Currently Ongoing Projects

For your amusement and my future reference, here is a list of my currently ongoing projects and magical experiments.

1) Skylights chapbook.  Twenty four pages so far detailing the results of my experiments in planetary magic and outlining a roadmap for other witches without ceremonial backgrounds to recreate them, plus copyright-free line-drawings of the major planetary sigils to make everyone’s life easier, and a few personal-use-only talismanic images produced over the course of my experiments.

2) Planetary Boxes.  Inspired by Jason Miller’s Jupiter Cashbox and the conjure boxes made by RO and Skyllaros, these sort of occupy the intersection of talisman and portable altar.

3) Stele of Jeu adaptation.  Crowley did it, why shouldn’t I?  (Yes, I know the answer to that question.)  “I am Aradia, your daughter, initiate of your Mysteries…”

4) Cave Canem.  Although my lovely guard dog has so far been a technical success, there have been some … oddities which require further observation and documentation.

5) Texting Coffee.  Earlier this week, my partner Aradia needed a coffee fix but couldn’t afford (temporally or financially) to go get the quad-mocha she craved.  So I texted her a picture of the espresso I had just produced.  Although done as a joke, it actually worked.  Now the experiments begin.

6) Book Reviews.  I’ve read a lot of books in the last year but have never written about them.  Highlights include Jason Miller’s Sorcerer’s Secrets and Advanced Planetary Magic, Deborah Castellano’s Arte of Glamour, Josephine McCarthy’s Magickal Knowledge: Foundations, and the new edition of Apostolos N. Athanassakis’ translation of The Orphic Hymns.

7) Feminist Sex Magick.  Aradia and I manged to pull off non-creepy, non-dominating, mutually benefiting sex magick.  Now to find a non-creepy way to write about it.

Milestones

In the last month, despite my relative inactivity, I’ve reached two milestones in blogging: 11,000+ all-time pageviews and 50 “official” (that is, wordpress users who pressed the button) followers.  Combined with those who follow by email and via Tumblr, that’s 120 followers altogether.

I just want to say, “Thank you all.”

I know that it’s been quiet around here lately.  School ate my life for a while, then the summer job.  To say nothing of a little bit of that “real life” drama that we alternately mock and wish we had more of, as it’s proof positive that one has a “real” life.

To commemorate this grand occasion, I will now share with you some interesting but semi-random statistics about this blog:

* Not counting the home page/archives, the most viewed single post on this blog is the Conjuration of Baphoment, viewed 417 times as of this posting.

* The two blogs which have forwarded the most traffic to me are Polyphanes’ Digital Ambler (112 referrals) and Gordon White’s Rune Soup (94).  Thanks guys!  I love you!

* Of the various search terms with have brought people to this blog, the most common are “liber mmm” (21; too bad I didn’t have more to say about that), “stele of jeu” (20, which really just goes to show how few people are talking about that rite), and “dweller on the threshold” (14).

* Of the various search terms which have brought people to this blog, the most entertaining have been, “picatrix sex” (5 times!), “dionysus statues white pagan wiccan stores” (3), “sexsigil” (2), “anime couples sleeping together” (2!?!), “my uncomfortable journey”, and “why is my life a giant clusterfuck”.

**Crickets**

So…

Yeah.

I’m not dead.

I survived finals (did damn well, actually, despite what I had thought), then went straight back to work.  Went to Heartland Pagan Festival.  Fun was had.  Went back to work again.

I’m officially two moths behind on just reading my favorite blogs, so I’m trying to catch up and start commenting.

There are posts in the works.  Fun has been had.  Magic has been done.  New projects have been started.

Hopefully you’ll be hearing from me again soon.

Peace, love, and wild monkey sex.

— Satyr Magos

Good Problems To Have

There is a theory which argues that “complaints” of being busy is actually a distinctly modern form of bragging.  I don’t think that’s always the case, but it definitely is, here.  Since my last full moon post, I have suffered a problem that probably every magical blogger is happy to have: I have been too busy doing magic to write about it.

I did two more nights of full moon magic after the first.  The results were … not what I expected, but solid.  Sunday night I went on a second visionary journey, and Monday I performed a series of offerings and fired a shoal of sigils.

The Seven Spheres in Seven Days group-work has gotten spectacular results.  I’ve had time in the last two days to implement the instructions presented to me during my Saturn rite, brining my rituals that much closer to the ideal form of the Gates Rites.  As such, I have completed my first Mars ritual and my most successful Mercury ritual to date.  I’m very, very excited to start the second week tomorrow.

Last night, tonight, and tomorrow will be dedicated to Samhain.  Last night’s visionary work was … potent, if not fruitful, and I did my divination for the coming year.  Tonight will be offerings and a Bacchanal.  Tomorrow will be more visionary work.

I will tell all these stories in good time, but ….

Tomorrow is also the start of National Novel Writing Month, which will devour every moment of my spare time.  Accordingly, posts of substance may see a sharp decrease.  Conversely, however, I’m going to try dabbling in hypersigils—my NaNo is going to be a combination pseudo-grimoire in the tradition of the Simonomicon, a magical narrative in the tradition of the Invisibles, and a weed-and-absinthe soaked memoire—and the results (both creative and material) may appear here.

State of the Dream: Midsem Fall 2012: Super Sweet

The other day I was nominated for my first blogging award!  I’m a little embarrassed by how excited I am about that.  So, thank you Isadore Silverspar, of Isadore’s Book of Shadows, for nominating me for the Super Sweet Blogging Award.  It means a lot. 

The award and the recent series of shielding posts have brought a lot of new traffic and a few new followers my way, so I’m going to take this opportunity to welcome everyone by talking a little bit about what, precisely, I’m trying to do with the blog besides shouting in to the dark maw of the underworld (read: the internet) and seeing what echoes back.

This is an intermediate-level magical blog.  I’ve been practicing magic for half my life, now, but as the struggles I continue to have with things as “simple” as maintaining my psychic boundaries suggest, I’m hardly an Adept.  I mean, sure: I’ve been there and done that  and, at just this side of 32 years old, I have seen and done more weird shit that a lot of people will see or do in eighty or a hundred years (and, trust me, I’m just getting started) … but … it’s been just enough to know just how little of everything there is to see and do my experience actually represents. As I once said to Mr. Jack Faust over on G+, most of what wisdom I have to share comes in various flavors of “Learn From My Fail”. 

As such, what I have to teach comes in the form of stories: what I’ve seen and done, what I’m doing now, and what I think may be possible.  Much of the rest comes from research: my passion for history, my Classical Studies major, and the tools of postmodern and feminist analysis.  Together, theses strategies result in a sort of radical honesty and intimacy that some may find off-putting: the personal is magical as well as political.

So, sometimes this blog will have an academic tone.  Sometimes it will read like a drunken diary entry.  Hopefully, as I dive into hypersigils and National Novel Writing Month (this is Officially Fair Warning, by the way), there will be some badly edited fiction with excellent illustrations being passed off as “art”.   If you know me in real life, you will see yourself here pseudonymously from time to time.

Thank you all for for joining me, new readers and old alike.  It’s an honor to have you along for the ride.

With no further ado:

The Rules:

Choose 13 of your favorite blogs. Write a post like this one, listing all 13 and answering the questions below. Then, send your chosen blogs the nomination for the Super Sweet Blogging Award by commenting on one of their posts. That’s it. You are done.

Super Sweet Blogging Award Survey Questions:

1. Cookies or Cake? Cake.

2. Chocolate or Vanilla? Yes!

3. What is your favorite sweet treat? Ice cream.

4. When do you crave sweet things the most? When I smoke the rope.

5. If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be? Oh, honey…

Thirteen Blogs You Should Already Be Reading (In No Apparent Order):

1. Dionysian Atavism

2. Rune Soup

3. Divining Belle

4. Digital Ambler

5. Native Appropriations

6. Shakesville

7. Otherworldly Sorcery

8. Root and Rock

9. The Crossroads Companion

10.  The Astrology of Austin Coppock

11. Yes Means Yes

12. Melita Benu

13. Waiting to Awaken

My apologies to all the amazing people on the list to the right for whom there was not room on this list.