The Spell Casters Barn

I always felt better using the barn as my study. Something about the animals movements and personalities open me up to more creative ways to phrase words and sonnets into more meaningful, more earthly, more ...human... tones.

The barn itself was a mess and the animals took care of themselves. I figure this was one benefit of being a "Sorcerer", to create, no, to release a creatures nature to realize ones needs and express and fulfill them to their upmost potential.

As a result these animals are quite happy and although I do not eat them, their humor and antics usually provide me with much joy and amusement.. but not today, not yesterday, and not the days before that for you see, I have a problem.Not a stinking normal problem, and yet, very much a mortal every day problem... you see its Spells.

One Conjurer can do a spell and have it work... and another one can do the same thing, in the same way and have it do nothing. Both have intent, both have skill, both follow the scientific principle that if something is done in exactly the same way the same time and then done again, the same result will occur.. and yet it does not!

I looked over at Aleister and Eliphas the two bunnies... doing what bunnies do... you would think that they would get bored... but they had no answers. The fly, Otto and his kin just buzzed around them doing nothing... but sure something had occurred.

Gurdjieff, my donkey, never did what he was told and wasn't going to help me now.

Barbara, the bat, only came out to draw the insects from the Moons light.

Llewellyn, was COMPLETELY useless in that he never faced me! All I could see of that Horse was his other end.. and that end was all I ever saw of him.

The problem was that I had a student. A good boy.. and I could not express to him what was the missing element! How could one go to change some aspect of the universe and have the Pentacle, Wand, Sword and Cup and still repeatedly fail.. I searched my brain and went over the simplest of spells to see what was missing.

I was distracted by Anton and Zeena who were playing in the mud. Anton was much older, and Zeena recently tended to stay away from him, she seemed to reach for something that wasn't there and yet received pleasure from it. The other piglet, Karla hung around Anton and tried to be just like him.. I dont know why.

The spell, the alteration of the universe, I selected for my study was "The Brushing of Teeth". Although this is a common everyday thing.. It is a practice that involves a changing of the universe.. what was is now different.. there is a change.. an alteration in the universe and the way things would have gone has now been altered.In addition you also had the Sword, Pentacle, Cup and Wand. Toothbrush, Mouth, Sink, and Water.. as well as the Arm and Force or will to complete the operation.

Gardner , The Old Owl, peered from the rafters down at me with a look that I would never be worthy of knowing this secret. That I was not old enough, or had not learned from my grandparents the answers that I was looking for, and so never could get close to the right question or angle that I searched for.

I put down my toothbrush in my mind and picked up my pen. THAT WAS IT. I put down the toothbrush... and now I put down my pen and thought, trying not to distract myself with Aleister and Eliphas, who were still "going at it". I focused and formed these words in my mind and quickly picked up my pen and wrote them on my paper. The completion, success, of a spell, or anything, depends on the creator, or Conjurer letting go.

So simple. So true.

A rock can not fly without a boy letting it go! If you ask him how he threw it, he could not tell you, nor could he give you a description of the muscles or thoughts that created this change in the universe. So was it with old magic, before writing... spells could never be written because if they were successful the energy, including the creative intent would be dispelled in the flash of creation or altercation of the universe. Tantric magic was the same, though Aleister or Eliphas probably did not have a high magical objective, just a biological need... sometimes a carrot is just a carrot.

A writer will not create anything or create the amount of work needed to be prolifically successful if he does not put down the pen and let the story go. The Quick Edit is just a way to prevent you from fully allowing the ball on its journey and will keep you from becoming a master of production and remaining a master of one.

How often successful magic spells require the forgetfulness of the spell itself upon completion! The letters that come when we have thought about a friend... and then tossed that thought away to watch a squirrel, only to be confronted by a letter from the very friend, and the remembrance of our prior thought.... and dismissed it as coincidence... when we were in fact touching the potential of our magical selves.

The hanging on of letters after they are sent, of relationships that are gone, of decisions that were made long ago... that we still hang onto... rip our spirits apart and drag us in directions and mud banks that we never needed to go and that shorten our lives dramatically.

The key is to let go. To leave the emotion of the spell with the energy of creation of thought or ceremony, and not go back. To allow yourself to open up and receive the change that the magic has created,

I smiled up at Gardner, who looked down at me in contempt.

True it was not a historic breakthrough that would herald a new age.. but it would help me and my young apprentice.

I put the priceless words, in with my other notes, in the feed box for the sheep and walked outside towards the lake. It was shimmering silver and Rider and Waite, the two ducks, were bobbing upside down for some plant I think, I could never understand the whole upside down thing.

The boy ran up to me pointing wildly in the direction in which I came.

I slowly turned around to see the barn, my barn, going up in flames.

The animals were all out and were going their separate ways.

I have no idea how that happened.