Box of Magick Treasures
“The Spirits tell me that I’m supposed to teach you,” said Connie de Masters, Elder High Priestess of the Crimson Dragon Druidic Craft of the Wise, soon after our brief meeting at the 2001Women’s Spirit Winter Solstice in Long Beach, California.
I didn’t hesitate to consent and quickly asked what I could bring. Thus began a three-year trade of Carmel Macchiato and maple nut scones for one-on-one mentorship in Wicca and High Magick from the line of Aleister Crowley and the Knights of Templar, among other famous magicians. Until recently, I didn’t know about my own magickal lineage nor how my education at the knee of Connie blossomed because I had grown up paying attention in Christian Science church and had integrated Mary Baker Eddy’s insights on faith healing by aligning my light with the Divine Source.
In 2018, as I prepared to update and magick The Teen Spell Book into The Book of Spells, I posted a request on Facebook for a picture of Connie for inspiration and strength to be placed in a position of honor on my altar. Connie’s granddaughter Shayla saw my post and suggested I reach out to her mother Alexa who sent me a picture of Connie and herself as a toddler that carried a similar vibration to a photo of me and my mom around the same year. Alexa sent a selfie wearing the scarf I knit for Connie. We began to chat online. She joined a Pampered Chef party I threw and then asked if I would like some of her mother’s writings that she had come across in those early 2020 isolation and deep cleaning days. “I wish I knew more,” Alexa wrote. “I want you to have them. I know my mommy loved you.”
Fifteen years after her passing, a box of Connie de Masters’ Magickal teachings arrived at my doorstep: twenty-three pounds of rituals, hymns to deities, teacher’s curricula for Wicca and Witchcraft classes, spells, plays, charts, astrology, numerology, and chants with Alexa’s note, “I hope you can do something with this stuff.”
At first, as I sifted through fifty years of my mentor’s Magickal education and teachings I was overwhelmed. What should I do with this treasure trove? I stared at the box, barely daring to touch the pages, afraid of dishonoring Connie’s memory by putting her information together “wrong.” A little over the year of the box sitting on my office floor, this past summer I received a spiritual message from my mentor: “Tell them about us.” I could hear Connie giggle.
Women know this truth: when we hear another person’s story, we gain a better perspective to the stories of our own lives and we feel less alone. We teach through our stories, in the circular fashion that symbolizes the Divine Feminine. When supported to be the fullness of our Divine expression, we find our greatest potential and the Magick at our fingertips. We thrive with the positive support of female leaders, teachers and mentors as they often reflect our own inner wisdom.
Artwork by Katarina Samohin
Mentors are mirrors who confirm what we affirm for ourselves.
My relationship with my mentor became the thread that pulled together the stacks of Magickal knowledge into a brand-new book: Box of Magick, to be published by Sounds True Publishing in September 2023. Since this new book will include memoir excerpts and the personal arc that began twenty years ago, my intention is to cocoon from Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox. Just like when I wrote The Teen Spell Book, I want to take myself back in time for what is called a soul retrieval. In 2001, I had just exited my Saturn’s Return and recently filmed a pilot with SyFy Channel to host my own cooking show that was cancelled after 911. I was 33-year-old with toddler sons I adored and included in my daily Magickal life. I was unhappily married and frustrated, writing a book every year and touring Celtic, Faery and Renaissance faires and festivals. I persevered.
During this writing period and social media break, I will make two presentations: The Creativity Matrix at the Current Pagan Studies, January 15-16, 2022 and Mental Magick Mental Magick – Christian Science and Witchcraft at Between the Veils conference February 18-20, 2022. I will be engaging in my life and be more present to my friends and family. I will blog and send my newsletter, but otherwise I need to press this reset button and forget the maddening online pace.
By retreating into my mountain cabin from Solstice to Equinox, I hope to peel back two decades as I time travel along my own Heroine’s Journey. I am going to reclaim fragmented parts of myself when I was angry and scared, bring full circle healing, and welcome acceptance of difficult times through deep meditation, daily self-care and a long, healthy break from social media. Through this writing, I will grant myself much credit for meeting the universe half way along the Path of Witchcraft, writing and creative living. I believe in my heart of hearts that I will be granted illumination that will inspire deep healing as I remember the things that I said that must have inspired Connie to trust me with her knowledge for the final years of her life and then bequeath to me her Magickal legacy.
Mostly, I will heal.
