Video Message: Don't give up.

I know that for many of us life is trying right now. Some are struggling with health issues. Others are struggling with financial ones. And yet more people are dealing with complicated things that we can not begin to imagine. As tempting as it may be to compare our suffering to someone else's it really won't help solve the problem. It will only hurt and frustrate us.

Take some time when you are feeling that everything is going against you to pause and reflect on the things that are working in your favor. Find the details that show you are moving in the right direction and focus on them. We're socialized to look at the bad side of the picture and compare ourselves to others. This is a terrible combination of things that causes a lot of hurt in this world.

Don't tell yourself 'At least I don't have it as bad as [group}.' or 'I have no right to complain, so many other people have it worse.'

Pain is pain. It may take on different shapes and everyone has different tolerances for different kinds of pain. Don't invalidate your experience by making comparisons. Treat yourself gently, focus on the positive things, and don't give up.

Call for Questions!

There is no questions in my inbox to answer right now. I invite you all to send me some. You can leave them here in the comments on this post or you can email them to me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Godphone: Lesson One - Inner Silence.

In many ways, the exercises that one uses to develop their 'godphone' and mediumship related ability are the same ones used for meditation. Like meditation, the practitioner needs to learn to observe their thoughts and control them. Prior to engaging in meditation, especially if one is new to this practice, it is important to establish that they are in an environment that promotes the work they are doing. For many people, a quiet location that is free from distractions works well. It is also helpful for the practitioner to limit the distractions that are internal. Thus, before sitting down to engage in these exercises, it is important to be in a comfortable body position and not have things like hunger or thirst distracting you.

Some people may find the classic meditation position of sitting in lotus position is helpful. This, however, is not necessary. One can sit, stand, or kneel for their positioning. (And there are examples through out the history of meditation that demonstrate that one can be in these positions and engage in this type of work.) Yoga positions are also helpful for some people. Laying down, however, is not the best position to use for this type of exercise, at least in the beginning, because many people will fall asleep after they have become relaxed.

Once you have positioned yourself in a comfortable position that allows you to be relaxed yet alert in an environment that promotes focused attention, the next step is to establish your body awareness. This may seem overwhelming. In the beginnings of this practice, body awareness will be the primary focus until it is possible to ignore it (with the exception of remaining aware of indicators of pain or danger). It may require you to try out multiple positions until you find the one that is best suited for this type of mental work.

In the process of becoming aware of your body (counting and focusing on breaths is a good place to start), it is good to acknowledge the various streams of information coming to you. Once you have established awareness of your body and a state of attentive relaxation, begin to note what senses are informing you of what is happening. Categorize the input you receive and steadily compartmentalize that input as it comes to you. Thus, when you hear a noise, note that it is an external auditory input and put it into a mental box. As future noises come up during your session, put them into the same mental box. Do not focus on them beyond acknowledging them and setting them aside.

After a time of observing your sensory experiences, you will find yourself sitting with your thoughts. There will be an internal monologue where you express things like your concern if you paid the heat bill on time and remind yourself to feed the cat. Just as you identified and set aside the sensory input, you proceed to identify and put aside the internal monologue. When emotions rise up, identify them and set them aside. After some practice, you will build familiarity with your internal voice and the feelings associated with your innermost thoughts.

The ultimate goal of this practice, however, is more than just becoming familiar with your inner voice. It is also to filter out the various different stimuli and thoughts until you have reached a place of relative silence within yourself. It takes a great deal of diligent practice to do so. Some people are talented enough to achieve this in a few weeks of effort. Others may need months of effort until they can readily identify their internal voice, not necessarily achieving mental silence.

Achieving mental silence makes it easier to identify the psychic phenomena but it is not an absolute requirement. Indeed, with practice, a person will learn to identify the difference between their internal voice and psychic phenomena while not in a trance state. Next lesson, we will look at the process of working with one's inner voice and discerning it from psychic information.

Weather Magic (Part III): Dispelling Precipitation

In my previous post, I talked about how one could call rain (sleet, snow, whatever precipitation you desire) through simple magic. Sometimes, however, rain is not desired, needed, or even harmful to the situation. The folk practices that I had seen to summon rain had only a few correlating practices for dispersing it. I think this is because the place I grew up in had relatively few problems with flooding. And those problems were generally due to excess snow melt in the early spring. I can remember only a few years where rain was a problem because there was too much of it. Usually, it was a problem because it came too early in the season and the latter portion of the growing season was too dry.

Still, when I look at the news and I see a big snowstorm coming, I usually want to try to encourage the worst of it to go past us. Partly because I hate driving in snow, partly because I dislike shoveling snow, and partly because I want the kids to get the most out of every school day possible. (Education is very important in my family. We're working to instill such an attitude in the kids. It is not going quite as well as we'd like. Any suggestions for how to get kids to enjoy school a bit more would be appreciated! I have a few different spells that I use to move the worst weather around us.

The closest I have to a folk practice to move a storm away is prayer that is focused on seeing the worst of the storm pass us by. This generally works fairly well, to be honest. My spell craft functions upon sympathetic magical principles. When I am attempting to dry out sodden soil, I will take a small fireproof bowl and fill it with a bit of soil and some water, making sure that it matches the consistency of the soil's saturation. I then place my fireproof bowl on my tea light wax warmer (I have one that is ceramic and has the bowl removable.) and proceed to heat the soil and water mixture from below with a tea light. As this is occurring, I make a pronouncement that as the soil in the bowl dries, so shall the soil in the ground. This takes a little while to take full effect. The shortest time frame that I have seen where this one works is a week.

For a more immediate concern, I will take a twig and wave it in the air in the direction the prevailing wind is blowing. As I do so, I will command the storm to follow the wind. I then throw the twig in the direction that I would see the storm go, for a bit of extra emphasis. The larger the twig, the more wind will blow the storm along. Take care, however, in using this spell because it can potentially invoke a windstorm.

I also have a spell where I light a bit of incense and then extinguish it. In this manner, I am connecting with the clouds of the storm through the incense smoke. When I extinguish the incense, I disperse the clouds and their attendant precipitation. I usually say something along the lines of "Storm begone, I scatter you to the four winds."

Question Time: Snood pattern.

I have been asked several times for the pattern to my snoods. There is one that I used which comes from a video on Youtube. This has a mesh to it. My solid snood pattern is essentially a large circle with a few inches of depth made before crocheting on an elastic hairband. For my blue silk snood, I used one ball of Patons Silk-Bamboo yarn. This is really soft and feels nice against my scalp. You can use acrylic but it will be a bit scratchy against the skin unless you have killed the yarn before hand. I used a size H hook.

Starting round: Chain 5, slip stitch final chain to first chain stitch. Ring made.
Round 1: Half double crochet twelve stitches into ring. Slip stitch stitch twelve to stitch one.
Round 2: Half double crochet twice into each stitch. Slip stitch 24 into stitch one.
Round 3: Half double crochet twice into first stitch of each pair of the increases. Stitch one double crochet before doing next increase. Slip stitch stitch 30 to stitch one.
Round 4 - 12: Half double crochet twice into first stitch of each increase. Stitch one double crochet into each stitch until next increase is reached. Slip stitch final stitch to first stitch of the round.
Round 13 - 16: Half double crochet once into each stitch. Slip stitch final stitch to first stitch of the round.
Round 17: Single crochet each stitch over a narrow elastic headband (hold the headband against previous round of stitches. complete single crochet as per usual, which will cover the headband with each stitch). Slip stitch final stitch to first stitch. Bind off and break yarn. Weave end in to single crochet stitches.

Reminder - the first half double crochet in the round will be a chain of two stitches.

Video Message: You CAN do it!

This is the year you do great things! Whatever you have been putting off or telling yourself that you just don't have the ability to do, now is the time to give it a try. Sure, somethings will take clever planning and some resources, but don't let that stop you. Even taking that first step of planning how to tackle the challenges of making your dreams reality counts as working towards that goal.

My scarf is tied in a basic triangle style with the ends twisted into a crown. My friend who gave it to me got it at EzHijab.com. The background music to today's video is from Youtuber Adrian Von Zigler. It is his piano work entitled My Everything. I highly recommend his work.

Weather Magic (Part II) : Invoking precipitation

Much of weather magic can be divided into two major parts. One part is invoking precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, etc.) and one part is driving precipitation away. Growing up on a farm, I have an intimate knowledge just how important precipitation is for the growth cycle of plants and the water cycle. I remember when there was a drought of some significance in my area when I was small. Tensions ran high among the farmers because everyone's crops were at risk the longer the drought continued. Even the farmers with livestock had concerns because the pasturage they were using to feed their animals was suffering from the drought and producing less feed for their cattle, horses, and pigs.

One of my clearest memories of this time was of my grandmother shaking out the dust from her broom in the backyard. It was something that struck me as odd. I asked her why she was doing it and she just smiled. I also remember my aunt storing her broom upside down, with the bristles pointed towards the ceiling (a thing that just wasn't done most of the time). Not long after this business with the brooms happened, we had drought breaking rain. A storm system popped up over the Great Lakes and blew in with soaking rain for the whole region. It was years later, when I was reading about weather magic in my research of folk magic, that I stumbled upon a description of housewives shaking their brooms in the air and storing them upside down to invoke rain during the pre-Industrial era out in the rural places where folk magic was still fairly widely practiced.

There is the practice of hanging out washing that was wrung to nearly dry to invoke rain as well. It is like the comparatively modern one of washing your car on a dry day. Hanging out things to dry or washing your car to summon rain is not as effective as the broom method, from what I have seen. They are, however, less conspicuous than someone waving a broom around in the air. Another practice is reciting a prayer for rain (to the deity of your choice) while shaking a rain stick. This was one that my mother used on a regular basis.

In many ways, the same practices work for summoning snow. I have also found success in tossing a small handful of white ashes up into the air while praying to the gods for snow. Invoking snow is also possible through tossing finely cut pieces of paper in the air while saying a similar prayer. The falling ashes and paper resemble the snowflakes and act to draw the snow to you.

Timing magic to draw precipitation can be tricky. Greater success comes on humid days than dry ones. It is also easier to draw precipitation when the moon is waxing or full.

Godphone: Can it be taught?

In my last divination post, I introduced the concept of 'godphone.' The majority of what you read about this ability presents it as something that you are either born with or have magically bestowed upon you by some higher power. While there are people who have an inborn talent for this type of divination, it is not a thing that is strictly based in your DNA. It is a set of skills that can be acquired.

At its most basic, the most important skill for 'godphone' is the ability to listen. It may come as a shock, but the ability to listen and truly pay attention to what someone is saying is vital to this form of divination. Where you may be perceiving information in a slightly different fashion than having someone sitting physically in the room talking to you, the same skills of active and thoughtful listening are employed. It is as important as discernment is (another positively vital skill to acquire for any form of divination work).

Building up the skills to 'hear' things that are happening around you are fairly simple. After a few months of practice, it is something that most anyone can do on a limited level. It is merely a matter of learning what to listen for and how to do it. But the ability to 'hear' does not equate to the ability to listen. It is possible to hear someone speaking and not understand a word they are saying, despite the fact that they are speaking your native language and using commonly understood terms. It happens every day to a shocking degree in our daily lives.

Attentive listening skills, however, are useful for more than just telling when a deity, spiritual entity, or the dead are talking to you. They can help improve the quality of your life and resolve problems. Most people I have encountered who want to pick up the skill of 'godphone' come in two varieties. One variety is looking to build up their personal connection with the Divine and are seeking to experience more in an effort to establish greater clarity and connection. The other variety are seeking the novelty (and attendant drama) of an esoteric skill. (These are the people who pick up the trappings of occult practice for the sake of shocking someone with how edgy they are.) The first variety usually have greater success in their efforts than the latter.

Now, one may wonder why this is the case. From what I have seen, the people of the first group are looking to engage in actual communication. 'Godphone' is not the same thing as watching television. There is a give and take to the exchange that requires the listener to participate in the communication, even if it is just listening attentively. These people are working towards a goal that is intended to be a long term benefit.

The second group, however, are generally less willing to put in the serious effort for something that they feel should be as easy as hearing people who are physically in a room. Indeed, it frequently happens that people in that second group will get frustrated with their efforts because they are not practicing that all important skill of active listening. It is hard to actively listen to something, to anything, when you are too busy focusing on what you want out of it and you're distracted by your own thoughts.

I just want to put this out here for everyone to know. Acquiring the skill known as 'godphone' is not as simple as just reading a book and putting together a small puzzle. It is more like learning a new exercise that requires you to use your muscles in ways that you haven't before. There will be discomfort and there will be struggles. It is, however, a skill that can allow an individual to gain a great deal more personal power on their path to enlightenment and wisdom. Becoming less dependent on others for your communication with the Divine is a step that moves you closer to building a relationship that more closely meets your needs.

Pagan or Polytheist? Why not both?

If you have been even passingly familiar with the pagan* blogosphere, you have seen the schism that is working on turning into a chasm between the pagan groups and the polytheists. Now, some people look at this and say it is a bad thing. Other people look at it and say it is a good thing. And then you have people like myself who can't see what the big deal is. My education tells me that if it isn't one of the big three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism (or its related faiths), or Buddhism, it can get classified as pagan. In the grand scheme of things, pagan religions are generally smaller in population than these other faiths and have something of a ... disadvantage in the over-culture they are situated in. The majority of that disadvantage comes from the over-culture trying to shove those star shaped, sparky pegs into holes for the square shaped, matte colored pegs. (There's a lot more to it, but that really is the best way I can think of to summarize it.)

Over the course of the last year, I have watched this divide. I have pitched a few stones into the gap and shouted a bit into the wind. For the most part, however, I have contented myself with doing my best to be a figure that is not participating in this 'debate'. I am changing this position, however, because I see the potential for there being some disastrous results from this fight becoming deeply entrenched. The 'us vs them' mentality that is building up here is something I find deeply concerning.

I don't understand why people are so quick to point fingers at the polytheists and declare them to be delusional. (This is probably the politest of slurs I've seen cast about.) I can appreciate that some find it threatening to encounter people whose relationships with the Divine are dramatically different from your own. I can appreciate that some find it fundamentally wrong with respect to their worldview and reject it adamantly. These two things, however, do not excuse the mud slinging. It also fails to consider that there is historical precedent for polytheism and that it is a valuable worldview that is still alive in many parts of the world. (We won't get into the eltism and related garbage that comes with people declaring those parts of the world as 'uncivilized.' That's a topic for another day and is completely unrelated to this.)

Now, some would say that the polytheists are not without blame in this verbal pissing match. I will acknowledge that there are polytheists who are as quick to sling mud as there are people in the general pagan population. All of this said, I really am disturbed by the fact that there seems to be a great deal of hostility directed towards people because they don't share the same worldview. It may be a bit Pollyanna of me to say that the pagan community was founded with an ecumenical spirit and that everyone got along together as a happy tribe. I am not saying that. I am saying, however, that with the diversification of the pagan community, there has arisen a desire to establish orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy has a place within a religion. I am not going to say that it doesn't, because that would be blatantly ignoring the way religions develop and change over time. As they become more established and develop a communal element, orthodoxy will arise as beliefs and practices become more codified. The problem, however, is that the orthodoxy of religion A can not be applied to religion B. They function in two entirely different fashions with their own language and customs. There may be a bit of ideological overlap between the two religions but they are completely different.

In the case of the pagan faiths, we find that religion A and religion B may have very little in common aside from a few deity figures and a name. This is problematic when religion A or religion B try to dictate what the 'correct' way to do things are. It is from this source that the schism has arisen. Secular pagans have taken it upon themselves to dictate to others how they should conduct themselves. And there are polytheist pagans who have done the same. I appreciate how both groups feel that their position is correct and important.

The problem is, they can not be applied equally to both systems of thought. There are fundamental differences between the two systems that are going to always conflict. I don't think this means that the polytheist pagan community should completely cut ties with the rest of the pagan community. I think that what needs to happen is information should be considered with in its proper context. When looked at from the context of religion A, their beliefs will make more sense in that context than the beliefs of religion B would. This does not mean that religion B is invalid as a general rule. It means that it doesn't function within the context of religion A. And that is alright.

Now, I have a revolutionary thought that I want to throw out for everyone to consider. Why don't we make room for each other at the proverbial table where we all communicate together? Why don't we take a little time and give each other the benefit of a doubt or, at the very least, accept that the relationships between practitioner and the divine is going to vary wildly between religions and within them. (There is a reason why there are so many flavors of Christianity folks. And that's before you start taking into account the personal relationship angle on this matter.)

If we can not agree on these matters, that is ok. Let us at least agree to disagree on these points. And then move on to something else. Because the more energy we waste fighting over these points, the less energy we will have to devote to actually practicing our respective religions. If you're a secular pagan, don't give the theists (including polytheists here) the side eye. Just say "You do things differently. It isn't my place to dictate how your faith works." and then move on to points that you actually have some sort of influence on. If you're a polytheist pagan, don't give the secular pagans the side eye. Just apply the same position as what I proposed for the secular pagans.

Everyone has a different take on how we relate to the Divine. We all feel strongly about these various positions. And you're more likely to have success baptizing a cat than you will in trying to get everyone to agree with each other. So, let's not let this be what makes the pagan community at large crumble. We have enough outside forces trying to dismantle us. Let's work together in the areas where we can and accept our differences in the others.

Just because you're a polytheist doesn't mean you're not a pagan. And shame on the people who are trying to force that into happening. You don't have the right to tell other people how to relate to the Divine. You are not the one who dictates their experiences and gnosis. Just like we all have bodily autonomy and your rights to dictate what happens to another human being ends at the tip of your nose, we have spiritual autonomy and you should damn well respect that. In the end, it all boils down to respecting each other. Let mutual respect be our watchword and our collective practice. We've got too many other things to fight to waste our time fighting each other.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
* I am using the term pagan as an all inclusive term as defined above. I am aware of the origins of the term and much of the politics surrounding it. Please kindly recognize that my use of pagan is in the way I have defined it above. I may, if there is interest, unpack some of the baggage around the term pagan at a later date in the future.

Weather magic. (part 1)

There are two kinds of weather magic. One kind is powered by the weather. The other is intended to influence the weather. In the next three posts, I will be talking about second. Much of the weather magic we are familiar with come to us out of folk lore. It is the folk lore that tells you washing your car on a bright summer's day will bring you rain, or that hanging laundry overnight on a sunny day will bring heavy dew. These things are at their most basic a superstition. Interwoven with superstition, however, are magical practices that have been handed down through the generations.

A fine example is the folk practice of hanging a horseshoe over a door with the open end pointed upward so that the good luck doesn't run out of the shoe. (I'll talk more about luck charms a little later.) Much of the folk magic in the United States that has been preserved comes out of the Appalachian Mountains and the rural regions of the country that are populated by the 'Pennsylvania Dutch'. The folk magic of Appalachia is more Scots, Irish, and British in origin than the folk magic of the group of people known collectively as the Pennsylvania Dutch. The folk magic of the Pennsylvania Dutch (a group which includes the old order Amish, old order Mennonites, Anabaptists, and the descendants of the wave of immigrants who came from Germany during the period between the late 17th century and early 18th) hails from distinctly Germanic sources.

The folk magic that I am personally familiar with it to some extent an outsider's take on some of the folk magic of the Pennsylvania Dutch (because elements of my family heritage comes from the region where they were prominent within western New York), an outsider's take on some practices from Appalachia (because some of my family were in that region for a time), and it is also a combination of practices that have been devised or handed down through the family that are separate from either source. Folk magic is closely woven with superstition and some of the practices are indistinguishable from each other.

Folk magic is what comes when the line between causation moves from being based in the superstition to the deliberate action of the practitioner (and in the case of much of American folk magic, based in the action of the Divine as well). Thus, the golfer who wears his lucky socks in the hope of a good game is practicing superstition compared to the golfer who puts on his lucky socks in the deliberate effort to invoke a game where they are in a favorable position. Now, this distinction between superstition and folk magic is fairly important when you start looking a folk magic.

The use of folk magic, to people outside of the situation, will look like mere superstition. It is, however, something that operates by a set of rules that are relatively easy to comprehend. 90% of folk magic is some form of sympathetic magic. Almost all weather magic is sympathetic magic. In the next post, I will give some examples of weather magic that I have learned from my family and are part of the folk magic of the region I am in.

Godphone?

There is a psychic ability that has been the point of a great deal of discussion within the pagan and occult communities over the last few years. Known commonly as 'godphone' is it a variant of the same skill set that mediums use to communicate with the dead, the focus, however, being upon deities. In antiquity, people who had this ability were known as soothsayers or oracles. Generally, they were consulted by the people in their local area for assistance in communicating with the gods.

Oracles and soothsayers were not restricted to people who were born with a talent for such communication. Indeed, they were frequently people who had training in developing this skill set. They were additionally supported in their efforts via thing that altered their state of consciousness, be it ritual trance induction, psychoactive agents, or the effects of mild oxygen deprivation that came with inhaling toxic fumes. (The latter is theorized to be the principle source of the Oracle of Delphi's altered state in antiquity.) The cumulative effect of training and these agents that altered the mental state of the oracles served to bring them into a receptive state where they could perceive more directly what deities had to say.

In some cases, the oracle's pronouncements came in the form of glossolalia. Glossolalia is a common occurrence within a few Christian sects during worship services. It is also known as 'speaking in tongues.' Generally glossolalia requires a secondary person to interpret the meanings of the pronouncements. It is theorized that this is the form the pronouncements of the Oracle of Delphi had taken. Glossolalia is usually in a verbal thing but, on rare occasion, it does present as written pronouncements. (Glossolalia is not to be confused with xenolalia, which is speaking in a language that the person doing the speaking does not know.)

It is unclear how frequently glossolalia occurs for oracles, in antiquity or modern times. It is also unclear how frequently xenolalia occurs. (If somebody were to do a study on this, I would be absolutely fascinated to learn what the findings are.) In my very casual observation, it appears that the majority of communication from oracles today is in their native language or one that they are familiar with. It stands to reason that this is true with the internal communication that occurs between the oracle and the deity in question.

In many cases, 'godphone' involves something that is described as hearing the deities (hence the 'phone' part). 90% of the time, you are not hearing them with your physical sense of hearing. It is much like viewing things with your mind's eye. A great deal of discernment is needed to filter out what is the 'voice of the gods' and what is your thoughts. People with a natural talent for this tend to pick up fairly quickly on the difference between their thoughts and the utterances of the gods. It is, however, a skill that can be learned. Next post, I'll discuss a little about the basics of learning this skill set.

Update.

Hi folks,

I've been somewhat ill of late. This has made posting difficult. My bipolar has been particularly challenging in the manifestation of a rather nasty depressive episode. I think I am beginning to be on the upswing. That said, I am still in the process of plotting out new material for this year. I have a rough outline for the divination posts for Mondays.

Tuesdays are going to focus more on the mechanics of spellcraft. It is my goal to provide you with the tools to be successful at basic witchcraft and some interesting tidbits for more advanced practitioners. I will also be sharing the things that I am presently learning about and the techniques that I am refining. Along with my discussions of the mechanics of it all and techniques, I am going to demonstrate for you the best way that I have found for tracking magical efforts.

I am seriously considering dropping the herbalism posts on Wednesdays. It really isn't my strong suit and there are others who have done a much better job handling this topic. I haven't concluded what I am going to replace it with. I am contemplating resuming more in depth discussion of theology here. If it happens that there is a regular flow of questions on pretty much any aspect of witchcraft or paganism, this may be the day for questions getting answered. (Which honesty would be an auspicious day for it because of it being Odin's day and it being Sai Mati's day, both of whom are associated with wisdom and learning.)

I will be resuming my Thursday video posts next week (provided I feel well enough). I am, however, at a bit of a loss for topics to cover. Please send your suggestions to me or comment on this post with what you would like to see me cover. I want to keep the uplifting theme here for these videos, because there is too much focus in the world on negative things. It gets depressing to keep hearing about the horrible things happening in the world. So, at the very least, the videos will be my best attempt to give encouragement and optimistic hope to you.

My Friday recommendations are a bit stalled. I haven't had the opportunity to explore new things or check out the shops of several individuals I know. I hope to do that some over the coming year (the shops thing) and I am in the midst of trying to figure out the best ways to scrounge up new tricks to make witchcraft easier and more effective. (As a parent of two very active kids with some challenging educational needs, anything that makes life easier and more effective is great, if you know what I mean.)

I have been hit or miss on my Saturday posts. I am sincerely sorry about this. I think I will be combining the Saturday posts about what's going on in my life on the spiritual aspect of things with my 'opinion column' on Sundays. I am also going to start turning the focus back to how to do devotional paganism. There will be a new tag for those posts. I may also collect them to their own special page and post a link to the series.

This is what I have been working on and what my plans are going forward. I am still working the kinks out of some of my ideas and organizing material. I expect, however, that starting next Monday, I will be getting back to my scheduled posts.

Happy Julian New Year!

I'm five days late but my life has been chaotic over the last two weeks, so this turned into the earliest opportunity I could post this sentiment. It is the first Monday of 2016 and I am excited to let you know the themes coming up for the divination posts over the next three months. I will be collecting the links for each series of posts and putting them together when I complete the series. The posts that are a series of lessons for how to use different divination systems will be listed on the Lessons section of the sidebar to the right by system with a link to the page that has all the links collected.

The first divination system I will be covering this year is one that has become the center of a great many discussions last year. The 'godphone' has been a big point of interest and I thought that it would be wise to provide the most comprehensive discussion of this practice as I possibly can. Contrary to popular opinion, I am of the mind that this is a skill that an be acquired through diligent effort, not something that is purely talent based. As such, I will be giving some lessons in this series to help someone acquire the basics of the skill.

The second divination system I will be covering is not exactly a system. Precognition is something that is fairly common, though not discussed often. In this series of posts, I will be covering what it is and the two varieties that I personally am aware of. I will also be providing rituals for invoking this experience. With both divination practices, I will be discussion how to handle if you don't get any results from them. This will, in both cases, include a brief discussion about the role talent plays in these practices. I am sure it will be something that provokes some discussion in the community, which is my hope.

The 'godphone' series of posts is going to cover the first two months of the year (starting next Monday). If there is any questions that you wish for me to cover in addition to what I will be presenting, please send them to me at my e-mail address. I will also be firing up my Keen site again and being available for divination sessions. If you don't have access to Keen, contact me at my e-mail address and we'll discuss matters.

The precognition series of posts is going to cover more than the third month. It will actually be three month series of posts. It is my intent to discuss the different varieties of precognition and how I understand them to work. I will also be giving rituals to invoke precognitive experiences. I generally recommend keeping a journal of your divination practices. I have found that with tracking precognition, this is an invaluable tool. I may post a picture of how I organize my information in my journal.

After these two topics are covered, I will post what the next set of topics for the next few months will be. Before I start writing the posts, I invite you to send me your questions. The questions that I will be addressing with respect to divination systems are going to be focused upon how the system works, how to use it, and what kind of results can be expected. If you desire a reading, please note that in the subject line of your e-mail. I will resume the 'Question Time' thread on Wednesdays. Your questions may be featured for individual posts. If you do not wish to have me refer to you by the name that is attached to the e-mail account you have sent your questions to me under, let me know. I will use initials or a pseudonym that you have chosen.

New things are brewing, so look for additional posts like this one over the remainder of the week. Thanks for sticking with me over the last year. Let's make this year a great one. As always, send your suggestions and questions to me.

The e-mail address you can reach me at is cydira(at)aol(dot)com. Have a beautiful day, everyone! ♥