Following the Signs
The world of magick is vast and daunting. There's pantheons and athemas, rituals and spells. There's deities and herbs to research and somewhere in there I'm meant to learn a form of divination and meditate everyday. It's a lot.
My path started around 15. I had near-crippling anxiety and a love for spirituality that was unbridled in my demographic. I was captivated by essential oils and had notebooks filled with my research. I had big plans to save the world with rose oil. I discovered Dr. Emoto and his work with ice crystals - of how the vibrations of our words can affect water and therein our own bodies of water. I was fascinated by Jin Shin Jyutsu and reiki. I remember reading Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner and thinking of the cosmos, my own evolutionary journey and the divinity present even in the tiniest of pebbles.
I remember how I'd stand outside at night, my receiving hand up to the moon and my dominant hand toward the earth - taking in and grounding simultaneously. That is, until a car drove by on our neighborhood street and I'd drop all sign of doing anything too "woo-woo" and return to just letting the dog out to pee. It was 2007, in West Virginia, and the witch-boom that we're currently experiencing was unfathomable. I was a nervous mess with a deep witch-wound and desperately aching for a mentor to show me the way.
All the books I read seemed so far out of my league. There were tools I had no way of purchasing and herbs I had never heard of. If there were covens in my area I had no way of knowing or connecting with them. I so desperately wanted to be apart of this world that seemed so unattainable. In the past 14 years my journey has taken me to many places. I became a reiki practitioner and studied herbalism. I learned the Tarot and am happy to say that I meditate daily. I can write my own spells and I own my very own athema, a chalice too! I'm a Green Witch through and through and tend to lean toward a Celtic pantheon. Needless to say, I became my own mentor. Or rather, as I know now, my loving Guides were there every step of the way paving the path for me. More realistically, they were screaming at me to listen but at the time, I just didn't know the signs. I didn't know how to connect with the Beings beyond myself. Sometimes I'd feel into the direction I needed to go and other times I missed the mark entirely.
There have been a few times in my life when I have felt truly connected. One of which was when I was around 19, hitchhiking the states. I spent a few years of my life thumbing it from car to car, from the east to west coast and everywhere in between. I never had much more than a dollar to my name and no real destination. I slept under the most beautiful starry skies, nestled in the trees and tall grass, high on snowy mountains and on more occasions than I can even count, under bridges, behind gas stations, on church steps and park benches and hidden in plain view in parking lots. I woke up with the sun and made camp by dawn. I never knew when my next meal would be or if anyone would pick up two wild, smelly kids and their dog. Sure enough, my friends and I were always fed, we always got where we needed to be, and thank my holy Ancestors, we were always safe. I'm pushing 30 now and the most excitement I get these days is a solo trip to Goodwill without my wild toddler in tow. The fearless girl that walked across the desert and hugged redwoods feels like a lifetime ago, but what I hold dear of that time is how *in flow* I was.
One story in particular was of the time my friend and I were making our way through the Midwest. We were pretty adamant about asking our potential rides where they'd be dropping us off i.e. if it was a busy exit with a gas station, which meant other travelers to pick us up, access to food/water, etc. or if it (like most of the Midwest) was an exit with nothing but corn for 40 miles in either direction. On this particular occasion, we were ensured it was a busy exit only to be dropped off on, you guessed it, an exit with NOTHING BUT CORN FOR 40 MILES. We had half a jug of water for 2 people and a dog, it was midday in the summer and we might've had a granola bar or two between us. I'm sure there was a bit of panic as the reality of our situation set in, but there's not a lot of worrying you can do when it's just you and the pavement. We set off down the ramp, intending to walk our way out of the corn. The sun was beating down, our packs weighted heavy on our backs and all we had was lukewarm water in a plastic jug to quench our thirst. Not a minute down the road, an older man in a beat up pickup truck came trudging down the main drag and pulled off to the side to meet us. He offered us a lift to the nearest exit with provisions and on the ride we told him how we ended up in such a predicament. He said he had been sitting at home with his wife and felt called to go for a drive, for nothing in particular. He said that as soon as he saw us, he knew that's why God had brought him out that day (we were in the Bible Belt, y'all). He ended up taking us out for the most fantastic burritos at a local joint and we shared each others company before he dropped us of at our new location. It was a bad situation turned absolutely magickal - and one we never could've foreseen playing out the way it had. These sorts of scenarios happened all the time. There was no way for us to interject in the grand flow of energy. We were always at whim to the elements, to the drivers willing to give us a ride, to where we slept each night. It's a time in my life that I think back on when I need to lessen my grip and let the Universe take over a bit.
Now, as I'm sure you can relate, this sort of blowing in the wind and taking each stride with the resistance of a dandelion seed isn't something I can reasonably do when I'm juggling a toddler, keeping the house relatively clean, making a healthy dinner (and breakfast and lunch and snacks) and being in bed by 10 so I have the energy to do it all over again. However, the one practice that has changed my life and helped me tap into that level of Divine connection is my Morning Intentional. Call it a prayer, an invocation, an affirmation or even a conversation with yourself/your Higher Self/your Guides/the Universe.
My morning intentional goes a little something like this,
"I call on my Guides, my well Ancestors, the benevolent Beings that are holding my hand and walking with me along this path to my Highest and Best. I ask for your assistance and wisdom as I move through the day. With so much love and reverence, I thank you."
It changes with the day, the time I have, and how I'm feeling. I work closely with plants and the elements so I tend to call them in as well, depending on who I'm working with at the moment. Sometimes I say it over a single candle at my altar with a babe tugging at me to play. Other times I whisper it into my tea cup as I stand at the counter. Some mornings it's done in my head while I stretch on the front porch, facing the sun. It doesn't have to be fancy and it'll feel crazy awkward at first. When I first started this exercise I was new to the witch path. I was "spiritual", but had never really laid out what I believed in per say, and I didn't have any close relationships with Deities or Spirits or otherwise. It felt like I was just talking to the abyss. Over the years this exercise has not only helped me tap into that Divine flow, but it's also been the catalyst for my rich relationship with the Beings that walk with me. That little morning conversation gradually turned into more and more opportunities to reach out to my Guides. The more I reached out, the stronger our bond grew. Now, when I'm heading out for the day or I have a big decision to make, I reach out to my Team and I know they're walking with me, helping me find my way.
There's a shift that happens when you start this practice. You start to see each day and each thing in your path with new eyes. Running late? Are you meant to be behind so you can cross paths with someone? Did that fb ad catch your eye? Instead of second-guessing it, scroll back up and check it out. There might be an insight waiting for you to discover. Overhear someone talking about a book? Look it up, it just might be exactly what you need right now. These little inklings, as I've discovered, are our Guides communicating with us. These are the "signs" we're so desperate to receive. And most of us are passing them up because we've been conditioned to think that communicating with the spiritual realm has to be complicated or showy. It's in these seemingly mundane moments that we find the sacred.
Before I wrap this up I'll share one last story with you. This past year I felt drawn to work with my Ancestors. It was near Samhain, sometime in October and the call was loud. I didn't have the means to reach out to existing family, so I spoke out my intentions to cultivate a relationship with my well-ancestors and waited for what was to come. I generally read non-fiction or am listening to a podcast on child development (always learning). My daughter was about 9 months at the time and I was frazzled, with no capacity for taking on any new information. I decided I was gonna do something crazy and read a fictional book lol It had been a long time since I read something light and easy and I ended up picking a random book that just happened to catch my eye, Dark Witch by Nora Roberts. Iona, the protagonist, is from the States and doesn't feel she belongs anywhere. She goes out on a whim and travels to Ireland (where my family's roots are the strongest) to connect with her distant cousins. She ends up discovering she's a witch and finding her tribe, finding herself and finding purpose. I immediately connected with Iona and put myself in her shoes throughout the book. As she's exploring the rainy landscapes of County Mayo, I can picture my own Ancestors living in a similar environment. In the book (and throughout the series) there are quite a few dishes mentioned, as one of Iona's cousins, Branna, is a notable cook. I'd be reading and immediately stop and jump over to Pinterest to find the recipe, which I'd rabbit hole and before long I had an entire collection of traditional Irish meals to experiment with. It's probably my Cancer moon, but I love food and I love to cook; it comforts me. I made a few of those dishes and with each bite I felt closer to my Ancestors, to my roots. There's a few Irish phrases in the book, which I of course looked up the meaning and how to pronounce them correctly. All of this googling of Irish things triggered the CEO somewhere and led me to The Irish Pagan School. I was scrolling on Facebook and there was this ad for a free workshop, "Irish Pagan Practice". Turns out, this school has numerous courses on traditional practices and the owners have extensive YouTube accounts and blogs. It was an amazing discovery and has taught me so much. This all spanned from that single intention. I went from having zero connection with my Ancestors to knowing how my great, great, great-grandmother's Irish Stew might've tasted and the smell of the Irish Soda Bread in my oven transported me back to her kitchen.
So if there's anything I'd tell my 15 year old self, it would be to cultivate a relationship with your Guides before you feel "ready". Start with a dedicated morning practice before anything else. Make it a ritual of sorts, so it feels less silly and then watch for the inklings of responses to trickle through. They'll show you the way.
It is my intention that this post teach you how to communicate with your sacred team of Allies. For when we're able to touch into our center, into our Knowing, we're able to live and respond to life in a more authentic and aligned way. In writing this, it is my hope to complete a personal spiral of sorts. To touch in with my younger self and offer her a hand; to be the mentor she always craved.
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