Showing posts with label good luck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good luck. Show all posts

Monday, January 4, 2010

Cleanliness is Next to Luckiness



I originally wrote this article as a guest sermon for The Church of Good Luck.
Feel free to surf over to their site which is filled with fantastic luck-lore
and fascinating info on the art of good fortune!

In a previous entry on Good Luck, I mentioned briefly the notion of one’s “sphere” and “energetic atmosphere” in relation to luck. I’d like to expand on these notions and talk about why the old saying “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” is pretty darn true. For our purposes you could re-translate it “Cleanliness is next to Luckiness” and not have it lose any the original meaning at all.

Some people would refer to the sphere as an “aura”, which is the field of energy that is produced by and surrounds your body (and truth be told is really is more egg-like than perfectly spherical – but that’s really here nor there). It acts as an import/export center for all manner of other influential forces around you – planetary, chthonic, holy, or just plain icky and negative.

You might call an energetic atmosphere one’s home, dwelling, or habitat. These are the places where you live. While you are physically incarnate you’re pretty much stuck living in your body, and your body needs a home-base to nest in when it’s not out hunting or gathering. It is within these two places that luck’s presence can be welcomed or impeded. So knowing how to keep the welcome mat out is very important for staying on a first name basis with good fortune.

Let’s start with your personal sphere. This is a pretty permanent fixture as long as you have your body, so it’s very important to have a good grasp on the basic feeding and maintenance for this companion. It’s sort of like a subtle version of your skin – it absorbs a great deal, is sensitive to stimulation, and is the first line of defense against infection. You don’t HAVE to clean it everyday, but you do have to clean it pretty often or else it gets dingy and stinky and no one will want to be anywhere near you!

When you’re clean and well put-together people naturally approve of you more easily, and it encourages positive and regular interaction. Your sphere is pretty much the same. If you keep it clean and strong, it will be very difficult for anything energetically or subtly unpleasant to affect you very significantly. When good things come your way, they are not met with all kinds of garbage and rusted out old junkers on the front lawn - but instead they’ll find the porch light on and a fresh apple-pie cooling tantalizingly on the window-sill. It invites those good things to sit and stay a spell. What that porch light also does is deter intruders, who much prefer to skulk around where there are deep shadows that they can hide within to do their nefarious deeds. Bad luck is totally wearing the gang colors of those would-be intruders.

So how does one’s sphere get dirty? Well, really anything can contribute to the sullying of your sphere. It can get dusty just from interacting with so many people during a normal workday. Some people that you come in contact with are like Pig Pen from Peanuts, they just get dirt all over everything just by passing through – and that includes your pristine sphere. If you get into a confrontation, or are nearby when one occurs, that angry and irritable vibration can taint your aura. People dealing with illness, sadness, frustrated by the traffic, and even those that have to keep up a manic-pace to get everything done by 5pm, can also kick some sand into your sphere-eyes.

These same factors are at play in the environments in which we spent time. The energetic atmosphere of places becomes impregnated with the qualities of the vibrations that are present within them. The longer an area is exposed to one type of vibration, the more that area reflects back that same vibration and can impose that vibration upon us. It’s all rather viral. Most people have had the experience of walking into a home where things just felt “heavy” or “thick”, only to find out that a great deal of fighting goes on, or that there has recently been a severe illness within the home. This leaves an impression on the place. Many “hauntings” are actually what has been termed residuals, meaning that there is no actual spirit present, but that the energy of a particularly strong event has etched itself so deeply into the place, that it gets re-played and experienced by those who come across it.

All of our interactions have the ability to contribute to the sullying of our personal energetic virtue, or that of the building that those interactions are occurring within. As the air-quality inside our sphere and within our larger atmosphere goes down, it makes it harder for the fresh breezes of good luck to hit our lungs, and it becomes easier for us to start being noticeably negatively effected by the negativity. Lack of spiritual cleanliness over the long-term results in imbalances in our lives, and can even cause physical illnesses.

As a Reiki Master and intuitive energetic healer I see this everyday, and along with performing healings and balancing sessions, part of my job is educating people on spiritual hygiene so they can truly recover from their malady, and not just rely on symptom management. As a conjurewoman and village witch, I see how spiritual cleansing plays a huge role in the amount of luck and good fortune that a person will experience. A big part of my job in that context is also educating people on spiritual cleansing so they can be pro-active about transforming their lives, and not have to rely on the seemingly “random” winds of fate.

Now that you know you’re likely a bit messy, how do you clean up the giant invisible egg that you’re living inside, and the actual roof under which that egg is residing? It’s not quite so straight-forward as taking a washcloth and scrubbing vigorously behind your ears, but it’s also not very different. Bathing is one of the easiest ways to spiritually cleanse yourself, and since you do that pretty often anyway (I hope), it will be very simple to integrate some methods of spiritual cleansing into your already established routine.

Salt is a powerful purifying agent. It also makes for a great exfoliating scrub! Mix some lemongrass essential oil into a jar of sea salt with some table or Epsom salts thrown in for good measure and you’ve got yourself a fantastic spiritually cleansing body scrub (that will also keep your skin feeling smooth and youthful). Add a handful of the same mixture to a tub full of hot water, and you’ve got a lovely spiritual cleansing bath. There are also lots of soaps available out there that have spiritual cleansing qualities if you prefer a good lather from a bar. Florida Water soap is one. And your local health food store just may have some all-natural handcrafted made with essential oils and herbs – if you have a wee bit of knowledge on the magical uses of herbs, it will be simple to pick a bar that has real cleansing OR real luck-drawing power. Voila! Your mundane shower has taken on new dimensions that will prime your sphere for fortune and - with a bit of luck - fame! (You can also find an excellent daily cleansing ritual in the Rituals section at The Church of Good Luck that you can easily integrate into your day at ANY time you feel you need it. No shower or bathtub required.) Keeping up this routine will strengthen your sphere and almost act like esoteric Teflon – with negative stuff just beading up and rolling right off of you.

This same idea is extended to one’s environment. Bad luck is like dust bunnies – it likes to accumulate in places that don’t often get tended. So turn your regular housekeeping into an act that invokes good luck and banishes the bad. Remember that salt & lemongrass mixture you made? Put some into that bucket of water before you mop, or dampen your dust rag with some of the mixture dissolved in water. Put that into a spritzer bottle and spray your upholstery, carpets, or curtains (you may want to patch test this just in case). Add some to the rinse cycle of your laundry. Many botanicas and candle shops, such as Lucky Mojo Curio Co, carry spiritual baths and floor washes for all kinds of different conditions. Pop on over to their online catalog and start washing all kinds of good luck and fortune into all the various areas of your life!

When you and the atmosphere around you are clean and full of light, it is so much easier for positivity and luck to find you and make your good acquaintance. Also, when you become accustomed to the light, you get much more sensitive to the dark – even a little shadow will catch your attention, and can quickly escort it firmly away before it can cause a ruckus in the disco of your life!

Luck, light, positivity - all different ways of speaking about the Divine. Since keeping clean allows more luck to come our way, it really is another way of staying just a bit closer to the Source of All Good Things. Cleanliness really IS next to Luckiness.

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If you are interested in receiving more personalized instructions for spiritual cleansing to aid with your individual circumstances and needs, please consider booked a Magical Consultation through Queen of Pentacles Conjure Shop & Village Witchery.

We also carry a line of Magical Bath crystals which can also be used as floor washes when cleansing your home.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Gratitude, Reciprocity, and Tokens of Faith: Priming the Mind, Body, and Spirit for Receiving Good Fortune


I originally wrote this article as a guest sermon for The Church of Good Luck.
Feel free to surf over to their site which is filled with fantastic luck-lore and fascinating info on the art of good fortune!

There is one thing that I do my best to do every night before I go to bed – take some time to give thanks. Even if it’s been a terrible day, I try to spend a few minutes thinking of things in my life that I am grateful for on that day. I try to review my day and find those moments of time, or small fleeting experiences that I may have had that brought me some enjoyment and made me feel good. I find that no matter how angry, or irritated, or sad that I am feeling, when I try and take a few moments to dwell on the good things in my life, as opposed to just mentally harping on the bad things, a shift in my internal spiritual and energetic atmosphere takes place…if only for the few minutes that I am giving thanks. My husband, my animal companions, and my lovely home are 3 things that end up on my list each night. Sometimes that’s all I can manage. But some nights I can give thanks almost endlessly for small things that brought me a little bit of joy during that day. That is the practice of Gratitude.


I have found that by training myself to focus, at least for a few minutes each night, on the things in my life which bring joy and comfort that it becomes easier and easier to find joy each subsequent day…and most importantly it becomes easier and easier to NOTICE when something brings me joy and positivity. It’s this noticing which becomes very powerful in changing our fortune. The Buddhists call it ‘awareness’ and speak of the process of practicing awareness, ‘mindfulness’. Practicing mindfulness helps to cultivate within yourself the ability to really experience things fully while you are in the moment with them, rather than blindly reacting to something without any real recognition of its presence and effect on your present experience, or without drifting off into reveries of past experiences, or fanciful dreams of the future. This allows a person to really experience their life as it is which has a lot of wide-reaching benefits for general mental and spiritual wellness.


Awareness is a real skill and blessing to have in one’s life – and it’s especially useful for changing your luck, or at least becoming more attuned to its flow through our lives. If you really stop to think about it, how often are you REALLY aware during the day - totally and 100% present in the moment with your life? Then think about how much of your day is spent thinking about stuff that happened in the past, or fantasizing or worrying about things that might possibly in the future. Is there a bit of a discrepancy? How many things happened around you that you simply were not aware of because you were living in your head in that moment, rather than living in the moment?


Luck lives in the moment – and so you should try to dwell more often in that oft-fabled realm too if you want to catch some of it! Luck often manifests itself in our lives through coincidences, or synchronicities. These are often very small, seemingly random happenstances that we often almost miss. Take that $20 bill that you found on the ground for example. What luck! How many other people walked past it before you did? Why were YOU the one that noticed it? Was it because you happened to be more aware of your surroundings and were more positioned in the moment than them? Very likely! Now what more good fortune could you discover for yourself if you actively practiced being more aware and specifically practicing being on the lookout for good things in our day to day lives? Ruminate on that and allow it to percolate inside your lucky skull.

So let’s assume that you’ve established a nightly practice of reviewing each day looking for good fortune, and being thankful for that. As a result you’ve started noticing more and more good things that happen to you during a day when they happen. What is the next step? Reinforcing and strengthening that new skill, and helping to open up other people to the experience of good luck! It’s the skill of “pay it forward”, or Reciprocity.


Luck is rather liquid – its natural state is to flow easily and freely. However it can become blocked and polluted, which makes it harder for it get to people. As someone who has managed to receive some of the refreshing waters of good fortune, it only makes sense to keep the river running through it by helping it travel onwards and bring positivity to more and more people. This practice of Reciprocity helps keep your lucky pipes clean!


If something particularly wonderful happens to you, make something nice happen for someone else – and especially someone in real need of it. I like to make a practice of providing some cash, or some lunch, to the first homeless person that I see after I experience some good luck. Giving a donation to a charity of your choice, or a charity related to the kind of good fortune that you experience is also a great option. This does several things that are beneficial:


1) It provides some aid and at least a small portion of luck to someone who could really use the helping hand. And we’ve all been in need of help before!


2) It creates a larger positive experience around the luck-kernel that you’ve sewn through your awareness, which helps to reinforce the mental efforts that you are taking to notice fortunate events, making it even EASIER to notice next time!


3) If you buy into the whole energetic resonance thing, it helps amplify the “good-luck vibrations” in your personal sphere, and thereby make you all the more attractive to the free floating “good-luck vibrations”, good luck imps, etc, et al, and invites more luck into your life. The Universe seems to know when good luck is hoarded and squandered, and when it is truly appreciated! So get on it’s Good Kids list so you’ll be positioned well for more good fortune in the future.


With all this Gratitude and Reciprocity happening in your life, you’re probably already a Good Luck Saint, and have all your ducks in a row effortlessly practicing perfect awareness 24/7 and basking in your perpetual good fortune. Right? Wrong. We’re all human. We need a little extra help to keep us on the right track. And that’s where Tokens of Faith come in, more commonly referred to as Lucky Charms! These tokens help to remind us to wake up and notice – to be on the lookout for the positive and the joyful. They help us to EXPECT it.


Expectation is a very powerful thing. If you wake up each morning just knowing that everything is going to be horrible, then you will have pre-programmed your mind to seek out any events that fulfill this expectation of yours. We’ve all had days like that. When you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, even the good things that happen to you get minimized and rationalized and framed negatively to help fit your expectations. Sadly, it often seems a lot easier to have our negative expectations filled than our positive ones. It seems to be a common human skill to be able to find the worst in everything. We often need a lot of help turning our expectations around to begin to seek out the positive! Gratitude and Reciprocity can really help start to turn things around, and Tokens of Faith can often act as the catalyst for expedient changes in our overall expectations.


There’s something unbelievably comforting in carrying an object that you truly feel will help change your circumstances for the better. It’s a pretty universal experience judging by the nearly uncountable forms of lucky charms and talismans of good fortune, that cultures the world over have produced and continue to produce. Shamans, rootdoctors, village witches, magicians, and other spiritual innovators have dedicated countless hours to determining which herbs, roots, and stones in the world around us can most effectively aid us in gaining more good fortune. Priests and priestesses from time immemorial have received instructions from On High for ways and words to pray to increase our luck and overall positive circumstances. So why not utilize some of that knowledge, and tap into that current of belief, and grab onto a Lucky Charm that calls out to you?

When you have that curio in your pocket you will start to look out for its effects almost immediately! It helps to powerfully change your expectations - and that is a big key to becoming a walking luck-magnet.


Any one of the three practices of Gratitude, Reciprocity, and Tokens of Faith can be enough to shift one’s interactions with the world around them enough to start attracting more good luck into their experience. When combined they can prove to be a force to be reckoned with!


I hope that this information has entertained, and perhaps even inspired you somewhat.

May good luck follow you all the days of your life.



And as a post-script, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Queen of Pentacles Conjure Shop & Village Witchery carries a fantastic Luck-Drawing Herb Blend, Luck-Drawing Mojo Bag Kit, and fixed Money-Drawing Buddha Statues!!