Category Archives: devotions

5 reasons not work with local spirits

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Recently I came across this post

My post is not a rebuttal, but an ad joiner to the possible undesired experience that come from seeking connection with local spirits.

5) Just because a spirit is there, doesn’t mean it wants to “work” with you.

For one thing, let me clarify a term. In conversations I have had with other spiritualist minded folks and people who get into trying to chat up spirits, there is a difference between veneration and “working”. Veneration can be very simple, is pretty much devotional, and doesn’t expect much between the two parties except for a simple exchange of “pleasantries” and expressions of good will. Of course, if you get a negative feedback, it maybe because you have offended said local spirit, but we’ll get to that later. Generally veneration is just a way to say “hi” and “thanks for all that you do” and “lets be friendly and polite with each other”. Venerating ancestors, venerating local spirits, venerating Gods, and heroes and every thing else. It’s all just a way of making nice. This niceness can lead to “working” and help build relationships that can be quite beneficial in the future, and possibly even buy you a Free pass when you make a mistake, but don’t always count on it.

“Working” indicates that there is a request being made of a specific variety and purpose to a specific end for your benefit. Whether it is protection, wealth, love, knowledge etc…, what makes it different is the specificness and that you are making a specific request for something you want accomplished. Often it will entail behavior on your part that reciprocates to the spirit that you are willing to work for them. A number of spiritual beings are known to be workers, who are quite open to requests for things. Gods, Saints, Angels, Demons etc… and there are books quite busting at the seems with them. But local spirits, you’ll notice, don’t seem to function that way universally, for everyone in the same way that say, St. Expedite can for so many people. One person can have a great relationship with a local spirit, and another person may get bubkis. That’s just the way it seems to go. Just because you are aware of spirit that is tied to a certain local, doesn’t mean it wants to work with you, and it will often make that perfectly clear as soon as you attempt to connect with it.

4) Just because a spirit is there, doesn’t mean it’s going to know a lot of about anything in the area.

Or for that matter, be able to communicate it in a useful or intelligible way. A spirit of the tree is mostly going to know about Tree things, and if it notices if someone stole your bike or not, will have more to do with if that bike thief happened to interact with the tree shortly before or after. If you happened to have your bike chained to the tree, it’s only thought maybe “heavy earth thing was leaning against me and now it’s not” and that’s about it. Of course a larger local spirit (say of the park) might notice, but unless your bike was important to it for some reason, why should it even care. Unless you interact with a local spirit that has vested interest in human affairs and a reasonably intelligible way to understand and communicate it, you’re really not going to get much. It is for this reason that you’ll notice a lot of cultures often have a greater spirit of a particular thing (plants, animals minerals etc…) that is often more understanding of humanity and better able to connect with it. Most people, in my experience, are usually connecting with the larger overarching spirit then the much more limited spirit of the specific object, plant, mineral, animal or place and those spirits are not “local” per se.

3) Most local spirits could give about two cents to you and your issues

this of course, ties in nicely with my last point. While the various local spirits might be quite appreciate of offerings, veneration and devotions done to them, and thus you might get them to be more favorable inclined to you, which could generally make your going about in the locale easier over all, when it comes to specifics (theft, health, wealth, love, etc..) you know, all those things that humans value in interacting with other humans, local spirits quite literally don’t understand, or for some of the larger ones, don’t care. If there is some kind of human pandemic experience going around, it might peak some of the larger more understandings ones interests (like high murder or suicide rate, or a larger number of clinically depressed) because being that we are part of their environment that they govern that might be somewhat invested in it being harmonious for everyone, but the local tree spirit, rock spirit, spirit in the park, is going to be completely uncaring to your issues, if they understand them at all. If they are even open to working with you, they might still not understand something, unless you explain it in as naturalistic terms as possible (literally think birds and bees and pollen and trees people) otherwise, you’re going to get a kind of shoulder shrug, if anything at all.

2) They have needs that you can never provide for.

Do you know how to pollinate a flower? Probably not. Even if you do know, do you have the time and patience to do it for every flower during a 3 month period? I’m guessing not. What about trees? Or, the local watering hole? Maybe you could organize a community event to help clean it up if it was dirty or only barely polluted with trash, but if the spirit is telling you it wants to flow over there, and not there, I think you’re going to have a problem convincing those people in their nice homes to make way for the creek you feel ought to build. Generally, if you’re getting a quite possibly impossible request from a local spirit, it’s politely telling you to Go away! Because it doesn’t have time for your nonsense, human.

1) Just because a spirit is tied to specific locale doesn’t mean it’s smaller.

There is such a thing as Local Gods. These being are Gods, Divine beings in their own right, who don’t need to be worshiped or venerated because their divinity comes from their locale. Perhaps a shrine might exist to them (like in Japan, or China or places that have long standing animistic spiritualist traditions) but generally there won’t be one, and they don’t really need it. You might be able to identify it with some dowsing, but it could very well be very hard to reach, and the local god may not want you to reach it in the first place. So, they being a local God can really make things miserable for you if you offend them, much like any god, and more then likely, they will be much more easier to offend and will stay offended longer then a more transcendent Divine being that is not tied to specific location. The Spirit of the The City you live in, the spirit of your neighborhood, even the spirit of your building (which in very large apartment buildings can be quite powerful) and of course, there could be more natural spirits of ecosystems and environments that are quite mighty and powerful. If you ever notice that when you enter into some areas that you get lost easier, seem to have ongoing problems with minor nuisances (insects, muddy puddles, bumps in the road, tripping over roots) is probably because the local spirits find something about you vaguely offensive. You could try to clear it up, make an offering and appease them, and can work, but some people just don’t like some people no matter what. You just plain smell bad to them, and they will never like you and they have no compunctions about making their dislike and displeasure known. You may not experience this if you only visit, especially to a major city or tourist area, but if you try to stay and settle in, is when the problems start to occur.

Of course, there are other smaller beings, but they are often in league with the larger beings of the area, and will tend to take directions from the “top” on down. They might be willing to work with at first, but after some time, will be less friendly and sociable if your general essence is just not compatible with the local area. If that is the case, you’re probably better off moving, then trying to make a go at it. Good luck explaining that to your friends and family who moved with you, or the cost of the move in the first place.

It is also my experience that smaller spirits are far more dramatic and showy then the non-time space fixed transcendent beings. Most hauntings are caused by smaller spirits, not by gods and actual major demons (despite the name they toss around). To make a ready and known comparison, think of a Midsummer’s night dream. Oberon doesn’t do the dirty work himself, he sends Puck, a servant, to do it for him. A similar situation will apply in naturalistic settings. Most major local spirits won’t do something directly if they can avoid it. They will send a representative to do it for them. Of course, if you enter into an actual working relationship with one, you may very well end up being that representative from time to time as part of your deal in desire fulfillment.

Finally, for some people, in some situations, none of this, both helpful or harmful will hold true. Some people are, as I like to call it, Unicorns. Gifted mediums who are favorably received by all spirits. People gifted with spiritual authority, that allows them to work better with spirits, and perhaps from time to time, command them when needed. Others are favored by the land, or the Gods, or a God and in certain situations that favor will manifest things for that that others will never receive within the Land, or Gods, or God. Your mileage may vary.

G is for Ganesha

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One of my favorite deities of the Hindu panoply of gods is Ganesha. He is fantastic. I forget when I was first introduced to him, but I have always felt a certain fondness for him, and enjoyed learning about him; the myths, the mantras, the devotions, the festivals.

The popularity of Ganesha extends throughout many of the religions that originated in India. Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists, all seem to venerate Ganesha, and it seems quite a few people outside of that religion, who also are drawn to him.

His origin story is quite well published, and if you want to read it, well, Google it, but I will do a quick paraphrase here. He is the son of Parvati, the wife of Shiva, who was created to guard her while she took her bath. However, while Parvati was bath, Shiva returned and sent some of his followers to call upon Parvati. Ganesha denied them, and beat them soundly when they attempted to trespass. Finally Shiva came to see what the problem was, and not knowing the boy was his wife’s son, they fought. Shiva won, but before Parvati could stop the conflict, Shiva had used his destructive third eye upon the youth, destroying his head. In order to revive him, another head needed to be found, which was an elephant head, which became attached to the boy’s body and he was then revived. There are quite a number of different versions that fill in various details and explain various things, but that is the very short hand version of the story that I first heard.
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He is associated with having dominion over many things, but his main attribute is the Lord of Obstacles. While mostly often he is asked to remove obstacles, it is also said that he can place obstacles in the path of people who need it. One of his names reflects this power where he is identified as Vighneshvara, which literally translates as Lord of Obstacles (shvara – lord and Vighne being obstacles). There are other variations of this name, but the meaning is considerable consistent. The obstacles he governs are both physical and metaphysical and can be people, places, concepts, spiritual issues, illness and many other things. For this reason he is often called upon when beginning a new venture, to remove obstacles that may obstruct it, as well as when engaging in ritual, to remove obstacles that would impede the success of the ritual.

Another name and association is with knowledge, wisdom and learning. The concept I learned with that is his name Ekadanta which means “One Tusked” as he is often portrayed with only one complete tusk, the other one often broken off and being held in one of his hands. I have a small clay statue showing him holding this broken tusk, and it seems he was using it as a writing implement. The story that I learned is that it was Ganesha who first created writing, and started to write down what other gods said, that it might be preserved and remembered. As he was doing so, his writing implement broken, and there was nothign to replace it. So he broke off his tusk, and dipped it into the ink and continued writing. Because of his connection to knowledge, wisdom and learning, he is also sometimes known as Buddhi’s husband or Buddhipriya, buddhi being a sanskrit word for knowledge and wisdom which is a feminine word and priya meaning fond of, lover or husband.

Ganesha is also associated with a number of other concepts. It is said that the OM is his nature. The swastika is a very popular symbol and it is widely associated with Ganesha. Many statues from the subcontinent of Ganesha often have the swastika prominently displayed on Ganesha, or used in his depictions. He is also said to dwell in the muladhara chakra, as it said the “he holds, supports and guides the other chakras , and thereby governing the forces that propel the wheel of life”

The largest festival associated with Ganesha is Ganesha Chathurthi. This annual festival of 10 days happens in early autumn, typically at some time in August or September (because it is based upon a lunar calendar, the dates vary in the Gregorian calendar. You can google the date). Originally a small family orientated festival, it became a rallying point for Indian independence from the British, and for that reason is widely celebrated across the country, but especially so in specific states and in Ganesha specific temples. The beginning of the festival is marked by the arrival of Ganesha, usually as a large statue. At the end of hte festival, the statue (or statues) are then taken to nearby bodies of water (lakes, rivers etc…) and submerged. While this tradition continues, there has been some discourse over it, as the original statues were often made of clay and would just dissolve into mud, many modern statues started to be made from plaster of paris, which is filled with toxic chemicals, and then painted with toxic paints, which would then pollute the bodies of water. While I have read that some areas have returned to using clay and non toxic pigments, others have started using reusable statues also colored with non toxic paints and dyes, and so they retrieve the statue from the body of water after a few days.
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If you want to engage in devotion to Ganesha, a very simple way is through offering him incense and sweets. While he is often depicted with a bowl of traditional indian deserts, I have found he likes all maner of sweets and candies. Including incense (sandalwood is a good choice) is always good, as would including some kind of liquid, even water. The most commonly recited mantra to Ganesha is “Aum gam ganapati namah” Ganesha is very often identified with the color red, although white also is used, along with blue, and it seems orange and yellow are also popular (although usually used with different roles of Ganesha).

And now a little devotion for you

Reflections on fasting

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I spent the month of June engaging in a fast. While it seems that the most popular fasts to undertake right now involve various foodstuffs, from the Master Cleanse to the current juice fast, the fast I undertook was one of celibacy. It seems that this type of asceticism is somewhat uncommon for most people living in the West, or even for many people in alternative spirituality, with its focus on sacred sexuality, sex magic and “tantra.”

Part of my reason for going on this fast was out of devotion. While maintaining my abstinence I was engaged in daily devotion to my patron, Artemis/Diana. While contemplating how to perform this devotion in May, and making a list of tasks to undertake, I was immediately struck by the inspiration of being celibate; completely celibate with no sexual activity of any kind including personal. This makes sense in regards to devotions to Artemis who is well documented as having foresworn such behavior as well, and many devotees of hers who have also done the same. While their vows were forever, I don’t think I am ready or desiring to make that kind of commitment, so I foreswore it only for that 30 day period.

The first week was the most difficult. What made it hard was the changing of behavior patterns that I had followed for quite some time, namely being a responsible sexually active homophilic male who seeks out sexual relations with other homophilic males. Putting a stop the behaviors that made such relations possible was the most difficult part, as it is so available and present. Once that week had passed, it became easier, but that is when other things started to rise up into my awareness.

One of the realization was about the contention of will within me. On one hand there was the very strong desire for this kind of activity. One the other hand there was the desire to commit to my devotional vow for the time period indicated and not break it. Both of these drives were operating at the same time, and there were times when the conflict between them was quite intense inside me. I did not break my celibacy fortunately and I feel stronger for it though.

The other things I noticed is how amazed people were, especially other gay men. It was a regular statement that I heard from them, “I couldn’t do that” especially after I made it clear that I was not engaging in masturbation either. At least among the gay men that I know of, this kind of asceticism is unheard of. Many of them were also looking forward what I would be like once July began and the period of celibacy had come to an end. I felt that part of my celibacy period is not planning ahead of sexual activity, so while the temptation to do just that was strong, I also avoided dwelling in the future of that occurring, because it would distract me from the devotions I was doing at that time, and I also felt it was dishonest to do so.

The third realization that came about towards the last week was a feeling of purity that had settled upon me. I just felt clear, cleaned out, and more rooted in my self then before, although I don’t think that phrase really explains it clearly or does the feeling justice. There was a peace and calm that had settled into my being, and now as I think about it is still there. While I have thoroughly broken the fast, the benefits I feel from it had not departed from me, and I feel equally calm and reposed whether I am engaging in behavior to seek it sexual relations or not.

There are other beings that I would like to perform devotions to, and engage in. There are also other fasts that I would like to practice at some point, but for right now, I think I am satisfied with what I have achieved with this fast.