people. We can learn to run this energy up and down instead of out. By
running it up and down, we become full of vital life force and can use this
energy to fuel all of our endeavors, studying, working, gardening, dancing,
painting, blockading the Federal Building, or even, surprise, surprise, hav-
, ''This was R,·daiming and Fai priest Gwydion in aspect, carrying the energy of thr Peacock God.
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ing sex. When I am full of the life force and know that my sex energy is my
sex energy, I can use it in the whole of my life and can be more present
while engaged in sex itsel£
Calling sex back is also an acknowledgment that I cannot place responsibility for my sexual self upon any other being. It is up to me to be connected to all growing things. To all of life. It being my energy, I need not fear it anymore. It is energy I can draw on. I can feel sexy for myself and
enjoy my own pleasure in sexuality. Letting life force run freely is not common for those of us who live cut off from what we call the natural world, where the life force is unimpeded by concrete and electrical interference.
D EVOTIONAL DANCE FOR SEx
Take a deep breath. Send your grounding cord to the center if the earth, and draw up
red Iron energy into your body. Feel the sex point glowing in your forehead, resting behind
your third eye. Set your feet just wider than shoulder width apart. "Sit down" on your
thighs, as if in plii. Begin to rock from side to side,jeeling the energy rising up your spine.
Now, at chest level, elbows out, place one hand� palm against the back if the other hand in
a vertical position, so that one set iffingers is facing up and the other facing down. Begin to
move the one hand (with fingers down) up and the other hand down until they reach your
forehead and your genital area. Now reverse the hands, fingers pointing down and up in opposition and repeat the movement, allowing the hands to brush each other as they pass around your chest height. Keep moving, letting your legs pump the energy and your hands and arms
shift the energy if sex up and down through your body. This is sex energy just for you. It
is life force and your connection to the sex that makes up all the earth. Your hands may occasionally brush your forehead or your genitals as the energy courses up and down. You are full if sex. Breathe it in. Feel it flowing through you. Sex.
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SACRED ORGASM
As I have said before, to Witches, sex is holy. You can use your sexual energy for many things: charging tools and spells, aligning your soul, opening up to abundance, feeding Deity. Here we will explore the mystery of sacred orgasm. This exercise begins to repair some of the damage many of
us have sustained through cultural concepts of physical beauty and sexual
abuses or sorrows.
Sacred Orgasm is a reentry into sex, for and of yourself, as a pure celebration of life, where we use sex energy to bless ourselves, our bodies, and our spirits. This means all of ourselves, those parts that try to run either
from sex or from confronting the self at its most naked. It is an exercise in
being present with ourselves. Many of us have ingrained patterns around
sexuality. What can these patterns teach us? Just as our sitting exercise can
show us the patterns of our thoughts and emotions, we can look at what
this exercise brings up for us around sex.
I invite you to look at any of your sexual habits (fantasy, avoidance,
things you always do, things you never do) and see how they disconnect you
from or connect you to sex energy. Try an experiment: notice the usual patterns of your mind or body as they arise during sex and, as in the sitting exercise, try not to latch onto them. View them as information and return to your breathing, trying to really just be with yourself in this moment. Be with
yourself, having sex with yourself, just for the length of this exercise. If you
find this difficult, or if it brings up emotions of anger, frustration, fear, or
sorrow, know that you can do the Self-Love Cleansing exercise. Surround
yourself with love and know that you can try again another time.
Light some candles, or lie in a scented bathtub. Begin to breathe in the life force, as though you
were beginning the Prayer for Alignment. Begin to feel the sacred sphere growing around you.
Breathe into it. Rtlax into the energies. Let yourself open to them, floating on them. Kiss your
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hands and touch your ryes, ears, nose, mouth, breasts, genitals, and legs and feet. Stry, "Blessed
are you who see, hear, smell, taste, and speak the sacred. Blessed are you,jormed in beauty and
strength. Mtry you walk the path, guided lry the Gods."7 Run your bands over your beautiful
skin, your sacred bo4J. Stry, "I am beloved and beautiful. I am sex and sacredness." Bring yourself to orgasm in this sacred sphere. As you reach your peak, breathe the energy up to feed Sacred Dove and align yourself. Bask in the sense if wholeness this gives you. lj emotions come up, feel
those, too. lj any energy is still lift, breathe that to any Guardians or Deities you mtry have called
upon, or release it into the sphere. As the sphere dissipates stry, ''Miry you reenchant the world."8
If you had trouble with this exercise, I recommend Aligning the Triple
Soul as shown in Chapter 3, and running the Iron Pentacle through your
body. Both of those will help to bring you into right relationship with
your sex energy and with all the energies of the human being. Then, by all
means, return to what you like about sex, to what suits you. I recommend
periodically checking in, returning to look at your sexual patterns and
noticing the effect they have on you, and how they may change over time.
Sex is holy, you are sacred, and the life force is always available to you.
CoNsECRATING TooLs WITH SEx
I'd like to talk a bit more here about sexual consecration of ritual objects.
I recommend that you do it through acts of self-sex. Though magical energy raised through sex with another person is potent, I prefer to consecrate my tools through self-sex, as that way I am clear about whose energy is in my tools. I also know without a doubt that the sex energy has been
used consensually!
7Some of you may be familiar with the "fivefold kiss" from other Craft traditions. This is my variation on that blessing, not a traditional one.
HJ'd like to thank lvo Dominguez, Jr., for this concept of the energy from the circle moving out to
rernchant the world.
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In a sacred sphere, bring yourself to orgasm and imagine the energy if your orgasm arcing to your altar where your tool rests. Anoint your tool with some if your juices, blessing it with your life's energy.
One thing I do on a regular basis is to align my Triple Soul after orgasm, as you did in the Sacred Orgasm rite. I don't do it at the moment of orgasm, as that is energy more fully shared if I am with another, but just
after, when the energy has separated out. With the energy running quickly
through my body, I simply tilt my head back and breathe some up to my
Sacred Dove. For me, this is another affirmation that, while I may share my
sexual energy, it is still my energy to use as I will, for my health and well
being and the health and well being of the world.
pfide
The fiery energy of the Iron Pentacle runs from sex
down into pride.
Pride enters when my spine aligns and I stand tall, when I speak my piece
and my chest opens to the resonance of my voice. Pride enters when I am
fully immersed in the dance of life: proud to be human, proud to be alive,
proud to be about my work, proud to know you, and proud to begin to
know myself. Pride emerges when our will is engaged and we stand upright
in our truth.
We are often misinformed about what pride is. What is called "pride"
in our culture is often merely arrogance, or what I call "false pride:' Arrogance has its flip side in self-deprecation, which is just another face of the arrogant posture. Whenever we do not measure our own worth truly, our
pride point is out of balance. We will explore this further in Chapter 8
when we look at the Rust and Gilded Pentacles.
Do you carry yourself with pride, or do you hunch forward, hiding
yourself. head pitched down, arms tucked, trying to take up as little space
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as possible? Taking up space is a good thing. Be as big as you are, be what
my friend Reya calls "right sized:' This is not the same as entering a room
and demanding attention from all the inhabitants. Instead, this is a feeling of rightness, a sense of belonging to yourself and being proud of who you are.
The world needs for good human beings to stop skulking around and
to take their places, do their work and do it well. How do you serve the
world in this way? What are you proud of?
What are you really good at? Step into the circle and tell us. Are you a kindhearted listener? Are you patient with children? Do you leap into the fray to battle injustice even though you might be '!{raid? Are you a fine dancer or a sensitive musician or a dedicated
gardener? Do you know the best way to scrub one hundred pounds if potatoes for soup at
the local homeless shelter? What makes you a human being?
DEVOTIONAL DANCE FOR PRIDE
Use this movement to call pride back.
The fulcrum for pride is your right foot. Place it slightly forward, and your left foot
slightly back. Feel the red Iron energy enter your body. Feel it glowing in your right foot. Begin to rock backward and forward on your feet. Reach both hands up above you, slightly in front. Look up at them. Make a motion like you are grasping something to you. Close your
hands around it and draw it down to you, holding it to your chest for just one moment.
Then reach up with your right hand, and grasp pride to you. Then with both hands. Then
with your left. Call pride to you. Feel the energy if pride flowing through your body. Claim
it. Pride.
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AuTOMATIC WRITING
This tool may be familiar to those of you who work with writing coaches.
Victorian occultists used a similar method to contact disembodied spirits.
I use it to commune with the Gods and with my Sacred Dove. We will use
automatic writing to contact our own spirit, which lives, sometimes buried,
within us.
For this exercise you will need unlined paper, a fast writing pen, and an
alarm clock or a watch with a timer on it. A regular watch or clock set out
in front of you will work if you are disciplined enough to just glance at it
occasionally to keep track of the time. You will write in two segments, one
up until the clock rings and then for another few minutes following. I suggest unlined paper because your handwriting may get big and loose once you have warmed up and things start flowing.
Light a candle and take a breath to call to your soul. Set the clock timer
for six minutes. Begin to write, starting with the words "What is pride?
Pride is . :• Don't worry if you can't think of anything to write. This ex
.
ercise isn't about thinking, it is about uncovering the images, words, and
feelings we have been taught about pride. Depending on where you are in
your life and your level of confidence, anything may come up, from "Pride
goes before a fall" to "Pride is dandelions standing yellow in the summer:'
Don't delete words or try to make sense. Just write. If you get stuck, just
go back to writing "What is pride? Pride is . . :•
The clock is set. Take a deep breath. Let the pen begin to move across the page. Don't stop.
Keep breathing. Pride is. "What is pride?" Let the words flow from your pen Jaster and
Jaster. Don't think. Let your body relax and your writing grow larger and less contained.
Pride. Words cf pride are flowingjrom your pen. Everything you have been taught, all you
have learned about pride. What is it? Keep writing. Keep breathing. Let it flow from you,
like flame etchiug words in the paper. Potent. Black as smoke. Blue as the heart if the flame.
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Once the clock rings, don't stop. Start writing the words: "I am proud if . . .
"Take a
deep breath. "I am proud that . . .
"Keep writing. "Pride is . . " "I am . . .
"Flame, words,
.
paper, pen. Take a deep breath. You are writingjrom a place if pride. You are writingjrom
deep in your belly. Keep going until you cannot go anymore. Write. l#ite. Mite. Soon you
may find phrases repeating. Keep writing. The phrases will tell you what you need to know.
racing. You are writing. You have crossed the finish line. You are human. You are proud.
Stop. Put down your pen. Take a deep breath. What have you learned
about pride? Read the first section. What rings true and what sounds a
false note? Moving on to the second section, what came forward to tell you
what you are truly proud of? Did things repeat? Did a theme emerge? Pick
the strongest phrase you wrote. Read it. Now say it aloud. Say it to your
mirror, looking unflinchingly into your eyes.
TAKING P RIDE OuT OF THE Box
This is an exercise of exploration that requires us to speak to others about
pride. Part of what keeps energy tied up is not talking, keeping things hidden out of shame, fear of ridicule, or fear of being seen. In consequence, we don't always speak honestly to ourselves or to other people. The next
exercise can help us to admit to our curiosity and to speak without fear.
Ask yourself whether or not you have boxed your pride in to keep it small
or hidden from the public. Sometimes we have boxed pride in so well, it is
hidden even from ourselves. Let it loose and see what happens.
Ask your friends, coworkers, family, and circle mates. Ask the grocer on the corner, the
postal worker, or your librarian. "What are you proud if?" Don't ask them, "What do you
think if pride?" Ask, "What are you proud if?" The question might catch them eft guard
and both if you may be surprised at the answer that pops out! Or you may find that they
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have been thinking about it for a while and have a reasoned answer. Start a casual discussion in your neighborhood. Get folks thinking. This spreads pride around. Just the fact that you are willing to ask the question will plant the seed that pride is a natural thing.
As you take pride out of its box, it will begin to grow around you. You
will be wor
king magic in the world and doing us all a great favor. The more
people realize what they have to be proud of, the more people will begin
walking tall, and the more we will do our work gladly, fUlly, and with a feeling of generosity for the world. Abundance grows along with pride. Love does, too.
self
Deep in the Iron Pentacle, the red-hot Iron energy flows upward, connecting pride to self, to that essence, small or large, which cannot be taken from us without a fight. Somewhere in all of us is a surety about who we
are and what is important to us. We may bury this or try to give it away,
but with some uncovering or recovering, we will find it within us, singing
its song.
Our sense of self is formed by many circumstances. Much as we would
like to choose who we are, this is not always possible. We are molded by
our childhood experiences, economic circumstances, or by other people's
expectations and desires for us. These desires can include the need to have
us remain as small as possible, to not be as smart, talented, or big as we
could be. Or they need the opposite, wanting us to shine in ways we are
not drawn to. Either set of expectations could leave us feeling not good
enough, for it is seldom that a person can live up to another's expectations,
particularly during childhood when we don't know ourselves well enough
to choose whether or not the expectations fit. This can play itself out in
our adulthood, tripping us up and causing dissonance when our wants
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outstrip our abilities or when we lack the confidence to forge ahead, knowing that forging ahead means risking the unknown.
At this point in your life, while walking the ways of magic and spirit, it
is good to begin to use your tools of thought and discernment and apply
them to the subject of self You can begin to look at how your sense of self
has been formed and notice whether or not that sense suits the deeper purpose of your actual self, your core essence, or what some traditions call the
"I am:' Begin to breathe into that "I am" whether you can fully sense it at
this point or not. This will strengthen your sense of your true self