No HedgeWitch is an island. We have friends, those we love, perhaps children, significant others, parents, partners, co-workers-people that we allow to exert influence over our lives because we like them, because we love them, or because our environments somehow overlap. All of these people are in some way affected by our behavior, and our behavior is somehow affected by them. This influence doesn’t automatically disappear just because we want to do magick. Life and magick (for good or ill) are a bit more complicated than that. In magick, we’ve always been taught to know (belief), to will (I want), to dare (open the way and accept change), and to be silent, because if every Jane, Lisa, and Abby in the world heard about what you want, they might try to block your desires-just by being jealous, they can mess things up for you, especially if your belief is shaky. Yet there is always an exception to any rule; on occasion, you will have to verbally agree with someone in order for the change to happen. By agreeing on any subject, then the stage is set for action. If you disagree, even subconsciously, failure is a possibility. Let’s try an example. You’re reading this book, working through the exercises, and you’re feeling really good about the whole thing. You live with someone (significant other, spouse, your child, mother, whatever), you are merrily doing the primal language thing, and you decide you want a new sofa. For brevity’s sake, let’s say the other party involved here is your husband. Every day, you say: “I want a new sofa in my living room.” Day after day, you repeat these words. You’ve followed all the other suggestions on manifestation in this book, and so you think you’re good to go. Except days progress into weeks, and somewhere along the line you become convinced that primal language doesn’t really work, or at least isn’t working in this case, because you can’t seem to get your mitts on a new sofa. You are stuck with the same old, threadbare, smelly couch-which, by the way, you refuse to sit on. This actually happened to me until it dawned on me that I wasn’t receiving my new sofa because my husband hadn’t let the old one go! Heck, I’d have burned that blasted couch in a heartbeat, and I’d released the image of it in my mind just fine. But he hadn’t: not physically and not in his mind. And, yes, we’d discussed how we needed a new one, but evidently we weren’t really in agreement. You see, my husband, blessed man, loves that sofa. He takes Sunday naps on it. Cuddles into the cushions. Sips his coffee on it. Wrestles with the dogs, watches the Friday night fights … my husband loves that sofa and hates change to his comfort. (Taurus moon, need I say more?) 9 Which, of course, resulted in keeping the old sofa just where it was. This was a totally duh moment for me. No wonder the universe couldn’t fulfill my desire for a new sofa. Only one couch could fit in that living room at a time, and it still sat there-physically and, more importantly, mentally-through my husband’s adoration of it. He simply wasn’t emotionally ready to part with it. Okay, I thought, new line of attack. Haul out all the good wifely reasons why we need a new sofa, concentrating on, of course, his comfort. Bingo. He mentally released the old sofa, and a brand-new one finally trundled in the door. My point here is this: those that you love influence you, therefore they will influence your desires if you allow them to. And you usually do … because you love them! (To read more about agreements with others, check out my MindLight book, which discusses various facets of human interaction and thought [especially partnerships], and how, simply through conversation, you manifest the circumstances of your own life without even realizing it.)
