Category: The Starlight Hosts about Me

Cosmic Theater

If we want to avoid being characters in someone else’s drama, then I argue that this theatrical, shapeshifting, role-shifting perspective is one magicians, witches, and other practitioners should cultivate. We want to be the directors, writers, and volitional, agential, aware actors even as we perform different personae. Magonia and Faerie and spirits often have associations with tricksterism: however, so do witches and magicians. Fight Trickster with Trickster, I say. As we work to better know and bridge with our deeper selves, with our own spiritual realities through our enchantments and practices, and as we do so in pursuit of realizing and having—of earthing–our faërian dramas, so too should we be ready to adapt and improvise when we encounter the daimonic, Magonians, spirits of all kinds, the other, and even each other… … Continue reading…Cosmic Theater

Time

In having learned a bit more about astrology and the significance of the classical planets—even as the outer planets of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and others also do something—I’ve been trying to synthesize these things into a shape that fits me. Part of this synthesis has entailed easing into a sense of the cycles of my […] … Continue reading…Time

Space

I grew up living in a household with an antique AM radio cabinet that had shortwave reception and still worked—or did the last I ever heard—and we’d turn it on occasionally, and the shortwave was always itself otherworldly. Several months ago I had a dream that I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned here in the past, […] … Continue reading…Space

Mirrors & Spheres

A couple of years back, I had been working with various entities, and I called up one, and She gave me a sigil, symbol, pictograph. At the time, I began reflecting on that symbol in my mind, and I had an experience in which—bam—I started seeing a coiling mass of serpents (I always say wyrms, […] … Continue reading…Mirrors & Spheres

Will Shakespeare

It is Shakespeare’s (probable) birthday and death-day today. Born in 1564, dying in 1616. Author of 38-ish plays, two long form poems, at least 154 sonnets–the son of a glove-maker from Stratford. I’m of the Stratfordian school: I will argue Shakespeare was the author of his plays–in association with and collaboration with his colleagues in […] … Continue reading…Will Shakespeare

Jail-breaking Machiavelli 2: Shakespeare & Gaming Kingship

It’s interesting to note how quickly the European elite moved to demonize Machiavelli, mostly because he exposed the hypocrisy of political and ecclesiastical power, its violence and deceit. Magicians and witches may have reputations as charlatans, but Machiavelli showed how the same was true of kings and popes. As Alessandra Petrina argues, Machiavelli may have […] … Continue reading…Jail-breaking Machiavelli 2: Shakespeare & Gaming Kingship

Jail-breaking Machiavelli 1: Lucifer, Elizabeth, Machiavelli

At the suggestion of someone whose opinion I’ve come to value, I started reading Peter Grey’s Lucifer: Princeps, and the book is less about “Lucifer” as a definite presence and more about sovereignty, the Dead, and how we enchant our selves and worlds. Early in the book, Grey points to models of sacred kingship–& that […] … Continue reading…Jail-breaking Machiavelli 1: Lucifer, Elizabeth, Machiavelli

Astronomy Domine

I have had a tendency to fixate unconsciously on “stars.” After some rum and wine, probably some Old Crow, I found the following on my phone’s notes the next day: The sky tries to tell me that I am unfurling starlight symphonies against myself—but I can see that’s not the case. I am deceived by […] … Continue reading…Astronomy Domine