How to work with your inner identities

I discuss parts work and share how you can use this method to work with your different identities or aspects of yourself, for healing, learning and a variety of other purposes. I also discuss how to recognize and work with inner aspects in a way that empowers you entire identity.

Inner Alchemy of Life: Physiological Magic pt 2

In part 2 of Physiological Magic I share how I gradually evolved my system of physiological magic and discuss the thought process and methodology involved in the evolution of that system, as well as how this enabled better communication with the neurotransmitters and hormones.

Magical Experiments Podcast: The Connection between astrology and alchemy with Maria Miles

In this episode of Magical Experiments Podcast, I interview Maria Miles about the connection between astrology and alchemy. She shares her background and how she got into astrology and alchemy as well as explaining how astrology can be used in alchemy and magic to get better results with timing.

Maria Miles is an Alchemist, Hermeticist, Witch and Diviner, specializing in Cartomancy and Traditional Astrology. She has been studying these arts collectively for 16 years, beginning as a teenager. What began as a personal endeavor of self discovery has become her primary vocation as a professional astrologer. She has been seeing clients professionally for six years for cartomancy and astrology consults. Her study of alchemy began around age 21 growing into a practice with the instruction of Robert Allen Bartlett. She aims to integrate traditional techniques of astrology and Hermetic philosophy into the lives of modern people, who ask the same questions that humans have always asked.

Maria is an accomplished Sorceress who offers tutelage and advice to those clients with an interest in the occult. Her studies of magic have ranged from traditional witchcraft and folk-cunning to astrological image magic and the crafting of talismans and spagyric elixirs she sometimes has available. All materia magica is limited edition and only available when the stars are right and the proper rites have been observed. She approaches her consultations from a holistic angle aiming to uplift her clients by promoting a mindful consideration of fate. She lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States where she has lived for more than twenty years.

To learn more about Maria go to rootedstarsastrology.com

Now Available for Pre-Order! Inner Alchemy of Wintering

Inner Alchemy of Wintering: How to Recover from Spiritual Burnout is now available for pre-order!

Restore and reinvent yourself through the inner alchemy of wintering

Sometimes we hit spiritual burnout because of events in our lives, or in our spiritual work, or because we’ve just hit the wall and can’t go any further. We hit a state of wintering, where we need to rest, reflect, and reinvent ourselves. In this book you will learn:

• What wintering is and how it applies to spiritual and magical work.

• How to make peace with spiritual burnout, instead of trying to fight it.

• Why we need to integrate rest and reflection into your spiritual and magical work.

• How to discover what is truly essential in the face of burnout.

• How to use the ritual of reinvention to transform your life.

If you’ve hit a state of burnout or wintering, this book will help you work through those states. You’ll learn how to use the inner alchemy of wintering to turn the burnout in your life into inspiration that drives the reinvention of your life through practical magic.

How Near Death Experiences can shape you spiritually

I discuss my near death experiences and share how they can shape you spiritually

Learn how magic works: https://magical-experiments.teachable.com/

Get free books at http://www.magicalexperiments.com/free-books

What happens when the internal work gets hard

I discuss how to handle internal work when it gets hard and share some of my own experiences around that as well as how to handle thoughts in internal work.

Learn how magic works at magical experiments university: https://magical-experiments.teachable.com/

Get free e-books at http://www.magicalexperiments.com/free-books

My inner alchemical and magical work with the corona virus

I discuss the inner alchemical and magical work I'm doing in relationship to the corona virus and share some other thoughts on what we must all do to get through this time.

Get free e-books at http://www.magicalexperiments.com/free-books

Read the blog article at: https://www.magicalexperiments.com/blog/a-ritual-for-protection-and-healing

The Inner Alchemical Path to turning the Dragon of Change into the Momentum of Success

In the last couple of months I've made some pretty big changes in my businesses and life and while these changes are good, what comes with change isn't always easy to deal with. In making some of my choices, I've felt moments of fear and anxiety. Part of me asks, "Am I doing the right thing?" and "Is doing this worth the consequences you'll deal with?" And while I'd like to say my answer is always yes to these questions, the truth is that sometimes its not. Change can be a dragon, mythological in its power in your life, teasing in its glory, yet frightening when faced head on, even with all your preparations.

Change brings with it uncertainty. We step out of the comfortable confines of whatever it is we've been doing and even if we've defined a result (always define your results), there is still those natural feelings of fear and anxiety. And we can and should acknowledge those feelings, but what we shouldn't do is let them take over, because once that happens we'll sabotage the very change we seek to bring into our lives. Change seems like a dragon, but the reality is that change is your ally, if you make it into one. Today I want to talk about how working with change can greatly enhance your life (which participants in JOY, the upcoming life altering class on mastering internal work and applying it to your life, will accomplish) if you learn how to work with it and its agents instead of resisting it.

To turn change into your ally you've got to engage it on all levels of your being, starting with your feelings. 

Embrace ALL of your feelings. The happiness and the fear, the excitement and the anxiety. All of those emotions are part of this process of change, but if you only focus on the positive ones, you're doing yourself a disservice. The negative emotions, as terrifying as they may seem to be, can also be a great source of inspiration. Fear can paralyze you or it can motivate you to push through and do the work you need to do. When I have different emotions come up in relationship to the change I'm creating and going through, I open myself to the feelings, and feel them. I don't think about them...I feel them in my body. My stomach knots up as I feel fear, my pulse races a bit as I feel anxiety, and yet I allow it...and keep myself present with what I'm feeling. By feeling it, I'm actually allowing myself to process and let go of the attachments the emotions embody. You can do this to.

When you feel fear, allow yourself to feel that fear to uncover what comes up in relationship to it. You may find that other emotions such as shame and guilt come up, which also need to be experienced. You might find that a specific event triggered the feeling and that you need to process that event. In my case, it was choosing to leave two networking leads groups I've been part of. Rationally I have excellent reasons for making the choice to leave, but emotionally it was hard to do and it felt like I was pushing myself out of a nest. Allowing myself to acknowledge that helped me feel the emotions and let go of their hold on me, because now they were acknowledged.

By embracing your darkest emotions, you turn them into fuel that empowers the change you seek to manifest in your life. You turn resistance into advantage.

With change, comes resistance. Your feelings are one form of that resistance, because they show up to try and keep you in the dead weight of your status quo. But when you embrace your feelings and accept them, you turn them into allies and as a result you turn their inertia of resistance into the momentum that powers your success. The primary resistance you'll always encounter with change is your internal fears and doubts rearing up to hold you back and until you harness them and turn them into your allies they will convince you not to taken action, to stay in the comfortable discomfort of your status quo. And not surprisingly you'll find that your external circumstances mirror the internal fears and doubts holding you back.

To truly hold space with your feelings and turn them into allies you need to shed the dead weight of the status quo.

For me shedding the dead weight of my status quo involved choosing to leave the networking groups I was part of. The networking groups in and of themselves weren't the problem. How I was showing up and feeling was the issue and until I gave myself permission to leave and shuck off the status quo, I couldn't effectively confront those feelings or how their resistance was stopping me. It was only when I could let go of the external situation, the obligation and other associations with it that I could then come face to face with my resistance and begin to turn it into an ally.

Your external situations mirror your internal reality because some part of you has created an agreement that you want to have that situation in your life. If that sounds messed up, just consider how many people settle for situations where they are miserable because some part of them feels they deserve it. That part is rooted in your feelings about yourself, such as doubt and fear. Until you embrace those emotions and turn them into allies, they will continue to hold you back, depriving you of the momentum you need to move forward. When you look at the situations you are in and you own how you show up in them, then you can get rid of the dead weight of status quo and start making the changes in your life and business from a place of informed awareness and empowerment. You're no longer staying in those situations, but instead choosing to do something about them, which is all part of the process of inner alchemy unfolding in your life!

The Inner Alchemical Path of Transformation

It's possible to tame the dragon of change and turn it into a transformative alchemical agent that puts you in touch with the momentum necessary to create your success.

It's possible to take your emotions of fear and doubt and transform them into inspiration and motivation that fuels the manifestation of what you really want.

We'll be covering this (and much more!) in JOY.

What happens as a result?

You step into your own power and exert it on yourself and the world. You create a new identity that is in touch with your deepest values and joys and helps you turn all of that into more wealth, joy, and love in your life. You become the person you know yourself to be and stop getting in the way of your own success.

About JOY

JOY is a practical magic virtual course that shows you how to align your internal reality with the possibilities you want to manifest in the world around you. Registration for JOY starts on April 4th, 2016 and closes on April 11th 2016.

If you decide to take JOY with me, here's the results you'll manifest by the end of the course:

• Turn your emotions into your allies and into momentum in your magical work.
• Manifest your wealth and joy in your life.
• Connect with other magical people taking this class.
• Discover your internal power and apply it to the world around you.
• Learn how to align your internal reality with the possibilities you want to manifest.
• And much more!

Want to learn more? You'll be hearing a lot more about JOY soon.

To make sure you get updates about the class and to get notification when registration is open, sign up for the Magical Experiments e-list and get the Dangerous Secret to Achieving Consistent Results by Experimenting with Magic

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

Further Thoughts on Body Enhancement via magic

I read an interesting post by Chirotus Infinitum that was a response to my recent post about body enhancement via magic. He made reference to the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and much like him I have found that particular series of books to be foundational both in my body modification work and in other magical work I've done. In fact, it's fair to say that reading that series inspired at least some of my thoughts on how I might modify my body with magic as well as how to use those modifications to enhance my magical work.

Something I didn't mention in my previous post was how I've used my tattoos in my body enhancement work. While one of the purposes of my tattoos is devotional, used as an offering to the various elements I've worked with, another purpose is also to enhance my channeling of that elemental energy. The act of getting the tattoo allows me to fully embed the energy into my essence. Each tattoo represents a different energy (or energies) that I can access. For example the the hourglass - web tattoo is connected to the elemental energies of space and time, while my blue dragon is connected to the elemental energies of water. The current tattoo I'm getting, another dragon, is being used to connect with the elemental energies of fire and movement. I have plans to get more tattoos down the line, but undoubtedly some of that will also be influenced by what I work with and how I want to dedicate myself to that energy.

There's not a lot of work written about working with the body. My book Inner Alchemy discusses some of my work and I am continuing in some of those directions, but I think that the body is an untapped resource, especially in Western Culture. Eastern cultures emphasize a connection and cultivation of the body's resources that simply isn't found in Western culture because of the spiritual disconnect from the body that both Christianity and Western Science are responsible for. That spiritual disconnect has fostered perspectives about the body that are unhealthy and don't fully enable people to feel empowered to embrace or work with their bodies. Sadly Western occultism continues to foster similar perspectives. For example, Robert Anton Wilson refers to the body as a robot and seems intent on trying to escape it (not surprising given his encounter with Polio).

I was fortunate to avoid a lot of such limiting beliefs in regards to my body because I wasn't raised in overly religious household and had a natural curiosity about my body that I chose to explore so I could better understand it. I grew up sleeping naked in bed instead of having pajamas on (and I can't understand why anyone would want to wear pajamas) and I have always loved my body and appreciated its curves and the various sensations I can feel. I've also had my own experiences of body hate, such as when I was anorexic, but overall I was fortunate to embrace my body in a way that I observe many people don't. I honestly feel that one of the reasons people are so dysfunctional about sex comes right to the fact that Western culture overall has such a dysfunctional relationship with the body.

There is a lot to be explored in terms of enhancing the body with magic, but also in really understanding the body as a universe of its own, with hidden wonders to experience and explore if we are willing to set aside our all too limited perspectives and cultural biases about the body. This work can only occur if more people are willing to explore the body as a universe and allow themselves to be open to whatever experiences are encountered. Certainly I will keep writing about my own work because I realize more than ever how important it is to continue cultivating perspectives and experiences that run counter to the dysfunctional values that mainstream culture embodies.

Magical Enhancements of your body

The other day I read an interesting post by Mr. Black on human enhancement. I've always been fascinated by how a person can enhance his/her body using magic since I first started practicing magic. In my book Inner Alchemy, I described some of my work toward that purpose, but there's a lot I also haven't shared, so below is some of the other enhancement work I've done with my body and thoughts on how you can apply this to your own work.

1. Enhance your muscles. When I was in college, one of the jobs I worked at was a package factory (similar to UPS). You'd work for four hours packing boxes (50 - 100 Ibs) onto trucks. It's hard work and you get sore quickly. It's a job that has high turn over as well, with up to 50% quitting in the first 2 weeks. When I worked there, one of my solutions was to temporarily enhance my muscles, both in terms of strength and healing. What I did before the shift was to run my hands over my legs and arms, putting energy into the muscles so that I could warm them up ahead of time, as well as help them heal. This allowed me to condition my muscles during the first couple of weeks so that I wasn't as sore as I would've been otherwise. Additionally, the work was easier because I'd enhanced my strength during that time. To this day I still use this working when I need to do physical labor. All you need to do is your own energy to your muscles. Basically you are using your chi to enhance your muscles.

2. Enhance healing by communicating with cells. When I get tattoos, I tend to heal fairly quick because what I do is communicate with my cells and direct energy toward the metabolism functions in order to improve the speed of healing. I've also used this for other injuries. While it doesn't provide instantaneous healing, I have noticed that healing occurs quicker than it normally would. With tattoos the healing time usually takes 3 weeks to a month, but I've been able to heal in a week. To do this kind of work you need to learn how to communicate with your cells, which I've covered in Inner Alchemy.

3. Eye sight enhancement. I have 20/20 vision. Neither of my parents or their parents had 20/20 vision, but I've always had it. One of the activities I do on a regular basis are eye exercises, which include bringing my sight into and out of focus as well as rolling my eyes and looking up or down or to the side for more than a second. Doing these exercises help to enhance my sight, but I've also done some inner alchemical work with the rods and cones as well as the natural chemicals in my eyes, focusing on cell regeneration, so that I can keep my eyesight at its current performance. Thus far it seems to have worked, but time will tell if what I'm doing is working.

These are just a few examples of how I've experimented with enhancement of the human body. I am continuing my exploration of the body, because I feel that learning how to work with the body is an integral key to enhancing and even prolonging life.

Credibility, causality, and magic

When I think about causality and magic, one realization I have is that trying to make the causality of magic credible is really trying to apply a different model of thinking that may not fit magic. Magic doesn't really operate on Scientific laws of cause and effect. It has its own rules, and those rules involve a different angle and take on causality, as magic applies to it. Trying to fit magic into some box or hole of another discipline isn't useful, if you are strictly applying that discipline to magic as an explanation of it. It can be useful to draw on concepts and practices from other disciplines in your magical work, but that's a different post altogether. Wanting magic to fit some kind of scientific, rational explanation is really taking the wonder out of magic, in my opinion. Even in my own work of defining magic, I've never really tried to fit it into another discipline, so much as I've tried to explore my own experience of it. And when I think about it, magic is really about experiences. Yes it can be a technology, and an art, etc., but its more than that. It's experiences and its stepping into a frame of mind that is willing to accept those experiences and find meaning where most people wouldn't. It's not about credibility in the standard sense of the word, because such ideas of credibility are based off specific disciplines that try to structure the experience of the world in very specific ways, different from magic And to be fair, magic also is about structuring experience in a very specific way.

My point is this: Trying to approach the causality of magic in terms of credibility as derived from other disciplines doesn't work too well, because there's a predisposition to view magic as some kind of primitive activity done by people who don't know any better.

We do know better however. We know that magic works and we can even explain how it works, but the explanation we provide won't necessarily fit within the accepted perspectives of other disciplines. Nor does it need to. If the result occurs consistently, the process works and that's all the credibility you need. The causality is involved in the process and your understanding of that process is a large part of the causality of magic, and how it's bringing desired change into your life.

Book Review: The Emerald Tablet (Affiliate link) by Dennis William Hauck

This book provides a good explanation of the seven stages of alchemy and how they can be applied to a person via psychology. The author does have a tendency to mix in some inaccurate history and also tries to connect alchemy to UFOS, but even with those flaws, this is still a useful book for someone wanting to learn about alchemy and begin applying some of the concepts to his/her life. I recommend it primarily for the explanation of the seven stages of alchemy, which you can apply to your life via your own internal work.

She came to me

She came to me tonight as I was being massaged and said, "I would have an audience with you tonight." I said I'd prefer if this audience occurred when I was alone, for since this was part of my emptiness work, that needed to be part of it. She smiled and said, "I'll get you some alone time in a bit." And she did deliver for Lupa was contacted and asked to help with something that needed to be taken care of tonight. "Will you be okay with that?"

"Certainly, go ahead."

After Lupa left, she came back and said, "So about that audience." I nodded, and went over to the guest bathroom and started up the bath water, mixing in oils as well. Once the bath was ready, I sank into the hot world, and she appeared before me, in all of her awful majesty...my lady Babalon. Her eyes were as red as blood, her hair the darkness of pitch, her skin ivory...and she looked through my soul and words poured forth from her perfect lips:

"Almost a year ago you entered into me, and through me descended into the abyss. You took on the rotting that was predicted to you, when you chose to stay here."

I nodded.

"You've come through this admirably. You've rotted and that was my gift to you, not a punishment, but a gift, for you fully needed to feel helpless, fully needed to feel the strength of your desires even onto addiction itself, to fully come to to the root of what has caused your pain and emptiness. You never would've come to this realization if you'd gone out there, and so you would have remained a beast...but now you have traveled through your abyss, through your own rot and dis-ease, and horror and fear, and come through it with a clear understanding of what has held you back."

"I agree. I felt a lot of regret and guilt over what happened, but as I went through this year and came to fully face what has haunted me so much of my life, as I rotted, I finally could find resolution to so much of the pain and emptiness that had previously driven me on. I finally came face to face with each of my core wounds and came away healed."

"This year was your abyss walk, but also the culmination of the previous four years of work. You chose to walk into the abyss through me, as all magicians must, for it is only in facing your desires and facing the shadow behind them that you can move to the next step of your journey. You are no longer a beast, a pashu. You are now a person, a human."

And then I said, "And if still I have the same desire after all of this. I've accepted I may never have that desire fulfilled and accepted that its best to enjoy what comes my way, but still I feel it, even after all of this. I feel it in a conscious way...recognize it as more than just an attempt to fill something up."

She smiled gently. "After all of this, I will tell you enjoy what comes your way and what you have, but I will also say that what you desire will come when the time is right, and in a way that doesn't involve you leaving the Earth you've come to call as your home, and also in a way that respects fully what is already there."

"I'm still one of yours aren't I?"

She smiled again, and said, "You never stopped being one of mine. But you are not a beast to be ridden either. Remember what you've said yourself, 'Both parties create the relationship and choose what it will be.' And what have you chosen with me?"

"For you and I, Milady," I said, "I choose to walk with you at my side, even as I am at yours, devoted to you and your mysteries, but also free to be me and continue on with the journey I've chosen."

"And that is how it should be with you. For you are your own star, and must shine that light on the path you walk. And you and I both know that you've chosen to walk a very particular path, to bring forth the unorthodox and unusual, and manifest as well that success which is yours to claim."

Then she kissed me on the lips, her energy melding with my own, and looked into my eyes with her red eyes and said," Tomorrow you'll move from Zero to One, from Something to Nothing, and mark it with the sign of Xah....Tomorrow you will start your re-birth, and claim your freedom from the abyss. Remember, I'm always at your side, never too far away...and you are one of mine, even as you are your very own self. Enjoy what's coming next...you've earned it."

Then she left, milady Babalon, just like that...and I climbed out of the bath...and readied myself for tomorrow, purified and ready for the rebirth.

An art recommendation and a minor update on my work with elephant

Check out Acrylick Alchemy. It's really fantastic, magical art by gifted artist and occultist Acrylick. I've liked her art from the beginning. I find to be very evocative. You can tell she's tapped into the spirit of what she is working with. I've sometimes felt that the paintings could come alive... I haven't posted an update on my work with elephant, mainly because I'm still doing some reading and research about the elephant. Here's a review of one of the books I just finished. I'll note that doing the research is really helping me understand more about elephants and will be helpful when I begin doing more work with elephant.

Book Review: The Life and Lore of the Elephant

This was a relatively quick read, which managed to succinctly speak to the history of the relationship between elephants and humans. I found it to be  a useful book in deepening my understanding of how elephants have been treated by humans. Overall a very informative read. I particularly liked the inclusion of the historical documents.

4 out of 5 elephants

Elemental Love Work month 12

I wrote this poem on Thursday, in my live journal. I'm reposting it here, because it depicts part of the conclusion to the elemental Love work. The connection is what we want silver strands that glisten by the star light, whispering promises from the vibrations of the space/time wind The core opens to reveal the secret heart of the universe a path lit up by red lines of force the flames of the fox fire beckoning, and luring on those eager hunters of desire

Hourglass eyes witness the illusion of time, The spiderweb, wet with dew, promises a non linear story Truth, truth, truth...

Whirling fan over the light, a very tired person looks up spreads his arms, and journeys into the iridescent glow of promise. I see all possibilities in the quantum sea everything could, is, was, will do, but will any of it become?

I am also Empty...Reach in and pull the last out Everything is stripped away...she took me on she gave me surfeit her hand gentle on my cheek, while the other rips everything out.

Your illusions are gone, now what?

Now what indeed. It's month 12...The end of the year long elemental love work...The end of my working with Babalon, the sacred whore, the scarlet woman, she who takes on all, but demands the sacrifice of your illusions. Babalon has thoroughly fucked me this last year. At times she had been a gentle lover, at other times a demanding bitch. One hand has caressed me as a lover, while the other has ripped my heart out. And through it all, her scarlet eyes have looked into mine, holding me steady, urging me on, demanding the best from me.

I wouldn't recommend the element of love to just anyone. I think this year's work has been by far the most intense and demanding of all my magical workings. You have to be ready to sacrifice it all on the altar of love to experience the truths you will inevitably find about yourself, and if you get anything back, count yourself blessed, and recognize you also earned it.

This last month has been one of nostalgia, regret, and healing. I remember a year ago, I remember how desperate I was, how much I knew I needed to change, my patterns of love had grown very toxic indeed. I was a toxic bloom, everything on the surface, ready to be popped. I remember meeting a priestess of Babalon, and a relationship that didn't work out and being told, "This elemental love work has left bruises on my heart, your wife's heart, and your heart. Will it be worth it?" I remember bad communication on my part, an unwillingness to really be open or intimate and my journey throughout this year to learn how to do that, how to really open up, how to be vulnerable, how to be honest despite the fear. Honesty with others, but most importantly honesty with myself about my desires, my fears, and what has motivated so many of  my choices.

I remember other situations, other people, all the lies I told to myself, ripped away. And I remember a couple nights with Lupa, where I really opened up, where I told her things I had not told her or anyone else. I remember being honest with her in a way I have never been with anyone, and despite my fears, despite the ingrained responses and reactions that said to just hold it all in, to protect myself by never saying a thing...I spoke...I told her, I laid myself out and let her see the real me. And she accepted me...she showed me LOVE, even as Babalon has Shown me LOVE.

A couple weeks ago, I felt the weight of these regrets...My mind wandered through the past year, through the lessons earned, the people touched, the bruises left, especially the bruise in myself. And I felt Babalon stir beside me. She gave me a gentle look and parted the folds of my flesh, to the heart underneath, and instead of seizing it in her hand as she often has, she gently touched it, touched the bruise of my regrets, and she said,

"It's time to let this go. You've learned what you needed to from this. Let it go, so you can move on and let other people into your life and into your love when you're ready. You've learned the lessons I needed to teach you and I will always be here to remind you of them, and also support you as you continue your journey."

And she took those regrets away...the physical pain I felt in the hollow of my chest left me.

This last Monday, I was talking with Wes Unruh about language, magic, semiotics, and we got around to talking about Babalon and male magicians. He said that he didn't think a male magician came into his full power until he'd had an encounter with Babalon. He told me of his own experiences and mentioned that for about a year after his working with Babalon ended he had focused on the element of emptiness and on rebuilding himself...and I found great comfort in this, because it's another confirmation I made the right choices, and I'm on the right path.

I was asked earlier this year, if this elemental love work would be worth the bruises, and the pain. And my answer is yes. It is worth all the pain caused, all the pain felt. It is worth the pain I caused as well as the pain I felt. It's not that I wanted to cause that pain. It's not that I felt a secret delight. No...That pain is part of the process of life, of how you learn. I made mistakes, I came face to face with the reality of the effects of those mistakes. The regret I felt for the pain I caused was something that's haunted me for this last half year. And yet, that pain, for me, for them has the potential for growth. It's what we choose to make it...and so Babalon showed me I could let go, move on, heal...

Last year, I said to Lupa, I said to others, "All of the relationships I'm in now will be changed if I do this working." And everything changed for those relationships. Every single relationship I was involved in on a romantic level is now gone, accept the relationship with my wife, which has ended up stronger than ever before because we worked through our problems with each other and came to a deeper, more intimate relationship than any I've ever had, except for one. It's taken a lot of work and honesty on our parts, but here we stand together, stronger than ever...

And that one relationship which is deeper and more intimate...that's the relationship I have with myself. This year has forced me to know myself as I never did before, and this next year will take me even further, but I'm ready for that plunge. Babalon has shown me not just the truth of LOVE, but also that of Strength. The strength to forgive, the strength to let go, the strength to love, and the strength to learn. She showed me my strength, even as she took away all the delusions I'd told myself.

Babalon told me it would get harder before it got easier, and she was right. It got really hard somedays to wake up and face the reality of my motivations, my desires, my love or lack thereof. In April, when I walked around, desperately unhappy, desperate to fill something in me and instead walked home and told Lupa about my emptiness, about how empty I sometimes feel, that's when I started to really learn from this year's elemental working...that's when I came face to face with the underlying motivation for so much of my unhealthy behaviors. That's when I realized just how much my feeling of emptiness had so often motivated my choices to try and find something to fill it, instead of choosing to feel it. And now that I know that feeling...now I'm ready to accept it, to move into it and everything it has to teach me.

On Friday, I had some of my hair cut. Babalon spoke to me in a moment of shared love and lust, in a moment of ritual, a finishing touch. That night, Lupa massaged me, talked with me, reconnected with me about our love, about what we find so important and she cut my hair, part of my payment to Babalon. Below is a poem I wrote about Friday:

"You've still got to pay up the last bit for this year of companionship I gave you" She told me.

Her long black hair framed her face, cascading down her frame, hiding her body, leaving only the oval of her face her red eyes staring into mine a doorway into the abyss an invitation into Emptiness

As we fucked with wild abandon her hands touched my long hair and she said,

"Perhaps some of this... Cut some of it for me and also for the next element Cut it as an offering when you pass through the gateway within me and within you The gateway to the heart of the universe"

As we came to crescendo, She and I, My goddess of desire, her beast to ride, I felt myself swallowed into her. She whispered,

"Conjunctio, The joining of forces Your principle joined to mine, In combination we create the alchemical wedding Your sacrifice opens the gate that your seed might be consumed and you reborn in my dark womb of Emptiness Your potential realized in the joining of everything and nothing."

Later my body massaged with hands of gentle love and care, my hair brushed out, the scissors snap some is taken away "Taking a little, so a lot can grow back, so you can realize your potential" Caressed, loved, forgiven, your hands know my body I fall into the light of the quantum sea out of reality, into everything

Everything I am falling back to potential, In her hands I lay, in her womb I will be sacrificed The gateway is open, Conjunctio achieved Emptiness beckons It's a promise of potential I'll take.

"Your last price is paid, Your coin is accepted the gate is open, fly free my love fly free

When you come back reborn anew, you will really know me and my name.

And I whisper,

"Babalon, Great goddess, Sacred whore, scarlet woman, take me, take me, take my sacrifice and show me the door to conjunctio, show me the door to emptiness zero and one, everything and none, where potential awaits to sculpt, to show, to provide the pathway to the heart of the universe to the silver webs of time, and the purple halls of space"

And she rips away from me the last shred of illusion Her hand caresses my cheek one last time, her tears touch my face, She kisses my lips one last time, to steal my last breath Great Babalon has destroyed me.

And now... I'm free to arise. Elemental Emptiness show me the way, through the door

I am here, I am there I am everywhere, everywhen, all things and none, a whisper on the wind, the caress of a hand on your chin all realities within my eyes, I am reborn into emptiness... I am reborn to realize my potential.

Today, Saturday, I finished the Love working. I went upstairs, with the painting of the seal of Babalon, The beast dagger, the candle with her visage gracing it. I lit the sacred candle in my temple. I dedicated two posters of the mythos of Babalon as told by Oryelle Defenestate-Bascule to Her. I burned a bit of my cut off hair in the flame of the candle. I cut her seal into my flesh, her name into my skin with the tip of the dagger, tracing so delicately upon my skin the imprint of this goddess...

I sang her praise, I thanked her for her gifts, and then I asked her to take me through the portal to emptiness. I fucked her one last time, giving her my seed and then I was taken in hand by the entity who represents emptiness...But that story will not be told until Tuesday, when the dedication ritual is finished.

Farewell Babalon, sacred Goddess and sacred whore, my lover and destroyer.

The lyric below is from the song Here's to You by Lisbeth Scott. I removed a couple words, that aren't relevant to me, to this year's working...but the lyrics of this song, the song itself is a fitting end to the love working and the beginning of the work on the element of Emptiness:

Here's to you... Rest forever and ever... The last and final moment is yours. Agony's your triumph.

Here's to you, Rest forever here in our hearts. The last and final moment is yours. Agony's your triumph.

Bonding with the Land

I don't get tattoos very often. In fact, I only get them on special occasions. I got a phoenix to say goodbye to the east as well as to signify my rebirth from the ashes of academia. I got a Green wolf paw on my left breast, when I married my wife. Today I got a Chinese Blue Dragon. I have only two more I'll potentially get, but those are stories for other times. Let me tell you the story of the blue dragon. I met the blue dragon long ago, off the coast of Maine. I threw a necklace to it, an offering to it, something of me for something of the fey wildness of the ocean. I didn't encounter it again until I moved to Portland, OR. Portland and Oregon's energy have always felt safe to me...felt like home. When Lupa and I hiked the Multnomah falls for the first time, the blue dragon came out of the water and kissed me and asked if I remembered it.

It told me that it wanted me to bond to the land here. The last time I bonded to the land it was in Ohio and dissolving those bonds had been painful and Seattle had rejected me...but Portland and Oregon wanted me. So I said yes and agreed to get a tattoo as part of the bonding...I'd given blood and saliva to the land before, and this time a tattoo, with pain and some blood given again to the land. I was originally going to get the tattoo in November of '07, but other things happened, including not having a job. And eventually when all of that got figured out, the blue dragon told me to reschedule the appointment. So I did. And today I went in.

My tattoo artist at Infinity Tattoo, Alice Kendall, set me up, got me shaved, and then inked. The outline took a while...careful tracings of lines, and I felt the blue dragon's presence. He reached over to me. His energy touched mine. He asaid, "Make an offering of your pain and blood to the land, to me." And I did. I made an offering...I felt my pain start flowing to the dragon, and to the rivers and the land.

I felt my pain flow and I felt an exchange of energy come into me. When she started filling in the color of the tattoo, the exchange quickened...more pain flowing out, but more energy of the land flowing in. As she kept inking, I relaxed into the pain. I didn't fight it. I let it become part of me. I let it go. I let my mind slip into a gray void, but through it all the blue dragon was there, whispering to me about the land, whispering to me about IYR...whispering to me about the secrets of water and reality...

When the tattoo was finished, I felt half in this world, half in the land. I tipped the artist a nice fee...The Blue dragon was pleased...always honor those who help you connect to me.

I left, got into the car and the blue dragon settled into the tattoo, with one last whisper..."You and I are bonded to each other now"

[wp_caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Blue Dragon"][/wp_caption]

[wp_caption id="" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Blue Dragon"][/wp_caption]

Review of Introduction to Magic by Julius Evola and the UR Group

Introduction to Magic by Julius Evola

The title of this book could be a bit misleading, as it's fair to say that the majority of the articles in this book are not intended for people who are just coming into magical practice. The articles requires at least an intermediate knowledge in Hermeticism, Alchemy, or Buddhist Meditation techniques, for the most part. With that said, I definitely recommend this book for anyone who is interested in reading and practicing the different techniques described and discussed in this book.

These articles were written in the late 1920's by a group of experimental magicians called the UR group, lead by Julius Evola. This book presents a fascinating glimpse into ceremonial magical work being done in that time by magicians who weren't overtly associated with magical orders such as the OTO or Golden Dawn. The articles are detail oriented, but all of the writers manage to discuss the concepts with enough brevity to explain what needs to be done and how to do it, without unnecessarily waxing poetic about it.

One article I particularly liked was what I would suggest was the first article ever written on space/time magic...but rather apt for what it suggests about the nature of time and how a person interacts with it. This is definitely a book I will read again and again and get more out of each time I read it. I recommend it to any person who wants to either get a better historical perspective of magical practices or wants to continue honing his/her practices.

When sickness strikes, opportunity occurs

I'm not sick, but my wife is. She has strep throat. I took her to the hospital last night and we got her the appropriate anti-biotics to combat it. But she's still infectious, so there's the potential chance I could get sick. I actually had felt a bit of soreness in my throat earlier that day and it'd been a bit more irritating when she was diagnosed. It occurred to me that the sore throat was a symptom of my body already trying to fight off potential sickness. So I decided to help my body. The sore throat was a warning and given that I didn't want to get sick or deal with strep throat, I immediately began to work with the throat. I visualized little nanobots going in and rounding up the strep and getting rid of it with lasers. Afterwards the nanobots administered healing reagents to my sore throat. Within an hour of doing this visualization, the soreness in my throat was gone. I decided to have the nanobots patrol my throat until the infection period is finished.

So with sickness (not my own thankfully), the opportunity to come up with a defense occurred. And my body has been duly grateful afterwards. So sometimes something like this can be an opportunity for a person to experiment