Inner Temple, Banishing Pentagram, Betwixt and Between

[qos]

My newest task for Ereshkigal is to build my inner temple -- and it's not an easy assignment. My inner vision seems more inclined to fluid journeys, where things unfold beyond my conscious control (except for my own actions) than to deliberate building up of specific images or construction. I may be making things too hard for myself, or perhaps I'm missing a specific technique -- or maybe it's just an area which needs work/exercise for me to develop.



I spent yesterday by myself, which I needed from an emotional perspective, but by the end of the day I was feeling depressed and twitchy. I finally felt LM's presence -- sad and urgent, trying to get me to lift my awareness from my disquiet and allow him to reach me -- and then we watched Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk, which was fun, but after it was over and I drifted back to my books, I ended up in a gray funk.

However, in the course of idle browsing I came across the image of a banishing pentagram. I've seen this figure many, many times since I first started reading about magic back in the spring of 1988 -- but I'd never actually used one. Not until last night.

Feeling the energy around me getting more and more depressed and vaguely threatening, I got up and firmly traced the banishing pentacle, putting a lot of energy and intent into it, aiming it at the corner of my room where I felt the most 'blech'. To my surprise, as I closed the pentagram I felt it activate. There was a small but perceptible pop! and the energy beyond the pentagram cleared.

blink, blink
It worked?
blink, blink

So I went through my house drawing banishing pentagrams -- and each time it had the same effect: a pop, followed by a sense of the negativity dissipating. I deliberately avoided getting too excited about it at the time, not wanting my rational mind to kick in and start messing things up -- but it was an amazing experience.


Finally, last night or early this morning I had an experience of being somewhere between awake and dreaming, and feeling LM with me, able to touch and speak with me. I had the first of these experiences a couple of weeks after his death, and then very occasionally since then. But they have started to happen more frequently over the past month or so, which I take to be a good sign. Some part of me is becoming more awake and active, even if my conscious mind can't fully access it. I just wish I could remember better what happens when we're together.

Comments

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

I dunno if your teacher has discussed this with you, but most magical systems have some form of regular "banishing" ritual that sends away nasties or unwanted stuff, sorts the elements out, and creates inner balance. Many of them use the symbol of the pentagram. If you remember the Ground and Centering exercise from the New Hermetics, it used pentagrams; so does the traditional form, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Maybe it's time for you to start practicing a ritual of this sort?

[shadowandstar.livejournal.com]

I dunno if your teacher has discussed this with you. . .

She's mentioned it.
*grin

And she will probably be almost as startled as I was that I did the banishing in the first place! I've been very resistant to such things in the past. I've never been grounded deeply enough in magical spiritually to have rituals like this have any effect other than make me feel bored, silly, and like I was being toyed with. Intellectually I knew that these practices have a long and honorable tradition; I just couldn't buy in to them.

Also, until recently I wasn't sensitive enough to energy to either feel a need to do something like this or perceive it working.

I do, however, think the daily use of RJ Stewart's The Rising Light Below has been a big part of making this incident successful.

[oakmouse]

You were very resistant indeed, and given the type of work you're doing there was no need for me to push the issue. I figured that if things changed in such a way that the issue needed to be pushed, you'd have enough cause to understand the necessity that you wouldn't keep saying no.

Actually, I'm not surprised; I'd had the clear sense that now you've been pwned, you were going to move in that direction at least temporarily. I just wasn't sure how soon and in what form, so I left it in Ereshkigal's hands. Seems she decided to take it on. *g*

We'll talk. When you're ready.