Readying Yourself for Magick: An Internal Elemental Balance

The practice of magick is a mysterious and complex art. There are many tools and accessories that can be used to enhance its practice, including athames, wands, cauldrons, and ritual robes. However, all of these are useless without the most important tool of magick – you.

The Elements Within

Most people, including most magicians, are elementally imbalanced. There are five elements, and each of these corresponds to a point on the pentagram and certain human qualities. The elements are:

Earth – physical and practical concerns;

• Air – intellect and imagination;
• Fire – passion and will;
• Water – emotion and intuition; and
• Spirit – relationship with the divine.

If you want to be at your best as a magician, then your own five elements must be balanced within you. Very few people are truly balanced, and if you look at your life, you’ll probably see that you are actually lacking balance.

Perhaps you’re obsessed with earning money, but have difficulty with relationships. Maybe you have a hard time getting passionate about anything, but you’re incredibly smart. Whatever the combination, it is important to rebalance yourself for your magick to be at its most effective.

Achieving an Elemental Balance

Finding an elemental balance isn’t as hard as is might sound. With some meditation and personal exploration, identifying imbalances should occur quite quickly. After this, rectifying them is simple enough, though it usually takes quite a bit of time and energy.

Select one elemental area of your life at a time. Don’t try to tackle too much at once, or you might become overwhelmed.Once you have selected one particular area of you life, try the following steps:

• Be very clear about your goal. Write it down.
• Chart your progress using a diary or journal, otherwise you won’t know when you’ve achieved your goal
• Break down your goal into simple, attainable, steps. This will help to keep you motivated.
• Think about what obstacles you might encounter and decide how best to remove them.
• Evaluate the resources you already have, including friends, family, spiritual counselors, etc.
• Set dates for progress, and keep them.
• Look at your list of steps every day, and try to accomplish something, even if it’s only a small thing.
• When you finally achieve your goal, have a celebration to acknowledge your achievement.

Repeat these steps for each area of your life, until you’re satisfied that you are more elementally balanced that you were previously. This balance will enhance the effectiveness of your spells and rituals. Revisit the idea of finding your balance one a year, and you will truly empower the magick within.

Tai Chi: Charting Your Progress in Tai Chi for Motivation

Very often, people stop doing those things which are best for them, such as exercising, eating healthy, meditating, etc., because they do not immediately feel the effects. Other times, they do feel the initial effects, and then stop because they feel that the problem is fixed, at least temporarily; sometimes, this occurs during the practice of Tai Chi.

Using a Chart to Encourage the Practice of Tai Chi

Tai Chi is a long term exercise, and most of its benefits are only noticed after prolonged practice. While waiting for this progress to become evident, it is easy to lose interest. As a result of this, it is highly recommend that you chart your progress in some way, possibly on a calendar, or in a diary or journal. Write down how many minutes a day you practice Tai Chi, as well as anything else that you might have done that was healthy for you.

These things may include making a healthy food choice, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or maybe even deciding not to have that second helping at dinner. This will help you to feel good, reinforcing your level of commitment. It will also help you to see that you are indeed making progress, and this idea will help you to stay motivated to continue practicing Tai Chi.

Progress in Tai Chi Can be Easily Seen with a Graph

After about two months or so, make a graph; a bar graph is usually most helpful for this. Most likely you will see a wavy line. This is normal. In fact, it is quite healthy. Everyone is influenced by multiple factors, even those who try to resist these influences.The biological energies of the body are constantly at work, the cosmic energies of the world flux and have an effect, and busy schedules take time away from Tai Chi. A straight line, or a line that steadily increases without fluctuation, is not to be expected.

Graph your progress over many months and watch it grow. Compare your graph with significant events in your life, whether they are positive or not. People respond to events differently, so one person might find that they practice more during a traumatic event, such as a death in the family, while another person might find their practice time reduces significantly. Over time, the practice time should steadily increase, and this will be seen in your graph. This can be the motivation necessary to continue with Tai Chi.

Try to be consistent when it comes to practicing Tai Chi, but do not fret if you can’t find more than a few minutes every day. Tai Chi is the type of program that allows for the flexibility when necessary. With commitment and determination, you will see a steady increase in your progress.

Tai Chi: The Benefits and Exercises of Tai Chi

Tai Chi has been described as many things. Some call it the ultimate martial art, claiming it is a powerful fighting form. Others say it is an exercise purely for health. Some refer to it as ‘meditation in motion,’ while others claim it is the physical manifestation of the Tao.

Some people insist that it is only a series of breathing exercises, meant to clear the mind. There are those who claim that Tai Chi is the ultimate route to spiritual enlightenment, and yet others say that it is only a mild way of keeping fit.

The Art of Tai Chi and Its Effects

Tai Chi is widely regarded as an amazing art that affects practitioners on many levels. It certainly is a physical exercise, designed to tone and strengthen the body while simultaneously increasing flexibility. It permits the body’s life force or ‘chi’ to flow freely throughout the body, thereby making it a wonderful method of maintaining health and vitality.

On a more spiritual level, it promotes the calmness of the mind and the balance of emotion. If you allow it to, Tai Chi can even become a spiritual guide, regardless of your religious belief system. It teaches you to use your own internal energies to affect both yourself and the world around you.

Despite all of these benefits, there is something even more powerful about it – anyone can do it. You do not have to have any previous experience in any type of physical activity. You do not even have to be physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually healthy. All you need is a desire to be truly healthy, and a firm belief that Tai Chi can work. Not only must you believe that it can work, but you must believe that it can work for you.

How to Learn Tai Chi

Tai Chi cannot really be learned from a book or video. Books and videos are wonderful resources, but they are not teachers. To effectively learn Tai Chi, you do need the right teacher.

How do you go about finding the right teacher? This question is not one that is readily answered. There are many decent teachers available in most cities, though make sure you check out their credentials. There are inevitably those who claim to be teachers when they’re obviously not. One class does not turn someone into a teacher.

Ask a potential instructor if you can sit in on a few classes before committing. Most decent teachers will allow this. Speak to some of the other students, ask their opinion of the training they have received. Also, it is better if you find an instructor who specializes in Tai Chi.

What Might You Learn Through Tai Chi?

Each instructor teaches Tai Chi with just a little variation. This is inevitable. Some teachers are more inclined to teach the meditative aspects of Tai Chi, others will focus on its strengths as a fighting art. However, at the beginning, there are some basics that you can probably expect. These might include:

• Warm-up exercises
• Breathing techniques
• Chi Kung
• Tai Chi stances
• Meditation
• Extension
• Tai Chi sort form
• Pushing hands exercises

Through studying Tai Chi with a qualified instructor and charting your progress, you should be able to thoroughly understand at least the basics of what Tai Chi is and how to perform both the short form and various other techniques. If these techniques are practiced regularly and with dedication, they will guide practitioners to a deepened awareness of self, while encouraging the development of personal creativity.

Magick and Health: Fresh Air, Light, Exercise, and Magick

One of the greatest sources of energy for magick is the physical body. It produces and expends vast quantities of energy every day, and the intelligent magician will both realize and utilize this. There are some things that can increase this source of energy, including sunlight, fresh air, and exercise.

The Magickal Effect of Fresh Air

It is common knowledge that air free of pollutants is healthier for the body. From a magickal standpoint, avoiding pollutants such as smog, smoke, or fumes is almost a necessity for healthy magick. Part of the energy used during magick will always be personal power. This personal power comes from many sources, including the air around you. If this air is polluted, then your magick will be as well.

The ideal situation is fresh, outdoor air. If possible, go outside about an hour before starting a spell or ritual and breathe in the clean, fresh air; work your magick outdoors as well, weather permitting. If you live in a large metropolitan area, this may not be possible, as the air indoors might actually be of a better quality. In this case, consider purchasing an air cleaner for inside your home, and place it where you work magick. On days when smog is really a problem, close the windows.

If you smoke, try to avoid doing so during the two hour period before practicing magick. If you typically smoke indoors, consider working your magick outside to take advantage of the cleaner air. Obviously, it would be best if you could breathe clean air all the time, but in today’s world of city living, that’s not always feasible.

Is Sunlight Necessary to the Practice of Magick?

The short answer to this question is no, it’s not necessary. After all, many spells and rituals are performed under the light of the moon, or even under the cover of total darkness. However, sunlight is necessary to keep the energy resources of the body high, presuming that you’re not allergic to it.

The body absorbs energy from the sun. This energy can be used to fuel spells and rituals. Spend time in the sun, and you will find that you feel energized. This is easiest during the summer months, when the sun is high in the sky, but can also be arranged in the winter with a little creativity.

If you are the type of person who spends almost all your time indoors, natural light might feel strange, perhaps even uncomfortable at first. It will take some getting used to, but the extra energy is worth the effort.

Energy is also absorbed from moonlight, just as with sunlight. However, people in general tend to get less exposure to moonlight, simply because most people are asleep when the moon is high in the sky.

Exercise and its Effect on Magick

Exercise generates energy. So, it makes a certain amount of sense to use exercise to raise power for magick. While it is best to exercise consistently, thereby maximizing the amount of available energy, a little extra exercise in the last few hours before a spell or ritual will also make a difference.

There are certain types of physical activity that increase the circulation of energy throughout the body, including:

• Yoga;
• Tai Chi; and
• Aikido.

Dance is also an excellent choice, especially when one feels passion for a certain type of dance. For example, many women find that belly dance resonates with them. Dance is one of the many ways of raising power in ritual, and can be used before ritual to begin to raise power.

The physical body is an incredibly rich source of energy for magickal workings. Its power can be accessed quite easily by those things that are done anyway, such as physical activity and ensuring you have access to fresh air and sunlight. Being properly rested and eating certain foods will help as well. Embracing some of these ideas is said to enhance the magick within.