Moving from Scared to Sacred?

When something scary or fearful comes up in your life, what do you do? Do you go on feeling scared or do you starting digging through your toolbox for tools to create some sacred space around you? Notice that the two words have all the same letters, just in a different order? Before you start worrying that you can't possibly do anything "sacred" in the middle of your office or in public, let's take a minute to examine the word sacred.

The word sacred originally comes from the very sacren, which means "to consecrate". Consecrate, aside from the religious overtones, also means "To dedicate solemnly to a service or goal." So if you find yourself "scared" and you'd rather be in the "sacred", all you have to do is rededicate yourself to your own aims and goals. Simple, right?

Picking an Aim
Rededicating yourself to your aims is really simple. First, though, you have to have an aim to rededicate yourself to. If you've already got one, that's great. If you don't, take some time to decide what aim and goal is most important to you at this time in your life. It can be a physical goal, such as completing a college degree or achieving some level in your career. It can also be a state of being, such as joy or peace of mind. Whatever your goal, just make sure you have one. If you're not sure how to choose an aim, use tools like the Runes, Medicine Cards, Sacred Path Cards, or Angel Cards to help you choose an aim for each day (choose one rune or card as the theme for your day).

Rededicating to Your Aim
Once you've got your aim, here are some simple ways to rededicate yourself when you find yourself off track and need to return to the sacred:

Look in the Mirror: Go to the restroom, look at yourself in the mirror and say in a forceful voice, "Come to present time!" Anytime we are fearful, worried, or stressed, we are either in the past or the future. Coming back to present time will remind you of your aim.

Physical Sensation: Wear your ring on an unfamiliar finger, put a rubberband around your wrist, or carry a heavy coin or small rock in your pocket-anything that will bring an unfamiliar physical awareness to you. Each time you feel the ring, rubberband, coin or rock, remember your aim. Physical sensations keep us in present time.

Return to Nature: If possible, go outside and make physical contact with a tree. Close your eyes, breathe, and ask the tree to help you reconnect with your aim. Trees have deep roots and long memories, and are able to help us remember in the present moment what is most important.

Connect with Animals: Animals spend almost all their time in the present. To get back in touch with yourself and your aim, pet the cat, cuddle the dog, watch your fish, or listen to your bird sing. Animals will bring you back into the now.

Get Moving: If your mind is stuck in "scared," move your body to move your mind! By the law of "as above, so below," when you move body, spirit and mind will also move. Taking a brisk 5 minute walk will often move your mind out of park and reconnect you with your aim.

By being proactive, you can move out of your scared place and into your sacred place easily. Let magic take you there!

Looking for more magic you can bring to your life? Our Witchcraft Spell Books series on Amazon is a great way to get started.

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How To Blow Off Steam Magically

Do you ever have days where you're so charged up with anger, frustration, pain or plain irritation that you feel like you could shoot a bolt of lightning out your fingertips? Well, before you fry your computer or stereo with all that excess fire energy (because you literally can transmit bolts of fire energy from your hands), slow down and try one of these methods or getting rid of that energy:

Use Apache Tears: Apache Tears (also known as Grandmother's tears) are a special form of obsidian composed of feldspar, hornblend, biotite and quartz. In shamanic circles, Apache tears are commonly used to safely transfer negative or unwanted energies into the half worlds. If you have access to an Apache tear, just hold it in your dominant hand and flow all that excess energy into the stone. The stone acts as a portal to the half worlds and none of that energy will come back to you!

Hug Your Refrigerator: Because refrigerators and other large appliances act as electrical grounds, they can also handle psychic fire energy. If you feel a need to blast out excess energy, just put both hands (or both feet) on your refrigerator and blast away. It can handle all your energies, and then some.

Specular Hematite: This is another stone that can absorb lots of energy very easily. Just hold the stone in your dominant hand (hand you would naturally point with) and flow energy into it. Unlike the Apache tear, specular hematite isn't a portal to the half-worlds, so you'll have to cleanse it regularly with smudging or other techniques.

Rooting: Mother Earth can also handle excess fire energy. Just extend your psychic roots deep into the bedrock and exchange energies with the earth. You can see complete directions on how to do this technique in our blog article "Need a Quick Magical Fix? Gotcha Covered!".

Want to learn more about dealing with Fire Energy? Then our Magical Element Fire course will be of interest to you. Even better, learn about all 4 of the magical elements with our free course offer. Just email info@shamanschool and ask for details on the Free course offer.

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How To Be Your Own Pet Psychic

Those of you who watch the "Animal Planet" channel have probably seen the Pet Psychic show, where a lady psychic communicates telepathically with a variety of animals. She acts as a counselor, communicator, spiritual healer and "hierophant" between the human and animal kingdoms (the hierophant is the communicator between beings and worlds in the tarot deck). Watching this lady is great fun, but not as much fun as doing it yourself. Did you know you can learn to communicate with animals, too?

Magic is real and everyone is a magician. It's just part of your natural birthright as a planetary citizen. Part of that birthright is access to a host of psychic abilities. The keyword here is "access." We all have the psychic abilities that enable us to know what we can't possibly know through the five senses, touch non-physical worlds, and communicate with our animals. It's just that without practice most of us don't know how to access those abilities.

In her ebook, Learn How to Talk to Animals - A Practical Guide for a Magical Journey, Esoteric School Expert Leta Worthington discusses how our brain works and how to get into the right brainwave to access the ability to communicate with animals. She explains that our "normal" brainwaves, the ones we use for day-to-day tasks such as driving, calculating and thinking, are too fast for us to do animal communication. What we need to do is slide into a slower, more relaxed, and more open brainwave. When we get into this brainwave, we're more open to other worlds and other types of "psychic" senses. In fact, we need to get into this brainwave not just for animal communication, but for most kinds of psychic work.

So how can you start getting into that brainwave? Practice, practice, practice. Here's a short list to get you started:

Meditation: You don't need to be a yogi to do this. Just light a candle, burn some incense, or listen to dripping water. Follow your breath. Let these soothing sights, sounds, smells and sensations transport you to a lower, slower brainwave.

Color: Surround yourself with water blue or sky blue. These colors can help you relax, slow down, and be open to information from other, more spiritual realms.

Rooting: If you want to get connected with "all that is," nothing puts you closer to the earth than rooting. Rooting is the process of extending your roots deep into the ground, and connecting and exchanging energies with Mother Earth. It takes all of three minutes, can rebalance your energies, and soothes your spirit.

Doing these and other practices on a regular basis can help you more easily access your psychic self. Try to integrate them into life several times a day. Learn to slow down and take breaks. Not only will you stay healthier and more spiritually fit, but these new slower states won't seem so foreign anymore. It will begin to feel like home, and then watch out! Your psychic abilities can really start to bloom! For more exercises and techniques to use in developing your psychic abilities check out our Psychic Development ebook.

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Finding Freedom in Secret Histories

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Anyone who has ever felt unfairly treated by another surely knows the feeling of righteous indignation. Taken one step further, continued feelings of injustice can lead to thoughts of vengeance upon others considered to be "the enemy." And while a person might find some sense of satisfaction in being "right" and feeling superior over an enemy, that same person also loses any freedom of thought, feeling, and being to that same enemy. Added up over time, the sum of these moments of righteousness AND loss produce, in sum, the fact that the enemy has in fact won... without ever lifting a finger.

Have you ever felt that sense of righteousness that comes from retelling an event in which you were treated unfairly? Have you ever thought of what you would say to your enemy the next time you see him or her? Have you dreamed of alternate scenarios in which you emerge victorious over the person who has wronged you?

If so, then you know the power of righteous indignation. It can rule your life without ever changing anything that happens "out there"... where your "enemy" lives. All those moments spent thinking about vengeance, all those dreams wasted on recreating scenarios... all of these are moments in which you sacrifice your own freedom in the name of your enemy. The true injustice of the situation is that your enemy likely has no clue that you are offering up so many moments of your life in sacrifice to him or her.

But even when we realize that the continuous thinking and talking about "the enemy" is really nothing more than an energy drain that binds us to the same "stuck" place on our spiritual path, most of us have real trouble letting go. The injustices feel too deep to just release without some sort of satisfaction. Plus, how can we pardon such bad behavior by others, and allow them to carry on without some kind of retribution?

If the quote by Longfellow at the beginning of this post be true, then it must also be true that the enemy has also paid his or her dues in sorrow and suffering. Maybe the enemy has not offered those dues to you, the quote does give us a glimpse of the idea that all humans have suffering and sorrow in equal measure. Could this be true?

Discovering Secret Histories
While your sworn enemy is not likely to tell you about his or her suffering, you can still discover the power of secret histories by talking to others. Choose the most successful person you know, and ask that person about what events have most powerfully shaped that person's life. Ask about that person's regrets, sorrows, and hard times. A truly successful person will have many, and those who admit to those moments of sorrow will be glad to share them with you.

For instance, one woman interviewed the most successful person in her life. Prior to the interview, she saw this man as a wealthy entrepreneur who had financial freedom, famous friends, and a "good life." She judged this based on the property he owned, the pictures of him with famous people, and the seemingly loving wife and family.

Imagine this woman's shock when she discovered that this successful entrepreneur often felt lonely and sad. When pressed, the man said that he had a heart condition that was kept secret from all but his family. His family was so busy jet setting around the world that this man hardly saw them. He had no close friends, and he missed the light-hearted friendships of his childhood. Indeed, his wealth and fame made it difficult for this man to distinguish between people who truly were his friends and people who only wanted a piece of his fortune. Thus he had no close friends, and he was saddened to see his family struggling with the same issues.

While the woman had previously judged this man only by his outer trappings of wealth and fame, she realized that she was happier than he, despite having far less means. She had close friends and a warm, loving family that gathered for merriment and laughter during holidays. When she realized just how much this man suffered despite his wealth and fame, or because of it, she instantly realized that anyone could have secret histories that were full of sorrow and suffering. Even her worst enemy probably had a secret history.

Your Secret History
If it is true that your enemy has a secret history of which you know nothing, is it not equally true that your enemy has no clue about your secret history? Might your enemy have more consideration if he or she did know your secret history? This is not to say that you should go tell your enemy your secret history, but perhaps simply realize that your enemy might have treated you differently if he or she did know your secret history. That point of view might change the way you think about your enemy.

If you want to discover your enemy's secret history, or reveal your own secret history to your enemy without actually telling him or her, consider using Spirit-to-Spirit communication via a magickal waterbowl. You can learn more about this magickal technique from this blog article or our Psychic Development ebook and our Kindle book Learn How to Do Witchcraft Rituals and Spells with Your Bare Hands have instructions along with other ways to use a magickal waterbowl such as to find lost objects, look into the future, and to balance your water energies.

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Weather Working with Clouds

Working with clouds is a great way to start developing your weather working and psychic abilities and give you a quick magick technique to try out for yourself with nothing more than your own hands. Cloud magick is simply the art of moving clouds around in the sky. You can reshape clouds, move them from left to right, or even drill a hole in an overcast sky to let some sunshine through. Cloud magic teaches you to extend and use your energies, which you can later develop when working with the winds of the four directions and larger weather systems. For now, if you don't like the weather you see outside, here's a simple way to start working with clouds to get you on your way to creating your own weather forecasts.

Cloud Exercise
1. Choose a day that has scattered, puffy clouds for this exercise. Get into a comfortable position (either sitting or laying down) where you can easily see the clouds.

2. Choose a particular cloud to work with. Decide what you will do with your cloud. You can split the cloud in half, shape it to look like an animal, extend one end of the cloud or make the cloud taller. Whatever you choose, keep it simple.

**For instance, you may choose a cloud that already looks like a duck, but a duck with a short tail. Choose to extend the duck's tail until it looks proportional to the rest of the body.

3. Shape the cloud using your thoughts and intention. See the cloud as you want it to be. Super-impose that image over the actual cloud. You can also talk to the cloud or use your hands to shape the cloud. While you obviously can't touch the cloud with your hands, clouds are sensitive to force of movement in your hands.

4. Clouds are very reactive and easy to shape, but sometimes slow to move. If you work with your cloud for 1-2 minutes but very little seems to be happening, take a break for a few minutes then look at your cloud again. You'll probably see that the cloud has moved in the direction you pushed it - it just took a while to get there.

As with all these kinds of exercises, don't judge the result. Just keep practicing. Before long you'll be delighted with what you can do! Want to learn more magick to do with your own two hands? Check out the Kindle book - Learn How to Do Witchcraft Rituals and Spells with Your Bare Hands.

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