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.

Eat, Pray, Love and My Quest for Meditation

EPL is a very all or nothing sort of situation. As they used to say, you're either on the bus or off the bus, it's a very all or nothing polarizing sort of book. Some people love it with all their little hearts and others hate it with the firey burning of a thousand suns. Now, lest you think I am uninformed, remember, I'm a Women's Studies grad/dork so believe me, you're not going to really rock my world with cries of ZOMG! Privledge! I know, I got the memo, I get it, I agree. . .sort of [soapbox] look, she got paid as a writer to go on her globetrot to self improvement, I don't know that that's privilege so much as the paid writer's wet dream, I get that she's a white American woman with privilege but, that's my life too. It is what it is, people's stories shouldn't be suppressed due to their race, class, gender, religion, whatever, period. I get that it's easier for privileged people's stories to be told and I support the fight to even the playing field [/soapbox] but at the same time it doesn't stop EPL from having profoundly affected me in personal and life changing ways.

Anyway. The first time I read it, I was still smarting from my own divorce so I really related to the anguish, angst and general feeling of being lost. I really got what she said when she said, The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I too had my share of 2a bathroom sobbing and distressed conversations with god/dess/es. She gave me permission to figure out wtf I was doing with my life and her trip to India inspired me to really start my japa practice and start a regular personal practice in my life.

I'm re-reading it now and I just got paid for the privilege by AOL in the form of being paid to write a short summary for it for the honestly truly luxurious price of .10 a word (which is a lot for those of you who don't write for a living, bottom of the barrel writing pays less than a penny a word, on average I make about .07 a word which isn't bad) which will be out soonish. Now that I'm not a mess from the divorce/house buying process, I'm taking different things from it. Firstly, I love the Italy part, the idea of going to a country and speaking the language and just really enjoying the food, that's my jam. I would like to get to do that with France at some point. It gels very well with my efforts to enjoy food fully and to be present in the eating experience (which is a challenge for me) and for me I take it a step further and try to be mindful in my eating in terms of feeling how my body feels about it . . .which I suppose is a meditation in and of itself.

But it's her struggles with meditation that really resonate with me. It's really hard for me to sit with all of those anxious, crappy feelings and to really be present in those moments. I'd really rather jam some food down my throat, not get dressed and eat a metric ton of crap, thank you. But I'm trying to move away from that, as much as I can (and it's pretty uphill). I'm afraid to meditate completely solo at this point, there's too much stuff there that I don't feel comfortable exploring completely unsupervised. My methods by Buddhist standards would likely be considered "cheating" as one is supposed to stick your whole face into the experience without crutches. Luckily, I'm not a Buddhist and not interested in getting a rainbow body.

Deb's Method of Meditation:

1. Keep it short. This is not an endurance test, you're not getting graded, champ.

2. Put on sound machine, which is set to ocean.

3. Get in bed at bedtime in pjs. This is the time of day where my hamsters/monkey mind are going buckwild so it's when I need it most.

4. Do japa practice (which is technically meditation anyway)

5. Close eyes. Go to my night time beach in my head. Sit down next to my totem guide (who is in person form), Crow. Watch the waves for a minute, see Yemaya in the distance. Put head on Crow's shoulder.

6. Start counting breaths. Only go to ten and then start over. It's harder than it sounds for a spaz like me. Try to let thoughts drift naturally and not judge them. Likely fail at that part and start to get torqued. Crow will offer gentle guidance* or gently bring me back to breath counting.

7. Do until sleep.

8. Sleep.

Fin.

* Crow is not a gentle spirit totem per se but generally if I'm getting "schooled" it's more like: Him: Don't do that dumb thing. Me: WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE I'M DOING THAT DUMB THING! . . .oh shit, things are not going well. Halp! Halp! I will stop doing that dumb thing! Him: I told you so.