Karma can be best described as the universal law of cause and effect, which means that in life there are no coincidences and nothing happens just by chance, everything that you and I experience throughout this lifetime is part of our path, and it is part of the process that we must endure in order to progress spiritually and evolve into our next incarnation.

Every single relationship that you and I have in this life will incur both negative and positive karma, one can only hope to incur karma of a more positive nature, but, as we have seen as we interact with others and the more that we allow our emotions to be our guide, negative karma is almost impossible to avoid, perhaps the best thing that we can do is not to attempt to avoid the negative aspects of karma at all, maybe the approach should be to create a balance instead, and one of the ways of doing this is to approach each of the many relationships that we will have in this lifetime with the forethought of karma in mind, as I deal with my spouse, my relatives and even my clients I try to treat each individual as I wish to be treated and even that is not always possible because there is always going to be someone who is going to push the envelope a little too far and try my patience and let's face it I am a Witch, but, I am also human and I have been known to react to my human temper, which can be quite volatile, or so I have been told, but for the most part and for my own spiritual growth and development I make every attempt to keep my personal karma in forethought, and by doing this I have been successful over the years in avoiding certain negative situations that would have been detrimental to my spirit and to my being.

Some people equate the word Karma with that of the spiritual bogeyman, the truth is that Karma is the eight hundred pound elephant in the room that everyone tries to ignore for the gut wrenching fear that if we acknowledge it that something bad will happen, well, one thing is for certain and that is, if you want to incur bad karma, if your desire is to have the karmic bogeyman at your door, then go ahead and ignore the fact that every action that you set into motion in this life will produce a reaction, this simply put, makes you and I accountable for our individual actions and our individual thoughts and yes, thoughts are living things, pure energy that we send out unto the universe, Buddhist chant, Christians pray and Witch's meditate, all are valid forms of energy and each method is just another way of tapping into the grand cosmic mental energy pool that every single individual on the planet is connected to, you see "go ahead and hate your neighbor and go ahead and cheat a friend, do it in the name of heaven you can justify it in the end!"

But, the end will never justify the harm that we as humans impose upon one another, the problem in today's world is that spiritual accountability has been tossed to the wayside, I am not sure as to why, but I suspect that it has something to do with a philosophy that dictates that you can go out and cause harm and then fall to the ground upon your knees and ask for forgiveness and you will be pardoned for your evil deeds, as a Witch I do not believe this to be the case, as a Witch I am told that I must answer for and own my on deeds, whether those deeds are good or bad, they are all mine and while my Goddess is compassionate, she is a stern Mother and like any good Mother she knows that her children must be allowed to learn from their mistakes if they are to excel spiritually in this world and proceed into the next and part of that process is to allow room for skinned knees, bruised egos and broken hearts, for it is our personal controversies that will devour us or make us whole and it is how we choose to deal with those controversies that will determine whether we will be blessed with a karmic profit or suffer a karmic deficit in this lifetime.

We as human beings must be accountable to ourselves first and foremost for our deeds, secondly we must account for our actions to our neighbors and our spiritual brothers and sisters and thirdly we must account to our Gods, and finally we must account to the world in which we live in and the earth that we call home for the catastrophic damage that we have caused through our blissful ignorance and our unwillingness to be held accountable for our destructive behavior and lax attitude, the rate that our world is deteriorating there will be no need for any type of legislative reform, a woman's right to choose whether she should or shouldn't have an abortion or my right as a gay man to marry whom I choose, is the least of our worries if we don't stop destroying the world in which we live in, don't get me wrong, I still have a desire to marry the man I love, so much so that I have considered renouncing my American citizenship and relocating to a more compassionate environment and while that may fix my issue for the moment, if the Earth falls out from under my feet my impending marriage will mean nothing, at least not in this world and your life will also become obsolete and so will the lives of all of those right winged conservatives who are busy trying to dictate how you and I should live, and whether my life as a gay man is an abomination to their God or not and whether the fact that you have decided to terminate a pregnancy that resulted from a rape or not will buy you a one-way ticket to the gates of hell or not, which by the way I don't believe in Heaven or Hell in the first place, but, I do find comfort that as spiritual beings we have the ability to program and to create our after life, or the next life, I believe that when our ticket is punched and our number is up that our spirit will flee to the place that we believe to be our next destination or incarnation, and in the case of those who are constantly trying to impose their will over those of us who have chosen to walk a different path and all in the name of their God, hell hath no mercy or ice water, because if they really believe what they preach their grandmaster Satan awaits their impending arrival and when they get there he will in no doubt revoke their spiritual passport and that you can be sure of!

Now, don't think just because I am a Witch that I get a free pass, nope, that is not the case, and is the main reason that I walk my path with my personal karma in forethought, many of my clients can attest to the fact that I have stated to them emphatically and perhaps even overstated that my own personal karma is tied up in everything that I do, this includes any work of a spiritual or magical nature that I may choose to do on their behalf and one of the reasons as to why I do not practice negative sorcery, unless it is an occasion where I feel that the consequences are worth whatever the benefit may be, meaning I have no problem using negative magic in certain circumstances, and you better believe that I do not take lightly the decision to pull out Phelan's book of dark workings or defensive magic, I believe that black magic is like a gun, if you pull it, you best be prepared to use it and if you use it you need to make sure that you are prepared for whatever ill-fate may follow, because once the deed is done there is no taking it back!

Acceptance of self is the pathway to enlightenment, the lack there of leads to a life filled with strife and misery, when an individual is comfortable with their life style and the spiritual or religious path that they have chosen to follow there is never a reason to try to superimpose their belief in their God over another, when you superimpose you force one image atop of another, in this case when one superimposes their belief or tenants of their religion over that of another being, they take away that individual's right to choose, thereby forcing the laws of their religion to be followed and this my friend is exactly what is happening in the society that we live in today and unless we are willing to stand up for ourselves and to say enough is enough, we will suffer a huge karmic deficit as individuals, as a society and our spiritual growth will be forever stumped in this lifetime and while I believe that as individuals we must first take care of ourselves, our families and our home, I do believe that as spiritual beings that we are all connected and that we also have a shared responsibility to one another and to the planet that we call home and that we must set aside our differences and allow each and every person on the planet the freedom to grow, because it is through this freedom that we will find that our differences are miniscule to begin with and that while your God and my Goddess may be called upon by different names, the energy is all the same and I am not buying that God by any name is the reason why we are destroying ourselves, because that would suggest that God is beneath us and while many people on the planet believes in a God by the name of Satan below, I believe that God is an energy as pure as the driven snow, God only becomes vicious when the human element is added in, take us out of the equation and God can get back to what she does best and that is creating the beauty in the stars, the moon, the sun, she gives us life in the trees and in the animals, we are blessed with water to quench our thirst and fire to warm our hearths, she gives us pure air to breathe and to fill our lungs, and she gives us the earth in which our shelter comes from, my Goddess and your God are not vicious and vindictive, they are not cruel and all punishing deities, for they know that we are more than capable of punishing ourselves and one another, you call me a faggot and I call you a republican, harsh words indeed, but words are said with ease, the true harm comes in the repression that can be found behind those words, the difference over the years that I have found between a Christian and a Witch, a Witch hides not behind a book, nor behind our Goddess, our words are our own and we have no problem in the God that you or anyone else chooses to believe in and we don't care whom you marry, and as a Witch we would never impose our belief in our Goddess or the tenants of our craft over you, we have chosen to walk our path in this lifetime, just as you have, and the only difference between us and you, is the fact that we let you walk your path with the freedom that you deserve, you know history has a way of repeating itself and with the Goddess movement that is ongoing it is not hard to fathom the thought that one day we will once again be the majority and I just wonder if we chose to superimpose our belief over those of you who may choose to follow a path that is different from ours, how would you feel, maybe you should consider this little scenario the next time you are in a position to judge someone who is different, because the meaning of discrimination is certainly different when you are the one who is being discriminated against!

We will never live in a perfect world, because we are not perfect people, we are subjective to the human ego and as long as the ego is a factor, karmic laws will apply, a Witch does not kneel before his altar or her Goddess, we stand face to face and stare our Gods in the eye for we believe that as above, so below, and while we may never be immortalized as a God, we can live our lives in a Godlike fashion, and we strive to live in balance and in harmony with the elements and to create a more peaceful existence for ourselves and for those that we must live around, for we know that our fortune or misfortune in this lifetime will surely change, for all things have a beginning and an ending and no energy is ever lost, for energy is pliable and can be molded into anything that we desire, all it takes is a belief in self and the basic faith that predicts that the nature of mankind is predominately good and that all humans have and possess the ability to live life in peace, in harmony and in balance with nature and her elements, as above, so below, mankind should always strive to connect the mundane with the divine thereby making miracles truly possible.

Blessed be, Phelan

Earth of the North, the land of mystery, the great mass that is the Mother's body, the place where life begins and death is all encompassing, I call upon the stability that you bring into my human life, so that I may live in peace, in harmony and in love! Air of the East, land of clarity, blow through my mind and release me from the cobwebs of deceit and fill my mind with knowledge and renew my intellect! Fire of South, land of change, renew my spirit and fill my heart with courage to face that which is unknown to me ! Water of the West, land of emotion, release my fear unto the water of the river, bathe me in the light of the Mother's moon and empower me to be true to myself and to embrace the spirit that is within, bringing together the five elements that make up the human core!
 

Cleanse me, heal me, make me whole, cleanse me, heal me, make me whole, cleanse me, heal me, make me whole!

So mote it be!

Karma | Shared Karma | Healing | Spirituality | Goddess Religion