She Continues
It’s warming up here now, and spring is around the corner—next week, in fact. And I get cooped up indoors during winter because (1) it’s cold and (2) everything goes to sleep. The trees stand tall but dormant, leafless, swaying only in stronger winds. I can look up at them casting silhouettes against the twilightening, […] … Continue reading…Forest Mind
I’ve been big proponent of magical journals for a while, even though historically their use seems rather rare—and limited to literate practitioners. The argument that the practice comes out of a Victorian culture with classist associations—Do you have the time to write? Do you have the thing to write in?—has merit. The occult commonplace was […] … Continue reading…Meta-Journaling
I wanted astrology to make sense to me. I was always an astronomy nerd while growing up, especially for the planets. I’d do little reports on the planets and their planetary characteristic trivia when I was in elementary school. I think half the books I checked out while growing up were books on the planets. … Continue reading…Stars & Bodies
The topic of the spirit of a performance came up, and that led further into the intersection of drama, ritual, and magic. … Continue reading…Ritual, Acting, Enchantment
This one’s going to be dense, I suspect. I had several notions regarding the nature of initiation, and I’m going to walk through how Peter Levenda gave me several notions and to gesture at where I have gone, in part because of Levenda. Bibliographic Initiations & Alchemy In The Tantric Alchemist,[1] Peter Levenda looks at […] … Continue reading…Alchemy, Enchantment, Initiation
I don’t get enough time outside—work and other business occupies time that I try to reclaim for myself again when I am able. And I’m hoping I’ll have a bit of time here in the autumn to do more outside. If nothing else, for me, sitting and reflecting while outside leads into a kind of […] … Continue reading…Nemetona & Self & Enchantment & Other
Sundry notions below– I read Mircea Eliade recently—Myths, Dreams, & Mysteries and The Sacred & The Profane. I feel Eliade offers interesting notions that need grounding in political realities. Indeed, the kinds of arguments that Eliade makes about sacralization and ritual reflect what many others make, all the while folks claiming that, because their religions […] … Continue reading…[NB: Notes on Eliade, Politics, Sacred & Profane]
I hear more horror stories about how people (often white men, but not always) abuse, threaten, and otherwise treat trans women, & I feel myself imagining myself in revenge fantasy worlds, project these monsters onto the rest of the world. And I notice that I’m erecting a fantasy world around myself that is enclosed, an […] … Continue reading…The White Man’s Glamour
[This post draws on notions I get at in terms of aesthetics, worlding, and etc. via Heidegger, Adorno, and Berque.] While engaging in some reductionist and sexist ponderings about tantra, Kenneth Grant offers the notion of tantra (& trance) as getting the object of consciousness (ego) to diffuse itself into the field of consciousness. In a sense, […] … Continue reading…[NB] Worlding Self
Reading the intro to Joan Chodorow’s book on Jung’s writings on active imagination (Jung on Active Imagination), & Jung apparently—from my perspective—engaged in inner pathworking, trance projection, etc., using the simple methods Fries has pointed to. Jung sought to frame these experiences as (seemingly) wholly psychological, though he apparently noted the “energy” & pathos unleashed […] … Continue reading…[NB] Jung & Spare