City Witch: Second Sight Seeing
By Christopher Penczak
Everything is magical. Everything has the potential to show you the mysteries of the universe. We often think that magick only occurs in very neatly compartmentalized periods. When I choose to meditate, do ritual or attend a workshop, I am open to magick. Otherwise, I have a typical, ordinary everyday life. I used to think that way, but magick kept creeping in where I least expected it.
Travel has become one of the most mind-blowing experiences for me. Whether it is business or pleasure, the act of changing locations is very magical. Changing locations helps you change your consciousness. When I leave my everyday life and routines, my awareness widens. I think of so many rites of passages and initiation ceremonies that require the practitioner to leave the safety of the community to keep vigil in unfamiliar surroundings, such as a cave or mountaintop. When you think about it, so many gods of magick are also gods of travel. They are the deities of the inner journey and the outer journey. Hermes/Mercury immediately springs to mind. When you experience otherworlds, you “journey” into them, your perception moves to a new place, much like physically altering your position to change your perspective on something. When you look at a painting or photograph from a distance, you can see it differently than when you are up close. You get a sense of the bigger picture and true meaning. When we have distance from our daily life, we often gain a better perspective on it and can see the patterns we create. Perhaps that’s why many shamans live apart from their village, maintaining a different perspective.
The first time I experienced the magick of travel was on a business trip to Los Angeles many years ago, and I thought I was going crazy, seeing and hearing things along my travels that no one else was experiencing. The experience changed my outlook, and I no longer expect to keep my spiritual experiences in neatly confined places and times. Lately I’ve been doing even more business travel, and have noticed some patterns that can help any magical practitioner open to the magick of travel. If you are leaving the routines of your daily life behind, you can use the trip to expand your awareness. You might gain insights into your life, or simply know the magick of a new locale. You can look through your psychic eyes, with your second sight, to see what lies beneath the surface and partner with the magickal energy of the city or town your visit.
The Crossroads
Much of my own personal practice consists of working with various guardian and patron entities. Whenever we leave our home, we have many routes, many choices in our travels. I start with an offering and communication to the patrons of the crossroads. Much of my travel is by plane, and when waiting around for a connecting flight in an airport, I realized how much the airport itself is like the crossroads of reality, a cosmic hub where many souls gather. We cross paths with people, with energies we would never normally come in contact with. So now when I reach my crossroads – the airport, train station, or even threshold of my driveway – I call upon the guardian of the crossroads to guide me and protect me physically and spiritual on my travels. Personally I call upon an aspect of Hecate because I have built a relationship with her in other works. Other gods associated with travel and crossroads include the Greek Hermes and his Roman counterpart Mercury and the two faced Roman god Janus. Minor spirits of the crossroads were called Lares Compitales in Roman culture. In African traditions, Legba is the opener of the way and guardian of the crossroads. In Japanese myth, Chimata-No-Kami fulfills this role. I even harken back to my Catholic roots. All the men in my family wear St. Christopher medals, as the patron saint of travel. I carry mine in a medicine bag, but take it out and wear it when I travel. Call upon the deity or spirit that you feel is most appropriate. With this blessing, I find that my travel time is not only smoother and more harmonious, but I synchronistically run into interesting people and we share important conversations. With the awareness of the crossroads, the awareness that anything can cross your path, I become more conscious of the trip as a magical adventure.
The Spirit of the City
In some tribal lore, seekers will ask permission of the land spirit before entering a new territory. Intentions would be stated and offerings made. I know that when I go into the wilderness to gather herbs, I ask permission of the spirit of the forest and its guardians to enter. I leave an offering of water, a strand of hair or even healing light energy before I enter. When I have asked permission, the paths become clear. I find whatever I am looking for and in general, things seem easier. When I have neglected to ask permission, I have more difficulties. I get lost. I trip and fall. I get cut by thorns and whacked with a branch. I can’t find the plants that I seek.
Now I’ve learned to do the same whenever I go someplace different, particularly new cities. If I am traveling in by plane, train or car, I take a few moments silently in my mind, using my inner magical voice, to call upon the spirit of the city. I introduce myself and state my business. I ask for the permission and blessing of the city to enter and then I listen. Each city has a different voice, a different personality, at least in my inner ears. I get a sense of how I will relate to the city. The qualities are hard to put into words, and can change with the seasons, but they are distinct. Seattle had a very “green” voice when I visited. It was very primal and old sounding, yet welcoming. San Francisco has a more bell-like voice, otherworldly. New York is always strong and powerful, yet sometimes feels male, and sometimes feels female. I listen to make a connection, to know and feel the energy of the city. I will feel that same quality as I drive or walk its streets, and will let those feelings guide me. Usually I get lost easily in new cities, but since beginning this practice, I’ve noticed that my sense of direction and navigational intuition in a new city has greatly improved.
Local Spirits
As each location as an over arching spirit, a genius loci, there are many other entities connected to the land. Practitioners of shamanic and underworld traditions often note how the underworld itself, and the entities found in it, from the faery folk to the guardian spirits, look different in the practitioner’s inner vision when they physically begin their ritual in a different location. The underworld of Los Angeles is different from the underworld of Boston. You can do the same things there, and seek the same magicks, but the flavor is different. Though many cultures have stories of magickal races that could be called the faery folk, the description can very greatly from the Mediterranean, British Isles and Americas.
Some locations just seem better for certain types of spiritual work. I suggest meditating in your new location. Expand your consciousness outward. I usually start in my hotel room, and feel my perception expand outward with each exhale, until I have a vague awareness of the entire city. I try to get a feel for its energy and how that energy interacts with me. I ask how we can partner together? Then I ask for a local spirit guide. Find a way to communicate with this guide, through inner vision, inner voice or even the pendulum. Through your communications with this guide and your regular spiritual guides, find out if you have any work to do in this location. Will it aid you in a new area? Or could you possibly aid it? Remember spirit work is a two way street. Sometimes we have to be of service as well.
While I was in New York, the city spirits showed me how to feel the flow of energy between buildings like currents. I learned to feel a level of subtle energy that I usually ignored. It helped guide me to different places that I wanted to visit, and I learned how to flow with, not against these energetic tides. In Seattle I learned to do a full Moon ritual without any tools by calling upon the plant spirits that surrounded me.
My spontaneous awakening in Los Angeles showed me that this city is a great place to confront your shadow side. As soon as our plane entered the air space, uncomfortable feelings came up for me. I felt almost nauseous, but knew it wasn’t physical. When I had some time to meditate and sense the energy around me, I felt a lot of different things. First was the human consciousness of many broken dreams and difficult quests. There was such a longing. I, too, once had dreams of musical stardom, so it reflected a lot back on me. When I scanned the area, I felt like the earth energy grids around the city were rather wide open, facilitating a lot of spiritual contact, but there was not necessarily any filters to block out unwanted contact. I’m not sure if its is the natural state of things, or due to fault line stress or pollution, but it just felt very open to me. I now think this is why so many psychic and mediums find their way to the area. I just had difficulty screening it out. I felt the astral was very active and a feeling of being watched for much of my time there. Three nights in a row, I was visited by a spirit that appeared to be part man, part snake. Its messages forced me to confront a lot of repressed fears and angers. Since it was unbidden, I thought I was losing my mind. In this new setting, it seemed more real than most of my spirit contacts. I couldn’t banish it using the traditional rituals and my usual guides said that I needed to experience this. Overall it was good, but frightening. Since then I’ve learned to consciously partner with new cities and new spirits, before they decide to simply show up.
Closing Rituals
Any good magickal experience has its boundaries carved out ritualistically. If you begin or invoke, you should end and close the connection. As I leave a city I thank the spirits I have worked with and say farewell. As I end my trip, I again thank the guardians of the crossroads. Even though I am returning to my “normal” life, the experience helps me see the magick in my day-to-day travels.
So while you travel, be open to the information, energy and insight of your location. Most likely your trip will have a purpose other than spiritual expansion. You don’t have to turn your vacation into a mystical quest. Simply be conscious and respectful of the new energies around you. Follow your intuition and synchronous events. Open your awareness to energy patterns, auras and general gut feelings. “Read” the energy of locations as you might read the energy of people or objects. With this greater awareness, you can appreciate the beauty of the world around you, no matter where you, and see everything through magical eyes.