KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

March 4 through March 10, 2024

Monday's Sagittarius Moon is ideal for doing research, reaching out for help, or putting together an itinerary for an upcoming vacation or celebration. Assembling more information will give any project we are working on a solid foundation. Speaking of solid foundations, Tuesday and Wednesday's Capricorn Moon carries a productive note, as well as encouraging us to set new boundaries with others so we can move more effectively in the world. Don't be afraid to speak up if someone tries to steal your energy or block your movements; it's time you were heard! Expect changes in schedule or direction under Thursday and Friday's Aquarius Moon, as even the best laid plans are subject to change when this sign's in charge! Flexibility and patience will be vital to getting through the day in a calm and serene manner, and who knows? The changes might actually work in your favor! Mercury will move into Aries on Saturday, and it's best we take care with our words over the weekend, as this combination can make us talk before we think and be more aggressive in our requests. Sunday's Pisces new Moon will mark the start of a two-week cycles of new experiences, most of them spiritual in nature.

The Art of Focus: Tips to Improve Your Scrying and Dowsing, by Jenny Tyson

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Focus may be defined as an event, object, or person that occupies the center of one's attention. It is a primary concept and an essential skill in both divination and magick. It is also needed to effectively perform scrying and dowsing. The ability to focus is a requirement for any basic individual scrying session, but it is also a tool that must be mastered for long-term scrying accuracy and personal improvement in the divinatory arts.

Over the course of developing the original techniques of scrying and dowsing presented in my latest book, The Art of Scrying and Dowsing, I was able to greatly improve my ability to focus. In this short article, I would like to introduce some ideas that you can use to enhance your ability to focus, and to give you information that will enable you to understand its role in all forms of divination, particularly in scrying and dowsing, as well as in the general practice of magick.

First, I will give a more specific definition of focus that pertains to the practice of scrying and dowsing: Focus is the unwavering attention and persistent contact with the incoming intuitive information obtained during scrying and dowsing sessions. Distraction is the opposite of focus. Distraction is when you lose contact with the incoming intuitive information. The result of distraction is a decrease in accuracy of your perceptions.

One of the best ways to help you see how well you are focusing is to scry physical targets related to known locations, activities, and living beings. Physical targets can be researched, and information discovered about them compared with scryed information for the purpose of discerning which perceptions were accurate and which were not. This examination takes place after the scrying session and is called feedback, or the feedback session. It is best done intentionally and with nonjudgmental honesty. The feedback session will help you determine the quality of your focus.

So what are the characteristics of focus? How do you make the changes needed to improve your scrying ability and accuracy? The characteristics of focus are trust, persistent contact, and steadiness. Each of these characteristics plays an important role in learning to scry accurately, as well as in other types of divination. Let's look at each characteristic in turn.

Trust
The first characteristic of focus is trust. Scrying and dowsing require that you trust that the goals of the session are doable. You need to trust in the process of scrying and dowsing strongly enough to be motivated to put effort and attention into the work.

I want to distinguish the difference between trust and belief. Belief is where a concept or idea is determined to be a rule by which the universe operates. For example, if you believe there is an angel of love, a belief in the angel of love would entail a series of ideas about the characteristics and role of the angel. Belief persists through time and changes slowly.

Trust can be temporary. You may temporarily trust that there is an angel of love, and complete a scrying session involving the idea. This can be done without having to buy into concepts regarding the angel of love as part of a set of ideas as to how the universe operates. This trust allows you to have the motivation to complete the scrying session concerning the angel of love. After you complete the session, you can examine the information you obtained and the experiences you had, and then decide if you want to change your beliefs.

Scrying and dowsing can successfully be done based in either trust or belief. All you have to trust is that the scrying and dowsing techniques will work and provide you with information. This trust allows you to complete the scrying session. Once the operation is complete, you may or may not wish to add concepts to your belief system.

So how do you improve trust, especially if you have doubts about the effectiveness of scrying and dowsing as means of obtaining information? The easiest way to do this is to set a time limit on the period during which you will deliberately place your trust in the concepts related to scrying that you need to utilize in order to perform the scrying and dowsing session. This means that for the duration of the session, you will trust that the scrying and dowsing will provide the information that you are looking for.

The time period will vary according to what is being done. Trust in the process you are working with needs to be for the duration of the session. The scrying session may be as short as 15 minutes, or you may do multiple sessions on a single target for a period of several months. Trust is a sort of pact that you make with yourself that you will set aside doubt for the duration of the scrying session.

The time limit can be determined before you start and reassessed as you work. It is not necessary to have long-term belief in scrying and dowsing for it to work, you only need to adopt temporary trust in the process for the duration of the session.

Once you reach the end of the operation, you make an intelligent and deliberate decision on which concepts you want to add to your beliefs and what ideas you want to discard. This way, you do not feel bound to adopt a belief that you may not feel completely comfortable with, but you still have the freedom to perform a scrying or dowsing session. This practice of distinguishing trust from belief allows for healthy skepticism and internal honesty.

Persistent Contact
The second characteristic of focus is persistent contact. Persistent contact means that you must pay attention to the incoming data of the scrying and dowsing session to the exclusion of all else in your mind and in the immediate environment. During the time of the session, you disregard everything else. One of the mistakes I see quite often is the tendency of beginners to focus on how their bodies feel, or on what is happening around them.

Once you focus on anything other than your scrying and dowsing perceptions, you have lost contact with the target. Preparation for scrying and dowsing involves changing your attention to focus on the session and nothing else. Distractions can include electronics, music, random thoughts, body sensations, environmental issues such as odors, sounds, lights, and other people. External distractions are problematic if they draw your attention away from the incoming perceptions you are scrying. You can learn to maintain focus while in a distracting environment. Learning to ignore environmental distractions is called resilience. Building resilience is a useful skill in any esoteric practice, whether it involves divination or magick.

Internal distractions are things such as distracting thoughts, fatigue, or nervousness. Training to disregard internal distractions is often accomplished by seated meditation. When you practice seated meditation, you are learning to handle internal distractions and focus on the objective of the meditation technique—a spoken mantra or your breathing, for example. Scrying itself can be used to help you learn to disregard internal distractions.

If you wish to do ritual work for the scrying session, that is perfectly fine. You need to completely finish the ritual before you start scrying, and close the ritual after you finish scrying. Once you start to scry and dowse, you must completely focus on those perceptions, documenting what is coming to you and nothing else. You cannot focus on ritual and scry at the same time. Scrying should be carried out with an all-consuming attention and interest.

Setting is how you arrange your external environment for the scrying session. An example of a setting is a ritual circle, robes, sword or staff, lighting, and ritual timing. The setting is done according to the individual and the type of scrying being done. Scrying does not require special setting or rituals to work. It is a matter of personal preference.

I do not personally find that scrying accuracy improves with elaborate ritual settings. However, I think this is a matter of individual liking and comfort, and I do not discourage using elements of special settings or ritual. I simply allow it to be done according to the individual's preference. The elements of ritual and setting need to be in place when you start to scry. During the scrying session you do not get up or attend to any setting element. Doing that will cause the contact to break. It has to be re-established again before accurate scrying data will be perceived. Frequent breaks will cause accuracy problems.

As with trust, the best way to improve persistent attention is to have an arbitrary time limit to the scrying session. I generally recommend the session be under 20 minutes for a beginner, and never to exceed and hour regardless of experience. After an hour, persistent contact is going to be difficult to maintain. It is better to do multiple sessions on a single target and maintain strong steady focus in each of them, than to do a single long session where focus is wavering.

Steadiness
Steadiness is the last characteristic of good focus. Steadiness is being in the moment both mentally and physically while you are scrying. It is a state that is not tense, but one of sitting still while you are scrying the target. The state of relaxation does not have to be intentionally induced. If you have persistent contact, you will not be paying attention to your body. Your body will find its natural state of relaxation without you doing a thing to induce it. In fact, the more you pay attention to your physical state, the less persistent contact you have with the scrying target coming in. Loss of attention causes a decrease in your scrying and dowsing accuracy. So, how do you achieve steadiness without focusing on your body?

This is done through preparation prior to the session. You need to be seated in a place where you feel comfortable and safe. Scrying is best conducted in a chair that is reasonably padded. Your lower back should be supported and there should not be any areas of uncomfortable pressure or pain. Your feet need to be in contact with the floor. This will prevent muscle tension and leg cramps. When you are sketching your perceptions, the paper, your hand, and your forearm need to be supported by a firm surface. This is best achieved by sitting at a desk or table.

If you are working outdoors when recording your scrying perceptions, you should use a clipboard. However, you need to ensure that you do not become tense or feel the need to shift around. While outside, you must keep warm, and be protected from biting insects. During summer when working in the daytime, avoid the hot sun. These preparations are done before the scrying session begins. Once you start the session, your attention will be entirely on the scrying process.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. All rights reserved.

Last year I met a really nice guy. We seemed to get on very well, and I thought we had fallen in love. Our connection is very passionate and intense. A lot of bad things have happened between us, however, and we now have a love/hate relationship. When we're getting along, it's absolutely amazing. When he ignores me, I feel like killing myself. I feel like I've known him forever, and don't want to live without him. The few times I've forced myself to walk away, however, he has eventually sought me out and begged in desperation for me to take him back. The highs are the highest I've ever known, but the lows are also the lowest. What is going on here? I feel like this relationship will be the death of me! I want off of this roller coaster ride. Thank you!

- Helen

Dreamchaser:

Here's what's going on: you are a Love Addict. You desire safety, acceptance, passion and security. Your greatest fear is abandonment. You also have an underlying fear of being in a HEALTHY relationship, because you do not know what one is. You have never seen a clear example of a healthy relationship, and don't know how to be in one.

You obsess about the man in your life, whoever he may be at the time. You think about him constantly. You talk about him to your friends all the time. You act out in anger and revenge when you feel abandoned by him. You look for that "instant closeness" in a relationship. You idealize your man.

You get high off the fantasy of love. You deny how "walled up" he is. You end things, get back together, feel HIGH from the renewal, and then repeat the process over and over and over. Your sense of self-esteem is not founded from within, but instead, it is based on what your partner thinks about you or what is happening in the relationship. When you feel a need for more intensity, in order to get some kind of reaction from your partner, you will become distant, shut down and abandon the relationship.

There are support groups and therapy programs designed for Love Addicts. I think that you should look into getting some type of help before you enter into another relationship. Whether you want to admit it or not, this has been the pattern of your relationships throughout your whole life. The bottom line in this situation is that you have some serious self-esteem problems.

If you still have doubts, here are some questions you might ask yourself:

Do you find yourself unable to stop seeing a specific person even though you know that seeing this person is destructive to you?
Do you get "high" from sex and/or romance?
Do you make promises to yourself concerning your sexual or romantic behavior that you find you cannot stick to?
Do you believe that sex and/or a relationship will make your life bearable?
Do you believe that someone can "fix" you?
Do you feel desperation or uneasiness when you are away from your lover or sexual partner?
Do you find that you have a pattern of repeating bad relationships?
Do you feel like you're not "really alive" unless you are with your sexual/ romantic partner?
Do you find the pain in your life increasing no matter what you do?
Do you feel that your sexual and/or romantic life affects your spiritual life in a negative way?

If you answered "yes" to two or more of these questions, you may want to consider getting some type of therapy or join a support group. I know there are support groups online as well as in "real" life.

I wish you healing.

*****

Astrea:

Saying that you're in a love/hate relationship sort of obscures the bigger issue: that your partner is totally unsuitable and inappropriate for you. To me, love/hate relationships are simply addictions to drama. You "don't want to live" without THIS guy? When he ignores you, you want to "kill yourself?" Those are very EXTREME statements, and you should examine the real issues behind them before you either leave OR continue in this relationship!

Loving someone means LOVING someone - all the time. Sure, our loved ones are going to annoy us now and then, and we're going to have disagreements, but this guy not only knows how to hurt you, he DOES IT ON PURPOSE.

If you don't feel loved by your mate half the time, then I think the relationship is detrimental to your emotional and mental health! Since you seem to know that he isn't going to change his approach to life and relationships, staying with him is only going to cause you to start hating YOURSELF sooner or later.

Why endure this over and over again? Do you enjoy having your hopes and self-esteem crushed on a regular basis? He seems to be getting a sick thrill out of keeping this going, because he begs you to come back for more again and again.

Some people are so afraid of opening their hearts all the way that they inject "bad things" into a relationship to justify holding back a bit. Others will get involved with the wrong people so that they feel free to misbehave themselves. This guy is taking advantage of you left and right. When you tell yourself, "Oh, it's just a love/hate relationship," then you continue to spin your wheels with him instead of making a clean break for freedom and something better in love.

Would he be open to some kind of couple's therapy to work on why he feels the need to cause you pain? Would you be open to exploring why you seem to WANT someone like him in your life? It might take a while, but that is the only way that you're going to create something much healthier with him or move on with your life.

It's perfectly acceptable to admit that you're not strong enough to leave him on your own, as long as you get some outside HELP with that. It's also fine to hope that therapy might enable him to be more loving and caring. If you suggest counseling and he won't go, then he has no interest in growing or changing, and that's your cue to run for the hills!

I feel the two of you have a strange loyalty to one another that is somehow Karmic. Together you can explore the true nature of this drama, which you've shared in many incarnations. If you work this out this lifetime, you won't have to keep repeating this pattern throughout eternity.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.