Ramblings About Magyk and Stuff

Author: Moro NightBird
Posted: May 20th. 2007
Times Viewed: 268

I have no experience. Zip, nada, nothing. All I have at this point is contemplation. So here’s some contemplation for ya, straight from the Heart of a Pagan.

We’ve all heard that Magyk isn’t about turning yourself into an animal, or making the brooms sweep the floor by themselves, or pointing your finger and a wall of flames shoot up to protect you and your friends.

(OK, keep this in mind.)

We’ve also heard Magyk is about bringing about your will: As I will it: so Mote it Be.

(Huh, well I’m confused.)

We’ve also heard that people don’t use Magyk to turn people into frogs when they stole their girlfriend.

(Who came up with that?)

I have a scenario for you: A pair of friends gets in a fight. One gets so mad that mere words can no longer express his feelings. He swings a right hook in his friends face. He has expressed his frustration using his body. Is this very different from expressing love by kissing or making love? It is of the body.

Words can be used by pretty much anyone blessed with a tongue. Words can express: Love, Hate, confusion, distress, illness, and so on. Words can soothe; heal. Words can attack.

The body, another tool we have along with voice, can also do these things, more often by instinct and impulse, but also with intent. The body can express Love, Fear, Illness, Hate, and so on.

The mind can express also, but few can communicate telepathically. The Heart, however, I am learning how to communicate with. Often I will see someone crying, (body) or saying something with a hidden meaning. The body often speaks for the Heart, and I think we are creatures of the Heart.

Magyk is another tool we have. I see it as such, anyway. If you get mad at someone, and you hit him or her, this is a physical attack. If you pound them with brain waves, it is a mental attack. If you call them a *****, it is a verbal attack. If you do nothing, but sulk and hate them, it is an attack of the heart. If you throw a curse at them, whether the curse is intended to harm the body, mind, heart, or even the spirit, or their life, it is a Magykal attack.

Magyk seems to me to be a tool or force that encompasses All in our Realms. These attacks can harm your body, mind, heart, life, or spirit. I think a few of us can agree on this. But let me try to ‘blow your mind’ (ironic grin here)

Would you say that two little kids who hit each other in a fight are evil, or of the dark? No, probably not. Would you say they were evil if they called each other names, intending to hurt the other’s feelings and balance the pain ratio? Still probably not.

Would you say they were evil if they threw curses at each other, with the same intent? Seeing, as they are kids, still probably not.

Now go forward in time: the kids are adults. They are doing the same thing. (They must be in love, the darlings) Verbal attack-evil? Nah. Physical attack? Uh-uh. Magykal attack? Bingo! Now they are evil! And obviously not adults yet, either.

I disagree.

In order for true balance to be reached, there must be a balance between balance and imbalance. People fight. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It could be an opportunity to grow, and most good stories start with a problem anyway. I think I heard somewhere that the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ is also the same word for ‘opportunity‘. But the point is, a Magykal attack could be seen as no different from a physical attack, or a mental one, and so on, to a person who agrees that Magyk can be used to heal the body, and heart and mind. If you believe in balance, then Evil and Benign both can be used in the physical, mental, spiritual, or heart sense.

Also, if you agree with balance, then times of chaos, and times of harmony should make sense. People fight and people get hurt. A lot of this is accidental, but a lot more is intentional. It is what it is, and it has its use in life. There are reasons people ache, one being that it makes pleasure important. It brings people together. And being a former victim of bullying, it shouldn’t be taken lightly when I say: I’m glad I have suffered.

(Did I blow your mind, or was it more of a pleasant breeze? *wink*)

Now out of the whole “Six ways to attack or to heal: Your will be done” part of my rambling. Now I will contemplate where the whole, ‘People can’t physically turn themselves into an animal or use flame walls or turn others into frogs’ idea came about.

Obviously, people have imagination. Allow me to make a comparison.

If people are not wholly capable of understanding the divine, then how are we smart enough to imagine that people could do such things as shape change, or call up a storm? Such things and ideas would be in the Realm of the divine, and not accessible to us.

If people are mostly responsible and capable of determining their own reality, and have the idea of shape changing, then is it not feasible that they could do such things?

Most of us Pagans seem to adhere to the idea of taking responsibility for ourselves. With this concept comes the idea that we determine a lot of our reality. So, as above, why is such a thing as shape changing, or calling a firewall, or flying through storm clouds, seen as “simply not done”?

(Is the wind picking up? *wink*)

I know, without asking, (because I have learned to communicate with the heart) that I am not the only one who wouldn’t jump on the chance to shape change, or fly, or create a force field made of fire. I can’t do such things, and for those few of you who think I must be able to do such things, I am not. I think I must not have been blessed this life with very good Magykal ability. Kind of like how my ears aren’t my strongest sense, either. I have good eyesight, good smell, and good taste. (Pun intended) But if I have any Magykal ability, it is slight, and only in the realm of Intuition and Dreams.

But, logically, people should be able to hurl ice with their hands or make flowers appear in someone’s hair, if indeed we determine a lot of our reality and balance is real. True, you must be gifted to do such drastic things with Magyk , or just do small things, but if you have been blessed this lifetime with such gifts, there is no reason Magyk shouldn’t be used.

It seems funny to me that some Pagans claim to determine their reality, yet say we can’t shape change.

It seems funny to me that some Pagans claim balance, yet say Magyk shouldn’t be used as an attack.

It seems funny, but with the right view, it’s all just a barrel of laughs.

I’m not Wiccan, but I do know that The Rede says, “And Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will.” But it also says this, “Be True in Love: This You Must Do, Unless Your Love Be False to You” My interpretation of this is that if someone hurts you, you owe them no honor, no kindness. People aren’t doormats, and if someone hurts me, I’m more than ready to follow the Goddess Hera’s Divine example and hurt for hurt of me. Hera never let someone hurt her without giving them something to remember the incident by.

Finally, the old saying, “Power corrupts”…Who said that? The victim of a powerful tyrant, or the tyrant himself? And another thing: Perhaps power is relative. A tiny bug is helpless in the face of The Great Squishing Shoe, but the shoe, or more appropriately, the person wearing the shoe, is the same helpless bug when face with an angry giant’s foot.
Something I learned from Star Wars: absolutes are rarely true. I don’t believe absolute power corrupts absolutely, just as I don’t believe that money is the root of all evil. Don’t call a gun evil because the person holding it pulled the trigger that shot a bullet from the gun’s barrel. If a person has absolute power over, say a country, then people who say power corrupts would probably call that person a tyrant.