Hi there! I have a 'Net connection again that seems stable, so here we go. (And I can too do short posts, I swear! This just won't be one...)
BackgroundI'll start by saying that it's clear you've been thinking about this a lot, and that's great, and that you've got some useful ideas in here (also great). But that there's a lot that's not as clear as you probably want it (either in focus or in statement), and while there's a lot of interesting bits in your text, it is probably not the most useful thing for your end result. That's okay: you're in a really common space for this kind of learning process, and it's awesome you asked for feedback.
First set of questions: what other things are you going to do around this? (For example, do you plan to cast a circle using a particular method beforehand? Prepare your space energetically in a particular way? Just launch into the spell?
I think with something like this, you're more likely to be successful if you build some transitional time into the working that takes you from the everyday world to your magical work - but that could be specific details in a circle cast, journaling or free-responding to specific questions you set up in advance, doing a divination reading on relevant topics, etc.) But depending on which one of those (or other choices) you pick, I might make some other suggestions for the actual 'insert working here' part.
The other reason to think about this is that a bunch of what is in your current spell text is stuff I'd put in invocations to deities/ancestors/other parts of the pre-working ritual work. I'll talk more about that when we get to that point in your post.
And finally, what is going to give the real 'push' to your working? What you have here is a nice overlay, but there isn't necessarily anything that's going to make things change. Something that helps raise direct energy, focus intention to the point that you almost burst from not acting on it, etc. is probably needed to actually make things change.
(That could be meditation, that could be chanting, that could be breathing, that could be dancing. There could be other options, but those are the reasonably simple ones to get going with without additional practice/experience/training)
So this is a Business Spell to help out those who have recently gotten a job or just want to make their position more secure. It also allows ways to move up.
As others have said, this seems like a pretty broad focus. The strand of magical theory that I follow suggests this is not the best solution, because our brains don't do very well with it: give us lots of things to focus on, and we focus on none of them.
You can think of this a little bit like the question of scope when writing a history paper: trying to write about all of the causes of World War I takes volumes and volumes of writing to do well. Writing an essay about a particular battle, or specific action, or a particular person in a short span of time can be reasonably done in 5-10 pages.
For magical work, you want the equivalent of the 5-10 page paper: something that has enough clarity to have a starting idea, some development, and a conclusion, but not so much that you lose a clear idea of the topic, goal, or details.
Some possible tighter foci for a spell with these general goals might be (pick one!):
- doing my best work possible
- seeing paths that lead to improving skill and responsibilities (which might mean promotion, or might mean moving to a different job eventually.)
- improving the security of your current job (which might involve improving skills, but might also be about other things - the overall wellbeing of the company, for example.)
- figuring out when looking for a different position is in your best interest.
- self-confidence
- ability to build relationships/find a job in a different field.
- resolving things that have been holding you back (attitude, approach, etc.)
I like Thorn's suggestions about starting with self-confidence (because it's a good base for everything else), or working on the attitude challenges you describe in one of your later responses, and then doing something from there.
As you can see (and others have said), these don't really all fit in the same spell, and in some ways, they're at odds. (Improving the security of your current job assume you're going to want to stay there, while improving skills/duties/deciding to move to a new position assumes you want to leave, most fundamentally.)
The other way in which I think you're trying to do a bit too much is doing a spell that's designed to be a one-time thing (in the way you've set it up), for a situation that's ongoing (because your professional life is going to change and develop and grow).
Instead, I'd think about doing something that's designed to be repeated at intervals - maybe every solstice/equinox, with slight seasonal adjustments or changes as you shift your focus, or something like that. Monthly might be too often, though I could see ways to create a very short and sweet magical working that would be done every work day with your primary goals, slowly changing the focus over time as you resolve one thing, and pick up a new challenge.
I've chosen mint and lavender to use as my materials, but you may substitute as you see fit.
As others have said, "Because it's handy" is not the best solution. I'd agree that mint might be useful, but I'd probably go for more in the spice realm - cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon. Whole dried bay leaf, which can probably be found in a grocery store can be written on and burned, and they've got a lot of prosperity/stability associations. (I also like dill a lot for attraction/prosperity work, but I admit to something of a dill obsession.)
First I grind up the mint and light it in my cauldron.
Practical note: you're unlikely to get a lot of burn out of just plain mint. (Especially if it's not already quite dry!). Other solutions would involve using it as incense (on an incense charcoal) or surrounding it with more flammable material (wrapping it in paper, for example.) Or you could take, say, an incense cone (which is made with wood dust and other materials that burn well) and grind it down with the mint to give it some fuel.
I'd also do a test run with a small amount first before you do any magical work: reading this, I had a "Hmm. I don't think I've used mint this way" moment, and I can't remember if we tried it in my incense class and it was just a very very very strong (and not entirely pleasant) smell, or if it had other issues (mint has a lot of essential oil in it, and I'd be cautious about how that reacts with the eyes/mucous membranes.)
Second: magically, what's the purpose of burning the mint at this stage? Are you clearing the ritual space, creating a particular energetic inclination, something else?
Afterward, I write down everything I want to happen with my job on a separate pieces of paper, burning them one by one.
Practical issue: how are you going to burn them? (Plain paper in a candleflame in a cauldron doesn't always burn as well as you'd think - and often falls to the side unburnt, so you need something to fish it out safely (long manueverable tongs). Chemical fires can work a bit better, but are more complicated to do safely. Flash paper (which is used for stage magic) is awesome in ritual (and is my 'burn this slip of paper' tool of choice, but it's both more expensive and needs some careful storage to be safe. (Because you do not want it spontaneously going up in flames in wherever it's stored.)
If you have long enough tongs, holding whatever you want to burn in the flame works fine, but you need the tongs for that.
More philosophically: what's the goal here?
Burning is ritually usually about one of two things: getting rid of/cleansing old things, or sending wishes and desires out into the world. Some people's practices use one or the other, some people use both but frame the burning very specifically in the ritual before it happens so the intention is crystal clear.
If it were me, for a goal like this (assuming I was going to be repeating it at intervals), I would burn slips of paper with the things I want to remove from my work life, and then write down and *keep* (as part of a daily practice reminder) the things I want to focus on for the next interval.
So, I might burn 5 things, or 7 things or some other meaningful number ("Distraction", "Frustration with [process]", "Blocks in [project]", or whatever) and then list a similar number of things I wanted to bring into my work life. ("Patience when dealing with [person]", "Creative solutions for [need]", "New opportunities to improve my skills in X"). I find getting out of my personal comfort zone by, say, drawing examples of what I want to bring in (symbols, stick figures, whatever) helps a lot, and is also fun.
If you want to keep the burning part, I'd burn the first set with an appropriate cleansing/healing sort of herb, and then choose an incense that encourages growth and learning and pass the slips through the smoke to begin to charge them.
Ok. Onto the actual text. (I agree with a lot of Tana's comments, too, though I'm going to make some different suggestions, so you can see some other ways of going about this...)
My basic take on text in ritual is that flowery stuff is great but that when doing the actual focused magical work, the intent has to be absolutely clear, unambiguous, and that it's better if one avoids conditional words (if, maybe, perhaps), or words that the subconscious might remember as a reversal (not, never, un-, etc.)
I also look at what the goal of a text is: as I mentioned above, I put my "Here's the general framework I want to do this magical work in" into the pre-working ritual bits (I do them as part of my invitations/invocations for the quarters, ancestors, and deity, but there are certainly other options.) and keep the actual text of the working very simple, and easy to repeat multiple times if I want to do that. (Ideally, 6 lines or fewer: any more than that, and it gets harder to use repetition as a tool.)
My tradition generally does considered but improvisatory invocations to ancestors/deities (and uses a general framework with some improv bits for quarters) - in other words, we think about it in advance, but we don't plan out every word we're going to say. This takes practice, but I've often discovered words coming out of my mouth that were not what I had thought I intended, but that really narrowed my magical focus in a very helpful direction. (In other words, they were very useful, but not the thing I'd sort of planned on saying.)
(This obviously works better with some practice, but I wanted to get it out there as something to consider long-term.)
On to the text...
Light of eye and soft of tough
I will speak little and listen much
This is about you - could it go in an earlier part of the ritual? Or as part of the skills you want to build into your ongoing growth?
I invoke the ancients, the spirits of motivation
Aid me with your power, and my determination
This is something I'd do separately, as part of my pre-working ritual space creation. (Also, precision is nice: when I invoke the ancestors, I'm speaking to formerly-living beings: what I sometimes refer to as 'ancestor by kith, kin, or kind' (genetic ancestors, ancestors by shared history, or ancestors by shared interest, basically) They're former-people, though, not spirits who've never had bodies, or beings who've never had human bodies: those I'd invite using different language.
So, to me, this sounds like you're inviting people, but then things that have never had human bodies. Those might be conflicting (or just confusing) goals - for example, my Gods don't always get job-related work ("resume? interview? what's that?") but my ancestors definitely do, even if those aren't the terms they'd have used.
If you're inviting more general concepts or entities, how are you identifying them? How will you know if they're present? Why might they be inclined to help you out? These are questions that are a little more complicated in terms of cosmology/theology/etc. than I'm going to get into here, but basically "Why might this thing you're asking for help care about you?" There are lots of possible answers to the question, but some of them take more preparation and development than others.
Make __ see my potential
This is something I'd find ethically problematic : making other people do things is not how I want to do my magical work. (You get to decide for yourself). So the word 'make' (along with words like force, insist, require, etc.) tends to be absent from my magical work.
The other problem, though, is that you're sort of forcing the issue rather than opening a door: a framing that was something like "Let those I work with see my potential" might create an opportunity through a co-worker or a higher-up person in the company or even a client/customer, not just your immediate boss.
Deliver me from the cynical
As I try every time to make the sale
Forgiving myself if at times I fail
This is a good example of the 'negative' language I mentioned above: your mind is likely to grab onto the 'cynical' and 'fail', especially because they're in a place of emphasis in the line.
Something like "Patient, friendly, open, kind," might work better. (And then some kind of line framing what you want
For granting me obedience
I let go of impatience
This is a great example of the way I split out the 'things to get rid of, things to bring in' above.
To reach a promotion I must cast out
All evil thought, my worry, my doubt
To reach ultimate success
I will always be wary of excess
This is another place where being really specific would be helpful - what's an 'evil thought'? What's worry, what's doubt? (is it the very helpful "How could I do this better?" or is it "I can't do this at all?" You probably know, but it's not as clear in the text.) Same deal with 'excess' - how do you know what's necessary, what's excess. (Excess devotion to a job can be seen in some places as necessary or important for success, but some people quite reasonably think it can be damaging.)
Make my ultimate goal appear
This I choose for my career
Until one day I may decide
To leave them and this job behind
As already noted, don't undercut your goal by totally changing the framework. Focus on improving your current job situation, or on finding a new one, not both in the same magical work.
Merry meet, merry part
I'll bright their cheeks and warm their heart.
And carry with me these laws I must
In perfect love and perfect trust
While this is an important bit of text for many people, it's important to remember that the Rede is not, in and of itself, a spell - instead, it's designed to be a memory guide for important principles and aspects of magical and ritual work.
If you'd like to include a line or two from the Rede (or the Charge of the Goddess, or whatever), my usual practice in that case is to narrow it down to one or at most two lines, and then create surrounding material that expands it for my goal. For your kind of goal, I would probably look at the lines around "Fairly take and fairly give" - the idea of a good working relationship being something that takes collaboration from everyone, and seeking situations where that's possible.
With any other job path I take
Be my guide for fortune's sake.
As I will this, so shall it be.
This is another "Who are you talking to and why do they want to help you" moment.
Ok. What would I do (text wise, since I've covered the other adjustments I'd consider) if I were doing this?
I would probably look at cutting the text way down, to be said while blessing the things I wanted to bring into my work life, and move the 'who I'm addressing it to' to its own space (in other words, do the invitation to whoever you're asking for help, then do the burning of stuff you want to remove, writing of stuff you want to bring in, and then do some other bit of text/chant/whatever to actually raise and focus the energy.
One thing I note is that while a lot of your text is evocative in places, there are places where the meter of the text gets a little bumpy. This is a hard skill for a lot of people, and it's something where designing for a shorter, tighter chant meant to be spoken aloud can help. (Or, for that matter, designing a longer invocation or invitation meant to be spoken aloud, but without necessarily trying to be a metered or rhymed style.)
If I get into comparative poetry writing techniques for magical purposes, I am going to be up even later, and this would be immensely longer, so I'm going to say here that Elizabeth Barrette has written an awesome book (
_Composing Magic_ - link takes you to the Google Books preview which has a bunch of the text) about that, and that I'm happy to talk more about what I think works well in chant/short text further, but not this post
But basically: meter and rhyme help us make sense of what we see, say, and hear. We can use those tools to help something stick in our heads - and when it works really well, we get an earworm: a strand of text or song that keeps coming back. The best spell wordings are like that: the things you can't get out of your head that just keep echoing and taking root in your psyche on their own.
Short, sweet, and pointed is the easiest way to do that, and probably the way to start before branching out into longer forms. (Or, to put it another way: most people have an easier time memorising limericks than they do sonnets. There's a reason for that.)
So, I think you've got some great ideas - but I think it could be much more effective if you got a lot more focused about your immediate goal, and came up with something shorter and punchier and direct about how that might work.
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