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Tips for Making Everyday Moments Magickal, by Phoenix LeFae

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Every moment of life is magickal, but our awareness and ability to hold that awareness is the challenge. The mundane aspects of life might trick us into believing that regular tasks lack magick. This feeling increases when we have to do things we don't want to do. There are ways to make everyday moments magickal—it just takes a little shift in perspective. That shift comes through the form of ritual. Ritual is the deeply reverent practice of casting a circle, calling the corners, and performing magickal arte, but ritual is also done in the small places of everyday life.

Daily practice and rituals don't have to look like sitting in silence; long, quiet meditations; or a special drawn-out process. So, how do you add simple practical rituals into your everyday moments without the pomp and drama of a fully fledged ritual? Good news, it's totally easy.

Daily Ritual
There are parts of daily life that can be ritualized with just a simple shift in focus and attention. By shifting your energy when you engage in these tasks, you bring more of your spirit and power into them. We all have daily tasks that must be done; why not add magick into these moments?

Bathing
We all bathe. Bathing happens on the regular. Long ritual baths are delightful. Filling a bathtub with roses and salts, lighting candles, and playing soft music makes a lovely ritual. But it takes a lot of time, set up, and clean up. It's not really ideal for daily life or daily ritual.

Rather than worrying about setting the time aside to take a ritual bath, turn your regular bathing routine into a ritual with your intention.

• Keep salt scrubs in your showers and do a cleansing salt scrub every time you wash.
• Take a moment, literally just a moment, to connect with the water. Let yourself feel the water pouring over you. Feel grateful for the presence of water in your life.
• After washing, step fully into the stream of water and let it cleanse your spirit. Notice if there is anything stuck in your energy field that needs to be released and let the water shift it, letting it flow down the drain.

Food
Making and eating food is a daily practice we all need to survive and it is the perfect time to implement rituals. Cook with intention, even if that is just putting a frozen dinner into the microwave. Singing words of gratitude over your plate before eating it will charge it with your gratitude and bring more blessings your way. Gratitude begets things to be grateful for. Make cooking and eating a ritual. This doesn't mean you have to be serious and eat in silence. There is a lot of joy and silliness that can be part of ritual, too.

• Add ingredients with intention, understand what the magickal correspondences of herbs and spices are. Include things that are in alignment with the goals you want to achieve.
• Say prayers over your food as you prepare it and before you eat it.
• Take a moment to honor the food. Whatever you eat had to give of itself for you to eat it, honor that sacrifice with your gratitude. Be grateful for the hands that picked that food, the truck drivers that drove it to your store, the people that work at the shop that help you, and the hands that cooked it.
• Add herbs or essences into the water that you drink throughout the day. Make each cup of water you drink a ritual and a prayer. Chant words of empowering or blessings over your cup before you take your first sip.

Cleaning
We all have to clean up. We wash dishes, do laundry, clean the cat box, and even scrub toilets. Engaging your magickal self when doing these mundane activities helps you to bring ritual into the everyday. This is even more important when doing chores you don't like. For example: I really dislike washing the dishes. When I do the dishes, I use this as a time of meditation. I focus on my breath, I go within, and let myself be with myself. Washing the dishes has become a meditative practice in my daily life. It is a way to bring ritual into the mundane.

Magickal Moments
Try setting aside small moments in your life to work as triggers for magickal moments as you move through the day. Ritual doesn't have to take hours; it can literally be thirty seconds of awareness and focus. If you have a busy or highly scheduled life, you may need to insert these moments into your daily calendar. There are lots of apps both for spiritual work and for scheduling that can help you with this process. Technology can totally aid in your daily spiritual work.

Touchstones A touchstone is like a secret hint you put out into the world to help you remember important things. For example, whenever I put a key into a lock, I take a deep breath. The key and lock is a touchstone for me to intentionally breathe.

Touchstones can look like anything and they serve as reminders for whatever you need. You might pause and say a prayer every time you see the color pink. Perhaps you speak the name of a beloved ancestor any time you find a penny on the ground. Maybe you stop and feel deep gratitude whenever you hear a phone ring. Let your imagination run wild.

These touchstone moments are small rituals that pepper your day with magick. You never know when you will come across one of your touchstones. It creates an opportunity for you to pay attention to the magick that is happening in your world all the time.

Adventuring
A big part of connecting into daily magick and ritual comes from connecting into your part of the world. Get out into your neighborhood. Go into wild spaces near you. Take walks around your block and let yourself feel the buzz and thrum of your hometown. Learn where the spirits of the land dwell and connect with them. What are the cycles and seasons of your living place like?

• Track the Cycles: Keep a ledger or journal of the cycles and seasons where you live. Watch what plants grow and when. Notice the changes in weather. See how the moon phases change how things feel or look where you live.
• Sit Spot: Pick a time to connect with the land around you every day. Maybe it's the early morning or late night. It could be after work or mid-day. The time doesn't matter, it's the commitment that does. Go outside, or look outside your window, every day at the same time. Just notice what is going on out there is in the world.

Ritual and magick are a part of our everyday lives, we just have to be willing to see how they are intwined with everything we do. Yes, we have mundane things to do, clean toilets, pay bills, put gas in our cars. These things may not feel like rituals or magick, but they truly are, if we allow them to be.

We can easily bring more magick into our daily lives through the ritual of living. The big rituals are profound and moving, but it is truly the art of finding ritual and magick in our day to day that brings us into connection with all of the mystery that life holds.

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

I recently had an experience that I can't consciously remember. I'm told that a friend drove me to the ER of our local hospital. Earlier I supposedly seemed very confused and disoriented when she called on the phone; I didn't even know who she was. I spent a couple of hours or more in the ER getting all sorts of tests like CAT scans to see if I'd had a stroke or what had happened. It turns out I had hyponatremia, and I had to spend a couple of days in the hospital until my electrolytes returned to normal. (I'd been drinking too much water and restricting the salt in my diet.) Anyway, I'm told I answered questions while in the ER and even flirted with the docs, but I don't remember any of that. I gave them my social security number, age, etc., yet I don't remember doing any of this! I don't even remember being taken to the ER in the first place! I came to several hours later in my hospital room, hooked up to a saline solution. I'm worried that this could happen again, and have been upping the sea salt in my diet and lowering my liquid intake. How was I able to function supposedly lucidly and yet not be mentally there? Where did the real me go during this time? This has never happened to me before, and I sure hope it never will again!

Kay

Susyn:

Hyponatremia is not a well known condition, though it happens often to people who are out of balance in terms of their salt and water intake. It is a very serious condition that can result in confusion, loss of memory and hallucinations. Because it causes swelling in the cells of the body (including the brain cells), hyponatremia can cause disorientation and blackouts.

In this state, our inhibitions and sense of propriety fall to the wayside, hence your flirtation with the doctors and your revelation of private information. The real you did not go away; in fact, we might say that it came out like never before. Though we have all learned to maintain certain boundaries, medical conditions and drugs can cause us to forget all about that. As it is our intellect that monitors our thoughts and actions, your condition caused you to bypass learned behaviors to let it all hang out.

Unsettling events like this can affect us on a deep spiritual level. What you experienced has now shifted your awareness and brought you to a deeper understanding of yourself. Although revealing private information to the medical staff and acting inappropriately with the doctors may not be something you would normally do, with your reasoning mind out of the way, your innocent inner child could come out to play. Now that it has been let out, you have learned some important lessons.

First of all, it sounds like you have new awareness of what it means to take good care of your health. I feel this physical imbalance mirrors a spiritual imbalance within you. I'm sure that spending a few days in a hospital made you more aware of your tendency to go too far in trying to be responsible, and encouraged you to reach for a more balanced, moderate approach.

When we focus on one aspect of our lives this intently, it actually allows other areas of our lives to be transformed without us being aware of it. I often say that while we are focusing all of our faculties on addressing a serious problem, the Universe will start rearranging the furniture behind our backs, so I wouldn't be surprised if you begin to notice other changes in the coming months.

Life threatening experiences tend to spark rapid spiritual awakening. For example, just as would be true if you had had a near death experience, you may experience a sudden spiritual awakening or new and unusual psychic phenomena. Life may suddenly seem more vibrant, and you may begin to make big changes in your life or get involved in activities you never considered before.

Though I'm sure you never want to go through an experience like this again, the gifts that come from having gone through it once will be immeasurable. Above all, I hope you decide to let your inner child come out and play more often!

*****

Oceania:

The real you was there all along. The reason you don't remember everything is because your awareness was impaired, much as if you'd had too much to drink. Alcoholics have blackouts and can't remember what they said or did the night before; you experienced much the same thing! Understanding what happened to you physically will be reassuring. Understanding the distress you still feel today will provide a lesson in trust that will last a lifetime.

Every cell in your body has a membrane that allows water to pass in or out. Sodium (salt) can't pass through it. Water migrates in or out of cells until the concentration of sodium is equal on both sides. When you drank tons of water and cut out salt, the concentration of sodium in your bloodstream dropped. As our bodies are always seeking balance, water moved into your cells to dilute the sodium inside, which caused the cells to swell up like tiny water balloons.

Most cells swell with ease, but brain cells are confined by the skull. Swollen brain cells increase cranial pressure and lead to water intoxication with symptoms similar to alcohol intoxication including personality changes, confusion and loss of awareness. Athletes are at risk for this condition because they lose salt through sweating and consume large quantities of liquid to quench their thirst. They can avoid what you suffered by drinking sports drinks instead of water.

At the hospital, sodium was added to your bloodstream, which prompted water to move back out of your cells. Your brain swelling lessened and normal consciousness returned. Even though you've corrected your diet, a year later you're still worried this might happen again. This tells me that what you fear most is being out of control.

It is tricky to find the right balance between surrender and control. This is reflected in the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Some people surrender too much and passively accept anything and everything, while others don't surrender enough and struggle to control everything. I'm thinking you lean towards that end of the spectrum.

Just as your body needs to balance water and salt, your spirit needs to balance surrender and control. To do this, you must learn to make conscious choices whenever you can, but when you find yourself in a situation beyond your control, choose to gracefully surrender to a HIGHER power.

You were not conscious during this event but your observant friend and the hospital staff provided you with loving care. You can use this profound experience to learn to relax and trust that if you do YOUR part in life, the rest will be taken care of!

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.