Have you used music to enhance your rituals? Using music can help you raise powerful energy in your Circle. It’s a great way to step up the process—especially when you have some music with a good beat.
Music can assist you in raising more power than you normally would.
Here are some ways to add music to your ritual:
Pre-recorded Music
If you’re like me, and you don’t regularly play an instrument, you may find that prerecorded music is pure gold. You can choose from so many great artists’ work. You’ll find any style or mood you’d like.
Music Played Live
Perhaps, someone in your coven is a musician. Additionally, you could have coven mates join in with something simple like drumming, singing, chanting, or humming.
Use Music in a Combined Format
Consider having a coven mate who has an instrument and some recording device to record a foundation of music. That is, the person could prerecord a percussion line of music or even add a base guitar to it (depending on their recording equipment … plus one can carefully access recording software like Audacity).
For example, you could use drums to create a basic rhythm and prerecord that. Then, during ritual, you and your coven mates can sing, chant or play other instruments live.
How is life going for you? Are you feeling pressured with work, family, friends, and personal pursuits?
If so, I’m with you. It can be hard to prioritize what to do when obligations weigh heavily on your shoulders.
Then, I had an intuitive nudge. It’s embodied in this question: How would Goddess help me prioritize for my enjoying a fulfilling life?”
Goddess wants you to grow
Goddess wants all Her children to grow. This means learning our lessons and conquering our fears.
What kind of lessons? This varies by the individual. You set up your goals for your lessons before you were born. These lessons can be things like forgiveness, handling fear, or finding love for yourself.
Goddess encourages you to prioritize your health and safety
I realize that I have sometimes, faltered about my own health. Sometimes, I’ve hesitated to go to the Emergency Room when my asthma was overwhelming.
How about you? Are you prioritizing your health? Good sleep, good nutrition, time devoted to nurturing your relationships …
Let’s remember that Goddess wants us to care for ourselves. After all, our bodies are the temples of the Gods. Goddess wants us to be healthy and happy while we are on this earth.
Goddess wants a better connection with you
Sometimes, I get the impression that Goddess might say, “It’d be nice if you called once in a while.” How? We can do ritual and have meditation sessions to connect with the Goddess and God. Even a 5-minute meditation session is better than nothing.
Along these lines, my new book Goddess Has the Answers to Life’s Tough Problems just debuted on Amazon. CLICK HERE to “look inside” my 9th book. For many of us, “9” is a sacred number, and I feel great about this book! I know that many readers will find support to grow and pick up insights that we, Wiccans, have discovered over the decades.
If so, I’m with you. Why? Because every day I deal with asthma, dyslexia and clinical depression.
Here’s More Trouble: Beware of Those Who Shame People with Mental Illness in the Pagan Community
What do I mean by “shame people”? I’ve encountered people who told me that I do not need medication. Instead, they claim that “a certain herbal tea” will “Fix you right up.” No. That is a delusion. But what really bothered me is their self-righteous attitude that I was not “believing enough.” Now that’s what I call shaming!
I do meditate. And I take medication. I have medical doctors who help me.
I have depression and asthma—serious diseases. And it is B.S. to tell me to drink a tea or think or wish my asthma attack or depressive episode away. This is life or death!
I do magick rituals, and they help. Still, if someone says that I don’t need medication, they are deluded. Instead, we must be our own advocates as we deal with invisible illnesses.
Why do the God and Goddess let these things happen?
I believe that before this incarnation the God and Goddess helped us plan the lessons we wanted for this incarnation.
Learning lessons on this plane is about taking the direct route. Sometimes, the direct route involves trauma or mental illness. And we know this before we are incarnated.
The God and Goddess don’t want us to suffer. They want us to be happy.
They send help to us when we need it most. My husband—that is, boyfriend at the time—came into my life and encouraged me to get help in the form of therapy and medical assistance. I am so grateful to him for taking my hand and leading me to the help I desperately needed.
Why would we choose an incarnation with trauma?
I’ll share an idea: Do you really learn what touching a hot stovetop is by someone describing it to you? Or do you learn faster and understand more completely by experiencing the pain?
The same is true with the lessons of our life. We need to experience the situation to truly learn our lesson.
Then, there is the experience of real compassion. Recently, I went through a “bottom-time” (crying and feeling hopeless). My husband sat with me. He didn’t try to “cheer me up.” He rubbed my feet. I felt better the next day—Thank, Goddess!
Still, my husband knows that there is no “happy button” on me. Sometimes, we just need to sit with the pain. I deeply appreciate my husband’s real compassion and love.
I realize that we do not ask for pain today. Still, God and Goddess often help us have the experience of support when we’re suffering. Perhaps, you’ll want to do a candle ritual to remind yourself of God and Goddess’s presence in your life.
“So, I put the Tarot spread down, and then I caught my breath,” one of my Wiccan elders told me.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“I knew that it was going to be tough to express what the cards were saying to my friend,” my Wiccan elder said.
I understood the situation. She was going to have to tell her friend something that she did not want to hear.
A significant number of people are concerned about having to face a “bad reading.” It’s tough enough to talk about it. It can be even harder to face a tough Tarot reading that applies to you.
Here are three steps to help you work through the dark waters of bad news.
Postpone Being Upset by Doing a Meditation
Go into meditation and ask for Goddess’s Viewpoint on the matter. You may be surprised! Some events that look bad at first glance are actually good news.
I have a friend who taught college students. She worked at many different colleges to make ends meet. One day she was doing a reading and saw that she would stop teaching college students. She was devastated.
Then, she did a meditation and asked the Goddess what to do …
Do Another Spread the Next Day
She asked the question “If I do _____, what is the outcome?” When she read the answer, she was puzzled. It gave her the same answer as the day before.
So, she repeated the step of meditation to ask for guidance and to see the situation clearly.
She also talked with her Wiccan Elders and other trustworthy people.
Take Positive Action and Add Meditation
The next day she did what she hoped was a positive action related to her situation. She signed up for a Toastmasters group (a group where people practice public speaking)—based on a vague notion that she might become a life coach and giving speeches would help her find clients.
She now says that she gets to work with clients who really want her help—which is quite different from teaching required college classes. She is now free of half-hearted efforts from a significant number of college students. (She hated giving out bad grades.)
So, the “Bad News” that she thought she had received turned out to be a blessing to help her make a transition into what she was meant to do.
Doing meditation sessions and asking for Goddess’s viewpoint can really open up possibilities in your life. Not all endings are bad—although they might include pain at first.
May these three steps help you as you discover your next chapter of life.
Jill sighed and then asked, “Can you tell me when and how my life will end?”
“That’s not a question that I work with,” I replied. I went on to share the following four details:
Be sure to avoid doing a Tarot reading when you’re feeling terrible.
Sometimes, the Tarot can mirror your feelings. If you’re in a bad mood, you may find that your mood colors what you perceive in your reading. So, your perception can, in a way, “give you a false reading.”
I have had to be careful about my state of being when I do a Tarot reading. Why? I deal with clinical depression symptoms, so I need be careful that my symptoms don’t mask what the cards are really telling me.
Avoid asking about dreadful subjects.
Don’t ask: “How (or when) will I die?” And, avoid asking about the deaths of your parents and friends. Why? Such questions put you into a terrible space. As I mentioned earlier, your perceptions can be off, and you might get a “false reading.”
Don’t read for others when they are in a bad/sad/angry mood.
If you read for a person who is in a negative mood, they might perceive anything you say as “bad news.” Reading for someone who is upset will not help them. They cannot be open to the messages of the Tarot, and they may twist the news in a negative way.
Be prepared for a possible scary or negative reading.
Pause and think about what you asked. Did you ask a question that was phrased in a negative form? If you still get a negative reading, take a break and try again the next day.
Special Note: Let’s look at how life goes. Some things seem negative at first but turn out better. A divorce can open the door to a later, wonderful marriage. A friend drifts away and then you later realize that you feel much lighter because you had been in a negative co-dependent friendship.
“That’s what the Tarot cards are showing me,” I replied.
“How accurate is this? Is my marketing campaign really going to tank?”
“As I shared with you before … when I do a reading, it’s like taking a glance at a river that is flowing,” I said.
Some Insights about a Tarot Reading
Just because the Tarot gives you an answer, it doesn’t mean it will stay the same.
The Tarot spread of cards that you read is a snapshot in time. If you do nothing and follow the course you’re on, at the moment you view the Tarot spread, you may find that the outcome stays the same.
However, if you change your actions, things can change.
This is why it is so hard sometimes to pin down exact outcomes and the final results that may manifest.
Viewing the Tarot spread has an influence on the future timeline.
Seeing the Tarot spread gives you new information. What will you do with that information? Will you apply yourself to taking action to change the outcome? Perhaps, this is your chance to change your future!
Still, the appropriate use of the Tarot depends on a lot of variables. It’s a truly complicated tool.
Although an outcome may change from the time of your Tarot spread to the future happening, you may still find the Tarot can prove to be helpful in certain circumstances.
Side note: Usually, the major arcana are things one cannot change, and the minor arcana are things you can change. And this depends on which card is next to another. Yes, I did say that the Tarot can be complicated.
Wiccans use the Tarot for many situations including to help people see their choices, to see what actions may be viable, and more.
Like any powerful tool, take care with your use of the Tarot.
Have you felt alone or like you’ve hit bottom? Would you like to experience the Goddess’s Breath of Life?
When do we really need the God’s and Goddess’s love and light?
Every day? Yes. And in particular, when you’re feeling sick. I just had another coughing jag that almost split me in two. I keep reminding myself to let the Gods’ love and light in.
Their healing breath of life can soothe and heal even the most broken parts of us.
When we look at the word enthusiasm, we realize the Latin origin of the word includes “theos (God)” and the meaning “inspired by God.” Inspire means “breathe life into.”
Three Common Blockages That Can Keep You from Receiving Goddess’s Breath of Life
Here are Three Blockages you may experience:
Distraction from Your Essence
Feeling Unworthy
Loss of Hope
Distraction from Your Essence
When I think of the meaning of “Your Essence,” I think of Your True Self, which is what the God and Goddess meant for you to be. This about your True Path.
We all have a True Path in life. It consists of the lessons and goals we set up before we incarnated here on the physical plane.
If we’re distracted from Our True Self, we can feel certain forms of pain. These can manifest as feelings of being alone and unworthy. These feelings create blockages to our True Path.
Many Wiccans connect with their natural state of peace and comfort while meditating, chanting or doing a ritual or breathing process.
Feeling Unworthy
With this blog, I’ve shared part of my journey in dealing with symptoms of clinical depression. With these symptoms I can feel unworthy of love and kindness, even from the Gods!
So, how do we transform this feeling of unworthiness to happiness or even enthusiasm? Meditation is a great way to start on the road to the God and Goddess.
Many Wiccans find that focusing on the breath can be helpful, too. Here is an easy Breath Exercise to help remove blocks in your way to the Gods.
Breath Exercise
As you take in a long, slow breath, say silently,
“I breathe in Light and Goddess’s Love.”
As you breathe out slowly, say silently,
“I breathe out pain and distraction.”
Loss of Hope
During the recent political events in the USA, many people feel hopeless. Then, something good happened. Recently, there was a big turnout of African-American women voters in Alabama. They voted to make sure an alleged-pedophile candidate did NOT get elected. (I feel he should not have been allowed to run in the first place.) This resulted in the first Democratic senator to be elected to represent Alabama in 25 years.
This positive outcome reminded me that we have a choice to focus on the good moments of life. In this way, we can nurture hope within our heart.
So, if you feel a loss of hope, see if you can find something good to focus on. This helps open the door so that you can receive the Goddess’s Breath of Life.
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As a Wiccan I found this an inspiring read. Written in a way that makes it accessible to everyone irrespective of their current knowledge. – Shona Cathro
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