So, I found myself at the liquor store because, well, it was time for more liquor. Rum is good for offerings, and I recalled the Radio Free Golgotha podcast (Yep: episode 2) mentioned how one of their spirit allies preferred Old Crow whiskey over other choices because the bottle has a picture of a crow on it. Now, as a Morrigan kid, I thought the other day, “Hey, I should see if they have any Old Crow.”
They did, indeed, have Old Crow. I got some and a bottle of different rum—I’d been asked for “better rum,” and, well, I will tell you that Calypso rum, which happens to be twice the proof of the stuff I’d been using, went over well.
Anyway, I walk out of the liquor store with my new booze, including Old Crow, and I hear a crow immediately, and I smile at the crow’s call. I’ve noticed that as I pay attention these days, the calls are very much—familiar. At home, I have flashes over the course of the day of murders of crows flying in shadowed woods, and similar images. Finally, the time comes for me to offer up some Old Crow to An Morrigan.
Ahgahd She was tickled and loved it. She practically cackled with unironic glee and tore into it. I got this sense of Well, y’know, I AM an Old Crow, and calls to, well, have some, too.
So, why?
Well, magical images. I mean, how many correspondences and practical magic amplifiers and spells involve bringing together related powerful images (or power images) to help augment whatever magic we’re doing? And for Old Crow, you have an image of a crow on the bottle—and much like a candle with an image of a saint on it does something more than just a white pillar candle, so does a crow bottle of whiskey do something other bottles don’t. At least for spirits & beings who have a crow thing. I suspect the name matters some, too, but only as a supplement—and I wonder if the name is more a modality for my linguistic mind than too much a concern for, say, An Morrigan.
Even Calypso rum features a picture of a female pirate on it, but there’s a sense of its naming, at least, as the packaging identifies, well, the nymph Calypso. Compared to the male commodore pirate rum I’d been using, maybe that matters. However, I do wonder how much having more spirits in my spirits mattered to the spirits.
More Images
I had the experience as I walked into my space the other night after being out for a while that someone was in the room, and I offered a Hello only to realize I’d just greeted a wall of sigils. I’m in a course over at Rune Soup presently, and Gordon White encourages shoals of sigils. So I have a shoal of sigils up for some low-attention processing: I see them occasionally, and that attention helps them bridge my conscious world into the Unconscious/Otherworlds.
And the thing is, the activation process renders them living. Going back to my idea about images & symbols as windows that are also eruptions or instantiations of whatever spiritual reality lies beyond, they are alive—are spirits and were “activated” through a spirit-aided process—and they open into some kind of Unconscious reality relating to the intention and desire I used in ensigiling them.
And at that point, I noticed them on the wall and greeted them rather warmly. As I turned over towards my altar, I saw my images, icons, statues—gods, spirits, allies, Cyprian now—and I felt them, as well. And, well, there’s not a good concrete distinction to make there other than They occupy a more persistent and prominent place in my life and reality, and the sigils reflect more specific events, circumstances, things, and so on I’m trying to bring into my reality here.
What this isn’t, though, is some kind of Neo-Platonist cosmogenesis—it’s far more my attempt to get away from my unexamined Neo-Platonism and materialist assumptions and more into an enchanted life and world and also an animist engagement with it.
And it’s not just symbols, metaphors, and “mere” images: An Morrigan is there, but so are the sigils, and so are the images and black post-its with silver ink on them. And as I work with my practice, I try to also be there. My spirit I try to bridge more into my life here and now: after all, my body is the image and icon and sigil that is both an eruption of my deeper self and also a window for her.
Featured Image: Public Domain via Pixabay