Magick for Reshaping Life and Transmuting Trauma

Magick is empowerment of the soul’s ability to create and affect life.

[CW: This essay contains some mentions of trauma in a general sense.]

Magick is the ongoing creative process that yields forth from the influence that consciousness has upon life. Consciousness is continually affecting and creating our reality. The way we are often raised in our current society has a knack for disconnecting us from our intrinsic magickal capacities. 

Does this mean we lose our magick and it stops happening?

No!

But it does mean that our magickal abilities (our ability to use our consciousness to create the shape of life) become unconscious. The process of magick (consciousness creating and affecting life) is still always happening, but if we have not been taught how to use it, or if our awareness of it has been actively thwarted or condemned, then the process of magick goes on autopilot. 

When our magickal abilities are on autopilot, they are run by the subconscious.

What does that mean?

It means that whatever beliefs and conditionings we have unconsciously absorbed from the world will be running our show.

To “do magick” means to regain consciousness of our inherent ability to create and affect life.

We never really stop doing magick. We just lose awareness of our magick. Have you ever had any people or experiences that taught you, “You can’t do that. You can’t change things. This is the way things are and that’s just how it is and how it will always be. You want to do what? Ha! That’s impossible!” These malign teachings ensnare us within the illusion that we cannot transform ourselves and our lives. 

These admonitions are like spells that entrance us within their paradigm of impossibility. When we become unwittingly entranced by these spells of “cannot” and “should not”, our creative magickal energy is siphoned off. Our magickal energy is sucked away by these parasitic thought-entities. Instead of empowering ourselves, our magickal abilities empower these pesky, soul-sucking thought-forms.

When we “do magick”, we learn to consciously, intentionally direct our consciousness toward creating and enlivening that which we want to bring to fruition in our lives.

A yoga teacher of mine, Ron Katwijk, repeatedly told us: Energy follows thought. Another way to say that is:

Energy flows where attention goes.

The practice of magick entails learning to direct my consciousness toward that which empowers myself--and others, too, if that’s part of the work you want to do. As I redirect my consciousness, I am also directing my energy. It’s as if consciousness and energy are a unified entity. Wherever one goes, so does the other.

There are seemingly endless possibilities of how our magickal abilities can be applied. I can send my consciousness-energy toward a spell that connects me with Mercury and its gifts of eloquent communication. I can direct my consciousness-energy to commune with the elements of nature and allow myself to collaborate with Mother Earth’s magick. I can spiral my consciousness into the swirls of sound-energy created by a repeated mantra, which brings its given qualities into being with every utterance. I can create a sigil, a symbol to contain and amplify the energy of a chosen intention. These are just a few examples.

A magickal tool or practice is anything that enables us to make use of our capacity to create and affect life.

And sometimes our consciousness-energy may naturally, intuitively flow toward that which is needed for transformation, healing, learning, or revelation. When I began to have trauma flashbacks, recalling previously unseen, repressed memories, I started seeing the Archangel Michael in my mind’s eye. When I saw him and felt his presence, he brought me a sense of protection and strength. After recognizing this, I began intentionally calling on him, culling his image forth into my awareness whenever I needed safety, whenever I felt weak and needed to remember that I can be strong.

Traumatic experiences keeps us stuck within the energy of the traumatic event. Trauma--or any kind of painful, imprisoning experience--has the effect of keeping our consciousness-energy stuck within a restrictive loop. It’s almost as if our magick gets trapped into empowering the trauma. This can happen with the microcosmic trauma of a specific incident in our personal life. Or it can be macrocosmic trauma stemming from larger, systemic structures. And really, the microcosmic and macrocosmic are inextricable. Different aspects of the same whole. 

Healing trauma is a magickal act.

If I get caught in trauma response, my magickal powers move toward re-creating the qualities of the trauma (panic, hopelessness, terror, depression, etc.). The trauma steals my consciousness-energy and funnels it toward these qualities. 

If I want to heal this trauma, that process involves learning to recollect my consciousness-energy, removing it from the trauma-vortex, and redirecting it toward more helpful endeavors. Reshaping it into something that soothes, supports, and empowers me.

This is a huge simplification of a process that usually takes much time and practice, with much falling down and getting back up again. It’s not a one-and-done instant-fix solution. It can be an arduous process, but it is possible! As that process of re-collecting my consciousness-energy progressively unfolds, I will find that the trauma loses its power while I become more empowered. Where before I felt hopeless and defeated, I will start to feel more capable, more creative, and more magickal.

Magick is a Sentient Entity: Using the Imagination to Co-Create with Magick

Magick cannot help but be influenced by our consciousness, and us by it. The sentient entity of magick is a creature whose body is energy and is everywhere. Until we notice it, it is invisible. But as soon as we attune to it, even just IMAGINE it, we start to notice how pervasively it permeates everything.

We are always doing magick (co-creating with its omnipresent energy to shape the experience of life). “Doing” magick refers to times when we make this ongoing process conscious.

Note: Life is magick. And since life can be experienced in countless ways, so can magick. This is just one possible lens.

Even the act of attuning to the FELT PRESENCE of magick (however you experience it) is magickal in itself. No “doing” is necessarily required. The attuning to magick’s energy (the energy of life) is the primary ingredient.

From that place, you can simply rest in it, follow its flow, or mindfully influence its flow. Or combine all three of those approaches at once!

What role does the imagination play with magick?

The imagination is often thought of as unreal. The parent who tells the sensitive child: “Your friends are imaginary. They’re not real, sweetie!” Contrarily, the imagination and daydreaming can both be valid ways of tapping into information that is not apparent in the physical world.

There’s a bajillion ways that imagination can be a magickal tool. Here are two:

Imaginal AVENUE #1: Gleaning the Unseen

Images (or other sensory input) delivered by the imagination into consciousness are presenting information to us. If we’re not taught how to attune to these informational, energetic avenues, we may believe they don’t exist or aren’t important—but they do exist and they are important! And our awareness of them can be developed in any moment. Right now! Right where you are as you’re reading this!

Example: You are talking to a friend and being present with them, their words, and the raw data of their energetic, somatic presence. As they share with you, an image comes to mind. Maybe you understand it, maybe you don’t. You share the image with your friend. Their eyes widen. They tell you that the image visually articulates exactly what they were thinking but hadn’t yet said.

Part of the learning process for this practice is discerning which impressions are about me and my stuff and which impressions are giving information about the other person. If, for example, I’m giving a tarot reading, it helps if I am able to let my identity take a backseat for a bit so that I can better witness the other person and discern the information and impressions that are relevant to them.

Also! I’m a visually person and more receptive and responsive to visual stimuli (e.g. the imagery of the mind’s eyes), so that is the avenue I wrote about. These psychic streams of other-dimensional data are accessible through all of the senses, including the amorphous sense of intuitive knowing. Notice the ways of sensing toward which you are most inclined. Listen to those.

Imaginal Avenue #2: Birthing from the ether

Rather than picking up on something already manifest and occurrent, the imagination can enable us to pick up on a potentiality waiting around in the unmanifest ether. In this way, imagination acts as a conduit by which unmanifest potentialities can be recognized, felt, and then, if we choose, brought into the dimensions of manifestation and energetic, visceral experience.

This can take any form. A painting or sculpture. A relationship. A job or action in the physical world. An invention. Anything!

In this approach, imagination functions as a bridge that allows our consciousness to access the (as yet) Unknown and cull it forth into the world of the Known.

What about you?

Any paragraph from this article could be an article in itself. What would you like to hear more about? What thoughts does it inspire in you? Let me know in the comments.

The Healing Voice: Wounds, Addiction, and Purgation

When we are in emotional turmoil, we can feel stuck, or even imprisoned, within our own suffering. It can feel as though there is something within us that is heavy, rotten, aching, or excruciating.

The word catharsis originates from the Greek word “kathairein”, meaning to cleanse or to purge, especially that which lies in the bowels, the literal underbelly of a human being ("Definition of catharsis," n.d.). Healing, when seen through this lens, can be seen as the purging of that which is festering within, bringing motion to that which has been dammed up in the recesses of the mind and heart, transmuting that which prevents us from feeling whole and being ourselves. There are many methods for initiating this process. One such healing method, and the method that will be the focus of this writing, is the open expression of the singing voice.

Each person is an amalgamation of multiple facets. There is the body, the mind, the emotions, the sexuality, and the soul. When I refer to the self, I am referring to all of these components of the human being. When one aspect of a person is affected, it simultaneously affects all other aspects of that person. These dimensions of the human being are not intrinsically separate. A person’s whole being comprises all of these facets. Affecting any aspect affects the whole.

For this project, I spoke with a few people, each of whom uses the voice in their own way: Inès Maricle is a singer and performer who uses the voice in a healing modality she calls Intuitive Vibrational Healing, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Young Joo Lee is an artist, songwriter, and performer, based in Jejudo, South Korea, whose ceremonial performances I was powerfully moved by when I first met her in Seoul; and Sarah Clark (a pseudonym of someone who prefers to remain anonymous), a facilitator of Ayahuasca healing ceremonies.

I asked each of them about their views and experiences of the healing process, as well as how the voice can be used to augment healing work.

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Wounds, blockages, & addiction

When we talk about healing, what is it that is being healed?

We are talking about healing wounds, wounds of the body, mind, emotions, sexuality, and soul. Any wound can impact a person on each of these levels. A broken limb can weigh on the mind and the heart. A blow to the emotions can manifest physically. Some wounds naturally repair themselves or fade away. Other wounds, particularly those that cause the most disturbance, persist.

When the self retains an inner wound, the self holds onto the pain that comes with it. Part of the pain comes from the impact of the initial inflictive event (a rejection, a loss, a trauma). Additional pain can come from our response to the pain and our relation to it, dynamics that often occur unconsciously.

When a pattern of pain repeats within the self, it creates a pattern of contraction. Maricle describes contraction as “something that becomes a blockage after it contracts over and over” (Maricle, personal communication, 2020). As mentioned before, a blockage that occurs in any one facet of the self (body, mind, emotions, sexuality, or spirit) also affects the other facets. A blockage represents a withdrawal, ambivalence, or defensive strategy to cope with adversity. Some aspect of our life force shuts down. “Blockages are basically places where there is no movement” (Maricle, personal communication, 2020). The life force that is meant to flow, breathe, and move becomes stuck, frozen, heavy.

If an inner wound does not mend itself and is not sufficiently addressed, the hurt continues to live inside of us. The parts of the self to which the pain is attached become disconnected, barricaded, or buried. Those parts are not actually separated from us. Everything is still present, but there can be a lost sense of wholeness, an experience of defragmentation that manifests as loss and suffering. These sequestered facets of our life force become stuck and restrained. These dismembered fragments are relegated to the shadows of the self, shoved under the rug, tossed into the basement.

This process of seeming disconnection is not necessarily “bad” or “good”. These protective blockages create a barrier between the pain and our conscious awareness. It can even be a necessary survival mechanism that occurs when one does not yet have the ability, knowledge, will, or resources needed to address the wound (for instance, if they are a child). While these methods of psychic buffering can enable one to survive, the pain of the wound will remain. A pain that persists and goes untended is apt to grow over time, much like a flesh wound that is never bandaged.

When one is unable to tend to or coexist with a persisting pain, addictive patterns may be adopted in an attempt to mitigate that difficulty. Addictive patterns can serve the purpose of: avoiding or numbing pain; controlling or changing the pain, especially through a substance or process that alters the neurochemistry; or in some way attempting to make pain more manageable.

Addiction can take many forms, be it alcohol, drug use, shopping, sex, or eating, just to name a few. The addiction is not necessarily about the chosen process or substance itself. The issue is one’s relation to the process or substance. Do the negative effects outweigh the benefits? Is it disrupting their lives? Are they unable to stop or control the use, despite a desire to do so?

Just as the aforementioned process of disconnecting from painful emotions can be a necessary protective measure, so, too, can an addictive pattern serve the same purpose. Although it may be useful for some time, an adverse addictive pattern does not directly address the internal root that prolongs the suffering.

The wound festers.

The pain grows.

The measures required to buffer the pain increase.

A small habit that previously caused only negligible detriment can become an uncontrollable, destructive addiction. If this happens, and if the individual wants to make a change, a different approach is needed.

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Healing

Healing will look different for every person. There is no magic pill or “one way” to heal. Sarah Clark describes healing as “the acceptance and integration of all of the parts of who we are”, including the aspects of oneself that one does not like. This means entering those pockets of frozen pain, observing what is there, opening up to it, listening, feeling, and helping it move, helping it live again. It is the work of going into that dark and dreary basement of the psyche, and reestablishing a relationship with the parts of ourselves that we have fought to avoid.

As you might imagine, this can be an uncomfortable, even excruciating process! If one is to effectively reintegrate the fragmented limbs of the psyche, it is necessary to have adequate resources, support, and safety in order to do so without exacerbating the preexisting pain. The work of healing can, at times, be beautiful, inspiring, and playful. At other times, it can feel unbearable and life-threatening, and that is worth bearing in mind. It is ill-advised to go into the ocean without a life jacket.

The work of healing can involve returning movement to the frozen, stuck areas within. It can mean bringing incrementally increasing amounts of awareness to unconscious contents, like letting sunlight trickle into unseen corners of an old, forgotten house. When we heal, emotions and sensations that have been numbed or subdued may once again be felt.

Lee proffers that “there is no end goal of healing. It is an ongoing process” (Lee, personal communication, 2020). There is no final destination at which we arrive to find that all of our healing is finished, all pain forever gone--even though one might often wish there was. Healing does not always mean that the wound disappears. Healing can mean that we learn how to be with the pain, how to hear its needs, how to care for it, and how to take care of ourselves.

Pain is part of life and, because of that, so is healing. Part of healing is nurturing a relationship with pain that allows us to coexist with it, to hear and meet its needs, rather than fight it or avoid it, thereby worsening it.

All of this healing work is not a process of perfection--and it does not need to be! As Lee mentioned, it is ongoing. It can feel messy and nonlinear, aptly described by the phrase, “two steps forward, one step back”, or even several steps back with some stumbling into muddy puddles and stubborn walls. It can look different each day for each person. Some days, it might feel exultant and liberating. Other days, we might just count it a success that we made it through the day and can safely tumble into our bed.

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The Voice

When healing occurs, awareness returns to the hidden, contracted parts of oneself. Vocalization can give those parts a way to depart from their frozen state and return to movement. When we sing, we may do so with reservation. We might be self-conscious, disengaged, and afraid to fully express ourselves. Conversely, we can also sing freely, abandoning inhibition, allowing ourselves to dive into the song and belt it out. For me, such moments occur when my roommates are gone or when I am alone in the car.

When I talk about the healing voice, I am referring to the latter practice. There may still be a modicum of reservation but, for the most part, the voice is expressing itself with considerable freedom. When this state of relatively uninhibited vocalization is accessed, it induces a felt quality of openness. The voice opens. Since the voice is physical, this openness ripples throughout the body. And because the body is interwoven with all other aspects of the self (mind, emotions, sexuality, spirit), that same openness can ripple throughout those inner dimensions, too.

Why is this openness a source of healing?

The places where pain has frozen within us have become closed. This experience of vocally-induced openness can find its way into those shutdown areas, helping the stuck to become unstuck, looser, lighter, and more free to move. In other words, openness creates freedom. Even if the voice is expressing pain or ugliness, this sense of openness somehow permits it to be done with a feeling of liberation. The pain may still be present, but we are not imprisoned by it as we once were.

In addition to openness, vocalization can also be used to activate a state of surrender. We can let go of how we want things to be, how we think we are supposed to be. When we surrender through the voice, we simply allow whatever sound wants to be uttered to come out. We let the sound, and the feelings it invokes, move inside of us and through us. Surrendering to the sounds roiling from the belly and streaming from the mouth means that we are also surrendering to whatever contents they carry, be it mental, emotional, spiritual, sexual, or otherwise.

A significant component of addiction is resistance to, or avoidance of, what is present. Surrender can be an antidote to this resistance and avoidance that empowers us to meet the pain as it is, hear it, feel it, and possibly give it what it needs so that we can feel more whole.

Maricle shared that “we shapeshift with the sound of our voice” (Maricle, personal communication, 2020). When approached this way, vocal expression can be seen as a tool to shift one’s state. We can find new ways to coexist with the seemingly disparate parts of the self, using the voice to let those parts move and sing. Also, when the voice is expressed with open surrender, there is potential for new qualities to enter our consciousness, or be activated within our being. The fluidity catalyzed by vocalization can make it easier to adopt new qualities of being that may have felt less attainable when we were stuck, frozen, or weighed down.

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As Clark describes the soulful restorations and transformations of an ayahuasca ceremony, she says “a lot of the healing is about cleaning, liberating, untying, and releasing” (Clark, personal communication, 2020). Every instance of healing in every individual will have its own shape and tone. The form healing takes depends on the person and the symptoms to which it is responding. It can be beautiful and awe-inducing, excruciating and gut-wrenching, a combination of those elements, or anything else. It can mean tuning into the wound and saying, as Lee expressed, “I am ready to let this go. I don’t need it to affect me anymore” (Lee, personal communication, 2020). Or it can mean that the wound remains open, but we relearn how to coexist with it and be its caretaker, rather than its opponent. Healing is an amorphous process that is always happening and never ends, so far as I can tell, and so long as the world and life continue their cosmic wiggling.

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References

Clark, S. (2020, November 8). Personal interview [Personal interview].
Definition of catharsis. (n.d.). Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's most-trusted online dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catharsis
Lee, Y. (2020, November 1). Personal interview [Personal interview].
Maricle, I. (2020, October 23). Personal interview [Personal interview].

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On my blog, you can find more writings on art and alchemical thinking, interviews about creativity, psychologically-oriented reflections on tarot, and more. You can check out past posts in the categorized list below.

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• Art
  • Jul 2, 2018 About the Folks Who Think You Stink (Notes on Performance and Life)
  • Jun 22, 2018 The Freedom and Fear of Being Yourself (Notes on Performance and Life)
  • Apr 3, 2018 Public Alchemy: Notes on Street Performance
  • Dec 1, 2017 Why the Tutu?
  • Sep 14, 2017 Art is a Portal
  • Aug 17, 2017 Put the Potatoes on Your Face
  • Dec 28, 2016 How to Make Magical Oranges
  • Dec 19, 2016 Wakey Wakey, Inner Kiddo
• Interviews
  • Jul 18, 2018 Artist Interview: Kayle Karbowski
  • Jun 4, 2018 Artist Interview: Sally Nicholson
  • Apr 23, 2018 Interview: Yogi Ron Katwijk
  • Mar 1, 2018 Artist Interview: Lawrence Blackman
  • Feb 21, 2018 Artist Interview: Samantha Blumenfeld
• Magical Thinking
  • Jun 21, 2023 Magick for Reshaping Life and Transmuting Trauma
  • May 18, 2023 Magick is a Sentient Entity: Using the Imagination to Co-Create with Magick
  • Dec 4, 2020 The Healing Voice: Wounds, Addiction, and Purgation
  • Aug 5, 2019 Celebrating Your Misery
  • Jun 21, 2019 White Peacocks, Constipation, and Emotional Liberation
  • Aug 23, 2018 Melting a Snowball of Misery
  • Jul 2, 2018 About the Folks Who Think You Stink (Notes on Performance and Life)
  • Jun 22, 2018 The Freedom and Fear of Being Yourself (Notes on Performance and Life)
  • Apr 16, 2018 Questions for Limitations
  • Apr 3, 2018 Public Alchemy: Notes on Street Performance
  • Jan 5, 2018 Chaos' Playground: Finding Gold in the Shitstorm
  • Dec 1, 2017 Why the Tutu?
  • Sep 14, 2017 Art is a Portal
  • Aug 7, 2017 Three Reasons to Destroy Yourself (Or Not)
  • Jul 6, 2017 Nerves and Tutus
  • Feb 19, 2017 Why Does Heartache Happen?
  • Jan 15, 2017 Following Fear
  • Dec 28, 2016 How to Make Magical Oranges
• Tarot
  • Oct 24, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #5: Why does my skin crawl with wonder and fascination as such important relationships in my life are connected by the eyes?
  • Oct 11, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #4: How long will it be until I have a new job?
  • Sep 25, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #3: Why can't I find more hours in a day?
  • Sep 3, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #2: Do abusers know they're being abusive, or is that just their sense of reality?
  • Aug 25, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #1: Why is the Present Moment So Much All the Time?
  • Aug 18, 2019 Today's Tarot: Shifting Pain by Surrendering to It
  • Aug 13, 2019 Today's Tarot: The Golden Devils Inside You
  • Aug 12, 2019 Today's Tarot: The Moon of Self-Loathing
  • Jun 27, 2019 Today's Tarot: Snot, Beauty, and Tea for Pain
  • Feb 28, 2018 Today's Tarot: The World is in the Seed
  • Aug 26, 2017 Tarot as a Tool for Reality Construction