Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Evangeline Adams, whose celebrated court case victory made it legal to practice astrology in the US. Among her clients was the immensely rich J. Pierpont Morgan, who is reputed to have said, "Millionaires don't use astrology, but billionaires do." 

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 154,995th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use the button below to access my online tip jar.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***
 

Comments

[packshaud]

My brother and I are planning to sell our houses and buy a single one in a more suitable locarion for us.

I intend to live in the attic. However, my brother and his wife want kids, and it is bad for small children to practice ritual magic in the same house where they live.

In analogy with an apartment, can I consider the attic as a separate space (that's why I want to use it)? Is there anything I can do to improve the separation?

[ecosophia]

If the children don't come into your attic, you probably won't have any trouble. If you want to be particularly careful, see if you can put down carpet or some other kind of flooring, and under it, put a layer of linen or silk cloth as a magical insulator.

Child's perception of people and color Part 2

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the mom from last week, whose 2 year old girl associates people with colors. There's been a development I want to share, as well as an exchange that leads to me seek more advice.
Last week my daughter and I were talking: she was calmly trying to get around a consequence she didnt like (assigned by my husband), and I was not budging on it for the sake of presenting a unified front, while internally feeling conflicted because I would have handled it very differently and because I was secretly pleased with her attempts to problem solve. Our conversation was quite relaxed, playful even, despite my inner conflict.
Suddenly, my daughter's expression morphed into a delighted sort of astonishment and she sharply drew in a breath. "Mama, your face TURNED ORANGE!"
The surprise in her face & voice was unmistakably authentic. Also noteworthy is that she called me "mama" which she's mostly grown past in favor of "mommy." She now only uses "mama" in vulnerable moments, like when she wakes up at night wanting me.
She let her hand hover near my cheekbone while her eyes were fixed on my face. She repeated "Your face is orange!"
That moment was so beautiful. I adore observing her in times of excitement or wonder. This was definitely one of those times. I was absorbed in watching her expression, and feeling truly awed that she was able to see in this unique way, when her eyes lit up once more and she delightedly exclaimed "Mommy your face turned PINK!"
Dad, who had witnessed this whole thing (and who later confirmed I was not blushing), came up to us and asked her, "What color is MY face?"
She turned towards him, then poked his cheek, "Your face is purple." (Poor dad is the same old purple he's always been.)
The next incident has led me to do a lot of thinking. My daughter enjoys "quizzing" me for fun. She'll ask me a series of questions to which she already knows the answers (mainly naming body parts, or identifying people or animals by their pictures). Yesterday for the first time she quizzed me on color. "What color is daddy?"
I know HER answer for this, and I hesitated on whether to say what she expects to hear, or to be honest about our differing experiences. Finally I said: "I dont know what color daddy is. I need YOU to tell me. You can see people's colors. Mommy cannot see people's colors."
Her eyebrows ticked upwards when I said that last sentence, and she spent about 10 seconds just pondering in silence. At long last, she simply said, "Daddy is purple," and moved on to the next (not color based) question in her quiz.
I confess that I cant help finding this all to be weird. Beautiful, yes, but, still very odd. And while I dont want to lie and pretend that I see things I don't see, I also dont want to make my daughter to feel negatively about it.
My questions
1. Am I correct in assuming my emotions are likely to effect the way my aura appears to her? (Both my orange and pink face was preceded by strong emotion on my part)or is it more likely to be something else? (You mentioned last week that she's likely seeing the "primary" color of people's auras, which suggests we always have more than one color. Perhaps shes just noticing these other colors during close conversation?)
2. If my emotions DO affect my aura, is there a way to not be so transparent to her? It seems distinctly unfair to burden a child with an adult's emotions. (My father is terminally ill, for instance, and that comes with lots of feelings.) I know to some extent children are always sensitive to emotions, but I'd rather not have a glowing face signal if I can help it.
2. Are there resources (preferably online) that you'd recommend I use to educate myself about auras? Things I'm finding with a Google search seem dubious. For example, your answer last week that different people perceive auras in different ways seems much more realistic than the pat responses I found, which seem geared toward making people feel good about themselves. (Eg, Blue aura people are SO wise and spiritual and amazing!) I'm seeking resources that are informational (something that goes into what IS an aura, how do people perceive/experience them etc) rather than instructional (I'm not looking at training myself to see them). My goal is to lessen my ignorance so that I can be less weirded out by it, and can talk to my daughter from an informed position if she has questions.
3. If she still has these perceptions when she is older, I will likely encourage her to keep them private. My motive is to avoid exposing her to stigma/disbelief/mockery. In your view, is that advisable? If so, any pointers on avoiding making it a matter of shame?

Re: Child's perception of people and color Part 2

[ecosophia]

1) What's probably happening is that your daughter's psychism is starting to pick up emotional patterns as well as the basic tone of the aura. That's a normal process, though it does suggest that she's got considerable clairvoyant capacities.

2) Nope. She's going to see what she sees. Since all she sees is the colors, though, it'll be a while before she starts figuring out which feeling is indicated by which color.

3) There are plenty of resources, fortunately. If you're up for a serious dose of occult philosophy, Arthur Powell's The Astral Body is a good source if somewhat outdated in some of its language and attitudes -- you can download it for free here. Besant and Leadbeater's book Thought-Forms (available for download here) may also be worth your while.

4) That's not merely advisable, it's essential. Most families that have hereditary clairvoyance (this is quite common in people of Celtic descent) make this an ordinary part of life; there are things you don't talk about outside the family, because other people don't understand. (My wife was raised with that rule, for example.) Make it clear that it's not shameful, it's just something private. Explaining to your daughter that she sees the colors and other people don't, as you've already done, is a very good step in that direction.

Astro influences & transcendence

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

I'm curious as to what you think of this: I've heard some contend that it's possible to spiritually transcend all astrological influences, completely so. I can readily believe that most people really are unconsciously subject to the push and pull of astro forces - a negative aspect between Mars and Pluto, e.g., and a lotta people walk around stewing without really knowing why. Of course the more self-aware one becomes (and more astrologically savvy perhaps), the more emotionally even-keeled one is during a time of stressful astro influences.

This is different, of course, than transcending astro influences all together. I imagine that no matter how spiritually evolved one is, one never escapes the influences of the natal chart and the impact that the ever-changing astro configurations have on the chart. I'm thinking that the astro impact becomes much more spiritually subtle and defined, perhaps relating to the "higher biosphere" of the earth's etheric and astral levels on a more clearly defined basis. In any event, I don't imagine that we can escape the earth's bio/etheric/astral-spheres, nor should we want to - we can, however, change the "tone" of astro influence to one of more subtle, spiritual impact.

Thank you,
Will M

Re: Astro influences & transcendence

[ecosophia]

As far as I know, while you have a physical body, you're going to be influenced by the astrological forces that imprinted that body at birth, and while you exist on this planet, you're going to be influenced by the broader context of astrological energies. You can certainly learn to work consciously with those forces, rather than being pushed around by them willy-nilly, but you're always part of the whole system of the cosmos.

[lunarapprentice]

In the Art and Practice of Geomancy, in your discussion of the geomantic figure Puer, you describe how it lacks only the water element, and that the quest to remedy this is symbolically expressed in the grail quest. There are a number of grail quest stories out there, is there any particular one you would recommend in this context?

More broadly, are any of the other geomantic figures associated with literature that symbolically relates their transformation?

[ecosophia]

I tend to recommend Parzival as the best of the Grail legends, but any of them will do. As for other works of literature, good question; that would be a suitable theme for a series of meditations!

The 22 Paths

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings Mr. Greer! Thank you for hosting Magic Monday. It's interesting to see what questions come up every week.

My question is, is there any specific reason why the Hebrew letters are assigned alphabetically from top to bottom in the Hermetic Tree of Life? The oldest published version of the ToL diagram has less than 22 paths but later versions have 22 paths with 3 of them horizontal, 7 are vertical, and 12 are diagonal. The numbers are very specific so I believe this is not a coincidence.

(neetwizard)

Re: The 22 Paths

[ecosophia]

There are many different ways to assign the Hebrew alphabet to the Tree of Life, and there's good reason for that. Dion Fortune points out in The Mystical Qabalah that the Sephiroth are objective but the Paths are subjective; what that means in practice is that the Sephiroth are basically the same for everybody, but how you travel from one to the other is much more open to variation.

If I recall correctly, it's Rabbi Isaac Luria's version of the Tree that makes use of the system you've hinted at here, with the mother letters assigned to the horizontal paths, the double letters to the vertical paths, and the single letters to the diagonal paths. Does that work? Sure. The top-down version is that of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Does that work? Yep. Charles Stansfield Jones worked out a system that puts the letters onto the Tree from the bottom up, and that works, too. Then you have entirely different systems such as William Gray's English Cabala, which assigns the English consonants to the Tree, and you know what? That also works.

So if you'd rather assign the Hebrew letters and their associated symbolism to the Tree as you've suggested, by all means do so; there's every reason to think that'll work well. Please, though, if you can avoid it, don't fall into the trap of insisting that your way is the One True Way. It's a little like the legendary argument between the Englishman, the Frenchman, and the German as to whether the four-footed animal barking at them is a dog, un chien, or ein Hund...

[lunarapprentice]

This is a second part to my Puer question above. (I would have preferred to post this after seeing your answer to my first part, but I’ve had a bad cold for 3 days, and have to get to bed.)

Anyway, I began my geomatic mediation practice on Feb 5, right after the new moon, with my first theme as the initial (as arranged in your book) geomantic figure, Puer; this seemed a fortuitous starting figure as I’ve long felt Puer most reflects my situation in life. What emerged soon in my mediation was the idea that the character Schmendric (from Peter Beagle’s novel The Last Unicorn) looks to be a Puer character, and that his quest amounts to a grail-quest-equivalent; and the location of the vanished unicorns certainly has everything to do with water.

The opening scene of the novel depicts The Unicorn herself in a Carcer (i.e isolated) situation; really all of the major characters seem to be in Carcer in one way or another. I haven’t yet begun to examine Molly Grew, but I’m intrigued, and wonder what a geomantic take might show, along with her relationship with Schmendric and the unicorn. So JMG, do you think The Last Unicorn holds a candle to bona fide grail-quest literature? Or am I barking up the wrong tree (again)?

[ecosophia]

I'm very familiar with Beagle's novel, and have loved it since I first read it in 1975. I'd definitely put it on the same shelf as Parzival! What I'd like to suggest, once you recover from your cold, is that you meditate your way through the book and see if you can find all sixteen of the geomantic figures in it. Which figure is King Haggard? Which figure is Prince Lir? Which figures are Molly Grue, Captain Cully, Drinn the merchant, Mommy Fortuna, the harpy -- and the Red Bull? Do that, and you'll end up with a vastly enriched sense of the figures, and get better results from your divinations.

[lunarapprentice]

This just came up, coming into focus only in the last hour, and now it's got me on edge: Both my wife and l have lost a series of items in the last month. While I was typing my questions above, she had been scouring the house looking for some silk she planned to sew with, and is beside herself that she can't find it. She also can't find her musical chord chart, several other important books and other items. I have lost 3 or 4 calculators, an item I previously lost once every 10 years if that. I also have a backpack which disappeared in the last several weeks, it contained books only, including LRM, The Grail Quest, and Jung's Man and his Symbols.

There is a context here that may or may not be pertinent, but it is what sets me on edge: My wife is very concerned about a crime that happened to us after she led a public memorial service at our local city hall last fall for victims of the Pittsburg synagog shooting. This event was fairly well publicized in advance, and there were several hundred people in attendance. The day after the service, I was driving with my wife and 2 daughters on a shopping errand, and as we got off the freeway, I found I had no brakes. Through some uncanny good luck, lack of traffic and green lights, I was able to get the car safely to a stop. The mechanic who worked on our car said the brakes were sabotaged. Police found a puddle of brake fluid where I park in front of our house. Given that we are Jewish, and the publicity and my wife's Facebook page imply and/or state she is Jewish, we think this is an anti-Jewish hate-crime, attempted murder no less. No suspects have been identified, and the investigation is cold. So we have installed surveillance cameras around our house, my wife has taken a self-defense class. I now have a revolver, and need to get my backside in gear for firearms training, and am looking at getting a concealed carry permit (The local Freemasons lodge has an interest group for shooters, I plan on connecting with them if I get admitted). Anyway, my wife and I were just now comparing notes about all these things vanishing, then it struck her that this could somehow be connected to that crime. I said "No way. Why would they steal a chord chart, silk fabric, calculators, a backpack with books, and ignore a $2000 guitar, and an even more valuable silver flute and harp in plain sight?"

So I'm just now trying to put all this together as I write. These disappearances themselves are small potatoes, but they do seem disturbing if for no other reason that they suggest covert break-ins. Rekeyed locks are in order at minimum.

I certainly have fodder for divination. But I am a neophyte, and need as much good input as I can get. Any thoughts?

[(Anonymous)]

lunarapprentice, it occurs to me that the randomness of these thefts make sense if the perpetrator is trying to harass rather than make a profit. Maybe they don't care what they steal? Maybe they're just trying to shake you and your wife up. I hope you get this sorted out quickly. Good luck and God bless.

[aldabra]

Hello JMG,

I find myself wondering whether you know what you did as a housewife in LA that predisposed you to being an Archdruid this time round?

Do you know the same set of people differently reincarnated each time?

[ecosophia]

Oh, it goes back a lot further than that. My LA-housewife life was actually spent running away from what I'm doing this time around -- a bad idea, for which I've had to deal with various consequences.

In every life I've had, there have been some people I've known before, and other people who are new. That's apparently quite common.

[(Anonymous)]

Does discursive meditation have any specifically magic effects, such as influencing the etheric or astral bodies?

[ecosophia]

It definitely calms and stabilizes the etheric body, but then any form of meditation that involves rhythmic breathing will do that. Mostly, though, meditation is meant to work on the mental plane, not the astral or etheric planes.

[(Anonymous)]

When someone has a string of similar reincarnations it starts digging them into a rut, and not learning what they need to learn. Can being born under certain astrological influences get them out of it by forcing them to live a radically different life to what they have been doing the last few times? Is that something the soul could choose, or wouls it just happen naturally

[(Anonymous)]

In my experience, whenever I was stuck repeating negative behavior patterns, the Universe just kept giving me similar circumstances over and over, and the consequences became more painful each time until I changed course. (In my case, The Tower Tarot card figured prominently in all Tarot readings about the subject, and The Devil referred to a specific characteristic of my behavior, so divination was remarkably consistent during that time). I see no reason to expect reincarcation to be any different, although I suppose there’s no reason to assume that’s exactly what happens every time. It’s probably very likely that some souls “take a break” from this problem and work on other problems instead, and come back later to the original problem. Most souls probably pick up more or less where they left off, perhaps coming at the problem from a novel angle.

It occurs to me that “problem” is probably entirely the wrong word, and “life lesson” is more accurate.

Sincerely,
Jessi Thompson
anotheramethyst

[booklover1973]

JMG, You have written that there is an interval between death and reincarnation where certain things happen. How is the situation with animals?

[ecosophia]

The same. Human beings are animals, you know -- somewhat smarter than most, and more social than many, but it's a difference of degree, not of kind.

[(Anonymous)]

The remote viewing teacher Lyn Buchanan plants a subconscious suggestion into his students. If he discovers anyone is using their skills unethically, he can activate it and they will lose all interest in remote viewing. Can you do a similar thing if you find someone doing bad things with your magic?

[ecosophia]

I let karma take care of it. The results are generally far more brutal.

Long hair and turban

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

What are the occult reasons, if any, to let one’s hair (and beard) grow long?
We know Samson lost all his strength when Delilah had his hair cut.
Also, we see that in Islam having a beard is almost compulsory.

On a side note, one Kundalini Yoga practitioner told me they recommend using a turban as a means of maintaining the head cool during and after practice , otherwise the subject will be prone to headaches and mental confusion. I couldn’t get confirmation of this anywhere, though.

Could you comment on these topics?

Thank you.

Re: Long hair and turban

[ecosophia]

There are religions and spiritual paths in which it's important to shave the top of your head, and religions and spiritual paths in which it's important to wear the hair long and cover the top of your head. My guess is that it relates to different ways of activating the pineal gland, which is sensitive to light. In Chinese religion, for example, Taoists traditionally grew their hair long and wore little caps to cover the crown of the head, while Buddhists shaved their heads. More research here is needed -- but it seems, as a very general overview, that people shave their heads when they're trying to transcend the natural world, while they grow their hair long when they're trying to live in balance with the natural world.

Astrology

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Archdruid,
Your remarkable book on Geomancy stirred my curiosity for astrology. I have been looking among your books for astrology but couldn't find one. Do you have any, or can you point some book that could provide me with the basics of astrology?
As it is said in my language " May you have many blessings" for your work.

Gimmel
PS - Please excuse that I placed my question in the wrong entry of the blog.

Re: Astrology

[ecosophia]

I haven't written any books on astrology yet, though that's something I'll be doing. As for books on the basics, I'm not at all sure what's available right now -- it's been a long time since I read books on astrology at that level.

Colours in CGD meditation

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG!

So I’ve been doing the Ovate practices for a while and have been pretty good at visualising the specified colours. However, recently something has happened and now I know I’m imagining the colours and so they dance away - and change, often blending to brown, or the natural light (or lack of it) informs the colour ie if it’s very sunny outside, it tends to White or gold. I then tried imagining that I was imagining the colour and that seems to help. But now I feel like I’m just fooling myself and finding it difficult to maintain colours. (This is after nearly two years of doing it!). Got any sage advice?

Re: Colours in CGD meditation

[ecosophia]

This sort of thing is quite common, and it's a passing phase -- it usually seems to happen when your clairvoyant capacities are starting to waken. Just keep trying to get the colors right; it'll come round right soon enough.

[(Anonymous)]

One of the deities I work with regularly is associated with the moon, so I've started to greet her in that form. Whenever I first see the moon in a given day/night, I do a little salute, and bring my attention towards her for a moment.

This has had very good effects on our relationship since I started, but what interests me is it also seems to be having a subtle effect on my own awareness. This practice is pulling my mind out, so to speak. I'm increasingly aware of the world around me, but particularly the natural world. Is there a reason for this effect, beyond my patron goddess also being a goddess of the wild? It's proving quite pleasant, so are there other practices I can do to further this?

[ecosophia]

Pray to the goddess and ask her! She knows what she wants you to do; I don't.

[(Anonymous)]

I am, in a matter of a year or so, relocating as permanently as fate allows from the pacific northwest to the eastern baltic coast (from whence half my family came seventy-odd years ago). I would appreciate your thoughts on two items:

- Concerning the phrases associated with rituals (like, for example, opening/closing the temple)... Should/must/can they be in any language in particular? I currently know and use them in English, but restating them in the local tongue would pose no real challenge to me. What's more, which version do I pass to my grandkids, for whom English will be at best a second tongue?

- Am I better served continuing to work with the deities and beings I currently do, or am I going to need to make relationships with the ones local to my new home? I imagine the fact that I am only the second generation on one side to be born on north america might mean that I already have some connection to the gods of my grandparents' land?

Any other thoughts you have beyond the content of my two points would also be greatly appreciated.

[ecosophia]

1) You can certainly translate the rituals into any language, so you might as well put them into -- would it be Latvian, Lithuanian, or Estonian? In any case, that would be a good idea.

2) Talk to the deities you currently work with and ask their advice. They'll give you much better counsel than I possibly can.

How to let go of "people pleasing" mode.

[(Anonymous)]

Because of my fear of being considered a "bad" person, or having even an indirect causal realtionship to someone else's pain, I've been very much prone to the whole slew of emotional manipulation tactics that exist that keep me in a chronic people pleasing mode.

I do try to challenge myself with honestly expressing what I think and feel sometimes in the contexts (outside of frank talks I can have with my love partner) but my mind still ends up obsessing and chastising me if I get a negative response, trying to figure out why or what I did wrong.

I want so much the freedom to be hated, disliked, and to maintain my emotional and intellectual bearing even in the face of disapproval and dedicated efforts to subtlely conform me to their sense of ethic or power game.

What can I do to keep myself more clear of these herd-molding mentalities I still have within me? How can I still listen deeply, keep and open mind, but without sacrificing my own position and security in the face of these cheap tricks of social submission that I'd spent so many years under?

Why do I value a stranger's feelings about things more than I do my own? What can I do about it?

Re: How to let go of "people pleasing" mode.

[ecosophia]

It really does depend. One of the reasons that those red MAGA hats and the ideology that goes with them have become so popular of late is that a lot of people are embracing the freedom that you want. That's a little like learning how to swim by jumping in the deep end of the pool, but it's an option -- there's a serious rush that comes from saying the unthinkable, watching people hate you and knowing that you really, truly don't have to care.

But you have to want that more than you want to "listen deeply" and "keep an open mind" -- those are useful servants but bad masters, and they too often turn into just another part of the power game. There's nothing gained by listening deeply to someone who's speaking shallowly, you know, and minds are like ovens -- if you leave them open all the time, everything comes out half baked.

[(Anonymous)]

If you can talk about it without messing anything up, what was the first magic you did that made you realise TSW? What is the most impressive magic you've ever done (whether defined by most spectacular result, worked against longest odds, or something else)?

[ecosophia]

Sure -- that was a good long time ago.

The first magical working I ever did that gave me the TSW reaction was simple enough; I did a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, and felt the shift in the energies of the space. It was nothing spectacular, but I could feel it as clearly as I'd feel, say, a sudden drop in temperature. I sat down on the ugly little naugahyde-covered couch we had back then, and just stared at nothing for a good long while, processing it.

The most impressive magical working I've done that's far enough back that I can talk freely about it -- that was my first serious Golden Dawn talisman. I left college in 1983 after three years, six majors, and no clue what I wanted to do with my life. In 1990 I decided it was time to go back and finish my degree. The difficulties were that (a) my wife and I were dirt poor, (b) she was still paying off student loans from her degree, and (c) that had been enough of a difficulty for us that I wasn't willing to borrow a penny of money for college.

So I did a classic GD talisman of Jupiter during the planetary day and hour. It was a good solid ritual, and I followed it up by applying to the university I wanted to attend and filling out the financial aid application the next day. And...

...the state government promptly passed a bill providing a mess of financial aid for men over the age of 29 who were heads of households and were returning to college after time in the workforce. Between a couple of grants and a work-study position, I had the money for my first year, and my grades were high enough that I got an academic scholarship to fill things out for the second year. I graduated in 1993 magna cum laude without one penny of student loan debt. TSW...

Magic or coincidence

[(Anonymous)]

I am trying to figure out if something I am dealing with has a magical component and what to do if it does. I would appreciate your thoughts.

I joined an church with a lot of Amish input in my late teens. That family of churches (Amish, Mennonite, and relatives) work on promises, and people tend to keep those promises. I left in my early twenties--more than 20 years ago--and was excommunicated. Excommunication is, fundamentally, a public, formal statement that this person has not kept his promises, backed up by the community's promise to avoid any voluntary interaction with this person until he keeps his promises.

Many times, over the years since, I've felt that people just don't take promises to me seriously. And over the past several months, meditating on it, I've noticed that other people who left have the same experience. And very frequently, it's in ways that make it very difficult to keep their own promises: people promise to pay them and don't, making it very difficult to pay the people they owe (but not impossible--just enough to make it a huge sacrifice to do so). Spouses are unreasonably difficult to get along with (what I'm dealing with personally), right up to the edge of infidelity, without being openly unfaithful. And so on and so forth.

I've started to wonder if this has a magical component. It makes sense that someone who breaks formal, public promises would find it harder the next time, but it seems like the promises being very difficult to keep is really common.

I'm Catholic, but the church (I've talked to my priest) doesn't really have a category for "not demonic, not Catholic, but real magic." And since I'm still unwilling to keep the promises I made as a teen, I can't ask the church I left to lift the ban and stop considering me a vow-breaker.

If there's a magical component, how would I know and what would I want to do differently?

Thank you,
SamChevre

Re: Magic or coincidence

[(Anonymous)]

If it were me, I would skip the churches entirely and speak directly to the God to whom you made the promises. Explain what happened and why, ask what reparations must be made for the broken vows (and then wait for an answer, ask forgiveness (especially since asking forgiveness figures so prominently in Christianity) genuinely repent, and then do somthing as an act of penance that you find appropriate. At this point, perhaps make a new vow, if that seems appropriate and if you are certain it is within your power to keep the new vow (it does not have to be the same vow or even a remotely similar one). The whole process might take months of meditation and prayer, or the whole thing could come together in an evening... it depends on how familiar you are with human-to-God interactive communication (which does take practice but is SOOO FULFILLING once mastered) and how much you have already thought about all this beforehand.

Regardless of whether or not there is a magical component to your circumstances, this will strengthen your relationship with your God.

Bear in mind that people of Western society have lost a great deal of their moral compass, particularly with the loss of community. The broken promises might actually be the normal amount of broken promises everyone else is dealing with, it may just catch your attention more since you were once a part of a community that held vows sacred. Nevertheless, you can work to live up to your own standard of honor regardless of the society in which you live now, if you choose.

Sincerely,
Jessi Thompson
anotheramethyst

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Monday JMG!

Firstly, you for hosting the forum. I look forward to it every week! Now for my questions:

1. After a death in this life, during the waiting time for the next reincarnation, where do souls go? Are souls outside of both Abred and Gwynfydd?

2. What do you suggest for breaking up the element systems in the Druidry Handbook into manageable chunks for discursive meditation? Thinking about the whole table is clearly too much, so what is a better amount?

3. Similar question for the Ogham fews - would you take a single few and mediate on different pieces of information associated, taking a few sessions to work through each few?


Many thanks,
Matt

[ecosophia]

1) You're still in Abred, just a different aspect of Abred. You get into Gwynfydd only when you're ready for it.

2) What works varies dramatically from person to person. The one piece of advice I have to offer is to take very small pieces at a time.

3) When I meditated my way through the Ogham, I took each aspect of the symbolism and gave it at least one session, sometimes more than that. Here's the few -'- (Beith), for example -- what does the birch tree mean? That's one session. What are the implications of the color _Ban_, dull white? That's another session, and so on.

Tarot Cards

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

I practice Tarot cards divination as part of the LRM course. I have some difficulty in intrepreting some of the results.

For instance, for the last few weeks, nearly every day I have been seeing many cards from the Cups suite turning up, sometimes 2 in a row in a draw of 3 cards.

It is getting so often that I have begun to wonder whether I am failling to take notice of an important message there.

How should I interpret this long series of Cup cards turning up?

Regards

Thanks!

Re: Tarot Cards

[ecosophia]

Meditate on that! When you find something in a tarot reading, or a series of tarot readings, that doesn't make sense to you, think about it last thing before going to bed, and then meditate on it the next morning.

floor wash question

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

Could you please recommend a floor wash for use in a room that is sometimes a temple space and sometimes a semi-private library/study? It's getting time for spring cleaning and the room has also recently had some contractors in for ventilation repair, which has left a bit of dust and odor from the work.

The atmosphere isn't notably impacted other than the physical smell (burnt wood from drilling through the floor) but as long as I need to wash the floor anyway, it seemed applying a bit of natural magic to the task might be in order, though it's not a topic I'd studied much as yet.

Thanks for any recommendations you may have!

All the best,
Jim

Re: floor wash question

[ecosophia]

Any standard floor wash will work well in this kind of situation -- for example, a bucket of water with a quarter cup of kosher salt, a half cup of ammonia, and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, or simply half a cup of Florida water in a bucket of mop water.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

question about natural medicine: is there a remedy for very weak/easly damaged fingernails? It's a problem I have whole my life and all the supplements and vitamins do nothing to help.

--changeling

[(Anonymous)]

Drinking milk usually helps.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I'm the person who asked about finding my way, my "tamanous", two weeks ago. I wanted to ask some more followup questions; maybe you'll say that there's no more you can say, but I figured it's worth a try.

What kind of things do I do to try to find it? I've read a lot, and investigated a spiritual tradition; I've reflected on my own life. How will I know when I find it? Do I have to join an existing tradition of some kind, or can I "build it from scratch"? Does it necessarily involve supernatural belief, or could it be a philosophy?

What's the difference between "finding one's way" and Nietzscheanism (not something that appeals to me)? My impression is that the "overman" decides to value things by force of will, whereas I feel like I approach the world in an open-minded way and find that some things seem good/beautiful/true to me – that is, I "discover" that they are that way for me, I couldn't choose to "dislike something I like", so to speak.

Thanks a lot in advance.

[ecosophia]

It seems to me that you've just outlined a fine set of questions to think about, meditate on, brood over, explore, research, dream about, and answer in various tentative ways as you work your way toward your path.

This isn't something that anyone else can do for you, or tell you how to do. This is what being alive is all about. Go find your answers!