Back in June, when I had just been accepted into my new college and thought I was going to be living in the dorms, I wanted to be very sure that was going to turn out well. As a 30-year-old male, a wayout-of-the-Closet bisexual witch with certain nudist tendencies and a manner of costume that has been mistaken for cross-dressing, I thought that my best bet for a good dorm experience would be to have a room to myself.
So I cast a spell.
Now, let me preface this by saying: practical magic is somewhat new to me. I have generally devoted my psychic energies to, well, spiritual and psychic pursuits. Mostly, in fact, I’ve devoted my energy to getting better than just a finger-hold on sanity, and to Warding my home-space (which is largely part of the same). When it comes to manifesting things, I’ve relied on my Web.
A single-room in a good dorm where I’d feel safe, though, seemed a rather high order for that – especially since I wouldn’t actually be moving for another eight weeks. I’d never experimented with sigil magic before, but I’ve I’ve done a bit of candle magic. So I decided to use a large candle as the “firing mechanism”, so to speak, for the sigil – and back it all up with a boost from the sort of old-fashioned raise-a-circle magic they taught me in Witchcraft. Aradia helped, of course.
Although I’m getting better at it, I’m not always the best at keeping a journal. I don’t recall the exact date and time – it was the full moon in June, but I cant say which day of the moon. Nor did I record exactly how I phrased the spell before condensing it to a sigil. I think it was “SAFE HOME SINGLE DORM ROOM”. I do remember chanting “Safe home dorm room / single room dorm room”.
The sigil and the candle, after “firing”.
In the most direct sense, the spell either didn’t work … or it backfired. Not only am I not living I a single room, I’m not living in the dorms. Or even on campus. I’m living in a one-bedroom college-owned housing unit, legally a separate entity from the school.
But here’s the catch: single rooms for freshmen don’t exist, and not many transfers get them. The dormitory to which most of the transfers were assigned may not have single rooms at all. Also … I don’t think, now that I’ve been in dorms again for the first time in ten or twelve years, that such an environment could ever be “safe” for me at this stage in my life.
“Safe home” and “single dorm room” may have been incompatible parameters.
I didn’t get what I wanted. But I did get what I need: a safe home, where I can set up my altar and an alchemy lab and even continue brewing my mead. An easy walk from campus, but too far for post flavors of random visiting. Far enough that campus security is a total non-issue. With neighbors who like to party quietly and mind their own business.
So … did the spell work or not?