Update on the latest space/time magic experiment

I was recently interviewed on Disinfo about some of my current space/time magic work. In that interview I shared some of my ideas about how movement and stillness can play a role in space/time work.  I want to share some more information here on my continued modification of the space/time web tool I've been using. I've continued using the memory box, which is a tool  developed for working with space and time as a web, though I'll also note that with this experiment I've been doing some of it as a purely meditative, mental experience of that same construct. The reason I've chosen to do the latter action is because I feel that while a tool is useful, it serves mainly as a way of providing structure, which once you get that structure, makes the tool obsolete.

My focus in this experiment has been integrating stillness and movement into the technique. I feel that both of these elements are intrinsic to our experiences of space and time and as such can be useful for space/time magic we are working on. I've integrated stillness in as a means capturing a snapshot of a given space, wile also discovering the possibilities that exist in imaginary time around that space. Time, which is the flow of activity through a given space, and what is used to actually change the space is aided by movement, which is used to move a possibility into space as a form of reality. Movement allows for the assumption of form, which is used to define what is occurring in a given space.

I've been using these modifications on a couple of situations in my life, and I don't have results yet, because these situations are long term, but what I've been doing is going to the section in the web that represents the space of the given situation and then going into a place of stillness, which I use to examine the space and discover the possibilities around it. The possibilities I don't want are popped, and their essence is put int the possibility I do want to manifest in order to provide it momentum. Movement is used to place the possibility into the space, while time is used to activate the possibility as a reality of the space that moves the person to a new space, which becomes the new reality.

That's what I'm currently working on. I'm still tweaking the new version of this technique, especially as it applies to the concepts of movement and stillness, but I think I'm onto something, and if nothing else its giving me a project to work on, which is always fun. I'll report further as I continue to work with stillness and movement in the context of space/time magic.

Working the web

In my current work with the web of time, I've been working on changing the patterns of the web, which correspond to ongoing or potential situations that I'm involved in or will be involved in. I've been using the memory box and the Hexagon Elemental Tarot cards for this work. The memory box also acts as an access point to the silver web of time. Basically I use it to commune with the spider goddess of time and interact with her in the web. I use the elemental hexagon tarot deck to make changes in the web. The cards act as a grid system that I can use to change the web.

What I've been doing is accessing the web with specific situations in mind and then using the cards to create solutions for those situations that are favorable for myself. The spider goddess has been part of the work, specifically in terms of providing guidance on how to make changes to specific parts of the web or the overall structure.

What's interesting is that if you factor in the alternate universe model you can then access the alternate webs of time for your alternate selves and superimpose a pattern from that web onto your web. I actually did that today for a working I'm doing for my business so I can continue to build on the success I've been realizing lately in it.

You might wonder why I'm using cards for this process. Conceptually I find it easier to use the cards, because the different themes of the cards can be used to introduce specific concepts or ideas that you want to work with. Also, while I do have a mental picture of the web, the cards make it easier to change patterns or specific strands. In fact, by using the cards, I add a physical dimension to the working so it isn't all in my head. In the future, I'll do a video example of my work and share it on here.

Time as a necessary illusion

Tonight I did another visitation with the spider goddess of time. Before I did so, Elephant briefly reminded me to stay present, even and especially in moments of feeling boredom. When I visited the spider goddess, she showed me a new technique where I could create a silver thread of time to an event or person, if one hadn't existed before. This approach complements the editing technique I learned from her the last time I visited. The main difference is that you are essentially creating a new connection as opposed to editing an existing one. You can even create context specific strands of time. In other words, if there's a specific context that you want to create for a situation or person then you put that into the strand that connects you to the event or person.

Afterward the spider goddess and I discussed time itself. She pointed out something that she has said before. The sense of time a person has is dictated much more by awareness of natural rhythms and cycles than an actual force of time. The conceptualization of time as a force is a useful illusion that has its own rule, which can be used to manipulate the awareness of time a person has. It's something I can understand. I know that my "age" is more or less an arbitrary number used to explain the physiological process of aging and that day and night are terms used to understand the changes brought about by the rotation of the Earth around the sun. The concept of the flow of time seems to be more of a comfort illusion than an actual reality. The word when allows us to situate a place and space as much as a time. Even the spider web is another concept tool for the illusion of time. It works, and certainly something happens, but her point is that time isn't so much of a mysterious external force, so much as its a perception and explanation and a method for sorting out and indexing changes. We create time to explain and understand the changes that occur in and around us, but you have to wonder if time would even exist as a concept if there was no one thinking about it.

Review of In Search of Time by Dan Falk

This book presents a "history" of time, with a heavy focus on physics and how physicists throughout history have approached and tried to conceptualize and explain time. The author does an excellent job of presenting a wide variety of both contemporary and historical perceptions of time. I enjoyed reading this book because it provided some food for thought on how I understand and conceptualize time. I recommend it to anyone who finds the concept of time fascinating and wants to learn what others have to say about it.

Amazon affiliate link

Powells affiliate link

5 out of 5

An audience with the Spider Goddess of Time

Today I decided to do a working with the Spider Goddess of Time. I've been working with the other entities for the element of Time, but hadn't contacted her since the first night I switched over to the element of time. I opened my memory box and used it to surf the silver web of time, to the center, which is where the Spider Goddess resides. Once there, she showed me a technique I could use to examine the weaving of the strands of time that connect me to different people, situations, etc., and how I could then edit the strands accordingly. I decided to then work with this technique, by looking at two different people I'm connected to and editing the strands of time. In one case it's editing the strands to factor in a change of relationship, so that the person will be more accepting of those changes, because the strands that previously supported a specific type of relationship aren't in place anymore to continue supporting it, due to changing circumstances in both our lives.

The other case was doing a working the strands of time for a friend dealing with some medical issues. In this case, the editing focused on editing out the cause of the medical issues, removing them from that person's timeline, as it were, so that they would no longer be an issue. I figure if there's no longer a temporal anchor for the cause of the medical issue, then the medical issue will no longer exist.

Since I did this just today, I don't know for sure if it's worked, but I'm fairly sure I'll know soon enough and I will be doing some more work with this technique, to experiment with and refine it.

Space/Time Connection Working

I've been getting pinged by the Spider Goddess of time quite a bit since I switched over from emptiness to Time to come and do a getting to now you ritual of sorts. It was that this evening, but also more than just that. I went to my ritual room and pulled out the voyager deck and from it constructed a circle and triangle for ceremonial work. I've decided that I'm no longer going to use the voyager deck for divinatory work...just for the ceremonial/experimental magic I've been using the deck for the majority of the time.

After I constructed the circle and triangle, I pulled out the paintings for Elephant, Purson, Thiede, and the Spider Goddess, as well as the memory box I use to access the silver web of time. I then first approached Elephant and asked for entrance through the gates of time. He said yes, and told me to also make some more time for him, so we could explore some facets he could show me in regards to time. I took the key from him, and fit it into the loc of the memory box, and opened the box.

I called out to Purson to be guide through time, to Thiede to be my guide through space and they both came, my guardians on journeys into the silver web. Then I reached out to the spider goddess and she told me that tonight we'd work on utilizing the silver web to make a particular connection happen. She told me to think about what connection I might like to make, and then told me to shuffle the rest of the Voyager deck to pull out th cards that represented me and the connection I wanted to make. First I pulled out the seeker card, for myself (how appropriate), but I had to do a lot of thinking about what I wanted to connect. I decided, in the end, not to connect with a specific person or entity, but rather to connect with an archetypal awareness that I could present some information to about the connection I wanted to make. The Spider Goddess thought this was a good idea, and I proceeded to shuffle and pull a card that represented that awareness.

I then activated the magical circle for connecting with that awareness and putting my own card into the memory box and setting it on the altar, proceeded to explain at length what I was looking for. Then I and that awareness shuffled the cards from the elemental hexagon deck and from that we pulled out what I would consider to be a confirmation of those attributes, but also an imprint of them into the archetype, so it could seek out what I was looking for. After that the spider goddess suggested that she and I shuffle the cards a second time. So we did that, and the second spread revealed/set the path by which the possibility I was seeking would manifest.

The spider goddess also pointed to a specific book on my shelf Fusion of the Five Elements by Mantak Chia, and said I should start doing the exercise in that book for my morning daily ritual. The emptiness working has deconstructed all of my former energetic structures and the Fusion of the five elements is a practice that creates a spiritual embryo (among other things)...she seemed to feel it would be useful for me, so I'll be starting that practice as of tomorrow. Then I closed it all down. Overall, an interesting working, with more to undoubtedly come.

Walking on silver strands

Today I was feeling a bit frustrated about a couple of situations with different people I was trying to connect with. And as I thought about this, I felt the Spider Goddess ping my mind. She told me I was thinking too linear, trying to go down one line of the web, when I could just as easily create more lines on the web to connect me to that person, or other people who were connected to that person. For a while now, my model or perception of time has been of a web of silver strands (even before I met the Spider Goddess), so I thought about each person I wanted to connect with, as well as what the goal of that connection was, for me and then I decided to create new silver strands to connect me to to the person/situation in question, to cut down on the distance that I felt was involved (there's always a spatial component to time, but that's another post). The purpose of these strands was to present other possibilities to the situation that could help me move in a direction I wanted to go toward.

After creating the additional strands for each situation, I ended up having situations occur that modified the problems blocking the desired outcome. In one case it was finding the right person to add his/her influence to the situation and in the other situation, it was taking a different approach. But what I really got from this situation was a different sense of time as it relates to the connection between people. It's confirmed some of the research I've read and also given me some leaping off points for the magical work I plan to develop as a result.

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.

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.

The cards say it all

In a recent post, I talked about using a new deck for some of my space/time tarot work. Last night, I finally got around to using it for myself and working with the spider goddess of time again, though as a curious note, since I'm currently letting someone borrow the book, she wasn't as present, which suggests that the book itself is magical artifact or talisman for connecting with her. Anyway, I set up my usual circle and invoked my future as well as my space/time deities and XAH. As I mentioned I didn't feel the spider goddess as strongly, but her silver web was still present. I asked my future self for help in continuing to navigate the current economic situation. Then I shuffled the elemental hexagon cards for a while.

First three cards presented myself and my obstacles.Vanadium- the Seeker was definitely me...and how interesting that for the metaphysical world it's described as void. That certainly fits my emptiness working. The two cards above the seeker card were apt as well. The one on the right was Fluorine-paranoia and the one on the left was Nickel - cost of living. Certainly the current environment is one of paranoia in general...and that fear can be infectious. The cost of living is an issue as well, given my current economic circumstances.

The next two cards are resources in myself to rely on right now, both for myself and my business. The card on the left, above Nickel is Hydrogen - Building blocks. It's an excellent reminder that I know how to build a business and also know how to use those building blocks effectively. Strontium was the card above flourine. Strontium is Luminescent Self and what it tells me is to use my meditation, my discipline practices, etc. to work with my fears, but not let them become paranoia...sit with the fear, but not fight it.

The next two cards presented external factors, people, etc. that could help me in this process. The card above Hydrogen is Silver, the moon goddess. I'm pretty sure this is a person and I'm pretty sure I know who this person is and how this person would relate to the cost of living and building blocks aspect, given some of the help she's already given me. Interesting to get confirmation on this person's presence and role not only as a helper, but also other ways she's manifested in my life.

The card above Strontium is Chlorine - Chaos in order, magic. On the superficial level its the reminder to use magic, but on a deeper level, could be more. Too early to tell, but if it's more then it's the vector of another person's path crossing mine...we shall see. Regardless it's a useful reminder that magic is always one of my most potent tools and actually points to the fact that it's time to work with Apophenia.

Final card, the outcome as it were is Argon or completion. A light bulb, but also a filament...Everything coming together to provide illumination, wealth..It is the trump card for the world. All things and none, everything and nothing, becoming complete...it's an interesting theme that continues to play itself out in a myriad of ways.

I'll be working with Apophenia next.

An interesting reading. Below's a picture of the reading:

Review: The Art of Memory by Frances Yates

This is pretty much an exhaustive coverage of the memory mansion technology, where a person creates a virtual space and symbols and associates information with each symbol. Yates traces the technique to pre-socratic Greece through Rome and the medieval and Renaissance era. There's some intriguing overlay with the occult history of Giordano Bruno. I'll admit, however, I was actually looking for what I hoped would be detailed information on how the memory technique is done. While Yates does provide some information, I didn't find this book to be as useful as I hoped. It's useful as a history about memory techniques, but not really for a description of those techniques.

4 out of 5 mnemonics.

Latest space/time Tarot Experiment

At Pantheacon, I had the good fortune to barter one of my books for a very intriguing Tarot deck, the Elemental Hexagons Deck. Tonight I broke the deck in with a space/time tarot ritual working for a friend of mine. I used the voyager deck to create the magical circle and invoked the future version of my friend into my hands so that he could shuffle the deck. I asked him to provide me information and/or magical work to help him with a situation in his life. The reading itself was interesting, but I won't post details as it is confidential information. What I will note however is how tactile and intuitive using the elemental hexagon deck is. I was able to easily intuit a pattern that made perfect sense for the information, but what I really liked is how the cards fit together. You basically attach one hexagon to another. It really helps make the relationships very apparent and seamless.

I'll be experimenting more with this deck for space/time workings, especially with the spider goddess of time, in the near future, so expect further posts, and some pictures in the near future!

A day of ritual work

Right now Portland is experiencing an unexpected snow storm, which has pretty much shut down the ability to travel in the city. I'm not one to spend my time idly, however. So I decided to do some ritual workings today and have another I'll be joining astrally later tonight for the solstice. I first decided to the second invocation of Atem from Meta-Magick: The Book of Atem by Phil Farber. In the second invocation you create a magical circle in which you anchor specific attributes of attention, passion, fitting, trance, language, and making into the formation of the circle. These attributes are used to form the entity of ATEM. By anchoring the attributes into a physical space, the magician not only creates ATEM, but also utilizes a physical space for Atem and the associated entities of the attributes to reside in. It's a clever approach. I like how it ultimately utilizes the physical environment of the person to create a space where ATEM resides, strengthening the connection it has with the person working with it.

I also did another space/time Tarot invocation of my future self, as well as the evocation of Thiede, Purson, the spider goddess of time, and Xah. I've thought about the role those entities have in this type of working. Thiede is my Space/Time guardian spirit, Purson is finder of potential, and the spider goddess is the weaver of those possibilities into reality. Xah, as my personal Daemon, is both the future self I invoke and also the fox spirit that walks alongside me whenever I walk the silver strands of the web of time. With this working I did my invocation and evocations and then invoked Xah, entering into a trance wherein I could interface with all of the entities while letting my future self shuffle the cards of the second deck. It felt odd to shuffle the cards and yet be in a trance...the movement was much less directed, so the shufflking continued for a while...It actually helped increase the trance. The working itself showed me the steps I needed to take...a lot of it being confirmation of some situations in my life...so I think for the meantime, I'll likely hold back on doing further space/time tarot work until those situations are fully taken care of.

Tonight, I'm going to take a ritual bath and use music, chanting, and trance work to synch in with the solstice working...and enjoy relaxing in the comfort of my home while doing it.

A journey across time

I stare out into the infinite web of timeThe countless spirals of the past unwind the endless promises of the future unbind to the infinite reach of the present where all is one and one is all zero and one

the spider goddess of time weaves her web of silver trails with spirals made to cross the points where linear time bogs us down

She tells me: let it go other possibilities arise where one fails, others will unfold the web is infinite, boundless full of potential and promises waiting to be discovered

My left eye is closed, my right eye open In the left I see the past falling away In the right, the infinite stretch of silver potential futures blinding, blinding, will the scales ever fall off my eyes?

I am everywhere, nowhere, and in the weft of the spider goddess's web

Time reveals what space conceals I let go of any consistency and float into wherever time places me I put my hands together in prayer and silver webs of time come forth to bind possibilities into space and manifest reality in this place. All streams of light elongate, unfold, become an infinity of 8 cycle in, cycle out where are you going, when will you know? Reality is everything that nothing wishes to be but within nothing resides the potential that reality has forgot.

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

Word

Sometimes it interests me how people will respond to a word. Having read Defining Reality by Edward Schiappa, I know how loaded a word or definition can be, especially when you factor in the agency that informs the use of the word. You really can't be too careful when a word is used, because of how much power that word can have...word as a virus Burroughs might say. *******

In other news, the Spider Goddess of time has seen fit to manifest two of the things I asked her to manifest and there's definite progression on number 3 as well. I won't say more until later.

Entheogens and emptiness

Tonight I went over to a friend's place and utilized an entheogen. It's been about ten years since I've done it. The first time I did it, there was no spiritual purpose for doing it, but tonight, I had a specific spiritual purpose in mind.  I pulled out my two tarot decks and did a similar working, and while doing that I drank orange juice which contained the entheogen in it. I wanted to see what the experience of walking in the silver web of time would be like with the entheogen. Right now I feel like everything is an illusion, and that seems to have been the tone of the trip throughout the evening. I evoked XaH, Thiede, Purson, and the Spider Goddess of Time as I ingested the brew. I also invoked my future self, the Master of time. As I was writing down the results of the reading, perhaps twenty minutes in I began to notice that it was hard to write. I frantically finished scrabbling my notes and then put my hands into the prayer pose to start working with the silver webs of time. As an interesting note, I noticed that my train of thought became very cyclical and spider web oriented throughout the entire trip. I recall one of my fellow journeyers pointing out that what you brought into the trip is what you got out of it...echoes the sentiment of give to get.

My emotional spectrum was all over the place. I think a lot of my inner demons took the opportunity to come out and play tonight. I saw a lot of control issues and ego issues played out emotionally. Not horrible either to experience those and realize how much they sometimes inform my choices and actions. It actually showed me how strung up I can get sometimes about  the choices of life. Also the spider goddes of time devoured me at one point, or at least came close to it. She ate most of me, but left a small part behind and I regrew. I felt purified after she ate me...it was as if she ate the parts that were trying to control instead of just letting go and feeling the trip.

Physically, I felt like I was getting made love to by the music we listened to. I felt so damn good...it was like having a really good orgasm, except that it lasted for hours and hours. Also my feeling of time elongated, so that minutes seemed to take an infinity to occur. My perception of light became perceptions of web patterns of time. I wasn't so much weaving them as I was becoming them. I became this great spiral of time where I could traverse the web and go to different points.

One thing which really stands out me is that at one point I realized how instinctual every thing is. Basically I couldn't rationalize any of my choices. I recognized the instinct that informed each choice and saw each choice purely as an instinctual response. At another point I noticed how long I took between breaths as well as how heavy my body felt when I took each breath. At yet another point, the light seemed to elongate...and when I smiled or moved I felt incredible.

Remembers another point, where I pointed out to my one friend that he was wearing a sleep mask. He slipped it off and smiled...everyone moved in slow motion, jelly like in the flow of the concentric webs of time.

The final phase, which I'm in now, has been an odd experience. I'm basically observing myself doing things, talking, eating, whatever else. I'm cognizant that I'm doing the action, but it almost seems like someone else is. What's really been odd is that the observer part feels as if it's a step forward in time. So I feel like I know what Lupa will say a second before she says it. It's like everything was rehearsed in the lines of a play. I could predict what would happen and then it would happen. It was an odd experience of time to have because I did feel like an oracle. There's a part of me which is currently questioning whether I'm really writing this post or if it's just an illusion on my part.

I'm feeling really mellow at this point. The emptiness aspect of this experience really involved the inner demons coming out...maybe, or maybe it's this feeling of mellowness, or maybe its something else. Regardless, I feel very mellow, very relaxed. I think I will enjoy that for the rest of this evening. I may try these again in the near future for another space/time experiment as it proved fruitful in terms of experiencing the silver web of time.

Book Release: Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick

Immanion Press has just released Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick by Frater Barrabbas. It's the first book of a trilogy he is offering on ceremonial magic. I really enjoyed his previous book Disciple's Guide to Magic, and also enjoyed reading this one when I copy-edited it.

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.

***********

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.

Meeting the Spider Goddess of Time

My grandmother died on Veteran's day. I never really knew her. I met her maybe half a dozen times in my life. But I did feel sad for my father, who even though prepared for it, is still sad. I don't attribute any special significance to her death in regards to emptiness itself, so much as I recognize that death is an ending, and emptiness is about endings and beginnings. She's left one form of life and rejoined the cycle of life. After I found out she died, I decided to try and use my new meditation to try and make one last connection out of respect for her presence in my life, and also a bit of sorrow for missed opportunities. I wanted to pay my respects to her in some form or manner that would let me connect with her, even though she is now gone from this plane of existence. I used my special meditation for emptiness, arms outstretched, one eye open, the other closed, my mind drifting across all time and space. The eye that is open is only partially open, with the eye-lid half closed, so that you only see partially out of one eyelid and there isn't much focusing. The focus of the eye shifts inward, so you're looking across time and space. I called the name of her once, out load, letting the vibrations carry out across the spiral rhythm of time, onto the web of the spider time goddess. I found her in memories, I found her ready to join the dead, and she asked, "Why have you come after me, my grandson?" And I said, "To help you on your way to the land of the dead, she who was and will be..." We walked, nothing said, just walking across the silken strands of time, visiting moments of intersection in my memory briefly and then coming to a river, my ancestors across the way waving to her. She turned to me and said, "This is goodbye". I said, "Goodbye my grandmother, goodbye she who was and will be..." We embraced one time, then she flowed on to the land of the dead, back into the cycle of life.

As I came back from the land of the dead, I met the spider goddess of time, weaving her web of wyrds and fate and destiny. She looked at me and said, "You are one of mine, even as you belong to the other time gods. The emptiness you seek is the doorway to our domain, to the infinity of time and space, all things and none. Use your guide and the infinity sign to keep finding us. In them is the eternal beat of the spiral rhythm of time, the silken vibrations of my web, the pulsing red star light of Thiede, Purson's promise of all secrets revealed and more. We named you ours early on, and we're coming to take our due. Seek us in the emptiness, seek us in the depths of all and none, the zero and one through which you've seen the crystalline perfection and the star eyed one who is you, as you are hir."

I bowed to her and thanked her, and she said, "Thank the one who departed. It's her gift to you." I thanked my departed grandmother for her gift of this journey that allowed me to meet the spider goddess of time.

Everything is perfect in the moment when you have no control over anything. When you surrender and let it all overwhelm you and take you somewhere no one else can go. Tonight, I surrendered to the current of time and let it sweep me somewhere I'd never gone...perfection. I lose myself in that current sometimes, whether in a meditation like tonight, or in the rapidly turning pages of a book, where I'm caught up in the creation of the time and space in the pages that turn and the words that burn into my mind a different world and place. My awareness of time slips out of linear and into a place where time is very circular, spiral, all over the place. Times' always been something very mutable and malleable. One moment shifts into another, but a moment can last for an infinity or it can be gone in the blink of an eye, which is one reason I'm fascinated with time as an expression of reality. The spider goddess of time, as grokked from Oryelle's writing and met tonight on my trance passage is enough another expression of temporal slippages. I've walked on her silver silken strands before, but this time I met her. I'm sure we will meet again.