Whispers from the Underworld

A few days before the Feast of the Dead, Aidan Wachter, wrote this piece at his blog, Hotel Vast Horizon, about Ur-sorcery. He gives me credit for partially inspiring the post because I had been discussing Dirt Sorcery and "old line eclectics"(of which I am one), in my Facebook group, Black Moon Lodge, but I am beginning to suspect that other agents are at work here. First amongst these is the absolute randomness that lead me to Aidan in the first place, not to mention the people I met along the way. Secondly there are the whispers from below that are guiding me. Towards what I am not quite sure, but the current is strong and definitely flowing. Lastly the amount of High Weirdness and Synchronicity that I am experiencing, which is off the charts, even for this time of year, suggests an agency I have yet to experience in my life.

Background

I began my journey over 30 years ago at the tender age of 15.That was 1983, long before the "Teen Witch" craze of the nineties, hell that was even before the book Teen Witch came out. I grew up in Houston, Texas, where Santeria from South Texas, Louisiana Voodoo, and Piney Woods Hoodoo overlap. As a child I watched my mother and her friends "Draw down the moon" on the Texas coast, and helped my friend's Arbuelas prepare ofrendas and dress veladoras. I grew up hearing tales of the Man in Black that met you at the crossroads at midnight, or during an overnight cemetery vigil. So when I gave myself a mo-hawk to connect with the indigenous spirits and join the outcast culture of punk it was a double initiation for me.

I did not discover Wicca or Thelema until I was in my twenties, although my step-sister did introduce me to Uncle Al, and his Liber Al Legis, much earlier. My first forays into this "Other" were a copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and a very worn copy of Pow Wows, or Long Lost Friend, that I found at my local library. Those early days were exciting, fearful and largely unproductive, but the raw feral intensity was unmatched, until recently.

Santos

I am a devotee of Santisma Muerte, and have been since I got her tattooed on my arm 13 years ago. Most of the intervening years have been spent in a magical retirement of sorts, and then depression nearly killed me. In November of 2011, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, I attempted suicide. While on the other side Santisma Muerte and the Baron both came to me; the message was simple, I was not done. During the resultant therapy I realized that I had let my spiritual life lapse, and had lost my Voice. This blog was borne out of that journey. My work had only just begun.

Santisma Muerte spoke to me. I cannot explain this in a coherent way, or in a way that those without the experience can understand. Suffice to say I literally heard her voice, and she told me seek out Saint Cyprian. I was completely unfamiliar with the Patron Saint of Necromancers, when she told me to seek him out. So I went to the source I trust with such matters, Lucky Mojo. From there I was able to tease out a ritual and make initial contact; then this years Feast of the Dead came.

I have written elsewhere about my journeys through the elements and my Grandmother's passing, so this has been an intense year for me personally. After lighting the candles on my altar, I broke down in tears remembering the gifts my Grandmother gave me, the most important one being the planting of seeds. That night I dreamed of Saint Cyprian. This is what I remember from my notes in my dream journal.

Die Unterwelt

I am alone in a wooded space. The land is alive and interactive. I feel the need to move towards the sound of a river. I find the river and decide to hike upstream. I notice two upright rocks making a triangular arch over an opening into the earth. At the cave entrance I see a figure, so I move closer. It is Saint Cyprian. He points to the cave and tells me that I must spend a year and a day in the ground. Inside I meet Mother Bear and she gives me medicine; next spring I will emerge from darkness to nurture what I have borne forth. So I will spend more time working with Earth energy, and around Beltane I will have spent my year and a day in the earth, the ground, the underworld, the root of all things.

That was my dream. This is my interpretation of that dream. I am at the roots of the tree, the underworld, where the great serpent dwells. Beneath everything is the serpent, the Great Serpent Below, the current that flows beneath all traditions. I am to spend more time tapping into that current to inform my work now and for many years to come. I asked Santisma Muerte to open roads for me and boy howdy is she opening some roads. For the first time (admit it you heard Dio's Last in Line) I feel as if my "everyday" life and my "spiritual" life are merging. 

Planting Seeds

My Grandmother occupies my earliest memories of planting seeds. Everything she taught me can be summed up in this. You plant.You nourish. You love. You pray. You nurture. You Prune. You Fertilize. You nourish. You sing. You dance. You nourish. You harvest. This is the essence of my magic at it's core, and my Methodist Grandmother taught it to me. So I will get to the roots in the underworld and spend my year and a day. I am a seed and I will burst forth as new life, to bear fruit and begin again. With my roots nourished by the primal current, that Ur-sorcery, I will grow and manifest my vision. My Vocation and my Avocation shall be as one. 

There are forces, animal spirits, mineral spirits, plant spirits, elevated ancestors, and spirits of place, they all wear many masks and manifest to each individual differently, but despite cultural costuming they all spring from the same source. Tapping into this current of Ur-sorcery, allows me to find my own individual expression of what Lao Tzu called ,"Tao" and Rob Brezsny calls "The Divine Wow". This dance of veils and masks is what we call life, and behind it all a current runs, the trick is knowing how to steer your Craft.

Growth Beyond Dreams

I am happy to announce that in 19 months I have had over 10,000 page views. This month saw another benchmark, with an all time high of 95 page views in a day. I have an audience in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia, this something I never anticipated. When I began my blog it was born out of a need born in therapy. I realized that I felt I had no voice and needed to Give Voice to my thoughts and feelings.The URL for my blog reinforces this; Audiam Vocem literally means to verbalize, or speak out loud, i.e. Give Voice.

In the intervening 19 months I have encountered and virtually befriended many great people. Words alone cannot express the gratitude and appreciation I have for you all and the continued support you show for me and my path. So with as much heart and LOVE as I can express in this imperfect medium, Thank You. I look to the future with renewed vigor and optimism. This is a gift I can never fully repay, I shall be forever in your debt.

Many Blessings.
Keep up the Great  Work.
By the Powers Within and Without.
Pax, Amor, Lux.
So Mote It Be.

Prognostication, Divination, and Fortune-Telling

Practitioners of many different Magickal traditions engage in practices of prognostication, divination, or fortune-telling. While all of these are similar they not quite the same and very different psychology is at work behind each. Despite these differences, the same desire seems to drive the seekers of the arts, an attempt to ascertain and have some control over the future.

Prognostication, or forecasting is perhaps the most common and therefore the most invisible of the three. Most prognosticators must establish themselves through schooling or expertise in a field before being allowed to practice their professions. Some examples include Weather Forecasters, Economists, Sports Forecasters and even the people who compile allergy forecast. The basic model seems to follow along the lines of , observe, record, sample,and predict. The first element is essential, one cannot predict what will happen if one does not understand how things work. Take weather for example, if you do not know what usually happens after SE winds for three days straight followed by a shift to winds out of the NW in Central Texas in late September then you will not make a good Weather Forecaster. Secondly you must build a record to make your predictions more accurate by comparison to past events, this is how rain percentages are calculated. Third you must know what current conditions are for sake of said comparison. Lastly, and this is where it gets tricky, you must make a guess and hope it's right or you will not be employed for long. This approach is not only the most common but it is actually treated as science even though it ultimately comes down to intuition and guesswork.

Divination, or insight works a bit differently and is usually spurned by our modern scientific materialistic culture. This bias probably arises as much from the use of devices like Tarot Cards, Crystal Balls and Bone Oracles, as from charlatans and con-men trying to exploit the desperate and gullible. Disclaimer: I myself do use and believe in the efficacy of certain divinatory practices when used in the proper context. Some of what is done with these techniques and tools is closer to fortune telling than divination, but that will be illustrated more later. Tarot Cards have a long and mixed history of use as divination tools, the truly adept use them more as a psychological aid than a predictor of future events, in fact Carl Jung has written extensively on this subject. One must use techniques very similar  to prognostication to have an effective outcome with tarot. First learn what the symbols on the cards mean, then keep a record of ones mental well being, including feelings about the symbols themselves. Once a data base has been built, one may begin to ascertain deep personal psychological truths or predict ones behavior in a given situation, including alternatives. Scrying or crystal gazing, relies heavily on intuition and interpretation. Again this probably best done on a personal level or when the interpretation is left to the querant. Bone Oracles, or casting are purely based on intuitive interpretation and again record keeping seems to be the key to increased accuracy.

Fortune-Telling has been practiced for as long as humans have had tribal leaders and shamans.Originally

used like Weather Prognostication, or Personal Divination techniques, fortune telling has come to be more closely associated with charlatans, cheats and con-men. This situation is probably due to the fact that desperate and gullible people make easy targets for those who feel comfortable exploiting others. Fortune- Telling use some of the same tools as Divination but more as props. People who practice fortune telling are more like amateur psychotherapists than anything else. By listening closely to their clients, fortune tellers ascertain exactly what the querant needs to hear to believe that the outcome will go their way. Depending on the scruples of the fortune teller this may or may not involve further rituals, products, talismans, etc. Many agree that the easiest way to discern a fortune tellers intentions is whether or not they have products for sale and how they charge for services. Donation only fortune tellers seem to be the most sincere.

What compels humans to seek out foreknowledge about the future is I believe, quite simply security. When one believes one has inside knowledge of future events, one feels their plans are more congruent with objective reality. This both utter hogwash  and completely true. Some forces are beyond our manipulation, some on a personal level and some on a species wide level. Objectives beyond the scope of our personal power must be accomplished with aid from other souls, in whatever form that takes. Once one has a plan whether achievable alone or with the aid of others, one begins to change reality in accordance with one's will; magick. When you look past the few charlatans and cheats, and realize every newscast in America has a segment with the Chief Fortune Teller, i.e weatherman, then a realization dawns; we all long to know the unknowable and feel as if we can control even a small part of it. That is why we do magick, but that is a story for another day.

Further Open Source Experiments

Hello again dear readers, I hope you have all been well. This the second installment of my Open Source Magick series. I will discuss ways to expand on last months experiments and add a few new topics for consideration and play. I will suggest ways to expand your daily practice, increase awareness, introduce a self blessing ritual and discuss briefly some Magickal theory. So grab a coffee, or a Margarita depending on your personal situation and let's get started.

Daily Practice

Last month we talked about the importance of daily practice and I suggested a few different techniques that myself and other Psychonauts have found helpful, hopefully you have explored some of these. Now I would like to add to the importance of these techniques. First let me stress why I feel so strongly about this topic; daily practice is where your routine maintenance comes into play.By taking time each day to check your overall progress it becomes easier to know where you have grown and where you need to grow. Don't wait for the check engine light to come on, go ahead and check your fluids on a regular basis.

Hopefully you have found a practice that allows some time to be still and quiet, so that you can have a

conversation with yourself. If you are still having difficulty with this try the following exercise. Get a piece of paper and a pen. Write the following question, "Seeker what do you desire?" Contemplate this for a while before answering. Asking yourself questions like this will open up access to your Higher Self and begin to direct you to your True Will. Once you become adept at this sort of practice you will begin to live in alignment with your Divine Presence.

Awareness

I believe last month I referred to this as Body Awareness, but really it is much deeper than that, it is about total awareness . Let's revisit Body Awareness for a moment and then I will expand upon it. I recommended before that one try to lay still for at least 10 minutes a day and become aware of one's body gradually increasing the amount of time to 30 minutes twice a day. So now let's add to this, starting with your head, use your imagination to see your brain. This simple act will increase blood flow to your brain and relax it completely. After your brain do the same for your eyes, ears, nose and mouth, continue to do this until you reach your feet. You should feel warmth in the part you are concentrating on as the blood flow increases, this will be how you know you are doing it right.

Now it is time to try a new exercise, find a comfortable place outside and sit down. Glance down or close your eyes. Begin by becoming aware of your breath, now listen to the world around you. As you become aware of more and more, you are actually expanding your consciousness. Going with that try to tune in directly with the earth below you, the clouds above you, all the water on the planet even Cosmos herself. Do this as often as possible.

Self Blessing Ritual

Step One: Banish, you have been practicing, right?
Step Two: Draw bath, add salt and herbs like lavender or chamomile.
Step Three: Light candles and incense to set the mood.
Step Four: Enter the bath.
Step Five: As you soak try to let go of everything that causes you stress. Once you are relaxed, use a washcloth or loofa to wash yourself from head to toe, imagining all the while that you are removing impurities from your psyche.
Step Six: Pour water on your head and see it as blessings raining down on you. I usually say something like, "I trust myself in this moment, I live in and value the moment, I love and accept myself. So mote it be." I usually do several recitations of this until I feel it into the core of my being.
Step seven: Drain the bath, stay in the bath until fully drained. As the water drains feel all of your obstacles falling away.
Step Eight: Lie down somewhere until you are air dried.

Magickal Theory Part One

In this section I will begin introducing you Axioms of the Magickal World View, if you would like to read more about this I recommend the following:
The Fourth Dimension by Rudy Rucker
Synchronicity by Carl Jung
Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstader

I will begin with Three Axioms that help to make up the Magickal World View. The Axiom of Reality Tunnels, the Axiom of Evidence, and the Axiom of Synchronicity.

The Axiom of Reality Tunnels
Everything we perceive as reality is an interface being the objective (Noumenon, Tao, Godhead, Universe,

etc.) and the subjective (our personal interpretation of the objective.) As we shift our awareness of the world around us we literally perceive a different world. Since there are infinite ways to interpret this data through our senses and the model we choose to make it fit, there are literally an infinity of Universes contained in a moment. Our awareness is the key to opening different realities.

Most world views support an idea of separateness of self and the objective. You are already one with the objective , but as Godel's Incompleteness Theorem states we never fully know the objective because we cannot step outside of it. There are no independent observers, your perceptions help to co-create Universe in every moment.

The Axiom of Evidence
Simply stated this Axiom goes like this the more evidence one looks for to support a Reality Tunnel, the more you will find. Our brains do this automatically everyday, by means of subconscious internal dialogue.
To illustrate this I will introduce you William Burroughs' 23 Virus. It goes like this; 23 is the most common number in the universe, the more you look for it the more you see it. This is an example of a recursive loop, our brains are full of them. In fact, the majority of therapy is learning to reprogram theses loops through a variety of mind tricks, so too magick.

The Axiom of Sychronicity
Dr Carl Jung came up with the term Synchronicity as a label for meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by normal cause and effect. This would be events that seem to have the same meaning or are connected by symbolic patterns rather than time. Such as noticing a particular animal right before something significant happens, over and over again. Some postulate that this is the result of an ongoing conversation between your soul and the divine, and it is only when we shift our attention to it that we realize the extent to which it happens.I recommend reading Jung's book above about it, as I do not do this Axiom justice with my explanation.

So there you have it, this months installment of Open Source Magick. Please give me feedback on your own progress, either in the comments below or email me at sasquatchjones@ymail.com. Keep up the Great Work and keep being your wonderful self.

Waters of Rebirth- An Open Source Magick

My latest adventures with the element of water have lead me to some of the most wonderful depths within myself. I have finally realized why no coven, group or lodge has ever been right for me, no matter how much I might like part of the system the whole thing never FELT right. That my friends has opened doors previously closed and revealed immense vistas for exploration. Until I understood how much the Great Work depends on Love, I was unable to progress. Love does not abuse, love is strong enough to pursue Joy Unabashed. Love will instruct the soul's path through the heart. Without this element passion is scorching but joyless, inspiration becomes mental masturbation, only coupled with love can the other elements rise towards manifestation.

I have decided to devise my own system and share the results here, however I invite you to join the journey. Starting May 1st, for no other reason than its my birth month, I will begin detailing a program for defining your own system.After that I will share my own projects between the first and fifteenth of each month and together we will form own Magicks, free from cultural baggage. An, Open Source Magick, if you will.

I recommend studying as much as possible, seek inspiration everywhere. I find my own inspiration in topics as diverse as Chaos Magick, Thelema, Voudon, Tantra, HooDoo, Traditional Witchcraft, Hedge-witchery, Shamanism, Pronoia, and the Church of the Subgenius. My teachers consist of Jung, RAW, Rob Brezsny, Lao Tzu, Peter Carroll, Allen Ginsberg, Mark Twain, and Santa Claus. If you want to do some pre-study, I recommend the following books:
1.Pronoia by Rob Brezsny
2.The One Year Manual by Dr. Israel Regardie
3.Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft by Raymond Buckland
4.Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation & Other Devices by Dr. Christopher S. Hyatt
5. The Magicians Companion  and The Magicians Reflection by Bill Whitcomb

These are in no particular order are not necessary, just extra credit if you will. I shall be posting the first installment soon, stay tuned. As always I shall keep you apprised of progress with the Elemental Workings.

"All for one and each man for himself." - The Black Adder

Cthulhu Heart Chakra Meditation

 
There in the dark I saw Mahakala dancing through a hail storm as Thor in his goat drawn cart beat out lightning with Mjöllnir. On past Hecate at the crossroads smoking cigars with Legba, to cross the cemetery where the Grateful dead invite me to feast. Tonight's errand takes me further still, I promise to return, everyone does they say. There beneath the dolmen, on past Weyland the Qayin's forge, deeper still I must travel. Finally I stand before Gwynn Ap Nudd, so saturnal in demeanor. He knows why I have come, to find the way in. He informs me that I must take to wild places, skyclad and wild with drunken ecstasy, then I will find what I long for; freedom. So back to the surface I must go and quest for the Wyld Wood....

 For extra fun listen to all three of these videos at once, adjust the individual volume as needed.

Trust me on this. Do some Pranayama and Mindfulness Meditation. Sound is powerful. This one is for you Joseph Shuffield.

Catching Up

Sometimes life just takes off and one must do their best to stay in stride and still take time to stay in alignment. After spending so much time charging sigils and working elemental rites on top of my other various and sundry workings, banishings, bindings, lunar rites and so on, the seeds of my labor are bearing fruit. Firstly my Water Elemental Rites are revealing much, I had interesting experience with others on the internet, went through some intense dentistry recently, my spirit guides are nudging me onto new projects, and I have begun to a clearer picture of my new working model. So now, on with the show....

Water Workings

This spring has begun with more than its fair share of emotional tests. Definitely stand by my decision not to work the elements in the typical conjunction with the seasons, and also to start on cross-quarters rather than the traditional quarters. Everything seems to flow together into one confluence, hopefully I can ride this current without it turning into a flood. My elemental still eludes me, but I think I have felt its whiskers across my feet. The water will not be enough, I must get down into the mud. the psychic sludge that feeds all my avoidance issues. I am finding pranayama and mindfulness meditation to be particularly effective so far, but the final plunge has yet to be undertaken. Next stop, the murky bottom.

Ocelot

In the midst of some heavy soul searching concerning my worthiness to be a spiritual advisor, I had the following interactions with Ocelot over at The Serpent and The Foxglove. First I responded to this post. Go ahead and read it and my comment below. This went on to this mention in another post:

On the other hand, as Tao Jones so wisely said in his comment, "The glib response is to say, 't's all for a purpose' but I won't bullshit you with that stale Judeo Xtian surrender." Sometimes defeat is just that. It's not cleansing or making room. It's just failure. And that's what scares me - that it's time to sell the tack and the horse and just get back on the boat, and I'm just not accepting that. 

I must admit I felt somewhat honored to know that a few words to a stranger that seemed to be riddled with the same self doubt that I had recently experienced had made an impact. But Universe and Ocelot had more to teach me. That became apparent when I read this:

Better Pissed Off Than Pissed On, Or Why Tao Jones Is Right.

That is the title of Ocelot's latest post. I felt a lump in my throat. On one of the hardest days I've had in a while, when all the death, illness, self doubt and depression threatened to overwhelm me this post came like a lifesaver to a man about to drown. These words spoke straight to the center of my being:

 And I looked at Tao's comment again, him saying he believes in me, and thought, how? He doesn't really know me. But maybe he does. Maybe Tao is a little smarter about me than I am, right now. Maybe he's right, and the thing to do is dust off my sandals and keep moving toward where I'm really supposed to be.

I realized that I gave the advice I most needed to hear to someone else and in the process helped myself. I am a spiritual advisor even when I am not trying to be. This is in my blood. The water of my life.

Trance Zen Dental Omissions

I wish this was exciting as the title suggests, but it is not, sorry. I have lost three teeth and under gone the first of three root planing procedures, almost as gruesome as it seems. That is unless you are me and spent years neglecting oral hygiene and then the relief from pain is so great that any pain endured in the actual procedure is mitigated. I can taste food with more depth and pleasure. My breath has had its offensiveness cut in half. This is not really magical, its work, but then again so is magick. Where this has affected my magick is in the new found self confidence I have from reclaiming myself. I fell into the abyss and have lived to tell the tale, perhaps that is why the final plunge into the murky depths scares me, when I fell in, I nearly died. Hopefully this time I have prepared myself properly with just the right magical techne to get through.

Whispers in My Ear

During a recent self blessing ritual, working through my pranayama, I felt an itch in my ear. As I entered a trance state, I heard whispers. Through out my meditation, I heard whispers. All of them urging, nudging, suggesting. So after listening to these gentle hints in the breezes of spring, I have decided to rekindle my interests in the Hedge Witchery of Wales, and Celtic Hedge Witchery in general, coupled with deeper studies in the realms of hermetic-ism. These spirits that guide me are trusted allies and their gentle persuasions usually yield the sweetest fruits, so off I endeavor.I shall as always, keep you apprised of my progress.

Mane Novum

The Latin for New Dawn, and that's how I feel right now, as if I just awoke from a long winters nap and the vagaries of spring are in full bloom. All the fauns and satyrs are afoot. The earth opens. I seem to be formulating a model and plan to use as a template for healing. Those plans will start small and grow. For now I must concentrate on my pranayama and shamatha. New workings, new sorcery, more necromantic transmissions, and renewed outlook. The future looks bright indeed, right on the other side of the murky depths.

Intersections, Flux, and Fertility

So one of my Facebook feeds put forth this question of ones definition of their path and its origins. I liked this question so much that I used it as inspiration for this post. My self definition went something along the lines of; Solitary, Open Source, Thelemite, Chaote, and Shamanic Traditional Hedgewitch.How I got here is a rather long tale, and if I ever tell it all , I will write a book. My purpose rather is tell you, dear reader, of the things that inform my path and perhaps shed a small beam of light into my own Stygian Depths.

Intersections, Intersections, Intersections

O Eleggua! Open the crossroads so that I may pass,

Jai! Ganapati! Remove the obstacles from my path,

Blessed St. Peter, Open the Gates,

Great Goddess Hekate, Guide me through the crossroads Hour,

Cenllysg Brighid,Tell me where I've been and where I'll go,

May the Blessings of the Crossroads keep me ever finding Moksha.

Ah, the crossroads, so much has been written about what to do once your there, but so little about how to access that liminal space. I will not insult you by prescribing a ritual, I'll let you devise that technology yourself, you're clever, you'll come up with something. I love intersections. Those crazy places where things overlap, where strange collisions morph into collusions, and for one brief instant the whole of Universe may be glimpsed, perhaps even briefly unite with and merge into the Numinous Void. Not Jazz Fusion that is a forced intersection, no I'm talking about those accidental spaces. Spaces that crop up at the bus stop, when the homeless woman you've never seen before turns and looks at you. You out of everyone there and she says, " This world is a whorehouse and we're all whores! WHORES!WHORES!" She doesn't get on the bus and you never see her again, but you understand. Intersections in time and space, where everything seems slightly out of place and yet also strangely perfect.

Jimi Hendrix on the Gayageum , Franken-berry and Count Chocula flying spaceships, the loveliness that is Electro-Pagan, HooDoo, VooDoo, and Santeria, these and many other cultural crossroads are all forms of syncretism. In expressions of art and culture this is known as eclecticism. These are my hunting grounds and I suspect that it is so for many Modern Pagans. Unless you are a historical reconstructionist dead set on recreating the rituals of your ancestors exactly then you are borrowing and remixing. Your Magick is just one big Cut-Up. In order to access and maintain contact with the Crossroads, I find it helpful to remain in a state of flux, as much as possible. You cannot make exploits out of the opportunities if you do not remain open to the possibilities. How does one learn to maintain a state of flux? I found these books helpful,Undoing Yourself with Engineered Meditation and Other Devices, by Christopher Hyatt, and Pronoia, by Rob Brezsny. Lets talk about flux.

Flux, Flow, Fluidity

Whether one calls it Flux, Flow, Fluidity, Instinct,the Cauldron of Inspiration, or the Voice of God, positive psychology is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called it, I find his explanation somewhat magickal, read about it here, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.Optimal Experience, isn't that why we do what we do? Whatever path your on I believe that ultimately we are trying to get the most out of life. For me part of that is to see life as one great manifestation of itself, nothing more, nothing less. The lesson is everywhere, it bubbles up from the ground, is sung to you by birds, is manifested in every breath. Open up to Multiverse, and prepare to embrace the weirdness. This is what happens when one works with Wild Gods, Old Gods, Denizens of the Deep, great Fluidity is needed to ride these waves.

My Friend in Spirit, and on the net, John Halcyon, states it rather succinctly, see the video below.

If you didn't watch the video let me paraphrase, if you did watch, feel free to attack my feeble summary. John basically states that Universe works like a gps, you tell it where you want go and it takes you there. I don't disagree except on point, I think it is more like an improbability engine. All in all the message is the same, faith, trust, openness to the possibilities, all require attentiveness, and effort. Always work must be done to yield results, you can't think a bookshelf into existence without cutting wood. Finding the Flux at the Crossroads yields a rich and fertile treasure, Inspiration.

Fertility, Inspiration, Union

The Union of Opposites is one of Multiverse's oldest and most successful rituals, because it always yields results. A full spectrum of possibilities opens with each new union. Connectivity is liberating, and individuality is comforting, but the meeting of opposites can be anything from orgasmic to apocalyptic. Results do vary. There seems to be fail safe of some sort as most encounters, 51% give or take, tend to be benign or insignificant.There are those times when the intersections are just boring, see fig. A.

Figure A

When one begins to deliberately alter reality in accordance with ones will, then one has begun to work Magick. How one chooses to manifest that Work is as varied as the people that do such Work. Most agree that it is waste of time to use such effort to bring more evil into the world, others already do enough on that front. as for those that disagree, every batch has its bad apple. I try not to judge, but my desire to see such souls find the errors of their ways betrays my judgments. So I readjust and pray that no one comes to harm. Its all I can do, send Multiverse my love, and feel love in return.

Every day is a quest for me to find that place that helps me remain focused, in alignment with myself,with Multiverse. Always seeking adventure, I go to the Crossroads, seeking the Flux, finding fertile Inspiration for my Work. Pure effort yields pure results. Live free and keep questing.

Fire Elemental Working Part II

So as you may recall from my previous post on the subject, my first series of fire workings yielded mixed results. I've known that I am more of an Air witch than anything else, but  honestly fire left me feeling cold. Then the "elemental" that presented itself to me left wondering if I was doing something wrong. In true Sorcerer fashion I decided to dig deeper, and what I found was astounding.

Many years ago I had my Medicine Cards read. One thing that I remember is Mother Bear presented herself with the message that I needed to work on intimacy issues and learn to trust and surrender myself to love, eight plus years later and I am still working on it. That was what Fire was teaching me. Until I came to terms with my intimacy issues and learned not to use dysfunctional behaviours to garner attention, only then would I progress. As fate would have it, that is exactly what happened.

As Imbolc approached, I realized that my fire workings were coming to an end, I was grossly unprepared. The weather and scheduling were rapidly converging on a ruinous path counter to my bonfire plans. A different working had to be conceived. I decided to combine my Sigil-A-Day 2014 (more about that forthcoming) working with New Moon/Black Moon, Imbolc and Fire Elemental workings all into one ginormous three day ritual marathon. The workings themselves are much too long and specific to go into here, but if you want more info, PM me on Facebook (friend me.) The final result of this being hypnagogic revelations about the exact nature of my wounded ego and the many emotional manipulations I use to protect it. Instead of healing I was spreading my illness to others around me by being an emotional bully. Acceptance of these facts, released a large blockage in my psyche. Their will continue to be many workings in this area of my path.

Air was easy, like Sherlock Holmes I too have a Mind Palace, except mine is a tree house in Elfhame. My natural Mercurial nature leads me to be somewhat of a mental masturbator, so I was already familiar with the territory. Fire, however really challenged me and lead to some fairly deep healing. Out of the two elements I have worked with so far I believe Fire will ultimately prove the more significant working. I have begun to burn away some seriously old and unnecessary blockages to my Great Work, I feel more in tune with my True Will than I have for sometime in my life. This is old Magick.

On the final night of my workings I had a magnificent dream, involving a bear that transformed into a snake. In my previous workings, a spirit presented itself to me that I mistook for my elemental. This being appeared to me as a bear. In my dream, this bear came to me again, and announced that it must shed its skin, so that I could see its true form. The bear stood up on her back legs and split apart, in her place an albino rattlesnake hovered. The snake spit out fire and all the colors of the rainbow danced upon her skin. Then locking her gaze with mine, told me that I was ready to proceed, nothing more. Then ouroboros style, she inserted her tail into her mouth and proceeded to eat until she blinked out. That was it, except that now I continue to see how my damaged psyche has caused me to harm others. I have much work to do, and I believe I may have been called upon to be a vessel of service.

The shores of water have been pleasant so far, but I know that as I plunge into the depths, and as each set of workings builds upon the past, there will indeed be monsters with which I must contend. I shall as always keep you informed. Below I have included a picture I made of the Fire Elemntal based upon myimpressions of her.