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

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

Altar not Alter

"This is an ALTAR, not an ALTER.
An altar marks sacred space.
Alter means to adjust or change.

I can see where the concepts could get confused, but you go to your ALTAR to ALTER your life."
Rev. Mark A. Lyons