WHY MINDSET IS EVERYTHING (SO LET’S GET IT IN CHECK!)

IDK about y’all, but the hibernation feels are REAL. Which means soup, snuggling & getting back into the swing of settling down with a good book. 

This week’s being High Magick by the one & only Damien Echols.

I actually started this one a few months back after we returned home from a dreamy desert weekend learning about meditation from the incredible dude himself. But as you know, we all get distracted – so the only thing that matters is eventually getting back on track. So here we are!

Now, a lot of this book primarily covers the core art & exercises surrounding what’s known as (spoiler alert) “high magick”. These are the very practices that Damien credits with manifesting his freedom from wrongfully spending almost 20 years on death row — so think less velvet capes & pulling rabbits out of hats, & more channelling/harnessing energy to cast back into the world charged with your own intent. 

Naturally there’s a lot of breath work, visualization & protection practices that go along with it too, but at its core all we’re really talking about is doing things to “shape reality & create better environments for ourselves”. Which also got me thinking about the true power of mindset. 

Especially when it comes to our everyday lives. You know, as pats of butter on this giant piece of toast we call Earth.

I think we can agree that none of us are perfect. So of COURSE we all know those moments of debilitating stress, anxiety & nights where you need to just come home for a good cry (& bottle of rosé).

Venting is good. We’re all about it. But the difference to keep in mind between blowing off steam with a good vent & heading down a potentially more detrimental path is your mindset.

Hear me out!

We are humans – not vials of arsenic or cyanide that are best kept bottled up. So because of that, it’s important to know how to process & get things off our chests. You doing you to let it all out? Great! But just make sure to alongside that, not lose sight of the bigger mental picture at hand. 

As in, getting the negativity OUT in order to make room for the ~overall~ positive mindset you aim to uphold the rest of the time.

Because if you don’t, that low energy WILL consume you.

Seriously – the mind is a crazy powerful thing. And while we are human & can’t practice stoicism around the clock like a regular Marcus Aurelius, striving to maintain a positive-forward mentality truly makes a real-deal difference. Think about it, would you want to sit around & stew in a hot tub full of gunk? NO. Gross. Of course not.

So that’s the same thing as choosing to stay in a low-vibe mental state! It doesn’t do any good – & for some, can be the very thing that breaks them.

Everyone has bad days. Especially when it involves making a trip to Trader Joe’s only to find they’re only out of the four exact ingredients you need for what feels like the tenth time in a row (!!!). But if in the big scheme of things you’re keeping your energy in check, recognizing the power of attention & making efforts to lead an overall positive-inspired existence, then you’ll know that everything – in the long run – is going to be just fine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go charge all of our water.

((& seriously, if you need a good book to cozy up with over the holidays, High Magick is IT!!))

xxAA

(((source of feature image background: @damienechols)))

WHAT IS MICRO-MAGIC(K) & WHY WE SHOULD ALL BE DOING IT

Something SPOOKY this way comes. Hopefully it’s cooler temps & news that the pumpkin patches have landed.

So to go along with that, I wanted to talk about something that’s always been near and dear to my heart (& I’m sure many of yours too): magick!

Or the metaphysical, working with the universe, getting down with your spirit guides – whatever you want to call it.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been super drawn to things of the metaphysical and supernatural nature. So much so that I even spent a solid month of my 8-year-old existence writing early forms of Charmed fan fiction (PRE-LiveJournal – crazy).

However, it wasn’t until I went off to college that I feel like a whole other chapter of it began. Mainly when tarot cards entered the picture.

And I know what you might be thinking: tarot cards! Easy fodder for people to roll their eyes and laugh at anyone who thinks they actually tell the future! Which, to be fair, I definitely don’t think they do that ~exactly~, either. 

In fact, I had an amazing tarot mentor for years who always said that at the end of the day, everyone has free will. So while the cards may provide some guidance or make you see things in a way you may have never thought about before, it’s most def NOT a set-in-stone prophecy. At all. And if you’re getting a reading by someone who says it is – r u n.

(Or just take it with the world’s largest grain of salt).

But here’s the deal. What they can do from a self-reflection standpoint is beyond unreal. And even better? They’re a fan-taastic way to practice a little thing we like to call micro-magick.

The Morgan-Greer Tarot Deck

Now, if you’ve ever read pretty much anything to do with magick, then it’s totally understandable to feel a bit (a lot) overwhelmed at first. All the steps, the colors, the visualizations, the names of Ancient Sumerian deities to remember- it’s enough to leave anyone wondering who has time for all of this?! 

BUT, here’s the thing! One of the main points of magick is to make your own experience of it. Which also means dedicating however much time and energy you can – NOT stressing out about rules as strict as security at Area 51. 

(Simple as that, right? – ha)

A couple of months ago for my birthday, Kevin & I went out to Joshua Tree for a two-day meditation retreat lead by the one and only Damien Echols (which is a whole other post I need to do some time). And as one of many crazy-amazing things we all talked about that weekend, he totally echoed this point. 

Whenever you’re, say, logging 18 years and 76 days on death row for a crime you never committed (you know, nbd), finding 8 hours a day to practice rituals and get your time in with the arch angels doesn’t sound like the most impossible thing. But for the average peeps who grind away 40, 50, 60 or more hours a week – it tends to be a little tougher.

Although with that said, there’s one other little (major) detail to keep in mind: you’re ALREADY doing magick, whether you know it or not!

((Wait, what?¿?))

GENIUS!

So my whole point ~really~ being, that even the smallest amount of time you set aside in a day can still make a huge difference in the long run of magick. And since short yet persistent is more productive than the occasional binge (hello, this isn’t Netflix), another key trick is to treat it like part of your daily routine. Not just a hobby or something you do in your free time, because let’s also be real – those are always the first to slip through the cracks.

Whether it’s taking five minutes in the morning to pull three cards for your day, or spending some time on your lunch break to meditate on a few mantras you’ve set for the week – it really can be that easy to start making a world of difference in your perspective. 

So go forth, have fun, learn lots & hone to own the magickal power that’s already inside you.

Be sure to let us know how it goes.

xxAA