Prosperity Spell

Whenever I'm feeling like my business ventures can use a little boost, I always bust out my favorite prosperity spell. Since I'm renewing a spell I've already done, I thought I'd take some pictures this time and share!

What you'll need:

• A green candle. Green symbolizes luck, prosperity, and money. 
• A candle holder, a piece of tin foil, or some other heat-safe platform to burn the candle in. 
• An herb that symbolizes prosperity. Some good examples can be Ginger root, Basil, Bayberry, Clover, Patchouli. I usually use basil because I grow it in my garden and it's always easy to come by and readily available to me. I add ground cinnamon and ginger root to dried basil to amplify the properties in the basil that attract prosperity. 
• Salt.
• Paper and a writing utensil.

Instructions:
 Put the salt and herbs in the container with the candle. I then surround the candle with a ring of salt, to create a circle of protection for the spell. As I light the candle, I say out loud what I want to come of this spell. As the candle burns, I meditate on my goals and wishes, and I write them all down.

When I'm done I fold up the paper, snuff out the flame, and put the paper under the candle holder for next time. Since the candle would take several hours to burn down, I draw the spell out over a couple of nights. I usually find that a repeated effort yields better results than a one-time-only spell. Relight the candle the next day and repeat the process until the candle finally burns itself out on its own. When it does, bury the remaining scraps of wax (if there are any) and the paper in the ground as close to where you conduct your business as possible. At this point, the spell is complete.

Start this spell on a Sunday, preferably during a waxing moon phase.

The candle pictured above is one that I made myself, specifically for this spell. The herbs for the spell are already embedded inside the wax, so it's pretty much a "loaded candle." I like it this way because instead of separate items coming together to aid in a spell, they are all combined as one. It just feels stronger and more powerful that way. I do sell these candles here, if you want one.

Reading Tarot For Yourself: Objectivity

One of the biggest lessons I've learned about reading tarot is it's much more difficult to read for yourself than it is to read for others.

I never thought that would be so; it seems like it would be easier to read for yourself because you know yourself. When there's a message that comes through, I know whether it applies or not. When it comes to strangers, you never really know for sure if you're interpreting the cards correctly. You don't have the luxury of prior knowledge to confirm your reading.

Although I let this scare me out of reading for others for a long time in the beginning, I actually had it all backwards. It's actually harder to read for yourself than it is to read for strangers! Or, at least that's what I've learned!

You see, in order to read tarot for yourself (and get an accurate reading), it's very important that you remain objective! Every time I did a reading for myself, I had a preconceived idea of what the cards would tell me. Most of the time, I found a way to twist the message to fit my idea of what it should say. I didn't even realize I was doing it! I went through a long period where I got bored with reading tarot and gave it up because I always knew what the cards were going to tell me beforehand (or so I thought).

One day a friend asked me for a reading on her relationship. I brought out those dusty cards and did the reading. This time I wasn't going into it thinking I already knew what the outcome would be, I genuinely needed advice for her. Unfortunately, the message wasn't one she wanted to hear. The message was loud and clear: drop him now and move on.

She stared at me blankly. "So... I should give him another chance?"

She was disregarding my interpretation of the cards, and twisting the message so that it would comply with what she wanted to hear. Although I kept trying to reword the message (and kept pulling extra cards), so that she would understand it better, the message remained the same and she refused to accept it as it was. I eventually gave up, hoping I was wrong.

A mere few days later, we found out the cards were dead on. My friend's situation was very unfortunate, but I learned a huge lesson from that reading. What she did, construing the message to fit her preconceived ideas, is exactly what I had been doing in my own readings all along!

From then on, I started doing more readings for others. It helped me practice using my own intuition instead of relying on the knowledge I already had about the subject of the reading. I tried doing readings about my future; what I needed to know about the coming day, etc. This way, I could do the reading with no knowledge of what was actually going to happen, and I could go back and check the accuracy of my interpretation after the day was over.

It's still hard to stay objective sometimes, but it's the one most imperative factor in doing a reading for yourself!

Totem Animals

I've been working my way through the book Animal Speak by Ted Andrews. This is the first time I've done any kind of research on totem animals, and this book is teaching me a lot so far!

As a little girl, I somehow developed the belief that my "spirit guide" would appear to me in the form of an animal. Don't ask me who taught me that, it was just one of those things I assumed.

Throughout my life I've had a few animals that could very well have been totem animals, but the hummingbird and the fox have been the most consistent.

Until I started reading this book, I thought they were just manifestations of whatever spirit was watching over me. I would see these animals everywhere I went. They appeared in recurring dreams, I would run into them in real-life in the most unlikely places, and other people would often give me gifts that had something to do with that animal (although I rarely talked about this with anyone). Now that I'm reading this book, I'm starting to learn a lot more about what I was missing about these occurrences.

Looking back, those animals were appearing to me so often because they represented something important in my life at the time. They were either trying to teach me a big lesson, or they were warning me about something that was coming. Of course, I had no idea at the time. I just thought there was something that was sending those animals to either be my friend or my protector (because those were two things I desperately needed at the time).

The fox, my most recent "totem animal" has been following me in my dreams for years. But I didn't know it had much significance until it appeared in the same dream that I got my magical name from (you can read about that dream here).  Since then, the fox has acted as an aid in my study of the craft in many ways. It's a clever, fast, and tricky creature that has been thought to live on the border between the two worlds. It brings me important messages in my dreams, helps guide me in meditations, and even greets me in person at the most unlikely times.

What's your totem animal? How has it helped you?