spirits, Magic
Taylor Ellwood
The relationship between sacred kingship and ...

One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.

One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.

The spiritual dimension of music

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Another Music Magic Experiment

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Kat and I are reading the Spiritual Dimension of Music by R. J. Stewart. It has several exercises in it and I've tried them out solo as well as doing them with Kat. One of the exercises involves using different tones of music to raise energy through your body, while humming and/or vocalizing the tones. Another exercises involves using vowels to set up a magical circle, with each vowel representing one of the four cardinal directions and/or spirit.

I've decided to integrate the tonal exercise into my daily practice, and may integrate the vowel exercise as well, as I can distinctly feel the energy that is raised when I do these music magic exercises. I've always had an affinity for singing (I used to be in chorus in high school) and feel that the voice is one of the most powerful tools a magician can have, if properly trained and worked with.

When I've done these practices with Kat, I've noticed an enhancement to the work I'm doing. It seems like we amplify each other's signal and consequently the magical work is also amplified.

I've taken this work and also applied it to existing music magic that I've been doing, specifically working with the Tuvan throat singing.I've tried to integrate the tuvan throat singing with the vowels and tones. I haven't had too much luck with it so far, but it does take some work. Nonetheless its fascinating work and I'll share more as I continue to try things out.

 

Book Review: When Why...IF by Robin Wood

I'm not a Wiccan and I mention that because it's an important caveat to this review. This book was written for Wiccans and primarily deals with ethics from that perspective. I'll admit that I didn't really care for this book. At times I found the author to be condescending. She came off as a stern mother lecturing her way-ward son about how to behave. I also didn't see a lot of commentary on magic and ethics which I hoped for. I suspect the lack of it has more to do with the fact that its a book on Wiccan ethics, wherein Wicca tends to treat magic as a secondary activity. If you're Wiccan, this could be a useful book for providing some guidance on expected behaviors.  If you're a practitioner of other Pagan religions or more focused on magical practice, this book will probably not be that helpful.

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Of Words and Worlds

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I've always been fascinated by how words can create worlds. Or maybe its better to say they channel worlds. Regardless, what fascinates me the most is that the word is really an expression of reality that is half way between idea and reality. It is the beginning manifestation of possibility into reality, a way to establish something that is separate and distinct from the entropy of all possibilities.

In the Spiritual Dimension of Music, R. J. notes that "The word is the power exhaled by the mysterious source or Spirit. In physics it is known as the origin of the universe while in metaphysics it its known as the origin of worlds" Reading that made me think of the big bang as this explosive word uttered into the void that turned possibility into reality. And why not?

As a writer and also a bibliophile I really appreciate the power of words, in terms of what they present: Concepts made into inky flesh and shared and spread through the comprehension of the meanings embedded in the words. But it goes beyond that. In Pop Culture Magick, I wrote about how I thought of as Fantasy/SF books as channelings of other worlds or variations of this world that could be accessed through the word and also through imagination and magical work. It's still something I identify with. When I read the Shannara for examples, its not just words I read, but a reality I experience. I am there with the characters, experiencing what they experience and becoming a part of that world while I read about it. The word acts as a reality tunnel bridging the gap between the person's imagination and the actuality of the word s/he is reading about.

When people turn the word into ritual and magic it becomes even more real. The work Storm, I, and others have done with Dehara, a system of magic based off the Wraeththu series is the choice to bring something back from a "fantasy" world and turn it into a reality here that people can interact with more directly. Is it just pop culture, or is it more real? When I take the concepts written about in the DeathGate Series in regards to space/time magic and turn them into viable practices that can actually work, does it matter that the concept was initially found in a fantasy series? I don't think so.

I think that what matters is that we are able to turn words into worlds and then interact with those worlds and bring something back to this reality that is meaningful. I don't want to escape into another world, but I do want to learn from the other worlds out there. Even if they don't seem to be real, there is something we can learn from them, and in truth once they've been written about, they've already started to exist somewhere beyond the imagination of the author. They've become a reality of some sort and we are left to translate that reality to our own, if we so choose.