Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Friday, September 17, 2010

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.

Friday, August 20, 2010

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.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Bonfire Spell ~ Results

Well, it's been a couple of weeks almost since we did the spell, and I still hadn't posted anything in my blog about how it went! So, here goes. Well, the night before I was really worried that it would snowing or raining too much to be able to even get up to our property for the spell, so I was just sort of hoping for the best.

But, it turned out that it was a beautiful day, with bright sunlight in the morning when I got up. I was so excited! We all met at my place and then we drove up there. The drive went well, and then we walked from the car about a half mile to the cabin. It was really a beautiful day, so after all that walking none of us were cold. We started right away by getting some wood from a big pile we have and my fiance chopped it up for us. We also scavenged some sticks and whatnot from a brush pile.

There was a huge pile of wood ready for the bonfire, so I made a little pile of paper and some smaller sticks with some bigger peices around it to shelter it, and then I let my fiance try to light it with his flint strker for a bit, since he really wanted to try it out, and I was curious to see how it would work, too. Turns out those things are much harder to use than we realized, so I ended up just using a lighter to light the fire after all.

Then, while the fire was building up, I took the girls back to the spring where we get the water for the cabin. It is so awesome back there, the trees are so tall that you can't even see the tops of them, and it's so quiet and peaceful. I just love it up there. We each picked out a rock that we liked for part of one of the other girls' spells. We then headed back to the fire spot in the middle of the meadow.

The fire was roaring at that point, so it was time to get started. I wasn't sure exactly how we were going to do the circle, since we each have different things that we do, so we talked over that and went over what each one of us had prepared for the spell. I had made papers with the words to my spell on them which I also painted things on with watercolors for fun.

The other two girls are water and earth oriented, so one made a spell to use afterwards to cleanse away any remaing bad things, and the other had a healing rock visualization type thing that she had planned, which is what we would use the river rocks for that we had picked out.
One thing that I hadn't really done before with the circle that I thought was interesting was the triangle made of rocks which pointed north that one of the girls made. It was neat because it makes it a little easier to orient yourself to the directions when you already have a marker for north. I think I will use that myself in the future, because it really came in handy!

It was really neat while we were in the circle together, it was like each of us was responding to things the other person was thinking without the need for much explanation. We seemed to be able to create some pretty strong magic, I think. Each of us have a different specialty so when we band together like that we have a broad range of skills/power to draw upon. It was a great experience for me.

After the inital circle casting and gathering a couple of forgotten items that were outside the circle, we then started my portion of the spell. It went really well, I liked how it all went together. Then, we did some visualization with the rocks where each of us held a rock to the part of my abdomen that has been hurting and visualized the rock taking away the bad thing that is causing all my troubles. A weird thing happened while we were doing that, I get thig buring feeling on my stomach, like really strong buring sensation. Later, upon reflection, I figured it may have been the heat from the fire, as my bare skin was facing it and that fire was super hot!

Once we had completed that part of the spell, well, I had to stop it because my belly was burning too much, but then we had a little drink of some of our homemade apple cider and then we did the cleansing spell. I really liked both of the things that my witch friends had prepared for this, it was so awesome to get to do some magic with other people! It's fun to do spells on your own too, but I really liked the group thing.

So the jury is still out on whether it worked, I am currently on antibiotics so if that doesn't work then I will have to get more tests. I hope the spell worked because I could definitely use some help with this health problem I'm having. Yesterday was a really yucky pain and nausea day, I felt bad all day long, and today is slightly better, but I just feel like my body is all out of balance. I think it takes time for a spell like this to take effect, and certainly they never really do what you expect anyways, but once I know more I will be sure to post about it!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Bonfire Spell

Well, lately I have been having some health problems that my doctor has been unable to diagnose, and which are worsening gradually. My friend had the awesome idea to do a spell to help me get better! She checked to see if that was the right thing to do with her Tarot cards, as that is what she prefers for divination. So, once it was determined that we should, it was time to get started planning it. She and our other witch friend will be helping me with it, and each of us is going to prepare something that is in our area of expertise for it. I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends who would want to do something like this for me!



Ok, so for my part I decided the time, place, and type of spell. For the time, it is going to be at mid-day because that is my strongest magical time, it's going to be up at my family's land in the forest, and it's a fire spell, as I'm sure you gathered from the title. Being that it is spring and the fire danger is low, I thought a bonfire would be a really awesome thing to do, because it would work well for the spell and I love them. Additionally, I am going to write out the words for the spell that we will say. As with my last custom made spell, I am going to make a plan first because that helps me to write it. Spell planning can also make my spells more successful because I can keep my thoughts more focused, which of course makes for strong magic.

Ok, first of all, we would need to actually make the fire. I am not going to worry too much about what wood is used for the fire, but I have a really good spot picked out for it. It's in the middle of a meadow where the sound echoes off the hillsides around it. So, the rest of the details of the fire are not too important, in my opinion.

For the materials, we intend to use ivy in the spell, so we will gather some that is growing out there already. It was planted by my grandmother, and while I don't know if that will help, it certainly can't hurt anything. Additionally, we will have some gemstones but I don't know which just yet. I feel like there is something I'm forgetting here, so I might come back and edit this post later to add more.

Ok, on to the meat of the matter, writing a spell!

Ok, first we need to cast the circle, but that I am going to wing it on, as there's three of us and we each probably have some variations.Then we really should make some type of pact to help with using our powers together, like a promise to do no harm to one another and work together towards the same goal.

Next, I'd like to have a short laundry list type section where we say the things which we are going to use, and thier intended purpose. In turn, we can then do whatever action is appropriate for the item in question:
  • Fire - feel the heat with hands
  • Ivy - put in the fire
  • Gems - Charge them with energy, place them (tentative, I don't know what we are doing with them)
So, for the fire, I just assume that will be my contribution. For the ivy and gems the other two ladies will do them. So it will be a three part section, each part spoken by one of us. With the words for the ivy and the gems, I will simply discuss it with the other two on the way there and come up with the words then. For mine, I will write it ahead so that I will have something to base the other part on.

Something that we talked about during the planning of this spell was the fact that each of us have an element that we are strongest in, or identify with more. It's part of who we are. So, I am fire, and we also have water and earth. So, to complete the picture, we need wind, right? Well, I happen to know that there is a good amount of wind in the spot where I will have the fire, so another thing that will be done is that we will call to the wind to help complete the spell.

Finally, I think it will be good to have a unifying stanza which will then direct our focus to the main purpose for all of it, a coming together of the energies at hand. This will be the culmination of the spell, and after, we can then begin to close out the magic. The energy will be sent to it's purpose or back to earth depending on the type, and then we will bust out the food and drink for a celebration of the completion of our first spell together as a group! Yay!

My next post will either be the menu for the after spell feast, with recipes, or the wording to the spell, depending on which I am more inspired about first!