Experiments in Creation
And how to make and use prayer beads
Here is the video version of this post.
A really fun experiment in our ability to bring things into our lives is to decide on an experience we want, and shift our attention toward it. It helps if we can conjure the feeling of having it already. We can think about how we’ll feel when we have it and other times in our lives we’ve felt a similar way.
Achieving the vibration of having the goal is the quickest way to its arrival.
And casting spells that work, or manifesting desires successfully if you prefer those terms (there’s not a lot of difference, but there is some) is the fastest way to increase our power.
The results never show up in smoke and glitter. Most of the time, you suddenly realize the object of your desire has been there the whole time. For me it always feels like that. It was there, I just hadn’t seen it, or hadn’t seen it for what it was or couldn't see it at all or had no access to it or something.
Because that’s how magic works. We aren’t creating anything new. We’re tuning in things/people/events that already exist. A lot of folks who can’t seem to make their magic work are just suffering from a misunderstanding of it. We’ve been raised on Hollywood special effects. We say magic words, wave a wand, and a prince or a treasure appear in a spot that was previously empty.
But magic is much more subtle than that. It requires finesse. Saying the words, burning the herbs, waving the wand, raising the energy—these are just methods that help us adjust our energy to the same wavelength as the goal. We are tuning our radio dial.
When I was a kid, before cable and satellite, we had a wire that attached to the back of our heavy, fat tv sets with two screws. The other end of the wire attached to the antenna. Some folks had a big “aerial” antenna on their roofs, and some had a small set of “rabbit-ears” right on top of the TV set. But poor families like mine had a coat hanger. I remember so well my mom stretching the coat hanger out of shape—I don’t know why, but I think she thought a diamond shape would convey the TV signal better or something. Then, holding it in one hand, she’d move it up, down, left, and right as the TV screen stretched itself cornerwise, vanished behind snow, and the sound changed from a “desert windstorm” to “alien communication” to actual human-sounding voices. As she moved the thing around as much as the length of its wire would allow, I’d joke with her. “Try standing on one foot, Mom. No, put your other hand on your head. Maybe if you stick out your tongue.”
When we’re trying to tune in an experience we don’t currently have in our lives, the one and only way to do it is to change our vibration. Change the channel. Adjust the wavelength. Those are all different ways of saying the same thing. We need to become the version of us who DOES have that thing in our lives. It’s really OURSELVES we are changing.
And it can be as subtle as “try standing on one foot.”
Try every way you can to get your focus off the absence, and onto the presence of your desire.
The more confidence you have in your power, the greater your power becomes
And the only way to build confidence in our power is to use it successfully, often.
A wonderful exercise is to try some experiments to demonstrate to yourself how easy it is to attune and align by experimenting with little things you don’t care too much about. They are easier because you don’t have any resistance to them. You don’t have that aching longing for them that vibrates with their absence, not their presence. You’re not feeling like you can’t live without them.
These little, easy, low-resistance experiments are like deliberate living with training wheels to build up your skills. Some people call this creating or manifesting, but that’s not accurate. You’re not creating something new. You’re tuning in something that already exists.
Experiment 1: The Red Car
This is more deliberate creation than spellwork. If you have a commute, or live near traffic, this might be especially fun. I like to do it when I have to go into town on my weekly grocery run.
Begin with this intention. “Today I’m going to see red cars.”
Now, your antenna is aimed at red cars. You put it there.
There’s no resistance. You’re not saying things like, “I’ll just die if I don’t see red car today!” or “I can’t live without red car sightings,” or “I wanna see a red car sooooo freakin’ bad!”
Take a note here. The feelings expressed by those three sentences or any like them, match the vibration of not having the goal. Try to really get this. We need to conjure the feeling of already having it. We need to imagine it so vividly, we get teary with joy. We have to recognize that feeling in other areas, and then bask in those to get our vibes up to that same level. When we match the vibration of our desire it must show up.
But back to the experiment.
Get up in the morning and say, “Today I am going to see red cars.” And then go about your day. You are going to see red cars. Count ‘em up.
Now, some will say, but Maggie, the red cars were already there. We’re just noticing them, is all.
Yes, exactly. Before, there were no red cars in our experience. Now, there are red cars everywhere we look. They didn’t appear out of the ether. We just tuned them in. We adjusted our vibe to red cars and like turning radio dial. (I should say pushing a different button for today’s radios, but you know what I mean.)
Everything we desire already exists. Just not for us, and that might be because we haven’t dialed in the right channel. This is a part of that dialing process. We have to look for the experiences we desire, and when we do we’ll find them and others like them right where we could have sworn they weren’t.
First we shift our awareness, which helps us shift our vibe.
Experiment 2: Try something less likely than a red car
Try something a little less likely and give yourself a little more time. For me that might be, I’m going to see a cow lying down this week.
Now where I live it’s always likely I’ll see a cow. But I don’t often see them lying down, unless it’s getting ready to rain. (That old wive’s tale is true, cows really do lie down when they’re outside and it’s about to rain.)
For you it might be something else. So think of something slightly less likely, but still easy. Something you see now and then, but not all the time and focus on that. Maybe a train if you live where there are tracks and you seem them from time to time, but not every day.
This time, because it’s a little less likely, we’re going to be full of doubts, and those doubts will trip things up. We were not worried at all that we’d never see a red car. Now, we get nervous. What if it doesn’t work? Will that ruin my faith forever?
That’s why this time, we should give it a week or even two. Give yourself enough time to forget all about it… until one day, there’s that supine bovine.
That was a pretty good turn of phrase. Maybe I should be a writer.
This is a practice. Do it frequently.
Almost every time I leave the house, I give myself pre-trip guidance. The traffic will be easy. The lights will be green. Parking spaces will be plentiful. (I should start adding, I won’t forget anything!)
Don’t do the experiments just once, do them repeatedly, and vary between more and less challenging things. And if you haven’t yet realized this, you can tell how challenging it is by how badly you want it. The more you want it, the more resistance you have built up about it.
Esther Hicks often says, “It’s as easy to create a castle as a button.”
And technically, it should be. The process of tuning in to a castle is no different than tuning in to a button. You adjust your vibration, maybe cast a spell to really dial in the wavelength you want in a powerful, speedy way, and as soon as your vibe matches the desire, you begin experiencing it.
But in practice, it’s way harder to create a castle than a button. And that’s because we think it is. We think it has to be. Otherwise everyone would have castles. It’s of more value to us. We would not shriek or weep with joy if someone handed us a button. But if they handed the deed to a castle? You see different it feels? And how it feels is the whole ballgame.
We’ve gotta get to the feeling of having it. We’ve got to get to confidently striding forward without a doubt our goals lie in the exact direction our heart-based GPS is guiding us.
Experiment 3: Now try this with something you want
Pick something you want, but still something kind of small and easy. We’re building our belief, which is the same thing as building our power. Every successful attempt makes the next more likely to succeed.
You might think of something you’ve lost recently, that you’d like to find. That’s a fun one. To tune it in, think of other things you’ve lost and then found in some unlikely place, sometimes after quite a while. Think of how happy you’re going to be when you find it. Remind yourself it’s right there, in front of you, probably in a place you’ve already looked. We’ve just tuned, briefly, to the belief that we’ve lost it. We can’t find it. We have said those words. So first stop that. It’s not lost, you just think it is. So stop it.
Just simply state the goal. I want that ___.
Don’t say “I want to find that missing ___” as I first typed. Calling it “missing” reaffirms its absence, and the word “find” implies that it’s missing. So I simplified. I want my ___”
I did exactly this several weeks ago to find a sock that had been missing for more than a year. It was a cute pair of socks with sheep on them, and a fun gift from one of my girls, and shortly after their first wash, one seemed to go missing. I was sorting out my sock drawer, and came upon it, and said to myself, I really want that other sock.
Within a week, I opened my sock drawer and it was lying there right on top. I got a shiver, then realized that had to be the one I still had, which I knew was in the drawer. I must’ve just stirred it to the top when looking for something else. So I looked in the drawer and it was still there. Holy crap! I manifested a sock!
I whispered my will, and then forgot about it. No big whoop. That’s the attitude to take with this kind of work.
And speaking of finding misplaced items…
A ritual for finding misplaced/missing/lost items
You’ll need: A set of beads. Any beads will do.
Set the goal of finding the missing item. Then sit with your beads, and repeat a mantra five times, once on each bead for five beads, then say a different mantra on the next three beads.
Repeat this pattern over and over as your fingers hold each of the beads. If you mark the first bead with a string or paperclip, you’ll know when to stop, but you might want to go a couple of times around.
You can find, borrow, or write your own words for this. They need not have meaning, the goal of the repetition is that the words lose their meaning and become a chant, your brain relaxes, your practical mind is thoroughly distracted by the chanting, so your intuitive senses open wide, and the channels between yourself and your source run fast and clear.
Here are some chants you might use
5 times: Istis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kali Inanna. 3 times: Corn and grain, corn and grain, all that fall shall rise again
Or
5 times: Goddess is alive, Magic is afoot 3 times: Air I am, Fire I am, Water, Earth and Spirit I am
Pick anything you like. Verses from a song or poem or lines from a spell or chant. Write something all your own. Nonsense words work extremely well in this.
Elton John had a nonsense word song that would fit.
Solar presige a’gamon. Koo kah kyrie kay salmon.
I always thought those would make great magic words. So would, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, the universal text placeholder.
It’s the repetition of sounds without meaning attached that pulls your mind into an incredibly relaxed, resistance-free, open state. And when you say words over and over again, they tend to lose their meaning and just become sounds. Sometimes they start sounding so odd to your ears that you think you’re saying them wrong.
That’s it. Do the chants for a pre-determined number of times around the beads.
Usually, you’ll find the lost item within a few days of this ritual.
Make Your Own Mantra Beads
You can string your own mantra beads or prayer beads. Use five beads of one color, then three of another for as many sets as you like. Some like to add a pentacle or goddess pendant, which not only decorates the beads but gives a way to know where you started.
You can also play with the pattern. Maybe you prefer 8 and 4 or 7 and 3. Try not to pick at random. Choose numbers with meaning for you.
My original prayer bead lesson as a student way back when, was called the Wiccan Rosary. It was modeled exactly after the Catholic rosary, same numbers of beads, with different lines said on multiple different ones in the same pattern they use.
But I don’t want anything that is so derivative of someone else’s religion. (Although knowing the Christians, they probably stole the notion of prayer beads from the Pagans to begin with.)
Still, I far prefer designing my own prayer beads, in whatever pattern makes sense to me. However, I did complete a set according to the rosary pattern as was required for the lesson, and I still have it.
And it works. Anytime I lose something, I do this exercise and find it in short order. I can’t think of a time when it’s failed.
Oh, and there’s nothing more fun than visiting a jewelry-making supply store to find the perfect beads. They have clasps, and tiny doo-dads to slide on in between the beads, and all sorts of things.
If you can’t to one in person, you can order them online.
I’ve put some links to everything need in the show notes. (SKIP PAST LINKS)
Here are some Etsy shops that have everything you need. These are NOT affiliate links. I don’t have any relationship with the sellers, just sharing some I found. Love Etsy!
BEADS
ALL THE REST
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