Where the Practical Meets the Spiritual: Small Spells for Higher Vision

“Once you accept time and space as real, you will consider yourself minute and short-lived. But are they real? Do they depend on you, or you on them?…Behave as if you are pure awareness, bodiless and mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond ‘where’ and ‘when’ and ‘how’…”
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (I Am That, pages 241 – 244)

Happy First Quarter Moon! We are officially about eight days away from our next Full Moon. Energy might be described as zingy, ramped-up, slightly wired, optimistic, and carnelian courage called in. The fire theme continues on in this month, as the Moon today is in Sagittarius, and Tuesday is ruled by Mars, the red planet of action, desire and lust, forward movement, and aggression. If you’ve been tracking your daily energy levels/moods in the back of this book, you may have been noticed some patterns. If this Waxing Moon phase is one of ramped up activity and stamina for you, take a moment to write down a list taking this into account. Is it time to spend an extra three hours at work a few nights this week redoing your website or reaching out to like-minded people to show your work to? Maybe it is time to implement a new physical activity regimen or incorporate more psychic hygiene, like meditating in the morning or at night. This might be the moment to begin some changes to guide you through the rest of the year.

At this time, think seriously about bigger pictures, bigger visions for yourself, as the light from the Sun begins to fall over the surface of the Moon—taking up more and more space over this symbolic subconscious mirror. This surface of basaltic plains—called oceans and bays and marshes and lakes—are really topographic features. The ones that named them were men, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and they named them breathtakingly dramatic titles such as the Lake of Luxury, the Marsh of Decay, the Seething Bay, the Sea of Clouds, the Sea of the Edge, the Serpent Sea. These differences in the Moon’s surface are easy for us to see, due to the craters made by meteors landing and crashing into our little Moon, which has no atmosphere to protect it from the hazards of space. Only 12 humans (all men) have ever been lucky enough to plant their feet on the Moon’s surface.

At this time you may wish to examine some ways to bring higher focus and vision into everyday life. You can see the surface of the Moon from your car window, so why not bring your own further-ranging plans front and center into the dashboard of your life?

It is all a dream, this cosmic joke or sacred arena called life, so focus on higher thoughts. We are what we think, we are what we do, we are how we handle. One very easy way to fold magic and spell work gracefully into your daily life is by attaching it to activities and small rituals we already do every day. That way, the far-out visions are reigned in closer, more tangible, tethered to our habits and activities. Small spells, when worked consistently, can be very effective.

If you take a shower every day that would be an optimal place to do a variety of small spell work. Visualize the water coming down from the shower as a rainbow, cleansing your physical and energetic body. Imagine all the mucky grime, the unwanted energy, going down into the drain, down into the Earth, to be recycled anew. Rub a salt scrub over your skin and imagine new thought forms and energy coming into your reborn surface. While brushing your teeth, name what you are grateful for, including things that haven’t happened yet, but you are sure are coming.

In the morning, before you sit at your altar, cleanse the room with sage, Palo Santo, or other burning herbs. Be mindful that you are clearing out any stuck or stagnant energy, and that you are calling back your own energy.

Before you leave your house, check in with your auric bubble. Does your aura need to be zipped up a little tighter, a little closer to your body? As you cross the threshold of your home to go out into the world, bless the day. Carry a piece of jet or tourmaline in your pocket or purse. Bless all the information you will receive from the outside world, bless all the lessons that are waiting to be learned, and look forward to receiving information and guidance from spirit. Tell the elements you are grateful to them, that you will pay extra attention to how they show up for you.

Before you sit down to work, visualize yourself working smoothly, tension-free, easily with little distractions. Imagine what certain priorities you have in your day-to-day work that most encapsulate where you would like to be in a month or a year, and commit to finishing those before the work day or week is up—see yourself in the spiral of time, embarking on a few activities this week that will get you closer to your core career goals. Before you go to bed at night, ask for any stress and strain or tension to be removed from your body. If you have a problem you are struggling with, ask for answers to come to you in your dreams, or to be waiting for you in the morning as you sit at your altar. In these ways, you can bring spirituality into your own routines. Magic begins weaving itself into your life, little by little.

Research a few herbs, perhaps ones that are special to your family background, or ancestors’ history. Research their nutritional and metaphysical properties. Bless them, work with them various times during the day, invoking their power. Work one or two of them into your cooking intentionally. Put one or two of them on your altar, in your wallet, or in your pocket. Drink a tea made of Holy Basil and meditate, focusing on your breathing and heart. Spearmint is great for clarity of thought, abundance, and luck. Mugwort, the herb that is the most associated with the Moon, the witches’ best friend, is traditionally used for clairvoyance and invoking psychic trance or astral projection.

Rosemary is another very accessible plant helper for witches. She helps with protection (during the Middle Ages, people hung rosemary around their necks to shield them from the plague), loyalty, for cleansing and purification (put her in salt, add to your non-toxic cleaner with lemon to clean surfaces and floors in your house), for protection from nightmares (you can put a sprig of rosemary under your pillow, or by your bedside table), and to keep moths away (by putting a sprig in dresser drawers and closet).

Some witches believe rosemary is good for making one more memorable to others, and studies have shown that rosemary stimulates the memory center of the brain. You can use rosemary oil to increase circulation by massage. Some witches associate rosemary with the Moon and Aphrodite (the herb’s Latin name, Rosmarinus, means “dew of the sea”). For more information on practical and magical uses of different herbs, some places to start are Healing Wise by Susun Weed, The Master Book of Herbalism and A Compendium of Herbal Magic by Paul Beyerl, The Gift of Healing Herbs by Robin Rose Bennett, and Herbal Healing for Women by Rosemary Gladstar.

Many times I’ve spoken about repetitive spell work during the Waxing Moon. Manifestation around ramping up, expansion, growth, health, and abundance flows perfectly with the Waxing Moon. This is an incredibly opportune time to do spells that last for three, five, or even six to nine days. Doing this repeatedly also trains the brain that this is what is happening: if a weak spot for you in your magic is doubt or disbelief, you might want to focus on repetitive spells. (This is also why I chant my spells over and over again, so it becomes an accepted and graceful loop in my brain.) Generally, the first day and the last day are the days in which the spell work is longer. The days in between are the days I continue implementing the spell with chants, lighting candles, and visualization.

Remember: this is all a strange dream. So much of what we negotiate, navigate, and perceive are illusions. By now, we all can be certain that it is the time to stay high-minded with our thoughts, deeds, words, and actions. Practicing small spells throughout our day can keep our perspective on what vibration we intend to enact. That, in turn, reminds us that the universe is working in tandem with our considered actions.

Let’s point our best selves forward, as high as a flying arrow catapulting into the clouds, moving to different terrain, propelled by our awareness of the past, and not accepting less for our best vision of ourselves and greater humanity.

From Many Moons, 2017, Vol 2. Buy the first edition here.

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(Half of the proceeds go to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Black Lives Matter.)

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