Media Astra Ac Terra Episode 24

Episode 24 of Media Astra Ac Terra is now available for download!  In this episode, we look at Saturn in the Astra segment, and the mineralogy and metaphysics of salt in the Terra segment.  Then in the main show I talk about the assignment of the elements to the points of the pentagram, and the planets to the points of the hexagram.

I mentioned a few books and articles in this show, including a short book review in the introductory segment, on The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.  In the Astra segment, I mentioned the hexagonal cloud pattern slowly swirling above the planet’s north pole, and that a group of scientists had demonstrated that they could reproduce the pattern in a spinning cylinder of water.  You can read that article here.  Also in that segment, I quoted from Robert Hand’s book Horoscope Symbols, which is one of my primary reference books every month.

I’ve got a new reference book to add to my list, as well, which I mentioned in the Terra segment – John Michael Greer’s Encyclopedia of Natural Magic.  And I should mention that my primary reference for the main segment in this show was Israel Regardie’s The Golden Dawn, although I didn’t quote from it directly.

And somewhere in the middle, I also played promos for Kakophonos and Pennies in the Well. 

Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy the show!
- Oraia Sphinx

Feeling It

My martial arts instructor said something the other day that’s been on my mind.  I was working on my latest form, which I just started learning maybe two weeks ago, and we got to talking about how there’s more to a form than technically performing the movements.  I’ve got the sequence down, and my technique is good, but there are places where I’m not really “feeling” the form.  He pointed this out to me by saying that there’s a difference between feeling the energy of the form and “someone told me to do this.”  In other words, just going through the sequence because that’s how you were told to do it is very different from feeling the flow of one movement into the next, and fully understanding in both mind and body what you are doing, and why.

At the same time, you have to learn the form before you start feeling it, and that requires just doing the movements as taught.  For me, an early focus on technique allows me to move into a phase of working with the form internally, where I can focus on the meaning and the energy of the movements without having to consciously think about them.  Visualizing the imaginary opponents I’m fighting, paying attention to changes in direction and tempo, varying the speed and intensity with which I move – all of these things help me feel my way into the form.  Repetition is key, but it becomes much more than a mechanical repetition that’s the same every time; instead, each performance of it brings the form closer to being a living embodiment of my art, and a moving meditation on energy and flow.

You can probably see how this got me thinking about magick.    For one thing, there’s that meditation aspect, and the need to keep a sense of “aliveness” in rituals that are repeated often.  I especially see standardized rituals like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) as being like martial arts forms, and while they carry the risk of going stale with repetition, they also offer the opportunity to find deeper and deeper meanings over time.

They also provide some structure for strengthening the basic techniques that go into them, and for seeing some of the ways in which those techniques can be combined.  Using the example of the LBRP again, you combine drawing precise pentagrams, holding specific postures, vibrating Divine names, sensing and moving energy, and visualization, all while maintaining clear focus while moving through space.  You could practice these one at a time, just like you could spend an hour throwing nothing but side kicks, but it’s much more interesting to combine them into a specific rite.  I’d also argue that in both magick and martial arts, practicing these things in combination is ultimately more valuable than doing each of them in isolation, because the transition points are important, too.

There are martial arts styles, and individual martial artists, who dislike forms as inhibiting spontaneity, preferring free-form practice and sparring, which I agree are absolutely necessary if your goal is actual fighting skill.  If you become locked into a set series of moves to the point where you can’t properly respond to something that isn’t choreographed, well, that’s a problem.  But I don’t think forms are meant to substitute for all other types of practice, just as I don’t think all magick requires three-hour rituals in full regalia – I just think that they offer a very different type of experience that can be quite valuable.

And so, while I also work magick that is simple and spontaneous, I really like having some longer rituals that I practice often.  Things like the LBRP can look complicated and clunky at first glance (in which case, don’t even peek at the Greater Pentagram Rituals!) but as with a martial arts form, once the steps are familiar you can start to feel the energy flowing through them.  But, again, as with a lot of things you can’t start to feel it until you’ve done it for a while, or done something close enough that you can readily adapt.  That’s why I think it’s good to have some specific set of practices to start with when first learning magick, or learning a new style of magick; not only does that give you something manageable to work with, in this age of a zillion spellbooks, but working with the same rituals or spells repeatedly lets you start to feel what you’re doing, rather than just following the steps because “someone told me to do this.”

Blessings,
Oraia

Memory and Flame

What is to give light must endure burning.
- Victor Frankl

Sometimes just the threat of burning is enough to give light, though what it illuminates may be ugly.

I began writing this post in anger, upset at the way in which the anniversary of 9/11/01 has become a stage for bigotry, for fanning the flames of holy war, and further dividing an already divided nation.  But I’ve deleted nearly all that I was going to say, because when I began to look more closely, I could see that all of my anger was only a mask, nothing but a flimsy shield to cover my broken-heartedness.  I grieve for my country, especially when I see how we have become so frightened and petty that we surrender both our liberty and our charity, accepting almost without question a state of endless war and ever-expanding executive power while protesting when a group of Americans attempt to build something to help their community.  Given all of the destruction we have wrought upon ourselves over the past nine years, is it any wonder that the actions of a tiny fringe church begin to take on the mantle of our whole nation to those looking in from outside?

When just about everything under the sun has become politicized, it’s easy to shake your head and disengage, not wanting to get involved in “politics.”  But this is deception, burying the fact that real problems, real progress, and real people’s lives are profoundly affected by these “political” games.  And so it is that people have suffered, and continue to suffer, while craven con-artists exploit the memory of suffering, incite the gullible to produce more suffering, and even make money off of people’s suffering — all while wrapping themselves in the flag to score political points.

But though they pretend to stand for America, they don’t stand alone, and we are bigger than the fear-mongers among us.  So when people say, “Never forget,” maybe we can take it as an opportunity to never forget our courage, our charity, and our shared humanity.  We like to call our nation the land of the free, and the home of the brave.  Let’s act like it.