To Draw this Circle (Heartland Pagan Festival 2014)

My first Heartland was 2009.

I was just beginning to rekindle a spiritual practice that had atrophied considerably (read: died) throughout my relationship with The Capital Ex, and I was more than a little intimidated.

That festival rocked me. Broke through barriers that I'd forgotten I'd built, made things shine and dance and sing. I felt like I found magic all over again, and fell in love with the world. I felt like intense and transformative experiences were hovering in my path, waiting to be collected.

10 Days of Jupiter: Conclusion, Inconclusive

I'll admit that I was hoping that Jupiter would be as mind-blowing as Saturn. Even though I knew it was unlikely.

Even though I'm on Day 27 of this little experiment, and sobbing over a chime candle every day for 27 consecutive days would have fucked with my life a little bit.

Even though... well, whatever, it wasn't.

I didn't have any major revelations. I didn't hear cracking and splitting noises coming from somewhere inside my aura.

I felt a little more energized, a little more organized, and tolerated my job a little better.

Beyond that? Meh.
I am still doing Jupiter and Saturn on their respective days, and still getting a lot more resonance with Saturn.  I am going to make my next few Thursdays a little more intense in hopes of getting farther with it.

10 Days of Jupiter: Day 6 (Send in the hippies!)

Jupiter is easier than Saturn, and feels more like home. For the first few days, I wasn't even sure anything was happening. Saturn is visceral, immediate, and starkly contrasted with my usual modes of being.

Jupiter just feels like a pretty good day. A day in which I know I'll accomplish a lot, and somehow be higher up the mountain by the time I turn out the lights.

10 Days of Saturn: Day 10 ("This is it, the apocalypse...")

I'm waking up to ash and dust,

I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust,

I'm breathing in, the chemicals.*

10 Days of Saturn is complete. I am happy about that, but I am even more pleased that I did it, because... Whoa.

I was terrified of the prospect of this**, and the largest change I can cite right now is that I'm not scared anymore.

10 Days of Saturn: Day 7

Having decided, more or less, to do this, in some fashion, there remained the fact that I didn't know jack shit about what I was doing or how to do it, until a late night, absinthe-fueled conversation with Satyr and Sthenno resulted in suggestions which turned into an actual plan. Candle + Orphic Hymn to Saturn. Basic, easy, nothing too likely to eat my face.

My goal was to start this particular set of activities on, you know, a Saturday. I was going to do it every Saturday for awhile until something exploded or got boring.

And then, I missed my first Saturday. I was tired or drinking or busy, and it didn't happen. But there was an urgency calling me, a lingering of that coldness I'd felt a few days before, sitting in my car, and the goal shifted. I could do it during one of the hours of Saturn. Every day. For ten days.* After that I plan to back down to every Saturday.

10 Days of Saturn: Intro

I.

The first time it happened, I was in a childhood basement. We were talking about magick; we weren't doing anything. And then, suddenly, I was.*

Suddenly the objects on the table were simply in the wrong places, and I sank to my knees and aligned them and poured some kind of charge over the cups we were drinking. I had no idea what was happening; only the urge for the physical actions was clear to me. At the time, I believe, I said that something had walked through me, because that was the only way I could explain that impulse coming from inside, right at my core.

Samhain 2012: Part 1: Aftermath

Sometimes, after a really intense cleansing ritual, you feel like your soul just took a shit.* Sometimes, you feel like your soul has had food poisoning for the better part of a week, and is mostly better, but weak and empty, and oh-my-fuck-just-the-smell-of-those-onion-rings-is-gonna-make-me-barf-right-here-right-now.

And everything hurts. Everything. And all you want is to lay down in the dark with a soft pillow and not give any fucks at all. Maybe take a nice, long, warm bath with soothing oils and just let everything soak back in.

But you didn’t ask for the 1^st off from work, because you thought you were some kind of a badass. So you’re straggling into work three hours late looking like hell, grateful beyond belief that you decided months ago to always keep a toothbrush in your car, smelling probably of woodsmoke and dragon’s blood, but no one’s got cultural narrative for that. You probably just look like another Halloween party casualty.

It’s not like you can gather your coworkers around and compare notes. It’s not like anyone here wants to hear that your body feels physically different, that last night might have been the most intense work you’ve ever done, or that your new rule is at least one hour of recovery for every hour of prep that goes into a ritual. (By that math, you’d be sleeping long past noon.)

It’s not like you’re going to say, “I am not hungover from drinking. I am feeling the after effects of some serious visionary work and ritual suicide. Murder. Exorcism. There really isn’t a word. The absinthe is not (much) to blame.”


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* Direct quote/paraphrase from one of the participants last night.