Applications

Finally, some semblance of order in my trailer, after the barrage of holiday gift gathering. I don’t technically celebrate Christmas and yet always end up with too much stuff at the end of the holiday. But I organize and somehow get it all put away.

The only tangible thing I seem to have real trouble organizing is my finances. I think I have made that part of my life all too complicated. Do the math, I tell myself. Or use a calculator. I have let things go too far. Even my thrift spending has gotten out of hand. The next few months I will have to set limits, to pay back loans, to try and right where I have gone wrong. Possibly to start over again.

Tonight, my friend Alexa gives me a belated solstice gift–a cobalt blue candle holder (my favorite color) trimmed with marbled glass beads. Funny, I also chose glass gifts for my friends–multi-colored glass light catchers, pieced together from scrap pieces of glass. I bought these at an artist’s table one Saturday in downtown Mesa. Yellow, red, white, and black, in various shapes and pieces and patterns, collaged together. It’s like we are giving each other pieces of light, something to see by.

I am trying to see better. And listen better. But feel like I often fall short of the mark. Perhaps to err is to see only what is in front of me. Magic suggests there is something other than what I see, no less real, but the tangible reality of which has yet to be established by science. One day it will be. Magic might also be seen as the application of will. It starts with intention then moves into the physical realm.

It’s like those crazy deals people make with themselves every new year–so called "resolutions." I don’t make those anymore. Stopped some years ago. Because what I really want, what I hope to will, can’t be put into place by those often-failed attempts at bartering with the universe at the beginning of January. They rarely move far enough into the physical. It was a disappointment for so long–this is the year I’ll lose weight, write that book, meet the love of my life . . .

Nope, didn’t work. When I started really delving into witchcraft and magic, however, I found more practical ways of manifesting. I haven’t figured out a good weight loss spell as of yet, but intent and a little practical magic sent me back to graduate school, opened romantic doors for me (no, I didn’t do a "love spell" to capture a particular person but I felt ok with manifesting the kind of person I want in my life), has helped me to get money when I need it, and took me to England and Scotland for several weeks. I have been largely successful in my magic making. For this I am grateful.

Still, there are things I can’t see very well at times. My own judgments sometimes get in the way. I’d like to think I know what is best for me, but I am wrong at times. I might get what I ask for, but I don’t provide the universe with enough details. Like asking for money to go to England and Scotland, but not thinking to ask for enough to sustain me while I was there. Blindsided with a large phone bill in London, I was left with very little to sustain the rest of my trip. Ended up having to pay back my friend Becky for some borrowed money.

Or asking for love to open me and teach me, but not realizing how complicated relationships can be. They require attention and compromise. They require you to keep your eyes and ears open. To see beyond any seeing you have ever done, listen with true atteniton. They are constant works of magic in the making. Anyone who thinks otherwise is setting herself up for a knock on the head with the cauldron.