• Invoking Liber OZ:

    January 26, 2026
    Basics, Community

    Rights Are For All!

    CW – Image at bottom of article, depicting Lady Liberty, may be triggering to some individuals.

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Liber OZ is one of those texts that looks tiny and harmless until you actually read it. Aleister Crowley wrote it as a declaration of human rights, but not the polite, committee-approved kind. This is not “we respectfully request better treatment.” It is “I have the right to breathe, move, speak, fuck, think, and live as I will, and anyone who says otherwise is trespassing on my soul.” It is one page of spiritual dynamite. Which makes it extremely relevant right now, when fascism is no longer whispering in the basement of history but clearing its throat on the national stage of the United States.

    Liber OZ declares the Rights of Man, and Crowley meant that in the broad human sense, not the bearded white landowner sense. The right to live by one’s own law. The right to think and speak freely. The right to love as one will. The right to work and play and rest as one will. The right to defend oneself. The right to kill those who would thwart these rights. (That last one makes people choke on their herbal tea, but we will come back to it.) The core idea is brutally simple. Your will is sacred. Not your whims. Not your consumer impulses. Your deep, actual Will, the axis of your being. Any system that tries to crush that is not just annoying or misguided… it is committing a spiritual crime.

    Look at the United States right now, not even a month into 2026, and tell me with a straight face that spiritual crimes are not being committed daily. Laws telling people what they can do with their bodies. Laws telling teachers what they can say. Laws telling parents which children count as real. Laws telling doctors when they are allowed to save lives. Laws telling books they are too dangerous to exist. This is not about “values.” This is about control. Fascism always dresses itself in the costume of morality. It says it is protecting children, tradition, God, or the nation. What it is actually protecting is hierarchy. Someone must be on top, someone must be beneath, and the state decides who goes where.

    Liber OZ spits in the face of that entire structure. It says no. You are not property of the state. You are not property of the church. You are not property of a political party, a corporation, or a mob of loud strangers with flags and microphones. You are a sovereign, autonomous being. That is not a metaphor; it is a magical fact. If you are an occultist and you do not believe that, then I have to ask what exactly you think magick is… Because if your will is not your own, then whose spell are you casting?

    Fascism is not just a political movement; it is a psychic parasite. It feeds on fear, resentment, and the desire to be told what to think to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty. It offers certainty in exchange for conscience. It offers belonging in exchange for agency. That is an enchantment, and not a good one. It is mass hypnosis with a badge and a budget, but Liber OZ is a counter-spell. It is a reminder that your will is not granted by the state. Your Will is not voted into existence. Your Will is not something you get if you behave nicely. Your Will is inherent. When a government starts telling you that certain people do not get rights, or that certain lives are expendable, or that obedience is more important than truth, your magical duty is not neutrality… your magical duty is resistance. Not just lighting candles and freezing jars, but refusing to internalize and propagate their lies.

    I’m angry, and I have a right to be. The United States likes to pretend it is the land of freedom while quietly turning freedom into a subscription service. You can have it if you fit the right demographic profile. You can keep it if you stay quiet. You can enjoy it as long as it does not inconvenience power. That is not freedom. That is a leash with a lot of slack. Liber OZ does not recognize that leash. It says you have the right to think as you will. That sounds boring until you remember how much effort is currently being spent to make people not think. To make them repeat slogans. To make them afraid of words. To make them distrust their neighbors. Thought is dangerous to fascism because it reveals contradiction. A thinking population notices that “small government” somehow needs to monitor bedrooms and classrooms. A thinking population notices that “protecting children” often means protecting institutions from accountability. A thinking population notices that the same people screaming about liberty are very interested in who you sleep with, what you read, and whether you can get healthcare.

    Liber OZ also says you have the right to speak as you will. This is where people get twitchy and start shouting about free speech absolutism. That is not what this is about. This is not about defending the right to harass or dehumanize. This is about refusing to let power dictate reality. Fascism depends on enforced narratives. It needs you to say that the sky is green if the leader says so. It needs you to accept that cruelty is kindness and that violence is order. Speech that challenges that is not just political. It is magical, and it disrupts the spell.

    Liber OZ says you have the right to love as you will. If you want a single sentence that terrifies authoritarians, that is it. Fascism needs rigid roles. It needs approved families, approved genders, and approved futures. Love that does not fit the script is a threat. Queer love. Interracial love. Childfree love. Poly love. Love that does not reproduce the system. Love that does not make new soldiers and obedient workers. When Liber OZ says you have the right to love as you will, it is not being poetic. It is declaring war on the factory of conformity.

    Magick is about alignment with will. Fascism is about erasing will. You cannot serve both. You cannot say you are walking your True Will while cheering for a system that tells millions of people they do not deserve autonomy.

    On to the line everyone gets nervous about… the right to kill those who would thwart these rights. Before anyone starts clutching pearls or calling the FBI, let’s be honest. Crowley wrote in a time when the world was already soaked in blood from states asserting their right to control bodies. This line is not a call to random violence. It is a recognition of a grim historical truth. Systems that deny basic human rights do not usually stop because you ask nicely. Self-defense is not just personal; it can be collective. If someone is trying to enslave you, and the only way to stop them is force, then the moral responsibility does not rest on the person resisting. It rests on the person who made violence necessary. The relevance today is not about physical killing. It is about killing lies, and apathy. Killing the idea that you have no power. Killing the spell of inevitability that says “this is just how things are now.” Fascism thrives on the belief that resistance is futile. Liber OZ is the document that says, no, actually, your will matters, and it matters even when it is inconvenient to power… especially when it is inconvenient to power.

    There is also something deeply American about this irony. The country was founded on a revolution against a distant authority that claimed divine right. Now we have politicians using God as a mascot while stripping rights with bureaucratic precision. The old tyrant wore a crown. The new one wears a suit and quotes scripture. Same impulse, but better branding. What drives me up the wall is watching spiritual people pretend this is not their problem. Acting as if politics is somehow outside the temple. Acting as if laws that decide who gets to live safely and who does not are not magical in effect. If your practice is about personal freedom, and you stay silent while that freedom is being narrowed for entire groups, then your altar is just decor. You are doing aesthetic mysticism, not liberation work.

    Liber OZ is short because it assumes you are brave enough to extrapolate. It does not give you policy. It gives you principle. The principle is that no authority has the right to override your essential nature. When the state decides that trans people should not exist in public. When the state decides that pregnant people should be forced into medical risk. When the state decides that history should be rewritten to be less uncomfortable. That is the state claiming authority over will, and that is exactly what Liber OZ says is illegitimate.

    Yes, I am angry. I’m angry because this country keeps acting shocked when authoritarianism shows up, as if it arrived by UFO instead of by ballot, budget, and silence. I am pissed off because the same people who scream about tyranny will happily cheer when it hurts the people they do not like. I am furious because we keep treating fascism like a difference of opinion instead of what it is, a disease that eats societies from the inside by convincing them cruelty is strength.

    Anger is not the enemy here. Apathy is. Anger is information. Anger says something is wrong. In magical terms, it is a current. The question is what you do with it. Liber OZ does not tell you to burn everything down. It tells you to live as a sovereign, autonomous being. That means voting. It means mutual aid. It means refusing to normalize dehumanization. It means protecting your community. It means not letting propaganda live rent-free in your head. It means saying no when no is dangerous. That is slow, stubborn, human magick.

    There is a reason fascism hates complexity. Real will is complex. It does not fit slogans. It does not fit “real Americans” or “traditional families” or “normal people.” True Will is messy. It includes disabled bodies, queer minds, immigrant dreams, and people who do not want the same future as their grandparents. A system built on sameness cannot tolerate that, so it tries to simplify humanity into categories it can control. Liber OZ is the opposite; It does not tell you what your will should be. It tells you that finding and living your Will is your right. That is terrifying to authoritarian systems because it means they do not get to decide what a good life looks like. They can threaten, but they cannot define you unless you let them.

    Your rituals, your sigils, your prayers, your meditations are not just about inner peace. They are about maintaining sovereignty, and autonomy in a culture that wants obedience. Every time you choose truth over comfort, you break the spell a little. Every time you defend someone else’s right to exist as themselves, you are practicing Liber OZ in action. Not as a dusty text, but as a living ethic.

    If you think fascism cannot happen here, you are not paying attention… it already is. There is no single switch… more like a dimmer. It starts with jokes, then laws, then silence, then fear. By the time people say “this feels like fascism,” it is usually already deep in the bones of the system. The time to invoke Liber OZ is not when the boots are already on your neck. It is when they are being laced up.

    What does this mean for occultists specifically? Your work is not neutral. If you work with gods of freedom and ignore prisons. If you work with spirits of justice and ignore courts stripping rights. If you work with ancestors who survived oppression and then shrug when it comes back with better PR. You are compartmentalizing your ethics. Magick does not care about your compartments. It flows through your whole life or it becomes theater.

    Liber OZ is not comfortable. It does not promise safety. It promises dignity. It does not say you will be liked. It says you will be free. Freedom is always risky, which is why authoritarians sell safety instead. Safety with conditions. Safety with paperwork. Safety that looks suspiciously like control.

    I love this country in the way you love a deeply flawed relative. Not with blind loyalty, but with furious hope that it can do better. The ideals were never perfect, but they pointed toward something like Liber OZ long before Crowley put it on paper. That belief is being tested; not by foreign enemies, but by domestic fear.

    If you are an occultist in the United States right now, Liber OZ is not just a text. It is a mirror. It asks you whether you actually believe in Will, or whether you just like the aesthetic of rebellion. It asks whether your practice is about liberation or just personal power. It asks whether you are willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of other people’s freedom.

    If you are tired, I get it. This is exhausting. Living under a system that keeps flirting with authoritarianism is like being stuck in a bad relationship with someone who keeps saying they have changed. Rage without rest burns you out. You do not have to be a hero. You do not have to fix the whole country. You do have to refuse to be spiritually anesthetized. You have to care enough to notice. You have to act where you can. You have to remember that will is not a solo project, it is relational. Your freedom is tied to other people’s freedom whether you like it or not. Until all of us are free, none of us are free.

    Liber OZ does not offer comfort. It offers a spine. At a time when fascism is trying to bend everyone into approved shapes, that spine matters. It is the difference between a population and a people. Between obedience and Will. Between a country that survives and one that just continues.

    “You sound so angry.” Yes, I am angry. I am angry because this should not be happening again. I am angry because people are being used as political chew toys. I am angry because lies are being laundered as values. I am also stubbornly hopeful, because fascism only works if enough people agree to stop being themselves. Liber OZ says you do not have to agree. It says you have the right to be. In a time like this, that is not just philosophy… That is resistance.

    { Pander To Thine Prejudice – By G. Antra/Embalmed Apple }

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  • The Invisible Sanctuary:

    January 8, 2026
    Basics, Rituals, Ceremonial, Chaos

    Building the Inner Sanctum

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    The idea of the astral temple keeps resurfacing across magical traditions. Not because it’s flashy, or trendy. The astral temple sticks around because it works. Quietly. Relentlessly. Often far more deeply than people expect.

    The astral temple is a sanctuary that exists beyond brick, mortar, incense smoke, and candle wax. It’s an intentionally built inner space that’s created through imagination but functions as a real, stable environment for magical work, spiritual contact, and personal transformation. You shape it with imagination, fuel it with will, and strengthen it every time you return to it. Think of it less like a fantasy palace and more like a metaphysical workshop that slowly comes alive the more you actually use it.

    Too many get tripped up right out of the gate. They hear astral and immediately assume we’re talking about escapism, daydreaming, or some woo-adjacent aesthetic exercise. This misunderstanding alone has probably kneecapped more magical practices than skepticism ever did. The astral temple isn’t a mental vacation home. It’s infrastructure. It’s where ritual coherence is built, where symbolic language gets trained into muscle memory, and where the magician learns how to hold space without relying on external props.

    I’s not “just imagination.” That phrase gets tossed around as if imagination isn’t the primary interface through which magick operates in the first place. The astral plane, however you define it within your cosmology, is the realm of thought, emotion, symbol, and archetype. It has its own logic, its own inhabitants, and its own physics. When you build a temple there with consistency and intention, you’re not pretending something into existence. You’re stabilizing a thoughtform and anchoring it within a larger psychic ecosystem. Treat it like a joke, and it behaves like one. Treat it like sacred architecture, and it starts acting accordingly.

    What makes the astral temple particularly powerful is its reliability. Physical temples are wonderful, but they’re also subject to reality. You need privacy. You need time. You need materials. You need a cooperative living situation. The astral temple doesn’t care if you’re traveling, exhausted, or living in a shoebox with thin walls. It’s always accessible. It becomes a constant point of return; a place where your magical posture stays intact even when life is messy.

    Accessibility is only part of the story. The real work begins when you realize what the act of building the temple actually trains. Visualization is disciplined imagination. It’s the ability to hold detail, maintain symbolic coherence, and sustain focus without drifting off into narrative nonsense. If your inner imagery collapses every time you look away, that’s not a personal failing, but rather it’s a diagnostic tool. The temple shows you, very clearly, where your attention fragments and where your will needs strengthening.

    Over time, the temple develops energetic density. Repetition leaves an imprint. Symbols gain weight. The space starts to feel “occupied” in the way well-used ritual rooms do. This is when the temple begins responding. Spirits recognize it. Archetypal forces behave differently within it. Your own subconscious stops treating it like a thought experiment and starts treating it like a functional environment. Astral work stops feeling abstract and starts feeling… operational.

    This isn’t a replacement for physical magic; It’s an amplifier. A parallel structure. A backstage area where you can test, refine, and rehearse without burning through materials or second-guessing every step. Rituals performed in the astral temple still register. They still affect your psyche, your subtle body, and your energetic field. In some cases, they hit harder because there’s less sensory distraction and more symbolic precision.

    One of the most underrated functions of the astral temple is how it evolves alongside you. This isn’t a static build. It’s a living structure that reflects your initiatory process whether you consciously update it or not. Doors open when something integrates. Altars change when your relationship to a force matures. Entire rooms appear after major breakthroughs. You don’t have to psychoanalyze every change, but you should pay attention.

    Traditionally, inner sanctuaries like this show up everywhere once you know how to look. Hermetic Qabalah maps reality itself as a navigable internal structure, and advanced practitioners don’t just study the Tree of Life, they move through it. Golden Dawn initiations relied heavily on imagined ritual spaces long before students were trusted with physical temple work. Tibetan Buddhism constructs entire deity palaces in meditation, complete with architectural precision, because form itself becomes a vehicle for realization. Shamanic traditions describe inner landscapes with remarkable consistency, passed down through lineage.

    This isn’t a modern invention or a New Age indulgence. It’s a cross-cultural solution to the problem of “how do you create a stable interface between the human psyche and transpersonal forces?”

    Once the temple exists, what you do with it is limited only by your discipline and symbolic fluency. Daily practice becomes possible even when circumstances aren’t ideal. Pathworking and astral travel become safer and more coherent when you’re launching from a familiar, contained environment. Spirit communication becomes clearer when meetings happen in a space that’s already attuned to your magical language. Healing work gains structure instead of dissolving into vague intention-setting. You can use the temple as a testing ground. Before performing a complex physical ritual, run it astrally. You’ll notice immediately where energy snags, where symbolism clashes, or where your confidence falters. That feedback loop alone saves an incredible amount of wasted effort.

    Building the temple doesn’t require artistic genius or encyclopedic symbolism. All it really requires is commitment. Start with a form that actually resonates with you, not one you think you’re “supposed” to use. Classical temple, forest clearing, stone hall, subterranean sanctum… it doesn’t matter as long as it feels symbolically grounded. Early on, simplicity is a strength. Overdesigning is a classic beginner trap.

    Establish basic features with intention. An altar that actually functions as a focal point. Directional markers that anchor elemental forces. Boundaries that define what belongs inside and what doesn’t. Return to it regularly. Walk through it. Interact with it. Engage your senses. Consistency matters more than intensity here.

    At some point, the temple should be inaugurated. Not because it’s dramatic, but because thresholds matter. A dedication ritual marks the space as sacred and signals to your psyche, and anything else listening, that this isn’t casual imagery anymore. From that point forward, treat it accordingly. This is not where random fantasies go to play dress-up. Maintenance is part of the work. Clean the space. Banish what doesn’t belong. Don’t let it stagnate. A neglected astral temple becomes just as useless as a neglected physical one, and often reflects the same internal avoidance patterns.

    As your practice deepens, the temple naturally expands. Libraries appear. Healing chambers form. Ancestor halls, planetary vaults, or shrines to specific forces take shape. Some additions are deliberate; others emerge after initiatory pressure reshapes your inner landscape. Let it happen, but don’t let it sprawl without coherence. Symbolic clutter is still clutter.

    One of the most important roles of the astral temple is how it forges will. Real will, not desire cosplay. Will as the ability to hold intention steady, align internal forces, and act without fragmentation. The temple gives that Will a physicality. Thought becomes architecture. Intention becomes structure. Over time, this bleeds into your outer life in ways that are impossible to fake.

    If the temple is unstable, foggy, or constantly changing without reason, that’s information. It’s showing you where your attention leaks, where your emotional regulation slips, where your symbolic language needs refinement. Fixing the temple fixes more than the temple.

    That said, this kind of work has real pitfalls. When imagination stops being disciplined, the practice slips into escapism, and the power drains right out of it. Invasive thoughtforms become more noticeable as inner perception sharpens. Stagnation sets in when people build the temple once and then abandon it. Symbolic overload happens when everything meaningful gets shoved into the same space without synthesis. None of these are moral failures, but they are maintenance issues.

    The astral temple isn’t separate from you. It’s a reflection of your internal architecture made visible. It is a fortress, a forge, a sanctuary, and sometimes a mirror that doesn’t lie. When cultivated with seriousness and care, it becomes one of the most effective tools for sustained magical work and inner transformation. The astral temple meets you exactly where your discipline is. No more. No less. It waits patiently until you’re ready to step inside and actually build something that lasts.

    ———————————————————————————-

    MONTHLY MINDFULNESS

    (From the Upcoming Walking With the Gods Icon deck – on Kickstarter in May)

    Hades

    The ancient Greek god of the underworld and ruler of the dead. Often misunderstood as a dark or malevolent figure, Hades is, in truth, a solemn and just deity who governs the realm of the afterlife with balance, order, and impartiality. As one of the three great sons of Cronus and Rhea, Hades drew dominion over the unseen world beneath the earth when the cosmos was divided.

    Though rarely worshipped in public temples, Hades was deeply respected and often invoked with reverence and caution. Known as Plouton (“the Wealthy One”) in later times, he was associated not only with death but also with the hidden riches of the earth: precious metals, fertile soil, and the mystery of regeneration. His presence signifies both finality and continuity in the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

    Hades is not a tormentor, but a guardian and keeper of souls. His realm is orderly, and he ensures that all who enter receive what is due. His myth with Persephone, whom he takes as queen, speaks to themes of descent, transformation, and seasonal change. Hades represents the sacred boundary between worlds, the still and enduring force that governs the deep mysteries of life beyond life.

    This card bring to the table the following contemplations:

    What rules, unseen, from the shadows? Acknowledge endings and continuance. The wealth you seek is hidden in shadow, and regeneration is born of stillness. Descent is initiation, and sovereignty through silence. Seek justice without favor. Fear not the threshold where life surrenders to mystery, and mystery returns as life.

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  • Reflection & Release:

    January 1, 2026
    Basics, Rituals

    The Slow, Unsexy Work of Growing Up (Spiritually and Otherwise)

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Everyone says they want growth. Growth sounds great. Growth looks good in bios. Growth gets applause. Growth feels like progress. Reflection? Reflection has a branding problem. Somewhere along the line, it got tangled up with overthinking, self-obsession, or that specific flavor of faux-depth where people stare at their feelings like they’re waiting for them to confess something dramatic. That’s emotional doomscrolling, not reflection. Real reflection is quieter, and less theatrical. That moment you notice a pattern and can’t unsee it. The moment you realize you’ve had the same argument in five different fonts. The moment you catch yourself reacting the same way you always do and think, “oh. There it is again.”

    Reflection isn’t about judging yourself or digging up flaws to fix. It’s about noticing how you actually move through the world when no one’s curating the narrative. What you avoid. What you cling to. What you keep calling “just how I am” even though it’s clearly costing you something. It’s not glamorous, but it’s honest. Honesty is the raw material everything else is built from. Many say they want growth, but what they really want is change without confrontation. They want insight without discomfort. They want transformation that doesn’t require admitting, even privately, that some things they’ve been doing simply don’t work anymore. Reflection interrupts that fantasy. Reflection asks you to slow down and actually look at the shape of your life. Not the version you explain to others, but the one you live in. Sometimes what you see is inconvenient. Sometimes what you see is repetitive. Sometimes it’s painfully human. That’s the point. You can’t change what you refuse to name.

    Once you start noticing patterns, release becomes unavoidable. Release gets romanticized in all the wrong ways. People talk about it like a dramatic exhale, a ceremonial purge, or a big emotional breakthrough where everything suddenly feels light and resolved. In real life, release is usually much quieter and a lot less cinematic. It’s often administrative. It’s deciding not to carry something forward because it’s heavy and no longer useful. It’s closing a tab that’s been draining your battery in the background for years. Release isn’t erasing the past or pretending something didn’t matter. It’s acknowledging that something mattered once and doesn’t need to keep steering the wheel. It’s recognizing when a belief, a habit, a role, or a story did its job and is now overstaying its welcome.

    There’s a lot of pressure to treat release like moral purification, as if letting go means you’ve transcended something, forgiven perfectly, or reached some higher frequency. That’s nonsense. Most of the time, release is just boundaries finally growing teeth. Saying, quietly, “I don’t need to keep paying for this.” A healthy spiritual life depends on that kind of discernment. Without it, practice turns into accumulation. You collect meanings, rituals, identities, and beliefs the way people collect books they swear they’ll reread someday. Eventually, it all gets heavy. Eventually, it stops breathing. Spirituality that can’t let go calcifies. It becomes rigid, defensive, and weirdly fragile. Questioning feels threatening. Change feels like betrayal. Growth starts to look like disloyalty. That’s fear, not depth. A living practice has circulation. It sheds skin. It allows things to die without turning that death into a moral crisis. It understands that what once supported you might one day restrict you. Letting go isn’t abandonment, it’s maintenance.

    Reflection and release work best together, because on their own they both get distorted. Reflection without release turns into endless self-analysis. You notice everything and change nothing. You become very insightful and very stuck. Release without reflection turns into avoidance. You let go of things before you understand them, and they quietly reappear later wearing a different name. When they work together you notice what’s actually going on, then you choose what you’re no longer willing to carry. That choice doesn’t always feel dramatic. Most of the time it shows up in small, almost boring ways. You pause before reacting. You stop overexplaining. You don’t chase the same emotional loops. You rest earlier. You let silence do some of the work. This is the part we don’t glamorize because it doesn’t photograph well. Integration isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It just quietly rearranges your internal furniture, so you stop tripping over the same things.

    Dismantle the idea that growth means constant motion. Constant healing. Constant becoming, as if you’re a project that’s never allowed to be finished. That mindset burns people out fast. It turns self-awareness into surveillance and spirituality into a performance review. Sometimes the most mature thing you can do is stop digging and let what you’ve already learned settle into your bones. There are seasons for excavation and seasons for inhabiting what you’ve uncovered. You’re allowed to stabilize. You’re allowed to plateau. You’re allowed to rest inside your own progress without immediately trying to transcend it. Reflection, at its healthiest, becomes less like interrogation and more like conversation. You learn your own rhythms. You recognize when you’re acting from fear, when you’re tired, when you’re avoiding something, and when you’re actually okay. You stop treating every uncomfortable feeling as a problem to solve and start treating it as information. That builds trust with yourself. Real trust that doesn’t need constant external validation or spiritual theatrics to hold together.

    Release flows naturally from the trust in self. When you know you won’t abandon yourself, letting go stops feeling like a threat. You don’t cling as hard. You don’t force things to stay meaningful past their lifespan. You can say, without bitterness or drama, “This mattered, and now it’s complete.” That’s not cold. It’s respectful. Growth isn’t about becoming someone unrecognizable. Growth is about becoming less tangled. Growth is about becoming less burdened, and reactive. It’s about becoming more honest. More present. More capable of choosing instead of defaulting. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t come with a soundtrack. It doesn’t need an audience. It just quietly changes how you move through your days. You notice when something doesn’t fit anymore. You loosen your grip. You keep going… a little lighter than before.

    That’s the work. Not dramatic. Not performative.
    Just real, lived, ongoing human becoming.

    Mirror of Release

    (This is a less personalized version of a ritual I perform every season. )

    Materials:

    A mirror (bathroom, compact, or black mirror/dedicated magick mirror if you’re fancy like me)

    One candle (any color; intention > aesthetics)

    Something to write with

    2 scraps of paper you don’t mind destroying

    At least 5 uninterrupted minutes (yes, really)

    Ritual:

    Light the candle. Look into the mirror; into your own eyes, and see yourself, accurately. Truthfully. No gloss, no blinders…

    Say out loud, with confidence:

    “I’m here to see what’s real, not what’s comfortable.”

    Hold your own gaze and answer these out loud:

    What did I avoid this year because it scared me? (your answer)

    What did I keep doing that I know doesn’t work? (your answer)

    Where did I betray my own energy, time, or values? (your answer)

    What part of me is tired of pretending this is fine? (your answer)

    No self-flagellation. This isn’t a confession, it’s an internal inventory.

    On one of the pieces of paper, write one sentence that captures the pattern you’re done carrying.
    Example: “I keep over-giving so I don’t have to ask for what I need.”

    Look back into the mirror and say confidently:

    “I see who I’ve been. I choose who I’m becoming.”

    Burn the paper and release it’s hold on your mind. Let it go for it no longer serves you.

    Hold your own gaze and answer these out loud:

    What would future-me thank me for starting now? (your answer)

    What boundary, habit, or truth actually changes the trajectory? (your answer)

    On the other piece of paper, write one clear, doable commitment. Not a glow-up fantasy. A commitment you can accomplish with a bit of applied awareness.

    Example: “I stop explaining myself to people who benefit from misunderstanding me.”

    Hold the second statement to the mirror with your projective* hand and say confidently:

    “Witness this.”

    Read your commitment out loud.

    Blow out the candle and say confidently:

    “I walk forward with my eyes open.”

    Keep your commitment somewhere you can revisit it in times of indescision. Burn it, without ceremony, once it’s job is complete.

    **Projective hand – the hand you would default to for holding a wand, and/or the side you use to send energy.

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  • The Fallow Season:

    December 22, 2025
    Basics, Community

    What Death Teaches Us About Being Alive

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    No one really talks about how walking closely with death makes life louder. Not gentler. Not softer. Louder. Laughter lands heavier in your chest. Warmth feels startling. Joy can sting, like your body isn’t sure it’s allowed to hold that much aliveness at once. Once you’ve spent time with death’s silence, really sat with it, listened to it, everything that still moves feels electric by comparison.

    That’s why I talk about death the way other people talk about the weather. Not to be shocking. Not to be grim. Death changes how you see things. You don’t stand at the edge of endings and come back looking at the world the same way. Blooming flowers stop being decorative and start feeling defiant. Breath stops being automatic and starts feeling sacred.

    In my personal practice, I work with death energies and death-aligned entities. I work with psychopomps, and with their crossroads aspect. The guides, the carriers, the ones who walk with souls at thresholds. I spend time in liminal spaces, where something is no longer alive as it was, but not fully gone either. The places in between, where change hasn’t settled yet, and choice still hums in the air.

    Late autumn into winter makes people deeply uncomfortable. Spring sells hope. Summer sells confidence. Autumn gets an aesthetic. The fallow season, the stretch where everything looks like it’s dying, doesn’t perform. Trees stop trying to impress you. Flowers disappear without apology. The earth stops producing and starts resting. Rotting. Becoming quiet. The world exhales, and if you let yourself follow its lead, so do you.

    We humans, hate that. We hate stillness. We’ll scroll ourselves numb rather than sit long enough to notice the hollow places inside us. Empty feels too close to dead… and dead is a word everyone pretends to understand until it gets uncomfortably close.

    There’s a strange peace in this season. Not the polished kind sold as self-care, but the muddy, compost-scented kind. The kind that reminds you rest is not failure, and decay is not the enemy. Sometimes things have to die, or they rot from the inside instead. You are not meant to bloom all year.

    Death, physical/spiritual/seasonal, is the most honest teacher I’ve ever encountered. It doesn’t flatter you. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t care about your plans, your productivity, or how well you’re performing “having it together.” Death asks one question, over and over: Did you live while you were alive? Not “did you achieve things.” Not “did you stay busy.” Did you actually inhabit your life? Did you feel your body, your breath, your relationships? Did you notice yourself being here?

    Standing near endings changes how you answer that. When you truly sit with the reality that things end, your own breath suddenly feels louder. Stranger. Sacred. Sometimes miraculous. Sometimes uncomfortable. Often both.

    The winter solstice marks the official beginning of the fallow season. The time when the world grows quiet and cold and looks, at first glance, like nothing is happening. I love it because it’s honest about emptiness. It doesn’t distract you or dress endings up as something else. Leaves fall. Fields go bare. Soil stops producing. Everything says, “Pause.” Not forever. Just now. When you unclench, slow down, and let yourself feel the ache of what you’ve lost instead of immediately fixing it. When you stop resisting, something shifts.

     People think death work is only about grief. Grief is part of it, yes. There’s also absurdity, tenderness, dark humor, and a joy that feels almost rebellious. Not the joy of perfect circumstances, but the joy that shows up when you realize life is fragile, unfair, temporary, and still so beautiful it makes your chest ache.

    Death doesn’t remove beauty. It sharpens it. It teaches you to pay attention. You start noticing how warmth feels in your hands. How someone’s laugh changes when it’s genuine instead of polite. The hush before snow falls. The smell of cold earth after rain. The quiet intensity of someone really listening. The sound of your own heartbeat when the world is asleep.

    When I work with death energies, when I stand at crossroads with beings who understand the weight of endings, they don’t tell me to be fearless or enlightened or wise. They tell me to wake up. To stop treating life like a rehearsal I’ll get to redo later. They don’t ask me to stop fearing death. They ask me to stop being afraid of life. That’s why the fallow season feels like an invitation instead of a threat. It whispers, “Come sit with what’s ending.” Not to fix it. Not to rush through it. Just to witness.

    Stillness is uncomfortable. That’s why we stay busy. Busy is armor. Busy keeps you from noticing the loneliness under your ribs, or the way your days have started to blur together. Busy keeps you from admitting you’re tired of pretending. The earth isn’t afraid of endings. It doesn’t cling to summer. It lets leaves fall without drama. Then it does something deeply patient… it turns what died into soil. Into nourishment. Into the conditions for spring. We keep trying to skip that part. We want harvest without winter. Rebirth without decay. Transformation without letting anything die first. Spiritually? Emotionally? Magically? That’s not how it works.

    The world runs on cycles, not straight lines. No spell, no ritual, no manifestation practice will spare us grief, loss, or endings. Those aren’t mistakes. They’re nature.

    Crossroads are messy places. They’re not beginnings or endings. They’re both and neither. They’re transition. Choice. The held breath between steps. In journey work, I often find myself standing there, and death doesn’t always appear as something grim or ominous. Sometimes it feels like quiet hands. Like someone turning down the noise so you can finally hear yourself again. That silence feels like kindness.

    We’re taught that life and death are opposites. I don’t believe that. I think the opposite of death is denial. Numbness. Refusing to feel. Real life, life that warms your chest and makes your teeth hurt a little, only shows up when you stop running from what scares you.

    Which brings me back to the fallow season. This season isn’t dead. It’s preparing. Under frozen ground, seeds are holding their breath. Roots are conserving strength. Animals burrow down not because they’re weak, but because they’re wise. The world isn’t gone. It’s gathering itself.

    What if humans did the same?

    What if rest wasn’t punishment?

    What if quiet wasn’t failure?

    What if you let part of your life go fallow, not permanently, just long enough to breathe?

    Living in alignment with death (seasonally, spiritually, magically) doesn’t make you morbid. It makes you grateful in a way nothing else does. You realize joy doesn’t have to be loud, it just has to be real. You learn that some things can end and still be sacred. That some doors close because you’re meant to walk somewhere darker and deeper before the path rises again. That love hurts precisely because everything ends, and that’s also what makes it precious. Death work doesn’t make you fearless. It makes you brave enough to love things you know won’t last.

    Working with death-aligned energies taught me that these forces aren’t interested in fear or worship. They’re interested in truth. They don’t ask you to bow. They ask you to notice that you’re still breathing and not waste it. When I journey with them, I don’t come back with “everything will be fine.” I come back with something truer, “everything ends”, and that’s why it matters. Strangely, that makes life feel softer. Not easier… softer. Like something worth touching instead of rushing past. We resist that wisdom. We want to be spring all the time. Blooming. Thriving. Producing proof we’re doing life correctly. Nothing in nature functions that way. Perpetual summer is a desert. Endless blooming is rot. Even stars collapse.

    Why do we think we should be different?

    This is why burnout happens. Why people feel hollow even when their lives look fine. Why grief hits like a truck. We were taught to love what stays, not what ends. Death work, winter, and decay teach you how to love things because they end. Loss still hurts, but it hurts cleaner. Not festering, but rather in a way that cracks you open and lets more light in. Death made me fall in love with life. Not because it’s pretty, but because it’s temporary. That’s what makes it sacred.

    The fallow season offers permission. Permission to not be blooming. To lay down what’s heavy. To let exhausted parts of yourself die. Permission to not be useful, impressive, or “on.” Permission to rest without earning it. You are part of nature too, and nature rests. If death has taught me anything, it’s that life isn’t something you can hoard. You can only live it now, messily, honestly, with dirty hands and laughter that sometimes sounds like crying.

    When things go quiet inside you, don’t panic. You’re not broken. You’re in a season. Let yourself be fallow. Sit with what’s ending. Bury what’s dead. Light a candle for who you used to be. Stand at the crossroads without rushing through it. There are lessons in thresholds you can’t learn anywhere else.

    When the frost melts, when the light returns, when something small inside you stirs and whispers “maybe,” you’ll rise. Not because you forced yourself to, but because you honored the dying first.

    Death isn’t the opposite of life. It’s what shapes it.

    Life is a miracle, not because it lasts forever, but because it doesn’t.

    Blessed Solstice to you all!

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  • Lines in the Sand:

    December 4, 2025
    Basics, Community, Dreams/Oracle/Divination

    Power, Consent, and Energetic Boundaries in Magick

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Magick is a game of power. That’s the truth. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you a personality cult. Power isn’t dirty. It’s not inherently corrupt. But it can get real messy, real fast. Power, consent, and boundaries aren’t just buzzwords. They are the sacred infrastructure that keeps your practice from turning into an energetic mosh pit of chaos, co-dependence, and crap you didn’t sign up for.

    Consent Matters, Always

    Somewhere along the way, folks forgot that magick isn’t just “talking at the universe”, it’s a conversation. That means everyone involved deserves consent. You wouldn’t (hopefully) walk into someone’s house, light incense, and start asking for favors without checking if they were cool with it. So why do we treat spirits, deities, ancestors, or energetic forces like magical vending machines? Consent goes both ways. You don’t just give it, you ask for it. Before you summon. Before you invoke. Before you start channeling random cosmic energies just because the vibes are spooky on a Tuesday.

    Spiritual Vampires Are Real (And Sometimes They’re You)

    Let’s get uncomfortable for a second. Sometimes the boundary violating force isn’t some external parasite, it’s you, chasing energy without clarity or connection. Casting from desperation. Leaking power through neediness or clinging to someone else’s field because your own feels like wet cardboard. We’ve all done it. The key is owning it, not wallowing in shame. Recognize when you’re trying to siphon instead of summon. When you’re clinging instead of calling. That’s not magick, it’s spiritual codependency dressed up in ritual robes and a Scooby mask, trying to convince the spirits it’s the High Priest of Atlantis.

    Also, if someone always leaves you feeling like a magically mugged tourist, that’s a red flag, not a bonding experience. Boundaries are how we keep our spiritual energy sovereign, not as a wall, but as a perimeter. You don’t owe anyone your field, and no one owes you theirs.

    Boundries Protect you

    If you’ve ever been told to “stay open to receive whatever the universe wants to send you,” please allow me to lovingly scream… NO. Being open doesn’t mean being unfiltered. That’s how you catch psychic infections, uninvited attachments, and random astral nonsense that acts like a spiritual raccoon rifling through your subconscious trash.

    Have boundaries around your channel. Set the terms. Think of it like magical plumbing, you want a controlled flow, not a backed up system. It’s okay to say, “Only entities in alignment with my highest good may speak.” or, “No, that naked full moon dance is not an excuse for possession.”

    Not every being you encounter is your friend. Not every force you feel is benevolent. Not every spirit wants what’s best for you, no matter how shiny they seem. Spirits, like people, have their own agendas, and sometimes those agendas are just as petty, selfish, or chaotic as your least favorite ex. Some genuinely want to help. Some want worship. Some are bored out of their incorporeal minds and think keeping you confused and engaged is the best entertainment they’ve had since the Black Plague. Just because something is non-corporeal doesn’t mean it’s all-knowing or all-wise. Some spirits are the cosmic equivalent of Reddit trolls with glowy auras. Keep your discernment dialed up, and don’t assume a spirit’s presence means it has your best interest at heart.

    Discernment isn’t paranoia. It’s self-respect. Before you hand over your energy, your trust, or your altar space, ask some damn questions:

    Who are you?

    What do you want?

    Why me?

    What’s the cost?

    If you’re afraid to ask, that’s already a red flag. Spirits that demand blind faith are no better than living cult leaders.

    Holding Power ≠ Playing God

    Just because you can influence a situation doesn’t mean you should. Magick isn’t a free pass to play puppet master, it’s a responsibility. With power comes the need for integrity, not just clever spellcraft. Ask yourself if you acting with accountability. Are you considering the ripple effects, or just casting for convenience? Real power isn’t just about effect, it’s about ownership. Responsibility means you’re not just cleaning up after your workings but taking care not to make a mess in the first place. Integrity means your actions align with your values, not your ego. Accountability is what makes your power trustworthy to spirits, to others, and to yourself. Power without ethics is just magical bullying. Before you proceed, ask yourself:

    Am I solving or controlling?

    Am I acting from fear or clarity?

    Do I have the full picture or just my version of it?

    You’re allowed to wield power. You’re also responsible for what that power does when it ripples through other people’s lives. This isn’t about some 3-fold, 7-fold, or 10-fold nonsense, It’s just basic logic. Actions have consequences, and magick is an action. Every working is a choice you make that moves energy through the world. Pretending it doesn’t come with impact is like throwing a brick into a pond and acting surprised by the splash. Responsibility means you own your spellcraft like you own your shadow. Integrity means you don’t hide behind “just following spirit” when the outcome is messy. Accountability is what keeps your practice from turning into a mystical poster child for poor impulse control.

    Energy Hygiene

    You wash your hands after a messy meal. You should cleanse your field after a messy ritual. If you’re doing heavy energy work, banishing, hexing, deep ancestral stuff, possession rituals, etc… cleanse yourself. Ground. Close the door you opened. Think of it as aftercare for your soul. You wouldn’t leave the ritual version of open-heart surgery without stitching things up, right? Energy hygiene also means noticing when your field is off and doing something about it. That might be a simple breathwork session. It might be a banishing. It might be screaming into a pillow and then drinking water like it’s holy. Whatever works. Just do something.

    Sacred ‘No’

    You don’t owe anyone your participation. Not in ritual. Not in pathwork. Not in energy exchanges that make your skin crawl. Saying no is magick. It’s a boundary that affirms your power. It’s a ward in word form. It’s often the only thing standing between you and energetic garbage that would love to nest in your aura like it’s rent-controlled. Say it. Say it loud. Say it with your whole chest:

    No, I don’t want to do group trancework with that guy who smells like patchouli and manipulation.

    No, I’m not interested in merging energy fields “for healing.”

    No, I will not “just open up and see what comes through.”

    No is a whole sentence. It doesn’t require justification, elaboration, or a PowerPoint presentation. No is sacred. Use it.

    Power Can Be Shared, But Not Stolen

    The best magickal communities are ones built on mutual respect and energetic consent. Not forced merging. Not weird hierarchies. Not one High Priestess to rule them all. When power is shared, it flows. When power is hoarded, it rots. If someone’s constantly taking, constantly draining, or constantly controlling, that’s not leadership. That’s theft with candles. Trust your gut. If it feels off, it is. If it feels like control dressed as guidance, it probably is. You’re not imagining it. Power can be communal without being codependent. It can be collective without being culty. That’s the balance.

    You Don’t Need Permission To Protect Yourself

    Let’s say that again, and louder for those in the back… You do not need spiritual permission to set boundaries, say no, ward your space, or tell a being (incarnate or otherwise) to get the hell out.

    You’re allowed to defend your field. You’re allowed to shield. You’re allowed to shut the door. You are not obligated to be “open” just because someone tells you it’s more spiritual. You are not failing if you prioritize your safety over someone else’s expectations. Magick is your right, and so is safety. Do not fear advocating for yourself. If you do feel fear in doing so, that’s not a spiritual failing, that’s a sign. It means remove yourself from the situation as quickly and safely as you can. You don’t have to explain, justify, or negotiate your right to feel safe, you just have to honor it.

    All the ritual, all the spells, all the cosmic mojo in the world won’t mean jack if your boundaries look like wet paper. Your power needs a vessel. Your vessel needs boundaries. Your boundaries need consent. This isn’t about being rigid. It’s about being sovereign. You don’t build walls, you build clarity. You don’t shut everything out, you decide what gets in. You are not just a channel. You are a force. Treat your energy like it matters. Because it does.

    Monthly Mindfulness – for December 2025

    (From the upcoming Walking With the Gods icon deck)

    Aphrodite

    The ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty, desire, fertility, and sensuality. Revered across the Hellenic world, she embodies both physical attraction and the creative force of life itself. Often depicted emerging from the sea, fully formed and breathtaking, Aphrodite’s mythical birth from the foam of the sea (aphros) ties her to elemental forces of nature and the mysterious power of creation.

    She governs not just romantic and erotic love but also charm, pleasure, and the harmonizing influence of beauty in both humans and nature. Her presence was believed to soften hearts and inspire longing, not only among mortals but even among gods. While she is often portrayed as gentle and enchanting, Aphrodite also held a fierce, commanding power, capable of causing turmoil through jealousy, unrequited love, and irresistible passion.

    She is beauty that binds and burns, desire that creates and consumes. She is love as power, pleasure as law, harmony as enchantment. She is the allure that softens hearts, the charm that stirs gods, and the passion that topples reason. She teaches sovereignty through longing, creation through attraction, and the sacred force of the heart unveiled.

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  • Everything Is Conscious & You’re Part of the Chorus

    November 25, 2025
    Basics, Ceremonial, Chaos, Community, Dreams/Oracle/Divination

    The world view I approach magick (and life) from

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Holistic panpsychism, when you strip it down to something you can actually say out loud without sounding like you’re about to hand someone a pamphlet, becomes pretty simple. At its core, it’s the idea that consciousness is built into everything. Not thoughts. Not personalities. Not conversations with your blender. More in the vein that every part of reality has an interior. A way it experiences being itself. It might be tiny. It might be simple. It might be nothing like you. But it’s not zero.

    When you connect enough of those interior experiences together, you get something more. The same way you aren’t just one cell, or a hundred cells, or even a trillion cells, but a whole person whose consciousness emerges from all that interaction. Holistic panpsychism says the world works like that at every level. Little bits of experience forming bigger experiences, forming bigger ones still. Like layers of awareness you can zoom in and out of.

    This is the part where someone always says, “So what, the rock is alive now?” in a tone that suggests they think they’ve debunked the whole thing. No, a rock doesn’t have opinions. A rock isn’t watching Netflix when you’re not looking. But… the rock isn’t empty. There’s something it’s like to be that rock. Something incredibly simple and unimaginably different, but still something. Sacking millions of those somethings together makes the world feel the way it feels.

    When you take this idea and set it next to animism, the way many cultures have always understood the world, something shifts. Suddenly it stops looking like a brand-new theory. Instead, it feels like philosophy finally catching up to the lived experience of basically all of humanity prior to industrialized skepticism.

    Animism says the world is full of beings, only some of whom are human. When you talk to a river or treat a mountain with respect or make an offering to a plant before you harvest it, you’re not performing a symbolic act. You’re engaging with something that has presence. Not necessarily a “spirit” with a name and hobbies and a favorite color, but a being. A something… a someone in the broadest sense.

    Holistic panpsychism and animism are looking at the same world. One is using philosophy to describe the structure of consciousness. The other is using relationship. Let’s say you’re in a forest. You’re not just surrounded by organisms. You’re inside a presence. It’s in the way the air feels. The way the light hits the ground. The way the silence shifts when you move. The forest isn’t conscious the way a human is. It’s conscious the way a forest is. Your job isn’t to translate it into something familiar. It’s to recognize that a different form of consciousness doesn’t make it less real.

    This is where most people struggle. We’ve been trained to think consciousness comes out of brains and only brains. Historically speaking, that’s a weird idea. That’s like assuming only guitars can make music, so if you hear drums or flutes or someone humming, you tell them they’re imagining it. Animism is a drum. Panpsychism is a hum. Occultism is the improvisation you do once you realize the world is full of instruments.

    Magick makes a lot more sense in a world where everything has an interior life. You’re not pushing physical objects around with invisible forces. You’re engaging with presences. Aligning yourself with them. Communicating through symbols, gestures, and ritual acts. If you accept that the universe is conscious in some form, magick stops being supernatural and starts being social.

    Think about intention. In a dead universe, your intention is just a private thought. It doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t matter unless you act on it physically. In a conscious universe, intention is like a ripple in a field. It interacts with everything else in the field. It’s not a command. It’s a signal. A request. A shift. What responds is whatever form of consciousness your signal touches.

    That includes the spirits people work with. Not all spirits are the same kind of being. Some might be the presence of a place, the collective awareness of a forest, or river, or storm. Some might be ancestral, the layered memory of lives lived before. Some might be archetypal, built from human experience woven into forms larger than any individual. Some might be independent, beings that exist because consciousness exists in more ways than we have names for. Panpsychism doesn’t rule these out; it actually makes them easier to understand. If consciousness is fundamental, then beings that aren’t tied to bodies aren’t breaking any rules. They’re just different kinds of participants.

    Because animism focuses on relationship instead of category, it doesn’t particularly care what kind of being a spirit is. It cares how you engage with it. Respect, reciprocity, and responsibility aren’t moral decorations. They’re the etiquette of interacting with a world full of subjects instead of objects. If you treat everything like an object, you eventually end up feeling alone because you’ve defined yourself as the only someone in a world of not-someones. If you treat the world like a gathering, you stop feeling isolated because you’re not an island anymore. You don’t need philosophy to feel that, but philosophy can give you language for why those intuitions feel right.

    When you sit with this worldview for long enough it stops being quiet. Not in the auditory sense. You’re not suddenly hearing whispers from tree branches. It’s more that the world starts to feel like something you’re inside, rather than something you’re observing from a distance. You walk differently. You listen differently. You start noticing how places have moods the same way people do. Not metaphors. Moods.

    Some places are welcoming. Some are wary. Some feel ancient, others feel young. Some feel like they’re waking up, others feel like they’re exhausted. Once you accept that these sensations might be real perceptions instead of imagination, you start forming relationships with places the same way you would with people. Not because you’re romanticizing nature, but because you’re finally treating your perception as a form of interaction rather than a glitch.

    Magick is a way of deepening those relationships. It is an extension of listening. You’re not commanding anything. You’re participating. You’re speaking in a language made of gesture, intention, and presence.

    Holistic panpsychism helps you understand why that language works. Animism teaches you how to speak it. The occult gives you tools to speak it fluently.

    I think one of the most important parts of all this is the way it shifts ethics. If everything has interiority, then everything is part of a shared moral field. I don’t mean morality in the right and wrong, or heaven and hell sense. I mean morality in the relational sense. When you take something, you’re affecting someone. When you leave something, you’re affecting someone. When you enter a place, you’re entering someone’s presence. When you act, you’re creating ripples in a field of other beings.

    It doesn’t mean you can’t live your life or make decisions that favor yourself. It just means you’re not doing it in a vacuum. It’s the difference between thinking you’re walking through an empty house and realizing you’re walking through a house where people are sleeping in the other rooms. You move differently. Not out of fear. Out of awareness.

    People didn’t develop animism because they were naïve. They developed it because they were paying attention. The land behaved like a presence. Weather behaved like a presence. Objects behaved like presences. Animals behaved like people. Spirits behaved like neighbors. Reality behaved like a community. Panpsychism is what you get when you reverse engineer that experience using philosophy instead of relationship.

    The irony is hard to miss. Philosophy spent centuries insisting the world was dead matter and only humans had consciousness. Now the cutting edge of consciousness studies is quietly backing away from that claim like someone who just realized they’ve been confidently giving the wrong directions for twenty minutes. There’s something deeply grounding about seeing animism and panpsychism meet in the middle. One comes from lived experience. The other comes from conceptual analysis. Yet, they still end up describing the same thing, a world that isn’t silent. A world that isn’t indifferent. A world that isn’t purely mechanical. A world that has a sort of layered selfhood.

    Occult practice is a bridge between them. It’s the art of living as though the world is conscious, not just in a poetic sense, but in a literal, practical one. It’s choosing to communicate, to listen, to build relationships, and to collaborate with the presence that moves through everything.

    Once you start living like that, even a little, it becomes very difficult to go back to pretending the world is just a collection of objects. The presence seeps in. The awareness shows up in the corners. The land feels different. Your tools feel different. Your magick feels different. Even your sense of self feels less like a sealed container and more like something porous, connected, influenced, and influencing. You stop being a lonely point in space and become a participant in something vast.

    Panpsychism doesn’t just make the universe interesting; it makes it intimate. Animism doesn’t just make the world magical; it makes it personal. The occult doesn’t just give you techniques; it gives you a way to navigate life in a universe that’s not empty.

    Once you start seeing the world as conscious, not metaphorically but actually, genuinely conscious, the whole structure of magick shifts. It stops being this thing you do to the world and starts being something you do with the world. Kind of like the difference between pushing a chair across the floor and dancing with another person. When you’re pushing a chair, the chair isn’t participating. When you’re dancing, everything depends on how the other being responds. Even if your partner doesn’t speak your language, the rhythm itself becomes the conversation.

    Magick in a panpsychist, animistic worldview becomes a kind of choreography. You’re not the puppet master, you’re the partner. The world isn’t raw material. It’s a participant in your intention. You set the movement in motion, but the universe is the one who decides which direction the current will pull. You learn to feel for that current. You learn to cooperate with it instead of trying to bulldoze your will through it.

    That alone changes spellwork massively. If you were taught magick in the “command reality with your iron will” style, the kind that treats the universe like a customer service desk for your desires, this worldview shifts things. It doesn’t do it with force. It just quietly and gently rearranges everything you thought you were doing. You stop seeing spellwork as an act of forcing something to happen and start treating it like a request, or even better, a relationship negotiation.

    Imagine approaching a spell the way you’d approach asking a friend for help. Not demanding. Not manipulating. Just showing up honestly with your intention, offering something of your own energy, listening for what they’re willing to do in return. That “listening” is the part most people skip without realizing it. They cast the spell and never stop to feel whether the presence they’re engaging with is saying yes, or no, or “not like that,” or “you’re missing the point entirely.”

    When spellwork becomes relational, you start noticing who and what you’re actually working with. The candle isn’t just wax and wick anymore. The flame has a presence. The air that holds the smoke participates. The herbs aren’t “ingredients”; they’re little packets of concentrated personality. A plant that grew under harsh sunlight has a different tone than one that grew in shade. A dried herb taken too early has a sharpness. One taken after blooming has a kind of melancholy sweetness. They respond differently when you call on them. You notice because you pay attention differently.

    Sigils, too, stop being “symbols that represent my intention” and become more like vessels you’re giving a job to. You’re not forcing your will into the sigil. You’re waking up an expression of will that already exists in the field and channeling it through that form. You can feel the difference immediately. One feels like shouting into a void. The other feels like dialing a number and having someone pick up on the second ring.

    Even the timing of spellwork changes. In an animistic, panpsychist world, a full moon isn’t just a chunk of rock reflecting sunlight. It’s a shift in the consciousness of the entire field. The tide inside you and the tide inside the world move in sync. When you throw your intention into that, you’re not harnessing “energy” in some vague, abstract way. You’re aligning yourself with a presence that’s already moving. You’re swimming with the current instead of against it.

    Divination changes even more dramatically. Most people think of divination as decoding symbols through pulling tarot cards, interpreting runes, watching how wax spills or smoke curls. In this worldview, you’re not decoding anything. You’re conversing. The cards aren’t random. The runes aren’t random. The pattern of tea leaves isn’t random. Randomness only exists in a universe without consciousness. Once consciousness is everywhere, what looks like randomness is more like a language the universe uses to talk indirectly.

    It’s a lot like when someone’s face gives away what they’re thinking even though they’re not saying anything. Divination is that. You’re reading the expressions of a world that has moods, intentions, warnings, and invitations. You ask a question, and the universe answers in whatever symbolic channel you’ve opened.

    Because the universe isn’t an object to be interrogated but a presence to be approached, the tone of your divination changes. You start each reading with verification of consent rather than demands. The world responds better when you’re actually listening, not demanding certainty. Sometimes the answer is blunt. Sometimes it’s cryptic. Sometimes it dodges the question entirely because you’re asking the wrong thing. You learn to hear that silence. You learn to interpret a refusal. You learn to feel when the cards are answering and when they’re just reflecting your own anxiety back at you.

    Relationship with land gets even more interesting. Once you accept that land has interiority, not just ecological complexity, but genuine presence, stepping into a place becomes stepping into someone’s home. You can feel the difference between a place that’s indifferent to you and one that’s curious, or welcoming, or irritated, or tired, or closed off. You stop assuming you have automatic rights to every piece of ground you walk on. You start asking permission silently without even thinking about it. You start offering gratitude more casually, not because you’re trying to “raise your frequency” or whatever, but because it feels rude not to.

    Over time, you build actual relationships with places. The grove you walk through regularly starts to feel familiar, like a friend whose silence you know as well as their speech. The stretch of river you visit stops feeling like scenery and starts feeling like a presence you’re checking in on. You start learning the moods of the storm season, not scientifically or astrologically, but relationally. Understanding when the storm wants to be witnessed and when it wants to be left alone.

    Your tools change too. Once you stop seeing them as objects, they start behaving differently. A knife you use only for ritual work starts to hold the tone of that work because it has a history of intentionality with you. It becomes a partner in whatever you’re doing. Light a candle enough times in intentional contexts and that candleholder begins to feel alert the moment you pick it up. A deck of tarot cards gets a personality over time, not a mystical spirit but an emergent tone from its countless moments of being used in relationship with you. Objects develop familiarity, quirks, and preferences.

    Spirits become far less mysterious in a universe like this. Not because they stop being strange, but because they stop feeling like intruders. In a world where consciousness is everywhere, spirits are just another form of consciousness wearing a shape you didn’t grow up expecting. Some are the presence of places. Some are the accumulated memory of ancestors. Some are beings that coalesce from human intention, or emotion, or collective stories. Some existed long before humans did. Some don’t care about humans at all.

    The point is, it stops being a binary question of “are spirits real or imaginary?” and becomes “what kind of presence am I dealing with here, and how do I build a relationship with it?” You’re not summoning something unnatural; you’re communicating with someone who was already there. That “someone” can be anything from a tiny, flickering personality that lives in the corner of your house to a vast, weather system sized consciousness that only brushes against your awareness when conditions line up just right.

    Magick becomes less about control and more about diplomacy. Divination becomes less about fortune-telling and more about conversation. Land becomes less about scenery and more about relationship. Tools become less about function and more about partnership. Spirits become less about superstition and more about presence. The world stops sounding like static, and starts sounding like someone humming in another room. Not loudly. Not in words. Just enough that you know you’re not alone.

    Once you start living in a universe where consciousness is everywhere, things change. Not metaphorically or poetically, but literally threaded through the fabric of everything. In that kind of world, spirits stop behaving like mysterious, unpredictable forces and start behaving more like… people. Not human people. Just beings with their own internal logic.

    You notice pretty quickly that spirits respond differently based on how you approach them. In a materialist mindset, people try to summon spirits like they’re ordering food. “I want this. Bring this. Do this.” The result, unsurprisingly, is usually nothing or chaos. In an animistic mindset, you approach a spirit the way you approach anyone who exists; as a center of awareness, not a tool. With respect. With listening. With curiosity. With a willingness to be told no.

    When you approach a spirit like that, they actually respond. They become consistent. They become steady. They show up. They show interest. Not necessarily in the dramatic Hollywood way, but in the sense that their presence becomes recognizable. Familiar. Relational.

    A spirit that once felt distant becomes warmer. A spirit that once felt confusing becomes clearer. Even the ones that are enormous or ancient or fundamentally alien start to feel like you’re navigating a real relationship instead of a guessing game. You start knowing what a “yes” feels like. What a “no” feels like. What a “not right now” feels like. You stop second-guessing every sensation because you’ve learned how each presence communicates.

    Some spirits communicate like a breeze shifting. Some communicate like a weight settling behind you. Some feel like the quiet alertness of a wild animal watching you from the edges. Some feel like a pressure in the air. Some feel like emotion rising from nowhere. Some feel like a thought that doesn’t come from your own inner voice/movie but still flows through the same channel. Because you’re no longer expecting communication to sound like a human conversation, you notice the subtler forms you were missing.

    It’s like learning the social cues of someone whose culture you weren’t raised in. At first you misunderstand everything. After enough time together, you know when they’re teasing, when they’re serious, when they want to help, when they want to be left alone, and when they’re testing you to see who you really are.

    Tools change in a similar way. A ritual blade, a chalice, a wand, a rosary, a bag of stones, a deck of cards, they start out as objects. Once you’ve worked with them long enough, especially in a world soaked in consciousness, they stop being neutral. They accumulate tone. They accumulate presence. They accumulate the memory of every intentional moment you’ve shared with them.

    At first, that presence is tiny, just a little flicker of familiarity. Then one day you go to pick up your ritual knife and you feel that the knife is very aware of what you’re about to do. Not like it has a human mind. More like it has a direction. A readiness. A role. It’s as if the object has its own posture. Its own stance in the work.

    Some tools become sharp-tempered. Some become calm and grounding. Some are eager, almost impatient. Some are solemn. And some… some are picky. They want to be used in certain ways and not others, and you learn that the hard way if you ignore their preference. Not because the tool will curse you or anything dramatic. More like the work will fall flat, or the atmosphere around you will feel wrong, or the tool will simply resist being used until you understand the boundary.

    Divination gets even stranger, and more accurate. Once you stop thinking of divination as you vs. random chance, and start thinking of it as conversation with a conscious reality, everything sharpens. Your readings stop being vague. The symbols stop wobbling. You stop pulling “confusing” spreads, because you’re not interpreting the cards alone anymore; you’re interpreting them while the world is actively helping you speak its language.

    The cards become alive with nuance. They lean into meanings you can feel rather than decipher. Sometimes a card practically throws itself out of the deck because the universe is done being subtle. Sometimes the whole reading comes in with a tone. It might be stern, gentle, amused, warning, or even sad. It feels as if the presence you’re speaking with is expressing emotion through your tools.

    Sometimes you ask a question and a silence falls. The heavy silence that only shows up when you’ve asked something you’re not meant to know yet. That silence becomes just as informative as any card you could pull.

    You stop doubting your intuition because the universe stops treating you like you’re interrogating it; instead, you’re part of a dialogue. Like any good dialogue, the clarity improves when the relationship deepens.

    Then there’s land. Land doesn’t feel like dirt and rock. It feels like someone. Not a humanoid someone. Not a “spirit of the land” in a fantasy-novel sense. Just… a presence with layers.

    A hill feels different from a valley in a way that goes beyond temperature or wind. A forest feels different from a field in a way that goes beyond ecology. A river can feel curious, or protective, or tired, or agitated. You can stand in one spot and feel welcomed, then take three steps to the left and feel like you’ve crossed an invisible boundary where the atmosphere changes.

    When you visit the same land repeatedly, something even more interesting happens. The land starts recognizing you. The land begins responding when you arrive. There’s a subtle shift, the breeze changes, or the pressure in the air softens, or animals behave just slightly differently. Not big fairytale princess effects, just an awareness. Like someone turning their head when a familiar person walks into the room.

    Over months or years, that recognition deepens into something like affection. The land starts taking care of you, not through miracles, but through nudges. You notice you always find the right herbs at the right time. You always feel grounded when you’re overwhelmed. You always get warned when something is off. You start having an internal map of the place that isn’t just topography… it’s emotional, relational, and conversational.

    Offerings change tone too. In a world without animism can feel like bribery. “I give you this so you give me that.” Once you accept that you’re interacting with a conscious universe, offerings become more like hospitality. Like bringing a small gift when visiting someone you care for. There’s no payment. No trade. It’s gratitude. It’s respect. It’s saying, “I recognize you. I value you. I acknowledge the relationship we already have.”

    The offerings themselves shift. You start feeling what the land likes. Sometimes a spirit responds more to sound than objects. Sometimes pouring clean water into thirsty soil says more than lighting a candle ever could. Sometimes the land wants a moment of silence more than any physical item. Sometimes an ancestor wants the smell of food but not the food itself. Sometimes a spirit wants you to leave something living instead of leaving something dead. Sometimes all they want is a few minutes of your attention with no agenda at all.

    Offerings stop being transactions and start being conversations. “Here’s something that feels right for you”, and the universe responds with, “I noticed.”

    It all comes down to relationship. When the world is conscious, magick is relationship. Divination is relationship. Spirits are relationship. Tools are relationship. Land is relationship. Offerings are relationship.

    Relationship builds depth. Depth builds clarity. Clarity builds trust. Trust builds an entire spiritual life where nothing is inert, nothing is isolated, nothing is meaningless, and nothing is ever truly silent.

    With the Holidays Around the Corner

    Art, shirts, pint glasses, mugs, books, and oracle decks always make great gifts!

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    Thank you for supporting independent artists & authors.

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  • Ritual or Performance?

    November 18, 2025
    Basics, Ceremonial, Chaos, Community, Rituals, Uncategorized

    Stop Auditioning for the Gods

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Let’s talk about stage fright, the kind that hits when you step into ritual space and suddenly feel like the gods are judging your pronunciation, your robe, and your dollar store votives.

    Ever found yourself treating ritual like a Broadway audition? Scripted lines, dramatic pauses, and the creeping sense that you’re not quite holy enough to pull this off? This is a clear sign of being stuck in performance mode.

    Performance is about impressing. Ritual is about connecting. When you start treating every spell like a show, your focus shifts. It’s no longer about communion, transformation, or intention…it’s about whether you “look” magical. Whether the aesthetic will get reactions on Instagram. Whether the spirits are giving you a standing ovation.

    Spirits don’t care about your performance. They care about your presence. They care whether you show up honestly, not whether your robes are steamed or your incantation rhymes.

    The circle isn’t a spotlight. It’s a container. It’s where magick happens, not where you prove you’re good at it.If you find yourself performing in ritual, pausing for effect, worrying about how you sound, or adjusting your movements for dramatic flair, you should ask “who is this for?” The gods already know who you are. The spirits already see past the pageantry. You don’t have to impress them.

    When Ritual Becomes Theater

    There’s a reason so many magical traditions use drama… it works. Symbolic movement, language, and costuming can be powerful tools for altering consciousness and raising energy. The problem shows up when the ritual becomes only theater, when the actions are hollow, when the focus is on aesthetics rather than intention. Are you conjuring, or cosplaying? Ritual theater is fine. Beautiful, even. Let it be a means, not the end.

    Much of the performance mindset comes from fear. Fear of getting it wrong. Fear of offending the spirits. Fear of looking silly.

    So… we script everything. We over rehearse. We try to sound mystical instead of sincere. In doing so, we lose the magick.

    Magick doesn’t require perfection. It requires engagement. It requires you to be in it, heart, breath, sweat, nerves, and all. It’s hard to channel spirit while policing your posture. You can’t open your heart if you’re worried about your lines.

    The Aesthetic Trap

    We live in a world where everything is a photo op. Your altar. Your tools. Your rituals. While beauty has its place in the sacred, it can uplift, inspire, and focus energy, it’s also easy to fall into the trap of curating rather than conjuring. If you’re more focused on how your ritual looks than what it does, you’re in performance mode.

    Magic is not a vibe. It’s a verb.

    Breaking out of Performance

    Ways you can shake off the performance energy and get back to the work:

    Strip it down. Do a ritual with no tools, no script, no costume. Just you, your breath, your intention.

    Improvise. Speak from the heart. Make it messy. Let it be real.

    Focus inward. Close your eyes. Stop worrying about what anything looks like. Tune into how it feels.

    Talk to the spirits like they’re real. Because they are. They don’t need you to be dramatic, they need you to be present.

    The Risk of Vulnerability

    Performing is safe. Vulnerability is not. Performance gives you a mask. It lets you hide. Real ritual, the kind that shakes you, remakes you, moves something, that requires showing up as yourself. You might stutter. You might cry. You might say the wrong word. Good. Let it happen.

    The gods don’t want your script. They want you.

    Group Ritual & the Temptation to Perform

    In group settings, performance pressure multiplies.

    Suddenly, your magical peers are an audience. You want to sound wise. You want your invocation to impress. You want to look the part.

    Don’t.

    Model authenticity. Model imperfection. Let others see that it’s okay to stumble, to speak from the gut instead of the glossary. If your group is more focused on choreography than connection, it’s time for a serious chat.

    Real magick looks like a shaking voice, a cluttered space, or a moment of doubt followed by sudden clarity. It’s the candle that won’t light until you stop trying so hard.

    Magick isn’t always pretty. It’s raw. It’s weird. It resists polish. Let it be awkward. Let it be clumsy. That’s where power lives, in the cracks that show our humanity.

    Burn the Script

    You don’t need to audition for the gods. You don’t need to impress your spirits. You don’t need to be the most mystical voice in the room. You just need to show up. Honestly. Fully. Without the need to perform. Step into the circle with all your human mess. Light the candle. Speak the truth. Let the ritual carry you.

    The gods aren’t critics. They’re co-creators.

    And they already said yes to you.

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  • Accursed Perfectionism

    November 14, 2025
    Basics, Ceremonial, Community

    Stop Trying to Know Everything Before You Do Anything

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Stuck in magical inertia? Or are you trapped in the hole of perfectionism? You know… You’ve got shelves full of grimoires, bookmarked PDFs, annotated tarot books, and an entire playlist of podcasts called things like “Quantum Mysticism and the Alembic of Being.” You’ve done all the prep work, all the studying, all the theory. But… Your altar is still dusty. Your candles are unlit. You haven’t done a ritual since last Beltane. Why? Because deep down, you’re convinced you need to know everything before you can do anything.

    Your Ego Lies to Avoid Risk

    You’re never going to know it all. Thank the gods for that, because if magick came with a final exam, most of us would flunk. Competence addiction is perfectionism with a library card. It feels virtuous, but it’s cowardice in ceremonial costuming. Reading about magick and knowing the historical context of a spell doesn’t replace doing it.  

    Many get trapped in this form of perfectionism because they’re scared. Scared of doing it wrong. Scared of looking foolish. Scared of getting real results. So, they hide behind research. They study and study and study, hoping that if they just learn one more thing, they will finally feel “ready.”

    Magic requires vulnerability. You don’t always control the outcome. You don’t always understand the symbols. You can’t Google your way through initiation. The need to know everything is a defense against surrender. This does a deep disservice because surrender is where the power is.

    Gatekeeping Self

    Then there is self-gatekeeping, the magical masochism of telling yourself you’re not allowed to practice because you haven’t met some imaginary standard.

    “I can’t call myself a witch until I know all the correspondences.” “I shouldn’t invoke a deity until I read everything ever written about them.” “I’m not ready to cast until I memorize all the lunar phases and their emotional correspondences in four different traditions.”

    Many who came before didn’t have a manual. They looked at nature, felt something stir, and started experimenting. They didn’t wait for permission. They practiced. The door only opens when you walk through it.

    The Obsession with Lineage and “Correctness”

    Another side of this coin is lineage lust. “Unless you’ve been initiated by a high priestess in a trad coven that traces back to [insert legendary witch here], you’re just a poser.” Yeah…no. Initiation can be beautiful, and so can formal training. So can personal gnosis, or doing a working in your bathrobe with a candle and a prayer. So can getting your ass kicked by a dream and waking up changed. There is no universal Magical Bureau of Standards. There’s just you, the spirits, and what you do together.

    Ego Trap

    Some folks mistake magical scholarship for magical power. They talk circles around others. They know the Greek, Latin, and reconstructed Proto-Indo-European roots of every spell. They’ve read every book. They’ve argued on every forum. And… they’ve done exactly one ritual in the last decade. This is not the flex they think it is.

    Knowledge is power, but without practice it’s armchair wizardry. While there’s a place for theory, if your ego gets off on knowing more than everyone else, but you never engage the Mystery, you’re not a magician… You’re a magical trivia night host. Put down the thesaurus, and do the damn work.

    The Myth of Readiness

    You’ll never feel ready. Not for your first spell. Not for your first spirit contact. Not for drawing your first sigil or leading your first ritual or standing in the dark whispering names you barely understand. And that’s okay. That’s sacred. Magick happens when you move through the fear. When you show up trembling and say the words anyway.

    Readiness is a myth. The moment is now.

    The Spiral Path of Learning

    Learning doesn’t stop when you start practicing. It deepens. You read. You try. You screw up. You read again. You notice more. You try again. It’s not linear, it’s a spiral. Competence grows from contact, not from contemplation. Let your rituals teach you. Let your spirits show you. Let your mistakes initiate you. You can’t think your way into power. You have to walk it.

    The Fear of Being Seen

    A lot of the obsession with perfection is rooted in shame. “If I’m not perfect, they’ll laugh at me.” I know this one well; it held me back for way too long. While there will always be those in the world who sneer, most people respect the person who tries more than the one who postures.

    Share your practice, not as a performance, but as a process. Ask questions. Be wrong. Get curious. Fall down, get up, breathe, and light the candle again. Vulnerability is courage in action, and fortune favors the bold.

    Hall Pass for the Perfectionist

    You have permission to start before you feel ready.

    You have permission to get it wrong.

    You have permission to call yourself a witch/magician/seeker before you master anything.

    You have permission to learn by doing, not just by reading.

    You have permission to not know the answers, and still practice.

    Your practice doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be yours.

    Perfectionism will keep you stuck forever. It will whisper, “Just one more book.” “Just one more course.” “Just one more month of planning.” ”Then, only then, I’ll be ready…” Then, in a blink…and your altar is covered in dust, your dreams are dim, and your magic feels like a theory project. Break the cycle. Light the damn candle. Mess it up. Laugh. Learn. Do it again. Knowledge is only power when paired with action to form wisdom.

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  • Hexing Yourself for Fun and Insecurity

    November 8, 2025
    Basics, Community

    The Dangers of Chronic Self-Deprecation

    (everything stated in this blog is based upon my own research, personal practice, and opinion)

    Let’s get one thing straight from the jump: being able to laugh at yourself is a magical gift. It means your ego hasn’t taken over like a demon with a grudge and a grimoire. It means you have perspective. It means you know you’re human. Great. We love that.

    But here’s the shadow side: when your humor becomes your default defense mechanism, your magical path can turn into a slow-motion self-hex. One joke at a time. One sarcastic shrug. One dismissive “I’m not a real witch, I just collect shiny rocks and cry under full moons” too many.

    Welcome to the world of chronic self-deprecation, the sneaky, funny, socially acceptable way to sabotage your entire magical practice. Pull up a chair bestie, we’re lighting a black candle, staring into the mirror, and naming this beast before it eats any more of your power.

    Humor or Hex?

    The line between humility and harm is thinner than a ritual blade. Self-deprecating humor walks that line and sometimes stumbles drunk right over it into the abyss.

    When you joke about being a fraud, or about your spells being weak, or about your connection to the divine being “mostly vibes and caffeine,” it might get a laugh… But underneath the laugh is a quiet erosion of belief. Oh, and your subconscious? That tricksy little goblin? It takes everything at face value.

    You are what you say, especially when you say it over and over.

    What begins as self-aware comedy can quickly become a mantra. If the mantra is “I’m just pretending,” your magick will start to reflect as much.

    The Social Spell of Self-Doubt

    Here’s where it gets sticky: self-deprecating humor is socially rewarded. It’s charming. It puts people at ease. It signals humility. In a world full of spiritual influencers taking themselves Very Seriously™, your ability to laugh at your practice makes you relatable.

    Being relatable doesn’t mean being powerless. You can be humble without being self-erasing.

    If your every conversation about your practice includes a disclaimer “I mean, I’m not like… a real witch or anything”, you’re not just managing expectations, you’re creating energetic disclaimers that weaken your own authority. You’re casting a spell of invisibility on yourself every time you speak.

    Fear in Fancy Dress

    Self-deprecation often masks fear. Fear of being judged. Fear of being wrong. Fear of taking up space in a world that loves to tear down anyone who dares to say, “Yes, I believe in magick, and I practice it.”

    So, we preempt the attack. We laugh first. We say, “I know this is silly,” so no one else can call us out. We throw ourselves under the broomstick to avoid scrutiny.

    This is a trauma response wrapped in wit. And it’s valid, but not sustainable. Your magick doesn’t require you to be fearless. It requires you to be present. Presence can’t grow in soil poisoned by constant self-dismissal.

    The Magician as Court Jester

    There’s a seductive archetype in magical circles: the trickster. The jester. The one who laughs in the face of dogma, who plays with paradox, who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

    It’s powerful. Trickster energy has its place. But when you become the only one making jokes, when you never drop the mask long enough to let the magick touch you, you become a parody of your own practice.

    And the spirits? They’re not laughing. They’re waiting for you to get real.

    Spellcasting with a Side of Apology

    Let’s talk about tone. If your rituals feel like they come with a built-in apology, “Sorry I’m doing this wrong” energy, then you’re layering your work with doubt. You’re blending your intention with ambivalence. That’s like trying to bake bread with expired yeast.

    You don’t need to be 100% confident all the time. That’s not realistic. You do need to stop poisoning your workings with preemptive disqualification.

    Say the words like you mean them, not like you’re hoping no one overhears you and calls you cringey.

    When Humor Becomes Habit

    The danger of chronic self-deprecation is that it becomes default. You don’t even think about it. Someone compliments your altar, and you automatically say, “Oh, it’s just junk I threw together.” Someone admires your insight, and you deflect with, “Pfft, I’m just making it up as I go.”

    Over time, this reflex becomes ritual.

    You’re teaching your subconscious that you don’t deserve to be seen as competent, wise, or powerful… then you wonder why your workings feel flat. Why your intuition feels muddy. Why the magic doesn’t land like it used to.

    Rewriting the Script

    Here’s the good news: you can rewire your default.

    When you want to make a joke at your own expense, pause. Ask: is this true? Is this necessary? Is this helpful?

    Start affirming your power out loud, even if it feels fake at first. “I am a practitioner. I trust my magick. My work matters.”

    Receive compliments. Practice saying, “Thank you.” Not “thank you but…” Just “thank you.”

    It’s not about arrogance. It’s about integrity.

    Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself accurately. And accurately? You’re a person who shows up, learns, grows, and does the damn work. That’s not laughable. That’s admirable.

    Finding Humor Without Disrespect

    Can you be funny without undercutting your practice? Absolutely. Humor is sacred. It’s part of the divine trick. The gods themselves are pranksters.

    Sacred humor is rooted in reverence. It pokes fun at rigidity, not at devotion. It mocks pretension, not sincerity.

    Make jokes about the absurdity of chasing a spirit through a dreamscape while holding a glowing egg. Laugh about the time your cat ruined your elaborate ritual. Just don’t joke yourself out of your own power.

    Use humor to lighten the load, not to set your temple on fire.

    Community Check-In: Call Each Other In

    Sometimes we enable each other’s self-deprecation without realizing it. We laugh along. We nod. We bond over our mutual impostor syndrome.

    But what if, next time, we said:

    “Hey, that sounded like you were putting yourself down, is that how you really feel?”

    “I think your work is valid, even if you’re not sure.”

    “You don’t have to be perfect to be powerful.”

    We can hold space for each other’s doubt without feeding it. We can remind each other what’s real when the inner troll gets too loud.

    The world knocks us down enough; don’t self bully. Every time you dismiss your work, your insight, your devotion, you’re casting a spell. A binding one. A silencing one. A glamour that hides your light.

    You’re too damn magical for that nonsense!

    Next time the words start to slip out, “I’m just pretending,” “I’m not a real witch,” “It’s all just vibes anyway” …

    Pause.

    Breathe.

    And remember: you are not a joke. Your magick is not a punchline. You are here. You are doing the work. You are enough.

    Say it out loud. Say it like you mean it. Say it like the spirits are listening… Because they are.

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  • The Comparison Curse:

    November 6, 2025
    Basics

    How Aesthetic Envy Kills Your Craft

    Let’s be honest: nothing torpedoes a perfectly good working faster than opening your phone and seeing someone else’s altar that looks like it was styled by a team of Renaissance art historians on ketamine.

    You’ve just finished a decent working, the incense wafted correctly, your circle didn’t collapse, and your invocation didn’t accidentally call in your ex… but then you log on, and BAM… there’s some ethereal priestess surrounded by crystal skulls, six live snakes, and a golden goblet blessed by thirteen bloodlines. She’s glowing. She’s levitating. Her caption includes seven languages and a reference to a text you think you saw mentioned in a footnote once.

    Suddenly, your spell feels like it was written in crayon. On a napkin. In a Waffle House.

    Welcome to the Comparison Curse, a modern plague that feeds on your attention, confidence, and magical momentum. Let’s rip off the velvet glove and expose how aesthetic envy and curated magical lifestyles can turn powerful witches and magicians into insecure, paralyzed dabblers.

    Let’s break this down, remove it at the root, and get your flow back.

    The Digital Scrying Mirror of Doom

    We’ll start where it hits hardest: the scroll.

    You don’t even have to be trying to compare yourself. You just open Instagram, Pinterest, or WitchTok for a little inspiration and, oops, you’ve just involuntarily summoned the spirit of inadequacy. It’s wearing rings from Etsy, has a custom wand carved from a fallen oak in a Druid grove, and it wants to talk to you about your lack of aesthetic cohesion. Social media is a performance space. It’s a stage, not a reflection. You’re not seeing magic. You’re seeing branding. Curation isn’t authenticity. Filters aren’t devotion. Perfectly arranged altars with expensive tools are often more about image than invocation.

    Aesthetic Is Not Authority

    Repeat after me: pretty doesn’t equal powerful.

    Having a color-coordinated altar doesn’t make your spirit contact more legit. Your magic isn’t stronger because your robe matches the cover of your moon phase journal. And no, that $500 obsidian sphere won’t suddenly download divine truth into your chakras.

    There’s nothing wrong with beauty. Beauty can be sacred. But… when you conflate visual appeal with magical efficacy, you set yourself up for permanent insecurity. There’s always someone prettier, wealthier, and better at Lightroom presets.

    Magical power comes from practice, presence, and will, not from looking like a sponsored post.

    The Myth of the Perfect Practitioner

    You ever see someone online and think, “Wow, they really have it all figured out”? Yeah. They don’t. The illusion of the flawless witch or omniscient mage is a collective hallucination. Nobody’s posting their ritual misfires, their moments of doubt, their “I just cried in the tub because Mercury retrograde ruined everything” days.

    We buy the image. We internalize it. We think, “They’re doing real magic. I’m just playing dress-up.”

    Here’s your counterspell: The perfect practitioner doesn’t exist. We are all winging it. The deeper the magician, the more aware they are of how much they don’t know. Humility is the sign of someone who’s actually doing the work.

    How Envy Destroys Engagement

    Comparison doesn’t just make you feel bad, it actively dismantles your magical practice. You stop casting because your tools don’t look “good enough.” You stop journaling because your Book of Shadows isn’t a hand-illuminated grimoire with gilded edges and pressed rose petals. You stop meditating because you don’t have the right singing bowl.

    The Comparison Curse says: “If it’s not perfect, it’s not worth doing.”

    That is poison. Magic isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about doing the damn thing with what you’ve got, where you are, asyou are.

    The Capitalist Colonization of the Craft

    Let’s drag the real demon into the circle: capitalism.

    Much of what you see online is marketing, even if it doesn’t look like it. Influencers are selling courses, books, candles, aesthetics, affiliate links, and themselves as a brand. And they’re doing it in a system that equates worth with wealth. When you feel like crap because your altar looks like a garage sale and theirs looks like the Met Gala of witchcraft, remember: it’s not about power. It’s about profit.

    You are not less magical because you’re not rich. You are not less spiritual because you don’t look like a moonlit vampire sorceress. You are not broken because you don’t perform your practice for public consumption. Your craft is not content.

    Real Magic Is Gritty

    The most powerful rituals I’ve ever seen?

    Done in basements.

    Surrounded by clutter.

    Performed by exhausted people with messy hair and zero aesthetic sense.

    And you know what? The spirits showed up. The power was real. The transformation happened. Magick responds to sincerity, not set design. Your kitchen witchery with discount herbs and a Bic lighter? That’s valid. Your muttered incantation in a hoodie with last night’s pizza box on the table? That counts. Real magic is scrappy. It shows up in the cracks, the imperfections, the places you thought were too mundane to matter.

    Turning the Curse Into a Catalyst

    Envy isn’t inherently evil. It’s a signal. It’s saying: “I want that.” So listen. What specifically do you want? If you’re admiring someone’s altar, is it the objects? Or the sense of devotion? If you envy someone’s lifestyle, is it their wealth, or their discipline? Their focus? Their sense of connection?

    Use that. Let it inform your practice. Let it inspire action, not paralysis. Turn jealousy into journaling. Turn aesthetic envy into altar-building with what you do have. Turn doubt into drive. Your magic is between you and the Mystery. It doesn’t need to be pretty. It needs to be done.

    There is no award ceremony at the end of this path. No spiritual gold stars. The gods don’t care how your practice looks. They care whether you show up.

    Close the app. Light the candle. Say the words. Let the energy move. Trust yourself.

    You are already enough. You are already magick. You are already real.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Monthly Mindfulness

    ~ From the Walking With the Gods icon deck ~ Coming to Kickstarter Spring 2026 ~

    Nuit

    As the divine feminine principle, Nuit is the mother of all things and the field in which all existence unfolds. In Liber AL vel Legis she declares, “Every man and every woman is a star,” affirming that each soul is a unique expression of divine will, destined to shine in its own orbit. She is not a distant deity, but the very space in which life occurs. She is the totality of being, the sacred void, and the infinite womb from which all arises. Nuit invites worship through love, joy, and the ecstatic realization of one’s True Will. She is the mystery of the night sky, the promise of limitless becoming, and the divine embrace that holds all existence.

    She is the sacred void that births every spark; each soul a star, each star a hymn of will. When she appears in a pull it is to remind us that joy is worship. That endless night is not emptiness; it is possibility.

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The Art of Becoming

A new approach to magick

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