I find it hard to get through movies in theaters these days: the immersive experience leaves me feeling strange and disconnected, like something’s happening that I’m sensing but isn’t there.
Goddess—well, the walk was hot but otherwise easy. I spent most of it thinking about body & the Otherworlds. I gave a defixio to the train tracks, channels of the Worlds cutting through Haisuith and Koranith.
Between shoulder & neck, I couldn’t manage much last night other than trying to med into sleep via sid co nem, nem co doman
I’ve never liked “Otherworld” as a term—one, it’s inaccurate. There is an indefinite number of worlds. It also presupposes Earth, this Earth, as The World and everything else as an Other. Mind you, I also hate “astral plane”—it’s so Blavatsky Victorian Fortean BS.
Ravenna says—fantastic things about stepping onto the path, to one’s destiny opposed to soul death alone in the dark, and that we have to dare to seek out opportunities we may be frightened of—and “the Gods love a courageous heart”—probably because to live so is to choose life like the gods.—
Her views of polytheism are such that the gods exist at multiple scales—from the Morrigan here, in the woods, in the storm forest, in the Van Allyn Belts, in the Crab Nebula & so on.
Idols and statues and icons—I’ve been conditioned to think in iconoclastic, Protestant terms about deity—or in dramatic terms—but I’ve been reticent to go full icon. I have Anpu, _______, ______ ___, etc. I could opt for images—Morrigan, Angus, Freya, Odin, Anpu, Dagda, Athene.
“Opened the Gates to the Cities of the Otherworld”
The blade rests atop a stone slab in a structure, a hall of gray stones in a twilight world, old reptiles lazing in the dim sun. An ancient swamp grown dry and dusted now. This place was a city long ago, the structure a hall of learning or library, empty with moldy decay.
The blade is shiny, reflective metal—the WtaW hidden in the blade, but they appear in the sight or can blaze.
[WtaW rendered]
Something like that.
The Morrigan shadows from above.
Arendt frames action as distinct from work. Work is a shaping that people do. We shape things. People act, in a field/space with other people. To say we make history or make policy is to reduce people to raw materials, even ourselves. To talk of what we make of ourselves is us reducing and objectifying ourselves. We can choose how we live, plurally and singularly (but singularly is always still part of or in relation to plurality). There’s also a false trend to see human affairs in “animal” terms of labor and consumption & a deranged economic & biological natural law that again reduced humans (in general, the masses & populations) to this sub-sentient level that can be coerced or directed or molded—kept on “the right track,” as it were. This goes in part to the reification of identity on a mass scale from people to bodies & populations—economics replacing “politics and human self-consciousness.”
CC has moved wholly into shamanic fantasy territory—
Morrigan—my practice I don’t want to derail from pain and sensitive teeth—I breathe a lot through my mouth, and it wouldn’t hurt to break that habit for better ones (I breathe through my mouth and sinuses, drying both out). While hyperventilating has its uses, it makes me meditations more noticeable and draws unwanted attention.
Try some tai chi to try to relax shoulder and neck.
Devotional offerings—I was doing this with wine, but I think incense may be workable in the time being.
Do I work against myself in expecting the Presence to feel “energetic” in a particular way? Does this get in the way of doing magic?
Am I religious? I can be devotional. I can do devotion. “Religious” has weird associations through Xianity in my head. Religious is submission—Xianity and other religions can be like that.
I walk with the Morrigan, soar with Her, talk with Her and others—I am daughter, lover, crow, devotee—I’m mystical, not religious.
My gods demand, expect respect, & they are willing to offer in return—but while they would take submission, I—I think they’d be disappointed unless it were, well, part of a more nuanced and intimate relationship. Other religions expect abject slavery & subjection, cloaked (or not) as absolute submission to Father. But—but—they’re absolute monarchies; you are never a son or daughter of God—only Jesus can get to claim that (& it’s so often heavily qualified). Everyone else gets Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve—humanity is a fashioned thing, an object created, not a child or relation. (cf. Arendt) Humanity is property that gets uppity. Xianity and others discourage mysticism other than as a means to market the faith or specific sites.
I can’t breathe lightly—not and achieve vim or excitement or action.
–I offer my gods honor & thanks; that seems the right thing to do.
–a filial relationship implies affection and even intimacy, not the impersonal “love” that God offers by proxy through the Son—wow, dysfunctional and co-dependent as hell—“Do what I say, ‘coz I ‘love’ you and will keep Dad from hurting you.”