Down time

I'm on vacation - will resume posts in a week or so.  Listen to some good music for me while I'm gone!

Dreaming

You make your own reality, they say.  Doesn't mean you control it, but you still make it.

Of course, if you're planning on using Magick in your life, you better learn how to control it.

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Bonzo's Montreux

He owned the drumming world.  He still owns it.  The beating heart of Led Zeppelin.

RIP John Henry Bonham 31-May 1948 -- 25-Sept 1980

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Everything I Do Is Wrong

Let's face it: Sometimes it feels like you're shoveling shit against the tide. Sometimes Magick seems an impossibility. But you know - the Universe isn't your mommy. The Universe will deliver the energy that you use to manifest if you know how to ask for it - regardless of why you're asking or what you will do with it.

That part's up to you.  So, Grasshopper - if anything you do is wrong, don't be blaming the Universe.  Know what I mean? 

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Talkin' About You

If you only think you know what you want - or even if you really, really know what you want but you are dithering about it - Magick isn't going to do anything for you.

If you only dream of who you want to be and you aren't really ready to go there yet - Magick isn't going to do anything for you.

If you think you need to have or do one more thing, if you think you need to make your ritual a just a teensy bit more perfect - Magick isn't going to do anything for you.

Listen up, Grasshopper:  Magick isn't something out there, outside of you. Magick is an invocation to the Universe that says this is what I now am, let's make it so!  But it's all about you. The Universe is the energy source, but you've got to flip the switch. Only you can do that. You.

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Hey Hey What Can I Do

Choosing is better than not choosing.  You can have all the desire you want, you can have tremendous will, you can put together a fabulous ritual - but until you've made a decision about what it is that you specifically want, you won't have any results from Magick.  The stronger your decision, the stronger the Magick and the faster it all happens.  

So don't be asking the Universe what to do.  Make your own decision and then go for it.

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Gonna Shoot You Right Down (Boom Boom)

The temptation is to shoot someone down - or at least reject their ideas -when they conflict with what you think or want.

Don't do it.

A Mage doesn't reject anything in the world because everything has meaning and each thing is a guidepost to creating a new, desired reality.  A Mage knows that ideas that are not congruent with his own desire or will can still be of great value, just like a street sign can be that tells you you're going the wrong way.  A Mage simply makes choices and doesn't waste precious energy creating obstacles that aren't really there.

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South Bound North Bound Any Direction At All

Magick is like traveling by train.

• You have to be very specific about where you want to go. It won't do to get on a train headed east if you want to go south, and just any south bound train won't do it either. You don't want to get on a train headed for Miami if you want to get to someplace in Mexico. 
• You have to decide on what you need before you get on the train.  Once the train's left the station you can't go back home to get what you forgot.
• You have to stay the course. Hopping off the train at just any old station along the way isn't going to get you where you want to go.
• You have to give it all the time it takes. The train will get there when the train is supposed to get there. Once it leaves the station, your part in changing the end result is done.

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What Magick Does

This, my friends, applies to more than just engineering. This is what the greatest music is about. This is what Jimmy Page has always known and what Led Zeppelin took to heart.

This describes what Magick does.

MAGE MUSIC: The Journey is a Trip

MAGE MUSIC: The Journey is a Trip: Magick is such a trip! No, not the kind you do with chemical assistance but the kind of trip that is a journey. If it is never attempted, the goal will never be reached.

Good Times Bad Times

What do you really want?  The Universe is waiting for you to use your Magick (your will, your desire and your ritual) to bring it to you.

The more you are focused on what you really want, the more you bring the energy of the Universe to you. The more you bring that energy to you, the more power you have.  The more power you have, the more successful you are at manifesting the reality you want.

The most powerful Mages are those who know what they want and live it.

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The Only One

You don't have to be the same as everyone else, you know.  In fact, a Mage can't bother with that.  A Mage has to boldly go where he or she has never gone before.

The world will pressure you to conform.  Just look through Facebook or other social media - it's all about trying to get you to fall in with the flock.  But you can't be one sheep of many and expect Magick in your life. You don't have to be a lone wolf, but you do have to walk away from the temptation of the safety of sameness.

Every religion, every government, every political movement, and every social media line of thinking - every blog! - proclaims  that it is the only point of view that works.  But that's not true.  The only point of view that's going to work for you if you want Magick in your life is your own.

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The Impossible Factor

What do you mean, Magick is impossible? Says who?

If you want to succeed at Magick, ignore the nay-sayers. They're people who are afraid of the idea of personal power and are afraid of the idea they could change their own reality. You wouldn't think that there are people like that, but they're everywhere.

And they don't want you to succeed.  They don't understand, and what people don't understand they fear, and what people fear they want to control.

Don't let them muck around in your life.  Don't tell them what you're doing and don't ask them what they think about Magick.  Then get on with it and do the impossible.

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When nothing happens

So you've mustered up the desire and will, you've designed the ritual and you do it and... nothing happens.

What does it mean?  

Hard to say.  Sometimes you just need to give it time.  Be patient and move on to something else, though, because if you fret and dwell on the changes that haven't come about yet, you're undermining the Magick.

Do It Your Way

You can't do Magick by copying what other people do or say.  Magick is about you and the energy of the Universe.  It's about changing your own reality.  No one else's point of view or understanding is a substitute for your own.  No one else's reality is your business.

How some Mage does what he or she does simply will not work for you at all - not until it comes from you. If you want your Magick to work, you have to dream your own future, you have to drum up your own will, you have to create your own ritual.

Due Diligence

Do your homework.  Be prepared.  All that stuff you've been told all your life?

It's true for Magick, too.

The more you take the time to align yourself with the reality you wish to manifest before you get to your ritual, the less you have to mess with the ritual itself - the less perfect, the less elaborate, the less... well, anything the ritual has to be.  If you are so totally prepared that you're practically already there before you  even start the ritual, then you can afford to screw up a little with the rest.  

The big Magick is inside of you, not outside.

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An actual tip

Read Mage Music, first of all.  All the way from the beginning.  I'm not saying this just to waste your time - the Mage Music blog is there to tell you about Magick and really contains all the basic concepts.  This blog here is just for tips - you know, little add-ons.  Extra riffs and embellishments, not the main melody!

Next - a real tip!  You can't fight Uncle Sam (US readers will understand that one most readily) and you can't fight the Universe, which is where the energy of Magick comes from.  So don't even try!  If you're struggling with Magick, just stop!  While Magick might take some actual work, it's not necessary to suffer to get what you want - the only necessary is to focus on what you want!

Tips, thoughts and nonsense

What can I say - I wanted a place to post quick tips, but I didn't want to mess up the format I'm using on Mage Music, so here's another blog for aspiring Mages and for people who are just interested in Magick in general.  Might include stuff about music or I might just ramble on about nothing much.  Depends on what I feel like!