Happy American Thanksgiving, if you’re into it. I know it’s not for everyone, I understand that and I do respect it. And if you do observe this holiday, I hope you’re having a lovely time with your loved ones. There are a lot of things to dislike about the origins of this particular day, but the way I look at it, pagan sabbats have been appropriated by Christians for thousands of years and twisted into something they’re not. So I have no compunctions about doing the same thing to Thanksgiving.
For me and my family, today is about holding gratitude for all the abundance in our lives, for the time we get to spend with our loved ones, for the time we got to have with our loved ones who have crossed over, and it’s for recognizing how quickly it all goes. It’s also a time for recognizing the ways that we can be the abundance in other people’s lives. So whatever the origins of Thanksgiving, god, country, and the systematic genocide and erasure of native people, I reject all of that and assign my own significance to this day.
I wanted to spend a little time today talking about gratitude and how it affects, directly, the abundance that we receive in our lives. This is a concept that can really flip the switch on the way that we are able to manifest the things we want. I’m not breaking a whole lot of brand new ground here; we have spoken before about this kind of thing, I just want to reiterate it and get a little more in-depth on it. And I’m going to start with an email from a witch who I’ve known since the very earliest days of this podcast.
She has had some significant health issues this past year. She writes:
Quite some time ago I listened to your podcast about drawing money and I chose the amount of $12,479. Totally random number but I figured what the heck. Praying for money felt icky to me. I would far rather focus on abundance and security.
There was only one hospital in the area where I live that had the surgical robotic equipment needed for my surgery. I was scheduled and ready to have the surgery and received the news that it was out of network and nothing would be paid. $65k and change. I contacted insurance and they said they couldn’t do anything. I contacted the hospital and they said talk to insurance. The day before the surgery I made the decision to have the surgery despite being unable to pay and trust that somehow it would be taken care of.
I called the doctor’s surgical coordinator and told her that while I knew it wasn’t the scope of her position, I had no one else advocating for me and broke down in tears. Late that evening, she called me back: she had been on the phone for hours but she got the hospital to agree to write THE ENTIRE $65k off.
My “what the heck” money drawing spell was received and quadrupled. Spirit was more than four times as generous as I had requested.
Tonight, I will be placing offerings on my altar in gratitude. I will also be sending a bouquet of thanks to the kind woman at the doctor’s office. This is another reminder that the universe and spirit is bountiful and more generous than some of us dare ask.
Now, without getting too deep in the weeds about universal healthcare, I really had to just marvel at the audacity and the wisdom of this witch. The confidence, the faith that she demonstrated here is exactly what I’m talking about. The universe found a way to provide, because she knew that it would. Not ignoring the amazing surgical coordinator who really went above and beyond. What an absolute angel of mercy.
But my point in reading this was to highlight what we tend to have a lot of trouble with when it comes to manifesting abundance and especially money. We are frequently so conservative in our approach to this kind of magick. I suspect that there are a lot of reasons for this reticence, this restraint. I suppose it comes from a place of not wanting to be disappointed if it doesn’t work out, or maybe we don’t feel like we actually deserve it. And I know that a lot of us can’t or won’t work an abundance spell if we can’t imagine where the money will come from. Or the new apartment, or the new car, or whatever it is we’re trying to manifest.
We can really tend to get so hung up on worrying about the HOW of the manifestation that we will actually ask for less, because we don’t think it’ll be possible to receive more. But being able to bridge the gap between what we think is possible and what we really want or need, that’s where the magick actually happens. It’s not our problem where it comes from or how it finds us. Our part is just to trust that it will.
Easier said than done, I know. But I’m telling you, the universe hears us. The problem with just going balls out all at once and just asking for the moon is that we don’t really believe we are going to get the moon. Our doubts and fears start creeping in and undermining us.
And then one other thing we need to try and keep in mind when we are working on attracting and manifesting abundance into our lives is that it does help to have gratitude. I’m not the first person to caution against having a scarcity mindset, but it does bear repeating that when we constantly fixate and ruminate on what we don’t have, when we’re constantly fearful about not having enough, we are going to attract more of that.
We always talk about putting ourselves in alignment with the things we wish to attract. If we are trying to attract a romantic partner, we have to think of ourselves as loveable, we have to think of ourselves as attractive to the kind of partner that we want to find for ourselves. If we walk around moping and lamenting how unloveable we are and especially if we believe that we’ll never have a relationship, then we are helping to create those very circumstances.
It’s the exact same principle when it comes to manifestation. We have to recognize all the ways that we are living in abundance, we have to put ourselves in alignment with receiving more. It’s that self-fulfilling prophecy concept again. This is a lot to accept and to internalize, I know, so we are going to start with some small things. These are just some exercises we can use to flex those manifestation muscles and create our own personal method for inviting that abundance in.
First, spend a little time thinking about your favorite kind of magick. Do you like spell jars, do you like candle magick, do you prefer mojo bags or full moon spells? Whichever method of magick you prefer, whatever you’re most comfortable with, just think on that for a little while. Because this is how we’re going to do these manifestation exercises.
Now spend a little time thinking about what it is, what small, yet distinctive thing you’re going to manifest. The whole purpose of this is to start proving to yourself that the universe is listening and it will deliver. So I might just choose something out of the ordinary, like send me a peacock. Or show me a pink car. Or something that’s uncommon, something that’s unlikely, but not astronomically impossible. And not something that like, you know, my future or my happiness depends on it. Something that’s inconsequential.
Write a little spell for this manifestation. This is also great practice for spellwriting, incidentally. I get messages every single week from witches who want to perform spell work, who have specific intentions and results in mind, but who don’t feel confident about the actual, you know, process of writing the spell itself. This kind of low-stakes spellwork is perfect for developing your own process and getting comfortable with it.
So anyway, write your spell, and then use your favorite spell method, like we talked about. Include any herbs, any oils that might correspond with this manifestation, and really treat this seriously. As silly as it might seem. Ask the universe to give you something you want. Perform your spell, and then just let it go. Wait for those results, but I bet you don’t end up waiting for too long. Now, the reason this works is because there’s no desperation or fear attached to it. When we work a spell for something that we really need, there can be a tendency for our fear of not receiving it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But I could never see another pink car for the rest of my days, and my life will not be impacted at all one way or the other. So there’s no fear, there’s only expectation that the universe will give me what I’ve asked for. And all of this is a long way to say that once we get the hang of this, and once we start to get results, it’s so much easier to raise the stakes and start asking for things that do have a lot riding on it.
However, even when that time comes, it’s important to remember that we have to have that trust. It’s not faith, really, it’s expectation, it’s confidence. It’s the knowledge that whatever it is we need will find us. Maybe not the way we assumed it would, and maybe not in a way that we immediately recognize. It may not appear as an unexpected check in the mail, it may appear as a surgical coordinator with a kind heart and the right connections.
And just because I really love working with oils and herbal blends in my own practice, I want to go through a couple recipes for abundance oil and an abundance herbal blend. I like to include ingredients that correspond to both abundance and manifestation because when we are invoking one, we are really invoking both and I like to cover my bases. So, in a small saucepan, combine about 2oz of your carrier oil, I prefer olive oil for this, but use what you have on hand.
Throw in a teaspoon or so of oak, you can crush dried oak leaves for this or some of the fibers from the bark of the tree, also some pine, just a pinch of pine needles is good, and if you’ve got honeysuckle, use that too, and also lavender, chamomile, rose, patchouli, and sandalwood. Heat it all through, strain the oil out, and you’ve got fantastic oil for anointing candles, intention papers, sigils, etc.
You can also mix together all of the dried plant materials and keep it in a little jar to use for dressing your candles, or for burning in your cauldron, for adding to your spell jars or mojo bags, and so forth. And now you’ve got basic abundance and manifestation spell starters that you can use for anything. Because you can customize the individual spell itself by adding other herbs and plants that are specific to the intent. So dress your candle (or whatever kind of spell you’re doing) with the oil as written, but if you’re manifesting money, financial abundance, add some basil or thyme or mustard. If you’re manifesting abundance through a new job opportunity, maybe add heather or raspberry leaf.
Just, whatever the specific, exact intention of your spell is, add ingredients that will narrow the scope of your work and help to put a bullseye target on your desired mark.
Now I want to be very clear about this entire subject, there’s one thing I want to make sure that I am absolutely plain about, and that is there is not one “correct” way to manifest abundance. There are a lot of ways to do this and a lot of witches have been very successful using different methods to what I’ve described here. People use visualization, meditation, shifting to alternate realities, and more. I’ll never speak against any method that someone else finds success with.
The reason that I like to encourage this kind of approach, especially for newer witches, is because it’s easier, in my opinion and in my experience, to build on a foundation that’s practical, and that uses a step-by-step process. It’s like learning to cook. You don’t start with poached salmon and risotto. You start with basics, get comfortable with different cooking techniques, and you build on your knowledge. It’s really discouraging to try a spell that flops.
It’s hard on the confidence, you start second-guessing everything, you start wondering if someone is hexing you or interfering with you psychically. The truth is that most of the time, we’re getting in our own way. So we gotta have that experience under our belts so that we don’t get so demoralized when things don’t work out as quickly or as neatly as we hoped.
And also, write all your spells down and go back to them and note your results! Please, please do this. I forget all the time to mention this but please write down everything you do and everything that comes of it. Go back and read through your work from time to time and remind yourself how far you’ve come and how much magick you’ve created.
So, have a fantastic day, and a wonderful week, and we will talk again in December. If you have any question, comments, concerns or criticisms, please email me at eli@middleagedwitch.com, I’d love to hear from you. My name is Eli Ro, and this has been the Middle-Aged Witch podcast.
