The Secrets In Plain Sight!

Some of the most popular ways of putting an end to someone's spiritual life are subtle and sometimes seem downright popular. We're not talking about "biggies" here, such as how some folks claim that someone is somehow following some kind of "devil". Instead, we're talking about something more subtle that can be disguised as proper teaching!

Four techniques are especially infamous. Each has its roots and methods, but most can be traced to greed and the agendas which greed creates.

Here is yet another case in which truth becomes a weapon. Never forget that pure, genuine truth is absolute, regardless of the list of "facts" someone might collect. And with truth, we have the means to transform that into empowerment.

Blessed Be!

We need to say farewell to a friend of ours. I say "ours" because he welcomed you to the podcast every week for a many years. His purr followed Yuengling's bark at the opening of the show. His name is Thor.

He came into our lives by the simple fact that he chose me. He jumped into the car, jumped onto my lap, looked me in the eye and I told him that he has a home. My wife knew him, and knew he had no home. That was July 4, 2001 and he was barely a year old.

He was the perfect combination of friend and familiar. He also had a talent for healing, as I discovered when I was recovering from some rather nasty cancer surgery. It was at that time that the other cats fully realized who he was and made him a family member, not just a tolerated newcomer.

After fourteen years, I'm missing him. But I've found absolute truth in some promises which were made. I tend to be hard on those who insist on waiting for something that's already here, or who ask for something that they already have. And there is a promise.

Blessed Be!

I feel the need to preface my remarks with the assurance that there is no such thing as a "dumb question", except for the one that someone is afraid to ask. That said, there are those questions which reveal how much the person asking needs to learn. This can be scary when the question reveals a substantial gap between what might be needed to do something at all, and what might be necessary to do it successfully and safely.

The Walt Disney cartoon "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" illustrates what I mean, with a flawless performance by Mickey Mouse as the over-ambitious apprentice!

And by looking at the situation, and the context of the original question someone posed, we can see what we need!

Blessed Be!

What can I do? That question is asked in a number of ways. Sometimes, it is an actual question. Sometimes, it is a challenge to be offered an opportunity for action. At other times, it attempts to serve as an excuse for those who want to claim to be weak and powerless. Here, I'll try to offer genuine answers to a serious asking of the question.

I am often criticized as being too political, but the fact is that the political has gotten to the point that it even permeates some of our prayer lives! So, we need to do something. There are indeed those who would mess with our basic civil and human rights, and some will do so in the name of what they think are their own rights.

Can we see where we might find things to do in the face of this?

Blessed Be!

Most of us will agree that ignorance and prejudice have too high a cost. Unfortunately, ignorance and prejudice are so often disguised as knowledge. Worse yet, the ignorant and the prejudiced see themselves as being privy to such "special knowledge" and that their duty is to insure that they impart that "knowledge" to the rest of us.

History is full of examples. They include ethnic groups of people who were said to present a danger to national security, a political candidate who supposedly had a secret tunnel to the world headquarters of his church, and on and on. Most of them sound ridiculous in retrospect, but most of us a probably guilty of falling for at least one of them.

And we need to see how to combat this problem, preferably before it gets tragically out of hand.

Blessed Be!

Can we learn something from archaeology that might stop us from being stupid? I enjoy reading about archaeological discoveries, because there is so much to learn from them! Recently, a very large ancient city was discovered in Turkey - all underground! Not a cave dwelling either, but a well-developed city with all of a city's amenities, including sanitiation according to some reports. We also know that our Roman ancestors enjoyed hot and cold running water and indoor plumbing. So, how did our ancestors in more recent centuries fall off the cleanliness bandwagon?

Quite a lot disappeared when a certain religious order was suppressed. All because of a combination of greed, envy, and gossip? It might be!

If we dig into this stuff, can we learn something? Might we be able to save ourselves from making the same mistakes, perhaps on a larger scale? Wouldn't that be nice?

Blessed Be!

This time of year, we face the annual round of New Year's resolutions, whether we want to or not. Some are made in jest, some are made to get people who can't mind their own business to shut up, but some are real and meant sincerely. The problem with those is the fact that they might be difficult to maintain.

There are some basic principles in making and keeping resolutions, and they are very similar to the principles of Magick which we already know. In fact, they complement each other so well that it using Magick to help them along is logical!

So, how do we bring it off?

Blessed Be!

Look at a calendar that shows all of the celebrations for this time of year, and you'll see that it is quite literally stuffed with holidays. Not only is Yule/ Solstice on the calendar, but so is Christmas, Hanukah, the birthdays of Mithras and Horus, and I can go on and on and on!

That the Solstice might be at the root of all this might be debated, but there is no debate that a mundane/secular event such as the movement of the sun might have spiritual implications, or spiritual results. And why not?

Add to that the meaning of Hanukah and its origins, as well as Kwanza, and there's a pattern of one basic concept which we will do well to remember, as it is one of the cornerstones of our spiritual health, regardless of your spiritual path or denomination.

Blessed Be!

This is the time of year when some people make a point of looking at how blessed they are. And, it makes sense, especially compared to those who seem to concentrate on an apparent lack of blessings. Our only concern about such negative people is that they do not mess with us and what we need to do.

If you look at who gives thanks for blessings and who does not, you might get some insight into not only what's important, but also what can be used to really build yourself something great. And the differences can be amazing!

And wait until you see what it is that you can build with this, beginning with an old saying that maybe didn't register much with you!

Blessed Be!

And now we have the time of the annual greetings controversy. Some folks will make a stink about how someone like a store clerk didn't wish them "Merry Christmas". But then, there are others who will make a stink if someone like a store clerk does wish them "Merry Christmas"! So, what do we do? We can begin by looking at what it is that is being done.

Contrary to the opinion of a few paranoids, what is being done is not an act of evangelism, but a blessing in which someone wishes another the best of a day that is important to them. The only controversy emerges from the fact that many different people celebrate many different holidays this time of year, and Christmas is but one of them.

And if we realize the implications of that little fact, we might be able to find a way to bring people together!

Blessed Be!