Attitude is everything

There is a saying, that you can't control what happens to you, the only thing you can control is how you react to it.  I think this is something that is highly important to keep in mind right now.  So many people are adrift, being hit on all sides by new circumstances, many of which aren't comfortable.  We feel like our lives are completely out of our hands, and we may be struggling to deal with all of the things we are thinking, feeling and going through.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  We have ways to step outside ourselves, to shift our perspective, and to react to the circumstances we find ourselves in, instead of just reacting (one is a choice, one is an instinct).

The first thing we have to do is stop.  We have to make a decision to step outside of the race for a second.  It may feel like we are spinning out of control, but if we can close our eyes and take a deep breath and find our true center, retreat into our Self for a moment, we can create enough space to actually see what is going on.

There are a lot of things that we simply can't change.  I can't force other people to do things, no matter how passionately I argue my point.  What I can do is decide how I will respond to people doing things I don't approve of.  Right now, there are quite a few behaviors that I find personally dangerous, and if I spent all my energy getting upset because people are engaging in those behaviors, I wouldn't have time to do anything else!

So what can I do instead?  Always return to yourself.  What can you do, that centers on you and the people you care about.  Like I said, I can't change how other people act, but I can take precautions for myself.  And I can choose to think of them as actions motivated by love and caring, they are protections, they are blessings and wardings.  Switching your focus from one of fear (worry about what other people are or are not doing) to one of care (doing what is necessary to protect your loved ones) may sound simple, but it is a profound mental shift.  It gives you concrete actions to take, things that you have control over.

Even within those protective actions, some things may feel uncomfortable and foreign.  Mask wearing is new to so many people (if you weren't already in the health care profession or living with a chronic condition).  And not only are they not comfortable (especially if you wear glasses!), but they are also a constant reminder of the situation.  Needing to remember and wear a mask when you leave your house just reinforces the scariness of the unknown out there.

I've thought a lot about this, especially in regards to children.  While my own son is grown now, I have friends with small children, and I feel for them.  I also think that there is a tendency to broadcast our own fears and frustrations to our children (or other vulnerable people in our lives).  And if we fuss and groan at having to wear our masks, how can we expect our children to wear theirs?

But masks have been worn as a costume and decoration for ages!  I was actually thinking about this again after seeing some talk about 'what if Halloween is canceled???' and my first thought was that Halloween was the best holiday to have to wear a mask to.  So many costumes already involve masks! 

And if we think from a child's perspective for a minute, many super hero's wear masks.  There are a ton of characters and people that they can look up to, who wear masks.  Making the mask something special makes it something they want to wear.  That makes it so much easier to get them to not only wear it, but to wear it properly. 

This is also something we can shift our own thinking around.  Find masks that represent things important to you, and make them something more than a necessity.  Think of them as a tool, work them into your magical practice...claim them and own them.

And this way of thinking about things can be applied to pretty much any restriction or circumstance you find yourself in.  Don't focus on what is bad or uncomfortable, find ways to challenge yourself into thinking about things from a positive light.  We can't go out and socialize, well maybe it's time to start writing old-fashioned letters and sending little bits of art and wonder to your friends!  Or maybe you want to try new ways of connecting online:  play an online game together, or check out a digital chat room.

Your attitude, and the way you approach the things that life throws at you, has a HUGE impact in how you feel about where you are at in life.  You can either dwell on the bad stuff, or find ways to highlight (or create!) the good.  Seek the blessings all around you, call on your magic and make your world what you want it to be, and you will find that everything will be that much better than it was.

Cursing the Moon and the Fae

So, if you haven't read about this, apparently some people have been making waves recently by cursing the Moon and the Fae.  I've read a few versions of what exactly is going on.  One said that it all started because some 'baby' witches were told they couldn't hex the moon and fae, and so they decided to prove they could.  Another version said that one was in a relationship with a part-fae and it went poorly and in retaliation they gathered their coven and hexed the fae.  A final perspective is that the whole thing was a misinterpretation and that groups of witches were hexing things based on the current situations (it didn't specify who/what they were hexing), but they called upon the moon and the fae in their workings, and it got misreported as them 'hexing the moon and fae.'

Now, there is a lot to unpack here, but there is some stuff I want to talk about.  Some involves these initial explanations of what is going on, but some involves the reactions and responses to these sensational headlines.  Because, let's admit it, 'witches hex the moon' is a pretty sensational headline.  What I think is interesting is that in my search to find out what was going on, almost all the articles I read almost discounted the 'hexing the moon' part and focused on the dangers of hexing the fae.

I'm also going to almost skip right past the whole hexing debate.  In a nutshell, some people think that witches shouldn't hex, full stop.  I am not one of those people.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, in my believe structure, magic is held to the same standards as physical actions.  Some situations warrant physical reactions, and some likewise call for magical reactions.  Some of those reactions might be harmful (or involve hexing).  I don't think we can make a blanket statement on whether witches should or should not be hexing.  It is part of each person's path, and even if you feel that witches shouldn't hex....there will always be witches who do.

So, accepting the fact that witches can and will hex, let's look at the given examples.  If you tell someone they can't do something, there will always be some amount of people who will try to do it just to prove they can.  It doesn't matter if you used the word can't to mean "aren't able to" (as in it's physically impossible...more on that in a bit), or "it's against the rules and you shouldn't"....there will always be people who will try to push any boundary.

The thing is...rules typically are there for a reason.  If there is a longstanding rule of being polite to the fae because they are powerful beings, temperamental and prone to over-reacting, and more than happy to mess with humans just for the pure joy of it, then breaking that rule brings their attention to you.  It's one of those "for your own good" rules, and the consequences of breaking it are typically fairly immediate and powerful.  It's like the rule that you shouldn't stick metal things into power outlets....if you break that rule, you learn quickly why it was a rule.

The second theory on what started this headline (that it was a slighted ex who wanted revenge) gets into more moral grey territory.  Let's take the fae out of the equation for a minute, and say that it was just a case of wanting to get back at an ex....let's even presume they were actually a nasty, abusive, horrible person and being in a relationship with them was causing you harm.  Now that you are free of the relationship, you want to get back at them. 

This is typically something that is frowned upon by many groups, but again, back to the whole morality thing....it is a personal choice.  If you choose to get back at your ex, that's on you.  But that really isn't what was being talked about in the headlines.  It was more of a "this one person was bad to me, so I'm going to hex ALL of the people...that will show them!!!!"

This is a toddler tantrum of the worst kind.  It's completely irrational, and it doesn't even achieve what you want it to do (getting back at your ex).  If you are going to hex someone...hex them.  Don't hex all people like them, or all people who happened to be there at the time something happened or any other variation of throwing a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito.  The fallout will be catastrophic.

And finally, there is the last explanation for the headlines, that it is all a big misunderstanding.  This is something that, whether it is true or not, I feel is important enough to talk about for a bit.  This happens ALL the time.  The internet is the biggest game of telephone ever invented.  One person will post something, then someone else will snip the bit that stands out to them, repost it with their own thoughts, and that chain keeps going until the final meme being shared has almost nothing to do with what actually happened (and that's assuming the original post was accurate to begin with!)

This is something that we are seeing in all places right now, and it's terrifyingly dangerous because people are being called to action based on these false rumors and information that is being spread as if it were Truth.  I saw a ton of reactions to this "baby witches are hexing the moon and fae!!!!" that immediately started going off on how dangerous it was to mess with either.  It's all just caps posts, yelling about how dumb it is, and a thread of replies that echo that or talk about how this "isn't what we do."

But I've also seen people start talking about basically turning the hexes around on people, on 'getting back' at people who are hexing things.  And this is a very slippery slope, especially when you don't know exactly what the real situation is.  If it is a pure misunderstanding, then you are now hexing people who didn't actually do anything 'wrong'. 

I think the real danger though is in deciding that we, as witches, should be the magical police.  It's something I've seen defended as "helping karma" or some other such nonsense.  Firstly, if you believe karma is a universal law...it doesn't need your help.  This isn't a "God helps those who help themselves," kind of thing or a "do the spellwork, but also do the physical stuff to support your spells."  Taking up the mantle of magical police (where you actively work to punish people you feel are using magic badly) is one small step away from using magic to hurt people you don't like.  And that is such a subjective thing. 

What really bugs me is not that people are doing this kind of work (because as I've said before, each person has their own path, and if this is a path you choose to walk, that's on you).  But it's that the vast majority of the people I see doing this kind of thing are trying to convince everyone that they are doing it for pure and holy reasons.  They are somehow better than everyone else, and thus they can judge who is right and who is wrong, and by punishing the people who are wrong, they are some part of the greater cosmic plan.  It's a power trip, pure and simple.

Now, I want to touch briefly on some of the ripples coming from the reactions to these headlines.  First is the idea that hexing the moon (or any celestial bodies) or the fae is impossible.  I've seen people state that these beings are just too powerful to be hexed.  And I think that's bunk.  I think that it might take a lot to pull off a successful hex on any of them, sure, but impossible implies there is some innate quality about them that prevents any type of spell landing.  And I think this is sliding very close to the 'all-powerful-all-knowing-all-everything-god' concept. 

One really interesting point that I saw brought up, however, was that by hexing (or attempting to hex) the moon, you are also pissing off every moon deity.  This is something that I think is actually pretty relevant.  I think that sometimes we feel like our magic is invisible, because other people don't see it.  But I feel like when we take action, whether it is magical or physical, things take notice.  And if you are going around hexing things 'just to see if you can', it's like the kid pulling the legs off of insects....they may not think people see what they are doing, but people notice. 

So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is don't automatically believe everything you read on the internet!  Don't act on your knee-jerk reactions to headlines, but check them out yourself and see what is actually going on.  Don't hold other people to your own version of right and wrong (yes, I fully get the irony of me pointing this out as something you 'should' do...).  Don't lash out at everyone just because one person (or fae, or celestial body lol) did you wrong.  Don't expect to be able to mess with a being without it's allies and supporters taking notice and possibly retaliating against you.  And sometimes there are good reasons for the "Don't do X thing" rules.

The challenge of transition

The theme of this year seems to be one of transformation.  There is a LOT going on, and most of it is pushing us in some way.  For a long time, it was almost a comedy of errors, a laugh and a groan and a "What next?"  But it is starting to become clear that this isn't a roadbump that we are going to get over and move merrily along our path again.  This is a whole new road, we are entering a new landscape, and if we try to force ourselves back into the world we knew, we will just make that transition harder.

Transformation is a part of life.  We are constantly growing and changing and becoming new people.  When we are little, this is a very quick thing.  One day we are barely able to crawl, and then we stand up and all of a sudden we are running.  It's like that one thing clicks and everything else falls into place. 

As we grow older, we don't experience as many changes, but the big ones, the ones that fundamentally alter who we are, tend to be sudden.  The tricky thing about these type of quick changes is that it tends to take us a fair amount of time to catch up with ourselves.  We might have changed overnight, but we still have to adjust, we have to figure out who this new person is, and how to live with the revelations we have learned.

These type of internal changes are pretty common in the teen years.  As children, we are figuring out who we are, and as teenagers, we sometimes go through dramatic changes as things we have been struggling with for years solidify and we just 'know' who we are.  But, we aren't finished yet, we are still malleable and ever-changing, and the truth of our today might change tomorrow.  And still, in the moment, we are a whole new person, sometimes every day, as we struggle to sort out the truth of our being.

As adults, we have mostly settled into who we are inside.  The big changes come from the outside world.  As children, our world was kept stable by our parents or carers, and we were often sheltered from the big changes (as much as they were able).  But as adults, we have to face those interruptions, and we have to figure out how to adjust.  Whether it is the loss of a job we thought was a career, a death in the family, moving across country, there are going to be huge changes that we have to overcome.

This year is a change on a global scale.  We are facing something we haven't faced in a long time, and I'd wager to say we haven't faced it on this scale.  The interconnections of modern life means that issues don't stay local, and when something is big enough, it spreads across the globe.  We are seeing this, not only with the virus, but also with the social issues that are coming to light.  People in other countries are noticing what is going on across the world from them...and they are reacting.  We are starting to act like a global community, and not just a collection of countries.

And this is a radical kind of change.  It's the kind of change that used to take decades or even centuries to ripple across the globe, and now it's racing around the world in hours.  Our eyes are being opened to how things are in other places, and the old excuses of "that won't work..." are being shown to be false as we look to other places where not only is it working, but it's been working for years. 

This also requires many of us to face personal transformation.  We have to integrate these ideas and information into our concept of how the world works.  We may have to question things we have believed all our lives.  This is a hard, and sometimes painful process.  It often means admitting that we were wrong, and that can be a tough thing to do.

But the beauty of it is that once we are able to see the flaws, once we accept that there were mistakes made, or that there is a better way to do things, it's like breaking free from old chains.  We can pull in that breath of fresh air and look towards how to fix things for other people.  Because even though this is a personal transformation that we all have to face, it is also a transformation of community, and just because you ultimately have to reach out of your current circumstances, that doesn't mean that other people can't reach towards you.  It is simply up to you to look up, to see the hands being held, and to take one!

I believe we have passed the point of no return.  I don't think the world moving forward can be the same as the one we left just last year.  Too much has changed, and too much has transpired.  And there will always be people who want to put their head back in the mud, to refuse to see what is actually going on, the ones who will insist that we need to 'get back to normal'. 

Adjusting to the new world starts inside.  We have to open our eyes and really see what is going on.  We need to seek out information, and think for ourselves.  We need to consider what the actual situation is, and what the best way to handle it going forward will be.  And then we need to take action, no matter how hard or scary it feels.  Start small, seek other people who are moving in the same direction, but start moving! 

Magicing the science

When we think of how our brain works, we tend to think in terms of left and right brain, or IQ versus EQ (Intelligence versus Emotion).  Almost always, these two modes of thought are seen as being fundamentally opposed, as if they were opposite sides of the coin and you could only work with one at a time, whichever side was facing up. 

But in reality, most of the times, you want to grab the whole coin and use it!  You don't want to be so far in magical theory that you forget to work within the limitations of the world around you, because then you end up just wishing for things to change.  But you also don't want to be so blocked in by what is that you forget that things can move and change because then you stay stagnant.

There is a level of suspended disbelief that most people learn to manage, where we face that question of "Is this all in my head?"  And at some point, you have to accept the fact that you have no real way of Knowing.  There is no way to peek behind the curtain and see if it was your magic that changed things, or if your petition to the Gods was heard, or if it was just a random occurrence.  Unfortunately, the same is true when things don't work.  We don't know if our magic didn't work, if someone else was working harder towards a different outcome or if there was some other factor we didn't see at all.

Almost all of the time, starting with a functioning knowledge of how things work is a great base.  If you want to get a job, knowing what types of qualities they are looking for is a key factor, no matter whether you are working a spell or filling out an application.  And working both the physical and the magical, together, is where power really starts to accumulate.

It comes back to the idea that things are bigger than the sum of their parts, so if you only do one thing you only get one level of 'success' in your outcome.  If you combine multiple things, those successes multiply each other.  Let's think again about the applying for a job situation.  If you have a really nice application, which shows you have a lot of applicable experience and have done well in the past at similar jobs, that is great.  If you go into the interview, are personable and answer the questions well and leave a good memory, that is also great.  But you combine those together, and now you've created a synergy that will stand out.  The person looking at the applications will remember your interview, and that will make your application look even better.

This is why, a lot of times, one of the steps of magic is to go out and do the work.  You don't just cast a spell on a blank application and hope that a job falls out of the sky.  You cast your spell, but then you fill out the application and turn it in.  And, if you really want it, you don't stop there.  You do more magic before the interview, to help you feel confidant and calm, and you do your best at the interview.  You cast another spell for success and you call them back to check in after a few days (or some other appropriate follow up action).  You keep working the magic and working the world until you get what you want. 

One of the reasons why knowing how things works helps magic preform better is that you are able to be more specific.  If I want my garden to grow better, and I know what types of plants I have, what their needs are, and what helps them thrive, I can work those details into my spells.  Instead of just doing a general "make my garden grow!" spell, I can ward off harmful insects (while still allowing all the helper bugs and critters in), I can ask for the right type of weather (and watch to make sure I am doing what I can to augment any lack, like extra watering if it's been dry for too many days), I can watch for signs that there may be specific things I need to counter (like common problems that your plants might experience). 

And you might have to fight through this romantic ideal that magic shouldn't involve practical research, or that our ancestors didn't have Google and their magic worked just fine.  However, consider the fact that our ancestors had practical, working knowledge of most of the things that they were working magic on.  If they were a farmer, they knew about their plants because they had been growing them all their lives, and they learned from their parents.

In the modern world, we are so much more jack-of-all-trades because we do have access to the internet and all this information is at our fingertips.  If I want to go out tomorrow, and learn how knit, or blacksmith, or fix cars, that information is there, for me to learn and use.  If I lived even a hundred years ago, that might not be the case.  If I wanted to learn something, I might have to ask around, to try to find someone else with the knowledge I wanted, then I would have to travel to them, and convince them to teach me.  And even then, I would have the experience of one line of teachers, not many different viewpoints, like we have today. 

The advantage to working both sides of your brain is that, when you do, there are less objections.  You don't have that voice in the back of your head saying, "this is silly, why are you doing this?"  Instead, you have found ways to appease both the thinking and the feeling parts of you, and your whole brain is working towards the same goal, even if they are working in different ways.  This makes you a whole lot more effective (and makes your head a much more peaceful place!), in everything you do.

So look for ways to back your magic up with science, figure out how to engage both your thinking brain and your feeling brain, get your intelligence and emotions working together, and see how far you can go!

Magical responsibility

In the wake of all that is going on with the world, the idea that we, as Pagans and Witches, have a responsibility to create change in the world, keeps coming up.  And, for many people, this idea of bearing responsibility for change carries a lot of weight and brings up a lot of issues.

I think that the first thing we need to talk about, when we discuss creating real change in the world, is the idea of free will and how that applies to magic.  As I have said before, I am not a follower of Harm None, but it is still quoted so often in our community, I feel like I need to touch on this.

When you think about it, the main idea of the tenant of Harm None is to not use magic for 'bad' reasons.  But sometimes the choice isn't between good and bad it's between bad and worse.  If we don't act, out of fear of harming someone, do we allow greater harm to come to us or someone we might have protected? 

Where I think Harm None really falls apart is when it is taken to the "never cast a spell on someone else without their permission because you are infringing on their free will!!!!"  In many ways, this is just one more way to shame and threaten people into being complacent and passive...to letting other people hurt them because they don't want to be loud or to fight back.  

I feel like there is a very big difference between doing a spell to make someone break their leg because you are mad that they said your friend looked prettier than you did and doing a spell to get other people to understand a different perspective or even doing a spell to stop people from attacking and hurting others.

There is a trend, in many new-age circles, to keep our magic self-centered, to only work for one's self, for self-improvement.  And even then, we are expected to keep our magics internal, to work on our inner issues, to not directly work to effect our physical world (because somehow that is interfering with other people's free will or creating harm to them).

And I have to say a little something about this.  Because magic is something that is available to everyone.  It isn't some kind of innate power that only some people have, that gives them a undefendable advantage over people who don't have it.  It's not a form of privilege that you are born with.  It is a skill that we work on, an ability that we cultivate and an action we can take...that anyone can take.

Trying to limit our magic usage to internal-only uses is like trying to tell someone, "It doesn't matter how many hours you spent working on learning how to play the violin, you can't ever play in public because someone else might feel bad that they can't play...and you definitely can't audition for a job by playing your best, because that's not fair to people who haven't practiced."  It sounds a little ridiculous, doesn't it, when you put it in those terms.

Now, I titled this blog Magical responsibility, because I do feel that we have a responsibility to others and to the world.  None of us live in a bubble, and no matter how self-centric your viewpoint is, helping other people is just good business.  Every person on this earth (honestly, every thing and being on this earth...and in the universe), relies on the success of other beings to survive.

And as a society, the greater issues, the ones that we are struggling with right now...effect us all.  We have a vested interest in how these things unfold and resolve.  Now, I'm not going to tell you what you should think or feel or what causes you should get behind, because that's not my place.  But I do think that, whatever you feel strongly about, you have a responsibility to try to make the world a better place.

One of my favorite memes lately was in relation to the protests, and it put things in an RPG slant.  It pointed out that not everyone can physically attend a protest, but there are many ways to help the cause.  You might be doing support stuff, helping with supplies or logistics.  You might be emotional fuel, keeping up the spirits of those who are going out and doing the physical stuff.  You might be doing the scholarly thing, doing research and finding ways to share the information.  But if you care, there is something you can do.

And magic is one of those things.  There are tons of ways to help magically, and direct casting is only one of them.  Maybe you want to research ways that magic can help, different approaches (like using spells to create greater understanding and empathy instead of directly going after the end goal).  Or you might want to signal boost, and share spellwork and coordinated casting events. 

We are in this world, in this lifetime, and I think we owe it to ourselves (not to mention to our descendants), to make the most of it.  When we see something that we feel is wrong, it is in our best interests to look for ways we can make it better.  Sometimes this is as simple as picking up a piece of trash and throwing it away, or sometimes we feel this is our mission in this life and we tackle getting more people to be aware of how trash impacts our planet and finding new ways to handle the trash we do create.

As it has been said recently, silence is loud.  Doing nothing is a choice and an action.  Not getting involved is making a stand, and avoiding thinking about the hard topics is a decision to support what is going on.  If you don't act, you are helping to create the world we live in today.  So if you don't like parts of our world...do something to change it!