Magickal Connections

Tarot & Witchcraft ~ with author, Amythyst Raine

Category Archives: Spirituality


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Affirmations ~ Time for Reinforcement: Physically, Spiritually, Mentally

The following blog post is an excerpt from my book, The Spiritual Feminist.  This book was a journey.  It was not just a writing process; it was self-therapy, it was revolutionizing new thoughts, it was hindsight recorded for my daughters, it was a journey through my life at so many points…until I suddenly realized that it was a journey through life for so many women with so many common factors, questions, doubts, and fears.

I hope you enjoy; and I hope there’s something here worth taking with you ~

Affirmations:

The Physical Aspect
This is my body…No one shall touch this body without my express permission. No one shall impose upon my body a physical action, intention, criteria, procedure, or judgment, that I have not expressly approved. This is my body, created by the Mother Goddess in all the glory of her likeness. Whether this body be large or small, fit or weak; whether this body align with the cultural views and norms of my society or not: My body is beautiful and will be respected as such.

Questions for Introspection
The Physical
1. What is my best feature?
2. What are two things about my body I’d like to change?
3. What would I have to do to make these changes?
4. Realistically, would it be possible for me to do this, and if I could successfully make these changes, who would I be making them for?
5. Am I able to accept my physical body in it’s beautiful natural state; am I able to embrace myself as I am?
6. Is my body healthy?
7. If not, what are my health issues?
8. What do I need to do in order to correct these issues, or just generally improve my health, strength, and endurance?
9. List three things you know are not healthy for you but you do anyway.
10. List three things you do for yourself that contribute to your physcial well-being.
11. What do I love most about my body?

The Spiritual Aspect
I will connect with the universe through the Divine Feminine, and through that connection with my ancestors and the root of all that is me…For centuries the Divine Feminine has been ripped from the heart and soul of womanhood, shrouded in stories of evil encompassing snakes and apples, betrayal and guilt. Womanhood needs to wrestle its freedom from this lie, to regain its strength and equilibrium through the power of the Mother Goddess.

Through the youthful exuberance of the Maiden, the fertility of the Mother, and the wisdom of the Crone, we have to pass on to our daughters the beauty of the feminine mystique, impressing upon them the reverence and respect that is its due. While the world still revolves around the decisions of men, it is women who harvest its bounty through their children, their art, their writing, their dreams, and their strong sense of nurturing. It is woman who builds up; and through her spirituality and connection with the Goddess, woman can repair the damage of previous generations, building new futures and opportunities for her children.

With our strong and renewed sense of connection to the Feminine Divine, the most important thing we can do is to impart upon our fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons the strength, beauty, wisdom, and power of womanhood at its most pure. We can lead them back to the Goddess, who is, after all, their Mother too.

Questions for Introspection
The Spiritual
1. Do I feel a strong connection with Feminine Divinity?
2. How has the Goddess touched my life?
3. Do I feel free to embrace Goddess Spirituality openly?
4. If not, what are the obtacles to doing so?
5. Realistically, can these obstacles be overcome?
6. What do I do each day to connect with Spirit?
7. How has my connection to the Goddess and my spiritual practices enhanced my daily life?
8. List three things that you think impede your spiritual growth.
9. List three things that have inspired you during your life.
10. What do you love most about your spirituality right now?
11. Is there a woman you know who would benefit by learning about the Mother Goddess?

The Mental Aspect
I will not allow other people’s opinions to form the image I carry of myself…Whether these opinions are formed and passed on to me by friends, family, or foe. If these opinions are filled with negativity, if these opinions are laced with jealousy, spite, judgmental prejudice, ambiguity, cruelty, or ignorance, I will disregard these opinions. These opinions will be shed as a snake sheds its skin, leaving renewed vitality and beauty beneath, exposing my true nature, in tune with the Goddess and a healthy ego.

Questions for Introspection
The Mental
1. Do I expect too much of myself?
2. Do I feel like I have to be responsible for everyone?
3. Is there a lot of stress in your life right now?
4. If so, what are the main causes of this stress?
5. Realistically, can the circumstances or people causing this stress be resolved or dismissed from your life?
6. If so, what steps must you take to correct the issue?
7. Do you give yourself time to daydream?
8. When you are sad, what makes you happy?
9. What makes you laugh?
10. What makes you cry?
11. What are you afraid of?
12. Do you have someone in your life with whom you can share your deepest thoughts?

The Source for this blogpost is ~

THE SPIRITUAL FEMINIST

order your copy HERE

Updates from THE WITCH’S CORNER!

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 Desires & Fears
1. this is where you came from
2. this is where you are going
3. this is what is difficult for you
4. this is what makes sense
5. this is your ultimate goal
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 THANK YOU so much for visiting my blog today!  I hope you take away something special from your visit.  This is my “sacred space”, so to speak, my private journal; my therapist; and my joy.  It’s taken years to build, and it is as treasured as if it were a tattered leather-bound keepsake full of secrets and revelations.
 Blessings, Amythyst


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A Lotta’ Drama ‘Bout Nothing

“I Offered the Wrong Fruit to This God!”…”I set up my altar wrong!”…”My Life is Falling Apart!”, they wail.

I love this! (In a warped and twisted way.)  People, mostly youngish people that I’m finding (mostly), have gone over-the-top insanely fixated on practicing their paganism from a strictly Historically Accurate context. We all know that this is impossible, those of us old ‘uns who’ve been around a while and tread the path from various perspectives and dimensions.

I sit back in quiet amazement watching the high-drama…”I’ve insulted Zeus and Cerridwen !”(Greek god; Celtic goddess, for those who don’t know, and that’s ok).  They either set an altar up “WRONG”, or put the wrong offering out, or put the opposing altar with the opposing deities from opposing pantheons and cultures up too close together, or on the wrong day, or with the wrong intention…on and on and on and on.

These kiddos make me tired, just watching them.  They must be expending an enormous amount of energy on the how and why, the “historical accuracy” of an ancient deity, the who and when, how much, how often, worrying about repercussions from the G’awds above if something isn’t done the way it was a bazillion years ago.

And in doing so, they are missing the point completely.

They are missing the blessing of any divine insight because they are so wrapped up in our physical world and fanatical practices, and totally consumed with worry about DOING IT WRONG.

How can Divinity get a message through all the dramatic over-the top cadder-walling going on, both verbally and in their mind.  You have to be still, and preferably calm and peaceful, to connect with that inner voice, the voice that most often winds up to be the spiritual world trying to reassure us, or give us a message, or direct us in some way.  You can’t hear that voice when you’re all hot and angry under the collar because you are trying to reconstruct an ancient practice that has left no witnesses, and you’re all mad that no one understands what you’re trying to do, and you’re even more angry that some people are telling you it’s not only impossible, it’s unnecessary.

How can anyone connect with the Divine through all that?

The biggest negative to come out of all this, that I can see, is that these people are blaming everything that goes wrong in their life on the fact that they might be worshipping a deity incorrectly, and it’s the mad wrath of the god or goddess coming down on them.

Bullshit.

You’re not that important in the big scheme of ancient deities.

Your life is falling apart, if indeed it is, by the decisions you make, your own personal choices; the people you choose to associate with; the life-style that you choose to live.  Your life is falling apart because of personal fears, personal weaknesses, personal demons.

Your life is falling apart because of all these things and maybe more.

It’s time for you to grow some kahoonas and take responsibility for the mess your life is in instead of blaming some ancient deity for your personal predicament.

You can’t fix it, repair it, or rebuild it by going bat-shit fixated crazy trying to worship some ancient god or goddess in an “historically accurate” way; and then getting yourself all messed up because you feel you’ve failed this in some way.

And then there are those people who just LOVE DRAMA, and they’ve found the perfect foible with which to feed this appetite.  I’ve seen desperate posts by people simply hungry for attention, with all kinds of crazy stories about how they did something to bring down the wrath of the gods upon them.

And, you know, they generally get the attention they seek.

Again, I’m amazed.

They get patted on the back, blessings sent, hugs and kisses, because some big-ass old god is angry that they set up an altar the WRONG WAY, and now they are VICTIMS.  Of course, the people who respond to such nonsense in this way are enabling this victim mentality, and it will go on and on and on and on.  This won’t stop.  It feeds too many emotional, psychological, and mental needs on such a wide variety of levels, both for the “victim” and the enabler.  It’s not going to go away.

The saddest thing is that a true Divine Connection will never be made, experienced, enjoyed, or accepted for what it is.

Be still.

Find peace.

Sit with the sun on your face.

Stand with the moist earth beneath your bare feet.

Listen to birds.

Pet cats.

Pick a bouquet of wild flowers.

Watch a sunrise, or a sunset…

And know that you’ve just DONE IT RIGHT.


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Historical Accuracy & the Modern Practicing Pagan

Historical Accuracy ~ There is a deluge of internet blogs on this topic, and I’ve read many of them in open-awed wonder at the closed-minded, in-the-box, impossible silliness of all the rhetoric.  Historical Accuracy, really?  You want “Historical Accuracy” in your practice?  You want to do things 100% the way they were originally done centuries ago?  As one charming witch put it, “…Well then, how’s your Human Sacrifice coming along, and when was the last time you led livestock to a bog?”

And let’s get one thing straight before we go any further ~  “Historical Accuracy”, trying to replicate the precise practices of ancient people who no longer exist towards an ancient deity with no fully documented information is not the same thing as respect for modern indigenous people and their active spiritual practices.  (In other words, I won’t be holding a Lakota Sioux ceremony in my backyard anytime soon.)

But when I’m told I need “permission” to set up an altar to Kuan Yin in my home, it gets my blood riled.  Ask permission?  From whom?  The Chinese government?…they’re communist. If you want to nitpick at “rules” for your spirituality, look at it this way– I’m not breaking any laws.  Under our American Constitution I’m expressing my “Freedom of Religion”.  I doubt that my home is going to be deluged with spiritual police carting away my Kuan Yin statue like some sort of illegal contraband.

Too many people have way too much time on their hands which they’ve spent in some sort of fruitless pursuit of a “Perfect Spiritual Practice”.  It’s time for the Historical Accuracy Bandwagon to park itself.

I’m including in this blog post a video by Molly Roberts on this exact topic.  She puts it way more eloquently than I can ~


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Elephants, Elephants, Elephants…My Journey to Ganesha

It started about 16 years ago, honestly, I can’t believe it myself!  My fascination with elephants began as I was extricating myself from a 16 year marriage with a control freak, leaving an emotionally unhealthy situation.  I was so drawn to elephants in any form…artwork, statuary, jewelry…that my house is full of elephants, literally, almost every room carries the energy of this animal.  It was as if I’d never noticed elephants before; and I was puzzled as to my infatuation, because as a living animal, they were not a creature that I felt connected with.  It went somehow strangely beyond the living animal, but I didn’t understand how or why.

The next phase, be patient!

My daughter bought me a beautiful statue of Ganesha…and no, I very blindly did not see the connection.  From my vantage point today, I find this amazing!

Several more years passed, and I was in my “tattooing” stage and loving every moment of it.  I decided to get a tattoo on my chest, just beneath my right collar bone, and I was inexplicably drawn to a beautiful image of the moon and the sun interlocking with each other.  I was told that this was actually an image of the Hindu god and goddess, Shiva and Shakti, and represented their sexual union…No, I did not realize at the time that Shiva and Shakti were the parents of Ganesha.  In fact, I was not aware of this until very recently!  Again, the synchronicity is amazing, and what makes it even more so is my naiveté and blindness to it all.
Flash forward to the very recent present time ~ I wound up working somewhere that I had not expected to work (Next Millennium, http://magicalomaha.com).  It was a fluke, something I had not thought about, an offer that was totally out of the blue, which played in amazingly when the job I had in Fremont folded.  I was literally “semi-unemployed” for one day and jumped right in from 4 days a month at Next Millennium, to 5 days a week at this amazing shop!  It is no less than “magickal”, how this all worked out. (This event, this connection, is crucial to this story.)

 

Next synchronistic event ~ I like turning Youtube videos on while I’m getting ready for work in the morning, and on a very recent morning I tuned in to Joanna Devoe, to this video, and heard her talk about Ganesha…time stamp 3:17

 

 

Finally, as I was listening to this delightful lady talk about Ganesha, something in my brain went “click”.  I was at least tuned in, if not yet totally connected.

 

Next synchronicity ~ at work.  I suddenly noticed that the ladies I was working with were making references to Ganesha.  It was like a door was slowly creaking open.  Simultaneously, his image popped up in orders at the shop, and even on my computer at home.  I would bring something up or turn around to take a sip of coffee, and when I turned back, there he was.  He also appeared in many other bizarre and unexpected ways throughout the day that were like quick flashes.

 

And then, unexplainably, in one astounding lightening bolt “Aha!” moment…I connected!!  I connected all these years long synchronistic events.  It was almost a feeling of “Good grief!  All this time this is what was trying to communicate with me, and I kept putting it off!”

 

I am so excited!…And I thank the universe and all the hints and clues it was throwing my way all these years; and I thank the amazing ladies I work with, and the wonderful Ms. Devoe, for finally throwing this door wide open!

 

The connection is complete…at last!

 


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The Witch’s Corner ~ A Woman’s Life in Decades (video podcast)

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