Walking the Green Ways

To Be Silent

2006-04-16T14:42:05Z

The value of silence in magical practice... my response to the thread at http://teriel.livejournal.com/330689.html?view=1482433#t1482433

I've had too many sorcery workings go wrong if I talked about them while in process, so now I don't normally do that.

Talking about past experiences, concepts, and experimentation is entirely different, I think. That said, I used to post a fair bit about magic, especially on my other journal, greenways, but almost never got any responses. It feels like a waste of time.

My first magical partner pretty much went off the deep end with "psychic warrior" fantasies. (Granted it was high school, but he never outgrew them.) I have liked to check in with other people, mainly to see if they think I'm falling too far off the deep end myself... but then I also sort of think, "Screw 'em. Most people are uninspired idiots who've never even considered the meaning of 'to dare'". (Go read http://www.occultforums.com) Not a pretty opinion but it isn't my complete opinion on humanity either... most are very decent and interesting people, and completely unsuited to the pursuit of magic. So why should I bother sharing something so precious and private? It's not normally worth their time or mine.

My take on the old magician's motto, "To know, to will, to dare, and to remain silent?" It's a general guideline that you need to know what's possible, in theory and history; to want to do it; to actually do it, regardless of fear (of failure and of success); and to then exercise appropriate discretion. Silence isn't being mute - it's speaking when your words will have worthy effect, and not otherwise wasting them.

Knowing and understanding are two different things

2006-03-13T00:50:53Z

I was just reading Witchvox a bit, which I don't do much any more, and in particular going through the "new books" listing. UGH! Why doesn't anyone seem to grasp that magic isn't found in spell books? That anything you can intellectually understand and say, "Put this here and this here and then do this, and all will be well!" has utterly missed the point?

Go forth naked into Mystery. You are not safe and trying to make yourself safe is embracing a lie, and that lie is the death of the spirit. You are little. You do not have power over anything. The best you can do is balance, and sometimes twist the dance the way you'd like it to go. But more often, it will be moving you... and if you want to remain part of it, you'll follow that dance.

I hate the sense of entitlement, of ignorant religious arrogance, of "oh-happy-all-is-okay" or "YES! We're becoming mainstream!" that you see in pagan sources. Here's a hint: these things aren't for everybody. They are old and dark and wild; simultaneously, they burn and blaze and shine like the radiant sun down through all the hollows of your spirit. It isn't for the sleepy masses, most of the time, and it SHOULDN'T be either.

If you've never gone out in the woods and been honestly, deeply worried that you might not come back intact or alive - then you'll never understand the pursuit of magic.

I am disgusted with the simplification, the dumbing down, the plasticisation of spirituality, that you see in neopagandom.

And no, I'm not offering anything particularly constructive here, because there isn't a damn thing I could teach anyone anyways! The only thing I could ever do is maybe show someone, a little, how to learn... but they'd have to walk down that path for themselves, and more likely than not they'd blame me for their subsequent breakdown and get nothing more out of it. What a bloody waste of time and energy.

Oh, erg, I'm not really sure what set this rant off. I haven't even been around pagans for the last year, and I liked the people I hung out with. I guess...

I made a bindrune sigil before going to the Seychelles - well, to enable the trip, actually - and took the paper with me. The last night there, at 2 a.m. in the middle of a fierce storm, I went barefoot into the downpour and down to the beach. The waves were smashing into the shore, some almost as tall as me, and moving so fast! It was like standing next to a dangerous beast, one that had been gentle the day before. I took a breath, paced the timing, and between breakers I ran down and gave my drawing to the waters. For a second, I felt... a gaping maw of power, the ocean as I had never imagined it, a depth and restless hunger I'd never envisioned... and then it swallowed my little paper and I darted back to shore.

And I had thought it was only water.

If you had asked me, I could have talked about myths and gods and practices and beliefs both ancient and modern... but there is a difference between knowledge and understading. Knowing about a thing implies nothing about understanding it.

And that is something to which a great many pagan authors could give some thought.

Path Card updates - Paths

2006-01-03T02:49:27Z

These cards show imagery for working the paths of the Tree of Life - as stated before, the idea is that one imagines themself in the picture, then sets off down the path there illustrated, to seek what inspirations and insights might be found.

If you're interested, these are oil paintings done with water soluable oils.

These cards correspond to the mythological principals (and tarot cards) of Journey through the Underworld (the World); Trial by Fire (Judgement); the Awakening of the Mind (the Sun), the Journey over Water (the Moon), Awakening of the Heart (the Star), the Meeting of Ice and Fire/ the War at World's End (the Tower), and Ascent into Light (Temperance). References from "Paths of Wisdom" by John Michael Greer.

Path Card updates - spheres

2006-01-03T02:37:21Z

Here are pictures of the Spheres on the Tree of Life that I've been painting. Not the greatest scans, but considering the paintings aren't even finished, oh well.

This shows, in order right to left/ top to bottom, the Spheres for Earth, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Sun (which I've barely started). In Cabalistic terms, Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, Netzach, and Tipareth.

It's hard to see right now, but the hillside above the campfire in Malkuth is a giant stone woman, like a troll or Venus of Willendorf.

Thought of the day

2005-12-15T00:32:33Z

For some reason this just popped into my head on the metro tonight. Well, an LJ friend is writing a book about otherkin (lupabitch), and I've been thinking about the topic a bit in relation to her posts.

The thing I really don't like about otherkin, and I say this knowing full well I could be accused of being one...

...is that mostly it's about navel gazing, and finding unicorns in your belly button.

Some questions, pt. 1

2005-12-07T22:22:24Z

December 6, 2005

A history professor of mine once said all good papers are based around good questions, and instead of simply reporting on a subject, try to answer that question. Seeing friends complete NaNoWriMo made me want to get writing again (though not particularly on a novel) and so I sat down with a notebook and wrote a list of questions I have about magic, which I do want to write about. Mainly because it’s been my prime area of personal research, many of them focus on Veilwork.

I wish I could get a meme going on this – post 10 questions you have about magic, then comment on them. But simply, most people aren’t that inquisitive, so I doubt it would get going.

Okay, this was 5 pages long in the notebook, and I only got to the first five or so questions that were on paper, since rewriting sparked so many other thoughts.

Feel free to respond with thoughts or additional questions.

What makes magic work? It obeys certain behavioral patterns, like the Laws of Magic Bonewits started “Real Magic” with. But its working implies a vastly different set of underlying assumptions about how and why the universe works – given at least first hand evidence of magic’s working, what larger theory would explain it?

Is their a uniting conciousness to the universe? An organizing principle? Personally, I think that’s what heka (Egyptian), *nerto (proto-Indo-European) or “the Force” (American)(sigh) basically are. Heka was associated with a god or intelligence of magical power – not a god of magicians, like Thoth, but directly of the power itself. Does the energetic current through which magic operates (after all, you need to “raise power” for workings, and what is that anyway?) have an intelligence?

What is a “world”? Etymologically, according to Tony, it means “Age of Man”, which implies a certain cultural bias. But, well, the basic deal with magic is that minds shape the world – and memes shape minds, viral patterns of thought passed down through generations – what shapes your mind? Also, add a dash of animism, and a lot of minds are shaping the place… not to mention sheer inertia. Then there’s the idea that we exist in the mind of god – okay, I can see that, if “god” is our oversoul, the big organism of which we are cells… perhaps all on a mental level, willing ourselves into being, following the path of least resistance established by our ancestors, into incarnation. Why? Does the big “us” basically need a learning experience? Is “God” just the universe’s way of asking itself, “What am I? What can I be?” There’s no morality there, just… experiences, which is most of how I’ve seen the world work. Effect follows cause. Sometimes we learn a thing or two from it.

Multiple/ parallel worlds… more exploration of curiosity? “God”, as defined above, exploring all the possibilities? (As theology goes, this is what makes sense to me. “God”, big “G”, doesn’t/ can’t/ isn’t of a nature to “care” about things in particular – but the little “g” gods are, so they’re the ones who we actually interact with in religion and magic – in part because they are of an approachable sort of conciousness in relation to ours. (For the record, I’m including the Abrahamic god in this category. Not that I want to approach him.)

Anyway… if the world is shaped by the power of minds, then that implies it could have been shaped differently in the past – people thought differently then - and that currently available evidence about the past may also be largely shaped to fit our current expectations. In other words, people see what they are looking for, because they are largely incapable of seeing anything else, and perhaps because things they are incapable of believing in simply fade out of existence. Disturbing and interesting idea… but is it an accurate model?

So, if you have a universe whose intelligence is split up into many smaller intelligences, like cells and organs in an organism, how do they work, together and separately? The whole idea of a universe exploring its possibilities implies multiple, perhaps parallel, worlds, wherein all possibilities may be explored. This leaves an obvious and gaping sociological or ethical hole, but it exists in the abstract, whereas people still have to live with one another here and now in our perceptible, consensual reality. Anyway, does this mean we live in distinct worlds, or fade through largely analogous spectrums of possibility, as our will – energetic or apathetic – directs? Do magical workings “make things happen” or guide us into a parallel reality where they are already happening? Or is that only in particularly significant cases, major workings as it were?

What is the Veil Between Worlds, then? What is/are the otherworld(s)? What is it made of? Is it multiple things which are commonly confused as being only one thing? Are their different Veils depending on what or where in the otherworld you’re trying to reach? Does the Veil actually exist, or is it simply a metaphor for something else which it is harder to conceive of? Is it a created construct? Is it intelligent? Is it a sort of cell membrane between worlds? Is it simply disorganized energy, or somehow similar to the static between radio stations?

Is the relationship between the “stuff” that makes up the otherworld, and that which makes up ours, essentially the same? Are we talking about a water metaphor – reality’s normal state here is a bit like ice, but elsewhere more like a liquid or a gas? More fluid and malleable?

If the basic unit of matter shows up as a particle or wave depending on who’s looking at it, and their expectations… doesn’t that imply it isn’t really either, but something more akin to thought? So maybe the matter of the universe ends up one way when humans are willing it to be a particular way, and another when who-knows-what does the same?

Quick notes

2005-11-30T10:40:03Z

The pathworking cards project is coming along slowly but steadily; I have 10 cards in process now and am pretty much done with 4. I've figured out how, if no other options work out, to self publish through Lulu.com, though the images would then be in a spiral bound book, not a card deck. Well, we'll see.

They're such odd images. It's a little strange for me, at times, to see what's flowing off my paintbrush.

Partly because I've been talking about going back to Ireland in the spring, and because of recent additional work on the cards, I've been starting to raise questions about my understanding of magic and the otherworld again. Last night I sat down, wrote 5 pages of questions in a notebook, and then some tentative new theories about working with the Veil Between Worlds... ei... it begs for experimentation.

Yet here I've put myself in this virtual isolation tank, by leaving home to teach English and not finding a great number of distractions here in Moscow. Well. It's letting me think, paint, and process a lot of overdue issues and thoughts, so perhaps it's better to just make the best of it.

By the way, I just noticed that Amazon has reduced their international shipping rates a bit. Any suggestions for good, new (last 6 months) books on magic and/ or paganism?

More card paintings

2005-10-08T10:35:13Z

The Living Tree

Okay, I have things to do so I don't know WHY this bloody computer isn't letting me post my images of the cards, but that at least is the Tree image I'm working with now. It takes the Lurianic Tree's geometry and uses a continental Celtic stylization form instead of straightening everything out.

What do you think?

Pathworking cards

2005-08-06T12:11:51Z

I'm working on a series of 31 paintings that can be used as starting points for pathworking or astral projection. Here's the first finished image, the Earth Gate, and the second one I'm still putting finishing touches on. The third image is half done, the forth is in the underpainting stage still, the fifth is only a sketch at the moment, the sixth is an idea, and I don't yet know what I'll do from there up. They correspond at least loosely to the paths (and I'll do sphere cards after I've finished the paths) of the Tree of Life, but are meant to have wider possible application. I.e., I'm not putting any symbols on the images that would narrow their focus.

Pictures behind the cut.

"The Earth Gate". Passage through the Underworld, the path of Tau. Elemental Earth. Or could be used outside the Cabalistic framework as an entry to the Northern European Otherworld, the hollow hills, etc.

"The Phoenix Gate". Trial by fire, the path of Shin. Elemental Fire. Useful for studying alchemy; note the white city in the far distance, and head thataways .

Anyway, the basic idea is that you fill your mind with the image, and then mentally step forward into it. First you absorb the sensory details of the place - scent, heat, dampness, wind, etc - and especially the feel of the ground beneath your feet. Then you turn around in a circle, narrating to yourself what you see. Finally, you start walking down the path. This can be done with a partner or a group, if you speak aloud while trancing and stay together. You venture forth, then take notes afterwards. Meeting spirits or otherworld intelligences is common, and a good way to learn about various things.

So anyway... I'm considering trying to publish these, as I've got a good contact in the Twin Cities that could help with that. But, I'd like to get some people to guinea pig the idea first. Any volunteers?

greenways @ 2005-06-07T17:23:00

2005-06-07T13:23:20Z

June 6, 2005

Should have written this last night, but pretty much fell into bed exhausted. Might have disregarded it today, too, but something from the pathworking sort of fell into my waking life, so…

Quick explanation. Pathworkings start at a specific astral place or type of place, and then you venture forth and see what happens. In this case I was working the Path of Tau, the lowermost path on the Tree of Life, which connects Malkuth to Yesod - the realm of the earth and elements to the moon and etheric level reality. The mythological concept of the path is "the decent through the underworld", and I've done it... hmm, three or four times before. The imagery has and sense in the way of dreams; i.e, not much, but containing poetic truths and sometimes omens, more often reflections of the world.

Started the pathworking at the Temple we used when we did the work with Magenta and Martin; fire in the south, river in the west, cliff and sky to the east, and a cave entrance to the North. Pretty much had meant to stick to Cabala on it, in so much as I really intended anything at all… mostly you have to just let these experiences come.

The fire was tall and very large; it was night, and I saw some kind of shaman by it briefly. He had a red mask on, perhaps of a bull or bison – it seemed to have horns – and a feather headdress of some kind. Almost seemed Mexican, in a way. He faded, and I turned towards the river. It seemed… deeper, like the pool was bottomless. Silver glinted at the bottom, like in Thingvellir’s river. The east was a road of stars. A red and black painted bowl sat on the alter, and next to it a ladle. Seemed, again, almost Mexican, or very primitively Russian perhaps.

A structure of sorts guarded the cave entry. Wooden poles, carved; perhaps a roof. The Old Man waited there; I followed him in, and straight. Very shortly we came to a cavern, gold strewn, where gem colored liquids flowed into three gilt receptacles; they were emerald, citrine, and ruby… yet somehow, it all was tawdry, and stank of rot and death. We passed by; he seemed relieved that I wanted nothing to do with it all. I had a thought of the Rhinegold cross my mind, probably just from watching that movie recently… A very rough wooden door, perhaps 3 feet tall, led out the other side; I ducked through, and

my horse was tripping on exhaustion and the desert’s stones; sweat made ropes down her sides. We fled an army of terrible dogs, or wolves… beasts without the grace of either, more like. Black, with humps on their backs like hyenas. The sun was high but red; the desert was burned red and black, moonscape stones and black thorns under a yellow sky. The light was wrong, its color burned and overexposed. Our exhausted company – perhaps there were thirty of us, perhaps a hundred – galloped in retreat from thousands of the dog things. There was purpose and destination to it, though. We pushed through a thick hedge of thorns, and the rainbow bridge loomed before us; unto it, fast, somehow ordered – our company knew how to move together – we leapt, and those dogs that dared pursue us burned.

We rode through flames that reached our mounts’ withers, waist high to the riders. The bridge leveled and many dismounted; there was a hasty reorganization with orders shouted and… something blurry. A grey building, storm colored, loomed near us. Someone grabbed my arm, pulled me aside, pointed to a pearly door and said this was where I got off. I was exhausted feeling, and stumbled through it as the riders wheeled and departed. Glanced around briefly at the Yesodic temple, grey with dust, and largely unformed. I decided it wasn’t the time to work on Yesod, and rushed through the path back home and to my body.

Felt wiped, tired enough to fall into bed and do nothing more.Did the Cab cross then, but not an actual banishing, and woke to dreams of being attacked by crustaceans. Erg. Figured it meant energy scavengers were cleaning up the mess I’d left. Did an astral LBRP and went back to undisturbed sleep.

So today, I looked out my window to see the skyscrapers lit rosy gold against a stormy sky, catching the sunset beautifully. Grabbed my camera and rushed out, started snapping pictures… and noticed a rainbow had started in the south. Before long, it had stretched north until both ends touched the ground, and a huge arch, large and high enough that the bottoms bent inwards, encircled the sky. The sky behind it was grey and green, and small clouds raced by. I toasted Odhinn and the Einharjar, then, with Medovouha, and urged them on their way… drew a rune, the M one, and said to the clouds, yes, move. And the rainbow faded, northwards, and the storm clouds drew away… I cut the first two notches in a birch slab, to make an idol out of, while their light faded.

greenways @ 2005-04-11T23:35:00

2005-04-12T04:35:31Z

There are things I need to remind myself regularly. This, from Phil Hine's brilliant book "Prime Chaos" (first edition), is a big one.

“The demon of Inertia is the Guardian of the Threshold of Achievable Reality, and the only way to overcome it is through determination, effort, and sheer bloody-mindedness; themselves useful qualities in the would-be magician.”

Part of the reason I'm making myself get out of the States, and heading off to the Grand Unknown (aka Moscow, where I'll be teaching English) is the very comfortably boring rut I've been in for much too long.

For aye, long ago in an age past (high school in the mid 90s), the Tomes of Lore (Dungeon Master's Handbook and Players Guide) said young mages must go forth into the world, there to have adventures, earn XP, and become strong enough that an average housecat cannot kill them in three rounds...

Once a geek, always a geek. I had the thought about D&D unintentionally informing my practice a couple weeks ago. Now I have a one way ticket to Russia and a couple job interviews. Nothing like putting yourself in a situation where you regularly need to use magick to get better at it! And Russia is crazy enough to make that likely.

The sheer bloody mindedness part is something I'd like to comment on. Some people have commented, in the usual way, about wishing they could get overseas and travel. It is not something that just happens. You decide on it, accept the consequences (and they aren't easy), damn the torpedos, and do it. Your momentum will make things fall into place.

Strategic sacrifices to Odin don't hurt either.

Anyway, that's magick. Clarify your Will within yourself, project it into the world, and GO. Do not dither, do not hesitate, do not let regrets or weakness hold you back. Decide, and do, and live with the consequences.

I hit the point where the consequences of staying in the life I have right now felt lousier than a one way ticket to Russia. Doing nothing... was not turning me into what I want to be. I probably could have come up with some other thing to do, but as everyone says I have the worst case of itchy feet they've ever known, and it was getting to the point where I couldn't even think for wanting to be on the road. So, before anything else, I have to take care of that.

What are the things you need to do, so badly you can hardly breathe for them crowding out your heart?

Banishing advice

2005-04-12T03:52:08Z

I just replied to someone on "Non-Fluffy Pagans" about some advice for banishing a spirit that has been feeding on energy from her friend. Here's my advice to her:

From: greenkira
Date: April 12th, 2005 - 10:38 am

Astral parasites tend not to just wander off when they're getting themselves a good meal, so avoiding a confrontation is unlikely if you want to get rid of them. Whatever it is sounds like it has a pretty strong hook into your friend's energy, so that needs to be removed and then his aura sealed against it. Trapping and binding the entity so it doesn't come back is also probably a good idea.

There are a couple things to keep in mind. First, the kind of link you're talking about goes two ways. If it's using it to draw energy off of him, he can use it to draw energy off of it. Second, by virtue of being in this world, you have the upper hand against spirits trying to steal energy from it. Why? I don't know, but it seems to be true. Will it _very steadily_, and you can deny them entrance and influence.

My suggestion would be to have him make a witch bottle with hair, fingernail clippings, rusty nails and broken glass in it. Then, with the seal ready and the bottle at hand, cleanse the space and your friend (shower, smudge, salt, incense, etc) and cast a circle. (Not the shower, that's preliminary.) Don't do anything to cleanse the bottle; it's meant to be a decoy and a trap.

Next do a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, and then the Middle Pillar Ritual. If your friend can perform these himself that would probably be better. Then one of you hold the bottle, while he draws on the link to the parasite, focusing on the link going to the hair and nails in the bottle, not his actual self. When the spirit appears, it should be pulled into the bottle; cap it as soon as it seems contained, and melt beeswax over the top to seal it. Scratch a warding sign like a pentagram into the wax.

At this point you have a trapped spirit and a number of options of how to deal with it. If it's weak enough to be stealing energy from your friend, it probably isn't useful unless you want to sic it on someone, which is of course a dodgy, though traditional, proposition. Ah, medieval witchcraft. You could also set the bottle in sunlight, an etheric eraser, which would probably cause the spirit to fade into non-existence. Or just take the bottle out somewhere and bury it.

Myself, I'd just do the LBRP, it being effective enough when practiced regularly and well internalized, to take care of this thing easily, but a lot of neopagans are more stuck on avoiding all Judeo-Christian "taint" than being effective witches or magicians. (This is non-fluffy pagans, I think I can say that here.)

Okay, that's the banishing bit. You might also want to find out what your friend did to attract this thing in the first place. You may even want to try talking to the spirit and asking and/or telling it to leave. Be sure to do this from a position of strength.

Best of luck.

From: greenkira
Date: April 12th, 2005 - 10:43 am

Oops, should have clarified. What I posted above should work whether it's an external spirit or your friend's personal shadow side. Telling him it's just his repressions jumping up and shooting him wouldn't likely help anything. Treating it like it's real and letting him do something about it would probably be more useful.

Magickal Journal

2005-04-11T03:19:25Z

I'm starting this new journal expressly for writing about pagan and magickal topics, especially the things that feel odd to put in my social journal. Most of my travel writing will remain there. I'm going to try putting some older but updated files I've written on here, also. Most posts are likely to be "friends only" because I'd like to publish at some point, and would rather not have rough draft writings of mine all over the internet. Along the same lines, please leave comments! Thanks, and I'll start posting here shortly.