Thoughts While Packing (Again): The Spellwork Debate

A Scene of Sorcery, from "Japan and the Japanese Illustrated" 1874. Courtesy WikiCommons.

Spellwork. The day-to-day, pragmatic kind -- the kind intended to lubricate the wheels of daily life, to smooth the road, to ease worries, quell petty concerns -- the subject of hundreds of do-it-yourself occult books & websites... to do, or not to do? I have been having this debate with myself for years & years. It is very annoying because I think spellwork is a fine thing to practice. I just find that while I am utterly fascinated by it, I almost never do it. Instead, I engage myself in an ongoing, highly unproductive discourse as to why. 

In the abstract, I have no issues with the morality of magick (or prayer) for personal benefit or gain. I very much enjoy reading & learning about the diversity of methods cross-culturally, from historical records to modern day. I even get a kick out of creating them; researching, writing, combining correspondences, timing, etc. I guess the problem must be that I consider magick serious business. I too often feel like small concerns are just that -- too minor to bother with magick. The same goes for prayers, entreaties, supplications or whatever moniker you apply to that sort of thing.

Or maybe I make it too complicated. 

Either that or I am just too lazy. 

So, here I am again, packing to move -- for the fourth time since March. Actually, I never got to pack for the first move since it was straight to the hospital & then into the nearby charitable housing. After a month, we moved back home (with oodles of medical equipment). Later, when The Changeling received the green light to board an airplane, I packed for Alaska. Then, certain flaky friends with whom we co-habitated decided they needed our half of the house for elderly parents coming in from Norway for a visit. Fine. So we packed (& moved) again. They asked us to come back, but we weren't bloody well going move again... or so we thought. Now, we are packing up & moving for about ten days -- before we move once more -- because someone is going to take this apartment on the 1st & our flight to our winter home isn't until the 7th. So, that makes five moves since March (or six, if you count packing up & leaving our one-month hospital home). 

The rich bit 'o irony here is that we are renting & bouncing around because there is no availability in the apartment building that we actually own. Just dandy, no?

I was standing in the shower two days into the packing, washing off all the sweat from the night before & grumbling to myself about the whole situation when it occurred to me that perhaps I could have considered working a spell. A little domestic stabilizer or something of that sort. Gee, I could even have said a little prayer. Now, as I pack all our crap -- again -- I grouse to myself... "Why didn't I think of that? If I did, why didn't I do anything about it? Some practitioner I am! What the Helvella is wrong with me?" 

But this is actually a very familiar conversation. It's like having déjà vu.

Wrangling this with myself has become tiresome. So, like that little ball in Atari Pong, I am bouncing the conversation into the ether. If you are a magick user, conjurer, charm-maker, rootworker, spellworker, sorcerer, pray-er, supplicator, chanter, affirmation-murmerer, or other sort of entreat-er or make-it-happen-er... Are you like me & seem to hold out for the big stuff (like hospital stays & hurricanes) or have you figured out how to weave magick/prayer into your daily life? 

There are entire churches dedicated to praying for wealth. Not just 'enough' or even 'prosperity,' but big, fat, gushing bunches of money. I never ask for any. (I did once & got burned, but that's a story for another time.) In fact, I rarely ask for anything. Where do you draw the line? Small things, big things? Or do you draw a line at all? What sorts of things do you ask for, how much & how often? If you work with a group, what are the limits on what your group will do? Do share, this grouchy, enquiring mind wants to know. 

Now, back to the bins & boxes.

Homeward bound so soon, but feeling ready. Almost.