If magick works, why do so many Witches struggle?

In the context of this post, Witch means “a person who practices the art of conscious change, aka magick.”  I decided to use the term Witch instead of Pagan, because not all Pagans are Witches, and not all Witches are Pagan.

When I first came home to Paganism and Witchcraft, I daydreamed about hundreds of thousands of others like me all over the world at various stages of their paths, all of them further along than I.  These fantasy Witches were one with the earth – natural healers who treated their bodies and our planet with love and respect, beacons of love in their communities who embodied the Divine with their every word and action.  They lived comfortably with abundance and generously shared their excesses, and they were, above all, happy.

Happy.

Wealth, fame, and success seemed so much more attainable than happiness to me in those days as I floundered in the misery that had been my life for as long as I could remember.

I was afraid of magick then.

I read about it, I heard my friends discuss their successes and epic failures, but I was afraid to try it for myself.  I thought magick was something so special and sacred that it should only be performed in times of desperation.  And so I only tried my hand at it when I was feeling desperate.

My first spell was for healing myself of major depressive disorder.  I gathered all the tools the books recommended – a cauldron, a chalice, a wand, an athame, candles of every color, essential oils, herbs, stones,a censer, incense in both stick and sprinkle-on-a-coal form, water, salt, an offering of cake and wine…I smudged, cast circle with all four elements, called quarters, called the Divine and my angels/totems/whatnot, did the hokey pokey and turned myself about…

At the time, I had no idea how to heal, or what a healed me would look or feel like, so my spell was actually more of a desperate plea to an unfamiliar force for a miracle I couldn’t even imagine.

All my early spells were driven by desperate pain.  Heal me, I begged.  Help me.  Protect me from others.  Protect me from myself.

I released desperate pain into the universe, and desperate pain returned to me.  Over. and. over.

Overwhelmed, drowning in my drama, I totally missed the connection.

The first spell I counted as a success was much less elaborate than my first Wiccan-flavored attempts.  I took a piece of copper wire, threaded it through two stone beads (one citrine, one adventurine,) and coated the charm with bergamot oil.  I held it between my palms, closed my eyes, and envisioned myself being hired on the spot at my next job interview.  Then I put the charm in my wallet.  I was hired on the spot, and I kept that charm in my wallet until one of my best friends was job hunting, and I gave it to him.  He found a job soon after.

I carry a citrine wand in my wallet now.  I call it my happy buzzy stone. 🙂

Anyhoo, after the job spell worked, I got handfasted and legally married and divorced and unfasted in less than a year.  I moved to another state and back again in that same year.  And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

It never once occurred to me that I was being punished for working magick.  The Divine, as I saw them, were above the whole domination/punishment crap.  I knew, even as it was happening, that I was calling all that drama and suffering to myself.  I knew I was damaged, broken, and in my heart I believed that I deserved to suffer, that life was suffering, that I was worthless and helpless and hopeless and all that jazz.

And because I believed those things, I made them real for me.

THAT is magick.

Your beliefs shape your reality.

And that is why so many Witches (and muggles 😉 struggle.

Because beliefs can be difficult to recognize and can seem damn near impossible to change.

If you believe it’s hard to find a job, you’re right.

If you believe money is the easiest thing to manifest, you’re right.

I believe both at the same time.  I find money on the ground on a regular basis.  I find odd jobs with relative ease.  But making a living doing what I love to do the most…I’m still working on believing that it’s possible, easy, and that I deserve it.  I am SO inspired by the stories of others who are living the life of their dreams, like Leonie Dawson, SARK, Louise Hay, and so many others. (I picked those three because their dreams are so similar to mine. 🙂

Many people who have read my Introduction on my author site have asked me, “What was that one tiny decision you made that turned your life around?”

I didn’t know how to answer them then.  But I think I have an answer now.

I decided to believe that I was turning my life around.

I had to laugh as I wrote that.  But it’s the truth.

I decided to practice what I preached, to act on my faith, to choose love rather than fear.

And now…

I’m happy.

I have my moments of stress, angst, and overwhelm, but they are only moments.  Every day I find new reasons to celebrate life.

Life is magick.

How do you discover beliefs that are holding you back, and how do you change them?

That is a whole other series of blog posts.

But for homework, consider watching or reading What The Bleep Do We Know Anyway?, The Secret, or You Can Heal Your Life.

And pick a belief you want to have, make it into an affirmation, and say it a hundred times before bed every night.

Maybe start with, “I deserve love.” ❤

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Changing Lives, One Reading At A Time

Over the last two days I have performed two readings that totally inspired me.

In the first one, right in the middle of the reading, my client made a decision that completely changed her future!

At the beginning of the reading, she was a few blocks away from the future she really wanted for herself.  The energy felt like a puddle slowly dripping down a sidewalk.

A new message came through for her, and she decided to listen to it, and the second she made the decision, before she told me, the energy suddenly transformed into a ray of light.  She leapt those few blocks in a single bound!  She’s now just a step away from realizing her dreams, and she’s already decided to take that step.  I was crying in Starbucks because I was so happy and excited for her!

I FREAKING LOVE IT!

I absolutely adore when a reading helps a client make a life-changing decision.  I love it so much, it’s inspired me to start Love-Your-Life Coaching!  I’m working on my website, and will definitely launch it in the next week, but y’all heard about it here first!

❤ ❤ ❤

Last night, I shared a meal with a Vietnam Vet who’s been homeless for 35 years, and I gave him a reading.

He wanted to know how he could settle down with his family, how he could overcome his fear of being rejected by his daughters and grandkids.

During the reading, he blossomed.  I watched him waver from excited about trying to fearful several times, but when he left he was determined to try the first step – to develop his faith.

He has to have faith in himself.

So simple, yet so difficult…but I know he can do it.

❤ ❤ ❤

What about you?  What inspires you?  What change would you like to make in your life?  Feel free to email me if you need some encouragement!

Love and Blessings,
Ashley Rae

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Taking Back Our Personal Power

What makes humans the dominant species on this planet is our ability to take what we have and turn it in to what we need.

When we are kids, we pick up a stick and use it as a bat, a magic wand, a horse, a phone, a flag, whatever we need in the moment.

This stick is about to become a boat. 🙂

At school, we are taught the “proper” way to use sticks.  We learn that we have to do things the way others have done them, think the way others think, understand the world the way others understand it.  Our thoughts, words, and actions are labelled “right” or “wrong.”  We are rewarded for conforming and punished for choosing differently.

This makes most of us miserable. We self-medicate with tv, movies, video games, sugar, comfort-junk.  Our poor creative muscles wither.  We forget how to adapt, how to find resources, how to tap in to that creative power that makes us God-like.

Most of us don’t even know that we’ve accepted powerlessness as normal, as “real life.”

“Welcome to the Real World,” we say.  “Life is hard.  Life is suffering.”

Bullshit, I say.

Life is love.

Life is learning.

Life is an adventure!

The Real World is the world we create for ourselves with our beliefs.  We can believe what we are taught by others, or we can teach ourselves something different.  It’s our choice.

Even when we feel powerless, we have choices.

We have so many choices, they overwhelm us, numb us, and we end up falling on old habits or doing what we think everyone else does, what we’re supposed to do.

Sometimes power is scary.

If every action we perform, every thought we think, every penny we spend, every word we speak changes us and the world around us…that’s just too much responsibility to comprehend on a day to day basis.

But that’s reality.

Reality is constantly changing based on the energy we give it.

If we are in a bad mood, throwing out angry words, violent gestures, mean thoughts, and spending our money on comfort-junk, life sucks for the day.

If we are in a good mood, practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty, being grateful, affectionate, loving, consciously spending money in ways that nourish ourselves and our communities, life is awesome.

Each of us has the power to create paradise wherever we are, one moment at a time.

Each of us has the power to step out of the bully/victim paradigm and choose a new paradigm in this moment.  You can choose a paradigm of unconditional love, or of deep gratitude.  You can choose to live in a world of compassion, affection, and loving acceptance.

"Whoopty doo. But what does it all MEAN, Basil?"

How does someone stuck in a powerLESS-loop take his or her power back?

If you are used to feeling like you have no control, how do you take control of your life?

One step at a time.

Step one for you could be deciding to do one kind thing for a stranger.  You could choose to have an organic apple instead of a candy bar.  Your might choose to laugh.  You could take a day for yourself instead of giving it to others.

You could keep making excuses…or you could make plans, come up with ideas, set goals.

Every step you take towards paradise is one step out of your personal hell.

Every loving choice you make heals you.

You choose.

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Judgment is from Mars, Compassion is from Venus…

…and you can be compassionate even if you have a penis…

…just so you know.

(and you can be judgmental even if you have a vagina, to be fair.)

I just couldn’t resist the rhyme when it popped into my head. 😀

ANYHOO, my point is this:

Judgment means “an opinion.” We all form them.  Frequently.  And that’s okay…as long as it’s not getting in our way, interfering with our relationships, our work, our lives.

Compassion literally means “with love.”  It’s what happens when we try to see through the eyes of another being.  It is powerful, beautiful, and difficult to overuse.

Judgment labels, separates, assigns blame or responsibility.  Compassion accepts, embraces, and expands understanding.

What judgment hurts, compassion can heal.

I woke in a lovely mood today, and on my long commute I noticed a lot more traffic on the road than usual, and a lot more horns going off all around me.

It’s President’s Day, which some people celebrate by driving in a state of irritation and attemping to spread their mood with the use of obnoxious loud noises.

I chose to celebrate today by fantasizing about being interviewed on The Ellen Degeneres Show about my book after it comes out, and having her reveal to me that I’d reached number one on the New York Time’s Best Sellers list.

If I'm going to dream, I'm going to dream big!

Consequently, I felt happy and peaceful.  Every light was green, and every place I needed to turn left had a considerate driver holding space for me so I didn’t have to wait for the next red light.

When I dropped my three-year-old son off at his in-home daycare, the other half dozen toddlers shouted his name and ran up to him, each hugging and kissing him in turn, and he hugged and kissed each back before allowing one of his friends to lead him by the hand to the back yard, the other toddlers surrounding him like an escort.  I wish I’d had my camera for that moment!

Then, at Publix I got some watermelon and my favorite salsa and organic blue corn chips to snack on today, and I spotaneously decided to get treat myself with PureAlmond Dark Chocolate 8 oz beverages, which said buy 3 get 1 free.  When I got to the register, they didn’t ring up at the correct price, so the cashier gave me 2 for free!

NOM

Today, I was in Flow, a state of compassion, being filled with love…and love reflected all around me.

I’m still there.

I just wanted to share, so you can join me. ❤

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The No Excuses/Yes I Can/Screw It Path to Healing

Since I took the name Spirit Healer, and even before, when I started using my intuitive and healing gifts, I have received hundreds if not thousands of requests from people all over the world, begging me to heal them.

Please heal me...

While I am always happy and honored to send healing energy & love, and to offer help in whatever way I can, I have a confession…

I can’t heal you.

That’s right: Spirit Healer cannot heal you.

So why did I choose the name Spirit Healer?

Because I can heal my own spirit.  And I can help you figure out how to heal your own spirit.

I can help you, but I can’t do the work for you.

And guess what?

YOU CAN HEAL YOU.

Yes, you can.

Only you can.

ONLY YOU CAN HEAL YOU.

You are your own savior.

Just like the only person you can change is yourself, the only person that can heal you is you.

Doctors, psychologists, therapists, self-help gurus, spiritual counselors, psychics, energy healers…we can all help you.  We can all teach you, provide you with tools, inspiration, and direction.  That’s what we are here for.  That’s our job.

You can accept our help, or decline it.  You can follow a well-tread path to healing, or forge your own.

What does your path look like?

I’ve just created a new path by combining three other paths I’ve read about.

I call it The No Excuses/Yes I Can/Screw It Path.  It works like this:

Every time you catch an inner voice making excuses about why you can’t eat healthier food/get more sleep/ break a sweat for thirty minutes/ try a new healing technique for more than thirty seconds/learn  something you always wanted to/etc., you firmly tell that voice “NO EXCUSES!” And you DO IT ANYWAY.

Every time a voice in your head says, “I can’t,” you shout, “YES I CAN,” and you DO.

Every time you find yourself slipping back into old bad habits, negative thinking, or any other behavior that gets in the way of the positive changes you are trying to make for yourself, just say, “SCREW IT!” and go on your merry way making your changes.

On this path, you take all that energy that you used to put into procrastinating, venting, making excuses, distracting yourself from your goals, and treating yourself badly, and you turn it all around.

Turn anger into passion which fuels you on your path to health and joy.

This is a path to healing based on willpower, motivation, and dedication.  If you find yourself angry often, this could be a great path for you, because you can use your anger to fuel those three qualities in yourself.  Instead of being angry at another person, or the world, or yourself, you can see that anger as a sense of injustice and let it fuel your fight for better self-treatment and total self-love.

Would this path work for you?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

But I guarantee there is a path that will work for you: YOUR path.

And if you’ve already figured it out in whole or in part, I’d love to hear about it!

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Making Room for Prosperity

Dear Inner Perfectionist,

You are fired.

With Love,

Me

P.S. – this means I will no longer wait for inspiration to blog, and my blogs will no longer be edited for hours or days (or weeks or months) before posting. 😀

P.P.S. – Your position has been replaced by my Inner Cheerleader.

P.M.S. So eat that, you hypercritical criticizer! 😛

What does your inner cheerleader look like?

Dear readers,

Welcome to the 2012 edition of Spirit Healer Divination & Craft.  We are letting go of perfectionism and procrastination as of yesterday, and opportunities are already flooding in!

If your life if full of crap, there’s no room for the seeds of your hopes and dreams to grow.  You have to create a space for the universe to fill with the good things you keep asking for.

That’s what I did, and that’s what I’m going to help you to do today.

For this simple healing rite, you are going to need:

• paper and something to write with
• a lighter and something that you can burn paper in without damaging anything (including yourself!)
• A prosperity charm  (this could be as simple as a $ on a scrap of paper you plan to put in your wallet, a check made out to yourself in the amount of money you dream of having in your account, a piece of citrine or a green or gold stone, a lucky coin, or any picture or symbol that represents prosperity to you.)
• An optional green candle
• A few uninterrupted minutes of concentration

There are two phases to every simple healing rite: the purge, and the refill.

Phase 1: Get It Out

For the purge, you are going to write a letter to yourself, or to your angels, guides, concept of deity, universe, or whatever you feel most comfortable addressing for help.

Something like this, but way more specific...

List every single one of those things in detail.  “Please help me release my fear of not being able to pay my bills, my fear of losing my house, my job, my friends, my life…Please help me release my doubts about my ability to find/keep a job, my doubts about my compentency, my doubts about whether anyone would want to hire me/work with me…Please help me release my bitterness toward money, my judgments of people who have more than me or less than me…please help me to know that money is NOT the root of all evil…please help me to know that I deserve to be able to pay my bills, I deserve to retire in style, I deserve to have a family, a home, a life!”

Be incredibly detailed, specific, and thorough.  This is a purge.  You are vomiting poison onto paper.  Be as vulgar, profane, angry, scared, tearful, pleading, as you need to be in the moment. Write in all caps with slashes and scribbles and cuss words as much as you need to; water the pages with your tears if you need to.

Keep going until you feel empty, hollow.  Empty/hollow is good!  It means you’ve removed so much poison, the tiny prosperity seeds you are about to plant will have a chance to grow and thrive.  Now we can move on to phase 2.

Phase 2: Fill ‘er Up!

Phase 2 begins with the burning of those poisonous pages.  If you can’t burn, then tear them into tiny bits and flush them down the toilet.  As you destroy them, state your intention to release these feelings and to allow their essence to nourish the earth with harm to none.

burn baby burn

Now take your prosperity charm in your hands, get comfortable, close your eyes, and fill yourself with the most powerful love you are capable of feeling.  You are performing a muggle version of the Patronus charm.  If you’ve never seen or read Harry Potter 3, this means that you are finding your happiest memories and bringing them to life in your heart.  You need a memory so pure that when you are thinking it, nothing can bring you down.

My son is my happy thought.  Snuggling with him in the morning, his baby kisses, the way he cries, “Mommy!” and then launches himself into my arms when I pick him up for daycare and wrapping his little arms around my neck with a sigh of contentment, his laugh, his cute antics…

My Happiest Thought

Your thought might be a person, or a place, a cherished belonging, a time in your life or a cherished dream.  Find it, hold onto it, and let it fill that empty space until you feel happy and bursting with hope, joy, and love. (Or as close as you can get.)

Once you are in that happy space, start fantasizing about yourself as a prosperous person.  Keep the fantasy positive and as if you are already there.

If you have a candle (possibly a big green one,) light it now.  Then say aloud, on paper, or in your mind that you are ready for this.  Say that you are open to prosperity, that you deserve prosperity, that you deserve and are ready to live your dream.  Ask your helpers to help you plant and nourish these dreams, to help them grow, thrive, and help you harvest them when the time comes.  Ask them to give you signs to show you the way, to help you meet the earth angels/people who can help you get there, and to help you hear opportunity’s knocks.

Thank your helpers for all your blessings, every good thing in your life, and keep that prosperity charm that you’ve been holding all this time in a special place, perhaps your wallet or purse, an altar or shrine if you have one, next to your computer, or any place that makes sense to you.  Light your candle every day for a few minutes, bringing back that happy fantasy of prosperity, until there is no wax left (it’s okay to blow it out or snuff it then re-light it as many times as you like.)

There are many ways to attract money into your life.  Money is abundant and attainable.  Money is the easiest thing to manifest.

Change your beliefs, change your life. ❤

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Healing Depression: Part 2 – Denial

When I was nine years old, my mother led my six year old sister and I into our four-year old brother’s bedroom and told us that she was dying.

I didn’t believe her.

My mother holding my brother, and her sister, holding my cousin, the one I discuss towards the end of this post.

Three years later, when Dad had to argue with the doctors to allow me to see her in the hospital, I still didn’t believe her. Though her skin was yellow-green, her stomach distended, her mouth crooked, her teeth black with blood from the nosebleed that started weeks previously, I just could not accept her impending death.

Even when all her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, her mother, Dad’s mother, and all his brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews made their mass exodus from Virginia and South Carolina respectively to be with us in my mother’s last few days, I didn’t’ believe my mother was dying.

Even after her funeral, I still had dreams that she was still alive, and it was all a big misunderstanding.

Mom, sleeping.

This afternoon, my mother’s sister sent me an email to let me know that her son, my twenty-five year old cousin, has been given 1-4 years to live because two surgeries have failed to remove enough of the brain cancer that he’s been fighting for the last few years.

And I just don’t believe it.

This is denial, one of the five stages of grief, and I know that, but I still feel it.

I’m grieving for the suffering my gentle, funny, loving cousin is experiencing, which will only get worse until the end. I’m grieving for his mother, sister, brother, father, grandmother, cousins, aunts, uncles and the whole extended family, so close-knit and proud of their boy.

My cousin, trying to tickle my sister as his brother gives their mother bunny ears and their sister gets impatient and I just laugh.

I cling tightly to the hope that the doctors are wrong, that my cousin will survive, and overcome.

This is a healing in process.

Denial isn’t so much healed as it is realized and overcome.

There are many less dramatic and obvious things throughout our lives that we deny to ourselves.

We deny ourselves life’s little pleasures.

We deny ourselves what we really want in favor of what we feel we actually deserve.

We deny ourselves what we want and need most to be happy, healthy, and blissful.

When we are depressed, and when we grieve, we deny ourselves peace and joy.

Recognizing our own blockages, our own denial, is the first step in healing depression as well as grief.

What are you denying yourself?

What can you give yourself today, right now?

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A Meditation on Gratitude

We say thank you all the time, which is wonderful. In fact, we might feel a bit put off if someone does NOT thank us for our time or effort. “Thank you” is the polite thing to say, right?

In fact, we say it so often that when we someone does something extraordinary, something so kind, generous, and unexpected that it stuns us, we have to repeat ourselves. Thank you, we say, and the person smiles and nods and moves on. But we have to stop them, and look into their eyes and say, “No, really. Thank you!”

What has someone done for you this year that overflowed your heart with so much emotion that it surged up through your chakras to fill up your eyes?

What does pure gratitude feel like to you? Is it a warm sensation, like a hug? An aching sensation like tears repressed? Is it light and joyous and making you feel like you’re soaring? Does it feel like safety, security, trust in the inherent goodness of the universe?

What are you thankful for?

Take a moment to get comfortable. Close your eyes and focus on the sensation of gratitude. Think about all of the gifts and joys in your life, and let yourself be swept away by that wonderful, healing feeling.

Imagine a flower blooming for every blessing in your life, for every smile, every laugh, every tear of joy. Cultivate a garden of blessings around you, sparkling in the light of the sun, glowing in the moonlight.

If you are feeling creative, draw, paint, or make a collage of your secret garden, and put it somewhere where you will see it often, where it can be a constant reminder and homage to every person, thing, and memory in your life for which you are grateful.

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Invoking Balance – A Simple Healing Rite

Modern technology has made it possible to do the same work year round, and to do any activity any season.

However, our bodies and spirits are still operating on Earth’s time. Our bodies and spirits prepare for the changing seasons, even when our minds are otherwise occupied.

Now that we can do pretty much anything pretty much anytime we want, we never seem to get around to the things that matter most to us, and this throws us off balance.

When we’re off balance, any little thing can knock us down and set us back. So tonight, I’m going to show you a way to invite balance back into your body, heart, mind, and spirit.

For this healing rite, you need:

• a bowl of water big enough to wash your hands in
• about a teaspoon of sea salt (or plain salt)
• a small glass of water (to drink)
• a few minutes of uninterrupted time in a place where you feel safe and comfortable

Read over this whole rite before you get started so you know what you are doing.

Then, get comfortable.  Tell your brain firmly to stop chattering and let you heal.  Relax your body, and breathe deeply as long as you need to.

When you feel ready, pour the salt into your palm.  Cover the salt with your other hand.  Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and imagine all the stress, frustration, tension, worry, anger, fear, and pain in your heart, mind, and body flowing down your arms, through your palms, and into the salt.

The salt absorbs all the energy you put into it. It greedily sucks up the last bits of negative energy from your palms and holds it for you.

When you are ready, open your eyes, and wash the salt from your hands in the bowl of water, washing those ickies off of your hands and out of your life.

Now that you have removed that damaged energy from yourself, you have created a void that must be filled. Most people vent off their anger, pain, or fear…and then fill the void with the same pain, anger, or fear.  Counterproductive, much?

The only way to heal anger is to overwhelm it with love & forgiveness.
The only way to heal pain is to overwhelm it with joy & pleasure.
The only way to heal fear is to overwhelm it with peace & trust.

Now is the time to fill your own personal void with love, joy, and peace.

Hold your cup of water in both hands and close your eyes. Think in great detail about people, memories, and activities that make you feel confident, happy, safe, loved, special, and peaceful.  Let those fillings fill you up, and overflow from your heart, down your arms, through your palms and into the water.

When you feel ready, acknowledge that your water is blessed with love, peace, and joy, and that you accept this peace, love and joy as your own.  It helps to acknowledge this out loud…it makes it more real for you to hear your own voice saying it.   Then drink this blessed water, and visualize it filling your void, healing you, and making you whole and healthy.

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The True Value of Money

Most people hate money.  Which is ironic, since money is a physical symbol of value.  Value and hate are opposites, right?

Several years ago, I walked into a beautiful, peaceful book store that specialized in spirituality and healing, and the owner of that store engaged me in conversation about something that at 70, she had only just realized – that money is love.

I went home thinking she was a wonderful lady, but a bit off her rocker.

At the time, I felt money was the root of all evil and all suffering, and I hated needing money and never having enough.  I hated having to pay bills, and that I couldn’t just live off the land and be totally self-sufficient without having and spending what seemed an astronomical amount of money to start me off.

Over the years, I found myself getting into conversations and even giving readings to people who were struggling with the morality of charging for their products and services.  Every one of them felt that the love and peace they felt for performing their services or creating their art was reward enough, and that charging money for them would cheapen them somehow.  And in every one of those conversations, I ended up arguing with them…even though I thought I believed the same.

The true value of money is something everyone should really slow down and think about, because how you see your money determines how you will treat it, and how it will treat you.

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