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| L'Envoûteuse (The Sorceress) Georges Merle Georges Merle, France, 1851 - 1886 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
A safe space
A safe space can be anywhere that you won't be disturbed and that you feel, well, safe. It can be anyplace. I currently use my bedroom and sometimes my kitchen, but I have used parks, woods, the shores of both lake and sea. Magic can happen anywhere, but I find that I work best in a space where I'll not be interrupted. I also think that it's best if whatever space you're using is clean, uncluttered, and relatively peaceful. You need a place where you can concentrate, let yourself go, and just be. If you're constantly worried about being stumbled over, interrupted, or, gods forbid, attacked, you just can't get into the correct mindset.
A quiet head
A quiet head is one that is at peace, where your mind's not jabbering at you constantly. It's a mind that's cleared of all thoughts but that of the task before you. This is difficult, but can be cultivated with meditation. The trick is finding a meditation that works for you, and that in itself can be a struggle. One of the reasons, I think, is that we have this idea of meditation as being the emptying out of all thought, so we sit and we struggle because our minds won't stop working. Thoughts keep coming in, we get annoyed with ourselves, and eventually we just give up, usually with a disgusted feeling of "I just can't do this." I don't believe that to be true.
First off, there are several different ways to meditate. You can use a form of moving meditation: dancing, Tai Chi, running, yoga. Moving meditation is just a form of moving where you have to concentrate on the movements your making rather than how you're going to pay your phone bill, or what's going on on your favorite TV show, or whatever. Those thoughts may enter your head, but they don't stay because you have to be all in your body. You have to check your timing, your breathing, where you're hands and feet are. You have to concentrate on what you're doing, rather than what you're thinking. It helps to center you, right? Getting lost in movement.
There's also visualization. You focus on a picture or scene in your mind. You plant a seed and watch that seed grow behind your eyelids. See the roots seeking water and deeper earth, the sprout pushing up towards the sun, see it quiver, see it breathe. Or you can focus on a memory, preferably not an unpleasant one, but something agreeable. The first time you flew a kite, or rode a roller coaster. What did it feel like? What did the wind feel like? The tug on your arms? What color was the sky? Remember the way your heart beat on the way up, and down. Remember the twists and turns, the feel of almost falling. Picture it in the most minute details, the sounds, the smells, the flow of blood through your veins.
Or you can just focus on something something so much that it fills your head. Use a flame, watch it dance, breath with it, stare into the heart of it. Pay attention. Watch that stream stream flow and bubble. See the most minute detail of that tree, try to capture it in you mind. Calm down and just look, choose one thing, and look.
You can do the same with almost anything. The more you practice it, the easier it will be, and the clearer you're brain will feel. You can start slow, five minutes a day, working up to fifteen, twenty, an hour, whatever. Meditation helps to clarify your mind, clean your head out, and can help to minimize the damage negative or obsessive thoughts cause. I'll not claim that it's a cure for depression, because I'm proof that it's not, but, for me, it helps to put things in perspective and kind of break that cycle of "my gods, you're a worthless human being" that I tend to get stuck in. I really can't do anything when I'm in one of those cycles, let alone magic. A quiet head is one that doesn't have those thoughts screaming on repeat constantly, or one that can disregard those thoughts as unimportant and shush whatever unhappy voices that want to take up all the space.
First off, there are several different ways to meditate. You can use a form of moving meditation: dancing, Tai Chi, running, yoga. Moving meditation is just a form of moving where you have to concentrate on the movements your making rather than how you're going to pay your phone bill, or what's going on on your favorite TV show, or whatever. Those thoughts may enter your head, but they don't stay because you have to be all in your body. You have to check your timing, your breathing, where you're hands and feet are. You have to concentrate on what you're doing, rather than what you're thinking. It helps to center you, right? Getting lost in movement.
There's also visualization. You focus on a picture or scene in your mind. You plant a seed and watch that seed grow behind your eyelids. See the roots seeking water and deeper earth, the sprout pushing up towards the sun, see it quiver, see it breathe. Or you can focus on a memory, preferably not an unpleasant one, but something agreeable. The first time you flew a kite, or rode a roller coaster. What did it feel like? What did the wind feel like? The tug on your arms? What color was the sky? Remember the way your heart beat on the way up, and down. Remember the twists and turns, the feel of almost falling. Picture it in the most minute details, the sounds, the smells, the flow of blood through your veins.
Or you can just focus on something something so much that it fills your head. Use a flame, watch it dance, breath with it, stare into the heart of it. Pay attention. Watch that stream stream flow and bubble. See the most minute detail of that tree, try to capture it in you mind. Calm down and just look, choose one thing, and look.
You can do the same with almost anything. The more you practice it, the easier it will be, and the clearer you're brain will feel. You can start slow, five minutes a day, working up to fifteen, twenty, an hour, whatever. Meditation helps to clarify your mind, clean your head out, and can help to minimize the damage negative or obsessive thoughts cause. I'll not claim that it's a cure for depression, because I'm proof that it's not, but, for me, it helps to put things in perspective and kind of break that cycle of "my gods, you're a worthless human being" that I tend to get stuck in. I really can't do anything when I'm in one of those cycles, let alone magic. A quiet head is one that doesn't have those thoughts screaming on repeat constantly, or one that can disregard those thoughts as unimportant and shush whatever unhappy voices that want to take up all the space.
An open mind
What do I mean by an open mind? Imagination, intelligence, the willingness to believe in magic. You need the ability to change the way you look at the world, and the wits to recognize the change. You also need to be able to experiment, to find out what works and what doesn't. You need to learn and continue learning. I find it's helpful to be good with words—some of my most successful spells have been little more than rhyming quatrains. Life is a constant evolution of the mind, and it's my firm belief that if you aren't learning, you aren't living, and living is important. You need to read, write, dance, play, pray. Learn how to raise energy, and to ground it. Find out what's works for you, tweak it, revise it, try again. Find a new way that also works, or doesn't, and tweak that until it feels right. Do it again. Do it again. Find another and do that. Rinse and repeat. Keep learning. Be willing to keep learning. Keep changing. Believe. Know. Know down to your bones. That in itself is a magic.
Be willing to put in the work. Be willing to see the results. That's how you do magic.
Be willing to put in the work. Be willing to see the results. That's how you do magic.
