The Magickal Pen

Mosaic:Nikki Ella Whitlock

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2016!

2015 was filled with change. Some welcome, other necessary and other still completely out of the individual’s control. It was a difficult year for many and the word saw glimpses of humanity at its worst. This increased anxiety caused many to retreat and remove themselves from the company of community, seeking solace in the theories of peace, joy, health and prosperity. For some, the experience of real life was too painful and hard as we tried it was not always easy to see the world as a safe place to allow ourselves to be fully open to the lessons to be experienced and growth to be gained.

Now, we welcome a New Year and new opportunities to explore and a “clean slate”. Each year has a numerologic energy associated with it. 2016 (2+1+6) resonates to the number Nine (9) and with that resonance the promise is one of endings and new beginnings. More importantly, it is one of crossing thresholds and the potential to step more fully into a newly catalyzed “you”. The number nine holds the potential of initiatory experience. The key word here being, experience. And, experience is my intended focus for this brand new year!

As a Witch, High Priestess and walker on a path of service within my community and beyond, I have studied and read and filled my mind with everything I could get my hands on to pass this information on to my students and community. Theory has been the Deity I worshipped and practical experience evolved slowly, and at times painfully, as I realized the need to leave the Hermit’s ways of theoretical hoarding. There have been some years when I could not pick up another book for months at a time; so sated was my storehouse of mind and information. The irony is that it was during those times that my most palpable and transformative experiences had the time and space to reveal themselves. What I had desired and sought so fervently in teachings, was surrounding me all the while!

For me personally, 2015 slowed many of my mental acrobatics and theoretical expressions as I was called to the action of practical workings and experiences that would bring about the successful birthing of a new Coven. Readings and writings that were in support of the blogs and projects that had begun in 2014 took a back seat to organizing, stretching and reaching out with more of myself in its entirety to attract membership. And, unequivocally, what everyone wanted was to experience the magick I so fervently spoke of for themselves as a palpable thing. This is after all, exactly what attracted me to the Path in the beginning. The feeling evoked in the midst of ritual. The thoughts that rose to the surface as I watched fascinated by the grace and ease of magick flowing from the practitioner. The high that stirred me to action to try the same magick and experience my own result.

Two passes of my second Saturn return helped me maintain the space of structure in a timely fashion and provided the opportunities to engage more in community, ritual and the very physical experiences I so passionately teach, but don’t give enough of my own time to. Had I not slowed the stream of theory, the course would have been fraught with my own mental roadblocks and the distraction of a head buried in a book would have shut down the receptivity of acquiring the wisdom of experience in a different way.

In this year of the Nine of new beginnings I am taking the advice of a very dear friend and making it one of experience. My classes will be infused with practice experience and palpable gifts that can be applied readily and freely. I’ll be posting more audio of pathworkings, meditations and ritual for those who want more than simply rhetoric. For our coven this is a planned year of physical and manifest experience that includes engagement with the natural world, and more importantly engagement with each other.

How will you make 2016 a Year of Experience?