High noon, day of Mercury. Hermes Psychopomp sets out on the journey to the Underworld, land of ancestors, wealth and peril. Daylight brings boldness and the courage of Mars. What lies beyond the end of the stairway?
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night...
SOUL CAKE Soul cake, a soul cake, please good missus a soul cake! An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry, Soul cake, a soul cake, please good missus a soul cake. One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all. Soul cake, a soul cake, please good missus a soul cake! An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry, God bless the master of this house, and the mistress also. And all the little children that round your table grow. The cattle in your stable and the dog by your front door. And all that dwell within your gates we wish you ten times more.
Anima, Anima, una torta dellanima! Io ti prego, Buona signora, una torta dellanima!
Conjured the spirits of Mars tonight, in keeping with the Seven Gates working. Much good discussion afterwards - I definitely feel much improved over yesterday.
I've been doing more spiritual practice since beginning this blog.
I re-dedicated myself to a daily opening in the mornings, where I re-connect with my HGA and work on invocations related to current, personal intents. Daily personal invocations started on October 24, so we'll see how that cooks up over the next month.
On Thursday, October 25, Frater AQ and I began participating in a seven-day experiment of planetary invocations supporting RO's Seven Gates work. We did the first invocation, that of Jupiter, during the third hour of Jupiter on that day - opened at approximately 8:40 pm CDT. We used our own standard opening and operations, however, we omitted RO's recommended contemplation section. I must say, we really rocked it! We've gotten our practice down pretty well at this point and only need to consult reference materials in a minimal way. I did get an unexpected amount of money on Thursday - found $10 bux on the ground on the way home from work - however, this was in advance of the invocation, so I would chalk it up to a general halo effect, due to establishing the intent to work in a particular way, and not directly related to the invocation we did in the Hour of Jupiter.
The Venus invocation took place during the fourth hour of Venus - at 4:30 am (plus or minus 5 minutes) Saturday, October 27. I did this one solo; we couldn't do it earlier in the day because there was a party going on earlier. I tried to stay up after the gathering, but got too tired, so I set the alarm for 4:15 am and took a brief nap before the invocation. Performance was a bit less energetic - I had just woken up and was a little fuzzy, mentally and of course, it's always better working with AQ! - but I performed the rite and then went back to bed. Just joined the FB site RO has set up for discussion of the work.
I'm listening to Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land and reading this divination based on the Eight of Cups.
I get these readings in the mail from Astrology.com. Not the most in-depth place, but sometimes the cards are interesting and hit a chord with me and my situation. This seemed to fit how I've been feeling and thinking in the last month or so....
"The Eight of Chalices card suggests that my power today lies in space. I am true to myself and will only regret the chances I don't take to seek or follow my hearts desire. I turn away from or make a clean sweep of that which does not honor or sustain my passion and love, and in this, I am not afraid to be alone. I am empowered to move forward or this, I am not afraid to be alone. I am empowered to move forward or make space and my gift is letting go."
Abwoon d'bwashmaya (Our Birth in Unity)
Our father who art in heaven
Oh you, breathing life in all,
origin of the gleaming sound,
you shine in us and around us,
even the darkness glows
when we remember.
--by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Given that Sol has now entered Scorpio, and is also joining with three other planets in Scorpio as well (Saturn, Mercury and North Node), I've been drawn to exploring identity. Since I'm a Taurus, this would be a good time to work on issues of self, identity, and letting go of worn-out dogmas and other psychic junk. Also, get a better sense of the body of light and reconnection with the Divine through my Holy Guardian Angel. I've always wanted to explore the Pauline Art of contact and obtaining relationship with the various angels of the nativity, or birthchart. Did some reading up on this tonight with AQ. We're going to look further into this, and see if it merits a place on the Work Roster of the many projects we have going on right now.
From Agrippa:
"The [Holy Guardian Angel] is one, according to the doctrine of the Egyptians, assigned to the rational soul, not from the stars or planets, but from a supernatural cause, from God himself, the president of [Angels], being universal, above nature...Also by the aid of this [Angel] we may avoid the malignity of a fate..."
"Now the [Angel] of the Nativity, which is called the Genius, doth here descend from the disposition of the world, and from the circuits of the stars, which were powerful in his nativity. [...] This being the executor, and keeper of the life... helps a man to that very office, to which the celestials have deputed him, being born."
Anticipating Scorpio in the twilight with my love.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church on-the-Hill, St. Paul, Minnesota
Don’t
ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because
what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Thurman
What has been making me come alive lately is taking pictures. I got a cell phone with a decent camera. This fall has been absolutely spectacular for colored foliage - it feels so good to be able to create something, to produce something of some tangible, something I can point to and say I made this thing.
I'm reconnecting with music..listening to more of my collection, having tons of ideas spring from the finding a greater sense of power, awakening. I't's like falling in love - always a good sign! for my magical practice; when I re-connect with my surroundings, I inevitably find that synchronicities begin happening with more frequency and intensity. Desire formes into vision, vision becomes tangible, the dream becomes a life. My eye and my ear are becoming recharged and more alive. O phalle!
I think, for this week, I will experiment with an invocation in my practice, and see where it leads. I'm going to take this from the Who.
Only love
Can make it rain
The way the beach is kissed by the sea.
Only love
Can make it rain
Like the sweat of lovers
Laying in the fields.
Only love
Can bring the rain
That makes you yearn to the sky.
Only love
Can bring the rain
That falls like tears from on high.
On the dry and dusty road
The nights we spend apart alone
I need to get back home to cool, cool rain
The night is hot and black as ink
I can't sleep, and I lay, and I think
Oh God, I need a drink of cool, cool rain
Love, reign o'er me
Reign o'er me, o'er me, o'er me
Love, reign o'er me, o'er me
Love...
Should prove to be interesting. Will let you know where it leads. here's the planetary listing for the moment:
Sun
28
39' 7"
Moon
22
21'29"
Mercury
22
1'14"
Venus
21
42'18"
Mars
10
24' 5"
Jupiter
15
53'25"r
Saturn
1
53'22"
Uranus
5
40'59"r
Neptune
0
28'36"r
Pluto
7
14'31"
TrueNode
26
22'30"
Chiron
5
15'52"
Saw a film about Hubert Selby, Jr. last night - author of Last Exit to Brooklyn, Requiem for a Dream. Even though his writing was brutal, his wellspring for all that he created came from this deep spiritual yearning. Hubert "Cubby" Selby, Jr. was born in 1928, which is the year after my mother was born. Quit school in 8th grade, ran away from home in his teens to enlist with the merchant marines, where he contracted tuberculosis. He remained ill for the rest of his life, undergoing multiple surgeries to save his life, but which ended up with the removal of 11 of his ribs. Drank a lot and became addicted to heroin, got sober and clean when he turned 40. His felt he needed to write and create so that when he died he wouldn't have left the world without something accomplished; he said he was "a scream looking for a mouth." He also said that the writer shouldn't put himself between the the thing that was being written and the end result. This is the aliveness that I'm aiming for in my own life and spiritual work. Here's a link if you want to find out more: Hubert Selby, Jr.
"Selby traced his desire to write to a sudden realization. He wrote:
I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life." From Wikipedia, accessed 10/21/12
Last Exit to Powderhorn...
(11:30 am, hour of saturn, day of sol) The saddest thing I saw when cleaning up my older brother's apartment when he was dying of cirrhosis in August of 1997, was this list of recipes he was going to send to my ex-husband. Another list, to send to my mother...yet another list, to some other friend. He spent his time, drinking and planning what he would do, what he would say, all the while not answering his phone, not replying to his e-mail. Cocooning in alcohol, blacking out, ignoring the reality of a small apartment off West Broadway, covered in half-drunk tall boys, kitchen crawling with roaches. He never left New York again, after his last trip out to Minnesota in 1996.
I looked at all these lists he wrote, all over his apartment, of things he was going to do, someday. This pattern, a family legacy, I know it so well. All of these beautiful things I will do, these pieces of profound wisdom, that I'll somehow share and give to you, someday...and then I sink back into procrastination, not showing up for my own life. I know this rut all too well...I have spent so much of my time gathering dreams, tending philosophies, having great realizations with no fulfillment of them. I am so tired of this way of being. This is the qabalistic Vision of Binah for me, the Great Sorrow of life. To plan and to list out and to gather with no sharing. It is Death, literally, for me. I need to end this pattern, end this holding back. Thankfully, I do not have the extra burden of drugs or alcohol to work through. Thankfully, I have an intact heart and mind and my will is waking up again. So that when all is said and done with my life, I hope that it will be seen that I lived with An Awe-akened Heart...that I will have been truly alive. That in some way, you will see that I lived into this Life, Now, with all of my Being.
This is truth of Thelema, of true Will. This is the Truth of My Will. To live into this Life of Mine, with, with all of my Being. Amen, Maranatha!
"To
create a new story, we must first come to terms with the current one. This
begins by naming it." -Peter Block, Community: the Structure of Belonging
At this point in my journey, I'm feeling drawn to express where and how I've been travelling in the last 12 years. In 2001, I had what I now realize to be a bona fide, old fashioned vision, which led me to explore the spiritual tradition of my childhood. I returned to the
idea that putting on fearless awareness would lead me to eliminate all powers of shadow
elements, shame, grief. Hell becomes nothing once it is brought to light, all
hidden elements no longer have a charge and/or ability to hinder self from
full-free expression. This space is an experiment in grounding my Work so far; it's time for me to make this real. And that means bringing the Work out of my head and into some form that others can actually see. I'll use text and image, hopefully sound as this project unfolds.
I feel so blessed to be here. I hope that you do as well.
Shalom.
Day of Jupiter, Hour of the Sun. Sol in Libra, Luna in Sagittarius.
