Making Time For Magick
One of the most asked questions I receive is for tips on practicing witchcraft more consistently or even daily. When I see that someone wants suggestions for bringing magic into the day to day routine of life, there is a underlying idea that there isn’t enough time for magic and mundane in life.
One of the best ways to add more magic into your daily life is to start viewing each of your actions as magical.
This means that when you wish someone a good day, you have cast a spell of blessing their day. When you cook food for yourself or for someone else, you have cast a spell wishing health and nourishment. When you take your kids to school, you are casting a spell of protection over their journey. When you care for a sick pet, you are casting a spell for healing.
It’s all magic.
In order to experience magic in your daily life you need to be aware of it and make room for it. Every day can be magical if you make a conscious choice to embrace it.
But, I know that a lot of us crave the extra stuff as well. The connection to the spiritual, the creativity of ritual, the artistic aspects of witchcraft and I imagine that this is what you all are looking for.
TIME MANAGEMENT
For most people, finding time for magick is challenging. So, I have a few suggestions about time management for you. The first is to physically write your practice in your calendar.
Treat your Witchcraft Practice as Sacred
Think about this…
When I was growing up we went to church every single Sunday. It was about 2 hours of my day almost every week for 18 years. I am grateful for this time. I loved church: my friends were there, we got to sing, our pastor always had something interesting and thought provoking to share.
Many of you probably have this same experience, maybe not with Christian church but perhaps another religion. Many people make this commitment to their religious or spiritual practice. A standing appointment and nobody thinks it’s weird if they say “sorry, I can’t do that, I have church that day.”
Treat your spiritual and magical practice like church. You have a standing appointment to meet your magic and you can’t reschedule it for anything else.
“Sorry, I can’t do that, I have a ritual that day.”
That’s the first thing, if you want to practice daily and you have a busy life, you have to put your practice in your calendar.
Miracle Morning
The Miracle Morning is something that I wrote a very detailed blog post about in June. So I’m not going to go to in depth into where it comes from and what it’s about.
When you commit to doing it every morning, your day becomes a miracle. It’s called the Miracle Morning for a reason!
Generally, The Miracle Morning is a six step routine that is based on the concept of habit stacking. Habit stacking is when you pick several habits that you want to practice, and make a sequence out of them. Eventually the sequence itself becomes it's own new habit.
The six habits involved in The Miracle Morning are:
Silence
Affirmations
Visualization
Exercise
Reading
Scribing (writing/journaling)
When you read only the first letter of each word, it spells out SAVERS, which is an easy acronym to help you remember. You can change the order of the sequence and adjust the times you want to spend on each item according to what is most important to you.
If you don't have a full hour, you can even shorten the sequence to as little as one minute for each step (but try to get the full hour as often as possible).
MEDITATION
As soon as you wake up, your brain starts thinking. The point of this step is to start your day with a fresh relaxed mind. Meditation is a great way to accomplish this. I like to start my Witch's Miracle Morning with 13 minutes of meditation at sunrise.
Related: Introduction to Meditation
AFFIRMATIONS
If you don't know what affirmation are, they're basically self-fulfilling prophesies. They help you to build your self-confidence. An affirmation should be about something that you already believe or want to believe about yourself. They help you to visualize your future. They also help you to take action today to develop the skills you need to achieve your long-term goals.
Related: How Affirmations Work
VISUALIZATION
Visualization is similar to affirmation. Here is how they differ:
Your affirmations usually make sure you keep your long-term vision in mind, and have an idea of what the end goal looks like at all times. Your visualizations help you take the baby steps you need to actually get there. You picture yourself doing the work that you have to do today, in order to make progress. Visualization cures you of being unmotivated. You will do the tasks because you already saw yourself do them.
Now, it is okay to visualize yourself completing big goals, especially the feelings associated with completion. But it's most important to visualize the day ahead.
READING
Reading allows your mind to move in new directions. It also has the potential to teach you something new or help you to connect with different feelings and emotions you wouldn’t normally feel throughout the day.
JOURNALING
Journaling and writing is really good for you. All those thoughts floating around in your head are cluttering up your ability to focus properly. Journaling first thing in the morning gives space to allow these thoughts out and make space for new ideas. It helps you to connect your thoughts and emotions on paper.
EXERCISE
The previous five steps are designed to awaken your mind and your spirit, exercise will activate your body. It's not really enough time to do a full workout. You are just trying to get some blood flowing and raise your heart rate a little.
RECAP
Step 1. Meditate at sunrise to focus your mind on one thought or idea.
Step 2. Recite your affirmations to yourself in front of a mirror.
Step 3. Visualize your day and imagine yourself working on and completing tasks.
Step 4. Read for ten minutes to activate and inspire your mind.
Step 5. Transfer your thoughts into a journal that you can reference and analyze later.
Step 6. Exercise using only your body weight to get the blood flowing.
By doing all of the steps involved in The Miracle Morning you're putting yourself in the right mindset to fully engage in your life and live it to the fullest.
Quadrant Method
You may have heard of something called the quadrant method. It can be used to help you figure out what you should be focused on based on a specific rating system. Basically anything you want or need to do in a day is rated and then placed into one of four boxes.
It can be useful for all of your magical or mundane tasks so that instead of procrastinating and doing things at the last minute, you’re have time for what is important to you.
QUADRANT 1:
Important, time-sensitive, and urgent.
You should avoid spending time in this quadrant by being proactive and getting things done before they become urgent.
Examples: Impending deadlines that are extremely important (like taxes); Emergencies
QUADRANT 2:
Important, but not urgent.
This is where you should spend most of your time.
The tasks in this quadrant are ones that will help you improve in all areas of your life.
Examples: Exercising and healthy eating; Career path and education; Meditation, and magical or spiritual desires
QUADRANT 3:
Not important. Interruptions.
This is where we spend most of our time, which robs us of productivity.
Examples: Reading emails and text messages right away; Answering a ringing phone; Checking social media notifications.
QUADRANT 4:
Not important or urgent.
These tasks are time wasters.
Set a time limit for each of these and stick to it.
Examples: Reading emails and not responding immediately; Refreshing Instagram or scrolling Facebook; Binging on Netflix; Aimlessly surfing the web
Pomodoro Method
This is just a time management technique that helps you get stuff done without burning out. It’s called the Pomodoro method and it’s named after those timers that look like tomatoes.
There are six steps in the original technique:
Decide on the task to be done.
Set the Pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).
Work on the task.
End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to step 2.
After four Pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
The stages of planning, tracking, recording, processing and visualizing are fundamental to the technique. In the planning phase, tasks are prioritized by recording them in a "To Do Today" list. This enables users to estimate the effort tasks require.
As Pomodoros are completed, record them for a sense of accomplishment and a way to evaluate your improvement. A goal of the technique is to reduce the impact of internal and external interruptions on focus and flow.
Magical Day of the Week
There is a wonderful practice of following the days of the week and using the power of the planets and even the gods that the planets are associated with based on what day it is. Each day of the week provides an opportunity for magic.
Some of the day namings are obvious in English. Sunday is named for the Sun, Monday is named for the moon, Saturday for Saturn.
Others are less obvious in English and are maybe more obvious in other languages. Tuesday is Mars day but the word Tuesday come for the equivalent Norse god Tyr (We talked about during the runes lessons: he is the god associated with the rune called Tiwaz). Wednesday is named after the Mercury equivalent Anglo-Saxon god Wodan. Who is considered the same as the Norse god Odin. Then Thursday is named after the Norse god Thor who is the equivalent of Jupiter. And Friday is named after Freya the equivalent of Venus.
A while ago someone commented in the Mumbles & Things Community Facebook Group something about being unable to make the connection between the days of the weeks and the planets. I told them that the reason the planets are aligned with the days of the week is because people have been connecting this energy for centuries. Every time we say the word Monday, we are calling the Moon’s energy in relation to that day.
This doesn’t mean you have to use the energy of the planet on the day named for it, but it can be a boost of that energy. Read the Daily Magick blog post for a list of the magical activities you might do on certain days.
Magical Activities List
I keep the following list at my altar. Each item on this list can be completed in any length of time I have available. If I find I have 5 minutes between two tasks, I can look at this list and choose something spiritual or magical to ground me in my practice.
I recommend keeping this — or creating your own list with things you enjoy — so that you can do something everyday. Even if it’s just a quick deep breath in, held and released, or a quick blessings, or lighting a candle.
1. Meditate - still the mind, the breath, the heartbeat, open a channel through which the spirits can communicate if they wish to, listen.
2. Walk - honor the genii loci, notice the changing seasons, observe signs and omens, traverse the kingdoms of humanity, flora and fauna, give aid where it is needed.
3. Divine - build relationships with divinatory tools, sharpen skills, train intuition, ask questions, receive answers.
4. Invoke - the presence of spirits to assist in tasks, to protect on journeys, to grant guidance, maintain connections and uphold contracts.
5. Craft - use the hands to create, to construct, imbue each creation with spirit and purpose, a meal, a potion, a carving, a weaving, enchant the mundane and material.
6. Sing - the old songs, the power songs, the prayers, the chants, to heal, to awaken, to enforce, to ward, sing the sun to sleep and the moon to rising, sing in the bath, at the hearth, in the heart.
7. Read - widely and deeply, old and new, academic and popular, across boundaries and taboos, slowly and with full attention, take notes, research, reflect.
8. Write - record experiences, practices, thoughts. keep journals and grimoires, spellbooks and scripts, remember, elucidate, illuminate.
9. Draw - sigils and runes, symbols and signs. Carve, paint, scratch, blacken, redden, scrawl, in the sand, with salt, in the air, with chalk, ink, blood, charcoal, the mind.
10. Collect - herbs, woods, stones, feathers, bones, teeth, soil, the raw materials of natural magic, fill jars, boxes, bags, gather, forage, wildcraft, thrift, take that which is discarded, value the found over the bought.
11. Observe - the cycles of moon, sun, planets, stars, take heed with the eyes as well as the almanac, feel the sap rise, the birds migrate, the bulbs awaken, the leaves wither.
12. Renew - old spells, old wards, protections, and boundaries. Clean what is obscured, recast what has weakened, maintain what is working, replace what is lost. Tie up loose ends.
13. Communicate - with everything, stones, trees, spirits, the dead, that which grows in the garden and that which visits it, other practitioners, mentors, students, seekers, the younger self, the higher self, the word.
ENROLL IN THE COURSE
The Making Time for Magick eCourse includes:
Lifetime access to video lectures (and transcripts)
More in-depth information about time management
Downloadable PDF reference guides and worksheets
Forum for discussion and sharing experiences with other students
