As I think about ôl-vala and the Otherworlds, it occurs to me that the spatial metaphors we’ve built up are limited flaws. Beyond the “here” and “there” issue, calling the Otherworlds is often visualized as pulling forces, elthil, whatever from someplace, along a path, and “here.” However, that’s still in the flawed spatial metaphor. Now, the Morrigan told me not to discount or to underestimate creating, marking magical spaces, but—okay, I want to explore that aspect of the spatial metaphor—claim there as here and vice versa. The Veil Rending element is an old standby, but the Veil metaphor is maybe more flexible—
We walk parallel to the Otherworlds, we—the mirror metaphor is there, as well. But I want to find the one that works best for me.
K reminded me about the experiential aspect of experiential realities, and he did so in the dragon speech—that [which I perceive as a] low rumble that is less speech than a conveyance of experience—and I can glimpse how one—how I have immersed myself here, and I hear and feel the strange sound, resonance, and more of this realm, how I have grown so inured to this sound that I don’t notice it—
—though I suspect it’s variable from place to place, or sometimes, harmonies stand out in the urban versus the wilderness—but there are underlying earthen chords, and at times, we can hear others. Those “Otherworldly” sounds we often react fearfully towards, towards an existential Otherworldly presence. But those are places and sounds to cherish and explore.
However, I have immersed, been immersed here, but I have worked to begin experiencing the Otherworlds, as well.
“There are experiences you want to begin pursuing,” he said. Greater connection to Otheworlds and even just others. I already have a good clue how to experience Other experiential realities, but the work week distracts me. But I grow better at juggling.
But distraction tries to pull me away, but then I notice what distraction does. In part, it’s about setting yourself, pulling, sliding—so much sliding lately, but this is the same sliding, I think—into a new, different, desired experientiality.
I rush stages and processes, and I wind up fretting about the rushings.
Thorn’s energy chalice—and its theatrics—work in stages. Breathe in elthil, exhale it towards your hands and into the cup. Become aware of your etheric/sticky body as you breathe in elthil. Clap your hands, snap your fingers to get the attention of your God Soul. But she reminds me of imagining the magic we want to happen, even if we don’t think we can do it, or even feel it. Imagining, wanting, willing serve as the basis that we move towards actuality, towards daring.
Thorn’s (and deG’s) meditations on the SG make wonder—I can imagine the SG, I can imagine myself as the SG—but I also kind of want to imagine/see/feel Elethis.
Contemplations of the SG focus on her universality, not her multiversality, but I could do so, can and do so.
Also, my work at sacred, magical spaces is very facile—get through the [pentacle] as soon as I can to move on to other things, but a more guided, engaged approach might be interesting. Sitting, focusing and channeling a circle (or something) around me might do, well, something. Wear a path into the Otherworlds, as it were.
If above as below, within as without, Macro as Microcosm—is the SoS the key? If you remake, reframe the SoS into a new experiential “self,” do you slide into a new experiential reality?
Image: Pere Prlpz, Saló dels Miralls in Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona, Catalonia)