Greetings once again, dear readers.  I do hope this blog post finds you well.  I've come back from a rather rough weekend, so I thought I would start the week off with a bang.

To start, I'm sure you lot have, by now, figured out that my primary focus in my praxis is the Spirits.  As such, I don't tend to have much in the way of respect for written word, as I find it to be second to gnosis, or wisdom received as a gift from the Divine.  This, I feel, tends to stand at odds with the common spiritual practice of today, where many flock to bookstores to snatch up and devour the words of another, and subsequently use that as the basis for personal praxis.

I'm not here to comment on such a practice, save for saying that I don't think it is the ideal way to continue after you've gotten your feet wet.  That being the case, I'd like to turn our attention to further discussion on my own experiences, and hopefully, through the comments section, your own experience with the Spirits.

If you've read my previous posts, you'll likely be aware of the fact that while I serve the Horned God primarily, I am also incredibly close with the Goddess Tara-Ma, in all of Her forms.  I act as a steward and day planner, so to speak, when it comes to utilizing Her skills when working for clients.  That being the case, I've found that there are times where Her manifestations seem to be most unusual, and oft incredibly touching.  Sometimes that touching is "inappropriate", and other times it is simply by experiencing Her in full, but regardless of the method, it is always awe-inspiring.  One such occurance happened recently, when Ayra Tara decided that She wished to show me Herself in that form.  After enjoying Her company in baser ways that I'll not discourse of herein, She and I got to talking and I learned something that I found, for the lack of a better word, incredibly adorable and human-like.  She explained that that particular emanation of Her is from Tibet, where She does actually have a bedtime - the monks tuck Her statue in and "Wake" Her statue up every day, providing meals and offerings.  Now, this might not seem so shocking to those of you who don't work like I do, but in my years, I've never once heard of such a thing.  The Gods might rest, in some form or another, but I've never heard of Them sleeping.

Hearing this had a surprising effect on me.  It was both incredibly endearing and awe-inspiring, and caused me to have an even greater respect for this particular Goddess, on top of the love I already had.  It was an instance wherein I was surprised, yet again, and I must admit that its had a profound effect on me. I've spent the past couple of months praying to Her every day, as I've had my own share of emotional issues that I am working past.  In a way, its made me feel as though the Gods are that much more accessible, even more so than I previously believed.

That, of course, has intensified my own feelings and practices immensely, and that example brings me to a point: While spirit work, in the context of spiritism and the process of seeking gnosis, one comes to a point where he or she may be unsure how to take some information. When one reaches such a crossroads, it is helpful to take into account your feelings on the matter.  Does such a revelation leave you sincerely awestruck?  Does it move you at your core, and redefine your practice in some way, despite your every effort to the contrary?  If it does, then you can be sure that you have indeed received some tidbit of gnosis as a gift from the Gods.  If not, then you must re-evaluate your praxis, and see attempt to discover what is holding you back.

Regards,

SE

....Jai Tara-Ma! Jai Ayra Tara!

Greetings once again, dear readers. I do hope my post finds you well in these rather tumultuous times.

Well, lately, I've been thinking a great deal (dangerous, I know), and I keep coming back to one topic in particular: When working to form relationships with spirits, how far should we tread if we aren't initiated?  What, specifically, "counts" as an initiation?

Part of what caused me to think of this was a client who, as of late, has decided that she is going to undertake a new path in her life.  She and I have talked at great length, and she has decided to devote her life in service to a specific deity, though she was concerned that her doing so might have been improper.  From what I found, being the intermediary between God and client, was that she had already received more than enough invitation from the aforementioned.  He had been showing up and calling to her for years, even if she hadn't had any idea what was going on.

That, of course, brought me about to write this post.  There are times where some of us may get called towards a specific direction or practice without any idea as to why the hel it happened.  Sometimes that may be scary, but I think that its important to realize that this isn't necessarily a bad thing.  In instances like this, one is being initiated by the spirit themselves, rather than by some human individual who claims to be doing it.  If you are lucky enough to be called in such a way, I'd urge you to heed the call and go forth.  There's probably something to learn from such an endeavor, and if you aren't sure if that's the case, divine, or have someone do it for you.

My guess, for the coming year, is that this will start happening more and more.  Should this happen to you, go forth and attend the deity, and most importantly, make sure you pay attention and learn something.  When you're called in such a way, the rules of initiation don't apply to you in the same way!

Regards,

SE

I'd like to apologize, dear readers, for my absence, as of late.  I've been spending a great deal of time doing magick rather then writing about it, which, of course, has caused my blog to suffer a bit.  I shall attempt to make up for my negligence, but I make no promises.

With that said, as of late, due to the time of year, I've been thinking a great deal about family and ancestors.  For some of you, this is a relatively simple thing to think on, but for someone like myself, I find that it is a great deal more difficult.  To give a bit of background, my parents and I never did get along, and when the chance arose I left them behind.  The time I saw them was roughly six years ago, and the last conversation I had with them was barely civil.

When I was raised, from the age of 5 years old and onward, I was cut off from my father's half of the family completely, which left me to interact with my grandmother on my mother's side, my brother, and my parents.  Beyond that, I was relatively isolated, and the excuse given was that my family on my father's side were racists.

Well, I recently had the fortune to come into contact with my uncle, who I had never met prior to the message I received, and, through him, came into contact with the rest of my estranged family.  This experience has been delightful and incredibly enlightening, but it has brought me to an interesting crux in my life that I struggle with, to some extent.  For a long time, I had practically ignored ancestor worship, due to my misgivings about being related to my mother and father, and it was only ~6 months ago that I seriously began to work with my ancestors.

Sob story aside, that brings me to the point behind this post: we, as "pagans" (or whatever other paradigm you ascribe to) who practice ancestor worship, may have differing views on what we define as family.  The definition of family becomes important, as it, naturally, affects who our ancestors are.  Due to the circumstances in my life, I've effectively disowned my mother and father, but still love my mother's relatives and my father's relatives dearly.  The same can be said for my brother, my cousins, as well as for my girls.  My girls are not, obviously, related to me by blood, but we have a bond that goes deeper then blood or bone.  Blood may well be what ties me to the ancestors I am bound to, but with them too, the bond is deeper then any physical material or manifestation.

To that end, when one comes to a point where he or she realizes this, we must also realize that they do, in many cases, feel the same about us.  They may also feel the same way you do about the handful of idiots in your family, so you might have more in common with them then you realize.  For those of you with a situation similar to my own, I urge you to keep this in mind...its truly an awesome revelation, in my opinion.

Now that we've established that there is more to an ancestral or familial connection then blood, we are forced to realize that we are tied to the ancestors of those we love as well.  They are not somehow insulated from us, or visa versa, and they too should be honored.  I honor, frequently, my late father in law, and his ancestors, as well as honor my mother-in-law's ancestors.  So too do I do this for the adoptive parents of my girlfriend, their family, their ancestors, and those of my girlfriend's bloodline.  Its amazing how enriching that can be, and its a rather startling revelation when you realize that we can and should do this.

So, the Tl:DR message of this ramble of post is this: "We are connected to our family's foremothers and forefathers whether the relation is of blood or of spirit."  I urge you to connect with them all and see how it changes your life.

Regards,

SE

I had a thought that was bouncing around in my brain for the past couple of days, so I thought I would share it here.  Before I do, I will endeavor to set the proverbial stage: as magicians, or other such magickally inclined folk, one of the major problems that seems to stunt our growth is the actual manifestation of our needs and desires.  We engage in rituals, cast spells, and set our wills upon the world, but sometimes we have a great deal of trouble with getting our intended results to manifest.  For the blooming magus, we can sometimes get some really goofy, or downright improper manifestations of our will, and it can be a bit frustrating.  One of the more comical examples I've heard was from a friend of mine: He asked for an obedient, attractive, friendly, and loving blonde-haired girl and got a golden retriever...He got the result he asked for, but not the result he wanted.

That, of course, brings me to the point at hand, which, while simple, feels to be important.  We, as humans, conceptualize things differently than each other, based on our respective worldviews.  We conceptualize things in a remarkably different way than those in neighboring countries, and even moreso our ancestors.  Its no surprise that our familiar spirits, our pets, etc. also conceptualize things differently than we do.  To try to explain what I mean, consider, for a moment, that there are three different means by which humans learn:

1. Auditory learners: They learn by hearing.
   
2. Visual learners: They learn by seeing.
   
3. Kinesthetic/Tactile learners: They learn by doing.
   

Aside from the above, we also have different ways of thinking about the world around us, and the people around us.  Some of us think in pictures, whilst others think in words.  Further still, some of us, like myself, think in a combination of the two alongside various symbols that represent the concept at hand.

Keeping those two sets of different ways where we, as humans, can conceptualize and process data, consider that there is also one more major step in our cognitive process: we must also be able to process what we see and hear according to our worldview.  Our worldview, in this case, is the sum of our understanding of our world around us.  To our ancient ancestors, a rifle would likely have been considered to be a boomstick or a loud bow, as they had very little else to compare it to.  On the flip side, if most modern humans were to look back to our ancestor's way of making fire, we'd have a hard time figuring out how to work it and understand their POV without a lot of hard work.

Consider then, if you will, that the above examples are specific to the difficulties encountered when working within our species.  Non-human spirits are going to have similar differences in their values, methods of learning, and methods of conceptualizing the world around them.  This applies to angels, demons, deities, elementals, cats, dogs, birds, etc. and should impact how we decide to work with all of the above.  A God isn't going to "get" what you're trying to convey to them without some working guidebook, so you must be patient and work through the mistranslation issues.

You may well have a spirit show up when you call them, but that doesn't mean that they're going to understand you when you say "Spirit N., please assist me with gaining wealth!", as you don't know how that spirit defines wealth.  Is it spiritual wealth, material wealth, intellectual wealth, or sexual wealth (lots of sexual partners)?  You must be clear in your conveyance of what you are asking for, as removing such vague references is paramount to getting what you want.

So when you give your instructions, I'd urge you to ask the spirit to give you a sign that he or she knows what you are asking for before you close the proverbial door and give them leave to work your will.

I do hope, as always, that this post has been helpful.

Regards,

SE