Queen of Swords

Remember, kids -- always remember to thank the deities who participate in your ritual, especially if it's clear that something very powerful happened through Their involvement.

My Beltane ritual did not involve a formal invocation or evocation. LM and I journeyed to see Freyja, and she withdrew while I was still coming down from an intense-on-many-levels sexual working. It was late, so I simply cuddled with my beloved and fell asleep.

It wasn't until last night that I realized I'd never thanked Freyja, who had overshadowed me in order to teach me and (I believe) to help me process the energy LM and I raised. (I'd never been overshadowed by a deity before.) I was deeply embarrassed by my lapse and quickly and sincerely corrected my error.

It was only after I had acknowledged and thanked her that a final piece of understanding clicked into place.

I am beginning to more deeply understand the difference between "showing up for magical work" and "doing magical work with focused, sustained intention."

The first too often (for me) involves knowing what I'm doing and why, but then going through a series of gestures that don't have a vital connection to the energy of my intention.

The latter means that every gesture, every vibration, is connected to the energy of intention, which amps up the effectiveness considerably.

Over the last few days, my LBRP's and Rose Cross rituals have had considerably more force (especially the latter), and last night's ritual at my household altar actually was a ritual, including the evocation(?) of Tyr's energy into my home for guarding and clearing -- complete with the appearance of an actual guardian spirit.


This epiphany brought to you by the Slow Student Express. . .

Had a lovely time with LM last night: a simple dinner followed by conversation about ritual.

I was rehashing my resistance to formal ritual as opposed to prayer and meditation, when he suddenly suggested that I consider the difference between reading a script and mounting a full production of a play. Both will communicate the meaning and the emotion of the text, but one is a far more potent experience. I was impressed.

Talk about performance brought Scotty around -- which was nice, because I haven't seen him in quite some time. We discussed the semantic implications regarding approaching ritual as "exhibitionism" rather than "performance." To me, "performance" always carries an association of artificiality, while "exhibitionsim", although usually considered less dignified/worthy/acceptable, carries with it a sense of showing one's raw, authentic self. At least, those are my associations.

I think that right now I feel so lacking in skill in ritual that the idea of putting on an effective "performance" only adds to my stress and resistance. As my skills increase they will become more natural, more part of me, and that distinction between performance and exhibitionism will fade. To go back to the metaphor of the play, the effectiveness is certainly increased when the actors are skillful performers rather than just sincere amateurs.

Not sure how deep or important this will be in the long run, but it was an enjoyable conversation and gave me some insights into myself and some of my biases.

I had some very surprising things come up in last night's meditation, having to do with the gendered nature of certain energies -- at least as I experience them -- and how they relate to my personal power and sovereignty. More on that as I work through it.

In the latter part of that meditation session I realized that I need to do a power reclaiming ritual. I could suddenly see so clearly the different aspects of myself, my potency, my sovereignty, my sense of possibility, that I had surrendered to others -- usually to people who never asked for it to begin with or who would have been dismayed to realize what I had done. I've also siphoned off pieces of myself and given them to characters I've created in gaming or writing, and I need to take back myself from them as well. (I worked through the initial understanding of that in a series of posts about my "glorious shadow" on my primary journal a couple of years ago.)

I need to go into ritual space, name the power I've given up, and to whom, and why it seemed like a good idea at the time, and then take that power back -- while re-affirming the relationships but on new terms.

As always, the primary comfort in realizing I'm revisiting old work is that I *am* doing so in a new way, which means that I have been making progress.

At some point in the next couple of hours, I'm going put on soft, comfortable dark clothes, go out on my third-floor balcony, light some black candles in glass holders, and then light some charcoal in my grill, with various resins on hand for adding later.

And then I'm going to stay out there all night -- or until I find what I'm supposed to find, whichever comes first.

I don't know what I'm looking for beyond general terms: my own depths, lost things, new insights, Ereshkigal, the stars. . .

I'm scared.

I don't like ambiguity. I don't like open-ended ritual. I don't like the idea of being outside and trying to stay awake all night. I'm afraid of my own limitations. I guess part of what this is about is challenging those limitations, on all kinds of levels, including those I'm not even aware of.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to take a ritual bath of purification and re-birth, and then do a rededication ritual with LM. There will be white roses, holy water. . . and fresh biscuits with honey.

Tomorrow is going to be some kind of new beginning, one I won't fully understand until I'm there.

Your prayers would be appreciated.

I realized this morning that I've performed two different spiritual practices consistently enough, long enough, to bring them to the point of becoming habits.

Last night, due to my divination evening and subsequent conversation, I didn't get to bed until around 12:45 am. Part of me wanted to just throw myself under the covers -- but the stronger, deeper urge was stop and do a Qabalistic Cross first.

I have a whole series of practices that I should be doing each night after that Qabalistic Cross: the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentragram, the Rising Light Below and/or Triple Soul Alignment, the Middle Pillar, and a second QC. I'm doing better at consistency, but I'm far from where I need to be. But I've been doing at least a Qabalistic Cross every night for the past couple of months. And now it seems to be embedded in my consciousness that I simply must do one before bed.

Which is A Good Thing.

The last time I had any spiritual practice that was at the level of a habit, it was my bedtime prayers when I was growing up. I prayed every night until my existential crisis silenced my prayers. (Although, on reflection, I think I continued to pray in a different way, a way I didn't recognize as prayer at the time. . . . but that's a different post.)

The other spiritual practice that has become a habit is my morning and evening Cup Ritual with LM at the marriage altar. The only time I've failed to do both evening and morning is when I've not been sleeping at home. I need to develop a conscious alternate form for those times, even though they happen so infrequently.

This milestone gives me great satisfaction. One of the challenges with my path is that the goals are often nebulous (to me), and it's never clear how long it's going to take to reach the next point where I can say with satisfaction that I've acheived something concrete. Yesterday my teacher compared it to driving to a known goal but using a map that doesn't have the scale or mileage indicated, so you have no idea how long it will take to get there.

I don't think I ever actually expected to form a habit around these practices, so it was a truly unexpected surprise to realize I had done so.

Last night for an erotic ritual I lit a row of tea lights on my dresser and a pair of tapers in a holder behind them.

When I was finished, I went to blow out the candles.

Conscious of safety, I blew out the tea lights first and kept my long hair pulled back out of the way as I moved down the row. Only when the flames were out did I lean past the tea lights to blow out the tapers.

Naked.

Suddenly I felt a jolt of pain around my right nipple.

Yep.

My lovely, full breast had fallen into the tea light's pool of wax.

No harm done, but - yikes!

Wax play had not been on the schedule for the evening!

1. Two black taper candles

2. 1 Red apple

3. Red wine

4. Black tablecloth

5. White votives



I don't usually drink wine at all, much less red wine. Can anyone suggest a variety that's not very expensive but nice to drink? All I'll be eating during the ritual itself is half of the apple.

Last night I did a Middle Pillar exercise for the first time, using the ritual technique outlined by John Michael Greer in Paths of Wisdom, which is based on the Golden Dawn tradition.

I've been very faithful with my nightly hermetic practice, performing a Qabalistic Cross, Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, then another Qabalistic Cross, pretty much every night for at least four or five months. My experience with both the QC and the LBRP was that it took a long time to feel like I was getting anything out of it. Over time I felt more and more like "something" was happening, and since my initiation, I've experienced the energy of the rituals more deeply, and felt more confidence when I vibrate the words that are part of the practices.

My first experience of the Middle Pillar was far more intense than my first practices of the QC and LBRP. I clearly felt the energy coming into me through Kether, and had a strong sense of tingling and expansion in the Daath sphere in my neck. Moving the energy into Tiphareth made me feel like my heart was physically expanding. It was hard to get the energy down into Yesod and Malkuth, but it worked. Afterward, my entire upper body felt warm.

At first I was just going to record the experience in my paper journal, then I realized that I wanted to talk to my teacher about it. She was quite pleased with my results, and said that it was unusual for someone doing it the first time to have such an intense experience. According to her, it's often best for a neophyte to do it for the first time in the company of someone experienced, and that the activated spheres of the experienced person help activate the spheres in the novice.

I hadn't done the practice with another person present -- but I had broken from my usual pattern by putting on items of power before I began my practice: the chain necklace of my service to Ereshkigal, and the prayer shawl which my teacher had made for me last year, which was also blessed by LM.

My teacher and I think it's possible that my spheres were activated by the inner planes, working through the already charged items I was wearing. It's one of those "unprovable" things -- but fits her experience and my non-rational impulse to make them part of my work that evening.


The other significant aspect of last night's experience was that it's the first time I can remember that I went on to a more advanced spiritual/magical technique by building on a foundation of practice I'd established over time. I've just never spent the time and effort to establish that base before.

At the beginning of our time together, Ereshkigal gripped the necklace, pulled me close to her, bestowed a terrifying smile on me, and said, This is where you go deep. "Going deep" also involves getting to "build up."

It feels really, really good.

Readers of my primary journal are aware that I have a long history of struggle with the realm of Pentacles. Taking care of my body, my finances, and my hearth has always been low on my priority list -- and I've put as little effort as possible into the pursuit of a job. Even now, when I have a sense of vocation, putting together and manifesting an actual practice has been fraught with avoidance and lack of energy.

But this weekend has been filled with surprisingly powerful and peaceful pentacle energy. I spent a great deal of my time focused on home and finances: sorting files, arranging filing cabinets, balancing my checkbook, doing my taxes.

Sunday evening I entered ritual space to get reacquainted with my magical tools. The layout and substance of them were telling. I had two blades (not counting the knife left on the shelf and my swords), a handmade wand, a beautiful cup, and no pentacle. In fact, I've never had a pentacle. I had a silver dessert dish which I used for OAG rites which required a place to put the Host, but until last night I've never felt the slightest need for an actual pentacle.

( It was interesting to connect with my tools. )

Lacking an actual tool in the North, I invoked my own northern guardian, and spent some time talking with him. I'm going to get a pentacle soon -- possibly at Edge of the Circle books when I attend lupabitch's totem card workshop with my daughter this Saturday.

The Northern guardian is someone I've worked with in other contexts, who showed up in the North earlier this week when I was doing an elemental working and once again found the space empty. This morning, as I get set to go to work and let my colleagues know I've accepted a new job, have good memories of a productive weekend of hearth-tending, and have enjoyed the first home-cooked breakfast I've made in I-can't-remember-how-long, I'm wondering if my recent vivid interactions with the King of the North is activating aspects of myself that have been long been dormant or repressed.