David Salisbury is Wiccan clergy within Coven of the Spiral Moon, a coven based in Washington DC. The focal point of his spiritual practice is one of service, activism and respect. He currently lives with his partner (a psychic medium) in the DC/Maryland area of the United States.

The Deep Heart of Witchcraft

Expanding the Core of Magickal Practice

By David Salisbury

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright ©2012 David Salisbury
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78099-920-3

Contents

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………..viiiForeword by Iris Firemoon…………………………………………..1Introduction………………………………………………………5Chapter 1 – Air……………………………………………………9Chapter 2 – Fire…………………………………………………..31Chapter 3 – Water………………………………………………….59Chapter 4 – Earth………………………………………………….87Chapter 5 – Spirit…………………………………………………117Chapter 6 – The Gods……………………………………………….127Chapter 7 – Deep Ritual in Witchcraft………………………………..153Chapter 8 – Spinning the Wheel………………………………………177Chapter 9 – Putting it All Together………………………………….239Bibliography………………………………………………………241

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Air

And forget not that the Earth delights to feel your bare feetand the winds long to play with your hair.– Kahlil Gibran Practicing movement

Air brings the gifts of movement and change. Made manifest bythe forces of the eastern winds, air makes itself known in everybreath we take whether we’re conscious of it or not. Air isn’tconcerned about the things we think we need to make us feelcomfortable and safe. If it had its way, air would blow everythingaway from us, just to show us that it can. That’s the playful faerieaspect of the air elementals, who glide seamlessly on the hems ofour thoughts, touching our ideas and gifting us with subtleinsights.

When we are present with air, we gain wings. We know thatthe entire world is there for us to explore. Air expands our senseof self in the mind and is the first way that we tap into theegregore. The kiss of the wind knows which caverns to swirlthrough to make a whistle.

With air, we can create music and place ourselves in harmonywith the things we need to take each step on our path. The wandis the tool of air, directing our spirit allies in the orchestra of ourspells. The wand is a tool of intellect, helping us to extend ourreaches to the heavens above. Truly a unique gift to the magickworker. When we raise our wands to the sky, we’re announcingthat movement within and around us is about to begin. Whenworking with the power of air and movement, we’re doingmercurial work, or workings that relate to the realm of Mercury,god and planet of travel and communication. The wand is a toolthat Mercury uses to gain passage to the destination of hischoosing. For Mercury is the only deity in the Greek pantheonwho is allowed to travel to all places, known and unknown byhuman or god. Working with the mercurial energies allows us toopen to gates of possibility. The wand is the “key” we use to opendoors previously closed to us. When we open the gates of possibility,we realize that our true potential is limitless.

Exercise – Dedicating your wand

If you don’t already have a wand, it’s very easy to make one.

Simply take a fallen branch of your choosing and cut off a lengththat extends from your elbow to your middle finger. I don’t feelthe type of wood you choose matters so much as how the woodchooses you, but feel free to use any of the traditional powerwoods associated with the wand such as willow, oak, ash, mapleor birch. If you already own a wand, then you’re good to go forthe next part of the activity.

Take the wand to some wild place in nature (preferably) or tothe sacred space in your home. Create your personal ritual settingand enter a meditative state. The only tool you need for this is thewand itself, but you can add any oils, candles or scents to thisworking that you like. Remember though that our focus for thiswork is connecting with your wand and the mercurial airassociated with it.

Once in a meditative state, grip the wand lightly with bothhands with your eyes closed. Take a series of deep in and outbreaths, being particularly aware of how your breath circulatesand moves through your body as it passes in and out. Notice theexpanding and contracting of your chest and belly. Feel thebreath as pure wind moving through your being. With continuedmindful breathing, contemplate the symbols that the wand andits airy ruler present you with. Perhaps you come to a vision of atall hilltop with puffy clouds passing overhead. Maybe youimagine yourself in a race with Mercury himself, the wand inyour hand giving you a magickal boost of speed to race throughthe sky and across the land. Open yourself to creativity, anothergift of air. In addition to any visions, notice any feelings or wordsthat come to mind. Language and speech is probably one of themost useful air tools that the human race has. What wordsconnect you with this energy? What types of sentences ormessages are these words creating for you as you do this work?Is nothing coming to mind at all? That’s perfectly fine too. Itcould be that the mind is telling you that the most useful thingyou can do in that moment is to just sit with yourself in silentnothingness.

When you feel you’re done, thank the air elementals for anyvisions you may have received and wrap up the wand for futureuse. Some believe that it’s fine for the wand to be exposed as longas it doesn’t touch the ground. Some believe its fine for it totouch the ground as long as it’s not exposed. In the end, do whatfeels right for your own wand. It is now an extension of you andonly you can know what’s right for it.

Showing up for practice

When we want to touch the deep heart of Witchcraft, the firstthing we need to do is commit ourselves to showing up for ourmagickal work. This is the work of deepening our connectionwith our souls and the divine so it’s important that we actuallytake the time to do it and do it with some consistency. As youbegin deep daily work, there’s no need to over extend yourself.Five to ten minutes a day for a while is enough. It’s like joining anew gym. If I haven’t worked out for a long time, it means mymuscles are cold and unused. They need to warm up a bit beforethey get to the heavy stuff. Some light cardio, maybe somecycling and running each morning but nothing big. When mybody is used to it, I can start adding strength training, heaviercardio, and more advanced stretching to my workout routine.Eventually, my body will become a lean mean machine capableof the greatest athletic feats (hey, a guy can dream can’t he?).That’s what we want to do with our spirits. We can’t dive rightinto the full current of the egregore and expect to keep to thesurface. We need to test the waters of where we are first.

Making a statement about showing up for practice is the firststep into making your work a reality. Some people like toconsider it a “personal contract” that they make with theirHigher Selves or gods. I don’t think it always needs to be thatformal but if that’s what helps you stick with it, then by all meansdraft up a contract. If you go that route, then I recommend youritualize it to add a bit of magickal oomph. Create and sign thecontract during a ritual and “put your money where your mouthis.” When I make statements like this to my gods, its touches thedeepest parts of me and changes it from something that I feel likeI have to do, into something that I feel like I need to do. We’reemploying our will here and the gods and our higher selves willlisten. When we proclaim “I’m here and I am going to do thiswork!” the universe will respond with support and strength. Thegods want us to succeed in this work, so don’t be afraid tocommunicate with them about the work of the practice itself.

For now, let’s commit to ten minutes a day while we workwith the element of air. Ten minutes may not seem anything tosome people, but have you ever tried getting a busy businessmanto sit still for ten minutes without falling asleep? It’s no easy tasklet me tell you. So as we work on our exercises, we add them toour daily practice schedule. When you continue your workaround the pentacle, you may want to add some things or dropsome things once you develop a sense of what is making you feelmore connected with your work. Our schedules are meant tochange, just like our lives do.

Prayer work – your highest communication

Some Pagans have a funny way of looking at prayer. I know I didwhen I first started practicing the Craft. Prayer to me felt likesomething “those Christians do” and I wasn’t interested inhaving any part of that. I felt like prayer was something thatpeople did to thank God when things went their way, and thento complain to God when things didn’t. Oh how wrong I was. Ifought formal prayer work for years until I started incorporatingit more into my practice and gained a better understanding ofwhat it truly is. Prayer is the language we’re speaking whenwe’re talking to the Gods. Whether it’s a 2,000 year old prayer inHindi or a modern chat with the Goddess that you make up onthe fly, prayer to the divine gets translated into its own speciallanguage by the higher self. Once we learn this language, wecome into better communication with our gods and in turn, theGods communicate back. I believe this is one of the core needsthat all religions seek to fulfill. They seek DivineCommunication.

But how is it done? Everyone seems to have their own opinionon the “right way” to pray, as if it were some exact science thatonly certain people are privileged enough to learn. Manyreligious organizations in the past and present have been veryinsistent on having human intermediaries to pray with. Theyprofess that some people either need to have their prayersspoken for them, or they need to learn the “right way” to praythrough them first. In most forms of Paganism and in particularWitchcraft, we believe that such ideas are preposterous. We needno intermediaries. As a pantheistic faith, we believe that Godrests within all things, including ourselves. And if God resideswithin us, then there is no need for an intermediary becauseevery expression we perform is connected to the Divine Mind.And this is also how prayer works. When we are in true communicationwith the Divine Mind, the way you pray doesn’t matter.The only thing that matters is that you do it, and you do it often.I don’t want to tell you that this is a “use it or lose it” scenario butit is the type of thing that gets more comfortable with time andmore clear with frequency.

If you’re a stranger to prayer work or you just don’t do itenough, you can feel like you’re talking to a wall. While if you gothrough periods of intense prayer and then stop for a while, this”wall feeling” can feel like it goes right back up. To be in communicationwith the Divine Mind and our Divine Selves, we mustmake sure that our communication is sincere, constant and withintention. The Witch knows that he can pray anywhere and atany time within any range of situations. I do believe that there aresome atmospheres that are more conducive to prayer when you’dlike to get some type of answer back. This brings us to the differencesbetween devotional prayer and interactive prayer.

Devotional prayer is the prayer of worship, gratitude, andprayer for the sake of prayer. It’s often considered “one way”prayer where you’re practicing your divine speech and religiousexpression. The Hindu mantras performed over mala beads atworship services could be considered devotional prayers.Though I believe this type of prayer is important, there is morethat can be done when we open up to the idea of the Gods talkingback to us. Interactive prayer does this. When I say “Gods talkingback to us” I don’t mean that you should expect some disembodiedhead to appear in your circle to impart sacred prophecybefore your eyes. What I mean is simply being open to messagesor signs, for the time that you pray and later on. Sometimes justthe act of asking for reciprocal communication is the purest formof interactive prayer that we can do. When I’m praying for a signor a message, I try to not be very attached to the outcome. Idedicate my prayer work to the goal of being open enough toexpress myself to Goddess and God, while being open toexperience the expressions that they’ll send back to me.

Sometimes this manifests itself in what we call clairsentienceor “clear knowing” in the psychic vocabulary. You’re sitting inclass or at your work desk then out of nowhere the answer or athought leading to an answer just pops up in your brain. This canbe an extremely effective form of communication with the divineif you’re open enough to your intuition, and emotionallydetached enough from the response that you think you want.Easier said than done, right? When we approach our communicationwith perfect love and perfect trust, this isn’t a problem.Perfect love means that no matter what you’re asking for, allmessages will be sent and received in the name of love. Love foryour Gods and love for your own divine nature. Loving yourselfand your work in the world is truly the best way to remain incorrect communication with God. Perfect trust means that notjust receiving an answer is enough. You have to trust that theanswer or message you get back is true and correct and is only inservice to your True Will, whether it’s a message you want tohear or not. Have you ever seen someone get a tarot reading thatthey weren’t happy with so they ask the reader to do it over? Thisis a lack of trust in the answer and is the biggest thing toovercome if we want our prayer work to be as effective aspossible.

Exercise – Opening to intuition for prayer work

If you don’t feel like you’re in a very intuitive place in your liferight now, this exercise can help. Even if you’re a psychic-wizand trust your intuition fully, renewing our commitment tobeing open to this power helps keep us sharp, focused, and opento giving and receiving the best speech possible with the divine.

First, develop a deep meditative state in whatever way ismost effective for you. Do the breath work from exercise one buttake it a step further by extending the time of inhales, holds andexhales consciously. Try breathing in by the count of seven,holding by the count of seven, exhaling by the count of seven,holding by the count of seven and then repeating. Try this seventimes and you should find it pretty easy to form a deep trancelikestate. In the Temple of Witchcraft tradition, they call this the”little death breath.” When we calm the mind to its slowestpossible state before trance, we’re opening up our senses to thehighest guidance possible.

After the little death breath, regulate your breathing to a softyet still elongated pace. Next imagine a swirling ball of lightshining brightly above you, about two feet from the top of yourhead. I like to imagine the light as violet which is a very psychiccolor for me, but you can also imagine it as a clear and sort ofprism-like crystalline light. I avoid visualizing opaque whitelight as it can block out too many energies, whether harmful orhelpful. Next, imagine the swirling ball of light slowly drippingdown in a single strand of shimmering light towards the top ofyour head. Feel it touch the top of your head forming a new yetsmaller swirling ball of light on your crown. This is the areawhere we’re open to clairsentience. We’re inviting those messagesto pop into our heads as I mentioned before. It can be helpful topick up your wand and physically tap the top of your head withit to confirm the presence of the light. You can also anoint it witha special oil or holy water. Now see the ball on your crown dripyet again down to the area between your two eyes – the area ofyour third eye chakra, forming another smaller ball of light there.This is the area where you’re opening up to receiving visions toboth your material eyes, and your mind’s eye. Like before, tapthis area with your wand or anoint it. Lastly, see the swirling ballon your third eye drip down again forming a third small ball oflight in your solar plexus, the area just above your belly. This isthe area where we’re open to our most primal manifestation ofintuition; the “gut feeling.” Once again tap your wand or anointthis area. Sit with this for a moment and allow yourself to takenote of any feelings that may arise. You very well may receive amessage right there already. When you’re done, you can imaginethe smaller balls of light slowly fading into you, entering yourbloodstream and dispersing into the cells of your body. The largeball of light two feet above your head ascends back into thehigher planes with the knowledge that you can call upon it anytime you need it. Be sure to ground and center yourself, releasingany excess energy from your person. Be sure to record yourexperiences in your magickal journal.

Now that all three of our centers of intuition are open, we’retruly ready to engage in the work of interactive prayer. We’re nolonger just running our mouths but instead, we’re openingourselves up to listen. The Gods will take notice of this action. Ibelieve that when we open to listening in this way, we’re makinga statement of respect and gratitude for the things that the divinewant to express to us.
(Continues…)Excerpted from The Deep Heart of Witchcraft by David Salisbury. Copyright © 2012 by David Salisbury. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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