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Tag: magic

Published on Leave a comment on The magic of vulnerability

A water-side city at sunset overlaid with the quote "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased" by Spider Robinson I'm trying to write a speech today, which naturally means that I want to write anything other than my speech. To be fair, the speech is three-quarters written, but when you are sending people off on a 5 kilometre walk for charity, you really want to nail the ending.

In January of this year, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. With that came the understanding that my pain, numbness, and cognitive concerns were not temporary or easily fixed, so there were things I love that I was going to have to give up (for now, at least). I needed something else to focus on, to look forward to. The answer for me was the Vancouver MS Walk: something to physically train for and to work towards in other ways. I started my own bit of magic.

The spell was multifaceted, but the power came from one place: vulnerability. I wrote my story of illness and diagnosis for my blog on the MS Walk website, for my personal FaceBook, and for my coworking space's internal email list. Each part took a long time to write and hitting the publish/send buttons was scary every time. I knew people wanted to know what was going on - they asked me all the time about my limp, about my change from standing desk back to a chair, about my painstaking trips up and down stairs - but naming the cause makes it more real for me and for others.1 It made me feel exposed, but that's where the power came from.

I sent the stories out knowing that people would want to help me, but there's not much they can do for me personally, so I offered some directions for that energy: donate blood, since I no longer can; attend the walk or one of my fitness fundraising events; or donate money to my MS Walk fundraiser. I was touched and blessed by the amount of love that came my way, and I was amazed by the generosity of my family, my friends, my colleagues, and the members of my coworking space. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, as I am surrounded by people interested in community-building. I originally set my fundraising goal for $200, which I quickly had to increase, and increase again, and increase again. I was soon the top individual fundraiser for Vancouver's walk, and the MS Society of Canada took notice.

As a result, I find myself in the position of being "a MS Society of Canada's MS Walk 2018 spokesperson", according to the press release(!) going out tomorrow. I've already been in a local paper and on the provincial news, and there may be more media coverage at the walk on Sunday, May 27th. The speech I'm putting off finishing is to be given at the start of that event - the final part of my working.

Published on Leave a comment on The secular spell, poorly cast

Picture of Mark TwainYesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. - Mark Twain

Every day is a chance to be better, but there's something about a fresh year to inspire a desire to become your best self. On December 31st, there's an energy in the secular world a witch can only yearn for from a full moon, as people everywhere simultaneously vow to drop their bad habits and their extra pounds. As midnight nears, everyone promises themselves that the next year is going to be the one where they stop smoking and eating sugar, get to the gym and out of debt, give up alcohol and caffeine, and start volunteering. They yell "happy new year!" with great intention and energy. "So mote it be" should have so much power.

The typical new year's spell has tons of energy and the best magical timing and often has physical spell components (nicotine gum, stevia, FitBit, nicotine gum, or herbal tea), but fails anyway. We wake up on January 1st and we're the same people and we rediscover that good intentions aren't enough. Magic alone is insufficient; change needs real, physical, daily actions. Instead of yearly resolutions, try daily choices. If a promise on a calendar flip or a burning candle on the full moon helps you get started, use it, but don't make the mistake of thinking that desire is enough. If it was, the world would get healthier, wealthier, and happier on every January 1st.

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Published on 3 Comments on Tax magic

A tax cheque surrounded by representation of the elements.

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!

Published on Leave a comment on Weather magic is a bad idea

Isobars
Isobars screenshot from San Francisco State University Meteorological Program website.

I will admit to being a magic skeptic. I believe that we do have the ability to change ourselves using magic, but I am doubtful about our ability to change the physical realm. I think weather magic is a waste of time: no harm, but no benefit either. That said, people who do weather magic believe in their ability to create change, so I'm going to meet them where they are at and assume they can impact the weather... and ask them to please not do so.

I'm not a meteorologist, but I've got an amateur interest in weather and weather systems. I watch isobar maps and FD charts. If you don't know what those are, you really have no business messing with the weather. And if you do know what they are, you probably already know better than to try.

Weather isn't something that just happens where you are. All weather is connected, and a weather worker does not know - cannot know - what impact their working will have on a neighbouring area or on the long term forecast in their own place.

It is raining in Vancouver right now because there is a low pressure zone sitting over our city. Lows like to settle in and linger, and they bring in clouds that press up against our beautiful mountains and drizzle on us for weeks on end. In contrast, simplifying greatly, high pressure zones push out clouds and result in sunny days. High and low pressures are not created here; we tend to get our weather from the north-west of us, and it moves over us and on to other areas. To create a sunny day here and now, one would need to pull a high pressure zone from somewhere else. If one could force a high front to rush towards us at great speed - to get a sunny weekend, for example - then low pressure zones would be spinning in to fill the gap, and high zones to fill those gaps, resulting in dramatic weather changes potentially all over the continent, and maybe beyond.

Do that over and over, and have different magic workers in different areas all pushing different weather systems around in all different directions, and who knows what will happen. It strikes me as an awful experiment, like finding out what harm burning large amounts of fossil fuels does by creating holes in the ozone layer. Pagans of all people should know how little we still know about nature and how we affect her. We should know that our personal desires are not justification for causing widespread problems: "an it harm none". We cannot be so selfish or short-sighted as to think that we can do something here and have no impact elsewhere; that's not how nature works in general, and it certainly isn't how weather works. We should know that everything is connected.

There may be circumstances under which dangerous weather magic might be worth the risk. If an area is undergoing flooding, drought, forest fires, or hurricanes, maybe a case can be made for magical intervention (though I would still argue that we may make things worse and not better; well-meaning interference could result in a game of magical weather wack-a-mole). However, a sunny weekend for our pleasure and convenience is not reason enough to mess with something so complicated.

We've got a weekend Pagan camping trip coming up this weekend, and I know it will be more fun if it is sunny out. We're lucky that our camp has cabins; no one will have to deal with a wet tent. I am still hoping that the high just to the north-west of us moves down in time, opening up the possibility of frolicking and circling in the sunshine, and maybe even to do a bit of swimming, but I think it would be unethical to try to do anything to urge it on.

I also wonder why Pagans, at least of the nature-worshiping type, would want to mess with the weather. If we want to honour Mother Earth, if we want to stay in touch with the seasons and with nature, than we have to accept some rain and cold, even when it is inconvenient. If you want a climate-controlled temple, there are plenty of religions who provide that; please don't adjust the thermostat in your local forest.

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