Dating & the Single Witch

It is no secret that I enjoy my personal time. As a Professional Witch, I don’t get much of it. My schedule is so packed with work, both internal & external. The pursuit of happiness is daily & relies heavily on my spiritual practice & on the whole, I am very happy with the way my life is, as is. My coven is strong & healthy. My company is steadily growing & the Silver Broom Ministries is holding its own, getting better with each passing Moon Cycle.

Yet, the idea of Love, at least in the romantic/sexual sense has always been… tricky for me. Dating in particular has always been a tightrope walk, especially since I came out as a Witch. I have always been a Witch, even before I knew what name to call what I am. Recently I have faced a great deal of contrast on the subject.

With all of this internet connecting going on, where a person sees a picture & reads a brief profile, it’s never been so easy to meet someone in absentia. But the processes of ‘getting to know you’ cue Anna (musical theatre reference) those beginning questions are always a litmus test when perspective suitors ask me even the most basic questions.

“What do you do for a living?” Oh really? Do I have to answer this right now? Don’t you want to know how big my… ‘bishop’ is first? Most do. The temptation to lie outright is strong, but that’s not who I am. How easy it is to say, I am a teacher, which is true, just not the whole truth. Like it or not, Professional Witch is the truthful answer & I have come to consider that answer ‘asshole repellant.’ Those who can’t handle it, thinking I eat babies & worship Satan run, run as fast as they can (You can’t catch me I’m the muggle/once born man.)

That I don’t mind so much, as I said, ‘asshole repellant.’ If they can’t handle the Witch thing well, how are they ever going to handle everything in my life that comes with it? But what’s worse are those who find it so very… interesting. 

“No, I won’t cast a spell on you,” I have replied so many times. Mind you, I said won’t not can’t. (BTW, you just gave me permission to do so.) No, I don’t fly on a broom; the most air I have ever gotten is about 3 feet off the ground. But I can summon a storm with one. Not exactly good 1^st date conversation. Let’s not get into how many times I’ve been asked if they can come to an orgy that I surely must lead at Full Moon. Not that we’re not a decent looking group but, no, we don’t practice skyclad & orgies… not my thing. I am a Virgo, remember.

But, I recently started dating a Capricorn named Ken. I call him Capriken, in my head at least. He’s really beautiful, like, devastatingly beautiful. Blue eyes I could scry in & a body… well, let’s just say, he’s a work of art. But being a Cap, he’s also a piece of work. How we met is a saga in itself & too private to share here. But when we did meet, it was like lightning struck. The connection was undeniable, though we both try very hard to deny it. He was OK with the Witch thing at first, or so I thought.

The first date had its usual common Witch comments from him. But they were shared in playfulness, which is fine. I don’t take myself that seriously, which is one of my hardest won powers. Nor do I take anything that personally, thank you Don Miguel Ruiz. But by the 2^nd date, when he saw where I live & how I live, it must have hit home. I live in a Witch’s cottage on the water & there are altars all over the place. He didn’t run screaming from my home. In fact, the date was good, up until the very end. As we were sitting in his car after dinner (Taco Bell, a man after my own fart) he said something that I knew, but for some reason lanced through my gut.

“You know, when you tell people you are Witch, they think you are crazy.” No shit, really? Have you met my family? No, you haven’t. What he meant was, when you told ME you were a Witch, I thought you were crazy. That was our last date & by that I mean the last time we saw each other face to face. He has kept in touch but, being a Cap, who knows if it is his schedule or his fear that keeps him from ‘doing dinner’ again.

Look, I know people think I am crazy when they find out that I ‘think I am a Witch.’ Oh yeah, I think it alright. But I also have the healthy coven, love of friends & prosperity to show at least I am good at it. So I don’t mind if they think I am crazy, ‘crazy like a fox’ comes to mind, though I am more of a lion than a fox, more predator than prey totemically.

So, letting Capriken do his thing, I turn my gaze once again toward other Witches, Pagans & other Magickal Folk. But that’s no bargain either. Dating within your religion may work for many, but not so much for me. It has never worked out, except maybe for a sabbat fling, a Moon Tide or long enough to fulfill some long ago made karmic agreement. It just turns into a power struggle eventually. I made a decision long ago to become the most powerful Witch I can be & mind you knowledge isn’t power, WISDOM is. Wisdom comes from experience & that, especially with men, I have in scores, pardon the entendre.

I am a powerful Witch, in many ways. I ride the cycles of nature, mark the Wheel of the Year & keep my eyes on the moon for timing. I know when to lay low & when to blaze brilliantly, like a volume dial on my energy field. The power struggle is usually political unfortunately. No, I’m not going to tell you my secrets, I just met you. No, you can’t see my book of shadows yet, we just met. I’d rather you meet my Mother first & if you can survive Hera, then maybe you’ll appreciate what lay written within its pages.

Even when it does work out, they want to take classes, join the coven etc. I have a rule about dating coven members; I don’t, nor do I date students. The power dynamic is too unbalanced in my favor. But I’ve given it a shot for what it is worth, more wisdom of course. In the end, in those cases, I do the ritual to turn a Lover into a Brother. It isn’t easy, but I got good at it after the 100^th time. It’s not so bad, as it has yielded many knowing glances in circle & inside jokes over the years.

So, here I am a single, successful & pretty powerful Witch. I love to date, albeit the inquisition aspect. I get to mix it up a bit & hopefully get dinner out of it, if not the occasional boink. But I also have immense knowing that whether single forever in this life, I am happy. I know my Gods have plans for me & single or partnered, I’ll be fine. No, better than fine, powerful, loved & evolving toward being the best I can be. I’ll sort the rest out after I croak.

Besides, if I do indeed have a Soulmate, a term I detest by the normal definition, then I have a few. They are all women & with them at my side & in my life I will always have a hand to take mine & an ear to share my highs & woes about men with. They get me, know I am not crazy & are always willing to help me keep my balance on the dating tightrope.

Capriken? Well, we’ll see. I’d love to gaze into those beautiful blue eyes again. Maybe they cast their own spell on me. But knowing the tides & seasons of the Wheel as I do, I’m fine with riding the wave & seeing what happens next.

Blessed Be,

Mark A Lyons

Professional Witch

www.DrawingTheCircle.com

Follow me on Twitter @ProfWitch

PS. Guess who just texted me? I suppose my laptop is an inadvertent magickal tool. Who knew?

Appreciating Mabon 2012

Appreciating Mabon 2012

With a week back at my desk under my belt & at work with DTCP, Mabon kinda sorta snuck up on me. I mean I knew it was coming, I have a calendar. But with getting my work life back in order after NYFW, I looked up & realized the first day of autumn was upon me. The Sun goes into Libra, marking the shift into Mabon Saturday, September 22^nd at 10:49am. Thankfully I will be at our weekly Saturday Morning Miracles (ACIM) group at The Silver Broom in Sayville at the time.

Mabon is a little bittersweet. Summer is my favorite season, yet I really enjoy the spiritual energy the Fall Equinox offers. In my coven we have been considering it ‘Spiritual Thanksgiving’ for a long time. That makes it a favorite sabbat because I learned many years back that “gratitude is the attitude of increase.” This means simply that what we are thankful for multiplies by our focus upon it & the good feelings that giving thanks inspire.

But I have also learned that gratitude can have a touch of hardship in it, mixing in the struggles we have endured to attain what we have become & acquired. So, I have shifted it personally, to be an attitude of Appreciation, which is free of the struggle aspect.

This makes sense with the corresponding Chakra for the sabbat. The Crown (Spiritual Power) is the 7^th Chakra & Mabon is the 7^th Sabbat. So we are looking at a very spiritual season, focusing on the Crown’s Sacred Truth, “Live in Present Time.” Appreciation is good for staying in present time. Though we can certainly be appreciative of things gone by, it is much easier to focus upon what is already here in our lives when we choose to appreciate deliberately.

For example, take a moment to appreciate the technology in your life. I know it can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but what happens when the power goes out or your cell phone dies? Mayhem usually transpires. We certainly appreciate technology when the power comes back on. But you can even appreciate the simplicity of fresh air, time to yourself to contemplate & a good, solid friend. In other words, you can appreciate more than just physical acquisitions. You can appreciate your health as well as your wealth in its myriad forms.

You see, Spirit is always in a space & focus of appreciation, especially of YOU. When we match that frequency in our thoughts, the Crown Chakra opens & lets more life force in. We can tell by how good it feels. YOU are in control of the valve that lets spirit in or keeps it out by your moment by moment thinking. The other big time perk is, the more you open it up, the more inspiration flows into your experience. It makes sense; you open the valve to let spirit in; in-spirit-ation.

This need not be a grandiose ceremony either. Though on Sunday when I meet with my coven, we will have a ceremony marking the sabbat as well as the many people, places, things & expansions we are thankful / appreciative of. But it is also extremely effective to do this on a daily basis, as it puts us squarely in alignment with Source/God/ Goddess, even if we do it silently.

So make your lists of things you appreciate. Write it down if it helps you focus, release it to the Gods in your own way; set it on fire, what have you. But this is more than a once & done thing. Just spend 5 minutes in the morning, focusing on what you appreciate in the present moment. You will find more & more ‘things’ pop into your mind & your eye drawn to even more throughout the day. In this way “Appreciation is the attitude of Increase” will show itself to you on many levels, from the personal/spiritual to the physical/global.

May you find more & more to appreciate in this season of the 2^nd Harvest & may you & yours truly find yourselves blessed.

Blessed Be,

Mark A Lyons

Professional Witch

www.DrawingTheCircle.com

Follow me on Twitter @ProfWitch

PS: The October 2012 Schedule of Events is now up in tentative form on the www.DrawingTheCircle.com website.

New York Fashion Week 9/2012 Part IV

Blessed Foot Forward

K2o by Karen Ko

This is the last blog on Fashion Week for awhile, well at least until February. But that’s sort of the point of this one. My life through the looking glass into the world of fashion isn’t ending anytime soon. My partnership with Eila Mell is a long one & it has the feel of destiny to it. This blog is about taking what I learned & now looking forward.

My 44^th year has started out really amazing, as in like a maze, but a fun one. I never really know what lay behind the next corner, no one does. Clairvoyant mean ‘clear seeing’ not all knowing. There would be no adventure to life if I did know & that’s fine. I don’t claim 100% clear precognition, not that anyone does, not even Phoebe Halliwell had that. I have guidance, which this past week has sharpened & honed.

Everyone has access to guidance & I mean everyone. Call it emotional guidance, intuition, what have you, but I made a career on & a career by following my guidance as best as I can. It’s not hard, it just takes consistent practice. Pay attention to how you feel. As it is written above the pen board in the Malachite Room of The Silver Broom in Sayville, “Simple need not imply easy.”

So as I return to that very room to teach, take clients & do what I love & do best, I’m eager to see what happens next. I am on a roll. Mabon/Autumnal Equinox is right around the corner. I aced my New Moon Magick Saturday night, lighting a candle at the exact moment of 10:11pm. All I have to do now & stay happy, not blissful, not ecstatic joy. I just have to chill in Happy. Everything else will fall into place.

All this fashion stuff really does up the ante for me spiritually. I think I’ve illustrated that in these past few posts. It wasn’t easy, but the intention overall was simple. I phrased it many ways:

• ·         Stay in the Vortex
• ·         Stay in Alignment with Source.
• ·         Forgive everything
• ·         Flow & have fun

It’s an attitude more than a to do list. Having zero intention to have a career in fashion was like a shield. It kept me from attaching to outcomes aside from being of service to Eila as best I could. But even this wasn’t about staying on schedule really. It was about me being as uplifting as I could be within the range of the day. The more in flow I stayed, the easier the traffic parted & free parking appeared. The better I felt the more doors of opportunity opened &the right people came to us. 

When I wasn’t so on target vibrationally, we were delayed, & faced glitches. But we never, not even once, were late for anything. I’m a Virgo. Eila is a Sagittarius. Mutable earth & fire work really well together to clear a path & have fun in the process. Yes, it was work, but my intentions not only kept things moving, they made me stronger.

That is only going to positively influence my work. Just like if I trained at a gym non-stop for a week. I would come back stronger. Yes, I’m still resting. I’m not 100% back yet. I still have my left heel on the fashion side of the looking glass. But the cool part is, I get do the work I love on this side of it all & eventually step back through applying even more of what I learned in my world. 

Starting with this Monday’s Witchclass Cycle One: Circle Casting, I am officially back. Circle Casting is a very hands on class as Amy & I cast circle a few times. I’ll spend today finishing up my personal recharging for that. I’ve got readings booked all week, the Vortex on Tuesday & the Silver Broom’s fund raiser An Enchanted Evening on Thursday. Friday, I’m having lunch with the ladies, including Eila, where we will tell our private accounts of the week, in confidence, stuff we will never put in print.

This personal purge is important because life is all about stories. With each adventure we find ourselves in, we add another chapter. The characters within us rise & fall in succession. One moment we are the Hero, the next we become the Victim, then the Healer & the Caretaker.  To look back, summarize & melt down the symbolic lead into the Gold of Wisdom is the alchemy of life. It’s what Witches do, Lemons into Lemonade, again & again.

I am expecting some sweet returns for Mabon, the 2^nd Harvest Sabbat. As The Sun in Virgo (my Servant/Hedonist Archetype) gives way to the Sun in Libra (My Prince/Lover Archetype) I can only assume & feel it even now, that things are just going to get better for me & those around me. I’m working on my book. I’m having a blast & I am consistently with people I love. It’s tricky to do, as I have already admitted over & over. But it is doable, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. But as I have the choice as to do it plodding along or ‘ pounding the runway’ I’m gonna make the sidewalk my catwalk.

The overall message I wanted to convey over these 4 installments of the blog is 

1. that you really do take your spirituality with you wherever you go. Well, at least we can if we stay focused. It’s not enough to read books & attend workshops then toss it out the window when life gets rough. 
2. Judgment/condemnation of others is a huge pitfall regardless of what path you walk, even if it is never verbalized. It's even harder when the general atmosphere is bitchy, catty & based on visual critique.  
3. We need to take care of ourselves first before we extend that care to others, regardless of the form in which we transmit that care. 
4. Making peace with where we are is necessary to turn our lives downstream so we can go with the flow of life again. 

But what really stands out to me, more than the fashion, the practice or the pitfalls is the love. I love Eila & Amy. I love my career. I love my Gods. I actually have come to love the fashion world, its denizens & even New York Fashion Week.

For all of its often hidden depth & challenges of spirit, I still find art & adventure. I enjoy the smiles of new friends met who probably have zero idea they are talking to a Professional Witch. But best of all, I love how it tones me up to return to Drawing the Circle Productions & the Silver Broom Ministries. 

I’m clearer about what I want. I’m better than I was before the week started. Hell, I’m even thinner than when I started on my birthday/Fashion’s Night Out. So, I’m back to my desk, back to my work/career/vocation with just a tiny bit of me holding on to NYFW, maybe just a toe. But that toe looks really good.

Blessed Be,

Mark A Lyons

Professional Witch

www.DrawingTheCircle.com

Follow me on Twitter @ProfWitch

New York Fashion Week 9/2012 Part III

September 11^th, 2012.

I’m going to do my best to keep this uplifting. So much has been written regarding 9/11. I cannot do justice to the subject beyond what has already been said, so I’m not going to. This is about my personal experience of September 11^th 2012 during Fashion Week.

It isn’t about glamor, though it did play its role in its way as I had to disguise to the world what I was experiencing as best i could. That I was in NYC on Tuesday has everything to do with NYFW. But it was a very challenging day. I was caught in the paradox of an intense inner experience countered by an equal but opposite very intense outer experience. The former was truly emotional/spiritual the latter very physical/mental.

Let me start by saying that I made my career first as Clairvoyant Empath. I have read more people than I can count. Public situations, especially crowds, have always been tricky. Get me in a roomful of people focusing on the same stimuli, like a movie theater & the energy stays with me for a few days. That was wonderful for Lord of the Rings, not so great for Hellraiser.

Tuesday morning I woke up tapped into the collective emotions of everybody focusing on the anniversary of the NYC Twin Tower attacks of 9/11/2001. The alarm went off at 10:30am & I knew I was in trouble. I didn’t meditate or anything before going to bed. I got in at midnight after a truly magnificent day attending Viktor Luna’s show, Kimberly Goldson’s show & then a really posh, wonderful after party at Noir on East 50^th. Really, I got home, showered & passed out in my bed. I wonder now if I took the 30 minutes to light a candle, say a prayer & sit in silence if the next day would have been easier. I don’t know.

“My child, no one is ever told what might have been” Aslan, Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

That said, I knew upon waking, waning Moon in Cancer, exhausted & wanting to stay in bed & cry I had some decisions I had to make fast. I did my best to lift my vibration. With every degree it raised it felt like I dropped 2. Moments of hope & optimism were fleeting as I was easily distracted by what was going on that morning. Achy, moody & scattered, I got my shit together, said a prayer & called Eila. I really didn’t want to head straight into NYC, the global focus of the day’s grief & mourning.

Now, I am not a flat-leaver. If I can’t make something I make sure all parties involved know in advance etc. I am, after all, an event producer. I told her I was in bad shape, would take her into the city for the day, but it was probably my last day. I would do what I could to get her there for the rest of the week without me. We agreed to discuss it when I got to her home & take it from there.

I was a red hot empathic mess on the drive over. I was literally fighting back the urge to break down & cry on the Southern State Parkway. At the same time I’m reaching for my guides who are very clearly telling me I’m fine & that this was expected to happen eventually. They conveyed that what I was experiencing was a combination of maybe 30 different things, 9/11 being the tipping point into empathic pain. 

We all have a psychic immune system that we often call the aura, energy system or personal energy field. Consider the complex network of Chakras & energy meridians as similar to your endocrine & physical immune system. It is really good at dealing with external negativity, what Caroline Myss calls Psychic Free Radicals. But if we don't keep our own balance, it gets overrun with toxicity, just like the body's physical immune system & we get sick.

I started to make peace with it all, that it wasn’t time to cry as I was driving. But there was no sense beating myself up about it either. Making peace with where I am has been a HUGE part of my lessons in general this year. Resisting what you feel is not only futile but is eventually toxic. Whether this was my empathing the mass global emotion of the day or sheer burnout didn’t matter all of a sudden. I was where I was & I could just get Eila, drive, park, sit & pray while she was doing her thing. Then I could just pick her up, eat dinner & drive home.

Eila was amazing about it. She puts up with a good deal of my strange metaphysical ramblings. She’s a skeptic, but open minded. She also knows I’m not nuts & predominantly a happy person. I don’t think I scared her necessarily, she’s known me forever. But she really took care of me that day. She dropped a few shows to shorten our day, gave away tickets to really good shows, made sure we ate well & most of all, she understood without knowing. THAT is unconditional Love. She didn’t really know what I was going through, but she understood I wasn’t doing great. So she helped where she could. Her continued support & humor got me through the small steps that made up the day.

So we get to Lincoln Center, park in a garage & walk into the tents. Eila refused to let me sit in the car on the streets & paid for the parking so I could walk around. I’m glad she did & I’m glad I did. It’s not that I stepped into LC & suddenly the birds sang & the day was fine. No, the opportunity to snap into business mode was perfect. I got her off to her shows & I went to smoke a butt in the Pepsi 0 sponsored outdoor, smoker’s lounge, photo op thingy space. I was met by others who were more than kind, bumming butts, which I was happy to share & mild chit-chat was had.

Keeping a poker face in place I did my best to shield myself from the waves of emotion I was picking up in the general atmosphere, but it was a stark contrast. On one hand there was the fast paced fashion week energy with Fashion Police filming at the tents (I really adore Kelly Osborne.) On the other hand was this deep sadness over the whole global issue of 9/11 & what would turn out to be the rage of eventual embassy attacks in Libya & elsewhere. What an emotional, empathic clusterfuck.

All I wanted to do was connect with the people I love & tell them that I loved them. I wanted to rush home, hug my Mom, my cat Sabastian & make sure Amy knew how important she is to me. Amy Krinner, by the way, one of my best friends, High Priestess & Non-Romantic Life Partner, was essential to my whole being able to take off for a week to for the whole fashion world thing. She taught Witchclass on Monday night solo (Wheel of the Year) looked after Sabastian & held down the fort in my absence. I’ve said it before, I am nothing without her & would have been swinging from a noose many times over without her love & support. She’s also a very powerful Cancerian & Witch, so she got what I was going through immediately. It is so good to be understood by those you love.

Long story short (too late) the rest of the day shot by quickly. I don’t remember much of it except sitting in traffic on the way home & Eila making me laugh. She’s really good at that, as we have shared inside jokes going back decades. By the time I got home I was much better. I ate, drank a lot of water, showered, watched Rachel Maddow (she is my new absentee, doesn’t know I adore her too, friend) then slipped into my spiritual practice before passing out.

Thankfully I was able to finish out the week with Eila. We got her to her shows & I was clear about making sure I took care of myself for the remaining days. I packed food, ate a crapload of Fiber One bars as they were being handed out constantly at the tents (Chocolate + Caramel + Burlap = delicious) I stayed in a place of ‘prayer without cease' as best I could. I am really proud of myself in retrospect.

I learned that I am wicked good at what I do as a friend & a Professional Witch, but I have my blind spots. Though I am a NYC Traffic Jedi (you should see me do traffic magick in midtown during rush hour) endless driving is not my thing. I’m also much better off isolating myself during times of intense emotional atmosphere. But I can’t always enjoy that luxury. I also learned that though I have no serious blood sugar issues, if I don’t eat & take care of myself physically, it is hard for me to focus my mind & achieve vibrational alignment with my Source.

Tuesday September 11^th, 2012 was a harsh day, but one I shifted archetypally from Victim to Victor (no Luna pun intended) bit by bit & with great love & understanding from the women in my life. I think Caroline Myss would have been proud of me. I also sent out several text, tweet & Facebook messages to the people I loved, telling them how glad I am that I know them, even those I haven’t seen in years. It even opened up new lines of communication with a few of them, who were feeling similar.

But the best part for it all was seeing how many were feeling the same way & who had trouble shaking it off. You see, I am a predominantly uplifted & happy person. When people see me shaken, if not stirred, it is often alarming to them. But I never ever said I was happy 100% of the time, nor perfect. I am still walking my path, hitting my pitfalls & missing my blind spots. But if anything I am a Witch & a Mystic at heart, one who takes responsibility for my emotional & physical manifestations. Deliberate Creation isn’t always easy. But I do heal, learn & grow as I go. Then, I get the joy of teaching it all by example & verbally in posts like this & in the various readings, classes & other events I find myself in.

To this, though the day in question was hard, I rose from my own ashes anyway. I think America is like that. We are a perpetual Phoenix Archetype of a country, rising & falling, again & again. That is the transformative spiritual path my friends & in the words of the beloved Stevie Nicks, “Sometimes it’s a bitch, sometimes it’s a breeze.” Thankfully I got to do it looking good, if not so much feeling good. But wings of fire spread I am still rising. The Moon is new & now in Libra, the Cardinal Air sign. So I will be spending today in reflection, focusing on what I love, balancing my mind & seeing what comes next.

Part IV will be written soon as I want to consolidate this all in overview. Keep tuned for 1 more & I will do my best to stay tuned to Source as best I can throughout.

Blessed Be,

Mark A Lyons

Professional Witch

www.DrawingTheCircle.com

Follow me on Twitter @ProfWitch