The Lock Wizard

One of my favourite spirit guides at the moment is one I borrowed from my husband (the lockwizard himself). This is a character going into the Spirit Guide Oracle card and book set.

Working with guides is soooo much fun! And it might surprise some of you to hear that you don’t even have to believe in them to get benefit working with them. People often make the mistake of taking concepts like spirit guides waaaaay too literally. They either get all sciencey and reject it as “Hocus Pocus!” or they over-invest and wander off with the fairies, never to be seen again. And that’s a pity, because really, we’re just talking headspaces here: narrative therapy, spiritual cognitive behavioural therapy, drama therapy, embodied cogition etc

I’m a spiritual, visionary, creative artist who understands a little something about patterns and the way our subconscious thinks. The Lock Wizard is a metaphor, an analogy, an archetype…. he’s an a metaphorical embodiment of an idea, a way of thinking, a personality type, or a set of characteristics.

Understanding that the Lock Wizard is an abstract idea doesn’t have to stop you from thinking of him as a spirit guide. A spirit guide is a non-physical guide or helper, like an invisible coach. It honestly really doesn’t matter if you think he’s ‘real’ or not, so long as you walk a beautiful middle path between magic and functionality, the power of belief and the cold hard light of day, inspired ideas and grounded reality.

Do you remember being a child? You probably had invisible friends. It’s called having a really good imagination. Children perform the same balancing act that shamans do, when it comes to invisible friends: they believe without believing. Children know the invisible friend isn’t real they way you and I are real, but they choose to keep believing anyway, because it’s useful and fun. Invisible friends help you tap into other parts of your personality, talk (think) things through with yourself and see your potentials more clearly. Spirits guides are invisible friends for grown ups.

Mind you, I don’t demean my guides by viewing them with such dry, toneless, one-dimensionality when I’m working with them! Much much better to honour my guides and enchant myself; to weave some charms for my inner child. The subconscious, you see, is childlike. It believes a lot of what you tell it, especially when your inner cynic isn’t ruling and ruining the show.

Could you imagine watching a movie and picking away at all the things that aren’t believable? What kind of miserable person does that? I guess most of us do it when we’re feeling grumpy and cynical, but most sensible people at least try to place reality aside for a moment. They suspend disbelief, just like the child does with their invisible friends, and the shaman does with their spirit guides. Instead of messing up the movie by focusing on how it was made, they relax and go along for the ride. Just like the shaman, they allow themselves to be entranced. They pretend the actors are real, because it’s fun and useful to do so. At the end of the movie (just like the shaman does at the end of the spirit-journey), the actors become actors again, and the movie is just a movie.