Musings of Druankanthus

Stewart & Janet in Ritual

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:30:42 GMT

Found this video on YouTube. So awesome.

I pretty much want to grow up to be Stewart Farrar. Or at least have his horned crown. :D

Frightening Hindsight

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:29:31 GMT

Hindsight can be so frightening sometimes. I look back at where I've been, and the things I've done, and wonder how I could have ever accomplished such things. Sometimes, I wonder how I could have possibly dared to teach others the Craft knowing what I knew (or rather, not knowing what I didn't). I still learn so much, every day, and most of it comes from sources I would have never considered before. Dreams, intuition, the experience of the Mystery.

And then we come back around full circle. I wonder how it is I ever taught anyone anything, and how it is I will do so again in the future?

And then I breathe, and I know that others will learn their finest lessons the same way I did: in dreams, intuition and the experience of the Mystery. I may provide them information, but the work of learning is theirs alone. All I can do is help set the stage for that to happen.

Then, it's as if a weight were lifted from my shoulders, and I feel only excitement. The pressure to somehow be The Awesome Teacher goes away, and I'm excited to see what they learn, how they learn it, and most of all, to what use they will put that learning.

The Place of Will

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 04:51:41 GMT

I've been thinking a lot about my place, in terms of spirituality. It's funny - I think of it quite often, usually when I'm doing other things.

Specifically, of late, I've been thinking about the Place of Will in my life. Let me explain:

I know that one of the differences between Ceremonial magic and Witchcraft is in the elemental placement of Will. For both of us, we symbolize it with a Blade of some kind. However, the elemental attribution that we use for that is different.

For ceremonialists, the Blade is a symbol of Air. The Magician's Will is calculating, intellectual and decisive. It is clarity and judgment.

For witches, though, the Blade is a symbol of Fire. The Witch's Will is passionate, bright and consuming. It is the brightest of inspirations and it is glorious freedom and release.

If I had to design my own personal symbol set, though, I don't think my Blade would reside at either Fire or Air. Though I know it unlocks all kinds of aggravating symbolism (given that the Blade is a symbol of Active energy, which is why we use Air and Fire for it), if I had to describe my Will right now, it'd be firmly in Earth.

It's so strange. My moments of greatest personal power and connection with Divine are in those definitively Earthy moments. The cooking of a meal. The cleaning of a house. Moments of quiet, when it seems like the world is made up of mists, clouds and thin glass, and that if I'm not careful, my tread, my attention, my spirit will prove too heavy, and it will break through all of it, and I'll fall into the Center of Everything.

I'll become the Center of Everything.

Mental endeavors, passionate relationships...none of these hold any strength for me right now. Any attraction. I just simply want to be, to know the Now and work my Will not toward Great Ends, but toward small ones.

Is this wrong? Am I lost, somehow? My conscious, intellectual mind keeps wondering if I'm depressed, or avoiding something. Its so strange - like looking up one moment to discover that the world around you is actually two dimensional, painted on the inside of a tube in which you stand. Fake, even though it surrounds you. Those are the moments when I just stand in one place and drop. I just allow my...placement of myself, my understanding of where I am, to drop through what seems like a thin layer of cotton candy that is the world around me, like I'm being pulled by the source of all gravity and the world isn't real enough to keep me from it anymore.

And Nothing happens when I do that. I don't journey anywhere, but Here. No time passes, but Now. When I make myself pay attention to the cotton candy world again, I'm usually spinning a little. Or a lot. Like my body, knowing that my soul has Gone Below, is trying to "drill" down to get it. Or to spool it back up, as though there were a thread connecting us, and my body is just the winch that holds Me close.

I think I want to sit. For hours. I want to turn to stone. To petrify like a piece of wood. I wonder if I'm depressed, but then I know I'm not. My depression is always about restlessness. About unhappiness. Sleep is an escape from that internal chaos.

But things are just so...Still. It's like the center of me has become too heavy, and it is pulling the rest of me inward. My soul has collapsed into a singularity, and the gravity of the world isn't enough to resist the gravity Within Me.

Goddamn. I'm so freaked out reading back over what I've written. It is an act of sheerest will to not go back and delete it all, or change things so it doesn't seem so...strange, I suppose. Input definitively welcomed. I'm signing off before I chicken out.

Druankanthus

The End of a Term

Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:48:04 GMT

Well, the end of term is here.

In addition to that meaning that I can begin focusing on my life again (as I was expending a lot of energy just getting used to being in school again), it also marks the end of my thought form's purpose cycle.

I can literally say that, given all of the issues and problems I faced this term, I would not have finished it without him. I didn't do perfectly, but I have taken steps to make sure that all ends well in those classes that I needed to take Incompletes in, or making up failing grades in Latin in the Intensive Courses this summer.

Thank you, little one. Too many times, I woke up, having gone to bed the previous evening in the worst of spirits, having to decided "fuck it," I wasn't going to school the next day. And yet, there you were, working your magic on me, so that I woke fresh and most importantly, ready and charged to go.

This weekend, I will be releasing him.

Joe