New Home

The Book of Light and Shadow has moved to a new home. You can now find me at www.ursulajames.info. 

You can also find me on Twitter @ursulajames

Orphaned by Alzheimer's Disease

On the day I married, I took my father's arm for him to walk me down the aisle. He paused, looked deep into my eyes and said, "I have a daughter, you know. She isn't here, though."

The diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease happened two years later, but we had all known that there was something wrong for quite a while. In some ways, his disconnection from the family and the rest of the world was an extension of the way he had always been. My father had served in the second World War and I for one believed that his mind had never returned.  He had a way of closing himself off from people, and from high emotions especially. I learned not to expect love from him in a conventional way. My mother tells me that he loved me dearly as a small child, but sadly I have no memory of these times.


When the memories that make up your relationship with another individual are gone, where does that leave you? When the illness is of the mind you are not free to mourn as the body they inhabit still lives - after a fashion.


No-one can teach you how to react when this happens to someone you love. I can only tell you that I learned to deal with it through rituals of remembrance and love.


A ritual of remembrance

Take a pure white candle, and place a memento of the person with whom you wish to connect. A photograph works well. Meditate on the memento. Hold it in your hands. Tell that person how much they mean to you, and allow your thoughts to carry those emotions over to the flame. Spend time remembering any good moments you can. When you have finished, extinguish the flame. Put the candle away safely. When, at some later time, you have an encounter with that person and you feel sad, dim all other lights and light up the candle once more.  Let the light from the candle remind you of the emotions you once shared together. You can grieve here. The flame will absorb your tears and your sadness, and give you strength to carry on.

"I am not my memories. I am my dreams.” - Terry Hostetler

http://alzheimers.org.uk
http://www.warriorprogramme.org.uk

Mind expanding trances

Back in London, and back in the laboratory working on my PhD. 

I enjoy the repetitive, methodical nature of this work. I enjoy the people too. People who are enthusiastic, people who are interested, people who are (how do I put this?), more than a little obsessive. 

I like that. I recognise this obsessiveness as part of my character, and because of this I value my time of being around people who can get so completely engrossed in what they are doing that time itself loses all meaning. 

When you are doing something you love, you are able to create a whole world for yourself. A world in which all things are possible, and your mind can roam freely to solve problems. This is where the connections between conscious and unconscious processing can move around most freely. This is the place where dreams are made reality.

Trances for expanding your mind

First thing in the morning, before you are fully awake, focus on your breathing and, with your eyes closed, walk yourself through the day to come. Allow wonderful encounters and solutions to be part of this hypnopompic state. In doing so you open up your mind to make these events happen. How? By pre-experiencing events in this state you open up your senses to catch moments - to see, hear and feel what it is to have this event happen to you.

Go ahead, punk. Make your day.

 

Pre-sleep trance states

It is so easy to drift through the day, and suddenly find yourself at the end of it wondering what happened. Another day gone by filled with business and busyness. It is too easy to let the days slip through your fingers without appreciating what is happening and what you are doing.

A trance to appreciate the Now

Access to true magic involves rites, rituals and trances.

Before you go to sleep at night, reappraise your day. Do it with the understanding that things which are past cannot now hurt you unless you choose to give them space in your thoughts. By using pre-sleep trance you can ease yourself into a peaceful sleep without the baggage of frustration and irritation.

The simplest way to do this is to count yourself into sleep with the numbers 100 to zero. Use your out breath to time the numbers, and to help focus your mind as you do. When you reach zero, imagine you are alone on a beach. You walk along the shore and each time you think of something which bothered you in the day you pick up a pebble from the shore and throw it as hard as you can into the waves. Each time you do, you allow your unconscious mind to carry away the problem, and deal with it in your sleep without troubling your dreams. Continue to do this until you are ready for sleep. This will occur naturally and you will sleep deeply and well.

Cultivate the skill of trance. In it you will discover your true magic.

Our desire to mimic those around us

We are creatures of habit. Most have their uses, but many need reappraisal when we are in a process of change. It is too easy to fall into the habits of those around us in order to conform. Research demonstrates that if you hang around people who are lazy and overweight - you move towards the group. Spend time with people who think positively and work hard, and you become more like them. 

We are programmed to conform to our surroundings - to mimic those around us. It makes us feel safe and secure. It also discourages you from thinking too hard or too much about whether this way of living is as you want it to be. Walking through a park yesterday I came across an exit with a closed gate. A couple were standing in the park staring at a map to look for another exit. Another couple walked towards the gate and, seeing the first couple standing there, simply assumed that the gate must be locked and walked away. My companion walked up to the gate and tried it, found it open and walked through it at which point the first couple laughed in an embarrassed way and followed us out of the park. How easy it is to just do what others around you are doing - and worse still - to assume that other people must know more than you.

In order to become truly magical, spend time with others who think magically. If you cannot access them in person, use the web to connect. Your access to living the life which you want is here if you want it. Think for yourself. Maybe you actually know more than those around you.

The door is open. WIll you step through?

Illusions

Today I am in Paris. The sun is shining and I am struck by the mass of people all busy on their way to somewhere else. Few seem to notice the beautiful weather. Even fewer seem to be aware of their surroundings. Almost none see the other people - other than as obstacles impeding their way. I, on the other hand, watch people. I watch how they move and how they carry themselves in this crowd of other people.


I watch and learn about people. 


Much of what seems to be magically inspired knowledge is simply the by product of genuine observation. Some learn it through pain and difficulty in childhood, and become the watchers who have learned to predict the behaviour of others through fear. Others learn it instinctively, and use this knowledge in their work. Therapists, teachers, writers. They are all able to step into the thoughts of the others without them understanding how much information they give out without speaking a word.


True magic begins by using your senses fully. You need to do this before synthesizing this understanding into a sixth sense, one which will attract magic to you, and one which will give you the power and knowledge to understand how to use magic when it comes into your life.

What do you think you are looking at when you view this image - and how does it make you feel?

A ritual to enhance sensory awareness


Train yourself to look into the eyes of those you encounter on a daily basis. People on the street, in shops, wherever you go. Really look at them and see the person. You will find this hard at first. Persist. When you can look into the eyes of the others you can learn to read them.


Cicero is quoted as saying: "The face is a picture of the mind and the eyes are its interpreter".

It is time to start truly observing the knowledge available to you, and through this access deeper understanding of The Source.

Birthday

Today is my birthday - and I celebrate it. It has not always been that way. Before I learned to love myself I found birthdays torture. Now I have learned self-respect I can enjoy a day that is all about celebrating who I am.

It is one of the few days of the year that is completely about the self, and I embrace this knowledge. To experience the day as fully as possible, I appreciate everything that other people do for me. I call my mother and remember that it is her day too. I read the cards sent to me, and appreciate the gifts which have been made for me, and are given with love. Above all I appreciate this day as a connection to those who love me and want to show their love.

To know yourself fully is to appreciate yourself warts and all (apologies for the old-school witchy connotations!). To love and respect yourself is part of celebrating the day you arrived on this earth in this shape.

Birthday rituals are important. Eat special food, light candles and make wishes. Most of all use it as a time to celebrate the days between now and the next birthday, and use it to create the self you wish to be.

Birthday ritual

On your birthday, start by remove from your space anything which offends your sense of beauty. Give to charity, or freecycle it. You need to start your new year with clarity, and this will help.

Dress beautifully and with care on this day, regardless of where you are of who is around you. It is time to celebrate the potential that is you.

Then, take time out and go for a walk. Make it into a walking meditation by starting to think of who you were last year, and who you wish to be for the next year. Allow your footsteps to carry you away from the negatives, and forward to the positives.

Then, later on, light a pure white candle. White in this instance is to signify new ideas. Meditate on the flame and project into it  the thoughts which came to you during your walk. After a while, blow it out and  make a wish for a fulfilling and healthy year, one in which you grow as a person, and do not repeat your mistakes. There is plenty of time for new ones next year!

I wish you joy on this day of birth and rebirth. I wish you spiritual health to create the person you always wanted to be and to live within the light. 
 

To celebrate a life ended

Setting a spirit free

A few short months ago, my Aunt and namesake died. From diagnosis of cancer to her death took three months, and in that time I watched her eaten away by the illness. When events like this happen to those we love, it becomes harder to remember good times. When she died, I was left to clear her home, deal with her affairs, redistribute her possessions and prepare a funeral. There was no-one else to do this, all other family being too ill or distant. My time, therefore was fully occupied 'doing things'. I had little time to think or feel. Now most of this is passed, I have made time to say goodbye in my own way. A ritual to give me peace and free her spirit.

Last night, I went into the farmer's field at the top of the hill. There wasn't a breath of wind. I lit a chinese lantern and said my goodbye to Ursula. I watched the light until it ascended into the clouds, and then I gave myself space and time to cry for the love which she had shown me all my life, and I would miss.

Adding words to the ritual

When a loved one dies, it is important not to get so caught up in the practicalities of death and dying that we forget to mourn the person. When they die, a ritual which helps is to light a candle before a photograph of that person and to talk to them in your mind. Do this whenever you need them. Do this for your connection with them. You will notice after a few months that you no longer need the candle or the photograph to focus your mind on the objective of the ritual - that person is now with you in spirit. With you in your heart and you can still hear and talk to them when you need to. When you can do this you will know that you have allowed them to move on to a new way of being, but your relationship with them remains.

Comment on my clothing. Yes, I know I look like a mad pixie, but hey, it would have amused my aunt to see me look like that.


Respect your ancestors. They are part of your story too.

Lunatics

So what is the big deal about the moon? Why do so many rituals make reference to lunar phases, and not just wiccan and pagan rituals?

An awareness of the moon means a number of things, the main one being that you are conscious of the changes in your environment, and how this environment can work differently for you at different lunar phases.

Just as Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar made note that "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads to fortune..." there are many quotes in literature about the connections between lunar phases and mans emotions and luck. This is no literary conceit, but a reflection of events as man saw them manifest in their surroundings.

As we live progressively in a world of light which masks the sky, we lose our connection with the phases of the moon, and with it our ability to wait for the right time to make things happen. Being aware of the lunar phases helps you prepare for change, prevents you from making rash decisions, and allows you to harness the power of your environment in making magic happen for you.

Lunar phases

• Dark moon - a psychic moon - but be wary of its predictions
• Waxing moon - a time of preparation for change
• Full moon - a time of manifesting events
• Waning moon - a time of release and letting go of the past

I am interested in your relationship with the moon and her cycles. 

Keep looking up at night - Mother Moon is there waiting to help you. 

Friday 13th

Today is a day associated with bad luck here in England. There are many ideas as to the origins of this superstition, most of them with Christian derivations. There is also anecdotal evidence that more accidents happen on this day, with a statistically significant increase in hospital admissions on this date as opposed to other Fridays of the year.

I know that Friday 13th is a lucky day for me. I made that decision when I was a child, and have always found it to be true. The fact of the matter is that superstitions, (especially those with a negative outcome) tell us more about people than they do about events. If you want to buy a red car, you see red cars everywhere. If a woman wants to get pregnant, she sees babies everywhere. The environment has not changed, but our perception of it has. So. If you decided that this is a day of bad luck, you will project this belief onto your surroundings and create this reality. If - like me - you decide that it is a good day, then that is your outcome.


Becoming magical starts with perception, not extra-sensory but sensory. Use your eyes and your ears to tell you what is around you and with this you can and will create your own luck. 

Superstition is as dangerous as you choose to allow it to be. 

 

Changing your mind

Each one of us has a choice about how we are going to approach the world around us, and which of our senses will be genuinely attuned to our surroundings. The stoic Epictitus is quoted as saying "Men are disturbed not by events, but by their opinion of those events" .To become one whose opinion of events is always positive takes discipline, and the easiest way to achieve this is through the use of trance.

Developing a regular habit of entering trance, especially before sleep when you can then take the positive thoughts and feelings about the future into your dreams will help you achieve the focus you need for the next day. Your awareness of positives around you then start to create a synthesis of events which evolve into synchronicity - or luck if you prefer.

In a later post I will teach you the simplest way to enter trance.

Stay focused - see the positives around you today.

 

Early morning alarm call

Out here in the French countryside I have a very special alarm clock. Completely natural and extremely persistent. Each day, between six and seven a.m. one of a pair of large black birds pecks on my kitchen window - and caws loudly. This goes on until I get up and stare back, then they flap away to perch on a post in the cowfield next door. One of these days I may get there quick enough to record them! When I first heard them I must admit that I was pretty unnerved, but as soon as I realised that I was in their territory (not the other way round), I soon got used to my call of nature.

How you wake each morning is critical to the ways in which you view the day ahead. Wake tired and bad tempered, and that is the mood which will cling to you for the rest of the day. Taking a few moments to plan - to predict - the day and your reactions to it goes a long way to creating harmony where before you may have seen little or none.

How do you create your waking state? I am interested to know.

Wake well - plan to be happy.

The rights and wrongs of rites

There are three essential components in doing magic effectively. These are rites, rituals and trance work. For many years I did the first two - with limited success. When I discovered trance work, that was when things really took off.

So, to start with rites. First of all, what is a rite?

A rite is a one-off act which will help you pass from one state to another. As with rituals and trances these occur in daily life and we participate in them without thinking. Rites of passage such as a marriage and burial rites are obvious ones, but there are many others. Think about it - every time you send a card to help someone celebrate an event, you are performing a rite when you put down your wishes for them onto paper.

There are no 'correct' ways to perform a rite - only your way. 

There are simple guidelines; 

• Protect yourself 
• Prepare your space
• Prepare your mind
• Project your thoughts
• Perform the rite
• Give thanks

The only thing that truly matters when performing a rite is that your intention is pure.

I am happy to teach you all you need to know. Ask me questions and I will respond.

Have a truly magical day.

 

When the wheel turns

I love this time of year. Here in England the season has started to turn and you can feel the difference in the air in the morning. We have passed the ancient festival of Lammas with its first harvest, making it a time for rituals to consider the first fruits of our labours through this past cycle of the year. 

At this time I love rites involving celebration and feasting - preparation of special foods and reconnecting with people who have been part of my progress. Join with me here and I will share the rite, rituals and trances for the changing seasons.

Do you have any special rites for this time? Regional or personal? I would love to know and add to those I use myself.

Be kind to yourself today.

#TheSource

Welcome All

Hi. This is my first time. As a blogger that is. I hope you will enjoy my posts and look forward to communicating with you across the Wyrd Web. And I do mean Wyrd. I intend to tell you about magic, and how to make it exist in your world. I hope that interests you. If you want magic in your life, join me by following this blog.