Seventh Lunation: Waxing Moon Cycle
Days 1–15
Day of Silence
While you observe your day of silence, take time sporadically to focus on a part of your body that feels “neutral.” It could be your hair, your elbow, or any part that has a neutral sensation to you. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. While you exhale, imagine that this neutral energy begins to spread throughout your whole body and mind from head to toe. Once you feel this energy wash over you completely, open your eyes and continue through your day. Journal at the end of the day:
• Was there a difference between my “usual self” before the visualization and how I felt after the visualization? In what way?
• Did any perceived change in my body and mind affect how I engaged with people and situations? In what way?
Reactive Karmic Clean-Up:
Accept Responsibility
Magical Purpose: Learning more steps to act with less harmful impact.
“What?” you may ask. “You want me to accept responsibility? But she did it!” That may be true, but she would not have done it without some interaction, some relationship, no matter how passing, with you. In this stage of reactive karmic clean-up, it is important to recognize your part in how things turn out. Of course, you’re not in charge of planetary rotation. But what you are in charge of is your response to the unfolding of life. That means it is important to be mindful of the following:
• What it is you say.
• Whether you react or respond.
• If you act based on your personal needs/concerns, or if you act based on the requirements of the moment.
What you say: Words have meaning. They can and do change the course of events. All words that fall from your lips have an effect on others. Therefore, be mindful of the words you use when cleaning up any karmic result. Speak as the voice of nature. Remember that your karma is nothing new. Many other people have been there too.
Reacting versus Responding: A reaction is action arising from emotion. A response is action arising from thoughtful, intentional reflection. Reacting starts with fear, anxiety, sadness, anger, and frustration. Responding starts with healthy detachment and factual analysis. Before you take action to resolve your karma, check that you are responding, not reacting. Reacting will only compound the problem, and it demonstrates that you have not accepted any form of responsibility for your actions.
Action Based on Needs: I’ve discussed this in other sections of this lesson on karma, but it bears repeating. You should be mindful of the needs in the moment and respond to them, rather than base your actions on your habit behaviors and conditioned responses. That does not mean you should neglect your needs. But you must keep in mind that it was some past action that led to the ripening of undesirable karma in the first place. A karma-neutral approach to cleaning up situations starts with recognizing what the moment requires, and it results in you noticing, “This needs doing.”
Today, take these three tenets into account as you act throughout your day. Journal about the response you get at the end of the day.
A Word to the Wise: “Good intent” and “good deeds” contribute to the accruing of positive future results. These then lead to a future with far less difficulty, strife, or suffering than is necessary. The reverse is true as well, with “negative” or “bad” intentions and actions contributing to future difficulties. And as we learned earlier in this book, those difficulties radiate throughout the world, affecting not only you, but others around you as well.
Let me break this down a bit further to clarify the meaning of “good” and “bad” in Wiccan terms, especially since these words tend to be loaded with emotional meaning that connects to many readers’ religious or moral upbringings and to feelings of judgment, harshness, and rigid rules.
In Wiccan terms, the energy involved in karma itself caries no inherent “goodness” or “badness” to it. It is neutral. But like electricity, karmic energy not handled properly can create pain, distress, or worse. Therefore, it is the form of action you take that ultimately results in particular outcomes. For Witches, “good” deeds are ones that take into consideration a wide view of life and that aim toward the affirmation of all existence. Less skilled actions are those that arise from a narrowed and constricted view, or habitual response, and they aim toward purely personal ends.
To take proactive steps in maintaining “cleaner” karma and to live a more fulfilled existence, it is important to detach from the notion that “it’s all about me.” Proactive karma control is all about living your life as an agent of this unknowable, impersonal, and never-ending flow of energy that manifests as just this moment.
Proactive Karmic Clean-Up: Steer Clear
What you’ll need:
• A small bottle of your favorite essential oil
One of the most intelligent things you can do is to reduce the time you spend engaging with events, people, and situations that can start the negative karmic ball rolling.
In steering clear, there are two main activities:
• Watchful Magical Eyes: In proactive karmic clean-up, it is important to be watchful of any of the behaviors you know can result
in unfavorable karma. Always ask yourself moment by moment, “What can I control here?” The answer is always the same: your response to the moment.
• Making Conscious Choices: Making conscious choices is a moment-by-moment activity requiring your absolute attention: attention to detail, to your words, to the situation itself, to the people involved. Once you address your inner responses to people and events, then changing the course of action you take is possible.
Over the next days, try the following magical action. Focus your attention so that you are able to make conscious choices that are either neutral or beneficial to each situation. Immediately after making a constructive choice, take out your bottle of essential oil and dab a little at your wrists. Lift your wrists and inhale deeply. Make up your own prayer to your patron god or goddess for strength, or recite the following, based on an ancient Egyptian prayer to Isis for creating change:
Awake, awake, awake!
Awake in peace, O Mighty One,
Ancient and beloved,
Arise thou in peace and beauty.
Arise thou in life!
Arise on the earth and in the skies;
O Mighty One, beloved of Osiris,
Goddess of many names, standing at the scales,
Arise in me with thy peace and serenity.
Living by Sacred Vow
Magical Purpose: Developing sacred intent.
What you’ll need:
• Paper
• Pen/pencil
• Your circle-casting tools, including thurible and self-igniting coals
• Abramelin Incense and Oil
You have already been establishing a spiritual rapport with patron deities over the past months. At this point in a Witch’s training, it is not uncommon to take up a vow that honors the preferred direction of your own life, and then live by it.
Living by personal vow means living your life with a sense of intention. By living in this way, each moment of your life is infused with spiritual energy. In fact, Witches who live their lives by their personal vow discover that over time they rely less on specific magical workings in order to create change in accord with their will. There is a kind of purity that pervades your life when living in this way that is much like a clean-burning flame. When you live with the guiding focus of personal vow, the great way (which is none other than life itself) opens up.
To start this practice, first identify what is inspiring and meaningful to you. One way of getting to this material is to imagine your own death. When someone dies, all that remains is whatever it is the person stood for. For a moment, reflect on someone who has died whose life you admired. Isn’t what the person stood for what was most important? So it should be for you.
Whatever it is that arises through this practice represents the core material for creating your vow. When engaging in this practice, know that a sacred vow, a guiding principle, is not any of the following:
• Specific outcomes, goals, or end points
(e.g., “I want to win an Academy Award.”)
• Something in the future (e.g., “In the next ten days, …”)
• Specific feelings (e.g., “I want to feel happy finally.”)
The point of this practice is to determine what you want the life you’re living to really be about right in this moment. Therefore, a sacred vow involves action you can take right now.
Begin by casting a magic circle. Then ignite a coal in your thurible, and sprinkle some of the Abramelin Incense on the hot coal. Breathe in the fumes. Anoint yourself with Abramelin Oil in the First Degree sigil. Start just below the navel, then anoint the left breast, the right breast, and back to just below the navel. Take up your athame and wand and lie in the center of the circle with your tools crossed in the Osiris position, across your chest.
Close your eyes and imagine your own funeral. Take your time to imagine the scene. Who is there? Imagine now that someone stands up to say something about your life. The person says something about you because your current karmic issues (your old habit patterns of behavior, thought, and speech) dominated your life or even grew over the course of your living. Imagine the person saying something about this unsavory life outcome. Listen carefully, then write down everything you heard. Take a moment to elaborate on what you heard. Are there other outcomes that might trouble you if things keep going the way they are right now?
Once you have done this, draw a line across the page, dividing it in half.
Now close your eyes and reimagine your funeral, but this time, when someone stands up to speak, the eulogy is about the life you lived in accord with what was most valuable to you. Imagine the person talking about what you would have wanted most to manifest in your life. After you hear what the person says, open your eyes and write this down on the second half of the page.
What you have written about in this second eulogy is what you value most. This is the raw material from which you can fashion your vow. Distill and refine what you understood into a single sentence, naming what it is you most value. To help, you could draw your own tombstone, and since there is little space on this, you have to sum up what was most valuable with brevity: “Here lies Fiona. She loved her pets with all her heart.” “Here lies Craig. He lived as freely as a bird.”
A Word to the Wise: What you find valuable, meaningful, and inspiring may change over time. You’ll know what is really valuable to you (as opposed to seemingly valuable) when you are motivated to put your body into action over it. Also, before you settle on something valuable to follow, evaluate the likelihood of each thing you find valuable by rating each one on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most likely and one being the least likely that you would find the value inspiring and meaningful across your lifetime.
Once you have discovered what you find valuable right now, take time to journal. Ask yourself:
• Is what I find valuable a surprise to me? Why?
• How long have I known or sensed what was valuable/important to me?
• What has impeded me from pursuing a life based on what holds value for me?
Crafting the Sacred Vow
Magical Purpose: Learn a technique for empowering your sacred vow.
What you’ll need:
• Abramelin Oil and Incense
• Thurible and self-igniting coals
• Blank paper
• A pencil with an eraser
• All of your colored inks
• A quill pen
Light the Abramelin Incense in your thurible and carry it around the room in which you’ll be working. Anoint yourself with Abramelin Oil, making the First Degree symbol: touching solar plexus first, then left breast, right breast, and solar plexus.
On your blank piece of paper, write down the sacred vow you intend to evoke in your life, based on what is most valuable to you.
Find which elemental energy aligns with your vow. You can use the following guide or your own intuition to help you determine the elemental energy that guides this vow:
Air: Vow is guided by…
Thoughts, ideas, communication, speaking, planning, teaching, divination, higher learning, study, information, writing, opinions, data, knowledge, etc.
Fire: Vow is guided by…
Power, energy, drive, will, motivation, initiative, courage, strength, physical activity, physical drives, passion, sexuality, force, commitment, focus, intention, vitality, progress, health, etc.
Water: Vow is guided by…
Dreams, visions, fantasy, love, emotions, gentility, compassion, joy, empathy, devotion, aspirations, flow, tides, currents, etc.
Earth: Vow is guided by…
Matter, foundation, sensuality, the five senses, luxury, money, fine things, sensibility, fortune, luck, groundedness, the dead, stability, even-tempered, anchoring, weight, inner strength, silence, etc.
Spirit: Vow is guided by…
Intuition, wisdom, spiritual enlightenment, insight, vision, unity, belonging, wholeness, goodness, cosmic harmony, healing, spirits, the universe.
Once you have a sense of the elemental force governing your vow, use your pencil to create a pentacle, like those from the Key of Solomon, that incorporates traditional imagery, symbols, God and Goddess names, and other things that are associated with the elemental power.
Once you have this, on a second piece of paper, use your colored ink to draw the image more permanently: yellow for air, red for fire, blue for water, green for earth, and purple or black for spirit.
After you are done, extinguish the incense and store the inked symbol (perhaps in a plastic page protector) for later use.
Aligning Your Vows to the Directions
Magical Purpose: Connecting your daily sacred vow to the five elements.
What you’ll need:
• Abramelin Oil and Incense
• Thurible and self-igniting coal
• Paper
• Pen
Light the Abramelin Incense in your thurible and take it around your room, starting and ending in the east. Anoint yourself with Abramelin Oil in the sign of the First Degree.
Although your vow may align specifically with one element, it takes all five elements within a day to express the vow. Looking at the elemental guidelines given here, create five statements that represent concrete actions you can take each day as manifestations of the vow, based on each of the elemental energies.
For example, if I crafted a vow such as “I will promote harmony,” I would then look at each of the elemental energies (in the descriptions that follow) and see how I might act on/manifest this vow. For air, I might write a statement such as, “I will speak in ways that promote harmony.” For fire, I might say, “I will live in harmony with my sexual drive.” For water, I might write, “I will promote inner harmony with my emotions.” For earth, I could say, “I will promote harmony with how I spend money.” For spirit, I might write, “I will take action based on my understanding of the wholeness of each situation.”
Come up with your own ways of manifesting your sacred vow that make sense to you, for your life. You will use these five statements in tomorrow’s ceremony.
Air: Vow is guided by…
Thoughts, ideas, communication, speaking, planning, teaching, divination, higher learning, study, information, writing, opinions, data, knowledge, education, intelligence, judgment, know-how, dexterity, ingenuity, belief, etc.
Fire: Vow is guided by…
Power, energy, drive, will, motivation, initiative, courage, strength, physical activity, physical drives, passion, sexuality, force, commitment, focus, intention, vitality, progress, health, fortitude, ego, pride, humor, confidence, etc.
Water: Vow is guided by…
Dreams, visions, fantasy, love, emotions, gentility, compassion, joy, empathy, devotion, aspirations, flow, tides, currents, gratitude, adaptability, flexibility, imagination, grace, humanity, kindness, charity, etc.
Earth: Vow is guided by…
Matter, foundation, sensuality, the five senses, luxury, money, fine things, sensibility, fortune, luck, groundedness, the dead, stability, even-tempered, anchoring, weight, inner strength, silence, etc.
Spirit: Vow is guided by…
Intuition, wisdom, spiritual enlightenment, insight, vision, unity, belonging, wholeness, goodness, cosmic harmony, healing, spirits, clarity, simplicity, balance, affirmation, vastness, all-encompassing, the universe.
At the end of the exercise, draw a pentagram and place the guiding words for each element at the corresponding points on the pentagram (see illustration in days 10–11 of the ninth lunation for more information about the elemental points of the pentagram). After this, journal about these questions:
• Have I ever lived my life according to a specific vow or vision? If I did, but have now stopped, why is that?
• What might my life look like if I were to try living by my sacred vow now?
• If I live by my vow, how might my life be different than it is today?
Rituale Quatuor Uota
Magical Purpose: Ceremony for taking the personal vow.
What you’ll need:
• Abramelin Incense and Oil
• Your circle-casting tools, including the white-handled knife
• The pentacle you made symbolizing your vow
• The four statements representing how you will manifest your vow in the four directions
• A pillar candle representing the elemental energy of your vow: yellow for air, red for fire, blue for water, and green for earth
For this working, you will intone the words on the famous Sator Square (see illustration). The Sator spell is one of the earliest examples of a magic square. The oldest of these Sator spells was unearthed during excavations of Pompeii and dates back to the first century CE.12
The words in this magic square are said to have the following meanings:
SATOR—Of Latin origin, meaning “founder.”
AREPO—The origin of this word is unknown, and could represent a proper name. However, it bears similarity to the Latin arrepo, meaning “I creep” (to move forward slowly).
Sator Square
TENET—It is suspected that this word comes from the Latin teneo, which means “to hold”
or “to keep.”
OPERA—Derived from the Latin opus, which means “a work,” perhaps referring to magical works or deeds.
ROTAS—Derived from the Latin rota, which means “wheel.”
The individual words put together do not seem to amount to much or even hold together as a cohesive magical whole. But the Sator spell has held the popular imagination, especially for contemporary magical workers. Witches typically interpret the Sator spell as one they can use for protection. For our purposes, we will be creating protection or fortification around your new vow (although I am certain you can think of other creative ways to use this spell in future workings).
Finally, you will use another known yet likely made-up magical formulation from the ancient world. The three words that make up the spell are all forms of wordplay with the Latin rex, meaning “king.” Thus, in Wiccan magic we are invoking the Horned God in his father or protector aspect. The words are Erex, Arex, and Rymex.13
To begin, before you cast your circle, cover the magical pentacle you just created on days 10–11 with a piece of silk (or any other cloth; however, silk provides a natural psychic barrier). Cast your magic circle, using the Abramelin Incense for all blessings in the circle. Use the Abramelin Oil for consecrating yourself in the names of the Goddess and the God.
Remove the cloth from your pentacle and consecrate the image with fire and air (the incense), then water and earth (sprinkle the image very lightly with your blessed salt/water, taking care not to smudge the image). Take it to the east and draw an invoking air pentagram with this image:
Air-Invoking Pentagram
As you draw the air-invoking pentagram, slowly intone this word:
Sator (pronounced Say-tor)
Go to the south of the circle and use the image to draw a fire-invoking pentagram:
Fire-Invoking Pentagram
As you do so, intone this word:
Arepo (pronounced Are-ay-poh)
Go to the west of the circle and use the image to draw a water-invoking pentagram:
Water-Invoking Pentagram
While you do so, intone:
Tenet (pronounced Ten-et)
Take the image to the north and use it to draw an earth-invoking pentagram:
Earth-Invoking Pentagram
While doing so, intone this name:
Opera (pronounced Oh-pear-ah)
Take the image to the altar, and above the altar pentacle, use the image to draw a spirit-active-invoking pentagram:
Spirit-Active-Invoking Pentagram
While you do so, intone:
Rotas (pronounced Row-tas)
Use the Abramelin Oil to consecrate the outer perimeter of the magical image. Take the magical image to the east, hold it up, and say:
I summon thee up, by the power of air!
Bear witness, Mighty Ones, as I vow
to ________________.
(State your vow as it aligns with the element of air.)
Go to the south, hold the magical image up, and say:
I summon thee up, by the power of fire!
Bear witness, Mighty Ones, as I vow
to ________________.
(State your vow as it aligns with the element of fire.)
Go to the west, hold the magical image up, and say:
I summon thee up, by the power of water!
Bear witness, Mighty Ones, as I vow
to ________________.
(State your vow as it aligns with the element of water.)
Go to the north, hold the magical image up, and say:
I summon thee up, by the power of earth!
Bear witness, Mighty Ones, as I vow
to ________________.
(State your vow as it aligns with the element of earth.)
Go back to the altar and set the pentacle image on the altar pentacle. Hold your hands in the Mother magical pass and say:
I summon thee up, by the power of spirit!
Bear witness, Mighty Ones, as I vow
to ________________.
(State your vow as it aligns with the element of spirit.)
Consecrate your pillar candle with air/fire, then water/earth, and finally smear it with Abramelin Oil. When you are done, light the candle and place it atop the pentacle image you created. Close your eyes and imagine the pentacle glowing with energy. As you do so, say:
Hear me, Mighty Ones, as I take this vow,
Guide my actions day and night,
And bless your holy priest/ess.
Erex, Arex, Rymex!
Arex, Rymex, Erex!
Rymex, Erex, Arex!
Bless ye now what is here begun!
Leave the candle to burn on the image during cakes and wine (keeping an eye on it for safety, of course) in order to continue to magically charge the pentacle.
Following cakes and wine, close the circle. Put the magical pentacle in a place of prominence in your home so you can see it each day as a reminder of living by your sacred vow.
At the end of the rite, take time to journal:
• If I live by my own personal vow, will my life still include the people I have in it today?
• What roadblocks might I anticipate if I were to try living my life by my sacred vow?
• In anticipating roadblocks, what actions might I take to circumvent them?
Full Moon Ceremony
For this lunation, please incorporate the following components into your ceremony:
• The Cabalistic Cross (which you should do before Drawing Down the Moon)
• Use of Supplication Incense and Oil prior to Drawing Down the Moon
• Drawing Down the Moon
• Aspecting the Goddess and speaking her words
• Reading the Charge of the Goddess
• Select a meditation as your main working.
12. See Carlos Pérez-Rubín, Las Ruinas Enterradas de Pompeya y un Antiguo Ejemplar Enigmático de Epigrafía Fortuita Romana [The Sunken Ruins of Pompeii and an Age-Old Enigmatic Specimen of Roman Incidental Epigraphy], Documenta & Instrumenta (2004), 173–192, http://pendientedemigracion.ucm
.es/info/documen/articulos/art_segunda/art_rubin.pdf.
13. Paul Allan Mirecki and Marvin W. Meyer, eds., Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World (Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publications, 2002), p. 121.