I’m enjoying my new foray into video making on YouTube, but this one I could have taken a bit more time on. I thought of the topic in the morning, shot part of the video at that time as soon as the idea came to me, drew the doodles at work, outlined some notes, then recorded the rest of it after I came home. As a result, I don’t think I explained my thought cogently enough. The guideline I set for myself is it has to be under 15 minutes, so quite a bit of cutting had to be done as well. Sigh.
Anyway, the point of the video is I experienced deity as energy first, not realizing that was deity, and then was first taught personification of deity and monotheism through Christianity when I was nine. For most of my life I’ve been fascinated with religion and mythology, passionately inquisitive of what different people believed about deity.
This is the second installment of a video series on my YouTube channel called Tinkering Bell where I showcase my personal esoteric tinkerings.
Episode #2 Description
This is Part 1 of 2 videos on the architecture and design of sacred space. Part 1 (Episode #2 in the series) will cover the first of the five fundamental principles: harmonic resonance.
Whether you are designing the blueprints for a church or temple, seeking out a home and living quarters that will be empowered as sacred space, or setting up your altar, “Architecture of Sacred Space” from the Tinkering Bell series will cover the five fundamental principles for constructing sacred or sanctified space.
There is a common denominator among mystery traditions across the world that instruct on a perfected way for harmonizing human architecture with deity and with nature. In “Architecture of Sacred Space,” I share with you the basic criteria I follow for ensuring a sanctified living space.
I’m starting a new video series on my YouTube channel, called Tinkering Bell. I’m Bell (or at least that’s what people who can’t seem to pronounce “Benebell” call me) and throughout these videos, I’ll be showcasing my metaphysical and esoteric…tinkerings. Hence, Tinkering Bell. The videos are going to be practicum-centered tutorials that share my particular idiosyncrasies in the Craft.
This is the first installment of the series, on expelling malefic attachments.
Episode #1 Description
When I say “expelling malefic attachments,” I’m keeping that terminology overbroad to cover a lot of different ground. If you’re feeling energetically weighed down, unduly influenced in a way you intuit yet can’t explain and it’s been detrimental to you, or you’re sensing atrophic, less-than-positive vibes around you that you’d like to get rid of, then consider trying what I do for myself: a fifteen-day integrated self-cleanse.
This total mind, body, and spirit self-cleanse is meant to eradicate any string of bad luck, negativity in your life, remove hexes, exorcise unwanted spirit attachments, neutralize the evil eye, and detox from what Chinese feng shui masters would call poison arrows.
“Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals” (2011) by Manuel Marín. Via Flickr.com @manuelmarin. Creative Commons.
Recent social events and divisive politicians have motivated many public figures in the spiritual communities to step forward and comment about politics. Almost every single one will receive a vitriolic remark about staying “within your own lane” and just stick to spirituality; don’t be “low vibe and low energy” by talking politics or social consciousness.
Likewise, there are an equivalent number of public figures in the spiritual communities who have built their branding and image on compassion, love, and lightworking, and yet they have remained eerily silent on issues of social injustice, hate, hate crimes, and, well, quite frankly, political issues that they don’t think personally affects them, but are literally killing others. Which is odd, for someone spiritual who believes as above, so below, as within, so without, and we are all One…
Those who actively seek to walk a spirituality-dominant path for personal development have two options. First, they can develop spirituality inward, and focus on themselves. The goal here is personal transcendence. How can you, you, transcend? The second option is to develop spirituality outward, and focus on the collective. The goal here is collective or social transcendence, to use what Divinity has gifted you with to make a difference in the world around you so that the world can, collectively, transcend, or at least take another positive step toward transcendence. Those are the two core objectives of spirituality. It’s either about your transcendence or it’s about your collective’s transcendence
To talk about which one of the two paths everybody should take is an unproductive conversation. Both paths serve a larger purpose beyond what we are able to understand in our moment. Also, one path is the other, and vice versa. Evolve yourself and you do evolve the collective. Evolve the collective and you will evolve yourself. So both are equally compelling spiritual paths.
That’s why for someone to say to a spiritualist that you should not involve yourself in politics or comment on political matters is, well, short-sighted. It’s in effect asserting that the first path is superior (personal transcendence) and spiritualists need not and should not seek collective or social transcendence.
If you’re seeking self-improvement at the moment and using the vehicle of personal spirituality to do so, which by the way is the definition of shadow work, then yes, perhaps turning inward and detaching from the political and social landscape of your world at the moment is the prudent path. If, however, you are a lightworker, or a self-professed lightworker, well then, lightwork is defined by shining your light out into the world so that you can uplift your community. The lightworker cannot do that effectively by summarily ignoring politics and social issues. Politics and social issues are intertwined with the conditions of your community.
To heal a body, you have to find what is rotting, diagnose the problem, and eradicate the problem area so that the healthy part of the body can begin the healing process. No one disagrees with that or finds such an assertion divisive. Yet when our society is sick and everyone, no matter which side of the aisle you stand on, can acknowledge something is rotting, why aren’t we working toward diagnosing the problem and eradicating the rot? Sure, we can disagree on what the problem is and what the solution ought to be, and that’s common in any area of expertise. But if the team of medical experts are going to heal the patient, then even when they disagree with the diagnosis, they had better do so by working together, collaboratively and in harmony, or else that patient is going to die on the operating table.
Let’s also address how spiritualists take many forms, and serve different roles. Some are rhetoricians, the messengers. Others are warriors, our gladiators. We’ve got those who are physical healers, who heal us mind, body, and soul, one by one. There are those who traverse to other realms or channel entities from other realms, and bring to us important messages so the rest of us can do our jobs better. Then we’ve got the teachers, who preserve the body of wisdom we’ve attained up to this point by passing it on to the next generation of messengers, warriors, healers, and mediums. Understood in that way, it seems silly for the rhetorician to tell the warrior not to fight, or that the healer should take up arms and slay on the battlefront. That being said, if one is a self-proclaimed warrior, then one had better take up the cause and fight the war when called. You can’t call yourself a warrior and then run away from the draft.
To be political and social is part of some of our spiritual paths. Let’s honor that. Likewise, certain defined spiritual paths necessitate its adherents to be political, and yet so many of those who profess to follow such paths are too afraid of their own shadows to do what needs to be done. You cannot be an adequate lightworker if you do not walk out of your own comfort zone in search of the darkness, to find where you most need to shine your light. Do you have to be a lightworker if you are spiritual? No, you don’t. Not all spiritualists are lightworkers. But I am perplexed by those who say they are and yet who refuse to engage in political discourse.
Tarot OG Bonnie Cehovet and an awesome human being (I know, I met her) shared a really cool tarot spread that I now must re-share. Check out her article here. It’s a ten-card “Who am I” spread where you ask your tarot deck to tell you about you. You’re going to want to try this one out for yourself, too, and when you do, be sure to share it and tag Bonnie Cehovet. (Twitter handle: @bonnie_cehovet).
And you know what? This would be a great spread to try today, during the Total Solar Eclipse. For those of you of a Chinese Taoist bent, Ghost Month also begins today, so you can modify this tarot spread and bring in mediumship. Use tarot to contact someone who has passed on who knew you well. Think of someone you would have gone to for life advice, perhaps a relative you would have had a heart to heart with, who knew you well, and so would have been able to see you more objectively than you see yourself and thus answer these questions for you.
Okay, here are the questions. Set out the cards in any arrangement you like, but with the intention of these ten points:
This year’s day planner is better. Okay, well, I think it’s better. Who knows what you think of it all. Ephemeris tables, charting sign transits for the Sacred Seven for each and every day of 2018, and also, this year’s day planner comes with a 200 page Guidebook. Yep, that’s right. The day planner has its own operation manual.
And in that operation manual you are going to find loads of folk magic, astrological data, and also all void of course moon dates for 2018 in case that’s something you look at for spell-crafting. It’s got forecasts for 2018, step by step instructions on how you can do your own forecasts for 2018 per your natal chart and solar return chart, reference tables galore, and so much more. I’m sure you’ll find something interesting in that Guidebook that you ultimately decide to integrate into your own craft.
Short Summary (aka TL;DR)
You’re getting the digital files to a day planner calendar book that’s part organizer and part grimoire. Then you can upload the day planner digital file, along with your choice of a front and back cover design (many options provided for you to choose from!), to a third party printer (I give you illustrated step-by-step instructions on how to do that), and get your day planner printed and bound. And if you lose your book midway through the year for whatever reason, you can always print out another copy for yourself, since you’ve got the digital file.
This day planner is keyed to a metaphysician with eclectic leanings, and a keen interest in both the sacred arts of the East and the mystery traditions of the West. It presumes the importance of transits astrology in your practice, and so moon phases, ephemeris tables, and key astrological events are noted.
Now that I’ve completed the 2017 YouTube Pagan Challenge on the grimoire, I thought I’d consolidate the three videos I made in response to the challenge and also throw in some additional commentary. This year’s theme: the personal grimoire or metaphysical journaling. For your reference, here is a PDF reference to all question prompts for the 2017 YouTube Pagan Challenge that I was going off of for the video responses.
I’m going to be making references to the question prompts by number. So, for instance, when I say Question 1, I mean the “Show and Tell” prompt, or if I say Question 45, I mean, “What kind of pagans were your ancestors?” and so on. Number to question references are on that PDF.
In retrospect, Part 3, my last video, should have been Part 1, the first video, so for those who haven’t seen any of them, oh good. Now you can actually watch them in the better order. In this post I’m going to be featuring the final Part 3 first, since it makes more sense that way, and then you’d move on to Part 1.
Then, of course, it turns out there were a whole load of questions I totally missed, so I’ll try to answer any that seem relevant to my path at the very end, via blog rather than another video upload.
Part 3: Pagan Practice, Opinions, and the Personal
I start this video by addressing the question of whether I am even considered pagan. Then I address my go-to divination techniques, Question 6, how it’s not recorded in my grimoire but elsewhere in separate journals, ritual work or Question 8, my answer to Question 12 is implied in some of what I say in this video, and Question 13, where I talk about a code of ethics for spell-crafting. Here I also talk about the religions that influence my path and give glimpses of my witchy rooms or…more accurately, witchy house.
Psst…these are not pics of the underworld. These photos are from Lava Beds National Park in California. You need to visit there sometime.
Someone in my “I Ching and the Practitioner” course asked about Chinese dreamworking. Though delving into the subject fell a bit outside the scope of the I Ching, I thought it’d make an interesting closed-circuit blog entry.
My mother’s specialty is dreamworking and oneiromancy. She works primarily through the realm of dreams. Allegedly. The lawyer in me, I think, or maybe it’s just the enduring skeptic, feels compelled to add “allegedly.” This rambling does not come from a place of personal expertise, because I’ve always been the opposite of my mother. I am not a dreamworker. I would say I don’t dream at all, or at least I rarely remember my dreams. I don’t receive prophecies, divination, or forecasts of any kind through my dreams. No–that’s not entirely true, but it’s true enough for me to assure you that I am no expert. So I’m speaking from a point of neutral, outsider observation, as the daughter of a shamanic dreamworker.
By the way, she would never identify herself as a shaman. She doesn’t use anything to identify herself. Others, however, when she isn’t around, or when describing my mother, may use certain terminology. But she would never call herself anything other than “wife, mother, daughter” those kinds of titles. I’m the one taking the initiative to say “shaman” because it’s descriptive of what she does. You’ll see what I mean.
In Part III, I’ll be tackling the issue of curses and hexes. First, a note for clarification: I’m going to separate out the distinction between practitioner and reader for the purpose of this post.
A practitioner is someone who works proactively with unseen energy and spirit influences, who, for lack of better terminology, can and will cast spells for hire.
A reader is someone who reads energy for hire, such as someone who does divinatory work, like a tarot reader or psychic.
This year’s day planner is better. Okay, well, I think it’s better. Who knows what you think of it all. Ephemeris tables, charting sign transits for the Sacred Seven for each and every day of 2018, and also, this year’s day planner comes with a 200 page Guidebook. Yep, that’s right. The day planner has its own operation manual.
benebell wen 