Witchvox Article

Author: Hound of the plains
Posted: February 11th. 2007
Times Viewed: 2,493

Everyone else seems to have a title, a path, and name for what they believe.

I have nothing.

I often feel essentially empty. I don�t agree completely with any of the paths I�ve heard of. This used to frustrate me without end. I heard stories of magickal experiences, spell results, great discoveries, and even though I believe, I didn�t believe because I knew nothing of them.

Here is what I cannot do: I cannot get a spell to work with any consistency; I cannot feel the vibrations of a) crystals, b) spirits, c) the earth, d) other people, e) anything really; and I cannot read or get results from runes, tarot, pendulums or any oracular device.
My invocations, evocations, prayers, and/or conjuring go unanswered, unattended and ignored.

But I am not complaining. Just recently this has become an important part of my spiritual path. I am becoming nothing. I am on my way to being empty and it doesn�t matter that my spells don�t work because I never really need anything from them.

I don�t care that prayers go unanswered, because I am coming to believe that the voice of divine in all people is instinct.

It is now my goal to empty myself completely, not of emotion, or needs, but of expectations, and fixations.

I now realize that for me, Magick needn�t be about the big things or the big questions.

Magick is simply about what needs to be done.

I had finally decided that I was going to commit all of the runes, their names, and meanings to memory so that I could make an attempt at reading them simply through instinct (without the book in hand).

I sat down and got comfortable. I spread out the runes in front of me, arbitrarily counting them out into groups of 4, just making sure they were all there and then I began to read.

Eventually I came across a small line of music that I wanted to try to play. I picked up my little clay flute and the book closed.

I found the page again and picked up one rune from a group and placed it on the book to hold it open� not heavy enough. Two more, still not quite heavy enough. And finally the last one did it. I tried to play the little ditty but my prowess with music is � well non-existent.

I was about to remove the runes and turn the page when I noticed that of the four runes, only one was showing its face. It was Isa, the rune of �Standstill�. �Curious�, I thought. � The rune of �Standstill� is holding my page down. I wonder what the other ones are?�

I began flipping them over and what I found was very interesting.

There was Ehwaz, the rune of movement, inverted to represent stillness and Laguz, the rune of flow, inverted representing stagnation.

The one that stood out was Mannaz, the rune of The Self and humanity. What did this have to do with the runes holding the page down?

But then I saw under it the message, �Making your own rules�, in one of the chapter headings.

Inadvertently, I had created a simple kind of runic binding spell simply to hold a page in place. Not the loftiest of aims admittedly, but it was what I needed at the time.

It was then that I realized that Magick is not necessarily an ethereal power but can be directly linked to the physicality of an item. Does it matter whether it was the weight of 4 small clay ovals that held the page or the power in the runes?

The point is, it held.

If I were to place a rock on a piece of paper to keep it from blowing away and then ask someone, �Did anything Magickal happen here?�, they would likely say, �No, nothing.�

Quite frankly, I�d have to agree. But what if I�m wrong?

Many teachings speak of �the inner silence� or stillness. Some Buddhists have a saying, �Nothing Holy�.

The way I understand this is, rather than saying, �Nothing is Holy�, they are saying, �Nothing IS Holy�

By all commonsense, �nothing� cannot exist. As I see it, �nothing� is, for the most part, an imaginary concept. Everywhere that you think you see nothing, there is still something, no matter how small.

Even before the big bang, when people seem to agree there was nothing, there had to be something.

Potential!

Potential is the name I give to �Nothing�.

If we see an empty table, we say there is nothing on it. But in reality, there is the potential for anything to be on it.

If this is true, then �Potential is Holy�, a readiness and willingness to accept and work with change is Holy, �Vigilance is Holy�, �Awareness is Holy�

Finally, something that explains to me what I am, a reason for why I change beliefs ever so slightly from day to day.

My mother used to say I was a conduit for other people. A different way of wording the old axiom, �those who can�t do, teach�.

This feels right. I am almost always able to give sound advice and I have a fairly good record for getting people to see things they know well in a different way.

More people than I care to admit have seen my collection of crystals and said something along the lines of �Ooo! That one�s buzzing!�, and half of them don�t even see crystals as anything more than shiny rocks.

I tell you, it can get pretty irritating. For the longest time, I felt like I was blocked from the secrets of the universe -- secrets that everyone else could see. Now, I�m fairly certain I just see a different set of secrets.

I�ve always had a hard time making choices and forming opinions, but now I believe it�s because potential cannot have opinions� or it stops being �potential�.

I�m still relatively young; this is just where I am now. This may not even ring a bell with anyone else in the world, but I�m writing it just in case it does.

I�m writing this for anyone who is searching, anyone who is drawn to Paganism of any kind but feels somehow wrong or disheartened because they can�t see the fairies, or hear the trees whisper their secrets to the wind.

To them I say: We are all vessels, empty or full, silent or screaming, vivacious or sedate. We are as we are intended to be.

It�s your life and your spirituality, and as a wise book once told me, �Make Your Own Rules.�

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Hound of the plains

Location: Edmonton, Alberta

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