keeping score – Page 5 – Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

Continuing Experiments: Sigils, Talismans, and the Stele of Jeu

Satyr Magos17/05/2012

While I haven’t had much time to write clever blog posts since finals week started gearing up (then ended, with all the unanticipated post-semester and graduation-related madness), I have managed to make time to actually do the magic. I have performed the Stele of Jeu twice, fired off a shoal of sexy sigils, and made two new talismans based on what I learned of talisman-making from the Jupiter Election.

the Stele of Jeu

The Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist is becoming an increasingly integral part of my practice. Interestingly, though, the more often I perform it the more subtle the effects seem to be. I performed the rite at the last Dark Moon, on the Day and Hour of the Sun, and as a part of my Beltane celebrations in the woods behind my school.

In the first case—as seems to often happen—I was struck by the sense that something was watching me as I performed my rite. That sensation faded, though, as I performed the ritual. By half way through, actually, it had faded to the point where I decided to try out something I’d read somewhere and repeated the central portion of the ritual until I got the feeling of rising power:

Holy Headless One, deliver him, NN, from the daimon which restrains him, / ῥουρβριαω μαρι ὠδαμ βααβναβαωθ ασς ἀδωναι ἀφνιαω ἰθωληθ ἀβρασαξ ἀηωωυ / mighty Headless One, deliver him, NN, from the daimon which restrains him. / μαβαρραιω ἰοηλ κοθα ἀθορηβαλω ἀβραωθ / deliver him, NN ἀωθ ἀβραωθ βασυμ ἰσακ σαβαωθ ιαω

That definitely had an effect, though I would be hard pressed to actually describe what it was. I sat in the salt circle and meditated for a while, basking in the magical afterglow.

I performed the ritual again at Beltane, under the nearly-full moon. My outdoor festivities with Sannafrid were actually a couple days late, on account of the rain on the 1st and 2nd. Being in the woods, I skipped the salt circle—salting the earth is not my idea of a good time. On the one hand, the effects were much less profound than I had hoped/feared/anticipated; on the other hand, they were very interesting. The woods suddenly felt more alive. Sannafrid and I could sense spirits everywhere—not like I had conjured them, but more as if I had suddenly tuned in to the layer of reality where they already lived.

I think they were just the spirits of the wood, and while they may or may not have been aware of our presence, I honestly don’t think they could have cared less. It was a very powerful experience, if just a little surreal. I think that’s an important lesson for all magicians, but for witches and nature-worshipers in particular: to keep in mind that most of the spirit world, like most of the natural world, doesn’t care one way or the other about humans. We’re doing our thing; they’re doing theirs.

a Sigil Shoal for More and Better Sex

The way I count the Moons, the third day of the Dark Moon is also the first day of the waxing phase. After performing the stele of Jeu, once the hour had passed from Sun to Venus, I fired off a shoal of sigils for more and better sex. The effects of this shoal were even more awesome—and, importantly, longer lasting—than the first one. The shoal included five sigils (the specific phrasing of which is apparently in the stack of notes that didn’t make it back to Kansas City with me), all aimed at improving my sex life. The majority of the sigils were aimed helping my body keep up with my libido—and, more importantly, with Sannafrid’s.

The results were fucking spectacular. (Yeah, I went there. How could I resist?) At risk of crossing into the realm of Way Too Much Information: not only was I able to manage 2-3 times in a day (a little difficult at 31 on a mediocre diet), I was able to keep that up almost every day for a ten day stretch of the two-and-a-half weeks between when I fired the sigils and when they faded about a week ago.

So … waxing Moon, day of the Sun, hour of Venus is damn good astrological timing for sex magic. I would have thought the Full Moon, day and hour of Venus would have been as good … but it was also the 3rd day of the Full, so technically a waning Moon, which may have had an impact. Further confounding factors here include the sigils themselves, the way they were phrased, single versus shoal, and the fact that I was still tingling from the Stele of Jeu.

a Talisman of Venus

Anticipating Venus’ recent retrograde movement, I made a talisman of Venus based on the Jupiter Talisman I made at the recent election. I used Christopher Warnock’s Venus image on one side (I really need to buy his Picatrix translation and star producing my own images based on the descriptions); the Agrippan characters of Venus, my Glyph of the Moon, and a pair of sigils (empowering myself with the Favor of Kings) on the other. I performed the rite at the Day and Hour of Venus, using a slightly altered version of the Orphic Hymn to Venus—I added a line at the end asking to be endowed with the Favor of Kings—burning incense of my own making, and anointing the talisman with Abramelin oil—and using the various Venusian symbols I keep on my altar rather than a formal Triangle of Art. For a more general Venusian boost, I also took a bit of my Venusian incense and started an infusion like I do for my essential oil production. I left both projects on my altar to marinade essentially until I packed everything up for the trip.

My understanding is that, so close to the retrograde, even the otherwise auspicious arrangement of planetary forces on that Day and Hour of Venus with a waxing Moon was less than ideal. Still, I felt that it would be a good idea to shore up Venusian in my sphere given the complexity of my love life at the moment (that’s a post in and of itself, and one which is particularly delicate since all parties involved read the blog. I’m glad that I did: the talisman and the infusion-in-the-making are both radiating good, clean, Venusian power.

Safe-Travel Talismans

My final magical project in the Sunrise Temple, before leaving for the summer, was to produce safe-travel talismans for Sannafrid and myself. She is spending the month in China as part of an ethnography program through our school—a sort of “victory lap”, as they call it here. I was going to be making a drive across three states with a number of the things most dear to me in my back seat.

Using essentially the same methodology as I did for my Jupiter and Venus talismans, I made a pair of Mercury talismans for Sannafrid and myself. The most interesting differences between the rites was that these were made at the day and hour of Mercury, outside in the woods during our Beltane celebrations, and that I used a lock of her hair mixed in with the Mercury blend between the two sheets of cardstock and had her write her own Names to create the link to her, where I used my Glyph of the Moon for my own talisman.

The results were again spectacular. If I do say so, myself, I’m getting pretty good at making paper talismans. I’m looking forward to teaching myself some metal-etching skills so that I can use similar techniques in more permanent mediums.

In witchcraft

Synthesizing Planetary Magic Into My Personal Practice

Satyr Magos18/04/2012

Some readers may wonder, looking at my bio, how it is that I can be so ignorant of Chaos and ceremonial magics if I’ve been practicing for as long as I say I have. The short, easy answer is: freestyle circles and energy work, augmented by ecclectic/New Age Wiccan ritual and (in the last few years) visionary work.

When I was 18 or so, I came to the conclusion (in absence of any evidence, but … I was 18) that Cetlic knotwork was a two-dimensional representation of ways to shape energy. That, in combination with the stripped-out version of the LBRP that I had found on the internet and a keen interest in elemental energy, became the basis of my magical practice.

Like (I imagine) most magicians, I can conjure elemental energies essentially at will: drawing energy from the world around me, filtering it through my body and aura, and transmuting it by will into Fire, Air, Earth, or Water to suit my needs … just as one conjures and focuses intent for, say, some forms of candle magic or sigils. Unlike some witches and magicians, however, I also do this with Solar and Lunar energy.

One of the things I’m looking to do with my experiments in planetary magic is to come to understand those energies well enough that, in absence of convenient astrological timing—say we’re rolling retrograde when I need to do some mad Mercury, or right now with Saturn in the long retro, or it’s the Hour of Jupiter and I need some Venusian mojo right the fuck now—that I can conjure them in similar fashion. This sort of understanding of planetary forces would also facilitate my desire to, for example, make a talisman invoking the “baleful” aspects of Venus and Mars for a “No Babies Conceived Here Ever” talisman to hang above my bed.

Some will ask, “If it’s possible, why didn’t the ancients do it that way?” The easy answer is, of course, that’s not the way they thought about magic. Except, of course, in the East where we get a lot of these ideas from in the first place. Chi, anyone?* Again: I can already do this with Solar and Lunar energy.

Now, I realize that this will not shelter me from astrological “weather” altogether. It may never work the way I imagine it will (what does?). But think: if I can generate my own planetary energies as needed, how much more awesome could my sigils and talismans be when used in conjunction with astrological timing? And if I know how to move that energy, I could, for example, take advantage of the next Jupiter election to endow the shit of of some Jupiter water or store that energy in a crystal battery for another occasion.

*A gross oversimpification, I know.

In witchcraft

Early Lessons of My First Forays Into Sigil Magic

Satyr Magos16/04/2012

I’ve been experimenting with sigils.

This is partly because Gordon recently wrote the clearest treatise on the subject I’ve ever seen. There’s also the whole thing where, until I started digging into the Western Ceremonial Tradition, I didn’t really understand how Chaos Magick was distinct from it. It’s also just an inevitable manifestation of my escalating magical practice, and forays into practical magic.

I haven’t been doing as good a job of keeping notes as I should have, but it’s also only been about ten days since I launched my first shoal. I’ve been firing them off in accordance with the appropriate planetary days and hours using either appropriately-colored chime candles to help fuel them, or votive candles marked with the planetary glyphs. I’ve also been experimenting with quick-and-easy circle constructions to help power and focus the sigils.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my first impressions. Fellow n00bs may find them interesting; more experienced sigil-users may be amused.

1) Holy shit, drawing sigils is FUN.

2) While I’ve generally thought of sigils as quick-and-dirty magic, I think I need to refine my technique. Quick-and-dirty just isn’t as psychologically satisfying, particularly when I need something more complex (conceptually) than some candle-based healing magic. Firing them off should be just as much fun as drawing them in the first place.

3) Timing is key: Do not fire off “The Registrar Gives Me What I Need” while simultaneously expecting that registrar to sit on a piece of paperwork for a week. Even if you don’t need it processed with any alacrity, you may find yourself inconvenienced when your change-of-advisor form gets processed overnight and your old advisor can no longer provide you with the password for class registration.

Besides that temporary inconvenience, however, that sigil seems to have worked out well: my appointment to discuss my transfer with the registrar has been rescheduled (at her behest) for after the Jupiter election.

4) Specifying duration is key: The “I Have Fantastic Sex” sigil was AWESOME … the night I fired it. It’s been back to business as usual (which, lest my lovers who read this blog take this statement amiss, is still pretty awesome) ever since.

5) Coming up with “Sigils to Fire for Saturday” is not the way to go. I need to work on my “100 Bad Ideas” list first, sort out the good ideas, and then sort them into planetary correspondences.

In witchcraft

Dedication

Satyr Magos05/04/2012

Sometimes you have to need to provide context before you can tell a story. Sometimes, it’s best to tell a story first and dig into the context afterward. This is the story of how I came to perform my re-Dedication as a part of my Beltane festivities in 2009 … I’ll get to the context in a little bit.

It was my second Beltane after my failed life in St. Louis, the first with Aradia. It may almost go without saying tat we were at Camp Gaea, with my massive tent set up in Dava Wood. I had big plans for the weekend, aimed at jump-starting my magical career* in preparation for the re-Dedication I intended to perform at some point over the summer, and we were partying with the KU Cauldron. It’s tempting to break this into three different stories which coincidentally took place over the course of a single evening, but … I’m not so sure that they’re unrelated.

In witchcraft

Dweller on the Threshold

Satyr Magos21/03/2012

I can’t find it now, of course, but I was first introduced to the idea of the magical threshold and a monster that guarded it by a ritual I found on Witchvox when I was eighteen. I never did the ritual, of course. I wasn’t really doing magic back then, outside of my energy work and house wards and games of psychic tag. Hell, I don’t even remember anything about it except that it existed.

In the years since, I have encountered a number of variations on the idea, but I can’t really point to many of them because (until I started specifically researching them as I wrote this post) they were always incidental—either to the research I was doing, to the the article I was reading, or some combination of the two. The fact is that I dismissed them—incarnations of the Dweller on the Threshold, that is—believing them to be manifestations of a Christianized anti-magic worldview. The way I articulated that thought became more sophisticated over the years, but I never really re-evaluated that conclusion until recently.

In witchcraft

Seeking the Natal Genius I–Or, Satyr’s First Evocation

Satyr Magos20/03/2012

Last night, during the Hour of the Moon, I performed my first spirit evocation using something like the Triangle of the Art. I have made contact with spirits before, of course, using shamanic techniques and Wiccan invocations and even a bit of mask-work. But if my experience as a jeweler has taught me nothing else, it is that studying someone else’s techniques is an excellent way to refine your own. Thus, the Triangle of the Art.

I have by now studied a half-dozen forms of evocation: the Goetia, Donald Michael Kraig, Trimethius, the Stele of Jeu, and others whose names I either don’t know or can’t remember off the top of my head. Combining techniques developed by various modern magicians and shared at the Queen of Pentacles with my own artistic talents and gnosis, I produced my Triangle.

For my first such evocation, I chose to contact my Natal Genius as described by Agrippa—or, more accurately, as described by Rufus Opus and Frater Acher, augmented by my thus-far-infantile examination of Agrippa and Frater Acher’s generously free-for-download spreadsheet calculator. It seemed like both a natural starting point for experiments in Triangle evocation—a spirit not just friendly to me, but actively interested in my advancement, and likely to be particularly amiable to such contact—and a natural outgrowth of my work with the Stele of Jeu. As to the timing, I chose to operate on the Night and Hour of the Moon because I am a witch at heart. And, as a witch, my first allegiance will always be to the Moon.

I sketched out my Triangle of Art last Thursday evening, when I was struck by sudden inspiration. I re-calculated the name of my natal genius (I had forgotten to round up the degrees), and developed a seal and a preliminary pronunciation. Following the lead of my Muse, I elaborated on the utilitarian format of the Triangle until I had something that looked more like a grimoire-based design: my genius’ name written in Hebrew inside the Triangle, my statement of intent spiraling clockwise around it in English, and the names DIONISUS, RHEA, and AGATHOS DAIMON written in Greek along the inner edge of an outer circle. (I’ll post pictures once I have the chance to scan it and edit out the most intimate details.)

I did some preliminary divination, sought the approval and aid of my patrons and guides, bribed the one who thought it might not be a good idea (the consensus was overwhelming … I’m not sure why my Kouros disapproved), and cast my circle. Taking up my pens and pencils, I inked and colored the Triangle I had constructed in advance, and finally placed my obsidian sphere within the Triangle as a focus. I chanted the name of my Natal Genius 76 times using the counting beads I strung at the beginning of spring break. When I was done, I poured a libation of mead and sat back and waited with my sketchbook in my lap.

There had been a build up of power as I chanted, but at first nothing happened. After a while I took a hit of absinthe to facilitate the visionary process, and when that didn’t work I started to get worried. After a while, though, impressions started coming to me: I started by drawing the seal of my Natal Genius on the page, and a rough skeleton of a humanoid figure. The impressions I got became more and more clear as I worked and started adding copies of the seal around the page. Soon, the spirit was able to correct me on the pronunciation of its name, and the image grew even more clear. Finally, it was able to instruct me in the proper construction of its seal, and the image came together along with a list of associations.

The figure that appeared to me was a little on the feminine side of androgyny, with six eyes in an otherwise featureless face, arms that doubled at the elbow, ephemeral wings, and a serpent for a tail. It told me it’s nature was of the sign of Scorpio, of the planet Saturn, of elemental Earth, and of the number XVII.

Then the Hour of the Moon—the time frame I had built into the statement of intent—was over, and the spirit was gone.

I was too exhausted to perform the Lunar journey I had also intended for the evening. I was also too wired to get to sleep for several hours afterward.

Despite this success, I think that I need to curtail some of the experiments I had planned for the near future. I’ve made so many Otherworld contacts in the last six months that I think the best thing to do is to focus on developing those relationships. I don’t want to loose the momentum I’ve got going, but I also don’t want to miss opportunities for learning and spirit-relationships because I’m moving too quickly.

In witchcraft

Further Explorations in Planetary Magicks: a Prelude

Satyr Magos06/03/2012

Though I only posted about it yesterday, I actually finished out my Abramelin Oil last Wednesday. After doing so, I finally sat back down to re-evaluate the High Witchcraft system I had been working with when I started it. The experience was kind of interesting: Penczak’s system looks even more like a watered-down version of the Golden Dawn than it did when I first realized how little of the Western Ceremonial Tradition the GD actually represented; past Yesod (where Penczak introduces the Circulation of the Body of Light and Abramelin Oil), the exercises become increasingly useless outside the GD framework; and, of course, Penczak mentions the existence of the Goetia but cautions against actually using it, and never delves into spirit evocation—a practice which, from where I sit at least, seems fundamental to the Western Ceremonial Tradition as a whole. Finally, the book culminates with the Bornless Ritual: the Crowley/GD version of the Stele of Jeu rite I have already begun performing with some success.

The more experienced magicians and ceremonialists who read this blog are laughing right now: “Of course I’m going to be disappointed by Christopher Penczak’s overview of High Magick: he makes his living writing 100-level fluffy-bunny bullshit by the ton.” To which I can only reply, yes, but the tech in the last three books was solid once you ran it through the fluffy bullshit filter. And I had to start somewhere, or I wouldn’t have even known what questions to ask to get me as far as I have.

And, despite all my bitching, there are still aspects to the book which will remain useful to me: the altar constructions and the visionary journeys to the sephiroth/planitary realms.

As you all can tell from the tag—or, as you would be able to tell, if I had finished to re-tagging all my posts when I moved from blogger—I like building and rebuilding my altar. I find myself wishing that I’d thought to photojournal my altar pace from my earliest practice. I’ve had some good ones over the years. And maintaining a separate, second altar for individual magical operations and experiments has made it much easier to keep my primary, increasingly devotional, altar from getting too cluttered.

The visionary journeys fit my style. I am, after all, a shamanic witch—these ceremonial studies are doing wonders for my toolkit, and have introduced me to all sorts of fascinating areas of study and badass awesome people, but they’ll never be my primary focus. And I’ll be much more comfortable conjuring spirits after I’ve gone and visited their places of power. And following the Sephiroth up the Qabalistic/GD Tree of Life gives me an order of operations.

I have already completed (in terms of this project) my study of Malkuth/Earth. As of last night I have begun my journeywork related to Yesod/the Moon. If that goes as smoothly as it has begun, in the next week or two I’ll move on to Hod/Mercury. And so on.

In the mean time, I will continue to escalate my practical magic practice. Currently on the drawing board are that appeal to justice I mentioned, improving my Mercurial talisman that’s been helping me with my Greek, a Lunar talisman to help me maintain a regular sleep schedule and remember my dreams, and a Saturn talisman to help me manage my time better.

And somewhere along the line, I’m going to get over my strange idea that it’s somehow cheating, win the Favor of Kings and learn to fight dirty.

In witchcraft

My First Exorcism

Satyr Magos17/07/2011

I performed my first exorcism at the age of twenty. I was still living with my parents. My best friend, Aurvandil, and his lover were living in a strange, half-underground two-but-really-one bedroom apartment in the biggest apartment complex of our hometown. They had a ghost.

They lived with the ghost fairly amiably for most of the year. He’d slam the cabinets closed if they left them open, slam the sliding shower door open if they left it closed, and a few other things I can’t now recall. He was easy to appease, and Aurvandil was (and is) a superstitious sort, so he let it be … until things went awry.

We never figured out what set the ghost off. Aurvandil was sitting in his easy chair watching television, his lover was laying on the couch with her book. He kept his “water pipe” by the chair, invisible from most angles, beside an end table where the ash tray and the TV remote lived. Out of nowhere there’s a loud, glassy, CRACK, and the smell of bong water fills the room. The ash tray has moved itself from the center of the end table to the center of the bong, which is now laying shattered in a pool of resinated water.

I was the only witch he knew. Of course he called me.

I brought over my Tarot deck, cast a circle, burned some mugwort, and asked the ghost what was wrong. It didn’t answer so much as give me the finger. The ghost was mad, it wouldn’t say why, and it was pretty hostile.

I got scared. Aurvandil got scared. So I recast the circle, and pushed it to the edges of the house. I pushed the ghost out with the circle, and anchored the circle to the walls.

No more banging shower door. No more slamming cabinets. No more exploding paraphernalia.

Aurvandil did tell me that he could sometimes hear knocking on the walls … coming from the underground side in the office-sized second bedroom.

We were young and dumb, and if I had it to do over I’d do it differently … but that’s beside the point. We were both very pleased with the results at the time. Looking back, though, I wonder what I might have done differently. I know things now that I didn’t know then, but I think if I’d approached the problem differently, there might have been a more peaceable resolution.

In witchcraft

Wedding Under An Arch

Satyr Magos16/07/2011

A week ago today I officiated my first wedding: uniting two friends in Chicago under Illinois’ new civil union law.

To say that I officiated perhaps overstates my significance in the ritual. It was very much their show. The vows were deeply personal, drawing on traditional American structures with influences from their long-standing Celtic and Druidic practices as well as the Germanic / Troth deities they have been working with more recently. Large swaths of the ritual were so personal that they were not even included in the script I was given. There was even another “officiant”, invoking the Lady of Asgard and a few others of the Aesir. My task was largely one of providing structure, of invoking certain gods – chiefly the Handmaidens of Frigga – and to provide my official seal as a ULC Minister.

I took it upon myself to open the archway under which the vows would be sworn, to cast (and banish) the circle in which the rite was taking place. I took it upon myself to be the photographer before and after the ceremony (turning the duty over to another while I worked). I have never worked with the gods of my blood-ancestors before – favoring deities of the cultures with which I more closely identify – and doing these things helped keep me grounded and open for the experience.

My key invocation, drawn from Raven Kaldera’s Weddings and Handfasting Rituals, went as follows:

In the name of Vara, may this couple take on this geas in full heart.

In the name of Syn, may they keep their boundaries strong.

In the name of Lofn, may they reach always for reconciliation.

In the name of Gna, we proclaim this promise to all.

In the name of Gerjon, may they be an example.

In the name of Eir, may they tend each other’s wounds.

In the name of Snotra, may they learn to work together.

In the name of Sjofn, may their affection be strong.

In the name of Huldra, may wealth flow through their hands.

In the name of Hlin, may their love survive even death.

In the name of Fulla, dear sister of Frigga, may they have always abundance.

The invocation struck me like lightening, running from the top of my head and into the earth. I lost track of things for a moment. I was wearing a newly-forged copper bracelet, the mate to my copper serpent-ring, which will henceforth be used only for channeling rituals. The handmaidens were most certainly in attendance.

A few moments later, I was called upon to invoke the State of Illinois. They, too, arrived as called:

Why yes, that is a police car on the left. The lady on the right is laughing because they arrived precisely when I called for them … well, that and because the newlyweds were absolutely adorable.

Aside from everything else – my pleasure at being invited to the event in the first place; the honor of being asked to officiate; the fear and thrill of invoking new gods; my pride at performing the rite so well – this wedding re-confirmed what I have been coming to believe over the course of the last year or two. I will probably never find a group with whom I can work and worship forever – I am too radical, too queer, too eclectic. But I can serve and participate in the pagan community as a whole by helping perform rites with and for others who are likewise isolated. Some of the rites I will be called upon to share will be, like this one, carefully orchestrated; others, like the blot and the vision quest at Beltane, will be spontaneous. Regardless, this is the work I have been called to do.

Also, the fact that my first wedding was the civil union of two bisexuals, one of whom is mind-borkingly genderqueer? Totally appropriate.

Thank you, Squirrel and Gingko. Congratulations. I was honored to be there.

In hedonism, witchcraft

A Darker Shade of Beltane

Satyr Magos05/05/2011

This past weekend was Beltane. Aradia and I celebrated out at Camp Gaea with all the madness that usually entails, and a little bit extra besides. Last year, Beltane (along with Heartland Pagan Festival, 28 days later) coincided with a Full Moon. This year the Moon was Dark, and the differences were … interesting.

Beyond the sacred/ritual nature of the entire weekend,Aradia and I participated in four distinct rituals: the public ritual, a ritual toast, an underworld journey, and our ultimate ritual with Pasiphae and Aidan. Each was stylistically and thematically distinct. Half of them were purgative. By the end of the weekend, each of us – myself, Aradia, Pasiphae, and Aidan – had injured ourselves in some way.

The first ritual was the public one on Saturday night. More than two dozen people gathered in the Old Way ritual space – several entire families were present, and at least a half-dozen children. Aradia and I were there early, of course, and volunteered to light the torches. In the process, we also cast the first layer of the circle. (We’ve gotten very good at that.) The ritual itself was done in two parts. In the first part, the children raised energy by running in circles, then channeled that energy into a chalice full of seeds to be planted on a newly rebuilt berm and led out of the circle to do so. The second part of the ritual was for the grownups. We talked a little about our passions and art, then raised energy by singing tones. I wish I’d brought my drum. Then, without a closing of any kind, we were sent out in the world to “do something” with that energy – the ritual leader warned us, though, that she wouldn’t be held responsible for any consequences of that action.

Why, yes, I did go promptly drop that lust-bomb on the unsuspecting Cauldron. Did you even have to ask? Dionysos and Pan are very good friends, and it is for very good reason I have been more than once accused of serving the latter. I also charged my thyrsos with it and saved a lot of it for later use.

The second ritual was the ritual toast – a blot (trigger warning for rugged masculinity and associated memes) – performed at the behest of an Asatru gentleman we met while unpacking Friday night. The rite was simple and straightforward: each participant makes an offering to the sky and to the earth, then makes a toast; the others repeat the toast, then each offers their own toast (shared by the others) in turn.

The Asatru gentleman offered his toast to his mother, who had recently passed, and later returned to our camp with a bewildered look on his face. “I think that blot was the whole reason I needed to come out here,” he told us. He had fallen off his practice and his gods were calling him back. Though I did not particularly like him – he was the sort of person you might expect a self-identified redneck, knife-dealing, kinkster to be – I was honored to have served him in that fashion. If I am to serve the neo-Pagan community in the ways I envision – helping with rites, putting on traditions as masks for solitaries and disconnected traditionalists, among other things – I must be prepared to answer to individuals and traditions that make me uncomfortable, so long as they do not outright violate my ethics.

The underworld journey was semi-spontaneous. I had planned on doing one over the weekend, but when I felt called while watching the post-ritual fire and dancing in the Old Way, I also invited the nearby folks from the KU Cauldron to join me.

To my surprise, six of us wandered down to Thoth’s Grove (after nearly getting lost in Key Pass). We started by casting the circle in near-silence, hand-to-hand. “Visualize East,” I told them. There was a struggle, briefly, as everyone tried to find the “same” east, but once we chose it, all the other points were synchronized. The circle cast, I opened a portal to the underworld and introducing them all to the World Tree. My own journey was … fruitful, but I did not find what I was looking for. Most of the Cauldron didn’t speak of what they saw, but I was later told that they had all found the experience to be meaningful.

The fourth and final ritual was performed with our regular ritual partners, Pasiphae and Aidan, who were only able to make it out for that one night. We had two major ritual goals we wanted to accomplish: I wanted to dedicate my Kouros figure, the male half of the goddess/god duo I have been experimenting with; and to purge ourselves of our accumulating troubles, symbolized by the too-old and unlabled herbs from our magical pantry. The first went well: I felt Him awake with a sort of quiet humor. The second went even better, evolving spontaneously into a shouted litany of “Fuck you!”s as we pounded an ounce or so of whole cloves into dust in Pasiphae’s iron cauldron/mortar. Each of us ended up taking a second turn, and a new Beltane tradition was born.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the Dark Moon Beltane was of a somewhat different character than the Full Moon. Besides the purgative rituals and underworld journeys, everyone in my intimate circle ended up giving flesh to Gaea. I was bitten by a blackthorn branch I never managed to find, and reinjured my shin while hobbling about camp. Despite her best efforts, Aradia got a vicious sunburn, numerous bugbites, and reinjured the foot she wounded while traipsing about Nashville and Chicago with me last month. Pasiphae and Aidan were both attacked by the fire – he burned his hand, and an ember landed right under her eye.

Finally, though it didn’t play as significant a role in this years rituals as it did last year, I cannot leave out the mead. I bottled last years a week or so ago, as you may recall. We drank most of it over the holiday. It was awesome. I started another gallon for next year. It, too, will be awesome.

Despite the unintended blood-sacrifices, I declare the festivities a resounding success.