The Power of Pink

When I was younger, I rejected the color pink. I loved the color, but I told people I didn’t like it, and I wouldn’t wear it. It wasn’t my favorite color (that’s always been blue), but it was a color with deep emotional connection for me. I was afraid of pink because it meant an open heart, and mine had to be fiercely guarded.

I was a very sensitive and forgiving person. I was extremely loyal—even to people who did not deserve my loyalty. People used my open heart against me, bullying me and ridiculing me when I protested or fought back. They saw my gentleness as weakness, and I did not want to be perceived as weak. So I pushed the soft, gentle, and extremely powerful vibration of the color pink to deep within myself, where it was not exposed outwardly and where I could keep it safe.

It wasn’t until college that I made peace with the color, and decided I was through hiding what I loved and who I was. I discovered I felt powerful and confident when I wore it, and thus began my journey to healing myself and opening my heart again. Pink stopped being a color I associated with weakness. My pink eyeshadow made people look me in the eye and not dismiss me, my hot pink sweater said, "I am here and I'm not sorry." My pink pointe shoes made me feel graceful and invincible. It became a color I identified with strength and power, and I embraced it.

Over the last several months, certain crystals have come to me, all of them corresponding to the heart chakra. Some have been green, like my green aventurine, but overwhelmingly, it’s been raining rose quartz. Rose quartz has been pushing itself on me! I’ve ordered a few pieces, and with each piece, an extra piece has been thrown in as a gift, because “it wanted to come home” to me. Recently, I discovered strawberry quartz, which is like the calming power of rose quartz and the focus and energy of clear quartz. I associate this stone with Radha, because I know she loves strawberries (I always feel like she requests them), and she is the key to understanding true bhakti love.

Rose quartz has the power to gently heal, but it is very powerful for all it’s gentleness. I’ve come through a period of deep and extended healing and introspection, and it’s been just as I’ve had some bigger breakthroughs that this stone has come to me, to remind me that strength and power can be soothing and soft as well as fierce. I’d somehow lost my connection to my deep inner strength, and I feel like I’ve finally found it again. Self-love is the beginning of meaningful change in your life, and the deep, spiritual love that we seek is always, always there. Sometimes you have to be calm and receptive to feel it.

Recently, tensions in the world and in my country have come to a boiling point. Women feel threatened by current events, and the need for love and acceptance is very high. Groups have taken the color pink as a representation of their strength, beauty, fierceness, intelligence, and power. Women have taken a color that has been used socially to represent stereotypically sexist and damaging beliefs about women, and have reclaimed it. As scary as things sometimes seem, I am hopeful in the pervasive love this color vibrates.

“On Wednesdays we wear pink.”
It’s taken a long time for me to feel safe enough to uncover my heart chakra. I wouldn’t say it’s been blocked, but definitely guarded. I’m no longer in that space where I have to guard myself in that way. Heart chakra crystals, especially rose quartz, have been very helpful in allowing me to open myself and remember that I’m a strong, badass, magickal, peaceful warrior woman. Today is Friday, not Wednesday, but who cares. I will wear pink whenever I want now. It is the strength of the Goddess, Sri Radharani, and it opens hearts. <3

Witchy Brews

I don’t know of many witches who don’t love their coffee or tea. It’s like finding a witch who doesn’t like candles—more rare than unicorns. Witches love brews, and I am no exception. The ritual of making a cup of coffee or tea is a little bit of my day where I take a few minutes to just focus on myself and take stock of what my state of being is, relax, get some perspective, or spend some time chatting with a loved one. 

Beverages are an easy way to make magick a part of your daily life. You don’t have to do a whole ritual if you don’t have time or that’s not your thing. You can add a bit of intention and magic to your drink. Done. Now you have and instantly magickal day.

Here, I’ve added some star anise to my Irish tea, and some cinnamon to my latte. I will put cinnamon on anything. I love cinnamon, and cinnamon goes very well in coffee and tea. If you want some added protection to your day, or some luck or prosperity, or you want to heighten your spiritual awareness and power, or you’re focused on love or health, then cinnamon is your spice. This is one of those wonderful things that is good for everything. And I put it in everything.

Star anise has the same benefits, but it has the added benefit of being helpful in fighting viruses. It tastes delicious, kind of like licorice but earthier. 

Of course you could use these spices in many other recipes, or burn them as incense, but if you’re going to make yourself some coffee or tea, why not enchant it? Just pick your spice, focus your intention, add it to your warm cup of awesome, and enjoy!

These are not the only herbs and spices to choose from either. And if you don’t like to mess with your brew, you can just put your intention directly into your black coffee, or tea, or even your water. Another way to do this is to enchant your mugs and glasses! Add whatever sigils to your favorite coffee mug and turn it into your Lucky mug for real!

I took these drinks and stepped it up even more by offering them to my deities with a little snack. That way, they become fully spiritualized, or prasadam. 

Sláinte! (That means "to your health" in Irish Gaelic, and is like saying "Cheers!" There ya go, free Irish lesson 😄 🍀 )

Happy New Year! 2017

I know 2016 was kind of a bitch for most people, and for the world in general. For me personally, it was actually an awesome year. Don't get me wrong— it was difficult. There was a lot of hard-core shadow work and emotional processing and trauma release. That's never fun. The cosmos had it's way with me with all the super moons and Mercury in retrograde. I did feel like an emotional rag-doll at times. But overall, it was a year of growth and discovering personal power for me.

It was also a the year I finally got to Ireland, which has been a LIFELONG endeavor. I don't mean that it was just something I wanted to do my whole life. It was something I actively pursued, fought for, tried everything to make happen for over 10 consecutive years before I finally decided, I'll get there when it's time. Well, 2016 was the time. :)

I've never felt "at home" anywhere. I've felt comfortable in places. Boston was a special place for me, but I had never felt like I actually belonged in any particular place on Earth. That is, until I stepped off the plane in Cork and inhaled that first lung-full of Irish air, and burst into tears of joy! Ireland is home. When I stepped on The Burren for the first time, I fell in love. The Aran Islands greeted me with my spirit animals, Dusty the dolphin and seals. Lots of seals!

My husband and I have decided that Ireland is home, and we are moving there. It will take a little time, but we're on our way. 2016 gave us that insight.

I also decided to get serious again about my health, specifically my weight. I put on a lot of it in 2016. I discovered intermittent fasting, and found that I really like what it does for me. Incorporating that with going back to being conscious about what I eat and how much has already resulted in several dropped pounds, which is very encouraging.

My magickal practice got stronger. Raven really spoke to me. And toward the end, so did Roadrunner and Coyote.

I ended the year swimming with dolphins! Which opened up a potential opportunity for me that I don't want to write about here—not yet.

So what are my goals for 2017? The tarot reading I did told me that this year will be lots of hard work, sometimes slogging it out, but that it will be so worth it. So, for my personal business, that's what I'm doing! I'm also pursuing other opportunities that may bring me prosperity and joy.

I'm continuing on my fitness/weight-loss journey, and when I mess up, I just get right back on it. So, I'll have a whole new wardrobe to look forward to!

Visiting Ireland might be a possibility again this summer, depending. Even if only for a week. I have a Faerie Queen to go back and visit!

I hope anyone who reads this has a beautiful year ahead of them!

Magick with a K!

Some people spell magic as magick. I think this is cool. There are various reasons why people do this, and I also have my own.

So, I guess it started with Aleister Crowley using "magick" to distinguish between magic that is real and practical vs. magic that is, I guess, theoretical or "fake." I've heard other people use magick to mean the craft that is performed vs. magic that Hollywood puts out. (Side note: I've been a video editor for years, so I have great respect for "Hollywood magic" and editing in general, because I know there is real magic there!)

Why do I use magick with a K? Well, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, but there are basically two reasons.

The first reason is that I just think it looks cooler. I think it adds that little extra touch, brings the word out of Muggle territory and into the realm of something that is actually powerful and real. It looks arcane and makes me feel nice and witchy, and I see nothing wrong with that!

The second reason is that the K just makes me think of Krishna. I want Krishna to be a part of every aspect of my life, my magickal practice included. I think it makes my personal practice very strong. It's just a little, tiny reminder, and something that probably would't apply to most other witches, but for me, it's special.

Self Love Stories: My Journey with Self Love

This post is in response to Kelly-Ann Maddox’s #SelfLoveStories. Here is her video if you want to know more.

My journey with self love, like most people's, has been full of ups and downs. Overall, I believe my ability to love myself was very strong throughout my life, or I never would have made it through childhood and adolescence. I just know that somewhere when I was a child, somebody told me that I deserved to be loved and that I could be anything I wanted to be. I believed those things, and took them to heart, so when people tried to tell me I couldn’t do something because of “X,” my immediate reaction was, “well, clearly they don’t know what they’re talking about,” and I could easily dismiss the haters and naysayers.

This got more and more difficult as I got older. I had a reaction to asthma medicine when I was 8, which made me gain a lot of weight overnight. Combined with my standard American diet, I became obese. The bullying and lack of family support to help me get healthy led to emotional eating. Eventually, I lost most of the weight and was no longer obese, just overweight, but I was still an emotional eater. And I still secretly hated myself for the way I looked and felt.

Loving yourself gets hard when the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally - your parents - don’t. I really struggled to keep loving myself, even when I was hating so many things about myself. I was called a selfish bitch on a daily basis for trying to take responsibility of myself and putting me first. I was raised to believe that my only worth was to sacrifice everything I was and loved for others, and I was rejecting that paradigm. I was struggling to love myself and at the same time being told that I was a hateful person who didn’t deserve it.

You can’t help others if you can’t take care of yourself, and anyone who would demand that of you needs way more help than you can give them. They also need self love.

The biggest tip I have for self love is to break away from people who make you feel like you don’t deserve it. This can be very difficult, but it is the most important. You may have to completely disassociate with family, leave friends behind, and find new people to be around like I did. It was the best decision.

The next thing, is to realize that you do deserve unconditional love — FROM YOURSELF! You will rarely get it from others, but you can get it from yourself. This may take a long time to accomplish, but it’s worth the effort.

I’m still struggling with my weight, and have lost and gained several times. I got to my goal weight, but still hadn’t addressed emotional eating, so I gained it back and then more, despite being incredibly athletic and eating healthy foods. But I didn’t give up on myself. I love myself so I’m committed to being healthy and happy. I already knew the ways that didn’t work for me, so I kept looking for ways to help me understand my body and how to care for it.

I have also done some serious shadow work, which is ongoing. In order to love myself unconditionally, I have to look at the ugly parts and the things that I hate and address them. It can be messy sometimes, but mostly it’s a relief. Now, those little shadows of myself aren’t manifesting as a false sense of hunger.

It has taken a long time to get to where I can love myself even though I’m not satisfied with how I look or feel right now. I think this is an important distinction that isn’t really addressed enough. I’m not happy with everything about myself, but I love myself anyway, and don’t hate the parts that aren’t perfect. That’s the key element. Loving yourself means accepting all parts of who you are, but you still have room to grow and change.

I’m still hungry for life and health and magic and love. And then I feed myself with it! I wish the same for you!

Power and Control in Spellcraft

One of the underlying concepts of spell work in witchcraft is that you have some ability to control yourself or the forces around you to achieve some desired result.

One of the most important lessons in the Bhagavad-Gita is that individual souls — jivas — have limited power, and are not the Supreme Controller. However, most souls in the material world are trying to be supreme controllers.

So, how do I reconcile seemingly contradictory ideas into one practice?

First, I’ll start off by saying that I am completely, fully aware that I am not the Supreme Controller. When I was younger, I exhausted myself trying to control and change my situation, and finally drove myself to the point where I had no choice but to surrender. I could not control everything, I had very limited control. My control was limited mostly to how I reacted to things that are outside of my control.  I also finally realized that surrender is not the same as defeat, but the beginning of true victory. This realization was the start of my deeper spiritual practice. It was during this time that the desire to know who my deities were became the central focus of my spell work and meditations.

Now, I know clearly that Sri Krishna is the Supreme Controller of the Universe. So, where does that leave me and spell craft? How can I cast spells if I’m not in control?

Well, I was never in control before (just under the illusion of it), and it didn’t stop me from casting successful spells, so being “in control” is actually not a requirement for successful spell work. But not being in control does not mean I am powerless. In fact, I understand who really is in control, and that knowledge is very powerful.

I do have influence and control over myself and my mind. Through meditation, chanting, and listening, I know that my thoughts and choices and reactions are within my sphere of control. I believe the Law of Attraction is a real thing, because I’ve lived it. The difference with me and another practitioner of the Law of Attraction is that I understand that Krishna is the source of all things, so instead of putting my desires to the Universe, I go directly to the source. I ask Sri Sri Radha Krishna directly to help me achieve what I want to achieve. My spell work is largely prayer, with offerings of objects, food, candles, and most importantly, my intentions and love.

My relationship to God is one of surrender, but I’m also taking responsibility and action in that relationship. I don’t just ask for something and sit around until it happens. I put forth my energy and work with Them. And if something does not work out the way I wanted it to, then I’ve learned to not be upset about it, but instead to be thankful. I trust that Sri Sri Radha Krishna have my very best interest at heart, and since they have perfect knowledge and I don’t, if I ask for something and don’t get it, I trust that the thing I asked for was not in my best interest, and that there’s something better instead.

Getting to this place has taken a lot of spiritual growth and maturity, because the tendency is to pout or throw a tantrum when we don’t get what we want, especially when we’ve done a lot of work to get it. But understanding what my power is, and where that power comes from really helps me keep my perspective, and forces me to deeper levels of surrender. In this way, I can better work in harmony with God, and not try to resist the larger workings of the Universe.

Getting Back to my Roots: Tarot

I got my first tarot deck when I was 13.  It was the Dragon Tarot, still one of my most beloved decks.

Over the last several months, I've received guidance through lots of meditation to get back into serious study of Tarot. I've never given it up, but I was using oracle decks more and hadn't really pushed my abilities or gone deeper into tarot.

For my birthday, I bought myself the Mermaid Tarot deck, and fell in love with its whimsy. I also bought myself a copy of Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, which is an incredible resource. My husband also got me a tarot deck for my birthday, the Haindl Tarot. This is a serious deck and I haven't let it leave my side since I got it. Not only does it have Radha and Krishna in it, but it also has Brigid, and other Nordic, Celtic, Hindu, and Native American deities and imagery.  Also, the High Priestess card has seals. Seals are my spirit animal and always signify to me that I'm on the right path.

I made a tarot journal specifically for my studies. Not sure where I got the idea to have a dedicated journal for tarot, but it's been nice to keep all my notes in one place.