When I consider my dreams where I can’t use a weapon, fight, or drive, I wonder—or I have wondered having these dreams of late, if I am frustrated by a lack of perceived power and independence on my part, that I consciously want to ascribe this to some view of how I should be […].
I do not want to expend and waste energy on fretting over these things. I will not feel shame over having had a mostly peaceful life and not having to fight. I wonder if I’m also responding to frustrations from childhood, from [different people] bulli[ng] me and I couldn’t fight back. The “Steamrollers” and their dumb pals were stronger than me.
Mind you, two days of remembering extensive dreaming leads me to wonder also about the dramatic and pop culture context of my dreams. Too much, my dreams have been watching weird, meandering, live action crap—Venture Bros[1]. and Ming the Merciless the last couple of nights—and I want better dreams than these. I want teaching, Otherworldly, active, lucid dreams for me, not what seem like entertainments—TV in my head—that tries to make me feel inadequate.
Last night, K led me to [uni’s] steam and utility tunnels, its closest point to the LW, long utility tunnels and doors stretching on. There were side doors, but I’m not sure they opened, or led anywhere. I came up twice above ground, once near [building’s] west entrance, and back again. K reminds me to return and begin a relationship with the university’s spirit, the heart of which lurks somewhere on campus, and the LW is perhaps most pertinent.
Remember to recover bits of myself from where I leave them. The Dark Wood of Saiyûnor is one.
The shadowed gaze always helps me see the Otherworlds—
I think about what to add to the glade, but I like its natural simplicity—the accoutrements Paxson and Dunn might suggest seem out of place to me for that site.
But I can try to use it more assertively and actively. It’s a safe place, and the Morrigan and I often dance there. (Why do we dance? Why not? It is devotion and communion and trance and meditation.)
I think, though, I can do rites and spells there. But as I use that place on the one hand, I should not ignore Presence, Bridging, and spelling in this realm as myself. I want magic and the Otherworlds here, in me, in my life.
I also considered how I’ve done the Presence but also my personal reality and what the GD would term SoS. The GD spend a lot of rote time and effort imprinting the Tree of Life, the symbology, etc. into your SoS so you will point out to the Macrocosm analogues. There are elements of similar practice in the habits and praxis of paganism. deG encourages something like this with the rote elements, as well. One problem I may have is that I’ve internalized pop culture and gaming and commerce and not the magic. All of these things insulate and isolate me from this world and the Otherworlds. I remember odd old dreams, the presence of _____ and others. I haven’t had much weirdness of any kind for a while. Other than Elethis and the odd haunting by the Morrigan, it’s been quiet. An openness is necessary, but my “SoS” has been too caught up in crap and entertainments.
So how I erect something in my SoS? What do I erect? I value my freedom and adaptability. AOS would point me to my alphabet of desire. Feri points me towards the Guardians and Feri deities. The GD towards the Tree, its Paths, its Sephiroth, and the elementals.
Had I adopted a path, this would be easier and more ready—but it would not be mine.
The directional associations for Elethis and so forth may be pertinent. The White Mount is North, towards BM and Earth, and Elethis towards SS and ShF and Air/Fire. (Not sure if that’s accurate correspondence or something coincidental.)
Elethis, the Worlds I know, the Gods I know, deG’s Goddess works, altar, Feri Guardians, the WtaW, my selves—but more—
—active “reading” and “writing,” projecting myself upon the Worlds while perceiving & conperceiving. Adaptability.
The rune associations (Sindarin, Runic, Hebrew, Egyptian, Ogham, etc.) may also be a starting point. (Who developed the Tree of Life associations?)
| Wealth | (cattle) | Ases/gods |
| Auroch, strong beast | journey | |
| Thor, giant | torch/lamp/light | |
| Gift | need/desire/distress | |
| Joy | ice | |
| Hail | year, good harvest, prosperity, good fortune, plenty | |
| Yew tree | pear tree | |
| Elk | Sun | horse |
| Tyr | birch | human/person |
| Water | Ing | heritage/estate/possession |
| Day | illness | mouth |
| Game? | Bow | serpent |
| Chalice | spear | fire |
| Stone | eel | grave |
| Metal | book | lamp |
| Feather | gate | fate |
| Iron | Spider web | spirit |
| North | rage | treasure |
| Breeze | mouth | hook |
| Jaws | hollow | gold |
| Deep elf | torment | heart/inner mind |
| God/power | sky | east |
| Region | tongue | tree |
| Light | name | sunlight |
| South | bridge | heat |
| Tall | ox | house |
| Weapon | measuring | window |
| Hunt | hard | eye |
| Ba (soul) | head | mountain |
Too many options, I think. Especially all at once. My normal listing tendencies are not what I want to indulge.
| Goddess | Morrigan | M | HW |
| Dana | Waters | LW | MW |
| Elethis | Odin | Angus | Otherworlds |
| SG | Feri | birds/ravens | book |
| Light | sky | Athene | shadowed gaze |
In part, consistent daily practice helps deal with this, but there’s a paradigmal encoding aspect to the enterprise. It’s partly speech, weaving, narrativizing, and representing the worlds and ourselves to the worlds and ourselves. CM adopts a reactive, appropriative approach, but I think it’s telling so many of them opt for a Crowleyian, Thelemic approach for a lot of this when they want to be active or proactive. However, PCs colors of magic is another approach CM adopts that’s more distinctive to the movement.
I feel as if Paxson, Thorn, deG, Morph, and Dunn are my better guides, and my own instincts. I want more than the general framework Feri or CM offer.
Perhaps more pertinently the point is to open myself to the Worlds in a magical and empowering way. Active spelling and paying attention. And as deG encourages, as you speak, as you recite these spells and narratives, you want to conperceive/imagine them as true. The SG’s blood as your blood, you as Her, you and the Morrigan, the Wings, whatever. Make yourself, your will, your imagination, your visions of the Worlds real. Not true—but real.
There is something vaguely threatening and unsettling about someone who does so—and I wonder if it—it makes me think of Dion Fortune’s tale of the woman who lorded over her and others that she accuses of psychic assault. Doing these things is power and assertion and imposition. And that can be intimidating and confusing.
I tranced tonight, using a different shamanic trance drum track—and I found myself in the glade quickly, [pentacle]’ing quickly through the room and into the glade. K and I were there as I invoked Elethis, and I was riting with a root in [me] for quite a while. I gladly took Elethis in before going to the Wood, and everything seemed brighter, as Elethis shone and I think I did, as well.
[1] Don’t get me wrong: I like Venture Bros. and the old Flash Gordon film (with Queen), but I don’t want to dream about them.