Daemonic Realities and Imagination

One of the books I'm currently re-reading as research for Pop Culture Magic 2.0 is Daemonic Reality by Patrick Harpur. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it as he makes some interesting connections with the classical conception of a Daemon and paranormal experiences that have occurred in the contemporary world. Not all of his information is as accurate as it could be, but there's useful concepts to explore, especially as it relates to the notion of imagination interacting with reality to create an altered reality. For example, he argues that UFO sightings can be an interaction with Daemonic Reality, using case studies where people thought they experienced a UFO, when actually what they saw was the moon or sun, but how they perceived it changed their perception of it, putting them in an altered reality of sorts. What I find fascinating about this book also is how he explores sightings of bigfoot and provides a similar context. In one distance, he discusses a family's interaction with a bigfoot and how they failed to understand the significance of it wanting an offering, when it left a feed pail out in front of their barn. They would hide the pail each day, thinking it was a game, when it actually wasn't. The variety of anecdotes in the book make for fascinating reading and in my opinion shows that there is an intersection between Daemonic Reality and our own perception of reality. Harpur notes the following:

"Our trouble is that we have been brought up with a literal-minded worldview. We demand that objects have only a single identity or meaning. We are educated to see with the eye only, in single vision. When the prenatural breaks in upon us, transforming the profane into something sacred, amazing, we are unequipped for it. Instead of seizing on the vision, reflecting on it...we react with fright and panic. instead of countering like with like, that is, assimilating through the imagination the complexity of the image presented to us, we feebly telephone scientists for reassurance. We are told we are only "seeing things"  and so we miss the opportunity to grasp that different, daimonic order of reality which lies behind the merely literal."

It's an interesting point he makes and one I agree with. We get caught up in our own perspective of what reality should be that we don't always consider that reality could be something. A literal approach to reality is a seemingly safe approach to reality because it constrains reality to the physical perceptions that a person has, but in that process it discounts the imagination as something which is fictitious and treats the supernatural as being purely psychological, without considering that an encounter with the imagination can still bring with it a form of reality that has an effect on us. Harpur further elaborates on this problem when he notes the following:

"Literal reality is only one kind of reality, deriving from a superordinate reality, here called Daimonic,  which is metaphorical rather than literal, imaginative rather then empirical. Literal reality is therefore, if anything, less real than daimonic reality. Moreover, in relation to the history of our culture, and also to traditional cultures, a belief in the literalness of reality is the exception rather than the rule. Literal reality is the product of literalism, which is really a way of seeing the world, but which insists that it is a property inherent in the world. It insists that it is the only reality and, as such, actively denies other kinds of reality, especially the daimonic, which it calls unreal, fictional, even delusional."

The problem with literal reality (aside from how dull it is) is that the denial of imagination is also the denial of the sacred, but also the denial of possibility. In a literal reality, the focus is only on what is denoted as real, and so the awareness of possibilities is constrained toward what seems most likely to occur, as opposed to being open to the experience of other worlds. The Daimonic imagination on the other hand entertains the possibility of other worlds and the acceptance that these worlds intersect with our own under the right circumstances and sometimes through the right actions. A Daimonic reality isn't limited to the here and now, but instead opens us to intersections with alternate realities, as well as encounters with spiritual beings. For those people who steadfastly cling to literal reality, an encounter with daimonic reality is unsettling because it doesn't neatly fit into a category and it can't easily be written off, though of course there are certainly enough attempts to do so.

One of the reasons I find pop culture to be relevant is because it allows for an engagement of the person's imagination through structures they are willing to consider that can also be co-opted into Daimonic imagination and reality. Since spirit beings aren't attached to one form or another, there is no reason to think they wouldn't take on the form of a pop culture character, especially if we also consider that such a character will embody certain traits that can be useful for the spirit to employ. On the other hand, it could also be argued that such characters are becoming part of the Daimonic reality because of their relevance to people. Nonetheless such structures are derived from human imagination, and in part from the desire for a literal reality, whereas the Daimonic imagination and reality is something which responds to and interacts with people, in ways that aren't tied to human conventions.

An encounter with Daemonic Reality is an encounter with something we don't control. We interact with it, but it doesn't fit our rules or categories. Rather it challenges us and causes us to realize that we may not be in as much control of the environment as we delude ourselves into thinking. It throws literal reality in our face and demands we question it and consider in that process that imagination is more than fiction...imagination is a doorway to the sacred, a doorway to the unknown and we can choose to open that door and see what lies beyond, but when we do so we know we are no long operating under just our own rules, but also entering Daemonic reality, with all the possibilities it contains that offer us a glimpse behind the curtain of conventional reality.

The discourse of the Pagan Bubble

On the wild hunt blog, Teo Bishop posted about living in a Pagan Bubble, and mentioned his concern when he realized his step dad didn't understand what he was writing about when he read his blogs. I thought it was an interesting post, because it highlighted how a specialized community can have a discourse that doesn't allow just anyone access into the community. Such discourses exist not just in Religion or spirituality, but also in academic disciplines, subcultures, and any other type of community that is created. And much like Teo, I had a similar experience once where my mother told me she'd bought one of my books and read it and found that she didn't understand it.

A while back I wrote a post about discourse and the self-secret language that people develop and learn when they want to enter into a specific community. While I recognize the concern that Teo feels about the discourse and resulting Pagan Bubble that appears, I'd argue that such a bubble is an inevitable conclusion of entering into any specialized community. There is a level of discourse, of specialized language, that needs to be learned in order to effectively enter into the community. And I think this is a good thing in the sense that such a discourse encourages a certain level of knowledge and experience, while also providing people a shared sense of communal identity.

At the same time I recognize Teo's concern that such a discourse ultimately creates an insular community, where people are isolated because they aren't able to relate to others. There is a need to have a dialogue between communities, an inter-faith dialogue in the case of Paganism and other types of spiritual beliefs, and as such we can't become too insular. Plus if we do live in such a bubble we cut ourselves off from inspiration. My own solution to this has been to cultivate an interest in a wide variety of disciplines and some other discourse communities, which in turn provides me perspectives outside of the Pagan Bubble. For example being a small business owner provides access to a different discourse community, which has intersections with a variety of other discourse communities as well.

I think the way to pop the Pagan Bubble is to simply be involved in the world around you, and in interests that aren't always Pagan-centric. Indeed I think if I spent all my time focused on being around pagans, I'd find some of the insularity and limitation that Teo is concerned about, if only because exposure to one perspectives limits us to a rather myopic view of the universe.

Patterns of Reality

"Mind patterns could be 'woven' like cord patterns, and these mind patterns were what 'move' spells. Different coloured threads indicated different kinds of consciousness, and their physical arrangements had to be projected into equivalent Inner patterns of power" -- From Magical Ritual Methods (affiliate link) by William Gray I pulled this quote while doing a bit of research for Neuro Space/Time Magic. The concept is interesting, using different colored threads to represent specific patterns of thought and being. I was once part of a ritual where we used silver threads to create a tesseract matrix of time. The thread represented the journey to access temporal possibilities, but what I find interesting with this concept isn't even that, but rather how the mind can be organized into different states that can then be evoked using a simple prop such as a colored thread, and a pattern or shape to bring it forth.

This concept can be replicated with other methods as well, such as using an alphabet of desire to embody different states of consciousness and patterns of reality. The key, however, is to recognize how you will actually use a specific state of being to change a pattern of reality you are in. Lets say you are doing a habitual behavior that you want to change. You are aware of it, and you can name it, and provide a symbol/shape to embody it. Now you could take this embodied shape and destroy it, but would that really solve your problem?

An alternate approach would be to devise a symbol and/or shape that represented a desired state of mind/being that you could use to counteract the habitual behavior. Ideally, this symbol/shape could even be the same color of the initial symbol you developed to represent the habitual behavior. Thus when you started to do the habitual behavior, you could visualize the shape and letter of that state, and even vocalize it. Then you could change the shape and letter to the new state of being, even as you also changed the vocalization, imprinting the new behavior on the habit, in order to change it into the new behavior.

All of this I got from a quote by Gray. If you haven't read his books, give them a try. They offer a lot to any occultist lucky enough to find them.

The astral cyber cafe

I had a person ask me recently if you could use cyber space to enter the astral plane. It's an interesting question to ask, but as I thought about it, my own response was: "Cyberspace is its own astral space, complete with all the fixings, except you meet a lot more people in cyberspace." My reasoning for that response is that I'm not sure there's much difference between the astral plane and cyber space, except for one key point. I think the astral plane (whatever it is) is linked to a person's imagination and memory and dreams...and cyber space is created space by someone for specific purposes.

The real question then is: Does cyberspace allow you to access your imagination in novel ways that you already couldn't do?

I don't think it does. In fact, in some ways I think it kills imagination, much like too much television does. And I point to video games by way of example, because video games are definitely a cyber/virtual space that's created for a specific purpose. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing video games and I've used them for magical work, but just like television they can be addictive and kill your imagination in the process. I actually have a rule for any video game that I'll play: It has to have an ending. If it doesn't have an ending, then I won't play it, which is why I don't play games such as World of Warcraft. There is no end...

Now could WoW be an astral space, or a virtual space where you could do magic? It can be...but if it comes to define your existence is it really a space you have control over?

Cyber space in general tends to be an escapist paradise. People spend all day on Facebook talking to "friends" or surfing the internet or looking at porn. And all of it can be used for magical work, but how much of it are you allowing to use you? We've become an information rich society. We need information, are addicted to it...but in the process we start to lose some imagination...it gets channeled into specific routes and starts to block out possibilities.We're cyber-spaced, but do we have access to our astral space? When the images and concepts of a system define our interactions with the world we become trapped in that system, distorted by its definitions. We lose sight of what could be in favor of what we are told should be.

Yes, yes, I know the internet and social media have given us unparalleled access to information and have allowed people to coordinate revolutions and do other things to free themselves of the tyranny and oppression of such systems. And these are good things to note, but the magician is obsessed with more than just personal freedom. S/he wants possibilities, revels in them, explores them...and accesses them not just through information, but also imagination. It's a fine balancing act you see...Get lost in imagination and it's all in your head and your off in the astral wanking up a storm to show what an uber magician you are. Get lost in information and you dull your mind with the definitions and realities that other people provide you, stagnating in the viral words and images of all those around you.

A good balance is knowing how and when to use information to provide knowledge and knowing how and when to use imagination to turn that knowledge into experience.

Internal and External Realities

It's tempting sometimes to create a duality between the internal reality of a person's psyche and the external reality of the universe. It's important to recognize however that such dualities are illusions, created more for our convenience. That convenience is ultimately a blockage, and when we get rid of it we find that our understanding of the universe and our places within it is more readily changed.

A meditation on love

This morning I decided to meditate on love, and more specifically on a realization I had of a pattern of getting involved with people I showed interest in over the last couple of years who, in one form or another, didn't fully return the interest. This includes people I would actually have a romantic relationship with. This pattern is a variant of a pattern I used to have where I'd only get involved with people I knew would reject me. I did a Taoist dissolving technique and used the breath to lead me to the place where I felt the physical blockage, around my heart. I sat with the blockage, letting the breath go in and out, and around the blockage, gradually loosening up the feeling of tension in my body. As the tension dissipated, I let the emotions "talk" to me, show me really what the issue is. In this case, I saw myself restraining myself to fit into what I thought other people wanted. I could see this belt across my body. It fit uncomfortable and it was being used to constrain and restrain me.

I decided to undo the belt. I pulled it out of it's clasp, and slipped it off. Immediately my body seemed to relax. And I heard," It's more important to be you than to try and fit yourself to other people's expectations. Aren't you tired of trying to be something you aren't?

Good advice. I am tired of holding myself back...not letting myself be the passionate, intense person I can be. I've tried to stuff myself into a box, with my relationships, instead of being true with myself and recognizing when a relationship isn't a good fit for me. And in the process I've hurt myself and the person I was trying to be a fit for.

I took the belt off and realized that I'm ready to be done with relationships where I'm trying to fit into what that person wants. I'd rather be myself and be appreciated for that, without having to constrain myself. And sure I'm willing to collaborate with someone, to figure out how we can be positive influences in each other's lives, but I don't want to be afraid that I'm too much or too intense for someone.

I kept breathing in and out, and gradually came back to this moment, this space, yet different. I don't feel so tense...so constrained.

Into Time and Space

After I finished my emptiness ritual and had cleansed myself of the paint, I moved right into the ritual to accept time as the new element. I put on the bracelet of elephant hair, and the elephant necklace and put before me the painting to elephant. I asked elephant if elephant would allow me to enter the gates of time and was told yes. Then I evoked Purson and Thiede as my guides through the silver web of time and space. I did an exercises of putting increments of time into each other until the increments become meaningless.

I opened the memory box, which is my gateway to the silver web and put both my hands on its sides. And I traveled along the silver web until I came to the center, where the Spider Goddess of Time awaited me. She held up the book of her mysteries and said, "It's good you have this back, now paint what I show you."

I pulled out my paintbrush and waters color and painted a web of time. Just one colors, lots of silver-gray...I asked her...was this really it? And she told me that my perceptions of time were too limited by human made standards of time. That what I painted wasn't even so much a symbol as a way of relating to time and space, a way of moving past the linear perceptions and measurements that mark time by human standards. She told me that this year would be a move away from the mystical path I've been on, back to more of a focus on magic, but also a focus on changing those limited perceptions on time...that all the material she'd put in my path the last couple of months was partial prep work for the workings ahead.

And with that, she stopped my hand, looked at my work and said, "Start with this and see what it teaches you."

Then I closed the gate to the silver web of time and gave my thanks to Thiede, Purson, and Elephant...and to her, the spider goddess of time. And so that's the beginning into the element of time.

Elemental Emptiness Month 12: From Zero to One

9-24-09 I haven't been able to update since the esoteric book convention. It highlights how busy my schedule has become and how problematic that can be at times. I'm not sure I like that, so I'm looking at what I can change in my life to give me a bit more time. As this elemental working winds down to a close, what I mostly feel is tired. This has been such an intense year, and the second intense year in a row. I need a break from intense years...and although it has been an intense year for me, I feel like I've drifted away from my spirituality to some degree in the process of doing this elemental work. And I guess that makes sense, because in some ways I've had to let go of everything important to me, to make this year's emptiness working work. The path of the abyss is one where everything is sacrificed as journey through it. At the same time, I feel a kind of anticipation about the end of this one. I know all the work I've put in is going to payoff and that the payoff, for me, is really being able to move past so many conditioned responses and behaviors that used to hold me back. I'm tired, but I'm also at that last part of the journey, where you push through the tiredness and make it to the end, because you know its part of the journey. 9-28-09 There's not really much to write. Unlike all the other months, what I really feel right now is anticipation, or being in the center of the eye of the hurricane. I can look around me and see everything I've been dealing, but also recognize where I am and know I've moved past everything. Now it feels more like making a choice and getting ready to move ahead, free of the rotting putrefaction I went through, because the refinement is here.

10-01-09 I've been playing the Force Unleashed recently. When I first started my emptiness working, I played that game a fair amount. It represented, for me, the feeling of emptiness at the beginning. It doesn't really anymore because I no longer see emptiness as an antagonist. It's something I can see as part of me, instead of against me.

10-02-09 I reflected today that to truly experience emptiness I've had, in one form or another, to really become empty, to really see everything I hold dear fall through in some form or manner, if only to convey to me the full depths of emptiness. Recognizing that everything could be taken away, that's been hard, but useful as well.

10-06-09 On a really deep level I wonder how much this year's working has really helped me. I've been exposed to what drives me toward feeling empty, come to a really good understanding of it, but I don't feel like its really solved. There's still a part of me that just wants to find someone, something that will somehow meet this very intangible need I have. It's a very primal, emotive part, not something rational that can be reasoned with. And it's likely always going to be there. I guess I've learned better strategies for handling it and recognizing it when it comes out...and maybe I feel a bit less driven than I did before, but I also feel like somehow I just haven't really "solved" the core issue for me. I don't know if I ever will. Maybe, all I'll really come away is a better grasp of my emptiness and a better way of handling it, when it comes up in potentially unhealthy situations.

10-08-09 I woke up this morning thinking about D. D was someone I met when I was twenty. We became lovers. She was seventeen years older than I was, a gifted magician, and very experienced when it came to life, and for that matter sex. I never fully, consciously realized until now just how deeply she imprinted me, or how much the relationship not working out would affect me. The majority of women I've been attracted to have always had a connection to Babalon, Lililth, or a similar type of goddess, i.e. the sacred whore archetype and I think it's because of that imprint from D. This person made a really strong impression and I never fully got to satisfy or see where that relationship would go. So I see it as the root of a lot of my longings and seeking when it came to possible partners and sex in general. I've been trying to find someone with this particular current for a long time but I never fully understood why that was the case. And now I do...I really understand some of my choices in a very different light now than I did before.

10-10-09 I've been thinking further about what I wrote above, about the person I contacted, etc. I look back at various activities, various sexual encounters and I see this particular need trace itself through most of my relationships in a manner that never fully addresses it in a satisfactory way. The two partners I ended up with in long term relationships never embraced that particular archetype of the sacred whore. And conversely I've put myself in situations where I could almost have that relationship with someone who embodied that archetype, but then would take it away from myself, too afraid perhaps of getting what I wanted, or perhaps just not ready. I'm tired of that pattern. I'm tired of the hurt it's caused me and others. And while I do love my wife very much and take genuine pleasure and joy from her presence in my life, I also have to acknowledge that this current is in my life and likely always will be. It's something I want to explore with someone, safely and sanely.

10-11-09 One of my problems or flaws is that I put expectations on a lot of experiences, people, etc. In a conversation with a friend this morning, I thought about that...really thought about how much those expectations have actually caused me to miss out on some good experiences. I know I've placed expectations on so much of my life, and I'm even relatively sure of where that pattern came from. I also know those same expectations create a lot of the emptiness I feel as well.

I've been reading the Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola. It looks at some of the earliest tenets of Buddhism. I'm finding a lot of it speaking to some of the struggles I've been experiencing for a long time. And I've been reminded that I'm not really drawing on all the tools available to me. But I'm not surprised by that either. I've needed to fall apart this year, to see my flaws up close and personal as well as understanding the cause. It's when you know the cause that you can start at the beginning with awareness and readiness to move forward. So falling apart has been discovering the causes...and starting the healing. I'm just about ready to move forward.

She said: "all you have to do is look around you and really see, not the image of your life but the real life. When you can define yourself alone, all the emptiness goes away" The image of my life is the desires, the expectations, the fixations, everything that haunts me because it isn't realized. The real life is accepting how little any of that matters and how much what does matter is less about expectation and a lot more about the experience.

10-12-09: Further discussion with D, as well as thinking about something written in The Doctrine of Awakening, which stated that when a person "needs" another person they are spiritually weak. Not need as in rely on a person to back you up, but need as in codependent need, trying to find someone to fulfill something within you. As we all know by now, my emptiness working has at its core been dealing with that very issue, and on a very primal level, sex as a shadow activity can be expressed that way. Sex becomes a connection, the intimacy a doorway...the problem is it can also be addictive...it's a drug like any other. You become a junkie, looking for your next fix. And for me, sex, like so much else, has been a way to avoid emptiness, to try and fill it up, and otherwise shut it out, but it's always been a temporary fix. And it's always been more about a constructed reality than an actual acceptance of this reality.

I know that now. That's really what this year has been about, is finally, finally tracing the emptiness to every single root event and coming away with a profoundly different awareness of my emptiness in the process, as well as myself. And always going away with the awareness that I have a choice, have always had a choice, but now have more awareness in making that choice.

10-16-09 I volunteered at a play party tonight, to help out with one of the communities I'm part. After finishing up volunteering, I watched some people play and was struck with a feeling of incredible loneliness, and later a feeling of anger at myself and others for the last few years. I feel really alone. I have for a while. And a lot of it's my own making. Seeing the fun and intimacy others were experiencing tonight just brought it home to me.

10-18-09 I ended up writing a long post about how I was feeling the other night on another site and got some useful feedback. But it also seems that the last couple of days has conspired to put me in touch with some possible interests...and I kind of laugh about that, because it's the end of the emptiness working...and that ending is going to be opening a lot up for me. Last night I had a dream of a silver web and in the middle was a glowing orb and cracks were starting to appear in it.

10-20-09 I went and got the tattoo for Xah. The artist, Alice Kendall did an excellent job . You can see a picture below of the sigil for Xah, as well as the saying "From 0 to 1" Tonight, I went into my ritual room, and painted my body with the sigil of Xah, while vibratingh isn ame over and over again. Eventually, the fox lord came, eyes laughing, tongue lolling out. "You've been through a lot this year. What have you learned?"

"I've known myself at my weakest, all my faults, flaws, and reactions exposed to myself. I've known myself at my strongest, confident, secure in who I am, able to achieve anything. And I've known myself as a mixture, and I am humbled by everything I've experienced. And I'm ready to move from 0 to 1, from a place of reactions to the past and old wounds, to a place of conscious decision and acceptance of the consequences."

Then I, for a while, just meditated on this last year, on what I'd learned about myself, and my choices. This has been the hardest year of my life, in terms of really facing myself, and fully coming to terms with my emptiness. I've had to dig up all my core wounds, come to terms with some different people and their effect on me and also more importantly come to terms with my choices and how those have really effected others. I can't say I'm a better person, so much as I'm a much more aware person after this year, after, the last five years really...and that awareness provides me an opportunity to be much more mindful of my choices. This year has been the culmination of a lot of internal work. I don't even recognize myself sometimes, because so much has changed...but I'm ready to embrace this person I've become, and let go the weight of the past.

At times I wondered if I could make it...I spoke for a while just to myself about this last year, about what I learned, about who I've decided to be. And then I told Xah I was ready to finish this year, and move into the next one. I decided to use a bit of sex magic and brought myself to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy gave myself to Xah again and felt him enter through the sigil I'd placed on my arm and then felt the zero crack open and from it came forth the direction I've chosen...then a shower to wash the paint off...and now it is the 21st my Birthday. And I've made it through this year of emptiness and found myself and found clarity and sanity and peace with myself. For yes, there is emptiness, but now I no longer need to fight it or run from it. Finally, finally, I have accepted it.

I read through my entries on emptiness...it's about a good four pages worth Just re-read everything...from start to now. If you go to the categories dropdown, you can select emptiness and read every entry...go back four pages or so...start at the beginning...You'll read a journey of this last year, of a person's journey to find himself and find resolution and closure with an element that most of us in the West would rather ignore.

Below is a picture of the tattoo I got as a tribute to this last year.

Happy Birthday to me.

Time Magic: Thiede

Today I painted the seal and sigil for Thiede. You might note in the painting the inclusion of an A, which is done purposefully to denote the alter ego of Thiede as Aghama. Thiede is the other guide for time. His purpose is to help a person understand concepts of space as they relate to time, as well as help practitioners with abyss journeys in time. Thiede can be thought of as an entity that helps the magician with the act of transmuting his/her understanding of time and space in relationship to the self and one's place in the universe.

Speaking of space, reading the hidden dimension which focuses on how different cultures use space differently, one of the realizations I came away with was that how space is organized can also speak something to how people conceive of time and how they organize time through space. I think that the perception of time is organized by how we use space, both in terms of navigating spaces to get somewhere, but even in how we set up our homes, offices, and public spaces. The one problem which can arise would be that a cultural definition of space would limit our understanding and appreciation of time...and you can see that in some ways with the rather linear approach to both time and space that is cultivated in how space is navigated and organized. For instance, I notice a lot of straight lines in how businesses and homes are laid out. A straight line is linear, direct and quick to navigate as opposed to a more circular or meandering route. The spatial dynamics in the public areas of my home tend to be straight lines, but in my own room, it's actually a circular and my sense of time feels different, more like a bubble, and less like a line with a specific deadline. I wonder if I were to change some of those straightlines, if some of the stresses would shift and change as a result. It might be something I give a little try, by moving one piece of furniture a different way, just to see how it changes the space of the room and my perception of time in it.

Review of the Hidden Dimension by Edward T. Hall

This is a fascinating book which examines concepts such as territoriality, smell, touch, thermal heat in the context of space and how different cultures organize and interact with space. The author also examines how intercultural issues with space contribute to a lot of the conflicts that occur with people. Reading this book has presented me some new perspectives about space and how I interact with others in my own space, as well as ways to respect the space of other people better. Cultural space is explored in particular depth to show how even the living spaces of different culture varies due to how people in a given culture interact with space. Overall a very insight and revealing book about the relationship of space to how we live and interact.

Time Magic: Purson

When I got home on Sunday from Fall Eq, one of the first things I did was go back to my ritual room and get started on the next painting for the time magic ritual I'll be doing in October. This time, the painting was for Purson, one of the Goetic Daimons of Time, and one I've been working with closely for some time. Purson is one of two guides for time, in my paradigm. The horn he blows in a symbol of sound and its relationship to sound, in terms of tuning potentialities into actual realities. Purson, as a guide, provides safe passage on the silver web of time, and can act as an intermediary for the magician, when the magician wishes to work with the Spider Goddess of time. As an interesting aside, Purson stabilizes time, while the other guide stabilizes space. Below is the painting I created as a Seal for Purson.

Continual shifts in my philosophy of magic

My philosophy and overall approach to magic has shifted  a lot in this last year in particular, but even in preceding years before this. It has become less about overt rituals and sigilization and other more visible techniques of magic and has moved into a quieter and more subtle practice, even as my studies and experiments have moved more toward a deeper end of the pool. The exploration of the concepts of identity and their relationship to magic has necessitated a very different approach, because its rooted much more in what I would consider the core of a person. It's not about fixing a situation or getting a job, so much as its about making changes at a deeper level of being, which when realized, changes the surface layer very quickly, because the changes have been building up and moving through the various layers of identity and personality to imprint themselves on the embodiment of selves I manifest in this life. I'm continuing to move further and further away from traditional concepts and definitions of magic. While to most, magic may be the art and science of causing change to manifest according to the will, that definition feels inadequate to me, and pretty much always has. But even the definitions of magic that I do have respect for...there's something missing. The last few years, with the continued internal work has continually shown me that. The more I read outside of the occult books, the more I recognize perspectives that could contribute to much to magical experimentation and process that are mostly ignored because they don't fit within the occult paradigm perse.

I don't identify with the mutant occulture movement. I don't identify with the chaos magician, the ceremonial magician, or any of the other labels. I don't identify with the occult culture. My time spent studying and learning the various perspectives and approaches to magic provided me a useful process and way of examining my relationship with the universe, but it wasn't until I actively started looking external to traditional occultism that I began to develop an appreciation for taking a more detailed look at the microcosm, and how I did or didn't impact that microcosm, or how it effected me in turn. The original impulse for getting into magic was to claim some form of empowerment by getting involved in it. That impulse has changed to a more introspective approach. Empowerment can be found in a variety of outlets, but what then is empowerment? What does it really mean to "have" power? And do we really have any of that? And where does it really come from?

If Magic is a process for change where is it most effective to enable that change? And beside the overt change in the world as a result of practicing magic, what is the more subtle change, if any which occurs? I think about these questions more than I used to, especially as I continue to research and explore alternate perspectives and beliefs involving a person as a change agent. I'm questioning my spirituality, my beliefs, and my identity, because in the questioning I'm finding myself visiting places I never thought to go before...but where it'll go, I'm not sure. And that seems to be a good thing...not knowing where it'll go, what will develop as a result. That's been the emptiness working for me...but its also the rest of my workings as well. It's moved out of experimentation for experimentation's sake and into experimentation for as a journey and evolution.

Hindsight

I was looking at one of my experimental journals, a written journal I keep, and saw it in a reading I did a year or more ago about a possible move to the East versus staying in Portland. I won't say much about the East coast reading beyond noting that what the reading showed me certainly would've come true, which was apparent when the reading was done, but in hindsight is even more apparent now. But looking at the reading for staying in PDX. The Death card was first...Transformation, recycling, going thorugh a cycle...yes that's exactly what I'm experiencing in my life, followed by creativity, action, compassion, and breakthrough...All of which are elements in my life right now, both in the emptiness working and in my business pursuits. And why really mention it? Because it fascinates me to see how much my life has changed as a result of my choice, in what I would think of as really positive changes overall. I took the harder path, in some ways, a path where some alchemical rotting needed to occur in order to bring about inner alchemical changes...and is still occurring...hard when you face your demons in all their glory, but so rewardinging for the changes that can occur. One reading came true...the other could've too...but in hindsight, having experienced some of the journey for this reading I found...I'm where I need to be, to progress on my spiritual path. And looking at the reading over a year later, I am struck by how it spoke so well to not just the present then, but also the present manifesting now. It's amazing what you can see and find in the patterns of yesterday which speaks to the weave of today.

Releasing negativity by using negativity

Yesterday I was feeling very frustrated and negative about some situations occurring in my life. I felt like I had no control, or like anything in my favor. I realized that I was in a bad enough mood that I'd probably end up feeling this way the rest of the day unless I did something, but I couldn't just bottle up my frustration or unhappiness. I needed to have an outlet for it, but I needed the outlet to be one where I could actually experience the negativity and then release it. I decided to watch Falling Down. It's movie where a guy snaps because he's unemployable and he can't see his kid. He basically ends up committing a series of crimes based on his perception of what is wrong with the world he's dealing with. I watched that movie, because I needed, for just a bit, to be that person...not in real life, but by participating through viewing the movie. I needed to be that person who was feeling so negative, so lost, so unhappy that he'd go and do what he was doing in the movie. And so whiel I watched that movie, I let myself really feel my own negativity and unhappiness over my current financial situation and job hunting, and a variety of other things.

I used the negativity of the movie to evoke the negativity within me, so I could feel it and then release it. It didn't solve anything for me, but it did put me into a better headspace where I could start looking for solutions to my situation that didn't necessarily involve conventional routes, but does provide me something to utilize that will hopefully result.

I released my negativity by allowing it to be embodied and projected in my choice to observe, and on some level, participate in the movie I watched. Negativity experienced vicariously, instead of acted on...Negativity released so I could focus on positive solutions.

The Emptiness Working Month 3: Rage

Dec 17 We've just moved into the new place and I have online connection again. The last half week has been hard. We got moved out quickly and right after it snowed in Portland, which pretty much brings this city to a crashing halt. Mainly though, I've been dealing with rage, with anger, and this makes perfect sense to me in context to emptiness, because one of the first emotions I learned to repress was rage. I had to repress it, because I wasn't really allowed to express it to anyone. And although I eventually did learn to express it, how I've expressed it hasn't always been healthy. The repression of rage is, I think, what first lead me to emptiness. I pushed my rage down and in pushing it down I also pushed my other emotions down. So I became empty, because emptiness was safer than feeling emotions. And yet that very emptiness was so haunting that I cut myself physically to feel something...it was a catch 22. I wasn't even really feeling emptiness so much as I was feeling the blockages I created in order to survive on a day by day basis. But feeling those blockages was enough to make me feel emotionally dead and so I cut myself back then to feel. It took me a long time to overcome that addiction to cutting.

The last few days put me on edge because of moving. I felt uprooted. Plus I've been dealing with past memories and current emotions in regards to some of my family. So rage has been close to the surface. Yesterday I felt so ready to just snap and I took the day to just get away from people in general. Some alone time to feel emotions, think and work through stuff.

Not surprising some of my thoughts turned to what I'd written about in the last update about emptiness. I thought back to times where I've sometimes emotionally led someone on or been less than forthcoming about my emotions and how I felt and realized that everyone, to some degree or another does this. I still felt ashamed though, because I realized just how much I have done the same behaviors that I experienced the last couple of months. It just provides me more motivation to change that to more genuine and authentic communication, because even if that communication hurts at the time, it's better than the eventual hurt that occurs down the line, which is usually worse because a person feels led on. And truth to tell I've experienced both sides of that equation before, but it's only now that I honestly can say I recognize how hurtful it can be to lead someone on out of fear of displeasing or whatever else motivates the action and how hurt one can feel when one realizes s/he is lead on. It's that conscious awareness which allows a person to make a genuine change, because you also see the consequences of the actions and can recognize the effect on you and others.

Feeling the rage I've felt lately hasn't been as intimidating as it used to be. It's something I feel, but I've been developing better coping strategies for it. I don't need to repress it, nor do I need to lash out and so I can find a way to manage it and express it that involves more communication and less reaction.

Dec 18. My mom is visiting for a week. She actually came in last night. I spoke with her at some length about my emptiness working and the feelings I was working through in regards to her and my family in general. It was a productive talk and when I drove home, I started to cry. I just felt something loosen up with me and that wounded child gave vent to some emotions that I hadn't realized needed that release. I felt less burdened afterwards. I'll be curious as to the rest of this week and what it brings.

I also got further confirmation that my decision at the end of last month is a good one, i.e. to just hold back from getting too involved with anyone, and focus on the internal work. People come into your life for a reason, I tend to think. Sometimes that reason is to show you what you're missing right in front of you. or within you, in my case. There's a part of me tempted to bury myself into a project that already is involving a lot of my time. I know better than to busy myself to avoid feeling something...it's a classic route to emptiness, but better to feel the pain and let it go then repress it and find it comes back with a vengeance later on.

Dec 19 A lot to write this month. Today my mom was telling me a story about an aunt and I ended up remembering something similar about my step mom. And I felt a surge of rage go through me toward this person who I've not see in years. Later tonight, Lupa and I had an argument about some stuff planned out. I was angry with myself for not thinking of her and thought about that pattern of anger as it had manifested over the last couple of weeks. Where does this self-anger come from?

And I meditated tonight and traced it to the root which was, of course, my childhood...remembering how I'd try and do everything as perfect as possible to avoid getting punished or yelled at or shaken. And how when I didn't do it just right, I'd get angry at myself, as a way to show someone else, usually my step mom, that I knew I had done something wrong and was punishing myself (not that it ever stopped her from punishing me anyway). And that's the root of my self anger...an attempt to punish myself to avoid punishment from someone else and I felt anger at her all over again. I wanted to shake her, yell at her, tell her what a disappointment and failure she was...all the things I'd been told when I was a child. I wanted to make her feel powerless. I never realized just how much my self-anger, and all of my approaches to anger came from this individual, or how toxic she was in my life until today. And feeling that today...was good, but it also did have me thinking about something I told my therapist: I want to learn how to manage my anger better, so I don't explode, so I express it safely, so I speak to how I feel, but respect myself and everyone else in how I speak. So I learn how to not repress my anger any longer, but also release it in a way that is ultimately healthy for all involved. I can do this and yes this is part of my challenge with emptiness.

Dec 22nd I found myself thinking about a recent situation and the other person involved in that situation last night. A sense of helplessness filled me, because I realized I had no sense of control or ability to do anything about the situation, except to accept it, and no idea if there would be further interaction with this person at all. Later that night I started re-reading Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart, and the following passage spoke perfectly to how I feel today and felt last night:

"Instructions on mindfulness or emptiness or working with energy all points to the same thing: Being right on the spot nails us right to the point of time and space that we are in. When we stop there and don't act out, don't repress, don't blame it on anyone else, and also don't blame it on ourselves, then we meet with an open-ended question that has no conceptual answer. We also encounter our heart."

I do feel right on the spot. And though I feel helpless, I don't have blame for this person, for asserting boundaries that needed to be asserted. On the other hand, I can't really blame myself for feeling what I do, because it's how I feel. So instead I'm in this place where I'm encountering my heart, encountering the emptiness and encountering a place where the only control I have is to let go of any control at all. It's not an easy place to be.

Dec 25 Due to the Snowpocalpyse I was not able to drop my mom off to the airport today. Instead I saw her one last time for lunch yesterday. We both felt frustrated that we didn't get to see each other more. This visit went really well and for me ended up bringing some closure to some feelings of anger I've held onto for way to long. Being able to talk with her, and tell her about how I felt and listening to her was a release for me. Given that I'm working on anger and its relationship to emptiness her visit came at just the right time and left me feeling more at peace with her myself, a needed feeling right now with the rigors of this emptiness working. Especially in the beginning of the elemental, having these triumphs can make all the difference.

I also, today, decided to finish letting go of someone from my life. I'd mainly kept the connection out of a sense of guilty, which is hardly healthy for either of us. That's not a reason to stay connected, not for me, and so today I finally felt I could let that guilt and the lingering anger go. I wish peace upon that person and more importantly I wish peace upon myself. I don't need to continue to weigh myself down with the mistakes I made in that connection. I think the biggest lesson for me today about emptiness is that it is about letting go of whatever is holding you back...

Dec 27 Over the last couple of days I've continued to sit with my feelings about being in situations where I've felt romantically thwarted, and/or have romantically thwarted someone else. The shame I have felt in the latter case, because of my actions has been quite revealing to me. I ask, "Is this the action of an authentic person?" and the answer I receive is, "No." Given how I have felt lately, in response to the last couple of months, I feel some empathy for how I may have hurt other people in the past. Nonetheless, as I've continued to process these feelings I came across another passage from Pema Chodron which is helping me put these feelings into perspective:

"The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last - that they don't disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security"

The attachment to an outcome is, I realize, what has caused me to feel these feelings. I've been so focused on the desired result, I forgot about the process. Yet having these feelings, this suffering, brings me back to the process, until I can learn to let go of that attachment to outcome and accept the moment as it manifests, with boundless potential and options waiting, if I am willing to be open to them. I'm still wrestling with my feelings about what's happened in the last couple months, but I do feel closer to releasing those feelings. They are attachment to a desired outcome which hadn't occurred. I can't make it occur as it is, so learning to let go could free me to experience it as it could be.

I'd said the other day that I was letting go of a connection with someone, but today I happened to look through old chat logs and felt such shame go through me again. Shame buried deep within me. That shame relates to my feelings of anger and also to some of what I've discussed above. I know feeling this shame is healthy for me, and that at some point I'll heal from what happened, but even a year later I feel haunted by what I did. Guess that's another reason to do this emptiness working.

12-28 Today I got some inspiration in the form of a friend who told me how she'd changed a particular behavior by tracing it back to the root of its expression in her body. I thought that was interesting and decided I might do something similar. As you might recall, last month's title was obsession and I thought I might look at that emotion today in my meditation. Tracing it back inevitably took me to to the feeling of abandonment, and my first memory. I am going to do some more intensive work with that memory to achieve a sense of closure with it, as well as the associated emotions that are rooted in it.

1-1-2009 My new years day involved me realizing that one way I've tried to fill my emptiness up has been through sexual activity. Not so much to enjoy sex, but to escape feeling empty. It explains some of my behavior when it comes to how I've handled people afterwards, the sometimes stringing along I've done has been a discomfort on my part with dealing with the reality of the person, as opposed to what I initially got, which was a temporary escape from feeling empty. When I realized just how much that feeling of emptiness has motivated my behaviors across a wide spectrum of activities, it was hard. Yet it's a good realization so long as I turn it into something more than just that.

1-5-2009: I've been spending the last few days meditating and working through my feelings about sex for escape vs sex for connection. There's definitely a difference for me in the acts. For escape isn't about anyone else than me, and mainly me using the sensations to get rid of the emptiness. Sex for connection is about letting the other person in, connecting and being with that person in that moment. Sex for escape doesn't leave much of a lasting impression...it doesn't have the same feeling as sex for connection, which does leave an impression. It's telling I've only realized this in the last few days though, because it's such a hidden part of the emptiness...the underbelly of my desire as it were.

In terms of emptiness and anger, I've lately been recognizing that my relationship with anger when I apply anger to myself has involved a lot of punishment, a tendency to turn the anger toward myself as a way of expiating my guilt. Yet that anger doesn't seem to serve a constructive purpose. The fact that I still feel guilty for what happened a year ago is a dysfunctional process in a way, though on the other hand I suppose it has motivated me to change. Still, at what point does the anger and guilt get let go of?

Today I asked someone, "Please be gentle with me." And thought sometime later, "I wonder if others thought that with me." Gentleness, for me, comes from compassion and awareness of suffering...The last couple of weeks of conscious awareness has made me want to be much more gentle with people.

1-8-09 It seems that in one form or another a lesson that seems to be particularly hard for me to learn is one I'm experiencing in different forms and manifestations. The attachment I've felt toward a particular result has in one way or another painfully been exposed in terms of the unhealthy aspects of it. I continually find obstacles and in those obstacles painfully see myself and my weaknesses in ways I have never wanted to. Yet in seeing those weaknesses I am given a moment of perspective and clarity about them. Chodron says the following:

"Perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. Maybe the only enemy is that we don't  like the way reality is now and therefore wish it could go away fast. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know...It just keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves." (Chodron 1997, p. 66 from When Things Fall Apart).

I read those words above and I realize rationally that this describes exactly what I've been struggling with for the last few months in terms of my relationship to emptiness, to other people, and to the habits I've utilized to try and fill myself up. Emotionally I want to rebel again those words and shrink away and yell and pout and whatever else. I recognize emotionally I am too attached. I've been reminded of that this very evening in a correspondence with someone. I can clearly see how much of this is an issue of control with myself, a control an attachment to something, and yet I feel helpless in the face of the suffering that this attachment has caused me. I cannot seem to let go of the attachment, even though it causes more suffering. Chodron also said "We are killing the moment by controlling our experience". To the magician in me this is antithetical, strange, and fearsome. to the human in me, this is something scary to experience, this realization of control and the suffering it causes. For whatever affirmation control seems to give me, I am nonetheless faced as well with the realization that clinging to a desired outcome has lead me to a lot of suffering and even when fulfilled, not nearly as much satisfaction as one might think it would provide. That is such a hard lesson for me to learn is frustrating in itself. I'm reminded of what a friend of mine has said, "I just want it to be over with." Yet what Chodron writes above is undeniable...it won't be "over with" until I learn whatever I need to learn from it...and I've seen this repeated with various lessons in my life. I'll get there eventually, when I actually get it.

When a person tells you that s/he understands your suffering, that person is sympathizing. Suffering is not something which is understood. It is experienced. And that experience shapes and sculpts a person in ways that can be considered alchemical. The dross is burned off, purged, and otherwise destroyed. The left over remnants are purified through the rotting putrefaction of the person's agony. The refinement into alchemical gold is a process which involves a lot of destruction for the rebirth of a new creation, which is refined by all the lessons learned in the process toward that creation. But the suffering is a heavy price to pay for that refinement. I may very well be a "better" person after all this work I do, but sometimes I wonder if the cost is really worth it, and today is one of those days. I can't say I've ever understood anyone else's suffering, but I have and am suffering and it is an experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

1-10-09 The other night I gave vent to grief over really what these last few months have been like for me. I just allowed myself to feel something I needed to release. I didn't want to be touched by anyone, I didn't want anyone to give sympathy. I just wanted to feel my anger and grief and suffering from the last few months. The next day I caught myself acting passive aggressive about some stuff and talked about it at length with my therapist. We seemed to agree that the passive aggressiveness boils down to issues of authority with women and not always feeling capable of expressing the need for boundaries or just needs in a way that is straightforward. It's something I've been working on this month and even before that, but it's good I'm recognizing that the root of my passive aggressive behaviors goes back to what happened with my boundaries never really being respected in my early years. Recognizing all of this gives me hope in terms of changing the behavior...it's something, though right now, not enough (which is so appropriate to emptiness)

On a different note, in reading the notes on the Star wars wiki about the emperor, and specifically how the emperor approaches anger, the emperor notes that a person must balance anger with intelligence, using the intelligence to control the expression of anger. And sure I see the sociopathic potential with that, but otoh, there's also something to be said for stepping back from a situation and feeling your anger and then intelligently discussing it. Likely not what he would mean...but I'm not a sith lord.

1-12-09 The quote below is from a character called Darth Plagueis from the Star Wars universe

Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you.

It is, I think, the embodiment of what I might consider the more demanding aspects of emptiness. This month, and the last two months has put me in a place where this quote is so accurate, because it has pushed me to my edge and forced me to really face my fears, while being denied my desires. It's fitting really that it's happened, and so fitting that the Emperor has taken such a prominent role in this working.Whenever something has occurred this month or the last couple, I've heard his gravelly voice, and felt his hands on my shoulder. He berates, admonishes, threatens, and occasionally praises me, telling me that I am being shaped by all of these experiences and learning not only the power of my emotions, but what it is really like to fully feel them. And of course he's teaching me something about how to work with the emotional energies in a way which I know will be helpful for a variety of experiments.  All the same reading those words now has really brought home the full force of this emptiness working. This is what I invoked into my life for the last three months and for the next nine months as well, at least to some degree. It isn't the entirety of emptiness, but it is a big part of it nonetheless.

I do feel Xah in the background. He's occasionally come up and reminded to go at my own pace and to respect the pace of others as well. He's teaching me, slowly but surely a lot about pace and what pace means when it comes to interactions with myself and others. His is a much more subtle undercurrent in this emptiness working. He leads me on, a mocking smile on his face, but also the occasional gentle prod.

1-13-09 Talked with a friend today about events that occurred last week. At one point he stopped me and said, "You're still holding so much anger in. Just let it out and vent." I realized he was right and just started yelling and venting about what had occurred and how angry I felt over feeling disempowered in the situation I'd been in. He said afterwards that he holds back sometimes as well because of the fire inside him, a fire he noticied in me as well. I am a fiery and passionate person and I do leash my anger around people I'm close to, even when I'm angry at those people, which speaks to the repression cycle. Yet today just venting and letting lose felt really good. It helped that the person I'm angry at wasn't there, but I wonder how healthy it is to hold back my expression of anger. The repression eventually leads to a volcanic eruption of anger, which certainly isn't helpful either. Finding a balance point would be helpful. At the beginning of this month, I recognized that rage was going to be the theme of this month and so much has played out in my interaction with this feeling. I feel simultaneously wiser about how I handle anger, and less empowered because I feel that anger and am in a way intimidated by feeling it and expressing it. Given how destructive anger is, I suppose some warieness is wise to feel, but part of me wonders if I'm just running from myself. Given that I wrote at the beginning of this month that I feel less intimidated by my anger, I feel humbled in realizing that this isn't really the case. The illusions we give ourselves are quickly destroyed in the face of this kind of work.

1-14-09 Sometimes surrender is the best option to take. I have been fighting my feelings of emptiness all my life. this month has embodied that fight with the rage and helplessness I have felt. I was told today that instead of trying to fill my emptiness up, that I should see if that desire to fill it up is the dysfunction. I suppose it's as clear a message as any this last month. Stop trying to distract yourself. Give in, surrender, submit. That is simultaneously the hardest and easiest act to do. I've tried filling up the emptiness. Now I'm just going to give in...surrender, and see what happens. Let go of attachment to what you think you want...or maybe just recognize how much that attachment leads to suffering and ask yourself if it's worth it. I'm told if you can't find it within, you won't find it without. Pretty words, but it doesn't solve anything for me. It's easy to offer such words, but the action is mine to take, and giving up, surrendering runs counter to so much of how I lived my life. But if life is a conflict that hurts so much, trying something new can actually be worth it. So...I'm giving up...I just don't know what I'm giving up...how terrifying. See you next month.

My Magical Room

I just moved into a larger place. And one of the perks of said larger place is that I have my own room now. I like having my own space, always have and so knowing I was moving into a new place, where I could have my own room, I immediately began planning for how I could manifest that room, where I would want to put things etc. I want to eventually manifest a futon for it, as a meditation mat and also for other purposes that may occasionally arise. But even without that I have my temple. I finished putting it together tonight. Tomorrow I'll do my first working in it, to set the tone of the room for every other working that occurs there.

I did take some pictures, partially because one of my dearest friends had requested it, but also because it's novel to me that I can show people my space, and have it be my own space.

The book case altar. All of the books on it are ones I'm planning to read in the near future, or they contain exercises and experiments I want to do. Most of these books are related to current projects I'm working on.

My altar. Yes it's a table with a chess set enlayed in it. In front of it is my dagger consecrated to Babalon and a candle as well. I've also got some space/time magic tools. The stone eggs are also tools...some of the oldest ones I've had.

My musical area. I've got a sound machine, some bells, and cds of William S Burroughs spoken word. Burroughs is one of my spiritual saints and also one of the magicians I've always respected.

This is where I keep my art supplies. I consider my art to be a potent expression of my magic. I have body paints and water color paints, glue, and I need to find my pair of scissors for the collages. I have a couple of paintings, gift from friends and admirers there as well. The mirror is also there, because I consider it a doorway to art.

The north wall. I've got my painting to Babalon, Thiede, Purson, and also a scroll featuring Guan Yu on the wall. All of these are dieties/entities I work with.

The west contains a painting on the ceiling I use for journeying, my painting dedicated to love, a mask, and several other paintings, which I'm not going to speak of beyond saying they have personal meaning to me.

The South. The red mask is one I've had for a while. The painting on the left is to Xah my Genius Daemon spirit. The one on the right is personal.

The East Wall. The painting on the left contains a symbol chart for the Dehara system. The painting on the right is the phoenix. I identifiy strongly with the life-death-Rebirth cycle. Actually the tapestry in them iddle is part of that too (and would you believe I've had it for over ten years). The elephant is Ganesh. Even has a broken tusk.

So that's my magical room. Of course it won't be really magical until I do my first working in it, but I've set the atmosphere up. Lupa told me it feels comfortable in there, which is as it should be. I like a space, which is comfortable, and I generally do a fair amount of work with the energy of a room to create that sense of comfort as well.

Clock time and natural time

I've been thinking further about natural perceptions of time vs clock time. Jean Houston, as far as I can tell, was the first person to overtly note a substantial difference between clock time, and natural or internal time, in her book The Possible Human. However, As I've been musing on this subject, I've also noted that even in everyday consciousness the perception of time can vastly differ depending on how time is measured. Let me give you an example. An acquaintance and I were discussing the formation of modern education in the U.S. the other day. The modern education system was developed during the industrial revolution as a way of moving people out of an agrarian approach to life and more towards an industrial model. In an Agrarian approach time is measured by when the sun rises and sets. It isn't parceled down into hours and minutes, and instead is much more rhythmic, in tune with the day light. Now take people out of that approach to life and put them into a factory, and you end up having an issue, because the way those people approach time affects how they approach work. To get around that you put them in a setting where they are educated about time through the example of having periods of time that are used to measure how long they are in class and how much time they have for a break. And then afterwards they are trained for a very linear approach to work. You have only to look at today's average work day to see this in effect. So many minutes for a break, so may for how long you work, the rest you schedule what else you want to do.

That conversation came up in way that I'd say was odd, if it wasn't for working with the spider goddess of time. Ever since I worked with her, she's been showing up in different ways and while I didn't see her when I was having this conversation, I definitely felt a divine nudge that there was a lesson here, and was reminded of my classes at clarion, where this very subject was discussed at some length as to why classrooms are arranged the way they are spatially...it's a factory setting. Students lined up in rows, ready to be processed and put on the line.

I've had a few moments of alternity, where time has seemed to stretch out. I get that every so often in general...time expands, my sense of possibilities changes, everything seems elongated, crystalline, fitting together perfectly. I'll see it occasionally as I drive, but sometimes as I walk or doing something else...time stretches out, becomes a parchment of silver webbing, shining strands of possibilities, and the sense of time changes, becomes much less overt. It's only when I look at a clock that I'm really brought to a linear awareness of time. The clock constrains, restrains, and otherwise confines a sense of time to a very immediate moment. I look at the clock and I see a specific time: 9:29:39 and only that moment exists. Everything else, all other possibilities fade in the glowing green digits of time that express exactly this one moment of linear time, which my entirety exists in.

I can see why clock time has become so prevalent, so important to the work world for instance. It is the engine which drives people to perform for whoever they work for, the way of rating the exchange of life for the means to sustain that life.

Yet how much is missed out on in the obsession of clock time, when we lost the natural rhythms of life to the growing gleen digits that mark out how much time is left for a person to work, or for that matter to live? Where is the seamless experience of time as not just one moment, but a sea of infinite possibilities, or the silver paths of the web the spider goddess lives in? We find it when we can let go of clock time, let go of the need to look at the very face of time that binds us...When a day becomes much more than just one hour passing after another...it becomes full of possibilities and adventures and so much else.

Give me natural time any moment of the continuum

Some thoughts on physiology, entheogens, and awareness of time.

I've just started reading Sex, Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream: a day in the life of your body by Jennifer Ackerman. I'm already intrigued by what I've read, but in the first chapter she notes that there is a set of neurons that comprise the master clock in your brain, which basically dictates the rhythms of time for the body. Last night when I was having my entheogen experience, my perception of time changed drastically. Time felt elongated, slowed down, stretched out. Even my perception of light was stretched so that the light moved much differently than it normally would. My circadian rhythm had been changed by the entheogen. And this interests me, because how one's physiology reacts to any substance can dictate not only the health of a person, or the awareness of time, but also the rhythm of that person. My awareness of time admittedly also might've changed because that was what I brought into my inner journey, but nonetheless I have to acknowledge that my internal rhythms were influenced. This same distortion of time has happened with magical workings and meditation. While not necessarily as visually stimulating as my trip, my awareness of time changes a lot when I meditate. I will sometimes think I have been under for hours, only to find out I've been under for twenty minutes or a half hour. This recent experience as well as comparing notes with my meditations has made me wonder just how much our perception of linear time interferes with the awareness of biological time. When I measure time from a biological perspective, from a rhythmic awareness it seems to be much different from the ticking of minutes and seconds that tells me what time it is on my computer. It's a possible angle for further experimentation.

Speaking of possible angles for experimentation, watching a friend and former student doing her work with with the element of darkness and specifically with Sora from Kingdom Hearts decided me on utilizing the Kingdom Hearts Video games as part of my work with emptiness. Yes, I know quite profane, but also quite useful...the metaphysical aspects of the Heartless and nobodies is untapped as yet, and it could also be an excellent exploration of projective identity and personal narrative as a pathworking, similar to what The force unleashed inspired in me for working with the Emperor as an aspect of emptiness.

Space/Time Tarot/Deity experiments

I decided to do some space/time work with tarot cards after finishing A Brief hirstory of Time by Oryelle Defenstrate-Bascule. In his book he'd explain some of his own space/time tarot techniques and it reminded me of some of my experiments with space/time tarot, which I'd done a year or so back. As good as any reason to break out the cards and do some further experimentation as well as deal with a few gnawing situations in my life. As Oryelle points out and I have pointed out as well, tarot isn't just for divination. It's also for conjuration. A reading provides you more than a glimpse of the future...it also provides you an opportunity to manipulate the possibilities presented to you. I used the voyager deck to create a magical circle and an evocation triangle. The magical circle and triangle is based off the book Portable Tarot by Donald Tyson, but the technique described here is an extension of his concepts into my own style and experimentation of magic. Here's what it looks like (Note you can also click the link to see the full picture):

The aces are in the center. They form the elemental foundation. On top of them is the card, which represents my current self. My presence is the Hanged Man. The outer circle is the trumps cards used to create the magical circle or tarot temple or whatever else you want to call it.The row of cards above are trump influences I am relying on. All of them were appropriate as gateways and power providers.

The summoning Triangle is the Priestess, the Fool, and Space/Time. Normally the Hanged man would be part of the Triangle, but I replaced him with the Priestess card, thinking it appropriate, plus the Hanged man is the presence of me. The Master of Worlds is the Future self I picked for myself. I thought of going to the usual card, the Woman of Crystals aka the Gaurdian, but I realized that didn't feel right, so I randomly stirred the voyager cards until my hand came to that card, which said I am the future of you. I realize now that the Guardian card is no longer representative of me. She was the guardian of my lies, illusions, and delusions which Babalon stripped away from me this last year. The presence of the Hanged Man is that which stares into the emptiness of zero seeking answers while submitting to the suffering necessary for achieving those answers. That suffering, for me, is really the emptiness work and the work with my past, with the roots of all that has haunted me in this life. The Master of Worlds is also the Master of time, but to master anything, you have to submit to it first, surrender to the flow in order to understand the force and manifest a movement that goes in sync with others. The master has surrendered to the emptiness and so understood it. He is me after this year is finished, or at least a possible variant of me.

I did the activation of the circle as well as the invocation of the future self into my present self, asking him to guide my hands for the reading I was going to do. I evoked the spider goddess of time, Purson demon of time, and Thiede the Dehar of space/time. I also evoked Xah my Personal Daemon and fox spirit and guide. Each of these beings are essential to my mythology of time. I wanted their presence and guidance in the working I was doing, because I wasn't just doing a divinatory reading, but actually a conjuration across the silver web of time. Below is a picture of me meditating with the forces that I'm working with:

I felt my older self lay his hands into mine and I shuffled my Alchemy deck and created a reading specific to circumstances in my life, both present circumstances, but also seeking for the person(s) who are part of a very specific magical working in my life that is yet to come, which this emptiness working and the love working has been a prelude to. Below is the cards pulled for the alchemy deck (Note you can also click the link to see the entire picture):

You can see most of the cards, though one got caught in the glare of the light. The Three in One, in the center, are present situations in my life. The two cards above and below the three card spread are current potential factors I can use that also involve what it is I'm seeking for. The card to the left is the past, and aptly reflects who I was. The cards to the right is an action to take as well as the desired reality. This not justr a reading...it is actually a specific working, a conjuration of reality, which utilizes the principles of the cards to manifest specific goals. The last time I did this type of working, was for Leisa Refalo's Podcast on Tarot and the magical working I did has come to fruition and continued to manifest since then. I mention that because I want to emphasize the dynamic nature of this working. It isn't a divination...It it a conjuration of potential that is manifested into reality. It does provide necessary information for how the conjuration will manifest, while also aligning the realities into one. It's also a kind of retroactive magic, because I'm using my future self to guide my presence in manifesting this potential into specific reality.

After I did this reading, I then spent some time working with the spider goddess of time in particular. I asked her to show me how to weave webs of potential into reality. I put my hands together as if in prayer, but as I looked at my hands, I felt the Astral fingers of each hand go through the other hand, so that I held my physical fingers in prayer, but held my astral fingers in a kind of V and used both sets of hands to weave the silver strands of time into reality. She guided my weaving and as I looked into those hands, I began to see a flickering of images that represented different potential realities. I started weaving the images into the silver webs and then cast the webs into reality. The webs of time would take the images of the possible future and meld them into reality. Below is a picture of the prayer pose I was doing. Obviously you can't see the astral fingers, but it gives you an idea of what I was doing on a physical level:

When I finished with the meditation, I thinked each deity of time and then thanked my future self. I recorded the cards and the specifics of the reading in my personal journal and then undid the temple, releasing the silver webs into reality. I'll be experimenting with this technique in more depth and there will likely be an article about it in the future, but I also wanted to show a work in progress as it were as well as how I do some of my space/time magic work. This post will likely end up in my book on identity and magic, as a lot of my research and experimentation is involving a lot of space/time work. This is a small example of that work.

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Review of A Brief Hirstory of Time by Oryelle Defenstrate-Bascule

For any chronomancer out there, this book is a must read. Not only will it put you in touch with the Spider Goddess of Time, but it also demonstrates experimental magic at its finest. Oryelle presents some very intriguing concepts and ideas about time magic. I found it hard to put this book down as I was enthralled by his ideas, as well as noticing some intriguing synchronicities in our work (which isn't surprising as this seems to be common amongst Space/Time magicians), most notably the silver strands of time. Oyrelle artfully blends poetry and art into a discourse on space/time magic which is revolutionary for what it offers, namely a non-linear perspective on time as well as methods for practicing some potent space/time magic. I'll definitely be utilizing some of this techniques and experimenting with them, because I know the process described within the book works. I've already started working with the spider goddess of time and she is a very real presence. I highly recommend this book. You will get a lot out of it and also be supporting and artist and magician in his work.

5 out of 5 silver webs of time.

Emptiness and Time

Since I've started reading Oryelle's A Brief Hirstory of Time, and also because of a conversation with a fellow practitioner, I've been thinking a lot about time's role within emptiness. It strikes me that time has a very prevalent role, both in emptiness itself, and in what comes after emptiness. Within emptiness time is representative of all the possibilities that could exist. Time isn't static in emptiness, though it may seem like it would be. Rather everything is occurring all at once. Time is non-linear, indistinguishable from reality. Time occurs, but isn't defined into measurements or increments.

When emptiness changes, when possibility becomes reality, time can be linear or cyclical, depending on how one perceives the event occurring. Oryelle says time becomes emit, or time is emitted and that works as well for our purposes. Time is emitted from emptiness when possibility manifests into reality.

It's interesting to realize that emptiness is not a vaccuum...there is existence even within emptiness. It's fluid, constantly changing, almost entrophic and the only thing which makes it non-entrophic is that a choice can be made and when the choice is made, progression occurs, something comes out of nothing, 1 originates out of 0.

If you think about it making a choice is when time begins. Or at least a version of time related to that choice...or not because there's everything leading up to choice, at which it might be cyclical instead of linear.

So it seems like the element of emptiness is also the element of time. It makes sense to me. I'm actually developing a new meditation technique, using time and the element of emptiness, but I'll discuss that at a later date.

Bonding with the Land Part Two

The latest Radio show Next week's show will feature Laura Sherman the Chess Coach. We'll be focusing on what Chess coaching is, how it's used to imagine reality and the discipline it brings people. Not exactly an occult topic per se, but I think it will be illuminating. Plus I like to find spirituality in unusual places.

Bonding with the Land Part 2

Yesterday I got the Blue Dragon tattoo touched up and finalized. It was a two hour session.

As you can see the face has more detail and the tattoo is even bluer than it was before.

And here is the otherside.

Yesterday, getting tattooed was just as interesting as the first experience. I felt the spirit of the dragon come awake as the tattooing began. As I was inked I felt the dragon imbue more energy into the process, even as it drew on the pain I felt to connect it to me. I also used the same mental technique I used last time to not so much block the pain as not make it prevalent. For lack of better word, I felt the pain, but I also distanced myself from it. As the inking occurred I once again felt connection to the land, but this time it felt more like a sense of closure occurring. When the inking finished I felt the dragon slip back into the ink itself and I felt it settle very frmly into place...I also felt the connection to the land fit into me in a way that it hadn't quite before. It was a final fitting as it were. Afterwards, I felt uncharacteristically tired and a bit out of it for most of that day. I felt drained really...It wasn't the same as the first experience...it was the finalizing of that experience and that bit of waiting had I supposed built up and then was finally released.