Saturday, March 24, 2012

Sigil Magic

One of the first magical techniques I ever learned was sigils.  Although I did not put them into much use at the time, years later they became a frequently-practiced technique for a while.

Gordon over at Rune Soup has posted an excellent article on this technique, that I wanted to share, in case my readers don't already read his posts as well.  The post itself is chock full of information, and on top of that links to all kinds of other sources of information to flesh out what is there.

If you have not read it yet, go check it out:  Sigils Reboot

It has definitely reignited my interest in sigils.  :)

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Job Workings, part 2

In my last post, I detailed the situation that left me searching for a job again and the financial uncrossing I did.  Before I continue on, however, I want to give a little bit of my history.

From ages 18 to 28, I always held down steady, continuous work (except for a few weeks when I started college).  If I couldn't stand a job, then I found another and left the old one.  This all changed in late October 2009, when the economy ate my job.  Just after this, my truck's transmission failed and it was 4 months before I was able to get it fixed.  While I subsisted on unemployment benefits and kept looking and applying for work, a number of things happened:

  • Got a job and got my truck fixed.
  • Lost the job in an abrupt introduction to how easily managers will now let you go, as well as the extremely flimsy reasons for which they will do so (seriously: In this case I have yet to meet anyone who does not think the reasons were total horseshit).
  • Took odd 1-2 day project jobs.
  • Took a 1 week job that ended up being extended to a month.
  • Took a job outside my field, making WAAAY less than I did before the layoff, in order to keep my first-tier unemployment benefits from running out.

Then I got the desktop support job I mentioned in the first post. I was there a year and was laid off for two weeks.  That leaves us back at mid-September of last year, and at this point you can probably guess how skittish and paranoid I had become regarding employment and job-security.

I began the financially-focused uncrossing at the beginning of the first week off.  It concluded mid-week.  By that time I had interviews set up for two jobs: One I didn't like, and one I really wanted!  At that point, it was time for further enchantments!

Jupiter, Macro Style

One thing I did that same week was continue the series of planetary initiations by the angels by conjuring Tzadkiel to grant me initiation into the sphere of Jupier, and integration of its forces into my own sphere.  He granted this with the Jovian grace one would expect of his sphere.  I was drawn into a vision of many financial, authoritative, high-level things and then found myself back in my chair in front of my altar.  In addition to the initiation, I asked Tzadkiel expressly to bless my overall jobsearch efforts.

Targets Identified

Right along with the macro-enchantment from Jupiter, I began doing micro-enchantments.  This consisted of the following:
  • Before each of the interviews, I put a small dab of Commanding, High John, and Crown of Success oils on my hands and rubbed them in.  I used just enough to put the lightest coating on my hands, avoiding making my hands look greasy.  I got this idea from Jason, and it's so strategically awesome!  Rub the oil on your hands, do the interview handshaking and VOILA!  Magic deployed!
  •  For the job I really wanted, I empowered 3 candles.  Each one had a purpose targeting an aspect of the situation: The first was to go work at that job; the second was to help me pass the military interim security clearance the job required; and the third was to help the flow of the process.
  • Further prayers to the powers of Jupiter.

Admittedly, these were not nearly as much as I could have done, but it was a good start.  At that point I had not received the financial magic lessons in Strategic Sorcery.  For the second week of my layoff, nothing really happened.  So after that I went back to work, tried to clean up the mess that was caused by my absence, and continued on with another general job-finding vigil cangle.

As it turned out, I was offered both positions!  The one I wanted even took less than 4 hours to decide!  I turned down the first job in favor of the second, and set about doing the extensive paperwork required to apply for a security clearance.  The second week of my layoff was uneventful and dead in terms of my jobsearch.  So I filled my time doing research for said paperwork, and filling the whole thing out.  This continued even after I went back to work when the two weeks was up.

Unfortunately, there are things that magic cannot help with, and that security clearance was one of them.  The DOD has been cracking down on the part of their process that focuses on a candidate's finances, and given mine, I was denied.  Magic, it seems, could not help with that.  It was a tough and very frustrating pill to swallow ("How can I improve my finances if you won't give me a fucking job???"), but swallow it I did.

Another job came along paying even more, but doing helpdesk (which I don't like).  I decided to go ahead and try for it anyway, and scored a phone interview.  After that I landed an in-person interview.  Even from that interview I was extremely intimidated by their director, and at the end of the interview I was seriously shaken, but they took me.  While on that job I still did magic to help improve my chances of staying there, but it seems that there were more walls I ran up against.

But that will be covered in my next post.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

The Job Workings, part 1

Back in September 2011, my job at the time hit its first signs of instability.  It was a desktop support job -the first one of that type of IT support work that I'd had, as my previous experience was in helpdesk.  Being the first desktop support job I'd had, and with the economy being the way it was when I was brought in, the companies I worked under used their advantage to pay me way less than this type of position normally makes.

Cut forward one year and two weeks from my start date, and I was broke, tired, and exceedingly frustrated.  Just a month prior, I found out from the company I worked under (a major technology company) that I was going to be forced to take a total of 32 hours off -unpaid, of course- by September 23rd.  I scheduled this with them to have me off each friday up to and including the 23rd, and things chugged along.
Until Friday September 16th, that is.  At 3:00pm that day, I got a call from my company explaining that the client needed me to take the following 2 weeks off -again, unpaid- starting that coming Monday.

I was screwed.  A dozen and one things went through my mind: what about rent, what will happen at the end of that two weeks, will I be let go, I'm already behind enough on the bills, etc.  Due to the previous cuts, I already had to borrow $200 from family just to cover my moving expenses from when I parted ways with the hellish situation I lived with previously.  Total disaster was running through my mind.

One trait that I've been able to successfully overcome has been the tendency to let fear and depression paralyze me from action.  I flew straight into updating my resume, posting it to the major online jobsearch sites (especially Monster and Dice, in my case), and applying my ass off!

Fortunately for me, with the industry I work in, once you post your resume online, calls from recruiters will sometimes just flood in, so to speak.  As expected I began receiving at least 2 calls or emails per day, and by the end of my first week off I had two job interviews scheduled.

In addition to that, I applied for unemployment.  My state has an initial waiting week before benefits kick in.

And right there along with it, I knew it was time to dredge up some magical action.

I've HAD It With This Muthaf***ing Cross On My Muthaf***ing Money!

The aforementioned series of events made something snap inside of me.  Prior to this, I had not done much magical work to pull my finances out of the hole they’d gone into.  In retrospect that was especially stupid (and lazy) of me, but then again stupid and lazy are what many people do when suffering from severe depression.  Nonetheless, at this point I decided enough was enough.  The entire previous year-and-a-half had been one long string of financial disaster after financial disaster.  Everytime I came close to even beginning to set things right, something else would happen to make me backstep too far back.

I didn’t even bother with a divination; I knew what was going on: My finances were crossed.  This added to my consternation even more because of the uncrossing work I did back in April of 2010.

In general, the procedure for this was much like my previous uncrossing, except that I made more materia for it that, ingredient-wise, gave a distinct focus on the uncrossing of one’s finances.  This wasn’t absolutely necessary, but I wanted something special, something powerful, and something especially powerful!  Here’s a summary of what I did each day:

DAY 1
  1. Brewed and used the Financial Uncrossing bath, letting it run down the drain afterward and dedicating it and the crossed condition to the Underworld powers.
  2. On the day of the Sun and in the hour of Jupiter, I fixed a white vigil candle using my Financial Uncrossing oil and related herbs.  During the fixing process, I called on the powers of Sol and Jupiter -in particular, the Intelligences and Spirits.  Then, I lit the candle and wafted the appropriate incense around me.
  3. I added some of the Financial Uncrossing oil, along with my VanVan oil, to some diluted pine-sol in a spraybottle and cleaned house!  I made sure to give special attention to spritzing the carpets and then vacuuming them, going from the rear of my apartment toward the front door.
  4. Divined to see if the condition, if any, was broken.  The divination reported that there was still a spiritual affliction upon my finances.  At least this confirmed what I initially didn’t even bother confirming!

DAY 2
  1. Bathed using the Financial Uncrossing bath, the same as Day 1.
  2. Stood before the still-lit vigil candle and prayed for the condition to break.  Wafted the incense around me.
  3. Brief spritzing of the cleaning solution around my apartment, from rear to front.
  4. Divined to see of I was still afflicted.  I was.

DAY 3
  1. Bathed using the Financial Uncrossing bath again.
  2. Prayed before the candle and wafted the incense around me.
  3. Spritzed the apartment lightly and then five-spotted doors and windows from rear to front.
  4. Divined to check the status of the condition: Broken!

I proceeded to go through the rest of that week with things flowing along nicely.  In fact, I got two job interviews, both of which I got accepted for!  I turned down one in favor of the other due to payrate, but there was a TON of paperwork involving a security clearance I had to get through.

But I’ll cover that on my next post!