The Power Of Relationship

In recent days I am beginning to see the dovetailing of a number of threads running through this blog, and that is that relationship stands at the centre of everything. My spiritual practice has it's centre, it's core, it's very being in relationship, and I'm talking about relationship within a number of areas.

Relationship With Self

This is where it starts: truly knowing oneself. This may begin on a psychological level, but this is not where this relationship can remain, it has to move on from here if one is to truly embrace the deep reality of spiritual practice. Knowing self in a real and dynamic way is one the most fundamental calls of many pagan paths, but this needs to move on to truly knowing the relationship within oneself. Those deep and hidden motivations, those dark areas one often shirks away from, it calls for stark and open honesty, transparency with self, but also with others and with Deity.

But this relationship also needs to move on from here, it cannot remain in what will only become a self serving and navel gazing exercise - this serves no purpose and no person. It needs to move into the complexity of the relationship between Younger, Talking and Higher Self, this deep and profound inner relationship, learning and discovering the part each aspect of self plays and providing the space, the freedom, the inner environment and the magical environment for this relationship to thrive. This is a process, but it is one that has to have a beginning and one that leads to true initiation with the manifestation of Higher Self - and this hails the beginning of a new relationship at a new and deeper level.

Relationship With Deity

Relationship with Deity is not a tokenistic thing, it is something of depth and power. It is not about what one can get from Deity, but from encounter and experience with Deity. It is about recognising the reality and power in immanence and recognising that Deity lives within, and one lives in Deity. I've touched on this in the Absorption of Self, but it is that profound lesson of losing self to discover the reality of the True Self, seeing that we are all One, part of the All, that in this respect, we are all Goddesses and Gods, as we all share the one relationship, we are all interconnected, interdependent and in living, dynamic relationship. Here we discover that the emphasis is not so much on polarity, but upon the wonder of a living, vibrant relationship.

Relationship With The Universe

Here I have begun to see the wonder in recognising ones place with the Universe, or The All. This began when I began to notice that as I called in the elements (earth, air, fire and water) that I was starting to become the very elements themselves. I will admit that I still don't fully understand this and I am trying to move deeper into awareness of this relationship, but I could see myself as fire, as water, as air and as earth in a real and dynamic way. And it moves on from here. Each star has a course. and the star moves freely in that course without hindrance. We too have a course, a place, a role, a relationship within and as part of The All, and as we move into that relationship so we too move without hindrance and in power. I don't claim to have fully grasped the full reality of this, but I am beginning to understand the significance and wonder of this fact. Moving into my own orbit. my own special and unique place. separate and self contained, yet interconnected and in perfect relationship with The All.

Relationship With Each Other

Again, we contain all we need for life, existence, fulfillment and spiritual power within, as we are each separate and unique, yet at the same time there is wonder, power and growth in coming together. We don't need each other in some kind of negative, needy way, but as we come together in true relationship with each other, there is much magic to be made. When that real and dynamic contact is made, on a profound level, there is wonder to behold, a strength that hitherto has not been experience. It's beyond communication and moves into another realm of experience altogether.

As I travel along my spiritual journey I begin to appreciate the reality of all I have said above. I don't pretend to have fully experienced it fully as yet, I know I have a very long way to go, but I do see that at the heart of everything, from my very core outwards, relationship, relationship within, without and with everything is the very heart of my journey.

From The Inside, Out!

It was lovely to be back in my Temple Room and back into my morning spiritual practice. I didn't have that much time, just 30 minutes, but it was so good to be able to move in the presence of the Lord and Lady and to be able to feel the touch of My Guides and animal spirits. It was like coming home after some time away, a real joy to be back in warm, familiar company.

I will confess to an audible laugh when I turned 3 Tarot cards this morning. I had asked Deity for guidance on my future, for direction, for steps to take on my path toward spiritual depth revelation, and what card did I turn again? Yep, the Death card! I had to chuckle, as well groan! I thought: "haven't I done enough dying?" evidently the answer is a resounding no! As I turned the other cards they spoke of moving forward in my tradition and moving deeper into intuition, a need to hear my own inner voice above that of the hundred other voices that clamour for attention.



This was an important morning. I called to the Lord and Lady, asking for their guidance. I also called to my Guides and totems, because I needed to hear their voice. In recent months I feel that I've travelled over a very large distance, growing as taught directly by Spirit, but this morning I felt as though I had been brought back to the start once more. Clearly there is a lesson that I am not learning, there is something that I need to learn, or at least, there is something that needs to travel to a far deeper level.

I began to see the lesson that I need to learn. I saw that whilst intellect supports my path, it isn't my path. The part of me that needs to analyse everything, understand everything, know everything, simply works to feed my chattering mind. It keeps me bound to that which holds me back, it feeds the mind only. The greatest spiritual discovery comes not from a text book, not from a blog, but from my own relationship with the Divine. The communion of Spirit with spirit. Yes, the words, traditions and experiences of others are vitally important, and my path is based upon a sound tradition and the knowledge of others feeds and nourishes my own progress and development, but there is much more than that. The heart, the centre, is my own spiritual relationship and interconnection with all things. My confidence needs to be in my own spiritual connection and the revelation that emanates from that dynamic connection.

I mistrust my own experience at times because of the criticism of others and because of my own lack of confidence in myself. I am apt to put myself down. This morning I saw that I need to have a greater confidence in my own experience and develop a trust in the gifts that I have. Believing in my intuition, believing in my own spiritual heritage, and trusting my own experience of the Divine. To put myself down is to deny Their faith in me.

This is a continuance of letting go of the false labels that have been attributed to me in the mundane world, but I also saw that whilst I am free of those things, I've been given the tools to set myself free. This is a work that comes from within, a work that results from me using the gifts I have been given - a spiritual empowerment that works from the inside, out. It's time I believed in me as much as the Lord and Lady believe in me!

I felt the call of the Lord and Lady, asking me to deeper my connection with them, and also with my Guides and totems. A time of journeying to meet them on a deeper level awaits, to build upon this relationship and to experience them. I saw one of my Guides, just briefly this morning, and I was dancing with her, but I was a child, a free child. I've always sensed this Guide as a Mother figure, and I saw her as such this morning. All of this seems to speak to me of walking away from fear - one of my biggest hurdles, and moving into this relationship of trust that means trust self as much as the Divine.

Developing Will

So much of my spiritual journey in recent weeks and months has been about the amalgamation of light and dark, the coming together of an inner relationship, fully appreciating, respecting, loving and embracing my inner landscape and knowing that this is the foundation of my spiritual and magickal practice. It's been about establishing a true and powerful inner relationship between Younger, Talking and Higher Self.

Today I began to see and understand the next step along the path. From this understanding of my inner landscape comes an appreciation of my emotions, my feelings, my impulses. Those emotions that have their home in Younger Self. Some feelings are fully expressed, others are oppressed, or have been silenced for many years. There's no such thing, really, as an unexpressed emotion as it will come out in some way, shape or form.

As these emotions are accessed, as Andrew (YS) feels able to express them, or bring them to the attention of Talking Self, Will needs to be developed and strengthened. It's about bringing these emotions under Will. It's not wrong to express them, but such energy needs to be focused, and released in way that affects positive change, not maximum destruction! Channeling, focusing these powerful energies is a real work-out for Will. It's an incorporation of these emotions into my True Self and bringing them under appropriate and healthy control and thus as Will develops and grows so obstacles, barriers, people, all those things that block and restrict will, one by one, be removed, opening that spiritual conduit further. It's about focusing and channeling the energy where it needs to be - and where it needs to be for the most effective magickal results.

This is progress. Understanding the movement within, those inner shifts those changes, both quick and purposeful, applying wisdom, listening to the Lord and Lady and my Guides and walking the path laid out before me brings a real sense of inner harmony, of belonging, of wholeness, and a sense of preparation for future happenings.