I can’t believe this is our last week of complete focus on Oya in the Soul Path Tribe for a while. Before Isis completely takes centre stage, however, I wanted to end with speaking about how Oya’s position over the marketplace can have a dramatically positive effect on your shopping for magickal supplies.
Magickal supplies?
Before I go any further, I want to clarify my definition of magickal supplies so that hopefully I won’t confuse you with the rest of my thoughts. Because I believe everything done with intent and emotion is a magickal action, absolutely everything you buy has the potential of being a magickal ingredient.
As an example, consider a lettuce.
If you go to your local supermarket and purchase lettuce with the intention of eating it but you have no feelings about it, you have performed a mundane action and the lettuce is merely an ingredient.
On the other hand, if you should go to that same supermarket and purchase that same lettuce with excitement because it’s going to improve your health, you’ve just performed a magickal act and the magickal properties of the lettuce are yours to use.
How Oya can help
In the vast majority of marketplaces in other parts the world, the vendors consider haggling good form. In fact, they would view a lack of attempting to bargain with disdain; in submitting without argument, you hand over your power.
In the West, the authorities have stripped us of our right to barter; the price you see stuck to an object is the price you pay. However, you don’t have to continue to give your power away. By acknowledging the marketplace as Oya’s domain, shopping with the intent to get the best price and thinking outside the box, you can retain your power and get your magickal supplies at the best cost. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Don’t get in a rut. Shop around. Just because your local retailers had the best deals once, it doesn’t mean they still do.
- Compare prices on every item. You might save yourself a lot of money by going to several stores or shopping online when possible.
- Unless there is an emergency, never pay a price your intuition feels is too high, even if it’s convenient. Exercise patience and get the best deal you can.
- For those of you lucky enough to live in places where coupons are plentiful, use them. This may be the closest to haggling you will get here in the West (I know I sure miss the abundance of coupons since I moved to the UK).
Remember an item, even a magickal one, is only worth the price you are willing to pay for it. Don’t allow greedy people to set that price; retain your power and rule the marketplace with Oya.
I'm an eclectic wizard, ordained minister, and writer who loves to dabble, write, share and teach on all things magickal and spiritual. I'm a native of sunny California but now live in England.
In the same vein of buying a lettuce with the hope of it improving your health, I remember my Buddhist tutor telling us to feel every drop of water we drank, as it ran down out throats and to think of it as cleansing and refreshing and delicious, and that if we did this it would taste and feel so much better and do us more good….also to eat slowly and really taste each mouthful of food …Mindfully enjoying all you eat and drink. It works and that is the magick of it!
Bartering is wonderful, we used to do it down Petticoat Lane in the 60′s!
What a great post, Paul…and such a superb marketplace photo! Those beautiful, bright colors!! Plus the people of varying ages – most of them engaged in the business of making money, using what they may have grown themselves. The women’s demeanor and faces show such ease and confidence: they know exactly what they are doing, and enjoying it in the process. Most surely empowered, they also make certain that they’re looking their best!
Your tips are excellent, and while I’ve been doing some of them, to some degree, for quite some time, I could go further with all of them than I have. As far as coupons go, I’ve rarely used them, as, frankly, I haven’t wanted to bother. “Couponing”, as you no doubt know, is an art form in the States, and some customers – especially grocery shoppers – practice it to the nth degree. It goes without saying that everything offered for sale here is going to be overpriced to start with (unless one is at a farmer’s market…and then bargaining *can* work), so why not try to bring the prices down a bit?
As useful as everything else you’ve said in this post is, the best part, of course, of it is the MAGICAL applications. So good to know that we of the Soul Path Tribe can continue to work with Oya in an ongoing, significant way that is also highly practical. Plus, your advice on buying everything with an intention for its transformative powers sheds a new light on the simple act of going to the stores. I anticipate becoming a much smarter shopper now, Paul, due to – and with thanks – to you!
x