by Alexander Musgrave | Aug 29, 2022 | Community Conversations
Regardless of what spiritual tradition(s) you’re privy to, there are some simple ways to enhance your magickal abilities. Magic has been referred to as technology of the spirit, and the happenings that exist at the intersection of will and the phenomenological world. As empowered individuals, we can come into stronger standing within ourselves when we are in the knowing and trusting of our abilities. Magic is our birthright. That’s right, if you have a belly button, you can practice magic. Practically speaking, we are going to keep this very simple. This way, you can fully digest this information and hopefully incorporate it into your life!
Create a Container
As we all know, set and setting are important factors in nearly all experiences. What is it like for you if you’re brushing your teeth while driving a car? How about if you’re trying to study for an exam while cooking dinner? Trying to build a snowman at the beach in the high summer heat? The what, when, where and how we do things, are all very important indicators for success. Therefore, creating containers that establish the set and setting for any given experience, is a crucial step of practical magic.
Just like you wouldn’t practice your yodeling act while at the dentist, you wouldn’t want to practice any practical magic outside of a well defined and safe container. Creating this container can be super simple! You can also learn a lineage method for creating a safe energetic container by activating the sacred geometry around in our Sacred Geometry 1 workshop.
Activate the Elements
Ayurveda is the natural system of medicine that comes from India; the word directly translates to “knowledge of life”. Through the lens of Ayurveda, we are all composed of varying combinations and proportions of the Elements. We are built of the very Earth, Air, Water, and Fire that sustain life on this planet. To revere these elements in a heartfelt and authentic way, is to tap into the most primordial and elemental magic available to us. How can one honor the elements? Well, knowing that they are inside us, let’s move through our sensory experience to understand internally how these elements resonate with us.
Step one; our visual reality.
After establishing your container, let’s move into the first step, where we will alter the optical experience. Change up your lighting, either dim the lights or turn them off all together. Light a candle while connecting to the element of fire. Breathe the warmth of the flame in through your eyes, acknowledging all the creative life force that burns within you.
Step two; our audible reality.
Go ahead and put on some music that feels sacred to you. There is no one-record-fits-all here. This is for you and you alone to decide. Perhaps it’s some ancient Indian raga, or maybe it’s a Gregorian chant. Maybe you’re feeling sanctity in the simple today and would like to play Solfeggio Frequencies. Whatever you decide to hear, press play and put everything else on pause. Enjoy the moment of listening deeply with your body, receiving the sound into each cell.
Step three; our olfactory reality.
Begin to notice the smells around you. Empowering yourself to alter your reality, invoke our Higher Self into the space as you light some incense or burn some resin. White sage, copal and palo santo are great options here. Breathe in the wafting scents of the fragrant smoke, and connect with any memories that emerge. Invite yourself to be cleansed by the smoke, wash yourself by bringing the smoke to your head and then down and around your body. Do this a few times. Scent is the sense most tied to memory, so let the smell uncover any ancient memories ready to be remembered. This is a great time to acknowledge the element of water, as a vessel for planetary memory. Perhaps you have a glass or bowl of water that you can honor at this time, maybe by whispering “thank you” into the water, or anointing your third eye and/or heart space with the water. In this moment, we can invite the memories of the water within us to emerge and awaken.
Step four; our felt sense.
Find your feet on the ground. Acknowledge the part of you that’s connected to the Earth beneath you. This could be your sit bones, your thighs and calves, your feet, or your back if you’re laying down. Whatever position you find yourself in, simply connect with the felt sensation of making contact with this planet, whether that’s directly, or through some layers beneath you. With your eyes closed, perhaps expressing a bit of gratitude for this incredible life-bearing planet we get to call home. Be here, in this gratitude, for a moment.
Repeat this practice as much as you’d like! Create space within each of the steps for deep breaths and relaxation. Most importantly, stay light and enjoy your magnificence!
by user_dd | Nov 19, 2021 | Transitory Thoughts
What are the Mystery School? Great question.
Give me ten minutes & I assure you that after reading this, you’ll feel empowered with more information than you have right now. Let’s go over what these mystery schools are and what role they play. For most of us, the Mystery Schools, their practices and their teachings, remain an enigma. That’s all changing now! The gates of access are open to those bold enough to enter. Full disclaimer; this is just the tip of the iceberg! Let this ignite within you the curiosity that can take you further into the burgeoning world of magick.
Do you ever wonder…?
→ What is Magick all about?
→ How many different forms of Magick are there?
→ What types of Magick can I practice?
Seven Mystery Schools
It all began thousands of years ago, when schools began to formulate in order to protect universal knowledge and the secret principles that underlie all life. In essence, this knowledge empowers humans with untold powers and abilities to create their own reality and build the life they truly want to live. The teachings are oriented toward the development of human consciousness and the attainment of the ‘Adam Kadmon’ or divine body of light.
With this body of light, we are in the fullest expression of our being and can live in the universe like the gods!
Currently, the Seven Mystery Schools on Earth include The Tibetan Mystery School, the Japanese Mystery School, the English Mystery School, the North American Mystery School, the Australian Mystery School, the Romanian Mystery School and the African Mystery School.
Real Magick Is Steeped In Tradition
All in all, Mystery Schools preserve the rites and rituals from different magickal traditions. Since these schools are located all around the globe, the rituals vary based on locational placement, cultural influence and energetics contained within the area. So while there are differences among them, they’re all seeded with the same basis of universal laws and knowledge. For example, every school has a version of the Life Activation which activates your divine potential and restores your original spiritual blueprint.
Ultimately, these schools are responsible for maintaining the purity of their teachings to ensure every generation after has access to the same power and wisdom contained in these traditions; it is through their care that the traditions are preserved throughout many generations. Nurtured by the seven traditional lineages, the effectiveness and power of magickal protocols and rituals are preserved and protected. Inviting initiates into the practice of guardianship is a valiant offering, and one that hasn’t always been easy. It’s now safer than it ever has been to study these teachings; there were times when the magickal teachings of these schools had to be kept under wraps, behind closed doors and protected from threat. The tireless work of these schools has meant that these teachings still exist, and in our modern time, we’re all encouraged to revere these traditions and invite them into our lives to whatever extent that we feel inspired.
If you’re interested in learning more, reach out and ask! I’m here as a resource for you and am enthusiastic about sharing the different practices and traditions of The Modern Mystery School.
by user_dd | Mar 22, 2019 | Transitory Thoughts
I got home late on the Spring Equinox from a seminar I didn’t really want to go to that evening. I knew it before I even left, and I’m kicking myself for the wasted time in traffic getting there. But listening and responding to my body/energy level needs is still an aspect of myself that I’m mastering.
Anyway, I finally got home. As I jumped out of my Lyft and skipped up to the door, excited to be back at my peaceful repose, I glanced at my front door. Earlier I had planned to sacrifice the now, very dead wreath hanging on my otherwise cheerful red door.
I took it down remembering my intention to do a Spring Equinox ritual that evening, and realized it was going to take a little longer than expected. Each branch of my wreath was meticulously wire-wrapped to a metal frame. I had no intention of burning the metal, so I found my wire cutters and set out to separating the prickly bits from the smooth wire frame holding it all together, while sitting on my front porch listening to music and enjoying the night air.
Preparation
I realized that deconstructing my wreath was a little like constructing a magickal tool. Doing the work to create your own tools for ritual connects you to the energy better, even if it means separating wires from each other so you can burn your wreath without leftover waste.
Once separated into its constituent parts, I found a box to sweep the mess I had made on my front porch into, and set out for my backyard with this makeshift cauldron full of dead wreath. The symbology was emerging.
I don’t have a fire pit, and everything back there looked very flammable. So I set down my box and returned to my kitchen to find a bucket and fill it with water. Every ritual that contains more than a candle’s flame of fire could benefit from a little ‘water insurance.’ I took the bucket back outside and set it near my proposed fire pit.
This was a proposed ‘fire pit’ however because all I had was empty space where it would have been very convenient to have a firepit. I couldn’t just burn my wreath and cardboard box on the pavement behind my house. I needed something to burn on. So, I looked around and found some old cinder blocks to put together that I could set my box, I mean, cauldron onto.
Now I was all set! I had a central altar in the form of a fire offering with enough room to walk around when I called in the directions.
Invocation
Right…calling in the directions. It’s about now that I started to think about the exact intention of my ritual. What is it that I’m performing this ritual for anyway? I decided to align my space setting with the Hindu pantheon, for which I have a special relationship, so I went back inside to my magickal library to find the book with the random table I needed: deities from all the different traditions mapped to different elemental and solar symbols. Once my symbols are mapped to the elements, I can map each to one of the four directions.
Ok, I had my fire sacrifice. I had the deities I was invoking. My intention was emerging if not quite solidified. Having done space setting basically daily for the last 6 years, I had my preparatory rituals memorized. I was set!
I performed the magickal operations for clearing and setting space that I have learned in my magickal tradition—the Lineage of King Salomon. Since I was outside, under the full moon light, nature provided a lot of the sacredness of the space too!
Then I lit my fire and started calling in the directions. Afterward, I went around my circle again calling on the Hindu deities that I chose to work with in this ritual. I invoked them as poetically as possible, trying to draw a link between their unique personality or power, and the intention on my ritual.
Once the invocation was complete, I just stared at the fire. Learning to pause, and allow the energy to sink in, is wisdom that has come with experience. Try not to rush through your invocations, allow the energies time to get into the space and get comfortable with what you’ve created, especially if it doesn’t look all that grand (aka a cardboard box on cinder blocks). It is the intention that counts for everything!
Prayer
I stared into the fire, it was now time to say my prayer. I had created this sacred space on a beautiful, full moon evening, with a blazing fire for a reason. What was it? I searched my heart and my prayer emerged:
Great Spirit! With this fire, burn away all that does not serve my fullest expression. Allow the light of this fire to illuminate inside me all that yearns to be revealed and celebrating. Allow the warmth of this fire to tease open my heart to allow others in. Let my worries and concerns be carried away by the smoke, and let the coals that sprinkle the Earth become seeds for the new, flourishing me in service to my community.
So this is my prayer for you. I hope you enjoyed your Spring Equinox and felt some of this intention fill your life as well!
by user_dd | Feb 26, 2019 | Alchemy, Transitory Thoughts
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In the last post of this series, we covered the second stage of alchemy: dissolution. We also reminded ourselves that it’s important to remain non-attached. At the same time, you will not complete the alchemy process powerfully without uncovering your ‘burning desire’ that drives you towards your goal. Without the attractive force of this desire pulling you, you are in danger of getting lost in the journey of this alchemical transformation. Finding your way out is impossible until a concrete goal emerges.
Into a million pieces
As life continues to throw curve balls, we get thrown out of our normal routine, and start to see what the essence of our life is. Normally, this essence gets drowned in the day-to-day dross of our waking life, and sometimes we access it through the subconscious when we sleep. But overall, we are usually unaware of the influence this essence has on our thoughts, behaviors, habits, and outcomes in life.
When we get out of our normal routine, or try to alter our life in some way (like learning a new habit), it’s not uncommon for anger, resentment, frustration, and depression to emerge. We can often have trouble with emotional boundaries as well, not being sure exactly what we want, which has the unfortunate bonus feature of making us more prone to conflict in our relationships.
Have you ever felt so emotionally fragile like you could burst into a million shards of glass on the ground at any moment? That’s separation.
There is perspective to be gained by separating and distinguishing the parts of our life that often go unnoticed. Human beings are meaning making machines, and we go around constantly making up stories about what others think of us, how otherwise meaningless actions have ruined our day, and what we’re going to do about the past when we act in the future. Most times we are not actually present to (and appreciating) what is!
Taking a moment to see each of those stories for what they are, mental objects that take up time and energy, that drive our thoughts, opinions, and actions. They enable us to move those otherwise subconscious drives to the conscious mind where we can evaluate and choose our relationship with them, rather than be driven by them. Freud was a big proponent of this theory of unconscious drives, and ended up taking it further, forming the concept of the id (or instincts/drives) as opposed to the superego (or conscience), which, from a metaphysical perspective, is necessarily aligned with our Higher Self.
In this stage of alchemy called separation, we separate out the parts of the whole that we were not noticing before, and we look at them. We start to see all kinds of relationships we never saw before. We compare and contrast the different parts of ourselves that make being a human so rewarding, giving color to our experience and rhythm to our steps. We have to have the honesty and integrity required within ourselves to acknowledge those parts of us that we don’t necessarily like before we can move towards wholeness.
Seeing the unseeable
After a particularly nasty breakup with his ex, Riley basically repressed her feelings for a year and it took her awhile to feel open to dating again. Understandably, when she put herself out there to date again, she had all kinds of caveats. “I’m never dating that kind of person again,” she decided. So she evaluated every prospective partner that came into her life from the lens of that list of traits she’d rather like to avoid, lest she find herself in the same position as last year, emotionally bruised and battered, closing herself off again to the happiness she was sure she could find if she just had another (not so crazy) partner.
She had one particularly memorable dating experience where, after dinner, she was feeling particularly attracted to her date, and decided to invite him over to her house for an after dinner aperitif. No sooner had they entered then the comments began. “Oh, what a nice space. I really like your sofa. How long have you lived in this house? Where did you get those curtains?” Riley was beside herself, one of the things on her list was no critical comments, because she felt emotionally shunned by her ex, who was always evaluating and criticizing her. Riley felt like she could never live up to his standard, so she ended the relationship.
Now it was happening all over again, except that it was happening with each person she became close with. Once the intimacy started to increase, she would start to get these comments. First they were relatively innocuous, but then later, there was some tension or even outright conflict. Riley didn’t know how to resolve this recurring issue.
One day, while at coffee with a friend, Riley was detailing how her most recent date wasn’t going to cut it again, when her friend stopped her and leaned over to say, “Riley, don’t you see a pattern here. Whenever you want to get intimate with someone, you immediately close yourself off, which defeats the whole purpose!”
Riley started to look at her most recent dates, and she was flabbergasted. Her friend was right, she always reacted with resistance whenever anyone got close enough to ask her a question that really mattered. She withdrew as soon as people were just getting to know her. This was no way to create a relationship.
Once Riley saw this in her behavior, she was able to catch herself going down that trail, and decided to she her experience differently. “No, he’s not trying to criticize me, he’s just curious because he doesn’t know! I haven’t shared that part of myself with him yet.”
After this, Riley was able to have a relatively long-term relationship again. Though still looking for that life partner, she is enjoying emotionally-fulfilling relationships both with her intimate partners and her friends.
Reflective Quote:
“He [William S Burroughs] has no patience for my kind of neurosis, I know… But since then I’ve been facing my nature full in the face and the result is a purge.”
― Jack Kerouac, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters
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by user_dd | Nov 16, 2018 | Community Conversations
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As a young man, I ventured out into the world searching for truth, not for ‘spiritual things.’ I was curious about why things worked the way they did, and realized understanding human consciousness was the key to most of the things I was interested in.
In my experience, that requires a peek into the Pandora’s box of what can’t be seen, smelled, tasted, or measured. A place where relinquishing what you know is the rule, alignment with your heart is the measure, and intuition is the guide. In other words, science only tells us part of the story—the part we can observe. But how much exists in the Universe that you haven’t seen? How much exists that you can’t possibly sense with your five physical senses? How much exists that you don’t know that you don’t know exists?
We already have seen how our individuated minds pervade space beyond our physical body. This person in front of you is the culmination of generations of culture, genetics, and energetic forces that continue to shape her or him at this very moment. And because of that fact, this being has the ability to shift to a new reality, a new vibration, in any moment, at any time. That is an amazing ability! That is spectacular to see!
I went out to be a research scientist studying how the brain works and why people think and act the way they do. I found that science can’t even measure what it is we’re studying. I dove into Eastern philosophy and metaphysics, reading luminaries who were essentially the first psychologists tackling these questions as well, and I found that they produce real, replicable results! They were practicing and refining techniques that worked within various fields including: meditation, martial arts, and magick.
I wasn’t looking for ‘Spiritual’—but the irony is that in my search for truth, all roads led to the spiritual.
Over the last few years, I’ve attempted to describe, analyze, explain, and clarify what ‘spiritual’ is as it relates to my work. Three years ago, I even wrote a blog called *drum roll please* “Personal Spiritual Development.”
However…I have a dirty little secret.
The dirty little secret is that the term ‘spiritual’ frustrates me. It’s like trying to describe ‘water’ to a fish. When we’re surrounded by all things spiritual everyday, how are we to distinguish what’s spiritual from what is not?
There has to be a fundamental awareness of what’s in front of us first—we have to truly see concrete reality, objective reality (ironically) before we can see the spiritual. That’s because our minds makes up all sorts of stories to explain away what’s actually happening in front of our very eyes. And this makes it difficult to truly see the divine in action.
We give our power away to authority figures—PhD’s, government agents, news reporters, etc. rather than take the time to think for ourselves. These ‘authorities’ give us stories to explain what’s happening, and we fail to see the alternatives parading themselves in front of our very own eyes.
When we take on another’s point of view rather than observe our direct experience, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to transform our reality.
My goal is to transform lives, but I can’t do it for others. If people can’t see the results I’m creating in my life, or value what I’m able to accomplish with freedom and ease… if they have an idea about what the right way to do things is at the expense of seeing what actually works…then I’m probably not going to be able to help.
The best I can do is demonstrate what works by living my life with integrity and transparency and invite people along for the adventure than try and logic with their minds.
You’ll either want to get on this ride with me or you’ll want to stay where you’re at. Both can be true perfection—if you understand why you’re making the choice you’re making.
But do you? In a universe as vast and complex as the one we are still discovering, do you really know your place in it? Aren’t you curious about how you came to be born at this time and in this small corner of the universe?
I encourage each of you to find something you’re truly attracted to, that’s living the kind of life you want to live. Then put your stories aside and listen with your heart.
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