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What appears below the fold is the most current incarnation of my personal Q-Cross and LBRP variant. Although it doesn’t make the earth move under my feet (Yet. It may later after it’s built up more momentum.), it doesn’t cause my saturizw to falter, either. It also interfaces with the world in a slightly different way.  Overall, it follows the traditional structure, but there are some key differences.

I open with the Qabalistic Cross, including the Hebrew/Qabalistic invocations.  It just seems to work better that way, and it allows me access to the power of the ceremonial/Golden Dawn current while my own builds up slowly.

Next comes the Pentagram portion of the rite.  As discussed before, the banishing pentagrams just didn’t work out for me—magically or ideologically.  You see, the whole “banishing” thing, when not ejecting a specific entity, force, or whathaveyou, is fundamentally based in the idea of a fallen world.  The GD is pretty open about this, as are a lot of their derivative streams, and as much as it has become a feature of contemporary occultism, I haven’t personally seen any evidence that it predates them.  As a witch and an animist, I utterly reject the idea of a fallen world.  Are there nasty things out there?  Sure.  Do I want to keep them out of my space and Work?  Absolutely, but that’s what my wards are for.  The purpose of this ritual, then, is not to banish the world, but to attune to it … and, given the heavy influence of Wicca on my personal practice, that means conjuring the elements.  And, because I worship Hellenic gods, those are the Powers I invoke at the center of that right.

Having established myself and the Circle with the Cross and Pentagram, I move to the body of the rite: the Middle Pillar, the Circulation of the Body of Light, and my daily Tarot.  While I reject the idea of a fallen world, I have no trouble acknowledging that there are parts of the world (and, more importantly, parts of myself) that need help.  Also, even more than the rest of the rite, this portion serves as the magical equivalent of an exercise routine: attuning one’s mind and aura to the cosmic forces one wishes to be interacting with.  For the Middle Pillar, I’ve taken the English invocations from Regardie’s more accessible version* and replaced them with Attic Greek.  And I do my daily Tarot during this stage because it just feels right to me.

The body of the ritual complete, my Wiccan roots and personal need for symetry require that I now release the forces.  I have just conjured.  I maintain the invoking pentagram because, again, I’m not trying to banish anything, just loose the forces I have yoked, which I achieve by moving counter-clockwise, as I do in my other Circle Work.

Finally, I center myself in respect to the primal forces of the natural world, represented here by Earth, Sky, Sun, and Moon in their Titan incarnations of Gaia/Ge, Ouranos, Helios, and Selene.

And because it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in weeks: here is someone else’s Hellenic LBRP variant.  Fucking brilliant.  Some day I’ll be that awesome.

Part I: the Qabalistic Cross

Face your altar. (Mine is in the North) Visualize yourself growing to titanic proportions, the earth and the solar system vanishing beneath your feet and your head among the stars of the cosmos. Visualize one particularly bright star above your head – a beacon of Divine Light, burning brighter than all the suns together. Bring your blade up to that star then draw it down to your forehead, bringing the Divine Light with it. Touch your forehead with the tip of the blade and intone:

Ah-TAH

Bring your blade down vertically across your body until you are pointing at the ground with your hand covering your genitals. Visualize the shaft of light descending through your body with the mothion of your hand and into the Earth, into the star at the center of the Earth, and onward into infinity. Intone:

Mahl-KOOT

Bring your blade up and touch your right shoulder. Visualize a star at your right shoulder, and the vertical beam of light in your body extending out from your heart into the star at your right shoulder and out through infinity to your right. Focus on the beam of light and intone:

Vih-G’boo-RAAH

Bring your blade horizontally across your body to your left shoulder. Visualize a star at your left shoulder. Visualize the horizontal beam of light now extending to the left star and infinitely to the left. Focus on the beam of light and intone:

Vih-G’Doo-LAH

Clasp your hands together over your chest with the blade pointing up, held between your knuckles. Vizualize a glowing golden light in your heart. Vibrate:

Lih-Oh-LAHM

Ah-MEN

Part II: Pentagram Invocation

Face East. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit. Starting with your arm and blade stretched out and up above your head, draw a line in vibrant yellow down to the left of your hip, then up and to the right, level with your shoulder, in a straight line across your chest past your left shoulder, down to the right side of your hip, then back up above your head where you started. Inhale deeply as you hold your hands up beside your head, and exhale as you perform the Sign of the Enterer, pushing the blazing yellow pentagram to the east point and feel an answering billow of wind in your face. Point your blade to the middle of the pentagram and draw a white line with it as you make a quarter turn to your right.

You are now facing South. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit. Starting with your arm and blade stretched out and up above your head, draw a line in burning red down to the left of your hip, then up and to the right, level with your shoulder, in a straight line across your chest past your left shoulder, down to the right side of your hip, then back up above your head where you started. Inhale deeply as you hold your hands up beside your head, and exhale as you perform the Sign of the Enterer, pushing the fiery red pentagram to the south point and feel an answering blast of furnace-like heat in your face. Point your blade to the middle of the pentagram and draw a white line with it as you make a quarter turn to your right.

You are now facing West. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit. Starting with your arm and blade stretched out and up above your head, draw a line in glowing blue down to the left of your hip, then up and to the right, level with your shoulder, in a straight line across your chest past your left shoulder, down to the right side of your hip, then back up above your head where you started. Inhale deeply as you hold your hands up beside your head, and exhale as you perform the Sign of the Enterer, pushing the bright blue pentagram to the west point and feel an answering rush of water crash into your face. Point your blade to the middle of the pentagram and draw a white line with it as you make a quarter turn to your right.

You are now facing North. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit. Starting with your arm and blade stretched out and up above your head, draw a line in shimmering green down to the left of your hip, then up and to the right, level with your shoulder, in a straight line across your chest past your left shoulder, down to the right side of your hip, then back up above your head where you started. Inhale deeply as you hold your hands up beside your head, and exhale as you perform the Sign of the Enterer, pushing the vibrant green pentagram to the north point and feel the living earth rise to your call. Point your blade to the middle of the pentagram and draw a white line with it as you make a quarter turn to your right.

Facing East again, your circle is complete. Hold your arms out to either side and stand with your feet a little outside your hips. Feel the circle come together, filling with pure power and light. Invoke the gods of your elemental directions, visualizing them as you do so.

0Iriv

(A young woman in a modest white chiton and wielding a caduceus stands in front of a rainbow.)

“Iris before me …”

Dionusov

(A young man of crushing beauty, with long curling dark hair, clutches a thyrsos and stands in a sea of wine, under which are cloaked the waters of the Abyss.)

“Dionysos at my back …”

9Hfaistov

(A man with mangled legs wears a leather apron and wields a hammer and tongs, standing before a forge at the heart of a volcano.)

“Hephaistos at my right hand …”

Reia

(A queenly woman in rich robes reclines with two lions deep beneath the mountains of the earth.)

“and Rhea at my left.”

When you can see and feel them continue, visualizing yourself at the center of a flaming five-pointed star:

“Around me flames the pentagram…”

“and within the six-rayed star.”

As you invoke it, the star glows golden out of your heart.

Part III: Middle Pillar

The pentagram invocation complete, remain facing north.

Visualize the shining light of Kether, the Source, descending into your Crown. Manifest two rings of energy spinning around your lighted crown, one turning clockwise and the other counter at ever-increasing speeds. Intone three times:

e1imi

EI-mee

(I am)

Let the light and the spinning rings descend from your crown to your throat. Intone three times:

le/gw

LE-goh

(I speak)

Let the light and the spinning rings descend from your throat to your heart. Intone three times:

filw=

phee-LOH

(I love)

Let the light and the spinning rings descend from your heart to your loins. Intone three times:

poiw=

poy-OH

(I create)

Let the light and the spinning rings descend from your loins to below your feet. Intone three times:

eu11xomai

YOU-cho-mai

(I pray)

Part IV: Circulation of the Body of Light

With your aura freshly charged by the Middle Pillar ritual, stand with your arms stretched out to the sides and with your feet planted a little outside your hips.

Feel the divine light of Kether pouring down from the cosmos and into your aura through your Crown.  It flows down the left side of your aura—maybe close to your body, maybe at the edges, whatever works best for you—below your feet and back up your right side.  Feel your whole aura move with that flow of energy.

With the light still flowing along the one axis, feel another stream pour down the front of your aura, run below your feet, and up your back to your crown.

Your whole arua is moving, growing, becoming stronger.

Staring at your feet, the two streams begin to intermingle, drawing on the power of Malkuth.  They twist together, forming a double-helix that flows up your body, re-establishing the Middle Pillar and invigorating your centers of power.

When you feel you are done, you may let the streams taper off or leave them open, depending on your purpose.

Part V: Daily Tarot and/or other rituals as needed

If this portion isn’t self-explanatory, you need to find a new hobby.  If you are only doing the ritual as a part of your daily practice, let the flows of the Circulation of the Body of Light taper off and turn to your daily Tarot.  If you are beginning ritual or other magical work, leave the streams open and pour that power into your intentions.

Light incense, pour libations, or whatever your daily rituals and taboos require.

Part VI: Pentagram Deconstruction

Begin facing North. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit, as before, and make the Sign of Silence: raising your left index finger to your lips and stamping your left foot.

Turn left to face West. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit and make the Sign of Silence.

Turn left to face South. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit and make the Sign of Silence.

Turn left to face East. Draw the Invoking Pentagram of Spirit and make the Sign of Silence.

Turn left again and end facing North.

Part VII: the Titan’s Cross

Stand with your feet together and your back straight. Visualize yourself standing on a broad, flat stretch of earth under the vast, clear sky. The sun is at your right and the moon is at your left.

Point your ritual blade downward, with your hand over your loins. Reach your will toward the dark, rich, fertile earth and intone:

Gh

(Ge)

Bring your blade up to your brow. As you do so draw the energy of the earth your middle pillar and out into the sky. Intone:

0Ouranov

(Ouranos)

Draw your blade down to your heart, than over to your right shoulder. Feel the blazing golden sphere of the sun at your right. Intone:

9Hliov

(Helios)

Move your blade horizontally across your chest. Feel the cool, silver light of the moon at your left. Intone:

Selhnh

(Selene)

Bring your blade back over your heart and clasp it between your palms. Feel power flowing into you from earth and sky, sun and moon. Vibrate in tune with the primal elements of the world.

Exhale slowly, grounding out the excess energy.

You are done.

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ED:  See, this is why I’m not published professionally yet.  I sometimes submit unfinished documents to the internet.  Could any of you have looked up the Circulation of the Body of Light on your own?  Sure.  But that’s not the point

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*SOURCES

I have now looked at so many versions of the Qabalistic Cross and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram that I can no loner name them all.  My primary sources are Donald Michael Kraig (pages), Christopher Penczak (pages), and the Interwebs at large.

My Middle Pillar ritual is derived from an Israel Regardie variant included in Penczak’s appendicies (Page citation), and some old techniques I was reminded of by Soror A.I.

Kraig, Donald Michael.

Penczak, Christopher.

First off, I want to say hello and thank you to all the new people stopping by the blog lately.  The blog’s public followers have almost doubled in the last week, and a crazy number of people have added me on Google+.  Thank you all for reading.  Seriously.  It fills me with a decidedly un-satyr-like sort of joy to have you here.

Second, a ritual shared with me by Aradia and being passed on to another friend who is likewise in need of some magical self-care.  I’m putting together a packet of such self-care rituals and meditations for that friend, and I’ll be posting some of the other exercises here over the next several days—many oldies but goodies that have been in my Book of Shadows for years, others contributions from various friends, and some inevitable overlap between the two categories.  Nothing too heavy-duty—that would defeat the purpose—but hopefully helpful.

Finally, a post by one Soror A.I.D., detailing some energy work she’s been experimenting with.  The post is from April, so I don’t know if she’s made any further progress with this experiment, but it reminds me a lot of the magic-games I used to play back in the day.

I remember learning how to shield in highschool by visualizing myself in heavy anime-style plate armor.  I remember trying to meditate one day, and being unable to reach a real trance until I’d peeled off some seven layers of accumulated shielding.  I remember learning how to move and generate magical energy, after many fits and starts by holding a magnet toy in my hands and feeling the changes it made in my aura.

I remember learning how to shield effectively, without cutting off the world around me, by figuring out how to deflect the probes my coffee-house friends would push at each-other—worm-like tendrils and bright orbs and sharp splinters of will—and learning how to pierce shields in the same fashion.  I remember learning to play “catch” with those same bright orbs, to decode and reproduce energy signatures as part of complex but meaningless games.  I remember the blades of power I made, and all the good they never did me except to scare a few people who knew even less than I did.

I remember shaping and transforming energy—earth to air, light to dark, hot to cold—all day and every day, just because I could.  I remember weaving it into complex shapes for no other reason than that I could, and maybe to see what would happen.

Is it any wonder I blew a gasket?

In the years since, I’ve done relatively little of that sort of things.  Some games of “tag” with the proto-coven and Aradia.  Innovations in circle-casting and house-wards.  Some experiments in magical healing.  Oh, and that whole weird thing with Tsu.

I need to get back to it.  I need to find my old journals and re-read them for inspiration.  I need to re-read Maya Heath’s Energies which is the only book I’ve read that talked about that sort of thing even a little bit.  And I need to find more bloggers who aren’t afraid to talk about the kinds of magic that sound like a fucking fantasy novel.  What could I do with those old techniques now that I know how much more is possible?  What could I learn about myself and the world and magic?

My time working with the Moon and Yesod has been … scattered.  This will probably come as little surprise to anyone who’s done a lot of Moon work.  It’s been very difficult for me to stay focused on any one thing for very long, and I’ve had much more trouble than usual following through with my intentions.

After maintaining a daily practice for two solid months—one of prep work and one of Malkuth—I have fallen almost entirely off the horse.  I’ve been doing better this week: I’ve gotten up and performed my daily rituals for five days out of the last seven, and I’m getting back on top of daily journaling (at least in the mornings).

My emotional state has been … changeable.  Emotionally speaking, I’ve gotten more fully entangled in some things (people) than I originally intended; fortunately that’s mostly gone for the best despite lack of planning.  In the thrall of the Moon, I’ve struggled with insomnia and depression—though, granted, both of these are as attributable to the stress of mid-semester crunch time.  As I shift into Hod for December that stress is only going to get worse.

My Abramelin oil is coming along nicely.  The charge on that stuff is … interesting.  I look forward to using it in earnest and seeing what happens.

The Middle Pillar and Circulation of the Body of Light exercises have been incredibly helpful to me, and will probably remain a part of my practice even when I’m done with this ceremonial experiment.  I speculated at the beginning of the month as to whether those rituals would have helped with the trouble that the LBRP gave me.  I no longer believe that to be the case.  While they might have sufficed to balance out someone of a different magical and spiritual background, I have become convinced that there was something about the interaction between my magic and the LBRP which was uniquely problematic.

My Magical Storytelling exercise has been … interesting.  I haven’t made it nearly as far into NaNoWriMo as I had hoped (not quite 15,000 words of 50,000), but I’ve had a few interesting insights while pursuing the project.  As part of those joined projects, I’ve written incomplete drafts of three hymns: two to Dionysos and one to the multitudinous Muses.

As the Dark Moon approaches, I am preparing to do the journeywork portions of the Yesod rites.  I do not anticipate them going even as well as the Malkuth journeys, whose peculiarities I have still not resolved.  I will be bringing some Moon issues into my study of Hod.

As a result of yesterday’s near-catastrophe, I have spent the last day and a half disassembling my altar, cleaning it, and putting it back together.  Keeping Frater Acher’s recent post in mind—the parts I understood were rock-solid advise, which I will take into better account once I’ve finished my year of complicating my magic with ceremonial studies—I have greatly reduced the clutter of crystals and half-started magical projects.

It’s a work-in-progress, of course.  There are still a half-dozen gods and powers who need to be honored here, and it’s almost time to transition from Samhain to Yule.  A lot of my tools and crystals need better homes than I have for them now—most prominently, the collection of wand piled on the left-hand side, for one, and the rock and tarot collections currently packed in that grenade box on the right.
Speaking of my wands and tarot cards, I thought I’d take a moment to show them off since I had them all out while I was doing the cleaning.

Yes, that’s more than one thyrsus you see there (θύρσος, more accurately transliterated as thursos, plural θύρσοι thursoi; dual θύρσω thurso probably not appropriate to this instance).  The one on the left is newer, longer, and lighter—more practical for carrying about; the one on the right is use-dedicated in mead-making and Beltane rituals and weighs a shit-ton.  The plain iron, clay, and copper number in the middle is my general-use double-terminated wand.  The willow branch was a gift which I haven’t made use of light I ought to.  The second from the right is made of copper, clay, obsidian, and amethyst, and I use it for healing work.  The foot-long crystal on the right is lab-grown quartz and lived on my altar for a decade before being put to use on my ceremonial altar.

Fourteen of my fifteen tarot decks are pictured above—there’s also a Waite-Smith deck the size of the smaller Thoth (came in a set with, actually) which I have lent to a friend at school who is interested in studying the tarot.  Both were gifts from Aradia, given at a time—a month or two before Crowley holdings were put back into publication—when Thoth decks were almost impossible to find.  The Pamela Coleman-Smith Centennial set was also a gift from Aradia.  The Gypsy Fortune Telling set was a dumpster find.  The second, larger, Thoth deck was purchased for use in my ceremonial studies.  From left to right, the second row down features the Goddess Oracle Deck, the Witch’s Tarot, the Hansen-Roberts deck (my very first tarot deck), the Lord of the Rings Tarot (a gift from a lady I courted back in the early days of the KU Cauldron), and an Art Nouveau tarot deck.  The bottom row shows the Shapeshifter Tarot, an old-school cardstock tarot with Waite-Smith major arcana and no illustrations on the minors; the Unicorn Tarot (which I have no idea how I got my hands on, but can’t give up because I’m a hoarder), another Art Nouveau tarot deck, and the Celtic Tarot.
Returning to the subject of my altar … it’s almost time for Yule.  I pretty much forgot about Mabon.  Samhain has always gotten more extravagant treatment from me than any other holiday.  I don’t want to go back to forgetting about the seasons—down that path leads to also forgetting about the moons—particularly not while I’m doing this whole ceremonial thing.  I don’t want to get any more unbalanced than I already am.
Seasonal altars was something I never really bothered with before living with Aradia, but even if I had I wouldn’t have done Yule. Now that I’m no longer with her, I’m not really sure how to do seasonal altars. Yule has always been too much like Christmas, a holiday which I have hated with an ever-increasing passion since I got too old to miss how much it stressed out my parents.  Between the annual ordeal of extended-family drama and the horror that was working jewelry during the gift-giving holiday, I pretty much had nothing but hate for the entire two-month stretch from my birthday until New Years, when the fervor finally went out in a drunken orgy.
I don’t have to deal with those family members anymore.  And while I may pick up some shifts in jewelry over the holiday, it’ll be so mercenary on my part as to lack the usual sting.  I have my sun-god mask, but his seasonal crowns didn’t survive the move.  And   Finally, I will actually be in Kansas City for the Sabbat, itself—assuming that no blizzards take out the highway between here and there.
So the question remains … what will I do with my altar for Yule?

I actually never got a picture of the last incarnation of my altar.  This is what it looked like before I took down my separate Samhain altar-which was taking up too much of the very little space I had available-and incorporated the two.

Now my altar looks like this:

Note the conspicuous absence of my zodiac poster, which has served as my wheel of the year.  This morning, while I was moving the two-liter of mead which will serve as my holy water, the zodiac poster pitched off and crashed right in the middle of the lowest table.  Somehow, it did this without nocking the quartz and amethyst off the top.  The poster did knock off the horned god mask and cross … yet, somehow, neither suffered any real damage.  The mask has a slight chip on the bottom; the cross is untouched.  Even the geode right in front of the cross was undamaged.

There were a lot of delicate things on the surface where the poster landed were largely untouched: an impossibly delicate perfume bottle that has somehow survived on my altar for the last fifteen years miraculously survived this experience, though the stopper was flung halfway across the table.

Only three things, in fact, were broken: the candle holders for my Earth and Water candles, and the plastic poster frame itself, which looks like someone punched it in the very center.

There are a few different ways for me to read this somewhat surreal experience:

1) I knocked the poster over without realizing I’d even touched it, and through miraculous intervention nothing of real value was lost.

2) Someone on my altar needs more attention.  Candidates include (from left to right, top to bottom) the Horned God Mask, the Death Mask, Dionysos, Hephaistos, Kouros, Cyclades, Rhea, and Sue.

3) Someone not yet on my altar needs more attention.  Candidates include (in no particular order) Iris, Apollo, and Mercury, to say nothing of the multitudinous gods and spirits who may not have introduced themselves to me by name.

4) The altar itself is feeling unloved, and wants a hardcore cleaning.

5) None of the above.  Something that never even crossed my mind.

For the moment, I intend to simultaneously act on possibilities 1 and 4.  Until someone informs me otherwise.

Many of the things which belong on the altar you see above seem to have been misplaced in the move.  This strikes me as somehow appropriate.  I have spent the week between callender and astrological dates of Samhain in off-and-on meditation on loss and transition. 

It is perhaps no coincidence – particularly as I work through my issues with Yesod and the Moon – that I have felt exceptionally burnt out over the last week.  I’m very happy with where I’m at, and with where I’m going.  But I’ve given up a lot and gone through a lot to get here.    I’ll have to give up more to get where I’m going.

I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on these sacrifices and transformations – both past and future.  And I think that these ruminations – the details of which are too personal to share, even here, and of no particular value to anyone but myself anyway – have been fruitful, but they have also been painful.

Tonight these rites and meditations will be complete.  I’ll share the rest of my Mabon mead and a bit of the Samhain bottle with friends tonight, and finish celebrating the latest anniversary of my birth.  I will be glad to disassemble the Samhain altar in the morning, and begin getting back to living my life.