Tag: Ritual

Lady A’s Spell of the Day for July 26th: Summer Ritual for a Sunny Will

Summer Ritual for a Sunny Will

Adapted from Witch in the Kitchen, by Cait Johnson (Inner Traditions, 2001).Good will is certainly a concept to ponder. How many of us can truly say we have it?

Now, as warm colors and blazing vitality evoke the power of the will, we can align ourselves with our deepest, best selves with this simple, ancient ritual. After all, summer invites us to think of ways we can harness our immense fiery will in order to give something unique and meaningful to the world, knowing that when we do the things we most love to do we nourish ourselves and others, for the good of all.

This just takes a sunny day and a little birdseed. And it is such a joyful way to celebrate the sun and our own capacity for a truly good will:

Go to a place where wild birds are known to congregate (if you’re a city-dweller, pigeons will do just fine). Stand facing the sun. Close your eyes and imagine that the golden sunlight is streaming into your solar plexus, your will center. Now visualize that you are beaming that golden light back to the sun as you say:

I will to will Thy will.

Now, carefully sprinkle the birdseed around yourself in as perfect a circle as you can, and say:

May my will grow lighter, to feed the world. Now it is done.

Step outside the circle and find a place to sit quietly and observe. Watch as the birds discover and feed themselves with your gift. As each bird takes flight after its meal, visualize your will center growing more light and generous and warm.

Summer Ritual for a Sunny Will

Summer Ritual for a Sunny Will

Adapted from Witch in the Kitchen, by Cait Johnson (Inner Traditions, 2001).Good will is certainly a concept to ponder. How many of us can truly say we have it?

Now, as warm colors and blazing vitality evoke the power of the will, we can align ourselves with our deepest, best selves with this simple, ancient ritual. After all, summer invites us to think of ways we can harness our immense fiery will in order to give something unique and meaningful to the world, knowing that when we do the things we most love to do we nourish ourselves and others, for the good of all.

This just takes a sunny day and a little birdseed. And it is such a joyful way to celebrate the sun and our own capacity for a truly good will:

Go to a place where wild birds are known to congregate (if you’re a city-dweller, pigeons will do just fine). Stand facing the sun. Close your eyes and imagine that the golden sunlight is streaming into your solar plexus, your will center. Now visualize that you are beaming that golden light back to the sun as you say:

I will to will Thy will.

Now, carefully sprinkle the birdseed around yourself in as perfect a circle as you can, and say:

May my will grow lighter, to feed the world. Now it is done.

Step outside the circle and find a place to sit quietly and observe. Watch as the birds discover and feed themselves with your gift. As each bird takes flight after its meal, visualize your will center growing more light and generous and warm.

It’s All In The Wrist – Some Wand Basics

It’s All In The Wrist – Some Wand Basics

Author: Bronwen Forbes

After the athame, the most popular – and misunderstood – ritual tool is the wand. Aside from the “is the wand a tool of the East or a tool of the South?” debate I covered in my Witchvox article on athame basics, there seem to still be quite a few unanswered questions about the wand and its use including: Is it better to make or buy a wand? How long should my wand be? What should I make my wand out of? When should I use the wand in ritual, as opposed to using the athame? How do I charge my wand and make it ready to use?

Is it better to make or buy a wand? In general, it is always better to make a ritual tool than buy it. Obviously, unless you have a forge and the training to make your own blade from scratch, it’s better to buy an athame rather than make it. Plus, wands made by other people can be *expensive.*

I remember a few years back with wands made of wood that had a natural spiral twist to it from growing with a wild grape vine wrapped around it were being sold for about $60. If the seller added a shell or crystal at the tip, the naturally spiral wands were closer to $70. I remember talking to a friend who was Pagan and also participated in “Host Your Own Murder Mystery” events. She had just returned from a murder mystery convention and was telling me about the weird stuff that the attendees bought to make their weekend events more realistic (fake blood and cap guns were only the tip of the iceberg) – and how much they paid for it.

I said, “Yes, but Pagans have been known to pay $70 for a stick!” She laughed, but she also had to agree with me.

How long should my wand be? Traditionally, your wand should be exactly the length from the inside of your elbow to the tip of your middle finger. No more, no less, and *never* “trim” your already-made wand to fit in the fancy storage box your sweetie gave you for Yule (seriously, I know someone this happened to) . However, it’s been my experience that if two people are working partners and only one of them has a wand, the other can generally use the wand even if it’s traditionally the “wrong” length.

What should I make my wand out of? Wands can be pretty easy to make. All you need is a short, cured wooden branch, or, if you want to go fancy, find your own “stick” that has wild grapevine growing around it. Take home, strip the bark off, and polish.

I had a student once who wanted more than anything to be a music conductor. Her wand was, in fact, a conductor’s baton. I thought it was perfect for her. I’ve also known people who have used bones from their totem animals (deer bones work very well, if you can get them) rather than wood. They seemed to work well, too.

My husband has a lovely wand he “recycled” from a red maple tree that needed to be cut down in his mother’s front yard a few years ago. To give him an even closer connection with his wand, he and his father were the ones that planted the tree in the first place. If I ever have a wand, it will probably be made of oak, holly or apple – my favorite trees. A quick note to the Harry Potter fans: no, it will not have a phoenix feather in the middle of it!

You can decorate your wand with shells, crystals, feathers, paint, carve runes into it – whatever makes it more “yours.” However, I would reference the excellent article Lupa posted here on Witchvox about the legal use of animal parts for ritual items before adding feathers or bits of fur to the end, or even making the wand out of bone as mentioned above. The last thing you want is to take your wand to a public space to use for a community ritual and have it confiscated by the police or park rangers because you’ve put a feather on it that, legally, you’re not allowed to have.

When should I use the wand in ritual, as opposed to using the athame? You can, generally, use the wand for anything you’d use the athame for –casting the circle, saluting the quarters, etc. If you believe the wand is the tool of the East, use it any time you need extra “air” energy – when you’re doing a ritual to help you study more effectively for an exam, for instance, or when beginning a new job.

If you believe the wand is the tool of the South, use it any time you need extra “fire” energy – if you’ve been feeling physically run down lately, or you’ve got some old life baggage you want to burn away. If your wand is made of wood, I’d definitely refrain from placing it in a combustible situation – using it to consecrate a burning candle, or poking your incense charcoal to get the burnt ash off the surface and expose the glowing coal within, for instance. Use your athame or boline for those – and save yourself the pain and embarrassment of setting your wand on fire!

How do I charge my wand and make it ready to use? I keep my wand tucked away with the rest of my altar tools (I have a small child and many pets. Ritual tools are safely stored in a special cabinet) . To charge it, I waited for a particularly windy day (yes, I am definitely of the belief that wands are the tool of East/Air) and took my wand outside for a few hours so it could absorb the wind. I also did this as close to sunrise as possible to add the dawn/new beginnings energy to the tool. I still do this periodically if I haven’t used it in ritual for a while – just in case.

Whether your wand is something you make yourself or a gift from a dear friend, cherish it and use it well!

Handfastings

The glitz and glamour of today’s white weddings actually derive from the ancient pagan betrothal ceremony called the handfasting.  The tradition of this hand-clasping ritual is believed to date back to Roman times. It is thought that a handfasted bride and groom initially took their vows only for a year and a day. After that time, if they were still madly in love, another ceremony was held to united them permanently. In the twenty-first century, Wiccans and Witches do still get handfasted but like most things, handfasting has evolved with the times. Angelic Wiccans tend to have ceremonies based on conventional handfasting, but with services attuned to the vibration of angels rather than the Pagan Gods and Goddesses.

How Do You Know A Magical Working “Took”?

How Do You Know A Magical Working “Took”?

Author: Bronwen Forbes

I ran across this question on a Pagan forum the other day, and it got me thinking back to when I was new at all this ritual and magic and witchcraft stuff – was that really half a lifetime ago? – and so unsure of my ability to do even a basic working. Fortunately for me, the Gods I chose to invoke were kind, patient, and tolerant of my novice fumbling, as were my teachers and fellow students.

There are actually several ways to know whether or not a ritual or a magical working “worked” or “took.” Some are immediate; some are long-term. In general, sabbat observances and celebrations don’t have the success bar set very high. If you feel like you’ve “done” Litha, or Mabon, then that’s good enough — whether you’ve participated in a three-hour ritual or simply prepared a satisfying barbecue in the back yard for your friends and family.

The first (and sometimes only) indication you have that your spell or ritual was a success is to ask yourself: How do I feel? Do you feel better than you did before the ritual started, or do you feel worse? If you feel better, i.e. less worried, less frightened, more confident, more energetic, calmer, happier or whatever then, at least on some level, the magical working was a success (I’m assuming no one is stupid enough to actually do a working to increase worry, fear, low self-esteem, lethargy, nerves, or sadness) .

Paganism and Witchcraft do have one thing in common with all other religions, and that is to offer comfort and a life raft to the practitioner in times of troubled waters. So if you’re done with your spell or ritual and you feel better, that should that tell you something.

Also, sometimes you just know. There’s almost an audible “click” that means, “Message received. Action forthcoming.” In fact, it sounds a lot like the “click” you hear when you meet someone for the first time and then say to an old friend, “I don’t know, we just clicked!” That click.

If you aren’t already, you should start keeping an informal log or journal of what magic and rituals you do when, and what result (s) you hope to achieve. For one thing, it’s a good idea to keep track of what happens. Say you do a magical working for an easing of financial difficulties. You write it down in your log and forget about it.

Three months later you look back and realize that, since you did that working, you’ve gotten a small raise at work, a nice tax refund from the federal government, and all of your Pagan 101 books that you posted for sale on amazon.com have actually sold! Does that sound like your spell was successful? It does to me!

Another good reason to keep a log or journal of the specifics of your workings is that, if the rite is a good one, and it works — two or three months down the road — you can re-create the working years in the future, if you find yourself in the same situation. Even better, you can share the basics with a friend who might, say, be in a dire financial situation just like you were and isn’t sure what to do, magically speaking, to fix it.

Sometimes, though, with big workings on big issues like, “I want to move to another part of the country, ” or “I want a child, ” one ritual or one spellcasting just isn’t going to have enough “oomph” to help you accomplish what you want. You may need to wait a few weeks (one lunar cycle is good) and do another one. And another one on the next major holiday. And another one on the next holiday after that…

For a big working, I suggest you vary the details slightly in order to cover all the different aspects of the issue. For example, if you want to move across the country, try doing one working to choose your new location wisely and help you get yourself and your stuff there safely, another working to get a job that will take you there (or be waiting for you when you get there) , and still another working to help you find good friends and a congenial community once you arrive. They are all rituals to help you move across the country, but each one focuses on a different aspect of the moving process.

How do you know whether or not you need to repeat the working more than once? Same way you get to perform on stage at Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

Unfortunately, when you’re talking about magic and ritual, there is no box you can check like there is on your email to indicate message received and read. And it really doesn’t matter how carefully you prepare and how well you execute your working. Some things just aren’t to be – at least right now. Does this mean that your time and effort and energy were for nothing? No. It just means that energy has been “banked” somewhere, and is waiting for more favorable conditions to act.

Patience is more than a virtue, here. It’s a necessity.

Let me give you an example: ten years ago, I was doing regular intense workings in order to find love, or for love to find me. But no matter how many losers I hopefully dated, the time was not yet right. But the day I woke up (and I don’t mean in the morning) and realized that one of my oldest friends was Mr. Right, all that energy that I’d sent out and the Gods had stored for me fueled one heck of an intense courtship!

Within 3 months I packed up and moved to where he was currently living. A year later we were married. As of this writing, we’ve been happily wed for over eight years.

When the time is right for the working to “take” – be assured, it will!

It’s Elemental My Dear Wiccan: Power and Energy

It’s Elemental My Dear Wiccan: Power and Energy

Author: Marty Couch

Let’s start with a scenario. You are driving in the country. You can see clearly for miles around. You are coming up to an intersection. There are no other cars to be seen. The light is red. Do you stop?

You may be inclined to answer “no, not me”, but really think about it. If you are like most people you will stop. Even if you will drive through after stopping, almost everyone will stop first. Why?

What does this red light mean to you? How is it that this symbol of a red disc glowing can stop a vehicle? By all logic, no damage would happen. If there are no other cars to be seen, there is no chance of an accident or ticket. So, what gives a red light so much power?

Let’s take a look at another example. How much money do you have in the bank right now? How much do you have on you? How much do you make an hour? How do you feel when you receive unexpected money? How about when you are broke? So, what is this money that has such power over our lives, our thoughts and our feelings? At the core its just paper with pictures. Merely symbols for us to look at. How do these symbols gain such power?

And how about this one? What time did you get up this morning? What time is your favorite TV show on? What time is it? Time, what is it? Do you see how the change in wording seeks to find out why something that has no actual physical manifestation can have such power over our lives?

So, what gives so much power to these and many other things? How do these seemingly unimportant items gain such control over us? Well, in all these cases, thousands (if not millions) of people over the course of time have put energy plus intent toward their meanings.

The formula is simple.

ENERGY + INTENT = POWER

This is at the core of all we do in ritual. We raise energy, state intent and release it as power. What we do in a specific ritualistic way is what society does every day without realizing it. Intent is added to energy and the result is power. Sometimes this power is for the good. Sometimes it has devastating effects. The formula however stays constant.

So, let’s take a look at each of these items.

ENERGY: According to TheFreeDictionary.com energy is “the capacity to do work”. So, how much capacity do we posses? Let’s take a look at (probably) the most famous formula for energy:

E = mc (squared)

Now, for those who have had a few years elapse since physics class, energy equals mass times the speed of light square. In this famous formula by Albert Einstein, energy is measured in joules, mass in kilograms and the speed of light is 299, 792, 458 meters per second (and in the formula this gets multiplied by itself) . (Source: Wikipedia.com)

So, let’s break this down a little. For those reading in the US, we’ll start with pounds. Someone who weighs 180 pounds is about 82 kilograms. So, 82 X 299, 792, 458 X 299, 792, 458 = 7, 369, 792, 465, 641, 904, 000.00 joules. So, if we consider it takes only 1 joule to lift an apple a couple feet, think of the actual energy we posses. Remember, in Einstein’s formula was the key to the first atomic bomb. The energy released from 1 atom was enough to level cities.

Of course this is only the scientific way of thinking about energy. Let’s go a bit further in discussing energy from a spiritual point of view. In “The Creative Process in the Individual”, Thomas Troward states about the creation of the universe “At this primordial stage neither Time nor Space can be recognized, for both imply measurement of successive intervals, and in the primary movement of Mind upon itself the only consciousness must be that of Present Absolute Being, because no external points exist from which to measure extension either in time or space. Hence we must eliminate the ideas of time and space from our conception of Spirit’s initial Self-contemplation.

This being so, Spirit’s primary contemplation of itself as simply Being necessarily makes its presence universal and eternal, and consequently, paradoxical as it may seem, its independence of Time and Space makes it present throughout all Time and Space.”

What Mr. Troward is saying is that as Spirit (or God and Goddess, or Elemental Spirit) was creating our Universe, there was no concept of time or space, as there was nothing to measure it against. So this power that created all there is, is present in each and every molecule of our Universe IN IT’S ENTIRETY.

This is huge. The power that brought about the whole of creation exists in every cell in our body. Not a part of this energy, but THE WHOLE OF IT. Think about this for a second. All the energy that exists is within us. Not simply a part of it but all of it. Quite simply, our source of energy is infinite.

So, if we have infinite energy, why don’t we have whatever we want? The answer is in the other part of the equation, intent.

So, let’s look at intent. Intent is defined as “an aim or purpose…firmly fixed” (source: thefreedictionary.com) . So, our intent is our aim or purpose that is firmly fixed (as an idea) in ritual. All that we do in ritual is used to support this intent. When we choose the candle, oils, incense, herbs, symbols, quarter calls, deities, tools, etc. it is all to support this intent. Intent however is the variable in the equation. So, if we have everything, where does the formula go wrong? Why don’t we have infinite power to do what we want?

Well, we may have all the correctly colored candles, the proper herbs and oils, the full moons energy, but if we start our ritual by thinking, “This will never work” or even “I hope this works” then the intent we put in to it is doubt. So, all this energy at our disposal goes toward our ritual not working.

Think of a child. Have you ever turned your back on a child for a second and when you turn to them, they have climbed half way up a shelving unit to get to something? They have no limits. They know they can do anything. And our first reaction is to say, “No, you can’t do that”. What happens when they hear that? Usually that is the moment they fall and hurt themselves.

They were doing fine until we told them they did not have the ability to accomplish what they set out to do. This is what builds up over time and begins more and more to limit our abilities. We start out in life as infinite possibilities and almost immediately start excepting limitations.

So, let’s look at the third part of the equation. Power. Power is “the ability or official capacity to exercise control” (source: thefreedictionary.com) . So, what we are working toward in ritual is the ability to gain control over a situation. This power comes from infinite energy and our intent. If our intent knows no limits, our power to control situations (our lives, careers, health, etc) is also infinite.

How do we avoid limitations? How to make our ritual practice more powerful? How do we tap in to and release this infinite energy that we posses? Well, how we undo the limitations we have acquired through the course of our lives is not something that can be answered in just a paragraph or two. As we travel through these future articles together we will discover how to remove these blocks and begin to fulfill our infinite purpose.

Footnotes:
wikipedia.com
thefreedictionary.com
“The Creative Process in the Individual” by Thomas Troward

Lady A’s Spell of the Day for June 30 is Summer Ritual for a Sunny Will

Adapted from Witch in the Kitchen, by Cait Johnson.Good will is certainly a concept to ponder. How many of us can truly say we have it?

Now, as warm colors and blazing vitality evoke the power of the will, we can align ourselves with our deepest, best selves with this simple, ancient ritual. After all, summer invites us to think of ways we can harness our immense fiery will in order to give something unique and meaningful to the world, knowing that when we do the things we most love to do we nourish ourselves and others, for the good of all.

This just takes a sunny day and a little birdseed. And it is such a joyful way to celebrate the sun and our own capacity for a truly good will:

Go to a place where wild birds are known to congregate (if you’re a city-dweller, pigeons will do just fine). Stand facing the sun. Close your eyes and imagine that the golden sunlight is streaming into your solar plexus, your will center. Now visualize that you are beaming that golden light back to the sun as you say:

I will to will Thy will.

Now, carefully sprinkle the birdseed around yourself in as perfect a circle as you can, and say:

May my will grow lighter, to feed the world. Now it is done.

Step outside the circle and find a place to sit quietly and observe. Watch as the birds discover and feed themselves with your gift. As each bird takes flight after its meal, visualize your will center growing more light and generous and warm.

Charging Tools

Charging Tools

 
What you will need:
The item in which you wish to charge, whether it be some jewelry, your pentacle or some crystals.
Salt for the Earth element
A candle for the Fire element
Water or rose oil for the Water element
Incense for the element of AirHow to do the ritual:
This is a really simple charging ritual.
You may wish to elaborate on it once you have created your own ritual style!

Start by taking your item that you want to charge and place it in front of you. Shake or sprinkle a little salt over your item and say the following:

“Earth spirits from the North/South I ask you to charge this …..with the power of Earth. By the Goddess and/or God so mote it be.”

Imagine a green light filling the item and empowering the item with the qualities of Earth.

Dip or trickle some water over your item and say this:

“Water spirits from the East/West I ask you to charge this ….. with the power of Water. By the Goddess and/or God so mote it be.”

Imagine a blue ocean like colored light filling the item and empowering the item with the qualities and power of Water.

Pass the item through the smoke of the incense and say:

“Air spirits from the West/East I ask you to charge this ….. with the power of Air. By the Goddess and/or God so mote it be.”

Imagine a pale light filling the item and surrounding it. Empowering it with the powers of Air.

Move the item through the heat above the candle flame and say the following:

“Fire spirits from the South/North I ask you to charge this ….. with the power of Fire. By the Goddess and/or God so mote it be.”

Imagine a red or orange light filling the item and empowering it with the power and energy of Fire.

Once you have done this imagine a bright white/blue light surrounding the item charging it with your own energy.
After this the item will be charged with the elemental powers and your own.You can now use the item for whatever purpose you needed it.You can perform this ritual as often as possible.

 

Happy & Blessed Sunday To All!

Good Sunday morning to all! I hope you are having a wonderful day so far. And your weather much better than mine. It has stormed all morning long and still at it.

I promise to keep this short and sweet today. Yes, really! You remember I was talking about the pendant I was wanting to concentrate to me last evening. The pendant has gorgeous emerald jewels in it. The more I looked at it, the more I wanted to wear it. So I said what the heck. I got everything ready for my simple ritual. My two familiars always attend to me during my spells and rituals, today was no different. My cat sits in the floor and my puppy on the edge of the bed right behind me. If I am doing a ritual or spell and there is someone around that shouldn’t be she lets me know. Well I had started the ritual and was getting close to the end. All of a sudden, Kiki warned me that someone was around. I just figured hubby had opened the door and saw what I was doing and shut it. Shortly after that I closed the ritual and put on the pendant. I turned around and there stood my neighbor with his weedeater in hand with his mouth hung open. I like to have sh*t! I could not believe it. When you are in your home, you expect privacy. Ha, not around here apparently. My yard is well-kept, there is no reason for him to be here at all.  I told my husband about it and he was pissed too. He told me that he guessed I would have to start pulling the blinds when I decided to do some spell work. He also said he knows you are a witch now for sure. I was just so mad I couldn’t stand it. I walked out in the yard and asked the man why he was in my yard. His reply was he was just trying to help out. I guess I was rude but I told him I didn’t need his help. Then he had the gall to ask me what I was doing in my own house. I lost it. I can’t even post what I said to him. If what I said to him doesn’t keep his butt at home, nothing will. I am a private person and I hate my privacy violated. He was the same one that followed me to where I feed the wildcats at. I have food I buy and also if I have scraps I load them up on the four-wheeler and take them down to the creek. I was sitting down and a couple of the wildcats were loving all over me. The man had brought his gun. It was a bolt-action high-powered 30-06 and I heard it. I asked him, “what the heck he was doing there?” He told me, “that he thought I was being attacked by those cats.” I stood up and the cats were loving around my legs and growling at him. I told him that he needed to leave and not to follow me again. After that I moved the feeding place for the big cats. I figured he just wanted to know where they were to come back and kill them all.  But it just amazes me how people like to stick their nose in other people’s business.

Well I feel much better now. I just had to blow up about the neighbor and now I feel better. I hope you don’t have neighbors like me. If you do, I feel sorry for you. Well I am off to do the posts now and think what I am going to do to my nosey neighbor, hee, hee, hee! Got any good ideas?

What’s All This About “And Harm None”?

What’s All This About “And Harm None”?

article

by Freya Ray

“Do what you will, and harm none.” What does that mean, exactly? Why on earth would any community hamstring itself with a fundamental motto so basically impossible to live up to? When you think about it, it’s crazy, right?

The Jains, those intensely wacked-out Hindu-type people who believe all life is sacred — and I mean all life — they try. They go barefoot so they don’t inadvertently crush any little critters. They eat no animals. They wear a cloth across their mouth so they don’t inhale a bug. Now that’s devotion to a creed.

Does it work for them? If you play it out logically, any food they eat is taking food from the mouths of other creatures. In India, this equation is even more apparent than here, the land of the surplus. I’m sure Jains roll over during the night and squish caterpillars, brush gnats out of their ears with a little too much force and kill them dead, dead, dead or eat some rice with little cooked rice-eating bugs in it. Not to mention the damage that is inflicted to all the tiny dandruff-eating mites that inhabit our bodies with every belly scratch. You can run it up the food chain, too. The rice that the devout Jain eats is grown on land that is therefore not used to grow hay, and he could be causing the death of a cow through his own feeding.

Please indulge me, and allow me to run through a similarly ludicrous examination of a good little witchy person trying earnestly to do no harm. Say she wants to draw love into her life. She does a nice little ritual to draw a mate to her, being terribly careful not to make any specific requests about any particular individual, so as to not infringe on anyone’s free will. She disposes of any leftover ritual props in sharps containers or recycle bins and dumps nothing into a storm drain. She just wants to be happy, after all, and thinks she needs a mate in her life to be happier, although of course she’s fully aware that true happiness comes from being full in yourself and wouldn’t ever dream of needing to be rescued from her loneliness, although it might be nice to have sex again before she dies.

You with me? Now what happens? Anything. She’s altered the energetic balance of the universe, moving energy and intent toward a specific purpose. She’s shaken things up, sending out a “Now!” signal into the void. She might get someone, but not a very good someone but only what was available at the moment. She might get the letter of what she asked for but not the intent, because the deities are crafty bastards. She might run around after the ritual radiating sexual readiness in such an overtly enticing way she provokes a normally faithful partner to start hitting on her, causing his girlfriend to dump him. Any of these scenarios are possible, and any of them can result in heartbreak and angst for all of the players involved. Or worse, she might get what she wants, be deliriously happy, pissing off her bitter single girlfriends and losing all her pals.

Go on, play this game yourself. Ask yourself, when did I do ritual asking for something? How did it go wrong, in ways I might have anticipated but didn’t? If you’ve been playing with fire, you’ve been burned, unless you’re perfect, and then why are you reading me?

Then there’s ritual for other specific purposes. You might do a ritual of protection for yourself after a bad relationship, a woo-woo restraining order. A year later you realize you haven’t had sex since the circle went up, and guess why? Think of the untold harm this has brought all your potential sex partners during that period of time! The heartbreak!

You do a healing circle. After the circle, one participant has a nervous breakdown, another ends a long-term relationship, another quits his job and becomes an artist. Harm, or not? The nervous breakdown might lead to breakthrough healing, but then it might be the frying caused by too much energy running through a system unprepared for it. The end of the relationship might be good and long overdue, or it might be the result of someone high from endorphins released by letting go of old baggage who decides she’s too good for the partner who stood by her through carrying all the baggage, and if she stuck around another six weeks they’d have been happy together forever. The artist — following his dream or caught up in a Bohemian fantasy? Living his path or abandoning his responsibility to pay child support every month?

How on earth is one to tell?

Spirit can probably keep track of all the ramifications of individual events, but humans can’t. As to judging whether individual results are boon or bane, I’m not entirely convinced Spirit keeps score that way. When we do, it only makes for extensive confusion, and worse.

“And harm none” is a great idea for keeping Fluffbunny Artemis Moonriver from casting a spell to bring Peter Trent, the boy next door and man of her dreams, to her bed, despite his complete and utter lack of interest in giggling little Artemis. It’s a good motto to try and dissuade High Priestess Arachne Wolfspawn from casting a curse unto the seventh generation on the landlord who wouldn’t refund her security deposit because of the teensy little cigarette burns in the carpet. It’s a fine thing to attempt to keep Lord Wizard Aleister SexGod of the Ninth Circle from “initiating” all his “novices” with mushrooms and “tantric sex magick.” I’m not sure it works, but it’s a nice idea, and well worth repeating.

What effect does it have on those with both a conscience and a brain, though? You work to learn responsible magical practices. You sweat the language for your rituals, trying to envision all the possible consequences. You set up support groups and phone trees for helping people who crash after ritual. You do giveaway work more often than you ask for anything for yourself; you try not to offend people in the supermarket.

Good for you.

After a while, you realize you’ve PC’d yourself into a little box, and you can’t really remember why this whole Wiccan thing was so appealing in the first place. Wasn’t there some original moment of power and glory when you touched all of creation, throbbed with majestic spiritual strength, knew your divinity? Wasn’t there some seminal idea about living without compromising yourself to your dominant culture; following your own heart, creating your own reality?

Screw it, then. I mean, assuming you’ve got a conscience and a brain. If you don’t, then you don’t need my words as an excuse to bungle things up wildly all around you all the time.

I let that idea, harm none, lead me away from the place where I radiated power all the time. I got tired of people (only some of them, some of the time, but still … harm none) jumping back out of a hug as if they’d been shocked. I got tired of people calling me after a two-hour first date to tell me their stuff was suddenly all up in their face and they were in no way ready for a relationship. I got tired of people shrinking from eye contact as if I were overwhelming their circuits by beaming lasers from my eyes.

I mean, it’s not like I’m Guru Mai, right? I’m not offering shaktiput, elevating the consciousness of devotees with a glance, touch or hug. I’m not part of some grand tradition where running current at a zippy frequency is celebrated.

No, I was making people uncomfortable. I was doing too much meditation, too much energy work, too many readings, too much talking to God, too much teaching and ritual. Too much. I was too much.

So I stopped. I watched a lot of TV, I stopped meditating, I turned my attention to writing rather than all the other stuff that required my being terribly amped up. Readings I can still do, even when I’m not crackling with juice. Energy work, no. But it was fine, really.

Until I realized consciously what I had done. In seeking to harm none through least common denominator thinking, I had removed a significant portion of my light from the world. I wasn’t making people uncomfortable anymore, but neither was I challenging them to grow and giving them a little nudge with catalytic energy. I wasn’t radiating at the highest frequency possible for me, the one that brings me the most joy.

It’s a lot more fun being all amped up. If I thought about it, I could list the harm I brought the world by damping my energy down, but the other kind of harm was much more in my face. It’s a Wonderful Life, and all that.

That’s my point, then. Screw `em. Do what you reasonably can to act ethically and responsibly, but don’t sweat it, trying to find the perfectly harm-free path. It can’t be done. Harm happens. Every action you take, every word you speak, is going to have consequences, more of them unforeseen than foreseen. That’s life!

Take a deep breath and do what you are moved to do. If you expand the first part of the creed to “Do what you will, as guided by spirit, your intuition, your wisdom and your conscience,” you’re probably going to be fine.

There will be consequences. You’ll deal with them when they happen. But don’t let the fear of them stop you from charging yourself up, radiating light, learning energy work or asking for what you want. I’ve got the army slogan running through my head now: “Be all that you can be!” Whatever. So it’s hokey. Do it anyway.

Screw it. Do what you will, as best you can.