Project Null: Settling Into the Groove

projectnullI have just completed the third week of my Project Null experiment.  Some things have been settling down, others have been rearing their heads.

I’ve been escalating my daily banishing ritual a little bit, and doing better about my meditation, which has had a positive effect on the paranoia.  Perfecting my sleeping tea and being ruthless about bedtime (“ruthless”, because my homework is suffering) have helped with the insomnia and the nightmares.

My patience with various frustrations is at a distinct low point.  A class that I had hoped would be a fun challenge has, so far, turned out to be neither fun nor challenging, and another that should have been a coast-through is giving me trouble because the teacher seems to be suffering from part-timer syndrome.  These are legitimate frustrations.  My desire to set something on fire over them are just a little bit out of proportion.  With that said: I’ve suffered from rage issues for my whole life, so this is nothing new to me.  Stress makes me angry.  This is probably related to the Chaos experiment only insomuch as my meditation practice is making it impossible to deny or sublimate the rage.

Over the course of the week, I pushed a little further in Stephen Mace, restarted reading Hine’s Condensed Chaos, read Carol’s Liber KKK, and re-read Gordon’s Sigils Reboot.

Meditation

For most of the week, my meditation practice was the best it had ever been.  I was making five minutes or more at least once a day.  I wasn’t necessarily having great insights—really, just the Abrasax thing—but my mind was getting less and less unruly.  Then, Thursday, I fell off the horse for no reason.  No meditation Thursday or Friday.

This morning and yesterday, it’s distraction city all over again.  With the noted addition of a distinct buzz at the end of every meditation session, which is interesting and might be good or bad.

Magic

At the beginning of this experiment, I took a bit of a hiatus from active magical practice. I have begun re-incorporating magic into my practice, and the results have been decidedly mixed.  I dove back in to magic head-first Monday, with the Mercury Cazimi election just before dawn followed by the Mass of Chaos B that afternoon to fire off some sigils.  The first was a success; the second, not so much.

I made use of the Mercury election to recharge all my various Mercury talismans and to create a new language-learning talisman.  Although the raw power of that election made it very easy for me to feel the dissonance between my retrograde natal Mercury and the planetary power, the enchantments went well.  I have felt a distinct improvement in my ability to communicate with other humans (except over electronic media, which seems to be suffering an increased confusion, but there are a LOT of confounding factors making that correlation pretty blurry), and my comprehension of Greek and Latin does seem to be improving at a slightly swifter rate.

The Mass of Chaos B sigil launch was a qualified disaster.  I had three desires: to have a lost set of keys returned to me by Thursday, to have an Amazon package that has been waiting in the dock for (I though) no good reason shipped that day, and to find money on the ground.  The keys have still not been returned to me; Amazon has finally deigned to tell me that the reason my package didn’t ship is that The Sorcerer’s Secrets is currently out of stock; and I found a grand total of $0.06 on the ground this week.

So … I think I’m going to back up with my sigils.  Try launch techniques which are a little more traditional.  And hopefully aim my intentions a little better.

Meanwhile, the changes to my morning banishing rites have definitely left me feeling much more powerful.  I’ve yet to see that improved sense of power translate into actual results, though.

Dreaming

The tea I’ve been using to help regulate my sleep schedule has really fucked my dream journaling.  While on the one hand, my dreams have been vivid and interesting, on the other hand, I have been consistently woken up by the alarm which drives whatever I’ve been dreaming out of my head pretty much every time.

Have I mentioned before that dreamwork is not a native talent of mine?

Hopefully, the next batch of dream tea will cause me fewer problems: 2 tbs valerian; 1 tbs each white willow, chamomile; 2 tsp mugwort; 1 tsp spearmint.  I will be brewing does of 1 tbs in 2 cups filtered water.