Tax magic

I'm staring at my tax bill and feeling a bit depressed. It isn't the money - it isn't a huge amount and we have it available - it is the seemingly endless parade of stories in the media of our senators, our MLAs, and our premiers blatantly wasting tax payer money on personal trips and other extravagances. Hearing so many of those stories and then being handed a bill makes it hard to be pleased to be sending our government more money.

I liked the Walrus' recent article about why tax time should make us happy. I would add that for people as lucky as I am - to leave in a free country with social programs and to have full time employment and a home and all the wonders of middle class life - tax time is sacred: it is when our ongoing sacrifice is made visible. We pay taxes all year around, but when it is all consolidated and made concrete, we know the details of our sacrifice and can "make sacred" any final offerings needed of us to support the place we call home: that's where the blessings can be most deeply felt.

I'll pay what I owe, but the government can get a bit more with my cheque this year: a bit of magic. I want my tax money distributed by wise and intelligent people with the greater good in mind... or, that being unlikely, I'll take my money going towards roads, schools, hospitals, and social programs and not ads about non-existent employment programs, trips for rich people, and creating corrupt election bills.

Cast a Circle. Call the sacred elements: Air for intelligence, Fire for strength, Water for compassion, and Earth for practicality. Invoke deities of justice and fairness. Cleanse the cheque by the elements to prepare it to hold the magic. Pray over it to make it a suitable sacrifice and write in the balance owing in. Put that cheque in your offering bowl and meditate on the sacrifices you make, of which this is just a symbol. Raise energy for the greatest good and pour it into the cheque, picturing the good your taxes will do: the nurses and teachers it will pay for, the MRI machine and surgery it will buy, the lives it will save and the homes it will provide and the jobs it will secure and the roads it will maintain. Write "for the greatest good" on the memo line, seal that cheque and your bill into an addressed envelope, and leave it in the offering bowl overnight. Thank the deities and elements and open the Circle. Send the cheque off with a hopeful heart.

A tax prayer:
This is my time and my energy and I sacrifice this willingly. I make this offering to what creates our future, to what keeps us safe, to what catches us if we fall, to what heals us if we are sick, and to what lets us follow our own path. I ask the gods to guide our leaders. I sacrifice this to the greatest good. So mote it be!