A thing that keeps cropping up in my spiritual work at the moment is the advice “Believe in magic. Believe in miracles.”
When I was younger I had absolute total belief in spells – I’d had a lot of good experiences with them and good results, and at that time I hadn’t stopped to over-analyse what’s going on, or develop any major self confidence issues.
I remember there was a job spell I cast when I was in a crappy situation in life, and I really needed a job, that super did not work. I was living in my university town over the summer months with my rubbish boyfriend (who didn’t want to go home for the summer, and being that my parents were in the middle of separating I wasn’t so keen either) and I super needed an income. I was also learning more about living priestessfully and by the grace of the Goddess at this time, and read about traditions where spellcasting was considered foolish and usurping the Goddess’ power. And since then I haven’t really believed in spells.
I reckon I over-think the mechanics of spellcasting, and pay more attention to what the “real world” thinks than what makes sense to my inner world. I have a tendency to believe the nonsense that the insecure voices in my head tell me (the ones that go “ooh you are not good enough, this is silly, who am I to make a difference? No-one will take you seriously, religion is stupid and only what we see is real) and they like to tell me I am not witchy enough to cast spells.
The big bummer is that I really believe that the world works on belief backed up with action, so if I don’t believe spells work then they probably won’t.
The thing is, I know lots of other witches who use spells and rituals successfully in my life, and once upon a time, I did too. My way of putting more witchiness in my life at the moment is an obsession with clearing and decluttering with intent; cleaning windows with the intent of seeing clearly, cleaning hallways so great things have space to enter my life, cleaning the kitchen because dirty kitchens are gross and, as ever, the faeries like clean. Little tiddly amounts of reintroducing the idea of spells and influence over events and my surroundings.
Hopefully that will bring back the magic.
Maybe you just need to start over? You could even do a spell to bring the magic back. Or watch/read “Practical magic”. ^^
Good idea Diandra. I am totally going to stick Charmed on tonight as I do my sewing 😀
When I was about 10, I read a book where one of the main characters was a witch. As I read along I was mentally comparing myself to the witch in the book and ticking off all the traits we had in common. By halfway through the book, I realised that I was a witch too – and was so happy that it wasn’t just me and there were others like me – even if it was only in stories. But the book ended by saying that witches weren’t real, and I believed it (because the book said so) and was heartbroken.
I was in my 30s when I rediscovered I was a witch, and realised that the ending of that book was actually written by people trying to discredit the fact that witches exist, and they were trying to take the power away from witches by eroding their beliefs in themselves.
Sadly, modern society does this on so many levels. How many healthy, beautiful people fell horrible about themselves because they don’t measure up to the photoshopped ideals portrayed in the media? How many people make their decisions based on what they feel they “should” want instead of what they actually do want?
Perhaps you are just going through a re-evaluation period – which is healthy to do from time to time – where you examine your beliefs, work out where they came from, and see if each one still holds true to you.
You haven’t lost the magic. It’s there every time you create art. Creating a picture/painting/drawing/etc involves the same kinda steps as crafting a spell. You have an idea of what you want, you organise the equipment you need, you improvise if you don’t have exactly the equipment you’d like, you visualise what you want to achieve and you work towards making it a reality.
Have a read of “Energy Essentials for Witches and Spellcasters” by Mya Om. It has some lovely advice and exercises, and discusses negative self talk and how to deal with it.
Faeriedaughter, you are a strong, beautiful, wonderful person and you deserve good things to happen to you – and don’t let anyone else tell you different.
Cheers
Kym
Thanks for your wonderful, wonderful reply Kym! I’m very good at ignoring what I think at the moment, and believing what other people say and think instead. Yikes! I’m slowly trying to turn that around however. I like what you say about art being like a spell – at the moment, I tend to art journal instead of pray or meditate, as I can’t think of a better way that will hold my attention long enough to honour Goddess.
I haven’t read that book – but I am definitely going to look it up 😀