Let me preface this by saying that I know full well that I have really only just begun to walk my path.\u00a0 Even after fifteen years of practice, of learning and teaching and research and occasional bouts of madness \u2026 there is so much more to learn.<\/p>\n
Having devoted this year to ceremonial magic, I am currently pursuing the most intense and directed course of study of my magical career.\u00a0 Six weeks in, it\u2019s been both enlightening and energizing, both spiritually and intellectually.\u00a0 I believe firmly that I will end the year a much more competent witch and magician than I began, ready to plumb the depths of the underworld and heights of the upperworld in ways that I can\u2019t even imagine now.<\/p>\n
And yet \u2026 there\u2019s a part of me that feels like I\u2019m taking a detour.\u00a0 RO recently waxed poetic about how awesomely transformative<\/a> it is to do magical service for others; Dr. Raven posted a ritual<\/a> to help bolster the arts community.\u00a0 I want to do magic like this.\u00a0 I want to devote my time and energy to helping the communities I live in and, by extension, the world at large.\u00a0 To teach and to heal \u2026 this is the work I increasingly feel called to do, especially since my initiation last May.\u00a0 (And making a few bucks on the side doing it?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t suck.)<\/p>\n However much I learn from my ceremonial studies, however much the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake transforms me \u2026 I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll have earned my next initiation \u2013 or, given the peculiarities of my practice, perhaps \u201cachieved my next ascension\u201d might be more accurate \u2013 until I have begun that service.\u00a0 <\/p>\n But I really have no idea where or how to start.\u00a0 Modern neoPagan witchcraft is so relentlessly self-focused that, except for the production of new books and the running of book stores, there is little room for such service \u2026 at least in the portions of the communities that I have experienced.\u00a0 We often see such things as New Age or capitalist encroachment on our \u201cmore pure\u201d spirituality.\u00a0 But people tend to undervalue things they don\u2019t have to pay for, and priests and healers have to eat just like everyone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let me preface this by saying that I know full well that I have really only just begun to walk my path.\u00a0 Even after fifteen years of practice, of learning and teaching and research and occasional bouts of madness \u2026 there is so much more to learn. Having devoted this year to ceremonial magic, I … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-witchcraft"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}