As my first solo attempt at translating Ancient Greek raw, the below represents about twelve hours of work. I’ve included notes on some of the less clear choices I made in the translation, as well as some of the interesting subtext. Unfortunately, I can’t find any modern or reliable translations to compare mine to—the Thomas Taylor translation, while pretty, is to poetic too aid me.
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Beaded Necklace in Turquoise, Bone, and Quartz.
Because it’s pretty. And I’ve had the beads forever. And I need new counting beads for meditation. 74 beads total, because that’s hat I had.
Aeschylus’ Aid In Appealing for Justice
For reasons which I will not delve into here, I have had appeals to justice on my mind. I could, of course, go the Curse Tablet route—the tablets found at Bath were almost exclusively appeals for justice(1)—but the only good site for deposition nearby that I’m aware of is the Quaker graveyard by the school, and I’m not sure that I want to go down that road just yet: appealing to the dead could get me something much closer to revenge than to justice.
Which leaves me needing to compose a spell of some other sort. A prayer, a statement of intent, an image, perhaps a sigil or three. And poetry. Poetry is always good for magic. But for those of us, like myself, to whom poetry does not come naturally, it is often useful to seek inspiration in the poetry of others, or even to outright plagiarize.
By coincidence, I have been reading Aeschylus’ Orestia(2). And I have to say: if you are seeking justice or revenge, The Libation Bearers is a good place to go looking for poetry on the subjects of justice and revenge:
There has been wrong done. I ask for right. / Here me, Earth. Hear me grandeurs of Darkness
–Aeschylus Libation Bearers, 398-9
Tell me that’s not the good shit.
Almighty Destinies, by the will / of Zeus let these things / be done, in the turning of Justice / … The spirit of Right / cries out aloud and extracts atonement / due: … Who acts, shall endure. So speaks the voice of age-old wisdom.
–Ibid, 306-8, 310-14
Yeah. That’s the good shit. And if you’re in more a mood for bloody vengeance than fair justice, just add back in the lines I’ve omitted.
My plan is to take these lines, and maybe a few like them, and write them on one side of a page as a prayer. On the obverse will be images of the persons involved (the internet is handy that way), along with sigils pointed at having my appeal heard fairly. The end result will be the sort of thing I can leave on my altar with a spell candle while the issue is in play, then torch or bury upon resolution.
One more for the road:
O gods, be just in what you bring to pass.
Hear then, you blessed ones under the ground, / and answer these prayers with strength on our side.
–Ibid. 462, 476-7
1—Magic of Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome. Which I have returned to the library and therefore cannot cite properly.
2—Aescylus I. Ed. David Grene, Trans Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1953).
EDIT: Because I cannot be trusted to talk and type at the same time, I originally attributed these passages to the Eumenides rather than the Libation Bearers. That was incorrect.
Sappho Fragment
Diehl 94 / Voigt 168b / Cox 48 (Source for the original Greek)
Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληίαδες· μέσαι δὲ νύκτες,
παρὰ δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα·
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω
The Moon has set
and the Seven Stars;
it is the middle of the night,
and the hour is passing;
but I sleep alone.
The translation is mine, albeit with a great deal of help from my professor and the rest of the class. I have done my best to achieve a balance between a literal translation and maintaining a sense of the poetry. The “hour” (ὤρα) of which Sappho speaks conveys a strong implication of “opportunity”, much as it can in some English usages.
Areas of Expertise
It seems like I’m writing a lot of “inspired by” posts lately, but there’s just been so much awesome in the air that it just makes me want to participate. Alison Leigh Lilly and John Becket have been discussing the need for us each to specialize somewhat, rather than to be Experts in All Things Pagan. Having once, myself, wanted desperately to be such an EiATP, I am more than sympathetic. Mr. Becket has outlined a variety of disciplines that he thinks people might divide themselves between. Inevitably, I feel the need to place myself within it.
Mystics. These are the people who are walking between the worlds: the shamans and hedgewitches. They experience gods, spirits and the Otherworld directly, and some of those experiences are as real to them as your experience of today’s lunch.
This is very much the primary direction my practice has been taking over the last several years. As strange as things have been getting, I know that I am only beginning to push the far edge of “Novice”. I have a long way to go on this road before I’m ready to get off, and things are only going to get stranger. Of all my callings, this is one of the strongest.
Magicians. From the high magic ceremonialists to the low magic kitchen witches, these people are all about causing change in conformance with Will.
Readers of this blog know that, having neglected it for much of my life, this is where the majority of my efforts are currently focused. I will not be one of the great magicians of my generation, but it it my hope to someday be much better than I am. And I hope that my experiments will be informative and inspirational to others.
Environmentalists. Whether they see the Earth as a living being or simply as the only planet we’ve got, these people emphasize living sustainably and with deep concern and respect for other creatures and ecosystems.
While these issues are deeply important to me, the fact is that they take a back seat to almost everything else. Although I will strive to live ever-more sustainably throughout my, and recognize the intersectionality of environmental issues, an absolute dedication to environmentalism requires more sacrifice than I can currently afford.
Advocates for Justice. The political Pagans, questing for the rights of religious minorities and for an end to exploitation of the environment and of the poor.
Like environmentalism, this is a hugely important issue that I simply can’t make enough time for. Unlike environmentalism, I’m trying a lot harder. My social justice work, so far, consists largely of striving to live a publicly feminist and sex-positive life, and calling out people on issues when I see them. This is insufficient. I want to start volunteering with the local Planned Parenthood, and the campus sexual violence and queer organizations.
Artists. Writers, poets, musicians, dancers, painters, film makers, sculptors, liturgists, costume designers and all the people who articulate Pagan concepts and practices and who make them beautiful.
The conection between art and magic is something that I have dabbled in my whole life, but only recently begun to explore seriously. Devotional images, masks, talismans and tools, even a bit of poetry (people who know me will laugh at this; I hate poetry, and I’m terrible at it). Tattoo art, sigils, tarot decks, visual meditations.
I’ve been drawing since I was a child. It is inevitable that would eventually find a way into my magic.
Culturists. Historians, anthropologists, folklorists, linguists and others who study what our pagan ancestors believed and did. Some attempt to re-create or re-imagine ancient practices, while others simply try to understand our ancestors so we can better honor them.
I am currently attending college to study History and Classical Greek. I have long said that the neo-Pagan movement needs better scholarship. Happily, we have been getting better scholarship, particularly in the last decade or so, particularly in the reconstructionist quarters, but not limited to that. I intend to be part of that trend: to help reconnect the neoPagan movement to the Graeco-Roman tradition it so often invokes by advancing the field of scholarship in the mystery cults and providing translations and adaptations that are both accurate and relevant to modern Paganism.
Priests. Priests and priestesses serve their gods and goddesses and they serve their religious communities. They are the glue that holds covens, groves and other groups together. They do the planning, organizing and leading of our seasonal celebrations and other rites.
Some day I hope to build a temple. Until then, I will do what I can to aid other priests.
Theologians and Philosophers. (added on prompting from Alison Lilly) The people who study our beliefs and practices and organize them into a rational framework that helps us understand and explain our experiences.
As much as it fascinates me, this is not really my work. I don’t have the mindset for formal logic, nor the patience to write apologia for an unsympathetic world. Instead, I will provide the primary sources for those theologians and philosophers to contemplate and cite: “Here’s the crazy shit I did. It was awesome; I’m’a gonna go do it again. Someone else make sense of it.”
That’s an awful lot of areas of expertise for me to try to lay claim to. Life will probably whittle me down a bit further. But no one achieves greatness without trying for something more. Fame happens by accident, but not greatness.
Get Made
Aradia has introduced me to another new band. Their music is fun, but generally not genius … except for this song, which contains a number of themes that I think most of us will find familiar.
Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn / And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong / For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah / And my thoughts, they surely were / Turned to instinct and obedience to God.
…
So if you’re gonna’ get made, / Don’t be afraid of what you’ve learned
One Image, One Link, and One Lame Excuse
Over the last week I have made serious progress in the performance of my daily rites. Experimenting with various forms, I continue to perfect a set of variations on the Q-Cross, LBRP, Middle Pillar, and Circulation of the Body of Light that work best for me. I wanted to go over that in depth today, but am not quite satisfied yet with the write-up. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving break has come to an end, and my writing time will once more be severely curtailed. Hopefully I will still be able to produce it for you in time for tomorrow.
In the meantime, let me direct you to this excellent post by Jack Faust. These are all themes I’ve touched on, either here or in physical conversation with some of you, and I pretty much agree with everything he has to say here. I did some serious experimenting with magical shape-shifting back in the day (though I didn’t think of it in those terms at the time), but I pulled back when I scared myself … and, as with too many things, never went back to try again. That’s definitely a story for another day.
Finally: over Thanksgiving break, I spent a lot of time meditating with my sketchbook. Here is a result of my contemplation on Baphomet, the Sabbatic Goat:
The Room
I got my first college care package this week. Of course it was from Aradia. She quoted Adrianne Rich for me at length:
Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon
sloshed in the glass. Poems crucified on the wall,
dissected, their bird-wings severed
like trophies. No one lives in this room
without living through some kind of crisis.No one lives in this room
without confronting the whiteness of the wall
behind the poems, planks of books,
photographs of dead heroines.
Without contemplating last and late
the true nature of poetry. The drive
to connect. The dream of a common language.–Origins of History and Conciousness
She muses about whether the room”is the space one inhabits or the the Creative Mind itself. It is both. It is my too-dark, faux-wood paneled living room with the bright white cinderblock wall in front of which I built my altar. It is the echoing cavern of madness where I listen to my muses and transcribe their nearly-incomprehensible wails onto the lining of my skull. It is more.
It is also my life here: a white room with two doors. One of the doors locked behind me when I came in, though there is a fire-ax hanging beside it, the words “Break In Case of FUBAR” painted carefully in white-and-red across the class. I haven’t found the other door yet, only the walls. Empty walls marked by a few snapshots – faces of people who might be friends or enemies or (worst of all) indifferent – and scattered windows I can’t quite see out of.
She goes on to quote Lorrie Moore: “This is good for your writing.”
Of course it is. No matter how good or bad it gets. And whether at the end of this period I go on, as planned, to a Masters in History and a Doctorate in Greek mystery cults; if I end up selling my writing much earlier than I can comprehend; or if the world as we know it ends, and I find myself presiding over a temple of freaks, geeks, and survivalists who aren’t quite sure how I ended up in charge. This is good for my writing.
Sacred Space to Establish Space
When I drove across three states to go to college, almost a fifth of what I brought pertained either to my altar, or my magical library. I set up my altar even before I set up my bookshelves or unpacked my clothes. Since them, I have spent hours poking and prodding at it, trying to tune it properly to the new space and my new needs.
When I took it apart back in Kansas City, I had high ideals of putting it together so that the symbolism was clear and consistent, with cosmic forces at the heart, building outward to symbols of the mortal world. Unfortunately, the gods whose idols make up my altar would have no part of that.
This evening, at last, I think we have reached a compromise: an arrangement that displays them as they wish to be displayed and fits my need for a pattern of some sort, all while still leaving me the space I’ll need to work. It’s somewhat unbalanced at the moment. There are gods who need spaces, but for whom I have not yet found or made adequate icons or idols.
The topmost level consists of a candle rack where I have anchored protective spells for almost twenty years. Behind it is a slice of blue geode, given to me by my grandmother when I was a child – it has been a part of my altar for as long as I can remember. In front are a pair of quartz crystals, mined and cleaned by Pasiphae and Aidan in Arkansas; and a dragon-bell given to me by a neighbor in St.Louis.
The next level is divided into three sections. You can see Dionysos clearly on the left, and at his feet is a Maenad. Sharing that shelf are a paper skull, representing mortality; and an anvil marked with a fire glyph, which I work with when honoring Hephaestos. You cannot quite see my ritual blade. In the center section are the God and Goddess statues I have been working with as I struggle to reconcile my fundamental queerness with heavily gendered archetypes that seem to work so well for others. In between them is the altar-box Aradia made me as an Initiation-gift, a world tree painted on one side; the other bearing six small drawers, each filled with an elemental power. On the right is my ritual chalice; a rubber purple Ostara egg from a ritual several years ago; a copper bracelet and ring in the shape of serpents, which I used to channel the spirits at the Farmhouse Séance. My cauldron completes the set, but that section needs a great deal more attention.
The lower level is divided into five sections: three along the wall, an elemental circle in the center, and a working surface. The back left section contains a variety of tools – my jeweler’s hammers, saw, and and bench pin; a gong and striker; a sickle-shaped ritual knife, and several cloths. The central recess contains my sun-god maks and a piece of driftwood found in Chicago. The back right section contains my visionary mask, my Orb (long story), the statue wherein lives a spirit I work with (though I haven’t seen her since Heartland), and a rose and candle from my Phi Theta Kappa induction which will be incorporated in my altar to Athena as soon as I find or make an appropriate idol.
The elemental circle is fairly straightforward: candle nubs saved from the altar where I worked with Aradia, Pasiphae, Aidan, Chriotus, and D; a quartz crystal, a flame-shaped stone and a clay censer, a stone, a blue bowl and a sea shell, each accompanying their respective elements; in the center is a clay pentacle I made.
The rest is all working space: a mad collection of tools and spells and memories and works-in-progress. The five stones – one beside each element, one atop the pentacle – are for a project I’m working on, as are all the stones lined up in the front: blending the hot-stone massage I’m learning with the ceremonial magic; the four will be marked with elemental sigils, others will be marked with zodiac and planetary seals. There’s a money spell in the back left, and a bottle in which I dump excess lust (that one never worked right – it overfilled almost immediately and I always had more … still handy from time to time, though). The giant sage wand was a gift from a shamanic practioner at Heartland 2009, who took Aradia and I on very interesting inward journeys. The pile of quartz are also from Pasiphae and Aidan. There’s a green soapstone container full of all the hematite rings I broke in highschool, which I’ve kept for spell components. And more. And more. There’s even more below and inside the altar table.
This is where I work. By the way, I’m crazy.
Astrological Characterization
For all that I have been a self-identified occultist since the age of sixteen, I am woefully ignorant of matters astrological. Don’t get me wrong – I spent my time studying sun-signs, just like everyone else. But I never graduated into complete charts. I didn’t even really know that they existed until well after I’d grown bored with the subject. I fell for the pseudo-scientific debunking games of folks like the Amazing Randy. (Hey, don’t blame me: I went to public schools. Critical thinking was something I learned later, out in the real world.) Since those early days, I have since learned that astrology is a massive, complex area of study with multitudinous, conflicting schools of thought. But it is only within the last year that I have begun to study it in earnest.
My initial forays have been sporadic. I still have a half-dozen charts I’ve promised people I would complete for them as part of my studies. (And I really will generate them soon. Before I leave for Real College, even.) Realistically, I’m only beginning to learn the vocabulary. The underlying theses still elude me.
As you delightful readers may or may not know, I am a novelist. A great number of my stories revolve around occult themes. Having recently started a new project, I decided that an excellent way to work on character development for the protagonist, and as an excuse to work on something other than my homework, I would create a birth chart for her.
It’s been fascinating work so far.
My chief resources on this project – astrology in general, not just Dorothea Faigin – are Astrolog and Astrology: A Cosmic Science by Isabel M. Hickey. The former came recommended by Chirotus, the latter I am “borrowing” from Aradia’s library.
Click image for full view.
