OR: Pink Haired Seekers & Timing
In my blog on visualization, my writing took a bit of a detour after I explained that my high priest drilled into my head the adage “There are no such things as coincidences.”
My priest made sure I knew that magick was part of things happening daily. This article comes from a series of “coincidences” and is very reliant upon my personal ability to act on all the intuitive cues I came across. Put another away, this blog looks at a series of coincidences that I recognized as they happened while being open to the spiritual cues I received that lead to definitive results in my life and others that were purely magickal.
Barefoot Sandals
It starts with the decision to crochet barefoot sandals to sell Pagan Pride Day in Atlanta as a fundraiser for my community. I prefer to make them out of a very specific type of yarn that doesn’t fray with wear and is water proof. I went into Michael’s on a Sunday after a meeting with a person who had asked for a reading. I do not normally give individual readings, but I heard the goddess tell me to meet this person on Sunday and give her a reading. So I met her in another city, gave the reading, and headed to Michael’s because Hobby Lobby, the only carrier of that very specific yarn that I was sure of is closed on Sunday’s because it is a church run store front. I went in Michael’s because it was on my way to JoAnne’s. I was pretty sure Michael’s didn’t carry the yarn I wanted but thought it wouldn’t hurt to check.
Needless to say, Michaels’ doesn’t carry that yarn. I had found something I wanted to buy and then decided not to buy anything so I went to put the item down on an aisle display. Upon doing this I noticed the 75% off tag on that display and realized that it was sale on plastic storage bins for crafting. This strikes me as good fortune because my husband has leather goods all over my kitchen table and I noticed that the containers he had for that craft were all full. I also know that I had gained five grocery bags of small yarn for these barefoot sandals I was making. On impulse I decided to buy the item I had already picked out and two containers that are on sale.
At the checkout there are two girls ringing up items and one guy pre-ringing items for those in line. He rings me up and the timing is such that a girl with bright pink hair opens up just as he hands me a barcode card and says pink hair will scan the code and check me out. I approach her and set down the items, give her the barcode card and notice she is staring at my forearm which has two wonderful tattoos. I observe her scanning my forearm and notice that she is not looking at the beautiful raven but the pentacle that is prominently displayed closer to my wrist.
“I like your tattoo,” she says quietly.
Feeling some intuitive prompting, I run my finger over the pentacle and say, “Oh really? Do you like this symbol? Do you know what it means?”
She looks at my face a bit startled and then whispers, “I have been studying on my own. I am solitary?”
I laugh.
In this moment every action I took from deciding to give a reading that I do not normally give, in a town that is far away from me, to deciding to chance a look in Michael’s even when I was pretty sure that the yarn I wanted wouldn’t be there, to deciding to buy something then changing my mind and finding the most expedient route to leave, to coming across the sell, has led to this very moment. Even the placement of my tattoo, the choice of a sleeveless shirt, the timing to be at that place at that moment with that person…. All of that is magick manifested in myself and in the pink haired beauty checking me out.
I take out the community’s card that has the North Georgia Pagans Facebook Group on the back and suggest she join to find people of like mind and ask questions.
I leave and give her no further thought. I give out cards all the time. I am quite used to not getting responses and don’t take it personally. I give the cards out when those overwhelming coincidences pile up upon first meeting someone. If they chose to harness the magick of that moment is upon them, not me.
In this case, I get a friend request at the same time I notice someone trying to join the community’s Facebook group which is restricted. I have been getting a lot of people trying to phish me, so if I think a Facebook profile is fake, I delete them. This new request is obviously fake so I am going to delete the friend request and then delete the request the community’s group thinking it was just some phisher. Before I do this, I Facebook Messenger the other group moderators and say that I think this new request is phishing instead of deleting the request first.
I have just hit send on my message when a new Facebook message pops up from the person in question saying, “I am the pinked hair woman from Michaels’.”
I laugh again. Timing – timing is everything.
So I friend her, add her to North Georgia Pagans, send a new message to the moderators and Vetting Officer of my community explaining who she is and that I suspect her Facebook profile is her broom closet profile[1]. I then dismiss everything from my mind about this. I have learned that all you can do is point in a direction. People must have the get up and go to get what they need.
This morning, I decide on a whim to go to Waffle House with Sam and our weekend house guest Mr. Clark.[2] We all decide to go together and Sam asks if he can drive to practice. I agree. While waiting on Sam to get dressed, Mr. Clark and I go out to the car and I scroll through Facebook to see if anything is pressing. I see the Pink Hair Beauty has asked a question on North Georgia Pagans, so I go check it out. I read it, go through the responses already posted and start to give my two cents and quickly decide the subject is blog worthy.
All that is Italicized
You may have noticed that I have taken pains to italicize seemingly random words in the previous section. These words represent two different acts of magick. Some are where I was aware of the magick and energy around me and that prompts me to respond in specific ways. The other type of italicized words reflects the energetic cues given by outside sources that if I had ignored would have resulted in different decisions and different actions. For me these reflect types of magick or energy that I deal with on a daily basis.
When I first got the call to do the reading, I could not have visualized meeting a pretty Pink Haired Woman in Michael’s who would benefit from exposure to other pagans. What the act of practicing magickal discipline can do for you is help you tune into the messages the universe is always sending our way and harness those to feats of monumental magick that can’t even be conceived.
Magick and Leadership
I am pagan because of a long study into the history of Christianity. What most do not know about the story I have told before, is that I blame Treyos. See, I was already studying Christianity and had decided in order to be a good Christian I must convert to Catholicism. My first marriage was over and I met Treyos in an IRC chat room. I tell him that I don’t know what I want to do with my life, now that my marriage was over and he said, “What do you want to do?”
I hadn’t been asked that ever. In my entire life, no one had ever taken the time to ask me that question. My study into the history of Christianity had lead me to brush up against what was then termed Neo-Paganism. Without much thinking, I blurted out, “I want to study Wicca.” I sat in stunned silence at my declaration, and could feel the energy in the room shift and realign.
Could Treyos have ever imagined that that one exchange would radically change my life and in many ways lead to this very blog? Could I have understood that my first brushes with Wicca would be part of the narrative in Treyos’ life that would lead to him meeting and marrying a pagan woman? Or that that exchange would lead to us both being at Convocation the same year at the same time nearly ten years later?
Empowerment or Power Over
Treyos’ dealings with me also points to a very significant lesson pagan leaders can learn. Treyos could have TOLD me what I should do. He could have TOLD me how to react to the new circumstances I found myself in. What he did was ASK me what I wanted to do. It made all the difference. When I entered Wicca and paganism, I found a lot of telling high priests and high priestesses. Persons who were very clear and sure what I should and should not do. These are leaders who were sure I should have sex with them or leave my stable husband or give up custody of my son. These were leaders who sought to have power and control over me instead of empowering me.
Years later, as a pagan minister I can fully understand the ability to look into a Seeker’s future and see possible outcomes that may or may not be beneficial for a Seeker and then feel a desire to force them into a specific outcome. I can understand why a pagan minister would choose to suggest courses of actions that will have long term benefits for a community or coven, even if the immediate expense is to the Seeker in question.
This Power Over dynamic is losing ground in paganism for one simple reason: Magick doesn’t work that way.
What I have come to understand about the very nature of Nature is that she is unpredictable in every way. My spiritual growth was often stunted by priests and priestesses who had found a method or way that worked for them and bought into an idea that this constitutes a dogmatic and universally correct system that would apply to everyone. The problem is, the way I have spiritual developed and what I have developed into is NOT how everyone else will develop or what everyone else SHOULD develop into.
When we empower people with questions instead of answers, with suggestions instead of dogmas, with options in safe structures instead of rules in constricting hierarchy, we set the stage for the wild magic of Nature to blossom and grow.
Magick is wild and to try to limit, constrict and use dogma upon magick is to ultimately confine, limit, and subjugate the development of Seekers themselves.
[1] A profile set up on Facebook or other Social Media to protect a real life identity in order to avoid persecution because the person is a witch, Wiccan or Pagan. For these profiles to be effective you must not post real personal information or real pictures of yourself. This is a common practice for pagan practitioners and there is no shame to be had in it. The South can be a very tough place to be pagan.
[2] My home covenstead often has people from my community who come and stay the weekend. Mr. Neal came to stay because my husband took off to deep sea fish and vacation with a bunch of men from work.
Dia Writes 