I’m going to make some comments in this post that are absolutely not the views of every Pagan in the world. These comments are not the important part of this post, they are simply a way to make a point, so try to keep the commentary away from the obviously skewed views I am giving.

The world sees the Pagan community as childish and silly. I do not view myself as childish or silly. I don’t view the people that I practice with as childish and silly, and I doubt that any of my fellow Pagans truly think of themselves as childish or silly. On the other hand, turn the tables for a second and let me paint you a picture.

You see a group of people who claim to be able to control the weather, make people fall in love, and talk to invisible creatures. They claim that they hear things that no one else can hear, can see pretty colors around people, and think that the Earth (one of billions and billions of planets) is their chief deity. Now, these people rarely have jobs which keep them above the poverty line. They are unhealthy (though one of their chief tenets is healthy living), do massive amounts of drugs (again with the healthy living…), and are most commonly 14 year old girls who do poorly in school and are less than prudish.

These same people have no organizational structure, can’t truly explain the basic tenets of their religion, have no true traditions that extend past about 100 years ago, and have no true holy books (oh yeah, other than the ones that they write themselves), and the authors that make all of their money marketing this “religion” are their primary community leaders…couldn’t forget that one.

They get together under the full moon once a month to have communion with their deity of choice (which they stole from about a hundred different cultures who all had their own belief systems), oftentimes completely nude, have rituals that involve orgies or at least one couple having sex in front of the group, and have no other regular group meeting. At these “rituals” they wear cloaks that reminiscent of a Harry Potter movie and wave “magic” wands around. Now, they don’t do “magic” daily, just at these “rituals” where everyone’s naked. What kind of entertainment do these people have in their daily lives? Reading fantasy fiction, smoking pot, watching Lord of the Rings incessantly and watching movies on DVD (probably from the library because they have a $200 late fee at Blockbuster because they were too high or lazy to return the movies) Oh yeah, and don’t forget how often they complain about how horrible and stupid Christians are because of course this path is far more “enlightened”.

Now compare that to the next picture.

Think about a group that meets twice a week in a well established meeting place. People put on their best clothes (oftentimes suits and dresses) and are extremely polite. The priest or preacher has no other job other than to minister to the people of his church, and he takes it upon himself to help them in nearly all of their problems if asked. The church has food drives, raises money for the poor, and has community outreach projects.

All members of the church donate to the church monetarily. They help support the foundation of their belief with both time and large sums of money. There is little drama, and the church holds youth programs to keep the youngsters out of trouble. The church preaches about morals, tries to keep teens from getting pregnant, and has a tradition of at least 600 years to rely on.

There is a clear hierarchy, nearly all of the members are prominent members of their community, and most of the members are considered “good people” by the majority of the community. Prison inmates that turn to their belief system oftentimes are rehabilitated more by the religion than by the prison system. Their culture values goodness for the entire community as well as goodness to the body, and most of the members actively pursue these things.

The children are taught that they must pray every night as well as every meal. They do this every day. They go to church every Sunday, and oftentimes keep their drinking to a minimum in order to do so. They are respectable citizens who dress so that they are not ostracized from their communities (hence how they are able to actually help people in their community). 98% of the leaders of our country have been of their belief, and at least 80% of the community leaders follow their beliefs as well. They have a single book that was written over a thousand years ago that they have continuously followed. Every member of their faith can tell you the basics of the belief system.

Now, which one is the silly religion? Which one is the ignorant one?

How many of you have actually done some sort of religious action 4 times a day every day for 10 years? How many of you have actually donated 10% of your income to your group? How many of you have sat and worshiped for an hour three times a week every week for a year?

We say that the Christian faith is the easy religion, but I really can’t see how we can say that.

It’s not just the faith where we’re taking the easy road. We run away from society instead of working to change society. We rarely if ever try to make any kind of impact in the world. This year is the first time that a Pagan has held any kind of public office. If we have any hope of changing the rest of the world’s perception of us, we have to become more than a rag-tag bunch of people who are only magickal when we get dressed up in our cloaks (or undressed) at the full-moon.

The path of the magician is a lonely road. A road where the only companion is your own self and your own skills. It is a world in which the only things you can trust are the skills that you yourself have worked hard to acquire. This is the story that is preached to every aspiring magician, witch, or occultist. But is it true?

Everywhere you turn in the Pagan community, there are groups; covens are everywhere, couples work together to build a life together, and families teach their children the Craft. How is the path that we all walk such a lonely road then? The answer lies in how we do our magickal workings.

The way that things stand in modern times is that we work alone to accomplish our goals. We train our minds and bodies through meditation and yoga. We work magick to accomplish our own goals. We hope that our magick will protect our families, acquire the things that we need, and help our friends. These things are done on our own. Yes, I agree that many of the people out there are members of covens as well as members of magickal families, and work together to accomplish goals. So, how can I truly say that we do not work together?

I assure you, I agree that these are important processes in any type of group magick. The problem I see is that we still walk this lonely road, and no one can really help us because we do not understand each other magickally speaking. As a husband and father, I know that doing magick with my wife is more difficult than doing magick on my own. I rarely can achieve the same level of effects, and this is entirely avoidable.

There’s a reason why All-Star sports teams never reach the same level of quality that normal teams can reach. In theory, they should be the best of the best playing together and should be the best teams, but they never achieve this level. They don’t practice together, and so they can’t work together like they can with their normal team. This can be taken to the next level as well. If a person practiced basketball every day for 12 hours a day for their entire life by himself, they might be the best basketball player in the world…at the things that you can practice by yourself. They would never be good at passing, and they’d never learn to play with an opponent.

This has a direct correlation to group magick. The best magicians and witches of the world could come together and still be great, but they would never be greater than the sum of their abilities. If they worked together daily, they could achieve results even greater than this because they would know their partners and understand their partners’ energies better as well as how their companions work their magick. This is not even considering how much more they would learn by working with them.

That really only applies to the greats because, in truth, we are still constantly trying to improve and get the results we desire. Most of us are not completely confident in our abilities, and most of us have not experienced much of the magickal world. This is where we have to consider the lone basketball player. We need partners for many things in our magickal pursuits. We need someone to compete with on one hand. We need an opponent to spar with, just as martial artists must spar to truly understand and master their art. There is always the Great Rite to consider as well. How can you adequately perform the Great Rite if you do not know your partner both physically and magickally? In addition, if you wish to ever perform magick with a group or your partner, you must work with them regularly or your work is only as good as the sum of your abilities rather than something greater than the sum.

So, the question that must be asked is “How do you get to understand your partner or group?” Obviously the answer lies in practice. Just like in basketball, if you only play with your team during games, the time it would take to really play as a team would be extremely high. On the other hand (as all competitive teams do) practice is what really makes a team change from a group of kids playing basketball together into a real team. It’s the drills and conditioning together that really make this transition.

So how does that enter into the magickal realm? Obviously, you must condition on your own, just as an athlete must run and keep in shape on their own. On the other hand, you must practice your craft together. The simplest idea I have is that instead of simply doing energetic practice by pushing and pulling your own energy, you push and pull your partner’s energy and they do the same to you. You must know your partner’s feel, his or her own “song”. It would also make sense to actively spar with your partner. If you are trying to work on putting someone to sleep, try to make your partner sleepy, and they can do the same to you. It is your partner and your responsibility to constantly work with each other.

For many groups and partners, this already happens at celebrations and group meetings, but I contend that this is not enough for the serious practitioners. A person who is a student in martial arts does not attend martial arts practice once a month or even twice a month. They go at least once a week and more likely twice a week. But this is not just an art that we’re interested in, it is a spiritual path and a lifestyle. It is a part of our soul, and because of this we need to put it at the forefront of our life experiences.

Notes: This post does not condone illegal drug use. This is for eductational purposes only, and is simply a discussion topic relating to the history of magick.

Hello, spirit, welcome, dear spirit,
my cougar, my puma, my snarling lover,
bring me words. I know you.
And now I see your wound,
and now I see your death,
and wailing is my only song.

~Dale Pendall, Pharmako Gnosis

The most recorded type of magick throughout the span of history is the use of drug-induced ritual. It spans the ages and almost all shamans were known to use specific plants and herbs to induce an altered state. These herbs were revered in Native American traditions, known as Gods and Goddesses in many other cultures. They were the saviors, not the tool of the savior. They were never used for recreation for this was a dishonor to the plant. The plant spirits were the guardians of knowledge, and the guides of those who sought that knowledge.

Demons teach, instruct, and inspire men; there never was a man of outstanding stature in any art or action who had no familiar spirit to guide him. ~Paracelsus

Why do I bring these thoughts up when they are obviously illegal? I bring these ideas to mind because we as a group must understand where the stories of the past come from. The brujos of old often partook in ritual drug use in order to gain exceptional powers. South American shamans still partake in ritual Ayahuasca use in order to cleanse the mind and spirit as well as to travel through the underworld with the plant spirits as guides.

So the question I must ask is which way do we go? On the one hand, the plant guides of the past are dangerous, deadly, and controlling. They are not controllable, and in fact will control even the most cautious of followers evenutally. They are the end to many voyagers of their paths. They are also proven guides. They are the poison that heals, the darkness that brings the light, and the savior that condemns.

Do we discount all of the stories of the past? Are we to think of the shamans of old as ignorant and unknowing of the truth that science and modern medicine has told us about? Do we, the followers of the old ways, the followers of our ancestors’ beliefs, feel it right to take what we think is safe from their ways and leave the rest? I do not wish to push these ideas onto people. I only wish to play devil’s advocate and ask what do you believe?

There are legitimate reasons to abstain from the use of endeogenic plants and drugs. They are illegal. They take the control away from the user. They can even destroy the user. What is your view? How can you discount it completely?

O Sacred, Wise, and Wisdom-giving Plant,
Mother of Science, Now I feel thy Power
Within me clear, not only to discern
Things in their Causes, but to trace the ways
Of highest Agents, deem’d however wise.

~Milton

The Winter Solstice has passed and we are approaching spring, the time of birth and an end to the darkness of winter. The days are growing longer and there are murmurs of life within the melting snow. It is in this world of new birth that we look back on the coldness, harshness, and exquisite beauty of the darkness of winter. We see all around us transformations. The deer and rabbits have given birth to their young and we are gearing up for Beltane, the ancient celebration that turned maidens into mothers.

It is this time of transformation that forces us to remember that there is no light without darkness. The maiden’s voyage to that of motherhood is one of pain and pleasure intermixed. It is this cycle of darkness to light to darkness that pushes the world forward. It is mirrored in all of life. “The light can only be enjoyed because you have seen darkness” is not adequate; light can only exist because darkness allows it and vice versa. Growth happens in the darkness: plants cannot survive without darkness, animals could not be born without the darkness of the womb. Which was first, day or night?

So we must ask ourselves, what role does the darkness play in our personal lives and spiritual evolution? Do we embrace the darkness as the bat and owl do? The common Pagan idea is that darkness is necessary and that we must continuously deal with the darkness in order to grow because we must face that which we are uncomfortable with. It is not so much that we must conquer the darkness, but learn from the darkness, and especially from the darkness in ourselves.

This brings us to the question of what exactly is the darkness in ourselves. Is it the parts of us that we do not like? Or is it the parts of us that we are afraid of? Is it the abused child all grown up and dealing with his/her repressed memories? Is it when the man deals with his primal urges of rage and ferocity? In modern society, these would be considered dark and not things to talk about in mixed company, but why is this so? All people have these things that are unacceptable, so why are they considered dark? What makes them dark and not light? Who gave them the terms dark and light? These are all questions that are difficult to answer, but things that must be answered to understand this world of unknown, this world that we must understand to become the spiritual beings that we wish to be.

The origin of symbols commonly lies with the basic description of the symbol’s actions, habits, and emotions that are felt due to it. Well, obviously darkness does not many applicable habits or actions, so it must be inferred that it is a common emotion felt by mankind because of its presence. As a child, darkness is a time of fear; fear because you cannot see, fear because there are not adults to take care of you, fear because you feel alone, and most of all fear because the things from your nightmares seem to be all around you. Obviously, fear is the prevailing symbol of darkness because the darkness is unknown. But how does this play into the darkness within ourselves? Why are we afraid of ourselves?

For the most clear reason why a man would fear the darkness within himself, we must look to the stories of old, the stories that have become nightmares for children and horror movies for adults. We look to the story of the werewolf. Once a man realized that he had been turned into a werewolf, he would be afraid of this beast that came out. He would not be afraid for himself of course, but for others. This beast would tear and destroy all that he came across. He was fearless, angry, strong and indomitable, and yet the man would wish death upon himself many times over unless he accepted it as a part of himself and dealt with it. How does this old fantastical idea have any relevance, though?

Well, let us take this story and analyze it as a symbol rather than a literal story. What does the wolf represent within the man? The clearest answer is that the wolf represents the repressed primal urges and strengths within the man. It represents the anger, lust, fury, and ferociousness that comes with being a beast rather than a civilized man. Is it this primal nature that is the root of our darkness? The civilized man does not show his anger towards his fellow man, he turns the other cheek and disregards it. This would not have been the case in prehistoric man. If a man shamed or disgraced him, he would retaliate with fierce retribution.

Are we truly afraid of the beast within? Does this darkness really represent the most fundamental genetic parts of us? Is the fear of ourselves actually the fear that we shall lose the facade of civilization and revert back to our true selves who are not afraid?

Welcome back to Magick for the Real World!

It has been a long time since I wrote a regular blog here, and I’m hoping that I can again entertain and inform a few people with my thoughts and ramblings. I’ve experimented with a lot of other media in the past year and a half, and have again returned to my writing’s origin here at wordpress.com

The blades and bowls lay in the dying light, rusting not the from the air around them, but from the lack of care and use of their spiritual owner. The stones no longer glow with life and energy; they have taken on the look of the dead earth of winter. They long for their master and friend. How has this happened?

It is a common occurrence for everyday life to come between a magician and his magickal practice. Children are born, family emergencies happen, and jobs get hectic. The magician usually is slowly called back to the craft whether internally or by external stimulation, but sometimes this return can take months and even years. It is only in the recent past that I was called back to my magickal practices and when I looked at my stones, blades, and other tools I found them to be foreign, almost as though they were not mine. I felt as though I had never had the soul-bond that I had felt for so long. I had no idea that this bond could ever be weakened or broken. These were the tools that helped me to attain my spiritual identity and power. I looked at them as friends and have now found that they were much more than that; they were as much a part of me as my arms and legs.

I am not sure exactly what the importance of this is, but I know that there is a revelation to be had from this experience. Obviously, it is important to maintain your personal connection with spiritual tools for them to be effective in any of your pursuits, much like a soldier must carefully oil and clean his weapon daily. I had never realized how much of a spiritual process this could be. The soldier is bound to his weapon for survival, and the magician is bound to his weapons of the spiritual plane for his power and survival as a spiritual warrior.

For many years, I had always believed that the magick was solely in the magician and that the tools allowed the magician to enter into another state more easily. I have had to reconsider these beliefs after experiencing the intense sadness when I realized I had forsaken these pieces of my soul. Though it is hard to believe, it was as intense a sadness as the loss of a loved one. This should not be the case if they are merely tools for my metaphysical advancement.

So where does this actually place the tools and weapons of the magician? Does the soldier weep for a destroyed weapon? Does the carpenter mourn the loss of a good saw or hammer? The soldier depends on his gun and knife for survival, but I doubt that he would weep if it were replaced. The carpenter depends on his tools for his craft, but he will easily replace one if it begins to grow ineffective, and rarely cares for them as the magician cares for his tools.

It seems more and more apparent that the wand and chalice are more than simple tools for a purpose. The energy that passes through them brings about a change in them. They become alive with the constant life-force passing through them. The magician’s place in the web of life becomes intertwined with these seemingly life-less objects, possibly giving them a life of their own. Or possibly, the alchemical idea that when a spirit is evolving, all of the world around him/her evolves as well. It could also be possible that all things have a life to them, and that through the energetic workings of the magician that the item awakens. Whatever the case, it seems that the tools become alive in the process of the magician’s practices.

So what exactly does this mean? The tools are alive, but how does that affect the magician? That’s the real discussion question. It could mean all sorts of things. Can the tools guide the magician? Can the athame show the magician how more effectively create a magickal circle? Would the magician even know that this was happening, or would it seem to be an intuitive leap by the magician? How many times has this happened to any given magician? Can the tools become angry? Can they purposely refuse to work? Can they do their own magick to protect or hurt?

The most common idea taught in Western magick is the idea of the elements of fire, water, earth and air.  Many people add in spirit or Akasha but that’s unimportant in relationship to the following.  These elements are intertwined in almost every ceremony, every charm and almost every other aspect of Wicca or any other commonly practiced Western tradition.  So where did the idea of these elements come from?  Were they handed down to mankind on a mountain or given to us by aliens of immense knowledge?  And why are we using them?  Obviously it’s commonly agreed upon that they’re useful or else the entire magickal community would not be in agreement on using them, but what exactly is the reasoning behind using them?  And more importantly, should we use them?  These questions may seem silly or pointless, but in order to ever understand why you’re doing something, you should know the history of how it came to be whenever possible.

In the 5^th century, there was a man that lived in Greece named Empedocles.  He lived before Socrates or Plato and was considered an extremely enlightened man.  He was an incredible orator and there were legends of him healing the sick and escaping epidemics.  He proposed an idea that the world was made up of four elements:  earth, air, fire and water, as well as two forces:  love and strife.  Everything in the world was made up of these four elements in differing amounts which accounted for the difference in shapes and forms of the world.  The two forces were the reason for the differing amounts of each.  Love drew the elements together and strife pushed them apart.  These elements and forces were eternal and therefore indestructible.  These ideas were the commonly accepted science and philosophical ideas until the modern ideas.

The elements were called the roots of everything, but in fact they were categorized by whether they were hot or cold and whether they were wet or dry.  Fire was hot and dried things, water was wet and cold, air was hot and wet (think of where Greece is), and earth was dry and cold.  After a bit of pondering and reasoning, I came to the conclusion that the cold seems to represent the feminine aspects and the hot seems to represent the masculine.  Earth and water are considered the femininely-aligned elements while air and fire are the masculine-aligned elements.  Also, Qabalists would agree that the masculine energy is about force which is indicated by the energy of heat and lack of form, while the feminine force is losing energy and creating form.  This seems simple enough, but the interpretation of the wet and dry is far more vexing in my opinion.  Water and air are both fluids and this seems to be the key to the interpretation.  The wet elements seem to deal with living life and are far less focused.  Fluids will fill a container while a rock will not and fire will go where there is fuel.  On the other hand, the wet elements also are about growth.  They will push boundaries and will move quickly.  The dry elements are far more focused but are not as apt to explore their possibilities.  These ideas can’t truly fit the common associations of masculine and feminine.  If I were more knowledgeable in the Qabalah, I’d hypothesize that the cold and hot categorizations corresponded to the upper trinity while the wet and dry categorizations corresponded to either the lower or middle trinity.

So when these combinations are considered, we end up with the current ideas about the elements:

Fire is a very masculine energy and force that is focused (passion).  Because male energy is less about boundaries, fire energy is more apt to explore than earth, but it is still dry and will only explore where it is drawn (fuel).  It is also far more permanent than air (dry versus wet) because wind is there and is gone whereas fire is there until it runs out of fuel or some outside force puts it out. 

Water is a feminine energy that is unfocused and apt to adapt and grow.  It is far slower than air because it is a feminine energy but it is far faster than earth because it is wet.  Water is the midpoint between the solid world and the invisible world of air in many ways and because of this, it is the realm of the mystic who crosses between the invisible world and the solid world.  This element is also the great emotional element because it is a feminine energy as well as a flowing wet element enabling the communication of emotions.

Earth is a feminine energy that is focused.  This is the slowest energy but also has the greatest momentum once it gets going.  The earth is a place for growing things.  It is the great nurturer because of its unending stability and feminine energy.

Air is a masculine energy that is unfocused and apt to explore.  It is the fastest element and also is the least solid.  This is why it is often associated with the mind because nothing is faster than the mind or as intangible.  Air is also the great communicator because it is wet and yet has more focus than water because it is hot.

These are the ideas that are currently in place in the magickal community, now why do we use them?  After much frustration I finally came to the conclusion that it’s because they represent something that is inexpressible.  How do you explain what earth means to someone?  It’s more than a huge list of characteristics, it’s a feeling when all of those characteristics come together to form a symbol.  This is the true reason why it is necessary to use symbols in magick.  The elements may or may not be inherently magickal, but they hold the idea of something just as a flag represents something more than the United States government.  This is true of almost any magickal system.  The Qabalah is the most prominent alternate representation of the universe and everyone recognizes it is simply a system of characterizing the universe and this characterization is what gives it power.

So the final question is “Should we continue to use this system?”  That’s absolutely up to the individual, but I’m not changing much about my rituals.  I’m glad I added more depth to my understanding of the elements even when I thought I understood them as much as possible.  I am also very glad that the assumption that the elements were inherently magickal is turned off because that’s simply an ignorant idea.  Nothing is inherently magickal and at the same time, everything is inherently magickal.  Overall, I hold to the idea that understanding where your beliefs came from is absolutely necessary to understanding your beliefs.  My ideas about the world may have changed but my practices will probably stay the same because the system works as is, and will work better now that I have more understanding of it.

Tomorrow morning I’m leaving for a 10 day roadtrip to South Dakota.  I won’t be able to get to a computer, so there won’t be any new posts until August 30th.  Have a great couple weeks!

Sacrifices have been made for various reasons, but for the most part they fall into four categories:  releasing attachment, in reverence/celebration of gods, to build energy, and to return the energy given by the universe/gods.

In many magickal systems there is a need to release the attachment or memory of a ritual or spell in order for it to work.  This is primarily based on the idea that you continue to draw energy from that spell every time you think of it or talk about it, thus weakening the spell.  A very common way to do this is through a sacrifice.  This is commonly done by taking the ashes of a ritual fire and burying them, burning something, throwing an energized object into a forest, etc.  It is almost always some sort of material sacrifice that happens at the very end of the spell or ritual as a closing.  I’m not really sure why this works, but it is one of the best ways to break the attachment from the spell.  Maybe this is something that we could discuss some more.

Every religion/culture has made sacrifices to celebrate or revere the gods or spirits that they associate with.  Some of the examples could be the ritual human sacrifices by the Aztecs, the sacrifice for Lent by Catholics, or even when warriors would pour out the first bit of a drink for their fallen comrades.  This is as much to give reverence to the gods and spirits as it is to bring out the emotions necessary for that celebration.  The Aztec human sacrifices were a way to call forth the energy of Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, as well as put everyone there in an emotional state to welcome that energy into their lives; that’s not even mentioning the energy that Huitzilopochtli received for each of these sacrifices (they did become an incredibly large empire, maybe this had something to do with it?)  There is a lot more to this ritual because it was such a serious sacrifice, but that’s the most important part of it in my opinion.  The sacrifice that people make for Lent is a way for people to build up the martyr energy necessary to understand what Easter and Lent are all about.  It is also a way to celebrate Jesus’s personal sacrifice made to his followers.  The warrior’s sacrifice is different than these because it is obviously more about bringing forth the emotional response of remembering loved ones and celebrating their lives.  It is also to remember that we are all mortal and that we should enjoy ourselves.  All of these sacrifices give energy to the spirit that is deserving of the sacrifice and gives them power, but it also allows the energy that they are giving to come into their lives through the emotional response of the sacrifice.

As Jessica stated, there is a common idea in many cultures that requires a gift be returned with something worth at least equal value.  Therefore, gifts were often more of obligations than gifts.  The Norse have a rune called Gebo that signifies this idea as a gift that must be returned or honor and status are lost.  Therefore, if you sacrifice something to a god, they are obligated to give you something in return and vice versa.  Therefore, a safe voyage on the sea required a gift to the gods of the sea or else they would be angry because the “gift” of safe passage was not returned in equal value.  This can also be seen at Christmas time in modern America when people give the most they can afford in order to maintain or achieve a higher status in the family.

I’m sure that I’m missing some categories, but these were the only ones I’ve been able to come up with.  I guess that you could categorize spells as well, but these seem pretty clear cut as far as divisions go.

Lately, it seems as though the brainstorming for a post topic is taking almost as long as the actual post takes.  So in response to this shifting difficulty, I’ll change it up a bit and have a single topic that I/we can elaborate on throughout the week.  Yes, I’ll still be posting every day, but it will be on a single topic that can be explored a little more adequately than a single blog is able to do.  Maybe I’ll even be able to have some topics to research now (and maybe a little time to do that research now that I shouldn’t have to brainstorm for 45 minutes to come up with a decent topic).  Anyways, onto the topic of the week:  Sacrifice.

Sacrifice is a natural instinct and has been represented in many myths.  Wine/champagne bottles have been broken on ships in order to sacrifice the wine to the gods of the sea, animal sacrifices were made worldwide for any number of gods and reasons, and many cultures even had human sacrifices.  The difference between the sacrifices in myth and the ones in the present day is that people have forgotten what sacrifice truly means.  Sacrifice does not mean to give up or to lose; it means to make sacred.

So what exactly does making something sacred mean?  Well, probably the best way to think about it is to consider your sacrifice a gift to the gods/universe.  This means that instead of being annoyed that you’re losing the item/time/energy, you have to be glad that you’re giving it up.  No one wants a gift that you are mad that you have to give.  At the same time, it has to be a gift that is hard for you to give up.  It has to be something that you care about.  No one wants a gift that you’re annoyed you have to give, but at the same time, nobody wants a piece of grass that you couldn’t care less about.

In my experience, the best sacrifices are not monetary sacrifices or materialistic sacrifices because these things are usually replaceable.  When I make sacrifices, I give up things that mean something to me or that are hard for me to do.  For example, I have taken dried herbs and roots as well as gemstones that are related to a certain god and crushed them into dust.  The entire time, I make sure that I stay in the moment and don’t think about the groceries I need to get or the bills that need to get paid.  I spend the two hours simply crushing things in order to make a sachet to leave in the woods somewhere.  I know that this seems silly, but have you ever actually sat in one spot and focused on doing a very brainless activity for two hours?  It’s incredibly difficult, and therefore is an excellent sacrifice.  I put my energy into the gift I am giving to the gods.  It’s no different than giving a gift to a significant other.  The energy and thought are the important thing, not the actual gift (though I’ve found that diamonds are the exception…).

This leads to the next type of sacrifice that Catholics have completely embraced.  Have you ever sacrificed something that you enjoy doing for a god?  Catholic priests have given up sex (well…they’re supposed to have given up sex…) and Catholics in general celebrate Lent, where they have to give up something that they really care about for 40 days.  Can you imagine the kind of energetic build-up if you were to sacrifice something that you truly enjoyed for 40 days?  This could be used for magickal purposes, but at the same time, it could be sacrificed.  I’ve made these kind of sacrifices and they’re incredible.  You wouldn’t believe the luck I got afterwards…or the dreams for that matter…

I’m not proposing that every sacrifice should be a six month long endeavor to make, but at the same time, it should be something that is worth something to you as well as be made with a good heart.  I can’t stress that last bit enough.

So I’m taking an early leave of the work week this week.  I’m headed to St. Louis tomorrow to meet up with a friend from high school, so I won’t be writing again until Monday.  Hopefully this will be the last of the ultra busy weekends for a couple weeks.  I’ve got some good ideas for the next couple blogs.  Have a great weekend everyone.