One of the practices I associate with space/time magic that other people have shared is how they've created a distinct space separate from mundane reality, in which to do magical work. Now, it could be argued that casting a circle is exactly that, but I'm actually referring to techniques specifically designed to remove a person from their participation in space and time. One technique that both William G. Gray and R. J. Stewart share involves using sound to create a sphere of art. The practitioner vocalizes the vowels O A I. Each vowel is associated with a form of stillness. The O stills your sense of time, moving it from a linear perspective to a holistic, cyclical, spiral perspective. The A stills your sense of space, expanding it from a contracted linear experience to an expanded non-linear awareness. The I stills your sense of movement, getting you to slow down and just be with your expanded sense of space and time. Doing this technique shifts you from linear time and space to a rarified sacred time and space.
In Dzogchen, the cultivation of Zhine, a meditative state of stillness, leads to a similar state of awareness. As you still yourself and your thoughts, you enters into a place of hyper awareness that goes beyond the physical and ventures into the spiritual, or at least I do. In Zhine, I feel as if I can see all these possibilities around me. the goal isn't necessarily to do anything and it could be said the possibilities are a distraction, but experiencing them is similar to what I experience with the OAI.
I find it interesting to examine these two techniques which are distinctly different from each in terms of how the state of stillness is reached, as well as culturally, and are also different from each other in terms of the desired result. Yet nonetheless it seems that both of these techniques take a person to a similar state of consciousness. However with that said, I think its important to honor each technique and so when I do Zhine work and cultivate stillness, I'm not necessarily doing it to access possibilities so much as be present with them. And when I do the OAI and set up the Sphere of Art I'm doing to commune with my spiritual contacts and sometimes for the purpose of manifesting possibilities into reality.
Stillness plays an integral role in my space/time work. It's within stillness that possibilities can be fully explored. Stillness is the 0 of space/time, the potential for everything. The potential of stillness is changed when you chose to manifest a possibility. At that point you shift from stillness into movement, for movement is what is needed to turn potential into reality. Yet I would argue stillness is a profound state and that what it can teach us is the importance of not taking action too quickly, but instead really being present with the possibilities and exploring the consequences and results of realization. By learning to still ourselves, we expose ourselves to the gift of making a choice from a place of proactive awareness instead of from reaction. When you are ready to move, you move yourself knowingly, to achieve results that are consistent with what you want for your life, as opposed to just solving a problem that has come up in your life.
Magical Experiments podcast Interview with Sara Star about Kitchen Alchemy and traditional witchcraft.