As Above — So Below
2014 Great Release Program Day 10 – December 10 2014 — Wednesday by Silver RavenWolf
Every day you must throw something away! and — this week — Every day you must GIVE one thing away!
Wednesday — As Above Moon in Leo — 3rd Quarter (Banishing) Self-Reliance, Success, Generosity, Determination Ideal Planetary Hour for Leo magick — Sun
Light a yellow candle surrounded with gold glitter to welcome the new changes you are making and dispel any negativity that has targeted your goals! This Week’s Theme: Focus
Pick a positive thought. Hold on to it. Retain it as long as you can. Each day your retention period will lengthen. You only need to practice! Practice retaining one positive thought three times a day.
To Cause Fine Weather – A Witch Sways Gently To and Fro whilst speaking Words of Power
Ever stand in a line somewhere and see a woman swaying gently to and fro? “Do you have children?” I often ask. “Yes”, is always the reply.
Hail and Welcome!
Did you remember to do your Morning Braucherei Ritual? How is that making you feel? Are you seeing any changes in your lifestyle since you started the program? I know you are super busy — the holidays marching forward, so I’m going to try to keep these challenges well within reach!
Today’s Main Challenge — As Above! First, let’s get rid of all the cobwebs. I’m nearsighted, so I miss a lot of them in my daily routine! I love spiders and their webs. In fact, one the favorite candles I make is dedicated to the energy of GrandMother Spider. She is the power of solutions and can help you “trap” liars, cheats, and dirty folks. She is also the power of Creativity! I’ve spent hours watching orb spiders weave glorious webs (do you know they have runes in them?) out here in the woods. And, although we can use actual spider webs in our workings (try it if you haven’t yet) dirty, floating cobwebs catch negativity and hold it — particularly in dark corners. Today, we’re going to remove all the cobwebs — that’s our main goal. Our secondary goal follows in line with “as above” theme– shelves. All the exposed shelves or ledges in the environment. Get rid of the dust and rearrange the objects. This will help to keep the Chi of the environment flowing.
Secondary Challenge — Today’s secondary challenge is about color. Answer this question — what is the predominant color scheme in your living environment? Why? You don’t have to do anything with this observation today — just contemplate!
How I Cut My Electric Bill in Half — Yesterday I mentioned that I learned to cut my electric bill in half, particularly in the warmer months of the year (April through October here). It started (for me) as a challenge. When we first moved here it dawned on me (yeah, I know, brilliant) that we had chosen an all electric house. Okay, I thought, that won’t be too bad. Until, our first January I received a bill for over $600.00. Granted, our oil bills had been bad in the old house; but, the recession/depression had hit and there just wasn’t money for such a horrendous monthly bill. I realized that if I didn’t do something to get a handle on the electric bill we would be eating toasted cheese sandwiches without the cheese for the rest of our lives.
Time to get crafty.
I treated the situation like a game — a challenge of the mind coupled with adjusted behavior. The electric company and research on the web was disappointing in their information on how to cut costs. Most of the ideas were about spending more money (buying energy efficient appliances and new windows and doors — who, may I ask you, can run right out and drop several grand on such changes?). I decided I had to come up with my own ideas. The result? In two months I’d literally cut the bill in half. How did I do it? I made a list of all the things that I could control in the energy usage department, and then I started to make some changes. Here is the list of what I did. You can try any or all of the ideas on the list.
1. When you are not using the lights — turn them off. No more front porch light on ALL the time (because you forget to turn it off). No more leaving the light on in the hall when no one is in it. Or the bathroom. Or the basement. During one of the first release programs I learned that in one month’s time, we were wasting $28.00 simply by not turning off the basement light. The washer and dryer were down there, and everyone constantly forgot to turn off the light when they left the basement. When I became the “light police” for one month I was shocked to discover how much money we were spending on one little itty bitty light! In the new house, I took this observation to a new level. Not in the room? No light!
2. One by one, I changed ALL the lights in the house to the energy efficient ones. I didn’t run out and replace every bulb immediately. As the lights burned out, I switched them.
3. Unplug ALL appliances that you aren’t using on a daily basis. Just because things run by electric aren’t turned on doesn’t mean they don’t still draw electricity.
4. Stop using the dish washer, and when you do use it — don’t use the “heat dry” setting. This one appliance (and there is one other I’ll get to) literally gulps your money. We now wash the dishes in the sink (like the good old days) and save the dish washer for the really huge meals (like holidays) or super messy meals.
5. The Grand Dame of Theft — your clothes dryer. Of all the appliances on the market today, the clothes dryer hasn’t been updated to save the consumer real money. I bought a ten dollar clothes drying rack and set it up in the little laundry room. We only use the dryer for sheets, blankets, and sometimes towels. Okay. Let me rephrase that. I only use the dryer for those items. My husband refuses to walk back in the dark ages and he still uses the dryer for his clothes (yes, he does his own clothes); however, I taught him to wash smart, so he doesn’t have that many loads each week.
6. Do Your Laundry in Cold Water — I honestly can’t see the difference between hot and cold when washing clothes. I have almost always used cold, anyway. When we bought the new washer I didn’t realize that certain settings were automatically programmed for warm or hot — particularly the “normal” setting. Normal (to me) is cold. Not, evidently, to the manufacturer. As soon as I understood that I would have to manually adjust the temperature setting for normal, I thought I would be saving money. Except — I forgot to tell my husband.
I made one other change — a minimal investment. I bought two small induction cooking appliances. They cook in half the time and use far less electricity. Cooking with these small appliances was an adjustment. When you’ve been cooking for 40 years on gas or electric — induction cooking takes a bit getting used to. I still cook noodles, for example, on the regular range because I just couldn’t get the hang of the induction cooking (my noodles were goopy, yuck); but, on the whole, once I learned how to handle this type of cooking I developed my own techniques that have saved me a lot of money!
That’s my list. Six super easy ideas to cut your electric consumption in half. Give it a go and let me know how you made out!
Summary — Here is today’s list!
1. Perform Your Morning Braucherei Ritual (1 star) 2. Throw at least ONE thing away. (2 stars) 3. Give at least one thing away. (1 star) 4 Make a concerted effort to hold onto one positive thought as long as you can three times today. (1 star) 5. Do today’s main challenge — As Above! Remove all dirty, broken cobwebs. Dust and rearrange any open shelving. (2 stars). 6. Do three 3-Minute Dash! (1 star) 7. Empower and burn your yellow candle to encourage success and banish negativity toward your goals. (1 star) 8. Choose one thing you can do to lower your energy consumption. (Electric, Gas, Water, Oil, etc.) (5 stars) 9. Post how the program is going for you in the comment section (5 stars) 10. Don’t forget to do your Evening Walk Through right before you go to bed! (1 star)
Total Number of Stars You Can Earn Today: A whopping 20!
See ya in the morning! Silver