Shadow Magick for Composure

If you're like most of the people I know you probably face a dozen or more situations every day that just annoy the pants off of you.  Maybe you have a horrible commute, a co-worker you want to immolate, or just have so much stress you want to scream. Sadly, vibrating with tension has become a fairly common condition in our lives and it's just not good for us.  People often combat this stress by doing deep breathing exercises, taking a walk, eating obscene amounts of fat and sugar (my vice of choice), or occasionally going a bit postal on the people they love.  Some of these coping mechanisms are obviously more productive than others.  While doing something that boosts my serotonin levels can temporarily make me feel better, it doesn't really do anything to make my situation better, and when the mundane fails to fix things I turn to magick.

Fortunately for me, shadow magick is spectacular at dealing with the crappiest aspects of my life.  It's raison d'être is to deal with things that make us uncomfortable, and literally twitching with stress and rage is pretty damned uncomfortable.  Here's a quick shadow magick exercise for when life makes you want to throw something out a window.

Exercise for Composure
 
This exercise can be done anytime, anywhere, as long as you can safely zone out a bit (so you shouldn't don't do it while driving, but if you're stopped in endless gridlock you're good to go). 

To begin, feel your shadow, that dark bit of who you really are, deep inside yourself.  Your shadow is an ally.  It is the part of you that basks in darkness.  Let that shadow come to the forefront of your mind. 

Allow your shadow to expand out of your body, so that you're surrounded by numinous shadow.  All of the negative energy around and within you feeds that shadow.  Let your shadow absorb the frustration, the annoyance, the rage that's flying around and inside you.  Feel your shadow growing stronger as it feeds on the negative energy, like Kali consuming the energy of demons.  Let it continue until it's full and sated.

Allow yourself to merge with your shadow.  Feel its contentment.  Let the energy it as gained strengthen you.  Your shadow digests all that negative energy, leaving a clean slate behind.  Allow your shadow to return to a comfortable place in your core.  You are your shadow; your shadow is you.  You are strengthened and calmed. 

Ritual Dos and Don'ts

Over the years I've been to many a public ritual, some of which have been amazing and transformative, other of which have been...less so.  Some of the public rituals I've been to (ok, maybe half or more) have been so bad I've had to restrain myself from shouting "What the hell were you thinking?!" halfway through them.  So here are a few tips for all you ritual presenters out there.

Do:

• Explain what you'll be doing - before you're in the circle (it gives folks the chance to bow out if they're going to be uncomfortable.
• Explain the purpose of the ritual.
• Test any props/equipment before the ritual.
• Speak up - It doesn't matter how beautiful your poetry is if we can't hear it.
• Practice.  For the love of all the gods, practice.
• Give participants something to do.  If your audience gets bored they will find something to do and you may not like it.
• If your ritual is outdoors, prearrange an alternate indoor space or rain date.
• Research.  If you're going to do a Celtic re-constructionist rite for Lugh, make sure you know what you're talking about and can pronounce all the names. 
• Offer a pre-ritual orientation for newbies and make sure they feel welcome.  We were all new once and I bet you remember exactly how you were treated.

Don't:

• Wear robes/garb that you'll trip over, have fall off mid-ritual, or have catch fire (keep your ritual movements in mind when selecting your outfit).
• Speak away from the circle when outdoors (no one will hear a word you say).
• Have one person do everything while everyone else just watches.
• Let intra or inter-group politics come into the circle.
• Move too quickly through ritual theater.  (I once saw what I can only call a symbolic great rite quickie.  It was appalling.)
• Forget that you're there to facilitate an important experience for others, not just yourself.
• Force people to hug or kiss.  Not everyone wants to love everybody.  Seriously.  Uggh.

Magickal Community - I Want It

A few weeks ago I attended a local Pagan Pride Day planning meeting down in Tacoma.  The current group running PPD are a hard working and incredibly welcoming group.  It was so nice to walk into a group of people I barely know and instantly feel welcomed and respected.  I knew it was a group where I could make suggestions and give my opinion, and that they’d form their opinions on the quality of what I said, rather than what group I was a part of or who I studied with.  It made me realize just how much I miss being a part of an open-minded local community group.  

When I first started practicing magick, back at Wellesley, I was blessed by being part of an incredible group.  We were all beginners struggling to learn together.  Everyone was pretty much equal and everyone pitched in and helped the group to learn and grow.  In retrospect I realize how incredible that group was.  I found a second family in that group and some of us will be sisters forever, even though we’re spread across the globe now.  The most remarkable thing was that because none of us had any “lineage” in the craft, we could only judge each other on what we actually said and did.  We had no past to be judged on.  

When I came back to Seattle I expected to be able to find local groups that would be as open and welcoming as the group I left.  To say that I was disappointed by what I really found would be a gross understatement.  What I found was a community shattered by politics.  I found people who didn’t care who you were unless you were introduced by someone with status,  I found “open” groups with no interest in even saying hello to new people (let alone welcoming them), and I found it almost impossible to even find the community without an “in.”  My friend and I once went to an open sabbat and spent 30 minutes in a dark room while the group hosting the event came in, late, and one by one passed us by without even saying hello.  When we asked if we were in the right place we received looks that clearly stated we weren’t welcome - even though the event was advertised as open to all.  Gotta love the Seattle freeze.  I’ve found people that wouldn’t give me the time of day because I wasn’t 50; I’ve had others that wouldn’t talk to me because I wasn’t under 25; and goddess help me if I mention that I don’t “embrace the warmth and light of the great mother.”  I once had a fellow practitioner tell me to my face that I was evil for working with Kali - way to be understanding lady.  

I had almost lost hope that there were, in fact, decent groups out here.  Then I started hosting Grey School info booths at the local PPD events.  The thing about PPD events is that their entire purpose is to foster community strength and understanding.  The folks that take the time and trouble to come out to them are, generally, friendly people who genuinely want to talk to new people.  At this point PPD is pretty much the one day a year I spend out in my local community (other than supporting local magickal merchants).  Through PPD I’ve met several local community leaders that don’t make me want to pull my hair out.  (There’s a really terrific Dianic group here - too bad I’m not Dianic.)  

I’ve met some amazing people in the local area, so what on earth is stopping us from coming together?  Terrible inertia? A lack of leadership?  Fear? Come on people, getting together in a coffee shop once a month isn’t exactly rocket science.  I suppose if I want local community I’m going to have to put on my big girl pants and make it happen.  *sigh*

Shadow Magick and Compassion

I've been doing shadow work for so long, I sometimes forget how ooky it can seem from the outside.  Yes, shadow work is dark, difficult, and sometimes scary.  And yes, the magick that derives from all that work is potent, sharp, and has the potential to break things.  But the darkness isn't the point.  The ooky spooky scary bits are there because if you want something special you have to earn it.  The ookiness is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself.  Shadow magick isn't about being angry and dark and wanting to hurt yourself or others - and if you approach it from that point of view you will either change in a hurry or deal with the consequences.  For the Shadow to work for you, your intent actually has to come from a place of compassion.

It's easy to hurl your anger into the darkness; but shadow work isn't easy.  Real shadow work is about facing the darkness and having compassion for it.  It's about coming face to face with your flaws, with your fears, and both forgiving yourself for your weakness and forgiving the world for allowing the thing you fear to exist.  It's not about conquering your fears; it's about learning to live with them.  Shadow work is about seeing yourself and the world around you clearly, warts and all, and learning to accept that truth.  The only way I've found to accomplish that without going completely mad is to learn to have real compassion. 

When I tell people that I'm a "black witch" or a "shadow worker," they will usually either say "what does that mean" or they will completely freak out.  The freak out is rare and it always surprises me a little.  You see, I don't tell just anyone that I'm a shadow worker - people whose only exposure to the spooky is television will inevitably react uncomfortably - I generally only tell other practitioners and I generally expect other practitioners to be able to look at my aura and realize that I'm not evil.  Sadly, that's not always the case.  There are always those folks who were taught that anything outside their particular brand of magick is evil (anyone who calls themselves a white witch will always react badly to someone who calls themselves a black witch, regardless of what either one means by those terms), and they do not tend to like me very much.  It's always a little disheartening to see that kind of knee-jerk prejudice in my own community.  I expect an abrahamic fundamentalist to object to what I do, I don't expect it from my own people.  It always makes me sad when people who should know better never bother too look beneath the label to find out what shadow workers actually do.  Maybe it bother me because my own reaction to something I fear is to find out all I can about it (this almost always alleviates me fears), so I have trouble understanding why other people don't do the same.

You see, people who are afraid of shadow workers are actually quite ridiculous.  It's almost impossible to become adept at shadow work without developing a deep rooted sense of compassion and understanding.  An adept has to learn to look at their own flaws every day without melting into a useless heap on the floor (this can be rather difficult), and one of the side effects of this skill is the ability to see those same flaws in others.  And let me tell you, it's really difficult not to feel at least some compassion for someone (regardless of how awful their behavior) when you see that their doing it because they have the same damned flaws you've got, that they just haven't dealt with yet.  It's hard to sustain anger with someone who you can see only lashed out because they don't know how to handle their own pain or fear.  This doesn't mean shadow workers all turn into Mother Theresa - hell no - but it does mean that our knee-jerk reactions aren't terribly violent and don't usually last very long.  The only "curse" a shadow worker is likely to lob at another person is one to make them see themselves more clearly and to develop a better understanding of what their doing - nothing more than what we voluntarily do to ourselves every day. 

Sure, the process of becoming an adept at shadow magick is difficult and often painful, but that doesn't make us bastards or masochists or anything else.  All it makes us is honest people who don't lie to themselves.  To be afraid of us just means you're afraid of yourself and we remind you of what you aren't willing to do.  Fear is a natural and healthy thing, just point it in the right direction.

Happy Equinox!

Happy Equinox everyone!  A very Happy Ostara to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, and a Happy Mabon to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere :)  Seattle is celebrating the birth of Spring with torrential rain, wind, and general unpleasantness.  I am so going out to buy flowers today.

For those of  you looking for info on a more traditional pagan Ostara, rather than my shadowy one, check out today's article over at The Wild Hunt.  You can also check out my Ostaras past.