The Compass of Creative Magic is a guide for tuning into our energy and determining our creative direction for the day. We all need more “permission slips” allowing us to follow the ebb and flow of our energy levels, the needs of our soul, and our creative sparks. In any journey, we may change direction several times to stay on our path.
Note that the root word of journey is “jour,” which means day. So, in each day, if we allow ourselves, we can move and change course by choosing the most appealing direction at each transition point throughout the day. Let’s stay playful and experiment with different techniques, always pursuing what sparks us and flows with ease.
How to Use the Compass of Creative Magic
This compass has four directions just like on a map! Each direction becomes a cornerstone of assocations with solar seasons, lunar cycles, the four elements and the creative process. The elemental associations of air, fire, water and earth can be such a powerful source of both creative direction, connection to your environment, and emotional & energy level assessment.
- Stir with Ideas: Simply notice things and events in your environment. Pause and try to decipher or intuit any meaning to them in your mind, your thoughts. You are stirring the quantum cauldron which opens you up to signs, symbols and synchronicities. Just pausing to play detective is a powerful momentum maker! Your headed East, in the element of air, and the energy of a fresh start, the just waxing crescent moon, and sunrise.
- Conjure with Magic: There is powerful alchemy in taking action. Follow your creative sparks! Get out the supplies, go outside, get your hands dirty, make a mess. Your heading South, in the element of fire and the energy of play, a moon getting full, and mid-day.
- Celebrate by Sharing: Activate the magnetic power of the collective! Harness the spirit of celebration, collaborate, get feedback and expand as as you head West in the element of water, the energy of harvest the full, then waning moon, and afternoon.
- Dive Deeper for Integration: Ask a questions for clarity and notice patterns within. Get creative by drawing, painting or pulling from magazines to capture your intuition, or work with sigils, talismans, or journalcrafting or oracle cards to dive deeper with messages! Anchor into your wisdom. By diving deeper you are heading North, grounding into the element of earth, and the energy of reflection, rest and recovery. The moon grows dark and nature pauses before beginning again. It’s dusk embracing the liminality of night. Just be.
The Compass of Creative Magic is part of a system of Navigational Magic that connects the compass rose to the wheel of the year. Just as there are four cardinal directions and four distinct seasons, there are also transitional phases in between. The patterns are are such helpful metaphors for humans to understand the nature of life. We are wildlings in the spring, wanderlings in the summer, wonderlings in the autumn and wiselings in the winter of our life spans. Mother Nature’s wisdom—the cycles of sun and moon, our beloved soleil and la lune—can be so easily accessed by attending to the four directions.
Mini-Quest: Exploring Direction!
Get outside and look or walk in any direction that appeals to you. Do you know what direction that is? If you don’t, do you have a hunch about it? Just listen to your intuition for a moment.
Make a one quarter turn and repeat this exercise a total of four times. You could have repeat messages or four different messages from our intuition. The messages can be as simple as a plant, color, words on a sign, or whisper from your heart.
Any time you wish you can stop in your tracks and try the following compass practice. Even if you don’t know the directions, you can look up or down or simply within. It’s all relative anyway.
🧭 Look North (associated with the element earth)—ask to be grounded.
🧭 Look East (air)—ask to lighten up.
🧭 Look South (fire)—ask for continued inspiration.
🧭 Look West (water)—ask for flow.
Navigational magic is perennial wisdom—how a new moon has the same essence as a sunrise and the spring season. The eight phases of the lunar cycle reflect the 8 markers in the wheel of the year. Just as the sun rises in the east to set in the west, the moon waxes and wanes.
With over 150 variations from North America, Inca, Peruvian, Celtic, and Hopi indigenous peoples, the directional wheel has represented aspects of humanity and the natural world for centuries. It helps communicate unseen aspects of our existence. Based on the directions, it holds an essence of the rhythm of life. Just as our ancestors did, we, too, gain understanding by observing nature. Everything happens in a circle. The context changes depending on which hemisphere or culture in which you live, but the rhythm follows a natural cycle.
Every understanding is really a directional sense influenced by the point of perspective. In this practice of awareness, we master the navigational magic that can happen when aligning with the energies of the moon and planets in a daily, weekly and seasonal way. If this fascinates you, our course in Navigational Magic is a playful adventure in these concepts lead by a dragon on a secret island. What looks like whimsey from the surface is really a much deeper journey into our own elemental nature. As we spiral into new levels of experience, we anchor into our embodiment of wonder & wisdom, deepening the joy in our daily lives.
