As a Wiccan, I am forever saying that it seems the older we get the less likely we are to fire up the ol’ cauldron. For every action there is a reaction and one must weigh the pros and cons, trying to see the issue from every conceivable angle, before seeking to tug the threads of the collective consciousness. The process can be so challenging that many times it’s just easier to allow the Universe to have full control over a situation, as opposed to working ones’ way through the careful wording of a well thought-out manifestation ritual. The problem with throwing your time and energy behind this type of energy work is that it may not allow for the wisdom of the Universe to permeate. For example, you go on a job interview. The job is perfect – moreover, you have wanted to work in this particular field for years. You feel certain that you’ve aced the interview, but decide to do a little candle work along with a concentrated meditation to ensure the Universal Divine knows EXACTLY how badly you want this one. And you are crushed when you receive your “thanks, but no thanks” letter two weeks later. You remain crushed – until an ex-boss calls you a month later, offering an amazing (and better!) job within her new company! Would you have been available for the second opportunity had the first manifested? Probably not. Moreover, it is disrespectful to the God & Goddess to command them to perform in a certain way. We ask, respectfully – we do not demand or order. Whether it’s a new job, relationship or home – often the “one that got away” is the one you were meant not to have – because bigger and better was just around the corner.
That said, it is silly to think we have to be passive in our approach to the things we need. Good health, abundance, love – all come to us much more easily when we combine a good attitude, personal effort and directed energy toward what it is we require. The biggest hurdle to manifestation is determining exactly what it is you want – that, and learning to separate our wants from our needs. Remember that the Universe does not appreciate any form of gluttony. And let’s face it: “Lots of money” “A really big house” or “someone amazing to fall in love with me” are not exactly precise guidelines to work within!
Allow me to illustrate with an example. About six months after I opened Talisman (my little new-age shop in Monroe, CT) a young woman approached me with the request “Do you have any spells for dogs?” I asked her to tell me exactly what she needed. It seems she had recently moved from Vermont to Connecticut with her baby daughter and beloved Rottweiler. She had rented an apartment that stipulated in the rental agreement that she could have one large dog. However, the day she moved in, the landlord (who lived upstairs in the two-family house) took one look at the dog and said, “Oh you have a Rottweiler? I didn’t realize that. I can’t live with a Rottweiler – I’m sorry, he has to go”.
So we began by going over what was obvious – practicality before magick, always. The rental agreement was a legally binding contract and the landlord had agreed in writing to allow one large dog (we aren’t looking to break or bend the law). The day after she moved in, she sensibly invited the landlord and his wife to brunch, during which time her dog actually lay calmly at the landlord’s feet and he even reached down to pet it from time to time. Upon leaving, however, he turned and said to her, “That IS a nice dog – for a Rottweiler. However, I just can’t live with one. I’m sorry.” Before coming to see me, she had called the landlord’s wife to plead her case one last time before bringing the dog back to Vermont to live with her parents. The wife told her that her husband’s best friend had been mauled as a child by a Rottie and he was deathly afraid of them – and to please stop asking, as he would NEVER agree to allow the dog to stay.
This conversation took place on a Friday – and she had arranged to make the drive back to Vermont with the dog on Monday. So we began with a yellow candle, which was charged then anointed with Road Opener oil. I instructed her to take the candle home and build around it a shrine to her dog – including pictures, his collar and leash, toys, vet records – and to place the candle in its holder on top of the rental contract. She spent one hour on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night (same time each night) in an uninterrupted manifestation ritual. I told her to SEE her dog playing in the back yard, lying in his bed, eating out of his food dish – SEE where his bowl and bed would be placed – SEE the landlord coming downstairs to give him a pat before leaving for work – SEE her infant daughter growing up with him. This is very different from praying, believing or asking because this is the difference between KNOWING something will happen versus believing it will. Doing all this at the same time each night, and allowing no outside interruptions (besides a waking baby!) requires discipline and illustrates serious intent for the issue at hand.
This story has a happy ending: I had a visit on Tuesday morning – she came into Talisman to tell me that just as she was packing up her car to make the trip north, the landlord called and said he had a change of heart – her dog could stay! This very same manifestation ritual worked in the same manner for another patron with issues of secondary infertility. She had a six year old son, and had been trying for two years to have a second child with no luck. Same technique with a different candle/oil/shrine – and she was pregnant the next month (she used a pink candle and was blessed with the daughter she had been hoping for!). Ditto the mother of a grown child with serious medical issues whose husband was in the running for a job that would provide much-needed comprehensive medical benefits: Not only did her son-in-law get the job, but the company agreed to begin medical coverage before the six week wait period was over.
Thoughts do become things. The power of positive thinking, combined with energy drawn from the Universal Divine, is an awesome force indeed. And please – I had nothing to do with these outcomes besides providing instruction and the necessary materials. I like working with candles because the very act of lighting one is a clear signal that energy work is about to begin. The flame itself is both a focal point and additional source of energy. Be clear that the work itself was done by the petitioner in tandem with Divine Will. I believe that it is empowering to occasionally take part in owning one’s destiny by manifesting some changes in the road ahead rather than passively “Forrest Gumping” your way through life!
Where this process fails miserably is when you attempt to force or bend the Will of another to your own. Notice that the young woman with the dog didn’t get angry or nasty with the landlord; instead she worked within the parameters of the law (without threatening a lawsuit) and visualized a positive outcome – for both parties. Seeing yourself in the desired job is not the same as trying to energetically get inside an employer’s head to ensure the only option (in their mind) is to hire you. And yet, through all of this, one must never be so dead set on an outcome that you are unwilling to bend to the wisdom of the Universe. We may channel the Divine Energy but we ourselves are not the God or Goddess – we must reckon with our own inability to see past our current circumstance to what lies ahead. How many times in your life has something truly awful happened – and six months later, you were saying “it was the best thing that could ever have happened to me”? I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t had an opportunity to say those very words. This is The Tower card of the tarot deck at play – unexpected or catastrophic change which often portends a serendipitous event to follow.
And that, I suppose, is both the challenge AND opportunity in all this – to actively work toward a positive outcome while allowing a higher power to oversee the process. I feel strongly that this is not a mandate for a passive life but rather the guidepost for a magickal one!
