I'm at Pantheacon this weekend. On Friday I presented my talk on Space/Time magic and included some new material on identity and cultural analyses of space and time. It was very well received. Later today I'll be at the Immanion press author panel co-hosting it with Lupa. I want to announce that I have started writing my new book Neuro Space Time Magic. I'm just about finished with the first chapter. I'll be making periodical updates on here as I progress with it.
Entity Communication
I occasionally get emails from fans of my books and I've decided that when I do, and if the question is interesting enough, I'll answer it on here. In this case I was asked about how I communicate with entities, and more specifically what the process is for communicating with an entity.
My approach to communicating with entities is determined in part by what it is I want to accomplish with the entity's aid, and also what it is I'm willing to give in return. And no, I'm not thinking of a faustian deal, so much as a recognition that the reality of any relationship is one where both (or more) parties need to agree to contribute something of value in order to make the relationship worthwhile. Once I've determined what I want, and what I will give, then I figure out the method of communication.
The method of communication can be standard methods of invocation or evocation, or a personalized method. For example, I will invoke an entity into me, and then ask that it help me paint the gift I will give it, in return for its services. So I use invocation, but also create the gift, which usually ends up acting as a device for evoking the entity down the line.
Communication consequently involves a combination of action, intention, and for me some degree of mental telepathy with said entity. I tend to have a dialogue in my mind when working with a given entity. That dialogue allows us both to communicate with each other, reach our agreement and then move on from there.
For further reading about my approach to entity work, I recommend reading Multi-Media Magic, which discusses my approaches to invocation and evocation at length.
In a Saturnian phase of build-up
I had an astrology reading done the other day. Given the recent changes in my life, I thought it might be useful to get an idea of the planetary influences I was dealing with. Appropriately enough, what I learned was that Saturn is playing a fairly role in my life right now. It's appropriate because of the time magic aspect that is rather significant to my life right now. Of particular note as well was that this particular influence of Saturn signifies a building period in my life, a period of creation. This makes sense to me, actually. The last five years I've spent cleaning my life out of my own issues and dysfunctions. Since switching to Time, I've felt that focus shift from purification to building something new. In someways, even the year in emptiness saw that, with the focus on my business, but the last couple of months has seen me actively working on what I would consider to be a new approach to my spirituality, and to my life overall. It was an insightful reading and confirmed a lot of details for me about the circumstances in my life and where I'm going with it. The divorce was really the final purification, and consequently in every way right now I am free to rebuild my life. I must say I am actually happy about that and look forward to seeing what I can do with it. In other news, I've been reading the Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam and have found the consequent insights about how the unconscious influences the conscious mind to be very useful in understanding situations that have occurred in the past, as well as present situations. I see this unconscious influence in how people will indulge in what are ultimately dysfunctional relationships because of cultural and social pressures to fit a certain image. It also confirms some ideas I have about identity and how it is shaped. I've actually started writing my next solo book on identity and magic. I'm only two pages in, but I'm putting in a bit of time each night, to keep motivated and focused.
And my final thought is of love and how toxic love as a cultural concept can be. Love doesn't cure all, and sometimes, many times, it traps us in situations that we'd be better off leaving...or rather the cultural beliefs about love trap us.
Lessons of the Elephant God
Today I did a working with Elephant, a check-in if you will. He said I was making good progress, learning to sit in the moment, but that he also noted that I still would sometimes get too focused on projected outcomes. And he is right. I've been getting more comfortable sitting in the present moment, but I still sometimes get caught up in projected outcomes, in fantasies, if you will. "You are your own worst obstacle, because you can't see what's in front of you. What are you dealing with right now in your life?" He asked.
"Divorce, figuring out what I'll do career wise, and also working on my small business"
So don't you think," he continued," that you owe it to yourself to be present in those circumstances and situations, without focusing so much on projected outcomes. You'll get to the future soon enough, but sit in this moment right now and be present with yourself and the environment around you. What do you need to know about this moment, about this place you are in?"
I thought about that and I realized what I really need to know is that I can be present in the insecurity, in the moments where everything isn't defined as much as I'd like. That until I was present in those moments, I might be missing out on details and information that could help me make an informed choice about the circumstances I found myself in.
There's no need to escape into a projected outcome, because doing so actually keeps you where you already were, but deludes you, instead of enabling you to be mindful and aware of yourself and your surroundings. That is the lesson the elephant god continues to teach me and each time I see it in action, I come closer and closer to accepting it and living it.
Space is the Place part 3
Two weeks ago, I found out I was getting a divorce. Needless to say that kind of threw me off when it came to magical work, but in truth it also lent itself to my work with space. We still live together but I moved into my own room. Getting used to having my own sleeping space has been rather interesting, especially since it's not something I've had for the last four years. Tonight I finally did my third working to Thiede, in this case to claim my new space as my ritual space. I pulled out nine stone eggs and arranged them in a circle around me, pulled out the memory box and got elephant's permission to open the gate of space/time. Then I evoked Thiede, and placed my hands on the memory box and let him guide me on a journey to claim my space.
He asked me what had changed in my space, and I told him my perspective, my sense of freedom, my place with different people. Then he showed me how to take the spatial awareness that we'd been cultivating and apply it to the room I was in. The room become a dome, like a bucky dome actually, with different matrices forming and in each matrix was a perspective, a place of awareness about not only the physical space I was in, but also the space of my life. Thiede asked me if I was really ready to claim my space, not just the room, but my space as a person. Was I ready, he asked, to be true to myself about what I wanted in that space.
And I thought that for the first time in my life I can be honest with myself about what I really want...or more honest than I have been, because I'm through with buying into certain societal expectations about what I should want in my space, from another person, etc. I realized that I don't want to compromise my sense of space for someone else, not if that means I'm unhappy as a result.
I claimed my physical space, but also my metaphysical identity space, to be true to what I want in that space, so I can be true as well to who I allow into that space. And I recognize as well that every other person has his/her own space and so each person must respect his/her own space...I claimed my space, and my awareness of that space. Thiede told me than to do another working with Elephant and get ready for Purson...
In other news...
Panthea-con schedule is up. I'll be teaching the class on Space/Time magic on Saturday morning at nine.
Space is the Place part 2
I worked with Thiede again last night, or rather he took me on another journey into space. This time he made the point that the notion of space being empty is another cultural construct, but that space is never empty. There is a lot of different things in space, so to speak. It made me think of the little motes of light that I see in everything around me. I've seen these motes of light for as a long as I can remember and Thiede had me focus on them and when I did so I could also see lines connecting each mote to the other. This, I might add, is something I've seen before with Thiede, years ago, but this time I had a different appreciation, because what he showed me with it is how everything is connected together. How all of this comes together and creates this overall experience of the world that makes sense on a sublime level. And that was it tonight. I'll work with him again soon, and I'll finish this post then. Worked with him again tonight. I saw a central hub connected to spatial points. I was inclined at first to view it as an experience of movement, but Thiede corrected me, noting that thinking of space in terms of movement is derived from being a moving being and applying how one physically navigates space to the experience of space. But navigating through space isn't the same experience as space itself can be...and as I thought about it, my own changes of awareness in a given space has much more to do with a change of perspective than actual movement. Movement is a convenient metaphor to explain or situate space for a person, but I haven't necessarily moved from a space I'm in so much as changed my perspective about that space, because my awareness of it shifts to something new. It's an interesting way to think about space...I always exist in the same space, but my awareness changes how I understand that space.
Space is the place
Tonight I chose to work With Thiede, my guide for space. Anyone who is familiar with the character of Thiede from the Wraeththu series will remember that he's character who is able to alter the awareness of space and time, to put people into different spaces. Tonight I chose to do my first working to him, in the context of the element of space. It was a very interesting working. He just had me meditate on the concept of space without trying to apply movement to it. He told me that the inclination with space is to apply some kind of movement or activity to fill it up, or to associate it with time to give it a sense of movement, but that such associations may be incorrect and more so the result of human perception and the need to do something with space (and Edward Hall alludes to this very issue in his work on space and culture). Meditating on space without defining it, experiencing it is so different because it suddenly treats space as an entity unto itself, instead of as a background or something to be filled or moved in. In fact, in one sense Space can't really be moved in, so much as it can be moved around. I don't know how else to put that. I'm sure further meditations will provide more clarity.
What I came away with is a different awareness of space. I'll be doing more meditations, and may make the dancing I do tonight part of the experience of space from this new perspective that Thiede has gifted me with.
On a different note, I was struck to today how easily we create stories and perceptions about other people that aren't remotely true. That someone who seems successful might be suffering a lot more than how s/he displays it...just how private a person's world can be, and what may never be noticed unless you actually begin to interact with that person (and even though how much will you really know?).
Laban, and a meeting with my Anima
I've been reading Laban for all, which is a book that describes the dance techniques of Rudolf Laban. I was introduced to it by Bill Whitcomb. We both find the mapping of the movement of the body to be fascinating. Last night I decided to try out the basic steps for Laban. What stood out to me about the experience was how much attention I needed to pay to each of the steps I was doing. I know that as time goes on, muscle memory helps a person incorporate the movements so that s/he doesn't have to think about the movements, but I felt the experience was useful last night for helping me really sit in my body. I've been finding that incorporating more physical body awareness into my ritual work has been essential for the identity work I'm doing, and most importantly for getting past cultural memes that otherwise influence how the body is perceived and interacted with.
In complement of that I've also been working through some of the exercises in the Eight Circuit Brain. Last night, after doing the steps, I talk a salt water bath and then did a meditation visit with my concept of the Anima. I'm going to continue down that particular route because there's some work I wish to do with it. Meeting with the Anima proved useful because I was able to recognize that it is from my concept of her that in some ways I've based my understanding of the opposite sex. So how better to examine those beliefs than to do so with her? I've found myself dealing with a recurrent issue of idealization and according to Antero Alli, working with the anima directly is the best way to deal with such idealization. Last night's first visit did seem helpful for that purpose. I could place that idealization on the Anima, without having to bring it back with me.
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.
The Atlantic
While I was visiting family for the Holidays, one of the happy circumstances I was able to get was a chance to reconnect with the Atlantic ocean. The Atlantic is different from the Pacific ocean. More inviting for one thing, but also, for me, its pretty significant because I made an offering to it long ago. I gave it something important to me as a way of connecting with it's elemental power. So when I saw the Atlantic for the time in quite a few years, I felt an instant recognition of that bond. It was a sensation of coming home, in its own way. I did a little ritual to the Atlantic the first day I was there to honor that recognition.
Sometimes that's what magic is about...that recognition of significance, that celebration of connection,that realization of history in one's life. For me, visiting the Atlantic was exactly that and very magical as a result.
Future obsession, present awareness
The present unfolds when a need is met that previously was bothering you to the point of obsession. The shift of energy away from that place of obsession frees up awareness of the present and can help a person get more focused on living in the present. When you have an obsession, you're always living in the future, living in that moment of imagining what will happen when the obsession is realized. Nothing else exists after that moment and in many ways nothing exists before it. A person living in the present is likely free of such obsessions. S/he is living in the moment, hopefully aware of multiple possibilities, but not overly attached to any specific outcome. This occurs when we can leave behind the focus on the future and/or have the obsessions that fuel the focus on the future met. The clarity that results when those obsessions are realized is a clarity of purpose and awareness, for those obsessions no longer occupy your thoughts or emotions, freeing both resources up. The issue then is can a person keep those resources for the present or have them snapped up into the future?
Group time vs Individual Time
I got into a really interesting metaphysical tonight with my friends about group time vs individual time. I was describing to them some of my paratheatre work with time and we got to talking about the difference between Western time, which is monochronic and this very scheduled and linear with one thing happening at a time and polychronic time where lots of things could be happening at the same time and its very non-linear with little in the way of scheduling. Then I began thinking about group time, time which is created when a group starts meeting and working together. It's a kind of sacred time in its own way. When I interact with a group, the experience of time changes quite a bit because of the group interaction, but also because I'm no longer in individual time, time spent with just myself. And I notice with group time it is different because with interaction of other people, the sense of time changes. It feels like the moment lasts longer, instead of with individual time, where the awareness of time is based more on solo activity and when those activities are finished.
It's an interesting realization and it speaks to some degree to the efficacy of group time, because everyone participating in a group is also participating in the experience of time in that group. The contribution of each person's awareness of time creates the experience of group time an consequentlly can alter the awareness of the flow of time.
Some musings on time
First, the latest issue of Rending the Veil is available. I've read a few of the articles and it looks good. I've been doing a lot of thinking about some of my recent work with time, particularly the concept of being present in the future without focusing on the future. In some cultures that standard of time is actually part of their perception of it, but in Western culture, there is an emphasis on the future and on sharply regulating time. Edward Hall provides excellent examples of this in the Dance of Life, and I've found his observations to be sound.
I'll admit I've struggled with just being present in the moment. It's such a foreign experience of time that it feels counter-intuitive, yet I also know it offers something valuable to me, because it allows me to work with a different understanding of time. And the moments when I can get into that place of just being present has its own value because I'm much more aware of the possibilities in those moments than I previously was. I've realized that the tendency to focus on the future, to fixate on it, can become an obsession, and is one that many people indulge in without fully appreciating that reality.
I do think there's value in being able to focus on the future and on desired goals you want to achieve, but I've also come to realize there's value in being in the moment and being open to what is available to you. Too often that can be ignored because of a focus on the future. My challenge has been to be more aware of the moment I'm in. Sometimes it's worked and other times, not so much, but undoing the cultural perspective on time that's been held for over 30 years of my life is pretty challenging, so I'm not expecting over night success. Just trying it is more important than anything else, because I'm being open to the experience.
Some thoughts on genetic memory
I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed 2 lately, and one of the elements of the game is the ability of the main character to access his ancestor’s genetic memories in order to learn skills from them. I think it’s an interesting idea. I don’t know how viable it is, if only because the genetic code will be different, but you’re not really becoming the person, so much as you’re accessing the genetic information that the person contributed, and within that information could perhaps be also all the memories of that person. Is it far-fetched? Maybe, but the idea is interesting, and could be worth exploring. If a person is able to access the memories of ancestors and learn skills from said ancestors, it could be an interesting exploration of memory and space/time magic. So I might experiment with it. I get a lot of my ideas about magic from unconventional sources, such as video games, but I find that being open to those ideas has really helped me out both in terms of magical experimentation and also for writing purposes. And unconventional ideas can lead to innovation in magical practice, which is essential for progress. I don’t know if this idea will bear fruit. Some of my ideas don’t, but its worth trying out and I have some idea of how I’ll implement it. I’m thinking the mind machine will be very helpful as an interface of sorts. More later, once I’ve tried it.
Paratheatre Working with Elephant
Another working with Elephant tonight, using the paratheatre techniques I learned about. First I did stretches and exercises to get me warmed up and slipped out of mundane thinking, then transitional jogging to put me into a liminal space. As a side note, being so engaged in physical exertions was quite useful...it's something I'll be employing further. After I did the transitional jogging I got down on all fours and pretty much channeled Elephant. The focus of this working has been similar to the past ones, a continued realization of how obsessions can obscure the present awareness of time, of possibilities. What stands out to me the most is a sense of just how constructed my understanding of time is around desires, around needs around wants. Elephant pointed out that the need or desire a person experiences creates the perception and awareness of time that person has. Sure we have 24 hour days, but time is also constructed in terms of how long it takes to accomplish goals. We artificially construct time around the needs we have, as well as the fulfillment. It makes an interesting kind of sense. And Elephant's point in showing me all of this is really to help me see how constructed time can be, so that as I really begin working with the silver web, I recognize where my desires could interfere with my workings in it. It's definitely useful for me to consider all of this and I know my understanding of time is changing as a result.
No matter where you are, there you are
This morning, ever time my mind started to wander or fantasize, Elephant would speak up and say, "You're wandering." And it happened a lot. When I think about it, it's happened most of my life. I started fantasizing a lot when I was young. It was one of my defenses, one of my ways of escaping a situation I didn't want to be in. And it worked quite well. My imagination has always been vivid, and I could easily create what I needed in my daydreams. But as with anything, indulging in it too much can ultimately lead to a place of excess. So today Elephant made that abundantly clear to me. Every time my mind wandered, Elephant would call me out on it, and each time it happened, it forced me to realize just how much I have a tendency to let myself escape from the present into some past or future imagining, instead of sitting with the present moment and letting myself exist in that moment.
I like my imagination, but I also recognize a real need to stop imagining so much, to be able to sit in the present and recognize the opportunities around me in the moment. I'm glad Elephant is calling me on this, even as I'll admit, I'm frustrated that it happens so much. Then again, would I even be doing what I'm doing, if I didn't recognize some need to change?
I paint to forget
I paint to forget sometimes, on a conscious level the desires, the wants, the needs, etc. I have. The paintings are sigils usually, though in someways I don't really think of them as that so much as mindscapes, which allow me to express what's going on in my mind and then let it go. I paint to forget, but also to free my mind. Once something is expressed, if you have a place to direct any further attention or energy toward that expression, you can can then remove the desire from conscious thought. It becomes part of the background. And once its part of the background, that desire can then work because it's not being pushed into the future by the conscious mind.
It's a reason to paint. Funny thing about painting for me. It's the one creative skill, where I'll never make it a product to sell. It's a magical work for me, but more than that it's something I need to keep for myself, as an outlet I use for both my magical expression and artistic/creative expression divorced from any form of compensation (beyond my satisfaction). I don't paint often, but I love to do it. The state of no-mind, the rustle of the brush, the colors that I use, and the shapes that come forth, all of it created in a place that is the secret part of my soul, and even when shared, it's still a place only I'm really intimate with.
What problems does magic solve?
What problems does Magic solve? I've been thinking about this question for a long time, though perhaps not with that wording. Only recently has that wording come to me, in large part because my experiences as a business and social media coach has helped me recognize that pretty much everything a person does is motivated by solving some kind of problem that the person has. And the major motivation for utilizing technology is also to use it to solve a problem. I count magic as a technology, and I recognize that I've used it numerous times to solve problems, whether its a short term problem or a long term problem. I've used magic reactively to handle situations, and I've also used it proactively to address issues.
So it seems like I already have the answer, but the reason I'm asking this question is because it's a big question to ask when you start looking at the process of magic and how it works. What will this particular magical process, act, working, spell, etc., solve and how will I know? So the emptiness working, as an example, solved a problem for me that involved coming to terms with emptiness and how I felt and expressed it to myself and others. And while I couldn't predict the outcome, I did know that I had a problem I wanted to solve and that motivated me to do a year long working with emptiness.
The process of doing that working was defined by recognizing what the problem was, and what would be solved by using that magical process to address the issue at hand. If I hadn't understood that there was a problem, I never would have even done that working. It wasn't until I recognized that there was a problem that I could recognize as well the value of the process I wanted to implement to solve that problem.
When you do a magical act or plan one, spend some thinking about what problem this act will solve. Define the problem, and then define the solution(s). What makes a magical act better than a mundane act in this case, or should they be combined? By addressing these questions and similar ones you may come up with, you will get a lot of value out of the magical work you do. Define your problem, so that you can then define your process.
Changes in my energy since the elemental switchover
Since I switched over from the element of Emptiness to the element of Time, its been interesting to track other people's awareness of that switchover, as well as starting up a new program of energy work. When I was doing the Emptiness working, my energy was heavy, depressive...I was busy working through all of the blockages and issues in my life. Toward the end of the emptiness working, my energy began to change. I was cleaned out. When I switched to Time, my energy felt different. Different people told me I felt lighter, and I was also a lot happier (and have been since then). Lupa said she noticed a webbing of sorts emanating from me. At the same time, because the emptiness working had cleaned me out, it'd also cleaned up a lot of energetic structures in me. The Spider Goddess of Time told me that I needed to stop using the old daily meditations I was doing and switch to the Elemental fusion system that Mantak Chia has written about. The old practices worked with an energetic body that had been there prior to the culmination of the emptiness working, but with my energy changes so much, I needed to develop a new practice that accounted for that.
For the last couple weeks I've been working the elemental fusion technique each day. I'd tried it before and used it for a little while, but the difference now is that I really don't have any energetic blockages getting in my way. The energy moves differently, but I also realize why the Spider Goddess wants me to bring this technique into my daily workings...it'll keep me cleaned out, because that is its purpose, while also helping me build a new and different energetic body.
Energetically I feel different...I feel so clean. There's no weight on me, no feeling of emptiness that comes across in a way that is hurtful to me. I can still feel some emptiness, but I'm at peace with it. The elemental fusion work, in the meantime, will allow me to continue with my inner alchemical workings, without the baggage that was previously attached.
Walking the web with Elephant
Tonight I decided to do some work with Elephant and time. I went into my ritual room and put on the necklace I associate with Elephant and the bracelet of Elephant hair and then pulled out the statue which wears the other bracelet of Elephant hair, as well as my painting for elephant. then I turned out the lines and sat in front of the statue and centered myself, so I could get focused on Elephant's presence. When I was ready, I laid down and keeping a hand on the statue, allowed myself to travel to the silver web. Once there, Elephant started discussing memory, not so much as a stable picture of the past, but rather as an active re-imagining of it, as well as an influencer of the present, and a dream of the future. He then talked about how being aware of your present circumstances was very important to really working with time.
"You are too focused on the future...not just you, but so many others as well"
He showed me several incidents, including one from today where I'd gotten caught up in future imagining of wishful dreams, while ignoring information in the present that could've told me that such an imagining was just a diversion of energy and thought better put elsewhere. The information was there all along...I'd intuitively acknowledged it, but still ignored it with my conscious mind, until I couldn't ignore it because information was presented that showed me that what I hoped for wasn't going to happen.
"Pay more attention to the present moments and the information in them...that will show you what paths you can take, and there are always multiple paths."
So then he also pointed out how elephants always have to be aware of a lot of information happening around them all the time. They can't just blindly look ahead. They need to listen to the vibrations and communication from other elephants, but also the land, as well as pay attention to their memory of a place, so they can find their way. Elephant said that the silver web has it's own vibrations and even as I can create my own paths, it's a wise idea to pay attention those vibrations as I navigate through time's possibilities.
"The more aware you are of the information available to you, the easier it is to pick out the possibilities that are most available to you, or find your way around obstacles that'd hold you back from a possibility you want to work with."
So I'm coming away from all of this with a realization that yes, sometimes I do live too much in the future, and I want to focus more on what's around me that I'm not noticing as much, and use that awareness to help me with my time work.
After I finished the work with elephant, I did a fan dance as a way to close the the sacred space and thank elephant. I have a fan, one of those ones you can hold open with one hand, that spreads out in a half circle, and I started dancing with it, using it to express my thanks. It was fun to close the ritual that way, and allow myself some artistic creativity with using the fan as a ritual tool. I plan on working with it more, in the future.