Welcome to Raven Haze Healing and Divination! Join me on a journey to spiritual development as we talk about divination methods, natural healing, energy healing and so much more! This blog is to provide spiritual empowerment to help each other on our various paths!
Happiness is in fact a choice. And for the most part I have always thought that I WAS happy. I mean- it's one thing to be "happy" when things are going good. I think most of us have that part down pat. It's another thing to choose to be happy even when our outward reality looks like crap. And in the past few years, I certainly worked on THAT!! And pretty much feel like I have been doing a good job at being happy despite outward circumstances. Even with the ups and downs in life, there are those who CHOOSE to be happy among even the tough times; and these are the people I chose to emulate. But the other day I read through the Chimp Paradox book and it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I was doing something wrong. Maybe I was missing a huge piece of this puzzle. This is a fantastic book that deals with our mindset. And more importantly, how we can take better control of our mindset!
You see, the book stated that pushing to do too much can actually push us to want even MORE "things" to bring about happiness. In other words, we focus so much on the goals, the end result and the "steps" to that ultimate goal; that we are essentially conditioning our minds to always WANT. So what happens is that when we finally do reach that "ultimate goal", we are UNABLE to truly have happiness with it. Consider this example from the book: An athlete who never celebrates the "smaller" accomplishments on the way up to getting that Gold medal, will likely not feel that happiness she is expecting when she does get the gold. She'll want to move to the next potential win.
When I read that, I realized that this was something I had been doing for a long time now. I never truly celebrated the moments in life that I should have. (All those stepping stones to that ultimate goal). When I got my Associates degree, I was happy on the inside. But, at the same time, I immediately began to focus on the next goal... the Bachelor's degree. And so on and so forth. Each time, I realized that I had never truly celebrated each accomplishment and allowed myself the experience of being and expressing happiness. And then when I finally reached that final goal, it wasn't quite as sweet as it could have been. So, from this point forward, I will allow myself to CELEBRATE the wins. I will bask in the FEELINGS of happiness with each success. And I challenge all of you to do the same! Forget being humble and not wanting to "brag"! Share your successes! Share your moments of happiness! And bask in that happiness for each of those precious moments in your life! Try this exercise from the book... I've added a few things to it! Make a list of all the things in your life that you believe that you need to be happy. Next to this list, write down how you can bring those things into your life. Next you'll want to work that list. Bring those things into your reality. And finally- be sure to celebrate each success!
Probably my second most reached for book on the shelf would have to be this book: The Goodly Spellbook ~ Olde Spells for Modern Problems by Lady Passion, High Priestess and Diuvei, High Priest (Dixie Deerman and Steven Rasmussen). I have this book in soft cover format. I don't quite recall why I chose to purchase this particular book, but I suspect it had something to do with the description on the back!
"The Goodly Spellbook traces the history of magic and teaches you how to create spells for your own needs and circumstances. Relying on ancient tried and true material as well as on the authors' real-life experiences and anecdotes, this book details global Craft history, teaches hands-on magical techniques and provides ancient and modern spells."
If you are strictly looking for spells- no doubt you will find those here! But what you also find so much more in the entire first half of the book. The authors begin by discussing the "how to's" of spell workings. They delve into topics such as divination and planetary correspondences. They show the magic that can be found in musical notes and how to create effective sigils and seals. That is just a sampling of what is covered in the first half! It is fairly in-depth and offers quite a bit of information that you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere. The second half of the book details the spells. They cover healing, protection, attraction, discernment, concealment and repulsion. They often show spell variations as well, which is useful for many practitioners. What I particularly like is that they detail the origins of the spell and the magical theory of each spell. I tend to like to know the "why" of what I'm doing and have always loved the historical aspect. I think the only thing that keeps me from reaching for this book more than any other is the grouping of the spells in the table of contents. I know it seems petty, but seriously, that's all I've got! It could just be that I'm getting older and prefer bolder font... or that I am too lazy to consider which category a particular spell might fall under! By taking half a second to use my brain and think- it's clear that money spells, for example, would be located under spells of attraction. But, I am so often used to seeing them under the topic "MONEY". So, technically, it isn't even a negative towards the BOOK, but rather my own "issue"!! Overall, I think this book has a great deal of merit. It's very good for beginners as it allows the reader to learn some of the basics. At the same time, an advanced practitioner will undoubtedly learn at least ONE new thing! This will likely be one of those books that you keep going back to intermittently as you grow in your path. Share your thoughts on this book in the comments section!!! I'd love to hear what YOU have to say!
