Empath and Panic Attacks/Anxiety Attacks: Is Magic Making Me Sick?

As I have written in my blog of late, I have been having health problems. Well, lately these problems have actually improved through a combination of medication and strict adherence to a special diet. Digestion aside, I am having problems with anxiety sometimes. It's something that runs in my family, my mother and grandmother both have anxiety problems, and I think it's extremely likely that I do too.

I don't know why I'm even worried about all kinds of things really, since they are not things that really actually affect me. Other than the worry that I do about them. Luckily, I have an amazing logical mind that can think it's way around that kind of stuff, know it, and then use the knowledge to change from worrying about it to marking it down as a concern, making a mental note of it, you could say. And then letting it go.

When I was reading a fantasy novel, (hehe like normal!) the main character, who discovers she's actually a Pixie changeling, was trying to learn how to create things with magic. The kelpie who instructed her told her that the hard part of magic is not visualizing what you want to happen, but actually allowing your energy that you are investing in the task through the visualization leave your body to go do what you intend.

I think this is true, in a magic sense and as applied to my problem of worrying about things that don't really matter. Now, it's kinda funny how I just wrote "and then letting it go" as if this is such a simple task. Well, much like the above explanation, letting go of emotions is every bit as hard as letting go of magical energy. In fact, as far as I can tell it's pretty much exactly the same. Really, emotions are magical energy. Clearly, I'm not someone who needs reminding of that, given my own magical ability to feel the emotions of others. But none the less, it's still something that I struggle with.

I have lately been having the same strange symptoms I had before, in that I have been having panic attack like symptoms, heart racing, nervous, jittery feeling, dizziness and nausea. I'm pretty sure it's a hereditary thing, as my mom has it, and so did my grandmother. I also suspect my mother is herself an empath. I think it's why she ignores people sometimes, and also why she seems to have emotional freak outs from time to time. And it's like I'm feeling what she is giving off, and it's not good, then she feels it off me, then she gets even worse. I really think that she is unaware of her ability, and that is the actual panic attack. Not from her, but from around her. Maybe it's more like she is a sponge, and she soaks up the energies around her, eventually bubbling over into an attack.

Who knows. Anyways, for myself, there are things I can do to help. I can do my self a favor, and lay off the extra energy spent creating problems with worries. The other thing I can do is to talk myself down from it when I do feel that. The other question though, is what to do when it feels like it's not even coming from me. Being an empath complicates it because I actually get more affected by other people's emotions than my own often times, because I never get as upset about things for myself as the emotions I feel from others. When I do get that upset, of course my emotions are stronger than others, but the vast majority of the time I'm feeling fine. While I was sick, I was feeling my own stuff. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm having problems with this again, lol. Maybe it was just so much of my own before there was no room for more from others!

Well anyways, the point is that I can separate from it if it's coming from outside of me. I feel like it is, because even if the emotion originates from my brain somewhere, it's not actually coming from me. I mean, it shouldn't be tuned to a hair trigger here. That's not how things are supposed to be. So if I'm like a sponge for emotional energy, what I need to do is learn to either use the energy and continue it's flow out of me, or block it from coming in.

Now, that's interesting. Blocking is all well and good, but how do you solve the problem if you've already accumulated it inside you? There needs to be a balance there, and it's natural to think of the movement of energy that way. Okay, so one thing that helps is to expend massive normal energy (aka exercise), so in essence some of the energy you put out is bound to be the excess emotional energy. This is how I envision it works, as this is how exercise for the body versus the mind works, they end up crossing over and becoming a mix of both. Creating something, even not magically, but like painting something or drawing something, or playing music. These things indirectly help expend it. But, again, there is a way more efficient way to do it.

Brain exercise for example, is a direct way to improve something that is not working in our natural mental skill set. Clearly I'm not meant to burn out my nervous system in this way emotionally, so there is something that I should be doing to expend this energy, something I was made to do. Well, here it is more than clear to me that I am meant to use this energy, and by not using it, I end up with an overflow.

Now I must take away from this contemplation the fact that I am not only meant to use my magic, but I in fact need to use it. Using it, just for anything at all, will help me. Using my emotions to create something else directly through their application in a spell, now there is something that may even become a cure to all of my current health problems. One could argue that part or maybe even all of my IBS is caused by emotions making my gut react to every little thing.

So I am equipped to transmit this energy, if it's coming in, it can go out, that's just a fact. So being an empath itself, while maybe makes my need to deal with emotions more immediate, I still think I would still have to figure out how to deal with emotional stress anyway. The combination of my natural predisposition towards anxiety stress responses and my ability to feel the emotions of others just gives me no choice but to find a way to deal with emotional overflow before it literally kills me. And I can see now that really the two things are linked in that I have both the ability and the need for magical release of emotional energy, and I have a ready to use seemingly limitless supply of more emotion that I absorb from others.

Well, now that I understand this, I can at the very least test my theory. I shall begin as soon as I think of a spell that is needed, or that I want to do. Also I suppose I should be figuring out how to release the energy in a spell. This I will have to explore and ponder a bit, and I will report back with what I have figured out.

Bonfire Weekend

Well, I'm the type of person who really relates well to fire. So, I'm understandably excited about going up to our cabin this weekend and making a huge bonfire with all the random branches and trees we've had fall down or pruned this year on our property. It's so neat when you get a big fire going, and with the acoustics in our meadow the crackling noises of the fire echo up the canyons. It feels pretty clear to me that the power of the fire is gathering elemental power from the air around it, and in that canyon, the convergence of it must be pretty strong.

At any rate, it will be awesome for sure this weekend when we have one. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that it's also a full moon! Indeed, today it is a full moon! Too bad it's probably going to be cloudy and rainy though. Hmm. Maybe the clouds will part up there for an "ah!" moment with the moon lighting the meadow as the embers burn down on the fire. Mhmmm I can hardly wait!

Happy full moon everyone!

~And blessed are thee who dance under the moon with me~

Update: Rune Cloth

Well, I have been working on my rune cloth a lot lately, and it's really looking great! I have most of the outlining done for the symbolic representations of the different sections of the cloth that are connected to the worlds of Norse mythology, the worlds supported on different levels of the world tree, Yggdrasil. I am pretty sure I've totally butchered the spelling there, but if you're familiar with the worlds I'm talking about, you get the idea.

At any rate, the symbolic divisions of the space make for a really detailed rune cast! I am excited to test it out soon. The thing is, I intend to work on this thing for years, making it into a masterpiece of magical and artistic creativity. What could be better than that for connecting with the great mystery, the spirits, the gods, whatever you want to call it, that divine entity outside of yourself that can see the nature of all things. That connection is definitely fueled by the mind, so by connecting my logic (my thoughts/question that I hold in my mind while casting) and my creativity through the cloth and the runes, I can devote my whole mind, my whole spirit to the connection.

I am ready to at least test the cloth out soon though, as the basic ideas behind the divisions of the space are represented well now both in my mind and on the cloth. It helps that I made it myself, since I have a really good understanding of the meaning of each because I had to think of something I can sew that represents that section, and then after thinking of it, I had to actually sew it. Due to the time invested, it's pretty much cemented the meaning of each for me.

I will edit this post to add pics once I get a chance, I mostly write in my blog at work so I don't have the cloth handy to take a picture!

The rune cast I do will probably first just be a general cast to get acquainted, and it's fun to see what the runes tell you when you don't focus on a specific topic, especially when you are able to delve into such detail due to the many things that will be taken into account in the cast. Obviously, the section where a rune lands will be connected, the orientation of the rune, and it's relationship with the other runes! Yep, it's a lot to interpret, but I think the more I do it the better I will be at it. I suspect I may still use the simpler casts from time to time, but this type of rune casting will be preferable since hopefully this cloth will increase my precision and therefore increase my understanding of the messages I receive. I'm excited, this should be great, I'll post about my cast after.

Time: Another of Life's Questions

I often think about time, and what I think it is defined by, what makes it tick, literally. The thing is, time is really just us marking down the movement of objects in space, and applying all these lines of measurement to it. It's really funny measurements too, they aren't even at all, for example, the number of days in a year is actually an estimate, and to keep it from getting too off they created the leap years!

So I guess that's the first thing about time I want to discuss. The whys and hows of the measurement process are not all that important, though it is a funny thing about our current system for time. What is important to understand is that time is an invention of the minds of humans, as a way to mark the movement of our planet around the sun, and the events of our lives on the earth while it does so. Really it just gives us a frame of reference for that unknowable constant, the present, and it's relationship to the past and future.

The present itself is a bit hard to conceptualize as well. The moment that it is, is just that, and it is gone before you can even think of it as being the present. It's nothing but a marker for the precise moment that divides the past from the future. Really, it defies our ability to define it, and you could argue that it's nothing at all.

You may be wondering then, what time is, if the present is nothing but a marker for the division between the past and the future. Well, I feel like time is bound both by the earth itself, and by our minds. In other words, time did not come to be until we defined it, and through our definition of it, we have bound it to the movement of our planet as well. If you think about it, we have one day for one revolution of the earth, one year for one revolution of the earth around the sun. In the past we also had the months divided by the moon cycles, though now it's a bit more loosely based on that. This means that if humans were on another planet, even in this solar system, their time would be different. I think that if we do end up with multiple planets with human civilizations, we will need to revise this. It's crazy to try to keep track of the minutes and hours and days when you are on a planet that doesn't match up that way, it would get way too confusing. I believe that time has to be bound to the terrestrial home of the intelligent being that is keeping track of it, because this is part of how it is defined for us. Either how we define it or standardize it will need to change, or our understanding as a whole does. Though going to in depth into that is not really important as that hasn't happened yet.

One part about time that is important to define is the future, the unknowable void towards which we are always heading, to the end of time. There is some prediction possible for the future, but there are so many variables that the further from the present you get, the less likely you are to be correct in your prediction. But with divination, the view into time is different than coming up with a prediction based on the likelihood of an event. Divination is using a medium to contact the spirits or energy, however you define it, that exist outside of time and outside of what we know of the physical world. The information about the future that you get through divination is guided by your use of the medium, and your interpretation of the answers given. More than that though it is guided by the energies that come into play. The future seems to be veiled from us, but really it is there all along, and often times will come to pass just as it seems it will. The times when it does not are the important times. When things don't go as expected, that is when you can see the changeable nature of existence, and the amazing adaptability of all life forms.

The past to me is very important, but in the concept of the meaning of time, it's simply memories. Memories written down, or recalled in our own minds. Memories that are passed down in cultures or families. The fact is that the past is only what we remember of it. It's different for everyone, and often times inaccurate.

Time, as a concept is like I said, our invention, the lines we are marking out to keep track of ourselves. In other words, it's our perception of it, in a measurable form. If you allow time to branch out in it's meaning you can think about the perception of it, outside it's measurable (numeric) form. I'm sure most everyone can agree that a period of time can seem longer or shorter than the clock says it is. Sometimes just a few moments can seem like hours, and vice versa.

In using magic to manipulate time, generally I feel like the only part of time that I have been successful in manipulating is the perception of time. I can make the perception of time for myself and sometimes others I am with change, either to seem like more or less time than it really is. Sometimes when I am late I will imagine a clock moving less slowly, but I find it hard to effectively do. I usually would try imagining whatever clock it is that I need to slow, like my supervisor's clock on his computer, or the clock for the receptionist, depending of course on what I am late to. I don't really feel like that type of time manipulation has actually worked for me. The other way that I try to manipulate time in a more indirect manner is through fixing in my mind the need for me to get quickly through obstacles, and that has worked before. Like, having all the traffic lights green, or a car moving out of the way, that type of thing. I think it could also work better to cause a person to mistake the time they see, or to not check what time it is, or not care.

One bit of warning: when I have manipulated time and it had a dramatic effect, I also seemed to have some consequences for my success. Time seems to need a balance, so if you slow time down, you should account for time to speed up again and if you don't want it to do that at a certain point, you should probably assign the balance as well, so if you were slowing time down to get to work, you would want to allow time to speed up to balance itself out afterwards. Otherwise, time might speed up before, meaning you are still late! Or, if you were making something last longer, like a special weekend or trip, you need to account for the time that will be speeding up. So, to make sure that you avoid some twist of time coming back to bite you, account for the opposite of what you intend to accomplish in your spell too. 

To sum this all up, I think time is something that is unchangeable, but the perception of that constant, and the manipulation of the people and things that exist in a certain time and place make it possible to change time with magic, but be wary of the balance needed to accomplish time manipulation.

Looking beyond the Earth - Magic in the Cosmos

Well, I am the type of person who ponders life's questions, sometimes for years until I feel I have reached an acceptable answer for me at the time. I find I end up redefining things and shifting my beliefs fairly often lately, as I reason things out and come to new, more insightful conclusions. This post contains my thoughts on using the whole universe, and even what lies beyond, rather than the more limited approach to invocation- of calling on magical energy from local sources.

In this case, I have been pondering the limited view of magical practice. That is, the idea that the magic you do is based on energies from the earth or our solar system. Like the Moon, the Sun and Earth. Generally those are the things called to. That and the elements of the earth, like water, wind, and fire. Earth too, but of course that's redundant. You can also find lots of information about the magical uses of the planets, as far as what types of aspects they embody and what their placement around the earth means at that time. What I'm saying is, that I feel this is limiting yourself. The earth itself is so tiny and insignificant in comparison to the universe at large. Well, it seems to be anyway. There are so many forces that could destroy our tiny fragile existence. I think it's important to look at the big picture, and in this case some of the biggest questions of the universe that science has not been able to answer have to do with the way that galaxies interact, whether the universe is expanding or contracting, and of course what matter is.

I find that in looking at those questions, it's helpful to keep in mind the idea that there are so many different things out there in the universe that are undiscovered, which also means there are so many things that come into play, meaning the magical forces of the universe are much much bigger than just the one star, moons, and planets near us. The challenge then is to keep this open minded attitude about the energies you employ, rather than limiting them by calling to them by name in an invocation, I would rather think of the infinite and call to that.

To me, the mysteries of the universe and the energies I manipulate with my mind when I practice magic are one and the same. I don't need to connect with the defined attributes others have assigned to the cosmos, but rather I'd like to creatively open my options up and work magic that is bigger than just the wind from the earth or the points on the compass. When you look at modern magic, it should employ things that are based on mankind's current understandings of the universe, rather than looking back to the ancients. For one the information from the past is more difficult to verify, so it has less meaning than what you as a person believe, because it doesn't even connect to you personally. If you have to memorize something in order to use it in a spell, then it's just not the right thing to use.

For example, I have been employing the runes for some time now, and though some of the meaning of the runes I have to look up in books, for the most part the language of the runes (the shapes of the symbols themselves) is understandable to me and so they work as a medium for magic. One reason that they do is that I am able to see the shape of a rune and from that understand how the cosmic energy is manipulated. More specifically, uruz is a rune that shows energy from the earth rising and then returning, illustrating the life cycle, where a person born from the earth returns eventually. Uruz is a rune for health, and life and rebirth. It's easy to see how the energy that comes out and returns could be seen as being a cyclical connection to life, rebirth, and health and prosperity. Understanding what the symbols are illustrating is a way of saying something without having to invest the time in explaining it, which is useful in magic because it is easier to fix your intent when you have an emblem like that to focus on that means what you want. If I didn't understand that part about the runes, or if the runes didn't have that, I wouldn't find them as useful to me.

I find that when you break magic down into it's basic form, it's manipulating energy through thought. Well, does distance matter with thought? No. So there's no real need to focus on just the earth. It is however important to know that the earth is the most important life giving entity for all humans. Whether they believe it or not, every second of every day humans, and all life on this planet, depend on the earth to live.One thing about that is that when you employ energy from an unknown source (i.e. a galaxy specifically, you would have to find a way to invoke it) you would want to direct that energy and make strong parameters for it's effect. I have a feeling that calling on something unique like that may have unexpected results. While employing energies outside the earth is a neat idea, the earth is still extremely important, and I'm not saying that the earth should not be involved in magical practice, I'm simply saying it doesn't have to be the only one.

I can see how just throwing out all you know and going back to square one would be too daunting for most people. I am still contemplating how I am going to apply these ideas to my own practice. But if you are interested in taking your practice to the next level, or you feel like you are not finding the answers you seek with your current practice, this may be a way to open up your horizons and find some new answers!

Technology and Rune Magic?

Well, I have an iPhone, and so of course I'm often browsing the app store for interesting applications to play with. I came across a rune divination app that I decided to try out, despite my skepticism that using a phone to cast runes will be meaningful. The name of the app is Rune Magic Lite, and it was created by Dev-iQue for the Order Ars Ascensionis. I tried to look into who that is, but so far I couldn't tell.

I am skeptical for several reasons. I'm not sure of the mathematical formulae used in the app, but no matter what it is, I don't feel that it can mimic the act of casting runes. Generally, when I cast them, I feel the runes in my hand, and the ones that feel just right are the ones I hold on to and cast. I think the energy of your body interacts with the runes, charging them with your intent, your question to the runes, and then the runes respond to that, which is what I'm feeling for. I am certain that you cannot accomplish that with a push on the screen of the phone. Well, I don't know if you can, but I'm pretty sure that the random rune generator used in the app isn't affected by any energy you send into the phone. Okay, so I guess I could suspend my disbelief a little on that point. An agrument could be made that you could indeed do just that. For me though, pressing the glass surface of my phone to get an answer will never be my preferred method. There's a reason I made my runes with my own hand, from wood that I chose. I wanted my runes to be an extension of me, to be inextricably linked to my creativity. For me, a mathematical equation that expresses the random probability of runes to be chosen in a cast is meaningless when compared to the actual act.

Another reason why I am skeptical that the rune casting from a phone would be meaningful is that rune casting is an organic act, something affected by the touch and mind of the person doing it, and in the case of an app that does it for you, it would also be coming from the programmer who created it. If you beleive that the intent of the button pusher can affect the outcome of the rune cast, then you must also allow for the intentions of anyone involved in it's creation. This app was created by a third party app creation company, making it another degree further from the intent of the person pressing the button. There was one person who intended this app be made, and paid for this company to do it, and then, this company assigned the task to one or more software designers whose intentions with regard to the app could be any number of things. When you look at physical runes casting, you can certainly argue that the energies and intentions of the people who made the runes also affect them, but that's why the rune caster themselves often makes the runes, to keep the intentions of others out of the equation. Doing so with a phone application would be much more difficult for the average rune caster.

Despite these concerns, I did invest a bit of my own magical energy into the phone when I pressed the button, and I also came up with solid questions to focus on. Oddly enough, the casts were somewhat fitting to the questions. The rune casting which the free version of this app allowed is the single rune cast (Odin's rune). The runes that I got for my questions could be relevant, but because I do not yet know the outcome of the questions I asked, I cannot tell if the guidance I got was truly helpful to me. I wasn't intending to "test" it's accuracy, really I just wanted to have a quick magical moment at my desk, and at least when casting runes I am execising my mind's visualization and energy manipulation. Also, it does help me to refocus myself towards my goal of health. The other great thing about this app is that it has a study section. I haven't reviewed the information from my rune studying with the info on the app to note differences I see, but it looks pretty awesome so far. I do need to check the differences, if there are any, but really it could be helpful in commiting the meaning of the runes to memory so that when I cast it can be even more effective. In the end, I have decided that I like the app, but there is no way that it can ever replace real rune casting. It's simply a simluation of something real, but it's discreet enough that you could do it anywhere, and it's also a great tool for learning the runes.

Update - The War has begun...

Boy, it has been a while since I have found the time to post on here. Well, I am still sick. I am unsure of whether the spell that my friends and I did had any effect, but one of my doctors beleives that he knows what is wrong with me, so maybe it did. For me, knowing what is wrong is a big releif, but because I am not getting better after doing what my doctor has said to do, I am concerned that he is wrong.

I have been trying to figure out what it is on my own as well, I have done several rune casts to try to get some new ideas. A month or two ago I did a rune cast that at the time I struggled with the meaning. It was clear in the way that the runes fell that my fate was forked, meaning it was up to me which way it ended up.

One path was a bit jumbled, and seemed to lead to death/rebirth through difficult trials, and the other pointed to an Odin rune with the valkyrie rune ( /| ) as the rune that pointed. At the time, I could see which was the best path, the Odin path, but I wasn't sure what that entailed exactly. It was the rune for wisdom and knowledge through Odin, so I was thinking at the time that it meant to seek knowledge, or possibly to become more odinistic. I didn't know what to do, so I didn't do anything. Sometimes, it's a good idea to ponder something, waiting until you feel like you have determined the true meaning, even if you think you are close, lest you do something that then tips your fate the undesirable direction.

Well, the other day I was packing my notebook to take with me on a trip, and happened to look at the drawing I made of the rune cast, and being the type of person who can't let go of something until I understand it, thought it over once again. A few hours later, I had a realization of the meaning of the "path of Odin". Well, I have learned a good amount about the different aspects of the Norse gods, including Odin, so I know that Odin is a warrior god, who values brave warriors and through his valkyries he rescues thier spirits when they have fallen in battle to bring them to Valhalla. Thinking about that, I realized that I must wage war on this illness.

I had planned to build my strength up once I was feeling better, and then banish future sickness by remaining extremely physically fit. I guess it hadn't occured to me that I was somewhat putting the cart before the horse in the matter. I have realized that the way to feel better is to banish this sickness now by becoming stronger than it and forcing it to.

When I think about becoming a warrior for my health, I realized that it's really more that to do this I should become strictly disciplined in both body and mind, devoting myself to my purpose. It goes beyond eating right and getting sleep and exercise, to include becoming strong mentally as well. Expanding my knowledge, meditation, training myself with good habits, all of these things will be needed. I have been somewhat indulgent of myself the last few years, feeling like I need to reward myself in order to feel good, when really it is my own lack of action that keeps me from feeling good, not the lack of perceived rewards. Wouldn't good health truly be a reward? This is what I have realized, that to be happy and healthy, I must give up the empty rewards that only satisfy me in the short-term, and instead focus on the work that needs to be done, knowing that the reward I need is bigger and more important than any other.

So, the runes have provided, once I was ready to see the meaning of it, a solution to my problem. I am going to need to figure out a plan for all this, so that it doesn't get simply forgotten about once I have begun to recover. This is something that there is no going back to "normal" on after it's over. Once you commit to be a warrior in the eyes of Odin, you are commited for life. This will be a life change for me, bringing me to my true self, a warrior. I know that this is something that is vitally important for me to understand, that I am not just using this as a tool to get what I want, but instead I am pushing myself to reach my highest potential for good in the world too. It's all interconnected, and without good health, it is clear that everything else I want to accomplish cannot be done.

I have dreams about being a warrior for the forces of good in the world all the time. In fact, deep down I have been searching my soul to figure out what I want my purpose to be, and all along it was there waiting for me to realize. I have the determination, and really just plain stubbornness that is needed to never, ever, ever give up on something important. I also have strength to endure pain, both emotional and physical. This time of my life is certainly a test of my strength. In other words, I am well suited to a life spent fighting for the things that really matter. The true question, I suppose, is what it is I should fight for specifically. That too, I may consult the runes to find out. At this point though, the war that needs fighting is very clear to me, as I know that my choices are to fight, or to die. Literally.