Magic and Related Subjects

Public Writings from Mari's Mage

[the-traveling-witch]

Big Magic: How A New Perspective Can Make Your Art Magical

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A few days ago I told you about how I was taking a hiatus from my magic. It was a big decision but witchcraft had stopped feeling right, I was too damn busy and magic had stopped being like a way to spiritually nourish myself and had just turned into a chore.

Basically, it had become no fun.

To cope, I decided to focus on something else. On a whim I picked up a book to fill my time and distract me. Little did I know that this book was going to be a shock of pure AWESOME that immediately inspired me in more ways than one.

What is this amazing book? It’s called Big Magic. I should have guessed just from the title that I was going to be in for a wild ride with this book.

Big Magic is about living a creative life unhindered by fear or societal expectation. It’s about setting yourself free of all of the needless restrictions and suffering that often comes with the territory of being an artist. And best of all, it’s about MAGIC. Real, actual, spiritual magic.

Gilbert creates from a place of deep spirituality and simultaneous pragmatism that is refreshing and inspiring. I plowed through the book in a matter of days and, much to my surprise, found myself brimming with ideas and inspiration after I had finished it. Somehow, in the course of a few days of binge reading my magical fatigue lifted and I’ve been left with a singular, burning desire to CREATE.

So today, we’re going to talk about art magic!

If you’re like me, you hear the words “art magic" and your mind immediately goes “Um, YES!“ followed quickly by a deluge of overwhelm as six million ideas flood your brain and you quickly lose track of how art and magic actually connect. 

Unlike regular art which generally has the purpose of simply being (or sometime communicating), art magic is made for doing. As with all magic, the object is to create some kind of action out of manipulating energetic forces. The artwork you create in this endeavor should start with what you want it to do.

What kind of magic can you do with art? Any kind! Truly any kind of magic can be done with artwork. The sky’s the limit! You may find that you have personal preferences as to which kinds of magic mix best with your artistic style but that’s 100% up to your discretion and personal tastes. 

Feel like making a painting that’ll serve as a ward for the room it’s hung in? You can do that. Want to foster self love through art magic? You can do that too. Feel like creating a spirit portal for contacting the spirits of the dead? Yep, you can do that as well. If you can dream up a spell, you can probably do it with artwork! You can even use art magic in worshiping your gods, venerating ancestors or in your shadow work.

Similarly, there’s no limit to the type of art that can be paired with magic. Creativity practically IS magic! Do You paint? Draw? Sing? Play an instrument? Dance? Act? Sculpt? Write? Do you create weird video performances? Do you make ART? Then you can almost certainly make magic with it!

Whatever it is that you do as a creative person, it can be turned into an act of magic. 

Connecting Art & Magic

Art magic can be broken down into three main categories of approach. Adding magic to your art, the act of creation being magic, and art as a form of co-creation with inspiration itself.

Adding Magic To Your Art

The first approach is the easiest and most straightforward. Adding magic to your art includes things like mixing paint with charged water, enchanting your pencils or adding sigils onto your dance shoes or instrument. Whatever your art may be, you are creating the magic beforehand and adding it to your art as you create.

This method is definitely the most concrete way to go, whatever witchy skills you have can be directly applied to your artwork in this way.

Some other ways to add magic to art include:

Enchanting reeds or guitar picks

Putting a charm on your erasers

Using infused water to clean paint brushes

Putting spells on notebooks and sketchbooks

Drawing sigils on canvases before you paint over them

Writing spells into your stories

Stitching enchantments or sigils into your smock

Adding magical symbolism into collages

Using pressed leaves or flowers to add texture and magic to your work

Enchanting scripts so that you don’t forget your lines

The Act Of Creation as Magic

Things start getting a little more complex with this route. In order to turn your acts of creation into magic you have to learn to channel magic into whatever it is that you’re doing. Instead of the magic being separate from the art, the art IS the magic.

Just as you would use magic hand gestures and spoken spells you can direct your magic into the actual action of creating your artwork. In this way, making the artwork is itself a spell. 

Remember, magic is built on imagination and intent! If you pour both of those into any act it becomes inherently magical. Art is by very definition imaginative so all that remains to make it magical is to intend it to be magical. That may sound too easy but that’s truly it, if you intend a creative action to be a spell and produce a result, it will! All you have to do is decide what you wish your artwork to accomplish.

Examples of how art can BE magic:

Writing a story as a method of changing reality

Singing incantations or simply turning the lyrics of your favorite song into an incantation

Composing pieces of music as a spell

Paintings that function as sigils

Dancing and allowing your intent to move you

Filling a sketchbook with magical drawings all aimed at one purpose

Sculpting magical objects

Creating jewelry that lends magic to the wearer

  Co-Creation With the Spirit of Inspiration

This form of magical creativity is what’s gotten me so excited. Ideas and inspiration as spiritual beings is what Big Magic is about! Ok, it’s also about a lot of really awesome creative philosophy but I mean, how could I not be totally enamored with the idea of inspiration being a spirit?

The basic premise is that individual creative ideas are not simply thoughts that we come up with in our heads, they are sentient beings that we meet and enter into working relationships with.  They are able to move from person to person and look for artists to bring them into reality. They become something to nourish and be kind to instead of something that we anguish over (admit it, artists anguish over their creative work). They also become far less weighty.

This concept is so freeing. It releases you from the burden of being the generator of ideas and it removes the temptation to feel like a “bad artist” when you just can’t find the inspiration to work. It means that instead of having to try to come up with ideas you simply have to be open and accepting so that they can come to you. It also means that you don’t have to pursue every single creative idea that does come to you which leaves you with far more freedom to choose to create artwork that is truly right for you as an artist and as a magical creator.

This approach to creativity makes art an act of magic from its very conception. Simply by existing art is magic and simply by being an artist you become a witch!

This form of creation gets us outside of ourselves and in touch with the entire spiritual enchilada. It elevates art and magic from a hobby into a vocation and promotes growth, depth and forward movement in ways that we wouldn’t necessarily achieve on our own. It creates community within our own practices and for many solitary witches that can be a truly difficult thing to find.

Underneath all of that is the simple joy of smooshing two things you love, art and magic, together into one gorgeous, exciting and fun experience.

It truly is Big Magic!

If you find yourself intrigued by the idea of Ideas as spiritual beings I cannot recommend Big Magic enough! It was an eye opening and absolutely inspiring read that completely changed how I look at art in the best way!

New to witchcraft? Not sure where to start?

Sign up for my FREE beginners witchcraft course!

[meanwhileinthebroomcloset]

I just found out there’s art witchcaft! Where was this all my life?!

[mageofmari]

Good intro to the subject!

[mageofmari]

I’m going to run through a basic Chaos Magic operation while addressing my own concerns with Tumblr.  First, one breaks down the problem, one’s position relative to the problem, and how one will go about solving it. Creating this kind of context for your problems, committing them to paper, begins to engage the unconscious mind in a productive fashion.  What’s important to remember is that you must continue the mundane work (if any) associated with your goals for your magical Will to manifest.  In this case, most manifestation will be in the form of being better able to improve at a skill or task, or arriving at necessary preconditions for your goals more easily. Magic can make anything happen, but not in isolation.  You can’t be a good writer, artist, witch, or what have you without practice, no matter how many sigils you make.   Your problem should be stated in negative terms to build a negative association with the situation you wish to change. Your position should be in positive and neutral terms, to both acknowledge that the situation is unresolved and that it can still be resolved positively. Your solution needs to be stated in positive terms specifically reflecting your chosen course of action and desired result; this should always be a statement of action.   With the groundwork laid, create a sigil of the statement of intent you have arrived at using any method you prefer, and charge it every time before you face your problem.  

Once your sigil is made, symbolically or literally destroy the ‘Problem’.   Burn it, delete the file you saved it as, shred and recycle the paper it was printed on, whatever.  The problem is being dealt with.  Your position should be left open ended.  As the position changes, change your position statement.  If you wanted to become a professional author, you might change “I am an author” to “I am a published author”, when appropriate.  Think of this as a shield around your position, so that you don’t lose ground to the problem.

Ideally, this focuses your subconscious on your goal and how to achieve that goal, rather than on your difficulty with the problem at hand.  The added structure of the operation assists more than sigils alone in precisely expressing what needs to change to your unconscious mind.  It’s extra work but not superfluous work.

Here follows my example.

Problem I’m terrible at Tumblr.  My digital art skills are limited to a basic knowledge of MS Paint.  I’m not sensitive to the currents that guide this world.  I’m not an artist by any reasonable measure.

Position I am a magician, wizard, exorcist.  This is where my skills lay.  I have never made beautiful pictures and gifs. I will never string emojis together in a zero-effort imitation of chaos magic.  I hope to post beautiful, stylized sigils.  

Statement of Intent I will post content about magic, for people interested in learning about magic.

Using your sigil every time you attempt to tackle the problem you want to overcome solidifies your Will, unifying the goals of your unconscious and conscious minds. Be Well, Mari’s Mage

[bluefluke]

The Psychonaut Field Manual: Chapter four

Click HERE to download all four chapters in one PDF.

[mageofmari]

As highly accessible and useful magical material goes, the psychonaut’s field manual is at the top of the list.  The gamification of hard work is always a tricky matter.  This series manages it well.  I’m jealous of the author’s ability to communicate to their audience.

[mageofmari]

Multipurpose Daily Rune Ritual

For Protection, Cleansing, Initiation, Healing, and Empowerment

Outline

Ground and center (Eight deep breaths, one to open Channel to earth, one per direction, one for Heart one for Head, one for body)

Evoke Berkana to clear and purify the space and yourself (bubble pushing out, fueled from the Heart)

Invoke First Aett into lowest Dan-Tian (Rune Pair per Cardinal direction)

Invoke Second Aett into second Dan-Tian

Invoke Third Aett into Third Dan-Tian

Speak the Story of the Runes (ad lib is ok)

Evoke Elhaz to protect yourself and your space.

    1) Setting intention

Prepare yourself for magical work by clearing your mind and declaring your intent to banish/purify/empower/protect/initiate/whatever you need to do.  This statement may be simple and broad: “I will banish negative energy and empower myself” or complex and specific: “I will banish all that would inhibit my growth, raise the power I need to become greater and protect myself from those who would limit me in the future.”  If you want, this speech can be flowery, such as: “I will beseech the Runes to cleanse this place of all things foul and invest in me the power to bring forth change in myself.”  What’s important is that the words fit your intent and feel correct.

    2)  Grounding and Centering

Breathe deeply in, visualizing your lungs filling with energy as you do so.  As you exhale (very slowly) visualize the energy traveling down to your root, then into the ground, then into the core of the world.

Breathe deeply in, visualizing your lungs filling with energy as you do so. As you exhale, visualize the energy moving into your Root and charging it.  Repeat for the Solar plexus/heart area and for the Third eye area.

Breathe deeply in, visualizing energy gathering in your lungs.  As you exhale visualize the energy shooting to the South.  Repeat for the West, North, and East.

    3) Purification

Breathe deeply for a ninth time, filling your lungs with energy should be essentially automatic now.  Vibrate Berkana (‘Burr-Kah-Nah’), and Draw the Rune Over your heart/solar plexus, where you deposited energy earlier.  

Breathe deeply again and this time use the energy to charge that space again, expanding the energy to encompass you.  With the next breath is should fill the room.  With the next breath the building, and so on.  Purify whatever level of space you wish, but bear in mind that the weaker your ownership of a space the weaker the effect shall be on that space, so your body will be most affected, then your temple or living space will be the next most affected, and so on.

If it seems necessary, you may repeat this up to a total of three such purifications.  If you’re in a particularly toxic or foreign space, this is recommended.

    4) Invoking the Elder Furthark/Power Raising.

Start by facing South In the air, at the height of your Root, Draw and vibrate first Fehu, then Uruz, next to each other as a pair, visualizing them glowing brightly with a reddish tinge.

Turn to the East, keeping your finger outstretched, creating a line parallel to the ground, as you go.  Vibrate and draw Thurisaz and Ansuz as a pair, visualize them glowing with a red tinge.

Continue in this matter to complete the first Aett by drawing/vibrating Raido and Kennaz to the North, then Gebo and Wunjo to the East, continuing to draw the line as you change directions, then complete the drawn circle by facing South once more.  

With the First Aett Complete, move on to the Second Aett, drawn at solar plexus/heart level, drawing the Runes with an orange glow, and again creating a circling line.

Do this a last time for the Third Aett, at the level of your third eye, this time with a purple glow, again draw the circle around you. 

(image from https://whispersofthewyrd.files.wordpress.com)

Once all three Aetts have been drawn in the air and are blazing in the appropriate colors, state your intent to receive the wisdom and power of the Runes, while visualizing the circles drawn slowly constricting, until they’ve entered the energy centers they were respectively drawn at the level of.  They should stand out, glowing on those centers, but the colors should blend and match what is natural to those centers.  Maintain this visualization for at least nine slow breaths.  You may notice feelings of heat, cold, minor discomfort, etc.  Do not be alarmed.

    5) Tell the story of the Runes

With the Wisdom of the Runes in mind, from your understanding, bind this empowerment to yourself by telling the story of these Runes.  You can prepare a story based on existing mythology if you prefer, or intuitively follow the guidance of the Runes.  Every Rune should be involved, but they may have different levels of importance to the story.  A little melodrama is acceptable here (“In the beginning, there was the cosmic seed of life (Fehu) frozen by the ice (Isa) of the abyss.” is a perfectly legitimate opener, for example).

    6) Protect, seal and close with Elhaz

Visualize Algiz filling you, as you pose in its shape (Arms outstretched to your sides reaching up) Vibrate the Rune, seeing its influence grow brighter as you do so.  Retain the posture as you visualize the Rune’s power overflowing you to fill the room and again vibrate the Rune’s name, sealing the room, and so on, as with Berkana opening the ritual.

[mageofmari]

This is an Introduction Only  More May Follow Tech in a Nutshell

    Please note that some terms are borrowed from the language established for discussing tech by Omnimancers. As an outsider of their system, my uses are likely wrong in many cases, oh well.  I will first explain tech in a positive light, and indeed it is a very useful system.  At the end of the article, I will highlight some of my concerns and critiques of tech, especially when it’s practiced in isolation from broader magical/metaphysical contexts.

Why Tech is Useful (Gross oversimplifications follow)

    Spell casting generally refers to direct impositions of Will upon reality and/or astral/subtle energy. This is typically done by either using the subconscious mind to affect reality (rituals, sigils, etc.) or by merging the conscious and subconscious minds (trance work, advanced ritual work) to do so.     Constructs offer an easy way to accumulate this Will action over time for use on a single objective, making it a slightly more effective methodology in many cases. This is, of course, still ultimately subject to the limitations of the will. Egregores are, by extension, constructs with the accumulated Will of several people over time.     If a spell is a water gun, a construct is more like a water balloon, and an egregore is a reservoir. This metaphor is an oversimplification, granted, many spells will tap into large sources or prepared batteries, constructs may have a continuous flow of magical will/energy feeding it, and egregores can fuel spells blurring the lines of distinction.  The important point is that all of these are reliant on sources of Will to impact reality or the astral.     Tech works differently, which is why the system is a significant improvement over competing systems, especially in the long term. Rather than directly achieving effects using Will, tech takes advantage of reliable emergent properties of reality to affect changes. Using traits like shape, energetic composition, density, etc. (the list is endless and much stranger than this sampling implies) tech causes natural reactions to accomplish component sub tasks at any scale.  Will, in this case, only shapes the initial machinery. This machinery can be combined to create ever more complex effects, and stacked for ever larger effects. 

  This essentially mechanical effect may seem familiar to ceremonial magicians who are accustomed to working with well defined symbolic systems and tools to leverage mystical machinery laid down by their system’s progenitors or “secret masters”. It is worth noting that the only significant differences are in attitude and probable origins. Tech as a paradigm promotes scientific thinking over zealous or religious thinking (which are the more common modes of magical thinking across paradigms), which can lead to a bit more arrogance in success than, for instance, success as a result of adulation of a godhead.  The bigger difference is that of origin, though. While ceremonial systems impose human symbolism such as the tree of life, or a God, on reality, tech attempts to analyze reality in the absence of such impositions. In short, tech seeks to break magical reality down into a series of rules, whereas most systems seek to understand reality in terms the system designer brings to the table.

    What's important is that reality itself is doing virtually all the work, without requiring a constant supply of will. Once the machinery is in place it can be expected to keep operating with no significant maintenance cost to the magician.  A small amount of unconscious maintenance or an alternative entropy solution is sufficient for Tech to function for years, without conscious intervention.

Some Problems and Solutions

    Most substantial effects require the input of magical energy as a sort of fuel/work (at the very least to maintain system integrity).  The simplest way to accommodate this need is to provide a natural or artificial source of energy.  At low levels, one's self is adequate, though tapping into a ley line or natural wellspring is preferable.  Most complex tech magic requires the use of more substantial Sources though.  Linking such tech magic to the Sun and/or stars (more specifically their astral equivalents) is one of the simplest ways to ensure they are adequately powered.       Typically tech users agree on the importance of engineering tech magic at many levels of organization. Ideally, the vast majority of this kind of work is offloaded onto the unconscious mind, or ‘inner’. However, especially early on, it can prove necessary or helpful to have a conscious, hands-on relationship with these many levels of organization. Usually, a piece of tech will be made of components which are made of sub-components and so on until you reach comparatively indivisible ‘materials’.

    Developing materials is a matter of experimentation, observation, speculation, and happy accident. In many cases, you will not have the materials and subsequent components you need to accomplish a goal, and so you will unconsciously substitute Will based programming. This allows the tech magic to function but undermines the very advantages that tech magic has over constructs, making them far less efficient than they ought to be. For this reason, frequent development of materials and swapping tech and materials with other practitioners is essential to making meaningful progress with the system.

    If you are a solitary practitioner, and not able to easily swap tech with others, consider swapping with astral entities friendly to you. Angels, demons, gods, monsters, forest spirits, elves, dwarves etc. exist in a literal sense in the astral, and they all, to some degree, make use of or understand tech as a concept. This can lead to major new insights into developing tech that is not immediately compatible with your worldview and comfort zone. You do need to be more careful of the various pitfalls of astral work when working alone. It's very easy to fall prey to delusional beliefs and misinformation when relying on astral sources. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you and any others you work with develop your senses and ability to distinguish analytical overlay from raw data.

    If you have any experience with creating amps, you will immediately see how tech can be used to create very effective amps, which leads to an effective acceleration of one's degree(s) of initiation.  In this way, tech is very useful as a supplemental system, as well as a standalone paradigm.  This is what draws to many to Tech as a paradigm.

Creating your First Tech

    With the preceding theory out of the way, let us consider a specific application of the tech paradigm to a very simple bit of energy work: the creation of a ball of energy. Such a process can seem difficult to break down into smaller parts, given its simplicity.

    We can intuitively break it down into (1) the gathering of energy, (2) the shaping of energy, (3) making the new shape stable/permanent.  So our tech must accomplish all three tasks without the need for continuous Will in order to make energy balls.  

    Energy sources abound. You can easily solve step one by creating a simple link to the sun/stars, a ley line, energy node, egregores, gather ambient energy, etc. Malleable energy conforms to the shape of any vessel into which it is compressed (much as any physical fluid does). So the second step can be accomplished by creating a contained space in which to compress the gathered energy. These first two steps are very simple.

    Two common approaches exist for promoting the longevity of an energetic construct: density as a means of resisting external influences and programming as a means of conveying a semi-permanent set of instructions for the energy.  Either can be accomplished autonomously by tech, but the latter is more advanced. You can easily increase the total density of the energy ball by introducing the gathered energy under “pressure” into a very durable container. Energy from some sources will already be under some pressure (stars, for example, put out quite dense energy). However, the beauty of tech is that there are no hard limits to how to solve a problem. You could devise a pump similar to how a pressure washer functions. You could find a way to create a strong, temporary gravitational effect, you could flash magnetize your container to create a shell of especially dense energy on your ball, etc.

    There are any number of improvements that can be made to your basic system, most of them taking the form of subdividing your components into smaller more efficient, specialized components.  Some more meticulous practitioners may take an atomic-up approach to such designs, even; attempting to work from the smallest scales they can conceive of up to the useful macro scale they need effects on, to maximize efficiency.  Make no mistake, energy is plentiful, but you will still find improved efficiency to be the best way to improve your tech spells’ performance. Throwing more power at a problem doesn't solve it, it simply kicks the can down the road.

Making Progress with Tech

    Making substantial progress with Tech requires a constant stream of inspiration.  This can be found by simply considering your previous work, in an endless series of Hegelian Dialectic incremental improvements, a rather brute force approach which yields ever less dramatic improvements over time.  Most practitioners let such processes occur either in occasional batches of frenzied cross-pollination or entirely in the background.

    One may also find various astral sources of Tech available for trade or plunder. In a similar vein, one may often break down the magical actions of other practitioners into the ‘language’ of tech.  Whether someone is communing with their gods, or divining the future, by observing magical effects with your magical senses, using the inner as an interpreter, you may adopt methods very outside of the Tech paradigm.  The doors this opens can be unpredictable but are generally very rewarding.

    I’ve mentioned power and efficiency as means of improving tech, but these largely get at only the problem of surpassing performance limitations.  You will come up against far less simple problems, most of which can be solved with insight.  To achieve these insights you will need to improve your ability to observe magical effects.  This can be done through sheer practice, incrementally improving over time, but also using amps to enhance one's magical senses. Once you can understand a problem you can solve it.

    Using amps in this way can take many specific mechanical forms. The simplest ways to start this process can be thought of as flooding perceptive organs with refined, empowering energy.  More complex solutions abound, ranging from virtual lenses to entirely rebuilt sensory systems.  Pursuing these options is paramount to your success as a Tech magician.

A Few Cautions and Criticisms

    In theory, Tech is a limitless system for practical magical development and progress.  In practice, you are limited by sources of inspiration, creativity, and the lack of overarching direction.  The system requires users to have infinite motivation for development to continue.  There are also some things tech is less suited to; particularly, tech is great at accelerating magical growth of power and skill, it in no fundamental fashion necessitates the development of the magician’s wisdom.  This causes problems and can contribute to the practical limits to magical development as the imbalances, false trails, and potentially damaging unwise experimentation abounds.  

    Forming or joining a tech study group or order helps considerably with these systemic weaknesses, but it doesn’t entirely negate them (and it adds a slew of complications in the form of inter-human relationships, politics, hierarchy, and so on).  Motivation becomes troublesome even in a group environment, as the focus-fatigue of one member can derail whole meetings, retarding progress.  A hybrid approach with a loose network of allied Tech magicians or interconnected “schools” of Tech magicians something like the modern academic culture of intellectual free trade would be the most ideal.  To my knowledge, no such networks exist based in the material world, and astral networks of this sort have mixed success and failure.     Another, less easily solved, issue is that Tech isn’t ideologically compatible with many theurgic systems. The mechanical understanding of magic essentially dismisses the divine as something like a very complex and intelligent vending machine (though, to be fair, this perspective gets adjusted as one’s ability to perceive expands, and one sees that what was apparently a boundary was merely a horizon).  Many paradigms also can’t support the concept of breaking reality’s interactions into smallest possible parts, or into rules.  It’s also unconditionally assumed that energy exists and that there are rules of any kind that universally apply to it.  Chaos magicians (and various others) will be quick to point out that these assumptions about reality cannot really be taken for granted.

    The Cognitive Dissonance such issues can cause during adoption of tech as a supplementary paradigm can be very challenging to deal with, especially for those not adept at controlling their subconscious assumptions about reality and magic.  This can be overcome, but to some, especially those relatively unmotivated to seek power, it’s simply not worth it.  This system is best suited to those with relatively compatible magical backgrounds focused on energy work.

Further Information

    The only credible source online for information on tech is, by default, www.omnimancy.com. They originally developed the system,m though it has developed in parallel in many places and times, they remain the largest worldly source of information on Tech, with centuries of collective experience in their ranks.  I may write further on the subject at a later time and will update this section if this occurs.

[mageofmari]

So, this is intended to be a pretty simple Air Power Raising, done in parts to help newbies/baby witches ease their way into it.  It’s a fairly straightforward mix of light ritual and visualization.  Enjoy.

Some information to reflect upon first:

Basics: associated with yellow, East, swords, daggers, telepathy, and the intellect.

Air is of the mind without the body. Without the body, the mind is detached from consequences, causality, emotions, attachments. The experience of being out of body, and also flying dreams express this well.

As a consequence, Air is an element without future or past; to Air, both action and the possibility of action are identical. Nothing remains stable with Air because even when it is very still, there is no structure, no meaningful form or pattern or certainties. It instead expresses perfect freedom.

Sound is the domain of Earth and Air. Heart beats and the many thumps of things hitting other things belong to Earth; Words and whistles belong to Air. Wind rustling trees, air through the trachea, howling, whistling winds… Air expresses itself through sound and is an excellent foundation for any magic attempting communication.

Many practitioners are confused by the attribution of the dagger and sword to Air, so much so that some newer traditions reverse the traditional tool associations of Air and Fire.  These tools are intended to represent mastery of the element in question.  The wand is associated with Fire because fire demands precise control.  Air, on the other hand, is associated with blades of all kinds because blades move air, but also as a nod to the ability of air to cut (high winds, blowing through fabrics, etc.).  Consider that electric fans use blades to move Air, traditional folding fans slice the air, moving it in a choppy fashion.  Also consider the whistling of a fast-moving sword, and how it echoes the whistling of a gale.

In the ranked importance of elements to your survival, Air arguably has the top spot.  If your brain is oxygen deprived for more than thirty seconds, it can result in permanent damage.  In less than five minutes without Air, all but the most exceptional individuals will have died, whereas you can go hours without the warmth of Fire, days without Water, or weeks without the nourishment of food grown in Earth.  In this way, in your daily life, with every breath, you acknowledge Air in a magically significant way.  In the next week, I’d like you to be especially aware of this aspect of your breathing.

This first week’s ‘ritual’ is extremely simple. It’s really more of a quick guided meditation and intended to kick start this process of intentional breathing.

To be clear, this and the following ritual is meant to act as a very gentle initiation into Air.  It should be about as mild as an initiation can be, but you will likely see some synchronicity shaping your experiences, and have moments of discomfort and/or confusion come up in the next couple of weeks if you choose to participate.

The full ritual is simply all three weeks in a row, but it is suggested that you build up to that.  The first time you do this, just do the first part and give it a day at least before you proceed and to both the beginning and the middle. Again, leave at least a day before you then do all three parts at once.

Week 1

Breathe deeply, visualizing the Air entering your lungs as a yellow-gold fog or mist.  In your visualization zoom into the interaction of that Air with your lungs, the fog transferring into blood cells which in turn flow through your body, carrying the sustaining element to all your cells.

As you exhale, notice the impure elements shed by your body, and how every breath inevitably purifies your blood, and so your body.

Repeat this three times.

For your fifth deep breath, focus in visualization on the blood delivering Air to your brain, flooding it. Notice how your brain is veritably soaked in Air. Air is the source of your mind, your intellect. This is a clean, medimagical fact. Accepting this reality is important. Air is what composes your mind in all magical senses.

Repeat this exercise several times in the next week, as time permits.

Week 2

The previous exercise specifically opened you up to initiation into Air but isn't in and of itself very useful. This week we will be adding two things to it. First I will describe the sounds that stimulate specific chakras, which we will all hum in unison.  Second, you will all fill your balloon (or similar) with your breath while humming one of these pitches.  The vessel may then be used to stimulate the given chakra, or as a reserve of energy for the chakra.

(These tones will vary slightly between individuals, so experiment a bit.)

The first chakra (Root) – located at the base of the spine. Tone seven times with the deepest “UUH”, as in “cup”, a very low guttural sound just gently riding on the breath. Stay comfortable with the sound – don’t force it. (Red).

Second chakra (Sacral) – located about 2-3 inches below the navel. Tone seven times using a higher pitched but still deep “OOO”, as in “you”. (Orange).

Third chakra (Solar Plexus) – located above the navel. Tone seven times using a higher pitched “OH”, as in “go”. (Yellow).

Fourth chakra (Heart) – located in the center of the chest. Tone seven times using a higher pitched “AH”, as in “ma”. This is the sound that embodies compassion. (Green).

Fifth chakra (Throat) – Tone seven times using a higher pitched “EYE”, as in “my”. (Blue).

Sixth chakra (Third Eye) – located in the middle of the forehead slightly above the eyes. Tone seven times, using a still higher “AYE”, as in “say”. (Indigo).

Seventh (Crown) – Tone seven times using the highest pitched “EEE” sound, as in “me”, you can comfortably make. (Violet or white).

(List borrowed directly from http://www.soundintentions.com/sound-healing/exercises/chakra-toning/)

Side note: To produce a useful quick tool that applies these tones, fill a balloon or similar vessel with your breath while making one of the above tones.  Once sealed, you can use that balloon to resonantly stimulate your corresponding chakra.

Week 3

As you produce the resonant tone with successive chakras, visualize them glowing, spinning faster, and opening up.  This is enhancing the energetic state of the chakras, but more importantly, it opens them to outside influence.

Once the tones have been done from low to high in this way, we visualize the initiatory source glowing yellow-gold, in this case, any Air-associated entity or deity you prefer.  As we finish the tones going low to high, with chakras open, the initiatory source breathes into your crown, a golden bright breath full of knowledge and magical secrets. As this hits your crown, resume the high tone for the Crown chakra, transition down through the chakras to the root, with the breath slowly traveling down your central column, leaving a faint fog of yellow air around each chakra.  As you finish the process, see the chakras absorbing the gas/secrets/whisper.   Take several deep breaths, visualizing the intake of yellow-gold air as before, the yellow air carried by red blood cells throughout your body.  This time let the RBCs interact with the gas now in your chakras, naturally distributing and processing the initiatory gift.

Repeat this as often as you please, but if you notice that you’re growing less grounded than you ought to be, consider grounding activities such as eating and drinking, sleep, sex, manual labor, and so on.

[mageofmari]

If you just want to bookmark a single link for all my energy work and magical writings, this leads to all of my content and should continue to do so. I’m going to post articles individually with descriptions, but if you’re trying to find an unexpurgated listing of my writing, this is it.

[mageofmari]

Hello Tumblr

I’m not much for blogging, but I’ve noticed the fairly large occult presence on here, and figured I ought to contribute in some fashion.

I’ve been wizarding in one way or another for the last 13 years, about half my life, and since too early in that career I’ve been eager to share my understanding of and ideas about magic in all its forms. I’ll probably mostly just paste links to content I’ve created in the vein of magical guidance, and sometimes content from others. I’m not sure how long I’ll do this, but if it doesn’t last long, there will always be posterity.

Be well, Mari’s Mage AKA Miri, Mimir’s Well, Mithras