#selfdedication

[pushpendersinghrawat]

#karate #martialarts #fitness #selfdedence #pushpender_singh_rawat #indirapuram_karate_school (at INDIRAPURAM KARATE SCHOOL) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj9YjgwpqbA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[claradaly]

Last Inktober I drew a picture everyday! I done it for the first time last year and completely feel in love with it because it was the right kind of pressure that was rewarding for only myself to enjoy! Would love to do it again this year! But unsure if I would be able to post daily or will run late 😅 I may take it all at my own past or just do the prompts I want to focus on 😊 • • • #illustration #lookingforward #creative #drawing #inktober #excited #passion #life #homelife #selfdedication #dowhatyoulove #drawing #ink #pens #watercolour #washes #seizetheopportunity #enjoylife (at London, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CS9RCrIoO67/?utm_medium=tumblr

[nicopengin]

If Your Life Were a Role Playing Game Series #2

This is the second post in this blog series, check out the first one here.

Video Game Attributes in Real Life

As a gamer, the next most important attribute in a role-playing game is Mana. Without health, you die. But without Mana, you are unable to solve problems. In real-life situations, as in role-playing games, this is the amount of magical power/mental energy a character has. The higher the Mana, the more spells that can be cast. I think of it as mental energy that we are given to compete in life. In a role-playing game, you may use something like “Magic Orb” to take out a monster, but in real life, you may use “Algebra Skill”, when taking a math exam, In games as well as in real life, using these skills consumes a part of our energy to perform them. Some people were naturally born with high Mana. Some people have a naturally high amount of mental energy that they can focus on problem-solving. Others were born incapable of solving even the simplest of problems. What happens then? If your life is a role-playing game, and you were born with a low amount of Mana. What are you going to do about it?

How to Increase my Attributes

If your life were a role-playing game, how would you increase your Mana? In video games, you can pay with the money you've earned in your quests to instructors to increase your abilities and skills, so if money were not an issue, in real life, I might hire tutors to push me to solve situations to the max. However, if money is a concern, then doing a variety of small word problems, reading books, and self-studying are some examples of how you can increase your Mana capacity. I remember on different occasions I have gotten books with my characters that when read increase their attributes immediately. So why not take a book off the shelf and increase our attributes and knowledge in real life as well?

Personally, I would ultimately focus my energy on how I can improve my Mana capacity. Because I want to be able to solve even the most advanced difficulties or be able to devote the most mental energy to any problem that comes my way. In games, Mana allows me to "spam," that is, cast over and over again constantly, all the spells I acquire through knowledge and experience. In life, mental energy allows me to use the knowledge and experience I have, to be ready to cast whatever "spells" are necessary to solve my problems.

Alternative Ways to Increase my Attributes

Another way to increase your Mana capacity is to be part of groups of people trying to push the limits of maximum performance. These could be networking groups, social groups, or even religious groups. What? did you forget that paladins and priests have Holy Mana and Holy Abilities? When you interact with other people who are also striving to be the best version of themselves, it allows you to gain the ability to understand how they do it too. When we first enter a game, our knowledge of the game would be very basic, sometimes even the "tutorials" leave a lot of concepts that we don't understand. But, when you join a group or even as they are sometimes called "clan or alliance", they provide you with knowledgeable and experienced people. This is an example of how another person can teach you how to get a higher Mana capacity. Therefore, having a group of contacts in real life can help and bring a clarity of mind to give you a boost in problem solving, not only for his knowledge but also for having faced situations similar to yours in other opportunities.

Differences in Mana and Knowledge

I want to bring some clarity. It is important to have a high Mana when you need to dedicate a lot of mental concentration and skills to defeat your opponent. But if you don't have the necessary knowledge, mana will be left over because you won't be able to use any skill. That is, you need to increase your knowledge in order to get the most out of your Mana. So, what could you do to have an extraordinary mana reserve, as well as knowledge? First of all, you need to use all possible mechanisms to acquire both, as we mentioned a little while ago, you will need to study, self dedication, gain experience in your daily adventures, and of course, if it is in your possibilities, a colleague or group with whom you can learn more and more.

So, while you improve yourself alone or with a group of people to have more clarity and mental energy. Think about how you would execute all the advice they are giving you. Now if you want some product recommendations to increase your mental focus, clarity, and energy, then I advise you to consume vitamins daily. Along with, of course, home cooked meals whenever possible. It is also necessary to get plenty of rest, to recharge the Mana within our lives.

Finally

If your life were a role-playing game and you wanted to have a large amount of Mana, you would surely have to focus on developing it. Endlessly practicing one skill after another in situations where, if you run out of it, your team may lose, as your mental energy is vital to your success and that of your teammates. This is also true in real life. If you focus on how, you can solve dilemmas and setbacks without complaining and thinking of the best possible solutions every time. The more you keep doing that, the better you will get at it, and the more energy you will have to devote to problem solving. Because of this, you will be more patient, take action and solve problems more easily. I thank you for having come this far, I am sure that if you liked this post and I did a good job explaining mana, you will leave me a like (you will acquire 50 mana by doing so), also let me know in the comments, how do you increase your mana daily? Stay tuned for the next blog post In the series.

Read the full article

[oqthoughts]

Rauf & Faik - Childhood

[thebedofran-blog]

Self-Dedication

⋆ Self-dedication is a ritual performed by a solitary witch.

⋆ It’s a sacred moment, shared between the witch and their chosen deities.

⋆ The ritual is basically a “rite of passage” where you are taking a serious, spiritual commitment.

⋆ The ritual is performed when witches feel ready to commit to their spiritual path.

⋆ There is no right or wrong way to perform the ritual and no-one’s experience is the same.

⋆ Define Your Purpose ⋆ Choose a purpose. Why do you want to perform the ritual? What do you want to accomplish?

⋆ Timing ⋆ Is the dedication temporary or permanent? Temporary dedications are to re-do them year after year or other periods of time such as: ⋆ A year and a day ⋆ Three luna cycles ⋆ Six months ⋆ Three years ⋆ Six years

⋆ Write Your Own Dedication Prayer ⋆ Your own words are more powerful than copy and pasting from the internet. The extra time you use to write is also a part of the ritual. Putting your intentions into words is an important part of the process and by writing it, you are strengthening your own willpower.

⋆ Additional Tools ⋆  Bringing in tools to the ritual will make it more powerful. They can be used in two ways: - Focuses of the intentions, a one time use for the ritual. - Enchant an item as symbol of your personal power, so it can be used every time you perform magic.

Possible Tool Ideas: ⋆ Herbal pouch ⋆ Incense ⋆ Candles ⋆ Sigils, runes or symbols ⋆ Tarot or Oracle cards ⋆ Pictures or Drawings ⋆ Crystals ⋆ Jewelry ⋆ A ritual tool

⋆ The Right Time ⋆ These rituals are best performed at a full moon or new moon. - New moon is associated with new beginning. A good time for embracing something new and temporary.  - Full moon is associated with accomplishment and release. Best suited for long term, lifelong dedications.

⋆ What You’ll Need ⋆  - Dedication prayer - Food or drink as an offering - Representations of the Deities - A blessing oil - A smudge stick - Your additional tools

⋆ Preparation ⋆ The ritual is powerful and a meaningful moment. It’s not to be taken lightly. Maximise the effect of the ritual by: - Meditating a whole week before. - Avoid drinks three days before. - Twenty-four hours beforehand, perform an aura cleansing spell. The simplest ways is to take a purification bath, so that your energetic field is clear of any negative energies.

⋆ Additional Tips ⋆ - Perform the ritual outside to connect with nature. - Perform skyclad (Naked) so you appear in humility before the deities... or wear plain, comfortable clothing and avoid wearing jewellery. 

⋆ The Ritual ⋆ 1. Gather the tools, prepare the sacred space and CLEANSE! 2. Cast your circle. 3. Invoke the entities. 4. Recite your dedication prayer as much as you need. Beware of your emotions and thoughts. 5. Meditate. Let the entities embrace you.  6. Blessing spell. 7. Consecrate your tools by anoint them with oil. 8. Present your offering. Take a bite and leave the rest to nature. 9. When ready, thank the entities and close the circle.

⋆ Afterwards ⋆ Keep the prayer safe. Date it and look back at it from time to time as a reminder how far you’ve come.

You may notice subtle changes in your life and in the way you perceive magic or you may even feel nothing, both is fine.

[bad-and-brujii]

Love thyself. 💞 || • • • #LikeYourself #SelfLove #SelfCare #SelfDedication #EnjoyYourOwnCompany https://www.instagram.com/p/BqFwzu0HNBK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1tq6hebqwm8xo

[uncanny-bozo]

My one true love remains myself. #selfdedication #lovemyself AS😈 (at Central University of Jharkhand)

[pamrodanandfields]

Happy Friday Peeps!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 It’s the end of the weak and family time begins after 4pm for me!!!! 💕💕💕💕 Have a Fabulous Day and NEVER give up on YOURSELF!!!!! 🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️ #Faith # Family #Selfdedication

[pushpendersinghrawat]

#karate #fitness #selfdedence #martialarts #weightloss #weightgain #indirapuram_karate_school #Pushpender_singh_Rawat (at INDIRAPURAM KARATE SCHOOL) https://www.instagram.com/p/CdDgdXUArpc/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thatzuneek]

#busymom running daily errands, homework, cooking for fam, etc still able to walk/run 4 miles plus a.m run. Using my own body weight to workout for 30 minutes plus.... until my phone died. #fitbit #fitstar #selfdedication #pushingyourself #stillwinning #allforme #lovemeselfishly #inittowinit #dailywaterintake #dailyrun #dailybodytransformation #workoingout

[serpent-and-crow-blog]

First post: my witchy origin story

Hello, and welcome! I’m approaching a major milestone in my witchcraft practice and it’s been causing me to reflect on where I have been and all that I have done. The journey has been quite amazing! I feel called to share my story with anyone who may come across it here, so thank you for taking your time to read it.

This Mabon marks 20 years since I dedicated myself to my Craft. 20. Freakin’. Years. I can’t believe it. My witchy self can vote, and next year can legally drink in the United States. My how time flies! In 1997 I was a senior in high school, people were just starting to really get on the internet, and Harry Potter had just been published (I know many of you can’t imagine a world without the internet and Harry Potter, but I lived through those dark times, believe it or not). I rushed home after class to perform my ritual before my mother got home from work. I had everything ready to save as much time preparing as I could -- I only had a couple hours before she got home. I set up my altar in my living room a la Scott Cunningham’s “Guide for the Solitary Practitioner,” started a Gregorian chants CD for a little ambiance, lit some candles, cast my circle, and dedicated myself to Goddess and God. My dog watched me from the hallway, inquisitive as ever. I was happy to have a witness! 

This wasn’t the very beginning of my journey with the Craft, though. I can’t claim to be a hereditary witch, but I definitely had some familial influences. I remember I was 5 when my aunt visited me at my grandmother’s house and taught me how to read playing cards to tell the future. Her father, my grandfather, had a crystal ball and showed interest in other topics of the occult. He was the one who taught my aunt how to read the playing cards, and she taught me, so I feel like I learned from him. Since he died when I was nearly 3 I never got to know him (my first memory is his funeral), but I feel like he’s been there to teach me. My grandmother was into astrology and would always send my horoscopes. New Age stuff was very comfortable to me growing up!

I was always doing “spells” as a child. Looking back now, it was a lot of sympathetic magick to draw things to me, mostly love. I’m an only child, my father left when I was 2, my mother was emotionally absent (frequently physically absent), and I was always trying to adapt to my surroundings to feel accepted and loved. Once I tried to get a boy to love me (or at least notice me) by wrapping a sheet of paper with their name drawn 1,000 times (or so) around a condom and putting it under my pillow. We don’t need to go into all the reasons that that was a terrible idea, but that’s what I was trying to influence in my life. I just wanted someone to love me. I didn’t know what love really was, or what it really meant, but that’s what I was reaching out for.

When I was 13 I was shopping at a bookstore with my grandmother. We were looking through the astrology section, I think the horoscope books for each sun sign for the year had just come out or something. At the end of the astrology books began the metaphysical section. I remember just reading down the line, and finding Raymond Buckland’s “Practical Candle Burning Rituals.” I looked through it and it was what I had been looking for all my life (again, I was 13)! It had “rituals” for creating talismans and drawing luck, prosperity, and yup, love, into your life. My grandmother bought me the book and over the weeks I cobbled together candles and candle holders to perform my first “ritual.” I remember I had everything laid out on a giant piece of Styrofoam that I set into my closet (nothing hanging above the candles, I wasn’t that big of a dummy!) behind my bedroom door, so if my mother opened the door to my room, she wouldn’t see my Styrofoam altar (she wasn’t brave enough to ever fully enter my room). I tried my first “ritual” to bring love into my life, moving 2 red candles closer together every night until they touched. I can’t say it ever worked, but it was my first attempt at studying magick. 

I told my best friend at the time about my book and she liked the idea of making talismans. So we made a couple lucky charms out of our necklaces that we wore everyday. One day she she told some of our other friends at school that we could make talismans for them, and I was mortified! I didn’t want anyone to know this about me than her! We never agreed to keep it secret, but in my head it was implied. But I rolled with it, and my friends either thought it was silly or gave us something to make into a talisman. It wasn’t too big of a deal, at the time.

That was my only book on magick for a while. I got more into astrology and focused my attention there. And then the internet happened. I got online, discovered chat rooms, and nothing was the same! I met a boy online when I was 16. He didn’t live too far from me, so we began to hang out, and then date. He had all these books on Wicca and Celtic reconstructionism. I borrowed all of them from him, and with my newly obtained driver’s license, made regular trips to the library where I would look through all the books with a Dewey decimal starting with 299. 

I also found a chat room on AOL called “Ask a Witch.” I had so many questions as a beginning and I don’t know what would have happened to me had I never found this chat room! I learned so much and made so many friends, some I still talk to today! 

After reading and studying and asking questions all summer and into the first part of the school year, I knew I was ready to dedicate myself. I was ready to take the next step. I was too impatient to wait a year and a day, I remember, and I also couldn’t really say when Day 1 was, so why not just go ahead and dedicate!

I went to Goodwill to gather the altar supplies I didn’t already have: my cauldron (a quart-sized metal pot), some candle sticks, a chalice (a fancy-looking glass that was supposed to look like crystal) and a wooden, circular trivet that I painted a pentacle on. I remember how amazing it felt to set up my altar, play those chanting monks, and dedicate myself to a path that did indeed change my life. It still feels amazing to this day!

I’ll share some other stories as I reflect on my newbie witch days, as I’m sure there is a lot others can learn from, and it never hurts to revisit the lessons you have learned from time to time.

Finally, I apologize because I feel my writing is a but rusty. But I’m hoping to continue this blog and get better at story telling. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have written so far :) 

And if you are interested in following me on Instagram, I’m @serpent_and_crow!

[oqthoughts]

'Cause you are, you are,

The reason why I'm still hanging on.

[docdunamis]

APR 15 #battleofthemidwest #npcindiana #projectdunamis #1914 #ledbygrace #dunamis #power #selfdiscipline #selfdedication #honor #sfbb #blessedbeyondmeasure

[theshaqbook]

via Instagram

[lovemattmartinez-blog]

I hope your #2018 has started off the way you’ve wanted. If not...there’s still time to #crushit because, the only way you have to go is...UPPPPPP!!!! • • • #justdo #thursdaymotivation #make2018yobitch #rockbottomlegend #failoften #dontbestatusquo #selfmotivate #selfdedicate #actionisking #producedaily #doitconsistently #listentothehaters #circleofinfluence #getafterit #eyesforward (at Minneapolis, Minnesota)

[constantly-disheveled]

wiccans can self dedicate they don't have to be initiated into a into the religion. secondly, the mother in christian wiccan can be god by another name/pronoun and it isn't going against the 'no gods before me' situation. plus many things of the old testament doesnt apply anymore, unless youre a crazy bible thumper trying to be homophobic with the bibiles help. adding in that 'witch' in the bible can be defined in many ways and everything is up for interpretation, christian wiccas can be legit

Oh my gosh just no I can’t even do this tonight

I’ve had 2 and a half hours of sleep in two days and I can’t handle talking to people who MAKE UP THEIR OWN RELIGION THAT IS OBVIOUSLY DISRESPECTFUL TO OTHER RELIGIONS.

You cannot self dedicate yourself into WICCA. WICCA IS A CLOSED RELIGION. NEOWicca can be selfdedicated into. It’s an OPEN religion. IT’s Wicca lite. 

I’m also so done with this ignorant line of thought.  I am fine with Christian Witches. I get that. I can make sense of it in my head. It’s easier to reconcile a religion with a practice than it is for me to make sense of people trying to smash together two religions to play pretend and make themselves feel like they are still being good little servants of the lord. 

Everything is not up for interpretation,  you’re just saying that to make sense of what you’re doing, which is disrespectful. But hey! You just keep at it. 

Whatever.