Our moonlit ponderings have prepared us to take another step down this liminal path and ask what’s really up with all this seasonal giving & receiving. Illuminating our travels today, however, is not The Moon, not The Sun, but a bolt of lightning. Straight from the above into the below, blowing the roof off this tower we’ve created. Is your Tower of Power still standing?

The Question Here: What are you grasping at?

Sting said ‘if you love somebody, set them free.’  Faulkner or Ginsberg or somebody said ‘Kill Your Darlings.’ Different approaches to the same sentiment of non attachment. Put it out there, then delete it. The artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare put it another way in his sigil work, ‘Doesn’t Matter, Already is’.

In The Tower disaster strikes and we are cast out of this structure that we’ve worked so hard to build. It takes this tragedy to shake us out of our pattern…higher, higher, more, more. Must reach the top. BAM! We are thrown back to the bottom. But, look closely, even in our fall we are still grasping, reaching and striving. But for what?

All That Glitters

The coins root us firmly in the material. Their element is earth and they represent our material existence, our health and wealth, hearth & home, the things we create and accumulate. The King too sits enthroned, solid & heavy, ruling over the material world, yet still he looks over his shoulder off into the distance at more. He literally has everything at his disposal. What more could he want?

The demure little 3 of coins remind us, what you create and nurture and possess in this world is really important and valuable. You literally can make whatever you want of this existence, but let’s take it back to the beginning and focus on 1 thing at a time. Look closely at the vines that wrap around the coins and how they make a heart shape around the top coin. If you love somebody, set them free.

All of this reminds me of the basic conflict of the Christmas season. The shadow of the Season of Giving is the grasping, hungry, beast of materialism – the compulsive drive for more. Must give more. Must buy more. We are driven, expected even, to show our love for one another by buying and giving gifts.

Now Here’s The  Cool Part

What the cards are giving us here is actually a lesson in magic and non-attachment. So yesterday you set an Intention. Let’s call it a desire. You released that desire out to Spirit in the Tower of Power spell and you’re now waiting for that desire to manifest for real.

Are You Grasping?

Spend a minute and think about that desire. I mean, really feel it again. Notice in your body, if there’s even a trace of tension. Do you feel yourself leaning forward towards your desire? Is there a tightness in your belly? If you were to reach out towards your desire, is there any tension in your hands? If you answered yes to any of those, it means you’re grasping. Grasping means you have some other unmet need, probably a deeper desire that you aren’t quite being honest with yourself about.

It’s perfectly ok to feel that desire strongly, to be driven. Drive is awesome because it allows us to receive blue sky acts of synchronous magic, take them and run with them. But if you want to make magic that works, the grasping or attachment to getting will get in the way. Perhaps in the form of a lightning bolt out of the blue…just kidding. It just means the lines of communication between your conscious and unconscious aren’t going to be very clear and your magic probably isn’t going to  be as effective as it could be. No biggy.

Clearing Attachment – What Do I Desire?

I know we have some fairly skilled shadow workers in the group, so this should be familiar territory. This is one of my favourite exercises for getting clear on unmet, unspoken desires. Grab a pen and some paper, write ‘What do I desire?’ at the top of the page and start a numbered list.

1. I desire the real meaning of Christmas to be honoured
2. I desire my family to all be together and get along
3. I desire an open and honest conversation with my Dad.

After each line ask yourself, ‘Yes, and?’ and allow the next desire to emerge. Keep going for as long as it takes. You will reach a point where your desires become absurd ‘I desire a box full of puppies under the Christmas tree’. ‘I desire a dozen naked Santas singing Christmas carols outside my door.’ Push through those.

You will reach a point where you can’t think of anything. Just sit there and wait. Something else will emerge. Eventually, you’ll get to something so achingly vulnerable that it feels impossible to ever share it.

You might feel a sinking feeling in your belly. Almost as if you are falling…from a tower. THAT is the place that needs some acknowledgement in order to break the attachment.

Now It’s Your Turn!

• Pull 3 cards or meditate or use whatever tools you’re into and simply ask ‘Tell Me More.’ Look to the cards to tell you what you are grasping, what you need to release or what you need to give away.
• Do the Spell Below

The Spell – One For Love

Greatmother kept a big mason jar of silver coins on the window sill. When sorting out the spare change from her handbag she would say, ‘1 for love, 1 for money and 1 for the impossible.’ The impossible coin always went in the jar, the other two in her purse. The impossible coin was never a penny, but always a dime. (.10 in USD)

I’ve since done a bit of research and discovered that dimes hold particular significance in hoodoo, especially the Mercury Dime which was in circulation in the early 20th century, with the image of a young winged Mercury engraved on it. Mercury was one of the only gods able to travel in and out of The Underworld to deliver messages. Therefore his image is especially powerful in paying off the spirits in exchange for their help.

And silver, of course, has many correspondences across traditions. It represents the light of The Moon, the Divine Feminine, intuition and prosperity. It balances the chakras and reflects negative energy away. And of course there’s much more…

But what is The Impossible? I never asked. That big mason jar sat on the window sill for years, never quite getting full.  There was a certain presence about it. I knew better than to touch it and I respected its place in the house. The Impossible Jar held an air of mystery.

Here’s what I think: The Impossible represents the sheer daring it takes to hope and desire for something that is not yet manifest. It requires us to feel, to give importance and value to our feelings and to create something on the imaginal plane knowing that this small act of magic is very, very important. Maybe it’s also the magic of Christmas, the dream of a solar child born to save us all, the promise of unconditional love, the magic of the cycles of darkness and light and rebirth.

The purpose of the following spell is to release your attachments to getting and allow the purity of your desire to fly!

What You’ll Need

1. A white piece of cloth, handkerchief or tissue paper.
2. 3 silver coins (silver in colour. Most coins these days don’t have much actual silver in them)
3. 3 small stones- to represent the crumbling bricks of The Tower
4. A small picture of yourself, photo or drawing is fine.

Do The Spell

1. Open your ritual space by lighting some incense and your Tower of Power.
2. Bring to mind your intention. Feel how good it will be once your intention has manifested.
3. Hold that good feeling at the same time as feeling into the places where you are still grasping. Practice layering these two feelings into one experience. It’s ok to shuttle back and forth between the ‘Yay! This is awesome!’ of your Intention and the icky, clingy, need of your grasping.
4. Wrap the coins, stones, and picture of yourself in the white cloth.
5. Place it near a window or door. Weather permitting, open the window or door to perform the spell.
6. Say the spell over and over until it clicks. Again, really feel the rhythm and vibration of the words in your mouth cauldron. Think of this as a little dance performed with words. Allow the power to build as you repeat…
   

   Stones, Coins, A mystery
   Call to me my heart’s desire
   1 for love
   1 for money
   1 for The Impossible
   Set them free to fly back to me

   End with… So It Is

7. Sit for as long as you like meditating on what you’ve released and empowered.
8. Close your ritual space by extinguishing your Incense and Tower of Power.
9. Keep your bundle on the window sill until The Solstice. On The Solstice, burn your picture and scatter the ashes along with the stones somewhere in nature. Bury the coins under 3 separate trees as offerings.