Manifestation Nation
The Wending Path to Getting What We Want
This long-winded voice note from a hormone depleted ADHD brain comes to you from this flipantly self-described witch. Ultimately, it’s tips and tricks on how to manifest the life of your dreams.
We get there! Eventually.
But, you must endure many personal anecdotes and “in-my-ever-humble-opinion” opinions first.
Access the Voice Note Here:
This article was originally published on Substack. You can read the original here.
Audio Transcription:
Manifestation. Oh my God. Wow. I am left a little breathless after this portal eclipse portal extravaganza. The Grim Reaper, as we all know by now, is like drinking on the job or something. I don't fucking know. I don't know if this is supposed to be inspirational for those of us who give a shit about life on this planet and the continuation of living things on this organism that we're all a part of. You know, when the teachers die, often that can be, I don't know if inspiration is the right word, motivation for the student to step into the role of teacher.
I know it certainly was for me when Hank and Eagle both passed away within months of each other. Hank Wesselman was my original teacher for shamanic journeying and then Golden Light Eagle was my Sundance chief. And they were two my OG spiritual mentors and they both passed away in 2021.
And so for me, I think I would have been just fine being a perpetual student, but then when the people who inspire us are no longer with us, we're left a little bit unmoored and we wonder, what do we do? What do we do with these teachings? Where do we go from here? What do I do with this love in my heart that doesn't have a place to go anymore? And of course, each of us have different mediums that speak to us.
So, manifestation. As we're considering, where do we go from here? What do I want to call in? Manifestation has been a topic that seems to have been coming up. I've been in conversation quite a bit over the past few weeks, so I thought I'd speak to it here because my relationship to manifestation has certainly changed over the years and decades that I've been practicing consciously.
You know, I loved The Secret when it came out, and I also took the teachings espoused in that film with varying degrees of salt. I think as with any teaching, especially one put into a movie format that wants to sell tickets, you don't get the entire teaching.
And for those of us witches out there in the world, you know, also, just as a side note, I call myself a witch very flippantly. I'm certainly not ordained in any Wiccan practices. I just pay attention to the seasons and the phases of the moon and do, you know, offer my menstrual blood in service to my garden. And leave out spirit plates and things like that.
Yeah, all right, I suppose I'm a witch. Anyway, manifestation. This really showed up in my life. I very consciously started practicing manifestation techniques and spells in service to my love life. As one does.
Really, there's three arenas that people make the abundance of their prayers about and they come to seek guidance for. And that is love, money, and health. It's usually one of those three things. So for me, the overriding drive in my life was to find love.
And so for a long time, I would make my lists. And as the years went on and the duds kept showing up, those lists would get longer and far more detailed.
Jill Kirkendall, Hank's wife, is a woman I worked very closely with for many years. And she had offered, when I was just a wee lass, she had offered some practices that were very potent in this arena. And then later on, so I noticed if I kept those lists around and didn't burn them or bury them or flush them or whatever I would do, yeah, boy, I'd get everything I ever prayed for. And then some.
There was always something I forgot to be specific about and left off. And that is the way of saying our prayers and wishing for things and manifesting. There are always unintended consequences.
And sometimes those unintended consequences are quite nice and lovely. And they're ones that we do not mind at all. And sometimes the unintended consequences are prices that we don't really want to pay.
So it was with the lovers I called in. And then one day, after meeting my soulmates, plural friends, and learning my lessons with soulmates. And then calling in my twin flame. And discovering, oh my God, this is even worse. This sucks so bad.
And he's tall. And he's handsome. And he's got kissable lips and beautiful eyes. And he doesn't work 9 to 5 in tech. I really wanted to stay away from tech, both of my parents. I'd grown up with them working for Intel. And I really didn't want that. The world's leading manufacturer of cyborgs. I used to joke. And now it seems like that shit's becoming real. Also, a side quest. Pardon me while I sip my coffee.
So I had called in this knight in shining armor to come and save me, my twin flame, oh God, and discovered for myself what twin flame actually meant. I don't recommend that for anybody.
If you're seeking really divine love, please, please put aside the idea of twin flame or just go read the mythology behind the twin flame idea and then, you know, decide for yourself if that's actually something that you'd like to call into your life. I will venture a guess that it's not.
So my life had reached a crossroads after that particular manifestation. And I reached out to Grandma Reverend Jean Holmes, a very wise woman, a spiritual grandmother of mine. One of those lovely coughs, huh?
And we were talking about love. I think I have seven planets transiting through Libra. She's like, she just laughed. She's like, oh, honey. You're not getting through this transit without manifesting partnerships. So, you know, you might want to learn how to have a good relationship.
Oh my God, wasn't that mind-bending to think that love wasn't just written in the stars. We could actually put our minds to it and learn how to have good partnerships. And so I did, but also when it came to manifestation, I was just really done. I was done thinking that I knew what was best for me.
I knew I didn't want to fuck with soulmates because soulmates are very often karmic relationships where we get to either wash away karma or learn some kind of lesson in this life. And I knew I was done with Twin Flame. And I knew...
So this was one of the things that Grandma Reverend Jean Holmes said to me. She's like, she told me a story about her daughter. How her daughter wanted a partner with an accent. But her daughter was not specific about the accent that she wanted. So she ended up manifesting a partner with a Southern accent.
When really what she wanted was like, a Scottish accent or an English accent or a French accent. Ooh la la. She got a Southern accent. And it just outlined for me so clearly a feeling I already had inside that when manifesting, perhaps it is best for us to leave things open.
To interpretation by the will of God, if you will. Or to spirit, to know that we are only seeing life from a very myopic vantage. That spirit, if you will, for lack of a better term, God, again, lack of a better term, whatever this divine will of the universe seems to be, that is a consciousness that is aware of everything all at once, of all the movements, of all the planetary bodies and all the little cellular beings alive on the planet at this moment in time.
And as we're dabbling in the quantum foam of creativity and will and free will, our free will, first of all, we want to take into account the free will of others.
So it's best practices, in my ever humble opinion, that when manifesting we, let's say we're manifesting a job or a lover, as we are on the lover track here today, that we not go, oh, I'm so in love with James. I just love. Please, universe, I want James to love me.
Well, you may, or you may not. Let's say you do manifest James as your lover. You might find that he really stinks, or you can't stand the way that he chews with his mouth open, or actually... Your politics don't jive very well. Or he's an incessant snorer. Or maybe he's outright abusive. Any number of things might be incompatible.
So when calling in a lover, as I was in this particular scenario, I said, okay, I'm done with all these things. I'm done with lists. I'm going to hand it over to God. I'm going to hand it over to Spirit. I'm going to hand it over to the will of the universe and say, you know what, there is a consciousness higher than mine. And I'm just me. I don't know anymore what's best for me.
I don't know if I want, I don't know if the best lover for me, the best partner in this life for me is six foot three or five foot three. If they have brown eyes or blue eyes. If they speak English or, I don't know, Hebrew. I don't know.
All I want is my divine counterpart. I want to experience love and partnership with a human that walks side by side with me. Not ahead of me, not behind me, but side by side. I want to experience long-term partnership in a monogamous, committed relationship.
Now, if you know me personally, you will laugh at the monogamous part because there's so much about our—we are in a monogamous relationship, but there is a lot about our relationship that is—deeply unconventional or that people would consider unconventional. So you'll just have to get to know me a little bit better to know the ins and outs of that.
Anyway, we're talking about manifesting. So as soon as I made that announcement to the universe, all of a sudden I met the human. Who has turned into my greatest love.
And things opened up in my life. I just led to a whole life that's even better than I ever could have called in for myself.
None of this. My husband works in tech and I bought a house in San Francisco. Those are two things that I was vehemently. I outright told the universe for years that I was unwilling to date anyone, any man. Well, I'm heterosexual, so any man who works in tech. And so I was barring myself from my greatest love.
I had also, for 18 months, a year and a half, while we were looking, this is another side quest, while we were looking for a home, I barred myself from buying a home in San Francisco.
I just felt so strongly that if I bought a house in San Francisco, it would be golden handcuffs and I would be, I would die here. Tethered to this fucking city. And at that point, I still really didn't love it.
I still don't know if I love San Francisco, but I got to tell you, I love my home. I love this little postage stamp of property.
And funnily enough, just to keep going down this side quest, I had to go out and do a humblecha and sit in Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma for three days and three nights without food or water and make 405 fucking prayer ties in service to manifesting this house and to come to the realization that actually the best place for me and my family and our two cats was. It was right where we already were. It was tough. That one was tough. So...
As we consider what we are calling in and our manifestation and whatnot, just consider sometimes the things that are best for us, that... will lead to our highest vibration in this lifetime or the best life, better than we could have ever, ever, ever imagined. Are those things that we have the biggest blockage on or the most judgment about or, you know, that we're, I don't know. The most against, I suppose.
Now, that's a tough edge to walk, right? That's for each individual to know on their own what's right and what's wrong because I don't want to be encouraging anybody to move in toxic directions.
You know, sometimes it just requires... days, weeks, months, years, decades of healing before we can come to the rightness of marrying a man who works in tech, of buying a house in a city that we really just don't love that much for the gifts to open up.
But anyway, as you go on your manifestation journey... I encourage you to make your manifestations simple and hold them loosely and offer them up to God, Spirit, the higher consciousness. To allow yourself to be moved in the direction that is best and right for you. And to be, to allow yourself to be, to be moved, to be surprised.
Let go of your lists. Let it go. All magic extracts a price. Sometimes it's a price we're willing to pay and sometimes it's not.
And I just find that when spirit moves me, it's a price I'm willing to pay because it's a price of joy and love and gratitude and awe.
And when I'm trying to force the thing and I think that I know what's best, that comes with karma and lessons. And it's often a price that I wish I didn't have to pay.