Minimum Viable Praxis

What are the essential bits of a magical practice that should be implemented as close to every day as possible?

Since launching the podcast a little over a month ago, I’ve been juggling enough things in my personal life that I haven’t been able to put out anything other than the podcast and my monthly lunar mansion guide; despite having the inspiration and inclination to do so. As a result, I’ve had this post gathering dust in the back of my mind for weeks now and I just found the time to scratch it out. All good though, basic magical truth ages very slowly, if at all. I just hope that my next post doesn’t take another month…

My daily grind aside, this post is actually about the idea of a regular practice or, as we say in ‘the biz’, your praxis -what you do, essentially all of the time, that keeps you in good magical shape.

Praxis is the ongoing, routine part of your magical practice that supports, like a foundation, all of your discreet (individual) magical workings, like spells, or the creation of magical talismans, etc. And nearly everyone says that it’s important to have a daily -or at least regular- practice that helps you stay attuned to spirit and feeds the collection of spiritual relationships which your magic tends to draw upon.

Magic is more about community relations (when that community is the more-than-human world) than it is about specific words, gestures, and traditions. Those things are cool, and valuable, but they aren’t really what gives magical workings the power to shift reality in your favor. It is the relationships you build, and how to maintain them, that lends power to your magical workings.

Of course, as spiritualists -some of us actually devotees to a particular God/Goddess or spirit(s), etc- our devotions may need no practical purpose; but as magicians, regular praxis is very much about “charging your spiritual batteries”, or perhaps it’s better to say, “praying it forward” with your spirit team.

It’s also about readying your temple for more serious work, referring both to the physical space in which you conduct your magic and to the state of your mental, emotional, and spiritual “temple” as well.

So this is what regular praxis is about…showing up for your spirit team before you need something and maintaining yourself as a conduit for magic. This isn’t the sexy wizardry we all dream about, obviously, but it lays the foundation for a successful magical career -as well as maintaining the grounds, to keep with the metaphor.

Gratitude And Recognition

The majority of my personal magical practice is composed of various ceremonial acts of gratitude. Nearly everything I do magically starts and ends with a statement of gratitude and is usually accompanied by an offering of some sort. And within the show of gratitude, something else important is accomplished: recognition. Everyone, every thing, needs to be seen; needs to be recognized for their purpose in the grand scheme of life. Witnessing and acknowledging the unfolding of a story is essential and increases the coherence of the field.

In many ways, modern materialistic society’s insistence on denying the reality of spirits causes great incoherence; so much so that it drives us towards spiritualism as a correction. Reality is a story -a narrative- to which we all contribute and incoherence cannot be permitted.

Therefore, I place both fundamentally simple acts, gratitude and recognition, at the top of my list of essential practices. And it is fundamental that they be practiced regularly and with full participation -not rote, mechanical tasks but intentional acts.

This is perhaps the simplest technique because it hardly even requires doing anything new, but simply doing it with gratitude and while taking a moment to recognize the Other at work.

It should go without saying that prayer should be a daily activity, so instead of praying for what you want, express gratitude for it -in advance. And while you do, acknowledge, with wonder and awe, the power that you call upon and witness (become actively aware of) it working in the world.

The Big 6: 4 Directions, Mother Earth, And The Sky

Coherence is a vastly underrated consideration when it comes to, well being alive, first of all, but also, doing magic. When attempting to shift reality, it is sort of essential to know how to orient yourself within it, that is to say, what role you play.

Opening every magical ceremony by orienting yourself to the universe helps to reenforce the coherence upon which our beliefs are based, and, therefore, that we believe our magical will work.

The essence of this is the recognition of our place at the center of our own experiential reality, surrounded by infiniteness on all sides, east, south, west, and north, in an endless universe, ready and eager to engage in intentional co-creation with us. We live on the surface of the Earth, in 3-dimensional reality and most of that experience is described in x,y geo-coordinates. The dramas of our lives are described by the heavens, the cycles of time are described by the Moon, and the Sun gives life to everyone and everything. All around us, above, and below, we're supported by the powers that maintain life and enable our magic. This "sets the table" for magic to take place and should be done before every working small and large.

The Greeks personified the directions in various ways, most notably the four winds; Boreas, Eurus, Notus, and Zephyrus; the Moon is, most generally, called Selene, and the Sun, Helios. This is a fine way to address them if that’s your jam.

My shamanic training included a simple daily prayer to the four directions, Mother Earth, and our sky family, Father Sun, Grandmother Moon, and the star nations. An adapted version of this prayer is what I use in my daily praxis and it serves to illustrate the basic idea of directionality in praxis.

Wind of the South, Sachamama, Great Serpent:
Thank you for wrapping me in your coils of light and teaching me to shed my past the way you shed your skin,
For keeping me close to the earth, belly to belly with the Mother, that I may see things and know things as they truly are…
And helping me always glide effortlessly through this world. Aho!

Wind of the West, Otorongo, Mother Jaguar, thank you for protecting me in this medicine space,
For teaching me the way of the luminious warrior, to be fearless in life, and to courageously cross the river beyond death to return again with wisdom and power.
Aho!

Wind of the North, Siwar Kenti, Royal Hummingbird, grandmothers, grandfathers, thank for you attending my rite and whispering to me in the wind,
Telling me of that which came before and those who will come after and my role to play in between,
And always helping me find that sweet nectar in life on my great journey. Aho!

Wind of the East, great Eagle / Condor, thank you for bringing me the energy of the rising Sun,
For lifting me high under your wings that I may soar over the mountains I have always seen as obstacles
To fly side-by-side with the great Spirit. Aho!

Pachamama, Mama Gaia, Madre Tierra. Mother, I thank you.
I thank you for life, and your love, and for regeneration.
For your healing, and nourishing, and nurturing Nature.
And for all our brethren here on Earth, the Stone and the Plant people,
The two and four legged, the creepy crawlers, the finned, the furred, and the feathered ones,
And all many the creatures invisible to us, I thank you for them Mother.
Aho!

Inti Tai Tai, Father Sun. Mama Kia, Grandmother Moon. Chaska Kuna, the great star nations. Thank you for your light and for your guidance. Thank you for lighting the way before me and keeping me on the path.

Great Spirit, you who are worshipped around the world and are yet unnameable and unknowable, thank you for bringing me here to sing the song of life again today. Aho!

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