When I asked for a spiritual awakening, I really wasn’t sure what I meant. I’ve always been drawn to the mystical/esoteric/metaphysical side of things, even before I understood my birth chart or my Aquarius rising. I had something inside of me that was deeply connected to…the thing…or to all the things…I still don’t really know what to call it. That which is called the Tao is not the Tao…yada yada. Since DMT arrived in my life, something changed. Shifted. I feel like I’ve been called to do something, write something, change something, be a part of something. What? I still don’t know yet, but I can’t ignore it and it keeps telling me that writing it all down is necessary.

One of my 3 intentions at my birthday spell was to increase my powers of manifestation and intuition, to understand the tarot and natal astrology deeper and to grow my wisdom by reading and interpreting for others. I started with the book “Moon Spells” and began to read through how to harness the power of the moon in my manifestations. I bought an app for my new birthday watch from Brad that has the moon phase right on the face. It’s so beautiful. Best $7 I ever spent. 🙂 We have all been charging our new crystals in the sun before a new moon and putting them in water under the full moon to charge with our intentions and drink. Talking about what we want more of and what we want to get rid of every month. We have been discussing the movement of the planets against the backdrop of the constellations, what that energy is bringing into our lives at any moment, and Brad and I have an app that shows us all of the astrological goings on in relation to our own signs on any given day. We’re reading our cards all the time and learning numerology. We have tuned in and are taking little steps toward a deeper understanding of a path that is as old as humanity. It’s been a lot of fun for sure and I love that our whole family is involved and finds it as cool as I do!

Caveat -The scientist in me must say these things… I feel like there is a part of me that is resistant to “belief” in these practices per se. Part of me feels very deeply that these are made up human practices, ideas, beliefs…that they do not have corresponding realities that exist separately from humans, i.e. real angels or spirits or a divine guidance that is somehow working to make things happen in my life for some reason. Scientifically, in my logical, virgo, earth bound mind, I know there is no evidence to support these things and that rationally, I have to admit that the 60 or so stars in the constellation of Virgo did not have an impact on the person I have become. There’s several billion stars shining in the same place, it’s scientific nonsense. Fine. Agreed. Here’s the thing, though, sometimes it SEEMS like there is something more. Sometimes, something happens, like the 4’s at Josiah’s birth, or manifesting someone specific and then meeting them, or like asking for $5,000 and it showing up repeatedly, specifically. And if you ask Richard Dawkins, he’ll take out a really fancy computer and he’ll calculate the odds that those things would happen given 8 billion people and the amount of things that happen in a day, like how often you look at the clock and it says 1:11…and you notice it! Wow! cool! How many times did you look at it and it said 2:48 and you didn’t notice it at all? Yeah, I get it. Scientifically, I get it, But…

For me and my practice, the ritual, the totems, the tools, watching the cycles of the moon and bringing to the front of your mind your goals, aspirations, dreams and desires as well as looking at the things you want to remove from your life, your behaviors, your negative feelings about things and taking steps to release them with an open heart and mind, all leads to manifesting what you want in your life and to creating the best version of you and your life that you can. Whether or not this exists all in my head or there is something else at work here, to me, is irrelevant. Having said that, I do not take this work lightly by any means. I know that there are energies inside myself that can lead to dark things if not taken seriously and done properly. However, the shadow work that I have done over the past 15 years, the layers of unlearning and unbecoming my old self, the layers I have built of my new self on purpose, the complete ego death and rebirth I have experienced on psilocybin, the places I have been on DMT and the messages I have received about writing these experiences down, I know my energy is clean, my intentions are pure. I am approaching this humbly and with a beginner’s mind, full of wisdom.

So I found a book called “Wicca Spellbook Starter Kit”. It is essentially an introduction to candle (color) spells, crystals and herbs. As I began to read through the introduction, I had a feeling come over me the same way I did when I found the course on natal astrology, discovered cosmology and quantum physics, learned the Tarot, etc. Curious. Very, very curious. I wondered what would happen if I spent the next year exploring this book? Working my way through all of these spells one by one. Using the moon as guidance for when to cast a spell, and buying the tools and understanding them one by one as I go through. For Astrology, it took me the better part of a year to understand it as well as I do, and I know I have a lot to learn. Tarot was the same, studying one card for a day or two or sometimes a week until I really felt like I understood it’s message. I will never stop learning about the universe, ever, and it’s been probably a decade since Dave put The Elegant Universe in my hand and got me addicted to Brian Greene and string theory. Mycology, psychonautics, all of these things go together. They are an esoteric toolkit that I have been putting together for my whole life, probably. This will be like that. An exploration of a new but also very similar practice. I feel like I have been gaining this wisdom for a reason, that someday these things I’ve been drawn to with such intensity will manifest themselves into something useful. That is my desire. For now, as the cards have said repeatedly, I will learn, I will write, and I will believe that this train is on the right track. Choo Choo.

I find it very interesting that the first spell in the book is a color spell, Red. Ha. My least favorite color. Of course.