Because, to my mind, 4am 8 March is actually more Wednesday night than Thursday morning, I performed my Esbat rites on Wednesday. Initially, I didn’t feel as “on” as I did Monday night, but the journeywork turned out to be more productive, if less dramatic.
I made another Lunar incense blend: calamus, eucalyptus, jasmine flower, myrrh, and willow. I actually liked my first blend better, but this is why we experiment, right? After charging the incense and a bottle of lunar water, I mixed my flying potion (1), donned my visionary mask, and descended to the underworld through the Void.
Approaching the world tree, I asked to be returned to the Realm of Yesod and the Moon to further explore it. Taking me DOWN this time instead of UP, the tree deposited me back on the island with the nine-pillar temple. I began my work by leaving offerings of light for the two figures in the temple, and the entity which had “roped” me Monday night.
There was a land-bridge off to one side which I had neglected to investigate last time, so I started there. Strangely, it didn’t go anywhere: although I tried to follow the coast I found past the land-bridge, I kept finding myself back on the shore of the island. Frustrated, but undiscouraged, I dived into the lake instead.
Swimming down, I encountered a dolphin. I asked it if it was there to guide me. “No,” it said. I asked it why it was there, but it didn’t answer. It did, however, follow me as I continued swimming down.
“This is an awfully small body of water for you,” I noted.
“Well, yeah,” it acknowledged.
“Where do you come from?”
“Out there.”
I asked it to show me, so it led me—almost faster than I could follow—out to another, deeper region of water. Down and down it led me, vanishing as I found myself on the bottom of an ocean floor.
Being the bottom of the ocean, there wasn’t any light, and it took me a few moments to adjust my astral vision until I could see. (For some reason just conjuring a light didn’t seem like a good idea.) When I could see, I found myself surrounded by massive, alien creatures, all trudging toward the direction from which I had come. I couldn’t see them clearly—mostly just massive legs and bodies, dimly seen through the dust they raised—but they were legion, and each hundreds of times more massive than I. I swam in the direction from which they had come, and none deigned to acknowledge me. Eventually I came to a place where I was alone.
After swimming in random directions and encountering a lot more nothing, I drew a circle in the sand of the sea bottom and sat down cross-legged, waiting. soon I began rising, and eventually broke the surface.
I cannot remember—could not, in fact, even immediately upon returning to my body—how I transitioned from floating over this massive, primordial ocean to standing once more in front of the nine-pillar temple. This time when I ascended the stairs, the figures had moved. They moved again in front of me, and acknowledged my presence. We communicated briefly, and I received a positive response when I asked if I could return for instruction. The woman reached out and touched me, and I was filled with a vibrant, cool energy.
I returned to the world tree, and through it to the waking world. The journey was done.
I think I will do one more lunar journey before moving on to Hod/Mercury.
1 The usual, lately: absinthe and sacramental mead at a 1:3 ratio. It’s a little stronger and a little easier to slam than properly louched absinthe, if not quite as exquisite.