Celebration of Plenty: Morning Meditation

True abundance comes from looking at what you have, rather than focusing on what you lack. This spell is a celebration that will begin each day with magic. Upon waking, take time to reflect on the good things in your life. After meditating upon the blessings in your life, say this spell aloud:

    Today and every day,

     I see the richness of life.

    I thank you, Goddess,

    For all the gifts and beauty in my world.

    Today, I will share my blessings in others and honor you.

    I see plenty for all. Blessings to all

    Conclusion: May You Live in Abundance

Birthstone Blessings

Sit in a comfortable position with your birthstone placed in a bowl or dish in front of you. Think

about the blessings in your life and gifts your particular stone offers. What are you grateful for at this

moment? There is a powerful magic in recognizing all that you possess and in having an attitude of 

gratitude. Breathe steadily and deeply, inhaling and exhaling slowly for twenty minutes. As you meditate, 

send the positive energy into the bowl containing your personal gem. Now, the birthstone blessings are 

there any time you need them.

Rejuvenate Your Spirit: A Garden Witch's Spell

I advise any witchy gardener to have a rain barrel to make the most of stormy weather; you can use it to water your pots of herbs and your garden during sunnier days and dry spells. On the first day of seasonal rainfall, place a blue glass bowl outside as a water-catcher. Once it has filled with water, bring it inside and place on your altar beside a lit candle. Speak:

    Water of life, gift from the sky,

    we bathe in newfound energy, making spirits fly!

Dip your fingers in the water and touch your forehead. Meditate upon the healing work you and your garden can do, thanks to the nurturing rainfall. Pour the water into the ground of your garden, speaking the spell one last time.

Feather Messages: Symbols on the Wind

As you jog through the park or walk to work you might find a feather in your path. It could be a message. You might glean hidden meanings, for example, in the glistening iridescence of a raven’s feather. Native peoples believed feathers to be gifts of healing or “feather medicine” from the Great Spirit. The wind is a form of the change-bringing element of air.

Another type of daily exercise in mindfulness is to actively look for feathers. There is much magic that can lie within something as small and light as this.

Crow Feathers: These indicate loss and mourning. Try not to be frightened but look at them as indicators of the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. You may lose someone you know, but you will also most likely greet a new friend or baby to complete the circle.

Hummingbird Feathers: These bring joy, beauty, and bliss. Take time out to have a good time and to share time with the people you love in your life. Follow your bliss!

Swan Feathers: These are the sign of grace. As swans mate for life, a swan feather can also mean a soul mate or good relationship is on the horizon.

Duck and Crane Feathers: These serve as prayer feathers for Native American people. They come from waterfowl, which are perceived as sacred birds. Finding a duck feather may mean you need to seek advice from a Native American teacher or experience healing from a medicine wheel.

Yellowhammer Feathers: These are the symbol for hearth and home. Seeing a yellowhammer feather in your path means you will have a happy new home. Most importantly, you will feel secure and loved within your family.

Roadrunner Feathers: These are a sign of the trickster. Beware! Finding one in your path either means you have the potential to be a magician, or you need to watch out that you aren’t tricked, It is a symbol of duality.

Blue Jay Feathers: These are the bringers of light into darkness.

Robin Feathers: These are the sign of renewal and new personal growth, and are a good sign. Spring is coming both outside and inside you. It always means news is coming.

Magpie Feathers: These are just pain good medicine for any kind of illness. Magpies bring purification. If you find a magpie feather in your path, a friend who is sick will get better.

Scissortail Feathers: These represent the four directions. If you come across a scissortail flycatcher in your walk, you need to do a ritual invoking the four directions. It is a sign you are in need of grounding and should reconnect your spirit.

I suggest you keep a written record of your feather findings— where and when you find them. Secure a blank journal and a feather quill pen for your records. Meditate upon the meaning and the message the feather is bringing to you. Journal your thoughts and feelings. Years later, it will be fascinating to look back at the proof of divine providence in your life. 

Birthstone Blessings

Sit in a comfortable position with your birthstone placed in a bowl or dish in front of you. Think about the blessings in your life and gifts your particular stone offers. (To learn more, turn to the descriptionary in Part Two.) What are you grateful for at this moment? There is a powerful magic in recognizing all that you possess and in having an attitude of gratitude. Breathe steadily and deeply, inhaling and exhaling slowly for twenty minutes. As you meditate, send the positive energy into the bowl containing your personal gem. Now, the birthstone blessings are there any time you need them.

Earth Stones for Centering: Grounding and Healing Gems and Crystals

Jasper Stone: This stone has been valued for its healing and grounding energies since ancient times. These healing crystals carry a very strong earthly energy, helping to deepen your personal connection with the earth when you wear or meditate with these grounding crystals. I recommend either brown or red jasper, both of which are healing stones that also give you great strength, heighten energy, and have a lovely reinvigorating effect on your body.

Hematite: This stone is a deeply grounding crystal for the body. It has a high density and even it is a relatively small pebble; it will feel heavier in your hand than you might expect. Hematite contains tremendous grounding energy that literally feels like you are one with the Earth. Touch it to your skin, and you will feel a magnetic energy. It is this effect that will make you feel more balanced, calm, and centered. Hematite stones also soak up any negative energy within your body or energy field. After you have used it, you should place the stone in a bowl of pure salt to cleanse it.

Smoky Quartz Stone: Smoky quartz is another beautifully grounding and stabilizing crystal that brings powerful energies for centering the body. This particular quartz has the effect of making you feel deeply rooted to the earth. It is very centering in an uplifting way, having a much more subtle energy than Hematite. Smoky quartz works to counteract any negative vibrations, replacing them with the positive.

K2 Stone: This crystal has recently become more popular as it brings new discovery and revelation for many. K2 is a combination of grounding granite and celestial Azurite, which balances our earthbound life experiences with our higher consciousness and connection to the universe and the heavens. It is an extremely powerful way to connect to your intuition and find the balance between your intuition and your daily life. If you are wrestling with a real issue in your life or need to make a difficult choice when the options are unclear to you, call upon K2 and use it in meditation. Soon, the answers will come.

Shungite Stone: Here is the most powerful stone for balancing. Shungite will inspire you to deal with your emotions, toxic mental thoughts, and anything that no longer serves you. While it can be unpleasant to look at these personal issues, it is, in actuality, a healthy thing to do. What you gain from this exercise is the grace and strength to cut the energetic cords that hold you back from your personal power.

Astral Azurite

The great psychic and healer Edgar Cayce used this blue beauty for achieving remarkable meditative states during which he had astoundingly accurate visions and prophetic dreams. Indeed, azurite helps achieve a high state of mental clarity and powers of concentration. If you can’t find the answer to a problem in the here and now, try looking for solutions on the astral plane. Write the problem down on paper and place it under a small azurite overnight on a windowsill so it collects moonlight.

At 11:11 a.m., lie comfortably in a quiet and darkened room with the azurite stone placed over your third eye on your forehead. Clear your mind of everything for eleven minutes and meditate. Sit up and listen for the first thing that comes into your mind—it should be the answer or a message regarding the issue at hand. Write down the words you receive. The rest of the day you will be in a state of grace and higher mind during which you will hear information and answers to help guide you in many aspects of your life. If you, like me, enjoy this meditation, you may want to do it every day at 11:11 a.m. and every night at 11:11 p.m. I strongly suggest that you keep a journal of these “azurite answers.” You may receive information that you won’t understand until many years have passed, making the journal an invaluable resource and key to your very special life.

Soothsayer Stone: Choosing and Using a Crystal Ball

When selecting a crystal ball, your choice should not be taken lightly. This is a very personal tool that will become instilled with your energy. Crystal balls have their own authority and they can strongly influence the development of our psychic abilities. You should think of the crystal as a container that houses your energy—so make sure it feels right for you. The crystal should feel comfortable to hold—not too heavy and not too light. You should not allow anyone else to touch your crystal ball. If someone does touch it, place the ball in a bowl of sea salt overnight to cleanse it of outside energy and influence. Because quartz crystal balls have an inherent power, you have to practice working with them first. Pure quartz crystal balls can be quite expensive, but the price is worthwhile if you are serious about harnessing your intuition and using it for good. Don’t expect your experiences to be like the movies. Most of the people I know who use crystal balls, including many healers and teachers, see cloudy and smoky images.

Work with a partner to sharpen your psychic skills. Sit directly across from your partner with the crystal ball between you. Close your eyes halfway and look at the ball and into the ball while harnessing your entire mind. Empty out all other thoughts and focus as hard as you can. You will sense your third eye, the traditional seat of psychic awareness, begin to open and project into the crystal ball. By practicing this way, you will train your mind. The patterns you see will become clearer and your impressions more definite. You should trust that what you are seeing is real and find a place of knowing—as I do with my stomach, which seems to be an additional center of intuition for me and I just “know in my gut” when something is off. Verbalize to your partner what you see, and then listen to your partner as she reveals her visions to you.

You should also do crystal ball meditations on your own. In a darkened room, sit and hold your crystal ball in the palms of both hands. Touch it to your heart and then gently touch it to the center of your forehead, where your third eye is located. Then hold the ball in front of your physical eyes and, sitting very still, gaze into it for at least three minutes. Envision pure white light in the ball and hold on to that image. Practice the white-light visualization for up to a half hour and then rest your mind, your eyes, and your crystal ball. If you do this every day, within a month you should start to become an adept at crystal ball gazing.

When we gaze into a crystal ball, it is possible to see into the fabric of time, both the past and the future. At first you may be able to see a flickering, wispy, suggestive image. Some of you may be able to see clearly defined visions on your first try. Most of us have to practice and hone our attunement with the energy of the ball. You must establish clearly your interpretation of what you see. Many psychics use a crystal ball in their readings, and some report seeing images of clients’ auras in the ball. Projecting information about people’s lives is a huge responsibility, so you need to feel sure about what you are reading. Learn to trust your body’s center of intuition.

Highly polished and glasslike spheres of beryl and quartz crystal have been in use for many thousands of years. Healers, shamans, witch doctors, and medicine men have been using the bones of the earth for divination since time immemorial. The Celtic folks and Druids favored beryl as their scrying crystal of choice. Beryl still has a well-earned reputation as the stone of power. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance saw a far-flung use of crystal for seeing the future. The mythical wizard Merlin, of Arthurian legend, kept his crystal ball with him at all times! Pure quartz crystal balls are quite pricey, but again, are worth it if you are committed to this practice. Most people I know who use crystal balls, including many healers and teachers, see cloudy and smoky images most of the time, so do not expect your experience to immediately be like going to the movies! Each and every crystal ball is unique and has its own energy. Here are a few examples:

• Amethyst offers intuition on business matters and is especially good for lawyers and writers.

• Beryl helps you find anything you have lost—keys, jewelry, money, people!

• Obsidian is the karma stone and helps you see and resolve past-life issues.

• Quartz crystal can put you in touch with helpful spirit guides who foretell events.

• Selenite is particularly useful with any matters regarding hearth and home.

• Smoky quartz connects you with nature spirits and shows you what to avoid in your life.

Love Goddess Invocation

The Goddess of Love, Venus, rules this most popular day of the week, Friday. Small wonder this is the night for a tryst. To prepare yourself for a night of lovemaking, you should take a Goddess bath with the following potion in a special cup or bowl. I call mine the Venus Vial. Combine:

• One cup sesame oil

• Six drops orange blossom oil 

• Four drops gardenia oil

Stir with your fingers six times, silently repeating three times:

I am daughter of Venus, I embody love. 
My body is a temple of pleasure,
And I am all that is beautiful. Tonight,
I will drink fully from the cup of love.

Pour the Venusian mixture into a steaming bath and meditate on your evening plans. As you rise from your bath, repeat the Venus spell once more.

Don’t use a towel, but allow yourself to dry naturally. Your lover will compliment the softness of your skin, and indeed, you will be at your sexiest. The rest is up to you.