Posts Tagged ‘meditation’

Our week of empowerment blogged about earlier is coming to a close.

This morning I recorded the working for the final day as posted here.  I wanted to work on this empowerment to help build myself up for the pending Mercury Retrograde to help me weather the storm that usually knocks the socks right off me!

You can do these exercises anytime at all to give yourself a boost.

Monday’s are all about home, family, love, health, magick and dreams. These last two, the association is hard to ignore with the ruler of Monday being the Moon. The colors today are silver and white.

With this in mind today’s magick is going to be postponed to be called tonight’s magick
and one that I will be doing before I lay down to bed tonight.

The moon for today is in Taurus making it a fantastic time to work with inner peace, love,
creativity. These are the spells that take the longest to manifest but the results are
stable and long lasting.

My primary altar is on my desk, I use this altar every day. I do have a secondary altar
on my nightstand next to the bed that houses gemstones and a spot for a candle should I want one and an incense burner with either a small stone offering bowl or a stone goddess in the center.

Materials for tonight’s magick:
White Votive Candle (I am using a Sacred White Sage Votive)
Incense with Sandalwood or Jasmine (I am using Hari – Amber/Sandalwood)
Moonstone gem (if you have one)

Set your altar or bedside table (if safe) with the votive, incense burner and gemstone.
If you have an oil you use before sleep please anoint your votive with it. I will be
anointing mine with what some may believe to be an odd choice, nevertheless; I will be
using the Ostara Creamy Petals – Spellbound Potion on my candle. The scent relaxes and
opens my mind to the possibilities before me.

Sit before your altar, light your candle and focus on a challenge in your life right now.
Something you need to find resolution to, something that blocks your way, something that needs divine inspiration to help you find a creative solution through. Be very specific
in your thoughts. For me personally, I will be working on resolving challenges presented
before me in an effort to relocate with the ability to maintain my bills and life while
simultaneously improving it for the better.

I am looking for inspiration and creativity to help me find the direction, by using the
dream-state to lay the groundwork needed.

You may enter a meditative state while thinking about your challenge, this is perfectly
fine and normal as you will begin to receive visions of symbols by letting your conscious
mind go and allowing your inner-self take over to give you ideas and directions.
When you are ready, dab a little of the anointing oil on your temples and third eye then
lay down for sleep.

You may find your dreamstate to be more active. Before your feet hit the ground in the
morning, write down the symbols you are able to recall from your dreaming. These will
help you find your way through your challenge and bring your goals to fruition.

Life is a journey. And it is important that in life, we take journeys; that we experience the world actively rather than passively. That we connect with the energies of places near and far in order to draw them in and make them part of our own.

Whether you call it a journey, a pilgrimage, or a quest, it need not be long or perilous: it need only be fulfilling and leave you with a sense of accomplishment.  Set out to see the sights of the world and you will see them: you just need to get out there.  Go take a walk around the block or through a city park. Go to the nearest beach, river, or meadow. Chances are the spirits of these places have been imbued with power or worshiped in the past, and if they have not, then your active energies may just perk up the local nature gods and bring them to your aid. One of the biggest rewards of these jaunts is to commune with nature, to connect with the positive energy of the landscape and incorporate it into yourself.

The focus of this first edition of Sacred Pilgrimages is something I like to call ‘water communion’.  Flowing water, like a river, any river, be it a big famous one, or your local meandering creek, is a great philosophical symbol for the life journey you are traveling. The river meanders, it grows, it takes unexpected twists and turns and faces rock-hard obstacles before finally freeing itself into a wider source of water ~ symbolic of us finding a wider understanding of the universe in life and death. Rivers, streams, and creeks are also active purifiers which can help you wash away negative energies.  Your assignment: Go visit a local water spot. Revel in its beauty and bring home part of its spirit.

I recently found myself on one of the oldest popular pilgrimages to water known to modern man:  I visited the River Jordan and Dead Sea in the Middle East. For millennia it has been a site of worship and devotion, pagan and monotheistic alike: all mankind has recognized the power of this lively river flowing through the desert landscape. Revered from its spring (most notably by the cult of Pan at Baniyas), downstream (think John the Baptist or the later Crusaders), to its endpoint in the Dead Sea, the Jordan River is a potent symbol of life which flows through the dead landscape into the underworld. For me, it was a personal family quest: one of my ancestral names is Giordano ~ Italian for ‘Of the Jordan River’ ~ a name taken by Italian Crusaders who had been baptized in the river during their misguided quests in the Middle Ages. And while living in the Middle East it seemed most fitting to take a day and revel in the ancient landscape.

My journey to the river was two-fold. First I went above the river, to Mount Nebo in Jordan, (incidentally another sacred site of Christendom) to view the river from the heights and witness its endpoint in the sea. Then I went down the mountain and went swimming in the Dead Sea. And my-oh-my, what a bizarre otherworldly experience! The buoyancy from the high salt content defies common sense and you can literally walk on water for a bit.  The salt leaves everything a bit sticky when you come out but at the same time I felt entirely purified and highly recommend the benefits of Dead Sea Salt in your baths at home. And if, on your own local journeys, you can swim in your local river or at your local beach  ~do so. Or at least put your feet in the water or let it flow through your hands. But whatever you do, be aware that while beautiful, nature is also dangerous, and mind the local safety rules and regulations.

I did a bit of meditation in the Dead Sea, with the sun setting and the crescent moon rising. I left an accidental offering to the spirits of the place: the bone necklace I had purchased at the local gift shop fell off and into the water while I was floating. I bought a new one from the same shoppe, but consider that first one a toll paid to the water gods for the offering I rightly should have made them during my visit.  And I collected a sample of the water to take home with me. A keepsake yes; but more importantly, a powerful ingredient to be used later in rituals or simply placed on my household altar as an amplifying focus. I used a plastic water bottle to fill up and tote it through customs and back to the states, but have since transferred it into a series of much more dignified potion bottles.

Pilgrimages, journeys, quests, water communion, whatever you like to call your experience,  it need not be as extreme as this distant trip of mine. Just as interesting as it is to see faraway places,  it is even more important to be familiar with, and be a part of, your local landscape. There is much beauty and glamor all around you if you choose to see it. So go.

Go this weekend, go on your next day off. Find a quiet little space near the local creek or along the lake shore, a spot on the river beach or by a pool and take a few moments and really breathe. Look. Experience. Touch it if you can. And bring a little bit of it back home with you.

Learning to read tarot can be an intimidating prospect, especially for someone who is really new to the idea of tarot.  78 cards with deep meanings and many images and symbols on each card can seem like something that you might never get a handle on.  It can be a lot easier than you may think, but it’s important to keep in mind from the very beginning that the truly great tarot readers spend their whole lives studying and working with the tarot.  It’s not just a matter of memorizing upright and reversed meanings for 78 cards and then you’re done.  It truly is a lifelong mystical path all on it’s own that can add a great deal to the path of a Wiccan or Pagan.

In a future blog we’ll talk more about the ins and outs and history of tarot but for today we’re going to look at a simple exercise for getting started with a deck.  Many people pick up a deck and just want to start reading and working with the cards and this is a simple way to do it.  When working with this exercise you can do this with any tarot deck, and it can also be used for oracle decks suck as angel cards and the like.  It’s also something that you can start and keep working on and adding to for months or even years to come as you explore your deck more.

All you’ll need is a large notebook or journal, ideally with 2 pages for each card in your deck, and then of course your deck of cards.  Begin by placing a title on each page, or every other page, for each card in your deck.  So you’ll have a pages titled “0- The Fool”, “1 – The Magician” and then others like “Ace of Wands”, “2 of Wands”, all the way through your 78 cards.  If you have pages left over at the back you can designate some of these pages for specific kinds of notes along the way by doing things like titling pages “Relationship Spreads” and writing down details on relationship related spreads that you enjoy using, or a section titled “Daily Cards” where you can track daily card pulls (which we’ll talk about in a moment).  In the end you should have a book that almost serves as a tarot specific Book of Shadows almost.  You can also opt to do this as a general, overall book, or you can do what I do and make a new one for each new deck that you start working with.  Since different decks will give you different messages and impressions this is a great way to get to know each new deck you start working with and how to really keep track of what you’re doing with your cards.  If you decide to work with books for multiple decks I highly recommend using a large three ring binder so that you can keep the notes for more than one deck in a single place, something that just makes finding your notes and information easier as time goes on and your practice grows.

What you’ll do next, and how you do it, is somewhat up to you and how you would like to work with your cards.  I personally go through the deck in order and do a handful of cards a day.  You might want to do them in a random order, do only one a day, or spend a few days working through the whole deck.  What you want to do is take time to sit and really look at your card and observe it as though you’re inside the card.  What does it feel like to you?  How does it make you feel emotionally?  What stands out?  Are there colors or symbols, items or people that you find your eye and your mind automatically being interested in and looking at when this card is in front of you?  If there are, what do they mean to you?  Write down all your thoughts and feelings about the card on the page or pages in your book titled for that card.  Do this without referring to any books or notes that came with the deck.  This helps you to develop that key element to tarot reading that separates good readers from great readers; the ability to read intuitively with confidence.

After you take time to make your notes based on your intuitive feelings about the cards, go back and look at the information in the book.  Often times different tarot authors and different tarot artists will have specific takes on things in their own deck that might differ from other decks.  Sometimes these will be things that may make sense to you and other times they may not.  Go with what you feel, intuitively, is right in your readings.  If there are certain things in the book that really seem important to you that you want to incorporate in your card interpretation, make notes about it on the page.  You will be surprised to see just how many things you might have picked up on before doing any formal research into your cards.

Different cards will also take on different meanings when they pop up next to different cards.  You might want to make notes about this as you use the deck to help you just with getting to understand how the cards work together.

Meditating with your cards is another way to get more insight into the messages that they have for you.  Each day set some time aside to sit down in a quite place where you can focus and meditate with your deck.  Shuffle the cards and when you feel ready, pull one from anywhere in the deck (some people like pulling from the top others like to pull from somewhere at random, while yet others will fan the deck out in front of them and take one that just draws their attention; use which ever method feels best for you).  When you get your card, turn to the page in your book for that card and then take some time to just consider the card.  You might want to soften your eyes as you look at the card and just take a few deep breaths and relax, letting the information come to you.  If there is anything you feel that you need to add from this to your notes on the card, add it now.

Then turn to a blank page at the back of your book and mark down the date and the card you pulled.  Note any specific messages that you feel the card has for you for the day (or the next day if you’re doing this in the evening).  For example if you pulled The Fool, it could be that today you need to approach things with a sense of adventure, optimism and maybe even with a sense of naive wonder.  But do you feel you need to cautious as well?  Maybe you need to also be aware of any warning signs that you could have your head in clouds today as well.  Whatever you’re feeling, intuitively, that the card is saying to you for the day, write it down.  At the end of the day come back and look at your comments and notes and see how it fits in your day.  Make some affirming comments or maybe journal about how the day went and why the card didn’t fit for you.  Sometimes, and quite often, you’ll find that in doing this other meanings for the card that you didn’t think of at the time suddenly reveal themselves to you through the events of the day.

Working with your cards shouldn’t be a chore; you should be excited to do it and each day should bring you a new experience with your tarot deck.  By taking your time to work through the cards like this, getting to know them and building your own intuitive confidence with them, you’ll find that you’re not having to memorize, you’re simply listening to the cards and what they have to say to you.

Some excellent tarot books that can help you getting started can be found in the Sacred Mists Shoppe!

Heart of Tarot: An Intuitive Approach by Amber K

Rachel Pollack’s Tarot Wisdom by Rachel Pollack

21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary K. Greer

Today we’re going to look at something a little different, something that I tend to classify as more of a “new age” practice within the confines of Wicca and Paganism.   As many of us who are eclectic in nature and are often evolving our practices as we find new things that seem to call to us, I hope that this craft and prayer/meditation practice will be useful for some of you, especially if you are going through a particularly difficult time in your life.

For centuries in various cultures the use of prayer boxes, often in the form of jewelry, has become an honored tradition.  The use of community prayer boxes is a well known tradition in the Catholic and Christian faith where people of a congregation are able to write out their need for prayer and add it to a box which either a few individuals or a whole prayer circle will work on for those in need.  We can create a variation of the prayer box to fit our needs, either as individuals or for covens or circles.  You can call it a prayer box, petition box, or as I’ve always called it, a Goddess box.  It depends on a few variations of how you craft it and your intentions when crafting it.  As I share this process with you, if you decide to work with this, make the changes that you feel you need to for your own beliefs and traditions.  I will be addressing this from the perspective of working specifically with the Goddess, so if you wish to work more with the God or just the Universal energy, you can make those changes.

A Goddess box is a physical box, one crafted with intent, designed to be a place to drop written prayer petitions.  Petition magick, as we’ve talked about previously, is a wonderful way to work simple spells of intention, and the Goddess box becomes an aid to petition magick, as you’ll see through the process.  So we’re going to start with talking about crafting a Goddess box.

You’ll need a few items to get your started:

• A plain wooden craft box.  These are available at arts and crafts stores all over or you can use an old cigar box, an old jewelry box, or anything of the sort.  We’re going to be completely changing it’s appearance so be sure that whatever it is you wont mind stripping it down, painting it, etc.
• Paints, markers, and related supplies.  We’ll talk about colors in a moment.
• Stickers, stamps and craft paper.
• A piece of parchment or other paper.  Pick something that you find visually appealing but something that you will be able to write on where the writing will stand out.
• A small sachet of offering herbs.  We’ll talk about this in a moment.
• An image of a Goddess.  If you’re working with a God, than an image of whatever God  you wish, or other spirit or entity that you wish to call on to work with you.  This can be an animal spirit guide that you pray and meditate with, or even an otherworld entity that you work with in this way.  The idea here is that whomever you dedicate this box to is someone that you have worked with before, either in prayer, meditation or magick, who you are completely comfortable in going to with requests for help and aid.
• A stone or crystal.  Again, we’ll talk about that in a moment.
• A small stack of slips of parchment or other paper and a pen.

First let’s talk about our intentions.  The purpose of this box is to create a place to hand over certain problems, cares and needs to either a specific Goddess, God or spirit ally that you are confident and comfortable in working with through prayer, meditation and petition work.  What you’ll be doing with your box is writing down your needs and placing the slip of paper within, along with speaking words of prayer and offering, to your chosen deity or spirit, asking them to help you find a way to resolve your problem.   What we’re doing here is asking for a door to be open, a way to be shown, and in a sense laying our problem in the lap of the Goddess and asking for her guidance in gaining a solution that may be eluding us.

Keep this in mind while crafting your box and also keep it in mind when deciding who, if anyone specific, you wish to dedicate your box to.  Consider this intention when picking out your colors and images for the box as well as when picking out the stones and herbs for the small offerings that we’ll be keeping within the box.

Creating an offering sachet – This is a simple step in the process of making the box and one you can either do first or last, it’s up to you.  Gather together either a white spell bag or a small swatch of white cloth and white string or ribbon for tying it close.  Pick two or three herbs that you can place inside that are used for offerings or that have the properties of thanksgiving.  A few suggestions include tobacco, blue corn, desert or white sage, copal, cedar, or lavender.  If you’re going to be working with a specific deity or entity that you know prefers something specific, then use that in your bag.

Fill the bag with the herbs and tie it closed.  Hold it in your hands for a few moments, directing white light and your intentions of blessings and thanksgiving into the bag.  When you feel that the bag is full with energy, you can set it aside.  It will be going into the box when it is completed so keep it in a safe place in the meantime, like your altar.

Picking stones -  Again, keeping in mind your intentions and the purpose of the box, we want to pick a stone to keep inside that is associated with something such as prayer, meditation or even directly problem solving.  The way that I personally work with the stone is that I place it on top of the petition slip when I place it inside the box.  You can do this if you feel so drawn to, or you can just leave the stone in the box as an aid to the work being done.  A few suggestions for stones to use include quartz (clear or rose), danburite, fluorite, amethyst, or lapis lazuli.  Take your time in picking a stone and really decide what energy you want the stone to add to the box.  For example with the lapis you can call on its properties of truth and awareness to aid you in seeing the truth in a situation and clearing seeing the solution, where as you can use the powers of transformation and intuition held in danburite to help your prayer needs.  

Once you have picked out a stone and acquired it, properly cleanse and charge it with your specific intention and then place it on your altar with your sachet until it is time to add it to your box.

Crafting the box – This is the part where you get to really be creative.  You do not need to be a great artist to do this; this is part of why we have stickers and printed images to help us.  If your box you’re working with is something that is going to be recycled from a previous incarnation, take the time to do any stripping of paint or finish that you may need to.  Some things you can paint right over, but if you have something that has a shiny or varnished finish, you’ll need to strip it first otherwise your paint will either not hold at all or will chip quite easily.

Take some time to pick out colors that either reflect on you or your ally you’ll be dedicating the box to.  You can use colors appropriate to specific deities, use the colors of the elements, or just use some off your personal power colors.  Paint the box in whatever way you personally desire.  There is no right or wrong way to do this, so be creative.  Paint the inside as well, either using a solid color or do something that you might find personally magickal and empowering, like painting sigils and symbols inside it to protect and empower your work.

Allow the pain to dry overnight before moving on to adding any stickers, paper or printed images.  Depending on the type of paint and the surface of the box you may wish to add extra glue to stickers since the adhesive may not hold.  Add a picture of your chosen deity or ally to the top of the box and embellish as you see fit.  A written dedication will be going on the inside of the box top, so you don’t need to add anything like that on the outside unless you wish to.

When you are done, set the box aside and again give it at least overnight to ensure all glues and adhesives have dried.

Writing your dedication – On a piece of parchment paper, in your own handwriting, you are going to create a dedication that will be placed on the inside cover of the box.  This can be a prayer, chant or blessing that you will recite each time you place something in the box.    The following is a modification of what I have inside my Goddess box.  You will want to modify this to fit your specific box.  Write out your drafts and get your wording as you want it on notebook paper first and when you have settled on what you wish to say, write it on a piece of parchment cut to fit the inside lid of your box.

I dedicate this, my Goddess box, to the Lady of love, mercy and healing.  Whatever I place inside this box I place at the feet of the Goddess.  I ask the Goddess to nurture my needs and take care of me in my time of struggle.  Within this box I place my hopes and fears, my dreams and anxieties.  When I close the lid I know that they are now in the hands of the Goddess and she will guide me and show me what to do next.  With this box I put trust in my inner knowing and in the Goddess.  With this box, I foster a connection to the Goddess within and without.

So mote it be!

Once the paper is dry, do any additional decorative steps you wish with it (e.g. aging the edges) and then firmly glue into the lid of the box.

Dedicate your box – For this next step you may wish to wait for the full moon or you can do it any time you wish.  Gather together your box, slips of parchment and pen (these items will be kept inside the box at all times for easy and quick access), your crystal and your sachet.  Bring them into sacred space and lay them out on your altar or work space.  If there is a specific deity that you will dedicate the box to, evoke them into your space letting them know you are dedicating this special magickal prayer object to them and you wish for their blessings up it.  You may wish to smudge the box with sage or cleanse it with all the elements and present it to the four directions as well to ask for their blessings as well.

Once you have presented the box to the deity/ally it may be dedicated to, or to the archetypal God/Goddess aspect, add your sachet, presenting it as well with words of intention, and then add the stone, again with words of intention.  Add in your paper slips and pen.

Where to keep your box – You can keep your box anywhere that you wish, but try for a place where it will be out of reach of children and pets and where it will also be out of reach or sight from prying hands and eyes.  This can be a great items for those of you that may need to keep your items somewhat hidden because of issues with family or roommates and it can easily blend in with other trinkets, decorations or jewelry boxes depending on how you have chosen to adorn it.  You can always just keep it on a corner of your altar if you wish.

Working with your box - If you have a specific need right now, take a slip of paper and write it out.  Hold it in your hands, sending your intentions, desires, hopes and worries into the paper.  Recite your dedication/prayer for help to your ally.  Place the paper in the box and then pick up your sachet.  Hold it for a moment and draw on some of the energy of offering and thanks from it and then direct that energy to your ally, then return the sachet to the box.  Close the box and leave it in it’s special place.

Once a solution to your need has been found, or things have worked themselves out, say a thank you to your ally and either send energy from your offering sachet again or leave another appropriate offering on your altar or at the box.  Take your slip of paper from the box and, using a fire-proof container or cauldron, again say thank you, solidifying that your ally helped you and that you are thankful, and light the paper.  Toss it into the container, allow it to burn down to ash, and then toss to the winds knowing that your problem is solved, resolved and gone from you.

Maintenance of the box – This box will become a living magickal tool for you if you use it regularly.  You will want to recleanse and recharge the crystal periodically and you’ll also want to replace the herbs from time to time as well.  When you do this, allow this to also be a time to change these items as well.  If you want to try a different stone, do it then or use different herbs in your sachet.  Listen to your intuition or even ask your God/Goddess/spirit ally what they would like.

This is a wonderful and simple tool to work with and one that you can really personalize to express your love of your specific patron deities or your closest of magickal allies.  Make it more than just a place to put your problems, but an expression of your dedication to your path and the change that you desire to see in your life when you work with it.

Here are a few pictures of my own box from when it was originally crafted several years ago.

We talk about ritual tools quite a bit, especially when we’re getting started with magick and ritual.  Everyone is looking for the perfect wand or athame, but the most important of all ritual items is something that we all possess already and which costs no money at all, but certainly needs some polishing and preparation before we can really put it to use.  Our mind’s eye.  It’s arguably the most important of all tools a Witch has because without it, the true power behind our work may not be harnessed.  And let’s face it, no wand in the world can make up for the lack of ability to ground, focus and visualize our intent and send energy to our goal.

When you’re just getting started you hear a lot in books about the mind’s eye.  You’ll see a lot of phrases like “Visualize your desire in your mind’s eye” or “See the elements in your mind’s eye”.  A lot of people get a little confused, unsure of what and where the information that the mind’s eye calls on is going to come from.  In the simplest of terms, the mind’s eye is your imagination.  When we work in meditation, trying to envision something coming to us, or something happening to us, we are working to “see” with “eye” in our mind (aka the mind’s eye).  For some people it can help to have almost a physical place to focus on when doing this; if you’re one of those people imagine that the there is a large movie screen or white board in your mind right around where your third eye is located.  When you’re eyes are closed, imagine that this eye then opens, and when it does you can now see this screen or board through this eye.  This is where you can call up any image or any energy you desire.

If you have ever read either Laurie Cabot’s book “Power of the Witch” or you have read Christopher Penczak’s Inner Temple books or listened to his meditation CDs, then you will be familiar with a countdown meditation technique that can help to develop your mind’s eye as well as help you reach that lower brainwave state that helps to bring us into deep, magickal levels of meditation.  The teqchnique that both Cabot and Penczak have used as a reference point is called the Silva Method or Silva Mind Control.  This is a technique developed by José Silva, a parapsychologist and founder of the Silva Method, which were developed to help reach higher levels of mental function by naturally bringing the brain to a frequency of 8 to 13 Hz, also known as alpha state.  Here the brain could be trained to and programed to open up the psychic senses, specifically helping people be able to learn remote viewing and develop lucid dreaming skills, as well as help people raise their overall IQ and increase their personal well-being.  It is basically self-hypnosis and it helps to open up, train and work with the mind’s eye.  (You can learn more about the Silva Method here.)

Some people, when hearing the word “imagination” in relation to Witchcraft become a little uncomfortable, feeling that the deeper work of magick and ritual are being relegated to nothing more than a play thing.  Imagination is really nothing more than allowing the mind to wander while calling up and creating images that aren’t physically real but that can be very real within our minds.  This is what we often do within magick.  We sometimes talk about how when we daydream we are actually in a state of spontaneous meditation, creating realities in our minds that we would like to see in reality.  Often beginners will say they can’t meditate or can’t visualize anything, feeling that they will never be able to work magick, yet when asked if they ever find themselves daydreaming most of them say they do that all the time without realizing it.  The work of the mind’s eye while daydreaming is the same as what you would use for visualization and meditation, only in those instances you have more conscious control over it than when you daydream.  So if you can daydream, you can learn to work with  your mind’s eye in a controlled way in order to visualize in magick and meditation.

Creative Visualization is a technique used in just about all forms of magickal work.  It is a way of accessing levels of the imagination where we can create images in a visual in our mind’s eye while also creating and raising energy which can then be used in magickal work.  So for example if you have a friend who is sick and you wanted to help them get well, after lighting a candle for them you might spend some time focusing on visualizing in your mind what they are like when they are healthy.  If you friend is bed-sick because of a chest infection and they can’t breath well enough right now to do their normal activities, you would want to create in your mind the image of them breathing deeply, taking in large, healthy breaths.  You’d want to see them doing a physical activity that you know they enjoy such as jogging or hiking, something that right now they can’t possibly be doing.  While you’re doing this and creating the images in your mind, you also want to really feel them as well.  So you could imagine being with your friend on that jog or hike and seeing them enjoying themselves, being happy and healthy and feeling that joy with them.  Then you can send that energy to them in one of many different ways (e.g. direct the energy into the candle and as the candle burns the energy is released toward your friend or sense the energy forming in the shape of a large balloon in a specific color and imagine it traveling to your friend and giving them the energy when they receive it).  Different traditions and types of magick have different techniques for sending energy.

Learning how to do some basic visualization techniques will help you to grow more comfortable with working with your mind’s eye as well as helping you become more confident with creating mental images.  Learning to ground with creative visualization is a great way to start with this or even to refresh yourself on the basics.  Give this a try.  All you’ll need for this is a white candle and stone of either onyx, black tourmaline, hematite, jet, obsidian or smokey quartz in any size.

1.  Sitting either on the floor or in a comfortable chair, light a candle.  Make sure your feet are on the ground if you are in a chair so that some part of you is physically connected to the ground or earth.  Take up the stone with both hands (if you’re using a small raw or tumbled stone, place the stone in one hand and cup with the other).

2. Begin breathing slow, rhythmic breaths and close your eyes. Take the time to feel yourself comfortable and solid in your physical position.  Then begin to visualize that thick tree roots are growing either from your feet if you are sitting in a chair, or from your spine if you are sitting directly on the ground.  See them going down into the earth, cutting through the earth’s crust, through the soil, and moving down around rock and stone below.  As you do this think about how strong tree roots are but also see the tiny, vain-like roots that grow from the larger ones.  These roots help to connect to the soil to gather nourishment and to help anchor the tree.  Feel those roots as well as the larger ones and visualize your roots moving downward, toward the center of the earth.

3. Turn your mind back to your breath again, but still sensing the tree roots.  As you exhale, visualize the roots move deeper, going further toward the center of the earth.  Take the time on your inhaled breaths to feel what the roots feel under the earth.  Are they damp from hitting ground water?  Are they gritting with rock and sand?  Are they getting warm as they reach the molten center of the earth’s core?  When you exhale feel the roots moving, see them move through the rock, dirt, and water.

4.  When you get to the point where you can feel heat, or where you feel or see heat, imagine that you roots come to a hault.  You are at the center of the earth.  Being to feel that warmth come up through your roots, up all the way through to your feel or spine, up your body, down your arms and out the top of your head through your crown chakra.    See it as a bright white light, of if you can, visualize it the color of the molten core of the earth.  Feel it heat up and energize your roots and your body.

5.  When you have this feeling running firmly through you, being to feel the energy withdraw back into the earth.  Imagine closing a hatch over the crown chakra and the energy retreating down your body.  Feel your body cool as the energy retreats.  Feel it flow back down your trunk, your legs and feet, down into the earth through your roots.  When you see and feel your roots have released the earth’s energy, begin to bring your roots back.  See them retreat upward just as you saw them move down.  Feel the tiny roots release from the earth as your larger roots return back to your feet or spine.

6.  Once you see the roots completely return to your body focus back on your breathing, relaxed breaths in and out.  While you are doing this, if you feel there is any left over energy that may make you anxious or nervous, visualize that energy running down your arms like drops of water and collecting in the stone in your hand.  The stone will ground the energy for you.  Gently open your eyes and come back to waking consciousness.

Some other simple ways to practice include visualizing a piece of fruit, like an apple or orange, hanging from a tree branch in front of you.  Imagine picking it from the tree and taking a bit.  Taste the fruit, smell it, feel the juice in your hands and on your chin.  As you advance, another way that you can work with visualization that can also help you with your psychic development is to work on visualizing a friend who is not with you at the moment (they can be anywhere else, even if it’s just in another room) and imagine what they are wearing.  If you are in the same location when they leave the room you’ll want to ask them to change a piece of their clothing.  When you get a strong visualization of what they have on either call them on the phone and describe what you see, or in the case of being in the same place you can simply ask them to come in the room and you can tell them what you are getting but don’t turn to face them until they give you some feed back.  Practicing things like this helps with not just creative visualization and being able to create solid images in your mind but you’ll be able to slowly develop the psychic senses, especially remote viewing.

The mind’s eye is your most critical magickal tool.  Learning to develop it from the beginning of your practice and taking the time to give it regular tune-ups along the way is key in being able to do successful magick of all kinds.

For more help with creative visualization, check out the classic book “Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want In Live” by Shakti Gawain.