{"id":5428,"date":"2023-03-25T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/?p=5428"},"modified":"2023-03-18T15:40:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T20:40:03","slug":"first-vision-of-the-sabbat-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/25\/first-vision-of-the-sabbat-fires\/","title":{"rendered":"First Vision of the Sabbat Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the last Full Moon, my ritual crew and I began dabbling in Sabbatic Craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve been floundering a little bit, since we reached the end of our year of Drawing Down the Moon. We have a handful of annual rituals that have kept us going – Dionysiac Beltane and Samhain, Her Sacred Fires, our August Ursa Major ritual – but my partner and I have struggled to fill the spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the last Moon, I pitched a handful of suggestions, one of which was visionary work. One of our members suggested a trip to the Sabbat Fires, specifically. Everyone else thought sounded good. My only objection was that I didn’t know the way. Alvianna was happy to take the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ritual Alvianna led us in had four phases: a crossroads-themed opening, idiosyncratic to her own work, with features that she had brought to other rituals we had done together; a visionary journey into and through the Wild to the bonfire where we met the Witchfather and danced with him; an ecstatic dance in our material ritual space, accompanied by feasting; and the journey back to reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My visionary experience was more physically intense than any I’ve had in quite some time. There were some entheogens involved, but while I do broadly advocate the use of such magical rocket fuel, the relative intensity of my experience is as much a consequence of my long lapse of practice than a statement on the relative merits of drugs versus sobriety in trance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We each had our own experiences with the Witchfather. For my own part, I hesitate to say more than that, and thus feel doubly uncomfortable revealing what anyone else described after the circle. I know that we all made offerings of one sort or another, and that my offering was accepted graciously. I tried to find my compatriots around the fire. I could see them, distantly, but could never catch up to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I will say is that, for me, it was a clear and positive of first contact. While I have been slow to start, I have had clear signs and messages over the last year both that I need to resume my visionary practice, broadly speaking, and to look into Sabbatic Craft. This, I think – particularly following the visionary preparations I did for last month’s Saturn talismans (which will get their own post soon) – certainly qualifies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will say, also, that my contact with the Witchfather was very, very clear. So clear, in fact, that I was compelled to create an image based on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The background is painted in watercolor, which is not my best medium. It’s really not intended for the degree of saturation that I always go for. But I think that, this time, I made it work. The figure of the Witchfather, himself is painted in black India ink. I have a scan that I took of the background before I painted him, and I might try to redo this digitally, where I will have second chances with the proportions of the figure. Or I may not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I will absolutely do is return to the Witchfather and his Sabbat fires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the last Full Moon, my ritual crew and I began dabbling in Sabbatic Craft. We’ve been floundering a little bit, since we reached the end of our year of Drawing Down the Moon. We have a handful of annual rituals that have kept us going – Dionysiac Beltane and Samhain, Her Sacred Fires, our … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[87,390,387,386,258,265,389,388],"class_list":["post-5428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-witchcraft","tag-full-moon","tag-lunar-shenanigans","tag-sabbat-craft","tag-sabbat-fires","tag-stories","tag-talking-to-spirits","tag-visionary-work","tag-witchfather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1py","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5430,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions\/5430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}