Witchy Bitch Credo: 2506 Sometimes when everything seems to be falling apart the Universe is turnin' that "janky" into a "thank-key". "When You Know Betta, Do Betta" - Maya Angelou I know I promised an excerpt from the chapter that included my take on forgiveness, but my ass apparently has so much resistance to that that I haven’t posted shit since then. I have been pondering that, and WILL finish that chapter and post about it at some point. I have had many many things coming up for me during these Rona times. It has taken this long for me to get to a point when I’m even close to being able to execute anythang. ANY. THANG. It’s been a matter of consistent disciplined practice to simply stay sane and simi-peaceful. That being said, a memory popped up on my FB page, and it seems particularly apropos. This is a long ass story from many years ago that is a poignant reminder during adverse times. This is from May of 2014, and the “Little” mentioned in this story is about to head to college… as soon as they will let colleges open. Flashback - May 14, 2014: “So I had this interesting moment last night. I have one of those showers where the knob to shift temperature and flow of the water are the same. I live in an ass old building, and in my unit they were always reversed... like you turn it on a little, and it's super hot, and if you turn it on full flow it gets cold. Me and my little have gotten used to this over the past year and a half, and think nothing of it. So Monday we had a major leak. Water just started pouring from the spout and wouldn't stop no matter what we did... scalding hot.. like steamed up the bathroom raised the temp in the apartment condensed water on all bathroom surfaces... Maintenance came in to fix it. I didn't check the work when they left. So I go to take a shower, and keep doing what I normally do and all I get is COLD ass water, and it ain't hot enough in LA this week for a cold ass shower. I was getting frustrated, and in my head cussing the maintenance guy out for not checking his work. Blaming his him for it still not working, shutting off just my hot water to my tub! ...being irritated that the shit was cold and I had something to do. “How am I going to get ready in time ?”...blah blah blah, then as I am getting into the cold ass water, 'cause I need to wash my ass even if it's cold; I take a moment, and it occurs to me... "what if he fixed it fixed it?" ... Like made it actually right.. So then i try the faucet like it's supposed to work... you know... cold first moving to hot... like everyone else's water... :-/ and it works! I had this awesome beat of gratitude, and a moment of "oh shit I was blaming my little maintenance tech when he didn't do nothin' wrong" ...that's kinda shitty, and THEN I thought... how many times in life, when the universe is making things right... first by pouring hot scalding ass water into my life, and then using the momentum from that to fix the imbalance... like setting our life to "right" ...meaning, in my world, alignment with something that might really work for us, and we/I in that moment think "something must be wrong". ... I KNOW when I moved in I as like "this shit is janky.. this ain't how it's supposed to be", but then I was like "fuck it. I know what it is, and it's fine...", ... but I asked at some point for it to be just... well, a working faucet. I feel like much of life is like that. We feel that beat of "this ain't right" ask for or picture "right" (for us... it varies) and then we get a scalding hot leak that looks like everything is falling apart, and when we finally align with "right" so it shows up, and it takes a bit for us to actually realize that's what's happening ...we curse, blame, get upset, and fight what's happening... There is a lot of MAJOR transition going on for everyone I know.. maybe in it, look at which things are things you asked to change, but got used to the way it was, and became complacent... and accepting - which is not a "bad" thing in and of itself... that acceptance and ease is probably what allowed the shift to happen. ... However, no matter what, change gon' come, and acceptance of that too is necessary…” Many MANY of the things I was praying for, and manifesting at the time I wrote this are now my physical reality. Some of them came though with in 2 to 3 months of this post. Sometimes when everything seems to be falling apart the Universe is giving us access to a rebirth or adjustment; turnin' that "janky" into a "thank-key". A key to access appreciation and gratitude for what we've requested, asked for, and prayed into existence. I cain’t WAIT to see what the Universe is cookin’ up wit’ this mess. Whhhoooooo Chile. Stay safe, and give yourself permission to be gentle and compassionate to yourself and others.
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Witchy Bitch Credo #12
If you don’t Align, no "Curse" can bind. Curses, alignment, and the rule of 3 x 3. Many focus on this idea of curses, and it doesn’t resonate with me. And by “Curse” I mean very specifically focused energy toward someone or something concerning revenge, harm, or lack of flourishing for another. Not that people don’t set them or try to send them or have whole moments creating ritual around them. I know there are many different paths, and people from many belief systems connect with this as a way to understand energy or tradition. Curses CAN have power if you are aligned with the energy vibration, and/or if you are just on the edge of that vibration and anything around you tips you in that direction. If you are not mindful you can kinda get fucked up in that energy vibration unless you have a super energy awareness. Part of why I don’t resonate with the whole idea of Curses is years of healing and card reading work where people were certain that they had been cursed, but were not willing to look at their own shit and make meaningful change energetically. There are a A LOT of different ways that people talk about how energy resonates and matches with like energy. I usually connect with the puzzle piece metaphor or the frequency paradigm. Energy works like puzzle pieces matching. An open space welcomes a piece that fits... OR You can only catch a radio station that is broadcasting to a station you are tuned to to… OR if we thought of it like climbing above sea level. If we were climbing a mountain and you could only see or connect with those at the same height above sea level it would be similar. Someone can be sending “curse” energy or just fucked up thoughts or wishes of the worst, but if you are not vibrating there it will miss you. They can try and try and you just won’t be a match for it. If you are on the edge or if you are a total match, then yes, absolutely. Curse all day, but if not then not so much. Sooooo when people come to me to remove a curse I have a very tried and true way to handle it… most people hate it. So much so that I preface it with an explanation… which I have to acknowledge is me also lining myself up with those who hate it… see how that works? ...The reason I may have had to explain it over and over or thought people hate it is because at some point I was like, “people hate this explanation and resist it”, and I kept focusing on that thought, and then I got tons of clients that hate it and resist it. That being said, that tenent of energy that what you put out comes back to you is particularly applicable here. It is one of those “rules” aka Universal Laws that shows up everywhere… in almost all spiritual dogma, and in science. What you put out will come back to you. In Wicca or Pagan practices is often called the rule of 3 X 3… what you put out comes back times 3, for good or for ill. In many faiths it’s the “Golden Rule” or Karma … some eclectics say it comes back times 10 or 1000. With an awareness of this same rule we can self-protect. I cannot give credit for this remedy to just one person. It’s a combined set of tools. I heard it from several people over the years, so I also cannot claim it as my own. I can say I have used it and recommend it for over a decade, and those who used it got results. Curse Remedy: If there is a specific person or persons you feel are focusing the curse on you, focus on them for the purpose of this exercise. If you don’t know who you feel is responsible make the focus more general.
At base, if you are aligned with love and joy, fear and hate can not live in that same space. If you are only sending and picturing joy for that person or persons either their insistence on holding on to their anger and hatred will repel them from you OR their energy will shift to a different vibration that is more aligned with love… and your energy… That being said, that last bit would sometimes hang people up too so I think next week I’ll dig into forgiveness. Witch Bitch Credo #252: Give yourself permission to feel and accept the sacred in every everyday moment, and the discomfort in sacred transformation. Moments of grounding with bare feet caressing the earth, and the connected covenant of family giving birth to blissful sharing and magickal momentum can happen during high ceremony or latin jazz... give yourself permission to feel and accept the sacred in every everyday moment, and the discomfort in sacred transformation. We plan out so many moments in our lives from the 5 year plan to the 10 year treatise. Sometimes we get so caught up in what’s on the to do list, or how we thought our lives would look when, that we miss precious moments now. I am not saying anything is wrong with a good plan, sometimes it helps you get where you need to go in the most efficient way possible. And...sometimes we are so caught up in the plan that we miss the journey. We are so focused on what everything should look like that the experience is lost. We walk through life with so much on our mind that we often forget that we are here to laugh and take in a good sunrise… or work to create a beautiful masterpiece of delicious flavors just to devour it. Sometimes the beauty we create is to ingest and savour; to let it linger on our palate and release from our tongue in a whisper … sometimes a shout. It is those simple moments of sacred communion with nothing but the breeze or a shared connection that have the most impact. That perfect synergy created by a brief telling of a story between friends, or a compliment shared that you never knew could be so transformational. Those juicy moments in the making can be uncomfortable to sit in even though we feel them so profoundly. The subtle momentum in the making can be kabooshed by an awareness of the place we want to go, or the moment we just left… or the many moments swaying and echoing in our past. That time where we are present in the rolling build of momentum manifest IS the sacred place. It is the place we dance magick into being. It is the moment pregnant with possibility before a first long awaited kiss, or the first surrender of a place yet untouched. These places are full of electricity, beauty, solace, and synchronicity and … I almost wrote “ease”, but for there to be ease we have to practice leaning into that unknown place. When we lean in to what those moments can be, and really KNOW the gestation is happening, the journey through them comes with more ease. For me, that churning is full of life and promise and discomfort because it is the place at which I have not arrived at the answer. I don’t know the answer… that churning is a molding of clay, a dancing through uncertainty, a deep breath of “I don’t know” before magnificent inspiration. THAT place is the churning of creativity. The well from which we are birthed and all our ideas swirl and tap and wrestle and fight and make love and fuck before they bring themselves fully into the light . THAT place is our power place. Our resonance place. Our rubber meets the road place. Our razor thin moment between and idea and its actualization. THAT place. Our Angels, Faerie, Loved ones, Spirits, Universe, Goddesses, Gods… all those in the Unseen are inviting us to play in this land constantly because they KNOW it will lead to our power and delight… SO... So here’s the challenge: Accept the invitation. For the next week or month, or year… what ever you can bring yourself to commit to… to my commitment phobic readers just try it for a day. Take a moment to breathe every time you see… repeated numbers on a clock or 3 birds flying in a row, a song that has lyrics that speak to the thought you just had, or a scent that you only smelled on a specific person who has crossed over...or whatever everyday things the Universe may be using to speak directly to you. Pick one friend or family member a day to give a call and tell them something you love and cherish about them, something you think makes them amazing, or a memory that you once shared that touched you. And last but not least, add “take a moment to love my life and something I find beautiful in it” to your to do list everyday… The miracles that are happening around you everyday are bound to be noticed by you if you do. Accept the invitation. Witchy Bitch Credo #301: Sometimes “Fuck You” is also grace. The peaks and valleys of rebirth into our next phase especially when we don’t know what that phase might look like can feel like metaphysical whiplash. Within moments of major transition and shifts lay the seed for our greatest growth, expansion, and capacity for grace; but ALSO for rage, frustration, and anger. In moments of change, a pendulum swing in our behavior or emotions is a part of the rebirth process. I used to have a thing where I wouldn’t set firm boundaries unless I was pushed to my absolute limit/breaking point aka my “Fuck You” point. I had to get angry to set boundaries. They usually came with resentments as well because I’d swallowed a lot of shit I couldn’t tolerate before I reached that limit. I had a friend once ask if it might not serve me better if I could do it without the “fuck you”, and asked if I could. At the time I actually couldn’t. I needed the build up of resentment and anger to be willing to take care of myself. In this most recent round of shifts I had been focusing on finding and leaning into the grace of each moment and challenge. I had been experiencing some moments that felt familiar, and thought maybe that is what I still need to unearth. It had been going pretty well, and then I had a moment where I was experiencing circumstances that placed me firmly in the “Fuck you”. Somewhere in the midst of deep upset while madly journaling I realized my anger and grace do not always have to be mutually exclusive. What if in some cases the “Fuck You” is the grace? What if what is coming up is the desire to tear it all down and instead the “Fuck You” shows up. What if those words... those harsh uncultured unmediated unfettered words WERE the grace? What if the core parts of me had given in and surrendered, loved and lived and all I had left was “fuck you”. What if in some cases that was the closest I could get to a baseline of fairness and love? … What if the closest I could get to some form of compassion was a mutha fuckin' loud ass FUCK YOU. What if it was the closest to peace in route to change in the cases of much bigger systemic issues where the rage or tearing apart the whole damn shebang, or blowing up of a system of deplorable behavior was not an option? What if fuck you was the best I could manage …what if fuck you is restraint in some cases… maybe the only grace I could get to? I never advocate violence. There are constructive ways to channel those explosive emotions AND still let ourselves feel them. I am not saying wallow in them, but we deserve our anger and rage too. That journey through our shadow and our light is necessary. It stretches the edges of our new self. Those stumbles in the shadows that sometimes lead to a fall are so we can find the gems at our feet we might have missed. That painful/uncomfortable stretching in each direction of the skin we are comfortable in makes a space for our reborn self. A space that we can rest in with more ease on the other side of the each shift. And I have to say... my “Fuck You” was always an ending point in my past, but with this realization in that moment it was transformed into a point of grace and a new beginning. Witchy Bitch Credo #2010 : Own yo’ shit, won’t be no shit There is a beauty in standing your ground, and also in receiving. The flow of energy around us is dictated by many things, but mostly by our own focus. We teach people via words or energy what’s “wrong” with us or our choices. When we own the fullness of who we are authentically it anchors us and others.
Walking through the world, every entity has its own signature, space, resonance. There is a beauty in connecting with those that resonate and vibrate at your frequency. When we are on the edge of a vibration, or at an intersection of frequencies sometimes what feels most resonant with you may not feel most resonant with those around you. In these moments we can stand in our own small quiet voice, or begin to question it. Sometimes introspection, and clarity are reflected back to us from those intersections… and sometimes we were clear and the resistance at the intersection point clouded our mental, spiritual, or emotional waters. When the title "Witchy Bitch" came to me for my book over a decade ago I was tickled to pieces. I remember sharing my new nickname and the partial title for my book with childlike delight.. And getting a lecture in the middle of the crystal store I was working in about being wary of the energy of the words I was choosing. The slightly frosty man went on for quite a bit, and I remember even now hearing it as a chastisement. Thinking back, I wonder if that was the intention at all actually, or just my triggers getting a good solid tap dance activating allllll my shit. I’ve enjoyed using the word Bitch in various ways for a long time. I have some friends that cain’t STAND it, others who are ok with it, and some who love it as much I do. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what THEY feel about it… my own perspective is what matters in this case. There will be some folx who take issue with my use of the word bitch. I like it, I know the history, I know the uses, I know. And I love it ... Sometimes, and proper context… and never with malice. Ok, fine RARELY in malice... I like it... Maybe like I like 1980s and 1990s misogynistic hip hop; sometimes it feels like assault and sometimes it feels like home, and sometimes it feels like power... simultaneously. All of it together. Because #paradox. All of it can and does exist together as does our beingness, and our experience. Often. I am a consummate paradox of delight and magick and truth and depth and a reverence and irreverence and power all together in one beautifully complicated chaotic package. I enjoy that package. I hope that reading this blog and my book not only gives you permission to be all of your package, but also gives you some tools to find who you are and how to expand that package in the most beautifully dynamic and magnificent ways possible. Also, if you haven't guessed from the title ... I curse like a sailor. Witchy Bitch Credo #2002 : Mortar & Pestle can be used for Magick and Mojitos with equal purpose and sacredness We often separate the play and sacred in our world. We have lost that part of us that as children spun in fields with God and played with the wind... danced in dandelion snow, made mud pies, and dirty messy faerie wonderlands with flower petals, twigs and scattered bottle caps. By separating the part of us that’s drawn to play from the part of us that is drawn to commune with our highest self, we lose full access to what is possible in and as our highest self. We need to bring it back in full force. We need that part of us that plays hard to align with the part that prays hard, or casts deeply... the part that makes love, fucks well, or meditates with force and determination to meld with moments of irreverence and delight. Anchor both so that every moment is a connected one. The tools we use in our ritual work, whether they be a mortar and pestle, athames, or our heart and grounding are also tools that serve us in play in the most practical ways. The breath and grounding we use in the spiritual serve us on the dance floor or in a board room. In the vein, I started creating a mini-list of multi-purpose Witchy tools that I can multiply for more layered uses. Here's a few: Mortar & Pestle - As mentioned above, whether mulling mint and brown sugar for Mojitos or blending spices for a delicious meal, we can grind in energy and purpose or grind out frustration and confusion.. The motion and precise pressure open a perfect moment for reflection, and infusing the concoction with all the wonderful you want to experience as you imbibe or a moment of release for letting that shit go. Candles – Them plus a fork or shish kabob skewer make for a great marshmallow toaster that fits on a coffee table. ...They also make for light in darkness, and beacons for manifestation... Intimate light for love making and peaceful atmosphere for a creative evening, or soften the harsher edges to make them easier on the eye. I also practice candle magick. The candles focus moments and energetically hold space for my prayers/will over time. They also serve to remind me of the energy I tapped into when I lit them that is spreading its way in to the world. Blessing oil – good for rubbing down a candle in ritual... or a scrumptious vision of hotness in the bedroom or living room…bathroom… you get the picture. That vision can be yourself on that whole other level of sensual self pleasuring magick, or sharing a moment with a partner ... or partners in delight. I'm still adding to mine, what on yours? Photo Credit: Cornelia Kurtew I’m your not-so typical witchy mom who has mostly practiced as a solitary, and came to my witchy ways very intuitively. I was always drawn to magic and mysticism as a child, and began to research it along with many other religions during my matriculation at Spelman College. I found most of the things I studied had the same basic rules: Don’t hurt anyone else, Don’t kill folks, Don’t steal people’s shit … It was pretty simple with differences based on cultural boundaries that were in place when the religion developed. I found I was most drawn to spiritual practices that were more flexible like Wicca and New Thought Ancient Wisdom. There were many different forms of both, and they encourage you to think for you self and choose that parts that resonate with you out of the spiritual tradition without invalidating. When I realized that almost all of the world’s religions had the basic tenants I concluded that they must be based in some spiritual truth that started form a pure singular place, but that all developed in different directions. To me that means no one path can hold itself above another because of the path it developed on. Whatever path leads you to enlightenment and spiritual alignment and joy is the one you need to be on. I found the world of mystics, magick, faeries, and angels to be mine. I'll be posting tidbits from the book I've been writing: Witchy Bitch: A Sister-Girl's Guide to Witchcraft and Everything Else. Blessed Be! |
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