I left my defixio for my mouth at “Underbridge”—we’ll see how things look soon. Otherwise, I’ve been transcribing old grimoire, the first one, and I’ve been seeing old threads & lessons I keep—well, I’ve relearned with renewing the practice since February. But I’ve also seen that the Dark Host and flesh beasts have been after me—and probably ____—for quite some time. I saw the old notes about the knives in my wing chakras, the invasive thoughtform in my heart chakra, the figures skulking in the shadows in the Dream. The Guardians remind me that those beings are devious, stealthy, and cunning, in a backstabber sort of way, but SS and the Morrigan do stress my own lack of awareness, laxity of practice, and so on helped the demons’ program. The Morrigan, in particular, seemed to take me to task for my lack of discipline and, I’ll call it my warrior spirit. That I am where I am now is good, but there are realities where I was was “now” 20 years ago. My circumstances and issues hinder, but I have to want something to pursue it.
I want to leave [this area] at some point, move down to [other city] or California[1] or up north. I want a sisterhood & useful pagan community. My coterie here has been important and capable of much, but most of that potentiality crystallized for [them].
Moving to PA to _____ was an attempt to do so—to find folks, but she wanted people to pay attention to her & her notion of cult of personality. Her hurur that she tried to drag me into.
A more general sense of local community would help. So, just keep your self open to potentialities & the paths your Wyrd may open to you.
One thing I noted are what seemed to be slow downs after “confronting” inner demons, at least while trying to do so in a CM-inspired manner.
Also, apparently, having JW, MW, and VU around has helped to keep the Dark Host at bay—but vigilance is necessary. One way to do that: continued aligning and energy work.
I went with the Sun elthil today, with flecks of green in it. My neck bothered me, but it seemed to work well enough.
Recovering the blade was odd. I had been lying on the floor, speaking with the Morrigan—she had been challenging me to act & remain in practice and develop myself and defend myself. I then had a fit—the fire in my head erupting. Sometimes when this happens, I have possessory experiences. Other times, it’s like something wants to happen, but I don’t know what or how—and I just wallow & shutter & sputter. The Morrigan directed these fits the first few times as a means of ego destruction, to get me and M integrated, and so on. But this time, I turned it to traveling after the blade, finding my way, with ______________, to the world, the ruins. I found the blade without incident—and it seemed to cry out “At last!” and flew at my sword and FitE, melding into the blade. I drew us back home—and I want to integrate this blade, this fragment of my spirit into me again—to know it again. With that, the fit was done.
BM remains disarming to me—hell, I fell into […] Presence almost instantly with her. “You want connection—need it,” she basically said. Touch and relationally & so forth. BM brings all that to the fore, but she also embodies those connections.
I talked with the Morrigan about deific intervention in Earth-realms—like overt phenomena with lasting changes. In part, the notion of deific attention & agendas is in place—this is one realm, one world, and the gods’ will, what they desire, is not to (1) play genie or (2) coddle people or (3) disrupt worlds like these. There are questions of agency and free will, and there’re competing divine interests. It’s not a matter of power or belief—commodified RPG thinking, and weird Xian shit makes people think it’s about that. It’s not.
I remembered Odin’s words as I walked back out into the light: “Ragnarokr is always happening.”[2]
The Norse view of Midgard’s apt here: this is a fortress for “humanity,” but the realm is also a cradle and training ground. The gods, many at least, want us to become like them. But the idea is to graduate beyond Earth & into the Otherworlds. The Celestials’ methods wind up being similar to the Dark Hosts’, but the pagans tend towards heroic spirituality. Odin gathers the heroic dead. The fae gather peoples. …take the foolish as fodder, or test or change them—but we want to find, to shape others like us.
Who gets a constellation? Who becomes a lesson in hubris? Is Cuchullain fighting or working in Otherworlds, shaped to something divine by his daring & the Wyrd guided by the Morrigan? Is Gilgamesh—is the lesson his lack of awareness, not the desire for immortality? (Inanna wants him, but he rejects Her.) (Too many of these stories are perverted by Patriarchy and similar forces.)
But Saints, Bodhisattvas, etc.—but these are too often figures of submissive passivity—or they can become teachers & guardians.
The Dark Host, Xianity, and similar forces will work against people and magic and so on, convert, feed upon, and diminish. Newbs, in particular, are easy targets, but the hubristic and incautious, unawares—they can also be taken. Cursed. Driven into despair. Circumstances manipulated. Hell, manipulating circumstances seems one of the easiest things to tweak, towards complacency, distraction, and despair.
Thorn’s breathing exercises are useful basic energy work. And visualizing and breathing and exercising also helped at the time, when I remembered.
Thorn offers a simple spell for helping actualize the home environment we want. Firstly, explore in writing the qualities of the home we want and the intimate relationships we want. Avoid specific locations or even people, if possible (or unnecessarily) and keep yourself open to how you may change. Once you’re happy & feel the desires are what you really want, write them out in red ink (or something special) and do so in a ritual context. Then put it away for 1-3 months to give your will & the Worlds the chance to work. Then examine, re-evaluate, disposing of the defixio when you need to revise.
She also advocates a simple candle-gazing meditation that develops focus and so forth.
- Ah, California, that mystical Otherworld Overthere.
- Back in Antic Delights.