The heart of the Work- a case study

Many many people, myself included, come to magical work at first looking for solutions to practical problems. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm a believer that it works, for sure. Here's the honest truth though. By the time you're doing that kind of results oriented spellwork, you are probably already behind. By the time most people get there, they're already believing it's time to worry. It's a hard place to be in.

I say all the time, that the longer I do this stuff, the less practical spellwork I do. This is true, but only halfway true. I've spent a long time getting to know spirits that are good at... well almost everything. I've spent years studying magical frameworks that are systemic. Things that don't do things in isolation, but treat life as a connected web of everything. I don't do spellwork chasing after things anymore. I do 2 things. First, I try to approach things in order of importance. If you're worried about where you'll sleep at night, maybe your love life can wait. Things like that. 2nd, I do spellwork for things I'm working on AS I start. I knew I was gonna tackle getting rid of some long term bills, so I started money work. Not because something was wrong, but because I knew where attention was going. Spellwork to me anymore is about gathering attention and energy, and directing it. If your mind is elsewhere, then that elsewhere is where your spellwork should be focused. This is part of why we do readings on our spellwork. Are you going to be focused on what you're doing? If not, do you really need to be splitting your attention? Put another way, why would you ask the Spirits to help you with something you don't really care about?

This also provided me with something else. When I focused in like that, because I WAS focused, I didn't really mind when I got what I wanted. I mean.... I grumbled for a bit, and it is making me reconsider if I'm in a place to shift my attention again, but I wasn't really upset.

Ok, so let's look it this as far as what it looked like in practice, how it affected my life, and what it means for me now. First, I've built a practice of reading and working with a spirit every morning. Well.... recently it's been afternoons, but a daily practice. When I don't have anything particular going, I'll choose a spirit I know. Starting the money work, I zeroed in on a spirit. Working with one in particular I already knew would be likely to help. Coffee and cards became about them more days than not. Guided by that, there were some things I injected back into my life. I brought back the bag of random things, which is a long story, I started working on making things streamlined so I would be ready for the extra work that brings extra money. At the spirits request, I added rice to my diet at least once a week. I can eat rice regularly, but now I was paying attention to it, if that makes sense. I did buy a candle, something that I thought reminded me of that spirit. For a bit, I kept up burning it every night, but that didn't actually last long. I injected small rituals. I don't like the cinnamon thing, but my shoes got dusted with basil, and I made an effort to carry cash more. The biggest thing, which was both practical and devotional, was I made a budget and a system. Dedicated to this spirit, devotional, but also practical. I used one I'd used in the past, but adjusted for my current situation.

Another thing is that I would do the little magics. Candles, little sigils, all the things you might think about, as suggested by my divination, or a I felt like I needed them, but in service to this more aligned work.

Practical results, as it is what you're all here for.... well... first week, my partner got a bonus from work. Not a big one, but enough to catch us up to where the budget could be stuck to. Immediately I ended up in overtime for a week. Couple bigger client weeks, then it settled a bit. My budget and routine provided practical benefits, but after an initial burst, the fancy magic results backed off... or so I thought. Heck, I even had car trouble, that resulted in opening a probably badly considered line of credit, but with the new budget, it was ok. A month or 2 go by. A little more active on the client end, but nothing spectacular.

Then, a couple things happened. First, I turned around, and realized that my budget had us putting away more money than I thought, so i suddenly have about 1.5 times what I thought I had, the car line of credit got paid off and could be used again, AND I got kicked into a couple weeks of overtime. This lets us get car work done that we knew we needed, even if it's not desperate yet, which isn't a place I'm used to being. And once I proved that I could keep to the budget, I could do it myself.... bonuses for my partner, overtime for me, good client weeks.... the random things keep falling into place. Once I started having the mundane success, THEN the major metaphysical payoff came in to support it. It's been.... both everything we needed, AND not where I expected it to come from.

Let's be honest here. I would've failed at this without 3 things

1. I didn't do spellwork and sit and wait. I tied my spellwork to a mundane budget, and I let that be part of the work. I still saw things that couldn't explain.

2. I engaged with a spirit, and not only asked for what I wanted, I listened, and I adapted my spellwork and my mundane plan around it.

3. I was open to the direction these things took. I wasn't happy about the overtime. Heck, it's still a sticking point. But I stayed open to it, and kept the line of communication open. I didn't tell the spirit "that's not how I wanted it", but I was honest about "dude, I'm fucking tired, and idk if I can do it this week".

Last point, is that success can be it's own problem. You've all noticed my quiet recently I'm sure. Ya can't be surprised, with all the overtime. The way I see it, each place you shift becomes a focus. Each focus builds a better floor. If I adjust now, maybe it gets quieter, maybe the spectacular things fall aside, and my life shifts to the next thing. I still come out better than before I started. The key with this attention based thing is knowing when to shift again. I'll be back to stream and such soon, and be shifting my attention and magical focus by at least the end of the month I think, not because it failed, but precisely because it succeeded.