Litha 2014: Counsel, Gluttony & But-less Desire

 Litha 2014: Counsel, Gluttony 

& But-less Desire

My, what a powerful Beltane Season it has been. So much to do, so much fun & so much magick since our Beltane Ritual in the beginning of May, a lot went down that day & since. There are a few hints in my last Beltane Blog.

To start with we flash mobbed our own ceremony at Beltane. We held secret rehearsals, about 30 Women / Maenads & myself. I asked two of our ministers from The Silver Broom Ministries to write the worst ceremony they could, on purpose. They did.  

The circle cast had zero umph (on purpose) the quarter calls were also umphless & in the wrong order (again on purpose) & they scripted the Statement of purpose before Invocations, which is a procedural no-no. Really, it was a masterpiece of faux ca-ca ritual design.

Because I am known as a rather lightning-ish Zeus Archetype, we scripted that I would halt the ceremony, practically terrifying all in attendance, even those in on the joke. I stood up, scolded them, took control, did an invocation to Dionysus then said, HIT IT! 

The music began & Pharrell Williams' Happy blasted from the stereo. We got practically the whole place dancing & really, it was so much fun to watch my people cut loose & dance without inhibition. A few keenly intuitive people figured it out when they saw 2 really skilled ministers doing it all wrong. 

But on the whole, people were shocked, pissed at me, then stunned when they realized it was all a set up when we started dancing in unison. What a pisser! I had to swear to never try & pull that off again. (I had my fingers crossed, you never know what I will cook up for Beltane.)

There are no pictures of the "Happy Ritual" because part of the pact we made was that there would be no physical evidence of us dancing without inhibition.

Then, about 30 minutes later a major part of my Sacred Mother Maple, split off & crashed to the ground. We were all set to trim her down the next day in a sacred way, so she got the job started for us. That was magick in action folks & everyone was a bit astounded by it all. It was certainly a prelude of the many powerful changes & manifestation to come. BTW, no one was near it when it happened & no one was hurt.

That said, we are now at Litha / Summer Solstice & I am personally ready to step into those energies that my coven calls, The Full Moon of the Sun. Litha is the longest day, so it would correspond to Full Moon in the sense that the Sun is at its peak. The God born at Yule has matured & is now a KING, ready to rule & guide us through the dark half of the year.

Here’s the thing that had been puzzling me about Litha though. The Sun God is at his peak, but it is the first day of the Sun moving into the sign of Cancer, a feminine, cardinal, water sign. 

Part of it makes sense, when Summer hits, we do slow down a bit because it just gets so hot for the next 3 months, at least on Long Island. It is the perfect time to literally & figuratively chill out, rest, take vacation & look back upon all that has happened in the last 6 months since Yule. But the Sun, is a King, in the sign of Cancer? That made no sense. So, I asked my Gods about this.

Cancer is the sign where my Hera/Queen - Mother Archetype is placed in my chart. So when She said to me that She joins the King / Zeus in rulership as his Queen, it all clicked into place. This isn’t literal of course, but it does speak to the Anima/Animus balance, or the Yin/Yang, Lunar/Solar, Goddess/God energies within us. 

Though this flash of inspired insight came quickly & was greatly clarifying, it also came with a warning. It is an extremely powerful, creative & very Emotional time. I was reminded of a quote from Abraham-Hicks.

 

“If you were driving your vehicle at 100 miles per hour and you hit a tree, you would experience a very big crash. However, if you were to hit the same tree while your vehicle was traveling at just five miles per hour, the outcome would be considerably different. See the speed of your vehicle like the power of your desire. In other words, the more you want something, or the longer you have been focusing upon your desire, the faster the Energy moves. The tree, in our analogy, represents the resistance, or the contradictory thoughts, that may be present. 

It is not pleasant to run into trees, and it is also not pleasant to hold powerful desires in the midst of great resistance. Some try to remedy the imbalance by slowing down their vehicle. In other words, they deny their desire, or they try to release it, and sometimes, with great effort, they are able to diffuse the power of their desire to some degree, but by far, the better remedy would be to reduce your level of resistance.” Abraham

This means that we have the potential to increase the power of our desire / Fire / Solar energies, but have to keep an eye on our emotions to navigate, avoiding the ‘trees’ as it were, by reducing our resistance to the things we want to be, do & have. Not easy, but doable. It does take practice & since I’m not very good at slowing down in that sense, I am getting better at avoiding the trees through something my guides call ‘But-less’ desire.

It goes like this. So many of us want things, we feel the desire & then we follow it with a big BUT. Like, I’d really love to travel the world, BUT…  I’d really like to eat that chocolate, BUT…  I’d really enjoy having a partner in life, BUT…  You see this is conditioned in us since childhood, let along the thousands of past lives where we learned to but into our desires.

So, I’ve been practicing just holding my desires, fanning the flames as it were without sticking my but in it. I think this is what visualization is about at its core. We visualize the things we want to be, do & have without the resistance of why we can’t have it. We imagine ideal scenes free of resistance, just letting ourselves have the experience of what it would feel like to be, do or have what is wanted, without the rest of the contradictory stuff getting n there.

Then we open our eyes, the logical mind takes over & we wipe our buts all over the energy we just generated via visualization. I see well trained witches do this too. They will spend hours drafting a spell, writing it like a contract, going over every line, gathering the right correspondent magickal carriers, even working with astrological timing for the perfect day & moment to cast.

Then, we start spreading our buts around like it’s last call at the singles bar. Enough of that says Zeus & Hera to me. Just hold the delicious feeling of the desire & watch what happens. This isn’t about faith, or belief. It is about knowing. Know that you came into the world from spirit to create. Know that it’s all just a quantum hologram, an illusion of separation, a dream, an hour upon the stage to strut & hopefully not fret so much.

 

So it is that I encourage you to choose what you think & especially say these next 3 months. Litha corresponds to the 5^th Chakra, the Throat. 

The Grace of the Throat is Counsel, the Shadow Passion is Gluttony. Since the power of the Throat Chakra is Will Power or Choice Power, this makes sense. Will we choose to speak to ourselves & others in a way that calms & soothes, speaking positively & in an uplifting way? Or, will we be gluttons of negativity, chewing on ‘what is,’ or even worse, ‘what was’ rather than 'what could be?’

Thankfully we have a whole season to practice & perfect our choices of empowerment, choosing thoughts words & attitudes that empower us & speed us along, but-less & free of hitting trees. 

Maybe that’s what Mother Maple was trying to say. “I’ll take care of the trees, you just stay happy, because Litha is coming & the heat is going to be turned up, as it always is this time of year."

I really wish you all the very best of the season & that you can keep your but out of your dreams. Do the Cancerian Crab thing, keep your dreams to yourself or share in sacred space with those you trust & enjoy the fresh breath that uncontradicted / but-less desire always brings.

Blessed Be & Blessed Litha!

Rev. Mark A. Lyons, President
Drawing the Circle Productions INC.
DrawingtheCircle@aol.com
631-968-8307 @ProfWitch on Twitter

Magick, Miracles & Mysticism

Many years ago I struggled to find the overlap & connections between the may thought systems & spiritual practices in my life. As long as I looked purely from the physical & intellectual eyes, it confounded me.

Then one day, after a particularly deep meditation, I was shown that there are 3 Levels of Power in all things archetypally. After some research into the work of Caroline Myss, I had one of those coveted Ah-Ha moments & saw that my life & all that I teach can be categorized into Magick. Miracles & Mysticism.

In fact, it showed me there is a teachable bridge from one end to another, mapping the energetics of creativity & healing. So, I began to teach this 13 week series as inspired & have been doing so once or twice a year ever since.

Here is the series outline that I teach. Please comment with any questions you might have:

Magick, Miracles & Mysticism
with Rev. Mark A. Lyons
Admission $30. Reservation Required

Magick, Miracles & Mysticism is a 13 class series exploring a more in-depth look at metaphysics & spirituality.

Class One: 3 Levels of Power - The Basics

Class Two: The Chakras Part 1 – Sanskrit & Sacraments

Class Three: The Chakras Part 2 The Tree of Life & Sabbats

Class Four: Archetypes Part 1 - The Basics & The Survival Family

Class Five: Archetypes Part II - The Feminine & Masculine Families

Class Six:Archetypes Part III - The Divine & Wisdom Families

Class Seven: Archetypes Part IV - The Healer & Creative Families

Class Eight: Archetypes Part V - The Action &The Wild Card Families

Class Nine: Gods & Archetypes

Class Ten: Healing

Class Eleven: Alchemy & Incarnating

Class Twelve: Divine Purpose,The Shamanic Descent & the Dark Night of the Soul

Class Thirteen: Wrap up & Application

Rev. Mark A. Lyons, President
Drawing the Circle Productions INC.
DrawingtheCircle@aol.com
631-968-8307 @ProfWitch on Twitter

Yule, The Fool & The Potion Witch

 Yule, The Fool & The Potion Witch

Last night was the first of 4 Yule ceremonies for me. Yule/Winter Solstice is one of my favorite sabbats, though Beltane is number 1 on my list, of course. But after being in & out of the Underworld since Mabon (See my Mabon – Samhain Blog) Yule is a welcome breath of fresh life.

The Yule ceremony last night was at The Silver Broom Ministries in Sayville. We charged the Yule Spell that I posted last time. It was a lot of fun. I have to say that I did some of my best work on that spell. The rhyme may not be 100% but if you count, each line has 8 syllables, 1 per each sabbat of the Wheel of the Year. I am a Virgo, what can I say?

So having popped up from the Underworld this last time (for now) a few days ago, I can only say that I feel great. I got to chill in the 8^th Chakra for a longer span of time & the inspiration I received was like gold, mined from the depth of the Unconscious Mind. I’m feeling refreshed & eager for the new Solar Year.

The Solar Cycles of our lives have a greater sway on us than we often realize. Just consider the literal seasons. Yule is the first official day of Winter & here on Long Island, NY we get it in full. We take to bundling up, settling in after the rush of the various holidays & returning to some aspects of hibernation.

Yet the Birth energy of Yule urges us to plant the seeds of what we want garnered from the review of the past year. I got my clarity because I took my time feeling out my life. I know what I want more clearly than ever before & my intentions are lined up.

So, with intentions & spells written I am ready to leap into the new. OK, it doesn’t feel like a leap so much as a set of baby steps. But since this sabbat has to do with the Birth of the Sun, we are all like energetic babies, fresh from the womb of our own internal mothering of the past few months. Sure I’m not ready to run out & take the world by the balls. You just don’t send a baby to work day 1 do you?

No, you keep it warm, safe & fed, 3 things, at least, that I’m doing very well with & intending to continue till at least the next sabbat of Imbolc in February. But for now, it’s all about creating my new year with fresh perspective & taking a symbolic leap of faith via small steps. 

The seeds of my personal magick to be done are clear in my mind & having to do with a new Annual Patron, success & expansion. I feel like I am perched on top of a cliff, just one step away from the unknown. That image is very familiar to me. It’s like the card of the Fool in the Tarot.

The Leap awaits with 1 step

The Fool is the Major Arcana card numbered 0, between the last card in the cycle of The World (21) & the first card of the cycle The Magician (1). That’s where I am, between the old & new, poised for the 1 baby step that may cause plummet or flight. That’s the risk isn’t it, fall or fly. 

Thankfully I know what I’m doing & though sometimes we drop a bit, the momentum from the nosedive can be redirected into a meteoric rise. But that’s an everyday thing too isn’t it? The moment our eyes open each morning, we are the Fool ready with 1 step to take the risk of sinking of soaring.

My symbolic seeds are many. For starters, I’m starting January with something I’ve never done before. Every Friday for the foreseeable future I will be doing phone readings. 

 Need a reading?

I always shied away from it as I much prefer the face to face intimacy of a private reading. But I have been doing them for years for out of state clients or for those who couldn’t get to my office in Sayville. 

My guides don’t care about distance, being non-physical & all. So I’m putting it out there. On available Fridays I will spend a good chunk of the day in jammies with a full pot of coffee & read from a comfy spot on my couch or in my extremely cloud-like bed. YAY, I love being Self employed.

I’m also launching a new 13 week series of Witchclass Cycle Three – Gods & Goddesses. 

 This should be fun

Each week I’ll be teaching 3 hour classes diving deep into the Hellenic Greek Gods; their myth, archetypal make up & magick.  The Gods we’ll be working with are: Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Circe, Demeter, Dionysus, Eros, Hades, Harmonia, Hephaestus, Hera, Heracles, Hermes, Hestia, Hygeia, Pan, Persephone, Poseidon & of course Zeus. 

Zeus is my personal patron for this New Year & I’m really looking forward to embodying his power in the clearest, cleanest, best feeling way possible while trying o manage the lightning risk to myself & others.

But for now, I’ve got more Yule Gifts to make. I decided to go the potion route this year. I’m actually a pretty good Potion Witch. I’m no Severus Snape, but I can mix a pretty magickal concoction. Ask anyone I’ve ever made a cocktail for. (See the Shot Spells Blog.) 

 Whatever could they be?

I’m not going to reveal what the actual potions are at the moment, as they are gifts. But you know me, I’ll share them once they have been delivered. But let’s just say they were inspired & some of the more powerful ones I’ve ever made, not to mention very practical. You’ll see, or should I say Yule see!

Until then, I’ve got a lot on my plate. No rest for the Witch… I used to say no rest for the Wiccan, but I’m not technically Wiccan anymore. I’m an Eclectic Witch; hence my exploration & practice of the Greek Gods, A Course in Miracles, The Law of Attraction, Sanskrit Mantras & the Gods only know what else I’m forgetting & coming next down the pike.

I can only say that I’m going to do my best to cultivate Joy, Ease, Flow, Grace & a few other things I have brewing up my sleeve, pardon the mixing of metaphor. But I sense with this high of an energy, this early on that I’ve got a good momentum going. It will be fun to see how it comes together. Regardless, I’m feeling ready, reborn, refreshed & ready to teach, read, heal, counsel & all the other stuff I love to do as a Professional Witch.

 My son Sabastian blissed out in the Vortex

Consider yourself invited to join in on the wild ride that this next solar year can bring. I’ll be doing my best to ride the surf, go downstream, get in the Vortex, live on a high flying disc & do my thing with as much laughter, eagerness & style as I can muster. In this way, the Yule Fire I’ll be lighting will be under my ass, as 2014 is going to be a busy year.

Wishing you all the best of the Season & may the Gods themselves hold you close in their love & guidance.

Blessed Be & Blessed Yule  

Rev. Mark A. Lyons, President
Drawing the Circle Productions INC.
DrawingtheCircle@aol.com
631-968-8307 @ProfWitch on Twitter

Samhain 2013 Via Mabon: Mystic Man

This is sort of a part two about Samhain. Check out my last post, Pre-Samhain 2013, it explains a bit about my journey to where I am now. So before I get to Samhain, I need to pop back to Mabon.

I tried blogging for Mabon/Autumnal Equinox. I had stuff outlined & written. But I just couldn’t go there. Autumnal Equinox is usually a fun time for me. It’s one of my favorite sabbats & I enjoy doing the whole Spiritual Thanksgiving thing. I have learned that Mabon is Spiritual Thanksgiving & have taught that for over a decade. So, yeah, let’s do Mabon, I thought…

BAM,  a trap door to the Underworld opened underneath me. I fell & I fell fast. It happens. As Witches we seek to align ourselves with the cycles of nature… Well, I’ve been in synch with the season for a long, long time. Like it or not, Mabon is ‘The Dying” that leads to Samhain, “The Dead.” Persephone makes her descent & I went with her for about a week. 

 

Hades & Persephone

Mind you, I’m a mystic. Mystical shit has happened through my whole life. I didn’t want to be a mystic. I remember looking it up when I was a kid & I didn’t like what I saw. It was all about suffering for God. PASS! But repulsion is an indication of an archetype in play, or at that age, dormant. I had it, but at 9, it wasn’t essential. It is now.

Mystic/mystical are odd words. The original meaning is practically forgotten. It points to mystery; a mystic is one who endures & lives in mystery. But ask most people what the word means & you end up in Stevie Nicks terrain, which is fine. I love Stevie Nicks. But it illuminates a meaning of something mysterious, hidden. Ultimately a mystic is someone who cultivates an intimate relationship with the Divine. As nice as that sounds, its shadow is Divine Madness & not the Bette Midler kind.

The descent into the Underworld, or the Shamanic Descent, is a part of the Craft we don’t discuss much. So, I’m not going to go into it here either. It’s a long psychological & spiritual story that is told through many spiritual traditions spanning geography & history. It is essentially symbolic death & rebirth. The death is of the old self so the new one can rise, very Phoenix… the Firebird not the city.

While in the underworld I know a few things that can make my stay productive & brief. Ask for help of the Divine, forgive everything, pray, meditate & most of all, lay low. The trick is not to solve the mystery I'm in, but to endure it with grace, which I pray for throughout. In other words, you drop down & have to heal your way back up.

So, I did that & got through it. It took me a week & looking back, it was time. I harvested the wisdom of the experience. Mabon’s symbolic coordinates are the Crown Chakra. It’s sacred Truth, “Live in present time.” Which I find cannot be done without forgiveness, mostly of self. That said, I saw that I was humming along at 100 mph & clipped a tree symbolically speaking. What I learned from it upon my return to the upper world is now golden wisdom alchemized from some real sucky lead.

Now at Samhain I stand at the doorway of next season, the Season of Death & feel somewhat prepared.

Samhain is the 8^th Sabbat & corresponds to the 8^th Chakra, which hovers above the head. It’s been called the Star Center, The Upper Room, The Astral World. Call it what you will, it corresponds rather well with Samhain. The 8^th Chakra is the home of the Archetypes as it manages Symbolic Power. All of our lives are stories & the archetypes are the powers of the soul we can alchemize through life. 

Buff Hades

Halloween is a very archetypal holiday. We wear masks. That’s just ancient shamanic symbolic stuff there, if we do it well. The Slut, a popular costume in a variety of forms, is the Prostitute Archetype. Nurse is the Healer Archetype. The Slutty Nurse is the Healer Prostitute Archetype. How about the Vampire? Yep the Vampire Archetype is very deep in our culture. If you look with Archetypal Vision you’ll see it in what people wear for Halloween & guide you to a more interesting choice.

But that’s Samhain, the veil is thin, we have the ability to see things from a higher perspective, a symbolic perspective. We get to see the roles we play & the stories we are in & of course, change the story. We can do this all year long, but it is easier now. This is why divination & communing with spirits is so much easier. The 8^th Chakra is our power center of the pure non physical.  

Best of all, surpassing the rest, we have the choice to rise up & see the whole of the last year starting at Yule. What did you cast for at Yule? How did it go? Did your intention change & morph as you went as you grew? It usually does, but it depends on what you cast for.

I cast for 4 things: Happy, Healthy, Wealthy & Wise. If you read my Yule Blog from last year, the spell I did & shared with my community is on there. We made like 80 pouches & gave them all away.

Yule Pouches

 

The final harvest is looking back, seeing what you wanted then, seeing how it changed, seeing where you are now & harvesting the wisdom from the story. If you do that, boil it down, you will find your seeds to begin at Yule. You have all of Samhain-tide to do this, until the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn in December. Now is the time to start pulling back, get a little mystical, in the sense of looking at the mysteries of the past year. From there we are in the perfect position to ask the Gods for grace.

So, most Witches know Halloween isn't really Samhain. Halloween is chaos day, full of tricks & treats etc. Samhain is much more solemn & about honoring the Dead & the Ancestors. All of which I will write about after the fact at some point next week & how this all ties together.

But for now, I wish you all the very best of the day. Have fun, stay safe & enjoy the sugar rush. for me, I'll be dressing up & going to our annual Silver Broom Ministries Halloween Party. I'm sure pictures will be included.

Happy Halloween & Blessed Samhain

Rev. Mark A. Lyons, President
Drawing the Circle Productions INC.
DrawingtheCircle@aol.com
631-968-8307 @ProfWitch on Twitter

 www.drawingthecircle.com