[East is start for GD, and Feri, I believe. Not sure about north.]
On the bus, I had a very palpable sense of being the kithain alone on the bus—so many folks closed off from the world, on their phones or listening to music. I mean, I was one of those people not long ago, and it’s an indication of the nature of our culture that we steadfastly ignore each other, but that’s always been the trope of mass transit: everyone being quiet & ignoring each other.
I’ve tried to do several acts of power, but I can see it growing a bit odd, wearisome, but I can sense it working quietly. One a day, maybe twice (well, really, more, but in addition to magical work otherwise). Dunn recommends once a week, at least. I’d say best to do it as it moves you, as it seems apt. Dunn frames PoMo Magic in aesthetic, information, and symbol system terms: do magic, but aestheticize it. Play with it. Make it enjoyable. To a degree, it’s living one’s life aesthetically.
I appreciate his critical takes on AC, CM, and even the GD, and he’s respectful of most everyone.
I walked outside [work] to see the sky beautiful, low-lying clouds passing before higher clouds and the blue sky.
What Dunn terms the “Alpha State” is the relaxed calm but perceptive awareness of divination and magic, and it’s a good state to start with for magic.
She’s been quiet after chatting in my bed earlier—I have the feeling something’s going to happen today—
I think I see Elethis from an odd perspective angle that distorts its shape from the ground, makes the canopy seem narrower than it is, while exaggerating the trunk. There’s a large branch that’s now missing, and the roots extend above ground in several places. It’s still that titanic but “closer,” and I can clarify some of its features. It’s like being a tiny person close to a tree and looking up at it, distorting its features—
missing branch, not recent–>[sketch of Elethis]
Now, having been in the branches, at least the lower ones, they’re big enough to walk along and lay down on, and they seem very lighter (?) than I’d expect otherwise—I’m mostly guesstimating, but high enough to see from [city] to [city]—25 to 40 miles up, but I’m not sure how accurate that is, but it’s at least miles.
[another sketch of Elethis] [Elethis]
Adjusting my perspective outward suggests an appearance more like this, a fairly nice and otherwise “mundane” tree, only titanic at superstructure, small moon-scale—bigger than Phobos, smaller than Ceres.
I’m kind of impatient for whatever She has planned (or foreseen).
The WtaW experiential realities, in Dunn’s system, suggest to me the spirit realms of the Middle Umbra in WOD1, or even the swath of realms across the Dream otherwise. I wonder what’s up in the Higher Worlds at that point—
—the Norse model isn’t precisely helpful, nor is there much lore in that regard. Asgard probably, but we’re unsure about any of the other worlds other than Hel is below.
Some “gods” traverse the realms—Odin, Dana-Morrigan, for example. Others are chthonic, others are sky, and others are “nature” (middle?). The WtaW may be symbolic realms, but they may also include distinct realms. The three worlds reflect aspects of this one realm. However, the Middle is not just “Earth” but includes other things, other places. The WtaW perhaps, elemental domains, etc.
(Information skirts close in some of Dunn’s paradigm to energy.)
Midsummer approaches—Friday eve.
You can feel its approach, and maybe something else—
I buy into the energy paradigm still, though doing so limits me and connects me to thoughts that aren’t helpful for doing what I want to do. There is “stamina”—it’s a corporeal metaphor that carries over and makes “sense.” But energy, information—these are reified and commodified views of magical power. When we do magic, it’s often the easiest thing in the world. Just saying something aloud. Making desire actualize. Do. Make. Shape. But it’s more than the semantic content of imperative verbs. It’s living life as art and magic, but not fretting over the artistic merits. Action. Imagining. That’s a lot about what Dunn says; it’s CtD.
The great fear I had and have had was that I could do magic, that I could so easily act and do and make—the fear of culpability and responsibility to self and others, not to change the world, to “save” the world, but to—there’s a trap here, a form of halthaya, it rests in the “wisdom” not to disturb the world—something watches me, I think—the “wisdom” of what amounts to inaction is a trap to congratulate yourself on doing nothing, but the truer wisdom is to know what you want clearly and freely—to desire what you want be willing to dare to claim and make that desire and to live with the consequences.
The wisdom of cunning, when to speak, how to speak—when and how to act—of course, that’s not an invitation to be an asshole either.
On my walk, I enchanted for understanding and the walk seemed rife with omens, which is distinctive for me. A bird kept “dancing” near the ground and skirting close to the earth, on three occasions—a predator from the sky hunting for prey on the ground. A dead field mouse—unusual for me to see. The clouds moving—“the gods assemble and draw near.” And my prevailing sense has been some one watching. Finally, I greeted those sky gods, thought-gods, egregores, and spirits of the wind and sun that were in attendance. It turns out being civil and politely talky lightened the mood and got the wind going again. Before, it’d been like the world paused, holding its breath—and things felt oddly unreal (like a sim, somehow).
The “predator” is still there, but I attracted beneficial attention by speaking as I did, as well. I think the Morrigan is “up there,” watching & intercessory above, or watching to see if such will be necessary. My sense of who it is has kept coming up as the cut-out cartoon God from MP & the Holy Grail.
Elethis has been clearer to me today, and I feel Dana-Morrigan has some surprise for me still today.
Also, for future clarification: some unfriendly god or thing watches from above. I don’t know if they’re in the “Higher World” or what, though.
The Higher Worlds, the “High Umbra”—
HS points above, FitE to below
—my nascent sense is that the Otherworlds are not so much different as more intense, even a different kind of “concrete”—still symbolic, fundamentally similar—but I also know Elethis bridges them, links them—even helps regulate them—a massive conduit but more than that—
But, to go look to before my halthaya realization & sense of being watched, magic is easy, after a fashion. Once you reach a point, magic is just doing and acting, making. Don’t forget that.
“Sometimes silence is not a problem”
She is proud of how I handled myself
“Who is it?” “You can’t know, not yet.”