, in the discussion of Tara-Ma, you'll notice that I switch between singular and plural pronouns: this is intentional, as she's essentially one deity with a multitude of faces and manifestations. If you account for each variation as a deific mood, of a kind, you will likely begin to understand and experience her as I do, for she is a multiplicity as a singularity. The ultimate gathering of force and form, in many respects.

Each of these moods represent a multitude of deities gathered into one thread, not unlike hair gathered in a ponytail in some respects. Each form has their own manifestation, tone, tendencies, and strengths, and en masse they are a bit of a circus...all have their own voices, though they're all interrelated and connected through one consciousness.

She is a wonderful being, and her various manifestations are colorful, beautiful, and individually potent. Tara is a Boddhisattvadevi (or female Buddhist Teacher), and her general goal in life is to clear the way such that her followers can learn and improve upon their lives. She cares strongly for a balance in all things and seeks to rectify disturbances either through handling them directly or teaching those who honor her how to unpack their troubles and manage them.

​
These faces of hers all have a variety of names, so I'll seek to cover a few of them here:

• Lalita, The One Who Plays, often shown to be a light green.
• Ekajati, One Plait Woman, otherwise known as the Blue Tara.
• Kurukulla, Red Tara known as a weaver of magic and enchantment.
• Khadiravani, Tara of the Acacia Forest, she is a Green Tara known for teaching and directing growth.
• Sitatara, the White Tara. I generally see her as the "leader" of the circus, as she's stern, but kind.
• Ugratara-ma, the Black Tara. Her name translates roughly to "Mean Tara Lady", and its a more Kali-like manifestation that's less kind & quite active.
• Ayra Tara-ma, another White Tara, she is sweet and kind. Childlike and ancient.
• Praviratara, another Red Tara, she is swift and powerful, often seen as a heroic being.

These are not all of her aspects, and in truth, she's one of those entities where the specific names aren't needed. Instead, you generally need more of a byway into her realm...a foot in the door, if you will.

Thus, I am writing to give you a foot in that door so that you can begin to work with, learn from, and be inspired by her. Men and women alike can do this, but if you go for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in this way, seeking the way to self-empowerment as a woman, you will get a different, somewhat motherly, somewhat sisterly manifestation of Tara in response.

To begin this practice, print an image of Tara-ma that speaks to you and place it on an altarspace at eye level. Light one candle to the left of it, and a stick of incense to the right. Place an orange in front of her, and begin to chant this mantra: "Om tare tuttare ture soha"

As you do so, try to visualize her sitting in front of you on a lotus blossom. Listen for her voice in response, and watch the way her color shifts as you do this.

Bask in that light, and seek to understand this through contemplation as you go about this process. It won't seem like much at first, but she is a quiet being that becomes louder as attention is given.

Blessings,
SE

​Hello there folks,

The holiday season is fast approaching once again, and with it comes the Winter. While Winter's coming down the pipes, I find that there's an element of homemaking and care that becomes considerably more important as a result, so I'd like to talk a bit about what you can do to empower yourself and do this more effectively. 

In the States, there's a pretty strong tradition of the Holidays being a time when women work the hardest. They clean the home for guests, cook meals for family, plan outings and get-togethers, coordinate activities for children, and essentially handle the lion's share of all there is to occur and manage at the home. This is HARD work, its important work, and its something that I don't see a whole lot of chatter about in the magical world.

In the Norse traditions, there's an aged Goddess who is both gentle and stern, wonderful and willful. She caretakes the home, handles the hearth, cooks a hell of a meal, and acts as a wonderful hostess. I received direction from her recently while partaking in a Winter Nights rite to honor the departed ancestors. This Goddess asked that I use my position to empower women, as far too little is known or discussed about female deities that aren't either a) sexy and interesting, or b) associated with childbirth and motherhood. There's not much of an in-between getting explored, yet that is where the real magic of maintaining and growing occurs.

As such, I am starting upon this with Frigga, the All-Mother of Norse Heathenry. She's the wife of Odin, the God of War, the Lead of the Wild Hunt, and a God of Runic Sorcery. She's a badass in her own right: she's as fierce as the day is long, as warm as a fire on a winter's day, and as compassionate and loving as any mother should be.

This is a woman and Goddess I personally look up to, as she's taught me many things that I never thought I wanted to know. I've come to her for inspiration around sewing, painting, cooking, mothering my critters, being a better father, and being a better husband. Now, I bring to you a blot (pronounced "bloat") in her honor that you can perform to bring her influence into your home.

"Frigga, All Mother and Wife of Odin, I call out to you this day.
Come to me and enjoy the warmth of my home and space,
Bringing your gifts of wisdom and mature love
So that I might learn from you and better care for my family.

She of the happy hearth and busy hall,
Breadmaker, seamstress, and maker of mead.
Gracious gifter of bounty and bond,
I ask that you join me and help me
Lead my family rightly."

When you've completed this prayer, light a candle for her, pour her some wine, and then start working on home-bound tasks. Cook dinner, budget, play with your kids, as all of these things are sacred to her and are means of invoking her aid. I most strongly find her present when I'm away from work, focusing on mundane tasks that need doing in a consistent, regular fashion.

When I do so, my home becomes a kind of crossroads, and spirit and human alike are left feeling inspired, happier, and more joyous. Its a simple enough thing, but its simple enough to overlook in turn.

Hail Frigga.
-SE

When inspiration hits, it's a wonderful thing. The trouble is that it's not always forthcoming in an hour of need thanks to pressure and stress and sleeplessness in response to that upcoming deadline.

In times of issues like those, magic tends to be particularly useful. The stories of old are riddled with magical draughts of inspiration-given, so clearly our ancestors felt much the same way about the subject at hand.

When in doubt, I'd recommend conjuring your muse to form and effect and let him or her appear and inspire.

To do so, you will need several things:

• Water (preferably spring water)
• Wine (red wine, not white)
• Basil
• Bay leaves
• Blessed thistle
• 1 red candle
• 2 violet candles
• Abramelin oil
• A heat-proof surface of sufficient size to encompass the work

When you've obtained your materials, sprinkle them with holy water and ensure that they've been cleansed and repurposed to your needs.

From there, when ready, setup your altar. Place the spring water to the right and the wine to the left. Between the water and wine, place the two violet candles and singular red candle in the shape of a triangle with the point away from you; the purple candles should be closest to you. Sprinkle Abramelin oil on the candles and the herbs, being mindful of safety precautions, then place the herbs in the center of the triangle in the a shape like so: \|/. Say a quick prayer, then light the candles and meditate for a while, grasping the intention of your work and the nature of the conjured muse.

In time, inspiration should come. If it doesn't, you've either done something wrong or there's something amiss in your sphere that you will want to look into.

Enjoy!

SE

Greetings, dear readers.

Recently, I had an incident that occurred with a client which prompted this post alongside a slight change to how I do things with clients. In short, this was a situation wherein there were too many hands in the cookie jar because the client in question decided that it was pertinent to hire three or four other workers alongside me, despite our conversations about how it was better to avoid complicating things.  It dawned on me, as this was occurring, that he had little to no idea of why this can be an issue, so I thought I'd talk about it here.

To start us off, think for a moment about working in a  kitchen with others, as that's something we've all done.  What happens when you add another person to the group working on cooking a meal? The room gets slightly more crowded with each addition of a new body.  Even when doing prep work, each person needs between a foot and a foot and a half of elbow room, not counting the counter space, to say nothing of the cook, whose likely wandering around the kitchen.  When you've only got 6 or 7 feet of counter space on each side of the kitchen, with an aisle that's ~3 feet across, that space gets damned crowded.  You've got people running around with knives, spices, meats, veggies, hot pots, boiling water, and Gods know what else; the area quickly becomes a hazardous sight.

Magic's really not all that different.  If your life is the stew and the sorcerer's the chef, its up to the chef to season the stew to provide you with what you ordered (the magical result).  If I am seasoning the stew, I have a pretty good idea of what spices I need to add, and what prep work I need to do. If you start adding other chefs to the mix, soon its going to become an incomprehensible mess, as I don't have the slightest idea what the hell the chef to my right is doing to the stew.  He's probably adding spices I'd never thought of with impunity, totally unaware of the fact that the meat in the stew is intentionally flavored a specific way.

To drop the metaphor and get down to brass tacks, in essence, when there are too many folks doing magical work at one time, the situation can get incredibly complicated.  The fact is that every working I do changes fate ever so slightly...when I'm the only one fiddling around, I can do this with a fair deal of control.  That's no longer the case when you have one other spirit worker doing work concurrently. Adding more to the mix only further complicates the problem.

That being the case, its not an issue if you hired someone to do the work prior to getting me involved, so long as they've already done their work.  Its also not an issue for you to hire someone a few months after I've done the work if the case is not, Heavens forbid, resolved.  But for the love of all that is holy, do not hire someone else while you're having me do the work. It'll likely become a convoluted mess and have really crappy repercussions in your life.

Granted, with that said, there's some flex to this "rule".  The fact is that some magical work is incredibly touchy, and other types are really rather cut and dry, for the most part.  Love work is naturally a pain, and everything's a balancing game, so that's a terrible time to add confusion to the mix.  Uncrossing and blessing work, however, is very direct...its simple, and generally, there's not a heck of a lot of confusion that can be caused.

Just do bear this in mind when you're either doing work for other people or having work done for you, as I'd hate to see your result get dorked up because of impatience or indecisiveness on your part.

Cordially,

SE

Greetings folks.

Over the past few days, I've found myself deep in thought after going about my usual client work, personal practice, and devotional work.

It's occurred to me that spiritual work is often a cosmic game of "Telephone".  "Telephone", for those of you caught unawares, is a childhood game wherein the party at the front of the line comes up with a sentence or phrase, tells it to the person next to them, then the recipient does the same and so on and so forth down the line.

Those of you whom have played the game I speak of know that the sentence or phrases starts out as something as simple as "Johnny's mom is also the doctor" and ends up as "Mom's Johnny is also the proctor" at the final person of the game. So too is this the case with client work, I find.

I am frequently approached by folks who either do not speak English or speak it as a second, third, or fourth language; frequently, they encounter the same troubles shared by their brethren from English-speaking countries - they are unsure how to put their concerns and wants into words which will then be clearly understood by someone like myself.

This brings us to a rather awkward point in a relationship, as its difficult to understand just what it is that we're being asked to do when we miss important contextual clues.  This is doubly true when it comes to interacting with spiritual entities, as not only do they not speak our language, but they also tend to sense our emotions, our sense of purpose or lack thereof, our thoughts, our confusion, and so on.  With this truth being as present as it is, we encounter a new difficulty; not only must we understand the goal of our friend, client, partner, spouse, or ourselves, but we also must be able to communicate those goals and intentions effectively to the spirits we conjure.

Language, being a finicky beast at the best of times, is something we must strive to understand intimately if we are to do this effectively; furthermore, we must also understand the language of the spirits we intend to work with.  Sometimes the language is verbal and literal or it can be written and symbolic or any means and methodology in-between.  Each of us is different in how we best perceive and understand the world around us and the spirits we work with, command, and/or serve are no different.

Not only we must understand how to communicate ourselves effectively, but we also must learn to listen to the people and the world around us.  Perception is the key to greater and deeper understandings, and that starts at home with the ones we love.  We must hear them out first if we wish to understand what the Gods and spirits tell us through speech, song, dreams, movies, games, situations, and so on.

With that said, happy hunting and blessed learning.

SE

Greetings, ladies and gents.

I've got some exciting (to me) news to convey: I am, as of this date, going to be doing magical work full-time for a while. If this works out, it'll probably be permanent, as I rather enjoy the Work.

That being the case, if you're in need of dedicated assistance, please let me know.  During the holiday, when possible, I will avail myself to attend your needs and wants.

With that said, thank you for reading this blog, for your continued trust, and your continued support.

Blessings!

SE

Greetings and happy Monday, ladies and gents. I hope this posting finds you well, or at the very least, awake and functioning.

In my wanderings, ramblings, gnosis, and the latent digestion of such things, I've come to a greater realization with regard to how our folk affect us.  We often spend a great deal of time interacting with others and we often take more than we'd like from people.  This function is something that's programmed into us at a biological level, as evidence by the fact that we even respond to how other people's hearts are beating.  The links for such studies escape me at the moment, but sufficed to say, we are much more intimately linked than we like to admit.

We end up mirroring people we respect as a result of our focus on what they represent to us.  We instinctually try to live up to the ideal they tout in order to become better in their eyes, and that can be a dangerous tendency.  When someone is sufficiently strong-willed, they can project a great deal onto others and do a ridiculous amount of damage to that individual.

Its not at all uncommon for a mental patient, for example, to project his or her disease/disorder onto the doctor or that individual's spouse.  I saw and experienced this firsthand as a child, when my mother's erratic behavior and lack of moral limitation "infected" my father.  Not only did I witness him changing over the years, but I confirmed these changes with my family after the fact. Apparently, before he married my mother, he had a slight "bad streak", but it was never particularly volatile or violent.

We see the same tendency in schools, as noted by my significant other (she's a teacher); when a smart kid hangs out with the would-be thugs, the smart kid's test scores and schoolwork suffers.  If that same student suddenly starts hanging out with a bunch of nerds, his scores improve.

In short, our values are ultimately set by the clan we interact with. If your friends, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, or some other such individual or group is intensely negative, you will behave the same way as a result of your interactions.  This may not be true initially, but eventually your Will will break down and you will fall in line with your pack.

The same interactions and changes occur with those of us who are religious, spiritually inclined, or to those of us who practice some form of magic involving interacting with spiritual forces.  Our very interactions with those spirits, for weal or woe, changes us on some level.  They, very literally, become a part of  our life and our worldview, changing us from within even if we don't expect it.  Its not particularly abnormal for a practicing mage's IQ to be raised as a result of working with planetary intelligences, for example.

I've personally experienced this over the years, as working with Zazel, for example, has helped me to become better at discerning limitations, exposing them, or strengthening weaknesses, even if this wasn't the goal of the work.  It fits perfectly with His Saturnine nature.

That being the case, we can respond to this external stimuli in a couple of different ways; we can either use this to our benefit, or we can try to run from it and become a hermit. I would suggest that we should use this tendency to our benefit rather than pursue the goal of shielding ourselves from influences from others.  It is, ultimately, futile to do so, as we're trying to escape biologically-programmed functions which help us to interact.

I would recommend that you surround yourself with successful folk that you can look up to and interact.  I'd also recommend that you take it a step further and actually work with spirits that will benefit you in such a way.  If you're looking to cultivate a sense of inner peace, either work with Shiva and Ayra-Tara-Ma or have someone else do the work for you. Just bringing an entity into your sphere can have far-reaching effects for the same reasons listed above.

Furthermore, cut the bad apples off the tree.  Make the sacrifice and move on with your life if someone isn't benefiting you.  Don't sit their and stew; it WILL come back to bite you if you don't heed this advice.  Compassion is great until it drags you down; if it does, it needs to be managed like any other emotion or instinct.

The TL:DR version of this is illustrated pretty well by Hopsin in the following music video:

The long and short of it is that in order to grow, we have to cut loose the anchors that hold us down.  If you want to get somewhere in life, make whatever sacrifices you need to, so long as they'll actually get you somewhere.  If that means that you need to ask for help, realize this and then make it happen.

There are plenty of resources, spiritual teachers, spirit workers, teachers, therapists, business contacts, and potential friends who can help you to change your life for the better.  All you need to do is reach out and work to make that occur.

If you should desire such assistance, contact me and we'll talk. If you're not sure what to do about your situation, but just want to do something general to help fix it, I can probably assist.

Take care and thank you for reading.

Regards,

SE

Greetings once again, dear readers. As always, I hope that this post finds you in pleasant spirits (forgive the pun).

It'd seem that I am quickly making a habit out of posting information from my personal grimoire, so I thought that I would share another with you lot. 

This particular entity, Lail-Naj'Ma, is best categorized as being inbetween what one might consider planetary and elemental, and while she is most comfortable at night, her attributes are both solar and airy. Her strengths revolve around intelligence gathering, helping us to digest information, and other such pursuits.

A yellow candle dressed with a sweet-smelling perfume is perfect as an offering for this one, and while she is generally good-natured, she does not take kindly to stupidity and will grow impatient if you don't listen. She is a spirit with which a respectful tone is mandatory for continued work.

Her sigil is as follows:

Enjoy!

SE

Ave, my dear readers.

After a busy weekend in which this particular deity was incredibly helpful, I have decided to do a write up at His behest.  The topic of this post is the God known for being fleet of foot, Hermes.

Before I get started, I'd like to thank Hermes for His tireless assistance and efforts in my life; it has been both noticed and greatly appreciated, and I look forward to the growth of our friendship through the coming years. IO Hermes!

That said, for those of you who aren't really all that sure who I'm talking about, Hermes is the God who wears winged sandals and a winged helm, and carries a caduceus with Him.  He's the go-to messenger God in Hellenismos and is often equated with the Roman God Mercury.

Furthermore, in Greco-Roman magicospiritual circles, He is also called Thoth; this sum could be the reason for Him being called "Thrice Great", but that's neither here nor there.

For Him was Hermetics named, and by and through His wisdom was the system created.  One might say that His travels as a border-crossing "insurgent" have left Him far wiser than others, and that is the reason for my post.

In the interest of guiding others towards methods for making notable changes in their lives, I am writing this post to provide His sigil such that others might be able to utilize it effectively.

That said, here it is:

You folks are welcome to do with this as you please, but please be sure to give me credit if you post it elsewhere.

Enjoy!

SE

'lo again, my witchy friends. :)

At the urging of a friend of mine, I've written a prayer that may serve as the Buddhist version of St. Patrick's Breastplate.  This piece calls Mahakala, a wrathful emanation of Shiva, for the sake of becoming a walking embodiment of His essence so that we might become the change we wish to see in the world around us.

Use this whenever you feel threatened, hopeless, weakened, or in need of a sense of purpose.  Use this when you feel as though the odds are stacking themselves up against you.

By and through this prayer, one may seek enlightenment and cause others to do the same. Consider the use of this prayer to be an empowerment, if you should so choose.

The Prayer:

Great God Mahakala, I call to you in all of Your forms
I prostrate myself before you
and I bind Your essence within and without me from this day forward
such that those who rise against me shall gain no ground
Let Your compassion flow through me so that I and all others
Might be freed from sickness, hindrances and troubles
I gird myself in Your garbs and pick up Your tools
They empower me such that I may always walk with You
Bettering lives, attracting and fulfilling needs
Providing antidotes for the poisons of the World
Let all seek Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
As they see this kala which I've become! 

You are welcome to use this as you see fit or repost this as you see fit.  Please be sure to give me credit for it, however. 

Warm regards,

SE