For some reason I'm feeling very chatty today. There's a warmth in my heart that has been missing for a while and I feel like I might burst if I don't share all of the things that are delighting me today.

I can hear wind chimes in the alley behind my building.

A fat squirrel has been keeping me company as I write, feasting on the pieces of rice cakes I put on the deck for him and the birds.

And T. Thorn Coyle is entreating us to pass on the words of love and peace that she shared in her Musings today:

I did not stop in the struggle.

I did not stop marching toward life,

toward peace, toward bread for all,

but I lifted you in my arms

and I nailed you to my kisses

and I looked at you as never

again will human eyes look at you.

- an excerpt from "Oblivion" by Pablo Neruda

When the world shall have learnt to love, the world will be saved.

- Eliphas Levi, from "Paradoxes of the Highest Science"

Thank you Thorn, I needed that.

Thanks, too, to Hecate for sharing The Journey, by Mary Oliver.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 4:38 PM | Comments (1)

We've all heard the time management chestnut about the guy who puts rocks in a jar and asks his audience if they think the jar is full. Usually the moral of the story is that you can always find a way to fit more in. Well, Jenna Avery, the Life Coach for Sensitive Souls, recently wrote about this story from a slightly different perspective. In her version, this is the punchline:

"No," the speaker replies, "that's not my point. The Truth is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all."

We've all been in situations where we've filled our lives with so many small, relatively inconsequential things that we don't have room to focus on what's really important. Most of the time I think this is because we haven't stopped to consider with any real seriousness what our "big rocks" actually are. So we prefer to busy ourselves with a maelstrom of mundane tasks to keep ourselves from facing the fact that we just don't know what we really need to make us happy and fulfilled.

I've spent a lot of time lately asking and being asked what I want for myself this year, what is most important to me, where do I want to focus my energy so that my needs will best be fed. The short answer - I don't know. Someone said to me once that rather than being a bad answer, this is actually good. Not knowing is coming from a place of open readiness; a space within us just waiting to be filled. But this is where the lesson of the jar and the rocks is instructive. Choose wisely.

The way I've learned to look at this is that we have to pick out what our "Big Rocks" are first, organize our priorities around those, and only then look at what else we want to add into the remaining interstitial spaces of our lives.

Similarly, when my intuitive development teacher, Sonia Choquette, leads her "Creating Your Heart's Desire" workshop, she talks about the importance of focusing our manifestation efforts on no more than three things in any given year. If we try to do more than that, she says, our efforts have little chance of manifesting into reality because they are too watered down.

Three big rocks.

Jenna advises:

As we move into the beginning of 2008, I invite you to carefully consider your Three Big Rocks. When I work with my clients through my coaching program, I ask them to first "cast a wide net" in their explorations. Often, our greatest dreams and intuitive next steps get buried by our mind's "good ideas" and our internalized "shoulds" about what's most important. But deep down, our inner guidance can lead us in the proper direction if we allow it to do so.

Powerful questions to ask:
- What do I really, really want?
- Where am I being called to focus my energy right now?
- If I didn't have to worry about time, money, or anyone else, what would I do?
- What really matters to me in terms of how I spend my time?

Further questions to consider as we choose our "three big rocks" come from a Celtic Devotional by Cailtin Matthews that I found here:

What am I endeavoring to manifest now in my life?

How can I make the best use of this lifetime?

Maybe one of the reasons why the beginning of a new calendar year feels so full of promise is because it has the same energy as a New Moon. We start from the blackest point of the year and it only gets brighter from there, waxing toward whatever we want to do with this clean slate we've been given. Whether we call them resolutions, dreams, or rocks, these things with which we step into the new year - like the Fool stepping off the cliff - are the glimmering, nascent hopes held safe within us before we send them out into the world to manifest.

What if we turned the metaphor of the jar and the three big rocks into a manifestation spell?

Angela-Eloise's Three Big Rocks Manifestation Spell

Find your "jar." It can be any vessel that you like, that you believe will be a good place to keep safe your three most important hopes and dreams for the new year.

Spend some time thinking and meditating on what your three big rocks will be. As ideas occur to you, write them down and put them in the vessel. For now all they are doing are sitting, waiting for you to decide what you want to do with them.

Then find your three rocks. These could be gemstones or other stones that have particular energetic properties that are important to you and the things you wish to manifest. They could be rocks that you find in nature.

By the next New Moon, on January 8, you should have chosen both your metaphorical and your actual three rocks (if you are not ready by January 8, wait until the next New Moon on February 6). At the New Moon, you are going to charge your three actual rocks with the intentions of your metaphorical Three Big Rocks.

Have your jar, your rocks and any other materials you want to include in the spell to aid in manifestation. You may decide to anoint your rocks with oils, write sigils on them, etc. Perform whatever preparation you normally do for spellcasting.

Take your slips of paper from the jar and set aside the three that represent your big rocks. You can decide to burn the others, or perhaps you want to keep them in a different vessel to consider later as the "interstitial" things to add to your life.

One by one, take up your actual rocks. Hold each rock in your hands and charge it with the intent from one of your slips of paper. When you feel that it is charged, put it into your jar. Do this until you have charged all three rocks. Seal your jar any way you feel is appropriate.

At this point, I would burn the three slips of paper upon which you wrote your intentions in the manner of a petition spell. As the paper is burning, think of the smoke carrying your intentions out to the universe.

Once your work is complete, perform whatever closing practices you normally use.

Put your jar on your altar or any other place that is important to you, where it can safeguard your intentions, manifest your desires, and remind you of your Three Big Rocks.

May your wishes be manifest and may your new year be full of happiness and abundance! Blessed be.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 3:07 PM | Comments (4)

What does it say that last year at this time I was contemplating the same things? Simply that it is a time when we look toward the new year with hope and a desire for something better? Or does it mean, for me personally, that I haven't come very far in the past year?

Either way, there are a couple of things I posted this time last year that bear repeating.

This quote from T. Thorn Coyle:

How are you in a crisis? What are you doing to get stronger? Are you doing more yoga? Lifting more weights? Are you looking at your propensity to explode or to hide? Are you figuring out how to bolster your alternative communities into more viable networks of support? Are you learning to govern yourself? Learning to garden? Buying less? Re-using more? Are you learning not to always place the blame on other people? Are you telling your friends how much you appreciate them? Are you crying when you need to and laughing when you wish? Stopping to smell the flowers? Are you spreading beauty as far and wide as possible? Pick two from this random list, or add two of your own. But do them. Two of them. At least.

Doom only spells doom if we let it. We should throw parties in the coming year and go dancing. We should also sit longer spells in meditation and at our altars. We should make it into a wild space at least once, and support those who are defending the last of our wild spaces. We should feed strangers. We should get as physically and mentally healthy as we can.

Have what you need and need what you have. A cold wind may blow, but we can keep each other warm.

And this one from Ayn Rand:

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration of the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, and it is yours!

I'm reminded of the silly song we sang as children: This little light of mine/I'm gonna let it shine/Let it shine all the time/Way beyond the blue.

Be strong. Keep your light shining. Rejoice with those around you. Manifest the world you desire.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:37 AM | Comments (1)

This was too good not to blog.

A couple of days ago I needed to burn some paper. In a witchy way, not in the prevent-identity-theft sort of way. Now that I have a back deck this is much less likely to incur the wrath of the fire department by setting off the alarms. So I pulled out the trusted tool I've used for doing petition spells and anything else in which I needed to burn something: my Calphalon stainless stir fry pan.

After all this time I still haven't bought a proper cauldron, so the stir fry pan has been pressed into service on a number of occasions. I was always taught that the intention is more important than the trappings. And it worked, didn't it? Could it be that this is the modern witch's cauldron?

I wonder what Calphalon would have to say.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 9:53 AM | Comments (2)

The last week has been pretty crazy for me - story of my life these days it seems. I got a new computer and have been working to get it set up and files transferred from the old computer, etc. etc. I did make it to our community's Yule ritual, led by my teacher Christopher Penczak, which was wonderful, and spent a fun evening in the company of friends. The Full Moon completely slipped my mind. Today I'm off to spend Christmas with some dear friends, the family I chose.

If I have received one message from the many that have been swirling around me these past few days of thinking about what the Solstice means and what the new year holds it is that we, each of us, need to be our own Sun. May your light shine strong and bright.

Blessed Yule and happy holidays!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:11 AM | Comments (3)

Thanks to Luna at Stars For Eyes for sharing this planetary hours calculator.

In my writings about spell crafting I've often mentioned how finding the optimal hour of the day can add extra power to your work. In order to be the most accurate one has to do complicated math, using the sunrise and sunset to determine the twelve "hours" of any given day. This handy online tool does the work for you. As Luna says, it only works for the current day so makes planning ahead difficult, but is still helpful.

From the site, here are a few notes about how to choose an appropriate hour for your planned activities:

Hour of the Sun This hour is good for success with anything, obtaining favors, prosperity, to approach an authority figure, to ask for a job or a raise, for social occasions, to attract business, to speculate, to improve your health

Hour of the Moon
This hour is best for doing things that are likely to change — for things not expected to be final, permanent or binding, good for domestic activities

Hour of Mercury
Choose this hour only when you are mentally clear, capable of being logical and rational (Mercury can be a trickster). That said, this hour is appropriate for communication activities and abstract thinking

Hour of Venus
This hour is good for social calls, parties, asking for favors, buying luxury items, improving appearance, forming partnerships, reconciling after quarrels, mediating disputes, initiating investments

Hour of Mars
good for action and energy, but can be confrontational. Choose this hour with caution unless your feelings are in check and other aspects are favorable

Hour of Jupiter
This is a good hour to choose for just about anything in business or otherwise. There is one caveat: caution is needed in regard to any tendencies to excess or overindulgence.

Hour of Saturn
This is not an easy hour, and it may be a time you notice lagging energy, but it can be very good for plowing through tedious work that needs to be done. Good for organizing, serious thinking or talks, meditation, prudent and practical moves and disciplined work or study.

My teacher Christopher Penczak also has a great discussion of using planetary hours to boost spell work in his book Outer Temple Of Witchcraft: Circles, Spells and Rituals. He also gives detailed instructions for accurately calculating hours yourself.

Here in Boston, at 6:45 pm, we've just entered the hour of Jupiter. I don't feel like doing much business unless you count finding the business end of a nice glass of wine. Perhaps Jupiter's expansive qualities will make it easier for a hearty Cabernet to open up!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 6:31 PM | Comments (1)

On Saturday, December 22 we celebrate Yule and the Winter Solstice. There is a Full Moon in Cancer at on Sunday, December 23. It's a time both for reflection and for celebration as we think about where we've been and look with eager anticipation toward the new Sun and his promise for increasing light and warmth.

Ever since the Sagittarian New Moon on December 9th I have been feeling something building. Messages coming from everywhere are telling me that something big and life changing is about to happen. I had an amazing and extremely informative clairvoyant reading with Jessa, who was recommended to me by my dear friend Slade at Shift Your Spirits. Jenna Avery, in her newsletter The Art of Sensitive Living wrote an insightful and timely article about choosing the three big things that are most important to us in the new year (more on that later). I hadn't had any communication from her in months and suddenly yesterday I receive an email from astrologer Susan Miller that says:

On December 18, Jupiter will make its monumental move into Capricorn, and when it does, Jupiter (gifts and good fortune) will stay in that sign for a little over a year. This is the first time since 1996 that Jupiter has visited Capricorn. This means that you are about to enjoy a shot of new luck in a completely fresh and new area of your life in 2008 - a place you may not have seen much activity in over a decade! (For precisely where Jupiter will visit, check your December forecast for your rising sign and Sun sign.)

There's even more to be excited about! On December 23, we can look forward to the Luckiest Day of the Year when Jupiter and the Sun will meet in conjunction, an annual event that we all always enjoy. Jupiter and the Sun meet at different random dates each year, and in different signs. This year, the Sun and Jupiter will meet in Capricorn. Wow! This is a day you will certainly want to use to advance another of your dearest wishes!

December 23 is ALSO the date of the full moon in Cancer, beautifully aspected, making this year's lucky day even more dramatic, because the full moon will support the Luckiest Day of the Year with lots of good energy.

(Susan has lots more to say for individual signs, so be sure to check out her site, Astrology Zone.)

All of this information has my head spinning. I'm not quite sure how to process it or what to do with it all yet but my intuition is telling me if I can simply immerse myself in this energy and let it take me where it will then everything will change. Everything. And it will be good.

In the days to come I believe that the way will be revealed for me to take my own power into my hands to put everything I need into motion to make this new year full of abundance and happiness. With optimism, enthusiasm, sensitivity, an adventurous spirit, honesty, forthrightness and independence I will nurture faith, love, hope and vision for a new year full of real change. I will be brave enough to face my fears and act in the face of them to honor my true self.

May you find this time to be as inspiring and wondrous as I have. Blessed be.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)

Yesterday I was indulging in a bit of blog wandering - you know that phenomenon where from one blog you click on a link to another from which you discover another, and so on. I discovered two great posts on Yule and the Winter Solstice and liked the blogs so much I added them to my blog roll:

Yule & Solstice Links from Full Circle

Winter Solstice Season Reflections at Celestine Musings

They've given me much food for thought as I contemplate the arrival of the Sun and what a new year holds in store for me. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)

From Cosette at Pandora's Bazaar I learned that you can go to The Golden Compass website to find out who your very own daemon is.

Here's mine:

I would have expected a wolf, but a fox is close! What do you think?

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 11:13 AM | Comments (1)

As anyone who has read my blog for a while may recall, I've developed a thing for finding wines with witchy titles. Remember Les Sorcieres and Aqua Pumpkin? After devouring the books and seeing The Golden Compass last night, my head is full of thoughts of His Dark Materials and heresy=free thought, so I was very amused when I saw this bottle of wine on the shelf of my little neighborhood market: Les Heretiques.

As described by The Wine Buyer:

This special cuvee made by Andre Iche is a blend of Carignan from 70-year-old vines and Syrah. Les Heretiques commemorates the massacre of Minereve in 1208. Inhabited by members of the Cathari religious order, a pacifist Christian, non-conformist group that prospered during the Middle Ages, the destruction in Minereve was only one of the many Crusades led by the Roman Catholic Church, who, calling the Cathari “heretics,” persecuted them in town after town. The Cathars’ story, one of the unquenchable spirit of man, juxtaposed with the inhumanity of man, imparts new significance on Languedoc’s ruined towers and castles, some sitting high and seemingly inaccessible, on mountaintops.

I also found a mention of this wine at Compleat Winegeek (how appropriate this old fashioned spelling is!) that says Les Heretiques has a "cool label designed by Andrew Scott, the J.D. Salinger of the Internet." Never heard of him, but okay.

We're having a snow storm in Boston at the moment and I'm toasty and warm in front of my fire. A friend is coming over for some wine and conversation, so I'll be able to give a report on how free our thinking gets after we finish drinking this bottle!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 7:14 PM | Comments (1)

There is never more proof that magick is all around us than when some entirely trivial and mundane thing triggers an AHA moment. A moment of startling clarity that reveals some kernel of knowledge or inspiration - some truth. This moment needn't be earth-shatteringly profound, but is significant nonetheless.

I have a favorite lipgloss which needs to be replaced. I looked at the tube to find the name of the color so I would know what to ask for when I went to the store because I didn't know what it was. It said: Truth. Wow. For some reason this knocked me over.

Truth as the name for something with which to adorn one's lips. As if by doing so one ensures that nothing but truth shall pass them or as if the application implies an oath of some sort.

Maybe I'm weird but this seemed important to me.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 3:29 PM | Comments (0)

A number of years ago I dated a man who kept copies of an obscure trilogy of children's books in his nightstand. He said that they were magical and spiritual and had changed his life. He offered to loan them to me. I said no thanks. Silly girl.

Here I am all these years later, having discovered my own magickal spirituality, and everyone is talking about His Dark Materials, the very same books my friend found so inspiring, the first of which has been made into the movie The Golden Compass.

Anne Johnson writes about them in her post Banned Books Day!

One of my favorite columnists, Mark Morford, writes that Jesus loves 'His Dark Materials'.

It would seem that the Christian thought police have taken it upon themselves once again to "protect" everyone from the dangerous influence of children's literature. One could spend time pondering why these people find fantasy so threatening - and I'm sure that many have - but it seems to me such a waste of time and energy and brain cells. Instead, I've chosen to think about what it is that makes these books so wondrous, so special that a grown man would keep them near him like another might his Bible. And I intend to find out for myself by reading His Dark Materials as soon as I can get my hands on the books.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:07 AM | Comments (2)