I is for Integration

This post is for the Pagan Blog Project.

I've just finished Jason Miller's Sorcerer's Secrets. Aside from one or two petty details, it was a book I enjoyed very much and would recommend to anyone who practices magic. One of the reasons I so thoroughly enjoyed it was that the focus of the book is on creating a practical system of magic that combines the occult with the mundane. It is, essentially, a how-to guide for magical integration.

In case it wasn't painfully obvious by now, that's kinda my whole deal. I don't like reserving magic for special occasions and emergencies. I prefer to see it as an active current, working its way through all aspects of life.

I don't have a lot of apps on my phone. One of the few I've downloaded is a moon phase calender. Every day I check my almanac, just to make sure nothing's sneaking up on me. There is a shrine to my dead relatives in the kitchen, by the window, across from the herb and candle supply cabinet. Everyday issues are considered from the physical and the spiritual; if you're going to have a hot bath to wind down from the day, you may as well add rosemary and sandalwood.

These are fairly passive actions. Fully integrating the magical and the mundane requires deliberate decisions. You must choose to create a routine of meditation and other spiritual acts, and fit them into your everyday life. You choose to utilize magic more often - you don't wait until you get sick to cast a healing spell, but instead work preventative magic in conjunction with common sense. Maybe you carry Commanding Oil in your purse, or a mojo bag for good luck in your pocket.

I've always believed strongly that you've got to get up off your ass and DO something if you want it. The natural extension of this, to my mind, is to augment your mundane actions with magical ones. Now, at first this might seem like overkill. "I don't NEED all this assistance," you might think. And no, you don't. But why wouldn't you pull out every trick you know to get and maintain a life you love? I sometimes wonder if it's not leftover guilt; a great many people do not believe they are worthy of good things, and any attempt to change their situation is seen as greedy or somehow immoral. Obviously I think that's utter horseshit.

Gradually one just turns to magic as a matter of course when one wishes to influence events. It's still an active decision, but now it feels organic. Your practice has become integrated.

Dunno about you, but that's how I always figured a witch should live.