A Spell For Clarity

I’m in the discernment phase of a major life decision.

While I could make that decision at any time, I can’t act on it for at least another year and a half. Well, I could, but that would severely impact the financial plan for the next segment of my life. That makes this a time of discernment – of gathering as much information as possible so I can make the best decision possible. It’s also a time of preparation (with the current house, with my health, and with my spiritual practices), but that’s another topic for another time.

You can think something to death – business consultants talk about “analysis paralysis.” At some point you have to make a decision, go with it, and make it work through force of will even though it doesn’t go exactly to plan. But acting with a plan is far more likely to be successful than acting without a plan, and plans made using clear and complete information are far more likely to be successful than plans made up on the fly.

Thus the need for clarity.

A bad move I didn’t see in time

In 1994 my job went away. The parent company decided to close the factory where I was working and buy the products we were making from a “low cost country” supplier instead.

After some looking and interviewing, I got an offer from a sister company in Indiana. It was a promotion for me, and while I wasn’t looking forward to experiencing Midwestern winters, it seemed like a good career move.

When I toured the factory, something didn’t feel right. This was very early on my Pagan journey and I really didn’t know how to work with intuition. Professionally, I could tell it wasn’t a very well-run plant, but I thought I had the expertise to fix it. I figured I would be here for two to five years, do some good work, and set myself up for another promotion.

I didn’t understand just how badly-run the factory was until I had been there for about six weeks. By that time we had sold our house in Tennessee and moved into a new house in Indiana. I was stuck, working a bad job in a bad place with some genuinely bad people.

It took 2 years 4 months and 9 days to get out. It took 11 months to sell the Indiana house and we lost a significant-to-us amount of money on it.

I’m older and more experienced now. I won’t have to deal with a job. I know what questions to ask. I know how to listen to my intuition.

But I still need to collect all the information I can get. I need to make sure I’m not overlooking something I don’t even know I should be looking for.

I need clarity.

A Tarot spell

I’m doing all the mundane things I know to do: internet research, visiting potential landing spots, talking to people who live where I’m considering moving. But this is important and I’m going to use all the tools in my toolbox – including magic.

And so I decided to work a spell for clarity.

While I’m fond of sigil magic, that technique didn’t seem like the best approach for this working. Sigil magic works best when you have a tangible target – this target is rather soft (although it’s not vague). So I used a Tarot spell.

There are many different ways to do Tarot magic. My usual method is to choose (not draw) a few cards that represent my situation and my goal, meditate on each card individually, visualize the result I want, add other magical elements that seem right, and then release the spell to do its thing.

(Just to make sure there wasn’t a better way to do this, I googled “Tarot spell for clarity.” Everything I got talked about doing a large spread reading to find the answer. But that’s not what I wanted here. I’m not ready to make a decision – I want to find the information I need so I can make a good decision when the time comes. Mainly, I want to make sure I’m not overlooking something important. So I stayed with my method.)

Choosing the right cards

I chose the Celtic Tarot because it’s a deck I’m familiar and comfortable with, but mainly because the artwork on the cards I wanted to use fit my situation well.

I chose the High Priestess to represent myself. As the title indicates, she is an oath-bound religious specialist. The artwork clearly shows she’s also a witch. I expect my practice will always be more religious than magical, but my emphasis on witchcraft is growing, and I expect it will continue to grow in my new location.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t put much stock in gendering the Tarot. Other readers do – I don’t.

I chose the Eight of Cups to represent my journey. This is the card that asks “I like it here, why do I have to leave?” I don’t like it here anymore, but there are a lot of people here I’ll be sorry to leave. And I’m a creature of habit. Moving on is a conscious decision, one that is difficult but necessary.

My target is The World. This is a card of completion. This move will do more than complete one cycle of my life – it will begin the next cycle. But also, The World represents completion as in “the whole.” I chose this card to bring everything relevant to my decision out in the open where I can see it.

Completeness in clarity.

Working the spell

I laid the cards in front of me, face down.

I turned over the High Priestess and meditated on the book, the cauldron, the herbs, and the setting in Nature. I focused on the magic I’m working now and the magic I intend to work in the future.

I turned over the Eight of Cups and mediated on the metaphorical cups I’m leaving behind, the long steps ahead, the beginning of dawn on the horizon, and on the decision to do what must be done.

Then I lit a new white candle, to represent shining light on everything involved in this decision.

I turned over The World and meditated on the figure, the elemental representations, and especially on the concept of completeness: the light is revealing all that is hidden.

And then I visualized being settled, happy, and productive in my new location, where ever that ends up being.

After a few moments I ended with a line I learned from Dolores Nabors that I rarely use but that felt right here: “and so it is.”

The results start coming in

I’m going to be vague here. Some of this still falls under “keep silence,” some of it is intensely personal, and some of it is still in flux. Look me up after all this is done in a couple years and I’ll tell you all about it.

Three days after I worked the spell I had a conversation with someone in the homebuilding business and came to the realization that one option we were considering is not financially viable. That wasn’t a pleasant conversation (although the person I was talking to was quite nice) but it was something I needed to know sooner rather than later.

Clarity.

Some internet research plus meditation made it clear that two of the locations I was considering are places that while I could make a good life, I really don’t want to live there. I’ve lived my entire life either where I was born or where my jobs took me. I don’t want to make do this time. I want to live some place I want to live. There are cities that have cool things in them and aren’t terribly expensive but are missing a couple of key ingredients for me. Better to realize that now than after spending money and time scoping them out in person.

Clarity.

I am a creature of habit, and while I very much want to get out of Texas, I can come up with a dozen or more reasons why I should stay. I had a vision of staying here, doing OK, but still feeling like a failure for settling for the familiar instead of pursuing what I really want.

Clarity.

Recognizing magical success

There were other instances of clarity I’m not ready to discuss, at least not on the internet. But while I’m not ready to make a decision, my situation is far clearer than it was two weeks ago. That’s a very good thing.

If all goes well, I can make that decision in about a year, and implement it in the months following that. If all doesn’t go well, I’ll deal with it when I have to.

I’m sharing this story because it’s a first-hand example of how magic can be useful when you choose the right method for the right target.

And to emphasize the need for clarity in decision making.