Living a Magickal Life in a Less-Than-Magickal World

I want to wake up every day and think about spirituality. I want my daily conversations to deal with it. I want to go to work and do something magickal. I want to write rituals before I go to sleep so that I’m prepared for the next day. Instead…I wake up to thoughts of how to deal with problems I have faced at my job in the oilfield. I go through my day having conversations about bottom hole pressure. I go to sleep after finishing my timesheet and expenses describing the frac job I was on. Do I want this? No. Then I should take my own advice, right? If it doesn’t make you happy, leave it behind you. Well that’s just tough shit, as we would say in the oil patch.

I am a father to four children and those four little munchkins have to go to college soon. My wife would like to be able to wear at least a couple pieces of jewelry. I would like to be able to buy a new tire if I get a flat. It all boils down to that all-mighty dollar that seems to be completely absent within the metaphysical community. I refuse to let my family go without the things that they need, and I would like to be able to get away from the foods that will cause me cancer in 20 years. I am not willing to make these sacrifices for myself and my family so that I may go to work in the magickal world.

So I ask you, the reader, the question that has plagued me for going on 10 years now. How do you make a decent living in a magickal way? Is there anyone in the magickal community who makes a living compared to me, a common oilfield engineer? I’ve read that Jason from the Wild Hunt has to crowd-fund his trips to conventions, and he’s probably the most famous person within the Pagan community. To me, this is absolutely crazy. If you wanted someone famous in the oilfield to speak at a convention, you would pay them a minimum of $20,000 for a speech. Jason, Penczak, Starhawk, and all of those other famous Pagans should be paid to come to an event rather than have to pay for their own travel.

So even the most famous people in our community still have to budget for trips/work? That’s nuts. The problem I see is that there is no way that our community can get any inflow from non-magickally inclined people. Yet we all have flow out of our community to airfare, gas, rent, food, and every other normal industry. So we steadily are losing money as a community. I’ll always have to pay for gas, clothes, food, etc. unless I live in some kind of commune (which is a fun idea once the kiddos are out of the house), but there’s no way to pay for it through the magickal community unless we could someone have some kind of a cash funnel from the other industries into our community. So I guess that the real question is what service or good can the people in our communities provide your everyday person without moving outside of the magickal. Either that or we need a really really big trust fund account.

I don’t know the answer but I do think that this is this big question that we as a community have to answer.

Cheat Sheet for the Norse Runes

Hello everyone!  I’ve been doing a bit of research into the runes and decided that it might be useful for many people just beginning on this path to have a simple cheat sheet.  I took the material from Diana Paxson’s “Taking Up the Runes” and condensed it into keywords.  If you have questions, comments or additions, please put them in the comments and I’ll add or take away from the list as needed.  I hope it’s helpful!

 

Sound	Norse Rune	Norse Meaning
f	fehu	wealth (cattle), wealth causing problems, hoarding vs freely giving, productivity
u	uruz	Auroch, movement of energy, changing of energy into something, consuming of energy
th	thurisaz	thor, pure action, raw strength, applied power
a	ansuz	Communication, Odin, rune of the word–song, poetry and incantation, the mouth
r	raidho	riding, road, horses, movement, joy and labor within the movement process
c/k	kenaz	torch, burning, logic, knowledge, light
g	gebo	gift, exchange
w	wunjo	joy, luck, innocence from pain and woe
h	hagalaz	hail, fated change, stop moving and start simply being, go with the flow
n	naudhiz	need, fated troubles, forced learning and growing
i	isa	ice, temporary stability, difficulty, stagnancy, void space, antimatter
yuh	jera	year, summer, continuation, the wheel of the year, harvest
ei	eihwaz	yew tree, opposites (tree of eternal life and death), flexibility within opposites, world tree, transition point between this realm and the others
p	perthro	chance, games, perthro is rarely used as p and b were interchangeable, cup holding runes or game pieces
zh	elhaz	moose, protection, sword, holy edge, eelgrass
s	sowilo	sun, extremely similar to the sun in the tarot, destroys stagnancy, guides, the will, victory, movement, illumination
th	tiwaz	Tyr, victory, guidance, justice, spear, courage, civilized masculinity, courage, self-discipline
b	berkano	birch tree, spark of life/fire, birth, womb, feminine fire
eh	ehwaz	horse, freyr, partnership, cooperation, transcendence of the soul, unification of body and spirit
m	mannaz	man, rational mind, logic, hope, the human condition
l	laguz	lake, water in general, the sea, opposition to one’s passage and yet still a passage
ng	ingwaz	Ing, Yngvi, male counterpart to Berkano, genetic inheritance, possibly destiny, meditation, calming passage, soothing masculinity, completion, transition periods that are calm and soothing
d	dagaz	day, youth, illumination, the aha! moment, sunshine
o	othala	ancestral property, mystical heritage, karma, that which is rightly yours, mystical heritage (i.e. fae heritage, dwarven heritage, etc), family, clan, group

Samhain Is Not On October 31st

Alright, so Samhain is not October 31st.  It’s not Halloween.  It’s not All Hallow’s Eve.  It’s not the day before November starts.  It IS a cross-quarter day meaning it is the day exactly between the Fall Equinox (September 22nd in 2012) and the Winter Solstice (December 21st in 2012).  That means that Samhain in 2012 will be on the night of November 5th, 2012 by my back of the envelope calculations.

Now, why is this important?  Well, why do you celebrate Samhain?  I don’t think it’s because it’s someone’s birthday (e.g. the fake reason for Christmas), it’s not remembering an event (e.g. fake Easter), and it’s definitely not in memory of a person (e.g. MLK day).  It’s because it’s supposed to be the day of the year that the veil is thinnest.  Why in the world would you celebrate that on the wrong day?  It’s not going to be the same date every year for the same reason the solstices aren’t the same date every year.  Sigh.

Now, the only other day that I could consider being a good day to celebrate it is on the dark moon nearest the cross-quarter date because the dark moon helps to get through the veil to the other side, so it’s probably a pretty thin line as well.

 

Doorways, Closets, Windows and Shadows–Entrances to Our Side?

When you read about protecting your home or a room for daily use, everyone suggests to protect the doorways and windows.  All of the openings need protecting, right?  Oh, so the creepy ghost that is there sometimes and isn’t at other times definitely needs to use that door, doesn’t it?  The big scary demon that might make you go crazy has been sneaking in through your window at night hasn’t he?  Wait…when he came in the other night to scare me, the window was locked tight and it was locked when I woke up.  Hold up.  [Lightbulb]  So maybe that creepy crawly doesn’t need to use the doors or windows…  But then why do I worry about them at all?  That’s it, I’m just going to hole up in my bed and pull the blankets over my head.

So why exactly do we protect the windows and doors if the things that go bump in the night don’t use them?  Well…they do use them, just not the same way we do.  There’s got to be a crossover from their realm to ours, and if the old Hermetic idea of “As Above, So Below” is true, then those doors are actually a great transition area.  The same goes with water/air transitions (aka bathtime), mirrors, light/dark transitions (shadows), and inside/outside transitions (windows and doors).  Transitions are required for anything form the other worlds to get through which is why these areas are inherently scary to children and adults alike.  Think about it.  When children are scared, what are they scared of?  Under the bed (constant shadow), closet (constant shadow and doorway), baths, attics, basements, and mirrors.  When creepy stuff comes out in movies, where does it come from?  Those same transition areas of course.  It’s ingrained in our subconscious that those areas are dangerous areas for us, and it’s not just because we can’t see clearly.

So what should we do about these areas?  Well…you’ve got two options:  get rid of them or protect them from unwanted entities.  If you can get rid of the transitions, do it.  Take down that mirror in your bedroom, minimize constant shadows by rearranging furniture, leave the light on in your closet, clean up that attic and basement.  Obviously you can’t have a house with no doors or windows.  That’s just crazy.  But protect them.  Both sides of them.  Just because you hang your big mojo defensive amulet on your bedroom side of the closet door doesn’t mean the creepy thing watching you while you sleep can’t get through the other side of the door into your closet.  So you’ve got a mirror in your bathroom and you’d really like to check your hair in the morning (I know…vanity’s a bitch sometimes), so go ahead and do a ritual to protect the mirror.  Here’s a big one that a lot of people don’t think about:  bath time.  This one’s kind of tough because it’s a new transition every time you run one.  You could use some anti-bad-stuff-herbs and incenses while you bathe, but let’s face it, the hot guy at work’s not really digging your constant frankincense smell.  So on this one, I’d energize a big monster batch of salt (or epsom salt for those achy bones) with various oils and energy work to make it a purification and anti-bad-stuff salt.  Throw some of that in the tub with you and you should be set (make sure you protect that shower curtain as well since it’s a transition as well).

Obviously there’s a lot of things I haven’t covered since houses and life have a ridiculous number of transitional areas, but these are the major culprits.  If you’re aware of them, then you should be able to deal with them better than before if you ever have problems.  I personally wouldn’t worry too much until there’s an issue.  Remember that if you’ve never dealt with anything creepy and you stay away from that big book o’ demon summoning you’re probably golden and you won’t have to worry too much about looking like a crazy by having weird bags and crazy stuff hanging all over the house.  I mainly am putting this stuff out there for those of you who naturally have to deal with the stuff scares the crap out of normal people.

Questions About Magick

“I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”   ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

Well hello again!  It’s been quite some time since I’ve been back to these old stomping grounds, but it seems that I can’t ever quite get away.  I guess that’s a good thing though.  So today I’m not here to answer questions or give you advice from Ye Olde Booke O Answers.  I’m just here to ask a few uncomfortable questions that have been bothering me.  This isn’t me doubting myself or needing reassurance.  It’s more of a set of questions for you to answer for yourself to see if you’re on the right path.

Why do you do magick?

Are you doing magick because it’s cool?  Are you doing magick because you’re searching for truth?  Are you just dabbling enough to cast a spell to help you get something you want?  I guess that there are more reasons than I could list, but before you leave the computer today, ask yourself that simple question and be dumbfounded by the answer (if you can get it) because it’s something that I asked myself for years before I figured it out myself (thanks Jen for helping with that!)

How has magick helped your life?

It hasn’t helped mine.  I didn’t strike it rich.  I didn’t get the girl because of it.  I certainly didn’t get the job that I wanted because of a spell I did.  I can’t/won’t help the sick and dying unless the issue isn’t right to begin with.  On the other hand, I end up staying up until 4 am when I have work at 6 am to deal with those things that go bump in the night (they’re really good at deciding to hang out at rather inconvenient times).  I’ve been sick to my stomach in fear and worry about my wife when I have to work nights on a regular basis.  How has magick helped my life?  It hasn’t.  And it more than likely won’t.  So tell me:  how has magick helped yours?

Do you enjoy magick?

That’d be a negative Ghost Rider.  Do you copy Ghost Rider?  That’s a negative on the enjoyment of magick.  I started out trying to get physical power through a medium that perfectly fitted me.  I wanted to control my dreams.  I wanted to understand the meaning of life.  I wanted to get what I wanted in life.  Has that happened?  Yes and no.  I have a good life and it’s perfect for where I should be in life.  I’m learning the lessons I’m meant to learn.  On the other hand, money doesn’t fall from the sky.  We have been so poor that I missed meals on a regular basis and when I had them it was corn tortillas and beans (with cheese when we were splurging).  I’ve had to work my ass off for everything that I’ve gotten and I’ve been so tired that I wanted to cry.  Did I do magick?  Yep.  Did it work?  That’s another negative Ghost Rider.  Why not?  Well because I had to learn the lessons before I could move on just like anybody else.  Well if magick isn’t helping me and I don’t enjoy it, then why do I do it?  Well that’s simple.  If I don’t do it, then I die a little on the inside.  And then I die a little more.  And then some more.  Eventually, I’d end up being the person that I work next to.  The one that lives vicariously through the Us Weekly articles about celebrities going to jail and having affairs.  I’d worry about things like whether my high school football team is on a winning streak or how the Cowboys are doing.  As it is, I worry about how to deal with choices that I’ve made and how to better prepare my family for whatever may come.  I worry about moving from this stage to the next in my life.  No, I do not enjoy magick but it gives my life meaning where I find very little in other people’s lives.  I am absolutely certain when I’m doing things right and when I’m doing things wrong.  I can feel it in my bones and smell it in the air.  So ask yourself whether you actually enjoy it.  And if you don’t, then why do you continue?

So after thinking about these questions, doubt yourself a little bit.  I know, I know–that’s not what you wanted to hear from my first post on here in over a year.  No one wants to doubt themselves and they definitely don’t want to hear it from someone who says that they don’t enjoy such a major part of their life.  What I’m saying is that you need to take those rose colored glasses off and put them in the dumpster.  Life’s hard and that’s good.  Magick doesn’t make it any better.  In fact it makes it harder.  I’ve posted about Paganism being the easy religion and it is these days.  On the other hand, magick’s not.  We’re here to learn, grow, and gain experiences.  Magick does make those easier, and it does it by forcing you to do those things often before you’re willing.  So toss the glasses, pull on your big boy underwear, and get ready to go kick some ass.

The BIG MOVE!

Thank you everyone for your support!  We’re moving to a new site along with getting ourselves own domain name.  We did this so that we could have more flexibility with Magick for the Real World’s future.  Wordpress was very limiting in how we could progress with our goals and so we finally decided to make the big move.  We would appreciate it very much if you came to the new site and let us know what you thought of the move.  As always we would love any comments or critiques.  We hope that you continue to support us in this transitional time.  The WordPress site will stay up, but we will be posting all new content at the new site.

Thank you,

Josh and Jen

www.magickfortherealworld.com

Pagan Economics and its Problems

There is a growing number of Pagans in the US and many of them want to incorporate this into their daily lives aka their source of income.  For some reason, almost no Pagan businesses are ever as profitable as their non-spiritual counterparts.  I’d like to go into a bit of depth on each of the types of businesses before coming to any major conclusions as to the why and how we can change this.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing business is a very common business for Pagans.  This represents all those that craft by hand as well as major manufacturing companies that create the commonly sold things such as bumper stickers.  The problem with this business is that nearly all of the things manufactured for Pagans are one-time-buys.  No one buys the same necklace twice or the same athame twice.  The only major items that people buy multiple times are candles, incense, herbs, soaps, oils, “spell kits”.  Yes, this is a very viable business, but the problem is that retailers are the ones that buy these products and they are having a hard time which in turn means that manufacturers are having a hard time as well.

Retail

This is the path that most end up going down and nearly everyone tries at some point.  Brick and mortar stores tend to have a lot of problems due to the lack of large concentrations of Pagans in any single area.  They also have far more expenses than online stores and therefore have to have higher prices.  They’ll never be able to compete with online drop-shippers or large chains on price simply because they cannot buy products in large enough quantities to get significant discounts.  The internet retail stores have trouble because most products are one time buys and there is A LOT of competition.  It also seems that the products do not differ enough to allow the consumer to be loyal to a single company because of their outstanding product lines.  This is one of the biggest and most profitable of the current Pagan businesses especially when coupled with a service regardless of the hardships that they have to deal with.

Information  

There are thousands of people trying to make money off of a Pagan blog, website, magazine, or newsletter.  A few make it, but most end up having to have another job.  There are very few people that make their living off of this, and the only real section of people in this industry that stand out are the authors of Pagan 101 books because they can profit off of the people who are not living off of the Pagan industries.  Though it sounds very pyramid scheme-ish, it’s the truth.  Booksellers like Barnes and Nobles sell very few books other than introductory books to Paganism, and these are the places that make authors the most money.

Education

There is only one currently utilized outlet for this business:  “magick schools”.  These are almost exclusively online businesses that offer the same type of information as a Pagan 101 book and again, they are profiting off of the new kids on the block.  They offer very little (from my very limited experience with them) other than an online teacher. This is not a bad idea but the truth is that there are many other paths that should at least be tested in this business.

Health Care

This revolves almost entirely on a combination of massage therapy, energetic healing (Reiki for example), acupuncture, and acupressure.  There are other styles of “New Age” healing that we’ll consider, but these are the main ones.  There is an extremely large number of people practicing these techniques both in the Pagan world and outside of it, and so the competition is rather stiff.  It is also a business that is not extremely expandable and so those that are not business minded tend to have a very difficult time because they have to be both good at their practice as well as running a business which for many people is a difficult thing to do.

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation

There is a very large number of these ranging from tourist style entertainment (think Rennaisance Faire) to musical entertainment to general artisans.  The problem with these businesses is that they’re very limited to the number of people in their niche (Paganism) unless they can branch out into mainstream (Ren Faires).  There’s not much else to say other than they will have problems until the population of Pagans increases dramatically.

Accomodations, Food

There’s very few accommodations or food/drink locations that cater to specifically Pagans.  Yes, there are some but they are very few and far between and I have never actually been to one so I have very few things to note other than the fact that our sub-culture is far too spread out in most places for these places to be very profitable unless they can also reach the mainstream.

Professional Services

Professional services would be consultants, financial advisors, and the likes.  The problem with trying to start something like this that specializes in the Pagan business world would be that there are very few Pagan businesses that can afford them.  Its a business that we desperately need, but not something that we’ll likely find any time soon.

Conclusions

There are a lot of conclusions that we can draw from this analysis.  We can all see that an increase in Pagan population would without a doubt make Pagan businesses more profitable and the world is headed in that direction, but we are still a long way away from seeing a large increase in the profitability of brick and mortar stores and businesses. It seems as though more Pagan businesses need to adopt a larger service line in order to be profitable from the beginning.  Having a Pagan restaurant/bar that also sold massages in the back and had a “gift shop” (think cracker barrel) would probably have a better chance of profiting than a simple store because it would cause more impulse buying as well as combining the revenue from all of the possible options.  It would also create a much larger loyal customer base.  This would put more money into fewer hands allowing them to grow their business and in the future, make an impact in the non-Pagan community thus increasing the possible number of customers by increasing the number of Pagans.

Internet shops should push for more brand loyalty by increasing the number of unique items, increasing the number of consumable items, as well as increasing their ability to impact the Pagan community.

The key to everything involves the brick and mortar operations to increase impact on the non-Pagan community, making them more amiable to Pagans, and the internet operations to increase their impact on the Pagan community, making them more “Pagan only” whenever possible.  This would open up huge opportunities for everyone to profit from the increased spending into Pagan businesses.

Water of the Elements

So I was thinking earlier about tools I’ve collected, been gifted, gifted, and used throughout my nearly 10 years of magick and I thought I’d let share one of them with you.  It was thought up and gifted to me by my aunt on a winter solstice around 5 years ago, and I used it for numerous years afterwards sparingly.  She gave me 4 glass bottles of water coming from the four elements which would lend the essence of water with a slant towards one of the other elements.  I’ll give you a more understandable explanation for each after I’ve written down my personal recipe for them.

Water of the Air

1 Glass Jar (needs to be glass) that is airtight.  Liquor bottles work perfectly.  Preferably it is dark tinted to reduce light.

1 Large feather such as an owl, vulture, or hawk

Collect rainwater from a single storm.  For those of us living in the desert, this may require a long wait or a trip to Seattle.  This also may mean that you need to put a bucket outside to catch enough water.  Once the water is in the jar, stir it with the feather.  Put whatever air energy you feel is needed into it.  I’m not really one for the rhyming spells or chants so throw that in there if you’re that kind of person as well.

This will be used to represent the airy parts of water:  the fluidity, hurricanes, cold emotions, and all things that go between the water and air such as seabirds, rain (yeah, I know…), and storms of all sorts.

Water of the Earth

1 Glass Jar–the same as the others

a handful of stones from a body of water or stones that represent water to you

The instructions are the same as the water of air except with the earth slant.

The important things to note when using this water is that it is of the earth and therefore represents things such as the body, water that is not in motion, creatures that travel between the earth and water (crabs for example), and emotional ties to objects.

Water of Fire

1 Glass Jar–the same as the others 

1 pot

1 match

The instructions for this one are a bit different.  First boil natural spring water (bottled water works).  Put this water into the jar.  Then light the match and feel the heat and fire flowing into the water.  Put the match out in the jar and pull the matchstick out.  There will be ashes in the water and that’s okay.

This is the combination of opposites.  It is a representation of the “hot” emotions such as passion, anger, and love.  It is also a representation of the idea of alchemy and the combination of opposing forces.  This is a tricky one to really explain with examples.

Water of Water

1 Glass jar

In this, the procedure is very simple.  You just need either water from a very large lake or water from the sea.  I’d suggest that you make sure they are as clean as possible (run them through a coffee filter or 10), but other than that just pour it into the jar and close the lid.

This is the most difficult one to explain the representation on in my opinion.  It has to do with all things purely of water.  Dreams, water bound creature, watery emotions if that makes any sense, and of course water itself.

All of these waters will work for the water aspect in a ritual, but they are specifically designed for certain types.  For example, I would use the Water of Fire in a ritual to bring about more passion in your life but it wouldn’t be a good one for bringing more wealth into your life.  On the other hand, if you wanted to a very water based ritual, you could use all of the waters as representatives of the 4 elements.

You have to be careful not to let them into the light very much because algae will start to grow if they’re exposed to much light and nobody wants to use water in a ritual that’s got weird green stuff in it.

Anyways, good luck and if you have any questions or thoughts, give us a few comments.

God, Reality, Myth, Fiction…What Do You Choose?

Eliphas Levi' Baphomet

What is reality to you?  Is it a bearded man sitting on a golden throne in heaven?  A group of drunk and disorderly gods and goddesses sitting on top of a mountain?  Is it the media and science’s portrayal of reality where we sit in cubicles until we’re too old to see the computer screen clearly and then we’re put into nursing homes until we die?

My reality is none of the above and though I’m sure my regular readers know, I hold to no reality for very long.  It is constantly shifting to fit my current understanding of the world.

“Knowledge is changeable.  Truth is eternal.  It is disastrous to confuse them.”   –Madeleine L’Engle

This quote is of the utmost importance to all that practice magick because although our society teaches rigidity in belief, magick teaches us fluidity.  It is impossible to fly when you cannot bend your own reality to accept that it is possible.  For anyone who has ever practiced magick knows that the reality that we are taught is flawed and therefore cannot be the truth.  It is the magician’s quest to constantly search for that truth, to follow meandering roads to their ends and to always search for the one that leads to that golden door of enlightenment.

This post is not a simple post.  It isn’t about a simple topic such as athames or tarot cards or even the meaning of life.  This is about what lies beneath all of it.  The core answer of every question.  Truth.

“I’m going to paraphrase Thoreau here… rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness… give me truth.”  Chris McCandless, Into the Wild

To the magician, everything is based on their current idea of truth.  If they believe that the truth allows them to fly, they will search for a way to do this.  They will always test, always make sure that something will work before they need this.  They gather tools and build their repertoires in this way, but in reality they are actually exploring the unknown and changing their reality to always get closer to the truth.

The end result is a culture of expanding minds, of modern day philosophers.  These expanding minds are the future of our society.  It is only so long before the rest of the world begins to see where these philosophers are headed.  Every day more and more government officials have ties to this culture from the small town officials to a Presidential hopeful, Gary Johnson.  The society that was dominated by science is slowly being influenced by the surrounding proof of flaws in our ideas of reality as well as the ever-encroaching mainstreaming of Pagan culture.  These modern day philosophers are not always authors or college graduates.  They are simply people who’s minds have been opened to the idea of other realities through trial and error.  We are the advisors, the councilors, the confidants of our society and we need to start acting like it.

The expansion of reality does not mean that we should live outside of the bounds of normal society.  We must still provide food for our families, must still keep clothes on our backs and should never become a burden for the ones we love.  We must somehow balance the knowledge that we have gained and the world that we have chosen with the world that we have been placed into.  Remember, we were placed in this time and society for a reason and it is our duty to fulfill our role.