Stress and Magick

As a young adult entering a career in electrical engineering and taking care of five younger siblings while saving up enough money to buy a car and find a part time job, I'd be first person to tell you its not the simplest task in the world to maintain a tranquil mind at all times. Personally, I find the the ability to walk through life with a consistently placid attitude to be magick in its purest form. Something that, while it can be done, takes years to master. In my opinion, you can only reach this goal if you are truly enlightened. Human emotions are the enemy of magic; unfortunately, as humans we have to endure them everyday, but if you want to practice any form of magick you need to train yourself to overcome them to a certain extent. I find the most challenging aspect of Magick to be the virtue of patience. I live in a very stressful environment. It isn't the easiest thing in the world to constantly hone my meditational skills while keeping five children in line and trying to have a social life. I used to try and train my mind in little bits here and there. I've realized lately, this is the wrong way to go. I've found that trying to focus on a meditation and calm a screaming baby at the same time, doesn't usually work out very well. It only ends up frustrating and makes you give up. This is the problem for most beginners. They don't understand that they have to give up a little bit of their free time to actually meditate in a quiet, uninterrupted environment. Every variation of magick is similar in one aspect, be it Witchcraft, Voudou, Necromancy, Invocation, Shamanism or Qigong. All of these require deep concentration. It's my personal philosophy that if your attention is divided, so is your energy. ''Magick'' energy isn't used solely for ''magickal'' purposes. You use this energy in day to day activity. Human emotions disorganize the energy that should be evenly distributed throughout your body (your chakras if you want to get technical). Stress actually causes your energy to clump up in single areas of your body. This energy clumping can cause fasciculation (muscle twitches), usually in your arm or eye. Keeping your energy evenly aligned in your body puts stress and it many side effects in their place. Stress essentially renders you powerless if you are trying to cast spells or use your energy in any way; meditating alleviates stress and enhances your magickal abilities. Not to mention, ridding yourself of stress generally makes your life easier to cope with. To maintain a healthy level of stress and eliminate difficulty and get more results when spell casting (or anything else magick related), I suggest you find time to meditate at least once everyday. Find a time that's best for you, make it a habit.''