The past few weeks most people have really been focused on current events, politics, and everything going on not just in US but around the world. Although it is important, it can’t be our only focus. There is always going to be something going on. I also assume the people who read my writings are also spiritual and magical crafting people. We have a spiritual path we are walking and using magic to enhance and navigate that. Even when chaos is around us, we still have our own continued growth and personal transformations to focus on.
So where are you at right now in your practice? What are you working on for you? What are you experimenting with magically? These are the questions I am asking people when they are asking me what they can do. It is important to realize that our individual lives keep moving even in stressful times, and what are we working on that can also benefit our communities in these times?
Finding Direction
I have been really vocal about the shifts in my own practices, this movement back to more living magic, what other would call more green magic. Merging that with my Death Emissary/ Spirit practices, which feels like such a natural combination for me. There are aspects that are emerging, some just for me, some for the Temple and my spiritual/magical community, and some that I can use in the wider community (neighbors/ non-magical community).
Healing
When I was young, the healing aspects in green magic was a big draw for me. It is what eventually led me into nursing with the critical care focus. My spiritual and magical background, especially around energy and the Soul, added depth to my medical practices. Now I am embracing how all my medical training, experience, and specialties can add depth to my magical practices.
I am moving deeper into herbalism and other healing modes, beyond just the narrowed family/ friends situations that pop up, into a broader healthcare of community perspective. Combining modes of Soul and Body healing in new ways, combining the Death Emissary (healer of the Soul) with the Healer of the physical.
This is one way I can help the larger community in these times of uncertainty and need. This is what our ancestors did as well. Mountain Healers, Herbalists in rural and isolated communities, that the tradition of the naturalist healers were born from a place of necessity. Yes, we have modern medicine but not everyone has access to that for many reasons, and this may increase with actions being taken in our government right now. I also have my own issues with the healthcare system in the US because I know too much about the back-end/ administrative issues that isn’t focused on healing but on bottom lines. I could do a whole article on that alone but that is not our topic here.
Personal – Family
From the perspective of my personal direction in my practice but that also combines my family – Hearth crafting and gardening is a focus there.
We have not done a serious garden since we moved to the valley, mostly because the small things we have tried gets eaten by the deer and other wild animals before it can even grow enough to produce. I’m all down with sharing – but sharing. I miss having a garden though for fresh vegetables and fruits for my family. I also want to grow my own herbs for my herbalist practice.
I also work with land spirits here and Nisse as part of my spirit practice. So this year I am taking a merged approach to our garden. Combining mundane and magical methods to help protect and grow our gardens. Crafting spells and rituals to focus in these areas. Inviting my spirit allies, land spirits and Nisse, to help me in the endeavor.
I have started to connect to Airmid, Irish Goddess associated with plants and healing. She is the first Deity that I have reached out to – all the others reached to me first. I am just in the “getting to know you” phase and building our bond but it is going really well so far. I am hoping she can help me connect deeper to the plants and the healing aspects of them – as well as some other healing modes.
Personal Practices
I have had a lot of changes emerging in my own personal craft.
Throughout my entire witchy life I have been gaining pieces of my puzzle. Developing techniques, tools, skills, understandings, and so forth. Experimenting, creating my own path and magical practices. Over the last several years it has come together to form a cohesive system of spiritual and magical practice I call Crane Tradition.
Now, we do need to pause here for some clarity. There is a difference between Crane Practice and Crane Tradition, and in all honesty I have only recently realized the depth of that. A Crane Practitioner’s focus is about finding and developing their own spiritual path and magical practices. The elements of Crane Tradition can be used to do this because it is filled with frameworks and tools that help give direction, perspectives, to get you started and experimenting, but they can pick and choose which ones they want to use, and can also combine or use tools/ modes/ practices of other traditions and practices – blending and weaving. The goal for a Crane Practitioner is to develop their own way, their own connections, their own practices. What binds us together is that philosophy and the three simple rules we all abide by: Respect, Integrity, and Authenticity. These rules allow us to interact, connect, support, and inspire each other along this journey. The community we all share together is the Temple of the Crane .
Crane Tradition is a lot more structured and a more formal tradition. Although we still have individual paths, we adopt certain practices, philosophies, bonds/allies, and shared ways of working. Some examples of this are: The 4 Guardians of the Temple, Crane Astrology, Soul Runes, Path of Colors, and the path-works of the Death Emissary and Chayara.
Even though I have been living in Crane Tradition for a long time, when I share publicly it is more from the stance of a Crane Practitioner. I have done this for two reasons…
The First, because I have some issues when it comes to the idea of “tradition.” Too often it has been used as a tool of dominance, exclusion, or control. I never want to see Crane Tradition treated in this way. It should always remain open to anyone, never controlled by a person – but ruled by its practices, philosophies, tools, and structures. Tradition is also often viewed as something more static – passed down and continued on as it was first started. To me, a tradition is something that should be a living practice, shifting and evolving to meet the needs of the people as the times and societies they live in shift and evolve. Crane Tradition I feel is designed to do this. The main principles and structures within it, the foundations, are written from a core energy/aspect leaving room for the expression – the how – to meet the needs of the people no matter where they are (society, time, evolution).
The Second reason is more shallow – other people being judgey because its different. There are things in Crane Practice that has a tendency to ruffle feathers in certain communities. The most obvious being the astrology communities. In Crane Astrology we are looking at the actual positioning of the planets in any given moment, using modern tools and technology to see that. It shows the drifting and changing positions over time – the macro cycles of the sun that shifts the Sky Clock over long periods time. The mainstream astrology that most use is based upon calculations that fall out of sync of the reality over time. As I have said before, I get it, the everyday person did not have access to large telescopes to view this themselves or tech that let them view it. It was needed and great back then. As I said, Crane Tradition runs on Cores and is meant to evolve with the people and nature. We do have that tech now, and the actual positioning is extremely important from a Crane perspective because we deal in real energy – thus the actual positioning of that energy matters to us.… I can feel the judgment already. I am not saying everyone else is wrong in how they work astrology – I am just saying, because of the philosophies in Crane Tradition, this really matters to us and our work. I am not telling people “this is the way” or that everyone should practice this way – every person needs to decide for themselves what works for them, I am just talking about Crane Tradition.
Can you see my internal conflict here? I want to share because it is a beautiful craft that has produced real results for many people, and a deep part of my life – but people can be so polarized in many ways and “different” (especially if it can be seen as contradicting something you believe) becomes a target. I hope I am overthinking all of this and I’m allowing some past experiences to jade me in this thinking – because I want to write and share more publicly about Crane Tradition. I want to show more of my personal works and why’s behind them. I suppose I won’t know until I just do it.
What About You?
So what about you? What are you diving into or learning just for you? It is important to keep moving ourselves forward, growing, even when life is filled with uncertainty and chaos. This is a moment in time, your lifetime will see many of them.
What interests or skills do you have that could also be used in times like these to serve your community? We are Pagans and Witches/ Magical Practitioners. As I said in recent previous articles, we will all contribute and help our communities and the larger societal one in our own ways. The example I listed here for my own expansion deals in the medical side of healing, using professional, spiritual, and magical knowledge and tools together. Where do your talents and connections lay? Where are your skills, magical and mundane, that can be used, or developed to be used, in this way?
How are your personal practices changing during all these other energy shifts? How are you connecting to it? How are you growing in it?
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