Table of Contents

What's New on the Site	-- Making a Website That Works
Magick Book In Progress	-- Magick In The Present Moment
Ask The Priestess	-- Is Destruction Sacred?
Fave Quotes	-- Peace!
Word on the Street	-- Diagnosing a Witch as Mentally Ill
Silver Chalice Details

What's New On The Site

As I explained in the Editor's Note, this crazy-busy year is reflected in the sparsity of new material on the website. Ah well. Life goes as it will, and not as you or I would have it... to paraphrase Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Still, this month some pages have been updated, and I've put up two new pages in a section I'd hoped to have finished long since.

The new section I've been working on isn't related to Wicca per se, but since so many people are asking me for the secrets to making a website that is a source of income, I was motivated to start sharing the information I've gathered from years of running a successful online presence.

If you want to have a website of your own, even as a hobby, or if you want to find out how you can make money online, check out these two articles... the first ones in the series. (More will come as I find time to put them together.)

How to Start Your Own Website & Make Money Online.

This article talks about my own experience of wanting to make a website on a topic that I'm passionate about, and also find a way to support that financially.

Free Ebooks to Download: How to Start your own Online Home Business, and Make Money on the Web.

This page links you to free ebooks that will help you learn the secrets of making a website that works.

Even if you aren't really interested in earning money online, but you do want a website that people find and read, these Masters Courses tell you what you really need to know.

And they're free, so why not use the information to your advantage?

I'm hoping that in the New Year, things will return to a more manageable pace, and I can give more attention to making the kind of Wicca Spirituality articles you desire.

Let's all pray for that!

Wicca Magick -- Book In Progress

Magick In The Present Moment

The universe is made of magick. We are aware of that much. So why is it that we don't automatically, effortlessly create exactly what we desire?

I've got three letters for you: E. G. O.

Ego is the part of your mind that tells you who and what you are, in the context of a material world. And it is completely invested in making sure that you know yourself as ONLY a material creature, rather than the infinite and eternal being you actually are.

It does this for the best of reasons—to help you survive on the material plane—but by its very nature it comes between your desires and the magick of the universe to make them real.

One game that the ego likes to play a lot is "I already know that."

This is one of the most dangerous beliefs we can have, in terms of hampering our ability to be happy, to be self-realised, and to be magickal.

The Oh-So-Human Ability To Classify

There is an automatic process that happens, as soon as your brain says you already know about something. Without even being aware of the process, your consciousness closes down. This is how your brain keeps from getting overloaded with stimuli, and lost in new surroundings.

Here's how it works.

You walk into a room in a very strange building. The windows are small circular bubbles near your ankles; the "chairs" are upside-down saddles; the table is a big paper bowl on two legs; the floor itself is changeable, here it's hard and flat, two steps away it's wavey and flexible, over there it's deep and squishy. Your mind is forced to really SEE this room, because none of the things in the room are easily recognisable.

When you walk into an ordinary room, your brain automatically categorises everything within it: "window," "chairs," "table," etc. Your conscious mind scarcely even notices them. Instead you focus on what's important to you: the person in the room, say. You know chairs are there, but later you may be hard-pressed to describe them, or say exactly how many there were.

What your brain has done is paste labels on everything, so that they are all "known." Then you can ignore them. This frees up mental bandwidth so you can focus on the things that are novel or significant.

But it also inhibits your attention. The ego-mind says, "You already know this; you don't need to pay attention; go back to sleep!"

Losing the Moment

Once you're looking at labels rather than the actual surroundings, though, you've lost present moment. What this means is that you are not functioning at full consciousness, but making mental shortcuts.

Full consciousness knows every chair, every window, every item in the room completely. When you are vibrantly aware of everything around you, you are fully present.

When you're not functioning in such conscious awareness, you're not in the present moment. You immediately lose your power to truly know, and affect, reality.

This is why the spiritual masters always remind us to keep returning to the present moment. In Zen they talk about beginner mind, and returning to the breath. Jesus said we should look at the world like a child.

These are ways of encouraging us to open to the full experience of the moment, without any of the assumptions or labels that the mind wants to paste onto it.

Experiential Knowledge

When you think you already know something, you lose the ability to experience it directly. You begin relating to a label -- an IDEA of a thing, instead of the real thing.

(By the way, this happens with humans too, and is the cause of most -- if not all -- misunderstandings and problems between people. )

This reminds me of Rumi's poem on the difference between thinking about things and experiencing them...

"If you want to expound on love,

take your intellect out and lie it down in the mud. It's no help.

You want proof that the sun exists, so you stay up

all night talking about it. Finally you sleep

as the sun comes up.

Look at it!"

Thinking about things doesn't help you know them. There is a world of difference between thoughts and experiential knowledge.

... No matter how strenuously your ego insists otherwise.

This is why gaining command of your mind, and thus your ego, is one of the first steps to magickal empowerment.

Magick Is All In The Moment

This has been a round-about way of explaining why your desires are not automatically and effortlessly fulfilled. (At least, a big part of the reason why; the other reasons are covered in the chapter on When Magick Doesn't Work.)

Magick only happens in the present moment. Even though it may take some time for the results to show up, the magick happens in the now. That's the only way it can happen.

It is in this moment the Field Of All Possibilities exists. It is in this moment that you exist, and that your desire exists.

In fact, reality itself exists only in this one moment.

Everything else is pure intellectualization -- a fantasy. The future is only imagination; the past is nothing but memory. Reality is in this exact moment, this moment of space-time.

So of course if you want to take action, to make changes, you can do so only in the one moment that is real -- NOW.

That is why magick exists only in the present moment. And if you want to work magick, you must meet it Here / Now.

Nowhere else in the world is there magick; not until you're at this point of it -- the absolute present.

What Do You Think So Far?

I'd love to hear from you… Please write and let me know!

Ask The Priestess

Is Destruction Sacred Too?

Dear Priestess,

Polarity in Wicca is celebrated. So, life and death are both sacred parts of existence. So... I don't fully understand what it means when you say that Anti-life forces are not worth veneration, while creation is sacred.

Is it not also sacred to destroy on some level? I'm not saying I'm all gung-ho Terminator at all. But, as a philosophy student, I find some inconsistency to challenge! :)

Thanks for all the time you put in the website by the way, its been INCREDIBLY helpful to me so far.

T.R. in USA

Dear T.R.,

Ah, these philosophical knots are always fun to tangle with! ; ) And it's a timely discussion, as we harvest foods to see us through the winter, killing various forms of life so that we may live.

Destruction is an anti-life force. Death is not.

The reason this seems paradoxical is due to a common misconception. Let's clear it up right away:

Death is not destruction.

Death is, in reality, a truer birth than the one we experience on Earth... because when we die we wake up to a more fundamentally real level of existence.

In other words, death is really a form of creation.

By contrast, murder, revenge, and other forms of destruction do not serve creation. That's what I mean by "anti-life". The energy of these things is harmful to oneself, and all life.

In other words, we must differentiate between destruction for fun or anger, and death which is a part of nature. The first is an anti-life force, the second is a positive life-force.

Sacred Murder?

Death is sacred, but that doesn't mean we could ritually sacrifice people, for instance, as a creative or sacred act.

That would be confusing death with destruction.

The difference is, "death" is objective. It happens. It's a fact of life, as we all know -- which is another way of saying, an act of God.

When the Divine "takes" a life, it is only to create something even greater on another plane.

Destruction, however, is an action chosen by an individual... and that action generates (and comes from) anger / hatred / guilt / fear / various lower energy states within the destroyer.

Already this reveals that it is an anti-life force.

More than that makes it harmful, though. Murder steals free will from others. It increases fear and creates suffering in the world -- not only for the victim but for everyone who knows the victim or even hears about it.

Killing for any reason other than food is murder. How can it not be? You are destroying another being's freedom and future.

Someone may have the most elevated of intentions -- say, honouring a God -- but this is merely overlooking the "means" for the "end." When the means is against life, the result is profane rather than sacred.

Eating for survival is different. We didn't set the ground rules for this planet, but we must obey them. Nothing on Earth lives without feeding on something else. It is not destructive to obey the laws of nature and eat.

(However, it is -- subtly -- destructive to do so without awareness, compassion for what feeds you, and gratitude for its sacrifice.)

The Limitations of Polarities

As in most explorations of philosophy, we must take into account the paradox of polarity.

Polarity is a valuable dynamic on Earth, but it is fundamentally an illusion. Polarity seems to exist, only because of the limitations of a 3-Dimensional mind.

Our minds, being created to function in polarity, perceive things in terms of dualities...

• Life vs Death

• Good vs Evil

• Light vs Darkness

• Love vs Hate

• Silence vs Noise... etc. unto Infinity!

There is nothing destructive on the level of Unity. There is nothing negative whatsoever. The essential quality of that is only positive -- LOVE. The Unity is ultimate and infinite good.

Another name for this unity is "Goddess," "God," or more accurately "Divinity."

The human mind can't perceive this Unity. But it can tap into the experience of it.

On the level of polarity, we can see that there are positive life-forces and anti-life forces. But on the level of Unity, there is only LOVE. No dualities really exist. Only the positive life-force exists.

In other words, only positive energies are True.

Working Against Truth Can't Be Good

So anti-life forces are working against the highest truth, against the essential quality of Unity (Love).

Back to the question of killing, we can see that, additionally, murder is an anti-life force by definition... because it works against Truth.

Destruction fosters the illusion that there is separateness. Destroyer vs victim (human or otherwise). Destroyer as separate from Divine Source. Existence vs "death." And so on. It buys into polarity, and encourages belief in it.

In other words, destruction works against Truth, against the Unity.

Anything in opposition to ultimate being is, by definition, not Creative, not pro-life.

The Limitations of Philosophy

As fun as this kind of intellectualizing is, philosophy is doomed by its very nature to not provide the Answers. Because Truth can't be arrived at intellectually. (Remember the Rumi poem, above?)

Truth must be perceived and experienced, rather than thought and talked about.

Philosophy can thus be a trap. I try to avoid it. But it's like candy... sometimes ya just gotta give in a little to the cravings! : D

And it is a good way to tidy up sloppy thinking. So thanks for the opportunity to explore some philosophy with you!

Bright Blessings to you!

Do you have a question you'd like answered? Email the Priestess and your question could be answered in a future issue.

(Note: questions may be edited for brevity or clarity. No real names will be disclosed. For reasons of legality, all questions become the property of Wicca-Spirituality.com.)

Thanks to the Wicca Spirituality Facebook Fans for these great quotes on Peace!

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

~ Albert Einstein

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

~ Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must be the change we want to see in the world.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

A mind at peace, a mind centered & not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.

~ Wayne Dyer

First, there must be order and harmony within your own mind. Then this order will spread to your family, then to the community, and finally to your entire kingdom. Only then can you have peace and harmony.

~ Confucious

If there is no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

~ Mother Theresa

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

~ Jimi Hendrix

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

~ George Carlin

---

Word on the Street

What People Are Saying About Wicca-Spirituality.com:

As a child I was wrongly diagnosed as being mentally ill when really I was a witch who was very in touch with everything, but it had to be buried or I faced being locked up. As a young adult and needing peace I became a Christian, looking for answers but only finding more questions and no peace.

People came into my life who were Wiccan and since coming out of the broom closet I have never felt such peace.

When I became a Christian I read the Bible front to back and that's when I saw the lies.

As a Witch, I must learn everything I can, and your site has been like a beacon of light for me. Every question I ask, google comes back with one of your pages. In fact I have stopped asking google and just random click on your pages - each one is so informative and wonderfully written - your words are inspiring and often quite amusing, especially when dispelling the myths.

So, I would just like to say thank you for helping me to come out of the broom closet because now I am able to answer those who mock me, thanks to your site.

Blessed Be

-- L.J.. in UK

Thanks for writing!! I appreciate hearing from you! : )

---

Know somebody who'd like to read this?

We really hope that you've enjoyed reading this newsletter. If you think your friends might be interested in taking a look, please feel free to forward it to them.

Haven't subscribed yet?

If you're reading this on the recommendation of a friend and would like to receive all the future editions, you can subscribe for free through this link: The Silver Chalice E-Zine to subscribe.

Contact Us

If you have any comments, opinions, or content ideas we'd love to hear from you. Please write!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

© erin dragonsong 2010. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinting any of this is forbidden unless you obtain my written permission: karma and the law agree on this one. And Copyscape is keeping an eye on these things.

---