I’m consolidating everything, so you’ll find my work listed on the main site for Harmonic Spirit:

http://www.harmonicspirit.net

If you want to jump directly to my page and books, you can go here. I hope you make the move with me, and hope you’ll find the new, consolidated Harmonic Spirit much easier to navigate. Thank you.

You’ll find all the posts from this page moved over, so you won’t miss a thing. Thanks!

Though my primary use for tarot cards is as a tool for personal introspection and self-growth, I do like to write articles about tarot. I had an article 7 Troublesome Tarot Cards appear in an issue of NewWitch magazine. I also write an article on the death card and Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood for an anthology of pop culture magick. In this way, I like to help people understand the tarot cards as they relate to the world around them, and their own life. My book, The Fool’s Journey Through Sunnydale, takes a look at the tarot through a popular television show.

Writing about tarot opens up an entirely new world for me. It allows me to put my creative skills to use and have the cards speak to me through words. Oftentimes when I’m writing, the cards come up with new and exciting phrases and meanings that I hadn’t thought about before.

I hope to do more writing about the tarot. (And of course I love editing books on the tarot that we publish at Jupiter Gardens Press.) For me, it’s a joyous and exciting way to look at the cards. It’s also a way to share with all of you.

So tell me, what topics would you like me to write about?

When we use reiki to self-treat for illnesses there are many times when it’s obvious which hand positions to use. A stomach ache calls for placing our hands in our midsection, though we might reach around to our ribs or lower back. There are other ailments, such as stress or exhaustion, where we might guess about the hand positions, but where we might also wonder, what is the right thing?

The good news is that reiki is intelligent energy. Even if we put our hands on the bottom of our feet, for example, when it comes to that stomach ache, reiki will go where it’s needed. So there really can be no “wrong” hand position. Personally, I am more of an organic reiki practitioner; I let the energy and my intuition guide me to where I need to direct the energy, so the stomach ache equals reiki position for the abdomen doesn’t always apply.

However, there are a few hand positions I’ve found especially helpful.

Twenty years ago when I discovered Wicca I had little chance of finding an actual group. For starters, I was still in school and there was no way my parents would have let me find a coven for training. Like most witches, I became a solitare. However,  now that I’ve had the opportunity to take official, structured lessons, I have to say, there is something to be said for coven-based learning.

It’s like the difference between reading about something and working under an experienced teacher. Now for a lot of us books are all we have. So I certainly wouldn’t want to dismiss solitary and book learning. It served me very well for twenty years. However, I do think, that if the opportunity presents itself, that Wiccans should look at taking in-person training.

Which means that as a community, we might want to look beyond the traditional coven structure. How can we get education, such as in the form of seminars or online presenting, to people who might be remotely. This is where the internet and virtual spaces come in handy. Through such things as online webinars, teleseminars, and even virtual spaces, we can bring a large number of Wiccans together who might be in different parts of the globe and provide education and classes.

Will this replace in-person teaching? Of course not. But just as with colleges there are many opportunities from online classes to in-person classes, to a mix of the two, there should be in spiritual teaching as well.

Though I see concepts more clearly now than I have in the past, and I am gaining levels of understanding I did not know, I do not be grudge my solitary years. After all, they brought me closer to the goddess, and in turn, closer to my spirituality and myself.

For some of us, we get out of school and think that our learning is done. Our structured learning, that is. However, our learning continues. We forget sometimes that our entire life is a series of lessons. We go through our lives with the lessons presented to us by Spirit (or God/Goddess) and although we might not perceive these as structured lessons, they are.

Personally, I’ve started taking some lessons to get back to the roots of my spirituality. I am loving these lessons. Sure, I’ve been Wiccan for about twenty years, but I also admit that I fell away from the faith for a while. Now that I’m taking these courses, it’s like “oh, this is what that meant.” Theres’s something about taking structured training that really helps me, at least, to learn concepts and to understand concepts that just reading a book can.

I think it’s important that as adults that we continue this structured learning. If you can’t take classes in-person, look online. Look through your local book shops or in online groups. There are places to take lessons online…just look.

If we approach learning with the idea of a journey, of something we are striving toward, then getting some actual instruction never hurts. It can only help us further our journey and ourselves.  Good luck!

It’s taken me a while to finish this series, and I apologize for the delay. Perhaps you could say that it’s in accordance with the third part of that old saying, the “to be silent” part.

It’s commonly said that when working magick, it has to be done in secret. I’m sure some of this comes from the fact that there are those who don’t believe in magick, or in the power of spells (which are really just prayers). Secrecy is needed to keep people from being persecuted or experience negative consequences to being active in magickal workings. But the “to be silent” part also is borne out of other necessities.

The fact is that our words and thoughts take on a life of their own. If we think it, we’re creating it. So if we were to talk about our magickal undertakings to others, especially those who would doubt, their doubts would be acting against our own work. Our own doubts do the same thing. If we constantly think “Oh, I did a money spell, when’s the money going to come? I’m not getting any money.” then our own doubts are subtly undermining our working, like erosion during a hurricane taking away the beach sand.

We also need to give the universe space to work on our requests. We asked to have our magick spun for the best and highest good of all, didn’t we? Then we need to allow the space for that to happen. Our own ideas of how things should work out may not be what the universe has in store for us or thinks is best. It’s a be careful what you wish for situation. If we don’t allow our wishes to be very non-specific and very much up to the universe/God/Goddess, then we might be setting ourselves up for even bigger problems down the road.

It’s also a test of will, which is the middle pillar of the saying and the glue that holds it all together. Can we be quiet about something? It’s hard. Trust me. I’m a talker. LOL! (Though with the fibro fog, I’m good at keeping secrets because I totally forget them. *grins*) So to not say anything about a spell or ritual or goal is difficult. We want to tell. It’s bursting to get out of us. But, we are silent, for we know the magick has been done and the silence is the fuel that makes it get to work.

It’s been a while since I’ve published a fiction book, so I wanted to take a few moments and talk about my fiction writing. I’ve been feeling the resurgence of my fantasy bug, and yet, that’s the writing that worries me the most. It’s a matter of mind over muse and making sure that I have the confidence in the story I want to tell, and in my abilities to write it.

The romantic fiction though is a tale of a story started and a story that needs to be finished. I do have a novella, a tale of reunion in the circle that I would like to finish and hope to have it done in a few months.

My nonfiction these days comes in the form of blog posts. WIth my work at Harmonic Spirit, the blog posts are a daily, if not weekly, affair. (You should see the to do list of my backlog. LOL!). But I do think about some nonfiction projects and wonder what I’d like to write going into 2012.

Mostly this is a “I’m still here and still writing” post.

Some say that the second part of this saying, “to will”, is the most difficult one to follow. I’m not so sure about that. It’s easy to will things, and then sometimes it can be the most difficult thing in the world. Granted, we all “want” things, but that’s not the same as willing them. Will means you have the power to make something happen. Will means that you are actively working toward a desired outcome.

Think about those two things which we commonly think of as needing a lot of will: losing weight and quitting smoking. It takes an active act of will to do these things, and it’s something that needs to be done on a daily basis. The thought processes which we use to continue to overeat must, for example, be tackled on a daily, sometimes even an hourly or a minute-by-minute basis.

In the case of spellwork and ritual, that will is twofold. First, you must have the will to actually do the spell and craft it in accordance with the purpose of your ritual. You need to do the research and the work to craft your ritual exactly the way you want it. You have to have the will to make the right decisions in performing the spell. This means following the rule of three and harming none.

Secondly, you have to actually have the will to go through with the ritual. Some of our magic is fun, celebratory work. However there are times when we will need to do containment or protective spells, or even banishings. It’s part of the wheel of life and the wheel of the year. We have to have the will to do these things, to take care of problems, and to be active in our solution to them.

Will is the act of performing magick. Will is the action taken when we need to move forward with something. To will it is to make it happen.

So we know what we’re doing (how and why) and now we will it to happen. Next, we’ll discuss the hardest part of all, to be silent.

To know. To Will. To Be Silent. What does it mean?

The phrase might be borrowed or adapted from ceremonial magick, but it holds true in nearly every aspect of our lives, not just our magickal ones. But let’s take a look at this phrase, step by step, piece by piece to see what it really means and how it can apply to our mundane and our magickal lives.

To Know.

What does it mean to “know” something? On the surface, if someone knows something, then it generally means they were taught it or learned it on their own. Someone who knows something is generally seen as a point of contact or expert in sharing and passing on that information. Additionally, someone can “know” something in his or her gut, through intuition. This type of knowing is very important in magickal workings.

When doing a ritual or a spell, it is important to know several things. First, you need to know the actual components of the ritual. The timing, where, when, the components being used, the reason for using those components. You have to know this information in order to have an effective ritual or magick working. You also need to know why you’re doing the ritual. Not just the superficial meaning, though that’s important too, but the deeper one.

And you have to know what kind of an outcome you’re working toward.

There’s a lot of knowing that goes into working rituals or magick. But that’s not all, and we’ll look at the next part of the phrase, “to will” in the next blog.

There’s something I’m noticing lately, and it bothers me. There’s a severe lack of respect out there, and it’s happening in all areas of our lives. Where I work, there’s no respect from the people who speak with us, there’s no respect from management (there’s just a cry for “more! more! more!” without acknowledging the work we already do), in the stores there’s crowding and shoving and people not holding doors for other people. I’m always amazed, in a bad way, when I have to use my cane. The dirty looks that someone my age receive when we use a cane. The doors that fly back at me as people pass through them, and I wonder…what if I were an elderly person?

It shocks me, frankly, and it’s caused me to do some thinking. I take a deep breath now when I’m in traffic. I close my eyes, figure I’ll get there when I get there, and make it through the long light with a smile. I’ll slow down, let cars in on the interstate, because if each of us did the same for the other, imagine how much nicer the commute to work would be. In the store, I’ll wave the person next to me over to the empty lane. And when I’m asked, as I often am, in the pet store if I work there (It’s very funny if you consider how often I’m there, and how much shopping I do for my relatives because they know I’m always at the pet store), I always smile, and help them, and when they realize that I’m not an employee, I always smile and tell them that it’s okay. I remember helping an older gentleman find the kitten food, and helping a lady find a bench where she could sit and rest for a while.

I don’t want to set myself up as being better, because goodness, it’s a conscious decision I have to make. I’ve been known to roll my eyes and get just as impatient as the next person. Trust me. But lately, I don’t know, it’s just hit me that in this world of fear about the future, fear about regulation, fear about the economy, and all the little worries we have, we seem to have become very “me” focused and lost our respect.

So what can you do?

1) Act with compassion. If you see someone who needs help, offer it. If you see someone walking behind you with a cane, take a moment to hold the door. If someone is trying to merge onto the interstate, slow down and let them in.

2) Remember that we’ve all been there. We have all had hurried, rushed, stressful days, and sometimes we all don’t act our best.  Understand. Forgive. And try to extend a bit more compassion to that individual. Your smile may be the one that changes that person’s entire day.

3) Acknowledge and recognize. If someone works hard for you, thank them. Acknowledge their work and their effort. Recognize when someone has done something special for you, or simply recognize the work someone has done for you.

And lastly, don’t be afraid to speak up. If you are not receiving respect, set your boundaries and say something. If you cannot say something due to the situation, then take some time to reassess. You are deserving of respect. All of us are. And that’s something to make everyone smile.