The Name of the Spider Queen

When I started doing research for Magical Identity, specifically for the space/time magical work, and I read Oryelle's book, a Brief Hirstory of Time, I encountered the Spider as an aspect of time magic, and considered the entity to be the spider queen of time. I never really asked her for a name and she seemed pretty content not to share one, but recently I felt an urge to ask her if there was a name I could use. I feel that this sudden urge was an indicator that the relationship was ready to progress further, so I decided to follow through on that urge and see what would happen.

One thing I wanted to be aware of as I decided to follow through on this urge was making sure that I was receptive to the name. I didn't want the mythologies around spiders to confuse the issue and have me think the name was something it might not be. This was a challenge for me because I am aware of several mythologies and for that matter fantasy books, where there are spider entities with names. That awareness created its own challenge, in that I knew I needed to be really present with the spider queen, while also being aware of preconceptions I could bring into the encounter.

When I did the meditation, I used the painting included in this post as the focus. The painting was inspired by my contact with the spider queen and so I knew it would help me in being present with her. I first did some stillness work, to clear my mind, still my emotions and center myself. Then I focused on the painting and called to her, asking her if I could have an audience. She responded and agreed I could.

I asked her if there was a name I could call her. "Isn't the Spider Queen of Time sufficient?" she asked. I explained the urge I'd felt and a recognition as well that if I was going to be teaching classes that involved her, it might make it easier for the people to have a name. She mulled this over and and asked, "What do you think my name is?" Immediately I started thinking of the names of the mythological beings, but they didn't feel right. She wasn't those beings and as she felt my thought she added her own 2 cents and told me that those names didn't feel right to her either. So instead of thinking of names, I meditated on her and on the web of space and time and what came to me through the vibrations of the web was a sense of Tempo, of pacing, which made sense, because she creates the web and sets the pace, but Tempo wasn't quite right either, so as I listened further what I heard was Tempora.

It felt right. She responded to it, liked it...said that fits me, describes me, is me. Naming is power. Naming is magic, and so she let me name her Tempora. The Spider Queen of time is Tempora. And now I call her that in my daily devotions and there is a deeper sense of connection as a result. Tempora.

Update on the latest space/time magic experiment

I was recently interviewed on Disinfo about some of my current space/time magic work. In that interview I shared some of my ideas about how movement and stillness can play a role in space/time work.  I want to share some more information here on my continued modification of the space/time web tool I've been using. I've continued using the memory box, which is a tool  developed for working with space and time as a web, though I'll also note that with this experiment I've been doing some of it as a purely meditative, mental experience of that same construct. The reason I've chosen to do the latter action is because I feel that while a tool is useful, it serves mainly as a way of providing structure, which once you get that structure, makes the tool obsolete.

My focus in this experiment has been integrating stillness and movement into the technique. I feel that both of these elements are intrinsic to our experiences of space and time and as such can be useful for space/time magic we are working on. I've integrated stillness in as a means capturing a snapshot of a given space, wile also discovering the possibilities that exist in imaginary time around that space. Time, which is the flow of activity through a given space, and what is used to actually change the space is aided by movement, which is used to move a possibility into space as a form of reality. Movement allows for the assumption of form, which is used to define what is occurring in a given space.

I've been using these modifications on a couple of situations in my life, and I don't have results yet, because these situations are long term, but what I've been doing is going to the section in the web that represents the space of the given situation and then going into a place of stillness, which I use to examine the space and discover the possibilities around it. The possibilities I don't want are popped, and their essence is put int the possibility I do want to manifest in order to provide it momentum. Movement is used to place the possibility into the space, while time is used to activate the possibility as a reality of the space that moves the person to a new space, which becomes the new reality.

That's what I'm currently working on. I'm still tweaking the new version of this technique, especially as it applies to the concepts of movement and stillness, but I think I'm onto something, and if nothing else its giving me a project to work on, which is always fun. I'll report further as I continue to work with stillness and movement in the context of space/time magic.

My model of space time magic

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my own model for space and time, prompted in part by the elemental working I've been doing, but also by writing Neuro-Space/Time Magic. Some of the inspiration for this model is derived from Oryelle's book a Brief Hirstory of Time and some of it is derived from some experimentation with Quantum selves (See the article by Andrieh Vitimus in Magic on the Edge for more information). A lot of it however is derived from my own experimentations and explorations of time and space as separate, but related elements. There's a tendency to conflate time and space as being one and the same, no doubt due to a combination of pop culture and physics, but I've never really been satisfied with that kind of perspective. I accept that time moves through and marks the changing of space, but I also think space has its own characteristics that define time, and that what really changes is not the space itself, but rather the movement through space. There's a fine distinction there, which I explore a lot more in the new book.

When I think about working with space and time now, I tend to think of a 3 dimensional web that goes in all directions. Each nodal point on the web is a space, and that space can be defined as an event, a person, a place, etc. that has influence on the center nodal point, which is the magician. The strands that connect the nodal points are the movements of time, both in terms of memory and imagination, which are how we access the past and future respectively. The magician uses the strands to access other nodal points and influence them, but necessarily must also recognize that s/he is also influenced by those nodal points.

That's a rough picture of the model. There's a lot more to say, but it's for the forthcoming book.

Working the web

In my current work with the web of time, I've been working on changing the patterns of the web, which correspond to ongoing or potential situations that I'm involved in or will be involved in. I've been using the memory box and the Hexagon Elemental Tarot cards for this work. The memory box also acts as an access point to the silver web of time. Basically I use it to commune with the spider goddess of time and interact with her in the web. I use the elemental hexagon tarot deck to make changes in the web. The cards act as a grid system that I can use to change the web.

What I've been doing is accessing the web with specific situations in mind and then using the cards to create solutions for those situations that are favorable for myself. The spider goddess has been part of the work, specifically in terms of providing guidance on how to make changes to specific parts of the web or the overall structure.

What's interesting is that if you factor in the alternate universe model you can then access the alternate webs of time for your alternate selves and superimpose a pattern from that web onto your web. I actually did that today for a working I'm doing for my business so I can continue to build on the success I've been realizing lately in it.

You might wonder why I'm using cards for this process. Conceptually I find it easier to use the cards, because the different themes of the cards can be used to introduce specific concepts or ideas that you want to work with. Also, while I do have a mental picture of the web, the cards make it easier to change patterns or specific strands. In fact, by using the cards, I add a physical dimension to the working so it isn't all in my head. In the future, I'll do a video example of my work and share it on here.

Time as a necessary illusion

Tonight I did another visitation with the spider goddess of time. Before I did so, Elephant briefly reminded me to stay present, even and especially in moments of feeling boredom. When I visited the spider goddess, she showed me a new technique where I could create a silver thread of time to an event or person, if one hadn't existed before. This approach complements the editing technique I learned from her the last time I visited. The main difference is that you are essentially creating a new connection as opposed to editing an existing one. You can even create context specific strands of time. In other words, if there's a specific context that you want to create for a situation or person then you put that into the strand that connects you to the event or person.

Afterward the spider goddess and I discussed time itself. She pointed out something that she has said before. The sense of time a person has is dictated much more by awareness of natural rhythms and cycles than an actual force of time. The conceptualization of time as a force is a useful illusion that has its own rule, which can be used to manipulate the awareness of time a person has. It's something I can understand. I know that my "age" is more or less an arbitrary number used to explain the physiological process of aging and that day and night are terms used to understand the changes brought about by the rotation of the Earth around the sun. The concept of the flow of time seems to be more of a comfort illusion than an actual reality. The word when allows us to situate a place and space as much as a time. Even the spider web is another concept tool for the illusion of time. It works, and certainly something happens, but her point is that time isn't so much of a mysterious external force, so much as its a perception and explanation and a method for sorting out and indexing changes. We create time to explain and understand the changes that occur in and around us, but you have to wonder if time would even exist as a concept if there was no one thinking about it.

Review of In Search of Time by Dan Falk

This book presents a "history" of time, with a heavy focus on physics and how physicists throughout history have approached and tried to conceptualize and explain time. The author does an excellent job of presenting a wide variety of both contemporary and historical perceptions of time. I enjoyed reading this book because it provided some food for thought on how I understand and conceptualize time. I recommend it to anyone who finds the concept of time fascinating and wants to learn what others have to say about it.

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5 out of 5

An audience with the Spider Goddess of Time

Today I decided to do a working with the Spider Goddess of Time. I've been working with the other entities for the element of Time, but hadn't contacted her since the first night I switched over to the element of time. I opened my memory box and used it to surf the silver web of time, to the center, which is where the Spider Goddess resides. Once there, she showed me a technique I could use to examine the weaving of the strands of time that connect me to different people, situations, etc., and how I could then edit the strands accordingly. I decided to then work with this technique, by looking at two different people I'm connected to and editing the strands of time. In one case it's editing the strands to factor in a change of relationship, so that the person will be more accepting of those changes, because the strands that previously supported a specific type of relationship aren't in place anymore to continue supporting it, due to changing circumstances in both our lives.

The other case was doing a working the strands of time for a friend dealing with some medical issues. In this case, the editing focused on editing out the cause of the medical issues, removing them from that person's timeline, as it were, so that they would no longer be an issue. I figure if there's no longer a temporal anchor for the cause of the medical issue, then the medical issue will no longer exist.

Since I did this just today, I don't know for sure if it's worked, but I'm fairly sure I'll know soon enough and I will be doing some more work with this technique, to experiment with and refine it.

Travels into time

I went into my ritual room day. I'd fully cleaned it yesterday, and I was ready to get started. I place different pictures and statues of Elephant around the room, including a poster of Elephant made by Ravenari that Lupa got me as a Christmas gift. I dressed in my ritual garb, including a necklace for elephant and a bracelet of elephant hair. I put on my robe and ritual pants I have. I placed all my time magic tools in the center of the room and then sat down and when ready touched each painting for each of the time and space entities I'm working with and asked for an audience with them. I then unlocked my memory box and used it to travel into the spider web of time and meet Elephant, Thiede, Purson, and the Spider Goddess of Time.

First I apologized to each of the entities in turn. I haven't done much in the last with this working, partially because of having a house guest in my ritual room, but in some ways moreso because of ongoing business busyness. Needless to say something I've realized is that I don't want to sacrifice my spiritual life to my business life so I'm working on trying to get a better work-life balance into place.

After that the spider goddess directed me to look into a window she presented me. When I looked into it, I saw images of the coming year, different moments that could occur. She told me she was giving me some information that would be useful for specific moments coming up, and that I'd have access to it when I needed it.

After that I did a meditation with Elephant, a recap of what we'd been working on before, i.e. learning to be present in the present, but also some further direction in terms of some personal issues I'm working with right now that have illustrated to me how much I sometimes invest my attention into possible futures. The direction boils down to a realization I had earlier today about the awareness of an energetic blockage and how I could stop feeding that blockage by learning to see how it showed up in my behavior to encourage situations that I didn't necessarily want to deal with. If I could dissolve the sensation of the blockage it could help me with the tension I was feeling. Elephant explained that the same awareness of that tension could be used to also get focused on the present moment...so we'll see what happens with it.

In other news, here's a couple of links to a podcast interview of me and Lupa and a book review of Multi-Media Magic

Interview with Erotic Awakenings about Kink Magic

A very good and balanced review of Multi-Media Magic.

Space/Time Connection Working

I've been getting pinged by the Spider Goddess of time quite a bit since I switched over from emptiness to Time to come and do a getting to now you ritual of sorts. It was that this evening, but also more than just that. I went to my ritual room and pulled out the voyager deck and from it constructed a circle and triangle for ceremonial work. I've decided that I'm no longer going to use the voyager deck for divinatory work...just for the ceremonial/experimental magic I've been using the deck for the majority of the time.

After I constructed the circle and triangle, I pulled out the paintings for Elephant, Purson, Thiede, and the Spider Goddess, as well as the memory box I use to access the silver web of time. I then first approached Elephant and asked for entrance through the gates of time. He said yes, and told me to also make some more time for him, so we could explore some facets he could show me in regards to time. I took the key from him, and fit it into the loc of the memory box, and opened the box.

I called out to Purson to be guide through time, to Thiede to be my guide through space and they both came, my guardians on journeys into the silver web. Then I reached out to the spider goddess and she told me that tonight we'd work on utilizing the silver web to make a particular connection happen. She told me to think about what connection I might like to make, and then told me to shuffle the rest of the Voyager deck to pull out th cards that represented me and the connection I wanted to make. First I pulled out the seeker card, for myself (how appropriate), but I had to do a lot of thinking about what I wanted to connect. I decided, in the end, not to connect with a specific person or entity, but rather to connect with an archetypal awareness that I could present some information to about the connection I wanted to make. The Spider Goddess thought this was a good idea, and I proceeded to shuffle and pull a card that represented that awareness.

I then activated the magical circle for connecting with that awareness and putting my own card into the memory box and setting it on the altar, proceeded to explain at length what I was looking for. Then I and that awareness shuffled the cards from the elemental hexagon deck and from that we pulled out what I would consider to be a confirmation of those attributes, but also an imprint of them into the archetype, so it could seek out what I was looking for. After that the spider goddess suggested that she and I shuffle the cards a second time. So we did that, and the second spread revealed/set the path by which the possibility I was seeking would manifest.

The spider goddess also pointed to a specific book on my shelf Fusion of the Five Elements by Mantak Chia, and said I should start doing the exercise in that book for my morning daily ritual. The emptiness working has deconstructed all of my former energetic structures and the Fusion of the five elements is a practice that creates a spiritual embryo (among other things)...she seemed to feel it would be useful for me, so I'll be starting that practice as of tomorrow. Then I closed it all down. Overall, an interesting working, with more to undoubtedly come.

Walking on silver strands

Today I was feeling a bit frustrated about a couple of situations with different people I was trying to connect with. And as I thought about this, I felt the Spider Goddess ping my mind. She told me I was thinking too linear, trying to go down one line of the web, when I could just as easily create more lines on the web to connect me to that person, or other people who were connected to that person. For a while now, my model or perception of time has been of a web of silver strands (even before I met the Spider Goddess), so I thought about each person I wanted to connect with, as well as what the goal of that connection was, for me and then I decided to create new silver strands to connect me to to the person/situation in question, to cut down on the distance that I felt was involved (there's always a spatial component to time, but that's another post). The purpose of these strands was to present other possibilities to the situation that could help me move in a direction I wanted to go toward.

After creating the additional strands for each situation, I ended up having situations occur that modified the problems blocking the desired outcome. In one case it was finding the right person to add his/her influence to the situation and in the other situation, it was taking a different approach. But what I really got from this situation was a different sense of time as it relates to the connection between people. It's confirmed some of the research I've read and also given me some leaping off points for the magical work I plan to develop as a result.

Into Time and Space

After I finished my emptiness ritual and had cleansed myself of the paint, I moved right into the ritual to accept time as the new element. I put on the bracelet of elephant hair, and the elephant necklace and put before me the painting to elephant. I asked elephant if elephant would allow me to enter the gates of time and was told yes. Then I evoked Purson and Thiede as my guides through the silver web of time and space. I did an exercises of putting increments of time into each other until the increments become meaningless.

I opened the memory box, which is my gateway to the silver web and put both my hands on its sides. And I traveled along the silver web until I came to the center, where the Spider Goddess of Time awaited me. She held up the book of her mysteries and said, "It's good you have this back, now paint what I show you."

I pulled out my paintbrush and waters color and painted a web of time. Just one colors, lots of silver-gray...I asked her...was this really it? And she told me that my perceptions of time were too limited by human made standards of time. That what I painted wasn't even so much a symbol as a way of relating to time and space, a way of moving past the linear perceptions and measurements that mark time by human standards. She told me that this year would be a move away from the mystical path I've been on, back to more of a focus on magic, but also a focus on changing those limited perceptions on time...that all the material she'd put in my path the last couple of months was partial prep work for the workings ahead.

And with that, she stopped my hand, looked at my work and said, "Start with this and see what it teaches you."

Then I closed the gate to the silver web of time and gave my thanks to Thiede, Purson, and Elephant...and to her, the spider goddess of time. And so that's the beginning into the element of time.