It has been harder for me to maintain a daily practice of the LBRP than it was with the Q-Cross. Nor had the rituals been as consistently powerful. I don’t know if this is because I’ve been sick, or because of the insomnia I’ve been suffering, or because of the alien (to me) imagery, or simply a matter of insufficient practice. It is certainly not just the ten minutes it takes to do it properly, except for the once or twice when that brief time has been the difference between breakfast before class and none. Perhaps it is just that I know I am committing myself to perform this rite every day for at least the next year, and I am struggling with that level of sacrifice.
Since the Dark Moon, I have been less successful at visualizing the archangels – a failure I intend to remedy by drawing them – but the rest of the rites have been far more potent. I am successfully conjuring the pentagrams well outside my Temple, almost to the limits of my House-wards. The difference in power and effect is phenomenal. What is responsible for this change? Simply a matter of having practiced more? The change from the waning to the waxing moon? (I am, after all, more witch than magician.) Could it be a benefit of the rites I performed at the Dark Moon – specifically the bolstering of my house-wards? A clearing of psychic congestion allowing me to perform more effective rites? A benefit of the deepening intimate connections I’m making here in Sunrise?
Regardless of the reason, in the last half-week my performance of the ritual has become more powerful, more clear, and more easy. And this while performing the rite on an average of only three or four days out of five. I look forward to seeing how it continues to progress.