Kites: Celebrating the Power of Air

So this weekend, my family came to DC to see the cherry blossoms. As part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival there is also the Blossom Kite Festival. Being an air person, I was in total awe. It was so beautiful.

We first saw some of the kites as we sat on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, my favorite memorial in DC, after walking under the cherry trees where the blossoms should have been, except for the fact that they bloomed early and we've had heavy winds this last week that blew them away. Oh, Air!!! Of course, only in DC would we have two concurrent festivals that celebrate Spring and the season of Air. One that celebrates you and one that celebrates something so delicate as to be destroyed by you.


Anyway, as we walked back from the tidal basin we could see more and more kites around the monument. As you got closer, they were everywhere along the mall. Some flying as high the top of the Washington Monument--55 stories up--some larger than a tractor trailer truck.


Hundreds of people were flying kites. From kite enthusiasts and competitors with trick kites doing fancy flying to parents teaching their kids how to fly a kite.

The kites came in all shapes and sizes--from bats, pterodactyls, and Angry Birds to flowers and leaves--in all the colors of the rainbow. Filling the sky with color and movement.
 
It was spectacular. I not only wanted to fly a kite, I kind of wanted to be a kite. So I'm just going to let the air carry me for a while. Let myself dip and soar and swirl, then maybe just float for a while, showing off my brilliant colors.

How to Be Big

So I did a workshop with the lovely and amazing T. Thorn Coyle this weekend. I’ve worked with her before, so I knew how powerful it would be. The workshop was titled, Self Possession: Activating the “I AM” so I knew how personal it would be. This is the first of I'm sure many posts resulting from this weekend.

A recurring theme in my spiritual and mundane work recently is that I need to step into my power. I know it. I’ve been told. The biggest problem I have in this life is the how. How do I step into my power? I knew the workshop was going to help. I also knew I wasn’t going to get a nice neat manual all packaged up all pretty. But I figured I’d get a clue. And I did. Several, actually. Repeatedly.

By the end, it was very clear what I had to do. But again, how? During one exercise, the very last one of the weekend, in fact (of course!!), the answer came. I need to be bigger. Okay. And how to do that?

Well, this is how I figure...so, in addition to making sure all my bodies are aligned, my mission is to figure out how to be big in all my bodies. Which is funny because now that I know this, I can see how these bodies of mine have been trying to take up more space on their own.

My physical body has been trying to get bigger, despite my efforts to exercise and eat well. Those doughnut cravings have been winning, and as much as my body wants to be “bigger” it’s losing. Because what I really need to be “bigger” in my physical body is to be healthy and strong. 

My etheric body holds the energy I need to do my everyday actions. I need to make sure this energy is as close to 100% as it can be. I need to make sure that this energy is MY energy and reflects only MY nature. I can see me thinning the herd of relationships that don't serve me and drain my energy and learning to say "no" a lot more to others and listening more to my instincts and saying "yes" to my self.

My auric body is the one body that can take this instruction literally—it just needs to just be bigger. I need to present myself to the world in my right size--whatever size I need to be in my power and the job DONE. I had started this practice at work a few weeks ago before going into a meeting or having to have a difficult conversation. Now, in addition to when I need it, every morning I take a few huge breaths and exhale and blow that body up, giving me room to move and making sure people can see me coming!!!

Finally, my divine soul needs to be brought down and integrated with my self. Bigger in this case means closer, more connected with my divine nature. I need to actively activate my I AM, so that I am closer to my self, my divine self--making my actions in harmony with the work my soul was put on this Earth to do. By doing this I will give myself some room to do MY work. 

Many of you know me and know that I get stuff done, I work hard, and I’m effective. However, I am not doing MY work--I’m feeding someone else and not me. From now on, I will be doing MY work and allowing it to feed MY power. No more favors, no more giving my self away for free.

It would have been fun to just make these changes and see how the world reacts, and I have a few stories already that I will share. However, I think it's important for all of us to find out what we need to be and figure out how to do it. I have the hardest time with the how. I know everyone is different, but I find it helps to hear how one takes this information from our spiritual life, interprets it, and integrates it. So, think about it, if you were told you needed to bigger, how would you make that happen? If not big, what do you need to be? What does that mean to you? How would you make it happen?

The Magickal Desk

Ha, so I know I promised more here, but this girl has been busy and since going back to work has been fighting cold after cold. Those germy humans, I tell ya! Speaking of going back to work, I was ever so slightly amused to find that my magickal work had crept into to my mundane work without me really planning it. I LOVE when that happens!!

My desk is an altar, of course! Makes sense, right?!?! But, I totally set it up as an altar without even knowing it! I did consciously cleanse and start building a prosperity altar. When I got the keys to my office, the first thing I did was get all salty on it--sea salt, black salt, Himalayan salt... First,  I cleansed it with sea salt--I would have loved to have saged it, but open flame, office, yeah... I then put a sachet of black salt on the edge of my desk facing the door to keep away negativity and bad neighbors (i.e., asshat bosses and co-workers), and brought in one of my Himilayan salt lamps. Being surrounded by computer equipment, I need to some refreshing negative ions, and it's just really cool. Black salt and Himalayan salt lamps are must haves for the magickal office worker, I swear.

Anyway, back to the desk as an altar.  Like I said I started putting together a prosperity altar. It's a work in progress but, as you will see, I have a lovely lucky bamboo plant that I added some green lodestones (yes, green lodestones, how perfect) and copper pennies. I love lodestones and use them often to bring me exactly what I need to get by in this world. I also always keep copper pennies around me for luck and offerings.

Today while I was sitting at my desk, I realized that the prosperity altar was in the North corner of my desk and I thought that was brilliant. Then, I looked around and realized I had organically created directional elements without even trying. To my right, I keep my pen and notebook, always open to blank page to readily jot down notes, reminders, action items, and ideas that just pop into my head. That just so happens to be in the East corner of my desk. To my left, and in the South, is where the Himalyan salt lamp resides. The light inside warms the rock and it glows a reddish-orange all day long. To the West is my was my big ol' water bottle on my big ol' fancy coaster, this morning, accompanied by a big ol' mug o' coffee, ah the sacred liquid of the working. And, of course, smack dab in the center of all this is me, the magickal worker bee, creating and manifesting for my company, which in turn supports me financially, so allowing me my ability to support my greater spiritual work.  

I have no doubt that magick created this employment opportunity for me and it looks like the magick is sticking around.

Re-emergence

In case you haven't noticed, it's been a little quiet around here. It's not that I haven't had much to say, it's that I have too much to say and I can't even being to keep up with the changes. As many of you know, I have been unemployed since August. You would think I would have had plenty of time to write blogs. Nope. Basically, after the Summer Solstice, as the days became shorter and the darkness grew I was called to my inner self to confront and be embraced by my own darkness. The universe opened up space for me to slow down and let me cut the necessary ties so I could go inward. That is where I stayed. I had time all to myself. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't comfortable, but in retrospect it was an amazing time of introspection and healing and release. I can say on spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical levels I am a stronger, very different person in every way--and getting more so every day. Being unemployed was a gift and just when I started to worry about things like, say, oh, the mortgage, the universe provided. And the universe continues to provide me with gifts, as it probably always did, but the richness of this experience is that I now can not only see them, but they are almost always exactly what I need.

With the return of the sun and the expansive energy I am being pulled outward and am reopening to the world. A fresh start. After Yule, I started applying for jobs and got a few offers and start work again this week. I embarked on a deeper spiritual path and am on my way. I also started getting more opportunities to personally, professionally, and spiritually to do the work that makes me stronger and doesn't wear away at me slowly. I already know that this will lead me to my great work of this lifetime (what ever that may be). Not everyone is blessed with this opportunity and I am grateful.

Tomorrow marks the Lunar New Year, what a great week to get things started. It will be anything but quiet around here. So, even if it's just a cross-post to some of my larger projects, I promise to keep you posted because this stuff is really gonna be cool. Already, I've got a lot to do...

• several ongoing freelance marketing projects (including one I'm so excited about I want to burst and can't wait to tell everyone when it's time).
• writing a new food blog, just started
• creating a new technology blog, coming soon
• editing a least two more volumes of The Anthology of Occult Wisdom for Datura Press
• writing for the DC Bureau of the Pagan News Collective (capitalwitch.com)
• starting spiritual studies at Reflections Mystery School
• resurrecting Baltimore Pagan Pride Day
• supporting my favorite Pagan projects like the New Alexandrian Library in Delaware and the newly opened Open Hearth Pagan Community Center in DC.
• going to the Sacred Space Conference in February and Between the Worlds in December

...and every single day finding joy in:

• being an obsessive dog mom
• creating more intimate and meaningful connections with people
• spending more time with my humongous, crazy-in-a-good-way Italian family
• getting fit and healthy
• creating a welcoming, loving, magickal home
• finding the love for myself that only I can provide
  

Oh, and that full-time job I start this week.

It's a lot but the wheels are already in motion on most of it and it's already feeding my body, mind, and spirit in ways I never knew possible. I am living in positive abundance and there is more where that came. I wish the same for all of you.

Current Life Regression

Many of us have experienced past life regression as a method of healing, spiritual knowledge, etc. I have been part of a group regression and I have gotten information about my past lives during certain readings. Apparently, I have been an a Abbess in several past lives and while that is interesting and if I think about it, it could explain some things, like knowing every responsorial in a Catholic mass with no education and limited exposure in this lifetime. Nice party trick, er sort of, but I'm not to sure what I can do with it in this lifetime.

For the past several months, I have been doing a sort of "current life" regression. Going backward to try and reevaluate experiences and information from my past to see what impact they had on me. Knowing what I know now, would it have had the same effect on me, would I have made the same choice? The answer in most cases is no, because I am ostensibly wiser and have more knowledge and experience to base my reaction. The value is in asking "why?" What would my reaction be now? What wounds need to be healed? How can this experience or knowledge serve me better?

Looking at my self and my life from a different angle has been quite eye-opening. I always claimed to be quite self-actualized and I am usually the first person to call me on my sh*t, but the change of perspective has been in an interesting journey so far--and I'm only just hitting the high school years (ey, ey, ey). I've noticed an immediate change in some of my perspectives and have been able to find forgiveness and healing where sometimes I didn't know there was a huge wound. I have recognized patterns and removed myself from relationships and situations that don't serve me. I've also been able to recognize and often relive the experiences I denied my self in my younger days because I was more worried about the societal over-culture and what I "should" do.

To that end, it's also been a joy to rediscover the part of me that was a free-spirit. You know before student loans, mortgages, and adult responsibility came to be. I still am the young woman who moved from a small town of a few thousand people to Manhattan not knowing anyone because...why not? I can get a job there, right? I am also the girl who went abroad to Australia and wound up spending six weeks backpacking by myself through the Outback and the along coast and Great Barrier Reef, sleeping in hostels and on overnight buses, just because I was there and it could be done.

One day I may have an opportunity to do a past live regression and it will be interesting to see what I learn, but for now I will stick to what I can learn from and change in this one.

The Food Channel

Magic and food are synonymous. Besides the great feast after a rite, we all know about kitchen witchery, the art of cooking with magickal intent. Herbs, seeds, nuts, flowers, and fruits are used in spells and ritual magick all time, most of which are consumable. The energy you put into food can have a huge impact. For an amusing example, check out the scene in "Like Water for Chocolate" when Tita makes Quail in Rose Petal Sauce.

So cook with citrus or mint for a fresh, clean start, for our lovers we may add a dash of ginger to heat things up, for fertility we may throw in a banana (or are you just happy to see me, sorry couldn't not go there). Have you ever tried to bake bread when you are angry or stressed? It won't rise. So instead of checking the expiration date on the yeast that just won't bloody rise, check your attitude and blood pressure. It's hard to have a bad time at a big Italian dinner with all that basil and garlic banishing negativity and adding their love and protective qualities. My grandmother's secret ingredient was nutmeg, she put a pinch in everything, and why not? Nutmeg's magickal properties include luck, money, and health. Thanks, Grandma!

Adding magick to your food is powerful and fairly common, but what happens when your food communicates to you? Believe it or not, the universe gives you messages using food. I first experienced this a few years ago when I was laid off, the first time. The universe sent me pecans. I went to the store to buy walnuts to bake cookies and bought a 5 pound bag of pecans by accident, a few days later a family member returned from a New Orleans business trip and brought back pecan pralines, then a friend invited me over for dinner and we had pecan-encrusted chicken. Still not seeing any connection, the universe had to push harder, so I found a single in-shell pecan sitting in my pantry and when I went to color my hair I noticed the dye shade was called Pecan. Seeing the word in writing was my ah-ha moment or at least a "Gee, I seem to be finding a lot of pecans lately." So I looked up the magickal properties of Pecans, which were employment and money. Duh, I was unemployed and in a sticky real estate situation that was draining my savings. So I put that in-shell pecan on my altar, started working with pecans in spell work and providing pecans as offerings. It worked, I had a job within weeks. Two other friends also incorporated pecans into their magickal workings with success.

It's happened with a few other foods through out the years. Then, this morning I was eating a lovely, gooey peace of coffee cake a friend baked for me. It was full of cinnamony goodness. Hmmm, cinnamon... I added cinnamon to my coffee last week. I have been on a snickerdoodle-is-my-favorite-cookie kick lately. I described this kick to a friend and when I visited her in NY two weeks ago. Instead of her usual, famous

chocolate-chip shortbread, she made me snickerdoodle shortbread (OMG!). When cleaning out my kitchen last month, I noticed I was low on cinnamon, so I went to the store and the huge 24 oz. container of cinnamon that was on sale for cheaper than the 8 oz. jar. So like with the pecans, I'm all stocked up to add some cinnamon to my magickal work, which is gonna be good for all the deep spiritually and healing work I'm doing, as well as for protection, love, and knowledge. Cinnamon is going to get me through yet another time of change in my life (I might add a few pecans since I need a job, too). I'm not sure I'm ready scry in my soup, just yet, but I'm glad I knew to listen to the universes message.

What is your food trying to tell you?

Neglect

Okay, I'm the first to admit this blog has been neglected since I was laid off. Not that I haven't had a million and one things to say, but because I've been going through a process and what seems profound one minute is overshadowed by the next great realization. Doh! This was more than losing a job, it's the end of a cycle of my life. So, it's the end of a career, the end of certain relationships, the end of certain patterns of behaviour. It's a loss on many levels that I needed to have in order to make room for what comes next. It's been interesting. I've definitely gone through the five stages of grief and loss, not in any particular order, and sometimes all at once.

One thing I have realized is how neglected my whole life was. I made excuses for staying somewhere that didn't serve me. Sure, in these time, any income, especially a fairly substantial one, it worth putting up with a lot. But at what cost? The job was so oppressive and stressful, I shut down and went into duck-and-cover survival mode and everything was effected. While I'll never be on an episode of "Hoarders" I have receipts and paper work dating back from 2007. Do I really need health care policy information for a job I started four years ago (and not even the one I just got laid off from)? I had a pile of sweaters in my bedroom from last spring that I never put away. Shelves that needed to be hung for over a year. There was even dust on the toilet paper holder. I had shopping bags with purchases sitting in the hall for weeks and months. This includes magickal supplies for rituals and spells I never performed. I have gained and lost the same twenty or thirty pounds several times. We aren't even going to mention I hadn't seen some of my siblings or my college roommates in almost two years and we certainly won't touch my other relationships.

You get the picture. I let a lot of things slide for the sake of a paycheck.

In the last five weeks, I haven't made a whole lot of progress, but I have completed some projects and I feel better. I'm changing some habits. I'm balancing my checkbook and paying attention to where and when I spend my money. I'm spending more time outside more, exercising, and eating better. I hung those shelves and even repainted the pantry. I've thrown out, recycled, and donated boxes and bags of things I don't need. I've taken numerous road trips to visit friends and family along the East Coast. And, most importantly, I'm reestablishing a regular spiritual practice and living up to the commitments I already made to the universe.

I'm actually pretty convinced that those spiritual commitments had something to do with these changing events, and I so am grateful. For the first time in a long time, I am hopeful. I didn't realize I had given up hope until she came back to me. Though it may seem like the universe took the rug out from under me, the universe has also given me all I need to weather this storm while I tend to the things that need my attention and to start co-creating the next chapter in my life. A chapter that is more in balance with what I need and what I can give.

So Mote it Be!