Tag: demons

Grounding and Energizing – February 2019 Domagick Week 2

February is now half over and with it this month’s Domagick challenge. While this week’s artistic meditations remained as enjoyable and relaxing as those previous, they weren’t as productive because they didn’t result in as much writing afterward. That isn’t the fault of the meditations themselves, however, but mine. I spent as much time as I could resting between jobs thanks to feeling run down due to a cold. Because of this, I tried to take a cue from Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way who said it is possible to “rest on paper” and decided to work with aspects of the Daemonic Divine that I find the most restorative, energizing, and soothing. This allowed me to sit with them and draw on their reserves when it felt like the day’s chores would be too much for me alone. With them, I was able to augment my energy with theirs and get through the day successfully.

My artistic meditations this week include work with six different spirits, but my absolute favorite this week were:

Rosier – The connection I had with him during this piece was extremely strong. I could see him clearly in my mind’s eye, handing over such a crystal, and I nearly overflowed with positivity.

rosier love romance crystal quartz rose demon daemon demonolatry daemonolatry satan

Belial – For this meditation, I chose a straightforward grounding visualization. I’ll add it here, in case you would like to follow along.

Belial grounding meditation demon daemon demonolatry daemonolatry satan

Sit or stand quietly with your feet approximately your shoulders’ width apart and your feet flat on the floor. Close your eyes and turn your attention inward. Now take a few deep breaths to clear your mind. When you are ready, picture you are a tree with a tall, strong trunk reaching all the way up to the sky. Roots grow out of the base of your spine, down and out of the soles of your feet, and deep into the soil beneath you. The roots anchor you there, securing you firmly.

Take a few more deep breaths. Each time you exhale, visualize your roots sinking deeper and deeper into the earth, connecting you even more deeply to the dirt and rocks below. As you inhale, see your roots drinking in the nutrients deep below the ground. Rain falls and the sun shines down on the earth, nourishing and feeding it, feeding you. With each inhalation, your roots drink in this vital life energy, pulling it up into your body. The energy flows up your trunk, up your body, into your branches. Breath it in and feel it flowing through your entire body, filling every part of you with rich, abundant energy. You feel this energy run through your entire trunk, through your whole body, up into the sun, into the brightness, leaving you secure and energized.

Take a few more deep breaths, reveling in this feeling, enjoying it. Sit with the vitality and energy running through your body as long as you like. When you feel satisfied, thank the earth for its sustenance. Withdraw from it slowly by beginning to wiggle your fingers and toes, then finally bringing your attention back to the room you are sitting in. Open your eyes when you are ready. If you feel at all unsteady, have something to eat or drink. Many people find it helpful to record the results of the meditations in some way, and I recommend this.

May this week be rejuvenating for you!

 

January Success, February Goals

January has come to an end, bringing a close to the Inner Demons Challenge, my focus for the last month. I’ve used its divination prompts to successfully generate character ideas for my next romance novella. Here is this week’s recap:

Her – How are you enslaving or limiting yourself?
Him – How are you enslaving or limiting yourself?
Her – How can you inner daemons liberate you?
Him – How can you inner daemons liberate you?
Her – What can you do when your inner daemons surface?
Him – What can you do when you inner daemons surface?
Her and Him – How can you integrate your inner daemons moving forward?

Now that the challenge is over, I must wade through all the disconnected notes and scene fragments to come up with a cohesive set of characters and plot line. It won’t be easy. Some concepts, while good, contradict others. I either have to figure out a way to resolve the contradictions or toss out some of the ideas. That, plus fleshing out the solid skeleton will hopefully be revealed, is my primary goal for February.

I plan to support this work by continuing with my daily morning pages. I am working through the fourth week of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and I find the morning pages more useful in freeing my muse than any other component of the program. I’ll also be adding artistic meditations on the Daemonic Divine to my morning work. Just as I don’t expect literary greatness from my morning pages, I won’t expect artistic masterpieces from these drawings. I’ll consider it sacred doodling instead. The point is to open up my connection to the Divine and to free up my creativity.

These artistic meditations will be the heart of my February Domagick challenge, starting tomorrow. As per usual, I’ll be posting the results daily on social media with an update here on Fridays. I’ll be skipping tomorrow since its a holiday for me and the very beginning of the challenge. There won’t be much to report!

On that note, happy Imbolc/Brigid/Candlemas to those who celebrate it. I’ll be celebrating with my family. Have a good one!

February – Discounts, Desire, and Divination

February is nearly upon us, with all the possibilities it holds. It can be a busy month for magicians!

Those looking for romance may feel the pressure of Valentine’s Day fast approaching on the 14th and turn to love spells and divination to foretell their prospects. To help alleviate some of those fears, I’m offering all love and romance readings at a 25% discount for the entire month of February. Simply mention this entry when arranging your reading. You can find more information on my available services here.

Those not concerned with romance this month may choose to work on themselves instead through the  DoMagick meditation challenge. Classic forms of meditation are suggested but not 100% required, so I’ll be using artistic meditations to help jumpstart my creativity each day in February. In short, I’ll be meditating on the Daemonic Divine with some sort of art supply in hand, trying to capture a representation of their essence visually. Like trying to force a genie into a bottle, I don’t believe you can actually trap a spirit in a piece of art. If anything, I would describe artistic meditation as freeing. It often helps remove blocks I have, not only warming me up before I begin writing for the day but also working through misconceptions about the Daemon in question and breaking through to new levels of understanding. Overall, this challenge aligns nicely with my current goals in February, so I thought I would participate and share my work on social media as per usual.

Many Pagans plan to celebrate Imbolc this February 1-2. Also known as Candlemas or Brigid, this holiday honors the return of the light after the longest night of the year and marks the halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox. Although the tradition I practice does not typically observe this cross-border day, I explored Wicca and other pagan paths for many years before choosing Demonolatry, and now my calendar feels empty without a ritual scheduled in early February. Who to venerate instead of the goddess Brigid at this time was never a tough question for me, however. Even if Unsere were not the Daemon who corresponds with February, she is known as the Daemoness of motherhood, growth, and protection. It makes sense to me to worship her during the time of year once strongly connected to childbirth and pregnancy. Originally, the word Imbolc meant “in the belly” and referred to the pregnant and nursing sheep that would be prevalent during this season in the ancient Celtic Isles.

I like to spend this day with my family, playing games and eating some sort of feast – a decadent treat shared together at the very least. My days of having and raising children are now over, so fine food is the only thing getting “in my belly” on this particular holiday. That isn’t to say that those still planning a family couldn’t work fertility magick on Imbolc. After all, not only is Unsere known for nurturing children but February is the month of romantic love – and that can help produce children too!

Personally, I tend to incorporate hearth magick into my Rite to Unsere, preparing as much of the feast as I can with my own hands and making sure to leave her portion in offering. I generally do this right at the dinner table, setting aside the best part of my own plate and saying a prayer either aloud or silently, depending on the acceptance level of those present. In this way, Unsere is included at the table as part of the family, with her blessing and protection requested in that same moment. Afterward, I dispose of the offering with the same reverence I do all others.

Beyond that, I spend some time on divination that night, as I do on all holy days. On the Rite to Unsere, I lean towards using an “in the belly” card spread I developed especially for Imbolc celebrations before I became a Daemonolater. It’s meant to help you check on any personal work you may have been doing thus far in the year and see what you need to do next. The cards are laid out like this:

  1. What’s in The Belly – What You Are Digesting
  2. Potential
  3. Obstacles
  4. What Brings You Joy
  5. What Brings You Dread
  6. What Needs Nurturing
  7. What You Feed Instead
In the Belly card spread.

Hopefully, this reading will make your February a little smoother.

Most of my creative and magickal efforts this week were focused on my next Dalliances with Demons novella. The time I’ve been putting into writing my daily morning pages and generating ideas through the Inner Demons Challenge has really paid off. I have filled a notebook in the last month. Most of it is trash – as it supposed to be – but the bones of the story are starting to line up into a recognizable skeleton. There are definite gaps and the flesh is missing, but I can nearly see the shape of it. I have hope, after spinning in circles for what felt like months. I’m even starting to smile at the synchronicities, at the start of the Daemonic Divine having its way with the piece – precisely as it should. It has a long way to go, but I’m no longer afraid that it will never happen. I’m relaxing into it and realizing it will come as it wishes.

Here are the cards that have helped me generate character ideas this week:

Her – How can she see her shadows more clearly?
Him – How can he see his shadow more clearly?
Her and Him – How are they projecting their shadows on other people?
Her – How can she use her inner demons to heal herself?
Him – How can he use his inner demons to heal himself?

I’m looking forward to wrapping up this challenge and trying to organize my notes / the scenes into something cohesive.

Have a good one. See you next week!

Eclipses, Initiations, and Silence – Oh Boy!

This Sunday, those in my area will be able to see a fabulous full eclipse of the super moon, meaning the moon will appear blood red and larger than average. If you’re in North America and the weather is good, chances are you’ll be able to see it too. Check your local listings for times. Continue reading Eclipses, Initiations, and Silence – Oh Boy!

Broken Resolutions and Pacts

After I briefly mentioned broken resolutions in my last blog entry, I’ve had a couple of questions. What should a person do if they break a New Year’s resolution after requesting as spirit’s help with it? How should they fix the situation?

First off, I didn’t want to be the excuse someone used for giving up on their goal. There can be many reasons for giving up on a resolution, both good and bad. You can make plans that are too lofty, and then understand you should’ve started smaller, or you can pick up a hobby and then figure out it isn’t really for you. You can realize pursuing the resolution is not in your best interest. This is different than derailing your diet with extra dessert, skipping a gym day (or four), or falling off the wagon in Dry January. When this happens, you can apologize to the Divine appropriately and then continue on towards your goal.

On the other hand, there are situations when people give up altogether on a resolution for all the wrong reasons: sheer laziness, lack of willpower, unwillingness to look at your issues, etc. In short, it isn’t the Divine’s problem when this happens. It’s yours for as long as you want to hold onto it, unresolved. Hopefully, you realized that achieving your goal would still take some type of effort or output on your part, and that it wouldn’t merely occur with the wave of the spirit’s hand. Significant changes require preparation and adjustment – and frequently many steps to accomplish. Even winning the lottery would require purchasing a ticket as well as long-term plans what to do with the money and how to manage it successfully. All desired changes must be initiated in the mundane world for the spirits to have anything to aid. What the spirit does is provide opportunities to augment and assist this change. As Above, so Below. The spirit plays a part, but you must be ready to do yours.

In the case of a broken resolution where you have asked assistance, the best course is to make an apology, promise not to continue your poor behavior, and get back on track. If you’ve decided not to pursue that resolution in the long run, an apology is still the best course of action, as well as thanking the Divine for the help they provided so far. Remember – this relationship matters to you. Be polite. Consider, too, how much your commitments mean to you and how you would like to be known to the Divine. You’ve involved another party, and how you appear to them is crucial. I cannot count the number of frustrated practitioners who come to me, lamenting the fact that Spirit has gone quiet for them. They rarely want to contemplate what they might have done to offend them. While it is true that we can never fully comprehend the scruples and morals of spirits, we can perhaps best define patrons, mentors, and guides as those who have chosen to help us better ourselves. It behooves us to maintain good relationships with them, even if that means we must occasionally account for our own poor behavior.

If you have bargained with the spirit, however, promising them something for their efforts, then they are owed more than an apology. In effect, you have entered a contract with another party and failed to uphold your side. That means you still owe the spirit what they are due, even if you do not want to pursue the resolution any further again. Besides fulfilling the terms of the contract, consider how you want to be seen by the spirit. Ponder what they like. While we can draw on lore and peer gnosis for advice, we must ultimately look to our relationship partners themselves for guidance in these situations. What does the spirit in question need to make it right?

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My work in the Inner Demons Challenge continues this week as I use divination to dig deeper into the personal issues plaguing the two main characters of my next paranormal romance novella. I’m slowly building a character profile based on the prompts provided and the cards drawn in response. So far, I’ve learned my female lead is impulsive and charismatic, the type that would leave without looking – but probably have a slew of friends jumping after her. She tends to minutia and fails where tact is key. Her confidence and courage can occasionally come off as bravado or arrogance. My male lead is well off and possibly older than she is. He’s usually generous with both his wealth and his affections but is currently so worried that his world will fall apart that he is blocking his natural creative and nurturing energies. I’m still unsure how these two fit together and, more importantly, how they fit with the Daemon at the center of my next Dalliances with Demons story. She’s teasing me, speaking in whispers and throwing me flashes of the tale, all disconnected…

Here are my individual posts about these characters for the past week, from Instagram:

Her – How have your inner demons affected you?
Him – How have your inner demons affected you?
Her – Where in your life do your demons and shadow sides show up?
Him – Where in your life do your demons and shadow sides show up?

Have a good week!

What’s in store for 2019?

At the point when many people have already broken their New Year’s resolutions, I’m finally ready to discuss mine! Like another magician mentioned, it can be more useful to map out a list of goals for the year ahead, which I prefer to do. That way I can track my progress towards those goals while still cutting myself some slack when I need to switch gears or have a break.

My Tarot card for this year is the Chariot, representing direction, willpower, and balanced forces. That’s a perfect representation of what I have in mind for 2019. Although I accomplished quite a bit in 2018, I often felt as if I was fulfilling other people’s agendas or acting in a support role while others chased their dreams. There’s a time and place for that, but I’m glad that chapter’s coming to a close and I can focus on forging my own destiny this year. With that in mind, I’ll be limiting the number of challenges I participate in to those that genuinely interest me and support the work I already plan to be doing at that time. I feel I’ll grow faster as a magician and blogger if I stop shoehorning my practice into challenge criteria or my posts into what I can share publicly. You’ll find weekly updates here on Fridays from now on – or as close as I can get, barring disasters.

This month, I’m working through the Inner Demon Challenge on Instagram, hosted by purefield.healing. It’s rare to find anyone other than a Daemonolater who looks at daemons in a positive light, much less views them a way to improve your life, so I had to give this shadow-work challenge a try. While in keeping my personal analysis private, I am posting the results for the characters of my next Dalliances with Demons novel. As with Altar of Belphegore, I excavate this story a little more each day, sweeping away debris to get closer and closer to the core ideas. So far, I’ve discovered this much:

Her – What inner demons is she battling?
Him – What inner demons is he battling?
Her – Where these inner demons come from?
Him – Where these inner demons come from?

No one else is using the challenge to explore fiction this way, but I need to follow my own path for a while, even if that means going alone. From these efforts, I hope to produce three more books this year, most likely two pieces of fiction and one nonfiction. I always hate to name titles and topics because that locks me into what I have to write, so I’ve scheduled working blocks into my calendar just as I have in years before. It may seem like a woeful amount of output compared some authors – but this is also the year where I need to stop comparing. Again, I need to follow my own path this year no matter where it takes me.

Part of that is working through The Artist’s Way, which I’m starting officially on Sunday, January 6. I’ve started the morning pages back on Christmas Day, and I’m finding them both challenging and freeing. This process will take at least twelve weeks, but apparently morning pages are a habit you can keep for life if you dedicate yourself to them. We’ll see!

May you reach all of your goals in 2019!

Altar of Belphegore now Available – with #free #soundtrack!

April Landry had always been drawn to Ten Peaks. When she moved there with David, she never expected him to die on her, and leave her battling his sister, Miriam, for the family estate. Her only solaces are her paintings and the kind check-ins from the young, hunky Brad Peterson next door.

When April plants a rosebush in David’s garden, next to an unfortunate slab of stone, something deep within the mountain awakens and uncovers David’s darkest secrets. She belongs to Him now…

Available now on:

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D5DHSR7/
KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/altar-of-belphegore
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/altar-of-belphegore-delilah-black/1128720274

And make sure to look for the first in Dalliances with Demon series: Temple of Lilith by Anne O’Connell!

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And as a special treat for my readers, here is a mini-version of the soundtrack that I mentioned in my last post. Music is truly magical for me. At a very young age, I learned to travel to the astral plane thanks to the strains of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I refined my technique when I picked up a drum and began to explore core shamanism over twenty years ago. I still use song (and dance!) frequently in my rituals, and sang praises to Belphegore during my time working intently with him just like the main character in my novella, April. Now that spring has passed and the heat of summer has claimed my city, I leave Belphegore offerings before I go for my walk in the cool of the mornings, often with music that reminds me of him streaming through my headphone. Hail to the Mountain King!

Tainted Love – Marilyn Manson

The Perfect Drug – Nine Inch Nails

I Touch Myself – The Genitorturers

Oh My God – Pink (Featuring Peaches)

Teeth – Lady Gaga

Crushing Close – Garbage VS Nine Inch Nails

Marry the Night – Lady Gaga

Hall of the Mountain King – Apocalyptica

Enjoy – and if you like these artists, please consider picking up their albums!

Journey to the Town of Ten Peaks

I’m so excited! All of the work for Belphegore comes to fruition tomorrow with the release of my novella and the debut of my new pen name. Right now, I am “rush and scurry” mode, like I’m trying to prepare for the arrival of a very important guest. The thing is, that guest arrived well over a month ago, and my head is still reeling from his visit!

Although my story for him is done, I find Belphegore still frequently on my mind. The soundtrack I created for the novella remains on my phone, and it seems like the shuffle function brings its tracks up over and over during my morning walks. Through their lyrics, I feel like my main characters are still interacting with one another—aching for one another. I can only hope that desire made it onto the page. Is that what every romance writer wants?

One thing I definitely want: to return to the setting of The Altar of Belphegore someday. I don’t mean by setting another story there, either, though that is a possibility. The town of Ten Peaks is based on a real place, a beauty of a vacation spot nestled in the Canadian Rockies. It attracts thousands of tourists every year thanks to the glacier-fed, startlingly blue lake at the center of its nearby valley. The little hamlet itself if no secret… but I will let you figure out its true name yourself. All the better to preserve a little of Ten Peaks’ mystery.

Yet the Valley of the Ten Peaks is more than just a tourist spot. Before white men renamed the summits of the Rockies, those around the great blue lake were known only by the numbers one through ten by the Stony tribe indigenous to the area. They rode their horses in the shadows of these great silent giants, paying homage to them and the rest of nature. Even today, you can still hear the spirit of these immense beings of stone if you take the time to listen. Their voices are in every gust of wind coming down the mountains, in every drop of rain. May your life be full of their blessings!

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Make sure to like and follow my new pen name, Delilah Black, on FaceBook to keep up with all her latest news and publishing releases!

April Domagick Days 29 & 30 – Work In Progress

I fell off posting for a couple of days, even on Instagram. I got a new pair of glasses, and this time the transition has been rougher than usual. I avoided as many screens as I could over the weekend, especially my phone and computer. I continued Belphegore’s invocations and offerings, however. I made a promise to myself to keep them up until the end of his rites on May 13, even though my Domagick challenge officially ends today. That is also the deadline I have given myself to revise his story. After receiving some editorial critique, I realized I have to fix the last section to tie up loose ends and give the character true resolution. (Thanks again, both of you!)

Working with Belphegore has certainly given my career a kick in the butt in other ways too. It looks like this story has produced an entirely new pen name for me—and that demands I finally get around to restructuring my website and coming up with a marketing plan/schedule, two tasks I have been putting off for some time. I’ve already taken a baby step in the marketing department, and I have a feeling that I will have to get this all done in small increments. Otherwise, I’ll swamp myself and never get any writing or magick done. Belphegore has emphasized time and again that true strength requires both balance and stability. I not only need to spread these tasks out over time but keep up my regular writing routine.

Having talked to a trusted friend today, I realized that working with Belphegore has indeed given me some of the emotional strength I was looking for too. It was just hard to see it during the period of transformation and self-alchemy. The issues which were bothering me when I entered the challenge aren’t nearly as troublesome to me anymore. In some cases, I feel I won my battles. In others, I had to figure out it wasn’t even my battle to fight. I was wasting my energy for people who didn’t need or want it. I’ll only make myself stronger by reserving it in the future.

For those interested in my Belphegore-specific Instagram-posts, here are a list of links:

Continue reading April Domagick Days 29 & 30 – Work In Progress

A Schedule for Me: April Domagick Days 12 – 23

This Domagick challenge is a success! We were supposed to concentrate on self-alchemy, so I chose to invoke Belphegore and work with his energies daily to strengthen myself personally and professionally. In thanks, I said that I would write him a story. I finished that story last Friday. I handed it over to a trusted friend and editor the same day to see what she could make of it. I usually let stories sit for a while before I edit them and then hand them off to someone else for critique and polishing, but this is a different sort of project. I want her fingerprints clearly visible beside mine in the clay of this finished piece. I’m not entirely sure yet what it will become. Regardless of how much work is still required on the story, I need to keep writing fiction the way I have been the last three weeks. It will keep my mental muscles in shape. That way I’ll be ready to go whenever a story idea strikes. I already have a few plot bunnies that need attention, but I can always turn to writing prompts if necessary. The point is to keep my mind limber so switching back and forth between fiction and nonfiction isn’t so much of a problem anymore. There are additional ways I could be strengthening myself as a writer, but if I don’t maintain this base level of “exercise,” none of that will matter. I can only add those other things to my schedule once I get this fiction habit down.

As I mentioned last time, it is far more difficult for me to determine whether I am gaining emotional strength by invoking Belphegore each day. I admit, the issue that was bothering me when I first started this round of the Domagick challenge rarely crosses my mind anymore. However, I’m not sure if I should thank Belphegore for that, or if it was simply a matter of time. There is a lesson in this, of course, and one that has been presented to me many times before: all things are transient, especially emotions. This includes the painful ones, although it may not feel so at the time. Perhaps the strength I have gained was not the type I originally thought, one where I would be able to bear more, or feel less. Instead, it is one of hindsight or endurance.

In my personal life, I have definitely felt Belphegore pushing me to take better care of my health. I had a number of appointments I needed to make, all of which I had been putting off simply because my schedule was too busy. There never seem to be enough time with all that I needed to get done. Strangely enough, as soon as I started making these appointments and committing to looking after myself, my schedule began to thin. It’s not perfect yet, and just like I have to commit to writing fiction on a regular basis, I must commit to only taking on one appointment per week. Otherwise, I will overwhelm myself.

If nothing else, maybe the strength I gained during this Domagick challenge is realizing how much I require I schedule to thrive—plus figuring out how much my current schedule had been out of whack. My new one is quite different, favoring my real priorities and what I want to do over the priorities of other people. I know that there will be some backlash because of this, but I’ve also been reminded that such things don’t last forever.

Today, I invoked Belphegore, meditated in his presence, and made my daily offerings to him. The stones that I hold sacred for him grow darker each day, and I look forward to taking them outside on the last day of Belphegore’s rites.

eyes belphegore sigil art fiction domagick
The sigil of Belphegore, altered for the day I had an optometrist appointment.

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