August, particularly post-Lughnasash, is a time when thoughts of abundance are fairly high in conscious awareness. The stalls at the Farmers Market are filled to bursting with fresh produce. Driving through the city these days – near where I live anyways – roadside produce vending stalls are popping up like Springtime dandelions. Pickup trucks with back beds filled with corn ready to sell to passing cars can be seen parked by the side of the road. The harvest is nigh and energy reverberates with the resonance of abundance.

So it was not really much of a surprise that Lakshmi showed up at the Goddess Meditation last week. Most commonly associated with abundance, Lakshmi’s influence touches on all areas of life. She is a much loved Hindu Goddess whose name appears to be derived from the Sanskrit word for “aim” or “goal”, indicating that if we want to have success (or abundance in myriad forms) in our lives, then we must have a focus.

I'm in the middle of revising the first book I ever published, Ancient Spellcraft, for a second edition. In the sixteen years since it came out (good grief, has it really been that long?) I've learned a thing or two and have deepened my relationships with many of the deities the book addresses, including Amalthea, the Minoan goat-goddess. She has been with me for years, since I was a teenager, if I'm really honest, but she's one of the lesser-known Minoan goddesses. I wrote a bit about her in a blog post a while back and today I thought I'd share a working from Ancient Spellcraft that involves her.

Her horn is the cornucopia, out of which so many good things come. Here in the U.S., cornucopias spring up around Thanksgiving, but I have one on my altar all the time. Amalthea is a goddess of abundance and like the Roman goddess Fortuna, who inherited her cornucopia, she's very generous.

Last week I attended an opening at a local art gallery.

Someone was handing out zucchini.

No, it wasn't some abstruse performance piece. What it meant was: it's July in Minnesota.

Oh gods, it's that time of year again. Overabundance, thy name is zucchini.

As some of you know, I grew up in a funeral chapel family. All throughout my childhood, my brother and I would tag along when our dad went to work, and we would run around the back of the chapel while he embalmed or made funeral arrangements. We had two phones at our house: our house phone, and the chapel phone, which could ring at any hour.

This proximity to the certainty of mortality came with so many blessings. One of my favorite is my ability to remember - in an instant! - how exceptionally lucky I am to spend even the tiniest of moments with a loved one. Another is my ability to bring myself back to an awareness of the unfathomable preciousness of every individual breath.

Still, it's easy to forget these things during the daily grind and the relentless hypnotism of our cultural messages. So, in the spirit of gratitude (and to warm us up for the upcoming holiday) I thought I'd share 8 of the countless things that make you the luckiest person ever.

2. Your relative degree of health and ability. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of health, you very likely have a number of wonderful abilities, including (but not limited to) any or all of the following: the ability to walk, run, dance, speak, hug, laugh, see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. You also very likely have many or all of your appendages. We don't think of these things much when we have them, but if one of them disappears, how much we miss it, and treasure the memory! But just by remembering this, we can treasure these things now.

   It is the season of Lughnasadh: the final bright blaze of summer, ripe with bounty. The early morning mist rising over the river is just touched with the barest whisper of frosts to come. Autumn is approaching, imperceptive, yet inevitable. Even this early, as the first day of the season has only just passed us by, I am thinking ahead. Not planning, but daydreaming, anticipating the comforts of home, hearth and family that only this season seems to bring. Autumn is the season of comfort: Spring gives us freshness and hope, Summer joy and play; Winter is a time of introspection and rest. But Autumn? Autumn is harvests and canning, baking and freezing. Autumn is abundance and comfort.

   What exactly is comfort? A dictionary will tell us that comfort is "a state of ease and contentment." This stark analysis hardly conveys the true essence of comfort. Comfort is a feeling, a scent, a sound, a flavor. It is knowing your family has food and shelter; it is your children's arms around you welcoming you home from work. It is the scent of your spouse's coffee brewing first thing in the morning: you may not drink the vile stuff, but he does, and that rich, bitter scent means he's there with you, probably fixing your morning tea as he fixes his coffee.

I assume you want to be happy! I assume you want to live the best life you can possibly live. Then, why do you feel guilty about using Magick to manifest this?

It’s okay, you are not alone. Using Magick to gain wealth, prosperity, abundance, and happiness in one’s life is an area where many new and experienced Magicians struggle to justify. How dare you ask the universe for happiness and the means to live a good life!

STOP! Stop, making yourself feel guilty for using Magick to your advantage.

Happy Mother's Day! Start the day with a moment for yourself, a moment of luscious abundance. Connect inside, to the Mother of All Creation: Your Womb. As you go there, consciously come from a place of connection. You will slowly start that amazing sacred sweet energy of womb starting to fill the space. Sweet, yet infinitely powerful. She crumbles walls, she dissolves differences, and - her greatest power: she creates new life.

Not only as babies. As a woman who hasn'rt physically born chlidren, I do have a very fruitful womb. In so many sacred ceremonies I have alloweed her energy to come without, holding a sacred space for new life to be born.