Building a Dilettante

My approach to magic can at best be politely be called eccentric but there are a lot of sources that helped me get to where I am as a third wave riot girl hearth witch. Should you ever be curious about how I got here.

Reading List for the Dilettante Hearth Witch

Our Bodies, Ourselves - I'm not going to lie, it still appalls me how many women don't know their birth control options or how their bodies work or anything.

WomenSpirit Rising - Just blew my tiny brain open about religion and started me thinking about how to be a riot girl in religion.

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle - This is When Shit Got Real for me as a Women's Studies major.

The Spiral Dance 20th Anniversary - Because you always remember your first, because she still updates it with new info and changes in philosophy. Also I'm mad at Z. and she knows why.

A Subscription to Real Simple - It's the perfect hearth witch mag imo - realistic recipes, how to clean just about anything, financial planning, realistic planners, gardening and essays about various real world stupid motherfucking problems. The real world guide to being a motherfucking adult.

Old Style Conjure Podcast - Oh man do I love me some Momma Starr, she just is the cat's pajamas. I'm going to butch this horribly but when someone essentially says on a hoodoo podcast, "But you don't just want him back, you want his money. So you're going to Bend Him Over in Jesus' name!" I'm going to love you forever.

White Wolf Mage: The Ascension Role Playing Game Books: Dreamspeakers, Cult of Ecstasy and Spirit Ways - As long as you understand that they are *fiction* for a *pretend role playing game*, they're helpful as they're well researched.

Animal Speak - a great primer on some basic Native American Shamanic concepts

Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure - Super helpful hoodoo reference book.

Compendium of Herbal Magick - Really helpful Euro magical herb compendium

Rules of the Game - teaches basic NLP techniques and I find it helpful in my glamoury work

Eat, Pray, Love - it really encapsulated my post divorce spiritual journey and helped me focus on what I'm trying to accomplish.

Evolutionary Witchcraft - This book really helped me come to terms with being a Reclaimist. The Iron Pentacle meditation has changed every group I've led it for, it's that amazing.

Rune Soup - Because magically speaking, Gordon really is my better half.

Panic, Meditation, and the Dilettante

Many parties on my blogosphere talk about how meditation is the cornerstone of their practice. And I really respect that, but it's not the cornerstone of mine. And at first I felt like a complete dilettante about that. What? Sit quietly for an hour? What kind of girl do you think I am? I don't *do* that!

It's not that I haven't tried. I have, meditation was part of my ADF druid dedicant program. The issue, the real issue, that took me years to get to the heart of is that I can't do traditional meditation because of my panic disorder.

I've done what I'm supposed to do, I've sat on the couch, I take meds (delicious, delicious meds! O how I love thee!), I've found god(dess)(es), I've come to terms with the things that caused that in me. But here's the thing, it doesn't go away. Some people think that's what therapy/meds is supposed to. Congratulations! You're healed of years of abuse, bad relationships, bad decisions, and living with a debilitating condition! Go! Be free! Live a normal life!

It would be kick ass if it *did* work that way, but it doesn't. I get better at living with it, at managing it, so much so that people who've only known me as an adult (especially past the age of 25) forget how damaged I am, which is flattering. But it's still there. And real, true, emptying my mind meditation triggers a panic attack in me every time. I don't know all the hows and the whys, but I do know some, just like I know some of why going to the movies at a theater does the same and drinking caffeine. At the end of the day, this isn't something you can always logic your way out of. Your body is reacting in a real, visceral, primal way and it doesn't care if you say, "Oh no body! We're not *really* in danger! It's fine, really." Because often, your body's response is, "OMFG!!!!!!!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" until it's done.

Some magic users have gone so far as to say they didn't think you could be an effective magic user without meditation. I've asked what should I do due to my body's chemical reaction (also? Fibro? Not the greatest for long term meditation) and no one had any kind of answer for me. This was devastating to me. I wanted to be a real live girl and no blue fairy had any sort of answer for me as to how to get past this.

So for a while I gave up. That's right, I gave the fuck up. It was exhausting enough trying to lead a "normal" life, if I couldn't ever do this, well it's unlikely I'll ever run a marathon either or be president.

I don't have the answers for everyone, I can only speak for myself. But I don't think really many people have talked about what to do if you have a disability(ies) that prevent you from having a full, rich meditiational life. So, let me tell you what I've found for myself.

How to be Magically Delicious Without Emptying Your Mind Meditation


Why can't you meditate? If you don't know why, really know why, you're not going to be able to figure out the actual heart of your magical practice so do some serious soul searching to figure out why. Even if your reason is "I don't want to", go deeper than than and think about why you don't want to.

Redefine meditation for yourself. My japa practice has been something I've done every night without fail since late December. It gives me the benefits that meditation is supposed to give people - relaxing, focusing, clearing my mind, etc. My brain/body can handle a full 108 every night and it's really helped my personal practice. Guided meditation such as the IPM and visiting my own internal hearth can really be helpful for me. When I am not strong enough to clean my actual hearth, cleaning my internal hearth really helps keep me sane, I can also visit with my god/desses there. Other things that help me: cooking, cleaning, baking bread. Don't discount those practices, they can really help you develop your magical practice if you treat them as meditational practice.

What is it you're trying to accomplish with magic? I have to be blunt, I'm not looking to talk to angels. I'm not looking to call in any kind of super serious spirit that needs to be confiiiiiiiiiined by my dark aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarts! I like having an occasional meditation chat with my god/desses, I like trying to build a better me on my path - to be faster, stronger, sexxxier. For me that really equates to: having a magical practice to call my own, having enough money to pay my bills and occasionally travel and buy a ridiculous purse, get in better shape, writing, and crafting. All of this can be accomplished with low magic. So if I personally don't need or really even want anything that can be accomplished with higher magic, why do I keep torturing myself? It's ridiculous. I personally have yet to go into any situation that could not be solved with mundane means or low magic. It could happen, but . . .it hasn't. So why am I preparing for some kind of magical apocalypse if I don't need to? For me, it has been far more beneficial for me to stop torturing myself about things I wasn't trying to accomplish in my practice anyway and get better honing my practice to accomplish the things I *am* trying to accomplish, none of which require a huge meditational practice.

If what you are trying to accomplish does require it, it's going to be a difficult path so make sure it's worth it to you. You may want to start looking up Rinpoches who have experience with disability and meditations.

You still need a cornerstone in your practice. If meditation isn't your cornerstone, what is? Really stop and think about it. My cornerstone is my hearth. My magic happens in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the bedroom (if you know what I'm sayin!), using household tools. It's my chantry, my sanctuary, my safe space, my temple. So I need to focus on making sure my hearth is in order, which is where the majority of my magical practice lies with offerings being a second and spellwork being a third.

Building an Amazon Bad Ass . . .Through Books.

My PEH, Gordon asked us what 10 books would we use to try to build a mage/witch/magic user/whatever of a specific bent. I decided to build an Amazon Bad Ass (specializing in Hearth Witchery). I liked that Gordon allowed for fiction. In the comments, as you can see, everyone (my Jow included) picked v. lofty books for their lists, I only really overlap with people on my choices for #2. and #6. I would be curious to see what would happen if the challenge happened (someone has access only to the books we've given them and no previous knowledge of what we're trying to impart onto them). I'm guessing she would be confused by my choices, probably. ;p But it's a sincere look into my brain and how I became the kind of pagan/magic user/hearth woman I am.

I am building a Bad Ass Amazon (specializing in hearth witchery)

1. Someplace to be Flying (Charles Delint) (fiction) - a must have for the urban shaman

2. Evolutionary Witchcraft (Thorn Coyle) - her Iron Pentacle Meditation is unbelievably hard core. An amazon needs some reclaimst in her.

3. Eat, Love, Pray (Elizabeth Gilbert)(memoir) - for her inevitable identity meltdown. It made me want to run off to an ashram and started me on my daily japa practice.

4. Palimpsest (fiction) (Catherynne M. Valente) - a book about a sexually transmitted dream city you visit in your sleep. Need I really say more? Okay. It opened my heart up in ways I can't even describe. I tell Cat she makes me cry more than anything else. It was a bit embarassing seeing her tour with SJ Tucker when they read a piece from the book about the opera and Sooj sang and I just cried and cried in a full room full of people. It made me see the world more magically again.

5. D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (Ingri d'Aulaire & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire) (children's book) - This book made me a pagan, it planted the seed in the children's room in the library. Other pagans have said the same thing. Concisely lays out the Olympians.

6. Hoodoo Root & Herb Magic (Cat Yronwode) - A must source book for all of one's charms and hexes

7. Miss Abernathy’s Concise Slave Training Manual and Training With Miss Abernathy (Christina Abernathy) - Even if you're not kinked, it's a good primer on how to be service oriented. As someone who has kitchen witched for rituals, Thanksgivings, and funeral repasts great and small, it helps to get organized.

8. Real Simple magazine: A monthly magazine that teaches organization, budgeting, meal planning, etiquette, and other day to day life must haves. I cut out articles and recipes. You will need this for anything from knowing what to bring as a hostess gift to what to make for dinner on a Wednesday on a budget to how to start investing.

9. The Spirit Ways (Eric Taylor, Rachel Barth, Scott Cohen, and John Snead) (WW RPG) - How shamanism makes sense to me.

10. Spiral Dance (Starhawk) - You always remember your first. I *love* that she revises it every five years to be like, this was wrong, this was totally fucked up, I do this now, etc. It's also a really good Dianic primer.

What would you pick?

IP Meditation Week Two

09 December 2009 @ 11:36 am

I was curious to see what it would feel like doing the IPM the second time. I was feeling v. relaxed as I was having a nice date with Jow and this time I suggested he slow down at my difficult point (power) when he reads the meditation.

So when I was to sink down in myself, I did it super fast and super hard (Jow was like, it made a *whomp* noise when you did it!). Sex, self, and pride lit up just fine. Power was much better, though still a bit weak. Also I was fucking up what went where, so that was a little distracting (i.e. power is left hand? right hand?), but even with that, I was still way more into it this time. Passion was hesitant to light up which is no surprise as I'm trying to figure out what that is for me. Power, I was just basically hissing at myself to gather all my power bits that went away and they're starting to consolidate better. Sex bits got called back faster than you call a dog's name. Self was pretty easy too still. Pride, hesitated for a beat this time but still pretty solid.

I was drawing the circle around myself and I was just, like, vibrating with the power buzzing inside me to the point that for a second I went out of body and saw myself meditating on the floor (which like never happens to me) and all the energy was buzzing and blue with Feri light (the IP starts as red to me but inevitably becomes blue which is commonly used in Feri so it's not too surprising) and then my sister knocked on the door, unannounced. So I had to sit up real quick and ground pretty fucking fast. But I was pleased that I was able to do so.

Jow wants to start a triple self meditation daily, but I'm trying to just get used to doing this first. Maybe in another week or two.

I will try hard/ to be a spark of power/ I will, I'll never be your iron flower . . .

I took L's advice regarding trying out T. Thorne Coyle's Iron Pentacle meditation from her book Evolutionary Witchcraft (she's Feri/Reclaiming). I had been feeling like I lost my sexy like one loses one's keys and I only had nebulous ideas on how to get it back.

Now, in terms of my magical practice, I (mostly) make circle and/or grove for most of the wheel of the year, I do little charms and spells when I need something, I try to remember to light up my altars at least somewhat regularly to give thanks, I do some vision questing/meditation before bed on occasion . . .in other words, I'm like a half assed Catholic in the pagan world.

I've been reading more. Thorne's book is full of careful book marks of exercises I should give a go. But once I was almost done with the book and realized I would now need to actually do said exercises, I stalled out. Needless to say, I stopped reading it and conveniently picked up another book to avoid doing any bothersome work.

Now that I'm moved into my condo, I knew I needed to start fulfilling all of those promises I made to myself about being a better magical practitioner, treadmilling, writing, etc. because frankly there's no excuse anymore.

So Jow and I got home a bit earlier than expected yesterday and we had thought to maybe do one of Thorne's exercises. We brought our stuff in and I flipped open her book to find the Iron Pentacle meditation. Jow protested of course because he's v. methodical about doing each exercise in order. I pointed out that the IPM doesn't build on anything from her previous lessons (which I'd read) and it's what I need to work on in myself so let's start there. He also was unenthused at the time about doing magical work as we had eaten at cracker barrel and couldn't go for walkies because rain looked eminant. I pointed out if we didn't do the exercise right then, as soon as the laptop came on and the tv came on, there was no way our lazy asses were going to do anything because that is how we are.

So I then nominated him to go first while I read the exercise 'cause I'm gracious like that. So you know the layout of the IP, it looks like this. So, Jow can tell you his experiences in his blog or lj, I will tell you mine. First off, Bella (the cat) wanted to crawl all over us when each of us laid on the floor. Max (the other cat) who is no stranger to magic, disapproved strongly of this and shooed her off every time she tried. So you lay on the floor, arms and legs out stretched like a star(fish) and each limb represents one of the aspects as laid out in the diagram and the meditation goes through calling each piece back to yourself (sort of Soul Retrieval style) and then you meditate on feeling each bit connecting to each other in a star pattern.

So, I have crap spacial reasoning skills. As I was reading it to Jow, I was thinking, huh. I have no idea how this all connects in an orderly fashion. But when I was on the floor doing it myself while he read it, I felt the lines of the pentacle connecting in an orderly fashion. Now I had assumed (ass out of . . .) that the sex energy itself was going to be problematic and this was going to be like pulling teeth the whole way. But funnily, the sex energy came just fine in my forehead, my self came just fine in my hand (also surprisingly to me). When I got to Pride in my foot it felt painful, but it came (which is interesting, because I have dreams where huge hermit crabs attach themselves painfully to my Pride foot, I'm still trying to figure that mess out) and when I ran the circuit between the three, it went just fine. So I started to think, yeah! Maybe I just needed to remind myself.

No. When I got to power, it fizzled so much it was ridiculous. It felt like the alternator in my body just gave out (come on, come on, I see you turning! Please!). Passion flared up slightly better but it was like trying to light a candle that was mostly gutted. Once I started trying to run power through, well, power it was faint at best.

It was really interesting to me because I assumed that my lack of feeling sexy came from issues with my sex aspect, but it seems to be stemming from my power issues (it's hard to feel power*full after the last year I had) and I'm so worn out from everything, my passion has taken a beating. So those are things for me to think about.

What I really liked about this exercise was: (1) It was short, like my attention span. (2) I really liked doing it with Jow because we can compare notes and read the exercise for each other. (3) It's something I can incorporate into my shamanic practice. (4) I feel like I respond really well to reclaimist stuff. I need to stop being a snob about it, Thorne doesn't make any wonky anthropoloy claims, there's no need to not use something that works for me. (5) I feel like this is something I can do for a while and see where it takes me. I'm going to try to do it with Jow whenever we can and really work on this chapter. When I'm ready to move on from it, I'll move on from it and pick something else directly relevant to my life.