When I gave up my path and chose to restart from scratch, I let go of a practice of over fifteen years, roughly ten of which had been epent instructing students both in person and in the on-line world. In The First Cycle, I worked with what was acceptable, teaching a student a certain series of skills, building upon concepts and theories in a steady, structured manner.
As I begin The Second Cycle, I am turning my back on that as well and beginning anew.
Magical spirituality is not something you can ease yourself into. It is a passion that grips you with both hands. It is a path that, no matter how subtle it may seem to the untrained eye, infiltrates every nook and cranny of our lives. Those who are truly drawn to magical spirituality use one word to describe their discovery of the path - "home." This is a path that calls to you, that on some level whispers to your soul and says, "Your search is over - now the journey really begins." Everything about this path, from the way we're called to it to our practice itself, is imbued with spirit. We cannot continue to look at the spiritual as something beyond us that we must be trained to experience, that we are incapable of interacting with without first being taught the skills and techniques to do so.
Either we are intimately a part of spirit now and forever or no amount of magic will ever remove the veil that stands between us and the spiritual realm, regardless of how thin that veil may be.
If this is true, if we are beings of spirit, then each action, each thought, each intent has spiritual implications. To move forward without first defining as specifically as possible the energy we intend to work with and the spirits we wish to attract as teachers, guides, companions and allies is incredibly foolhardy. Before we take a single step on our path, we must define and place exact limitations on the spirits we are willing to have accompany us on our journey. To do otherwise is to place an open call to the spirit world without a filter as to who or what will respond.
Imagine that you were terminally ill and required an extremely delicate surgery in order to survive. You wouldn't simply lay naked on the street corner and announce, "Okay! I need open heart surgery. Someone come and cut me open!" You would seek out an individual or individuals with specific qualifications exactly suited to your needs. An obstetrician may be doctor, but they aren't going to do you any good. You need a cardiac surgeon. Only the qualities that person possesses will help you continue on your journey.
The same concept holds true with spirituality.
Think of the path that lays ahead of you. You don't need to know what you want to study, or even what type of spirituality you wish to embrace. Wiccan, witch, druid - it's unimportant. What you need to do is look at the spiritual path ahead of you as a journey of self-discovery, personal growth and spiritual evolution. Who are you now? Who do you wish to become? When you think of yourself near the end of this lifetime's journey, who do you picture? What kind of person are you? What have you accomplished in life? What kinds of traits do people use to describe you? What kinds of traits do you use to describe yourself?
If you can't answer these questions, then you aren't ready to begin a magical path. A spiritual one? Perhaps. Every step in our lives is spiritual, whether we recognize it as such or not. But where magic is concerned, you are submerging yourself into the very weave of reality. What may seem like an insignificant action, thought or intent to you may have a world of consequences, either immediately or in the years to come.
If you can answer the questions above, ask yourself, "What kind of spirits would help me accomplish these things? Which would make good companions? Allies? Teachers?" Do you respond best to a teacher who presents positive feedback? Do you need to surround yourself with a certain type of individual to be at your best? These traits are those that will define the spirits you should ask to accompany you on your journey. These traits are those that your goddesses and gods should exhibit and manifest. Nothing else is acceptable to you or your path.
When you know the type of spirits that you wish to work with, close your eyes and describe them, either out loud or in your head. Ask those beings in the spirit world with the traits you've specified to come and aid you on your path, to accompany you, and to teach and encourage you as you proceed in your spiritual and personal growth. In the same breath, announce that these are the only spirits that you are willing to allow to have an active role in your life and that you sever all bonds that may exist to any others and bind them from interfering in your path.
After fifteen years of working with whatever spirit I came across, I had a haphazard collection of benevolent spirits attached to my energy. Spirits do that. It's a complex process that I'll describe in another article but it doesn't matter if you're Christian or pagan, atheist or something else. The farther you progress along your path, the more locked in you'll become to the energy you attract. As the years passed, the lack of definition and focus in working with the spirit world began to take it's toll. A lack of focus and intention began to seep into my own life, mirroring the lack of focus and definition that existed in my workings with the spirit world. Breaking that mold and the patterns it created in my life was extremely difficult, but that was the easy part. Severing the bonds with the spirit world in order to begin fresh almost killed me.
You will notice there is no ritual associated with this action, just a simple process of closing your eyes and announcing your intention to the spirit world. That's all it takes. We're part of the spirit world, you and I. All things are. We don't need to do anything intense or involved to get our message across. We simply need to put it out there.
Don't be surprised if you become physically ill after doing this. Our bodies often manifest spiritual matters through our physical body. Any change, even a good one, involves disruption of what was happening when we made the change. When this dis-ease manifests in our body, it typically expresses itself as illness. Should you become ill (or the disruption of the change expresses itself in your life in a different way) simply restate the qualities you'll accept in the spirit realm and continue to deny any other spirits from interacting with you. Do this at least once a day until the period of disruption passes. You'll be amazed at how light and free you feel once you're on the other side.
Conversely, you may discover that once you do this, a reoccurring illness or constant source of stress may disappear from your life. Depending on where you are on your path, you may already be experiencing the disruption of shifting from unfocused energy to energy of your choosing. Where spirituality is concerned - especially magical spirituality - our lives and paths will often begin to manifest changes before we're consciously aware of the process. If this is the case for you, you may simply be completing a process that began below your level of conscious awareness.
Remember that spirituality is a process of personal evolution. You've asked for specific help to grow from one point in your life to another. That help will come, but you will need to take the steps necessary to begin that journey. We'll talk about tools and techniques to accomplish this, but for now, all that matters is that you try. Especially at the beginning, allow yourself the room to stumble and fall. There are no failures in life - only opportunities to learn and grow.
Pagan spirituality is a little different from any other path you may ever choose to walk. Through our rites, traditions, and magic, we submerge ourselves deeply into both the spirit world and the flow of energy that composes the weave of reality. Everything we do has implications and the more we become aware of the spirit realm, the more we will attract spirits and deities to us. This process has a cyclical effect. Our paths attract specific spirits based upon the energy we give out and attract. These spirits influence our paths and further refine the energy we give out and attract. This newly refined energy attracts specific spirits. These new spirits influence our paths further. The cycle repeats again and again.
If we allow this process to happen haphazardly, we will most likely still grow. Like attracts like and the positive energy we put out into the weave of reality attracts positive energy and draws it back to us, aiding in our growth. However, without control over the process, we begin to lose focus. This can have subtle results - or more negative results - depending on how far the entire process goes. It's imperative that we place filters on the energy we are willing to work with at the very beginning of our paths and take control of the direction we wish to grow on a spiritual level.
However, there is a flip side to this coin. By only allowing those spirits we specify to work with us, we attract a wonderful collection of friends, teachers and mentors, both in the spirit world and in physical day to day life. Even those of us who consider ourselves mortals are part of spirit. When you put out the call, it is heard on all levels of reality. You'll find that the response is heard in your daily life, in your dreams, and in your inner magical workings. Those that respond are ideal individuals to accompany us in our journeys, perfectly suited to help us grow in the ways we wish to grow, reach the goals we're striving for, and will aid us in our quest to become the person we've always dreamt we could be.