It\’s important in life to have balance. Too much of anything is a bad thing. We are multi-faceted beings and it is important to honor all aspects of ourselves. This means it\’s important to not dive too deeply into one aspect, even Magick. When you hyper-fixate on one aspect of yourself, you become obsessed. You will lose touch with the other things that make you uniquely you. It will inhibit your growth even in the aspect that you\’re fixating on. Eventually, you will burn out and take a break from that part of you and that is often how we lose pieces of ourselves. We have to balance our lives.
Now, just because you might not want to limit yourself doesn\’t mean you can\’t have fun with it. I come from the era that grew up side by side with video games. The idea of Mana or Magic Points being an expendable resource that dictates how much Magick someone can use in a given amount of time is near and dear to me. I have met practitioners that allowed themselves 3 spells a week. I have met witches that would only use Magick once per moon.
I think my personal favorite method that I have encountered was a magician who used black marker to put an \”X\” on his fingers when he used Magick. The strength of Magick used determined how many fingers he would \”X\”. While all his fingers had a visible \”X\” he would not use Magick. Once some of the marks had been thoroughly washed and faded so that they could no longer be seen, he was free to use Magick again.
I personally allow myself a number of Magick Points equal to my age. If I perform Magick that doesn\’t require me to call my core, it costs 1 point. If I do need to call my core, it costs me 2 points. If I have to raise energy to perform the Magick, it costs me 5 points. If I am attempting something I have never done before, it costs me 10 points. I can recover my Magick Points in several ways. If I take an hour of \”me time\” to rest, relax, and provide self care, I recover 5 points. Spending a day with the family, having fun as a family recovers 5 points. I get a paycheck every two weeks. Since that is a measurable time stamp that represents work I\’m doing to provide for myself and my family, I also recover 10 points on payday. These methods may seem strange since they have little to nothing to do with my energy or magickal journey, but remember this isn\’t an actual limit of my actual energy. It\’s a fabricated system to balance my day to day life and all of it\’s necessary aspects against my Magickal practice. This system ensures that I maintain a healthy balance.
If you are getting to the point in Magick where it is starting to be a daily practice, you may want to consider using one of these, or even building your own balancing system. If you do, I would love to hear about it!