Llewellyn Publications's Blog, page 24

Here in the northern hemisphere, Ostara, the Spring Equinox, is almost upon us, but for our southern hemisphere friends, it is time for the Autumn Equinox/Mabon. To help you celebrate, we’ve rounded up our best rituals, spells, books, and more!

13 Hidden Traditions of Mabon: Discover the origins of the festival along with 13 hidden traditions that may well be worth resurrecting for our own harvest celebrations.

 

 

A Dark Moon Ritual for Fall: The new moon is a time when many say that magic and meditative activity should be forgone. Instead, bravely travel inward and find what the darkness is hiding from you. Revel in this harvest season and commune with the darkness.

Mabon Feasts and Treats: Mabon is the time of the harvest feast. At the Autumnal Equinox, we celebrate and honor Earth’s bounty by feasting on goodies from the home garden, farmers’ market, and green grocer. This autumn dinner represents harvest cooking at its best.

 

A Ritual For Candlelit Autumn Evenings: If you want to reflect on the nature of change, while at the same time adding a touch of cheer to autumn evenings, use this ritual for candlelit autumn evenings.

 

Mabon Spells: Browse our spells to find your perfect Mabon ritual or incantation.

Books:

Mabon
Llewellyn’s 2021 Sabbats Almanac
Rituals of Celebration
Supermarket Sabbats
Sabbats
The Witch’s Wheel of the Year

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Diana Rajchel, author of the new Urban Magick.

Pagan, to a lot of people, means “nature worship.” I’ve met many who resonate with this definition, and I do see where they’re coming from. But as someone who is both Pagan and joyfully urban, I would like to take this opportunity to explain why I advocate for a more city-inclusive definition.

For those that see Pagan as an umbrella term for multiple religions, we acknowledge that some of those religions center much more around daily human life especially activities of governance and shared community. Hellenism and Nova Roma most certainly have aspects of the urban within their reconstructions; for those of us that have a less structured relationship with the divine, we tend to see the immanent as everywhere and not just in a pristine wilderness. That does not mean that those that practice urban magick ignore natural forces: Mother Nature can eat us anytime, anywhere, whenever she’s ready. We haven’t forgotten. We simply remember that the ancients also appreciated the urban communities they built.

These aspects that the ancients celebrated reflected the values of their culture. Farming and fishing cultures had gods that connected to this; cities of the dead focused on death deities, and trade cities had pantheons of trade-related deities. A famous example of this: the goddess Athena, who receives worship to this day, is a goddess of wisdom. Athena is also the patron of Athens, Greece—she is urban in spirit and nature. Modern Pagans love their nature—and honor deities like Apollo, a god of music, joyous pan-sexuality, and healing. He is both a force of nature (the sun) and carries with him many aspects developed when humans began creating intentional communities. Cities were that first protection. While certainly arts and exploration happened before cities, cities and their attached temples became part of the preservation and elevation of these practices. To this day, artists especially flock to cities—because that’s where they meet others to form their communities.

This is not to say that cities, as we know them now, resemble the cities populated by ancestors of modern Pagans. The human population was smaller, and the most populated of ancient cities might barely break what counts as a mid-sized town in the modern-day. Despite smaller populations, humans packed together more, leading to serious pollution and disease issues.

While the conversations that led to such decisions are lost to history, based on what historians do know, the first cities were founded with the establishment of a temple to a god that aligned with that culture’s values. This god became the city spirit (and was sometimes also the land spirit.) The temple served as a catch-all: meeting hall, hospital, place of worship, arts center, and, with the invention of money, a bank. For many of these communities, the presence of some type of city consciousness was just a given, and temple activity fed that collective consciousness at a steady rate.

Paganism will always revere nature; nature is, after all, only ever conquered temporarily. But to honor the urban is also quite Pagan; to do so honors our ancestors and those that create our world in the here and now. The urban in no way excludes the natural.

Our thanks to Diana for her guest post! For more from Diana Rajchel, read her article “12 Mini-Spells City Witches Can Use to Ease Life in the City.”

Your Tarot Your Way by Barbara Moore

The Court cards represent people. Mostly. And because of that, they can be complicated. Not so much complicated to under- stand as complicated to know when to interpret them as the querent or as another person. To interpret the Court cards, you will rely on, first, understanding them and then on both context and intuition. In the pages that follow, I will tell you what I think these cards mean. Here I will tell you that sometimes I ignore all that because I know that the Queen of Wands represents my client’s Uncle Hank (physical gender is irrelevant in tarot … it’s all metaphor).

With the Court cards, it is easier to understand the ranks and suits, which come together to create individual Court cards, rather than start with individual card meanings. Once you understand these general principles, you will find it easier to differentiate the Court cards.

Gender in tarot is symbolic. Kings and Knights are portrayed as male not because they only represent men but because they represent the active energy connected with the card. Queens are shown as female not because they only represent women but because the cards’ energy is passive. Pages are usually shown as young people who are either male or androgynous because the energy is still in a formative stage. In the interpretations below I will use gendered pronouns for simplicity, but please, please remember that Kings can represent women and Queens can be men.

The reason other people show up in readings is because they are involved with the situation being asked about. They play an important part or they wouldn’t have shown up in the reading. So your job is to figure out what role they play and how you can work with or influence them. Situations involving others can be unpredictable, since we cannot control their decisions or actions. However, by understanding what drives them, you can find ways to work with them, eliminate friction, and focus on common goals or agree on mutually beneficial courses of action.

The suit of Wands includes personality traits such as charisma, energy, optimism, charm, leadership, and warmth. Wands people are usually driven and passionate. They can also be self- focused or even self-centered. They are volatile personalities that may become angry in a flash, making them rash, immature, or cruel.

The Cups personalities are often creative, empathetic, sympathetic, nurturing, sensitive, loving, intuitive, and caring. They are emotional and value relationships. They can also be needy, demanding a lot of attention from others in their lives, as well as being overly sensitive and easily hurt.

Logic rules the Swords cards, and these Court card personalities love solving problems and making plans. They are often precise, witty, clever, intelligent, and excellent communicators. Sometimes they appear as cold-hearted and distant. Because they are so discerning, they are quick to pick up on weaknesses and can be known for their sharp tongues and cutting words.

Pentacles people are practical, loyal, and stable. They tend to value money, resources, and creature comforts. Luckily, they are also often good managers of such things. Because of their connection with the physical world, they can seem shallow. In addition, their precise accounting can lead to pettiness and their stability can turn into dullness or stagnation.

As you see, each suit has its own style and nature. If you put any three Court cards in the same situation (or in the same spread), they will all react differently and thus produce a different outcome. Below are some examples.

All the Court cards can be helpful in a crisis. Wands will take immediate action, Cups will provide emotional support, Swords will develop the best plan, and Pentacles will carry out the plan.
All can be good friends, in their own way. Wands will be your go-to for a good time, Cups will be your shoulder to cry on, Swords will help rewrite your résumé or plan a vacation, Pentacles will go shopping or help with your budget.
Like the real people they represent, they can also be manipulative, with Wands daring you, Cups dumping guilt, Swords wielding logic, and Pentacles tempting you.
All can be obsessive, with Wands worrying about their ego, Cups feeding their emotions until they block out all else, Swords will argue themselves into an ulcer, and Pentacles will fret about pennies.

It is helpful to understand their personalities because understanding what motivates people will help you move through the world with greater ease and control.

The suits determine personality but the roles played are determined largely by rank: Page, Knight, Queen, or King. The rank also determines the extent of influence the person has on the situation. Even if you don’t think you know much about kings and queens and maybe even feel like such an archaic hierarchy has no place in our modern world, you will find that as symbols, these actually work really well.

But you’ll have to read the book to find out how

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Durgadas Allon Duriel, author of the new The Little Work: Magic to Transform Your Everyday Life.

Many of us in the Pagan community connect with nature through ritual. It’s common, for example, to hold observances of the lunar cycle on full and new moons, and the solar cycle with the Wheel of the Year, where we mark the course of the seasons. An additional way of attuning ourselves with nature and bringing magic and spiritual connectivity into our everyday lives (which is the subject of my new book, The Little Work: Magic to Transform Your Everyday Life), is by observing the Sun’s movement throughout the day with adorations, which come from Thelema.

Adorations are traditionally practiced at sunrise (or after waking), noon, sunset, and midnight (or before bed). Performing them involves facing a given direction (East, South, West, and North, in that order), assuming a particular posture and offering ritualistic words. In Thelema, these words feature Egyptian imagery and are geared toward aligning Thelemites’ minds with the Great Work throughout the day. The Great Work is the Thelemic term for spiritual enlightenment, which comes from Alchemy. The postures actually originate from the Golden Dawn, of which Aleister Crowley was a member before founding Thelema.

The general concept of adorations can be used by anyone, though, and we’re free to perform adorations with whatever postures and words feel intuitively or symbolically meaningful to us. My experience is that these can profoundly impact the day. Each one becomes an anchor point for aligning with Spirit (however we understand and conceptualize that), as well as connecting with the vitalizing energy of the Sun and whatever else we weave into the practice. Donald Michael Kraig, for example, integrated elemental visualizations into adorations in Modern Magick, having each adoration involve connecting with the energy of one element per adoration, in the order of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth (the Golden Dawn postures used corresponded to these respective elements). Because adorations provide such a potent opportunity to sync up with our spiritual path, I recommend writing your own, expressing whatever intentions you hold for the relationship you wish to develop with the Sun, elements, gods, or other things.

This is what I say during my adorations:

Sunrise (East): Hail to the powers of Air and inspiration at the rising of the Sun. May each thought be dedicated to the Great Work and placed at the Feet of the Divine Mother.

Noon (South): Hail to the powers of Fire and creation at the midcourse of the Sun. May each word be dedicated to the Great Work and placed at the Feet of the Divine Mother.

Sunset (West): Hail to the powers of Water and intuition at the setting of the Sun. May each feeling be dedicated to the Great Work and placed at the Feet of the Divine Mother.

Midnight (North): Hail to the powers of Earth and formation at the midnight hour of the Sun. May each action be dedicated to the Great Work and placed at the Feet of the Divine Mother.

When possible, it’s best to perform adorations outside, so we can feel and see the Sun. When that’s not possible, I find benefit in imagining it filling me with its light relative to the vantage point I would observe it from outdoors (i.e. overhead at noon, fading in the distance at sunset). I’ve found that consistently performing adorations helps me feel more connected to nature, as well as more in the flow of my magic. My experience and belief is that magic isn’t something we simply do during spellcraft and then move away from the rest of the time; we are constantly navigating the energies around us and offering energy of our own. When we come into alignment four times a day with adorations; they give us a feel for how our energy is flowing, and also provide us with an opportunity to line it up with our intentions of well-being, spiritual connectedness, etc., which will in return support whatever magic we have in that arena.

Our thanks to Durgadas for his guest post! For more from Durgadas Allon Duriel, read his article “The Checklist: A Most Unexpectedly Powerful Magical Tool.”

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by John T. Kruse, author of the new Faery.

The line in this title comes from Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors (Act I, scene 2). To many people, it may sound like a contradiction in terms: how can faeries be compared to demons? Faeries are gentle and feminine; devils are vicious and cruel.

There was obviously no contradiction for Shakespeare when he wrote the lines, nor should there be any for us today if we examine the folklore evidence for the nature of our Good Neighbours. What the playwright learned from birth is what British fairy-lore has maintained consistently for centuries—both before and since his time. The Good Folk can be generous and kind to us when they choose—but they can also be harsh and unfeeling. It is important to acknowledge this, not only so that we understand Faery better, but for our own protection as well.

How may the faeries be “pitiless and rough?” A few very common illustrations confirm and underline this. It’s pretty well known that the fairies have a habit of abducting human beings, both adults and children, from their homes and families. Very occasionally this is done because an infant is not well-cared for by its parents, but generally people are taken to satisfy the faeries’ needs. They like human babies and they like rearing them as faeries; they need adults to work for them as wet nurses or to perform various menial chores in their homes. Examples of such abductions are found repeatedly in the folklore records. These kidnaps are carried out at the faeries’ convenience; they are almost never concerned with the grief and despair the victim suffers. I can think of only one instance where it’s reported that a child was returned because the mother was so distraught at its taking. Abductees may eventually return—but they may not—and they are often too altered by their time away in Faery to ever really settle again in the mortals’ world.

How about roughness? Shakespeare would have been very familiar with this. Although their own morality may seem quite flexible, faeries have rigid opinions about human behaviour, whether that is in love affairs or in domestic management. They like to enter human homes—to enjoy the warmth, wash themselves and to eat our food—but they expect those homes to be properly prepared for their uninvited visits. Warm water for washing and fresh bread and water to consume ought to be provided and the place should be cleaned. If the faeries find a house does not meet their standards, they will punish the occupants, very often by pinching, possibly by pulling a person bodily from their bed and down the stairs. Once again, the records are full of examples of this behaviour.

A clean and tidy householder might well be rewarded, it’s fair to add, but we cannot expect any such rewards from the faeries—not like we can depend on their punishments!

As I describe in my new book Faery, co-existence with the Good Folk is all about observing their often-contrary needs and maintaining a careful balancing act between respect and contact, between accommodating them and keeping a safe distance.

Our thanks to John for his guest post! For more from John T. Kruse, read his article “Children and Faeries.”

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Mat Auryn, author of the new Psychic Witch.

Meditation may not be the first thing people think of when they think about witchcraft, spells, or magickal powers. However, when people think of psychic ability, they often think about meditation and mindfulness to engage and enhance those abilities. I truly believe that both psychic and magickal ability are two sides of the same coin—one being the perception of energy and the other being the manipulation of energy. That being said, meditation would be the operating space where the two intersect and from which we engage and enhance both practices. These topics are the heart and core of my book, Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation.

Throughout all my training and practice over the years, any time I had the opportunity to chat with a witchcraft elder or a magickal practitioner that I respect deeply I would ask them, “What is the most valuable practice for increasing magickal results?” The answer I received was almost universal—meditation. For some, this answer may be surprising. What does witchcraft have to do with meditation and how could it possibly strengthen one’s witch power?

Let’s begin by looking at one of our foundational definitions of magick, which is often misquoted by Dion Fortune. In 1934, she wrote in an essay for London Forum that she defines magick “As the art of causing changes to take place in consciousness in accordance with will.”

Meditation, an almost universal practice throughout cultures, is the most natural manner in which we can actively change our consciousness by shifting our brainwave states. Through consciously altering our brainwave states we can tune in to perceive subtle energy, which in turn makes it easier to manipulate that energy.

We can begin to understand how our mind works, how we become distracted, and how to focus on a single thing. It’s through concentration that we can hone our own will power to be single-pointed and powerful. This sharpens our willpower and our resolve, which are keys to successful spellcasting. Similarly, meditation cultivates a clearer mind with fewer distractions, which provides powerful clarity when it comes to forming magickal goals in which we can direct our willpower and energy towards through spells.

Mindfulness meditations not only sharpen our focus and clarity, but also teaches us passivity and detachment. Detachment is the final step in successful spellcasting. Often we fixate, stress, or worry about the magickal results—if not doubting it all together. Meditation teaches us to be in a state of allowance without having an attachment to the results. In other words, meditation can assist us in not getting in our own way and unconsciously thwarting our own magick.

Most importantly, through meditation, we learn who we are, how we’re subconsciously wired, and (perhaps most importantly) how to get in touch with the core of our being. In witchcraft, there’s often a heavy emphasis on working with other spirits, which are indeed important relationships. However, the most important relationship with a spirit that you will ever have as a witch that will increase your magickal power is the relationship with your very own spirit.

Our thanks to Mat for his guest post! For more from Mat Auryn, read his article “Magick for All: Witchery from Nothing.”

Llewellyn’s Complete Book of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot by Sasha Graham

You can hear or read something many times and not “get it.” Until that one time when you do. Maybe it was the way it was said. Maybe your brain was poised to receive. Whatever the case, Graham, in her incredible book on the Rider Waite Smith Tarot, helped me understand the importance of Freemasonry’s influence on tarot. I hope you enjoy this excerpt as much as I did.

Masonic Structure

The Golden Dawn’s structural forefather is Freemasonry. Freemasonry and tarot’s common denominator is a perfectly designed structure. Freemasonry’s elegant organization was a core reason the Golden Dawn existed with ease. Freemasonry provided a workable structure for the group to organize itself, while tarot provided a workable tool to support and examine all esoteric and occult arts. The Golden Dawn peeled away the Masonic symbolism and replaced it with magical symbolism.

Tarot does not contain all occult arts, nor was the Golden Dawn a Masonic organization. Each system was used as a blueprint. The Golden Dawn’s core contingency was a group of artistic, imaginative, and fiercely intellectual people. They approached their work with the utmost seriousness. Their experiments and explorations required discipline and structure. Tarot and Freemasonry provided the dual pillars that would enhance their profound influence on the Western magical tradition. The Golden Dawn’s effects are still felt in modern New Age practices, magical circles, and power of attraction principles.

Freemasonry is a secret society. It contains two specific and separate groups, operative and speculative. Operative masons are the stoneworkers, architects, and builders. These workers organized themselves into trade guilds in feudal Europe. They used secret signs and rituals to safeguard their profession. Masons held highly specialized skills. They were able to move freely through a society full of serfs and peasants. Masons traveled to where the work was. They often spent years constructing grand cathedrals, chapels, and castles.

Masons are in the business of creating sacred space. As builders of holy places and houses of divine presence, it wasn’t surprising the group moved toward spiritual pursuits. They used principles of science and logic and aligned them with spiritual enlightenment. Freemasonry evolved past trade unions and into social clubs engaging in a spiritual practice. The Grand Architect became a metaphor for god. The builder became a metaphor for a man who crafts his life though actions, choices, and deeds.

Speculative Masons are Masonic organizations whose members are not actually builders and stoneworkers. Drive through any sizable American town and you’ll notice a local Freemason lodge. They are usually marked with a Masonic square and compass with a “G” in the center. The “G” stands for Grand Architect. The square and compass, a symbolic circle and cube, contain multiple spiritual lessons. They additionally correlate to the Empress and Emperor cards of the tarot deck. Speculative Masonry spread like wildfire in pre-twentieth-century Europe and America. Members used them as fashionable social clubs. Speculative Masons created a path of moral and spiritual development based on preexisting Masonic rituals. Famous Masons include American founding fathers George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Masonic imagery and symbols appear on US currency, most pointedly the pyramid with the all-seeing eye on the American dollar bill.

Initiation served an essential quality of Masonic operation. It played a key role in the Golden Dawn, and it operates in modern tarot usage. Initiation serves the same purpose in any fraternal organization, from indigenous tribes to Greek mystery schools to fraternities. Initiation is a global and cross-cultural practice. The spiritual lessons of these groups were more than stories and parables in a book. They are not taught or orated. It was essential that the lessons be experienced by the practitioner. The individual meets the experience at a personal level, through their unique viewpoint. The process is immersive.

A boy on the threshold of adulthood can’t understand what it means to fend for his life until he actually does it. He is trained, given survival tools, and sent on a multi-day adventure into the wild. His experience occurs alone. He quests to find himself. He returns and is declared a man. Each of us must meet life on our own terms and experience certain key moments for ourselves. We don’t know what it means to fall in love until lightning strikes our heart and we tremble in passion’s wake. A woman can anticipate and imagine childbirth yet never know what contractions feel like until she experiences them. Tarot is initiatory because our experience colors the card’s meanings. Events unfold as each card is encountered. Each of us brings our own unique experience to the cards. Our past/present/future experiences can be held against the cards for further understanding.

Tribal initiations are extreme, external, and physical in nature. Masonic and mystery initiations seek to transform via symbol. It is an interior transformation. The initiate is blindfolded. The blindfold represents darkness and the former life of the initiate. The initiate moves through an ordeal. Down is up and up is down. The ego breaks and the soul is reborn. The blindfold is removed. The initiate sees the world with a new set of eyes. The initiate is accepted by the tribe and recognized as one of their own. The same system is used in fraternities and sororities on college campuses.

Freemasonry and occultism gained momentum among buttoned-down Victorian societies who held strict moral and ethical codes. Their behavior reflects a universal human desire for archetypal, primal experience. Victorians sought the tribal experience inside the parameters of their “proper” and colonialist culture. They embraced the initiatory experience, an essential step for the mystical and magical practitioner, inside their lodges. The Worshipful Grand- master would rattle chains, make strange noises, and create an intense sensory experience for his blindfolded initiate, all the while dressed in a three-piece suit decorated with medals and medallions. The initiatory experience, rooted in indigenous cultures, played out in Masonic halls across Europe and the United States. The fact that millions of European and American men participated in such rituals, even if its aims were social rather than spiritual, is a startling and interesting commentary on human nature’s primal desires.

Masonic grades marked the Mason as he rose to higher levels. The Golden Dawn used these grades, but instead of applying Masonic ideals, they placed occult and magical philosophy inside their systems. The Masonic framework gave them structure. They filled the structure with their own unique blend of magic and mystery. The Masonic structure gave the Golden Dawn the building blocks for their magical organization.

Tarot Structure

Once the Golden Dawn had an organizational structure for members to adhere to, it was time to organize their work. French occultist Éliphas Lévi predated the Golden Dawn. He inspired Golden Dawn magicians with a stroke of sheer genius. Lévi was the first person to place tarot at the center of occult science. He considered astrology, alchemy, and Kabbalah to be actual sciences worth study, examination, and experimentation. He famously stated, “To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage.” He means that once an individual understands the true nature of magic and divinity, there is no need to practice spells or incantations. To know true magic is to understand you are infused with magic and energy at every level. Once Lévi placed tarot at the center of all occult sciences, it altered tarot’s usage forever. Lévi believed tarot was “the most perfect instrument of divination.” He believed it was a symbolic synthesis of all earthly and supernatural knowledge. Every magical system could be placed within the context of tarot due to tarot’s sublime structure. It fit together perfectly.

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Kac Young PhD, ND, DCH, author of The Healing Art of Essential Oils, Llewellyn’s 2020 Essential Oils Calendar, and the new Essential Oils for Beginners.

Our lives are busy, stressful, and packed with “need-to-do”s. Moms know this (and dads, as well), but it usually takes a blow to their health to remind them that balance is required. Take some time for yourself. Really! You will not only help yourself, but you will also be helping your family. You’ve probably familiar with the TV commercial where it shows a mom or a dad forced into having to take a day off due to a cold or flu. We laugh at the resulting chaos that ensues and are told to buy a product to help. It’s ironic how true the commercial is in our daily lives. But, the real moral of the story is to not get sick in the first place. Here’s how you can do that.

Taking a moment for a little bit of self-care pays off big time for parents and their families, too. Here is a list of 7 tips I have to share with moms and dads when they are feeling overwhelmed and overextended.

Find time for yourself every day; 10-15 minutes. Turn off the phone, close the door and check out. (Ask a neighbor to watch the kids for 15 minutes) Diffuse a calming essential oil scent, like lavender, ylang-ylang or Roman Chamomile if you’re not allergic to the ragweed family.
Wash your face. Take one full minute to freshen your face, use a warm washcloth and put some moisturizer on and lip gloss. Cover your eyes and spray your face with a mixture of 4oz spring water, 1 teaspoon witch hazel and 6 drops of lemon grass essential oil. Shake well to combine.
Next, mix 1 qt warm water in a basin with 1 teaspoon of Solubol and 5 drops of lavender essential oil. Mix together and drop your washcloth into the bath. Wring it out and place the washcloth on your neck. Let it soothe the back of your neck for 5-6 minutes. (Use a cool water bath if it’s 90 degrees or above.)
Go back to your diffuser and add a few drops of peppermint, bergamot, or grapefruit essential oil.
Begin to concentrate on your breath. Use three slow counts for your inhale and four counts for your exhale. Do this for one minute
Focus your thoughts on one thing like a mantra or your breath. Begin a short meditation. Put music on if you have time. Use a guided meditation or simply breathe and relax and let your thoughts drift. Leave all your cares and worries outside the door and just relax your mind. Think of a candle flame, soft breaking waves, palm trees waving in the winds, a ship sailing off into the horizon; anything that brings relaxation to your mind. You only need 5-10 minutes to do this for your mind to achieve stillness, your blood pressure to lower, and your anxiety to recede.
Drink a glass of water, eat a piece of fresh fruit, and resume your day.

I have found that when moms and dads practice this short, mindful ritual, they have more energy, they are calmer, things don’t bother them as much and they have more patience for their kids. Taking a short break adds energy and clarity to your day. Try it once, and you’ll see what a difference this self-care ritual makes in your life.

Our thanks to Kac for her guest post! For more from Kac Young, read her article, “5 Ways to Battle Colds and the Flu with Essential Oils.”

Tarot Reversals for Beginners by Leeza Robertson

For those of us who calculate such things, 2020 is the Year of the Emperor. The digits in 2020 add up to 4, which is the number of the Emperor. Many of us have a challenging experience with this card because it is associated with political leadership…and many of us have a challenging relationship with political leaders, or at least some of them. The Emperor is an important and necessary energy and we definitely need to heal it by knowing that human examples of Emperor energy are not always the best examples. Maybe reflecting on our ideas of the Emperor reversed will help us understand the upright Emperor better.

Leeza Robertson’s Tarot Reversals for Beginners is a great place to start. Let’s see what she has to say about the reversed Emperor. First, let’s look at the Emperor reversed from the Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell. Even just looking at this card makes me feel anxious. How about you?

The Emperor

This card could not fit into the energy of the four more amazingly. Structure, leadership, and an eye for detail—that’s the energy of the four and the way of the Emperor. When the Emperor is upright and the four is in its power, treaties are formed, contracts are negotiated, and worlds are created. But when the Emperor and the four are out of power or reversed, things start to become a little disorderly and chaotic, and the details start to eat themselves from the inside. The fiery energy of the Emperor needs structure. Without it, things liter- ally start to fall apart, stop, and even explode.

Blocked

There is nothing worse than allowing yourself to get bogged down in details. Sure it’s nice to have a plan, and, yes, some- times we all need to read the small print. But this is not how things actually get done. In order for you to achieve some- thing and get things moving, you need to move beyond the micromanaging energy of the four out of power. In order for the Emperor to get back to doing what he does best—lead, create, and rule—he needs to be free from tasks that can easily be delegated. If the Emperor has shown up in the blocked aspect, you may need to step away from everything you are doing right now and start delegating. Emperors were never meant to do it all on their own. In fact, their empires would crumble if they had to fill their days with endless facts and figures. In order for you to unblock this energy, you need to find what it is you do best and stick to that. Delegate or minimize anything that takes you away from what you and you alone can do.

Protection

If you have drawn this card in the protection aspect, be grateful because right now you are not able to go charging off into a situation, project, or goal that will only suck up all your time, energy, and money. Not all goals are meant to be conquered, and not everything needs to be accomplished right this second. Instead, you are being asked to take a step back and really see the bigger picture. There is a chance that you have been too close to your target, and you have lost not only perspective but also objectivity. Pause now instead of charging forward into a disaster.

Mirror

The Emperor in the upright position is not just a leader but also a builder of visions. He sees things others are incapable of seeing and turns them into physical tangible things. He can draw from his imagination and make it manifest into his experience. This is a twofold process. First, you have to be able to hold a vision. See it from all angles, like looking at it through a mirror. Then you have to be able to see it reflected in the physical world of things. This is what manifestation is—imagination combined with deliberate action. If you have received the Emperor in the mirror aspect, you are being asked to check in with what it is you are trying to manifest. Are you seeing it in all its visual glory? And most importantly, are you taking strategic and deliberate action to draw your vision out of the mirror of your mind and into the physical world of experience? Take some time with the Emperor and allow him to show you how to complete all the steps you require to master this important mirror aspect.

Shadow

Have you ever known someone in power to abuse their position of privilege? Maybe even used their power to enact revenge? It isn’t hard to bring someone to the forefront of your mind who fills this description. Just keep them in your mind, because this is the Emperor in the shadow aspect. When power corrupts the shadow part of who we are, it dominates our experience. It clouds our judgment and interferes with our ability to find compassion. If you have received the Emperor in the shadow aspect, you are being asked to explore how you use power in your life. Are you using it to benefit those around you? Or are you using it for personal gain, control, and selfish, egoistic means? We have all tasted the high of power, but it takes a true leader to understand that power and force are not one and the same.

Retrograde

The Emperor is connected to the planet Mars, which in the direct position is a fabulous thing. The energy of Mars is industrious and is known for taking great risks for great gain. But when the Emperor is retrograde, not only does Mars lose its power, but the need to take action may be diminished. When Mars is in retrograde, his consort Venus tends to be more dominant. This means that the Emperor may be more heart-centered and more emotional during his retrograde cycle. This in and of itself can be a good thing, for there is nothing wrong with bringing in more heart energy and less aggressive force. Just be mindful that the Emperor is not used to using his heart over his head. In fact, navigating the emotional world is not his preferred operating system. This means things may take more time and more focus than you are used to. Be patient and get used to how you feel. Mastering this retrograde cycle will only make you a better leader.

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Devin Hunter, author of The Witch’s Book of Power, The Witch’s Book of Spirits, The Witch’s Book of Mysteries, and the new Modern Witch.

I have been selling witchcraft books and supplies for sixteen years behind the counter of a metaphysical shop, and there is one conversation that I keep finding myself having over and over again with customers, seekers, and practitoners of all ages. It almost always starts with the same question: “What is THE spell I need to make X happen?” Many witches assume that in a book somewhere there must be a magical working that is perfectly geared to our specific needs or that we have to follow a working to the letter in order for it to manifest. When it comes to magic, however, the only constant is change, and often the best solutions come by way of tailoring a working to meet our unique circumstances.

Making magic our own needn’t be a difficult thing, however. Roses are a universal symbol for love, but do you know your lover’s favorite flower? We are tempted to break out a correspondence chart to find the right herbs and ingredients to make our spells work, but that may not always be the best way to go. A spiritual teacher of mine once told me that a keen eye that pays attention to detail was a witch’s greatest strength when knowing what to do in magic. If your spouse isn’t much for flowers but loves a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, you may just consider using a chocolate chip cookie-scented candle in your next romance working instead of a rose-scented one. Since the point of a working for romance is to entice desire, then it makes more sense to work with elements that truly encapsulate your lover’s desire.

Similarly, if you wanted to ward off someone or something, then working with ingredients that are known to be repulsive to them is an excellent idea. For example, I have used cologne that I knew someone didn’t like in a witch bottle protection spell with much success.

This all being said, we use ingredients like roses in a spell for love because they have the power to inspire love, and we do not want to substitute every ingredient if we don’t have to. In the case of the witch bottle protection spell, which traditionally requires urine, one of the reasons for using the fluid is to connect the spell to the person being protected. We wouldn’t want to get rid of that element. Personalizing our magic often means finding a synthesis between the powers that we traditionally pull from and the unique situation we are applying them to. So, don’t ditch the roses altogether, but don’t limit yourself to them, either.

Our thanks to Devin for his guest post! For more from Devin Hunter, read his article, “The Seven Secrets to Effective Spell Casting.”