A Wondrous Place: the next phase of my spiritual journey
My post yesterday about moving forward into a new part of my spiritual journey, and wondering what parts of myself and the aspects of my previous path may be left behind, got me wondering about where I've actually been spiritually.
So, I thought it would be smart today to take some time to really look at what I focused on, and genuinely ask the question, “Is this a new door that I'm walking through, or is it the maturation of my path, an increase in the complexity of my practice?”
Before I start delving into that though, I wanted to state some of the things that I know for sure are new in their importance to me. Angels and demons, divine cosmology, spiritual protection, the governance of the rare and the strange. Prior to last year, I don't think these subjects would have been so meaningful to me. But prior to last year I had little faith in heaven and little to no understanding of the realities of hell.
Again though, I'm not here to proselytize, just to consider.
So without further ado, let's look into the beginning of my spiritual practice.
The Foundation of Faith
As I look through my first ‘book of shadows’, if I can even call it that, I find an emphasis on self-knowledge, encyclopedic note-taking, a desire to learn divination in its various forms, and an interest in foraging and using what I found to craft magical ingredients and supplies.
In my notebook, I wrote down a cipher to the Theban script, the Norse runes of Elder Futhark, an alphabetized list of different grocery supplies and herbs and their magical affinities for spell-crafting, color meanings for candle magic, the meanings of the various phases of the moon, and most importantly the meanings behind each star sign in my natal chart.
What I find looking through this notebook is a desire for groundedness in a magical world. I didn't want to get lost in the mystical landscape of my mind or the world around me, I wanted to truly find my place in it. I wanted it to feel like a home.
An acronym I wrote down “BE MAGICAL” encapsulates this desire:
- Bless yourself and others daily through invocation, rituals, and prayer.
- Eco-live and be conscious of your impact on Earth.
- Move and celebrate your body in dance and music.
- Awaken yourself to being really alive with yoga or meditation.
- Gratitude expands joy and promotes sharing and understanding.
- Inspire others with your words, actions, and spirit every day.
- Chant, sing, celebrate, and create something every day.
- Act consciously on your beliefs in some way every day.
- Learn something new and teach something every day.
Altogether, I see a commitment to living a life of purpose, compassion, and courage. I was aware when I was younger, though perhaps not to the fullest extent, that engaging in a nature-minded, mystical path like this one which encourages peering into the darkness and experimenting in magic was to follow my instincts into counterculture. I didn't realize when I was a teenager how existential these subjects are to other people.
Back then it truly was just the most intuitive choice to make.
Beyond the general day-to-day notes, there are snippets of interest in alchemy, palmistry and aura reading, and numerous drawings of dreams and visions I had during meditation. It truly was a way for me to understand my own view of the world. It was a way to make sense of the overwhelming beauty that I see around me.
And, between you and me, beauty doesn't necessarily mean pretty.
I've always had a bit of a morbid side to me, a part of me that prefers shadows and sobering topics. Even as I write this, there is a vase full of withered roses right next to me, and a bottle decorated with drippings of burgundy candle wax.
I suppose it is something to admit to myself that this practice is as much about a spiritual understanding of self and the world as it is an aesthetic. It's simple enough to say, I just like the way it looks. Magic, I mean. The afterglow. The residue it leaves. The distressed artifacts. There's something to be said about the casual environment that routine practice produces. I don't want to do a single magic spell and then sweep it under the rug. I want my entire space to be indicative of a magical life well-lived.
The Practice
In reality, it's been 15 years maybe longer. That's more than enough time to learn everything that I had wanted to learn as a teenager. What my practice became was an observing of the passing of seasons, an intentional structuring of my personal space to be amenable to the spirits of the local environment, the using of beauty rituals as purification rituals, and the giving of gifts to the spirits of the land in my travels.
I learned how to read tarot and I find it much more fascinating than reading palms, though a man did once read my palm on the metro underground. I even got pretty good at reading auras, and sometimes would receive gifts in exchange for the readings that I did for others.
I didn’t actually do much in the way of spell work because I found that the magic I engaged in was so potent and so successful that I felt uncomfortable using it frivolously. What some may call manifesting, with my affinity for it, I could tell that it could easily be abused. I could feel the allure of frivolous spell work, poorly thought out money spells or scrying charms. Doing magic just to do it didn't feel right to me, so I tended to leave it to one of the eight Sabbats, or a moment when I felt especially called to use it.
Instead, I focused on using my black mirror, my tarot, and my rituals meant to commune with elements and keep myself in balance with them — I suppose it was this decision that pushed me towards spirit work entirely, and to my current predicament.
This nature-based spirituality became less about worshiping the spirits of nature, and more about being a caretaker for them. As both my practice and I mature, I have come to realize that my position as someone who cares deeply for the environment has led to a crystallizing of my principles and habits.
It is second nature for me to look at the moon and wonder what it's seeing. It is second nature for me to want to go to the ocean. I wouldn't say I'm in love with hiking, but being around the plant life and being able to see the hawks flying overhead is unmatched.
Pieces Missing in the Puzzle
Writing this now, though, and seeing this brief account of my last decade and a half of life, I can already see what's missing.
An education on spirits themselves.
On the history of human thought of what they are, how they came to be what they are and what they may want from us. How we can help them if they even need our help at all. How to recognize a true spirit versus a creation of our imagination. How religious institutions handle things like this at all.
Maybe it is less a leaving of my practice, then an expanding of my practice as I had said in my previous post. I admit I am the type of person that is all or nothing, so when I see a door that I need to jump through I tend to just jump. But that may be too hasty.
I want to know more about the utility of religion, not from the perspective of those day to day people that it does help, but from the perspective of the spirit world, the sacred beings and artifacts that exist and may have always existed, what we may actually know about The Most High.
Maybe it's the spiritual aspect of my practice itself, a need to revisit my principles and find a deeper root for them. Maybe it's a desire to travel and see holy sites, to learn new techniques to make my own personal space not only safer for myself but for the spirits I allow to pass through and visit.
Whatever it is I'm nervous but I'm excited for it.
When I finally feel comfortable discussing the events that inspired this new trajectory maybe this will ground what I've been discussing.
To put it simply though, watching the sky open up above me in my worst moment as though heaven itself were coming to comfort me was as terrifying as it was beautiful... vivid nightmares of some Luciferian cult being punished and taken to hell... both left an impact on me. How could it not have?
And that's what I'm seeing now, the limits of a solitary path which so far my spiritual life has been. Solitary. Wherever the spirits lead me next, I'll be sure to let you know.
