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Approaching the Garden

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

As of today, I have completed the first month of my year dedicated to the study of ceremonial magic.  For thirty-one days now, I have performed the Qabalistic Cross upon waking and before working any other magic (well, except that one day I overslept and had to come back home to do it at noon; rough morning, that).  I have performed Penczak’s Ascending the Spheres meditation a half-dozen times over the course of the last week, have prepared space in my Inner Temple, and have built my altar of Malkuth. 

After a month of performing the Qabalistic Cross, often more than once in a day, I have mastered it to the degree that I can perform it’s invocation silently – tuning to each of the arms of the Q-Cross the same way I tune to the Elements when I cast my circles.  It has made some lasting changes to my aura, not all of which I yet fully understand, but so far they seem all to the better.  The ritual has helped me keep my course as the time my coursework demands and the toll of my seasonal allergies tear away at the hours of sleep available in any given night.  At a school that strongly encourages people to overcommit themselves, to give more than they have, it is helping me maintain my proper position at the center of my own universe.

There is still a great deal to learn from the ritual, of course, and I will try further variants and modifications as the months pass.  But I am ready to move on.

I am ready to immerse myself in Malkuth – the Kingdom, or the Garden as Pecnzak also calls it, though I wonder at that translation.  I have familiarized myself with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram as much as one can without actually performing it.  I will perform it daily at least for the full month, probably for the rest of the year.  I will perform it in its full and original glory, Archangels and all, for at least a week before experimenting with the common Wiccan variant.  I have a quart of Full Moon water left after starting my mead, and look forward to using that to make Holy Water.  I may also use up the rest of my Dark Moon water for a different batch – I wonder if it will turn out different.  I look forward to exploring the Elemental Realms of Earth as a part of this process, and exploring a new paradigm of the elements.

I approach Malkuth at dawn.  So mote it be.

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Sept Full Moon Reading

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

It was an intense Esbat – easily the most magickal work I’ve done solo since I left Lawrence, possibly the most ever.  I should write about all that.  But my mind has been turned to the future:

 

HOUSE

CARD

GENERAL MEANING

INTERPERETATION

1st – Self, Viewpoint

the window through which you and the world view one another

 

Princess of Swords

clarity & mental renewal; restlessness and quarrelsome behavior

conflict & clarification

The Princess of Swords is a fairly natural outlook for someone in school, and the quarrelsome angle totally fits me all day long.

2nd – Finances, Income

communication, neighbors, short distance travel

Prince of Wands

new momentum, initiative, and enthusiasm

readiness for action; taking risks; renewal

My financial aid doesn’t quite cover my housing, so a change in my financial situation is welcome news. It looks like I’ll need to go out on a limb to take advantage of this, but I’m prepared for that.

3rd – Daily Experiences

immediate influences

6 Disks – “Success”

increase, gain, favorable synergy, welcome developments

encourages taking advantage of situations as they present themselves

It looks like life will continue to improve over the course of the month, so long as I don’t turn down opportunities as they come my way.

4th – Home-place

family, land, roots

Queen of Swords

clr – 4 S – “Truce”

 

The Queen of Swords being a very odd card for the 4th House, I asked for clarification … and was given the Four of Swords. I can only take this to mean that I must be discerning in the balance I achieve between rest and work, and in the battles I pick.

5th – Fun / Pleasure

children, hobbies, lovers

VII the Chariot

thirst for adventure, boldness

new relationship, making a leap forward

I’m starting to get restless – even if I didn’t just know that, it’s there in the 1st House – and, fortunately, it looks like there’s going to be things to do and people to see (and very likely, hopefully, vice versa).

6th – Work

illness, duty, routine

3 Swords – “Sorrow”

clr – 9 C – “Happiness”

bad news, heartbreak

miscalculation, not passing an exam

bliss, meaningful experience, enjoyment of work

This clarification turned into more of a contradiction. I can only infer that, in my enjoyment of my studies and residence life, I may loose track of my priorities and fuck something up but good.

Or, maybe everything will go well except that no amount of scientific medicine or magical healing will clear up this sinus hell.

7th – Partnership

associations, spouse

6 Cups – “Pleasure”

reawakening spirits, emotional recovery, well-being

blossoming feeling; sensual pleasure; sexual fulfillment

This is interesting in the way that it agrees with the 5th House, which usually speaks more to short-term lovers, as opposed to the “marriage” ideas associated with this House.

This is doubly interesting in that I’m explicitly looking for … not “casual”, because it’s never that for me, but certainly nonexclusive.

8th – Taboo / Crisis

sex, death, taxes, loans

rebirth and renewal

3 Disks – “Works”

the process of transforming ideas to reality; slow progress and consolidation

encourages cementing that which has already been achieved

This seems to expand on the opportunities presented in the 2nd House. I need to keep my irons in the fire and work them slowly, but methodically.

9th – Higher Perception

journey, movement

IV the Emperor

willingness to take responsibility; security and leadership

structure, order, and realistic thinking

The Emperor is not a card I generally associate with anything spiritual, but it makes sense in light of the fact that I will be beginning my month of Malkuth-work in two days.

10th – Recognition

career, ambition, status

Queen of Cups

sensuality, devotion

spiritual tasks and artistic inspiration

I am going to be more recognized for my creative and magical works this moon. I should really send out some of my stories again.

11th – Friendships

groups, social activities

I the Magus

activity, resolution, will power, concentration, mastery

attraction, taking the first step, accepting oneself and others

Returning again to themes seen in the 5th and 7th Houses, this will be a busy month for my social calendar.

12th – Secrets & Fears

hopes, ambitions

V the Heirophant

search for truth, experience of meaning, expansion of consciousness

search for meaning; self-examination

The Heirophant is a card I rarely associate with anything good, but I must keep in mind that Crowley’s Heirophant of the Age of Aquarius (Horus) is not the Pope of the Age of Pisces. This, too, may refer to my experiments in ceremonial magick. Or possibly to my desire to set myself up as an occult spiritual leader here on campus.

+2 – Current Position /

Outside Influences

Prince of Cups /

5 Swords – “Defeat”

 

The Prince of Cups is my card, so to see him at the center here is no surprise. That lies in the 5 of Swords – a card which seems to belie the otherwise overwhelmingly positive reading. Will I be betrayed this month? Forced to eat crow repeatedly? Will this be the manifestation of the “Sorrow” seen in the 6th House?

THEMES

 

Me / You

– 1st, 7th

Princess of Swords &

6 of Cups

I will be intellectual, cantankerous, and my usual self. They will be sensual and inexplicably drawn to me.

From Where To Where

– 4th, 10th

Queen of Swords to

Queen of Cups

While the Queen of Swords makes little sense to me on her own in the 4th House, as a part of this pair she makes perfect sense. Evolving events will help me move from the hard, more distant, cerebral, and cold parts of my personality to the more fluid, more intuitive and intimate, warm expressions.

Fire

– 1st, 5th, 9th

temperament and self-development

Prince of Swords

VII the Chariot

IV the Emperor

The Prince of Swords cannot stand up to the combined might of the Emperor and the Chariot – two of the most fiery Trumps in the deck. I’m going places, and I’m going full-tilt-boogie. Passion will overrule intellect.

Earth

– 2nd, 6th, 10th

home, money and work

Prince of Wands

3 Swords & 9 Cups

Queen of Cups

There is no earth in my Earth Trine. That never bodes well, despite otherwise auspicious indications in that direction.

Air

– 3rd, 7th, 11th

ideas, contacts, and conversation

6 Disks – “Success”

6 Cups – “Pleasure”

I the Magus

Earth, water, and the Magus – it’s going to be a very Epicurean month, and I’m going to love it.

Water

– 4th, 8th, 12th

intuition, yearnings, and moods

Queen of Swords

3 Disks

V the Heirophant

Although there is a Queen here, she is the Queen of Air. My Watery nature will, for this month at least, largely be dominated by the other elements.

Underlying Theme

XIX the Sun

 

Over all, I think things are going to do damn fucking well.

The takeaway here is opportunity: in particular, the opportunity to secure my rent money, and the opportunity to get laid.  This is welcome news.

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Nom de Guerre: A New Self-Introduction

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

I started this blog under my real name.  It seemed like the thing to do at the time.  In November of 09 I hadn’t quite made the decision to become a professional academic, let alone begun to process everything I was going to need to do to achieve that end.  I was going to school, yes, but … I still thought of myself more as a jeweler than anything else.  As a jeweler, practicing magic in a city where I have an established base of power, I have nothing to hide.

But now I’m moving, and I have academic politics to think about.  The people where I’m going don’t know me, and I don’t know them.  And when I finish my Bachelor’s degree, I’ll be moving on to another school where I’ll have to rebuild my reputation from the ground up again.  (And, of course, there’s the whole angle where I might just join the war.)  Having this come up when you search my real name might be inadvisable.

My career as an occult author is, at best, years off.  Until then it seems prudent to adopt a pen name.  I will not name the school I am attending, or the town I live in – though anyone willing to websearch the details I do give will no doubt be able to put two and two together.  I don’t need a secret identity … just plausible deniability.  As such, I would ask friends who know me in the real world to post comments here on the blog, rather than on my facebook – as an added bonus, our resulting conversations will be better preserved for posterity.

Allow me, then, to reintroduce myself: I am Satyr Magos.  I have been studying witchcraft since 1993 and practicing since 1996.  I am deeply eclectic – the kind who can lecture you for hours on the schools of thought I’ve studied to get to where I am.  Although I do not think of myself as Wiccan, many of my rituals are based in that framework.  At the moment, I would describe my practice as Helenistic neo-Wiccan shamanic witchcraft.  I am, for the moment, the one and only Initiate of the Obsidian Dream.

For the first two-thirds of my life, I was an angry agnostic and my magic was largely theoretical – personal shields and house wards and tarot and playing magical tag.  In 2007, shortly before my life in St. Louis failed utterly, I began making offerings to Dionisos, Hephaestos, and Apollon.  The first two took me in readily; Rhea informed me of her presence in 2009.  I am still negotiating with Apollo – and now with Athena and Hermes, as I more seriously devote myself to school. 

At the same time I began working with gods, I also began to study shamanic techniques: a friend of mine took me on my first journey to the underworld.  I read Penczak’s Shamanic Temple … but it was Michael Harner’s Way of the Shaman that actually got me somewhere.

I put off studying ceremonial and Chaos magic for most of my life.  There was too much penis-waving and too many invocations of a god I don’t trust in the former; the second, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, gave me flashbacks to playing D&D in high school with that older friend who never moved out of his parents basement.  I am dedicating the next year of my magical life to filling those holes in my magical education.  In the process I aim to develop a daily practice, and master the skills needed to aid other witches with their spells, potions, and rites of passage.

Welcome, again, to my blog.  When I started it, I never imagined that I would have over a hundred pageviews in a month.  Thank you all for coming.

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Struggling for Practice

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

My actual ability to maintain a regular practice is better than my ability to maintain this blog … but not by much.  Since staring the new semester, my life has been a mess of work, school, not-quite-enough sleep, and a few other troubles that I’ll actually get into in posts of their own.

I’ve pretty much lost track of the moons.  I didn’t even do a Full Moon reading in February, and I haven’t ever gotten around to decoding the one I did in March.  I haven’t checked back with my annual reading since January.  I haven’t done a Dark Moon journey in longer than I care to contemplate, and Aradia and I didn’t get our Yule altar down until Ostara.  I missed the last Dark Moon by a matter of days, even as I was slowly drafted this post. 

Of course, there’s no chance that all of this is related to how stressed out I’ve been lately, is there?  No, perish the thought!

Things are finally looking up.  I did (finally) start my Imbolc mead with a little help from a late snowstorm and our Brid candles.  I’m researching recipes for a similarly belated Ostara mead, but the internet is being less than helpful.  I have done public Tarot readings on the last two First Fridays.  I have gotten back to doing weekly and daily readings – three- and one-card respectively.

You can’t change the past.  All I can do is strive to do better. 

I’m getting ready to bottle my Beltane mead – I finally have artwork for the bottle.  Sadly, it looks like Aradia and I will be celebrating that sabbat by ourselves – Pasiphae and Aidan are otherwise occupied, as are others we’ve worked with in the past.  Which will make things interesting, as duo Beltane rituals run an above average risk of ending in pregnancy.  Some creativity may be required.

We will be out at Gaea, though.  So perhaps we will be able to join a public rite, or be invited to a smaller one.

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Coming out of Hibernation

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

Solstice approaches and the daylight wanes almost to nothing.  Here in Kansas City we’ve just had our first snow and our first night below 0F.  The semester is over, with only one final exam left between me and (hopefully) sounder sleep.  It seems as good a time as any to reacquaint myself with the world.

At 14,000 words my NaNoWriMo novel is neither a failure nor a success: in fewer than 20 days I doubled my fiction word count for the school year.  I’ve written one major and one minor paper in the last two weeks, the first of which I may share here. 

I’m working on my recipe for my Yule mead.  While searching for inspiration, I found a fantastic beginner’s recipe: http://www.moremead.com/mead_logs/Ancient_OCC.html

And while I’m sharing links, I found this while catching up on Chas Clifton’s blog: http://mysterytheater.blogspot.com/2010/10/free-classic-weird-fiction.html

Happy day, all.

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Metapost

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

So, I’ve been playing with different programs to update the blog.  I usually write my draft in OpenOffice, then copy and paste it over to the webeditor, but that’s … aesthetically displeasing to me.  MS Word is pretty good for it, but I haven’t ever gotten around to buying a copy of MSOffice, and my trial ran out again.  (Grrr, poverty.)

Today I discovered Windows Live Writer, which I like a lot lo far.  It gives me a really, really good idea of what my posts will look like when I’m done (insasmuch as that even matters), and pasting images from my computer or the web is much easier.  I’m not sure yet, but I think I can even set it up to update my livejournal, too, which would be neat.  I really hate the LJ webeditor.

Today I also discovered the Stats tracker on this blog.  First: I’m an idiot and I’ve been tracking my own pageviews, so the count is practically meaningless (I only use this thing twelve times a day to keep up on my blogroll).  But!  Not wholly meaningless!  People from as far away as Russia and South Africa have visited!   That’s awesome!  Hello out there!  (::waves vigorously::)  Folks from China, the UK, and Latvia have come by!  (And of, course, many Americans … almost all of whom might actually be me.)  It’s very, very exciting to me to have had visitors from not the US.  I can’t really explain why (that whole crazy thing).

Also, most of my viewers come from Facebook (which doesn’t surprise me) and that my altar is the most interesting thing I’ve written about so far.  So there will definitely be more of that.

/spaz

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Seasonal Transition

Author Satyr MagosPosted on

If Samhain is my most favorite season (tied, perhaps, with Beltane) – the autumn weather, the symbolic emphasis on death and rebirth, the opportunity to wear my “Witchy clothes” out in public without drawing the attention that it does the rest of the year – then Yule is my least favorite. This has nothing to do with Yule, itself- the embryonic year which we will shape with our rites between Samhain and Imboc – and everything to do with the American holidays that take place at about the same time.

Thanksgiving and Christmas have been a nightmare for me ever since I was old enough to pick up on the social tension within my family. The details are beside the point – you all have families, and while the particulars vary from one family to the next, the dysfunctional dynamics are largely similar. Suffice to say, I’d skip it all if I could. Moreover, working in jewelry, I’m exposed to a uniquely savage side of the holiday shopping frenzy: propitiative diamonds, engagement jewelry, and frantic “what do you mean it will take an hour?” repairs and alterations. There’s the incessant Xmas music and – as I currently work in a mall – the screaming children and the grownups fighting like children. And so on, and so forth, ad nauseum, ending with New Years – a fantastic drinking holiday that I might like more if I weren’t so scared of being run over by the amateurs who only drink and drive on St. Patty’s and New Years.

That the weather has finally turned cold here in Kansas City both helps and hurts the situation. On the one hand, it’s comforting that the season is finally moving on – 60-70 weather in November and December was somewhat disconcerting. On the other hand, the cold makes me want to hibernate, which just makes me grouchier. Whether it’s seasonal stress, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, or just Pavalovian conditioning, I’m finding it difficult to react to things proportionally.

I’ve been trying to get into the spirit, I really have. Last year, I even bought a Santa hat (of course, it does read “Bah, Humbug!” across the front). I’m wearing it at work again this year, and I’ve got a little reindeer at my bench, clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels (which I might well drink in an emergency). I’ve been studying the Sabbats a lot – that whole “starting at the beginning again” thing – and I’ve volunteered to write the ritual for my working group. Last week at the full moon, my partner and I changed over the house altar from Samhain to Yule. My Death God’s Mask was replaced by the still-drying Solstice God Mask, which I am painting and ornamenting to serve as both Oak and Holly King, and our various symbols of death and tributes to the dead were packed away; she made dinner out of the winter squash we’d had on the altar, and we decked it up in garland, put a golden Sun Candle in the center, and finished our first semi-formal Esbat with some trancework. The Yule altar is turning out to be pretty spectacular, actually: the garland, the candles, the mask. I even let Aradia talk me into putting up a tree (something I actually forbade my previous room-mates to do): it’s a three-foot plastic thing that she already had (we really wanted a live tree, but we’z po’), and surprisingly attractive and tasteful.

The Solstice will come soon enough. And spring soon enough after that.

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Introduction

Author Satyr MagosPosted on


Hello.

My name is _______. I have been a practitioner of magic and a member of the neo-Pagan community since I was sixteen years old; astronomical Samhain marked my twenty-ninth birthday. I have identified as a witch, specifically, for about three years now, during which time (between moving from St. Louis to Kansas City, starting a new job, attending college for the first time ever, and getting involved in a romantic relationship that is quickly approaching the one-year mark) I have been rediscovering the basics. I am looking for ways in which to give back to the community that has sheltered me for almost half my life.

I am a bisexual hedonist witch. I am a writer of fiction and a student of history – and, as such, I would like to see both better prose and better scholarship coming out of the neo-Pagan world. I am a jeweler and craftsman, and I believe that this makes me a better witch that I would otherwise be: that fire, metal, clay, and the blank page have taught me Mysteries that can be learned no other way. I have been involved with working groups for most of the last decade – most notably the WPA, now the KU Cauldron, as well as several smaller, private groups but I have always been a solitary practitioner. (Although, recently, my working group started has asking, “Have we turned into a coven?”) Out at Heartland Pagan Festival, I am known as “that guy who hangs out with Camp Taco and the Big Damn Heroes” and “that guy who always carries around a bottle of massage oil”.

Drawing on my research into and growing experience with Wiccan ritual and neo-shamanic practice, I am developing a Tradition of my own: the Obsidian Dream, named after the Void that has been my experience of the astral and inner planes. Dionysus and Hephaestus are my patron gods; I am still searching for my goddesses.

If you follow beyond this, my introduction post (Yes, the introduction post! That inteweb font of self-aggrandizement and self-mutilation!), this weblog will be a place for me to explore and share my experiences and musings, exercises and rituals, hopefully to the benefit and amusement of those who stumble across it. The primary focus will be just what the subtitle says: jewelry, hedonism, and witchcraft. But, because these things also fascinate me, there will also be some politics, history, feminism, and good, old fashioned, sex, drugs, and rock&roll. As such, while this will never become an “adult blog”, there will certainly be some discussions that are not for the immature.

Welcome, then, to this space. Thank you for joining me on my journey.