The Magic of Great Endings

In our society we tend to celebrate new beginnings and fresh starts. We are a self-improvement culture, and it seems like anytime is a great time for a New Year's resolution. What we don't seem to focus on, however, is creating a great ending before we start a fresh beginning.

There is an esoteric principle that states that every act of power has a chosen beginning, duration, and ending. Most of us are great at choosing a beginning and planning all the steps in the duration, but we never end our acts. And because we never end our acts, any new beginnings are inevitably mired down in previous unfinished acts. That's why we seem to get bogged down in our creations - they are hindered by all our other attempts to create!

What does a great ending look like? A great ending is the act of stepping back from the events in which you've been engaged and taking a long look at what you've done. Take a long view of what has been accomplished, feel the distance between the beginning of the endeavor and now. Feel the weight of what has been achieved. Appreciate all that has gone into creating the final product. Appreciate your own efforts, and those of others who have contributed. Then, let it go. Release your creation to have a life and independent will of its own. Only when we let go of something completely have we fully created anything.

For instance, suppose you've planned your daughter's wedding. Perhaps the creation started with the announcement of the engagement. Then, the duration of the endeavor was filled with planning, meetings with caterers, bakers, ministers and musicians. The big day arrives, along with hundreds of guests. The ceremony and celebration proceed according to plan (or not according to plan) and, finally, your daughter and her new husband depart on their honeymoon. You sit in the reception hall as the last people leave the party. Now, or the following morning, would be a good time to end this act of power. As the band gathers up its things, look back over the entire process. Feel how it felt at the beginning of the process, relive the events that happened in between from where you stand now. Look at what has been achieved, and appreciate all that has come to pass. Then, release your daughter and her husband to freedom, to their own free will and the development of their marriage as they see fit. Appreciate all that you have done and let it go. This is a great ending.

So if you want to begin anything in your life, magical or ordinary, make sure you have cleared a space for this new creation by taking the time to end all that has been. What if you haven't quite finished the previous event, but are no longer interested in it? For instance, say you started to get a degree in engineering, but now decide you want to go to Hollywood to be an actor? No problem. You don't have to finish something to end it. Simply appreciate all you have gained, all the effort you have put forth into the previous endeavor, and let it go. Let there be a gap of at least a day between your ending and a new beginning. Let that day be a sort of "limbo," a space of transition or transformation, a breath of air. Then, begin anew.

Before you make a fresh start, make sure you've made a great end. You must end before you can begin. Here's to great endings!

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5 Magical Methods to Prevent Nightmares

If you suffer from nightmares and can't sleep at night because of them, you may need someone to wave a magic wand! Actually, you might just need to do a little shopping for some magical supplies. Here are five simple and wonderful magical methods to help you prevent nightmares. They are a big part of many tribal traditions and have worked for many suffering sleepless nights because of nightmares.

1. Sun Candle
Light a sun yellow candle (bright yellow with no orange or red overtones) with a paper or wooden match when you are ready to go to bed. A sun yellow candle encased in glass and set on a plate is your safest option. Let the candle burn all night, if necessary. Sun yellow nourishes your Spirit and keeps your energetic vibrations high and light while you sleep.

2. Essential Oils
Before bed, add a drop of soothing essential oils to your pillowcase or sheets, or rub them (mixed with a carrier oil, like almond oil) on the bottoms of your feet, on your neck, or on your forehead. If you have a partner, trade essential oil foot rubs before bed. Calming and soothing essential oils that will help prevent nightmares include lavender, orange, rose, sandalwood, and frankincense.

3. Dreamcatchers
Native Americans have long used dreamcatchers to prevent nightmares from intruding during the night. Made of leather and sinew, and often decorated with feathers, shells, stones, and symbols, dreamcatchers should be hung at the head of your bed or over your bed. They will "catch" nightmares, stopping them before they reach you.

4. Flower Essences
Mix up some flower essences to take during the day and before bed to prevent nightmares. Rock Rose is excellent for terrors, such as those that often appear in nightmares. Aspen helps young children who suffer from nightmares. Mugwort helps keep dreams from interrupting your sleep, while White Chestnut works well for repetitive dreams that haunt. Star of Bethlehem is a great overall flower essence to ease fears and terrors.

5. Glass of Water
Water is the element of the Spirit, and works well to soak up the terrors of the Spirit as well. A simple remedy for nightmares is simply to place a full glass of water on your nightstand before bed. The water will absorb any negative spiritual energy during the night, and helps prevent nightmares for some people. In the morning, be sure to dump the water down the drain. You don't want to take in negative energy by drinking the water!

Need more fabulous magical tips to make life easier and, well, more magical? Consider diving into the juicy magical tips in two of our magic ebooks.

- Energy Healing for Self and Others
- Daily Rituals for Attracting What You Want in Life



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Online Magic Tip #28: When Action Helps Your Intention, and When It Does Not!

If you watch videos like "The Secret" you may walk away with the idea that you can and should set your intention daily, and then put your head in the sand like an ostrich for the rest of the day. Do that for long enough and, "Poof!" ... the magic happens and all is well!

When Intention Works Alone
This online magic tip is all about whether intention, by itself, works well, and when it doesn't.

So can intention, used alone, actually magically bring about the results you desire? Well, the answer, as you may have guessed, is "It depends!"

The success of your intention really depends on who you are--and how you are. If you are the type who enjoys setting your intention and then "going with the flow," then using intention by itself will probably work well for you. Go with the methods mentioned in "The Secret" and wait to amaze yourself.

On the other hand, if you are more of the type who, as a child, persistently asked, "Are we there yet?" while in the car, then intention alone probably won't work for you... at all! If you are the "go get 'em" type who is more into action than meditation, then read the next section in this online magic tip to see how you can help your intention along without getting in your own way.

When Intention Does Not Work Well Alone
Based on our personal experience (and the volumes of email we get), we suspect that the majority of the world falls into this second camp--the camp of folks whose motto is "I can't wait!"

When it comes to magic, the problem with intention is that having an "I can't wait" attitude tends to interfere with your intention, slowing down the arrival of that which you desire. Bummer.

But here's the good news--and the real nugget of information at the heart of this online magic tip: you can take action steps that will assist rather than interfere with your intention.

Good Action Steps for Impatient People
The key to helpful action steps for impatient people is, wait for it... intention! Yeah, we know, intention is kind of the problem for impatient people. However, intention is also the solution.

If you already know that you are an impatient person, then you can take preparatory intentional steps prior to setting you "main goal intention" that will help you stay calm afterward. What we mean is that you can plan a sequence of action steps to take after you have cast your major intention.

What are these action steps? These steps are magical rituals done on a daily basis that will assist your main intention as well as keep you occupied (so you don't interfere with that main intention). Examples include: (search for these on this blog if not familiar with how to do them)

• Navajo Beauty Way
• Sun Candle Blessing
• Walking Meditation
• Water Bowl Meditation
• Rooting
• Question Circle
• Talking to Spirit of Owl
• Hiring Angels

We could literally include hundreds of daily magical rituals in the list, but you get the idea. You can even use a combination of these rituals to ensure that you don't get bored while you are waiting for your intention to manifest. The key is to plan the use of these magical rituals ahead of time. You need to set your intention around these rituals by defining:

• which rituals you will use
• how long you will do each ritual
• in which order you will do the rituals (if you are using more than one)
• when you will use the ritual(s) during the day
• whether you will use the ritual(s) more than once daily (if needed) and under which circumstances (i.e., you might choose to hire an angel to help you stay calm when you start to feel impatient)
• when you will stop doing the ritual(s) and check the progress of your manifestation (a question circle would prove useful for checking progress)

If you plan to use these types of rituals for 21, 40, or your own chosen number of days, you will find yourself much less twitchy and apt to get in the way of your main intention. In fact, you may find that you enjoy the daily rituals so much that you often forget to think of your main intention, which is just fine because the Universe doesn't need your help to deliver the goods. The Universe mainly needs you to stay out of the way and "sound a joyous note to Creator's ear." That joyous note is exactly the main goal of these daily magical rituals.

Get it? Got it? Good!

Need More Help?
Get a bunch of rituals in these books and ebooks:

Daily Rituals for Attracting What You Want in Life Ebook

Learn How to Do Witchcraft Rituals and Spells with Your Bare Hands

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Forgive and Forget

You've probably heard the saying "forgive and forget", but that is often easier said than done. Anyone who has been on a magical or spiritual path for any amount of time understands the logic behind how holding onto anger, desiring revenge and other negative emotions like that end up hurting us. By Law of Attraction, if we put out negative vibes we will only get more negative back at us. Knowing all this still doesn't make it easy sometimes to forgive and forget when we feel we have been wronged or betrayed.

I have had many opportunities presented to me in practicing this when dealing with my family of origin and have learned some things about forgetting and forgiving in the process. To forgive is to give a gift to oneself and to others. You have to forgive so that you can get to forgetting. Forgetting is the gift of forgiving. It's kind of like a circle process. In other words, if you can find a way to forgive, then you can forget, so forgetting is the gift you get from forgiving. Going through this process frees us up inside so that we are not carrying burdens such as guilt, blame, anger, etc... It serves the same purpose as doing a magical disconnect.

When you are able to go through the process of forgiving and forgetting you not only heal yourself, but you also broadcast this healing energy, much like in a spell matrix. Broadcasting this energy affects others in their subliminal mind and you will notice a difference in those around you. Of course, since we all have free will, this does not mean the situation will always be settled the way you would want it to be. Sometimes it means accepting that you are not on the same path or wave length as another person and coming to peace with breaking away from that person. After all, maintaining your inner peace is the important thing. Remember the level of your being attracts the level of your life. To attract good things to your life, you have to have your inner state working in a positive vein. This cannot be accomplished if you are holding on to past negative emotions.

Ask yourself, what negative emotions are you holding onto? Then give yourself the gift of forgive and forget so you can open the door to unlimited possibilities and move on to manifesting that which you desire.

In Magic,
Alan aka RavenWindStar


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Spirit Guides: Need Help? Read This

We all have spirit guides whether we know it or not or whether we are in contact with them or not. They are there and available to help us just for the asking. Spirit Guides may take on many forms, including angels, animal totems, loved ones from our past or past lives, and forms not recognized on this planet. Spirit guides can help with just about anything you need help with. They can help with manifestations, help make life easier by solving problems or offer guidance when you are not sure what to do. They have a wealth of knowledge from a broader perspective than we have just waiting for us to tap into.

Working With Spirit Guides
You do have to remember when asking for help from spirit guides that Universal Laws still apply. So for example if you ask for something and then are not in a mode to receive it you won't get the desired results. It's like asking for a particular gift and when it is being presented to you, you turn it down. The Universe delivers that which you put your attention towards or in other words what you are thinking and feeling. If you have doubts that your guides can help you or express negative thoughts or emotions about your situation then the answers, solutions and help you seek cannot be delivered. Just remember to relax, and be in a mood of joy and gratitude, letting the assistance you seek flow to you. In other words, get out of the way and let your guides do their work. Be open to allowing the assistance to come in whatever way they choose to send it. If you set too many parameters around how, when and where you think the solution should arrive then you are limiting the magical possibilities. And after all if you already had the solution and things were working out doing it your way, then you probably wouldn't be asking for help, right?

Communication Tips
If you have not been communicating with your spirit guides and communication with other beings is new to you, then you may need to have some practice before you get to a point of desperately needing help with a situation. Go ahead and start practicing with small things. For example, ask for help with reserving a parking space close to the door at the mall. Practice with small requests and how you word them. Be sure to always thank your spirit guides in advance after making a request and again after the results are achieved. This practice time gives you the opportunity to hone your communication skills to get the optimal results and practice in finding the various ways communications come to you from various spirit guides. Your guides may communicate to you through signs that you need to be observant enough to catch. Some people hear the answers "in their head". Other times it might be that the right person or resource appears at just the right time and that's your answer. Become accustomed to the types of communications that come from your various guides.

 Letting Go
Remember the story of the man trapped on his house in a flood? He asks God for help. People come by with boats and even a helicopter and he sends them away saying he is waiting for help from God. Finally when he asks God why he didn't help him, God says I sent you a boat and even a helicopter, what else did you want? Help is always available from our spirit guides, we just have to remember to let go of the control of what that help looks like and be open to receiving the answers in whatever form it appears. Magical help is also available on our website in the free members area that has a variety of magical articles. If you still have questions, post on our Facebook page where help and guidance is available from a whole magical community.

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