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I vastly prefer the holiday season in the city. There seem to be a million little things designed to make everyone's day just a little better, including the brass quartet I passed on my commute this morning.
Commuting is rarely without some music in downtown Portland, where there seems to be a busker with a guitar or drum and a hat out on every busy corner. I give what I can and what I have on me every time. It's somewhere between an offering and a geas.
One of the deities I work with is the Latvian goddess Mara. She's the female half of the primary god/goddess pairing in the pantheon and while Dievs is in charge of the big picture, Mara is a goddess of the hearth, the market, the body, and all the little things that make up everyday life. I was first introduced to her as a goddess of commerce and wealth but over time I'm learning that there is a lot more to her. One thing she's always done for me, though, is provide when I need it. In exchange for that, whenever I'm asked directly for a donation, I'm obligated to give in return if I have anything to give at that moment.
This year I want to really step up my work with Mara and start working with her sister Laima as well. She's been incredibly helpful during the move and accompanying transition- my girlfriend and I both found jobs within a month of arriving, even if they're no what we want to do forever, and we found most of the furnishings we needed for the apartment very cheaply or secondhand. Laima is closely tied to the Hindu goddess Lakshmi and is has associations with fate, money, knowledge and the cuckoo, who is one of the animal spirits I work with. And Lakshmi is of course often associated with Ganesh, so that ties several different aspects of my work together.
The next move is to push further. While I offer to Mara, I do very little other money magic. This needs to change. I should be putting subliminal spells in my cover letters and dressing green candles for the interviewers, and so on.
I originally phrased this goal as simply "work" and what I had in mind was "finding a better job" but I think that may be setting my sights too low. I don't really just want a job that I hate slightly less. I want to do other things, small business things, freelance things. I should work on that. My girlfriend's an aspiring fiber artist and designer, and I want her to be able to do that. If things fall into place correctly, maybe I could do those things next year. And if some other monetary concerns fell into place, we'd be able to get by with less income and be able to pursue more alternative kinds of income.
So there are several angles to pursue, and drawing on the shoaling technique I read about in Rune Soup, I think it makes more sense to pursue all of them and just see what opens up. I've been meaning to push that angle for several months now but, aside from some magic I did before the movie to encourage things to work out for us, I've largely left it aside. Now, though, I can't afford to leave anything on the side. If I want change, I have to use all the tools at my disposal to get change.