Footsteps Spell

What are your career goals? Whose footsteps would you like to follow in? Do you hope to succeed in a career that is difficult to gain entrée to?

Some careers can be hard to launch for a variety of reasons. Industries that are considered glamorous, such as fashion, broadcasting, and entertainment, can be hard to break into because there are so many applicants for every job opening. Other careers, such as spaceflight, ballet, or surgery, require many years of very specialized training. Still other careers, such as those in politics, can be hard to enter without support or financial backing from others. The challenges to getting started in such professions can be daunting.

If you have the talent or ability to make it in a certain career but just can't seem to get your foot in the door, this spell can help you. It will not make you a success at something you are unsuited to, or unqualified for, but it will help you to find employment in the industry of your choice.

Footprints have been considered magickal in many cultures since ancient times. Footprint magick is traditionally worked by physically lifting the dirt in which someone has stepped. Surfaces are mostly paved in our times, but we can still work footprint magick by adapting it to present circumstances. For this spell you will need:

several strips of wide adhesive tape, such as masking tape or duct tape a pentacle or pentagram (Any type will do, even the

symbol drawn on a piece of paper.) an orange candle a stick of incense a box, pouch, bottle, or other container in which to keep the spell materials

Optional: pink carnation petals

Preparation

Collect footprints from people who are already doing the kind of work that you hope to do one day. To accomplish this, identify a place where people are engaged in this type of work. It might be a firehouse, if you hope to be a firefighter; a hospital, if you hope to be a doctor or nurse; a theater, if you hope to be an actor or set designer; a brokerage house or stock exchange if you hope to be a trader or stockbroker; and so on.

Next, identify the best location for gathering their footprints. If you hope to be a stage actor, for example, it would be better to collect footprints from the area just outside the stage door than from the sidewalk in front of the theater; if you hope to be a judge, it would be better to collect footprints outside a judges' entrance or elevator than from the courthouse steps; and so on.

Go to this location, preferably at a time when you are not likely to be observed or interrupted. Stick a strip of tape to the ground, then rip it up. Hold the strip to the wind (or blow on it, if the air is still). Visualize any extraneous footprints— such as those of delivery people or passersby—being blown away and erased from the tape. When you feel that only the footprints you seek are on the tape, roll it up (sticky side inward) so that it forms a tight tube or cylinder. Repeat this process with several more strips of tape.

Take the cylinders of tape home, and place them in the center of a pentacle until you are ready to cast the spell. If you are using carnations, work deosil to sprinkle the petals around the circle of the pentacle. It isn't a problem if these dry out before the spell is cast.

The Spell

Gather all the spell ingredients. Get into a magickal mood, and create sacred space around the area where you will be working. Place the candle on the pentacle with the tape cylinders, and raise power. Light the candle, then light the incense from it.

Focus on the result you want the spell to have. Visualize yourself working happily in your chosen career. Raise your arms and say:

By Minerva and Apollo, In their footsteps I will follow.

As I will, so mote it be.

I will work in this industry!

Hold each roll of tape in the incense smoke for a few moments, while concentrating on charging it with the magick of your intent. Drip a little wax on each cylinder to seal the spell. Focus on the brilliant career that you envision for yourself, and monitor the candle and incense until they burn themselves out.

Place the cylinders of tape in the container, along with the ashes from the incense (and the carnation petals, if you have used them). Drip some wax over the container's opening to further seal the spell, then ground the power that you raised.

Afterward

Keep the container of spell ingredients in a safe place until the spell has fully manifested. Take it out and handle it or keep it near you whenever you are working toward your goal, by taking courses or applying for jobs, for example. You can discard the container once you have become established in your career.